Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(131)

“Isn’t it funny to think that this old oak really did bring me my true love?”

I wish you could see her as I saw her then. With so much hope shining in her brown eyes. She carried it for the both of us. That was Sophie’s strength, her undimmable hope. She could make you believe in a better world. Even in my condition, I was physically stronger. And she had insisted on wearing those dress shoes, her one vanity. I climbed the tree and stuck my hand into the knothole. Nothing. Such panic then. I pushed my hand inside once more; I felt something hard. An envelope! I tore it open. Inside were the traveling papers. One for Karl. One for Sophie. One for me. Jorgen, Sigrid, Greta.

“What are you doing?” I called down.

Sophie was circling the tree. “I’m looking for our seidr branch.”

I was in the tree, hidden from sight. I needed to catch my breath before climbing down. The night was so clear. It felt as if I could reach up and pluck a star from the sky.

“I found it!” Sophie raised a thick branch.

“That can’t be ours,” I said, and scrambled down the oak. My woolens were a mess but we had the papers. Now, there was only to wait for Karl and make it to the sea. To the boat and freedom.

“Here. Hide these.” I tucked mine inside my brassiere.

Sophie tucked hers inside her coat pocket.

How you associate two things. Forevermore, I would hear the snap of a branch and see only Sophie slipping the papers into her coat, unaware.

I grabbed Sophie’s wrist. “Did you hear something?”

Oh, I must shut my eyes to tell the rest.

It is the only way that I can see it safely.

They say that time heals. That is true. But it does not erase. Wounds leave scars, you know.

I watched Sophie put the papers in her pocket. I heard the snap of the branch. And in the next second, I heard the crack of the gun, and Sophie cried out and fell to the forest floor. She had been shot through the leg. It had shattered the bone. Blood seeped through her stockings in a fast-spreading stain. It dripped upon her beautiful shoes.

Herr Jaeger stepped from the shadows, Oskar at his side.

It felt as if the forest itself had betrayed us. This was our kingdom. Our world away from the other world. But the other world had found us. Caught us. Herr Jaeger turned to Oskar. “That is how you hunt. You let your prey see you standing over them. You let them know that you hold the power. You let the ones watching know that you hold the power.”

“What is the meaning of this?” I tried to sound strong. I only felt scared. I knew Sophie was in tremendous pain.

“What are you doing in the forest, Fr?ulein? Surely the cookies are not here, hmmm?”

“We meant to gather holly for the celebration,” Sophie said, quick-thinking as always.

“Will you be coy, Fr?ulein? Very well. We found one of your documents. Your brother didn’t tell us much. Even when we knocked out four of his teeth. But I’m sure he will tell us everything we need before we execute him.”

“Oskar…,” I started. He looked away. And I knew it was useless to pretend anymore. I forced some borrowed steel into my voice. “How did you find us?”

“A little mouse told us where you were. She likes chocolate quite a bit. You made an enemy, it seems.”

On the ground, Sophie bit down on a whimper of pain, from her own wound or from what they had done to Karl or perhaps both. Herr Jaeger moved the gun back and forth, from Sophie to me and back again. “The question is, kill you here or take you back and put you on a train. Maybe to Berlin. Or maybe to Neuengamme.”

“Oskar. Please.” I opened my coat. “Think of the baby. Yes! We are going to have a baby.”

I could see him wavering. That is what is hard to explain. That even within some of those following orders, there was good still. Like a seedling that you hoped to coax toward sun.

“There are many rooms in God’s house, Oskar,” Sophie said quietly.

We were two and two. But we could easily become three and one—and three could overpower one, even one with a pistol, I knew. But now, the soldiers were coming with the dogs. Their barking echoed in the forest. Whatever we were to do, we had to do it quickly.

“Oskar,” I begged. “Please.”

“Herr Jaeger, I am sure Hanna did not know…”

The commandant was a true hunter. A true hunter does not doubt or hesitate. He does not stop to consider the feelings of the deer. He strikes. Herr Jaeger raised his gun and shot Oskar through the head. It was then as if all the stars had gone dark. As if there had never been a light in the sky at all. There was only the brutal and the brutalized, a dehumanizing machine churning.

Here is what I know about the moments that came next: Oskar lay dead in the forest. My brother would be dead soon enough, and Sophie and I along with him. And Herr Jaeger would walk out of the forest and back into the world. He would bring with him the smug reassurance of his dominance. He would bring with him the fertile seeds of misery.

It felt as if time slowed long enough to focus my intent. Is that a form of magic? I don’t know. Whatever Herr Jaeger said next I could hear only as a slow, mean, muffled sound as he turned toward Sophie once more with the gun and I saw the seidr branch at my feet. I want to tell you it was purely about survival. But that would be a lie. It was survival, yes. But it was also hatred. I grabbed the branch. With all of my might, I slammed it against Herr Jaeger’s skull. I heard the crack. He went down not like a hunter, but like any man.