and we slid down the muddy hill on our thighs. We clung to a tree trunk at the bottom, digging our fingertips into its knotty bark. Beams of light from oncoming headlamps shone through the hills. Marguerite turned to me, rain streaming down her face, her voice fraught. ‘In the bushes!’
We ducked into a bushy area surrounded by rocks just as the cars cast a wide light over the narrow road cutting through the hills. We worked frantically to create a hollow to hide in, popping up every few seconds as the lights approached, moving rocks out of the way, water gushing through the cracks like a creek, only to move them back once we wedged ourselves inside. Our mud-scraped legs tangled with each other’s, and we listened.
One car rumbled past followed by another, the ground shaking, worms wiggling from the wet soil onto our shoulders. I closed my eyes tightly, wondering when it would end, when they’d be gone, but then the heart-dropping sound of a cut engine shook me to the core. Every muscle in my body tightened. I searched for Marguerite’s hand, the rain calming into a sprinkle, dripping softly from exposed bush roots and onto the rocks.
‘Sieh!’ A German voice shouted, and my eyes popped open in the dark.
Car doors slammed. The sound of people walking around through the slush at the base of the hill followed, very close to where Marguerite and I were hiding. French mingled with German words—nothing audible enough for me to know what they were saying.
‘Adèle,’ she said. ‘No matter what happens. Never say a word.’
‘Shh,’ I said. ‘They’re close.’
‘Promise me, Adèle.’ She tugged on my hand, her breath but a wisp on my face in the pitch-black hole. ‘Tell me you understand. It’s what will keep us—your family—alive. If they catch us—’
The hole started to cave in slightly on one side—the weight of someone standing above us—and my whole body shook, the sound of one German talking causally to another feet from where we hid. A flicked cigarette butt fell between the rocks.
My teeth chattered, and I bit down hard to make them stop, squeezing Marguerite’s hand. A long pause followed, long enough for me to wonder if they were still walking around looking for us before I heard the rev of an engine and their car speed away.
We waited in the hole for what seemed like many minutes before slowly, and very gently, crawling out of it on our hands and knees. Marguerite wiped dirt from her face and snot from her nose with the back of her hand. ‘I shouldn’t have let you go,’ she said. ‘I knew it wasn’t safe.’
‘I thought Luc was going to die. I wasn’t going to stand by and—’
‘You’re not invincible.’
‘Oh, I’m not?’ I wrung the rain from my hair. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘I’m the one who came for you,’ she said. ‘Let’s not forget that detail. It was very risky for me to travel that kind of distance, save you from the mess you got yourself into.’
I felt a snarl on my lips. I remembered people throwing catchfly in the streets, men taking their hats off, women putting their hands over their hearts paying homage while I was tethered to the Morris Column, when I went by the name Catchfly.
‘I didn’t ask to be saved,’ I hissed.
Marguerite’s arms dropped long at her sides, and she stared at me as I crossed my arms. ‘What do you mean… you didn’t want to be saved?’
I knew I sounded like a spoiled little girl who just wanted to be remembered, and I couldn’t help it. Germans had taken over the whole of France; the only things we French people could cling to were our remembrances of bravery. Our families were torn apart. People had died. Our memories were the only thing left.
‘I was somebody. Once. Now, nobody knows who I am. I might as well have run away. At least then I could have saved myself the agony of seeing my sister’s guilty face.’
Marguerite reached out for me. ‘No—’
A car’s headlamps lit us up followed by the cock of a gun. We jumped, nothing to be seen other than clear black space and the glare of two bright lights. One Gestapo officer walked forward with his gun drawn.
‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘Mademoiselles.’
Marguerite took a strained look into my eyes. Her face smeared with mud and dirt, more visible than before in the white light.
‘Out for a walk?’ he said in muddled French. Marguerite swayed back and