A bowl of snowmelt steamed on the hearth. The domovaya said briskly, “Take off that shirt; I am going to wash your wounds again.”

Vasya did not want to think about her wounds; she did not want to have flesh at all. Just below the surface of her mind lurked the most howling grief; the memory of death, of violation. She did not want to see those memories scribed on her skin.

The domovaya was not sympathetic. “Where is your courage? You do not want to die of a poisoned wound.”

That at least was true; a slow and horrible death. Before she could lose her nerve, Vasya, wordless, peeled the shirt over her head, stood up shivering in the light from the crumbling roof and looked down at her body.

Bruises of every color: red and black, purple and blue. Cuts latticed her torso; she was glad she could not see her own face. Two teeth were loose; her lips were split and sore. One eye was still half swollen shut. When she raised her hand to her face, she was met with a clotted gash on her cheek.

The domovaya had produced dusty-smelling herbs, honey for bandaging, lengths of clean linen from the chest in the corner. Vasya, staring, said, “Who leaves such things in a locked box in a ruin?”

“I hardly know,” said the domovaya shortly. “They were here, that’s all.”

“Surely you remember something.”

“I don’t!” The domovaya looked suddenly angry. “Why are you asking? Isn’t it enough that it was here, that it saved your life? Sit down. No, there.”

Vasya sat. “I am sorry,” she said. “I was only curious.”

“The more one knows, the sooner one grows old,” snapped the domovaya. “Hold still.”

Vasya tried. But it hurt. A few cuts had closed in their own blood; the domovaya left them alone. But many had been pulled open under the stresses of the night, and she had not got all of the soot and splinters, working by firelight.

But all were bound up and salved at last. “Thank you,” Vasya said, hearing her voice shake. Hurriedly she put on her shirt to shut away the sight of herself, and then rubbed a bit of her charred hair between two fingers. Foul. Tangled, fire-smelling; it would never be clean again.

“Will you cut my hair off? As short as you can,” said Vasya. “I have had enough of Vasilisa Petrovna.”

The domovaya had only a knife to cut with, but she took it up without a word. Hanks of black hair tumbled down, soundless as snow, to be swept out and flung away for the nesting birds. When it was done, the air seemed to whistle strangely past Vasya’s ears and down her neck. Not long ago, Vasya would have wept to lose her black hair. Now she was glad to have it gone. Her long, glossy plait belonged to another girl, in another life.

The domovaya, a little subdued, returned to the iron-bound chest. This time, boy’s clothes appeared: loose trousers and sash, kaftan, even boots—good leather sapogi. They were badly creased, yellowed with time, but unworn. Vasya frowned. Bits of herbs were one thing, but this? Sturdy garments, sewn with a competent hand, out of close-woven linen and thick wool?