Fragments of Light

by Michele Phoenix

  “He got right back to it,” Brenda continued. “Fixed up the place, got his cattle back from us. Dusk ’til dawn work getting the old place up to speed again, especially with that injured arm. Bob—that’s my baby brother—and I would loiter over there when we could slip out from under Mother’s radar. He had a dog. Can’t remember its name. Huck, maybe. Some kind of shepherd mix that seemed to like our company. Besides, it just felt good to hang out with a war hero, right? We worshipped the ground he farmed on . . .”

  “What was he like?” Darlene asked.

  “Hard to remember much. We were kids and he was an adult, so . . . I guess he was kind. That’s what strikes me when I think back. He never shooed us home or acted like we were a nuisance, which we likely were. Answered all the questions we had. Let us bottle-feed the calves. When Father broke his foot, Cal jumped in and helped us out. No questions asked. Fair return, right?”

  I was trying to connect the man Brenda was describing with the “deadbeat dad” Darlene had resented all her life. “Did he stay?” I hesitated to ask, but the words had to be spoken, and I suspected Darlene would have trouble uttering them. “Did he . . . find a wife? Start a family?” I felt more than I saw Darlene flinch.

  Brenda laughed. “Probably not for lack of options. An army vet returns home and holes up in his mom’s old place. Quiet. Hardworking. Easy on the eyes. I’m guessing every girl in the county wondered if she could domesticate that man. But no. He wasn’t around long enough to put down roots.”

  Darlene looked from Brenda to me and back again. “Wait—he didn’t stay?”

  “Heavens no! The way my mom told it, he was just getting the old farm back to rights when he disappeared again. The house looked like he’d been raptured. Food in the fridge. Paper by the chair. Just no Cal McElway to be found. That was—what—maybe November that same year. He couldn’t have been home more than two or three months.”

  A grandfather clock ticked in the corner of the sunroom. None of us spoke for a moment.

  “He just . . . left?” Darlene finally said.

  “Poof!” Brenda confirmed. “Nobody really noticed until Veteran’s Day. Armistice Day, back then. He was supposed to be honored for his service in the county parade. The mayor had to come out here himself to talk him into it—Cal wasn’t much for public spectacle. But he never showed up.”

  “And no one went looking for him?”

  “Oh, we sure did. Bunch of the townsfolk came out to help with the search. Figured he might have gotten hurt out in a field somewhere or had some kind of accident. Maybe come up against a bear—we used to have more of them back then. It just didn’t make sense for him to disappear with a barn full of livestock and a dog tied to the front steps. Unless he’d harmed himself. That scenario didn’t come to mind until I was a lot older, but . . . as withdrawn and solitary as he was, and with whatever he went through during the war . . .” She hesitated before going on. “I wondered if there was something self-inflicted that happened there.”

  “So it stayed a mystery?” I asked, just to be sure I was understanding Brenda’s story.

  “Never heard from him after he disappeared. We took in his animals—again—and tended the farm, just like we had after his momma died. For a while, we kept an eye out when we were riding in the fields and pastures, wondering if we’d find remains or something. I can remember going over to the house with Mother one day, maybe a week after he disappeared, to clean out the fridge. ‘Don’t want the kitchen stinking when Cal comes home,’ she said. Or something along those lines.”

  “But he never did,” Darlene said.

  “He never did. I guess—” When she looked at me, I nodded for her to go on. “I guess that could explain why you didn’t find an obituary. If he did pass away way back then, but a body was never found . . . and with no family around to miss him . . .”

  Tension pulsed across the distance separating me from Darlene. She sat ramrod straight with white-knuckled hands clasped in her lap. Her eyes were laser-focused on Brenda, her lips pressed together.

  Brenda continued, a bit of discomfort in her voice now. I could tell she wanted her news to be more positive. “After a couple years, it didn’t make much sense to keep the old farmhouse in shape.”

  “It’s been abandoned ever since?” Darlene asked, her voice a little hoarse.

  “We treated it a bit like a shrine. Nobody wanted to tear it down. Nobody wanted to buy it. I think my father took ownership of the land after a while. Some kind of abandonment law. But we didn’t want to touch the house. Just in case, you know? My mother believed Cal might still come back until the day she died. There was just something so . . . alive in the old place.”

  “I’d like to see it tomorrow,” Darlene said. “In the daylight.”

  I patted her knee to let her know we would.

  “Of course!” Brenda seemed energized by the suggestion. “The only people who’ve been in there since Tom and I took over Foggy Acres are looters in fancy cars looking for abandoned treasure. Can’t tell you how often I’ve had to tramp over there and threaten them away.”

  “The revolver is a nice touch,” I said.

  Brenda laughed. “That old thing? It’s a collector’s item. Dates back to the Civil War or thereabouts. Couldn’t fire a shot if I begged it to.” Her smile faded as she looked at Darlene. “How about I show you to your rooms so you can rest a bit?”

  It was obvious that the day had exhausted Darlene’s dwindling supply of energy, so we finished our tea and thanked Brenda for taking us in.

  Tom tore himself away from the draft long enough to carry our bags upstairs. “Maybe he’ll put down some plywood over at the McElway place tomorrow,” Brenda told us as we said good night. “Those floors have seen better days and I wouldn’t want either of you to fall through. Breakfast at eight okay?”

  I looked at Darlene. She merely nodded.

  “That’ll be fine,” I told our hostess.

  I followed Darlene into her room after Brenda had gone back downstairs. She perched on the edge of the quilt-covered bed and looked at me. The usual spark had gone out of her eyes. She seemed smaller. Reed thin. Weary.

  I sat next to her.

  “Not what we hoped to hear, right?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not sure what I expected but . . . I guess it was something more than nothing.”

  “We know he came back here,” I said, hoping that gleaning that much information from Brenda’s memories would fill in one of the blanks. “We know he was kind to the kids next door. We know he had a dog—that means he had to be good people, right?” I smiled and hoped she’d mirror it.

  Her attempt was half-hearted. “Hard to imagine that someone remembered so positively would be capable of leaving his wife and daughter for . . . what? Country life?” She shook her head. “You’d think if he could care for his livestock, he could care for a baby.”

  “It’s hard to reconcile the two,” I admitted, pressing her hand between both of mine. “But we tried, right? We packed our bags and hit the road and drove across state lines and got a few answers about the man.”

  “But we’ll never know what became of him,” Darlene said after a brief silence. “His old bones could be out in these fields somewhere or he could have gone off and started a life with someone else under a different name. We’ll never know.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say, so we sat there for a while listening to an owl hooting in the distance.

  “You need to get some sleep,” I finally said, releasing her hand. “It’s been a long day and I’m under strict orders to give you time to rest.” I lifted her bag onto a chair and unzipped it. “I’ll bring up a glass of water so you can take your pills. And I’m right next door if you need anything.”

  I left her sitting on the bed and went down to the kitchen for water.

  Chapter 18

  Sabine strode to the front door with surprising calm and confidence. Cal heard it open as he stepped toward the group of people c
rowding into the living room’s corner. The men had come forward to stand in front of the women and were braced for a confrontation. Albert pressed his rifle into Cal’s hands along with a few cartridges, a dire foreboding in his expression, indicating to Cal that he should take the lead if things got out of hand. Cal nodded and ducked to the back of the group, dropping the cartridges into his pocket and stashing the gun under the wide seat cushion of a banquette, where he could easily get to it if needed. Then he found a spot among the men in the front row.

  Sabine’s voice reached them from the entryway. She sounded more disapproving than terrified, and Cal had to remind himself that she was only fourteen.

  “Otto,” she called in English. “I know it’s you. We are mostly women and children. Innocent people, not soldiers. Please—just take what you need and leave us unharmed.”

  In the silence that followed, all Cal could hear was the frightened breathing of the people around him—women and men alike shaken by the uncertainty of what the next moments would hold, their minds undoubtedly on the children hiding in the root cellar just a few feet away.

  “Otto!” Sabine called again.

  The voice that answered came from somewhere outside the northeast corner of the room.

  “Do you have weapons?” It was a male voice—a young one. And it had a heavy German accent.

  A tingle of pure terror coursed through Cal’s body. Terror that he was virtually unarmed. That a young girl was managing the volatile situation. That the people crowded around him were easy prey for soldiers on the run after a stinging rebuke on land and in the sky.

  “We are unarmed,” Sabine said, an almost imperceptible tremor entering her voice.

  “Stand back.” The thick German accent added a threat to the words.

  Silence buzzed inside the castle’s walls for interminable moments. The sound of boots on the stone front steps finally broke it.

  “Please, Otto . . .”

  “Zurück!” a deeper voice than Otto’s barked.

  “Stand back!” Otto echoed in English, the only language he and Sabine had in common.

  Sabine backed into the room, her hands out as if to prove she was no threat. “Go over there!” Otto ordered, the syllables hard and sharp. He jutted his chin toward the huddled villagers, his eyes alert and piercing as he trained his rifle on them.

  Sabine moved closer to the group, but stopped and turned before she joined their ranks, a small, inconsequential bastion standing between her people and German guns.

  There were three of Hitler’s Wehrmacht in the room now. Otto stood facing Sabine, his gun directly aimed at Albert, as if the old man was the one he expected to fight back.

  The other two walked the periphery of the room. One appeared to be about thirty and the other closer to Otto’s age. But the look in their eyes was the same Cal had seen in Buck’s—a potent brew of lust, courage, and recklessness. They checked the living room for threats, moving curtains aside and pointing the muzzles of their Mausers into the space behind furniture. Cal froze as they approached the banquette, but they didn’t check under the cushion where he’d hidden Albert’s rifle.

  Otto scanned the terrified group of villagers. “You said there were children.” His accent was thick. His tone unyielding.

  “They’re in the cellar,” Sabine said, sounding conciliatory. When Otto’s face darkened, she hastened to add. “We didn’t know if . . . We wanted them to be safe.”

  “Go. Get them.”

  “You cannot hurt them.” There was dread and pleading in Sabine’s voice.

  “Get the children!”

  “Please, Otto. They have done nothing. They are innocent! Lise—you know Lise. She has done nothing to you or to your comrades.”

  A muscle in Otto’s jaw clenched and his gaze narrowed dangerously. “Get everyone into this room. Now,” he ordered, his voice low and ominous.

  It was all Cal could do to remain still as Sabine took a step toward the young German. The other two had stopped searching and now stood on either side of him, their focus entirely on the men and women exhibiting both courage and terror.

  “Promise,” Sabine said. “Promise you won’t hurt them, Otto.”

  He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  Sabine hesitated. Cal could see the turmoil on her face. He wanted to act . . . to do something, anything, to prevent the children from becoming part of the standoff. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed to stifle the impulse to take on the soldiers threatening the people of Aubry-en-Douve. But he knew that any wrong move would only escalate a situation that still stood the chance of being resolved without shots fired.

  Sabine left the room, her steps now more shuffles than strides, as if her body were weighed down by the risk she was taking.

  The eldest of the soldiers mumbled in Otto’s direction, “Unsere Funkanlage.”

  “Esszimmer,” Otto snapped. He nodded toward the dining room on the other side of the entryway, where Cal had seen the destroyed communications apparatus. He assumed that the soldiers, separated from their unit during the battle for the battery, had come back to use the radios to communicate with their command.

  The oldest of the soldiers pushed through the children reentering the room, Sabine in the lead, and disappeared from sight.

  Lise took one look at Cal and rushed to him, squeezing between him and the man to his right. She pressed into his back, arms around his waist, as if he was her last hope, and a furious protectiveness came over him. The rest of the children ran to the adults they knew, who took them into their arms in a futile attempt to shield them. Following her sister, Sabine came to stand beside Cal.

  “Get behind me,” he whispered low enough that no one but her would hear the words.

  “Non,” she whispered back.

  The German who had gone to check on the equipment stormed back into the room, unleashing an angry tirade that made Otto and the younger soldier bristle. “What have you done?” Otto demanded, pointing his rifle at Albert, then Sabine.

  She held her hands up, half apology, half self-defense. “I wasn’t . . . We didn’t—”

  The older soldier stepped forward so fast that Cal didn’t have time to intercept him. He backhanded Sabine and sent her sprawling to the parquet. Lise screamed and tried to go to her sister, but Cal pushed her back behind him as Albert lunged at the soldier who had laid Sabine out. The German shot him in the shoulder before he’d taken two steps, but the old Frenchman staggered forward and knocked the Mauser out of his hands and across the floor as he fell.

  Without thinking, Cal rushed the other Wehrmacht and knocked him down with a fist to the side of the head, then leapt for the rifle he’d hidden in the banquette. He was vaguely aware of French people bending to tend to Sabine and Albert. Of the German retrieving his gun and discharging it into the villagers, hitting at least one of them.

  Cal swung around and leveled the hunting rifle at him, shooting him in the chest.

  There was open sobbing among the women now and screams from Lise, who was fighting restraining hands in her desperation to reach her sister and Albert. Otto, his voice shrill with panic, yelled, “Halt!” and “Stehen bleiben!” while he wildly swung the muzzle of his weapon from side to side, seemingly too terrified to pull the trigger.

  As Cal reloaded, the soldier he’d decked earlier rose to his feet, unstable from the blow to his head, but still able to hold and aim his rifle. There was no time for hesitation. No time to evaluate possible outcomes. Cal shot the German before he was fully upright, the impact in his chest and neck spinning him sideways and back.

  It only took a couple of seconds for Cal to reload, but they felt agonizingly long.

  “Cal, non!” Lise screamed, her voice hoarse with anguish, when he finally turned his rifle on Otto.

  Otto’s Mauser shook in his hands. His face was ashen and his eyes kept darting from the girls to the German soldiers lying at his feet.

  “Put the gun down, Otto.” Cal saw surprise briefl
y replace the horror in the young man’s gaze when he spoke to him in English. “This can end here. Right now. Just put your gun down.”

  Otto shook his head, confusion on his face, and tightened his grip on the weapon now trained on the center of Cal’s chest.

  “Please do not shoot,” Lise sobbed. “Please, Otto . . .”

  The soldier glanced at the child with whom he’d lived for months. At Albert, who lay motionless but conscious, a red stain spreading across his shirt. Then at Sabine.

  “Otto.” It was all the fourteen-year-old said. Her chin trembled with barely suppressed emotions as she stared up at the young man.

  Cal waited, barely breathing, his finger on the trigger, forcing himself not to pull it. Not yet. Not when the greater threat had been eliminated and there was still a chance of avoiding more loss of life.

  Something that looked like indecision passed over Otto’s face. The muzzle of his Mauser began to drift off Cal, but he seemed to catch himself and brought it up again, his pinched lips, drawn eyebrows, and narrowed gaze a mask of fierce but frightened determination.

  The room around them seemed to dim in Cal’s mind until all he could see was the young soldier’s face and the shaking hands holding the Mauser. “You don’t want to do this,” he said softly. He heard the rasp of steely resolve in his own voice and hoped Otto heard it too.

  After what felt like an eternity, the German’s posture changed almost imperceptibly. He swallowed hard, took a small step back, his eyes on Cal still determined, but something broken in their depths. When he began to lower his rifle, Cal followed suit. Slowly. Steadily. Cautiously.

  Lise pried her arms free and threw herself down between Albert and her sister, wailing her anguish.

  “Vas-t’en!” Sabine spat at the German soldier, covering her bruised cheek with one hand and squeezing Lise’s shoulder with the other. “Leave!” she shrieked.

  Otto took a step toward the door, his eyes haunted as he watched Lise trying to stem Albert’s bleeding with her hands.