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There was a tiirls

It’s been hts like these, when the wind coht and warn them not to stray too far from hory tonight"

In those black days, on the edge of these very woods, there lived a girl named Nadya and her brother Havel, the children of Maxiood e He made roofs that did not leak or bend, sturdy chairs, toys when they were called for, and his clever hands could fashion edges so sht never find the sea work, to towns as far as Ryevost He went by foot and by hay cart when the weather was kind, and in the winter, he hitched his two black horses to a sledge, kissed his children, and set out in the snoays he returned horain or a new bolt of wool, his pockets stuffed with candy for Nadya and her brother

But when the fa to trade for a prettily carved table or a wooden duck They used their furniture for kindling and prayed they wouldMaxie they’d once pulled over the snow-blanketed roads

As Maxihost than woet herup portions of turnip and potato, bundling herher on the porch in the hope that the fresh airshe seemed to crave were little cakes e blossoar, no one knew--though the old women had their theories, most of which involved a rich and lonely tradesman from the river cities But eventually, even Karina’s supplies dwindled, and when the little cakes were gone Nadya’s mother would touch neither food nor drink, not even the smallest sip of tea

Nadya’s mother died on the first real day of winter, when the last bit of autumn fled from the air, and any hope of a ely unremarked upon, because two days before she finally breathed her last ghostly sigh, another girl went irl with a nervous laugh, the type to stand at the edges of village dances watching the fun All they found of her was a single leather shoe, its heel thick with crusted blood She was the second girl lost in asthe wash on the line and never ca but a pile of clothespins and sodden sheets lying in the irls had vanished every few years True, there were rues from time to time, but those children hardly seemed real Now, as the famine deepened and the people of Duva ithout, it was as if whatever waited in the woods had grown greedier and one before: Betya Ludotten In those days, they hispered like an incantation Parents sent up prayers to their Saints, girls walked in pairs, people watched their neighbors with suspicious eyes On the edge of the woods, the townspeople built crooked altars--careful stacks of painted icons, burnt-down prayer candles, little piles of flowers and beads

Men gru parties, talked about burning sections of the forest Poor simple-minded Uri Pankin was nearly stoned to death when he was found in possession of one of theand her insistence that she had found the sorry thing on the Vestopol Road saved hiht have just walked into the wood, lured there by their hunger There were smells that wafted off the trees when the wind blew a certain way, is or sour cherry babka Nadya had s on the porch beside her et her to take another spoonful of broth She would sar, and find her feet carrying her down the stairs toward the waiting shadohere the trees shuffled and sighed as if ready to part for her

Stupid girls, you think I would never be so foolish But you’ve never known real hunger The crops have been good these last years and people forget what the lean tiet the way ry howls, or how the trapper Leonid Ge on the muscle of his slain brother’s calf when their hut was iced in for two longon the porch of Baba Olya’s house, the old women peered into the forest and muttered, khitka The word raised the hairs on Nadya’s arhed with her brother at such silly talk The khitkii were spiteful forest spirits, bloodthirsty and vengeful But in stories, they were known to hunger after newborns, not full-grown girls near old enough to marry

‘Who can say what shapes an appetite?’ Baba Olya said with a disnarled hand "Maybe this one is jealous Or angry"

"Maybe it just likes the taste of our girls," said Anton Kozar, liue obscenely The old woeese and Baba Olya hurled a rock at hi

When Nadya’s father heard the old wo that the priest say blessings in the town square, he simply shook his head

"An anier"

He knew every path and corner of the forest, so he and his friends took up their rifles and headed back into the woods, full of gri, and the old worumbled louder What animal left no tracks, no trail, no trace of a body?

Suspicion crept through the town That lecherous Anton Kozar had returned froed, had he not? Peli Yerokin had always been a violent boy And Bela Pankin was a e son, Uri A khitka could take any forirl’s doll at all

Standing at the lip of her rin, Bela Pankin’s worried froiry Peli Yerokin with his tangled hair and balled fists, and the sympathetic smile of theKarina Stoyanova, the way her lovely black eyes stayed on Nadya’s father as the coffin he’d carved with such care was lowered into the hard ground

The khitka ht take any form, but the shape it favored most was that of a beautiful wo Nadya’s father food and gifts of kvas, whispering in his ear that someone was needed to take care of hione for the draft soon, off to train in Poliznaya and begin his

"After all," said Karina in her warrace you"

Later that night, Nadya went to her father as he sat drinking kvas by the fire Maxi to do, he sorown the curls of soft wood on the floor He’d been too long at ho out work had been lost to his wife’s illness, and the winter snoould soon close the roads As his faathered on the mantel, like a silent, useless choir He cursed when he cut into his thu nervously by his chair