Eventually Sister Alicja arrives. She is the palest Zosia has ever seen, her habit in disarray, and her hair—which Zosia has never seen, the color of honey—pokes out sloppily from her headdress. She huddles with Mother Agnieszka, staring toward the courtyard with unfocused eyes.

Zosia thinks of her mother lying flat in the center of the loft, lost to the crossbeams and rafters. Henryk hustling down the ladder and out of the barn. Her bird burying low in her cupped hands. She floods with confusion. From overhearing the sisters’ whispers all these past months, Zosia thought that the arrival of Russian soldiers would mean the end of the war. The chance to find her mother.

“Is the war over?” she asks.

Neither answers, so Zosia continues.

“Can we go back to our convent? Is it safe now, Sister Alicja?” If only they could return to their convent, she might be reunited with her mother, with Pan Skrzypczak.

Sister Alicja turns to Zosia, her expression dark. “No, Zosia, I’m afraid it is not at all safe.”

Chapter 42

Róża squats in an abandoned apartment house across the street from where Siostry Felicjanki is supposed to be. Lidia thought it safest for her to leave Celestyn altogether, but she feels tethered to this place.

Twilight bathes the sidewalk. A warbler flits about in the dust. Róża stares out at the rubble and lets herself imagine: Shira has only just been hiding in the mounds of broken brick and stone. She is not buried by it but is sitting atop it in a pale frock, tricking everyone by her statuesque stillness and silence.

The next breezy day brings a new fantasy: Shira hopping across, her blanket billowing from her hand. Rain breaks the spell altogether, as it causes the rubble to turn gray and lose its powdery cover. Róża is unwilling to imagine Shira’s skin as a match for that stone. She halts her vigil and heads for the streets.

Liberated Celestyn is lawless and chaotic and still dangerous for Jews. Róża moves through the streets quickly, eyes averted. Lidia insists on buying her food at the grocer’s. But Róża scours the debris-filled alleys to find “Shira things”—nubby pencils, an ink pen, stray papers, a child’s book, soaked, all of its pages curled. To hold even a frayed bit of string gives her strength when she returns to check the survivors’ registry, hoping, praying, that someone from the convent has submitted Shira’s information using her proper name.