ONE

Lamorlaye, Occupied France, Spring 1944

Two free hours. Lucas had only a few deliveries this afternoon and if he was quick with them, he’d have nearly two hours to himself before he’d have to show up back at the abbey.

Lately, his life felt like a coat that was too small, so tight he could barely move. He slept, ate and went to classes inside the same stone walls, nuns and teachers monitoring every step and the other abbey boys crowding him for trouble or position. And the occupation, of course, nearly four years of it. The Germans with their restrictions and checkpoints, the sharp ‘Halt!’ and ‘Nien! of their orders. Two hours of freedom wasn’t much, but he craved it. He knew just where to spend it, too. His prize fishing lure already in his pocket.

First, though, to the greengrocers to pack up the orders. He hurried to his bike, and even that felt like an escape. As he was dialing open his lock, though, he heard a commotion of curses and cat yowls at the rear of the abbey grounds.

Lucas paused. The last time he’d been able to slip away for a couple of hours had been…last summer? But those sounds. With a sigh, he snapped the lock back on and followed them to the grounds behind the dormitory.

Two pairs of thrashing legs extended from a tool shed. Sister Marie-Agnes was standing beside the legs, waving an empty coal sack and shouting, “Get them all! Every one!”

Lucas easily identified the boys under the shed by their pants— abbey orphans had only two sets of clothes, “One for wear and one for wash,” Mother Antoinette always said as she pulled them from the ragman’s cart—and he took a step back to stay hidden. At fifteen, Marcel and Claude were the oldest boys at the abbey, both mean as cornered rats, and Lucas was their favored target.

His heart fell as he realized which cat was under there. He’d been wondering for weeks where the church’s friendly tabby was hiding, hoping she’d find a better place to have her kittens this year. The spring before, she’d chosen a pile of altar cloths in the sacristy. When the organ began playing one Sunday morning, they’d started mewling. Sister Marie-Agnes had stormed down the aisle, bagged them up, and was back before the final hymn, the hem of her habit dripping canal water. Now, she called, “Too many mouths to feed as it is. But spare the mother, she’s a good mouser.”