“Well, I was,” Ander said.

“And what are you now?” The young witch narrowed her eyes.

He looked at Eureka. “I am a boy without a past.”

“What’s your name?” The mesmerizing murmur of the young witch’s voice made Eureka dizzy.

“Ander. I was named after Leander.”

“What are your names?” Eureka asked. If they were the aunts and cousins of Selene, as The Book of Love had said, then these women were Eureka’s relatives and she shouldn’t fear them.

The gossipwitches blinked as if they were queens and she had guessed their weight. Then they howled with exaggerated laughter. They bent over each other for support and stomped their pale feet in the mud.

The youngest one collected herself and dabbed the corners of her eyes with her petal sleeve. She leaned into Eureka’s deaf ear:

“No one is ever what they seem. Especially you, Eureka.”

Eureka pulled away and massaged her ear. She had heard the girl’s voice with absolute clarity in the ear that heard so little else. She remembered hearing with her bad ear the lovely song of Madame Blavatsky’s Abyssinian lovebird Polaris. That song had found her like a miracle. The gossipwitch’s whisper landed like a telepathic punch, bruising something deep inside her.

“Your name means ‘I have found it,’ yet you’ve been lost your whole life.” The eldest witch flicked her tongue into the cloud of bees, snatched one, twirled it on its stinger like a top, then released it back into the swarm.

“Never more than now.” The middle witch’s gaze circled their surroundings, then fell again on Eureka.

Slowly, they turned their heads to stare at the purple tote bag slung over Eureka’s shoulder. Eureka palmed the damp canvas protectively. “We should get going.”

The witches laughed.

“She thinks she’s leaving!” the eldest witch cried.

“Reminds me of that song: ‘She ain’t goin’ nowhere, she’s just leavin’,’ ” the middle witch sang.

“Come, Eureka,” the young witch said. “You are lost, and we will lead you where you want to go.”

“We’re not lost,” Ander said firmly.

“Of course you are.” The eldest witch rolled her big dark eyes. “You think you can find the Bitter Cloud on your own?” She leaned in close and grasped Eureka’s broken wrist until Eureka yelped.

“Give her the salve,” the old witch said impatiently.

From a deep pocket made of petals, the youngest witch withdrew a small glass bottle. A shimmery purple substance swirled inside. She tossed the bottle to Eureka, who scrambled to catch it.

“For your pain,” she said. “Now come this way.” She pointed across the muddy stream, toward a jagged mountain peak a hundred feet high.

Built into the cliff was a steep natural staircaseleading up the mountain. Again, Eureka felt a puzzling impulse that this was the way to go. She glanced at Ander. He nodded subtly.

She unscrewed the cap from the bottle and gave the contents a sniff. The sweetly floral scent of jonquils entered her nose—followed by the throbbing sensation that her bone was shattering again.

“They’ll want something in return,” Ander whispered to Eureka.

“Let Solon worry about that.” The witches laughed.

“Go ahead,” the young witch said. “It will heal your bones. We’ll wait.”

Eureka splashed some of the purple liquid onto her palm. It was flecked with gold, like the nail polishes at her aunt Maureen’s salon. She swirled a fingertip in the salve and rubbed it on a portion of her wrist.

Searing heat gripped her, and she felt immensely stupid for trusting the gossipwitches. But an instant later the heat subsided and a pleasant coolness washed over her, vanquishing the pain. The swelling shrank; the bruise faded where the salve had been, then disappeared. It was miraculous. Eureka spread more of the liquid over her wrist. She bore the heat, waiting for the cool relief and the pain it lifted like a layer of clothing. She closed her eyes and sighed. She tucked the bottle into her tote bag, eager to share the rest with Dad.

“Okay,” she told the gossipwitches, “we’ll follow you.”

“No.” The young witch shook her head and pointed to the staircase in the rock. “We’ll follow you.”

The path was steep and flooded. The clouds hung low, black as smoke from a house on fire. The witches guided Eureka and Ander through the lacework of delicate mountain peaks, always walking behind them, barking commands like “Left!” when the route forked unexpectedly, “Up!” when they were meant to scale a steep, slippery bluff, and “Duck!” when a half-dead snake slipped from a branch and cough-hissed at them as they passed. The middle witch yelled commands that Eureka didn’t understand—“Ye!” and “Ha!” and “Roscoe Leroy!”

Every step took Eureka farther from her family and her friend. She imagined William and Claire peering at the mountain. She wondered how long before they gave up watching.

She entered a scattered forest of dying hazelnut trees. The leaves were turning brown and the shells of salt-crusted nuts crunched beneath Eureka’s shoes. A spider’s web dangled between two branches and swayed in the wind. Droplets clung to it like pearls a young nymph had abandoned in the woods.

“Eureka!”

She looked up and saw William and Claire cradled in the branches of a giant hazelnut tree. The twins hopped to the ground and splashed through the mud, running toward her. She didn’t believe it was them, even when she had them in her arms. She closed her eyes and breathed in their scent, wanting to believe: it was ivory soap and starlight.