The Forest of Vanishing Stars

As Yona makes her way through the forest, she encounters Zus and his brother returning from the pharmacy. She tells Zus what happened with Aleksander, and as they talk, she realizes the two men are very different—Zus is a man with a “different kind of heart” (188). He asks her to stay with the group, but she refuses.

For several weeks she continues toward the forest where she lived with Jerusza as a child, but to get there, she must cross a populated area filled with villages and soldiers. On the outskirts of one large village, she hears gunshots and sees a nun carrying a small child running toward a church. The nun asks Yona to help save the girl and offers her a room in the church attic.

In the morning, Yona goes into the town to get medicine for the child and food. She encounters a German officer on the road who comments about her unusual, mismatched eyes. When she returns to the church, the nuns tell her that the Germans are arresting villagers at random and will kill them in retribution for an attack on a German soldier.