Silver Moon

by Jenny Knipfer

  SILVER MOON

  Third in the series: By the Light of the Moon

  By

  Jenny Knipfer

  Jenny Knipfer © 2019

  Silver Moon

  Copyright © 2020 Jenny Knipfer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in any information storage system without prior written consent of the publisher or the author, except in the case of brief quotations with proper references.

  Cover design by The Book Cover Whisperer

  Interior formatting by Polgarus Studio

  ISBN: 978-1-7333202-4-5 (paperback)

  Printed in the United States of America

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, and events are purely coincidental. All Biblical references taken from the NKJV.

  For my sons, Kyle and Korbyn, whom I will love always.

  I am proud of the men you have become.

  I pray you will know how to fight the battles which cannot be seen.

  ~

  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age…

  Ephesians 8:12a

  Readers’ Favorite five-star reviews:

  Ruby Moon: “This novel is filled with drama and a writing style that is insightful. From the beginning, the author creates a sense of mystery, capturing sensations in a style that defies perception… The lyricism in the writing combines with the use of symbolism and the spiritual depth of the writing to transport the reader and makes for an inspiring read.”

  Blue Moon: “Author Jenny Knipfer draws readers in with a confident and easy style of writing that makes you feel like you're in safe hands. Unfolding the dramatic saga of the Gulet twins and the people around them in Webaashi Bay is done with fluid prose and a powerful, multi-sensational atmosphere, where you can feel the fresh air and see the water sparkling in each beautifully tailored scene… Overall, Blue Moon continues a well-written and highly engaging saga of family ties, betrayal, and heartaches. A must-read for historical drama fans everywhere.”

  Also by Jenny:

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Autumn Comfort Tea

  Author’s Notes

  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgements

  As always, thank you to my family and friends for encouraging me on this journey as an author.

  Special thanks to my launch team: Kathryn Bochman, Kim Jentink, Carolyn M., Leia Knipfer, Barb De Hut, Marie Schweiger, Emily Grulkowski, Lori Olson, Ruth Everson, Terri Veatch-Faulkner, Brenda Abel, Judy Abel, Inde Arndt, Alicia Blake, Cathy Cermele, Kelly Pember, and Moira Ferrer. These wonderful ladies encourage and advise me, promote my stories, and pray for me as I journey along the writers’ path. I could not do this without you!

  Thanks to my editor, Sara Litchfield at Right Ink On The Wall, who is a pleasure to work with, for fine-tuning Silver Moon into a polished manuscript ready for readers.

  I’m grateful for Christine at The Book Cover Whisperer for working with me to craft a stunning book cover and providing me with some great promotional graphics to use.

  Thanks to Polgarus Studio for their skill in formatting Silver Moon and making it an enjoyable experience for readers.

  My heart is ever grateful for the ability to craft and tell a story. I like to think the master storyteller has spoken his story through me in some form or fashion, and I have transferred it to the page. Thank you, Jesus.

  Finally, thank you, dear reader, for reading my tales. I pray some spark in them will bless you along your particular path in life.

  Blessings, Jenny

  . . . We are the Dead. Short days ago

  We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

  Loved and were loved, and now we lie

  In Flanders Fields . . .

  From the poem In Flanders Fields

  Dr. John McCrae

  Yea, though I walk through

  The valley of the shadow of death,

  I will fear no evil . . .

  Psalm 23:4a

  Prologue

  Vimy Ridge, France

  The wee hours of April 9th, 1917

  The door between death and life is so thin. I could melt into the passageway as easily as floating on water. It is a place just one step away from drowning. I could be buoyant and breathing one minute, then not. Death's door becoming a fluid birth.

  Will they find me and the intelligence stowed away in my shoe before I die? Will I die before I can make a break for freedom? Death resembles a sort of freedom, I suppose, one I find almost welcoming. My mind tells me it would be easy to surrender to the pull of the mud and the slimy, icy water, but my body won’t let me. It struggles to survive. My lungs suck in quick gasps of air through a copper tube as I stay covered in my watery grave, but I need more. Soon, I will need to breathe, really breathe, for I am starving for oxygen. Unless I die of hypothermia first. Perhaps the mud acts as an insulating layer.

  Should I listen and give in to death’s call?

  Maybe, for I don’t even know who I am anymore. The man I used to be haunts me and grieves me with accusations. I am a killer. I am a liar. I am a cheater. I’m worse than my father ever was.

  Does war really give us a bill of rights to become such things?

  Maybe death would erase the wrongs I have done and the atrocities I have seen, the images of men blown to bits before my very eyes, their visceral remains flecked upon my face like macabre confetti. Skewered, bayoneted bodies pile up in my memory like stuck pigs ready for the roasting. We are all preparing to be roasted, for the way of mankind has delved into the depths of hell. Here, I rest in this muddy trench, a narrow sea of mud, water, rats—the living and the dead.

  Just let go. It’ll be easy . . .

  The thought reverberates in my tired soul. But I can’t. An image of myself as a boy flashes before me—hanging off the cliff at home by the distant shores of Superior. My fingers grip the dirt and rocks again as if it were yesterday and not twenty years ago. In the vision, my feet slip, and I am a fall away from death’s embrace, but Someone intervenes. My soul now cries as that boy once cried.

  “Help me! Save me!”

  I open my eyes and see by the light of the silver moon—a face, smeared like a dark, watercolor painting through the water. I see a shadow pass before the moon, and before I know what is happening, I feel a tug. I am pulled from the black embrace which called me to release, and I break the plane of the frigid, murky water at the bottom of the trench, wondering who has me in their grasp.

  “Luis? Luis!” a voice fiercely whispers, inches from my face.

  He looks like . . . Oshki?

  Am I dreaming? How can this be? My ragged lungs take a deep surge of air as I spit out the thin, metal pipe which has kept me alive for the last . . . how long has it been? Hours? Minutes? I can’t be sure. I shake and shiver in the night air.

  Oshki, my young friend. He represents home, hope, and everything good. But I am not of that world anymore. I have been sculpted by darkness.

  “O-sh-ki?�
� I finally sputter out. The tremors of my body make my voice rattle in my chest.

  He pulls me into a standing position. The water sloshes around us like a simpering witch’s cauldron. We stand thigh-deep in the lifeless dirge of the trench. I must look like a frightened fool to him. My eyes focus only on his.

  We are in an outlying spot that is supposed to be occupied but has recently become flooded. I hoped they wouldn’t think to look for me in this deserted portion of Pan’s labyrinth, and I certainly didn’t think my own countrymen would find me.

  “You’re safe, Luis. There are no Krauts here. But how did you . . .?” Oshki’s hands grip the lapels of my uniform.

  I want to believe he’s real. I do. But the mind plays funny tricks in the darkness.

  I focus on nothing but him. “How did you know I was here?”

  “A fella named Rooster told us, a German turncoat. He escaped and mentioned an escaped prisoner with him. We were told to investigate, and what do I find?” Oshki slaps me on the back with a splat. “You are one crazy Canadian, my friend.”

  Good. Rooster made it. I hope he hasn’t told Oshki too much. Besides the major, he’s the only other person who knows the truth.

  I glimpse the outline of another man at Oshki’s side, but I concentrate on my friend. He offers an explanation for their appearance.

  “We were going out this way anyway cause Staff Sergeant Jenkins sent Lenny and me to gauge the state of the trenches at this end and if they are passable or not.” He pauses and looks deeper into my eyes. I avert my gaze and busy myself with wringing some water from my drenched clothes.

  “Why were you acting like a sewer rat?” he asks.

  “I got a bit lost in the dark is all, and I thought I’d attract too much attention sloshing around. They were close on my tail.” I stand up straighter and back away from him a bit, hoping he doesn’t notice my German military jacket. Oshki doesn’t know who I really am or what my position really is. He just knew of my recent placement as a lieutenant with the Allied ground forces near here. The men were told I was captured.

  “Well, lucky for you they moved on a while ago.” He points to the hands of the serviceman waiting to lift me up out of the place I thought would be my grave. “Come. We’ve got to get ya warm, but stay low.” He moves ahead, but suddenly he turns and looks at me incredulously. “I still can’t believe you’re alive and . . . free.”

  I am reminded of my prayer. “I had a little help, it seems.”

  Oshki grins at me in the silver light and thumps me affectionately on the back. He’s shorter than me but stronger. I try to grin back to hide who I’ve become. But war has changed us all irrevocably—even he looks older to me.

  He says nothing, but I catch his eyes searching me to the core. He must sense more to my story. The spirit of an Ojibwe wise man rests in this young man. Even though his eyes shine hazel, they remind me of the knowing, black eyes of his aunt, Maang-ikwe. Eyes which can see every part of you. It makes me want to hide again. But, no, I must be brave.

  Brave. I have been brave for years. I am tired of being brave.

  But I choke down my fatigue and force myself to move. It is what I do, because I am a soldier and . . .

  I am a spy.

  It is only those who have neither

  Fired a shot nor heard the shrieks

  And groans of the wounded

  Who cry aloud for blood,

  More vengeance,

  More desolation.

  War is hell.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  Chapter One

  August 1914

  Webaashi Bay, Ontario

  Luis Wilson watched the group of women disembark from the ship, his hand poised in midair. He wasn’t sculpting today; he sketched. Despite the chill on the dock, he recreated the activity of the day with graphite and paper.

  He studied the female faces as they passed by. None seemed familiar. He watched as one of the ladies, a more mature looking woman, threw down her suitcase and stood upon it. She scanned the group, raised her arm, her hand in a fist, and rallied her followers. Her voice carried.

  “Ladies, you know your duty. Just as our brave men are fighting for our country, our freedom, so must we! Let us fulfill this campaign!”

  Clapping and cheers ensued. A shrill whistle by one young lady turned the heads of the dock workers.

  The woman speaker, dressed in a plain, white shirtwaist with a navy jacket and skirt and a fur hat upon her head, stepped down from her makeshift soapbox. She pulled out a cluster of something white from her carpet bag and dispersed the contents among the others. “Off to work, ladies!”

  Luis could hardly imagine what this gathering of female minds and initiative was all about, but then she appeared before him—the mousy-haired one he’d seen from a distance. Her green eyes bewitched him as they looked into his. He stood stupid and speechless as she peered up at him.

  She seemed sweet and unimpressive as her shapely fingers delved into the velvet pouch dangling from her wrist. She pulled out an article and held it delicately between her forefinger and thumb.

  “A call to duty, sir,” she said in a firm voice as if she had a right to command his action.

  Luis stared at the feather. Such a light, simple thing, yet it felt as heavy as lead against his chest when she reached out and tucked it in the buttonhole of his wool coat.

  Her green, accusing eyes met his blue ones, but before he could find his tongue to tell her she was wrong, she had turned and marched on. His face burned with instant humiliation. She didn’t understand. Luis worked at an essential business, providing iron ore for steel, which would be made into munitions for the war effort.

  I’m not a shirker! he called after her in his thoughts. He already did his duty. He felt the heat rise in his face.

  No one will call me a coward.

  He set his pencil down on his pad. Metallic, gray smudges shaded the tips of the first three fingers on his right hand and stained the white feather as he plucked it from his coat. Luis stared at it: a white feather representing a cockerel without the nerve to fight.

  An image of cowardice couldn’t define him. It won’t!

  No one had the right to tell him who he was but himself.

  He glared at her back, the little flip of a thing with brown, mousy hair, rosy apple cheeks, and green eyes. Witch’s eyes. Oh, she wasn’t a witch. But she might as well have been, for she knew how to make Luis do her bidding

  He let the feather float to the rocks at his feet. He stowed his sketching supplies in his satchel and prepared to leave. As he did, he noticed some military men setting up a table and chairs on the edge of the pier leading towards town, where a short line of men was already forming.

  Ha! thought Luis. I’ll show her, show them all just how wrong they are.

  He tucked his bag under his arm and marched forward to enlist.

  Lily Parsons wanted to be done for the day. Her hand cramped from filling out pay receipts for the rail workers, filling in statements, and drafting a few letters for her father, Michael Parsons, to sign. She rubbed a sore spot on her middle finger where a lump had begun to form and stowed away her writing utensils in the office desk. She looked at the clock upon the wall, which read 11:00 in the morning, and wished she had the rest of day off as Luis did.

  She liked her job as secretary at La Rue Rail and working with her father, who had been the manager for thirty years, but today Lily felt confined. The four walls of the office trapped her, and she was ready to be free of them. She could take off and get lunch in town. Maybe Luis still sketched by the docks where he’d said he’d be when he’d left an hour ago.

  Lily couldn’t put a finger on it, but something in the pit of her stomach caused her concern.

  Maybe it’s simply my lack of breakfast, she reasoned with herself. She took a deep breath and went to find her father to tell him of her plans.

  Over the years, La Rue Rail had become a profitable business with several train tracks, an
interest in the mine, and numerous businesses relying on its conveyance. The nearby ore mine and La Rue Rail worked in tandem. In fact, their office perched several hundred yards away atop the ridge of the Webaashi Bay Mine. Lily found her father talking with a mine worker near the elevator. The background noise of the steam shovel and the crunch of rock made Lily speak up.

  “Pop, I’ve finished at the office,” she shouted. “I’m going home early today unless there’s anything else you needed.”

  Lily wanted to tell him why, but she didn’t know how to name her intuition. She certainly didn’t want to worry him. He had enough worries of late. The government needed ore, and the mine worked overtime to produce, which meant the rail company workers put in extra time too.

  “Oh, Lil,” Michael Parsons scratched his graying beard, “no, I think I can do without you. Enjoy the rest of your day.” He paused a second. “Wait.” He pulled his watch out of his vest pocket and flipped open the gold, etched cover. He looked at the time and sighed. He raised his voice over the din. “Can you stop by and tell Vanessa I won’t be back for supper? Some problems here we need to solve with the engines.”

  “I will, but don’t stay too late. There’ll always be another day.” Lily touched her father’s arm, nodded to the other man, and started on her walk to town.

  When she reached the downtown area, Lily went to the harbor first. She spotted her stepbrother down by the town dock, which was a whirling hub of activity at the moment. Men milled about at the water’s edge, off the planking of the dock. Lily shaded her face with her hand to keep the sun from her eyes.