The Forest of Vanishing Stars(75)

There was no answer, so she knocked again, more loudly this time. Perhaps Maja was merely being cautious, but when Yona peered in the window, the room inside looked still, untouched, particles of dust dancing in the stale air. She swallowed the fear rising in her throat and backed away, heading for the barn and the trapdoor in its floor.

Yona was running by the time she reached the rambling structure on the edge of the property, and as she slipped in, she was terrified that she’d see Maja and Anka splayed out on the hay, a mirror of the scene at the church. But as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she breathed a sigh of relief. There were no bodies, no blood, no tinny smell in the air. There was only silence.

Quickly, she went from stall to stall, pushing aside hay in the deserted spaces until she found a small square in the barn floor. It was the trapdoor. She used the edge of a shovel to pry it open before sweeping over her tracks in the sawdust so if anyone else came looking, they wouldn’t be able to follow her footprints. She lowered herself into the hole and pulled the door closed above her, plunging the space into blackness.

She felt her way along the wall in silence, walking in the pitch dark. She had assumed that the trapdoor led to a hidden room, but instead, it seemed to be a narrow tunnel that went on and on. Her tension rose as she walked farther along without the benefit of sight. Where was this invisible path taking her?

She was just about to turn back when she stumbled against something heavy and warm.

“Oof,” said a high voice in the silence, and Yona began to back away.

“Who’s there?” came a more confident voice, and in the blackness, a match flared, illuminating the shining, defiant face of Maja Yarashuk, who was standing protectively over a crouching Anka. The child was who Yona must have run into. She seemed to recognize Yona at the same moment Yona recognized her, and they both sighed in relief. “What are you doing here?” Maja asked. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of pine bark, which she lit. In a few seconds, it was bright enough to see down the length of the tunnel, which seemed to dead-end several hundred yards away. “You should not have come.”

She glanced down at Anka, who was watching her with bright, frightened eyes. There was no need for the girl to know what had befallen the nuns, so Yona stepped closer to Maja and quickly whispered their fate. “I needed to warn you,” she concluded, and Maja nodded once, then looked down at Anka with concern.

“Thank you. But I think we are safe here for now. I moved her into the tunnel last night; my contact should be coming this evening to take her to another village.”

“And you?” Yona asked.

“I will stay here. There is more work to be done.”

“But if the Germans find out about you…”

“Then I will see my husband again sooner than I’d planned. I accept my fate. But you must go now. Surely you are no longer safe in the village if you were seen with the nuns.”

Yona looked away. Maja didn’t know the half of it. “I must go back to the Nalibocka Forest. There is a retaliation planned against some of the groups there. I need to warn them.” She looked back to see Maja and Anka staring at her with wide eyes.

“It will be dangerous,” Maja said. “I could send you along with Anka instead, help you to disappear.”

Yona shook her head. “This is something I need to do.”

“I understand.” Maja nodded toward the far end of the tunnel. “Walk that way until the tunnel ends. There is a door above that opens into the woods.”

Yona stared at her. “A door that opens into the woods?”

“It is how we move the children in and out without being seen. My husband, he built it during the last war. One day the Germans will find it, and I will be done for. But I don’t think it will be today. Now go, carefully. Once you emerge into the woods, head north for an hour, and then to the east. You will eventually find yourself back in the Nalibocka.”

“And Anka?”

“She will be taken the other way. She will be safe.”

Yona bent to the little girl, who had been watching the exchange with wide eyes. “How are you feeling, Anka?” she asked.

“Better.” Indeed, her cheeks were brighter, her voice stronger. “Where is Sister Maria Andrzeja?”

“She is not here,” Yona said gently. “But she is here.” She tapped the little girl’s chest on the left side, just over her heart.

Anka accepted this in silence. “Like my mother and father,” she said after a moment.

Yona could only nod.

“Then I will be safe.” Still, the little girl looked uncertain.

Yona took Anka’s hands and held them tight. “With so many people watching over you, how could you not be?”

The girl smiled a small smile, and then Maja tapped Yona on the shoulder and nodded toward the end of the tunnel. “Go,” she said. “Godspeed.”

“And to you,” Yona said. She didn’t look back as she hurried down the length of the tunnel, climbed up the ladder that hung there, and emerged into a dense cluster of trees. Then she ran for the Nalibocka, her feet already carrying her toward the only home she’d ever truly known.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE




The forest absorbed Yona quickly, ingesting her into its darkness. But as she moved deeper into the trees, moving east as quickly as her legs could take her, she didn’t feel comforted by the familiarity. She felt sick. The nuns were dead. She hadn’t been able to stop it. And she hadn’t done a thing to avenge their deaths. But vengeance would only taste sweet for a second, and then it would be a permanent stain on her soul. No, she was doing the most important thing she could: fleeing to warn Aleksander, Zus, and the others. But could she find them in time? It felt already as if precious minutes were slipping away like sand in an hourglass.