Every winter, during the feast of Sankt Nikolai, a troika would make its way up the snowy road and three Grisha would emerge dressed in furs and thick wool kefta—red, purple, and blue—their sledge weighted down with presents: figs and apricots soaked in honey, piles of walnut candies, mink-lined gloves, and boots of butter-soft leather. They stayed up late, long after the children had gone to bed, talking and laughing, telling stories, eating pickled plums and roasting lamb sausages over the fire. That first winter, when it was time for her friends to leave, the girl ventured out into the snow
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