Yours Is the Night Page 23

  “I . . . have decided.”

  30

  Mira

  The sight of the waiting train rattled my heart inside of me. Was there ever such a creature as this? Not since I had seen the great iron beast rise from the canyon beyond the forest had I beheld such a thing. Unseen churning caused billows of smoke to exhale from the creature like a great dragon. The dragon meant to convey me away from these men and into a blind unknown place so very far away. When they spoke it—Bordeaux—I could feel the strings that tied me to the Argonne tightening around my chest until I feared they would snap and take me with them.

  Matthew was quiet beside me. “You’re sure, Mira?” His sincere eyes asked me to hear another question beneath the one he spoke.

  “No,” I said. “I am sure of nothing.”

  “You—you don’t have to go.”

  The great dragon was receiving passengers into its creaking metal belly. Its door stood open, like a mechanical hand beckoning me. Come, it seemed to say, its voice very cold. I will ferry you to where you belong.

  Behind me lay the quiet road, the one I could walk with the men if I so chose. I could find help in Paris—Celia had told me of a sisterhood of nuns who were nurses and would help me. “Jour de Soleil Sisters,” she’d called them. Day of Sun.

  For a moment, I had let myself believe it. I could stay with these men, continue to Paris. Find this home that Henry spoke of . . . and perhaps make a life there, for the baby.

  But what if I did stay with the men, and they became targets of men armed with guns, once more—or worse? Bombs, bayonets—so many perils required of them to face, to see me to a home that might be there and might not. What if it kept them from the true war, the one they had come for?

  I would be less a burden this way. Surely. The pains that had come in the barn loft had stopped some days before, and I hoped this meant I had more time.

  I took a step and stopped. I felt Matthew’s gaze before I turned to meet it. How did he come to be able to say so much when saying so little? He had the sort of face that could not hide anything. Especially not when he was searching your eyes, deeper and deeper, his face that of a man harboring a very deep sadness. And a very deep hope.

  “Mira . . .” he said. I waited, wishing I could say something to help. But he seemed determined, quite so, to say what he had to say, his jaw working and those deeper-and-deeper eyes lifting to mine.

  I could not look away. And would not have, even if I could. In our many footfalls beside one another in this land, in our words spoken through moonlight. In the look he gave where I caught laughter in his eyes over a joke I understood but his companions missed. In every story he had entrusted to me—first without knowing I could understand them, and later, costlier to him, I knew, when he knew I understood every word. In all of these things, he had given himself to me.

  And now, I was taking it, every bit of it, away.

  I reached out and laced my fingers into his. He was a stranger, I reminded myself. A man I had only known a matter of days. But my fingers laced into his like they had always been meant to be there—and my heart followed.

  “You are full of courage,” he said. “Full of peace. And you give those things to others in their darkest times.” He did not seem finished, but he paused.

  I shook my head. “I am not any of those things, I fear.”

  He laughed soberly. “A whole line of men in the trenches have a song trapped inside of them that would say otherwise. And it comes to them at the darkest of times, when they need something good. You gave them that. You gave them hope.”

  “I only sang because I was afraid. I only sought peace because I did not have it. Those things—they were given to me. I was parched, and I was given water. All I did was share with other parched souls where to find it, too.”

  He lifted a hand and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. The smallest gesture, but it began a great ache within me. “I wish you could know what it’s meant,” he said.

  I raised my hand to his. “I do, Matthew Petticrew. You have shown it to me, too.”

  Inside of me, my chest constricted, and the thought flew into my mind and nearly knocked me over: I might never see this man again. He, who had entered into my darkest grief and stooped down, carried me home. Who had been carrying me home ever since. I’ll see you home, Mira.

  Something tore around my heart. I raised his fingers to my lips—those hands that had combed through my secrets and held them close. I pressed them to me, closed my eyes, and fixed the warmth of them forever to my memory.

  And then, because there were no words to make it all better, nothing to do but ride the current of this tearing inside of me, I turned and boarded that train.

  Again, I felt it. His stare, from the platform, watching me through windows. I clutched my carpetbag and took a seat, feeling lightheaded.

  “Are you alright?” A voice beside me—a man. But I could not look, for the tight pain of the days before returned to my middle, and below. I winced around it.

  I forced my breathing to slow, praying the pain might leave my body as my breath did, too.

  “Miss . . . Miss Mireilles,” the voice said beside me. My eyes flew open, alarmed. Who would know me here?

  Every thought of pain flew from my mind as I saw beside me the captain who had come last night. The man who had been witness to Matthew’s revelation to the others about me.

  “Shall I get help?” he asked, making to stand.

  “No,” I said quickly. Afraid. I was not ready. And more than that—thankfully, I realized—the pain was easing. “No, I will be fine.” The concern on his face drew deeper, and for a moment he looked a little like Papa. The way his dark hair was flecked here and there with white, and the way he disbelieved me when I said I was fine.

  I smiled. “Thank you for your concern.”

  He nodded and set the newspaper he had been holding on the seat between us. He gestured for me to place my small carpetbag there, too, and I did.

  I searched for something to say, to ease his concern. “You are going south, too?”

  He nodded. “Headquarters,” he said. “Chaumont.” A man of few words. “And . . . you are going south.” He said it as a statement, but he seemed surprised.

  I looked out the window beyond him and saw Matthew watching on. He had his hands in his pockets, looking like someone had taken him and tied up all the passion that gathered like a growing storm, and he was bound and determined not to break the ropes and free himself.

  “Yes,” I said absently. “South. To a relative, it seems.”

  “Family is important,” the man said, and I nearly didn’t hear his words, for the quiet tone of them.

  “Yes,” I agreed again. “Do you have family, Captain Truett?” I liked his name; it sounded full of honor.

  He looked out the window, too, away from me. But his sight landed instead on my reflection, and I saw his beside it. Tormented. He hung his head. “I did. Once.”

  Outside, Matthew straightened from the pole he had been leaning on and looked like he was attempting to read our conversation.

  “I suppose you still do, then,” I said. I recognized in him the voice of loss. I knew it well, for it keened about inside me, when I thought of Papa and Grand-père. “One does not stop being family when they dwell in eternity.” I hoped the thought might comfort him.

  He looked at me then. Stricken and silent, like I’d crashed into a wall and torn it down when I had no right to. But as he studied me, his defenses shrank back, a small tenderness replacing them.

  “If I . . . had a daughter,” he said, breaking past the thickness in his voice. “I would be mighty happy if a good man found her and looked at her the way Petticrew out there looks at you.”

  “And if . . . if my father were here . . .” I could not bring myself to say alive. He could be a prisoner. A soldier still. There could be many, many reasons I had never heard from him in all this time—despite what the hard knot inside told me. “I would ask him
what I should do. Where I should go.”

  He seemed to weigh that heavily. As he did, a threesome of young men in British uniform jostled down the aisle, taking up the row of seats across from us.

  “Hallo,” the one in the middle said, leaning forward to tip his hat at me. I gulped, dipping my chin in the smallest of nods. Hoping not to be rude, and hoping he would leave me be.

  “Your father,” Captain Truett said, clearing his throat and giving the boys across the aisle a look that silenced their chatter, “I’d wager he might turn the question on you. A father and a daughter . . .” He shook his head. “He’d want her to be safe.”

  I nodded. “To go and find a relative, and see if she might take me in, being family?”

  He tipped his head back and forth slightly, weighing, unconvinced. “Or to go with the family she already has.”

  “But I don’t—”

  “Maybe it isn’t my place to say, Miss Mireilles. In fact, it most definitely is not my place to say. But for whatever it’s worth, there’s a young man out there who’s among the finest soldiers I have ever . . . ever had the honor of fighting alongside. And not just in this war. He’s single-minded. Loyal. Just as bad as the rest of us when it comes to denying that he’s shaking in his boots. But he is a man who will see things through, and more than that, he’s a man who puts his whole self into the mission before him.”

  “I am a mission,” I said, not liking the way the word weighed upon me.

  “Well, no. That’s just it. No one has given him directives or orders here. He’s the one who’s come to me, twice now, and asked to be allowed to go with you, to help you find safety.” He whistled low. “Heaven knows we need him back at the front. He’s got ears like no other and can tell us all to hit the ground long before anyone else can. But . . . he hears you, too. He sees you. And if you don’t mind a stranger saying so, you’re not leaving that boy’s mind any time soon. You might pull away on the train, but you’ll never leave him. Not really.” He spoke as one who knew such from his own life.

  An attendant approached, taking tickets. The engine chuffed to life, and my heart along with it.

  I looked at my reflection again. At Matthew, beyond. The two melded together for an instant.

  I stood.

  “Ticket, miss?”

  I looked at Captain Truett. Matthew outside. And the waiting man, ready to take my papers.

  “No, thank you,” I said, and moved to step around him. I stopped halfway up the aisle and turned, happy to see a smile on Captain Truett’s always-serious face. I smiled and nodded. “Thank you.”

  His chin dimpled as his mouth pursed in, showing he’d caught my meaning.

  “Madame?” The train attendant followed a few steps, his words cracking into the cloud around my thoughts. “If you’ve no papers, no ticket, what is your name? Perhaps we have record of you.”

  I walked on, giving him an apologetic smile. “My name is Mireilles,” I said quietly. And I will not run away.

  Two steps off the train and onto the platform and I paused, locking eyes with Matthew. We each of us stepped toward each other, the space thick with meaning—and froze as a creeping, looming shadow stole over us from above.

  31

  George

  “Épermay, you tragic siren of a town.” I scuffed the path with my boots, and thought how they looked rather like a real soldier’s boots, all scratched and caked in mud. What would Mother think, to see it? Her son, packed so safely off to America to avoid this war. “Well, I’ve at least got a talent for avoiding Welsh rarebit and sweethearts, Mum, if that’s any comfort.”

  Even the local bakery, this morning, had informed me that Brioche was forbidden. “Brioche is forbidden,” I muttered. “Brioche! Betrayed by its own motherland! The crown of golden buttery breads. How you wound me!”

  I saw a picture of myself, walking the countryside and wringing my hands. “It’s come to this, Mother.”

  I laughed. And then I laughed at myself for laughing aloud, here on this rise above the town. Petticrew had gone to see the Angel onto the train. Henry the bard had gone to send his latest saga over the wire to his adoring public. Captain Truett was taking his cold, assessing eye off us all and leaving for headquarters, thanks be to the heavens. And the heavens were as lofty as ever, away up there beyond the blue.

  I tugged at my shirt collar. I had no cleric’s collar; I was not entitled to one as a mere chaplain, it turned out. But even so, I felt its phantom presence there, squeezing my neck whenever I came up against my own unholiness. I had, in essence, lied my way into the clergy. Was there a very special place in the eternal below regions reserved for such an act? It seemed, even to me, that there should be.

  “Lord,” I said, attempting a prayer. “What a fix I am in.”

  A sheep bleated behind me and I jumped. “What? You can do better?” It looked at me from its flossy white fleece, chewing slowly and daring me to go on. I lifted my face to the sky. “Lord,” I said. “It’s me, George. George Piccadilly. The third, if you were wondering. I know it’s a rather ridiculous name. One of the soldiers from Georgia told me it sounded like a garden vegetable that belonged in a jar in the pantry. But it is my name, and I am at your service.”

  The sheep bleated again. I turned to glare. “I’m speaking to the Monarch of the Universe, if you don’t mind terribly.”

  The sheep didn’t look impressed.

  “I don’t blame you,” I said. Truth was, I was in a bit of a no-man’s-land myself. Metaphorically, of course. They didn’t let me go up into battle on the real no-man’s-land. Not a chaplain’s place. And so here I was—too holy for battle and too heathen for holy work.

  And yet—hadn’t Henry the Wet Rag told me I’d preached a sermon? Me! A sermon. The mind boggles.

  “Lord,” I tried again. The sky was vibrant blue today. My theology wasn’t what it should be, but I wondered if that meant He was indeed up there listening. A few clouds scuttled past. “Could you teach a fellow how to be?” I asked. It was a simple question. But it got right down to it. I didn’t know how to be, who to be, and was just wandering the world aimlessly. I could say a pious word or two, but I didn’t know what any of it meant. Matthew spoke of the “sermons” his gardener friend gave him back home, and they seemed to give him life, here, out in this land of destruction. Words of life to fill him and fortify him. “How do I find that, Lord? How do I get it, and how do I bring it here?”

  I halted in my tracks.

  I turned back to face the sheep.

  “Did you hear that?” I said. “Who am I, and where has George Piccadilly gone?” I wanted to do something? Not just survive and get on to the next thing but to . . . I don’t know, find meaning in it all? This ticking organ inside my ribs—it seemed intent on finding . . . purpose. Me. Purpose. It was as foreign a thing as Welsh rarebit to this forsaken land.

  I shook my head. “I could use a sermon right about now.”

  I approached a battlement, a small rise in the ground grown over with grass to camouflage it and porticos through which to aim machine guns and I knew not what. The town had them all around, from the beginning of the war. They were used, now, for training, but the soldiers were drilling a quarter mile away at least, marching infantry marches. I’d passed them on the way up the rise.

  It was eerily still. A harbinger of peace, one might hope.

  The clouds above scudded more swiftly, stretching a long, long shadow over me. It felt nice, to be shielded from the warming sun, and I raised my gaze to salute them.

  “Good heavens,” I said, and quite believed it to be an extension of my earlier prayer. For there, above me, casting the shadow over my being and half the county, was a whale of a beast in the sky. Grey and stretching, a zeppelin in the flesh. I had seen an airship once before I left London, hovering over its skyline and dropping bombs in the distance. I rather believe that was when Mother hatched her plan to Harvard-ize me and send me away to a land that knew nothing of Luftschiffs instilling fea
r into its citizens.

  And here it was, creeping over the skies as if it had tracked me down from that moment. Aha, it very slowly seemed to say as it crept across the sky, pushed by its propellers and preparing, it seemed, to deploy two planes from its clutches. Aha, and Be Vanquished.

  I didn’t fancy being vanquished. Not now, when I was finally, it seemed, beginning to understand what it meant to live.

  The planes dove like a dance of angry hornets, and that’s when my dense skull began to comprehend. They had come for Épermay.

  “Oh, Épermay,” I groaned. “You tragic siren of a town!” My feet were off, then, carrying me to the battery where weapons lay hidden beneath that grassy green knoll.

  The soldiers, I knew, would not be far behind me, dashing up from their drilling to arm these guns and prevent disaster.

  But I was closer.

  I watched as the planes, and the zeppelin, both made for the train station.

  “Angel of Argonne,” I said above my pounding footsteps. “And blimey serious Matthew Petticrew!” I could picture it. He’d be sulking on the train platform at the departure of his lady love, and the shadow would eclipse him most fittingly. He would narrow his eyes, thinking he could bring down this threat with his superhuman power of brooding.

  No amount of brooding would stop these mad hornets.

  Flinging open an iron gate beneath the gunnery, I stormed in, trying to remember the artillery training from Plattsburg and cursing the fact that what I remembered most from the camp was the cheery sound of the gramophone I’d smuggled in and the tangy taste of olives.

  What would the journalist say? He could do something with that.

  “Olives taste like justice,” I said out loud, doing my best Hank-the-Wet-Blanket impression. “And justice will save the angel and her child!” I gritted my teeth like Captain Truett would. He would grunt, too, more like a growl. I tried it. Oddly, the words infused me with a burst of energy that chased me up hard grey stairs into a lookout. My limbs sprang to action, remembering. After loading the cannon, I took aim at the easiest target—the zeppelin. Behemoth of the sky. I sucked in a breath—and let the cannon fire.