Fern escapes the cop car into the hot, slackening rain, bleeding from her slashed tongue and torn stitches, while Miss Parcae calmly pursues her through the storm-wrecked Wellwood grounds. Fern considers killing Reverend Jerry when she finds him broken and half-drowned in mud, but stops herself, refusing to become cruel with sudden power. She races to the back of the house and finds the kitchen destroyed, where Zinnia has shielded Holly and Holly’s newborn through the storm’s violence.

Unable to run, Zinnia forces Fern to flee alone. Fern tries for the woods, but the coven emerges naked and encircles her—Little Robin, Journey, Mags, Periwinkle, and many others—while Miss Parcae blocks the way back to the Home. Fern refuses Miss Parcae’s demand that she “carry the flame,” repeating “No” as the only power left to her: the witches can hurt her, but they cannot make her consent.

Miss Parcae escalates, chanting with the coven to call the Triple-Faced Goddess, whose vast presence—an eye like a rising planet—nearly unravels Fern’s mind and body. The summoning breaks when Holly lunges in and bites Miss Parcae’s hand, screaming for the hurting to stop and offering herself instead. Miss Parcae rejects Holly as “not ready” and advances on Fern, but Mags physically blocks Miss Parcae and refuses to yield; Periwinkle, Joy, and Little Robin join, openly challenging Miss Parcae’s insistence on preserving the line at any cost.

The coven chooses mercy over tradition. Periwinkle asks Holly if she truly wants this, and Holly—desperate to avoid returning to Reverend Jerry—declares she would rather become a monster than go back, choosing freedom for herself and her daughter. With “So mote it be,” the witches take Holly and the baby into the trees to test whether Holly can carry the flame, while Miss Parcae bitterly accepts the choice and disappears with them, leaving Fern and Zinnia behind.

Flashlights and men arrive in the backyard and find Fern and Zinnia collapsed together; the authorities ask where the girl with the baby went, but Holly is already gone. Fern’s tongue is stitched at the hospital, Wellwood House is reported completely destroyed, and the surviving girls are dispersed. Fern’s father takes Fern home, talking nonstop to force normalcy, while Fern realizes his fear: not of evil, but of what Fern—and girls like her—can do. The chapter ends with a brief “How to Be a Groovy Witch” lesson: magic (and life) only yields value through failure.