Louder Than Words by Kathy Kacer

Author:Kathy Kacer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Annick Press
Published: 2020-01-30T20:46:22+00:00

Chapter 15

Nina went out the following week to buy more food. I gave her another letter for Esther, but this time she couldn’t deliver it—there were soldiers patrolling in that area, she said, and she didn’t want to draw attention to Esther’s house. But she did come back with another book for me. I had devoured the first one in one sitting. I knew I needed to force myself to slow down when I read; I wasn’t sure when Nina would be able to go out again, and even if she did, I wasn’t sure she’d make it to the library. But it was nearly impossible to limit myself to a chapter or two when there was nothing else to occupy my time and my mind.

For the first time, Mama glimpsed soldiers on the street outside our house when she peeked through the curtains. She warned me to stay away from the window, but I couldn’t resist. When she was resting in her bedroom, I stole a few glances outside. I saw a troop of soldiers pass, wearing ugly gray uniforms and carrying rifles over their shoulders. They had helmets like round metal bowls perched on the tops of their heads. They paused right in front of our house. I thought they might even be looking our way, their faces stone cold and unsmiling.

I shrank back from the window, shaking from head to toe, and wishing for a moment that I had listened to Mama and never looked outside in the first place. I could still hear the clomp, clomp, clomp of their black boots on the pavement as they finally marched away. I knew that those images and those sounds would stay with me, like the scar I had on my knee from the time I had fallen on sharp glass and cut myself. The bleeding had stopped, and the scar had faded eventually. But a faint outline was always there—a constant reminder of the injury.

“Come away from the window.” Nina broke into my thoughts and came over to stand next to me. I saw her catch the look on my face.

“I just had to see what’s going on,” I whispered. “Those soldiers …”

“We don’t know what’s happening. And looking outside doesn’t help.”

“But why are they here, Nina?”

She glanced at the curtained window and shook her head. “I wish I knew.” And then she changed the subject. “Come and help me prepare something to eat. It’ll take your mind off what’s going on out there.”

I nodded, grateful for the distraction.

The grandfather clock had just chimed six bells and I was washing some cabbage in the sink when I first smelled it—a distinct odor like burnt toast or logs cracking in the hearth. Nina hadn’t started the stove yet, and there was nothing burning in the fireplace. Perhaps the neighbor down the way was burning some leaves outside and the smell was wafting toward us.

I went back to washing cabbage and began to think about writing another letter to Esther.

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