María frowned. Not allowed to talk? She returned her attention to her beans. Despite not eating since yesterday morning, she wasn’t hungry. She was too upset, and she still needed to go pee. She glanced about for a bathroom and discovered one of the nuns looming behind her.

“What’s your name, child?” the woman said. She was younger than Sister Lupita and had a mole on her chin.

“María,” she said.

The nun rapped the handle of a feather duster across her head.

“Ow!” she cried

“What’s your name?”

“Ma—” She remembered. “46!”

The nun lowered the feather duster. “What’s wrong with your food, 46?” she asked.

“I’m not hungry.”

“The Lord has provided you with nourishment, and you shun His generosity?”

“I’m not hungry.”

The nun gripped María by the hair and jerked her head back. She scooped beans onto the spoon and tried to force-feed her as if she were a bird.

María pressed her lips together.

“Open your mouth, 46.”

María kept her lips pressed together in a lipless line.

The nun released her hair and pinched her nose closed.

Pressure built in María’s lungs until she had no choice but to open her mouth. The nun shoveled beans straight to the back of her mouth, forcing her to swallow them. She shoveled in another spoonful, then another, feeding María faster than she could swallow.

María gagged, then coughed, spitting beans at the skinny girl across the table. Then she lurched forward and vomited. Through teary eyes she watched in horror as the nun scooped up some of the sick with the spoon.

“Open up,” she said.

Elizaveta

1

Elizaveta dashed through the rain and wind to the next hut. The interior was dark, shrouded in shadows, and inhabited with more ominous dolls, no two of which were alike. Jack sat next to Rosa on the floor, and it appeared they were playing an English nursery rhyme that involved clapping each other’s hands.

“What are you playing?” she asked them, rubbing her wet arms to generate warmth.

“Jack’s teaching me ‘Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man!’ Rosa said. “He promised to teach me ‘Little Miss Muffet’ next.”

“Jack is a man of many talents,” she said.

“They tell you everything?” he asked her.

Elizaveta nodded. “I can’t believe—” She looked at Rosa, closed her mouth.

“Rosa,” Jack said, “can you go play over there with one of those dolls for a bit? I need to talk to Elizaveta about some adult stuff.”

“Which doll can I play with?”

“Whichever one you want.”

“But they’re all attached to the wall.”

“Here.” He took a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and popped the blade. “Choose one and cut the string. Be careful though.”

“I will!”

She accepted the knife carefully and went to the dolls, where she began examining the ratty things with great deliberation.