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ham…
    It did not look or smell significantly magical. Perhaps it was difficult to enchant a ham.  
    She took the first bite, watching herself closely.  
    She did not turn around and run back to the garden. She stayed sitting with her back to the haystack.  
    A few minutes slid by, a few more snowflakes glided past, and she took another bite.
    I suppose it might take effect once I sleep.
    There was nothing much that she could do about that. She ate a frugal amount of bread and cheese and another bite of ham, then packed everything away and turned her attention to the haystack.
    It was not as easy to dig into the stack as she had expected. The hay made her hands itch terribly and shed quantities of fine dust everywhere.  
    In the end, she did not so much hollow out a sleeping area as make a depression in the side, and cover the cold ground with hay. She curled into a tight ball with the cloak wrapped around her and the hood pulled down, partly to keep out the cold and partly to shield her from the godawful hay dust.  
    I know I’ve heard stories where people sleep in haystacks. I’m sure Grandmother told stories about that. Why didn’t they ever mention how dusty it was?
    Her dreams were the dreams of hay, of small animals rustling and the wind bending and the sun beaming. The hay had been cut, but it remembered being alive, and its dreams were all of summer.  
    Gerta woke in the morning, better rested than she probably deserved to be. Her back was sore, but she had not frozen to death. Given how the ground crackled with frost when she walked on it, this seemed like a victory.
    She walked to the road. There was nothing in either direction but grey clouds and fields and frost. The hay’s dreams were a small, warm ember in the back of her mind.  
    She walked on.
    On the third day, she knew that she would have to stop. Her cloak was warm, if dusty, and the muff was marvelous for keeping her hands from freezing, but she was running low on food.
    Chores, she thought. I will offer to do chores. And I will not sleep in the house or drink anything they offer me, except for water.  
    She gritted her teeth.  
    They can’t possibly be witches, too. Every farmhouse between here and the North Pole is not inhabited by a witch. I was just very stupid and very unlucky.  
    The familiar flush of shame started up the back of her neck, and she waited it out grimly.  
    The farmhouse she chose was smaller than Helga’s, and there were cobwebs on the porch. When she climbed up the steps, the boards creaked under her feet.
    She stared at her hand and the door and lifted one to knock on the other, then lowered it again.  
    I have to knock. I’m being stupid. They can’t all be witches.  
    But she did not have to knock. The door opened to reveal a girl only a few years older than herself, severely pregnant.  
    “I heard the steps,” said the girl. “Can I help you?”
    Gerta took a deep breath. “I’m traveling,” she said. “I was hoping that I might do a few chores in return for a meal.”
    The girl’s eyes moved over Gerta—the too-small clothing, the too-good muff and cloak, but she did not say anything. “I think we can manage that,” she said. “The rugs need beating. It’s heavy work and easier with two.”
    “Thank you,” said Gerta.
    They beat the rugs and then Gerta set to work with a broom, taking down the cobwebs on the porch. The windows were very small and the sills were very thick, and had acquired a coating of dead insects trying to get inside, away from the frost. She swept them away, the little brown husks pattering to the ground.
    A few days ago— and seven months , she added mentally—she would have been squeamish about such work. Now it was simply an obstacle in her way to finding Kay, and she no longer had the luxury to worry about such obstacles.
    “Thank you,” said the girl, when Gerta returned. “You’ve been a help. I can’t get around quite so easily at the moment.”
    Gerta