Lisa Tuttle June 1941: Neriya, a doctor's daughter, follows a crow into the depths of a Lithuanian forest, and avoids death at the hands of invading Germans who loot and burn her village. Czeslaw, an underage soldier in the Red Army, the sole survivor of his band, takes refuge in the same forest. Later they're joined by Kezia, a Roma girl used to living off the land, and a traumatised, speechless little boy.