Jinny didn’t have skirts to tie up, but she rolled up her overall cuffs to the knee and threw that piece of oilcloth over her head and ran out the door, leaving Anna feeling just a bit guilty that she had taken the chore.

The rain showed no signs of slackening all through the morning, no matter how many times she went to the door and glared up at the clouds. The continuing downpour curtailed their usual chores by a considerable amount.

At least the garden looked intact from the front porch. And being as everything was on the easy slope, it wasn’t going to get waterlogged, so there was not much chance they’d lose any produce. No point to run out into the rain to save what they could, as they might have had to do if damage had been done.

So they tidied up with a vengeance, and not only swept the floor, but gave it a good scrub with a rag mop. They did the washing and strung it across the cabin on a line, and by then it was time for dinner, which Anna ate with a seasoning of gloom.

“I swan, y’all’s face is more stormy than th’ weather,” her aunt said, with a touch of both humor and exasperation. “Y’all c’n git lost easy enough in Granpappy’s book, why don’t y’all try thet this arternoon?”

“I wish’t I was Air an’ not Earth,” she replied, crossly. “I c’d make thet there storm blow clean away!”

“An’ send it a-pilin’ up on Ducktown, an’ mebbe make a flood what’d kill folks?” her aunt demanded unexpectedly.

Startled, she stared at Aunt Jinny in disbelief. “I—could’a done thet?” she faltered. “Iffen I was Air?”

“Thet’s why Air’s one’a the dangerest powers there is,” her aunt confirmed. “Iffen y’all ain’t extree, extree careful, an’ y’all jest does stuff wit’out thankin’ an’ plannin’ it over fer days and days, thet’s what c’n happen. Earth’s a slow power, an’ forgivin’. Water, Air, an’ Fire c’n get y’all in trouble afore y’all c’n blink. Afore y’all so much as ponders a-changin’ somethin’ as big as weather, y’all damn well better hev a long talk with whatever Marster’s downwind, or y’all’ll hev a magic fight on yore hands. ’Lessen y’all c’n keep what happens in yore own land an’ yore own hands, y’all better figger out who else is a-gonna be in the path of it, an’ what they’re gonna git in they teeth, ’cause y’all’ll be called to account fer all of it.”

“Oh,” she replied in a small voice, getting a mental flash of flattened crops and houses knee-deep in muddy water. She swallowed hard, and went to get the book.

As usual, she climbed up on top of the stove to read it, and despite wishing with every other word that she were down at the Holcrofts’ watching Josh at work, all cozy with him in the workshop—maybe helping out by keeping that little stove tended—talking and learning more about him—