The sound of an approaching horse pulled Sira from her exhausted sleep. She sat up and realized that mud clung to her hair, face, and clothes. The calf stood between her and the front of the shelter.
"There you are," a male voice said. A lasso spun through the air, landed over the calf's head, and tightened on its neck. "Come along. Your mother is near frantic. Her udder will probably explode if you don't nurse soon. If we don't hurry. I'll be late for school."
The horse and rider backed away, drawing the calf with it. Sira rose on shaking legs and tried to brush the mud off her.
"Hey. What have we here?" Booted feet thumped to the ground, and Sira looked up to see one of the boys from the bus standing in front of her. He ran his hand through his sandy-blond hair, and his face twisted into a puzzled smile. "Hi. My name's Todd. Welcome to the Echo Z Ranch. Are you okay? I mean . . ." He looked around the empty range and then back at her. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"
Sira pushed her mud-plastered hair out of her face and spoke with a shaking voice. "I-I'm Sira Springmorning, and I will be in trouble if my father catches up to me."
Todd took a step back. "Are you a witch?"
"No." Sira picked up her shopping bags, hoping the clothes inside them were better off than she was. If she could get Todd to go away, she could wash in the trough and change. After that—she wasn't sure. She'd have to find a place of her own, somewhere where her father wouldn't be able to reach her. His Majesty might help her, but she feared to call him. He might just as easily punish her for her father's rebellion.
"But your place is haunted. I seen the ghost in the garden myself." Todd fiddled with his horse's reins like he'd prefer to mount up and ride away rather than talk to Sira.
Sira nodded, surprised and troubled. "You could call it haunted, if you like. My mother's spirit stayed with the land when she died. I always feel her in the garden, but I've never seen her. Why would she show herself to you and not me?"
Todd snorted. "To scare the daylights out of me, I'm sure. And it worked. Ain't never snuck back to your place since."
"Not my place," Sira said, licking the gritty mud from her lips. "My father's place. I'm on my own now."
"You've run away?" Todd said.
The calf mooed and butted Todd with its head.
"Yes," Sira said. "My father wouldn't let me go back to school."
"Oh, School." Todd glanced over his shoulder and rubbed his hands on his jeans. "Boy, am I going to be in trouble if I miss the bus. Why don't you come back to the house with me? Maybe I can convince my father to let you stay here on the ranch. But I'm warning you, it's no free ride staying here. Everyone has to work hard."
"I'm a good worker," Sira said. "I know all about planting, harvesting, caring for animals, cooking, cleaning, repairing fences, and all that. Do you think your parents might let me work for them, and," she bit her lip, "give me time off to go to school?"
"Of course they'd let you go to school. It's the law," Todd said. "Why don't you climb up on Sparky with me, and we'll go find out." He motioned to the dun-colored horse.
"You sure you don't mind?" Sira adjusted her bags and stepped toward Sparky.
"You sure you're not a witch?" Todd took the bags from her hands and motioned for her to mount.
"Well, I . . ." Sira's mind flew across everything she knew about what humans called witches. She didn't want to admit to anything, but couldn't bring herself to lie to Todd when he had freely offered her his help. Besides, when she looked into his eyes, she couldn't help liking him. Then again, if she told the truth he might not help her after all. "I can sense magic, if that's what you mean," she blurted out. "But I haven't got any real power . . . yet."
Todd let out a half-crazed laugh. "You are a witch."
Sira frowned. "Not everyone who understands magic is a witch. I mean, don't witches do bad magic that always hurts people. I don't do anything like that. I can talk to plants and animals and feel their life force. That's all. No spells. No flying on a broom." Sira stopped. Her father had warned her not to speak of their power or existence to humans. Now she'd disobeyed him, as if running away wasn't bad enough.
Todd squinted at her with a disbelieving look. "So you can tell me what Sparky says?"
"Sparky." Sira reached past Todd and rubbed her hand down the horse's neck. "What do you think of Todd?"
The horse neighed its answer.
Sira laughed. "He says he wants to bite you in the butt."
Todd whirled to face the horse and covered his backside with the bags he held in his hands. "Now, I believe that. Sparky's tried to bite me twice today already. You tell him I won't give him any oats if he tries it again."
Sparky pinned his ears back and wrinkled his nose, showing his teeth.
"That's the problem," Sira said. "You've forgotten to give him oats twice already this week, and you refused to give him your apple yesterday."
"That apple was for my lunch." Todd let out a heavy breath and looked at his watch. "We better go. Climb on."
Sira asked Sparky's permission and then slipped up onto his back. Todd handed her the bags and climbed up into the saddle behind her. His warm human arms wrapped around her to position the reins. She felt no tingle of magic. Just skin and clothing. A refreshing feeling after the smothering power her father had wrapped around his property.
Todd eased the calf alongside, and they headed out at a fast walk, striding over the tall grass, past the sage brush, and along a fence until a ranch house and barn came into view. It was a long, one-story house with yellow clapboard siding. A couple of cabins stood out beside it, and a two story barn that dwarfed the house, making it clear that more of the Echo Z's resources went to caring for the animals than the humans.
Todd unwound the rope from the saddle horn, jumped down, and led the calf over to a corral where its mother waited. Sira slid off Sparky's back and promised him an apple just as soon as she could get her hands on one. He nibbled at the bottom of her shirt in a gesture of friendship.
Todd came back to her and pointed at one of the cabins. "That's the maid and the cook's house. Ladies only. The other one's for the male ranch hands. We can set up an extra bunk for you in with the ladies. We should go talk to my parents first, and we better make it fast, because the bus'll be here in an hour and we both have cleaning up to do." He brushed at the dust on his jeans.
Todd had just gotten the saddle off Sparky, and Sira was brushing him when Possum cantered into the yard and over to the stable where they worked. "No luck," he called. "That darned calf must be halfway to Wyoming by now."
Todd waved and pointed to the coral where the calf sucked contentedly on its mother's udder. "I told you he'd go back down to that shelter where he was born."
Possum gave him a nasty glare.
Todd laughed and let Sparky into the stall. He gave the horse a portion of oats and then led Sira up to the main house. Sira hesitated on the front porch beside a yellow swing. She wondered if these humans could hurt her. She'd come a long way from home and felt too weak to Walk the Light again.
"Don't worry about your muddy shoes. We've got a tile entryway for that very thing. Can't be a true rancher without getting dirt on your feet, my father always says." He pushed open the door and let Sira into the house.
Sira stepped inside, feeling awkward. Her own front door had been hand-carved from mahogany, but this one was made from pressed wood fibers. Beyond the tile entry a synthetic green shag carpet hugged the floor. The house smelled like human sweat, mildew, and decay, save for the aroma of pancakes coming from farther inside.
Todd kicked off his boots into a disorganized pile of other footwear. "Dad, Mom," he called.
Sira took off her mud-covered sandals and set them neatly against the wall. A human couple came into the room. The man, with shoulders so broad they could belong on a grizzly, had his arm around a skinny woman with long yellow hair.
"You find that stray calf?" the man said, his voice sounding like a grizzly as well.
"Two strays actually," Todd said. "The calf's in the coral with its mother and this—" he pointed to Sira, "—is Sira Springmorning. She got a bit lost in the storm last night and ended up here. Sira, this is my father, Jefferson McKinney, and stepmother, May."
Sira opened her mouth to protest that she'd never said anything about being lost, but Todd's father spoke first. "The Springmorning place is a long way from here."
"Sir," Sira said, clasping her hands in front of her. "I came to see if you would hire me to work on your ranch. My father won't let me go to school and I . . ." She bit her lip and looked down at her toes.
"You're a little young to be off on your own?" Mrs. McKinney said.
"I'm a good worker," Sira said.
"I bet you are." Mr. McKinney rubbed a twisted array of whiskers on his chin and looked at May.
"That's not the point," Mrs. McKinney said, frowning. "If you've been gone since last night, your father will be worried about you. He'll probably have called the police to help search."
"No." Sira took a step forward and shook her head. "He would never call the police."
"If he did, they'd probably just take her and put her in foster care," Todd spoke up. "He won't let her go to school. You know he keeps her locked up there. If you send her back, who knows what he'll do to her. Besides, we could sure use some more help around here."
The big grizzly-bear-man frowned, but May's eyes softened. "Maybe we should let her stay here, Jefferson. Just for a little while."
"Terrific," Todd said, just as Possum opened the front door.
"I get the shower first." Todd lit off down the hall with Possum yelling in pursuit.
"Franny," May called, walking back toward the kitchen. "Let me finish those eggs and hotcakes. You take our new help out to the cabin and get her settled."
An older human woman with a green apron and frizzy gray hair hurried out to where Sira still stood, clutching her bags. "Oh, who's this?" she said in a kind but gravely voice.
"Sira Springmorning," Mr. McKinney said.
Franny's eyebrows jumped up to hide behind her bangs. "Dear little Sira. Last I saw you were just a little girl in your mother's arms."
"You knew my mother?" Sira said, confused. She wondered how many human friends her mother had before she died.
"Hard to believe, I know," Franny said, "since your father shut out the whole world after she died. A sorry thing that. I used to pick up things from town every once in a while for your mother." Franny rubbed her greasy hands on the apron, opened the front door, and slipped outside then poked her head back in. "You coming, Sira?"
"Better hurry," Mrs. McKinney said. "The school bus will be here soon."
"Thank you," Sira said, curtseying to Todd's parents. "You won't regret this." Snatching up her sandals, she rushed outside and followed Franny to the cabin. Inside consisted of three rooms: a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bunk room.
"Go clean up," Franny said. "I'll make some room in the closet for your things."
Sira went into the small bathroom. Other than the size, it wasn't so different from her own, but then the Aos Si had come up with indoor plumbing long before the humans figured it out.
She showered and dried off, noticing in the mirror that her hair had gone back to its usual dancing curls in the absence of the straightening iron. The beauty shop hadn't had anything but electrical ones, though Sira figured she could make one that would heat easily enough on their coal stove. Except she was no longer home, and the McKinneys relied on electricity like most humans.
Sira stared at the rectangular plate on the wall with its little face-like indents for the plugs. Laurel had explained the electric hair straightener to her at the beauty shop and showed her how it plugged in. Maybe if Sira worked hard enough, the McKinneys would pay her some money so she could buy a straightener.
Wrapping up in a towel, Sira abandoned the mirror and went into the bunk room in search of her clothes and hairbrush. Franny helped her find an outfit from the bags that wasn't too wet from the rainstorm.
"I'll wash the others and hang them up to dry while you're at school," Franny said. "Did you get breakfast?"
Sira shook her head and made sure her pens, pencils, and notebooks were in her backpack. She heard the rumble and hiss of the bus as it stopped on the street in front of the house. The bus driver honked the horn, making Sira jump.
Franny ran to the kitchen, grabbed a brown paper bag and stuffed it with food. "Here," she said, pressing it into Sira's hand as she went out the door. "See you after school."
Sira met Todd in the yard, and they ran over to the bus together followed by Possum.