“I am not afraid of you,” said Laura. She took her brother’s hand and walked outside.
CHÂTEAU COUTHOVE, FLANDERS, BELGIUM
April 1918
Freddie’s pulse was rapid; hewas emaciated, his lips cracked. She could feel him trying not to lean on her, but he wasn’t very strong. Laura took his weight as best she could. They were outside the hotel, in the courtyard, with ruined buildings on all sides. It was night. Pure moonless night, without a star visible. She looked for the road, for a landmark.
Nothing.
Nothing but buildings, and paths, and darkness. She was lost. Did the abyss have borders? Could the monsters be placated, at all?Maybe not. It’s a new world after all.
Faland’s slick, persuasive whisper sounded in her ear.Come back inside.It’s better inside. At least I will remember your names, Laura.
Freddie was trying to stand upright. “Laura, I’m frightened. I can’t see the way.”
You ask the ghosts,Winter had said.
You trail your ghosts like penitent beads,the Parkeys had said.
I don’t believe in ghosts,Laura had said, over and over. But had it mattered? The ghost had followed her anyway. Laura had thoughther a conjuring of her own guilt and grief. But perhaps she was a little more.
Laura whispered, like the child she’d not been in ever so long, “Maman, I’m lost. Can you hear me? We’re lost, Freddie and I.”
Silence.
A hand brushed hers. Warm fingers, a little rough with glass.Ghosts have warm hands.She didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t dare. Looking would burst her fragile soap-bubble of belief. She didn’t look even when that familiar hand wound its fingers with hers, and pulled her forward. Holding on to Freddie, she walked. And then, some unnumbered steps later, the hand let go. Laura opened her eyes and saw that she and Freddie were behind the château of Couthove, seen only hazily through the mist of her tears.
· · ·
Faland was gone. He hadn’t followed them. But Freddie was drooping against her, and Laura could feel the other monsters circling now, in their way far more implacable. Law, regulation, custom. Waiting to claim a deserter. To claim them both.
A light drifted from one of the bedrooms above, and Laura counted the windows. Realized whose room it was. Without stopping to think, she swiped a handful of pebbles from the drive, and threw. They rattled on glass.
Jones’s window flew open. He thrust his head into the gap. Saw them both, standing in a bit of light. Just as quickly, he vanished.
Her heart sank. She could feel Freddie’s strength ebbing. “Where?” Freddie mumbled. His head hung low. “Laura, where are we?”
Laura did not have time to answer before Jones came round the house and crossed to her in quick strides. He said, “What the hell, Iven?” And then he got a closer look at Freddie. They weren’t terribly alike, but shocked comprehension broke over Jones’s face anyway, as he reached to take Freddie’s weight. “How?”
“I found him,” said Laura. “He was trapped—he was— It wasn’t his fault.”
“Come inside; you’re shivering,” said Jones, after a pause.
“We have to get away from here.”It should be all right,she thought tiredly. They were together, they spoke French, they…
But then Freddie stirred and said, “Winter.”
Jones’s jaw tightened.
“Winter,” Freddie said again. “He was here. I remember. The château. We brought him here. Where’s Winter?”
“Youbrought—” began Laura, but Jones had seen straight to the point and he had a surgeon’s instincts: Cut in order to heal.
“No saving him,” said Jones. “He tried to murder a general, in the teeth of a massive German offensive. They took him right off, never mind his wound, and they’ll be interrogating him now. And then they’re going to hang him.” To Laura he added, “We need to get your brother inside.”
“No,” Freddie whispered, and Laura felt a sinking fear. Perhaps Freddie’s body would survive, if by some miracle she got him home. But the rest of him was so ragged. Would his mind survive, if he got out, but Winter was left behind, executed? She remembered how the two had looked, in memory, in that shell hole. Why had Winter fired the damned gun?
“I won’t let them arrest my brother,” said Laura to Jones, her voice jagged.
