“Jane?” she called out when she saw her daughter come bursting out of the woods, hair and eyes wild. Her blue flowered dress was torn. Hattie had sewn the dress herself, as she’d made all their clothes, on her mother’s old treadle sewing machine with fabric ordered from the Sears, Roebuck catalog. Sometimes Hattie splurged and bought them dresses from the catalog, but they were never as comfortable or durable as the ones she sewed.

Hattie lowered the ax.

“Where have you been, girl?” she asked her daughter.

It was a school day, but Hattie had forbidden her daughter from going to school. And last she knew, Jane was gathering kindling in the woods.

Jane opened her mouth to speak, to say, but could not seem to make the words come.

Instead, she burst into tears.

Hattie set down her ax, went to her, wrapped her arms around Jane’s trembling body.

Then she smelled the smoke on Jane’s dress, in her tangled hair.

Even the smoke spoke to her, spun an evil tale.

“Jane? What’s happened?”

Jane reached into the pocket of her dress, pulled out a box of matches.

“I’ve done something wicked,” she said.

Hattie pushed her away, held tight to her arms, searched her face. Hattie had spent her life interpreting messages and signs, divining the future. But her own flesh and blood, her daughter—her mind was closed to Hattie. Always had been.

“Tell me,” Hattie said, not wanting to know.

“Mama,” Jane said, crying. “I’m sorry.”

Hattie closed her eyes. The dogs were coming closer. Dogs and men who were shouting, crashing through the woods. It had always been funny to Hattie how men who’d spent their whole lives moving through these woods, hunting in them, could move so clumsily, without grace, without any trace of respect for the living things they trod upon.

“What will we do?” Jane looked pale and young, much younger than her twelve years. Fear does that to a person: shrinks them down, makes them small and weak. Hattie had learned, over the years, to put her own fears in a box at the back of her mind, to stand tall and brave, to be resilient to whatever enemy presented itself.

“You? You’ll go hide in the root cellar back where the old house used to be.”

“But there are spiders down there, Mama! Rats, too!”

“Spiders and rats are the least of our concerns. They’ll bring you no harm.”

Unlike the men who are coming now, Hattie thought. The men who are close. Getting closer still. If she listened, she could hear their voices, their shouts.

“Cut through the woods to the old place. Climb down into the cellar and bar the door. Open it for no one.”

“But, Mama—”