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door.
    Nigel Hawtrey stared daggers at her. He was British, of African descent, and his position as her executive assistant—and more—did not keep him from expressing his true opinions, a quality she treasured. He said very properly, “Yes, you gave me a start. Proud of yourself? Shall I alert the media?”
    â€œI only wish I could’ve seen your face.”
    â€œYes, well, how did your hunting expedition go?”
    â€œI got what I needed.” She held up the plastic baggy with the severed fingers.
    Nigel’s eyes opened wide. Softly he said, “My God, are those—?”
    â€œThey are. Don’t worry, he still has a full set left, that’s the beauty of it.”
    â€œI thought you were just going after some bauble.”
    She held up the tiny axe. “Got that, too.” Then she sucked in her breath as the blade nicked her skin. A lone drop of blood appeared on her fingertip. “Anyway, let’s get going. I want to stop somewhere in town on the way to my folks.”
    â€œThe town we drove through?” he said as he put the vehicle in gear. “We could stop everywhere and not lose an hour.”
    â€œOh, don’t be so snide. Besides, there’s more going on there than you think. Needsville’s got a lot of secrets.”
    â€œLike the ones you told me about your people?”
    His arch, superior tone usually amused her, but not this time. “Nigel, I know you think you’re funny, but this is no joke. Everything I told you about the Tufa is true. The fact that you don’t believe it doesn’t change that.”
    â€œOh, my cocklebur, but I do. I grew up hearing stories of the Good Folk. I just never supposed they would also be good ol’ boys.”
    She looked out at the trees as he backed the SUV around and pointed it the way they’d come. Fresh snow fell as clouds slid over the sun. “We ain’t that good, my friend,” she said almost to herself. “Not at all.”

 
    3
    Mandalay Harris sat in the back of the school bus, watching the snow come down. School had let out at noon, when it became clear that the snow was going to continue at least sporadically throughout the day.
    She was the last student on the route, and her home was located just down the road from the bus driver’s. So every afternoon, even on an early release day like this, she and Mr. Dalton rode home together, usually in silence except for the AM radio that played the right-wing talk station from Knoxville. He always turned it up loud when it was just the two of them.
    â€œWe live in a fascist state,” the radio voice ranted. “Our government at the highest levels is infested with radical, revolutionary, and in some cases Marxist people that no one elected!”
    â€œDamn right,” Mr. Dalton said to himself.
    Mandalay wondered what all of this meant to the outside world. Her head was so filled with the history of the Tufa, from Radella on down, that it took all her concentration just to make it through the day. Most of the kids in her sixth-grade class were at least partly Tufa, and they understood that she just wasn’t like them. They didn’t hold it against her, but neither did they go out of their way to cross the boundaries that separated them. She couldn’t, and didn’t, blame them; it was hard to look and feel like a child but think like a woman with vast swaths of ancient knowledge.
    All across the county, parents explained to their children, often in vague and unsatisfying ways, why Mandalay was special and had to be treated with deference. Yet she was also just what she appeared to be: a twelve-year-old girl growing up in the twenty-first century. And if that seemed contradictory to the rest of the Tufa, she thought, just imagine how it felt to her.
    When Mandalay was born, her mother had died. That was not unexpected: often, the heads of the clans died passing on their wisdom, experience, and