And only each other: When one stumbled, the other reached out a steadying arm. When one wearied, the other lifted. When one thought they might lose their mind in the endless monotony of backing away, there was the face of the other, just as bored, just as weary, just as determined.

On and on.

Back and back.

Week after week.

Month after month.

Step after step after step after step.

After some time, the grass beneath their feet began to give way to a wide plain covered in sodden black clothing: coats and dresses, hats and head scarves, trousers, stockings, shirts, and shifts, everywhere, as far as the eye could see, dripping with water, twisted, intermingled on the ground.

Before they knew it, there was no grass visible between them and the horizon at all, only the twisted shapes of empty black clothing that squelched and squashed beneath their feet.

On they went.

On and on.

Month after month.

Step after step.

Now the air began to chill, the clothing to freeze, their bare feet to pink and shrink in the cold.

Slowly, the snow began to fall.

On and on, back and back, as the snow accumulated all around.

Soon it became difficult to ignore the shapes on the ground, the dark clothing drawn into relief by the highlights of ice and snow.

The twisted arms seemed to reach out for them, the fingers of gloves to point.

But on they went.

On and on.

And soon there were no shapes at all discernible beneath the snow: only drifts of white that rose and fell, hills and valleys as far as the eye could see.

On and on.

Back and back.

Harder the snow fell, harder and harder, thickening the air with white.

Backward and back, step after step.

The wind was howling.

“Bluma?” called Yehuda Leib.

“Yehuda Leib?” called Bluma.

Somewhere, a bell was ringing.

Arms reached out into the dim white emptiness.

And then, together, as if their heels had caught on the same raised threshold, they fell back.

From the moment they left Death’s house until the moment they fell, the span of one terrestrial year—the length of the Kaddish—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 on the way back.

—

With a crunch, Bluma and Yehuda Leib fell side by side onto the snow. Somewhere, a bell had been ringing; its humming decay lingered in the air like the warm scent of last night’s fire.

Where they found themselves now, the snowfall had long since stopped, sitting and setting, melting and freezing, until everything in the little glade seemed to be glazed with ice.

Where were they?