I knew what I thought she should do, but the problem was I wasn’t really privy to the ins and outs of her family. And she didn’t know mine. And nobody really knew the hermit. It was a delicate dance of conflicting constellations of people, all with their different star formations, their patterns of light and dark and gravitational pulls.

“I’ll tell you what, let’s gather the eggs,” I said. “I find that doing something manually often helps to unstick you mentally.”

So we gathered the eggs and then Sina kept finding us small chores to do, which if I were a pettier person, I might think had something to do with me not letting her come in to say good night the night before. We’d just finished sweeping the porch when Miss Macy showed up with a new trial tyke.

“This is Cheryl,” she said to us.

“Hello, Cheryl,” said Sina. “Where is your previous trial tyke?”

“Bit of a washout, that one. Buckled after only six kilometers. Didn’t even want to come on the campout after that. But I’m sure she’ll be fine when they’re done rehydrating her,” said Miss Macy. “In the meantime, Cheryl here is made of stouter stuff, aren’t you, Cheryl? No mere rappelling down cliffside and scrambling over bear dens will extinguish your Brownie bravado, will it?”

Cheryl began to shake. It was becoming the familiar Brownie tell.

“I thought not,” said Miss Macy before Cheryl had a chance to answer. “We’re off to build a fire ring on the site Ermintrude and I found Saturday. There’s a lot to do to prepare for the campout! Onward. Onward we go with compass and bow!”

That is when I noticed they were both wearing bows across their backs.

“Aren’t Brownies a little young for archery?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“You are never too young to defend yourself against a wild beast!” said Miss Macy.

“I hope you brought water this time,” said Sina faintly.

Normally she would have said nothing. She wanted nothing to do with the hearty Girl Guide promulgation, but she didn’t want a property full of small children blowing about like tumbleweeds either.

Winifred and I went back to pacing up and down the length and breadth of the farm, Winifred waffling between wanting to call her mother, wanting to choke the information out of Zebediah, wanting to threaten the hermit, and wanting to wait and hope for the best.

“If Zebediah has gone to see the hermit, he must know by now that we took the letters,” I said.

“Or he suspects the hermit has done away with them. Zebediah is very suspicious. He has never been a trusting soul,” said Winifred worriedly, and picked up the pace. It was an unusually hot day. I sweated, stumbling along behind her, hoping she would come to a conclusion before I looked like a trial tyke myself.