say. Again, she was unable to speak. She gazed into his eyes. If she had to, she would stab him in the neck or the heart. She would have to do it quickly, reaching upward, he was so very tall.
“What’s wrong with you?” The soldier wanted an answer when he spoke to someone, and when she was silent, his eyes began to change. He grabbed Lea and pulled her toward him, but all she could do was stammer. The scissors were cold against her fingers. She jerked away so that she could attack him, and when she did the clasp of her necklace unfastened and her birthday charm fell to the floor. The engraved Jewish symbols were there for him to see should he look down.
Ava was between them now, visas and tickets in hand. She was as tall as the soldier and for some reason he couldn’t look away. It wasn’t her long black hair or her wide beautiful mouth that mesmerized him. It was her gray eyes; he fell into them, unable to resist. He was drowning, silent, confused by his own reaction.
“We have all the necessary documents,” Ava told him.
Lea went down on her hands and knees. The locket lay open, and a slip of paper had fallen out. Lea was not meant to read the message. She had been told not to open the locket until the war was over and she was safe. But as she collected the message to return it to its proper place, she was drawn to her mother’s familiar handwriting. Without thinking she read the inscription. Do what I tell you, do what you must, all things that begin must end, all things that you know, you cannot unknow.
Lea’s heart hurt, as it had in the alley, before life had changed forever. She stuffed the folded paper back into the charm and slipped the chain around her neck. Lea could barely breathe. She knew she would never be herself again. That girl was gone.
The soldier was satisfied that nothing was amiss with their papers. He nodded and moved on, although clearly he wished to stay.
“Will you be back in Berlin?” he asked Ava.
“Perhaps,” she said, though the answer was no, she had learned not to say too much. Her maker had taught her this lesson.
When they were at last alone in the compartment, Ava turned to Lea. “Give me the weapon,” she said.
“There is no weapon.”
Ava held out her hand. “I speak to you as if I were your mother.”
“You’re not, and you won’t ever be.”
Lea had no idea why she was crying. Ava was not like other women; she likely didn’t even have feelings. Why fight with her?
Ava reached into Lea’s pocket and brought forth the scissors. “That’s not how you kill a soldier.”
Lea was interested despite herself. “How would you do it?”
“Quietly. Without blood.”
Lea scowled. She’d seen a murder. “There has to be blood,” she said knowingly.
“Sometimes yes, sometimes no.”
Ava was becoming more fascinating all the time. Lea felt the silver locket, cold against her chest. She didn’t understand Ava, yet she felt comforted by her presence. “What will happen to the girl who ran away?”
To that there was only one answer. “Whatever is meant to happen.”
“And do you know what that is?”
“Can anyone know?”
“I think maybe you can.”
“It’s best to get some sleep,” Ava advised, for this is what Lea’s mother would have said.
“And what will happen to me?” Lea ventured to ask.
The train lurched forward. They were leaving behind scores of people in the tall grass. Some were living, some were dead, some would be arrested, some would do anything in order to survive, and one was in the forest, running toward the blue mountains. Ava looked out to where her maker had disappeared. She saw the souls of the lost in the trees, side by side with the angels. She saw the future, but the future could change at the angels’ commands.
“We must hope for the best,” she told the girl.
She might have said more if she’d had the freedom to speak her mind, but in her formation she hadn’t been given the choice to confide what she felt. If she could do so there would have been much she would have said: how green the verdant countryside was, how bright the light had become, how grateful she was to her maker each and every minute, how the birds in the treetops could be heard even when the train rumbled by, how the first of the