Page 32 of The Unknown Birds

“Short for Charlotte.”

“You joined up with your brother’s papers?”

“That part is certainly true.”

“I always thought you meant you were underage. Always wondered what would happen when they finally came for you.”

“The beauty of my plan. Charles and I are twins. I took his place. His duty became my own. No one missed me except my mother.”

“No sweetheart left behind?” he halfway teased.

She snorted and shook her head.

“So that makes you…” He studied the ceiling, calculating the years. “Forty-one? I suppose it’s impolite to ask.”

Ash smiled. “Forty-one in April.”

“And you were once called Sparrow?”

“Spatzi. The German word for Little Sparrow.”

“Your baker?”

“Yes. I suppose she missed me too.”

“You love Dickens and Shakespeare? And poetry? You detest cherries?”

She nodded. “With a passion.”

“Which one?”

“All of them.”

“Well then,” he said, seeming to come to a decision. “I suppose that’s that.”

It was Ashley’s turn to hold back emotion as her eyes burned and her chest heaved racking breaths. Did that mean he’d forgiven her after all?

“Don’t cry, Little Bird,” he said, reaching across the table and taking her hand.

“I wanted to tell you. But after a while, it was too hard a knot to untie.”

He nodded. “Did everything turn out as you hoped it would? For your brother I mean?”

Ash shrugged. “He made his way to Spain for the duration of the war. Didn’t write, so he didn’t know I’d taken his place.” She shook her head. “I suppose it was a foolhardy thing for me to do, but I never imagined he was resourceful enough to get himself out of the country.”

“No. Not foolhardy. Brave.”

Ash shook her head once more. “I was terrified. But I was more afraid of what would happen if he were caught.”

“Jail?”

“I never actually thought he’d go to jail. I imagined he’d be sent to the Front instead, where he would try to run away again.” She cut herself off and glanced at him, wishing she could suck the words back in.

His grey eyes looked down at the table, sad and haunted. They both knew the punishment for desertion. They both knew she’d feared Charles would end up dead.

“Well,” he finally said. “You saved him from all that.”

“I suppose. And round and round it goes.”