"Witches tell you the price, but they cloak it, they turn it into something where you only see what you want. They groom their targets for years, decades beforehand. You're right. These people thought they would be bereaving their children a life, not sacrificing one," the Ghost says.

"So of course they won't pay it. In a month, Dan and his brother will find his mother crucified to the wall with her own ribs. And then year by year the curse will strike again, which is how necromancy works. Up until the witch casting the curse is dead."

In the memory, Dan lulls his little brother back to sleep. And ever so faintly through the door, the sound of their parents desperately praying filters through, and once Eli is sound asleep, Dan folds his hands and mouths prayers as well.