The conductor slid down the aisle without taking a step.

The bus looked older than I was. Faded green paint showed beneath newer coats, curtains hung in the windows, and decades-old advertisements ghosted through the peeling sides.

A woman wearing a white cap worked her way down the aisle.

A spool of red paper tickets hung from a string around her neck, resting upright against her chest like an oversized jewel.

As the bus accelerated, she released the handrail and let the motion carry her down the aisle, sliding over the icy floor.

She handed us two tickets, lifted her heels, and slid away.

Ten minutes later blue monastery domes appeared above the snow.

~

Our path looked simple on the map.

From Bogolyubsky Monastery, the map showed a simple route: down the road, beside the river, across the railroad tracks.

Somewhere beyond them stood the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl.

Instead we found fences.

Warning signs hung from the wire.

German shepherds paced behind it, watching us long before we reached the gate.

The trail continued straight through the checkpoint as though nothing were unusual.

We stopped.

The dogs paced behind the fence.

We turned around.

Back near the monastery Dani unfolded the map again.

“I think we turned too soon.” She said

A second trail climbed onto a pedestrian bridge instead.

Blue glass enclosed the walkway over the tracks, its elevator towers rising above the snow like something transplanted from another century.

As we crossed, the monastery bells began to ring.

Not in steady intervals.

Different bells answered one another—high, low, fast, slow—until the scattered notes gathered into something that sounded almost like singing.

We stopped in the middle of the bridge and listened until the last notes disappeared into the snow.

Beyond the bridge the path vanished.

Fresh snow covered everything.

Only a narrow strip of packed footprints hinted where the trail might be.

We followed it carefully, testing each step before trusting our weight to it.

Then the storm thickened.

The church appeared at last.

Far ahead, barely more than a white shape floating above an endless white field.

Close enough to recognize.

Too far to judge.

We walked another few minutes.

The sky darkened.

I checked the time.

Five o’clock.

The sky was already darkening.

We looked at the church.

Then at each other.

Neither of us wanted to say it first.

~

A few minutes later a group of Russians passed us, heading toward the church.

“Already giving up?” one of them called with a smile.

We smiled back and kept walking.

When we reached the bridge, the church had disappeared behind the falling snow.

Darkness soon followed.