Now it was, and Fyodor shivered in his windbreaker and T-shirt. “You're Father Frost,” he called to the stranger. “Right?"

The old man turned around and scowled. “Oh, look at that, another bright young thing. ‘Father Frost, will you bring me a New Year present next time?’ Fuck you, young man. I'm no Santa Claus, and don't you push your foul Western influences on me."

"I just wanted to buy you a drink,” Fyodor said.

Father Frost grinned. “Ah, you've got your head on straight. All right, sonny.” He stomped his boots, shaking off imaginary snow, and sat at Fyodor's table.

The domovoi brought over two shots of moonshine, the foul liquid with a strong undertaste of gasoline.

"That's the stuff,” Father Frost said. “Warms you right to your bones, doesn't it?"

Fyodor nodded; he indeed felt warm. “You won't freeze me, will you?"

"Not as long as you keep buying me booze.” Father Frost motioned to the domovoi bartender. “Keep them coming."

Fyodor searched his pockets, and came up with a roll of several rubles.

Father Frost looked at them skeptically. “Paper money is no money at all,” he said. “What about your coin?"

Fyodor found it disconcerting that everyone was suddenly interested in his talisman. “It's against the evil eye,” he said. “I need it."

Father Frost laughed with such deafening glee that the beams in the ceiling shook, spooking several barn owls who were apparently nesting there. “That's a nerazmennaya moneta,” he said once he stopped laughing. “Changeless coin."

Fyodor smiled. “Really?"

"Come on, I'll show you,” Father Frost said. “Clueless folk on the surface, gods forgive me. Everything needs to be taught and if it weren't for me you'd be all speaking French now. Assholes.” He beckoned the domovoi, and urged Fyodor to take off his coin. When Fyodor gave it to the domovoi, the coin underwent a metallic mitosis, one remaining attached to the chain, while the other was clenched in the domovoi's tiny and slightly dirty fist.

"Cool,” Fyodor said. “Does it work like that on the surface?"

"Sure does,” Father Frost said. “Only the coin is useless. That's irony, isn't it?"

"Not really,” Fyodor said. “What was that about French?"

Father Frost heaved an exasperated sigh. “Have you dum-dums ever noticed that the moment there's a foreign invasion, you get a record cold winter? Who do you think is doing that, huh?"

"You?” Fyodor answered, and threw back another shot of the foul liquid. “Why?"

"Because I care,” Father Frost said, drunken sincerity coloring his deep voice. “I care about you surface motherfuckers, unlike your stupid wimpy god."

"We were atheists for a while there,” Fyodor said. “Materialists, even."

"So am I,” Father Frost said. “A materialist, I mean. Berendey is too, but the gods are all solipsists. Especially the one you've picked; those who are here are all right, even though they're mostly big fish in a small pond, demigods and such. And you, you… you stupid surfacers, all of you either depressed or melancholy.” He cast a wild gaze around, finally focusing on the bar. “Hey, what did I just say? Keep ‘em coming."

Fyodor paid with the changeless coin again, and the domovoi dutifully took the spawned copper, as if he saw nothing at all unusual or wrong with being paid with the same coin again.

"As I said,” Father Frost continued. “All you know how to do is to wreck what the others have built and mope around as if you were the ones wronged.” Father Frost spat, and the gob of saliva froze in the air and shattered as it hit the floor.

"Not all of us,” Fyodor said. “So, why do you help us if we're so worthless?"

"It's not about you. It's about the land. It is mine, and I am keeping it that way. No matter what you do and how much of it you sell, bit by bit, until you have nothing left. And then, there would be no one left but us, those who were here before you, holding on to it like a handful of sand in the river, feeling it wash away grain by grain, but never letting go. We hold it together, stupid, so don't you ask me why."

Fyodor tossed back another shot, and waited for the familiar alcohol fog to drown out his sense of loathing of the world. Father Frost was right-the surface world had failed its denizens. And the underground world was a mystery, hidden from the majority, affecting things in an oblique and uncertain way. Their saviors hid underground, exiled and forgotten. It did not surprise Fyodor-Moscow was not kind to those who cared about it.

Galina left the pub, her feet leading her restlessly away. She just could not bear the thought of wasting another day, and instead decided to find by herself either Berendey or any of the old ones Sovin and David mentioned. How large could this place be?

It turned out to be quite large. She got lost in the labyrinth of convoluted streets-they were clearly not planned, and wound back and forth, often doubling on themselves and petering out in unexpected dead ends. These streets had been built with little forethought as the town grew, and she quickly lost any idea of where she was. There were people in the streets, but she didn't feel quite ready to ask for directions.

She looked for an opening between houses that would lead her to a wooded area; her feet were starting to hurt by the time she found a road that didn't turn around abruptly, but instead led her out of the crisscrossing streets, straight and true. The houses soon disappeared, and the path grew paler, as if from disuse, and often got lost in the tall pallid grass and the uncertain flickering of the glowtrees.

The air smelled of mud and river, and the path soon led her to a swamp. Black trunks of fallen trees rose from dark pools of water like dead fingers, and the hummocks seemed too uncertain to step on. She turned around to find another way.

Someone was there-a tall woman in a long shirt of unbleached linen stood on the path. Her face was hidden by long ragged locks, darkened with water.

"Hello,” Galina said. “You're a rusalka, aren't you?"

The woman did not answer, just bobbed her head-the motion was so quick and slight that Galina wasn't sure if it was a twitch or a sign of agreement.

"Can you tell me how to find Berendey?” she asked. She tried really hard not to think that the woman in front of her was a ghost, a soul of a drowned girl.

Another quick movement, this time in the negative.

"Do you know someone who will?” She thought of the mythical beings one might find in a forest. “A leshy, perhaps?"

The girl nodded again, and beckoned Galina to follow her.

She sighed. These creatures, as far as she remembered, were not to be trusted; they stole children and tickled men to death. To her relief, she could not remember any stories of rusalki attacking or harming women. Leshys, however, were indiscriminate, happily confusing and turning around any traveler. Galina was starting to regret her request, when the rusalka took a side path, and led her through a grove of weeping trees-tears rolled down their bark in a constant stream-and a small calm lake with water as black as pitch.

"Where are we?” Galina asked.

The rusalka pointed at the small pavilion rising at the far end of the lake, and Galina sighed. The pavilion was covered with ornate woodcuts and tracery of vines, and did not look like a dark forest where one would expect to find a nature deity who could answer questions about people turning into birds. She was about to ask the rusalka about who lived there, but the woman gave her an impatient shove and dove into the dark waters that closed over her without a ripple or sound.

Galina approached the pavilion, her feet sinking into the rich loose soil of the path. The irises and the cattails fringing the lake nodded at her, and she was surprised to see that their stems and leaves were not completely white but pale green.