In this cap­ti­vat­ing chap­ter, Will finds him­self abrupt­ly awake after a brief sleep, haunt­ed by the real­iza­tion that Jim’s light­ning-rod is miss­ing. Des­per­ate, he yells for Jim, real­iz­ing that Jim has tak­en it down for his own amuse­ment, chal­leng­ing the storm that is brew­ing out­side. As Will’s pan­ic deep­ens about their exposed roof, they both notice an unusu­al phe­nom­e­non: a bal­loon float­ing silent­ly above them.

The boys, fueled by a shared sense of fore­bod­ing and excite­ment, peer out their win­dows, mes­mer­ized as the bal­loon grace­ful­ly moves through the sky, tak­ing on an almost oth­er­world­ly pres­ence. This bal­loon seems eeri­ly qui­et, cre­at­ing a tur­bu­lent atmos­phere around them. Their sens­es height­ened, they can feel the atmos­phere change; the tem­per­a­ture drops sig­nif­i­cant­ly as the bal­loon descends near them.

As they watch, a fig­ure emerges from the balloon—The Dust Witch, a loom­ing and mys­te­ri­ous pres­ence. With her pecu­liar abil­i­ty, she feels the vibra­tions of the world around her, search­ing for souls to ensnare. The dis­crim­i­na­tion with which she picks up on their essence rein­forces the fear grip­ping the boys. Although she is blind, she pos­sess­es an uncan­ny sen­si­tiv­i­ty to the air, the hous­es, and the very spir­its of the beings with­in.

In a moment of pan­ic, Jim real­izes that the Witch knows where they live, prompt­ing both boys to hasti­ly try and decide how to pro­tect them­selves. As the bal­loon ris­es, Jim feels a strange sen­sa­tion invade his home, mark­ing it with an omi­nous sil­ver trail that can be seen from miles away. Rec­og­niz­ing the dan­ger, Will for­mu­lates a plan; they will wash the sil­ver paint off the roof before the Witch returns.

In a rush, Will fetch­es a gar­den hose, empow­er­ing them to fight back against the sin­is­ter pres­ence loom­ing over them. As they begin to clean their roof, the dawn approach­es, and the boys fear the return of the Witch and her bal­loon. Amidst their fran­tic efforts, Jim laments his ear­li­er deci­sion to remove the light­ning-rod while Will empha­sizes the impor­tance of stay­ing active to avoid draw­ing the Witch’s atten­tion. The ten­sion builds as they work togeth­er, deter­mined to erase her mark before morn­ing.

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai