"Did you ever break yours open?” Yakov asked Galina.

She smiled, finally looking away from the ceiling and meeting his eyes. “Of course. Every kid does-how can you not want to see all those treasures inside?"

Yakov smiled at the memory. There was nothing of interest inside that cardboard tube, slightly dented at the end where the plastic caps fitted, one of them with an eyepiece. There were several small mirrors inside that tube, and nothing but a button, a glass bead and several triangular pieces of colored paper. “That was messed up,” he said. “I cried for hours afterwards."

Galina nodded. “It's funny how everyone goes through this kaleidoscope thing. You think the adults do it on purpose?"

"Why?"

"To teach the kids something… I don't know."

Sergey huffed. “Teach what? The illusory nature of the world?"

Galina shrugged. “Maybe. Or the futility of beauty, or something depressing like that. I still don't understand adults, even though I am one myself."

"No you're not,” Sergey said. “You don't have kids. Neither do I, so don't feel bad. See, I figured it all out guarding the nuclear silo-I always felt like a kid, you know, just playing a game or something, like I just pretended to be a soldier with a stick for a gun. And there was a lot of time to think. So I figured it all out. You're either a parent or you're a kid. As long as you don't have kids of your own and become a parent, you're a kid. So, Yakov, what are you?"

Yakov couldn't decide which one he was-neither a child nor a parent felt right. “I don't know,” he said. “But that day when I broke that kaleidoscope, I swore that my kids would never have one of those things. Damn depressing, and a horrible toy to give to anyone. I wouldn't be one of those asshole parents that teach kids nothing but how much everything sucks and that the world is messed up."

"It is messed up,” Galina said. “In case you haven't noticed, we're underground. With a talking cow and Koschey the Deathless, about to ask a bunch of soldiers circa 1812 why on earth did they kill a beloved fairytale character with a bayonet. Also, my sister is missing."

"I'm sorry about that,” Yakov said. “That part is indeed messed up. But everything else… it's not too bad. Is it?"

"No,” Galina said. “It's not. I always dreamt of a secret place like that… I just wish I found it under better circumstances."

"You can't get here under better circumstances,” Timur-Bey said from the darkness in the corner of the shed. “Haven't you been paying attention?"

"Perhaps we should sleep a bit,” Sergey said, and hid his head under his wing.

"I don't feel like it,” Yakov said.

Galina snuggled against Zemun's flank. “Neither do I."

Zemun smiled. She seemed content now, peaceful. “Why sleep when you can talk?” she said. “Just keep it down. There are enemies afoot."

Yakov moved closer to Galina. “Sorry if it's too personal,” he said. “But you mentioned-that you were hospitalized before?"

Galina let his half-question hang, unanswered, for a few seconds as she frowned as if gathering her thoughts. “Schizophrenia,” she said, finally.

Yakov was surprised. She didn't seem crazy, at least most of the time. “You look normal to me,” he finally mumbled, and cringed. Now she would think that he doubted her veracity.

"Thanks,” she said instead. “It comes and goes. They call it sluggish schizophrenia-ever heard of it?"

He did. It was a fake diagnosis for political malcontents, as far as he remembered. A convenient way of oppression that did not require prisons. He looked at Galina with pity-she seemed like such a small woman, so hurt and broken up about her sister, so driven with the desperate resolve of the one who had very little of value in life and would fight for the last thing that was left for her.

He didn't know how to tell her, and whether he should tell her at all-that the disease they diagnosed her with did not really exist, that it was a fabrication. He wondered if it would do any good to tell a person who believed herself crippled that she was not-would it fix her, or would it become a crushing burden? He tried to imagine what it would be like, to reconsider his concept of self, to find that he was not what he thought he was-would it be liberating or devastating? “Yes,” he finally said. “I heard of it. You seem to be dealing with it well."

Galina smiled, grateful. “My mom,” she said. “She was the one who thought there was something wrong with me when I was just little. Funny how she foresaw it-I started having hallucinations after she said I had to go to a hospital."

"Uncanny,” Yakov muttered. “Do you think it's possible that being in the hospital was maybe not the best thing for you?"

She stopped smiling. “Of course I thought about it. What, do you think I'm stupid? But it doesn't really matter now, does it?"

"I guess not,” Yakov said. “Sorry I brought it up."

"It's all right,” Galina said. “But I'm tired now. Mind if I sleep a little?"

"Go ahead,” Yakov said.

Galina rested her head on Zemun's flank and closed her eyes with a sigh. Yakov remained sitting, listening to the crying of an imaginary baby somewhere in his mind, on the very edge of hearing, so that even he couldn't say whether it was a memory or just a ringing of the frayed nerves. He waited for morning.

There were many parks in Moscow-the ones in the old city, the white city, were there for recreation and entertainment, some complete with Ferris wheels and lemonade stands, the kiosks that sold everything under the sun, including gin-and-tonic in a can. The ones in the outskirts, Tsaritsino and Kolomenskoe, were different. These felt like real places that existed regardless of people's presence. The churches in Kolomenskoe and the palace in Tsaritsino were real as well-perhaps damaged by age and neglect, perhaps speckled with bird droppings and the twinkling fragments of broken bottles; but in their old age they remained stately, dreaming, it seemed to Fyodor, of the days that slipped by them, the days that decorated their facades with weathered brick and stubborn splotches of lichen as they went away forever, leaving the buildings in their wake like the skeletons of distant shipwrecks.

He looked at the reflection in the river-they were in Kolomenskoe now, and the river here was lively enough to resist the stiff embrace of ice that started to form along the shores. But in the center the water remained black and clear, as if purified by the early frosts of oil and other contamination. The snow fell, touching the clear black mirror without a ripple, dissolving quietly in the white apparition of the reflected church.

They had scaled the fence to get there. Oksana snapped a few slender birch branches and started a small fire. It melted a small crater in the snow, and they sat next to it, watching the river and the snow. Fyodor's hands warmed over the flames, but his back felt numb from the cold. He moved closer to the flames.

"Careful,” Oksana said. “You'll set yourself on fire."

"Better fire than hypothermia,” Fyodor said. “I saw that guy once, in the hospital. His temperature dropped so low, the only way to warm him up was to put tubes in his chest and pour warm water through them. I was one bed over, and I remember the water sloshing in and out of his chest. Weird sound, that. Nothing quite like it. It slurped."

"Sounds awful,” Oksana said. “I saw people freeze to death too. The key is to stay awake and keep the fire going. There're no ambulances here, and they won't find us until the morning."

"If then. No one comes here in winter."

"It's still fall."

"Same difference. Who would go for a walk in such weather?"

"I hope that Sergey's friends would."

"Perhaps.” He tossed another branch into the flames. “Where's your tabor?"