“I only let off the blood so he could see better!”

“That blood,” my mother said. “On your jacket.” She put her hand on her forehead. “Esther, take Samuel into the cabin.” To me, she said. “Is that something else the hag taught you?”

“No,” I said carefully. “Miss Cate taught me to do that. And how to fill a wound with honey. And how to use maggots to eat away dead flesh. And how to make a potato poultice. And—”

“What’s a poultice?” Samuel said over his shoulder as Esther dragged him toward the cabin.

“All right,” my mother said, holding up her hand. “That’s more than enough.” She turned to Larkin’s mother. “What is it you want?”

“I want your girl to stay away from my son. She has no business telling him to wash an old woman’s underthings.”

Which might have sounded comical if someone else had said it. But there was nothing funny about Larkin’s mother.

“They needed washing,” I said.

She nodded. “Then you’re the girl to do it.”

My mother held up both hands now. “You came all the way down here because your son had to do the wash?”

“I came down here to tell you that Larkin already knows his business,” she said, looking not at my mother but at me. “Without you telling it to him. You and his grandmother. Teaching him things that won’t do anyone a bit of good. Telling him to scrub her sour bedsheets when there’s work to be done at home.” She leaned closer. “I’ll thank you for seeing to your own business and letting us see to ours.”

Larkin shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

“No need to apologize,” my mother said mildly. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You don’t know a thing about it,” his mother said. “Or about your own girl. Out in the night alone, roaming around in trousers, telling Larkin what to do. When she’s the one who needs a strong hand but no man at home to give it.”

My mother stared. “Whatever gave you the idea that there was no man here?”

“You mean that little boy?”

My mother snorted like a spring horse. “I mean my husband, who built this cabin and made these clothes we’re wearing and cut a notch in this mountain for our garden there and a great deal more. None of which is any of your affair. So, as you said before, I’ll thank you for seeing to your business and letting us see to ours.”

She lifted her chin and looked down her nose, as if she had royal blood running in her veins. Which, as far as I was concerned, she did. “And unless you own this mountain, my daughter will climb it whenever the spirit moves her. And she will visit Miss Cate whenever Miss Cate wants her to.”