Susan pulled the skirt of her dress all the way up to her waist—she did not want the old woman to see dirt or leaves on her clothing when she came back inside, did not want to answer the questions the sight of such smuts might provoke—and crawled beneath the window with her white cotton drawers flashing in the moonlight. Once she was past, she got to her feet again and hurried quietly around to the far side of the hut. Here she found the woodpile under an old, moldy-smelling hide. She took half a dozen good-sized chunks and walked back toward the front of the house with them in her arms.

When she entered, turning sideways to get her load through the doorway without dropping any, the old woman was back in the main room, staring moodily into the fireplace, where there was now little more than embers. Of the drawstring bag there was no sign.

“Took you long enough, missy,” Rhea said. She continued to look into the fireplace, as if Susan were of no account... but one foot tapped below the dirty hem of her dress, and her eyebrows were drawn together.

Susan crossed the room, peering over the load of wood in her arms as well as she could while she walked. It wouldn’t surprise her a bit to spy the cat lurking near, hoping to trip her up. “I saw a spider,” she said. “I flapped my apron at it to make it run away. I hate the look of them, so I do.”

“Ye’ll see something ye like the look of even less, soon enough,” Rhea said, grinning her peculiar one-sided grin. “Out of old Thorin’s nightshirt it’ll come, stiff as a stick and as red as rhubarb! Hee! Hold a minute, girl; ye gods, ye’ve brought enough for a Fair-Day bonfire.”

Rhea took two fat logs from Susan’s pile and tossed them indifferently onto the coals. Embers spiraled up the dark and faintly roaring shaft of the chimney. There, ye’ve scattered what’s left of yer fire, ye silly old thing, and will likely have to rekindle the whole mess, Susan thought. Then Rhea reached into the fireplace with one splayed hand, spoke a guttural word, and the logs blazed up as if soaked in oil.

“Put the rest over there,” she said, pointing at the woodbox. “And mind ye not be a scatterbark, missy.”

What, and dirty all this neat? Susan thought. She bit the insides of her cheeks to kill the smile that wanted to rise on her mouth.

Rhea might have sensed it, however; when Susan straightened again, the old woman was looking at her with a dour, knowing expression.

“All right, mistress, let’s do our business and have it done. Do ye know why you’re here?”