And that was when Aunt Jinny touched Anna’s foot and jerked her out of the book.

“Larn anythin’?” she asked. “Y’all was so deep in thet book I called y’all three times an’ y’all didn’ stir.”

“Great-Granpappy wrote ’bout that there scryin’ plate,” she said, then unexpectedly yawned.

“Good. Then I c’n start larnin’ y’all how t’use it. Termorrer. Y’all jest ’bout split yore head with that yawn,” Aunt Jinny chuckled. “I’s been a long day. Git t’bed.”

13

“SO now you can scry?” asked Jolene, when Anna finished telling her what she had been learning from her aunt.

This morning her aunt had expended quite a bit of Glory bolstering the shield around the farm, and Anna hadn’t had to ask to know she’d been specifically doing it to protect against Billie McDaran. Anna had watched closely, and helped where she could, but it was clear when Jinny was done that the task had taken a lot out of her physically, as well as the expenditure of Glory. After dinner, Jinny had admitted to being “a mite tuckered” and that she needed “a bit of a lay-down.” Armed with a list of the wild plants Aunt Jinny wanted and strictures not to wander so far from the lane that she couldn’t see it through the trees, Anna had gone off in search of more ingredients for potions.

And as she had half expected, Jolene met her on the lane. They settled in, at Jolene’s insistence, beside a little thread of a stream where Anna could cool her feet. Jolene didn’t seem to need or want any such thing, but Anna was glad of it. Her basket was more than half full and it was a warm day. Her hair was coming down from its neat bun, making little draggles around her face, and she was pleased to have the chance to put it back up again.

“Yes’m,” she replied. “I ain’t too good at it.”

Jolene laughed softly. “Perhaps that is because you are trying the wrong people. You have no real connection with these acquaintances of Jinny’s. Try someone you know, first. Like Younger Raven.”

Anna furrowed her brow. “But Younger Raven ain’t got th’ Earth—”

“Master can speak to Master regardless of the Element,” Jolene told her. “It’s only the ordinary magicians like your aunt who are restricted to speaking to those of their own kind.”

Anna blinked at that.

“But this is boring,” Jolene continued, her eyes alight. “There is nothing exciting about staring into a bowl or an obsidian plate. Would you like to learn something exciting instead?”

“What d’y’all mean?” she asked, looking into those eyes and remembering that Aunt Jinny had warned her over and over that Jolene was dangerous.

“Like summoning creatures!” Jolene laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know how to summon creatures?”

Well . . . she would, actually. That was certainly more exciting than Aunt Jinny’s scrying. But . . . but . . . but. “What kinda creatures? An’ fer what? An’—” She paused to put some of her whirling thoughts into a more concrete form. “An’ what d’y’all mean when y’all say summoning? Is it like arskin’ ’em t’come? Or is it like makin’ ’em come?” Because if it was the latter . . . well, even though the Joneses were poor and Anna didn’t have much real time or more than casual friends, that didn’t mean Anna had been left out of invitations to parties. Especially when she had been younger. There wasn’t only Christmas, which was a traditional time for ghost stories, there was also Halloween. Pastor might’ve frowned on it, but girls would get together and tell fortunes and try to scare each other. And there were lots of stories about people who summoned things and couldn’t control what came to their summons.