Catherine, who took over as The Witch of Hambone in Laketown, is now struggling to cope with a spate of attacks and disappearances around the lake area, especially of the fishermen and boatmen of the town. She has been given reports of sightings, which seem to be a little far-fetched to her, but on investigating and searching the area all along the lake shore, she is now convinced that there are monsters of some sort on the loose in and around the lake. Nothing like this has ever been reported before, so whatever these things are, they are new to the lake and must have entered by way of the river outlet, which goes all the way to the sea quite a long way away. Catherine has also been told of people seeing small ugly fairy type people with these monsters, so what are they and what are they doing here attacking people and ruining the fishing in the lake. She is faced with this terrible problem, and so she sets out to find them and get rid of or negotiate some sort of peace with them, so they will not attack people and the fishermen's boats. When she eventually encounters these things, she is amazed to see some little people actually riding on the necks of the monster animals/reptiles. She has to fight for her life to escape being dragged into the lake to some horrible fate. This causes her to call Angela for help in getting these things out of the lake and back to the sea, where she is certain they have come from. Now the struggle begins, with Angela and Joanne joining her, and following on behind are Carol and Susan. Joanne and Susan are now officially Witches of Hambone in their own right, after experiencing battles in Nastacia during the civil war and fighting Mogron and Borga. The ceremony for Joanne and Susan takes place in the first chapter of this part ten.