Pesta

A pesta, also known as a plague maiden, is a rare and frightening specter. She looks like a sick woman whose flesh is rotting off her bones, and a swarm of rats crawls along behind her. According to the bestiary there are only two recorded sightings of one, both during plague outbreaks. Little is known about how they fight, but they probably share many traits with other wraiths and phantoms. A witcher’s mutations should at least keep him from catching the diseases she carries.

The name likely comes from the Norwegian Pesta, a figure from folklore who embodies the Black Death.

In The Witcher 3 the pesta is Anabelle, the ghost on Fyke Isle in Velen, whom you meet in A Towerful of Mice, a favor for Keira Metz. A mage’s experiments with rats and a disease called Catriona, a massacre by the locals and her own horrible death in the tower turned her into a plague maiden. If you refuse to take her bones to her lover Graham in Oreton, she attacks you in her true form. The curse can then only be broken by bringing Graham to her. If you take the bones off the island instead, she kills Graham and goes free to spread plague.

Combat strategy

You only fight the pesta if you refuse Anabelle’s request in A Towerful of Mice, or try to leave the tower without agreeing. Even then she can’t actually die while the curse holds. You beat her down, she flees, and the story moves on to Graham. Back on the island you also face wraiths of the curse’s victims.

Treat her like other specters: keep her in the material world and stay out of reach of the rats.

Coat your silver sword with Specter Oil.
Cast Yrden to pin her in place and keep her from fading out.
Clear the island’s rotfiends, drowners and the water hag by the tower before you head up.
Use Igni on swarms of black flies on the island to drive them off.
Refusing her request is the path that ends with the curse lifted for good.