“Who d’y’all reckon tol’ McDaran ’bout me?” she asked Jinny over supper. Jinny just shook her head.

“Dunno. Mebbe Abby at th’ mercantile. Mebbe Cooper at th’ Company store. But I wouldn’t’a thunk Cooper, on account of I reckon he’s still tore up ’bout losin’ thet baby, an’ likely ain’t thinkin’ of anythin’ else.” She shook her head. “Ain’t no use worritin’ ’bout it. Makes more sense t’figger out what we’re a-gonna do ’bout it if he keeps comin’ ’round. An’ figger what in tarnation he wants. He’s gotter know I ain’t a-gonna let him meddle with y’all.”

Jinny had made hoecakes with honey, and Anna sucked the honey off her spoon while she considered that. “Mebbe he figgers he’s sech a handsome feller, it won’t matter what y’all want, on account’a I’m likely t’ take a shine to him?” she suggested.

Jinny hesitated. “I’m afeerd there’s more to it then thet,” she said finally. “He’s a powerful strong magician. Prolly a Marster. An’ when Marsters turn t’the bad, like as not they start lookin’ fer people with the Glory thet they c’n use. Thet might could be th’ answer. He might reckon y’all’s here as my ’prentice.”

“So you reckon he’s done figgered out I got magic all on his own?” she asked.

Jinny shrugged. “Makes sense thet he’d show up now—it’d take his thick haid this long t’figger thet out fer his own self. An’—wall, thet’s where my figgerin’ sorta falls apart. ’Cause there’s a lotta mebbes. Mebbe he reckons t’offer t’take y’all as his ’prentice—’course thet’d end bad fer y’all, but he’d reckon y’all wouldn’t know thet. An’ he’d figger he could use thet power of his’n t’ jest twist y’all round his liddle finger even if I’d tol’ y’all ’bout him.”

“Reckon mebbe he figgers I’d jest go, ‘Oh, she’s a old biddy, she’s jest jealous he’s a-payin’ court t’me’?” she ventured.

“Thet do sound like his thankin’,” Jinny agreed darkly. “He’s a snake, an’ he do thank there ain’t a female critter can resist him. But thet’s th’ prollem. Like I done said, he’s powerful strong. He might could get y’all a-dazzled and bewildered, an’ I wouldn’ be able to pertect y’all.”

Anna hesitated, then said what she was thinking. “Jolene says I’m a-gonna be powerful strong too. Mebbe I c’n keep him off . . .”

“All th’ more reason why he’d come sniffin’ ’round here now. He’s figgerin’ t’ git his claws inter y’all afore y’all can defend yoreself,” her aunt said bleakly. “We gotter figger us out some plans.”

“Mebbe there’s somethin’ in Great-Granpappy’s book I c’n use,” she said after a moment.

Her aunt blinked, as if that had not occurred to her. “Mebbe. I ain’t one fer readin’ so I niver done more’n glance a bit at it,” she admitted. “Y’all take it up on th’ stove an’ hev a read. I’ll call out the Domovoy an’ see iffen he c’n thank of anythin’.”

She skipped over the part she would really rather have read—about how Pavel had met with Eagle Sight and the Cherokee up in the Holler for the very first time, how they had forged an alliance, and how the entire band had worked together to raise a cabin and make a garden for him in two days in return for his help in designing and building their new stone stoves. She even (mostly) skipped over the part where, no sooner had the mortar cured and the first fire lit in his stove, the Domovoy from his destroyed house back in Roosha crawled out from under it and made itself known to him.