Late Tuesday night, Fern wakes Holly and insists they sneak out to cast the storm spell “one last time,” despite Zinnia’s refusal and warning that it is never truly the last time. Fern is determined to make it rain to break the heat and to force Miss Parcae to keep her promise to take Holly away with the witches.

Fern and Holly creep outside and head toward the woods, but Fern’s pregnancy makes every step harder. In the trees they stumble into a thick swarm of blackflies that cover their faces and bodies, forcing them into a panicked run until they reach the riverbank, where the insects finally lift off.

At the river, they reuse the remnants of their old ritual site: they rebuild the circle, gather wood, strip pine branches into brooms, go skyclad, and wade into the water. Fern senses the woods go unnaturally quiet as the crickets stop. Fern lights a fire with matches taken from Rose’s attic room and pushes Holly to lead, since Holly has been studying the witch book all day.

Following the book as best they can without Rose or Miss Parcae, they Rend the Veil, greet the elements, and create a mirror-pool by burying Iris’s hand mirror and filling the hollow with thirty-three handfuls of river water. They prick their fingers with a Cong thumbtack, add blood, and stir exactly three hundred and thirty-three times while calling Hecate, then chant Hecate’s names sixty-six times until their bodies and minds blur with exhaustion.

They march thirty-three circuits around the circle, “sweeping the sky” with their brooms. Moisture begins to gather and Fern feels the storm press close, but no rain falls. Frustrated, Holly insists they did everything right; Fern realizes the spell is “struggling to be born” and remembers the book’s rule that greater workings require greater pain.

Fern produces scissors and tells Holly to pay a bigger “Sixpence” by cutting off the tip of her tongue. With Decima watching from the darkness, Holly tries and breaks down, unable to do it. Hagar suddenly arrives, drives Decima away with a shovel, orders the girls to put out the fire and clean up, and demands they meet her in the kitchen to explain themselves.