And now her wandering mind took that, and ran off with it, and the pressing issue of magic gradually took a back seat to the issue of young men. Or rather, a particular young man. But what about Josh Holcroft? came the persistant thought. He sure weren’t ignorin’ y’all, Anna Jones!

She found herself blushing and getting a little warm and uncomfortable, but somehow in a good way. And why bother thinking about witchcraft when there was a young man who had finally smiled at her?

The more she thought about meeting him again, the more distracted she got. This was such an entirely new situation for her, the sheer novelty of it alone could have occupied her for hours.

And she might indeed have sat there, drowsily thinking about Josh, wondering if there was a way she could get Aunt Jinny to send her down to the Holcrofts for something so she could find out if this was just her overactive imagination or he really did. . . .

Except right about then was when she looked up for a moment saw . . . it.

It crept out from underneath the stove—even though there was no “underneath” there. It was small, about waist-high to her; in fact, it looked very like a wizened little old man, with long hair and thick beard as gray as fog. Except it had cat-ears, and blazing eyes. It didn’t seem to be aware that she was there.

This changed as she gasped. It reacted to the sound by disappearing instantly back under the stove, leaving her to wonder if she had even seen it at all. Had she fallen asleep and actually been dreaming? She got up and felt the place where it had been, but couldn’t tell any difference in temperature between one piece of floor and the next.

And how could it have gotten under the stove? The thing was a gigantic piece of solid stonework!

Finally she stood up, hugging herself and shaking a little. There were only three possibilities here. She could be going mad. She might have been dreaming. Or the creature had actually been there.

She closed her eyes and told herself to be sensible. She wasn’t going mad; at least, she didn’t think so. And that creature could not possibly have been there. That left the middle. And if she’d fallen asleep without even realizing it, next to the stove—

—then she definitely should be falling asleep in bed instead.

She went around to the ladder and climbed it, trying not to hurry, hoping that the feeling of being watched was all in her imagination. And when she got into bed, she pulled the quilt over her head. Tonight was not the night she wanted to see eyes staring down at her from the rafters.

She woke up, not thinking about Josh or the strange vision of last night, but of the two Cherokees who had visited them yesterday. Almost everything about them had been—unexpected. And when she sat down at the little table, her aunt had that look in her eye at breakfast that warned Anna that Aunt Jinny was about to say something Anna would probably find uncomfortable. So to forestall her, Anna asked the first thing that came into her head.