Her aunt was back before the silence became awkward, and the two men stood up to go. “Thenkee, Virginia,” said Old Raven. “It’ll rain soon. We’ll come by the day arter with mushrooms.”

“I’d admire thet, thenkee,” her aunt replied. “I’m still a-showin’ Anna here what she needs t’larn, an’ she ain’t ready yet t’ traipse ’round the woods too far from my house.”

Old Raven smiled faintly, made a sketchy little salute with his hand, and then the two of them were gone, as silently as they had arrived.

Aunt Jinny looked down at the half-finished receipt. “Uncap thet ink an’ get back t’writin’, Anna,” she said. “Y’all ain’t done an’ y’all still need t’learn how t’put the potion t’gether.”

That night after supper, Aunt Jinny asked her if Old Raven had said anything to her. She bit her lip, because she didn’t want to irritate her aunt, but Jinny had asked her, and she knew she had to tell the truth. “I arst him ’bout the spirit bears what Mrs. Holcroft tol’ me ’bout,” she said, carefully.

“An’ what’d he say?” she replied.

“He tol’ me a story ’bout a Cherokee clan what turned inter bears an’ live ferever,” she answered. “But thet didn’ answer m’question a-tall.”

“Didn’ it?” her aunt countered. “Wall, when y’all arst Old Raven a question y’all don’t allus get a straight-out answer. Most times, y’all get a answer what leads t’ th’ answer, iffen y’all think ’bout it enough.” She got up and headed for the front porch. “I’m a-gonna set a spell outside. Issa nice night, an’ them fireflies is purdy t’watch.”

Before Anna could say anything, Aunt Jinny went out to sit in her chair in the dark on the porch, leaving the only light in the cabin that which was coming from the banked coals on the hearth. Anna didn’t particularly want to go out on the porch; it was chillier than was comfortable for her in her nightgown, and she didn’t want to climb up into the loft to get Mrs. Sawyer’s gifted shawl only to climb back down again just to sit on the porch. The fireflies and stars might be pretty, but she got bored with them a lot quicker than Aunt Jinny did. So she moved her stool closer to the stove and tried to puzzle out what Old Raven had been trying to tell her.

Was it that there really were bears that couldn’t be killed? Was it that he and his son knew how to control bears in general, somehow? Was it both? There was magic in the Bible, after all; Pharaoh had had magicians that had fought a magic battle with Moses. They’d turned their staffs to snakes and everything. The Preacher back in Soddy hadn’t talked much about magic, except around Halloween, when he’d do at least one sermon on the evil that came of “playing” with it, on account of it was pretty much guaranteed that there’d be parties that night of girls that were courtin’-high trying to cast spells to figure out who they’d marry. Mostly he was too busy with the sins of drink, lust, and disobedience to fret much about witchcraft. Back home, none of those serious sins had worried Anna; she didn’t drink, she never hardly even thought about disobeying, and as for lust, well—she was never around boys much, and when she was, they paid no never-mind to her.