Brigits Flame: Oct., week 1 - Baptized by Fire

The air under the floorboards was hot and cramped.  Every breath I took was just another mouthful of the same stale, damp oxygen, filled with the scent of wood and perspiration and mildew.  The thundering of my heart was so loud in my ears that I swore it would give away our position any minute.  Of course, such a thought was incredibly stupid.  No one else could hear my heartbeat, not even the seven other children crowded into the crawlspace with me.  We were completely concealed.

    

Unless they had brought the dogs.  God help us if they brought the dogs.

Heavy boots resounded slowly on the floorboards, less than an inch above my head.  They sounded like thunder from a storm still far away, one whose clouds were visible from miles away and whose rain was yet to be felt.  But this storm wasn’t distant, and we hadn’t had such an adequate warning as thunder and lightning and clouds.

“And you have not seen the eight Hofmann children?” Said a rough, gravelly, man’s voice.

“I wasn’t aware that the Hofmanns had children.” Mrs. Schmidt, the clockmaker, was a perfect liar, and could deceive anyone without the slightest waver in her voice. “They lived more than a kilometer from here, and I only saw Mr. Hofmann every few months or so when he’d need his watch repaired.”

No doubt the soldiers had searched the floor for a trap door into the hidden crawlspace, and no doubt they had come up empty handed.  It was common knowledge that almost all older buildings had secret hiding places such as this, but the clockmaker’s shop was a special kind of oddity.  Its hidden compartment was between the basement and first floor, and the compartment was in the basement’s ceiling, forcing one to climb up into the hiding place.  It was why Mama and Papa had asked Mrs. Schmidt to hide us when they left to secure our passage to Mama’s cousin’s home in London.

They had been gone a week, though they told us the trip would take two.  They were still alive, and they would be back for us.  I knew it.

The gruff-voiced soldier hadn’t responded, nor had he moved.  For just a moment I forgot he was in the room, and I became distracted by the sounds of the other soldiers frantically searching the basement for eight hiding children.  “You’re lying, Mrs. Schmidt.”

 

“I beg your pardon,” Mrs. Schmidt replied, instantly irritated.  “I will have you know that I am a staunch supporter of The Party and have divulged all my ancestry to the authorities.  I would never betray the Fatherland.”

I heard the other soldier ascend the stairs from the basement and I exhaled a sigh of relief, probably the fifth time I had held a mouthful of the same stale air.  I tightened my arm in triumph around my six-year-old sister, Anya, who made a tiny, fearful, mewling sound.  “Sir, we found no one,” one of the other soldiers told the one who was in charge, the one speaking with Mrs. Schmidt. 

A pregnant silence hung in the room, and I wished that I hadn’t allowed myself the small moment of triumph.  A rustling of leather and metal and the ominous clicking of the hammer on a pistol pierced the silence.  The cruel meaning of the sounds screamed louder than their muffled resonances could.  “Mrs. Schmidt, you have only one opportunity to tell us where the children are hiding.”

“S-sir!” Mrs. Schmidt flustered.  “You have searched my home and wrecked my business, and now you threaten my life!  Why, I have half a mind to find your commanding officer and…”

Thunder rang through the house, louder than anything I had ever heard in my life.  The floorboards muffled the sound somewhat, but it was still loud enough to deafen me with a sudden ringing in my ears.  Through the ringing I still heard a limp thump on the floor above us.

Anya curled tighter in my arms and mewled again, but I clapped my hand over her mouth and held my breath to keep my own tears inside.

 

“The Fatherland doesn’t need liars, pure-blooded or otherwise,” the soldier said, just over whisper.  A second later he said, louder, “Take anything of value, then burn it to the ground.  If they’re hiding here, all the better.” 

The sorrow for Mrs. Schmidt in my heart was instantly crushed with urgency and fear.  I looked to the second oldest, my twelve-year-old sister, Lenora, and found her face streaked with tears and her bottom lip trembling uncontrollably.

Mrs. Schmidt was dead.  I needn’t muddy the details with hope for the soldiers’ mercy.  And mama and papa were surely in London by now, trying to figure out a way to get the eight of us there in secrecy.  There was no one else who could save us.

Footsteps retreated from the house, and when they were gone my younger siblings all started crying, the seven of them together like a flock of wounded lambs.  “Shh!” I hissed at them as I willed away my own tears.  It was so dark between the floors that I wasn’t sure if any of them could see my face, but I glared at their shadows and showed them the sober determination in my eyes.

A lone set of footsteps thumped back into the house, accompanied by a sound of water being sloshed onto the floor.  Liquid dripped between the floorboards and spotted the wood beneath us, and with one sniff I knew instantly that we would not be lucky enough to have the house soaked with water.  The footsteps continued into the basement, and as I listened I pushed Anya out of the way and positioned myself alone on top of the trap door.  It had no hinges, which would have been visible from the outside; instead there were two wooden slats that held it into place, making it all but invisible from the basement beneath.

 

When I was sure the soldier was beneath me, I rose up on my elbows and toes, slid one of the slats out of the way, and then brought down my full weight upon the remaining slat.  Though I wasn’t a large boy for fourteen, I weighed enough; the wood splintered under me and I held my breath and tensed every muscle in my body as I fell from the crawlspace on the trap door.

 

When I fell upon the soldier, it felt as though I had been hit by a truck.  Though I had tried to prepare myself for the blow, all the air was ejected from my lungs and my entire skeleton shuddered as the man crumpled beneath me.  For a numb second I lay upon the ruined trap door, too stunned to speak or move, but the smell of gasoline in the basement shook me back to reality and I forced myself to my feet.  From the hole in the ceiling Anya and Lenora looked upon me, a strange mix of heroic elation and revulsion on their faces.

 

“Don’t lay there gawking!” I hissed at them.  “We have to get out of here!”  One by one Lenora lowered the younger siblings to the floor by their arms, until she dropped from the hole in the ceiling and landed nimbly on the trap door.  There was a satisfied spark in her eyes when her weight fell upon it and the soldier crushed beneath, who hadn’t moved since I had landed on him.

I looked away from the soldier and instead concentrated on the gasoline can he had dropped, which had emptied completely on the floor, and the steel lighter that had skittered from his hand and lay a few feet away.  I snatched it up and approached the stairs.  “As quietly as you can,” I told my siblings.  The younger ones had been staring, dumbfounded, at the dead soldier since they had emerged from the crawl space, but turned their eyes to me when I spoke.

Once I removed my shoes so I would make less noise, I slunk up the stairs and peeked onto the first floor.  It was empty, thank God; if there had been any more soldiers in the house they surely would have heard the commotion.  I motioned for my siblings to follow, and soon seven barefoot children were following me onto the first floor.

Mrs. Schmidt lay in a heap on the floor, between two dark trails of gasoline.  She was curled into a ball away from us, thankfully, and lay in a pool much darker than the gasoline around her.  I snapped my fingers once and my siblings’ eyes shot from her to me, and with my fingers I commanded their eyes not to waver.  Seven scared children all nodded, but said nothing. 

I skulked to the front door, which the soldier had left open, and looked out into the street.  It was abandoned, but I could hear the small group of soldiers in another business a few meters away, no doubt being just as evil and cruel as they had been to Mrs. Schmidt in their pursuit of the Hofmann children.  With a motion from me, Lenora led the six younger children out the door and around the side of the building.

When they were clear I took one last look into the clockmaker’s shop and the motionless woman who had given everything to protect eight children that lived more than a kilometer away.  I prayed for God to receive her and to forgive me for bringing such a fate upon her just because she had the best hiding place in the village.

I struck the lighter and tossed it back into the building, onto one of the dark streaks of gasoline.  A ribbon of fire instantly surged to life and ran across the floor like a wild, reckless child.  Before the fire and sadness and fear could transfix me I darted away from the door and around the back of the building, where I found my siblings waiting for me.  The eight of us ran for the nearby woods as if we had the Fuhrer’s entire forces at our heels.

If we were lucky, we would get to the road to London and find Mama and Papa before the dogs found us.

If we were lucky, word would reach Mama and Papa that the Hofmann children had not been found and were on the run.  

If we were lucky, Mama and Papa had made it to London.

If we were lucky, there would still be a London for us to run to.