“So you didn’t tell her about us at all?” Huck asked.

She shook her head.

“We didn’t tell our mom either,” Jackie said. “We didn’t think she’d like that we go far and on other people’s land.”

Other children kept secrets from their mothers, too. She felt better about not telling Mama.

As they waded downstream, she saw why the boys walked in the water to get to the swimming hole. Both shores were thickets of blackberry thorns and shrubs that made land walking impossible. She had never walked so far downstream.

After a long stretch of shallow water rippling over rocks, then a deeper bend, Raven stopped when she saw the strange thing ahead. The boys grinned at her surprise.

In the middle of another wide, shallow riffle was a stack of objects topped by a small humanlike shape.

“It’s better from the front,” Jackie said.

She followed the boys to the other side of the thing Jackie had called “wolfsbane.” Placed in the middle of the stream were two plastic milk crates, one blue, one red. On top was a boxy thing with broken glass in front. A TV, she guessed, because she’d seen them in pictures in books. Inside the broken TV was a deer skull with only one antler. On top of the TV was a rusty black microwave oven with a shattered glass door. And on top of that was a stone woman. She was carved to look like she was wearing a gown that draped over her hair down to her bare feet. She held her arms out with her palms up, but one arm was broken off at the elbow. The other shoulder had a piece missing. The woman used to be light gray, but now she was mostly green, covered in moss.

“Reece, Huck, and I made this last year,” Jackie said. “To scare the werewolf away. Reece calls it the Wolfsbane because it’s like that stuff in movies that scares away werewolves.”

“Not stuff, ” Huck said. “Wolfsbane is a plant.”

Raven didn’t understand any of what they were saying. She felt small in the presence of the stack that stood taller than Huck. The stone lady’s green face was the part Raven couldn’t stop looking at.

“The dog was chasing us down the stream,” Jackie said. “We ran over there,” he said, pointing into the woods, “and found a big pile of junk. There’s an old car and we hid inside it. But the dog was gone by then.”

Raven couldn’t see the car or junk he was talking about.

“This is where Hooper’s land ends and yours begins,” he said. “We built this to be like a jinx to keep the dog away from where we like to swim.”

“Reece and I built it,” Huck corrected. “Because you were so scared and wanted to go home. We had to do something to keep you with us.”

“I was not so scared,” Jackie said.

“You were,” Huck said, laughing. “You nearly peed your pants.”

“Shut up!” Jackie said.

“It’s okay,” Huck said. “That dog would scare the pee out of anyone.”

Raven looked more closely at the stone lady. Her eyes were looking downward, almost closed.

“Reece found the broken Madonna in the garbage,” Jackie said. “That was how he got the idea to make the Wolfsbane. Because she would scare away evil spirits.”

Raven pointed to the green woman. “This is called Madonna?”

Huck grinned. “You don’t know who Madonna is?”

“No.”

“She’s the mother of Jesus. Don’t tell me you don’t know who Jesus is.”

She shook her head.

“Oh my god!” he said.

“Ignore him,” Jackie told Raven.

It was impossible to ignore. There were so many things she didn’t understand. And she couldn’t ask Mama because she dared not tell her about the boys.

“Do you like it?” Jackie asked.

She sized up the stack of objects, from crates to deer skull to the Madonna. She didn’t like it and she didn’t not like it. It was strange, maybe a little bit frightening.

“I think it’s good to scare away something,” she said.

“I know, right?” Jackie said. “We never saw the werewolf again since we built it. It totally worked!”

“I think the werewolf died,” Huck said. “It’s chased Reece and me for two years, and it suddenly disappeared.”

“Because of the Wolfsbane,” Jackie said.

It was a kind of Asking, Raven realized. She liked it more now that she knew what it was.

“I’m going home,” Huck said.

Baby’s soft begging sounds grew louder.

“You coming?” Huck asked.

“I’m gonna help her find bugs for the bird first,” Jackie said.

“Don’t stay too long,” Huck said. “If Mom asks where you are, I’ll say you’re outside. But if she notices you’re gone, it’s your problem.”

Jackie and Raven found insects and fed them to Baby. At first, they talked only a little. But she was afraid he would go away if she didn’t say things. She asked him why he wasn’t at school, and he said he was on summer vacation. He seemed surprised she didn’t know about that.

“Your mom doesn’t tell you much, does she?”

Mama told her about much more than he knew. A world he could not see. But Raven was beginning to realize she didn’t know much of anything about Jackie’s world.