Slowly, the dark stranger climbed up the riverbank. His coat was black—blacker than the night, blacker than the darkness hidden inside your eyes. On his head he wore a hat, tipped forward, also black, with a brim so wide that it hid nearly all of his face.

The gait of the dark stranger was heavy, weary, and slow, and when he reached the top of the riverbank, he stopped not six feet from where Yehuda Leib stood.

The low fire in Mottke’s shack flickered and flared, sending spasms of warm light out into the cold blue dim. Yehuda Leib stared, trying to make out the face of the stranger beneath the brim of his hat.

“Yehuda Leib,” said the dark stranger, his lips curling into a grin. “It is a pleasure to see you.”

“A-Avimelekh?”

Yehuda Leib’s heart was beating very quickly.

“No,” said the stranger.

“How do you know my name?”

“I am a Messenger. I have been to many places and spoken with many people.”

“And who told you my name?”

The Dark Messenger shook his head. “I do not repeat what is spoken to me.”

Yehuda Leib’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you’re not Avimelekh?”

The Messenger nodded. “Yes. And it would be better to save your breath than to ask me a question twice. I have never told a lie.”

Yehuda Leib tried to swallow, but he couldn’t quite manage it.

“I wonder, Yehuda Leib,” said the stranger, “if you wouldn’t accompany me into town. My list of errands is long—so very, very long—and it is rare that I have any company on my way.”

Yehuda Leib’s gut squirmed as if it were trying to escape. The stranger did not look like a man accustomed to refusal.

“All right,” said Yehuda Leib, and the dark stranger smiled.

Yehuda Leib began to walk up the sloping market road, and the stranger fell in beside him.

“Where do you go?” said Yehuda Leib.

“I have an errand in Tupik,” said the stranger. “But thereafter I go to Zubinsk. A wedding is to be given in that place to which all have been invited, without exception.”

“The Rebbe’s granddaughter,” said Yehuda Leib.

“Yes,” said the stranger. “I have been at my errands long now—perhaps longer than may be borne. I feel I deserve a reprieve, and the joy and celebration of a wedding seems just the thing. But the far better question, Yehuda Leib, is this: Where will you go once you have left Tupik?”

Yehuda Leib sighed. “If it were up to me, I would stay in Tupik forever.”

The stranger shook his head. “No man lives forever.”

“For all the days of my life, then.”

“And why in Tupik?”

This was a question to which Yehuda Leib had been trying to find the answer all night.

“Because it’s my home. Because I can feel it.”

“What do you mean?”