The Forest of Vanishing Stars(29)

“What can I do?” Ruth asked. She was rocking Daniel gently; his eyes were closed, and his mouth twitched in a dream.

“You have the baby,” Yona said.

“Pessia can hold him.” Ruth glanced at the older girl, who nodded, wiped her berry-stained fingers on her shirt, and reached for her little brother. The boy settled into Pessia’s arms with a coo and a sigh, and Ruth turned to Yona. “I am ready.”

Yona nodded. “Come with me, then.”

From the pile of the group’s belongings, Yona pulled two large pots. It was extraordinary that they’d managed to obtain such supplies, but she was thankful for it. The pots would allow them to boil water for herbal remedies, and soups when the weather grew cold. And now, it would allow her and Ruth to do a job that was necessary, though unpleasurable.

“We need to wash away the waste,” she said, handing Ruth one of the pots.

“The waste?”

Yona’s eyes drifted to the area just beyond the edge of the circle that the group had obviously used as a latrine. It was hidden behind a massive oak for privacy, and there were two large holes dug in the ground. A tracking dog—or a man who was experienced at searching the woods—would know it in an instant.

“Oh,” Ruth said, following Yona’s gaze.

But she followed Yona, and together, in companionable silence, they dumped pot after pot of water from the stream on the area, then filled in the two holes with fresh dirt, using large sticks as hoes. They finished with a few dozen more pots full of water, going back and forth to the stream, and covered the space with leaves and branches, until finally, the ground looked untouched. Then they returned to the stream together to wash the dirt from beneath their nails.

“You have been alone out here?” Ruth asked as they scrubbed their hands with the cool water.

“Yes.”

“Do you mind if I ask what happened to your family?” Her tone was gentle. “Surely you had parents.”

“I don’t know what happened to them,” Yona said after a pause. She wondered where they were now, Siegfried and Alwine Jüttner. They were strangers. “The woman who raised me died earlier this year.”

“I’m sorry.” When Yona didn’t say anything, Ruth added, “I am glad you are here. With us.”

Yona searched herself before replying. “I am, too.”



* * *



Three hours before nightfall, they set off, moving slowly northeast through the trees. They were going deeper into the heart of the Nalibocka, trudging at a pace that Oscher, who leaned on Leib, was comfortable with. Ruth carried Daniel, while Miriam held Leah, and Pessia trudged along holding Luba’s hand, after announcing to the group that she was a big girl and could walk by herself. Ruth and Yona had exchanged looks of doubt, but the child was keeping up just fine, a look of steely determination on her rosy-cheeked face, and Yona was impressed.

Yona and Aleksander walked ahead of the group, leading the way, and Rosalia brought up the rear, the gun still in her hands as she scanned the forest for danger.

“We’re moving farther away from civilization,” Aleksander said as they moved, ducking in unison under a low-slung oak branch. His boots crunched loudly through the underbrush, while Yona moved almost silently, her weight on the balls of her feet, as Jerusza had always taught her. Move like a lynx, Jerusza’s voice sounded in her head. Think like a fox. Track like a wolf.

“Yes.”

Aleksander cleared his throat. “Are you sure about this, Yona? I initially made the decision to stay within a day’s walk of some of the towns at the forest’s edge.”

She glanced at him. His jaw, sharp beneath several days of dark growth, was set. “Why?”

“So that we could venture in if we needed anything.”

“Like what?”

“Food—a few chickens, some potatoes, some jam. Glasses for Moshe.” He paused. “It’s where we got the pots we cook in, from a farmhouse not far from where we camped for the first few weeks.”

She understood. “You stole those things.”

He turned, his eyes meeting hers. “Some of it, yes. It was survival, Yona. We—it was hard to know how to eat at first. And Moshe’s glasses were crushed by a German weeks before we left. He’s nearly blind without them. And the gun. Yona, we needed a gun.”

“You stole that, too?”

Their conversation paused as they reached a small stream. Yona tested it first, and then nodded, beckoning everyone forward. With cupped hands, they all drank the water, Leib in particular gulping it down in huge, desperate swallows.

“Slow,” Yona said, reaching out to touch his shoulder. “We are all thirsty. But drinking too quickly will make you sick.”

He nodded, but he continued to gulp the cool liquid, and Yona returned to her own spot on the bank beside Aleksander.

“It’s getting dark,” he said.

Yona looked up at the sky, which was fading to a shade of deep blue that sometimes reminded her of Kroman Lake in the southern part of the forest, where bream, perch, and pike swam. She and Jerusza had visited twice a summer when Yona was young, and the old woman had even permitted Yona to swim once while Jerusza fished. The water had been cool, bracing, and it had moved around her in a way that felt different from the gentle, steady currents in the streams where she usually bathed. The fish they caught were plump, salty. But then the lake had become a place for villagers to look for food when the farmers’ crops struggled and the economy turned, and Jerusza had never brought her back.