The back of the carriage is strewn with yellow straw. Maryla hoists Shira in. She opens a flask and brings it to Shira’s lips. “Now please, take a drink. It’s chocolaty, and it will help you sleep.”

Shira takes a swig of the thick, syrupy liquid, sweet on her tongue and warm in the low of her belly. Maryla presses Shira’s shoulders until she is lying entirely flat and covers her over. “No sitting up,” she says, before climbing up front.

As the carriage lurches forward, Shira is jostled hard against the floor. The thick straw muffles her cries.

Shira turns her head every which way without moving her body. All she can see through the straw are the black-painted sides of the carriage. Why did I wish, even for a moment, to leave the barn? She cries anew, thinking of the contorted expression on her mother’s face as she bade her to go.

Her eyes sting and burn, and she squeezes them shut as the carriage ride grows steady and rhythmic. Helpless, she tries to do what she’s seen her mother do: mouth silent prayers, over and over. Please. God. But she feels herself growing thick tongued and logy. Despite her terror, the repetitious movement of the carriage lulls her. She wants it all to be a dream; she wants to fall asleep and wake lying beneath the hay beside her mother.

Instead, she will wake in a cast-iron bed amid several rows of beds. And the life she’s known—tales of an enchanted garden, the whisper-hum of a lullaby as she falls asleep, the soft folding of her mother’s hand over hers—will be replaced by a cold hush, barren white walls, a single dark carving of a man, arms stretched, head hung in sorrow. She will no longer be Shira. The name chalked on a slate by her bedside will be “Zosia.”

Chapter 22

Krystyna and Henryk step into the barn. Krystyna holds a wrapped-up food package; Henryk, his own thickest pair of socks. Róża is anguished, crying. Krystyna pulls her close. “I will be praying for you both.” She smells faintly of onions.

Róża straightens up, nodding her gratitude, looking from Krystyna to Henryk through her tears. Henryk’s eyes meet hers quickly, before he bows his head and looks away. “Goodbye,” he says formally.

They press their goods on her and walk out.