But navigation is strange in the Far Country—the place you end up is far less dependent upon your direction than upon the way in which you go—and the moment Lilith, who ought to have known better, began to chase her, Bluma was halfway home.

Snow was everywhere. She could hear the swift pads of Lilith’s paws gaining behind her, and she ran and she ran and she ran, and soon she was weaving, swerving to avoid crashing into the stones, and there were more and more, thin slabs, grave markers in dense rows and uneven columns, and here the snow was trodden smooth, and there the earth was freshly turned, and before she knew it, she was running past the little iron gate that kept the cemetery out and the town in and her feet were churning the muddy road, and they were carrying her down just the way they always had, every day of her life, down, down, down from the forest and the graves, down toward the light in the window, her front door, and only as she laid her hand on the handle did she realize where she was, and she was tearing back the door, and there, inside, in her father’s bakehouse, the men of Tupik were all assembled.

Swaying, muttering.

Prayer.

One by one, they turned their eyes to her. She was sure that someone would shout out her name, greet her, welcome her, but their eyes slid past her.

A girl—just a girl.

The Nameless Girl was breathing hard, panting in the doorway, and the rabbi grimaced, mimed a shiver, beckoned her inside.

Looking back up the hill, she could see a lithe shape prowling, lurking behind the little cemetery gate. Swiftly, she darted inside and slammed the door behind her.

Someone was reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish.

“Yisgadal v’yiskadash sh’meh rabo.”

May the Great Name be magnified and sanctified.

All the men of Tupik said, “Amen.”

Why were they here? Why were they praying in the bakery instead of the synagogue, as they did every other evening?

Slowly, the Nameless Girl picked her way back through the crowd, farther into the bakery, as the voice that spoke the Kaddish rose high over the swaying heads of the assembled men.

Whose voice was it?

“Y’hei sh’meh rabo m’vorakh l’olam u’l’olmei olmaya.”

May the Great Name be blessed forever, and forever and ever.

It was only once she’d made her way to the very back of the room that she realized—of course.

It was her father mourning her bubbe.

He was standing in the corner near the cold oven, his arms folded, his head down.

He looked so old.

And slowly, as he prayed aloud, he lifted his eyes to look at her.

The Nameless Girl’s heart leapt. There was a moment—just a bare moment—in which her father might’ve recognized her.