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very unhappy. He scooped up Macsofo’s entire bundle and then, to the horror of the family, he stepped on two of the aphids that had begun to crawl across the ground. After he had killed them, he bent and picked up their bodies, and then he left the building, carrying Macsofo’s bundle with him.
    â€œHow could he do that?” Harani asked. Aliniana was whimpering. “How could he just kill them? They might have been the souls of the dead!”
    â€œOur dead mean nothing to them,” Darroti said, his voice toneless. It was the first time he’d spoken since arriving here; he had gone through all the rituals without saying a word, and refused the sweets the people in white offered him.
    The pale man came back without Macsofo’s bundle. A new woman in white came with him, wearing the stretchy gloves, and looked at everyone’s head and skin. When she was done, she smiled and said something to the pale man, but he shook his head and gestured for each bundle to be opened.
    â€œAre they going to steal our things?” Jamfret said. “All of them?”
    â€œWe must do as they say,” Timbor said, although he looked drained and gray. “They have given us food and drink and shelter. We must have faith that they do not wish to rob us.”
    And so Zamatryna bent, her back to the pale people, and undid her little bundle. Here were two winter tunics and two summer ones, two pairs of leggings for each season, a warm shawl, some soft leather boots. Here, tucked inside one boot, was the wooden doll Uncle Darroti had carved for her, with its dried-berry eyes and fuzzy woolen hair. Here—what was this?
    Crawling out of the top of the other boot came a beetle, dazzling yellow and orange. It glowed like a jewel in the dim light. Zamatryna’s heart leaped. It was Mim-Bim, her best, her biggest beetle, the one she had taught to jump through paper hoops for treats of sugar-water and rose petals. She had let it go; she had watched it fly away. But it had come back. Mim-Bim had come back and hid among her things, to come with her into exile.
    And the pale people would kill the beetle if they saw it, as they had killed the aphids.
    She had to hide it. But how? She gently picked it up and concealed it among the folds of her tunic. “Don’t let them see you,” she whispered,
although not even the brightest beetle could understand speech. “Stay where you are, Mim-Bim. Don’t come out!”
    She heard footsteps behind her, and turned to find the pale man smiling down at her. He took her things—although he patted her arm as he did so—and divided them as he had divided everyone else’s. The small store of food they had brought was in one pile, along with the seeds; clothing and prayer carpets and other soft things were in another, and tools and cooking pots—anything with a hard surface—in a third. Poliniana’s slippers were in the second pile; he hesitated over Zamatryna’s doll, but put it there too. Then he pantomimed scrubbing and washing the clothing, folding it, and giving it back to them.
    â€œIt’s already clean,” Aliniana said. “We washed everything before we left! It still smells of soap. Don’t these people have noses?”
    â€œPeace,” Macsofo said wearily. “Do as they say.” Now the woman in white showed them a pile of clothing she had brought, ugly green pants and shirts. She gave each of them a set; she pointed to their own clothing, and then pointed to the pile. She held up a sheet and shut her eyes, and the pale man mimed getting undressed behind it.
    They did as they were told. Behind the sheet, Zamatryna managed to transfer Mim-Bim from her tunic to the pocket of the new pants, which were far too large for her and dragged comically on the ground.
    The pale woman put all their clothing, and the carpets and the slippers and the doll, into a shiny green bag made of very thin stuff. She put all the