Anna paused, and looked into her aunt’s eyes, and believed her. She nodded slowly. “Ma don’ like bein’ beholden,” was all she said. “Reckon she figgered makin’ them potions weren’t nothin’ but pickin’ a few weeds and packin’ ’em up and it weren’t no time or trouble t’y’all—and it weren’t like y’all sold them potions over to Soddy yore own self. So thet weren’t makin’ her beholden to y’all.” She scratched her head. “It don’t make no sense, when I say it out loud, but could be thet’s how she’s a-thinkin’. An’ Pa—well, y’all knowed Pa. He’d as likely send it back, or throw it out th’ door, as take it.”

Her aunt muttered something about “damn fools” under her breath.

Just then, a movement out of the corner of her eye caught Anna’s attention, and she turned to see what it was. But there was nothing there. She frowned, remembering the eyes in the rafters. “Aunt Jinny, y’all need a cat.”

Her aunt raised an eyebrow, and then guffawed. “What in tarnation do I need a cat fer?” she retorted.

“Y’all got mice, an’ a powerful lotta them,” she replied, glad to get the subject off her parents. “I seed ’em the fust night I was here, an’ last night too. All lined up on th’ rafters an’ a-lookin’ down at me with liddle shiny eyes.”

Her aunt’s eyebrow stayed where it was. “Didja now? What makes y’all so sure ’twas mice?”

“Dunno what else it could be,” she replied, then bit her lip, because she had come perilously close to contradicting her elder. She put her face down and assiduously finished her mush.

“Wall, there ain’t no mice in my house,” Aunt Jinny stated. “But there’s plenty’o small critters what come in an’ out an’ don’t do no harm.” And she left it at that.

Together they mucked out and fed the pigs. Jinny showed her how to collect the eggs from the nestboxes in the henhouse—and showed her the two hens currently sitting on eggs she was going to allow to hatch. They scrubbed their underwear and hung it to dry, emptied the soapy water into the garden (“Chases slugs,” said Jinny), and she set Anna to weeding. This time she weeded down the side of the garden that had the rows of corn, squash, and beans. She would have thought that the three plants would choke each other out—but they seemed to be thriving together.

After another amazing dinner, Jinny called her over to the counter. “Y’all wanter be a Root Woman?” she asked abruptly.

Anna was so taken aback for a moment she could scarcely breathe. Did she? Of course she did! Why, as a Root Woman she would never lack for a way to keep herself fed! “Yes, please, ma’am!” she managed to get out, and Aunt Jinny looked pleased. She reached up to a shelf over the counter and took down a little, leather-bound book, one among a handful of books up there. “This here’s my receipts,” she said. “My Granny niver wrote nothin’ down, on account’o she wanted me t’larn things by mem’ry, but I copied ever’thang she taught me right here.” She tapped the cover of the book. “An’ y’all are a-gonna copy my book. Copy a receipt, then we make it t’gether. Then y’all make it on yore lonesome, while I watch.”