She knows, of course, that throwing an unexploded shell into a fire is a dangerous thing to do. Her mother has told her about local boys with missing fingers and feet, stupid children who didn’t use their brains to think about the consequences of their actions, and she wishes her mother were here now to tell Marik what to do.

Sasha sees Marik standing on the edge of the fire, his hand extended, every freckle on his face lit orange by the flames. He just stands there, scared to move, as if he were a statue. But in addition to fear, she sees a flicker of pride in his eyes, the pride of being able to hold a live shell, of being as tough as Andrei, of being a man.

“Don’t be a fool,” she screams as loudly as she can, hoping the force of her voice can influence Marik’s next move.

“You don’t have the guts!” Andrei shouts at the top of his lungs, and his words overpower hers. His ushanka hat is clutched in his hand, and she sees his eyes wild with excitement, a black curl of hair dancing on his forehead. “You’re a coward!” he yells. “You’re like a little girl. You can’t even throw a shell into the fire.” Andrei takes a breath and reaches for the sharpest argument of all. “Your father’s politichesky, and he is never coming back.”

“Leave him alone!” she yells at Andrei, whose mouth is a thin, straight line, as if carved in stone and who now almost looks like his father.

“Don’t!” she yells at Marik, who is clasping his fingers around the shell, his eyes white with rage, just as they were at the ice-skating pond last year. The piece of metal in his hand is dark and filled with death, but Marik doesn’t seem scared. He is cuddling it as if it were an egg, as if what he did with the shell might bring his father back.

She knows she shouldn’t be here. Whatever is going to happen belongs to the realm of danger her mother invokes so vividly when Grandpa pins her to the bench and flogs her. She’s not afraid of another flogging, even if it is with nettles. What she’s afraid of is being where she shouldn’t be, within the reach of danger. But she also knows something else, viscerally. She can smell it the same way she can smell Marik’s anger and Andrei’s contempt. She can feel in her bones that Andrei has dug his boots into the marshy ground and Marik is closing his fingers around the shell for the same reason, the reason she refuses to acknowledge, even to herself. She knows why they are fighting, but knowing the cause of this clash doesn’t help her know what to do.