There were no people and, out of sight of the house, no sign that there ever had been. Walking in solitary silence loosened the chokehold of rage and terror and grief on Vasya’s soul. She began to consider the shape of the land and wonder where food might be had.

A breath of wind, incongruously warm, riffled her hair. She was well out of sight of the house now. A patch of dandelion was flowering in a sunlit gap between the trees. Startled, Vasya bent and plucked the leaves. So early? She ate one of the flowers as she walked, chewing gingerly with her sore jaw.

Another patch of dandelions. Wild onion. The sun was over the treetops now. There—young dock, leaves curling. And—wild strawberries? Vasya halted. “It is too early,” she murmured.

It was. And there—mushrooms? Beliye? The tops of their pale heads just showed above a heap of dead leaves. Her mouth watered. She went to cut them, then looked again. One had spots that seemed to glisten strangely in the sun.

Not spots. Eyes. The largest of the mushrooms peered up at her, eyes a livid scarlet. Not a mushroom at all, but a chyert, scarcely the length of her forearm. A mushroom-spirit, glaring, shook himself free of the leaf-litter. “Who are you?” His voice was shrill. “Why have you come into my woods?”

His woods? “Trespasser!” he squeaked, and Vasya realized he was frightened.

“I didn’t know they were your woods.” She showed the chyert empty hands, knelt stiffly so he could see her better. The cold moss soaked through the knees of her leggings. “I mean no harm. I am only looking for food.”

The mushroom-spirit blinked, said, “Not exactly my woods—” and then added, hastily, “But it doesn’t matter; you can’t be here.”

“Not even if I make an offering?” asked Vasya. She put a perfect dandelion down before the creature.

The chyert touched the flower with a grayish finger. His outline solidified; now he resembled a small person more than a mushroom. He looked down at himself, and back at her, in puzzlement.

Then he flung away the flower. “I don’t believe you!” he cried. “Do you think to make me do your bidding? You will not! I don’t care how many offerings you give me. The Bear is free. He says we are striking a blow for ourselves now. If we join him we will make men believe in us again. We will be worshipped again, and have no need to make bargains with witches.”

Vasya, rather than answer, got hurriedly to her feet. “How exactly are you striking a blow for yourselves?” Wary, she looked about her but nothing stirred. There were only birds, flitting, and strong, steady sunlight.

A pause. “We will do great and terrible deeds,” said the mushroom-spirit.

Vasya tried not to sound impatient. “What does that mean?”

The mushroom-spirit threw his head back proudly, but he didn’t actually answer. Perhaps he didn’t know.

Great and terrible deeds? Vasya kept an eye on the silent forest. In the midst of loss and injury and terror, she had not stopped to consider the implications of her last night in Moscow. What had Morozko set in motion by freeing the Bear? What did it mean, for herself, for her family, and for Rus’?