The Forest of Vanishing Stars(50)

“The woman who raised me taught me a trick long ago that she’d learned from some Russian soldiers she helped feed for a month during the Great War,” Yona replied. Jerusza had, in fact, made Yona repeat the information back several times, warning her that she would need it someday, because lice were ruthless, dangerous invaders. “Mercury mixed with an egg, soaked in fabric and worn across the body. It’s the only thing that drives them away for good.”

Aleksander scratched his head. “That just sounds like the babbling of an old woman.”

Zus shot him a look. “It sounds more promising than anything we’re doing now. I’ll go. I know a town with a pharmacy.”

Yona gave him a grateful smile. “Then I will go with you.” Her reply was immediate, and Zus looked startled, but he didn’t refuse.

“No, you should stay here, Yona,” Aleksander said. “I’ll go with Zus.”

She turned to him. “Zus knows the villages, Aleksander, and I know the forest. It makes the most sense. You can stay and protect the others.”

Aleksander searched her eyes for a moment. “No, Yona. It’s too dangerous. If something happens to you…” He hesitated and shook his head. “No. I can’t let you do that.”

She wasn’t sure whether he was objecting because he loved her or because he was acknowledging her importance to the group. Maybe he was only trying to establish that he was the one who wrote the rules. Regardless, he was wrong. Getting swiftly to and from a village under cover of darkness and disappearing into the forest in daylight would be dangerous and would require someone who knew intimately how to vanish in the trees. She opened her mouth to explain, but Zus spoke first.

“Yona, I think Aleksander is right,” he said, turning his warm gaze on her. “You would be the best person to go, but that’s why you must stay, in case something happens. The group needs you. I will take Chaim. We both know the land. I even know the pharmacy we’ll visit, unless it is no longer there. There’s a chemist in Lubcha who hired my father to repair his windows many years ago after a break-in. My father did good work, like he always did, and afterward, the man refused to pay. Called him a dirty Jew, accused him of shoddy work, then said he hadn’t actually done the work at all.” Zus smiled slightly, but there was sadness at the edges of his mouth, anger in his eyes. “It will be nice to pay him a visit for old times’ sake. I think Chaim will feel the same.”

He looked at Aleksander, and Aleksander nodded. “It’s decided, then. How soon can you go?”

“We can leave within the hour. We should be at the forest’s edge by midnight. Can you make camp here for a couple of days so we can find our way back to you?” Zus looked at Yona.

She thought about it for a few seconds, her mind still spinning uneasily through all the fates that could befall Zus and Chaim in the forest, especially if they were discovered. But they had managed to lead nine others, including children, out of the ghetto and into the woods undetected. They would survive, as long as nothing went wrong. “Yes,” she said. “We will stay here unless something forces us to move. I think we are safe for a few days.”

Zus nodded. “I’ll go tell Chaim.”

She watched him go and then turned to Aleksander. “I really should go with them. It will increase their chances of getting back alive.”

“You are better off here.” There was something cold in his tone, something that caught her off guard and made her look up sharply to meet his gaze. He looked away. “It’s decided. They know the forest. They will be fine.”

As he, too, strode away, she rubbed the back of her neck, trying to untie the tension knotting her muscles, the lingering feeling that something terrible was coming. As Zus emerged from one of the shelters across the clearing, Chaim following close behind him, his eyes found Yona’s, and for a few seconds, she sensed he shared her foreboding.



* * *



Zus and Chaim left within an hour, both armed with the rifles Yona had taken from the dead Russians the summer before. Before they went, Zus paused in front of Yona and murmured, “We’ll return with the mercury. I promise.” His words were soft, and she could feel them against her cheek.

“Just be safe. Please.”

He nodded, and then the brothers were gone, the forest swallowing them whole.

The next night, Aleksander was out on patrol, and Yona went to sleep alone in the hut they’d built the day before. As they had the previous summer and fall, the group slept in smaller clusters again, now that they had emerged from hibernation, two or three to a hut, some of them—such as Rosalia and Zus—choosing to build their own one-person lean-tos and sleep alone.

Yona still couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was coming, but she was good at sleeping for a few hours at a time even when her mind raced, for sleep protected against illness and was essential to survival. Though she was worried about Zus and Chaim, she drifted off just as the moon reached its zenith in the sky; there was no rain in the air, so she and Aleksander had opened their makeshift roof to watch the stars, which brought her peace.

She awoke with a start a few hours later. She had dreamed of a great cloud of ravens, so numerous that the moon and stars disappeared under a canopy of black. As they all croaked at once, their voices reverberating, she sat bolt upright, her heart thudding. Dreaming of ravens meant imminent death. She was out of bed and running into the clearing before she could stop herself.