Aunt Jinny sighed, and seemed convinced. “All right. Time’s a-wastin’. Let’s git some dinner, an’ do th’ laundry, an’ we’ll do ’nother receipt.”

“Aunt Jinny, when y’all a-gonna teach me how t’ put th’ Glory in them receipts?” she ventured.

Her aunt barked a laugh. “Y’all’re gitten th’ cart afore the horse, girl,” she said. “Fust, y’all gotter be able t’ see th’ Glory. An’ we’re gonna see ’bout thet ternight.”

She found it hard to concentrate on anything other than that—up until the moment when they finished the laundry and she went to copy down another receipt in her receipt book. Then, there was no choice but to concentrate. The scorn her aunt would—rightly!—heap on her for making a mistake did not bear thinking about.

So she copied it down, letter by careful letter, and then made it up, pinch by palmful by handful, and got her aunt’s curt nod of approval. And then it was time to herd the chickens into their house, close them in for the night, wash up at the well, change into her clean nightdress, and have supper. Aunt Jinny seemed to have recovered her aplomb, because she was back to her usual laconic self.

It was only when the dishes were clean and dry and put away, water was set in jugs to warm in the stove niches for tomorrow, the coals were banked, and the sun setting that Jinny turned to the subject that had been burning in Anna’s mind since Jinny had proclaimed she was going to learn to “see” the Glory.

Jinny led the way out to the porch and ordered her to “set.” Jinny moved the other chair to a position closer to Anna than Anna remembered her ever being before.

“This’s a tricksy thang,” Jinny warned her. “It ain’t gradual. It takes a kinder peculiar twist in yore haid t’make it work, an’ y’all might not do it th’ fust, or second, or even twentieth time.”

“Yes’m,” Anna said, since a reply seemed to be required of her.

“Look out there over yonder, at th’ fence,” Aunt Jinny directed. “I gotta lotta Glory down thar, concentrated inter somethin’ high-falutin’ folks call a shield, what keeps critters I don’ want comin’ past th’ fence. Thet includes th’ bad Elementals.”

There’re bad Elementals?

Jinny glanced down for a moment. So did Anna. And she discovered in that moment that they had an audience, a little circle of watching twig-critters, and rock-critters, and mushroom critters. And peeking over the edge of the porch were shyer things that looked human—at least, the tops of their heads did—although it was hard to tell in the growing gloom.

“What’s bad that can get in?” she wanted to know. She wasn’t going to ask about Jolene directly, obviously . . .

“Anythin’ what’s got enough Glory of its own,” her aunt told her, and reminded her with a look that she’d said Jolene was almighty powerful.

“So how’m I s’posed to see this shield thing?” she asked. “Or the Glory?”