Page 111 of The Unknown Birds

Ash threw her arms around her mother and squeezed her tight.

“Promise me you’ll look after each other, whatever happens?”

“Try and stop us,” Ashley laughed.

In the morning, her mother reported to the train station while Ash reported to the school one final time. Her students were all there, dressed in hand-me-down shoes and winter coats and solemn faces.

“It’s time for your next great adventure,” Ashley told them as well as their parents.

“Like David Copperfield?” Sarah asked.

“Exactly like David Copperfield,” Ash agreed. “The best I can tell you is, if you pretend to be brave for long enough, sometimes that’s all it takes to actually become what you need to be.”

Together they marched to the station, good little soldiers all in a line. Ash distributed railway tickets and helped them find their trains as they hugged and kissed their parents through nervous tears.

Then she assisted other people’s children, embraced other children’s parents, comforted other families split apart for someone else’s war. She was a shoulder for weeping mothers, wiping countless tears, until finally the last train chugged away. Then she dragged herself back to her empty flat feeling wrung out and alone.

Everywhere she turned, she saw only what wasn’t there—her mother’s embroidered silk postcard on the mantle, Frau Wintter’s tea set on the sideboard, the portraits of Herr Wintter and Charles which had hung on the parlor wall. So she changed out of her skirt into a pair of old worn overalls buried in the back of her wardrobe these twenty years. She might as well scrub down her empty classroom before it was needed for some other purpose. Surely that would be the next right thing to do.

Reaching in the pocket, she found an unexpected gift—the old bronze medallion Frau Wintter had given her long ago, emblazoned with the initials A and R. They were Frau Wintter’s maiden initials, but somehow it felt like a message, like a holy sign.

Ash couldn’t say how the necklace had come to be inside her pocket, but as she gazed down at the soft, warm metal, the word Zwillingsseele flitted through her mind, lighting up her senses like a summer glow-worm.

He would marry you tomorrow.

She’d never been more certain in her life.

She must go to Alex Rook.

Chapter 33

London, September 1939

Have you seen the lights that smoulder on a cloud’s resplendent shoulder

standing out before a saffron-coloured sky?

Would you be in splendid places and illimitable spaces?

Well then do it, damn you, do it; learn to fly!

—Jeffery Day

The Call of the Air

Clarity had struck Ash like a single bolt of lightning, and she couldn’t bear to waste another second. She didn’t need to tidy up her classroom or even change back into a skirt. She didn’t want to pause and think or worry and talk herself out of it. She only wanted Rook.

Later, she would wonder why she hadn’t checked Temple Church or his flat first. But in that moment, like a homing pigeon following the compass in its beak, she made straight for Whitehall. Surely he’d have reported to the Home Office straight away upon receiving word of the invasion, ready to begin his new role with old friends.

Darting through traffic the same careless way she’d once run through enemy fire, Ash took off racing down the street. She ignored the stern looks from drivers and pedestrians alike, settling into her stride. Her heart hammered like a howitzer as her feet pounded out each step of the three miles to Whitehall.

When she reached the rows of imposing white government buildings, the weight of the day began to sink in once more, for every entrance was guarded by severe-looking policemen who watched her like hawks, and no wonder—a short-haired woman wearing Plimsolls and men’s overalls running past Downing Street like her feet were on fire was bound to set their teeth even more on edge. There was no way they were letting her inside.

Deflated, she continued to the end of the block and turned towards St. James Park.

Walking back up Horse Guards, she felt him before she saw him, standing on a set of stairs that ran between the buildings, looking smart in his dark jacket and waistcoat. Taking the stairs two at a time, she made straight for him, leaping into his arms even as he stood amid a group of smoking, chatting men.

“All right, Little Bird?” he asked, face lined with concern.