Joyce crashes Buffy's patrol night with snacks; she wants to see the experience firsthand. While Buffy chases the new vampire, Joyce discovers the dead bodies of two children in a playground. The children have marks on their palms.

Joyce is visibly shaken by the dead children.

Buffy draws the symbol for Giles; she needs help to determine where the mark came from. Giles thinks the mark came from humans, more likely witches.

Xander acts weird around Oz and Willow during lunch. Amy joins them at their table. Joyce surprises them at Sunnydale High and gets mad that witches might be responsible for the crime.

Joyce set up a vigil with parents from town to honor the dead children.

Willow's mom Sheila attends the vigil as well; she doesn't know much about Willow's life or looks. Giles acts weird around Joyce.

Mayor Wilkins begins a chat for the vigil before inviting Joyce to talk. Joyce calls on the town to take back the town from the vampires, witches, and slayers.

A group of witches conducts a ritual over the same symbol. Willow is one of the witches.

Buffy and Amy stop a group of athletes bullying Michael in the hallway; they call him a witch. Cordelia warns Buffy that more trouble could be happening if they get involved.

Giles confirms that the mark is tied to witchcraft.

Xander gets defensive when Buffy asks about Willow. Buffy says that since they are guilty, he needs to pay for the feeling.

After Buffy discovers the same mark on Willow's notebook, they find Principal Snyder and the police conducting searches in lockers. Willow confirms she, Amy, and Michael only conducted a spell to protect Buffy. Willow and Amy are taken away.

Giles occult books are taken away by Principal Snyder and the police.

"Mothers Opposed to the Occult" (or MOO) is a group started by Joyce. She urged the locker searches at Sunnydale High.

Sheila grounds Willow for having the occult stuff in her locker; she doesn't want Willow to hang out with "Bunny Summers" again. Willow comes clean to her mother about her witchcraft and dating Oz.

Joyce doesn't want Buffy to hang out with Willow either. Joyce sees the ghosts of the two dead children.

Buffy and Angel see the memorial at the playground; they have a chat about Joyce saying Buffy's efforts were fruitless.

No one knows the names of the dead children or where the photos came from. Willow, Buffy, Giles, Oz, and Xander search through old news clippings online of the same children being killed every fifty years. The original dead children were Gretel Straus and Hans Straus.

Sheila locks Willow in her room and plans to let her go with love.

Giles thinks that the dead children are influenced by the tale of Hansel & Gretel. A demon is using the inspiration to cause chaos and death.

Michael, beaten and bloody, runs to the Sunnydale High library and informs the Scoobies that people are kidnapping suspected witches. Amy is taken and adults try to get Willow.

Joyce and MOO knock out Buffy.

Buffy, Willow, and Amy are tied to stakes in front of MOO; they plan to burn them alive as accused witches.

Cordelia wakes up an unconscious Giles; she warns him about the town acting weird. They need to save Buffy's life.

Amy performs a spell to transform into a rat and escapes.

Giles makes Cordelia brew a potion as he drives them both to the city center. Once they arrive at the burning, Cordelia puts out the fire with the firehose, and Giles conducts the cleansing ritual.

The spirits of the two dead children merge together to reveal the real demon.

Buffy breaks the stake and it collides with the demon, killing it.

Buffy and Willow perform the spell reversal ritual on Amy the rat, but it fails. Amy is trapped as a rat.