Could shenot? Could she go on like this, so alone, trying to hold together the shattered pieces of Navarre’s dream?No. Lord, I can’t do it anymore. I can’t just chase my will. I do want yours. Your will, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
Again she paused, thinking of the treats in the boot of the car, food she never would have thought to treasure until this blasted war.Daily breadwas precious indeed. But it wasn’t just that, was it? She remembered the sisters teaching there was a hidden meaning. Not just the baguette beside their plates, but the Bread of Life. Christ, in the Eucharist. Christ, ready to become part of her, to make her more like him, if she would but let him.
Hoping the darkness concealed it, she reached up to wipe the tears from her cheeks. And yearned, for the first time in her life, for the taste of that wafer. The promise of God with her, God made flesh.
The next words in the Our Father at once crowded but shifted. Came to her in a familiar-but-not voice.I forgive you your trespasses... as you forgive those who trespass against you.
Jacques, who had told her she was never enough. Navarre, whohad ignored her advice and gotten himself killed for it. Emile, who had betrayed them. Could she forgive them, and the countless others who had hurt her over the years? Did shewantto? Was God’s forgiveness worth it?
As soon as she thought the question, the night closed in. It was like the mailbag, trapping her, trying to suffocate her. That had been the very thing that had inspired her to cry out to him, the place where she’d sensed him. Why would she return there, spiritually? Returnwithoutthe intention of reaching for him?
No. No, life was dark enough in this world without grasping hold of the shadows eternally. She didn’t simplywantthose glimpses of light, sheneededthem with every fiber of her being. If that meant giving up herself, her work, her ideas, her hurts, her bitterness, her pain... so be it.
Lead me not into temptation,she directed toward the light.
A blanket of peace fell upon her, warm as the summer sun. Comforting as her mother’s embrace. Steady as the starlight.Keep your hand in mine, daughter,that voice seemed to say.And I will deliver you from evil.
She must have slept, though she could have sworn she still heard the engine, felt the bumps in the road, smelled the cigarette that Henri lit up. But she dreamed. That same nightmare that had been plaguing her since the raid. She was running toward the villa, light blazing from its windows. People were shouting. Friends were running. Things were flying out of windows.
Sometimes the whole place went up in flames. Sometimes she found herself running beside one of her operatives. Sometimes Blanchet caught her again, stopped her, like he’d done in reality. An ally who had undoubtedly saved her life.
This time, she could see each of her agents, captured and uncaptured, those who had been there and those who hadn’t. Each face she’d looked into, each name she’d memorized, each designation she’d given them but hadn’t used enough.
She saw each of them, all of them running, and somehow the night brightened to day, light catching each one.
Catching the Nazis thundering after them in tanks, in jeeps, on horseback, in the vans that housed their detection devices.
Try as she might to scream warnings to her friends, she couldn’t. She pounded at the glass somehow separating them, but they couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t heed her warnings.
Please, Lord.So simple a prayer, yet one she hadn’t prayed that night.
Sister Ursule’s voice filled her mind.Oh, that I had wings like a dove; then I would fly away and rest! I would fly far away to the quiet of the wilderness.
Then the voice deepened, echoed.I know every bird on the mountains, and all the animals of the field are mine.
Zelie stilled, watched as her fleeing friends changed. One into a leopard, one into a fox. One into a gray horse, one into a dog. Henri became a snake, slithering into the underbrush and out of sight. Raoul shifted into a falcon and soared up, away from the Nazis. Marcel took to wing like his brother, but he didn’t soar away. His wings were the same green as his eyes, and when he opened his beak, song spilled out.
She held out a finger, and he flew right through the glass to land on it.
“Zelie? I think this is a good place to stop for the night.”
She jerked awake, rubbed a hand over her face. But the dream hovered there, behind her eyes. And she smiled.
She knew what they had to do to protect their identities. No more randomly assigned letters and numbers too cumbersome to remember, that meant nothing. No. This would work much better. It would be easy enough to use in every correspondence, even in person for people who weren’t already acquainted, in lieu of real names, and much easier for everyone to recall.
Henri could be Asp Viper—a snake common to both Franceand Spain, with a wide range of colors and patterns. Marcel could be Greenfinch—a songbird that could be found all through the country.
And she... she would be Honey Badger. Unassuming, by all appearances, much like a woman in a man’s world.
But even the lions of the savanna knew to respect them... especially when their young were threatened.
Zelie got out of the car and squared her shoulders. The German lions had tangled with the wrong mother.
Nineteen
28 DECEMBER 1941
MARSEILLE, FRANCE
