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Emaleen was allowed to leave the cabin only in an emergency, and then she was supposed to go straight to the lodge and find a grown-up and it would be a big deal and she and her mom might get in trouble. Aunt Della didn't like it that Emaleen sometimes stayed by herself in the cabin, even though she wasn't a baby.

That's how come she didn't cry, and that's how come she didn't go to the lodge. Instead, she got dressed. She and her mom had gone to the laundromat in Alpine yesterday, so her favorite outfit was all clean and smelled nice—the purple T-shirt and the yellow corduroy pants that were the same pretty color as dandelions. Once she was dressed, she opened the drawer to the nightstand and took out the silver thimble where Thimblina lived. A long time ago, she lost Thimblina under her pillow and she couldn't find her for days and days, and when she did find her, the thimble was under the bed with the spiders and dust mites that you couldn't see but Emaleen knew were down there and it was disgusting and scary and she felt bad for Thimblina. So now at night time, she put Thimblina carefully in the drawer so she would be safe and not get lost.

It's okay, Emaleen said to Thimblina, except she didn't say it out loud because Thimblina was imaginary, so you could talk with her inside your head and she'd still be able to hear you. I'm going to make us hot cocoa. Don't worry, Mommy will come home soon.

If you weren't very careful, you could burn yourself on the teapot that plugged into the wall, so you had to be super-duper careful. Emaleen scooped hot cocoa powder out of the tin and put it into her cup that was pretty and white with pink roses on it. Emaleen wished she had a tiny little cup for Thimblina, but instead she pretended to pour hot cocoa into an invisible cup, which was okay because Thimblina was invisible too.

Emaleen set the table with their hot cocoa, and a spoon and a paper towel napkin for each of them, and she tried to drink her hot cocoa slowly and she tried not to think about where her mom was going or how fast she might be walking. But she couldn't help it. She looked out the window toward the place in the woods where her mom had gone, and the knot down by her belly button squirmed and grew until she couldn't take it anymore. She stood up and put Thimblina in the pocket of her corduroy pants. She had real toys, like a plastic baby doll and Ernie, who said "Rubber Duckie you're the one" when you pulled the string on his back, but Thimblina was the best because she was a secret. You could carry her in your pocket wherever you went, and you could talk to her inside your head and nobody knew. Big kids didn't make fun of you and grown-ups didn't ask you embarrassing questions like, "What's your doll's name?"

Emaleen looked out the window again, and then she walked across the one-room cabin to the other side of the bed, and then back to the window again, back and forth, back and forth, four, five, six. Grandma Jo said this was pacing, and grown-ups did it when they were upset or worried. It wasn't working, though. She was still worried, and if she only stayed here and paced, her mom might get so far away that she wouldn't ever be able to catch up with her. So she put on her water boots, in case she had to wade across any puddles or creeks. And she put on her ball cap so the mosquitoes wouldn't bite the top of her head. And then she peeked out the window one last time, hoping to see her mom, but when she didn't, she opened the door and ran fast as a rabbit around the back of the cabin so nobody like Aunt Della or Clancy would see that she was breaking the rules.

Emaleen's mom knew how to do lots of things. She could start a campfire without even any gasoline. She could swim and use a pocketknife and shoot guns and drive a truck with a stick, even though Emaleen wasn't sure what that meant. Her mom also knew all about wild animals, and she would never get lost in the woods because she knew which way to the mountains and which way to the highway and which way to the river.

Emaleen wasn't scared about any of that. The reason Emaleen was scared, the reason she needed to catch up with her mom as fast as she could, was a secret she couldn't tell anybody, not even Thimblina, because it made her feel ashamed. Like she'd told a lie or ruined something.

Emaleen found a branch that had fallen out of a cottonwood tree, but when she whacked it on the ground, it broke into three pieces. So she walked farther behind the cabin until she found a better stick that didn't break when she whacked it on the ground.

If she saw a moose she would be like the polite elephant and get out of the way fast. And if she saw a bear, she wouldn't never ever run, because Grangma Jo said that only makes bears want to chase you. Instead, she would yell real loud and wave her arms, and if the bear tried to bite her, she would hit it with the stick. She didn't let herself think about the witches because she didn't think being polite or yelling or whacking sticks would work against them.

Emaleen was out of breath when she made it to the path into the woods, so she stopped to rest, and she looked back toward the lodge. Nobody was outside and if somebody was looking out a window, they wouldn't be able to see her now because she was hidden in the trees. She liked that feeling, like how Thimblina must feel in her pocket, where nobody can see you and you're a secret. She turned back into the woods and started following the path. It was quiet and darkish because the spruce trees were close together. Uncle Syd had sawed away some of the branches so you wouldn't get scratched by their needles.