No, what stopped her in her tracks was another part of the story altogether.

. . . we had gathered the last of our fall crops, protected those that would stay in the field with heaps of dead leaves, ferns, and earth, and had killed and preserved our first wild pig and a deer. That, together with the fish and game I had smoked, lent us a feeling of confidence that we would survive our first winter here, and allowed me to consider making plans to celebrate with our Cherokee brothers.

And that very morning was the morning she appeared, standing outside my shield, at the rock wall we had built to shelter our gardens. In her green gown, with her blazing red hair and her special green lizard familiar spirits, she was unmistakable. And she was a creature I had never expected to see again.

Nor was I entirely easy about seeing her now.

Sometimes she was called The Malachite Maid, and was said to be the protector of miners against abusive foremen. But mostly she was called Hozjajka Mednoj Gory, and by that name she was a strange and enigmatic creature indeed, and that is how I knew her.

Just before our village had been destroyed, I had had several encounters with her. She had offered to be my patron, as it is said she does for craftsmen, for she collects them. Those she favors the most, she takes with her into her kingdom under the mountain. I had not quite accepted her patronage—for those who take her as their Mistress must never look at another woman, lest terrible things befall them—when the boyar burned our village to the ground. Had she come to me then—well, I probably would have accepted her, for where else was I to go and what was I to do? But she did not, and I followed the rest of my village, and then, went on my travels.

I never saw her again while I was within the borders of Rossiya, nor once I was out of them. I certainly did not expect to see her here, so far from both our native lands.

If she was powerful enough, and determined enough, to find me here . . . I knew I had better go and greet her courteously and, if I was lucky, turn aside any anger she had with me.

I thought about telling Sally to remain at the cabin, but with a second thought, I knew that it was of little use to do so. She wouldn’t obey me, and she had every right, as a Master in her own power, to know what we might have attracted—or be facing. Because if the Mistress was wroth with me, she would also be wroth with Sally.

So I cautioned her about what we were going to meet; on her own Sally went to get some of the balls of cornmeal and beans we had learned to cook from Blue Doe, a piece of honeycomb, and a wooden cup of our first brewing of vodka. These we carried down to her, as she waited, with the stillness of a malachite statue, for us to approach her.