Yona looked to the door of the house. If she left now, if she could somehow slip past the soldiers out front, she could run for the woods and be gone before Jüttner knew she was missing. But in doing so, she would seal the nuns’ fate. Jüttner had said that if she came home with him, the nuns would be safe. She needed to stay, at least until she could figure out a way to persuade him to order their release. But then what?
Eventually she walked upstairs and entered the room he’d said was hers, a small bedroom with a squat bed covered in a lacy cream quilt. Atop it, neatly laid out, was a nightgown that appeared as if it would fit her. She closed the door behind her and picked the gown up, feeling the diaphanous fabric slip between her fingers, and then she set it back down again. She couldn’t imagine a world in which she’d wear something so impractical, even to sleep. On the nightstand was a small, clear globe with several trees inside, a dusting of snow on the ground. When Yona picked it up to look more closely, the snow shifted. Entranced, she turned it over and then flipped it back, watching the snow drift slowly, silently down under the glass dome. It made her long suddenly, powerfully, for the safety of her beloved forest.
Finally, she set the globe down and sat on the bed, testing the weight of it. She had not slept in a bed since the night before her second birthday, and it felt strange, unfamiliar. The ground beneath a person should feel solid and reassuring, not spongy and soft, for that was false comfort. Then again, all of this was false. After a few minutes had ticked loudly by on the grandfather clock near the window, she lay on top of the covers, placing her head on one of the pillows, which was filled with feathers. After a second, she climbed out of bed and lay on her back on the floor.
She was staring at the ceiling sometime later when there was a soft tap on the door.
“Come in,” she said, sitting up as the door handle turned and Jüttner entered.
“I apologize,” he said gruffly, and for a split second, she thought perhaps she’d gotten through to him, but he added, “I must remember that you were raised by a lunatic in the wilderness. It will take you some time to understand things. But you are my daughter, and I will teach you.”
Yona didn’t reply, and after a pause, he cleared his throat.
“What are you doing on the floor?”
“The bed is too soft.”
He looked at her like she was crazy. Maybe she was.
“What will become of the nuns?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet. But there will be no decision tonight. I give you my word.”
She searched his eyes for signs he was lying, but she found only deep sadness and fear there. “All right.”
“Get some sleep. We can talk more when you awaken.”
Yona nodded, and he gave her a strange half smile before closing the door behind him. A second later, she heard a bolt click, and she knew, even before rising to twist the knob herself, that he had locked her in. She crossed the room and tried the window, which slid open readily. She shut it again, relieved that she had an easy way out if she needed it. Still, she was unsettled by the fact that he’d thought not only that he could trap her, but that he had the right to do so.
She lay back down on the floor and closed her eyes, for she would need all the energy she could get for whatever might come next. She knew she wouldn’t sleep well, though, for she was under the roof of an enemy, even if he was her own flesh and blood.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It took Yona an hour to relax, but eventually she slipped into a strange half sleep and dreamed of Jerusza. In the dream, Jerusza was walking toward her through the woods, her eyes burning with anger, but when she spoke, the whipping wind whisked her words away. Each time Yona took a step closer, desperate to hear what Jerusza was saying, the old woman became more and more translucent, until she disappeared altogether into a spill of sunshine. She was gone, and her words—surely a warning—had vanished, too. Yona awoke with a start, her heart hammering, her forehead damp with perspiration, and for a few blurry seconds, she couldn’t remember where she was. She looked wildly around, taking in the genteel furnishings, the embroidered curtains, the plush bed she was lying beside. Her pulse slowed as it all came rushing back to her.
Then again, this is what her life might have looked like if Jerusza hadn’t come for her all those years before. Would her mother have been alive? What kind of a person would Yona have become?
But when life opens a door, the others behind it slam closed. It was impossible to know what would have been, what could have been, because the choices Jerusza made forever altered the future. There was no sense in looking over her shoulder. And the ghost of Jerusza could shout all she wanted into the wind, but the old woman didn’t belong here, not in this moment. She couldn’t save Yona from the past.