“The girl and her mother should grow poppies in their silent garden,” Shira suggests.

“Perhaps their enchanted bird will carry seeds over from the field so that they can. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Shira nestles with her mother, fingering the tiny bird clothes.

In each square of the quilt covering her bed in Gracja, six dainty red flowers fan out from a single stem, their leaves bowed beneath like a lyre, and two birds stand face-to-face, so close that one need not even chirp for the other to know her song.

Chapter 14

Róża paces the barn, biting down on her tongue to keep from moaning. She’d asked Henryk for the wild carrot seed as a precaution because, in addition to her stopped menses, she’d felt tender in her breasts. Now she is bleeding and the pain is excruciating. She peers out a wall crack, gauging the brightness of the night’s moon.

“Mama?”

“I’m all right. I … just have … a bellyache.”

Róża leans one way; another. She tries to sit, but the cramping in her womb wrenches her back to standing. She has stuffed her pants with a spare piece of cloth. It is soaked through.

“Are you hurt, Mama?”

Worry shows in the contours of Shira’s face.

The quickest flash of a wish—that Shira was gone, not needing comfort, not witnessing her like this—shuttles through Róża before she works her features into a reassuring expression and faces her girl.

“I need fresh air. It’s late and I need you to stay very quiet. Still as a mouse beneath the hay—you hear me?”

“Yes, Mamusia.”

“I don’t want you to move. And no calling out. Please.” With a sharp intake of breath, Róża propels one foot, then the other, down the ladder and out the door.

In the snow, Róża bleeds red black upon the white ground, in clumps and clots. As many times as she bears down, more slips out; it smells like rust and metal and rot. She grows dizzy and hot despite the frigid air. She reaches for a handful of clean snow to pat on her forehead and the back of her neck.

Róża knows she needs to get this out of her, get herself back inside. But beyond the pain, she wonders, How far along? and, Was it a girl or a boy? She trains her eyes on the far-off trees as her legs quake beneath her. With every cramping gush, she feels a deep sorrow mingled with relief.