I motion for him to come to me. He shakes his head and then points with his chin toward the woods. There’s a place there where the two of us used to play together.

Come, he motions to me and then drops back down out of sight to crawl away.

I think I understand why Yugi is behaving this way. Over the last several days I have been spending more and more time with my father. And I have heard people talking. The things they said about my father are now being said about me as well. People are suspicious, even angry. All of my friends have been staying away from me. No one likes to be talked about behind their back, even when that talk is about harmless things. But when the talk is about bad medicine, about witchcraft—ah, ah! That is terrible.

Now, even to be seen speaking with me in a friendly way might start others talking about him that same way.

Where Yugi hid in those bushes, he could not be seen by anyone who might be walking or riding along the road in front of my mother’s house. It was still a risky thing for him to do, to wake me this early to call me out to meet with him. It may mean that, despite it all, he is still my friend.

I dress quickly.

My mother is already up.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“Yugi,” I say. “I am going to meet him at the Four Bears.”

“Are you sure?” she says. She, too, has been hearing what people are saying and it has worried her. She has not told me to avoid my father. But she has been urging me to be careful.

“I trust Yugi,” I say. “He would never do anything to bring harm to me.”

My words are more certain than my thoughts, but they mollify my mother.

“Go then,” she says. “But eat something first.”

I take the bowl with several corn pones in it and the cup of buttermilk she hands me. I also take a piece of charcoal from the fireplace and put it into my pocket.

As I follow the path that leads to the Four Bears, I think about how often in the past my friend Yugi and I have met there. None of our other friends know about the spot. Yugi and I found it together three years ago. It was such a special place that we decided to keep it our secret. As far as I know, my mother is the only other person who knows where it is. She is the one who told me about its location because it was her special place when she was a little girl.