And this place was just beautiful. Pa had said Aunt Jinny lived all alone out in the woods, so maybe her place was just as beautiful. If that was true, well . . .

She found herself looking forward to getting there.

“Mistuh Jeb?” she said, as a thought occurred to her. “What d’y’all take t’Soddy iffen y’all go there all the time?”

“Stuff what the rich folks order from Sears Roebuck,” he replied promptly. “And stuff fer the gen’ral store. Sometimes stuff fer the Company store. Mail. All manner’o this an’ that, ’cause there ain’t no railhead. It’s ’nuff thet I gits trips ever’ three days or so. An’ iffen I ain’t haulin’ t’ Soddy, I’m doin’ bits’a haulin’ ’round Cleveland, where I live. Thet’s where we’re a-goin’.”

“I thunk Aunt Jinny lived in Ducktown—” she said dubiously.

“She do, but I’m on’y takin’ y’all as far as Cleveland. They’s wagoners yore aunt knows good thet haul copper ingots from the Burra Burra mine in Ducktown to Cleveland regular, an’ one of ’em’s gonna take y’all to Miz Jinny.”

Another stranger! She grew a little anxious at that, but reminded herself that her aunt had a fearsome reputation, and was apparently a very good judge of character. Jeb had been wonderfully kind.

“Happens I know th’ feller m’self,” Jeb continued, as if sensing her apprehension. “He’s a good, Godly man, is Caleb Strong. Won’t carry a whip, much less use one on ’is mules. They say y’all could ask him to carry a leddy stark naked with a pot of gold from Ducktown t’Cleveland an’ when he got t’Cleveland, wouldn’t be a coin missin’ or a flyspeck on th’ gal. An’ I b’lieve ’em.”

Well, if Jeb vouched for the man, that made her feel much easier.

The thick woods hid all sorts of things . . . and before long, she began to wonder if she hadn’t been too quick in dismissing the incident with the firewood and all the shining eyes in the darkness.

Because she started getting glimpses of things out of the corner of her eye that were definitely not songbirds and rabbits. She thought she saw faces peering at her from the trees above, or the bushes and weeds below. But she couldn’t be sure, because when she turned her head to look, whatever she had thought she had seen wasn’t there anymore; it had whisked away out of sight, leaving behind only a little bit of movement in the leaves or grass to show where it had been. If it had been there at all.

But Jeb didn’t seem to notice anything, and he was quick enough to point out a doe with a fawn at the edge of a meadow, a gray fox whisking out of sight, and a badger peering at them suspiciously from under a bush.

But mebbe he’s seein’ ’em too, but he don’t want ter scare me. He knew she was a town girl, after all.

And last night, absolutely nothing had happened to her, despite all those eyes staring at her.