The good news was that Elliot’s family had warmly welcomed Agatha the hag into their home. (If you want to call her Hagatha, that’s fine. Elliot already thought of it too, even though he didn’t dare say it. Don’t call her Nagatha or Ragatha, though—no matter how grumpy she is or what her clothes look like—because that’s just rude. You can also call her Betsy, but don’t expect her to answer, because that’s not her name.)

Elliot introduced her as honestly as he could. He told his family that she was a lost woman he met in town who just needed somewhere to stay for a few days.

“She has nothing,” Elliot told his parents. “I just feel like we need to help her.”

Elliot’s father put his arm around Elliot’s shoulder. “I agree. We have almost nothing, and that’s way better than plain old nothing. So, yes, we have to help her.”

“We always have room for one more,” Elliot’s mother said. “She can stay in Wendy’s room.”

Wendy’s eyes had widened in fear, and a little vein popped out in her forehead, but she wisely said nothing. Elliot hoped her silence would spare her from being cursed. It didn’t.

Cursing was the bad news. Reed had dropped his peanut-butter-and-pickle-relish sandwich when she first entered the kitchen, mumbling something about the walking dead. Agatha pointed a spindly finger at Reed and said, “I am a hag. These looks are for show. I curse you with pain when you stuff a crow.”

“What was that?” Reed asked. “You want me to stuff a crow?”

“I think she means ‘stub a toe,’” Elliot said. “Right, Agatha?”

Reed nodded, a bit confused. “Oh, okay. I didn’t know where I was going to find a crow.” As he walked past Agatha, she suddenly raised a leg up and then stomped on Reed’s foot.

“Ow!” Reed yelped. “What was that for?”

“The curse said you’d stub a toe,” Agatha said. “Look, you have.”

“You just mashed my toe,” Reed said. “That’s different! And it hurt!”

“Then you’d better not let yourself get cursed again.”

Agatha cursed Wendy as well, telling her she’d soon be quacked on a farm. Then she whacked Wendy on the arm. Agatha cursed the twins that they’d strut past a bear, but they were smart enough to run away before she could cut their hair. Elliot was pretty sure he heard Agatha also whisper a curse against his parents, although he wasn’t sure what it was. When his father limped past Elliot that afternoon, he said, “Next time, I get to choose our house guest.”

But Agatha poured most of her energy into keeping Elliot fully stocked with fresh curses. By dinnertime, Elliot had already been cursed four times. He stopped paying attention to most of her rhymes. She didn’t have any actual cursing power and was only finding a reason to cause everyone a little pain. He’d learned to avoid most of Tubs’s hits. He could avoid hers too.

The fifth curse came shortly after dinner when Elliot took his plate to the sink but forgot to take hers. She pointed at him and said, “I am a hag and this curse is your own. The Goblin leader you must face alone.”

Hoping she hadn’t just exposed his secret, Elliot quickly looked around, but he and Agatha were alone in the room. Then he began to worry. For the first time since he met Agatha, she had used the right word in her cursing rhymes. And facing the Goblin leader alone sounded pretty bad to him.

Fudd knew the Goblins better than anyone. He had spent a lot of time warning Elliot about what terrible things they might try next. Whoever was mean enough to lead the Goblins was someone Elliot preferred to avoid.

But he didn’t think he could avoid it now. Agatha had cursed him, and probably with a real curse too.

Or could she be wrong? Maybe another word was supposed to go in there. Maybe she meant, I am a hag and this curse is your own. The Goblin leader you must call on the phone. Or, The Goblin leader, you must give him a loan? Throw him a bone?

Elliot couldn’t even smile. Those ideas sounded good, but he was pretty sure he was doomed.

Uncle Rufus was the only family member who hadn’t been cursed so far. He’d been gone when Elliot brought the hag home from school. He had also missed dinner.

But when Rufus walked into the house that night, Agatha was the first thing he saw. He put his hands to his heart, his mouth dropped open, and he shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Elliot,” he whispered, staring at Agatha as if she were more delicious than a double-decker hot fudge sundae. “Where did you find this angel?”

“Huh?” Elliot said.

Agatha glared at Elliot, probably trying to think of another curse.

“Go on, kind sir,” Agatha said with a giggle. In anyone else’s voice, her words would have sounded sweet. Coming from Agatha’s mouth, the words sounded as if they came from a toad choking on a mushroom.

“I have lived many years all over this world,” Uncle Rufus said. “I’ve seen majestic waterfalls tumbling into glistening lakes. I’ve seen sunsets that have made me weep. I’ve seen endless wildflower meadows and laid down in them to count the clouds. But you, my lady, are the most beautiful thing I have ever set eyes upon.”

Elliot shook his head. Either Uncle Rufus had gone blind or else he was smarter than the rest of his family at not getting himself cursed.

Uncle Rufus nudged Elliot on the shoulder. “Be a good little girl and get me some of those earrings I gave you last year.”

“I’m a boy, Uncle Rufus,” Elliot muttered.

“And a fine boy you are. Now go get me some of your earrings. I can’t introduce myself to this beautiful woman without a gift to offer her.”

Elliot ran to get the earrings, but a gift wasn’t necessary. When he got back downstairs, Rufus and Agatha were already sitting on the couch together, laughing as if they were old friends.

He set the earrings on the table and walked outside to sit on his front porch. Maybe Agatha really was a beautiful young woman. Maybe that was part of what it meant to be a hag. If so, why could Uncle Rufus see who she really was, but none of the rest of his family could?

“Psst, look over here,” a voice whispered.

(You, the reader, have learned exactly what it means when something whispers, “Psst, look over here.” However, Elliot has not read this book, so he doesn’t know exactly how Queen Bipsy died.)

Elliot peered into the shadows of his yard, not sure where the here was where he was supposed to look.

“Psst, this way,” the voice whispered again.

Elliot walked off his porch. To his right was a little clump of bushes. Very slowly, something crawled from them. Elliot’s memory flashed to when he was eight years old, facing what he thought were kids dressed in Halloween costumes, but who were actually Goblins. Whatever had happened then was happening again.

Only there were five of them this time.

Five Goblins with boiling, bubbling skin. With each bubble, they grew larger and blacker. Their skin was wet, and in the moonlight Elliot saw bulges form along their back and down their arms and legs.

Run! Elliot’s brain screamed it to him, but not loudly enough to get his legs to listen. He could do nothing but stare at the emerging beasts.

His heart beat faster, pounding against the wall of his chest. Pounding in rhythm with the bubbling skin.

The Goblins’ faces were changing too. Their jagged teeth, already protruding from their wide mouths, grew into a mouthful of fangs. The ends of their fingers extended into claws long enough to pry a door off its hinges, and their coloring darkened to a sooty dark green. The Goblins banged their teeth together, and the earth shook beneath Elliot’s feet. The yard swirled around him. Everything was in a dizzy motion except for the monsters before him. He could see them all too well.

Elliot’s breath locked in his throat, and he gasped for air. His lungs must have shut down, because they didn’t want to help him breathe anymore. They only wanted to get away from this. His heart knocked unevenly now, like it couldn’t keep up with the rhythm from the Goblins’ gnashing teeth.

Elliot’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell to the ground. Someone ran into the yard with a broom. Was it Agatha? She moved fast for a woman her age. She swung the broom at the monsters, and they clawed back at her. She started yelling at them, although he couldn’t hear the words…just the pounding rhythm.

It was the rhythm that mattered.

The rhymes. Agatha’s curses were in rhyme.

Suddenly, the air filled with light and all went silent. Elliot closed his eyes, and just as quickly, his world went black.