by Alex Flinn
“Ever so much. There’s an American author, Ernest Hemingway. He writes about war.”
“I loved A Farewell to Arms. It was so sad, though.”
“It was sad. That’s what I liked about it.” He held me a bit closer. “You’re a beautiful dancer.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it. I love to dance. And dancing with you, it makes me feel like I’m somewhere else, not a basement of a school in the middle of the afternoon.”
“Where would you want to be,” I asked, “if you could be anywhere at all?”
“Not so much where, but when. I’d like to be in Paris, before the war, or maybe after. I’d show you the Arc de Triomphe, and then we’d take a boat ride on the Seine.”
“In the moonlight.” I nodded. “It sounds so beautiful.”
“And how about you?” he asked.
For a moment, I couldn’t think of anything. I liked his idea so well that I almost said I’d like to go there. But that would be boring. “I’ve never been anywhere, really. I’d love to see Paris. But I’d be happy just to go to Regent’s Park, to the Rose Garden.”
“The way it smells in June!” he said. “Like springtime in an atomizer.”
“Exactly! My mother used to take us all the time when we were little, and whenever I smell roses, I remember.”
“We should go sometime. I know it won’t be the same as before, but still.”
“I’d like that.” Did he mean he would take me?
Now they were playing “Stardust.” We danced and talked about music and our lives. He was so easy to talk to about everything, and his arms were so strong, his presence commanding. I felt safe for the first time in maybe months.
The song switched again, this time to “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” which was the Andrews Sisters’ latest and a fast song. Phillip and I stood there a moment. “They’re playing your song, Patty,” he said. “Swing dance time.” He moved away from me a bit, to accomplish the faster steps.
But just then, Ethel ran up behind me.
“Hey, it’s us!” she said. “Let’s dance.”
I didn’t want to go, but Esther was right behind her. They pulled me toward the front of the room, where the record player was, to dance with them and pretend to be the Andrews Sisters. “I’ll be right back,” I told Phillip.
“I’ll wait for you,” he said.
Which he did, watching with amusement as we acted out “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and “Hold Tight, Hold Tight,” and just as we were finishing that, someone ran up to Ethel and whispered to her. I saw her face go white. She stopped dancing.
“We have to go,” she said, and her eyes were full of tears.
“What is it?” I said.
“We have to go!” Ethel repeated.
“But what—? What is it, Ethel?”
She pulled me toward the door, Esther following. “There’s been a telegram.”
I felt the air leave my body. A telegram. It could only mean one thing. One of our brothers had been killed.
All thought of seeing Phillip fell from my mind, like a paratrooper crashing.
2
When we reached home, it was worse than expected. There were two telegrams, two on the same day. George was confirmed dead. Jack was missing.
“Maybe he’s a prisoner,” I said. I had to hold on to hope of seeing Jack again, dear Jack, who had held by hand and taken me to the zoo. Jack, who had helped me with my spelling, Jack, who’d been my ally in the war against my sisters.
“Missing just means they haven’t found a body,” Ethel said.
“Don’t say body. I can’t think of Jack like that.” But I thought of Phillip’s sunken ship, all the men on board. They were likely “missing.” Ethel was right.
In the weeks that followed, I had nothing to think of but grief. We had a small funeral for George. Then we wore black and went about our lives as if we weren’t wondering how anything could ever be the same again. We shuffled about our lives by day, and at night, we sat in the dark, remembering what would never be, the good times that wouldn’t be had, the weddings, the nieces and nephews never born. There was nothing even to look forward to. I cried every night for George and Jack, but especially for Jack, whose body lay God knew where in France. And the bombs continued to fall, one, two, even three nights in a week, without warning, so we never knew what was coming.
Only when the weeks became a month did I admit I was still thinking about Phillip, the man from the party. I thought about him all the time, about that day, the first time I’d felt like a grown-up. I wondered if he wondered about me. Probably not. Still, I looked for him on the street, at the grocer’s, everywhere, but I didn’t even know what he looked like, other than tall with blond hair. I asked people who had been to the party, people like Helen and Dora, who was now Mrs. Private Ned Stone, but they didn’t know who he was. No one did. I hoped maybe he was searching for me, and I went to the only places I thought I might find him, near the elementary school. And Regent’s Park, where it smelled nothing like springtime in an atomizer. All of London stank of smoke and sulfur and motor oil and death. It was gray and hazy and cold as ice. I would never find him.
Over dinner one night, we were discussing, as usual, the possibility of leaving London.
“A bomb hit the Bank of England yesterday,” my father said over a dull dinner of mostly vegetables and rice. “I think you should go and stay with my aunt Lydia. It would be safer.”
“But we’d be leaving you,” my mother said. “We could all stay in a shelter.”
“That bomb gutted the Underground station. I want you to leave. If you left, I wouldn’t always have to worry about you if there’s a bombing.”
I knew he didn’t mean he wanted us to go away, just wanted to make us safe. Still, it sort of hurt to be sent away.
Mum started protesting. We all did. But then there was a knock on the door.
When we opened it, it was Kendra, the girl from our building. I didn’t know her very well, but we nodded hello sometimes, and once she’d brought us a cherry pie with a cutout of a crow in the crust. Now she brought with her a tall man with piercing blue eyes, eyes that looked somehow familiar.
“This is John Harding. He has something to ask you.”
My mother invited him in. “I apologize, sir, for not being on dress parade.” She gestured around to the dusty tables, the wilted plants. “My two sons, we lost them in the war.”
“Two sons?” the gentleman said. “It was my impression that only one was killed.”
Mum winced, and my father said, “Well, yes, that is true. It is George we buried. Jack is only missing. It’s hard to hold out hope, though.”
“Oh, but you must,” the man—Mr. Harding—said, sitting down on our father’s favorite wing chair. “That’s why I’m here. I had something, ah, to ask you.” He looked at Kendra.
Kendra picked up on it. “What Mr. Harding is trying to say is, he has a proposal, that is to say, a favor to ask you.”
“What?” Father said.
“What I mean to say is, we have reason to believe that your son Jack is alive.”
A sharp intake of breath from Mum. “Reason? What reason?” She was shaking, and there were tears in her eyes.
“I am a woman of certain . . . powers,” Kendra continued.
We looked at her strangely. The room went as silent as the nighttime, when we waited for the bombs to fall. Finally, Ethel said what we were all thinking.
“What does that mean? Powers?”
“Witchcraft,” Kendra barely whispered. “I can bring you back your son Jack.”
“Back from the dead?” Mum’s voice caught.
“No, no, he isn’t dead,” Kendra said. “Not at all! I can find him. I can help him.”
“Leave this house!” My father was screaming. “How dare you torment her like this?”
“John.” Mum was clutching at my father’s elbow. “What if it’s true? What if she knows something?”
“Kn
ows witchcraft? Knows something the British military doesn’t? How is that possible?” He turned to Kendra again. “I want you to leave! And you also!” Father gave Mr. Harding a shove.
“Please!” Mr. Harding said, and his eyes seemed desperate. “Please listen!”
Kendra walked to the door, but as she did, she withdrew an object from the carpetbag she carried. A mirror. When she reached the door, she turned it toward my mother. “It’s magical. Ask to see whomever you wish.”
Mum recoiled from the mirror. “I can’t. What if I ask to see Jack and he’s . . . dead?”
“What if it’s utter bollocks?” Father yelled.
Kendra looked at each of us, and Ethel and Esther repeated Mum’s protestations. Only when she got to me did I seize the mirror. “It probably doesn’t work anyway. There’s no such thing as witches. So I’ll look, and we’ll get on with it.”
“What if it’s true?” Esther said.
“It’s not true!” Ethel said. “There’s no such thing, and she’s tormenting Mum.”
“If it’s true, then we’ll know,” I said, and I felt hope for the first time in weeks. I wanted it to be true. I wanted Jack!
I held the mirror. My hands were like ice, and it was almost as if I could feel Jack staring into it from the other side. I so wanted to see his gray eyes, still with the light of life in them, once more. I peered into the glass. I saw a girl, pale and drawn, a girl Jack wouldn’t recognize even if he did see me. “What do I say?” I asked Kendra. I knew it was stupid, but I wanted it to work.
She said, “Just tell it to show you your brother.”
I looked at the girl in the mirror. Her eyes were full of tears. I took a deep breath and whispered, “Show me Jack. Oh, please, show me Jack!”
And the mirror did. It was like a movie. Jack was somewhere cold, crouched on a cot, and he was skinny, so skinny that his ears and his feet seemed out of proportion to his body.
But it was Jack. And he was alive. Clearly alive. He was shivering.
My hand was shaking too, so that it was hard to hold on to the mirror. I thrust it back at Kendra. “Is this real?”
“It’s real,” she said, taking the mirror from my hand.
“What is it?” My mother rushed over to Kendra, and when she saw the mirror, she gasped. “Look! Look!” My father and sisters were soon at her side. Esther and Ethel stepped back, but Mum was staring at the mirror, shaking.
“How can we get him back?” I felt as though I had seen something wrong, something frightening, like a ghost. Like Jack was back from the dead.
“That’s why I’ve come,” Kendra said.
She gestured to Mr. Harding and explained that he had a son who was injured in the war. He escaped death only by accepting a terrible curse. To break it, he had to marry. “If one of your daughters will promise to marry him, and to stay with him for one year as man and wife, his curse will be broken. And if you do this, I will bring your son back.” She said it to my parents, but she looked at us girls, first Ethel and Esther, then me. Her eyes seemed to linger longest on me.
“What?” Ethel said. “But that’s insane. It can’t be true. There’s no such thing as magic.”
Esther chimed in. “You’re just trying to trick us into marrying someone who may be awful. A masher or . . . worse.”
Ethel appealed to our mother. “It’s not like she can really bring Jack back. Even him in that mirror, it’s some sort of illusion, a trick.”
“If he’s alive,” Esther said, “he’ll come back. If not . . .” She let her words trail off, but I knew what she’d been about to say. If Jack was dead, he was dead.
“Please.” Mr. Harding spoke. “I know it sounds insane, but Kendra, she found my son in the hospital. She heard of the curse, and she helped him. She helped my son, and she will help yours. But we need your help.”
I took the mirror from Kendra’s hand again and stared into it a long time. Then, again, I whispered, “Show me Jack.”
And Jack was there. It was him. I had no question. There was no way to make that up, his face, his eyes. Kendra didn’t even know Jack.
I looked around at my parents, my sisters. My father’s face was dour, but Mum’s betrayed some hope. I knew why Ethel and Esther didn’t want to marry this stranger. They thought they would meet someone else, someone who would love them. I had only briefly experienced that, with the man at the party, with Phillip. But perhaps I could love someone else.
I wanted Jack. I wanted to bring my brother back.
I said, “I’ll do it. I’ll marry him.”
“But you can’t,” Ethel said, “You’re only seventeen.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. I knew what she was about. She didn’t want me to volunteer because it would make her look bad. That was how she thought. I said, “I can, and I will. I want Jack to come home, no matter what it takes. If there’s even a chance.”
I looked at my mother. She nodded. Father too.
Kendra reached for my hand and squeezed it. “There is a chance. Jack will be back.”
3
And it was done. Mum and Father tried to argue, half-heartedly, but once Kendra showed Father the mirror, the mirror with my brother in it, there was nothing to say. We had to try everything.
I didn’t even think to ask about Mr. Harding’s son, the man I was marrying. What sort of curse was he under? One that made him hideous? Or insane? It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. I needn’t ask, for it didn’t matter. I would marry him no matter who or what he was. I would marry Mr. Harding himself, if need be. At least the son promised to be near my age.
We discussed details. We would be married the following Saturday, after dark. I didn’t even know if it was legal, but Kendra said she was registered as a celebrant. Many people, like my friend Dora, were getting married quickly during the war. I could do it too.
In the days leading up to the wedding, I thought even more about Phillip. I searched for him in every shop window, every doorway, every street corner. I saw his shape in the corner of my eye as I walked to the grocer or waited on the long queue at the butcher’s. He wasn’t there. I couldn’t bring myself to cry over him. We had only met once. I didn’t even know what I’d do if I found him. Would I give up my brother for a man I barely knew, whose face I had never seen? No. No. I wanted Jack, who had held my hand when I was frightened, Jack who had danced with me. Still, I felt as if I had lost something I would never again find. In a way, I just wanted to tell him, to say good-bye.
Finally, the day of my marriage was at hand. Kendra arrived after dark with Mr. Harding and the man. It was all done in secret. Only our families were there. My sisters were saying all the appropriate things about “poor sweet Grace” and my “sacrifice,” that they would have done it, but wasn’t I sweet. I wanted to go into my room and hide, but I couldn’t. I was the bride.
“Can I see Jack again?” I asked Kendra.
She nodded and handed me the mirror. I looked in the darkness. He was there. Seeing him strengthened me. He was cold, maybe sick. I had to help him. “All right.”
I felt like I was going to my own funeral. I wore my pink Patty Andrews dress, as there was no time to get anything else. All the silk was being used for parachutes anyway. It didn’t matter. The dress was my finest, for a wedding or a burial.
When the man entered, I held my breath. I couldn’t see him. We were to be married by candlelight. Mr. Harding had specified it. I could only make out bits of him, that he was tall, with broad shoulders. I hoped he was, at least, kind. I knew nothing of this man. He might kill me in my sleep.
I was doing this for Jack.
As we were standing, waiting to pronounce the words of our vows, I said shyly to the man who would be my husband, “Hello . . . I’m Grace.”
He said, “I know, Grace. I’ve been looking for so long . . . and now I’ve found you. I’ve finally found you.”
His voice sounded so familiar. I gasped. It couldn’t be.
In the darkness, he took my
hand. “What’s the matter, Patty Andrews? Don’t you recognize me?”
“What?” It couldn’t be.
“Sir Percy Blakeney? The Scarlet Pimpernel?”
I must have fainted, for when I awakened, I was in my Phillip’s arms.
I still couldn’t make out his face in the shadows, but his sweet voice was whispering, “Grace? Grace? Are you all right, Grace? Will you . . . do you want to marry me?”
“Yes.” I felt tears spring to my eyes, tears of relief. “Yes, I want to marry you. But . . . you were looking for me? To break the curse?”
He shook his head, a shadow in the darkness. “Anyone could break the curse. I just thought . . . I wanted it to be you.”
And so we were married, and afterward, we tripped down the dark streets across town. It wasn’t safe, and we weren’t supposed to be out, but it was my wedding night. “My darling,” Phillip said, “I want to bring you to our home.”
When we reached the flat, it was dark, of course. Phillip picked me up in his strong arms and carried me across the threshold to our bedroom.
My mother had spoken to me that day about what would be expected of me as a wife. I’d been nervous, of course. I didn’t know this man! But, as he laid me down on the soft, cool feather bed, he said, “My darling . . . my lovely Grace. I don’t expect . . . I know you don’t know me, but can I kiss you? I have so longed to kiss you.”
I sighed. “Yes. Yes.”
He laid his lips against mine, finding them in the darkness. His mouth was soft and strong, and his hands were tender. He kissed my lips, my cheeks, even my hair. Then he enveloped me in his arms, and we fell asleep, entangled in each other’s embrace.
I still had not seen my beloved’s face. I didn’t mind. I didn’t care what he looked like.
I awoke in darkness. “No! No!” Someone was screaming.
“I can’t find them! I can’t find them!”