Young Warriors (25 page)

“Annie,” Bridget said from the other end of the room, “you're exhausting me to watch you.”

Miriam looked over at Bridget. The other girl's auburn braid swung almost into her bucket of soapy water.

“Sorry.” Miriam shrugged and kept scrubbing. Her biceps ached.

“Besides,” Bridget said more acerbically, “no matter how clean it is, it won't be good enough.”

Miriam nodded, frowning. She'd learned that lesson quickly at the hands—and ruler—of Sister Margaret. And when Sister Margaret had discussed Judaism in Church history lessons today, Miriam had bitten her lip to keep her mouth shut.
Lying, prejudiced—
Miriam scrubbed furiously.

If she weren't hiding for her life, she'd teach Sister Margaret a lesson or two about Judaism and Jews. And if she didn't suspect the nun of trying to bait her into exposing herself.

“Annie,” Bridget repeated impatiently, “I
said—
”

“Ah, isn't that a precious sight, Sister Fiona's little pet on her knees,” another voice interrupted.

Miriam tensed. Deirdre O'Fain, the class bully, had taken an instant dislike to her. So far she had avoided confrontation.

“I'm talking to you,
Annie,
” the fair-haired girl said with a sneer.

Miriam kept her head down but stayed alert. When Deirdre bent down to snatch at her braid, she uncoiled upward. She hadn't grown up knowing how to fight, but recent experience had taught her. Brutally.

She punched the other girl hard in the stomach. As Deirdre doubled over, Miriam tackled her, knowing that if she didn't win decisively, Deirdre would only be more trouble.

Deirdre—caught off guard—went tumbling to the floor. Water spilled from the bucket. Deirdre managed to keep her head from rapping too harshly against the tiles, but that was all.

Miriam landed on her and locked her long, piano-playing hands around Deirdre's throat. Memories of the German soldier she'd stolen the knife from, the men who had . . . they all swam in her head, along with her rage at Deirdre's bullying and Sister Margaret's cruelty. Her hands tightened.

“Sweet Jesus, Annie, you'll
kill
her!” Bridget frantically hauled her backward. That broke the spell. Deirdre lay limp, but wide-eyed and breathing. Bridget shoved Miriam aside and knelt beside the fair-haired girl.

Miriam's knees shook. She
would
have killed Deirdre.
What's become of me?
she thought in mingled shame and fear.

Deirdre coughed and tried to sit up. Bridget held her down. Miriam tensed again.

“Deirdre,” Bridget said coldly, “I didn't stop Annie from wringing your fat neck because I
like
you. We're in a house of godly nature, and blood oughtn't to be shed here. But I swear, if you don't leave Annie alone, the Sisters will know about the American you've been sneaking off to see. D'you understand?”

“He loves me!” Deirdre said raspily.

Bridget's mouth turned down. “They'll
all
say that. But if you say a word about this, or if you bother Annie again, you won't be hearing more fancy words of love from your American. D'you understand?”

Deirdre's face flushed. After a moment, she nodded.

“Your word as an O'Fain,” Bridget pressed.

Anger sparked in Deirdre's hazel eyes. “My word as an O'Fain,” she finally snarled. Bridget released her. Deirdre got to her feet, touching her throat and looking at Miriam with fear and hatred. Then she turned and stalked down the corridor, wet dress clinging to her plump frame.

Miriam and Bridget faced each other across the water-splashed floor.

Bridget shook her head, smiling slightly. “Annie, you're a corker. Your brothers must be a handful if you're such a scrapper.”

Miriam blinked back sudden tears. “My brothers didn't teach me to fight.”
Oh, Jacob, oh, Isaac . . . where are you now?
Be safe, please,
she half pleaded, half prayed.

Bridget's eyes—green as the emerald ring Miriam's mother had sold to buy her passage—darkened with what took a moment for Miriam to recognize as sympathy. “The world taught you, then.” The questions behind the statement lay unspoken.

“The world's teaching all of us,” Miriam said quietly.

“Ah, but Ireland's neutral and they'll keep it that way, no matter how many they have to arrest.” Bridget's gaze stayed on Miriam's. “And some, like Deirdre or Sister Margaret, would be more than happy to go bearing tales.”

Miriam nodded at the warning. Then she shivered.

“Ah, you're soaking wet and I'm blathering. C'mon, let's get this mopped up before lights-out.”

Bridget lay awake long after lights-out, thinking. She'd grown up brawling. A girl fighting didn't surprise her.
That cow
Deirdre had it coming for a long time. From someone other
than me.

But . . . when she had pulled Annie away, there'd been a killing rage in those dark eyes of hers.
That
Bridget hadn't seen often.

Maire slipped into the room. Bridget turned her head. “Where have you been?” she whispered. Maire had warned her she'd be late and not to worry, but she couldn't help it.

“In the library.” Maire sat carefully down on Bridget's bed, trying not to make it squeak. “I found a book while I was cleaning. An
old
book.”

“Maire . . .”

“
Listen.
If we can find out where to go, I can get us there.”

“How?”

“Magic.”

Miriam listened silently. Maire's arrival had awoken her from a light doze.

She knew there was no such thing as magic. But hiding in Ireland, she'd learned the Irish believed as fiercely in magic and mystery as she did in the Torah.

“And how are we going to find a place to go?” Bridget didn't sound convinced.

“Bridey, I can't think of
everything.
Can't you help?”

“How am
I
going to find a place to go? I've never been outside the city!”

I have,
Miriam thought. The convent felt less secure every day. If she was discovered, she'd be deported. Which meant her death. She'd tried to blend in, but she knew she was conspicuous. The growing suspicion in Sister Margaret's eyes told her that. Deirdre watched Miriam closely now too. So did others. If Sister Margaret, or Deirdre, or someone else, guessed the truth . . .

“Annie has,” Maire whispered in a strange, toneless voice that sent shivers up Miriam's spine. “And it's farther she'll go before the war's over, 'cross the water to 'scape the death looking for her . . .”

Miriam sat up without thinking.

“Farther she'll go, in the smoke and fire,” Maire continued, as if she hadn't heard Miriam's bed creak. “With kin not her own and naught but her wits, to fox the hunters and make a new den.”

Miriam drew the blanket tightly around her, chilled to the bone.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Bridget whispered.

“What?” Maire's voice sounded normal again.

Miriam heard scrabbling sounds; then candlelight bloomed. Bridget looked pallid, even in the dim light. “You never told me you had the Sight, Maire Riordan,” she whispered. Her voice shook.

“I . . . what happened?” Now Maire sounded frightened.

“What have you been
playing
at? And in a house of God?”

Maire drew herself up. “I do not
play,
” she said with knife-edge precision. “My mother had the Sight, and her mother before her, and
her
mother before
her,
I'll have you know, Bridget Riley. There are more things on this earth than the Church teaches.”

Bridget crossed herself.

Miriam sat watching, trying to reconcile everything she knew with what she'd just heard. All she knew of magic was folktales and faint whispers she'd heard about kabbalah lore— but she knew only that it wasn't “proper,” as her father had said when Isaac had asked once.

“Annie,” Maire asked, “what did I say?”

“You don't remember?”

“No.” Maire tucked her knees up under her chin. “It's not the way with me to remember.”

“You said . . . I had farther to go before the war's over. Across the water. To escape a death looking for me.”
That
could be a guess. She
is
very smart.

“And?”

“You talked about smoke and fire. And . . .”

“ ‘With kin not her own,' ” Bridget continued, “ ‘with naught but her wits, to fox the hunters and make a new den.' ”

“Ah,” Maire said.

“Ah,
what
?” Miriam asked impatiently when Maire didn't elaborate.

“Ah, as in . . . shh!” Maire blew out the candle and scrambled into her own bed.

Miriam lay down quickly, trying not to make the bed creak. She heard soft footsteps along the corridor. Her hand crept to the knife under her pillow.

The door opened a crack. Miriam feigned sleep, her senses stretched taut to catch every sound.

“Sleeping,” she heard Sister Fiona whisper.

“I smell smoke,” Sister Margaret whispered in return.

The candle,
Miriam thought in alarm.

“I was poking up the fire before; it's me you smell it on,” Sister Fiona whispered.

“Hmph.” The door eased shut again, but not before Miriam heard “Troublemakers, all three” from Sister Margaret.

If only you knew,
she thought grimly.

Maire rubbed tired eyes. Every chance she'd had, she'd been poring over the musty tome she'd hidden in a corner of the library. She'd found it buried on a disused bookshelf. Something besides neatness had drawn her to dust that corner. When she saw the spine jutting out slightly from those of the other books, she had remembered her dream with a shiver of mingled excitement and fear—and pulled the book out, knowing she'd found what she sought.

Sister Fiona tolerated her reading so long as the library remained spotless. Maire felt a pang of guilt. The good Sister would be appalled at her reading. But . . . Needs must when the Sight drove.

She thought she could cast the spells—powerful ones, from the way they made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. The first was for protection, should they need it.

And now she knew where they were headed, so she could cast the second spell, the journey one.
Bless Deirdre and her
American. All it took was an armlock from Bridey and Deirdre
repeated all his tales of New York City, and all the names of his
family and friends, that lonely he was for them . . .

They. Bridget's going with Maire had never been in question; Maire had come to love her like a sister, for all the younger girl's gruffness.

Anne . . . Well, that had been a surprise. But the Sight had told Maire more than the other girls had realized, once they'd repeated her own words back to her.

“ ‘Kin not her own,' ” she murmured. “ ‘Naught but her wits.' ” She smiled slightly. “Describes all three of us, now doesn't it?”

The night exploded. Maire screamed as the library walls shook.

“ ‘Smoke and fire,' ” she breathed, eyes wide. Then she grabbed the book. And ran.

Pandemonium reigned. Girls streamed from their bedrooms, down the stairs, calling out in fright, praying, or weeping. “They're
bombing
us!” Sister Margaret screamed, ruler forgotten beside her as she knelt in the middle of the center hall, habit askew, crying hysterically. “We're
neutral
! They're not supposed to—”

Bridget—who'd been on punishment duty again, this time long after lights-out, and had just come from dumping her water out and admiring the full moon—stood stock-still as terrified girls careened into her.

She heard air-raid sirens.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, they're
using the
full moon
to bomb us by!
Part of her wanted to drop to her knees with Sister Margaret. Part of her wanted to run. Somewhere.
Anywhere.

“It's her, that dirty Jewess new girl—” Sister Margaret gabbled.

You'll not betray Annie!
Bridget's slap to Sister Margaret's face, delivered with all the pent-up anger she had kept in check for so long, sent the nun sprawling. Sister Margaret scrabbled for the ruler, but Bridget got to it first. Other girls scattered, wide-eyed.

The third blow she slashed across Sister Margaret's back and hands splintered the ruler. Grinning ferally, Bridget snapped it between her hands and flung it aside. Someone— Deirdre?—cheered. Before the dazed nun could recover, Bridget hauled her up and pinned her against the wall by the throat.

“It's hysterical you are, Sister Margaret,” Bridget said loudly, staring into her hate-filled eyes. “Aren't you supposed to be setting a godly example for us? Not blathering on about fancies?”

“You little—that little—”

Bridget's grip tightened. “There
are
no Jews here, Sister.
We
know that.
You
know that.”
Only my friend. And I'll fight
you or anyone for her, you Nazi-sympathizing cow.
“You're daft.”

Sister Fiona stormed up the hallway, habit billowing, dark hair exposed. She cut across the crowd to pull Bridget's arm away from Sister Margaret's throat. The older nun slumped to the floor, coughing. “Go on with you!” Sister Fiona ordered.

“But—”

“
I'll
deal with her.” Sister Fiona pressed a quick kiss to Bridget's cheek. “God be with you, Bridget Riley, wherever you go, and take care of your friends!”

Bridget ran upstairs as dust shivered from the ceiling. The air-raid sirens howled frantically. Explosions resounded ever closer, ever closer . . .

Anne was in their room, throwing clothes into a satchel. Maire paced by the door.