I looked back, puzzled by the shock in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“This is a blight ward. The entire Edge is strewn with them.” He eyed a cannon peeping from the tall grass. The trunk of a young larch tree had grown around its barrel. “The ground here is likely still filled with unexploded ordnance.”

“Relax, Galina and I pass through here all the time.” To prove my point, I took a few steps backward until I tripped over a rolling object and fell onto my buttocks.

“Toma.” Mikhail stepped forward then froze as I picked up the offending item. Composed entirely of brass, it was shaped like a bottle and small enough to fit in my hand, the metal corroded to such a degree that it had scaled. His face grew even paler. “By the Three.”

“I hate these,” I said, rising to my feet. “Galina digs them up all the time.”

“D-don’t drop that.”

I cocked my head. “What’s the matter?”

“That’s a bomb!”

“I know, but don’t worry. I’ve never had one explode before.”

“Just hand it to me. Slowly.”

I held it out to him, baffled by his reaction.

Drawing in a shaky breath, Mikhail took the brass shell from me and turned it around in his hands with infinite care. “Grozniy ordnance... It’s from the war.”

He scanned the field, his brow furrowed as he took in the sight of the overgrown trenches. A shadow crossed over his face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Can you give me your knife?”

Curious, I relinquished it readily. He inserted the tip of the blade under the brass plate at the top of the device and carefully wiggled it free. For someone who had seemed so frightened by the explosive, he was certainly eager to tamper with it. When he upturned the metal bottle, bits of corroded metal and brown dust fell into his hand.

“The powder’s spoiled,” he murmured, rubbing the grit between his fingers. “And this pitting on the metal... You’d think that it’s at least eighty years old, not just ten. It almost looks...”

“Like what?”

“Like something’s eaten away at it.” He allowed the explosive to fall to the ground and handed my knife back to me. Stepping deeper into the field, he scanned the overgrown trenches.

Through the tall grass, I caught a glimpse of a skull with purple wildflowers blooming through the socket, and knew that yet more skeletons waited farther in. Each spring and autumn, torrential rainfall would lure more bones to the surface, even as far back as my family’s own izba.

Mikhail stopped at the cannon, running his hand along the barrel. It flaked to rust beneath his fingertips, and in one section, his index finger punched through up to the first knuckle. His face darkened as he regarded the reddish dust gathered in his palm.

“I think it must be the winters here,” I said. “They’re very damp and cold.”

“No, that wouldn’t have caused this. Not in just ten years.” Mikhail turned away from me, but not before I caught the storm brewing in his gaze. He hitched up his rucksack and continued walking. “This was the work of a koldun.”