The Second Winter Read Free

liked the feel of the rusty iron bubbling through the thick paint. The tiny holes had sharp edges, and despite the heat, the slick, mottled gloss was as cold as a slab of ice. It struck her that the metal was disintegrating. The bridge wasn’t as solid as it appeared. If she moved slowly enough, she might step into a void.
    At the far side of the river, she continued on the road, then dropped down onto a path that led through a thicket of birch trees into a field that was lying fallow. She walked listlessly, and the sun baked her through her dress. She stared at the rocky path at her feet, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She didn’t look up until she was in the shadow of an old plaster barn. Catching sight of a boy dressed in clothing handed down from his older brother, she smiled, but the expression fled justas quickly. She hesitated, then took a few more steps, keeping herself hidden beside the barn.
    Julian was lanky, as thin as a rail. He was about half a year younger than Polina, but already he was a few inches taller. This was a new development. Last summer, when they had played — which they often did, since they were neighbors and it was convenient for one of their mothers to look after both of them — Polina had hardly noticed him. His nose had always been runny, his hands were always dirty, his shirts had holes, he kept his pants up with a rope belt. She had begged her mother not to let him into the house. Now Polina found herself thinking about him even when he wasn’t there. When she was close to him, she liked to stand on her toes to see if she could still match his height. Since he had become taller, his shaggy black hair had thickened, and she had noticed his eyes, his white skin, his too-red lips. At night sometimes she fell asleep wondering if he was thinking about her, too. She approached him slowly. His back was turned toward her, and he didn’t hear her footsteps. In front of him, the chickens squawked.
    Polina leaned into the wall of the barn. Bits of white plaster crumbled onto her bare shoulder like flour. She grasped a piece of embedded wood and squeezed until tiny splinters pierced her fingertips. Ten feet from her, crouched behind a fence post, Julian scooped up a handful of rocks, chose a black shard of flint, then took aim at the captive birds. Polina understood his intention, but when he raised his arm then jerked his wrist and sent the sharp stone hurtling into the coop, she gasped anyway. The missile struck the rooster, and when the rooster lifted its wings, a couple of feathers floated through the dusty air. It let out a shriek, leaped across the hard ground, pecked one of the hens — as if the hen had been the cause of its injury. When the rooster settled back down, Polina could see that the rockhad left a gap in its feathers. A sliver of skin was showing, red with a trickle of blood. Julian was already weighing the next rock in his hand, getting set to whip it at the helpless bird.
    Polina didn’t think to shout. She bounded from the shadows, closed the distance to the boy, grabbed his arm before he could fling the stone.
    “Hey!” Julian twisted around as if old Farmer Madeja, to whom these chickens belonged, had caught him in the act. His expression went from startled to terrified to flustered in the space of a second. “Hey,” he said, more softly. “What are you doing?”
    “What are
you
doing?” Polina asked him, without any pause.
    Julian returned her gaze. He noticed how pale her eyes were. His own were bright. Their surface was as wet, Polina thought, as if he had been crying.
    “Look at his wing,” she said finally.
    Julian didn’t budge.
    “
Look
at his wing,” Polina said again. This time, she let go of her doll and grabbed hold of Julian’s face and tried to twist him toward the coop.
    “Stop it,” he protested. Her fingers dug into his skin.
    “Look,” she insisted, “and I’ll let go.”
    Julian capitulated, and Polina took her fingers away.
    “You