Flying Without Wings by Paula Wynne

Author:Paula Wynne [Wynne, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vista Prado
Published: 2019-08-13T04:00:00+00:00

37

Although we had never adopted religion, the local church taught of getting rid of all rage and anger. We only went to bring little Sweet-Pea up as a good person. Yet every now and then a sharp, acrid reminder brought back the memories. Like the biting taste of vinegar, anger and a lasting sorrow keeps the bitterness close to heart. How could we forget what happened in the past?

Ever since he’d started treasure hunting, John had always stuck to one sacred code. No matter what, that code was honoured.

Years of watching people tortured and dying, and the pain and guilt he’d felt having to steal old crusts of bread from them, had instilled it in him.

Never steal from the dead.

Nor did they touch anything from a graveyard or tamper with tombstones. Even if there were bags of gold buried there.

Never, ever steal from the dead. He’d had to do it once, but never again.

Now, curious as to what had caught his eye, John rose to his feet and picked his way over to the object. His eyes narrowed as he looked at a whitened skull. The rest of the skeleton sat at an awkward angle. Below his gaping jaw, one of his arms rested on a sack to his right.

John yanked the rotting sack.

Bones cracked and fell into a jumbled heap.

John grimaced to see the skeleton’s arm had broken off and fallen into a pile of bones.

‘I told you to leave it!’ Aron bellowed.

John’s head spun around. He hadn’t heard such venom in his brother’s voice since the day he’d found that lost boy in the guard hut crying for his stolen aeroplane.

That day, Aron had staggered down the valley after the truck, yelling and screaming venomous curses at the Wolf until he had fallen in the road and the Russians had carried him back.

Now, the skeleton stared back at him, with a macabre grin and only one arm.

It reminded him of another bone. Her bone.

Suddenly, he slumped against the cave wall and whispered, ‘I never told you about Elza’s bone?’

Startled, Aron looked up at him.

Before his brother could answer, he recounted finding the finger bone with the matching, healed break in it soon after Elza’s body had been dumped in the oven room. He explained how the Wolf had forced him and other children to sweep up the dust, and he had found a bone in the ashes.

‘Oh, God,’ Aron let out a horrified groan.

‘I had it all those years, even after the war.’

‘Where…’ Aron croaked, ‘where is it now?’

‘Ima found it. That month you worked at the printing press. I carried it in my clothes and the only time I ever forgot to hide it, when she washed my clothes, she found it.’

Aron let out another keening whimper.

John pressed his fists into his eye sockets. ‘It broke her heart…all over again. She took the bone and I never saw it again while she lived. She never asked me about it…she must have known.’

Aron struggled to get his words

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