Chapter I: Sweeping Curtains

“If you hear a plane, you come right back inside and draw the curtains. Got it?”

Emily had always wondered what they looked like—planes. Were they like the small black birds that settled into the reaching arms of the strewn trees, and rustled the leaves like it was their own feathers, while they cawed at the sun? Her sight settled on the tips of her shoes, like she was taught to.

Her mother had said the same thing for as long as she could remember. If Emily wanted to play outside, her best bet was to nod along—so her short, straight hair bobbed.

This was sometime during the war. In Norway. A land stretching through the colder regions of the world, perched in the Atlantic. Blanketed in snow for half the year, where old sailors still spoke proudly of their wooden vessels, and of course—whaling.

In a village tucked away in a valley brushed by fir trees; spruce, pine—the occasional grand oak spearing the hillscapes. Regions of birch clusters drank happily from the wet ground, before stretching further and thinning into pocketed groves where eternal meadows hid from the roadside—placed there by some deity in between the farmlands. Rivers clung to the roads, taking with them the items of misfortuned clumsies, and dipped under long grass before breaking through the tufts and glittering in the sun once more, where they bathed a while, before continuing their journey towards the open fjord.

A little girl’s life, no older than six, had played out in its entirety in that valley. Life was simple, or perhaps used to be simple. The days passed whether she sat at the kitchen table, and listened to the distant clinking of her mother whipping up food, or if she played with the other children outside. Time still ran between her fingers, like a river’s iced water—numbing her just the same.

She knew little of the world beyond the rolling hills and often wondered if the rest of the world was also caressed by mountains, urged to adventure by dark forests and hugged by endless barley fields. There had to be warmer places, surely. Places where children ran barefoot in the sand, maybe they could bathe year’round and splash the sparkling water until they grew tired and fell fast asleep under the shade of a tree. She couldn’t know for sure, and whatever lay beyond the next hilltop might as well have been as distant as the moon.

Farmers had patched the rest of the land, filling in whatever open space was left. They built simple barns, farmsteads and pillared storehouses for the little meat they dared slice and salt. Some of these younger farmers—with debt up to their necks, had tractors sputtering around, mowing, tilling, and sowing. While others favored—or had no other choice, than the traditional scythe, and to pluck the fruits of their small, homegrown gardens. Emily would watch them, pressing her small hands against the cold, fogging glass, and trace her own little farm on the window.

Though with all of these scythes resting against house walls and wood sheds, one wouldn’t be sure if there was a reaper housed away from the everyman’s honest work.

In the midst of it all stood a small white house—Emily’s home.

The world outside seemed so far away, a place Emily could only imagine, where the sun burned warmer than the sharp April rays—where the air tasted of salt, a sensation she’d once felt through a vivid story told by another young girl, during last summer. But that was before what lay at the other end of the winding road, crashed into the serene valley.

At first, the war was a rumor.

It drifted into the valley on the breath of travelers, who arrived less often as the days stretched longer.

These travelers seemed to take some strange satisfaction in delivering the news, they were eager as they spoke of the possibility of battles and uncertain futures. But over time, something shifted in them. Their eyes darkened, and their pupils melted and settled under their tired eyes. They grew quieter, speaking in half-hushed tones if too many questions were asked. Eventually, they left just as abruptly as they came, and always before the dark settled. As if the night might swallow them whole, and reclaim the ghosts they had set free into the world.

Some said the Germans had crossed into Norway. Others that the King had already fled to England, and with him; the country’s gold reserve.

Though such a thing hardly mattered for the self-sustained in the valley, not at first.

The days passed, and the farmers still tilled their fields, and cleaned up their forests. They had a strange way of never working with their backs to the road. They stopped early and locked their doors at night, unsure whether to laugh at their own ridiculous fear or prepare for the worst. Uncertainty gnawed at them like a starved hound.

Then spring came, and with it, the Germans.

How could they ever come to touch this stretch of land? Yet the shopkeepers eyed their shelves as if they held treasures worth defending.

The countrymen had prepared, barricading the main road in all their honorable defiance. But the valley soon filled with the sound of repeating booms, rifles, and the grim realization that settled like a cold fog. It was no longer a question of if, but when. They had fought bravely, but with little combat skill and starved wills, the resistance was quickly snuffed out—save for a couple of men with hope still burning in their chests, now working under the noses of the occupation. After three days, they laid down their arms.

The occupiers settled in as though they were different men from those who had taken the village by force. To Emily, they seemed calmer. There was little fight left in them. They were more like neighbors who didn’t speak the same language. But again, she was only six.

***

A mockful Spring wore on, and soon shed its own winter coat. Emily stepped onto the cobblestone path curling away from the small white house, her arms ached with a dull soreness that tugged at her shoulders. Her small feet pressed against the uneven stones, slick with morning dew seeping through her thin soles. A single pebble rolled loose from the path’s edge—smooth and white, stopping just shy of her shoe, as if nudged there. She gave it a glance, nudging it with her toe, but didn’t pick it up, not yet. She skipped along the snaking path winding between village homes, their weathered gray walls patched with fresh planks, bright scars against the faded grain. She liked its twists and turns, dipping here, rising there—a secret trail she’d walked a hundred times. Her fingers brushed her front pocket, checking the coin her mother had pressed into her palm that morning with cold hands. ‘For flour,’ she’d said, eyes drifting outside the window as if someone was there to snag the coin away from them. It was still there, snug in the fabric, sparking a tiny glow in her chest and tugging a small, secret smile to her lips as she walked on, the stones’ soft clatter trailing her steps.

She passed a shuttered house, its windows drooped like weary eyelids, the garden was overgrown with nettles—one black among the green—brushing her leg as she edged by—prickly against her skin, but she didn’t flinch. A faint cluck of chickens drifted from the Nilsens’ yard across the way, where laundry hung limp on a sagging line—sheets yellowed by time, swaying in the breeze like ghosts of sunnier days. Her nose caught the damp, green whiff of earth, a whipped scent from last night’s rain, blending with the distant tang of smoke curling from a chimney somewhere ahead. She slowed, peering up at the firs lining the hill beyond, their dark tips swaying in the wind. 

Her dress hem brushed the stones, and she tugged it up with her free hand, careful not to trip where the path widened into the town’s main stretch—the dirt here was packed smooth by boots and cartwheels over the years. The air carried a chill, nipping at her bare arms where her sleeves ended, but the sun peeked through the clouds, casting frail shadows from the rooftops—little patches of light that danced on the ground like spilled milk. She passed the blacksmith’s shed, its door ajar, the faint clang of hammer on iron ringing out as old Torvald bent over his anvil inside, his apron was painted dark with soot. A dog nosed the dirt near the Nilsens’ gate, a scruffy mutt with a limp, its tail wagging slowly.

Ahead, Joergensen came into view, the old butcher hunched over a wooden crate outside his shop, where the path met the open dirt stretch of town. His gnarled hands, knotted and rough as the oak stumps up the hill, arranged the day’s cuts—slabs of pork and mutton, their edges glistened pink and red in the weak light, blood pooling in dark streaks beneath like ink spilled on parchment. His apron hung stained deep with grease and old gore, the fabric stiff where it wasn’t frayed at the hem, brushing his knees as he shifted his weight. A small brown cap perched atop his head, the same deep hue as the cowhide strip slung around his thick neck—some said it was a trophy from a beast he’d felled years back, though he never told any such tale. His eyes had sunk since those days, hollowed under the cap’s brim. He was a man of few words, preferring brief nods to chatter, glad when patrons left him to his task—slicing meat, stacking it neat on the crate, wiping his blade on a rag tucked at his waist as the sun slipped behind the trunks that dwarfed the valley.

Emily paused a few steps off, lifting her small hand in a quick wave, her sleeve slipping down her wrist to show a shadow of yesterday’s bruise. He didn’t wave back—just flicked his pale eyes her way, then settled them elsewhere, a grunt rumbled low in his throat. His fingers crept to the blade, resting it against the crate’s edge with a soft scrape, and she wondered if he’d ever smiled—maybe back when her father was still around to trade a laugh or two across the lane. She shrugged it off, turning toward the bakery across the way, its promises tugged her forward like the girl was pulled by strings.

The scent hit her first—warm bread, fresh from the oven, spilling out the open door in waves that wrapped around her like a hug she didn’t know she needed. The smoke now carried bread scent, so it was the baker’s after all, curling down from the chimney to tease her nose and prick her eyes until they watered. She blinked hard, tasting the air on her tongue—sweet crust, soft middle she’d press between her fingers if her mother let her have a piece. The smoke whipped back in the wind, swirling low over the lane, and she wiped her sleeve across her face, the sting a small price for such heaven. She lingered, breathing it in deep until her stomach gave a growl, just like when her father used to slip her a crust from the table, grinning as she nibbled away.

A shuffle caught her ear, and she turned slowly, as her gaze snagged on something across the street. By the general store, with its sagging awning and dusty windows fogged at the edges, stood a figure—still as the oaks up the hill. A German soldier. His uniform caught the light—all crisp lines and dark green, glinting buttons like tiny stars against the wool. Hard to tell his age—younger than her father, maybe, though his face stayed half-shadowed under the cap’s brim, a faint stubble catching the sun. He turned, and she couldn’t pry her eyes off him—cold blue eyes glinted, washing over her face like the river’s chill when she’d dipped her toes last summer, drawing her gaze to chiseled cheekbones framing a gentle smile that crinkled the corners. Without meaning to, she smiled back, her lips curving before she could stop them.

A sharp gasp broke the air—Nielsen’s wife peered from the butcher’s terrace across the lane. Her round face pinched tight, and she tugged at Joergensen’s sleeve, leaning close with hurried words—too fast and low for Emily to catch, but her voice trembled, urgent as a cornered hen’s cluck. The soldier’s hand slipped into his jacket, a mischievous mime danced across his face. His breast bulged as he clasped something, pulling it out bit by bit. Nielsen’s wife went wide-eyed, her breath hitched as she ducked behind the post piercing Joergensen’s terrace, her apron flapped against the wood like a trapped bird’s wing. Joergensen stepped away from his crate into the middle of the open street, his big frame stiffened and his eyes went dark. He walked slowly into the open street, and his mind went to the same place it did when he booted towards a lamb in his shop’s backroom. His cheek prickled, sweat or tension tracing down past his jaw—did he really have to take a life so young? What would the troops do—drag him off, leave his shop empty, widow his wife? One thing at a time, he told himself, eyes narrowing as he closed the gap.

Emily leaned forward, her dress brushing her knees, eager to see what he held—something secret, something special?

The soldier’s whistle washed down Joergensen’s back, a high, thin shiver that clawed at him like the time he’d tread over the fjord’s brittle ice, chasing that damn lamb—stubborn thing had broken out, wandered to the middle of the frozen stretch, of all places. Joergensen wasn’t a small man by any measure; his bulk had cracked the crust on the way back, plunging him into the black water, the lamb drowning in his arms—all for nothing. Now, that same chill crept up his spine, locking his breath as he watched Emily’s small shape tip closer, fragile as that lost lamb against the lane’s sprawl. The whistle sharpened, splitting the air like ice groaning underfoot, and his fingers flexed on the blade’s handle—tight, then tighter. He knew the feel of slaughter, the quick sink of steel through a lamb’s soft throat; he could do it now, drive it up through the German’s chin, under the tongue, let the blood spill out his open gawking mouth. His eyes flicked past the Germans’ glinting buttons, up to the slung rifle on his shoulder, then around the lane’s edges, searching for other green shadows lurking. None yet. His boots scraped the dirt quicker, a low growl rumbling in his chest as he closed the gap—one step, one thrust, and it’d be done, damn the troops, damn the cost—‘til the black water swallowed the valley whole.

Her shoe scuffed the dirt, and she tipped closer. The soldier’s hand came out, a closed fist, turning palm down slowly as he extended it toward her. She hesitated, before she slid her hand beneath his—palm up, fingers brushing the air like she might catch a falling leaf. She leaned in closer, peering at his clenched fingers—could she peek through, uncover what hid inside? Her heart thumped beating the drum skin in her ears, and then they opened—small squares dropped, wrapped neatly in crinkly brown paper. Caramels.

Joergensen stopped.

His shoulders eased as he let out a relieved breath, realizing how prickling his cheeks had been. Nielsen’s wife peeked from behind the post, her wide eyes blinking fast as the color that had run, crept back into her. He sheathed his knife slowly.

Emily stared at the caramels in her palm, her fingers fumbled to peel one open. The sticky sweetness hit her tongue and wrapped it with sugar, like treats her father used to sneak into her hand when her mother didn’t look. The soldier ruffled her hair—a quick, light tousle that mussed her short bangs—then turned, clicking his boots down the lane toward the church end. She froze, mouth full of a untamable sugary mass, leaving her tongue tied—and when she finally could summon her manners, he was too far away to hear any mumbled “thank you’s”

Joergensen muttered something under his breath and ushered Emily towards the bakery’s warm glow.