One day, everything was lost in the mist. No, not those little morning wisps or the thin type that follows rain. The really dense stuff. A pea-souper, a dark fog, thick and black like atomized ink. A mist that engulfs everything. But the mist also left something behind: a mutant, an ogress—or perhaps just a little girl that a grouchy old witch would decide to call Temperance and who would be brought up in a quiet village by a group of contented old women. Then one day, the mist returns. It wants her back. Now it's time for the witches to dust off their charms and try to remember their old incantations and kung futechniques as they set out on a great adventure that will determine young Temperance's destiny.