"The evil comes." Maeve Howard said, her eyes drawn-in and blank and far away. Audibly, breath hissed around the room.

"Put it out," Delia Franklin said. "Put out the candle, and she'll stop saying those awful things--"

"No, Delia." Constance Burke said from the corner, catching Delia's eye. "We can't. We must know more."

Delia moaned, a scared, nervous sound, and looked away from Leona.

"Maeve..." Leona called, her voice also sounding as if it came from far away, from somewhere beyond the abyss, the curtain that human eyes are not meant to see beyond. "Maeve, tell us what you see. The evil comes. What else?"

Maeve stirred restlessly in her chair, her eyes flashing around the room, from the candle flame to the floor to the ceiling and back. She howled, a sound like a desperate wild animal.

"He's coming. The evil is coming. It's more--It's worse--It's horrid. Than anything...anything!" Maeve hunched her shoulders and curled her body into a ball and began to rock back and forth on the floor. "Nothing can stop him, nothing wants to stop him. Nothing will help, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing--"

"Maeve." The voice was calm, cool and collected, punching through Maeve's impending hysteria. "You must tell us more. No, listen to me. We need to know. The evil is coming. What does it look like? What will it do? How can we stop it?"

Maeve laughed hysterically. "You can't stop it. He's just another pretty face, another pretty face. Pretty, pretty, pretty. Pretty man with the broken home. He wants the power, the original power, and he'll do anything to get it. He's a butcher--"

"Do you see? Can you see what he does?" Leona asked sharply. "Can we recognize him by what he will do?"

"No. My sight blocks what he will do." Maeve swallowed. "No one can tell. His plan is different every time, you see. It has to be." Maeve nodded. "Oh yes, oh my, oh mercy me, that is what it has to be. By earth and air and fire and sea, that is what it has to be. He tricks them, again and again, always in a different guise. A trickster, a comic, but of the means most foul." Wide-eyed in the corner, Nell wrote down the words that came out.

"All right. Maeve, you need to listen to me closely. I need you to--" Leona started. In the middle of her sentence wind had crashed violently against the house and blown one of the old wooded shutters into the walls. The squeal of rusted hinges, the clash of anger wind and wood, and the house seemed to shake. Maeve woke up.

"What? What happened? Did it work?" Maeve asked. She rubbed her head. "I have the most infernal headache..."

"Yes. It worked. Almost." Leona said, her voice deep and quiet, almost deadpan. "You started to go a little crazy. You couldn't really tell us much. The evil is coming, he will trick us." Leona said, thinking about the words the not-Maeve had used. Maeve turned wide eyes on Leona.

"Well, then, we know, don't we? The evil is coming. We watch for something coming, something different..."

"But what sort of different?" Asked Leona tiredly. "The evil is coming and he will lead the lambs to slaughter. That we knew already from the crystal." Leona sighed. "I'm afraid we can't do this anymore. It's far too dangerous, and if we're not going to find anything out, I must forbid it." Maeve gazed at Leona steadily.

"But that's running away." Maeve said. "Like scared rabbits, Leona. There's nothing frightening in the dark if you just face it."

"There's plenty frightening in the dark, whether you face it or not." Leona snapped back. "It's foolish to think otherwise. And I'm not doing this out of fear, I'm doing this to keep you all safe. I don't like what we're meddling with, I don't like the things that are happening, and whatever you see, Maeve, write it down and we can discuss it. But channeling spirits...we're out of our league."

"I thought spirits were well within the realm of the crone." Constance said from across the room.

"Spirit are within the realm of the crone." Leona said, angrily. "But protection of the maiden and the mother is also her responsibility. No less than her duty. And we can't protect anyone if we're all dead. There has got to be a safer way to do this. I don't like to think of what might happen if someday that thing grabs hold of Maeve and doesn't let go. We're dropping it until we think of a safer way, and that's final."