And then it happened. Ettie stopped in her tracks when the shot rang out, but her sister had already entered into the World to Come. It was not a miracle, it happened every day, it was the rising of a soul. That was how quickly a life could be lost, in the time it took to breathe in and breathe out. All that was left was the beautiful husk of who she had been, crumpled in the grass.

Ava could not follow them into the field with a slingshot or an ax. Instead, she had jammed down the window and called to the birds in their language, inspiring a band of crows to fly directly at the soldier who fired his gun in the girls’ direction. He got off one shot, then ducked to avoid the crows’ attack. The soldier cursed and shot again, squinting in the sun, but the other girl was gone. It was as if she had never existed, so he fired into the mass of crows that had ruined his aim, striking nothing but the sky.

Ettie was in the woods by then, stuffing down her sobs as if there was a bird in her mouth. She swallowed the bird of sorrow and it sang a mourning song inside of her. It was too late to turn back, too late to climb back through the kitchen window and find themselves in bed, alive and warm in each other’s arms as their mother called for them to see to their chores and start breakfast. It was too late to stop the angel in the black coat from writing down Marta’s name in small black script as he walked among the trees. Some things hold on to you forevermore: the sharp crack of sound, the whirl of insects rising from the grass, the birds disappearing into the trees, their feathers falling to the ground like black rain. Afterward, Ettie would recall the moment when her sister fell again and again, each and every night at the same blue hour. She would never forget her sister’s face or her mother sitting beside her on winter nights; she wouldn’t forget the morning when they dug earth from the river, or the tall grass that reached almost to her waist as she ran, faster and faster, into the forest, her heart hitting against the cage of her ribs, until she found the east wind and at last disappeared, wondering how she would ever find a reason to live.

Through the window Lea saw one sister fall and the other run into the forest. She saw the cloud of crows and heard a strange rustling as Ava leaned out the window to call to the birds in a language that was too mysterious and beautiful for mortals to understand. Lea had heard what the younger sister had said. She had called Ava a golem. She had no idea what that might mean, but the word stayed with her.