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soft as gauze. I closed my eyes and remembered the forest, driving out there in the winter long ago. I remembered Mother exclaiming how hard the servants must have worked to clear the road. “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” she said.
    “First you complain that I do nothing for the children,” Father said, “and then you complain about what I do.”
    “ No, I don ’t mean to complain.” She put her hand on his arm and he shrugged it off and turned and shouted, “Who can see the Snow Horses, eh? Who’s seen them?”
    We crowded to the sides of the wagon and gazed at the snowy stillness of the wood, and the shadows of trees moved over us like the shadows of bars, and the trees themselves stood arched above the road or glided by like sentries deep in the long blue corridors of night. The horses kicked up mist and the wagon jolted. In the carriage behind us men were singing, the little red lantern swinging in the dark. “Go on,” Father shouted. Some of the children were playing in the straw and Mun Karalei was afraid they would burn themselves on the bricks. “She hisses like a gander,” Siski said. We stood close in the smell of our coats and looked for alien hoofprints where the moonlight fell. The wagon stuck when the horses turned and everyone had to get out. Uncle Veda carried Siski on his back.
    “Come on, Meisye, pull,” she screamed, kicking her feet in excitement, her thin legs flashing in a shaft of moonlight.
    “Please don’t let her down,” said Mother, “she’ll soak her stockings and catch a chill.”
    “My dear,” Uncle Veda said, “she’s stuck to me like a crab.”
    While they struggled with the wagon I wrestled Dasya in the snow and struck my face on a hidden root and began to bleed, and I fell asleep on the drive back to the house and the snow they had pressed against my eye slid down my face and soaked my collar. I woke groggily under the lights of the house. They seemed so high, as if the windows opened onto the stars.
    “Look up there,” I said.
    “Yes my darling,” Mother said, but it was Father who held me and carried me up the steps.
    “Take care how you play,” he told Dasya. “She’s only a girl.” In the hall everyone was laughing and giving their coats and furs to the footmen.
    “Acres of trees,” said Uncle Fenya. “It’s a silent fortune. I congratulate you.” Firelight filled the mirrors.

    Late that summer, I woke in the night to a pounding on the stairs, an urgent clatter that could only mean Siski had come.
    “I’m awake,” I called.
    “You see,” she cried. She dashed into the room and threw her traveling case down in the corner. And then she was kneeling beside my bed and had flung her head down on my chest and her arms in the tight black coat were about my shoulders.
    “Oh, it’s me, it’s me,” she said. “You didn’t think I was coming but I came. I’m sure I got here faster than a letter. I came all the way from Nauve without stopping once, we slept in the carriage.”
    Nenya came in with a candle and lit the lamp, grumbling. “It’s not the way to treat an invalid, disturbing her rest.” Light flared up, revealing Siski’s sharp, pale face.
    “Don’t look at me, I’m the image of death,” Siski said, tucking her hair behind her ear. Her coat was dusty, one button hanging. “I came so fast I’m wearing all the wrong clothes. It’s warm here, isn’t it? Oh Taviye, we’re home again and it’s going to be delightful!”
    Looking at her I could see that she believed it. “ No, don ’t look at me,” she said. “Do I look older? Yes, I must, I’m five years older. And you, you’re lovely but so thin.”
    I did not know if she looked older, but certainly she looked different in some indefinable way. Her hair had fallen down on one side, but her embroidered collar gave her an air of refinement and hidden wealth. It was a Nainish look, and her face despite the narrowness and the tiredness had a new and elegant cast.
    “We’ll do