“Very well. Herr Kommandant, I beg of you, these late night raids frighten the chil—” Mother Agnieszka’s plea is lost to a pounding of boots on the front stair.

Sister Alicja gathers Zosia and bounds through the lavatory’s back door—the nuns’ entry, forbidden to the children—before soldiers can barge through the front. Down the nuns’ corridor, Alicja slips them into a small side room packed with spare sewing machines. She tugs open a wardrobe, covers Zosia over with the stiff brown fabric of habits, and shuts her in until—after offering watery coffee, but coffee nonetheless, to the soldiers upon their departure—she returns to usher Zosia back through the two lavatory doors, into the quiet dark of the children’s room.

Zosia, a knotted pounding in her chest that will linger for hours after, prays for the end of roll call lines.

For the next several weeks, there is less to eat for everyone. The children complain of hunger and the sisters preach piety in suffering—except for Sister Alicja, who complains, too, and is made to fast—until bombs explode nearby, causing them all to forget their stomachs. Zosia overhears the nuns speak of Red Army advances in Ukraine—snatches from Mother Agnieszka’s wireless radio. But none of this seems to matter here in Celestyn. Sirens wail ceaselessly. The children practice drills. They walk in hurried lines to the cellar rooms and squeeze to fit within door frames. They dive under their beds when shellings shake the ground.

Once, Adela dives under Zosia’s bed. Zosia twists and wiggles to position herself at the opposite end, but Adela says, “I see you. I see everything.”

Zosia looks away, quavering. At snack time, Adela demands Zosia’s piece of bread and Zosia gives it to her, that day and each day following.

Zosia finds refuge from Adela’s tormenting in her lessons with Pan Skrzypczak—and in Kasia’s friendship. Once, when Zosia arrived late for her laundry chore—she was supposed to be folding bedsheets, not playing violin, and she was frantic that she’d be punished—she found that Kasia had managed the whole job without her and had even covered for her with Sister Olga by saying she was at a different chore with Sister Nadzieja.

On the day that Kasia tore an altar cloth, Zosia repaired it, trying her best to replicate the close, even, nearly invisible stitches she’d seen her mother make. Kasia thanked Zosia by nabbing two pairs of wool socks from the knit bin and teaching her to “skate” on the slippery, just polished floors. As they careened past the low corridor wall, Kasia spotted two stray cats huddled inside the convent gate. She stopped abruptly, Zosia nearly crashing into her, and observed them for several seconds while catching her breath.

“Who do you think they look like?”

“Hmm?”