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I opened my eyes and looked up at her. In the dim light, her eyes glowed fearsomely, and her lips seemed red with blood.
    “So it is true,” she said, “the girl does have powers.”
    “She does.” I straightened my shoulders. “Yes, she does, and she does not intend to let you kill her, or her brother. I have worked too hard to save us. Now, will you let us go?”
    “Yes, let us go!” Charlie screamed.
    The witch pointed a long, red-clawed finger at him, and he immediately fell asleep. She turned her attention to me. “I cannot have children getting out and about, telling tales of me and my little picket fence. No, I am afraid that, once captive, you must stay here forever.”
    “Stay? Forever? But I have no intention of dying.”
    “I have no intention of killing you. Witches cannot be killed by ordinary means anyway.”
    Ordinary means? “There was a witch in … our old town. They say she died by water.”
    “If she did, then she was no witch. Witches do not drown. Those who do are merely unfortunates. Our kind are stronger.”
    It chilled me to hear her say “our kind” and know she meant herself and me. I did not wish to have kinship with the likes of her.
    “No.” She drew a long finger across her forehead. “There is only one way to kill our kind.”
    “Which is?” Even as I said it, I knew the answer. I mouthed the word as she spoke.
    “Fire. The only way to sacrifice a true sister of darkness is by fire.”
    I tucked this knowledge away in case I lived long enough to use it. “Indeed? And do you not intend to kill me in your oven, as you have the others? I hope not, for you see, I will not give up easily. I may be young, but I am strong. I have power born of passion.”
    “Passion. An odd way to phrase it. ’Deed, you are an odd girl. But I have no intention of baking you. You alone of all my children would give me something else I want.”
    “And what is that?”
    “A family.” In that instant, her eyes softened to the green of new shoots, rather the color of my own eyes, which disturbed me. She seemed to be not a monster, but a woman, a woman like many I knew in our village, like Mrs. Jameson and Mother. “A witch’s life is a lonely one. We live forever unless killed.”
    “We do?”
    She wagged her finger at me. “Did you not wonder why you, of all your family, were spared from the plague?”
    I started to protest again, that we had no plague, but with her hand she stopped me. “Waste not your breath with lies, pretty girl. I know the truth. I recognize the scars on your brother’s body, the haunted look in your eyes. I have lived through many a plague, buried husband and children. I have seen that expression in my own eyes. A witch’s existence is lonely. To be immortal is to belong to no one, no time. I have met few of my kind, fewer still I would call friend. Those who are not witches do not wish to consort with us, lest they be hanged by association. Besides, they die. But a girl such as yourself could be the daughter I lost, better than a daughter. Together, we could live forever.”
    Inwardly, I blanched. I did not want to be this woman’s—this monster’s—daughter. Yet part of me felt strange sympathy for the witch too. I knew loss. Perhaps I had not yet lost Charlie, but if what the witch said was true, if I were to live forever, I would lose everyone over and over. Be alone. Could hundreds of years alone drive one to madness? To child baking? Judge not and ye shall not be judged . That was a verse the reverend often repeated at church, though few heeded it. Perhaps I should not judge the witch too harshly until I had lived her life. Or perhaps this was merely an excuse because, as I gazed into her eyes, I realized she could be of use to me. I had never been a stupid girl. Rather, my mother often pronounced me too smart for my own good, too smart to find a husband. I was also smart enough to know opportunity when I saw it. The witch was bad, possibly deranged, but