They all stood unmoving in the middle of the baseball diamond. No one seemed willing to shatter the quiet reverence that had descended after Mr. North’s confession. In the end, it was Ben who spoke first.

“Molly used to warn me that the older we get, the heavier our history weighs,” he said. “If you don’t stop to set some of it down now and then, you’ll find yourself buried beneath it. How about this, Edward? Let me take charge of Thomas while you see to Bernard. I promise to keep him out of trouble.”

“I can’t allow anyone else to get hurt, Ben,” said Mr. North.

“I give you my word. While Thomas is under my care, he will cause no harm, intentional or otherwise.”

“And after that?” Mr. North asked.

“I can’t say that my views have changed,” Ben said, rubbing his face with both hands. “But perhaps it would do us all good to get out of this weather and let cooler heads prevail in the morning. What do you say?”

Mr. North turned to Lester and to where Bernard lay on the ground. “Fair enough,” he said and pulled Thomas to his feet.

Free from his grip, Thomas glared at Lester’s father. Then, brushing himself off, he took a painfully long moment to rearrange his hair.

“Let’s go, son,” Ben said. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

As Lester watched Thomas join the old postmaster, he felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. It had only been a few hours since he’d left his house dressed in his rock costume, but it felt like a lifetime ago. In some ways, he guessed it was. His head spun with questions and concern for his bother, but his father seemed confident Mr. Noxumbra could help. He’d have to trust in that, for now.

Amanda let go of his hand, a confused jumble of emotions on her face, as she stared at the departing Thomas. Ben had an arm around his shoulders, and the two of them were talking quietly as they went.

On the ground, Mr. North bent over Bernard, examining his eyes.

Everyone was busy attending to the business at hand when suddenly there was a loud bang, followed by a hissing sound, and the dark of the night burst into a glaring red.

“STOP!”

All eyes turned to Maeko Chase, who stood holding a bright orange plastic gun high above her head with both hands, its smoking barrel pointing into the air.

“Nobody move!” Mae shouted. In the flickering glow of the falling flare, the enraged face looked out of place on the normally enthusiastic and curious girl.

“Mae?” Lester asked, his ears ringing. “What are you doing?”

“He doesn’t get to just walk away,” Mae said, lowering the gun and popping another canister into its wide barrel. Snapping it closed, she pointed it straight at Thomas.

“Whoa!” Lester said, holding up his hands and taking a step back. He didn’t know if a flare gun could kill someone, but he was in no hurry to find out. “Take it easy, Mae. Where’d you get the gun?”

“From the sheriff’s car when we were helping your mother at the festival. And don’t think I don’t know how to use it,” she said, pulling the hammer back and swinging the barrel towards Ben, who’d begun inching closer. “He’s not going to get away with it.”

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“Get away with what?” asked Lester. He glanced at Amanda, but she looked as surprised and confused as everyone else.

“Don’t you see?” said Mae. “The Lingering and the Onryo, they’re the same thing. It’s his kind that killed my parents.”

“Hold on a minute,” Amanda said. “How do you suddenly know so much about the Lingering? Neither Lester nor I had even heard about them before tonight.”

“No one believed me about the woman I saw when my parents died,” said Mae. “They all thought I was just some messed up kid. It took me several years and a lot of research, but I eventually began to piece it together. First, I collected news stories of bizarre and unexplained accidents. Then, I cross-referenced those with witness accounts matching certain keywords. That allowed me to identify areas with a high occurrence of possible Onryo activity. Do you want to guess which town kept appearing at the top of the list?”

“Giles Hollow,” said Lester.

“Bingo!” said Mae. “After that, I got myself kicked out of school and manipulated my parents into moving. When I heard all the locals talking about the mysterious North family, I arranged to bump into Lester at the library. From there, things worked out better than I could have hoped.”

“I knew I should never have trusted you,” Amanda said, balling her hands into fists.

Lester could hear the obvious furry in Amanda’s voice, but there was sadness in there too. Being a kid whose parents were members of The Council was a lonely proposition. He and Amanda were close, but it was like being brother and sister. Her friendship with Mae had been different.

“I’m sorry I lied,” Mae said, turning to Amanda. “You and Lester are the only true friends I’ve ever really had. But I can’t rest until my birth parents are avenged.”

With Mae’s attention elsewhere, Thomas took the opportunity to quietly begin backing towards the marsh.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Mae said, spinning on him and pulling the flare gun up to eye level.

With surprising speed, the old postmaster threw himself in front of Thomas.

“Mae, don’t!” Lester yelled. “You’ll hit Ben!”

“So, what?” said Mae. “You heard him. He and his kind have been protecting the Lingering for hundreds of years. How many innocent people like my parents would be alive today if not for them?”

Lester didn’t know what to do. What Mae was saying might be true, but this couldn’t be the way to make it right. Ben was a member of The Light. He was also his friend. Wasn’t he?

“Maeko,” Mr. North said from his place beside Bernard. “I realize you and I don’t know one another, but please, listen to me. You’re angry, and rightfully so. However, if you do this, it will mark you. Your life will be split in two. There will be a before and an after and no way back to the person you were. Is that what your parents would have wanted for you?”

The gun in Mae’s hands began to shake.

“Let him go,” Mr. North said. “Thomas can’t avoid his fate forever. He’ll eventually get what’s coming to him.”

“You mean, like one of your lot releasing him?” asked Mae. “No. He’s already had more time than he deserves.”

“Yeah, about that?” said Amanda. “If these Wrasp creatures are so relentless, why haven’t they come for Thomas already? I mean, he is a Lingering, right?”

“Not like any I’ve ever seen,” Mr. North said. His attention shifted to the tall boy standing in the outfield.

“Simpletons,” sighed Thomas. “You’re no smarter than those fools in Salem. Do you think something as crude as a gun could stop me? You really have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”

Thomas held out his arm and pulled back his coat sleeve. A braided rope bracelet with a single dangling charm hung from his wrist. It was constructed of a thin piece of tarnished iron, twisted into three interlocking spirals reminiscent of ocean waves.

“This was my mother’s,” he said. “After my real father died, before she married that idiot Corey, she gave it to me. She made me swear never to take it off. It wasn’t until she was gone that I realized what she had done. She’d discovered a way to keep me with her forever. My mother was a caring person, who only ever used her powers to help people, and they hung her for it.”

Thomas reached inside his coat and withdrew a book-sized piece of heavy blue-gray stone. Its edges were round and worn smooth.

“Did you know that when they first founded the settlement, it was originally named Naumkeag? They only later changed it to Salem, the Hebrew word for peace. What a joke. This stone is one of the rocks used in the pressing of my stepfather. They took everything from me that day, and now it’s time for them to pay!”