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I press both palms over my face. "I might really be a witch."

Finally.

Clear as a struck bell. Right behind my eyes.

I drop my hands and stare at him. "What did you just say?"

He blinks, slow and smug, and turns to wash his shoulder like the most ordinary cat in the world.

"No. You don’t get to do that." I crouch in front of him. "Say something else. Anything."

Nothing. He curls into a black comma on the floor and shuts his eyes.

"Fine," I mutter. "Be mysterious. Very on brand for the month."

The knock hits the front door.

I jump hard enough to crack my hip on the counter. Sid’s head snaps up, ears flat, every hair along his spine lifting at once.

I go to the window. Slow. The porch light gutters as I pass it, dimming to a coal and swelling back.

There’s a woman on my porch.

Not Evelyn. Not Lila.

Tall. Thin. A long black coat and a black hat, and the last of the morning fog curling off the marigolds behind her like it can’t decide whether to touch her.

She lifts her face to the glass.

My breath stops.

It’s the faceless woman from my dream.

Except she has a face now.

And she’s smiling at me.

10

MAREN

STILL TEN DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN

The woman on my porch vanishes before I reach the door.

Not steps back. Not turns and walks off into the fog rolling low across the lawn. One blink she's there, tall and thin and smiling at me through the glass, and the next the porch is empty and the cold pours in around a door I don't remember opening.

"Okay." My voice comes out thin. "I’ve had about enough."

Dead leaves skitter across the boards where her feet were. No dent in the fog. No warmth left behind. Nothing.

Sid shoots past my ankles.

"Sid."

He hits the top step and stops. Sniffs the exact spot she stood. His tail goes stiff as a poker.

Then he looks toward Bell & Bone.