The Forest of Vanishing Stars(97)

Zus sighed, but he didn’t step closer, didn’t take her back into his arms, and somehow, though she’d been the one to put distance between them, she was hurt by his inaction.

He looked away again, deep into the impenetrable dark of the forest. “I love you, Yona,” he said at last, not looking at her. “I love you, but that love breaks my heart. The further I step into this life with you, the more I leave my life with them behind.”

And then, without warning, he turned away and ran, his footfalls heavy on the dusting of snow, the woods closing around him before Yona could dislodge the lump in her throat. By the time she could speak past her shock and sadness, he had vanished, and with him, her newfound sense of belonging.

She wiped away tears she hadn’t known she was crying and then wrapped her arms more tightly around herself. The snow continued to drift down, and as she looked skyward, a few flakes landed on her cheeks, washing away the salty rivers.

Behind her, the camp slept, and the night was still. She couldn’t go back, not yet, and so she walked in the opposite direction from which Zus had fled.

Ahead of her lay a cluster of fallen trees, and she settled on one of the toppled trunks, studying the stump it had broken off from. It had been here for a while, from the looks of things, and over time, the sharp lines of the tree had softened. Now they were crusted in ice, hard and unforgiving, and Yona wondered if she’d been wrong when she told Zus that their broken edges were meant to fit together. Maybe the jagged pieces never fit anywhere again. Maybe they were destined to wear thin at the edges, and to freeze over, impenetrable and incompatible. Had she been fooling herself to think that she and Zus could fill each other’s empty spaces?

She lost track of time as she sat on the stump, staring up at the soft snow and the dark, moonlit sky, and the gentle canopy of branches above. Finally, she closed her eyes and sighed. She had to keep moving forward, and so did Zus. Their pasts would always be with them, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some sort of future ahead. Dawn was coming, the sky to the east just beginning to lighten as the stars continued to keep watch overhead in patient silence. She was just about to get up to return to camp—surely the group would be worried if they awoke and found both her and Zus gone—when she heard distinct footsteps to the west, crunching in the snow. She leapt to her feet, all her senses suddenly on alert as she stared into the dark, impenetrable depths of the forest, trying to see the source of the sound. It had been something large, as large as a man. Could it have been a bear? A large wolf? She hadn’t brought a gun, but she reached for the knife in her boot, the one that was always strapped against her ankle. She had just closed her hand on its hilt when a voice came from behind her.

“Yona?”

She spun again and saw Zus standing there, his eyes wide with concern. She stared at him, confused. Grief had thrown her senses off; she had thought the footfalls were coming from the opposite direction, but the sound must have echoed across the cluster of trees, confusing her trained ear. She blinked a few times to right herself, and Zus’s forehead creased.

“Yona, are you all right? What is it?”

“I—I thought I heard something.” She shook her head and forced a laugh. “Perhaps I’ve been out in the cold too long.”

He smiled and stepped into the small clearing of fallen trees. He was still several meters away, illuminated by the faint light of the coming dawn. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice gruff. “I’m sorry for the things I said. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Of course you didn’t, Zus. I know that.”

All around them, the stars twinkled and the snow continued to drift quietly down. For a second Yona felt as if they were suspended in a world that wasn’t theirs, like the tiny trees in the snow globe in the bedroom of the home Jüttner had commandeered.

“Zus—” she began.

He took another step closer, putting up a hand to stop her. His expression was tender, anguished. “Please. Yona, there’s something I need to say. I shouldn’t have—”

But his words were lost, for in the middle of his sentence, something crashed through the trees behind them, and they both whirled, alarmed, expecting to see a wild animal.

Instead, it was a man, crouched like a beast. His eyes were wild, his hair and beard bushy and unkempt. He was wearing a tattered wool coat with swastika-emblazoned epaulettes. “Hello, daughter,” he said, his voice a growl, and in a terrified flash, she recognized him behind the beard, the fury, and the anguish.

“Jüttner,” she murmured. And in the silence that followed, she could hear the cocking of his pistol, which was now aimed straight at Zus’s heart.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN




Yona could hear the sharp intake of Zus’s breath, could feel his shock and fear as he took a step closer to her, stopping abruptly when Jüttner waved his gun and growled in warning.

“So is this why you fled back to the forest? For this dirty Jew? I bet you didn’t tell him about me,” Jüttner said in German, jerking his head in Zus’s direction. Spittle flew from the corners of his dried, cracked lips. How long had he been wandering the woods? His cheeks had hollowed, and the coat hung from his frame like a garment from a hanger. “I bet you didn’t tell him that your father is a Nazi.”

Zus inched a bit closer to Yona as if he could protect her, but he was still several meters away. “Yona is nothing like you,” he said in careful German. Yona hadn’t even known he spoke the language.