The chime rang out the four o’clock hour.
Ting, ting, ting
I had been laying wide awake, staring at the ceiling for hours.
Ting.
Shivering in the bone cold room, the moon had disappeared beyond the tree line outside my first floor window. I pulled the quilt under my chin and waited. The vehicle drove into the farmyard outside with no headlights, the engine rumbling to a stop. I held my breath.
Bang, bang
They had finally come but for whom I wasn’t sure. They were either there to fetch Gruber because of what had happened or they had come for me. Grimly, I realized that it be the true test of Viktor’s feelings for me.
Not that such things mattered anymore. I had almost forgotten the rush of breath and heaviness of his hands at my waist in only a few hours. None of it mattered anymore. Not even my life.
Theda rushed down the hall towards the kitchen. Throwing back the quilt but not rising from the bed, I listened to the voices of the men as they entered our home. I didn’t recognize them but the accents were those of the Regenian Police.
They asked where Gruber was and I sighed. However, the sick dread of truth thudded into my chest.
Viktor cared for me.
I comforted myself that perhaps he had not realized it was me who told the Resistance that the executions were planned for dawn. Perhaps he hadn’t imagined that I had anything to do with the escape of the suspected partisans. Or the kidnap of the scientists wanted by the Emperor for his ultimate weapon of destruction.
He didn’t know that after Gruber was knocked unconscious by my father, we had dragged him up to his room. While father took off Gruber’s boots and loosened his tie so he would think he had blacked out, I dug through his desk. I found what information I could and made copied notes of it.
By midnight, father and I were tramping through the snowy forest. Skeletal forms of trees made ghostly outlines against the cloudy sky. I remembered as a child walking through such woods with my father towards a bonfire Sid had built.
It had been the Winter Solstice. Father had been drunk but I was twelve years old and merely happy to be at his side. I tried to resurrect that feeling, any kind of joy at seeing him alive but was unable to kindle it. We trudged in frozen silence towards the rundown mill where the Resistance were holed up.
After delivering the papers, Father had stayed behind. He had already made contact with them through the Resistance cell that had freed him and others from the POW camp on the border. The Cat was grateful but didn’t ask how I had gotten the information. She had merely waved her hand dismissively, the wolfdog at her side arching its back.
Leaving my bed, I wrapped a woolen shawl around my shoulders. Barefoot and in my nightgown, I tip toed towards the kitchen door. I remained in shadow as the men reentered the room. Theda followed holding a lamp.
Gruber was wiping his face with a towel as one of the men helped him on with his coat. His bloodshot gaze grazed over the door where I stood. My heart hitched a beat as he made eye contact. His upper lip curled into a grimace and he tore his fingers through his dampened waves.
“There had better be a good reason for this, damnit. And some hot coffee when I get there.” He snapped as they marched out into the night.
As they drove away, Theda collapsed onto a kitchen chair and rested a hand on her forehead. I rushed into the kitchen and lit the stove, filling the kettle with water for tea. Neither of us spoke as I walked over and laid a hand on her shoulder. She covered my fingers with hers and patted them.
“A mercy your brother has slept sound all night, not a peep from the boy.”
I snorted and walked over to the cabinet to retrieve the teapot, “Edgar and Sid always could sleep through anything. And anywhere.”
“Your father looked thin,” Theda murmured. I glanced over at the sack of food I had brought home. Theda did as well then met my eyes pointedly, “They need it out there in the woods more than us, dear.”
“But you and Edgar-“
“We will do just fine. Especially with the extra money you have been bringing in from the pub, bless you,” Theda arched an eyebrow at me, “I still don’t like you down there serving liquor like a common-“
“But you don’t mind me risking myself for the Resistance?” I teased as the kettle sang out.
I poured the boiling water into the pot, the steam drifting off into the shadowed corners. The tiles were like ice under my feet.
“I’m already awake and dawn is a couple hours off," I set the cozy over the pot, “I want to hear what happened in the village tonight.”
Woolen underthings itching my dry skin, I pulled my heavy coveralls over my grey sweater. I came back into the kitchen to find Theda wrapping up a few more groceries and toiletries for father. She tugged my beret over my feathery curls as I donned my toggle coat. Silently, we walked over to the door where the snow the Police had tracked left boot-print puddles on the stones. She kissed my forehead, gripping my upper arms.
“Be safe, dear,” she whispered, “I am so proud of you.”
Outside, the sky had cleared and the winter constellations were fully visible. As I went off the road and into the woods, the thick netting of the canopy hid the stars. The icy crunch of snow under my boots echoed through the quiet wood.
Winter had always been my favorite season and I loved it even more at night. Sharp borders of black and white made sense to me. I breathed in the chilled air, willing myself to become ice. Grief, fear, even love were useless at such a time. I would think about them after we won back our country.
I drew the hood of my coat over my head and hitched the bag higher up my shoulder. The markers showing where I was were subtle, only someone from that area would know them.
A twig snapped behind me and I halted. A gun barrel nudged my spine.
“You have one minute before I blow a hole in you-“
“Jude, its me,” I sighed, turning towards my boss with a smirk, “I come in peace, I swear.”
Jude groaned and holstered his pistol. He ran a gloved hand over his protruding jaw and shook his head, “Shit, Georgiana. I could have killed you.”
“Good for you that you didn’t. I work the Gytrash again tonight.”
Jude furrowed his brow, “Whatcha got there, lass?”
He reached for the bag before I could stop him. He pulled out a can of green beans and grinned. I sighed, “Go ahead, I suppose.”
“You’re a good sport, Georgie.” He handed me the bag and retrieved the can opener from his coat pocket, “So, you heard the news yet?”
From his cheerful demeanor, I guessed it had been a successful night for the Resistance. Jude was never good at hiding his mood or his thoughts. It was why we got on so well.
“Hannie will be wanting to see you actually, it’s good you came,” he cracked open the can and started off towards the mill.
Swallowing hard, I followed. After this victory, I couldn’t imagine her not having something else for me to do.
The surface of the river had a thin layer of ice that would only thicken as the days grew shorter. We slid down the slick side of the valley into the grove of ash trees surrounding the stone carcass of the mill. It’s giant wheel was dusted with snow, but years of neglect showed the rot beneath. The ceiling was caved in toward the entrance and had broken through a sandstone wall. That was how we entered. Jude led me down into the rooms where the flour had been kept fifty years earlier.
A few men and women were gathered around a fire built into an iron canister. Others were napping, nestled with their side arms in corners. Shadows played off their faces, their expressions weary but satisfied. I jolted when I heard a shriek come from a room down the hall, it’s door closed.
“We found the men right where the papers said they’d be,” my father approached out of the dark, taking me by surprise. He rubbed his hands together, his fingers still wrapped in rags, “The accused partisans I mean. Now the blighters won’t have anyone to shoot at dawn.”
I blinked at him, his expression wavering in the weak light. His slate eyes darted away from my face, his smile weakening. I crossed my arms over my chest.
“All of them were saved?”
He coughed into his fist, “Save one. The grocer. Daniels.”
“Danvers, father,” I spurted, “His name was Danvers. He’s owned the store since before Sid was born.”
“I remember, I remember,” he waved a hand, “Just so damn cold, can’t think straight.”
Another cry came from the room. Jude patted me on the shoulder and wordlessly headed in its direction. I dropped the bag and held it out to my father, not looking away from the closed door.
“Theda wanted you to have this. Food and a few other things,” I stated blandly. He nodded, digging through the articles, “She didn’t put any whiskey in there if that’s what you're looking for.”
Ignoring my comment, he pulled out a pair of navy mittens, “Bless that woman.”
I followed him over to a bench a step off from the fire. Sitting beside him, I dug my hands into my pockets and rocked forward. My head throbbed from no sleep, eyes prickling with the wafts of smoke that didn’t make it out the hole in the ceiling.
My father gingerly unwrapped his stiff fingers. My heart dropped to my stomach at the sight of his fingernails. They were torn out, nothing but ragged beds of flesh left. Father glanced over at me.
“There was a particularly sadistic guard in charge of our bunk at the camp. Didn’t like me much. Can’t imagine why.”
“What’s going on in that room down there?” I shifted in my seat uncomfortably, wanting desperately to change the subject.
Father nodded down the hall, the light illuminating his pale, sunken cheeks, “That there? That’s all thanks to you, m’dear.”
“What do you mean?”
“While we were breaking our comrades out of jail, Hannie used it as a distraction for us to invade the home where those scientists were being hid. She’s a shrewd woman, the Cat. Just glad she’s on our side.”
"So who is that down there? What are they doing-“
“Well what did you think they were going to do to the blokes after we caught ‘em?” Father tore into a chocolate bar, “Serve them tea?”
“They’re being tortured?” I gaped.
“Interrogated. There’s a difference.”
My head spun. I dropped my numb face into my hands. I remembered back to the day I wished for Berchten blood on my hands. Vengeance for my dead brother. Bile rose up the back of my throat.
“There is no difference,” I choked out in a hushed tone, “How is this any different from what happened to the men the Berchtens arrested and beat for crimes they didn’t commit? How are we being any different from them?"
The chocolate bar dropped into his lap, my father eyeing me with pity. It made me want to slap him. How dare he care for me then when he had never done so before? Not when I was weeping over the loss of our land I had worked so hard to keep. Not when he had abandoned Edgar and I for the front even though he didn’t have to go, just to feel better about his meaningless life.
“Dear girl,” he cooed as though he had done it a thousand times, as though we actually had a relationship, “This is war. The ends justify the means. Such actions are only sins if you end up on the losing side. After our victory, this will be collateral damage. Danvers will be a noble but necessary sacrifice.”
The Cat’s words echoed in my brain. If our lives didn’t matter anymore, apparently our souls didn’t either. I tensed as father reached out and grasped my shoulder.
“I don’t know how long they will be but you should go home and get some rest while you can. They’ll be in contact with you soon, I’m sure. The Cat is impressed with you. I am too,” he shrugged.
It was the closest he had ever come to telling me he was proud of me. However the words stunk like fermented blood. I shook off his hand and stood.
Striding towards the stairs without a word, the door to the interrogation room opened. I didn’t see who followed but the first thing through was Hannie’s wolf dog. It’s snout was bright red, fangs dripping.
Gasping, I raced out into the night and didn’t stop still I got home, just as dawn was glaring across the painfully white horizon.
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