If a rabbit crosses your path, follow him and make a circle around him for good luck.

Thump, thump, thump. The sacks hit my back as I ran, jumpin over fallen logs and skirtin rocks.

I never slowed, never slowed for a second until the sounds of gunfire was far behind me.

I run deeper into the woods searchin for a hidin tree where I could sit and watch the trail without anyone seein me. A rabbit scuttled past and dived into an openin in the brush. I dropped to my knees, ducked my head, and crawled in behind it, twigs and vines snappin at my face and stickery burrs clingin to my hair. There weren’t no chance of me circlin round him to catch me some good luck.

Ahead of me, a knob of mossy boulders, patchy with ferns, stood near a pool. A thin stream run down the biggest rock and dripped into the dark water. The rabbit stopped, slowly lapped at the water, then hopped away.

The sacks slid off my shoulders and dropped to the ground. I sank next to them and felt grateful for the cool and the quiet. Then I saw it. A small dipper gourd, twine tied through its handle, set beside the pool.

My fingers run acrost the inside of the gourd and felt water. Someone had just been here, drunk from this dipper, and left quick. I searched the ground for footprints, hopin it had been Zenobia and the runaway, but found nothin, nary a hint of who’d been here.

I drunk my fill, then rubbed myself with a handful of wild mint to keep the skeeters and flies from eatin at me. The scuppernong, climbin up and over the bushes and into the trees, hung with fat clusters of brown-green fruit. I picked and picked, stuffin them into my mouth—six, seven, ten at a time, just like the greedy jay at the top of the tree.

Zzzip. A mite of a hummingbird wearin a bright-red collar flew up and down the stalks of cardinal flowers just beginnin to open. I watched, losin myself in the doins of the tiny bird. He hovered near the ground and snapped up a midge, and then I saw it. A sign.

White pebbles was laid like an arrow, pointin toward a nearly invisible grassy trail leadin into the heart of the woods. Did the runaway boy leave it there for me to foller?

The arrow. Should I go the way it pointed or choose my own path?

“Mama, what should I do?” I asked.

My feet wanted me to go in another direction, but my heart—and I can’t never be sure my heart is right—made me foller where the arrow pointed. I lifted up my sacks, tucked the gourd inside so’s no one would guess anyone had been here, and walked toward the trail.

I looked back, checked to make sure I hadn’t left anythin behind, then kicked the arrow apart and patted the sack to feel for my Hannah doll.

The wind stirred the trees, and I smelt the comin rains and heard the plashin on the leaves afore I felt the first drops. Then, all aslant from the east come a curtain of rain. Rain were good for my travelin—it kept folks indoors, and it washed away my scent. I hummed quietly, then sang to myself, “Rains from the east, three days of rain at least.” I guessed I could stand the rain if it kept me safe. Safe or not, my wet clothes and wet hair made me shiver, though I felt burnin hot inside.

The rain fell harder. Nobody would hear me or see my footsteps today. The trail dipped into a holler and disappeared. What if someone, the someone who had left the gourd behind, were hidin, waitin down there for me? My body wanted to move, but it felt like my feet was spiked into the trail. I bent over, picked up a rock, and held tight to it as I walked to the edge of the holler and looked down.

Plonk. A pebble bounced off my back and rolled away. Plonk, another hit on my shoulder. I turned just in time to see a young red-haired boy, in torn brown pants and a bright-blue shirt, runnin away.