The Winter Guest (29 page)

24

As Ruth vanished into the cover of the trees, Helena turned and looked out over the horizon. Above the birch forest to the south, the bare branches slashed together like barbed wire. She swallowed over the lump that had formed in her throat, then reached down and pulled Dorie’s hat lower against the wind, which was bitingly cold. The predawn sky was pale gray with the threat of more snow.

Sam touched her arm, his hand strong and reassuring through the fabric of her coat. “We need to get to the station. Which way?”

Helena gestured southwest. “Through the woods.” His eyes traveled in the direction she was pointing. The open field adjacent to the Slomir farm lay between the spot where they stood and the cover of the trees. Their eyes met uncertainly. She shook her head slightly, in response to his unanswered question as to whether there was a less exposed path. “Let’s go,” she said, forcing a note of brightness into her voice for Dorie’s benefit.

Sam squared his shoulders and took her hand, his glove-clad fingers intertwining thickly with her own. “Quickly, then.”

They started across the field in silence. Above, the clouds shifted and the nearly full moon peeked through, illuminating the snow-covered field. Helena snuck a peek over her shoulder at the cottage. She had wanted to leave this place a thousand times. Now she was actually going for good as she had dreamed, with Sam. But it felt ominous, their future uncertain.

“Where’s Michal?” Dorie asked, too loudly, her voice billowing across the field.

“Hush, Dorie.” Where indeed? Helena wondered how swiftly Ruth was going, and how she would know which path to choose when the road forked. “You know how he’s always dawdling,” Helena whispered, trying to make her voice light. “Ruth’s gone to hurry him along and then they’ll meet us.” She held her breath, not expecting the answer to satisfy ever-curious Dorie.

Helena shifted Karolina higher up on her hip. Sam held out his free arm. “Do you want me to take her?” Helena shook her head, not wanting to wake the now-sleeping child.

Beside her, Dorie’s awkward gait crunched loudly against the frozen snow, every second step seeming to reverberate through the air. Helena cringed, not wanting to rebuke the child for something she could not help. With each second, she felt the cold more intensely. Though she had been walking through the forest for months, it was somehow different trudging through the unbroken expanse of white fields. A dull ache seeped through her boots, clutching at her feet like iron bands. It was a sensation she remembered from playing in the snow as a child. But then, there was a fire to come inside to, Mama’s hands to rub her feet and warm milk for her insides. Now there were only miles of cold stretching endlessly before them. Soon her feet went numb and it was as if she were walking on nothing at all.

When they finally reached the trees on the far side of the field, Helena looked back, half expecting to see someone coming after them. But the frigid expanse was empty. Taking in the edge of the still-sleeping village, she remembered what Alek had said about the war ending someday. What would this place look like a hundred years from now? Time and life would go on here, but they would not be here to see it.

They pressed forward through the birch forest. At least the route to the railway was mercifully flat, Helena reflected. But as they took cover in the trees, she almost wished for the hills. Here there was no worn path and lifting her feet from the soft, sodden earth required great effort. The tangle of roots and brush, obscured by the snow, threatened to trip them with every step. The trees were thinner, too, narrow rods of birch, their bare branches offering scant cover compared to the lush pines in the hills above.

Helena pulled away from Sam and took Dorie’s hand to make sure the child did not fall. She looked over her shoulder hopefully, as though Ruth and Michal might magically appear. But the trees had closed in, eclipsing the life that they had left behind. “This way,” she said, trying to make her voice sound confident once more as she led them through the low brush. Though she struggled to see in the near-darkness, the terrain was familiar to her, letting her guide them in a way that Sam, even with all his military training, could not.

They trudged along through the woods without speaking. Helena’s arms ached from carrying Karolina, who in her bundle of warm clothing seemed twice as bulky and heavy to hold. She regretted not taking Sam up on his earlier offer to help with the child. Beside her, Dorie clung hard to her hand, seeming to pull her downward. The child stumbled over a large tree root, going slower even as Helena silently willed her to make haste. “I’m tired,” Dorie announced suddenly, her sharp voice breaking the silence once more. Helena cringed as though someone might hear, but the sound disappeared into the trees.

Before Helena could respond, Sam knelt. “May I carry you?” he asked gently, holding out his hand grandly and patiently, as though offering a dance. Helena started to protest: How could he possibly carry a full-size child with his own leg scarcely mended? Though Dorie was emaciated as the rest of them, she was still nearly fifty pounds. Dorie looked up at Helena uncertainly. “You can ride on my back, like a horse,” Sam added gamely, turning away from the child. Dorie climbed on his back and, in that moment, Sam irreversibly became one of them—a part of their family they had never expected, and until then had not known was exactly what they needed. A part they simply could not do without.

Helena smiled gratefully as Sam straightened, trying not to grimace from the effort. He reached out and squeezed her fingers quickly, then dropped them again, too soon. He had a way, even now, of making things seem all right. She started walking again with newfound strength.

A crackling sound broke the silence ahead. “Hide!” Sam whispered, pushing them low into the bushes and onto the icy ground. Awakened by the sudden movement, Karolina squawked and tensed up in a way Helena knew meant she was about to bawl. Desperately, Helena pressed her forearm against Karolina’s mouth, stifling her cries, and trying to leave just a bit of space for air. The child squirmed for several seconds, then seemed to relax. Helena squinted through the trees, trying without success to identify the source of the noise, which was too loud to be an animal.

Footsteps, she realized. They grew louder now, branches breaking under them. A girl, older than Karolina but younger than Dorie, appeared between the birch trees, running in the direction in which they were headed, heedless of who might hear her. She was nearly naked, but for a thin cotton shirt and torn rags where her shoes should have been. Watching the child, vulnerable and alone, Helena’s heart tore. She could not possibly survive long in these conditions. In her hand, she held something balled. A red plaid scarf, Helena could see, with some sort of gold emblem on it.

Helena started to stand. She wanted to call out to the girl, for the child could not keep going alone in such a state. “We must help her.”

Sam held her down firmly. There was pain in his eyes, too, as he took in the helpless girl and her nearly certain fate. But he shook his head, signaling that they could not afford to make their presence known to anyone. “It’s no good. We’ve got no way to help her and we can’t carry another child. We have to keep going.”

He was right, of course. Once they might have shared shelter and clothing. Now they had no assistance to offer, and they could not risk their own safety for strangers. But Helena remembered the family she had seen arrested in Kraków, the promise to herself that next time she would do something to help. “She’s a child,” Helena persisted, starting to unbutton her own coat. How could they leave the girl to die in the cold?

Sam gestured downward. “So are they.” Helena started to argue, but the point was moot: the girl had disappeared into the trees. What had happened, Helena wondered, to separate the child from her parents? She needed someone to tell her to wear the scarf, the only warm thing that she had. Helena reached up to touch Dorie’s head and drew Karolina closer to her. The baby was limp, she noticed. She held Karolina’s motionless body aloft, panic rising. Had she gone too far in silencing her? “Karolina!” she whispered fiercely. She pinched her cheek, and a moment later, the baby began to move. Helena went slack with relief.

Sam was tugging her to her feet with uncharacteristic roughness. “How much farther?”

“A few kilometers. But, Sam...” She pulled away. “If the girl was running from danger, then maybe we shouldn’t continue this way.”

He hoisted Dorie once more. “We don’t have a choice, do we?”

Helena stepped ahead of him, starting through the woods once more. “This way, and then we have to go across a small bridge...” A sudden clattering burst out ahead, illuminating the forest in ghostly white. She jumped back, covering Karolina’s mouth, muffling her inevitable squeal. Then she turned, following her instinct to run in the other direction. She choked back a scream as another round of gunfire lit up the trees like skeletons.

Sam grabbed her and began pulling her sideways into the brush once more. Helena stumbled to the ground. Pain shot through her leg. Her cry rang out in the stillness, inviting someone to discover them but it was muffled by a third round of gunfire. She lay on the ground, half atop Karolina, paralyzed by terror and pain, wondering if she had been shot. Had they walked right into some sort of fighting?

When the gunfire did not come again, Sam crouched low beside her and rolled her over. “Hold this,” he said, producing a lighter from his pocket and flicking it so a small orange flame appeared, casting a faint glow. He handed the lighter to her, then pulled up her skirt, heedless in his haste of any propriety. A large branch with a sharp pointed end had pierced Helena’s thigh when she fell. Sam’s forehead wrinkled with worry. “I have to get this out,” he said decisively. Before she could respond, he pulled the stick from her leg. She bit her lip, stifling the urge to scream. The children looked on, wide-eyed.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “It had to be done.” He swiftly cleaned the wound with snow, then took the scarf from around his neck and wrapped her leg in it. But his brow was still furrowed. “We need to get you somewhere to have that examined before it becomes infected. When you get to Czechoslovakia...”

“We...” she corrected.

“Yes, of course,” he said quickly. “We need to get some alcohol on that cut, even if it is just liquor. It will burn like hell, excuse my language, but you don’t have a choice. Can you stand?”

Helena rose with effort, struggling not to cry out against the burning pain that shot through her leg. “What was that? Some sort of battle?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. It could have been a skirmish but the shooting was only coming from one direction.”

“Michal...Ruth.” Helena started back toward the river.

But Sam grabbed her and drew her close, pressing her to his chest. “You can’t,” he whispered. “Think of the children. Anyway, Michal likely went in the other direction toward the city. There’s no reason to think they’ll encounter any fighting.”

He was right. Ruth would have gone in the other direction, following Michal toward the city. But Ruth was not as strong as she, did not have Sam to guide her. How would they ever get to the station?

“We can’t keep going that way, though.”

“No.” She considered the terrain ahead, trying to think of an alternate route. The path that had just been cut off was the only way she knew to get to the station. “Let’s just keep on through the trees,” she suggested. He eyed her dubiously. “We’ll have to find a way around.”

Sam reached down for Karolina, who still sat on the icy ground. Helena took Dorie’s hand and steered them slightly south. She forged a path through the trees, trying to ignore the burning pain that seared upward from her thigh with every step. As she breathed deeply, Tata’s face appeared suddenly in her mind. It was as if he were leading her now, showing her the route as she turned instinctively through the winding trees. She held her hand out in front of her to clear the branches so they did not scrape against Karolina, a padded ball beneath the blanket in Sam’s arms.

The birch forest ended abruptly at an open field like the one they had crossed earlier, leading to the mill and river. But they were well south of the bridge they needed to cross, still unable to reach it without nearing the gunfire they had heard. The sky was lightening, making it easier to see and at the same time urging haste. Sam turned to her with a desperation in his once-confident eyes that scared her more than anything had so far. He was looking to her, she realized, for the answer. She turned away, ashamed that she had failed him.

“We need to get downstream,” she said suddenly, gazing at the water. “There’s another bridge a few miles south, but if we walk we’ll never make the train.”

“Look.” He pointed. Several meters away stood a small shed by the riverbank. Piled alongside it were the dinghies used by the millers to ferry goods downstream. But the open field still stood between them and the river. “I’ll go first,” he whispered. Not waiting for an answer, he dashed across the field, his body doubled over Karolina protectively.

As he reached the other side, a shot rang out. They had been spotted. Watching Sam and Karolina dive for the cover of the bank, Helena’s heart stopped. How had they come to be here, running from gunfire through the forest like hunted animals? Mere hours ago they had been safe and warm in bed. Perhaps Ruth had been right. She’d dragged them all from the safety of home, only to die in the cold.

A second later, Sam’s arm rose from the brush, gesturing to her and she knew she had no choice. She lifted Dorie up and buried her as deeply in her arms as she could. “I’ve got you,” she soothed as she felt the child stiffen with fear. Helena hunched over and ran despite the searing pain in her wounded leg. A bullet whizzed past her head and she waited to feel the pain. But there was nothing and she kept going. Sam had risen from the bank and stepped out to divert any fire toward him. She reached him and he yanked her and Dorie toward the water’s edge. The ground was softer beneath their feet here, giving off a damp peat smell. The river was beginning to freeze, fine sheets of ice forming on the surface. Sam went to the dinghies and dragged one toward the bank. It was no more than a raft, really, some logs roped together, cracks filled with hardened pine sap. It was not intended for so many passengers, but it was the best they could do.