Elena Rudina lives in the
impoverished Russian countryside.
Her father has been dead for years.
One of her brothers has been conscripted into the Tsar's army, the other taken as a servant in the house of the local landowner.
Her mother is dying, slowly, in their tiny cabin. And there is no food.
But then a train arrives in the village, a train carrying untold wealth, a cornucopia of food, and a noble family on their way to visit the Tsar in Saint Petersburg a family that includes Ekaterina, a girl of Elena's age.
When the two girls lives collide, an adventure is set in motion, an escapade that includes mistaken identity, a monk locked in a tower, a prince traveling incognito, and — in a starring role only Gregory Maguire could have conjured —a wise-cracking Baba Yaga, witch of Russian folklore, in her ambulatory house perched on chicken legs.