Page 3 of The Unknown Birds

“If he’s discovered it will be too late.”

In the back of her brother’s wardrobe, Charley found a pair of old overalls. She clenched her fists and took a deep breath. Stiff upper lip now, she told herself, before pulling on the overalls and tucking her hair once more inside the threadbare cap. Then she set out at a run for Little Germany.

Although it was reported the zeppelins had all been turned away, the cracked door frame and hanging shutters of Wintter’s Bakery told a different tale. She arrived to find Herr Wintter nailing boards over shattered remnants of the lovely stained glass windows they’d brought all the way from Wittenberg.

“Good morning,” Charley called, cautiously.

Herr Wintter turned stiffly to squint at her, his right eye swollen shut, unrecognizable as cheek or bone. “Is it?”

Hurrying inside, she found his wife sweeping up the broken glass.

“What happened?”

“Englishmen with stones and knives.”

Her stomach plunged. Anti-German turmoil had been growing steadily since the outbreak of war, and fear of zeppelin attacks always fanned the flames. “I’m so sorry.”

“Did you need bread? They took it all.”

“No, I—” Charley stopped herself. The request seemed selfish and petty now.

“Come. We still have tea.”

Frau Wintter led the way behind the counter and into the clean, homey kitchen, where she placed a kettle on the hob. “Tell me.”

“My hair. I was hoping you would cut it off—all of it.”

“Nits?”

“Not nits.” She made a face. “Nothing like that.”

“Then why so short, Spatzi?” Frau Wintter asked as she ran her fingers through the thick chestnut locks.

A surrogate grandmother to Charles and Charley, the baker’s wife had dubbed her Spatzi—Little Sparrow—as a child because she flew at the bigger boys, all talons and teeth, when they taunted Charles to crying in the street.

“Not just short, Oma,” Charley explained. “Like a boy. I want to look like Charles.”

Frau Wintter’s brow furrowed, but she nodded once and set out her supplies. There were no prying questions. It wasn’t her way.

She parted the hair down the side at the right temple, and Charley closed her eyes tight against the icy scissors until the first lock fell to the floor. “It’s only hair,” she reminded them both. It would grow back some day if she allowed it.

“What do you read these days? Best way to see the world and find adventure, books.”

“I’ve got Little Dorrit from the lending library.”

“Always melancholy Dickens,” she chided.

“I love him.”

“So bleak. A nice girl like you should read poetry.”

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Charley teased, and Frau Wintter chortled.

“Perhaps an autumn one,” she said, handing over a small mirror.

A gasp escaped Charley’s lips before she could tamp it down—or out of Charles’s, for it was he who stared back at her in the glass, his brown hair falling to the side in short waves.

“Still beautiful,” Frau Wintter said, cupping her cheek. “How can you expect to fool a soul?”