Chapter One
May 1940
"Maman! Maman!" A small girl, no older than three, ran up to a rather tall woman. The woman stopped hanging white sheet up on the clothing line to turn her attention to her daughter. She dusted imaginary dirt off onto her apron and picked up the small girl, who wrapped her arms around her mother's neck for safety.
"What is it, mon petit oiseau?" The mother asked the child in distress. The little girl whimpered and buried her face deeper into the comfort of her mother's nape. The girl lifted a finger to the road that lead to their small home in a small village in France.
"Les gens arrivent!" She wept. Her mother's eyes went wide and she ran for the house, her hand firmly place against her daughter's head. The mother set her child down and moved a rug in the kitchen to reveal a trap door, quickly she opened the door and placed her child into it. "No! Maman! Please!" The child yelled.
"You must be quiet. I am right here." The mother sobbed and placed the carpet back over the door. The girl held her hand over her mouth, her mother and her had practiced it many times but now was the real thing. Gunshots rang out and screams could have been heard for miles, the sound of the Germans speaking was enough to scare the small girl. "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine." The mother sang to the small child.
"Hier drin! Niemand lebt." A man yelled from the other side of the door. Thankfully the child did not speak German but her mother did. Her mother knew what they were going to do.
"You make me happy when skies are grey." Her voice carried through the chaos. The sound of the door breaking down made the mother jump but she still sang, just for her daughter. "You never know dear how much I love you." The woman stood up and looked up at the ceiling then down to the trap door. The door opened with a loud bang and the Nazi men opened fire on the woman and cleared out the house.
It seemed like days before they left the village, yet it was a mere few hours when the deathly silence crept into the child's ears. The entire time the girl stayed quiet, waiting for her mother to get her. Her impatience got the best of her and she crawled out on the little space, only to find her mother on the floor in a pool of her own blood. "Maman?" She let out a little sob, silence. "Maman!" She started to sob and cry, she shook her mother's body in a desperate attempt to wake her up. Blood covered the small girl's white dress as she sobbed and sobbed, shaking her cold mother's arm.
Eventually she grew tired and could no longer try anymore, so she curled up beside her mother, more blood covers her face but she is too young to understand that. She was far too young to lose her mother like this, yet here she was. "Please don't take my sunshine away." The small girl sang softly, the first truly coherent sentence she had ever said and she drifted off to sleep.
The small girl awoke in a panic, to a man lifting her into his arms. He was tall and blonde with amber eyes. The girl took note the he was freezing cold, not as if it matter she was too scared to react to anything. The girl wiggled and tried to get out of the strangers arms but he held her tighter. "It's okay, darling. I'm here to help." He said. His voice alone calmed her down, it was soft and reminded her of the honey her mother would have put in her oatmeal.
The girl got nervous as another person came into the room, but this time a woman. She was short and had dark hair. The woman reminded the girl of her mother so the child instinctively reached for the woman. The lady smiled and took the child from the man's arms and suddenly the girl felt safer. She buried her head in the strange woman's cold chest, the woman smiled a warm smile and place a hand on the girls back. "I'm Esme. Can you tell me your name?" She asked the child, who just shook she didn't respond.
"We must giver her time, Esme. This is a great trauma." The man said, the girl whimpered and did not dare look back at sight of her dead mother. "We are getting you out of here." The man said to the little girl who began to wiggle again. Esme set her down and followed the small girl to a yellow bedroom. The little girl grabbed her stuffed animal off the bed and seemed satisfied at her own packing. The man grabbed a rucksack and began putting clothes in it and grabbed a knitted blanket off of the bed, which he assumed was made by the child's mother.
"Let's get out of here, little one." Esme said and grabbed the girl's hand. The three walked out of the house together, the small girl very much scared about what would happen to her next. The girl turned around and waved at her mother's still body.
"Bye Bye, maman." The man looked at his wife who held sad eyes for the little girl.
"Let's go." Esme whispered and ushered the girl out of the small house.
•translations•
Maman: Mommy
mon petit oiseau: my little bird
Les gens arrivent: People Arrived
Hier drin! Niemand lebt: In here! No one lives.
