Farther down the corridor, a cluster of women circle a woodstove in a room cluttered with mismatched chairs, trunks, and stacks of books. From the doorway, Tzofia studies the lines on the women’s faces, the expressions in their eyes. She watches for the tilt of their heads, listens for the lilt in their voices. She finds no trace of her mother.

At mealtime, Tzofia follows the children to a dining hall and watches as the adults gather to eat, hats and skullcaps and kerchiefs upon their heads. No signing of the cross but, instead, shawls around shoulders and heads bowed in prayer. She feels lost here, where children run loose and the day unspools without regimens or rules. She misses the confines of the convent wall; she misses the church songs and rituals, her days structured around morning and evening prayers. Under her breath, Tzofia says grace over her food and barely touches it.

As the eaters disperse, a bony, hollow woman grabs hold of Tzofia’s shoulder and looks wildly into her eyes. She smells of salt and singed nuts; the flesh above her left cheek quivers. Tzofia can see that the woman is lost, too, drowning in her own hopes.

“Is it you, my daughter? Can it be?”

The woman’s confusion matches Tzofia’s. She stares into the woman’s eyes. They are wrong: not the color of midnight. “No!” Tzofia shouts.

“My sweet Rachel?”

“Let me go!”

If Tzofia is certain of anything, it is that she is not this woman’s daughter. She fights to break away from the woman’s tight grasp and haunted gaze.

Tzofia runs across a muddy path and enters a building filled with classroom desks and chairs and more strangers. On the chalkboard, words in other languages: Hebrew and English. She wants to get out of this place! If she can’t be with her mother, she wants to be with Sister Alicja and Sister Nadzieja, who care for her. She peers through the doorway. A cloud of blackbirds darkens the sky.

The scary woman totters away.

Later in the evening, a crowd congregates around a bonfire and the singing starts. Tzofia once again hears the long-ago songs, songs her mother sang to her at bedtime in Gracja and whispered to her in the barn. She leans in, surveying the faces, old and young, around the circle. Who are these people, and how do they know my mother’s songs?

The singing rattles her even as it pulses in her veins. She covers her ears and imagines the ringing Latin chants of the convent. She closes her eyes to see the chapel in its hushed glory, the sisters gathered in the sanctuary, kneeling, praying for their protection. She wonders about her communion service: Was it real, or was it just Mother Agnieszka’s way to keep her safe?