“Either. Both,” Jolene said, with the carelessness of someone who knows she is powerful enough to control anything she cared to call. “Does it matter?”

Anna didn’t answer immediately. And when she did, she picked her words slowly and with great care. “Arskin’ is one thing. But it ain’t perlite t’ jest drag somethin’ in without a ‘please will y’all.’ My Ma allus says y’all ketch more flies with molasses than vinegar.”

Jolene looked at her oddly, as if her words made no sense, then shrugged. “If you insist,” she said, with impatience. “So, do you want to learn how to summon?”

“Yes’m, please,” she replied, ducking her head. Jolene chuckled.

“It’s simple. Just draw up the power as I showed you, then cup your hands together, like so.” She held her hands a little apart, as if she was holding a large ball between them. “Then fill the space between them with the power. Go ahead, do it—” she urged, and Anna carefully did as she had been told.

Between her hands, a sort of ball of that lovely golden glow formed.

“Now put your intention on it. Tell it the kind of creature you want to summon,” Jolene continued.

“Kin it be anythin’?” she asked.

“Anything you have seen. Earth Elemental, or actual animal, that is. You cannot summon any Elementals but your own. I can, of course, summon anything I care to,” Jolene replied with unconscious arrogance. “What would you like to see?”

“Liddle People,” she said, without a second thought, and turned her attention to the glowing ball in her hands. I’d take it right kindly, she thought, as hard as she could, if any of y’all Liddle People’d come an’ palaver a bit with me. And she pictured the tiny Cherokee in her mind as vividly as she could.

She was conscious of Jolene’s intent gaze on her the entire time, but she didn’t allow it to distract her. “Now squeeze the power between your hands, as tight as you ever can,” Jolene instructed her, after what seemed like forever. “Because when you release it, you want it to explode, like dynamite, and scatter itself and your intention far and wide.”

Well, that, at least, was something she could easily picture. Except she wasn’t going to think of it like dynamite. She was going to think of it like a beautiful firework, the kind of thing the mine owners would send up into the early evening sky at their Fourth of July parties. Not that miners or miners’ children were invited to such things—but if you went out on your porch, you could see the rockets and roman candles exploding over the houses at the rich end of Soddy.

So she squeezed ever so hard, with her hands and her mind, feeling the power building in strength the more she compressed it, until the moment when Jolene said “Now!” and she cast her hands wide and tossed it up and it did explode just like a Fourth of July rocket up above her head.