Through a break in the trees up ahead, Vianne saw a flashing light, and then the black-and-white markings of the border crossing.

The gate was illuminated by lights so bright only the enemy would dare use them—or be able to afford to. A German guard stood by, his rifle glinting silver in the unnatural light. There was a small line of people waiting to pass through. Approval would only be granted if the paperwork was in order. If Rachel’s false papers didn’t work, she and the children would be arrested.

It was real suddenly. Vianne came to a stop. She would have to watch it all from here.

“I’ll write if I can,” Rachel said.

Vianne’s throat tightened. Even if the best happened, she might not hear from her friend for years. Or ever. In this new world, there was no certain way to keep in touch with those you loved.

“Don’t give me that look,” Rachel said. “We will be together again in no time, drinking champagne and dancing to that jazz music you love.”

Vianne wiped the tears from her eyes. “You know I won’t be seen with you in public when you start dancing.”

Sarah tugged at her sleeve. “T-tell Sophie I said good-bye.”

Vianne knelt down and hugged Sarah. She could have held on forever; instead she let go.

She started to reach for Rachel, but her friend backed away. “If I hug you I’ll cry and I can’t cry.”

Vianne’s arms dropped heavily to her side.

Rachel reached down for the wheelbarrow. She and her children left the protection of the trees and joined the queue of people at the checkpoint. A man on a bicycle pedaled through and kept going, and then an old woman pushing a flower cart was waved on. Rachel was almost to the front of the queue when a whistle shrieked and someone yelled in German. The guard turned his machine gun on the crowd and opened fire.

Tiny red bursts peppered the dark.

Ra-ta-ta-tat.

A woman screamed as the man beside her crumpled to the ground. The queue instantly dispersed; people ran in all directions.

It happened so fast Vianne couldn’t react. She saw Rachel and Sarah running toward her, back to the trees; Sarah in front, Rachel in back with the wheelbarrow.

“Here!” Vianne cried out, her voice lost in the splatter of gunfire.

Sarah dropped to her knees in the grass.

“Sarah!” Rachel cried.

Vianne swooped forward and pulled Sarah into her arms. She carried her into the woods and laid her on the ground, unbuttoning her coat.

The girl’s chest was riddled with bullet holes. Blood bubbled up, spilled over, oozing.

Vianne wrenched off her shawl and pressed it to the wounds.

“How is she?” Rachel asked, coming to a breathless stop beside her. “Is that blood?” Rachel crumpled to the grass beside her daughter. In the wheelbarrow, Ari started to scream.

Lights flashed at the checkpoint, soldiers gathered together. Dogs started barking.

“We have to go, Rachel,” Vianne said. “Now.” She clambered to her feet in the blood-slick grass and took Ari out of the wheelbarrow, shoving him at Rachel, who seemed not to understand. Vianne threw everything out of the wheelbarrow and, as carefully as she could, placed Sarah in the rusted metal, with Ari’s blanket behind her head. Clutching the handles in her bloody hands, she lifted the back wheels and began pushing. “Come on,” she said to Rachel. “We can save her.”

Rachel nodded numbly.

Vianne shoved the wheelbarrow forward, over the ropey roots and dirt. Her heart was pounding and fear was a sour taste in her mouth, but she didn’t stop or look back. She knew that Rachel was behind her—Ari was screaming—and if anyone else was following them, she didn’t want to know.

As they neared Le Jardin, Vianne struggled to push the heavy wheelbarrow through the gully alongside the road and up the hill to the barn. When she finally stopped, the wheelbarrow thumped down to the ground and Sarah moaned in pain.

Rachel put Ari down. Then she lifted Sarah out of the wheelbarrow and gently placed her on the grass. Ari wailed and held his arms out to be held.

Rachel knelt beside Sarah and saw the terrible devastation of Sarah’s chest. She looked up at Vianne, gave her a look of such pain and loss that Vianne couldn’t breathe. Then Rachel looked down again, and placed a hand on her daughter’s pale cheek.

Sarah lifted her head. “Did we make it across the frontier?” Blood bubbled up from her colorless lips, slid down her chin.

“We did,” Rachel said. “We did. We are all safe now.”

“I was brave,” Sarah said, “wasn’t I?”

“Oui,” Rachel said brokenly. “So brave.”

“I’m cold,” Sarah murmured. She shivered.

Sarah drew in a shuddering breath, exhaled slowly.

“We are going to go have some candy now. And a macaron. I love you, Sarah. And Papa loves you. You are our star.” Rachel’s voice broke. She was crying now. “Our heart. You know that?”

“Tell Sophie I…” Sarah’s eyelids fluttered shut. She drew a last, shuddering breath and went still. Her lips parted, but no breath slipped past them.

Vianne knelt down beside Sarah. She felt for a pulse and found none. The silence turned sour, thick; all Vianne could think about was the sound of this child’s laughter and how empty the world would be without it. She knew about death, about the grief that ripped you apart and left you broken forever. She couldn’t imagine how Rachel was still breathing. If this was any other time, Vianne would sit down beside Rachel, take her hand, and let her cry. Or hold her. Or talk. Or say nothing. Whatever Rachel needed, Vianne would have moved Heaven and Earth to provide; but she couldn’t do that now. It was another terrible blow in all of this: They couldn’t even take time to grieve.

Vianne needed to be strong for Rachel. “We need to bury her,” Vianne said as gently as she could.

“She hates the dark.”

“My maman will be with her,” Vianne said. “And yours. You and Ari need to go into the cellar. Hide. I’ll take care of Sarah.”

“How?”

Vianne knew Rachel wasn’t asking how to hide in the barn; she was asking how to live after a loss like this, how to pick up one child and let the other go, how to keep breathing after you whisper “good-bye.” “I can’t leave her.”

“You have to. For Ari.” Vianne got slowly to her feet, waiting.

Rachel drew in a breath as clattery as broken glass and leaned forward to kiss Sarah’s cheek. “I will always love you,” she whispered.

At last, Rachel rose. She reached down for Ari, took him in her arms, held him so tightly he started to cry again.

Vianne reached for Rachel’s hand and led her friend into the barn and to the cellar. “I will come get you as soon as it’s safe.”

“Safe,” Rachel said dully, staring back through the open barn door.

Vianne moved the car and opened the trapdoor. “There’s a lantern down there. And food.”

Holding Ari, Rachel climbed down the ladder and disappeared into the darkness. Vianne shut the door on them and replaced the car and then went to the lilac bush her mother had planted thirty years ago. It had spread tall and wide along the wall. Beneath it, almost lost amid the summer greenery, were three small white crosses. Two for the miscarriages she’d suffered and one for the son who’d lived less than a week.

Rachel had stood here beside her as each of her boys was buried. Now Vianne was here to bury her best friend’s daughter. Her daughter’s best friend. What kind of benevolent God would allow such a thing?

TWENTY-THREE

In the last few moments before dawn, Vianne sat near the mound of fresh-turned earth. She wanted to pray, but her faith felt far away, the remnant of another woman’s life.

Slowly, she got to her feet.

As the sky turned lavender and pink—ironically beautiful—she went to her backyard, where the chickens clucked and flapped their wings at her unexpected arrival. She stripped off her bloody clothes, left them in a heap on the ground, and washed up at the pump. Then she took a linen nightdress from the clothesline, put it on, and went inside.