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an’ didn’t take kindly to folks comin’ in to see how she was doin’. (An’ any time folks don’t tell all they know an’ throw open their doors to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, then they gets stories told ’bout them.) Miss Elvery was a good, God-fearin’ woman as had mighty bad luck most of her born days—she weren’t never no witch!”
    The force of Grandma’s voice silenced Judy. But Mrs. Pigot had not said that Miss Elvery was a witch, but that she—or her family—had been cursed by one. However, Holly decided, this was not the time to try to correct the story. It was too plain that Grandma did not want to talk about it.
    In fact, she bustled about after their supper as if shewanted to see them all in bed and out from under her feet as soon as possible. And she fairly hurried them upstairs to show them what she explained had once been the coachman’s quarters plus the old barn loft, but which had now been divided into small rooms, each of which was just about big enough to hold a bed, a chair, and a tall cabinet which Mom explained was called a wardrobe and which people used to hang their clothes in before closets were a regular part of the house. There was a washstand in each room, too—no bathroom. Holly regarded the basin and jug on the top of her and Judy’s washstand with a return of rebellion. A house without a bathroom—having to wash in water you lugged upstairs and then probably down again. She was almost ready to explode but when she saw Mom’s tired face, she remembered Crock’s warning and did not spill out her sense of outrage.
    She and Judy shared what must have been a larger room. It was shivery cold, so they undressed hastily and pulled on the warm pajamas Grandma had unpacked and laid out on the bed for them. There was a lamp on the top of a chest of drawers and Mom warned them not to touch it; she would come for it later.
    â€œI like a junkyard,” Judy said when they had finished their prayers and were settled under blankets which were old but soft. “I like Grandma and Grandpa, and I’m glad we came here.”
    Holly said nothing. She was listening, not to Judy’s voice but to the wind, which sounded far closer in its howling up here than it did down by the fire. There were strange creaksand rustles, too. She supposed that was part of being such an old house—barn—because this one was well over a hundred years old, Grandpa had told them. But she did not want to be sleeping in an old barn—she wanted to be home in her own bed—in her own bed—Then, in spite of wind, creaks, and all the rest, Holly went to sleep.
    Mom brought up a big copper jug of hot water in the morning and saw that they washed, but she told Holly that after today it would be her responsibility. Because Mom was leaving on the morning bus for Pine Mount. Holly tried to shove that out of her mind. She had known from the start that Mom would be away. But then that had been in the distance, a time she did not have to face. Now that time was here. She put on jeans and a sweater over her shirt, and then made her bed and helped Judy finish hers, hoping if she kept busy she wouldn’t have any time to think about Mom’s going.
    There were quilts for spreads, and Holly thought, as she smoothed hers up over her pillow, that they brightened up the room as the lamp had done the night before. Outside the window it looked as gray and cold as if time had skipped forward two months very fast and it was already winter—even though there was no snow.
    Downstairs Grandma stood by the stove, flipping pancakes over expertly.
    â€œNothin’ like a soapstone griddle,” she was telling Mom. “All them new things runnin’ off’n ’lectricity—they’s always breakin’ up or down, or somethin’. You don’t get no trouble with a griddle like this one, no sirree!”
    The pancakes came