The Forest of Vanishing Stars(83)

Full dark had fallen, but the sky was clear, and a half-moon lit their way, the stars tiny pinpricks of light in a blackening sky. The children all looked up in awe, and even Leon, who at seventy was the oldest among them, sighed in contentment. “It has been many months since we’ve fully seen the stars,” he said, and the group murmured their assent. “You can hardly make them out above the trees. They disappear deep in the forest, don’t they?”

“So do we, if we’re lucky,” Moshe said, and a few of the others laughed.

“Yes,” Leon said, tapping his chest, where once upon a time, the star of David had marked him as a lesser citizen, as a target for elimination. But the forest knew no difference when it came to race, religion, or gender; it smiled and frowned upon all of them in equal measure, sometimes providing protection, sometimes peril. “By the grace of God, may we all be vanishing stars.”

Despite the chill of the mud, and the fact that there was water now, too, dragging at their calves, and then at their knees, the group made good progress for the first hour. “Do you think we’ll see the others soon?” asked Bina after a while. They were all trying to be quiet, but it was hard not to talk now and then, just to remind themselves that even in the darkness, they still existed. “Perhaps they’re already at the island.”

“They might be,” Oscher said. “If they found the Bielskis quickly, they could have made it here before we did.”

“We will see.” Yona hoped that the knots in her stomach were simply a fear of the unknown rather than a harbinger of approaching trouble. Jerusza had always taught her to be attuned to her own body, to the messages it gave her even before events unfolded, and now, though she was trying to explain away her rising sense of discomfort, she couldn’t ignore it.

“Are we almost there?” Maia asked an hour later, her voice small and weak.

“I’m afraid not,” Yona said. This wasn’t the time to remind them that they would have to wade through water of varying depth for another day more before reaching the island. “But look up ahead. I think we’ve found some solid ground. Let’s take a rest.”

The group quickened their pace and found that though the ground Yona had seen was thick with mud, it appeared to be stable. It was barely large enough for all of them, and Yona cautioned them to leave their ties in place and to use the extra clothing from their packs to fasten themselves to trees and bushes, whatever they could find, so they could sleep in peace without worrying about drowning. Still, though her head throbbed and her eyes were heavy with exhaustion, Yona refused to sleep. She kept watch while the others slumbered, their clothes and hair caked with mud, their lips cracked with thirst, their bodies twitching in the throes of deep dreams.

It was dawn when she stirred them awake, urging them to move again. Now that they were in the swamp, they no longer had to be as wary about moving in daylight; the Germans would have to wade in after them even to catch a glimpse, and Yona felt sure that wouldn’t happen unless the soldiers had some indication they were here.

“Are you all right?” Rosalia murmured, coming up beside Yona as the group untied themselves from the trees and made sure the knots connecting them to each other remained secure for the trudge ahead. “You didn’t sleep.”

“I’m fine,” Yona reassured her, but as they waded once again into the mud, Yona could feel the exhaustion in her bones, and she worried that it would blunt her instincts, make her less capable of spotting trouble ahead. She started off leading the group, but after a few hours, Chaim, who’d been walking behind her, offered to switch off for a while, and Yona gratefully accepted the reprieve.

By noon, the water was up to the middle of their chests, and all the children had been hoisted onto the shoulders of adults so they wouldn’t slip beneath the muck. Yona untied herself and moved toward the back of the line, where Rosalia was supporting almost the full weight of Oscher, who was having trouble moving forward.

“We’ll never make it,” he moaned as the sun beat down, turning them all redder by the hour, blistering their skin. In the depths of the forest, they were shaded enough not to burn, but out here, the light ate at them, and though Yona paused the group so they could all tie clothes around their heads for protection from the sun’s rays, it wasn’t much relief.

“Are we almost there?” Leon whispered in the early afternoon, and Yona was startled that she hadn’t realized how much he had slipped behind, how he was faltering, gasping for breath. “Can we take another break?”

They were nearly up to their necks now, so deep that it was impossible to have any perspective on the distance to land. All they could see ahead of them were endless fallen trees, tangled vines, and marsh grass. But something was tingling in the pit of Yona’s belly now, a feeling that they were close. She could hear Jerusza whispering in the breeze, Keep going, and she almost wanted to tell the old woman to be quiet, because they had no choice.

Instead, she moved back to walk beside Leon, and then she snaked her arm around his back and held tight, forcing him to lean into her for support, even if he was too proud to do so.

They were approaching another twilight, a few of the brightest stars already appearing overhead as the sun crept toward the horizon, when Chaim, who was still leading the group, let out a muted whoop.

Yona’s head snapped up. Was it possible that they had found the island at last? She hardly believed it, but ahead of her, the single-file line of haggard refugees began to rise from the mud, footstep by footstep, until they were standing on a wide swath of solid land.