“Not even if I make an offering?” asked Vasya. She put a perfect dandelion down before the creature.

The chyert touched the flower with a grayish finger. His outline solidified; now he resembled a small person more than a mushroom.

He looked down at himself, and back at her, in puzzlement.

Then he flung away the flower. “I don’t believe you!” he cried. “Do you think to make me do your bidding? You will not! I don’t care how

many offerings you give me. The Bear is free. He says we are striking a blow for ourselves now. If we join him we will make men believe in us again. We will be worshipped again, and have no need to make bargains with witches.”

Vasya, rather than answer, got hurriedly to her feet. “How exactly are you striking a blow for yourselves?” Wary, she looked about her but nothing stirred. There were only birds, flitting, and strong, steady sunlight.

A pause. “We will do great and terrible deeds,” said the mushroom-spirit.

Vasya tried not to sound impatient. “What does that mean?”

The mushroom-spirit threw his head back proudly, but he didn’t actually answer. Perhaps he didn’t know.

Great and terrible deeds? Vasya kept an eye on the silent forest. In the midst of loss and injury and terror, she had not stopped to consider the implications of her last night in Moscow. What had Morozko set in motion by freeing the Bear? What did it mean, for herself, for her family, and for Rus’?

Why had he done it?

Some part of her whispered— He loves you and so gave his freedom. But that could not be the only reason. She was not so vain as to think the winter-king would risk all he had long defended for a mortal maiden.

More important than why, what was she going to do about it?

I must find the winter-king, she thought. The Bear must be bound once more. But she didn’t know how to do either of those things; she was wounded still, and hungry.

“What makes you think I want you to do my bidding?” Vasya inquired of the mushroom-spirit. He had subsided under a log while she thought; she could just see the gleam of his eyes peeping out.

“Who told you that?”

The mushroom-spirit poked his head out, scowled. “No one. I am no fool. What else would a witch want? Why else would you have taken the road through Midnight?”

“Because I fled for my life,” said Vasya. “I only came into the forest because I am hungry.” To illustrate, she took a handful of spruce-tips from her basket and began determinedly chewing.

The mushroom-spirit, still suspicious, said, “I can show you where better food is growing. If, as you say, you are hungry.” He was watching her closely.

“I am,” said Vasya at once, getting to her feet. “I would be glad of a guide.”

“Well,” said the chyert, “follow me then.” He darted off at once into the undergrowth.

Vasya, after a moment’s thought, followed, but she kept the lake always in sight. She did not trust the forest’s hostile silence and she did not trust the little mushroom-spirit.

VASYA’S MISTRUST SOON MINGLED with amazement, for she found herself in a land of wonders. The spruce-tips were green and tender; dandelions nodded in the breeze off the lake. She ate and gathered and ate, and then she realized suddenly that there was a sprawl of blueberries at her feet, more strawberries hidden beneath the damp grass. Not spring anymore, but summer.

“What is this place?” Vasya asked the mushroom-spirit. In her mind, she had begun calling him Ded Grib: Grandfather Mushroom.

He gave her an odd look. “The land between noon and midnight.

Between winter and spring. The lake lies at the center. All lands touch, here at the water, and you can step from one to the other.”

A country of magic, such as she had once dreamed of.

After an instant of awed silence, Vasya asked, “If I go far enough will I reach the country of winter?”

“Yes,” said the chyert, though he looked dubious. “It is far to walk.”

“Is the winter-king there?”

Ded Grib gave her another odd look. “How would I know? I cannot grow in the snow.”

Thinking, frowning, Vasya returned her attention to filling her basket and her belly. She found cresses and cowslips, blueberries and gooseberries and strawberries.

Deeper she went into the summertime forest. How happy Solovey would have been, she thought, while her feet bruised the tender grass. Perhaps together we could have gone to find his kin. Sorrow drained away her pleasure in the sun on her back, in the sun-ripened strawberry between her lips. But she kept gathering. The warm, green world quieted her wounded spirit. Ded Grib was sometimes visible, sometimes not; he liked to hide under logs. But always she could sense him watching: curious, untrusting.

When the sun was high overhead, she remembered caution, and her promise to the domovaya. She had not yet regained her strength, and that she would need, whatever came next. “I have all I need,” she said. “I must get back.”

Ded Grib popped out from behind a stump. “You haven’t come to the best part,” he protested, pointing to a distant flash of trees clad in scarlet and gold. As though autumn, like summer, was a place you could walk into. “A little farther.”

Vasya was intensely curious. She also thought hungrily of chestnuts and pine-nuts. But caution won. “I have learned the cost of being reckless,” she told Ded Grib. “I have enough, for one day.”

He looked disgruntled, but said nothing else. Reluctantly, Vasya turned back the way she had come. It was hot in this summer country. She was dressed for early spring, in wool shirt and stockings. Her laden basket swung from her arm. Her feet throbbed now; her ribs ached.

To her left, the forest whispered, and watched. To her right lay the lake, summer-blue. Between the trees, she glimpsed a little sandy cove. Thirsty, Vasya strayed nearer the water, knelt, drank. The water was clear as air, so cold it made her teeth ache. Her bandages itched.

The sponge-bath that morning had done nothing to ease her bone-deep sense of filth.

Abruptly, Vasya stood and began to strip. The domovaya would be cross with her for undoing all the careful wrapping, but Vasya couldn’t bring herself to care. Her hands were trembling with eagerness. As though the clean water could scour both the dirt from her skin and memory from her mind.

“What are you doing?” asked Ded Grib. He was staying well away from the sand and the rocks, hiding in the shade.

“I am going to swim,” said Vasya.

Ded Grib opened his mouth, closed it again.

Vasya paused. “Is there a reason why I shouldn’t?”

The mushroom-spirit shook his head, slowly, but he gave the water a nervous look. Perhaps he didn’t like water.

“Well,” said Vasya. She hesitated, but Mother of God, she wanted to peel off her own skin and become someone else; a plunge in the lake might at least quiet her mind. “I won’t go far. Perhaps you will look after my basket?”

SHE WADED IN. AT FIRST, she walked on rocks, wincing. Then the bottom became slick mud. She dove and came up yelling. The freezing lake closed her lungs and set her senses ablaze. She put her back to the shore and swam. The water delighted her, beneath the heat of the unaccustomed sun. But it was very cold. At last she halted, ready to turn back, scrub herself in the shallows, lie drying in the sun…

But when she turned, all she saw was water.