A dozen strange little creatures came running in the front door. Not animals, but not anything she had ever seen before either. Some of them looked like the dolls she’d made out of twigs and leaves. Some looked like rough clay figurines. There was even one that looked exactly like the tiny Indian man she had thought she’d imagined in the loft of the Sawyers’ barn!

But then her aunt called out, “Domovoy, come forth!” and that hairy old man she had been sure was a waking dream crawled out from under the stove.

The things surrounded her, and she didn’t know whether to shriek or faint.

“Wall,” her aunt said. “It’s purt plain y’all kin see ’em.”

That elicited an understandably hysterical response from her. “A’course I kin see ’em! Make ’em go away!”

“Don’t be sech a baby,” Aunt Jinny replied with faint scorn. “They ain’t a-gonna hurt y’all. I’fact, they’s gonna he’p y’all. Stop dancin’ on thet stool like a tavern Jezebel wi’ five whiskies in ’er.”

It wasn’t so much Aunt Jinny’s matter-of-fact tone as her allusion to a “tavern Jezebel” that got Anna to slowly, and carefully, and with many a doubtful look, lower herself to the floor and take her seat on her stool again. Although she certainly kept her feet well tucked under her skirt and away from the . . . things . . . which now clustered around her, staring up at her face.

“These,” Aunt Jinny said, “is Elementals. Earth Elementals, ac’chully.”

“Whassa Elemental?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

Aunt Jinny put on the face that told Anna she was about to get a lesson. “There’s a thang I call Glory. Some folks call it witchery, but I don’t hold with that. An’ I niver liked th’ word magic, on account’a magic sounds like it ain’t no work, an’ it’s plenty’a work. The Glory’s jest a nachural thang. Some got it, some don’t, like yaller hair. Issa tool, like a knife. Y’all c’n cut up dinner wi’ a knife, or murder a man. Thet don’t mean th’ knife is bad or good, an’ that don’t mean the Glory is bad or good, it jest is. They’s five kinds-a things what people with Glory can call on. They’s called Elements. Earth, Air, Fire, Water, an’ Spirit. Each one’s got critters. Th’ critters kin do stuff fer th’ folks what has the right Glory. I got Earth Glory, an’ so do y’all. Old Raven’s got Spirit Glory. Young Raven’s got Fire Glory. Ghosts an’ other spirits is what Old Raven kin see an’ get t’ do stuff fer ’im, but someone wi’ Spirit Glory kin see what kinda Glory other people hev, iffen they got it.” Jinny smiled with satisfaction at Anna. “An’ y’all got it. Like I said, y’all’s got Earth Glory. An’ thet’s why y’all got sick back in Soddy. What happens t’ th’ earth, y’all feel, an’ I feel, ’cause we’re linked by the Glory t’the earth. We get sick, cause th’ earth’s so pizened there, an’ y’all are gonna get sick anywhere’s th’ earth’s pizened. Most towns won’t hurt y’all much, but y’all ain’t a-gonna feel comfortable. Towns like Soddy, wi’ all thet pizen from coal an’ soot—they’ll make y’all dog-sick. Towns like Ducktown, where ain’t nothing kin grow? Till I shows y’all how ter pertect yoreself, they’ll kill y’all daid.”