She nodded.
“You said you met with an architect,” said Henry.
“That is right,” Polina responded.
“Did he ever produce plans?”
Katarina and her grandmother had the same smirk.
“Shedid, and they are here.”
Henry smiled. “She. Forgive me.”
“I will show them to you tomorrow. They’re in a roll in my bedroom closet.”
“Where did my mother go?” Lyra asked.
“There,” said Katarina, pointing to the shore.
“She’s always had a short attention span,” Polina muttered. “We should go get her before she forgets us.”
“Whose camp is that?” Katarina asked as we made our way up the trail. She was looking up the hillside across from the boathouse.
“Julian’s,” Anna responded.
Henry and Lyra walked Anna and Polina up to the main camp, and Katarina and I returned to the command center. Neither of us spoke on our way in.
Dinner was servedat eighteen hundred. “Borscht. For a cold day,” Anna announced when I brought it to the table after she’d asked me to.
It was a smaller group tonight. Katarina sat on my left. Polina was across from me, next to Anna. Lyra and Henry were at the end.
Polina was quiet throughout the meal, which wasn’t unusual. What did seem different was her demeanor. I couldn’t say definitively how, but she seemed more at peace than she had before.
The fire had burnedto coals by the time we returned from the main camp that night. I banked what was left, laid two logs across the embers, and watched them catch. Katarina had gone into the bedroom ahead of me. The door was open.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed in the shirt she usually slept in. Her hair was loose, the way I liked it best. I crossed the room and sat beside her.
“Long day,” I said.
“It was.”
“You doing all right?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Fair enough.”
She leaned her head against my shoulder, and I put my arm around her.
“I’ve never seen my grandmother like that,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure I can explain. Less restless, maybe?”
“I thought the same thing. More at peace, if that makes sense.”
“It does.” Her eyes met mine. “Bishop?”
