But he was revolted to find that what had seemed warm and rich was, in fact, tepid and fusty, like ancient green pond water, and it neither filled his belly nor soothed his throat.

And yet, time after time, he found himself going back for more. The aroma was unbelievably tempting.

Gradually, his head began to swim.

What was happening?

Where was he?

What was all this?

“But the swarming in the cemetery is hardly the reason to go, my lord,” said the steward. “Just think of what might be accomplished if one managed to capture the Rebbe! Why, if you could corrupt him in place, he could spread your avarice among all his followers. You might even be able to accumulate property in the living lands. Or you could choose to hold him as a commodity, my lord! I needn’t tell you how many others desire the advantage of the Rebbe. What price might he command?”

Lord Mammon held up the palm of one clammy hand as if to say, Spare me.

At just that moment, he was half occupied with the small, squirming leather sack that only moments ago had lain on the table. This turned out to contain a tiny, protesting Englishman in a neat frock coat and top hat. How he had come to be here—or come to be this size, for that matter, no larger than a chicken drumstick—was unclear.

What was abundantly clear, however, was that he was rather displeased.

He said so as Lord Mammon knocked the hat from his hand and absently seated it on his thumb like a thimble; he said so as Lord Mammon pinned him to the altar like a captive butterfly; he said so as Lord Mammon took the gentleman’s intricate measure (from circumference, head all the way down to width, shoe); and he was still saying so—albeit significantly more frantically—as Lord Mammon dangled him by the leg high above his toothy maw, dropped him in, and began to munch.

This accomplished, he turned his attention back to his steward.

“Of course the swarming is not the reason to go,” said Mammon, his mouth full of Englishman. “But in order to get to the Rebbe of Zubinsk, it is necessary to make one’s way through all the accumulated scum in the cemetery. And once the day of the wedding dawns, it shall be, what, a footrace to reach the old man first? I am no good in a footrace, Steward, and I don’t like losing.”

The steward gave his head a tight little shake. “No, my lord.”

“This tastes awful.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The Rebbe of Zubinsk. Yehuda Leib had heard him spoken of many times before—a great miracle worker. If only he could manage to make it out of Tupik and through the woods, perhaps the Rebbe could help him stoke the dwindling fire of his father back to life.

But Yehuda Leib wasn’t in Tupik.