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breath, but her vision blurred, making it hard to see when the fox turned to face her, its lips curled back in a snarl. Shaking her head to clear it made her feel woozy, so she almost didn’t notice the fox tensing its muscles to pounce. When she did, she swung at the fox one last time even though she was feeling so light-headed that she was afraid she might faint. She was halfway through her swing when her paws lost their grip on the twig; the tingling had grown until she could feel nothing else.
    Grassina’s entire body shimmered, but she had her eyes closed, so she didn’t see it. Nor did she see the horrified look on the fox’s face when she began to change.
    The fox turned tail and ran when Grassina’s body began to push the thorns aside, breaking some and bending others as she grew. The thorns scratched and bit into her flesh as she returned to her normal size and shape, leaving trickles of blood on her face, hands, and clothes. When the tingling stopped, she felt the thorn-inflicted pain in a rush of sensation that made her cry out. Her eyes fluttered open and she flinched; the thorns were so thick around her that she was afraid to move. Biting her lip at the pain of each new prick and scrape, she pushed the twigs aside as she forced her way through the thicket.
    “Well, I’ll be . . . ,” whispered the little green snake at her feet.
    Grassina looked down. “I can still understand you!” she said. “Now do you believe me? I told you I was a human.” Something rustled in the thicket only a few yards away. After glancing in that direction, Grassina turned back to the snake. “I don’t want to leave you here to get eaten. Come with me and I’ll . . .”
    The snake drew back, rearranging its coils deeper under the protective thorns. “Pleasse don’t try to hurt me! Issn’t it bad enough that my tail iss ssquashed?”
    Grassina was aghast. “I don’t want to hurt you! I have to go home now and see my family, but I don’t want to leave you here. If you go with me, I can keep you safe while your tail heals. You won’t bite me or anything if I pick you up?”
    “Well, you did protect me from that fox,” said the snake. “I ssupposse I can trusst you. But I have to warn you that if you take me with you, my bad luck will come, too.”
    “You don’t need to worry about that,” said Grassina. “I don’t believe in bad luck.” Gritting her teeth, she touched the snake, expecting it to feel cold and slimy. Instead it felt nice, not cool, but not exactly warm either. Its scales were smooth, and it tickled when it slid across her palm and wrapped itself around her wrist.
    “Ssay,” said the snake. “You’re not a witch, are you? You’re not going to sstick me in a kettle with toe of bat and ear of rat or ssome other dissgussting combination?”
    Grassina laughed and shook her head. “You don’t need to worry about me. I don’t have a lick of magic. I told you, I just want to keep you safe.” Pushing aside the last branch, she stepped out of the thicket and stopped to tug her gown free of the thorns. She looked around, afraid of what she might see. The farmer’s field was empty except for a flock of scavenging crows; there was no sign of either her sister or her mother. She would have to go home to find out what had happened to her family.
    Over the years, she had learned enough about magic to realize that because her mother had cast the spell that changed her, Olivene had to be the one to change her back. She had reverted to her human form, so perhaps her mother’s own transformation had been only temporary and she was her normal self again. But if she wasn’t . . . Grassina began to hurry, taking long ground-eating strides as she thought about her father’s disappearance. And then there was Chartreuse. Who knew what their mother might have done to her?
    Grassina would have to tend to the snake first, of course. “Hold on tight. I don’t want to drop you.”
    “I wouldn’t blame you if