The Forest of Vanishing Stars(55)

“I will not.” Yona didn’t know what made her issue a promise she might not be able to keep, but it seemed to reassure the nun, who nodded and hurried away.

Yona turned her attention back to the girl, whose lips were moving, as if she was trying to say something, though she was still unconscious. Her face was white, and when Yona put a hand to her forehead, it was clammy and cool, covered in a sheen of perspiration. Yona unbuttoned the child’s dress and saw the wound where the bullet had entered her tiny body, tearing through her just below the collarbone and under her left shoulder. Another two or three centimeters to the right and it would have shredded her heart.

As gently as possible, Yona lifted the girl slightly, bending her own head to see the child’s back. There was an exit wound, too, which was a blessing, but she was bleeding heavily. Yona laid her back down and the girl groaned, her face constricting.

The nun was back within a few minutes with everything Yona had asked for, and without a word, Yona quickly set to work, first disinfecting the wound with the vodka the nun handed her—encouraged when the child flinched—and then spreading a paste from hastily ground yarrow on both the little girl’s chest and back. Gradually, the bleeding slowed, and when Yona put her cheek on the child’s chest, she could hear a strong heartbeat and steady breath. Sighing, she straightened up and met the gaze of the worried nun.

“She is still alive,” the nun said, and Yona could see that the woman was crying.

Yona nodded. “Someone should get her parents.”

“Her parents are dead.” She wiped her eyes, but new tears sprang up in place of the vanished ones. “The Germans shot them. They thought they’d killed her, too.”

Yona could feel her heart constrict in her chest. “They are Jewish?”

The nun shook her head. “They thought her parents were communists.” Her tears were falling more quickly now. “The Jews of our town have been mostly taken away—taken away or murdered.” She put both palms to her cheeks and drew a deep breath. Her eyes—a watery, crystal blue, framed by laugh lines that hadn’t been used in a while—locked on Yona’s. “Some of those soldiers probably believe themselves to be good Christians. But shooting an innocent family… How could anyone believe that God approves of that? I’ve been searching my soul about it, and I’m no closer to an answer than I was the day they arrived.”

“I’m—I’m not Christian,” Yona blurted out, and then immediately felt foolish, exposed. Why say such a thing? It was just that she couldn’t bear the way the woman was looking at her, her eyes begging for an explanation.

The nun nodded slowly. “Jewish, then?” Her tone was even, and Yona couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

Over a long few seconds of weighted silence, Yona considered the question. In the woods, though she had felt as if she didn’t belong, she had also felt a deep kinship with the people who believed the same things she did, even if she wasn’t always familiar with their customs. “Yes, I think I am,” she whispered, though it was surely foolish to admit such a thing, even to a nun who seemed kind. It was impossible to know whom to trust anymore, but she had to trust God, didn’t she? And she couldn’t betray him with a lie, not in a church where people came to worship him.

Yona waited for the nun’s expression to change in judgment, but instead, she looked relieved. “Good. So you believe in God, then.”

Yona blinked a few times. “Of course I do.”

“Well, that’s what matters, don’t you think?” The nun sighed and looked down at the girl. “I believe the things I believe, but we all come to God in different ways, don’t we? This, though, this is not the way.”

Just then, the girl stirred. Her eyelids fluttered, and then she blinked several times, looking back and forth between Yona and the nun, the fear in her expression deepening each time her eyes opened again. “Who are you?” she asked in Belorussian, her voice barely a whisper as her gaze settled on Yona.

“My name is Yona. And this is Sister—”

“Sister Maria Andrzeja,” the nun filled in softly.

“We are here to help you,” Yona said. “What is your name?”

The child looked from Yona to the nun and back again, and some of the terror left her expression. “Anka,” she whispered.

“Anka,” Yona said, hearing the tremor in her own voice. “It’s important that you stay very still for now. You are hurt, and we are helping you.”

The girl looked down at her chest, and her eyes widened when she saw all the blood. She raised her gaze back to Yona. “My mother and father?”

Yona couldn’t speak over the sudden lump in her throat, and so, with her eyes never leaving the girl’s, she shook her head.

Anka blinked a few times, absorbing the news, and then her face crumpled and she began to cry. “I saw them, you know, when my eyes were closed. My mother, she was saying goodbye to me.”

Yona choked on her own stifled sob and had to turn away for a second to gather herself. Sister Maria Andrzeja moved in beside her to hold the child’s hand. “You are here with us now, and we will protect you.”

“But where is here?”

“The Church of Saint Helena,” the nun replied. “Here we help people in need.”