The birds outside strike up their dusk calls and Shira adjusts her gaze to watch them through the crack in the barn wall. Their eyes, glassy like the eyes of her stuffed animals, flit in every direction. Several lack digits on one foot, the left. This makes them hop somewhat crookedly and lean sideways when they perch.

A few days later, Shira hears soldiers outside the barn. They’ve never been so close; she’s heard them by the tavern and along the road, singing, on foot and on horses, but now they stand just beneath the tree near the side of the barn wall. Are they going to enter? Shira’s mother covers the waste bucket and arranges hay thickly over Shira before sliding herself down into a concealed position.

A bead of sweat trickles from Shira’s hairline, causing her to shudder. The plan of where to run has changed; it’s no longer to the root cellar. But where? She didn’t pay attention when her mother told her because she’d had a song in her head. She was going to ask later, but—

“Even the birds around here are deformed,” a soldier says. He circles the tree in giant steps.

Worry clenches at Shira’s stomach. If they don’t like the outside birds, will they dislike hers?

“It must be a genetic problem, unless a disease swept through the flock.” This is a different soldier talking, one with a softer voice.

“Let’s shoot them.”

“No, I don’t want—”

Shira wishes she knew the prayer her mother constantly mouthed.

“They don’t matter. Look at them.”

“We mustn’t spend our bullets.”

“I have plenty of spares.”

When Shira hears a gun cock, she sinks lower in the hay, tears stinging her eyes. Shots fire. Wings beat frantically against the sky. Shira begins humming, a melody to drown out tragedy. When her mother hushes her with a near-silent hiss, she in turn hushes her bird, who rears and pecks, angrily, not wanting to be silenced.

Chapter 11

When Róża hears the soldiers taking shots at the birds, she thinks of Natan. Where did they shoot him? In the back, when he was already on his knees?

Four days in a row, soldiers had rounded up the young, able-bodied Jews of Gracja for labor duty. The men had returned each night filthy and exhausted, but Natan had felt sure that their usefulness, their hard work, was saving them. Saving all of them.

On the fifth day only half of the men returned. Oskar, their neighbor, shook so hard he could barely speak despite Róża’s frantic pleas for information.

“You must tell me, Oskar. Where is he? Is he all right?”

“They made us dig trenches.”

“But where is Natan? Is he still there? Are they housing some of the men closer? He is strong. Maybe they think it’s good to get an early start tomorrow?”

“Róża—”