“What in the name of perdition do you mean by that, you wicked child?” The woman’s face was growing rather red, too. I had stopped in fascination, but now set down the buckets, feeling that I had better take a hand before things escalated. Too late.

“I put you in the toilet and I fwush you like POOP!” Mandy shouted, stamping her feet. Quick as a snake, the woman’s hand shot out and cracked against Mandy’s cheek.

There was a split second of shocked silence and then a number of things happened at once. I lunged toward the porch, tripped over one of the buckets, and fell flat on the path in a deluge of milk, Mandy let out a shriek that could have been heard as far as the wagon road, and Jamie popped out of the front door like the Demon King in a pantomime.

He grabbed Mandy up in one arm, leapt off the porch, and was nose-to-nose with the woman before I had even got to my knees.

“Leave my house,” he said, in the sort of calm voice that made it clear the only other option was instant death.

To her credit, the lady wasn’t backing down. She snatched off her broad black hat, the better to glare at him.

“The girl spoke rudely to me, sir, and I will not have it! Evidently no one has sought to discipline her properly. No wonder.” Her gaze raked him scornfully up and down. Mandy had stopped shrieking but was sobbing, her face buried in Jamie’s shirtfront.

“Well, speaking of rudeness,” I said mildly, wringing out my wet apron. “I don’t believe we have the honor of your acquaintance, do we?” I wiped a hand on the side of my skirt and extended it. “I’m Claire Fraser.”

Her face didn’t lose its expression of outrage, but it froze. She didn’t say a word but backed away from me, one step at a time. Jamie hadn’t moved, other than to pat Mandy comfortingly; his face was as fixed and stark as hers.

She reached the edge of the path, stopped dead, and lifted her chin toward Jamie.

“You are all,” she said evenly, sweeping her hat in an arc that encompassed me, Jamie, Mandy, and the house, “undoubtedly going to Hell.” With which pronouncement, she tossed a small package onto the porch, turned her back upon us, and sailed away like a bird of ill omen.

“WHO THE DEVIL was that?” Jamie asked.

“Da Wicked Witch,” Mandy answered promptly. Her face was still red, and her lower lip pushed out as far as it would go. “I hates her!”

“Quite possibly,” I said. I bent and gingerly picked up the small package. It was wrapped in oiled silk, tied with an odd-looking cord, with a number of extraneous knots. I lifted it to my nose and sniffed cautiously.

Even through the murky scent of the oiled silk, the bitter smell of quinine was strong enough that I could taste it at the back of my mouth.