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fingertips, a head of hair. He quickly closed his mouth and looked down. Children. His children.
    But these were not laughing. These were seated, or standing against his legs, some staring quietly to their mothers, others whimpering. Nadia the birthday girl sat stoically on the end, her jaw clenched, her hands on her knees.
    When Father Michael looked up his eyes met Ivena’s as she trudged under her cross. They were bright and sorrowful at once. She seemed to understand something, but he could not know what. Perhaps she too had heard the song. Either way, he smiled, somehow less afraid than he had been just a minute ago.
    Because he knew something now.
    He knew there were two worlds in motion here.
    He knew that behind the skin of this world, there was another. And in that world a man was singing and the children were laughing.
    JANJIC LOOKED at the women shuffling across the courtyard and bit back his growing anger with this demented game of Karadzic’s.
    He’d dutifully kicked over three gravestones and hefted them to the backs of terrified women. One of them was the birthday girl’s mother. Ivena, he heard someone call her.
    Janjic could see that she’d taken care to dress for her daughter’s special day. Imitation pearls hung around her neck. She wore her hair in a meticulous bun and the dress she’d chosen was neatly pressed; a light pink dress with tiny yellow flowers so that she matched her daughter.
    How long had they planned for this party? A week? A month? The thought brought nausea to his gut. These souls were innocent of anything deserving such humiliation. There was something obscene about forcing mothers to lug the ungainly religious symbols while their children looked on.
    Ivena could easily be his own mother, holding him after his father’s death ten years earlier. Mother, dear Mother—Father’s death nearly killed her as well. At ten, Janjic became the man of the house. It was a tall calling. His mother died three days after his eighteenth birthday, leaving him with nothing but the war to join.
    The women’s dresses were darkened with sweat now, their faces wrinkled with pain, their eyes casting furtive glances at their frightened children on the steps. Still they plodded, back and forth like old mules. Yes, it was obscene.
    But then the whole war was obscene.
    The priest stood still in his long black robe, hunched over. A dumb look of wonder had captured his face for a moment, then passed. Perhaps he had already fallen into the abyss, watching the women slog their way past him. Pray to your God, Priest. Tell him to stop this madness before one of your women drops her cross. We have a march to make.
    To his right the sound came, like the sickening crunch of bones, jerking Janjic out of his reverie. He turned his head. One of the women was on her knees, trembling, her hands limp on the ground, her face knotted in distress around clenched eyes.
    Marie had dropped her cross.
    Movement in the courtyard froze. The women stopped in their tracks as one. Every eye stared at the cement cross lying facedown on the stone beside the woman. Karadzic’s face lit up as though the contact of cross with ground completed a circuit that flooded his skull with electricity. A quiver had taken to his lower lip.
    Janjic swallowed. The commander snorted once and took three long steps toward Marie. The priest also took a step toward his fallen sheep but stopped when Karadzic spun back to him.
    â€œWhen your backs are up against the wall, you can no more follow the teachings of Christ than any of us. Perhaps that’s why the Jews butchered the man, eh, Paul? Maybe his teachings really were the rantings of a lunatic, impossible for any sane man.”
    The priest’s head snapped up. “It’s God you speak of!”
    Karadzic turned slowly to him. “ God you say? The Jews killed God on a cross, then? You may not be a Franciscan, but you’re as stupid.”
    Father