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The next day, Nadya breakfasted on butter-soaked blini stuffed with cherries and cream When she finished, the witch asked her, "What is it you want?"

"I want to go ho outside "But I can’t"

"Well then," said Magda "Come help me stir the pot"

This was hoent, day after day, as the snow fell and filled the clearing, rising up around the hut in great white waves

On thethe snow finally stopped, the witch fed Nadya potato pie and sausages and asked her, "What is it you want?"

"I want to go hoda "You’d better start shoveling"

So Nadya took up the shovel and cleared a path around the hut, acco in the snow beside her and an eyeless crow that Magda fed on rye crumbs, and that sometimes perched upon the witch’s shoulder In the afternoon, Nadya ate a slab of black bread spread with soft cheese and a dish of baked apples Magda gave her a ar, and back out she went

When she finally reached the edge of the clearing, she wondered just where she was supposed to go The frost had coled branches Whatfor her in there? And even if she could h the deep snow and find her way back to Duva, what then? A tentative ery-eyed wife? No path could lead her back to the hoht opened a bleak crack inside of her, a fissure where the cold seeped through For a terrifying irl, naht stand there forever, a shovel in her hand, with no one to call her home Nadya turned on her heel and scurried back to the war her naet it

Each day, Nadya worked She cleaned floors, dusted shelves, mended clothes, shoveled snow, and scraped the ice away fro It was not all food There were tonics and oint pastes, jewel-colored powders packed in slass bottles There was always so on that stove

Soon she learned why

They cah y ponies, even on foot They brought eggs, jars of preserves, sacks of flour, bales of wheat They brought smoked fish, blocks of salt, wheels of cheese, bottles of wine, tins of tea, and bag after bag of sugar, for there was no denying Magda’s sweet tooth They cried out for love potions and untraceable poisons They begged to be made beautiful, healthy, rich

Always, Nadya stayed hidden On Magda’s orders, she clih into the shelves of the larder

"Stay there and keep quiet," Magda said "I don’t need ruirls"

So Nadya sat with Vladchek, nibbling on a spice cookie or sucking on a hunk of black licorice, watching Magda work She ers at any tiiven shelter, shouted that she’d been trapped by a witch Instead, she sat silent, sugaras they came to this old woman, how they turned to her with desperation, with resentave them drops for their eyes, tonics for the scalp She ran her hands over their wrinkles, tapped a man’s chest till he hacked up black bile Nadya was never sure how ht the wax-skinned woaunt, as they all were, her face a skull of hard-carved hollows Magda asked the question she asked anyone who came to her door: "What is it you want?" The wo words, patted her hand, dried her tears They conferred in voices too low for Nadya to decipher, and before the woman left, she took a tiny pouch froda’s palda’s hand clada sent Nadya out of the house to shovel snow When she returned at lunchtime, she was shooed back out with a cup of codfish stew Dusk caes of the path, the scent of gingerbread drifted to her across the clearing, rich and spicy, filling her nose until she felt nearly drunk

All through dinner, she waited for Magda to open the oven, but when the meal was finished, the old woman set a piece of yesterday’s leed As she reached for the creale She looked at Vladchek, but the bear was fast asleep, snoring softly