Snow Moon Rising by Lori L Lake

Author:Lori L Lake
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781932300505
Publisher: Regal Crest Publishing
Published: 2006-10-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Twenty-One

Southern Poland, December 1942 (Oak Moon)

“HEY, STUPID. STOP that immediately.”

Mischka froze. The crate she was wrestling off the back of a

truck in the loading area was heavy, and the rough wood cut into

her callused palms. She stole a quick glance over her shoulder,

and was relieved to see that the German guard with the deep,

guttural voice wasn’t coming her way. He was scolding some

other woman. The crate Mischka was balancing shifted, and for a

moment she didn’t have control of it.

Then Aurora was at her side, grabbing, helping, whispering,

“Don’t try to do it all yourself. Let me help.”

“It’s so cold,” Mischka muttered. She wanted to trot around

the building a few times to warm up her stiff limbs, but of course

that wasn’t permitted.

The sun had been up for over an hour, but the loading area

was on the west side of a barn-like storage building next to the

main factory. Enclosed on two sides with a roof over the top, it

always remained bone-chillingly cold until well after noon. Even

then it didn’t get much warmer.

“Just be patient,” Aurora said. “If you drop this, Vogel will

take great pleasure in assaulting you.”

Together she and Aurora lifted the crate and set it on the

cement floor, then dragged it off to the side where their work

partners, Nelka and Lidia, helped them pry off the wooden lid

slats. Both young women were from strong Polish stock, and

since the four of them shared the same scant sleeping space, it

hadn’t taken long for Aurora and Mischka to unite with them for

protection. Mischka was thankful that despite background and

age differences, the four women had become fast friends. She

didn’t know what she would do if she felt the enmity for her

bedmates that some of the others seemed to feel. One woman,

Petronela, behaved so badly and was so rude and selfish that no

176 Lori L. Lake

one wanted anything to do with her. Aurora had warned

repeatedly that Petronela was going to get them all killed.

In the past couple of weeks, Mischka had not only gotten to

know the names of most of the girls and women on her work

detail, but she had also taken note of which of their guards had

hair-trigger tempers and which were more patient. Vogel was

not one of the patient ones. He had obviously been injured at

some point in the war. The right side of his ruddy face drooped,

and the one eyelid often winked involuntarily. This

embarrassment clearly enraged him, and he took out his fury on

the women he supervised. Vogel limped, too, and the right side

of his body moved stiffly. Most of the time he held his right arm

against his midsection, and although he tried to form that hand

into a fist, the big mitt was gnarled and wasted and wouldn’t

cooperate. So he held a long, narrow baton in his left hand and

wasn’t shy about using it as he was now on Edda. The girl turned

and bore the blows across her upper back, making an occasional

yelp. Mischka turned her attention to another heavy crate. She

lifted an unwieldy pry bar and forced the lid off a load of boots.

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