Every face and none, every pair of eyes, every pair of lips, every tooth, every wrinkle, every nose, every hair, each man and woman, child and elder, who had ever lived or would ever live from the beginning of time until its Death.

“She’s mine as much as he’s yours,” said Bluma. “It’s not your choice to make.”

Yehuda Leib’s fingers began to tremble. “Bluma,” he said. “Bluma, I’m frightened.”

“Good,” said Bluma.

Yehuda Leib had spent so much of himself bashing against the cold, razor-sharp fact that he held in his fingers now, and there was nothing he could do, nothing at all, to change it.

Because the darkness shapes the light.

Because the spoon shapes the soup.

Because the dog shapes the herd.

He was so tired.

“Please,” said the Angel of Death. “Let me live.”

And, with a clatter and a sob, Yehuda Leib let the weapon of the Angel of Death fall to the hard bricks of the hearth below.

Chapter Nineteen: Back

Slowly, tucking its instrument into the folds of its black garment, Death rose from its place by the fire.

“If vengeance belonged to me,” said the Angel, its voice flat with suppressed anger, “you may be certain that I would take it now.”

Yehuda Leib was still, exhausted, slumped by the hearth, but Bluma rose heavily to her feet.

“Go. You may not remain in this place.”

Wearily, Bluma turned toward the thin wooden door.

“That path will not avail you,” said the Angel of Death. “For no one may walk in through the door of my house and walk back out it again.”

“Then how can we hope to leave?” said Yehuda Leib.

Death was silent as the grave.

“What about the window?” said Bluma.

Death remained impassive.

Carefully, Bluma went and pushed it open.

“But where are we to go?” said Yehuda Leib.

“Can you point us in the right direction?” said Bluma.

“No,” said the Angel of Death. “There is none. For you have seen my face. And therefore every forward step you take from now until we meet again will carry you in one direction only: further toward me.”

“Very well,” said Bluma. “Then we must not go forward. We must go back.”

“But in which direction?” said Yehuda Leib.

“Oh,” said Bluma, peering through the open window. “As long as you’re moving, the direction matters less than you think. Everyone knows that.”

And, stepping up onto the windowsill, she began to back through. “Are you coming?”

—

From the moment the Angel of Death crossed the river into Tupik until the moment Bluma and Yehuda Leib backed out of Death’s house, only the span of seven terrestrial days—the length of the shivah—had passed. The night is long in the Far Country, and ground is quickly covered in the approach to Death.

But progress is much slower moving backward.