It happened during the first days of spring. A father and his son were on their way back from sowing peas out in the fields, when they were attacked by a witch. She took the child with her and knocked the father out, when he tried to fight her. Of course, when the man returned home, no one really wanted to believe his story, as no one wanted to believe that the horrors were starting again. The man was taken into custody and questioned what he had done to his son. As he would neither admit that he had killed the boy, nor where the boy was now, he was sentenced to death by hanging.
There were only two people in all of Augsburg who at least partially believed that man. As soon as Ben and Mina heard about the boy that was lost, they started looking for clues, especially ones that shouted witch. Ben had collected a vast amount of material about witches, their practices and all of the articles about the two witch-hunters that he could get his hands on. The articles were all chronologically and neatly stuck into a book, an idea that he had got from his friend Markus, who now lived in another town, and Ben planned to show them to the siblings, if he should ever be lucky enough to meet them.
Ben and Mina still lived in their childhood house. After Ben had finished school, he had started to learn everything that was possible from the doctor, so he could continue his work, when the doctor was gone. Mina, who knew quite a bit more about medicine, helped him as much as she could without being suspicious. Although there were some rumours, the two of them never had any romantic feelings for each other. Ben had a crush on the female witch-hunter, Gretel, although he had never seen her. He had even painted a picture of her, which he put up in his room, and with which Mina teased him quite often. Mina said she was waiting for the right man to come along, but in reality there were no men that were interested in taking her as a wife. She was not ugly, her beauty was talked about by many men and even women, but they all did not want a wife that seemed to be intelligent – maybe even more intelligent than the men themselves. There even were rumours that she might be a half-witch, because of the touch of red in her hair, which made it strawberry-blonde, but as nothing had happened since the children were abducted ten years ago, those rumours seemed to prove wrong.
However, the case of the lost boy was not meant to be the only one. Two weeks after the hanging of the man, another boy did not return home after he was off, playing with some children. Then there was a girl, only two days later, who disappeared only a short way from home. After two more children had been abducted and everyone who had seen witnessed anything stated that there were witches involved, both the mayor and the sheriff started to get the uneasy feeling that the man had told the truth before. The guards were doubled, parents were advised not to leave their children unattended and every woman, especially the ones that were not married or lived alone, was observed by their neighbours. Those measures did not help very much, though; during the next two months there were four more children that were taken. Everything seemed to start again; there were innocent women, young and old, burning on the stake or drowned. The atmosphere was full of mistrust; it seemed as if everyone was followed by whispered rumours. Then one day the mayor announced that there was some hope in sight, as he had asked the two witch-hunters to come to Augsburg and get rid of the witch plague for them. The sheriff was not very happy about that, as he did not trust them. Those people, who had escaped witches almost unharmed, could mean nothing good. The opinion among the citizens was just as split: Some were happy that they were getting help; others rather feared that the witch-hunters could bring even more bad luck.
When Ben heard the news, he was almost ecstatic. Finally he would have the chance to meet his heroes! Maybe he could even help them defeat the witches and bring the children back? Maybe he could find out what had happened to his brother so many years ago? There was still one week to go, though, and he feared that a lot could happen until then.