Inspiring Women
In November 2019, I had the opportunity to travel to Florida to accept an award for my book Ensnare, the first book in the Berlin Butterfly Series. While there, Readers Favorite had arranged for the winning authors to meet with a variety of teachers in the business and during a break, I had stepped over to get in line for a drink. There were maybe eight to ten people ahead of me. During this time, a man had gone over to the dessert table picked up a couple of cookies, and walked back through the line, crunching on his desserts and spraying crumbs all over the people he passed between without acknowledgment or apology. Normally, I’m pretty nonconfrontational and more of a peacemaker but this time, my disgust was pretty vocal. The woman right in front of me was the one he had showered with crumbs. When she heard my comment, she turned around and said “right?” while she was brushing the crumbs off her chest. This started a conversation and throughout the night and the next day, I had more time to get to know this amazing woman.
Aalia Lanius is a survivor who has turned her voice into a voice of strength. I have followed her journey since we met and watched her turn her popular podcast Unsugarcoated into a television talk show. She is married to a Hollywood producer, but while her husband might have the means to pave the way for her, she has done it on her own and made a name for herself. She has interviewed athletes and musicians to survivors and loves to highlight people and situations that would not otherwise have a way of being heard.
Way to go, Aalia! Keep doing what you’re doing so well! #aalialanius
“Arminius” Sneak Peek
Prologue
“Armin, come quick.” Thusnelda’s pale cheeks had turned a pretty, pink color in her rush. I jumped to my feet to follow her. She always found the most unusual insects. The back of her wool skirt flapped wildly as she hopped across the rocks in the stream and climbed over the dead oak. I smiled at her courage, no other girl in the village was as brave as she was—the motive behind our fast friendship two years ago. She stopped near the ravine and pointed to the base of a large tree trunk. “I think it’s still alive.”
I knelt down and scooped the baby bird up with my hands. Its tiny beak parted in gasps as its head rolled easily to the side. “I don’t think it will be for long.” I stepped backward just enough to squint upward and catch the jagged outline of the sticks and leaves that must’ve been its home. If I stood real still, I could hear additional chirps from above.
“We need to put it back.”
“I don’t think I can, Nelda.”
“You’re the best climber around.” She wiped her face with her sleeve just after I caught the tears welling in her eyes. “He needs to go home.” She sniffled.
I shook my head and glanced at the low hanging branches. “I could climb up, but it would be for nothing.”
“Please, Armin, please.” Thusnelda’s sea-green eyes pierced me from beneath her unruly brown hair. Since we met, there was little I refused from her. She had this little dimple that appeared on the right side of her mouth when she smiled, and I often worked hard to make it appear. We had much in common, though not all of it good—both of our mother’s had died when we were infants, and now only raised by our noble fathers. Our survival somehow unified us.
I placed the tiny bird in my hat. If I folded the edges inward, it made a tight basket. Clenching it in my teeth, I reached up and gripped the highest branch allowing my feet to navigate the lower ones. Step by step, branch by branch, I wiggled my way upward and closer to the nest. Once I got a peek, I noticed two other baby birds inside and no mother bird.
Settling easily over a thick bough I pulled the hat from my teeth, scooped the bird in my palm and set it back inside. It laid there quite motionless.
“Is it okay?” Nelda cried from below. Her eyes as wide as the sun on a clear day.
Glancing to the nest, I knew the bird would die. “It’s alright.”
Relief blanketed her cheeks and she smiled wide. The dimple appeared, bordering a toothless grin where one of her front teeth had fallen out and left a space. Placing both of her tight little fists on her hips, she hollered again. “Now hurry down, let’s go save more animals.”
I tore my eyes from hers as a flash of red came into view. I maneuvered up another branch and saw a bright crimson feather bouncing through the trees, then another and another. Once the sound of metal clanking and feet marching connected with the sight, I gasped. “Soldiers.”
I peered downward. In an instant, I felt a surge of fear for my friend. Did she not hear them coming this way, would they stop for a child or trample her? Over the years, I’d witnessed more bloodshed than a child of ten should. Ruthless battles between our tribe, the Cherusci and other tribes in the land known as Germania, had existed for as long as the record scrolls could note, but this was no tribe dressed in leathers and brass. No this was the polished armies from the south, the ones no one ever dared face in a battle.
“Nelda!” I cried.
She looked up at me, but swiftly drew her eyes to the sounds I had already heard.
“Run!” I shouted, but the sound drowned me out.
I don’t remember climbing down, only that I somehow reached the ground in seconds, the scrapes on my hands and arms hardly obstructed my aim. I lunged for Thusnelda. Clutching her arms and pulling her down to the ravine a mere moment before the men arrived. We tumbled clumsily across the uneven ground before we came to a stop at the bottom.
She lay still.
Did she get hurt? I scrambled to her side and brushed the dirt off her face. “Nelda? Nelda?”
Her eyes fluttered open. They remained wide and fearful. “You saved me Armin,” she whispered.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head but didn’t move. I scanned her form and only found blood oozing out of a cut on her knee. I reached for a wide leaf and pressed it down upon it. “Wait here.” I clambered up the gully side enough to watch the men march past. They didn’t see me or at least they didn’t appear to see me. My eyes popped, catching sight of the long staff with the golden eagle and the men in perfect precision with their shiny silver breastplates and helmets, red fans of feathers protruded from the top, and they wore short skirts! A square shield bowed slightly in the middle secured in their left hands and sharp spears in their right. The exactness in which they marched, mesmerized me. No deference n their features or their manner. They were the epitome of perfection.
I returned to Thusnelda. She was sitting up now, pressing her hand against the leaf and her knee.
“What did you see?”
“Roman soldiers.”
“Here?” She whimpered. “Are we in another battle?”
“I don’t know. They’re headed to the village.”
“Then we must run away, Arminius. We can’t go back.”
“Where would we go?”
“Anywhere.” Her hand reached for mine. “You’ll keep me safe, you always do.”
Chapter One
Rome 1 A.D.
“You are getting slow, old man.”
The steel blades crossed wickedly to the left, right, and overhead. We were the only two competitors within the spacious gymnasia and each connection clinked a hollow echo throughout, reverberating off the magnificent columns. “Too much wine, Attilius?” I ducked to his swing and whipped my sword upward nearly catching him off guard. “Or perhaps it was the raven-haired vixen from the epulum feast last night?”
“You prattle too much, young Arminius.”
I scoffed. Another clash of unyielding moves sent us to the far corner. Expanding my reach, the tip of my blade swiped the linen sleeve of his tunic. I nearly had his capitulation.
“Diversion will be your folly one day, boy…or arrogance.” The fearless brute maneuvered swiftly and liberated himself from my accosting.
“You cannot fault a man for baring his qualities,” I taunted. “Especially in battle.” Regulating my stance, I calculated how the improved strength in both my chest and arms paralleled the speed of my sword. Not one of the other legionnaires in the Emperor’s School of Princes had bested me in the previous annus and now that the length of my reach matched my height, I need only to stretch forth my hand to wield the final blow.
A trumpet blared.
Within seconds, my back pressed horizontally against the marble floor with the razor-sharp tip of Attilius’ steel pinned to my throat. The fleeting distraction ushered in my failure.
“You must concentrate.” My instructor’s significant frame lowered over me. His square chin pulled into a deep frown, forcing the jagged scar lining his crooked nose to appear enflamed. “After two years of training, this should not have occurred.” He removed the blade. Reaching down, he gripped my forearm to assist me upward. “What haunts your mind?”
I met his clutch and the weight of my body rose back to my feet. A former gladiator, Marcus Attilius was the best Pompeii ever produced and one of the few freemen who fought willingly, earning his notoriety by unseating the veteran slave, Hilarius. His fierce triumphs earned him a celebrated position under Caesar Augustus.
“Nothing,” I insisted. I sheathed my sword and wiped the sweat off my brow. I would not readily admit to so little sleep the night before. He would lecture me to no end.
“You are lying, young sir.” Attilius replaced his own sword and motioned for a eunuch to approach with a terra sigillata. He dipped his hands inside the roseate pottery bowl to wash and wiped them dry on the linen across the slave’s arm. “Another nightmare?”
My jaw tightened.
“You still see her?”
I glared at him. Though the images from long ago still tormented me, I had only mentioned my reoccurring dream to him once. I seized a profound inhale and stepped over to the basin. Despite my adolescence—there was no purpose in speaking of childish things.
“How long has it been since your departure?” Attilius reached for a silver goblet resting on the platter of an additional slave.
“Seven years,” I whispered, ignoring the means in which he referred to my arrival. The word departure was hardly accurate.
He huffed. “It’s the work of Hades. The God of the underworld is aware of your skills, Arminius, and your talents with the sword.” He drank the entire contents swiftly and replaced the cup as a dribble of wine trailed down his neatly trimmed beard. “He knows that if he can confuse and lure your mind into darkness, you cannot lead an army of Rome.”
“Lead? I am but a simple cavalryman.”
“No!” He shouted with one large finger a tenth pedes from my face. “You are much more, and you must believe it.” He now pointed that same finger at my head. “Here.” Then moved it down to my chest. “And here.”
“There are thousands of soldiers. I am but one.”
“Caesar himself is aware of you and knows of your potential.”
“Caesar?”
“He sent General Publius QuinctiliusVarus to the school of Princes. They have been watching you these last few years. Why else would I have been retained as your instructor?”
“I assumed you met with many of the men.”
“Three.”
“Why only three?”
Attilius scoffed. “I am skilled, but mere mortal. There is nothing indiscriminate in their plans. Everything Caesar does is calculated.”
“But why me?”
He barked out a loud laugh. “You humor me, boy. One moment you are provoking your superiority and the next you are suspicious.”
I shook my head. He spoke the truth. My confidence wavered like the signum pennant attached to the spar.
“You have the ability and the skillfulness of a warrior. My job is to unite that with an unyielding intellect in combat.”
“What does that entail?”
“It means you must clear your head, Arminius. Any man can be a common legionnaire, but a Roman commander must be focused wholly on the enemy. A feat that allows for no distraction.” Attilius rubbed his jaw. “Go to the baths, or a lupanar—find a woman, rid your mind of the evil that transpires to destroy you. Return tomorrow and we begin anew.”
My mind flickered to Thusnelda. Her crooked smile and charming dimple…she was far from evil.
“Thank you, Attilius, until tomorrow.”
He nodded, but his piercing stare did not leave my face until I turned away and exited the room. Descending the granite steps from the gymnasia, I departed the magnificence of Palatine Hill and headed down the path toward the forum. The further I went, the honeyed scents of opulence transformed to the stench of the market and the crush of man and beast mingled together. Grapes, figs, and plums overflowed their woven baskets below thick vines aerating the poultry and wild game—meats such as common boar, pheasants, and quail, mixed with peacock, ostrich, and flamingo—the delicacies of an aristocrat. Garum, the fermented fish sauce my brother Flavius loves on his boiled veal, alerted my senses. Sweet to the taste but foul to the nose.
Slipping past the congested stalls, I reached the baths relatively quickly and entered the caldarium with little disruption. Moving past a handful of men in the main pool, I preferred the isolation of the semi-circular exedra of the alveus—an intimate heated bath with its ornately tiled floor suspended by pilae.
Removing my robe, I lowered myself into the water. The steamed warmth seeped acutely into the cuts and bruises from today’s instruction, far more numerous than yesterday. Attilius was right. Every time I dreamt of my home and Nelda, the more I risked not only my life, but my future as a soldier.
The nightmares always settled on one specific day—the day the soldiers arrived. Thusnelda had begged me to run away, but in the end, they were not there to fight, they were there to acquire. I was the son of a chief—a nobleman. Chosen like many other princes in neighboring tribes to be raised a Roman and trained in the arts of weaponry and war. Though my father did not agree with the procurement of the sons of Germanic aristocracy, he had little say in the matter. A legion of men would not have hesitated to crucify him and leave his body on the side of the road to be viewed as an example to all who refused the emperor’s demands.
Nelda’s emerald eyes appeared—narrow and sharp like the eyes of a feline. When the soldiers marched me and my little brother, Flavius off through the forest, her echoing cries robbed me of sleep for years. I dunked my head in the refreshing pool and remained immersed for several seconds. If a cleansing is what I must do, I will drown out those haunting images from my head.
When I reached the surface, I was no longer alone.
“Arminius…” The low, breathy voice of Livia, Captain Tatius’ wife, reached my ears before I could clear the excess water from my eyes.
I ran a hand down my face and shook the droplets from my short blond hair though they stuck to the week-long scruff on my chin. I should not have been surprised that she ignored the customary bathing rules in regard to gender. This would not be the first time she disrupted my bath and much like the previous times, I had no intention of receiving my commander’s wrath for lying with his wife.
I met her gaze. Her approach came slow, seductive.
She stood up leisurely, allowing the water to swirl around her slim waist. Droplets trailed down her neck and past her bare chest as she closed the distance. “How fortunate to find you here,” she whispered. I glanced to her hand maiden who knelt at the edge of the pool, her head lowered precisely how an obedient servus should.
“I must go, Livia.”
Her hand reached out and pressed flat against my chest. Her fingers tingled against my skin. Both her touch and her intent stirred severe thoughts. “Why must you leave now,” she licked her lips. “For I have only just arrived.”
Placing my hand over hers, I removed it, and pulled myself from the water much to her surprise and obvious disappointment. When I retrieved my tunic, I glanced back long enough to see her cunning eyes perusing my body.
With only a nod, I walked out disappointed in how short my cleansing turned out to be. However, knowing Livia’s history with other legionnaires, if she had but another moment to pounce, I would not have made it out of her grasp quite so easily. There was no doubt her long legs and curvy figure could not have pleased, but one thing I refused to do was have my way with a fellow soldier’s woman. I had much more to risk in my future and much more to lose having not been born a Roman.
“Flavius?” I called out to my younger brother upon entry of our domus. When we were first brought to Rome from Germania, we were most fortunate to have not been presented as slaves. At ten and eight we were hardly capable of navigating the eternal city on our own and tendered a comfortable living under the charge of an elder patrician, the honorable Horatius Decimus. Though his untimely death, one year ago, offered the occasion for Flavius and me to reap his wealth, his wise and astute teachings would be sorely missed.
I stretched my long form out on the cushions in the triclinium, reflecting on all that had transpired with Attilius. If the baths cannot rid my mind of my past, what will? Disobedient memories came forth once more. Not one day had gone by in my childhood that I did not cross Thusnelda, the only daughter of a fellow noble. Though she will be raised to marry a prince, she was unlike any other princess I’d encountered in Rome. Whether it was fishing, saving her animals, or exploring our forest, she was no weak maiden—lying about in her finery and jewels wasting the day away… no she was Cherusci…a woman born into rugged terrain, harsh winters, and manual labor. And though we were inseparable as children, my seizure at the hands of the Romans prevented any possibility of a union in adulthood.
At only one year younger, she would be sixteen now. Had she married? It was customary for her father, Segestes, to procure her husband, though many of the young men of nobility were taken the same time as Flavius and me. She may have been bartered to appease a chief from a neighboring tribe or he could have given her to an old man in trade for livestock. My lip curled at the very thought. What old man could bring a smile to her sweet face? Yet knowing the love Segestes had for the Romans, he may have used her to channel his path into the web of Roman politics—another one of Decimus’ meticulous lessons. I stretched further out across the soft cushions and crossed my arms behind my head. Would she even recognize me?
Enough! I demanded. I’m a soldier, not a dreamer! Why the thought of another man in her life troubled me, I couldn’t comprehend, it wasn’t as if she were mine. We were but children. I had no reason to believe I would ever return. My life is wherever the Roman legions take me and when I am not conquering, I am enjoying the nectar of Rome.
“You seem troubled, master.” Philetus, our head slavus, brought forth a tray of delicacies.
My brows were surely pushed together. I shook free. “Nothing that I cannot mend in time.”
“Would you prefer to speak on it?” He was the only one of our three slaves who could suggest such a notion. A Gaul captive, Philetus had served me from the very day I arrived seven years ago.
“I am plagued with spirits.”
“Spirits of the deceased?”
“No.” There was no reason to believe she was dead. “Spirits of my past.”
“If I may be so precipitous to say, sir, the Lemuria festival is next week, 13 May.”
“Lemuria?” My mind searched for recognition.
“Forgive me. My mother had always referred to it by its legendary name. You might know it as All Saints Day.”
“Yes, of course.” My mind flitted to the possibilities. I had been taught of many Roman festivals, but this particular folklore was created for the very act of warding off evil. “What is required for this ritual?”
He poured wine into a goblet and handed it to me. I inhaled the sweet juice while I waited for him to explain. “You must walk barefoot at night, throw beans over your right shoulder and recant a specific verse nine times.”
“Where do I acquire the verse.” I wasn’t much for myths or legends, but in my desperation, I would attempt anything.
“I could recite it to you if you wish to scribe it, sir.” Slaves were not permitted to learn to read and write, but there were times they arrived in captivity with varying degrees of previous knowledge. Philetus became a slave at thirteen. His mother had taught him simple words, but this was knowledge we kept discreet.
“Retrieve the parchment and ink.”
Philetus acquired the items from my desk in a separate room and placed them on the marble table before me.
He clasped his hands behind his back and paced. “It goes as such…” I sat forward and listened intently. “I send these; with these beans I redeem me and mine.”
My quill moved rapidly against the animal skin.
“Someone must follow behind you with pots, Master. If you wish it so, I could clash them nine times at the conclusion of your discourse then say Ghosts of my fathers and ancestors, be gone.”
“Do you know of its success?”
“It has been known to appease.”
“Very well, I must try. Thank you, Philetus.” Anything to clear my head and become what Rome expects of me.”
“Yes, Master Arminius.”
“By the way, where is Flavius?”
“He is with Master Pontius at the Circus.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot, the chariot races are today.”
Philetus quirked one eyebrow. I could surely read his mind. When has a Roman ever forgotten such things…then again, unless I ward off these hauntings I may never become a true Roman.
“Before Berlin” Sneak Peek
CHAPTER ONE
17 August 1941
“Schritt vorwärts! Kopf hoch! Arme aus!” The sharp demands in a thick German accent came swiftly. Step forward. Chin out. Arms up. I hardly had time to turn to my left to see Renia, my best friend of ten years, performing the same ridiculous movements with an equally sour-faced woman in front of her. The long horizontal line of students extended the length of our stone courtyard, chunks of concrete still littered the ground even now, nearly two years after the explosions rocked our school. Another dozen or so girls clustered near the outer gate, awaiting their turn.
“Open your mouth.” The timeworn taskmistress inched closer to me, but even in youth, I towered her by a head at the very least. She stretched her neck and leaned forward. The sulfurous scent of mustard reeked from her lips as they curved into an ardent scowl. When she spoke, her jowls wiggled loosely above her crisp, clean uniform collar, but it was the brown mole near her chin with the solitary hair protruding, that captured my full attention.
“Do you have all of your teeth?” She inspected my mouth thoroughly.
I nodded.
She tugged on the end of my braid that hung freely down the right side of my chest, the lower locks nearly reaching my waist.
“Gute länge.”
I snuck a glance at Renia once more and wiggled my brows carefully, so this madam did not see my disrespect. What a relief the length of my hair had passed her inspection. I fought the giggle building in my throat. Such an odd thing for her to find so satisfactory.
A tall, reedy woman shadowed the ill-tempered one. She clutched a simple clipboard in one hand and a pencil in the other.
“Mache Notizen.” The demanding one pointed for her to take notes, then turned back to me. “What is your name?”
I recognized my good fortune of having learned German years ago, even before they arrived in my city. While other fellow classmates struggled with the foreign demands, I understood her well enough.
“Aleksandra.” I answered proudly, named after my oma, my mother’s mama, who died before my birth.
“Family name?”
“Jaworski.”
“Age?”
“Sixteen.”
“Kennkarte?”
I pulled the small, beige paper book from my pocket. I rarely went anywhere without it since its issuance from the Generalne Gubernatorstwo at the beginning of the year. She reached for it and scanned its contents carefully, focusing her attention on the black and white photograph with my thumbprints and signature above the official seal. She turned the page for my family lineage.
“Schmidt?” she grunted. “Maternal?”
“Yes, Frau, my oma came from East Prussia.”
“Hmmm.” She handed it to the other woman and faced me again.
“Turn around.”
I rotated my back towards her. Why is she inspecting my person so closely? My brother, Ivan, who had been enlisted through conscript eighteen months before had not been scrutinized so closely when the German soldiers came to our home.
My breath hitched at a wayward thought. A faint recollection emerged from an event I tried hard to forget…a collection of people—people with a unified belief—seized from their homes, lined up in the street and marched away…but I am not Jewish! And as my papers just proved, I am not entirely Polish either—I justified, quite aware of the hostility directed towards Poles. When my grandmother, Aleksandra Schmidt, came to Łódź to attend art school, she met and married my grandfather, choosing never to return to Prussia.
The woman pinched my side. The movement made me jump. I was ticklish there.
“Stand still,” she snapped. Though she had a solid grip on my waist there wasn’t much to grasp and the tighter she held on the more it hurt.
She spoke to her scribe. “Tall, but skinny. Good posture and hips. Send her to Medical.”
Offended at her command to see the doctor, I scrunched my nose. I am quite healthy, I wanted to argue. Other than a scare of scarlet fever at the age of four, I hardly got sick. And at this very moment, I could outrun anyone in this school, including the old bag.
The SS’s sudden disruption of our school day had come unexpectedly. This had happened often in the beginning of the German occupation, but not recently, and none of the previous appearances required us to stand outside for hours in the sweltering heat.
Within a week of their arrival into Poland, the Germans had closed almost all the schools in the city…but not this one. New instructors, altered curriculum, and stifling rules were put in place. Rumors circulated amongst the girls as to why we were spared—whispered conjectures included suggestions as eccentric as our headmistress being involved in the Third Reich, to training a new generation of Hitler youth who could also offer childbearing qualities, to the most realistic…we all had German familial ties. I ignored them all. Though we no longer had our beloved Polish teachers, Polish language, literature, culture, and arts, I excelled in math and sciences and, above all, being in school meant being away from the horrors and atrocities occurring outside of it.
“Dreh dich um.”
When I turned forward again at the command of the clipboard woman, the female soldier had moved on to the next girl. The scribe scribbled something on a piece of paper then shoved it into my hand.
“Siebzehn,” I whispered as I read it. The number 17 appeared on the square sheet.
The Germans gave us little choice but to follow every direction given. The blatant slaughtering of Poles proved not only their power, but their hatred for our countrymen. My family learned first-hand the consequences of having a father in the government. As a Parliamentarian, he should have been killed. Instead, the new commanders forced him to labor as the liaison between the Poles and our new German Mayor, Albert Leister…that, and a reminder bullet to each knee—they claimed he didn’t need to walk to do his job. His brother, Borys, and a dozen other men who worked in his office were not so fortunate. Determined to be a threat by the intelligenzaktion, they were detained and sent to the Radogoszcz prison in November, then executed the following May 1940.
From the moment the soldiers entered our classrooms this morning through now, I hadn’t been afraid. Though they were stern and forceful, nothing in their conversations led me to believe our lives were threatened.
This was far from the invasion in September 1939.
Though Łódź was smaller than Warsaw, its location became key to the German’s continued pursuits against enemies of the state. Our lack of adequate equipment and poor defenses, especially against Blitzkrieg, allowed for an effortless seizure when our Polish army collapsed in mere days under the pressure of the Third Reich. Within that first month, not only did they sever our transportation, but they also carried out mass searches, committed crimes against the population, public executions, restructured the government with German officials, issued occupation decrees, renamed the city as Litzmannstadt, and annexed us into Nazi, Germany.
My mind easily slipped back to those early days…the deafening sounds of gunfire, explosions, and above all, the horrifying screams that were forever etched in my memory. At fourteen, I lived through the worst nightmare imaginable or so I thought with my limited life experience…until I witnessed the expulsion, the process in which the Germans managed the Jewish population. They claimed that the people of the Jewish faith were diseased and brought filth and degradation upon us, but especially upon our new landlords. By February of 1940, the Judes had been removed to a ghetto—a controlled residential quarter in the northeastern section of town—surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. My friend Erela, along with her parents and sister, who lived in the flat across from us, were subjected to their swift removal and forced relocation. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
Rock Pride, Country Prejudice is LIVE! Enjoy chapter one!
Chapter One
September 19, 2021
Truth universal.
“Ugh. That’s a lousy title,” I mumbled, frustrated. Uncrossing my legs, I rolled forward onto my stomach. The soft grass cushioned my body but even if it hadn’t, I might not have noticed. I was in the zone. The lyrics to my latest song had transpired rather quickly, like the contents of my dream had transcribed itself onto paper, but the title somehow had me stumped. The title—the least challenging part of the entire process.
Leaning over the worn notebook and a splattering of sheet music, I tried again. Man of My Heart. No…Maybe. I tapped my pencil against my lips as I hummed the tune again. Glancing over at my guitar leaning up against Old Hickory, I debated reaching for it, then gave in. Positioning the mahogany instrument on my lap, I placed my fingers on the strings and started from the beginning.
A fair portion of my songs have come from dreams; it’s strange but factual. My older sister, Jade, grew tired of me turning the light on in the middle of the night to quickly write down what I dreamt, so now she sleeps with a mask on.
This one came last night, and with it came the image of a man. A strong silhouette, perfectly proportionate from his head to his toes, but it was the contents from within that startled me. Though the subject himself appeared transparent, all the characteristics I desired in a man emerged—not that I thought about it that often or in such detail, which is really why it came as a surprise, but I could actually see courage, honesty, and intelligence appear.
This time when I woke up, I felt this strange sense of loss—like the emptiness that occurs when something is just barely out of your reach.
Typical. My love life wasn’t exactly a fairy tale.
I quickly jotted everything down but could not get a grasp on who he was. Truthfully, I doubted such a man existed…at least not when I was awake.
Awake. That’s it!
I set my guitar down and leaned my back comfortably against the shagbark, though this particular section of the tree had rubbed bald from my daily visits. My favorite scent of maple wafted through the air as I closed my eyes and let the warmth of the descending sun wash over me. The enormous oval-shaped leaves provided just the right amount of cover for a moment of privacy—a rare find in a house of five girls.
“Elllllllle!” The shrill cry of my youngest sister, Lilly, pierced my solitude. I glanced at my watch. 6:41 p.m. Twenty-seven glorious minutes of solitude…a new record.
“Elle, are you piddlin’ around out here?” Lilly hollered again. When she flew around the tree, Kassidy dashed hot on her heels, both girls’ high-pitched voices teetered between terror and excitement, so much that it was difficult to discern which emotion was genuine.
I quickly retrieved my notebook and papers to prevent them from getting kicked in the fray. My pencil fell to the grass as I jumped to my feet, preparing to referee.
“I wanna tell her!” Kassidy’s dark curls bounced as she came to a sudden stop.
“No, I do!” Lilly exclaimed. Her hair was only a slight shade lighter, and although it didn’t have an inch of curl in it, she still whipped it around as if her head was covered in them. Stepping in front of her sister, she held her arms out away from her sides in a desperate attempt to keep Kassidy from taking the lead.
Disregarding the fact that these two had already entered their teenage years, one might have thought two toddlers were battling over a beloved toy. Only fourteen months separated them, yet their behavior, demeanor…even personalities…were eerily identical to twins. They were certainly two peas in the same pod. When the childish pushing and shoving began, I stepped in to prevent anyone from getting hurt, though it rarely came to that.
“Enough!” I stood between them. “Y’all better quit bein’ ugly and tell me what’s goin’ on.”
Kassidy bent over and pressed her hands on her knees. As the least athletic in the family, she grasped at a series of full inhales. “Oh, I can barely breathe. Mama said the Lucas’…”
“The Lucas’?” I grabbed Kassidy’s arm. “Are they okay? Did somethin’ happen to Charly?”
“Charly?” Lilly giggled while Kassidy took deeper breaths. “Nah, Charly’s fine. Professor Lucas told us a secret.”
I placed my hands on my hips. “Told who a secret?” One of my eyebrows lifted. “And do y’all honestly know the definition of a secret if you’re both just bustin’ to blab about it?”
Kassidy laughed out loud and squeezed my cheeks between her hands. “Persuasion!” she shrieked. Then turned her head just enough to smirk toward Lilly.
“Persuasion is comin’ here!” Lilly spit out the words faster to beat her sister to the rest of the details.
“Persuasion what?” I shook my head, not understanding their cryptic message. Both girls’ mouths fell wide open, though no sound escaped. I peered between them, doubting I’d ever seen them so silent.
“You’re kiddin’ right, Elle?” Kassidy threw her hands into the air. “Persuasion!” She cried louder, as if the volume of her voice would somehow increase my understanding.
“The rock band!” Lilly reached for Kassidy and with clasped hands they screamed in unison. “They’re comin’ to Hickman!”
“What?”
Kassidy smiled broadly. “It’s true. Professor Lucas told Mom and Pop, and some other adults, under strict confidence.”
“Why would they come here?” I glanced out past the small row of trees that lined our property and down the hill toward the Mississippi River. From where I stood, I could turn in every direction and almost see each corner of the old part of town.
In 1912, the Mississippi River rose so high it broke one of the concrete levees protecting the town and, within hours, the buildings on the main roads were buried up to the rooftops by river water. Old Town Hickman became a memory, but even with the newer developments a mile away, the town was still tiny. A mere speck on the map. Actually, I doubted that Hickman had made it onto any map.
“Law, hickory nuts!” Lilly’s tendency to get sidetracked pulled her eyes from me and toward the ground. She stomped the heel of her boot into the grass then picked up the remnants of the nut she just cracked. Popping the edible part into her mouth, she shrugged. “Somethin’ about a promise Chaz Bingley made when he was Professor Lucas’ student back in Washington or somethin’ borin’ like that.”
I blinked twice and tucked wayward strands of my brown hair behind my ears. “But why here? Can’t Professor Lucas just see them in L.A.?”
Both girls giggled on cue then Kassidy snorted. “Who cares a lick? They’re a comin’!” Then, as if their little squabble on who would get to tell me the news first was long past, they raced excitedly back to the house.
My brows furrowed. Why in the world would the country’s hottest rock band come to our little scratch in the sand? Our town barely cracked a population of two thousand, and I was pretty sure that number included livestock.
I quickly gathered my papers and grabbed the neck of my guitar, determined to get to the bottom of this ridiculous rumor immediately. I marched back into the house to confront my parents, but the moment I stepped through the front door of our farmhouse, earsplitting screams erupted from the kitchen.
“Nooooo, Mama!” Lilly cried. I entered the room the moment Mom swiped Lilly’s cell phone and tucked it inside her pant pocket with record speed. Then, with equal nimbleness, she had Kassidy’s in her other hand and behind her back.
“Give me my phone, Ma!” Kassidy stomped her foot, once again demonstrating her maturity level quite below her sixteen years of age.
“Y’all will get ‘em back in a week. I’ll not have you blastin’ your social media with the news.”
Kassidy folded her arms tightly over her chest. “I won’t, I promise.”
“Nope.” Mom stepped over to Melody and held out her hand her direction as well. Melody rolled her eyes and groaned, “Y’all know I don’t conform to that insular cultural idiocy known as social media, Mom.” The thick black liner above and below Melody’s narrow eyes made her stare appear more threatening than normal.
“Regardless.” Mom shook her hand impatiently. “I promised the Lucas’ that we wouldn’t do anythin’ to compromise their secret.”
“Why do Elle and Jade get to keep theirs?” Lilly sniffled. I turned to find my older sister Jade leaning against the wall across from me. Her lips pulled into a half smile while her bright blue eyes lifted in curiosity.
“Because, legally I can’t, they’re over age. But I believe…”—she sent a look of warning— “they’re mature enough to know how to behave themselves.”
I held back a muffled laugh. Certainly, we were older, at twenty and eighteen years of age, but not always as level-headed as mom thinks.
“Nothin’ like bein’ tossed aside as all get out,” Lilly cried and grabbed Kassidy’s arm as the girls trudged heatedly out of the kitchen.
I stepped over to Jade and whispered, “Think it’s true?” She shrugged. Pulling myself up to sit on the edge of the nearest counter I questioned, “Why here, Mama?”
“Why here, what?” She huffed and tossed the girls’ cell phones into her purse, then walked over to the desktop computer in the kitchen nook and removed the cords. “There,” she sighed. “Now all the electronics in the house are disabled.”
I looked over to Jade, who shook her head. Our family had literally lost their minds overnight. “Mama!” I demanded her attention again.
“What?” She brushed a crumb off her favorite cat sweatshirt. The orange tabby posed like a Clydesdale with a tinge of real fur for the feline’s flashy tail.
“Why would Persuasion come here?”
She didn’t even glance my way as she spoke. “Chaz is a former music student of Professor Lucas.” She reached for a legal pad and pencil in the junk drawer and sat down at the table. “He promised if he ever made it big, he’d find the professor and thank him in person.”
I exchanged more subtle glances with Jade. “I doubt he ever envisioned himself comin’ to such a backwater speck of a town,” I mumbled.
Mom had the beginnings of a list started but stopped instantly and looked up at me with a severe furrow in her brow. “Now hold your horses, Little Missy, he sounds like a decent young man makin’ good on that promise.”
“But here?” I really struggled to picture the hottest trio of musicians here… in Hickman, Kentucky. Despite the love I personally had for my hometown, we rarely had tourists or visitors. The closest airport was a good hour away and even that was a small regional airstrip. We couldn’t even boast a real grocery store, merely a small local market, a hairdresser, a gas station, a small coast guard station, and a massive post office building which never made any sense to me. Actually, none of this conversation made sense to me at the moment.
Jade looked to mom. “So why the hush hush?”
She continued writing without looking up. “What kind of ruckus do y’all think would happen if word got out that these mega stars are here in town?”
Kassidy and Lilly screamed from the other room then dissolved into a fit of giggles.
“See? I reckon every girl with a pulse from age twelve to fifty will be doin’ that…right there.” Mom jabbed her pencil their direction.
Jade twisted her long blond hair into a braid and fidgeted with the strands at the end. “Just how does Professor Lucas plan to keep this quiet? He can’t have every mother in town stealin’ their daughter’s cell phone for an entire week.” She laughed. “It’s gonna get out somehow.”
“He knows it will eventually, but he hopes not until after their visit is over. He met with a group of adults this mornin’ at the town hall. We all see the sense in keepin’ this quiet, if not for the sanity of this place. Nobody wants a horde of cattywampus fans descendin’ on our sleepy town. We all kinda like the idea of havin’ them to ourselves.”
“Are they stayin’ with the Lucas’?”
“No, they’re fixin’ to rent out the house at Miller’s Ranch for the month. It’s gated and the most secure. They’re even bringin’ their own security team.”
“Why way out there, though?” I questioned, other than the fact that it was the largest estate house in the area. “Do they know there isn’t any cell service?” I had babysat the Miller’s three kids a few years ago, before they moved to Florida and decided to turn it into a rental. It’s a big, beautiful house, but I hated the creepy seclusion. The nearest neighbor was several miles away and there’s no cell service and no internet. They justified their lack of technological amenities as a rustic and old-fashioned experience that would appeal to somebody looking to unplug. I guess they found their somebody.
“Accordin’ to Professor Lucas,” Mom held up her list and examined it, “Chaz is lookin’ forward to the opportunity to disconnect. He said L.A. can be too overwhelmin’ at times and he was hankerin’ for a place they could unwind.”
Kassidy entered the room and started singing a song that I assumed to be theirs. Lilly strutted past her but stopped suddenly. “I can’t even imagine the thought of bein’ tired of L.A…” Her palm went to her forehead in dramatic distress. “I would move there in a heartbeat!”
Mom snapped her direction. “Maybe when you’re twenty-one!”
“Oh, come on, Mama, I’m fifteen. What if I wanna go to college o’er there?”
Though the draw to L.A. or anywhere in California didn’t make a lick of sense to me, it really didn’t matter, I wasn’t much of a fan of rock ‘n roll anyway. Country is where my heart lies, and Nashville was only three hours away.
Mom circled around as if she read my thoughts. “This could be it, girls.” She clapped her hands together. “This could be your big break!”
I exchanged a nervous glance with Jade. If either one of us had been born with perfect hair, flawless skin, and hourglass figures, she would have made the most stereotypical pageant mom on the planet. As it was, we were fairly typical Southern girls; yes, Jade stood a bit taller with a willowy figure and blond hair against my more athletic build and chestnut waves, but mom believed our musical talents were beyond typical and that we were “so very close, to becomin’ stars.” Well, her and Professor Lucas…and our regulars down at Bubba’s BBQ.
Though it was well known that Professor Lucas had an eye for talent, I struggled to believe Jade and I could even compare to his former students. He did, after all, instruct none other than Chaz Bingley, the lead singer and guitarist for Persuasion, currently the hottest rock band in America. Yet, between Professor Lucas’ and our mom’s insistence, Jade and I went four times a week to his studio to write, play, and record. He has said more than once our time was simply right around the corner.
“Mama, you do know they’re rock stars, right? They aren’t even crossovers.”
She glanced at me blankly, as if I had just grown a third eye. “And?”
“We play country.” As if she didn’t know.
“Y’all play music, Elle…country/rock…what does it matter? It’s all about connections anyway and we’re gonna make sure y’all take full advantage of any connection that comes your way.”
I inhaled slowly and watched as Jade’s lips turned into a placating smile before she shrugged her shoulders. “It’s highly unlikely we’ll ever cross their paths, anyway. If Chaz is lookin’ to relax and visit with Professor Lucas, they picked the right house for it. Nobody will even get through the gates or onto the property, and I doubt they’ll venture out and about town.” She leaned down and kissed Mama on the cheek. “And I reckon they aren’t here to perform.”
I jumped off the counter and walked back out into the living room with her. “I don’t know why Mama thinks their acquaintance would make a difference in our music.” I slumped into the La-Z-Boy. “I doubt they’ve ever listened to a country song.”
“Can I borrow your phone, Elle?” Lilly skipped over and flashed her sweetest smile, fluttering her eyelashes at me.
“No way,” I laughed. “You heard Mama, y’all need to keep this a secret. Do y’all really want every teenage girl in the state of Kentucky grazin’ on your green grass?”
She pushed her lips out into a big pout. “I reckon you’re right.” Suddenly her eyes lit up. “I do prefer to keep them all to myself.” She ran over to Kassidy. “Hey, let’s go see if we can catch them arrivin’. Maybe they’re takin’ the ferry. You have a Polaroid, don’t you?”
“No, Lilly.” Jade reached out. “Leave ‘em alone. They came for seclusion. Besides, you just got your learner’s permit last week, y’all can’t drive without one of us and that’s not gonna happen.”
Melody grumbled from the floor. I had forgotten she was even in the room. “I can think of a hundred other places in the world where seclusion would be more gratifyin’…”. Sitting up, she brushed her dyed, jet- black bangs aside, revealing her recent eyebrow piercing. Not her first…just the most recent. “A cave, a crypt, a cemetery…” She continued naming off each place she found more appealing than a secluded mansion as she stood and left the room.
“I don’t know why y’all are makin’ such a fuss over this.” I reached for my guitar and started toward our bedroom. “We’re so polar opposite from these guys that it’d be ridiculous to even assume they’d take any interest in our music at all.”
“Mark my words, Punkin’,” Mom hollered from the kitchen. I should’ve known she could hear us. She continued speaking as Jade joined me down the hall. “Persuasion’s visit will be life-changin’.”
When we reached the room, each of us fell onto our own twin bed, but she leaned on her side and rested her head on her fist. “Did you finish Wildflower?”
Laying on my back looking up at the ceiling, I sighed. “Mostly. I worked on it yesterday. I’m stuck on the third verse, but the chorus is done.”
“If you want, I can take a look,” she suggested. “It’s such a beautiful song. I can’t wait to give it a try on the fiddle.”
“Yeah, let’s work on it tonight and maybe it will be ready for Bubba’s on Friday night.”
“Sounds good,” she chuckled and held her opposite hand high in the air. Wiggling her fingers, she laughed. “I think our five fans are ready for somethin’ new anyway.”
Sneak Peek for Rock Pride, Country Prejudice!
The moment we began the third verse, the one Jade had changed just hours ago, a low rumbling stirred from the back of the room. Voices and whispers grew until it could hardly be ignored. Jade stopped playing which forced me to open my eyes. I peered over to Jade and Charly to find both women completely still and staring forward.
I turned to see what caused the commotion, about ready to give the offending customer a piece of my mind, when I realized three strangers now stood in the center of the dim room. Two men and a woman commanded our full attention.
“It’s Chaz!” I heard Lilly squeal from her seat, then additional squeaks seemed to multiply from others.
Chaz Bingley, if the likeness of Kassidy’s life-size poster was any indication. He was taller than I imagined. He wore a white t-shirt that fit snuggly against his chest and a pair of faded blue jeans. His short blond hair spiked in varying directions and when his engaging smile broadened, his blue eyes flicked around the room, then directly to the front…landing squarely on Jade.
My sister was the epitome of a Southern beauty, sun kissed golden locks that flowed in waves down her back, bright blue eyes, and a smile that could light up a room. When she realized his unnerving stare hadn’t wavered, she turned her head to look at me. I narrowed my eyes and took in the sight of the other two figures who flanked the handsome rock star. They, too, garnered equal attention from every single person.
The only woman in the trio had spiky, platinum-blond hair with vivid blue bangs, deep set eyes enlarged by bold black eyeliner, sharp cheekbones and a silver ring pierced the side of her nose. Both her mini skirt and black tank top appeared shredded in the oddest places and when her lips lifted in a partial grin, it appeared more like the scowl of a feline.
The third member of the band—a tall, fit man—wore an olive-colored V-neck and black jeans. His medium-length brown hair had a tousled look to it as if he just woke up and the scruff on his chin supported that possibility. His brooding expression, though not as dark as the woman’s, was undeniably grim.
All three, no doubt, were excessively attractive and appeared excessively out of place.
Charlock’s Curse!
Finally! Book 3 in the charming Charlock Time Travel Series is coming October 16th 2022!
Two Beautiful New Covers!
A special thanks to the creative genius of Molly Phipps and We’ve Got You Covered Book Design. “Before Berlin” is the Prequel to the award-winning Berlin Butterfly Series. The story shares how Ella’s mom, Aleksandra, arrives to Berlin from Poland during World War 2.
“Rock Pride, Country Prejudice” is a fun, witty, modern-day adaption of Jane Austen’s Beloved nineteenth-century masterpiece. Click the links below for more information.
In German-occupied Poland, being blond, blue-eyed, and fair-skinned might save your life…but survival comes at a cost.
Can a handsome rocker from California and a pretty country singer from Kentucky move past their pride and prejudices and become friends, co-creators…or more?
Audiobook Promo!
To celebrate the newest audiobook release of Return to Charlock, I am giving away Promo codes for both Charlock’s Secret and Return to Charlock! Just email me at leahmoyesauthor@gmail.com and let me know if you are interested in one or both and I will send you the Audible promo codes…super easy! Happy Spring Break!!
Empty Nesting!
As of February 21, one week ago, my husband and I became official empty nesters. I have struggled to describe this experience because of the wide range of emotions. I’ve been on highs and lows and everything in between. Our youngest son left to serve a voluntary church mission for Jesus Christ. He will be gone for two years and though he was active in school clubs, teams and with friends, he actually liked hanging out with us, his parents…so we are really missing our third wheel.
The first couple of days, the house was eerily silent. My husband teaches Criminal intelligence classes at our local high school so he is gone during the day and depending on my son’s work schedule, he would be in and out…so the quietness struck me pretty hard. This is an unusual statement to make as a writer. We are ALWAYS looking for that moment of quiet when we can compose and structure and imagine what a specific scene is like without all the extra distractions, but I didn’t even write the first couple of days. I finished packing up his room and watched Netflix haha, but sometimes we just need those moments to process change. However, the story doesn’t end there…We are officially downsizing and made the decision to move to Texas and help our daughter in law with our three granddaughters while our oldest son is deployed overseas for a year. Since my own husband was deployed nearly ten years in Iraq and Afghanistan, I know what it is like to raise a family at home in this situation and we wanted to be there for her.
So there it is Y’all…We are excited about this new adventure and what awaits us in Texas…hopefully its the excellent BBQ, new friends, and exploring new and unique places!
Happy Heart Day to all you romance lovers…
Romance is not the first thing I think about when writing a Historical Fiction Novel but I feel its an important element to the main character’s story. Many times this poor character faces challenge after challenge and they just need something that balances the score…a love interest tends to not only bring the happiness, she or he, might need but also a moment of respite from the raging trials they face. Many of you may or may not be aware that I am writing the Prequel to the Award-winning Berlin Butterfly Series. The story is centered on Ella’s mother but introduces her father and how they met. It is not easy writing a Prequel after the original series is finished, but through some very serious research, I was able to bring Ella’s mom, Aleksandra Jaworski, a Polish teenager into Germany where she met a black American Serviceman, Jackson Driggs, and ultimately ends up in Berlin…where Ella’s story begins. I have loved researching World War 2…my father served at the end of the war from 1944 to 1946. He actually lied about his age to join. I am moved to tears over the honor of our servicemen and women and the sacrifices made. Our World War 2 Veterans are declining in numbers every year…if you know of one, please do what you can to make sure they know you appreciate their service.
HAPPY 2022!
If you haven’t seen the meme yet that says 2022 is like 2020 too haha it might make your day or might not…it made me laugh. Although covid is nothing to laugh about, I do believe new beginnings are in order. I wish you all the best year and hope that you keep all those New Year’s resolutions you make and above all read more books! My own personal goal is 50. Wish me luck!
Thank you all for your continued support of my writing, I would not be where I am without you! Much love!
REDESIGNED BERLIN BUTTERFLY COVERS!
Revealed to subscribers first then posted here! Stay tuned for announcement this week!
“BEFORE BERLIN” (sneak peek)
BEFORE BERLIN- A Berlin Butterfly Series Prequel
“One day, one moment, one event…can change your life completely. -Anonymous”
CHAPTER ONE
August 1943
“Schritt vorwärts! Kopf hoch! Arme aus!” The sharp demands in a thick German accent came swiftly. Step forward. Chin out. Arms up. I hardly had time to turn to my left to see Renia, my best friend of ten years, performing the same ridiculous movements with an equally sour-faced woman in front of her. The long horizontal line of students extended the length of our stone courtyard, chunks of concrete still littered the ground even now, years after the explosions rocked the school. Another dozen or so girls clustered near the outer gate, awaiting their turn.
“Open your mouth.” The timeworn taskmistress inched closer to me, but even in youth I towered her by a head at the very least. She stretched her neck and leaned forward. The sulfurous scent of mustard reeked from her lips as they curved into an ardent scowl. When she spoke, her jowls wiggled loosely above her crisp, clean uniform collar, but it was the brown mole near her chin with the solitary hair protruding, that captured my full attention.
“Do you have all of your teeth?” She inspected my mouth thoroughly.
I nodded.
She tugged on the end of my braid that hung freely down the right side of my chest, the lower locks nearly reaching my waist.
“gute Länge.”
I snuck a glance at Renia once more and wiggled my brows carefully so that this madam did not see my disrespect. What a relief the length of my hair had passed her inspection. I fought the giggle building in my throat. Such an odd thing for her to find so satisfactory.
A tall, reedy woman shadowed the ill-tempered one. A simple clipboard clutched in one hand and a pencil in the other.
“Mache Notizen.” The demanding one pointed for her to take notes, then turned back to me. “What is your name?”
I recognized my good fortune of having learned German years ago, even before they arrived in my city. While other fellow classmates struggled with the demands, I understood her well enough.
“Aleksandra.” I answered proudly, named after my grandmother who died before my birth.
“Family name?”
“Jaworski.”
“Age?”
“Sixteen.”
“Turn around.”
I rotated my back towards her but kept my arms extended upward from my sides. Why is she inspecting my person so closely? My brother, Ivan, who had been enlisted through conscript a year before had not been scrutinized so closely when the German soldiers came to our home. My breath hitched at a wayward thought. A faint recollection emerged from an event I tried hard to forget…a collection of people—people with a unified belief—seized from their homes, lined up in the street and marched away…but I am not Jewish!
She pinched my side. The movement made me jump. I was ticklish there.
“Stand still.” She snapped. Though she had a solid grip on my waist there wasn’t much to grasp and the tighter she held on the more it hurt.
She turned to her scribe. “Tall, but skinny. Good posture and hips. Send her to Medical.”
Offended, I scrunched my nose. I am quite healthy, I wanted to argue. Other than a small scare of scarlet fever when I was four, I hardly got sick. And at this very moment could outrun anyone in this school, including the old bag.
The soldiers’ sudden disruption of our school day had come unexpected. This had happened before when the Germans threatened to close our school, but like many Poles trying to survive the invasion, the headmistress came to an agreement that included an altered curriculum, and random checks. Though none of the previous appearances required us to stand outside for hours in the sweltering heat. We were being inspected—but for what I wasn’t sure.
The clipboard woman scribbled something on a piece of paper then shoved it into my hand.
“Siebzehn,” I whispered as I read it. The number 17 appeared on the square sheet.
Since the Germans arrived in Poland four years ago, they gave us little choice but to follow any and every direction. My father knew firsthand the consequences of insubordination. As a Partisan, he should have been killed for his involvement in our government, but instead he was being forced by the new commanders to lead our city under the Führer, Adolph Hitler, and to assist in the German occupation…that and a reminder bullet to one knee. His brother, Szymon, was not so fortunate. Determined to be a threat by the intelligenzaktion, he was detained and sent to the Radogoszcz prison.
From the moment the soldiers entered our classrooms this morning until now, I hadn’t been afraid. Though they were stern and forceful, nothing in their conversations led me to believe our lives were threatened.
This was far from the invasion in September 1939.
Though Łódź wasn’t as big as Warsaw, it was a key location for the continued pursuits against other Polish cities and German enemies of the state. Our lack of adequate equipment and poor defenses, especially against Blitzkrieg, allowed for an effortless seizure when our Polish Army collapsed only days under the pressure of the Third Reich. Within that first month, not only did they sever our transportation, but they also carried out mass searches, committed crimes against the population, restructured the government with German officials, issued occupation decrees, renamed the city as Litzmannstadt and annexed us into Nazi, Germany.
My mind easily slipped back to those early days…the deafening sounds of gunfire, explosions, and above all, the horrifying screams. At twelve years old, I lived through the worst nightmare imaginable or so I thought with my limited life experience. That was until I witnessed the expulsion…the process in which the Germans managed the Jewish population. They claimed that the people of the Jewish faith were diseased and brought filth and degradation upon us but especially upon our new landlords. By February 1940, the Judes had been removed to a ghetto—a controlled residential quarter in the northeastern section of town—surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. My friend Erela who lived with her parents and sister in the flat across from us were subjected to that swift removal and forced relocation. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
Occasionally, Mama and I would take the streetcar past the fences. Sometimes I would cover my eyes afraid to see the downtrodden and defeated people. A people who just a year earlier were our baker, tailor, and seamstress. Then in 1941, train cars full of Romas arrived at the ghetto. Frau Weber, Mama’s hairdresser, said the new detainees came from Austria. I overheard her conversation while she washed Mama’s hair one afternoon. Her husband, Herr Weber, oversaw the Judenräte—the Jewish Council—in the ghetto, and said that the Romas were sent here temporarily before their transition to another camp.
“There are not enough resources for those filthy gypsies.” Frau Weber exclaimed, callously unaware of my mother’s cringe. “The Jude are already seven or eight to a room and nearly twenty in each flat,” she continued. “While I don’t care much for the Judes, I cannot tolerate the Romas. The quicker they move them to an extermination camp, the better.”
Mama never went back to have her hair done by Frau Weber, but she also never explained to me the definition of an extermination camp—it took me researching the word in a book at school to know…Extermination-the killing of a group of people or animal. I must have misheard her.
Over the next year, the number of residents in the ghetto dwindled and fewer and fewer living souls remained. The neighborhood had always had an eeriness to it but now a dark cloud hovered unceasingly. I now went entirely out of my way to avoid it.
The rumors that circulated about town as to where the ghetto residents were evacuated to, varied. Some claimed deportations were to other cities, countries, or work camps, but I never forgot what Frau Weber called them and when Pan Nowak, our butcher, said with undeniable certainty that they were sent to a nearby village called Chelmno, a hint of hope sparked within me…until he elaborated.
“Not the town mind you and not for better accommodations.” He weighed the last of the veal.
Mama froze in place, but I watched him curiously.
Wrapping the meat in paper, he continued, “A country estate specifically used as a killing center.”
Mama gasped and looked to me, then before she could stop him, he added, “They use poisonous gas.”
Mama’s beautiful complexion drained all color. Her red lips pulled into a tight line and though I could not see her eyes, her lashes blinked repeatedly. When he finally handed over the meat, Mama slapped the money down on the counter and departed quickly with me tightly in tow and a very silent walk home.
That night, I prayed for Erela. I didn’t want to believe the stories, I wanted to trust that she was somewhere safe and happy. She was by far one of the kindest girls I had ever met.
“Weitergehen!” The terse voice of the clipboard woman ordering me to move on brought me back to the present. I followed her long, thin finger in the direction of another door, but before I exited, I peeked back at Renia. She was a few girls down from me and though her tyrant had moved past her, she apparently hadn’t gotten her square number yet to be dismissed. I smiled and winked before I turned away. We will have a good laugh about this at lunch.
When I exited the courtyard into the classroom, it appeared nothing like the room I had left earlier that morning. The desks had been removed and in their place were long tables separated by steel partitions and thin curtains both in front of the table and one on each side, but because they hardly covered much, I could see Gizela from my mathematics class sitting on one end of her table in a robe of sorts. Her shoulders were slumped, and her head lowered. She must be sick. I tried to recall the supper conversation with my parents the night before, but nothing was said about an illness spreading through the town.
I stopped in the center of the room, unsure of where to go next until a man in a long white coat hustled toward me. His ungainly height forced his spectacles to slide down his shiny nose as he eyed me warily and grabbed the paper number from my fingers.
“Siebzehn.” He hollered the number out and another woman approached with yet another clipboard. I bit the inside of my cheek and shifted nervously to my other foot. This could not be about sending young girls into battle—that’s preposterous…isn’t it?
Due to the uncertainty of our future, even before the war began, my father’s keen foresight and sound finances gave me the best education a child could be privileged to have. My all-girls school was one of the finest in town and I excelled in numbers, sciences, and foreign languages. Aside from our native Polish tongue, and German, I spoke a little Russian, and was currently learning English. Though many of my elderly neighbors mourned the hope of a free Poland, they were quite vocal about the value of other languages. “Knowing multiple languages, little Aleksandra,” Pani Kalinowski said, “is quite equal to survival.” Eight years after her comment, I have come to understand the wisdom of such a statement.
“Afleuchten.” The woman waved for me to follow her. I passed three of the partitions before she rolled one of them away revealing an empty table. “Sit.”
Unsure whether she meant the table or the chair, I chose the sole chair in the space. I would do everything in my power to convey how healthy I am. Maybe Gizela is sick, but I am most assuredly not.
“Name?” The woman’s eyes left the clipboard only briefly.
“Aleksandra Jaworski.”
“Your age?”
“Sixteen.” I took a deep inhale. They have already asked me this. Why didn’t the clipboard woman from outside just forward the information?
“Have you been ill recently?”
“No.”
“Broken any bones?”
“No.”
“When was your last bleed?”
“Bleed?”
“Your monthly?”
My brows curved inward, and I stuttered for the first time. “L—last week.”
“Have you had any imbecility in your family?”
I blinked twice then quickly answered so she didn’t believe I was the simpleton. “Uh, no, no nothing like that.”
“Do you have all of your teeth?”
I nodded, waiting for her to look in my mouth like the woman soldier did, but she didn’t.
“Zieh deine Sachen aus.”
“What?” My heart thumped heavily in my chest. I could not have heard her correctly. Why would she need me to remove my clothing? I am not sick! She repeated the same sentence only with an urgency now pointing to the table. She held up a thin piece of fabric that unraveled to a robe as she lifted it up. “Put this on.”
“Why?” My jaw tightened. “I am not ill.” I responded in German so there was no chance of a misunderstanding.
“Do it now.” Her stare pierced me threateningly. I waited but she made no move to leave my temporary quarters. I turned away from her and removed my blouse slowly. When I unzipped my skirt, I was trying to devise a way to escape. I am fast. I could outrun her, the doctor, the female soldier, and any number of squaddies they had walking around here. What I could not outrun are bullets and each of those soldiers carried a weapon.
“Quickly.” She demanded.
I pointed to my camisole and underwear. “These too?”
“Ja.”
I exhaled slowly and removed my undergarments with my back to her once again. I had never undressed in front of anyone besides my mother and that hadn’t been for many years.
I put my arms in the lightweight robe and closed it tight with my arms across my torso. The woman didn’t waste any time and grabbed my wrist and pulled me to the end of the table.
“Sit.” She directed.
I did as I was told, but my cheeks heated with frustration.
“Dr. Kraus.” She parted the curtain. “She is ready.”
My eyes widened to her announcement. Ready for what? Looking down I could see my hands openly trembling just below the rapid rise and fall of my chest.
The doctor stepped inside and closed the partition behind him.
I kept my head lowered and counted the white scuff marks on his black shoes. Four, Five…no six. They moved closer to me. His sweat, mixed with a pungent medicinal scent, preceded him. I wanted to pinch my nose, but he grabbed my arm and lifted it up, down, forward, and backward before he moved to my other arm and did the same thing. I eyed him warily. Maybe this is just a checkup, maybe somebody in the school really does have a contagious disease and we are all now being examined.
Couldn’t they just tell us? I fumed. Though I had a health assessment when I registered to attend the school, nothing required me to completely disrobe.
He rotated my shoulders and tapped his fingers down my spine, calling off codes to the woman holding the clipboard. Codes I was unfamiliar with in any of my languages. I jumped again when he pinched my waist through the robe. He checked my ears, eyes, nose and asked me to open my mouth. He untangled my braid and thoroughly searched my scalp leaving my hair a ratted mess once he had finished.
There could be a lice infestation. It has happened before.
He put the listening tubes into his ears and with the rounded end pressed it against my chest and then my back, all the while telling the nurse with the clipboard to document his findings.
“Sie ist stark und gesund.”
Of course, I was strong and healthy. I was not only the fastest runner at the school, but I could also jump higher than anyone as well.
The man placed his hands in the pockets of his white coat and rolled back on his heels. When he did this his jaw tightened.
“Name?”
“Aleksandra Jaworski.”
I said my name the same time the woman with the clipboard did. When she looked at me, she sent me a clear message, the doctor was speaking to her. I pursed my lips as he continued.
“Age?”
“Sixteen?”
“Recent illnesses?”
“None.”
“Hereditary Diseases?”
“None.”
“Menstruating?”
“Yes.”
The doctor now scrutinized me from my head to my toes. A drop of sweat rolled from the edge of his hairline down his cheek but he didn’t pause to swipe it.
“Have you had relations with men?”
My eyes nearly popped out of my head and my mouth separated on its own accord.
The man peered at me over his thick glasses, his deep blue eyes searing through me. He waited for my answer as if he was serious. I held my breath.
He is serious.
The heat in my cheeks made me want to sweat too. I shook my head lightly, too shocked for anything else.
“Are you certain no boy has touched you down here?” He pointed between my legs.
I shook my head fiercely this time.
“Lie back.”
I froze.
The woman placed her palm over my chest and pushed me backward.
“No, no, no.” I stiffened and my hands wound around my waist again holding tightly while fighting her pressure to restrain me. She set her clipboard down and used both hands forcefully to push me flat on the table, my legs dangled helplessly off the end. What are they doing? A thousand thoughts whirled inside my brain in that split second and all the possibilities frightened me.
“Lift your feet to the end of the table.” The doctor spoke dryly as if the whole struggle meant nothing.
My heart thumped again. I glanced past them and toward the exposed opening in the partition. Maybe someone out there will stop this. I spied a soldier staring my direction, a smirk spread across his face. I swallowed a lump, fighting the desire to cry.
“Bend your knees,” said the doctor.
I shook my head, feeling my chest constrict. This cannot be happening.
The woman didn’t wait and once again she moved my legs upward to the hard surface. Why? My short breaths came rapidly.
When he lowered his torso at the end of the table, I gasped. The entire lower half of my body was now exposed to him and anyone else who walked by the curtain, including that awful soldier. A slight breeze blew through and caused goosebumps to cover my skin. In bold contrast, perspiration rolled down my forehead and mingled with emerging tears. Even though I closed my eyes tight, the moisture slipped through anyway.
I bit my lip to keep from crying out as the doctor’s gloved fingers examined my private parts. I was too afraid to fight the woman who held my arms down, though I knew she did not care what was happening to me. I whimpered and sniffled through the horrifying seconds that followed.
“Very well.” He stood straight again. “She passes.”
I could barely catch my breath as the woman released her hold and the man pointed to the chair. “Get dressed and wait until you are retrieved.”
My mind continued to whirl. Did the school believe I had been with a man? Did they suspect me of being with child? I was mortified over the idea of being touched in a place I had never been touched before and of all places…here at my school!
I dressed quickly, making sure every button was closed and every part of me covered, but no matter what I did to forget about what just happened, the incident haunted me. Sniffling, I sat in the chair with both my hands covering my face, wishing to just go home. I wanted to see my parents, my dogs, and my rabbits. I wanted to feel the comfort of my bed and the loving embrace of my mother, and I never wanted to come back to this school ever again.
When the clipboard woman walked back in, I could have sliced her to ribbons with my glare. How would she like to be treated as thus? How would she like it if I was holding her down?
She raised her chin in challenging defiance. “Hier.”
She handed me a paper. As I quickly perused it, it had my name, my age, details of my medical examination and the word pass stamped in German on one corner.
“Do not lose this. It is your passport.” She handed me an apple and pointed to another door. “Do not speak to the soldiers, do not sleep with them and do not leave their escort until you arrive at your destination.”
“I, I just want to go home.”
Her painted red lips moved slowly enough for me to see every line she had brushed across them. “You have a new home, fraulein. You are part of Lebensborn now.”
Tears sprung from my eyes.
“I don’t know what Lebensborn is,” I whimpered. “Please, I just want to go home.”
She grabbed my wrist and led me to a door opposite of the one I had entered. Outside, a military truck rumbled to life as another young girl was physically forced inside the back. I stopped, but the woman shoved me forward then called to one of the soldiers for help.
When he appeared at my side, he tapped his long gun with one hand. “Come, now.” He commanded. Then he nudged me forward with the barrel end of his weapon.
“G—go wh—where?” I hardly recognized my stammering.
The soldier ignored me and directed me toward the back of the idling truck where additional soldiers faced me. Tears spilled down my cheeks. Please, no, please no. I cannot be a soldier.
Two hands pressed against my back and shoved me upward. I stumbled on the step, bruising my shin. With no tenderness in the responding touch, the same hands only lifted me to my feet to get me to move. Once inside, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. There were nine girls already huddled together. Two, I recognized from my classes, the others were strangers but welcomed me to their embrace all the same.
Dinner and a Murder!
Septemeber’s Book Club read was “Murder on the Orient Express” It was my first Agatha Christie book and by far not my last! Yes, shame on me for having waiting so long to indulge because she is hands down one of the most brilliant writers I have read. Her descriptions of the characters at times had me laughing out loud. Her writing style is so unique and so refreshingly clear. I watched the movie with Johnny Depp afterward and though it was entertaining, as often the case, I loved the book so much more.
As usual with my book club, the hostess has re-created the atmosphere and setting of the book we are reading so here are the pics of our famously fabulous night on board the Orient Express…
BOOK CLUB!
So I have started a book club in my neighborhood for the first time in my life and super excited about it. I cannot understand why it has taken me so long. So a couple of months ago, I was asked to speak to a book club in a neighboring city since my book Second Survivor had been chosen for their monthly read. When I arrived, I was met with the nicest, most generous women and I decided to emulate my first book club after them. Since they had been together for a couple of years, it was obvious to me they had become quite close. What was fascinating was that the members came from all different backgrounds ranging in age from twenties to seventies and all seemed to truly value one another…this is exactly what I am aiming for. When they showed me a list of their previous reads, I was amazed at the diversity of genres and the fact that they were so open to reading different types of books. I left after a couple of hours feeling honored for being a temporary member of this amazing group.
Today, the woman who is responsible for our first month’s book chose Jane Eyre which I was totally thrilled about. I have not read it for at least two decades and I am thrilled to meet next month to talk about it. I hope if you love reading, you will find a book club to join and not only be exposed to new novels or genres but lifelong friendships as well!
Happy August!
SECOND SURVIVOR AUDIOBOOK
Second Survivor is on Audiobook now thanks to the very talented Larissa Thompson! Rolling out to all audiobook outlets this month, click on the link below to hear an audio sample.
Return to Charlock Sneak Peeks
“Gilford!” The deep voice boomed with deafening precision throughout the vast entry way. Trenton and I had returned from the river an hour before and met with the staff. A dozen new faces appeared on temporary loan from neighboring estates to accommodate the twenty-two guests invited to the Gilford Games, but the arrival of our first guest stole all our attention.
“Hastings!” Trenton met the man with a robust hug. Another man swiftly squashed him from the side. They laughed as they tried to squeeze the air from my fiancé only to release him before he passed out. They weren’t as tall as Trenton, but both could claim an inch or two in shoulder width over him. “Marlowe,” Trenton squeaked out as he struggled for oxygen. They all doubled over in laughter at a jest I imagined happened often. Trenton straightened and flashed a quick smile at my direction. The men didn’t miss Trenton’s target and immediately appeared at my side, each reaching for a hand and kissing my knuckles.
“And who might this lovely creature be?” Hastings posed a diabolic grin.
Trenton scrambled over quickly, breaking us apart by placing an arm around me, then extended one hand in a barrier toward his friends. They simultaneously barked a hearty laugh in response.
“Gentlemen,” Trenton smirked. “Though I can’t say that title is reflective of your behavior.” He cleared his throat. “Meet Kat Shelton, my fiancé.”
“Kat, this raucous chap is Oliver Hastings. Though he will only respond to Hastings.” He pointed to the first man who entered the room. His long blond bangs swept downward past his defined cheekbones as he took a low bow.
“Delighted to make your acquaintance,” he said as he tilted his chin toward me and offered another cheeky smile.
“And this mate is Ethan Marlowe. Also known as . . .” Trenton nodded my direction.
“Marlowe?” I alluded.
“You guessed it, Marlowe.” Trenton pointed to the other man who unlike Hastings, sported dark, curly hair and pierced me with his poignant blue eyes.
“Charmed, Miss Shelton.” He winked dramatically.
“Okay, that’s enough.” Trenton chuckled.
“Nice to meet you both.” I smiled in return.
“I must say, Gilford,” Marlowe watched us with one eyebrow raised. “I never thought I would see you so besotted.”
From behind, Trenton wrapped both his arms around my waist and spoke over my shoulder. “She didn’t give me a choice. She took my breath away the moment I met her.”
I chuckled. “I took your breath away, but only because I left you speechless after I railed you for wanting to sell Charlock?”
Hastings burst out laughing. “You have met your match, mate. Now where are the chits?”
“The women,” Trenton emphasized, “have not yet arrived. Come now, I’ll show you to your rooms and give you time to practice your manners before dinner.”
“I’m offended.” Marlowe retorted, placing his hand against his chest. “I happen to be a master of propriety, especially around the fairer sex. He shot another quick wink toward me; one that Trenton did not miss.
“If you say so, but this one,” Trenton squeezed me close, “is off limits to your so-called proprieties.”
“Very well, Gilford.” Hastings sighed dramatically. “Lead the way.”
“Cheerio, Kat,” Marlowe said as they grabbed their suitcases and obediently followed Trenton down the hallway to their assigned rooms.
***
I studied the grounds. With no one in sight, I could only assume the person bolted for the closest refuge—the stables. Regardless of our ride starting in an hour, I doubted anyone from our party would willingly come out this early in such a barrage.
Once past the heavy wooden doors of the stable, I pushed my hood back for better sight. Droplets fell to the ground all around me as I shook the excess water off me. The overpowering scent of horsehide and manure swirled about, but my focus remained. After wiping my eyes of the extra moisture, I tiptoed cautiously and scanned the stalls stealthily through the dimness. The gloomy clouds had prevented any natural light to stream in or aid in my search. Little sound surfaced aside from an occasional whinny from a horse, even the grooms hadn’t budged yet from their quarters above, but to their defense, they weren’t needed for another thirty minutes.
“Hello?” I called aloud, tamping down any hesitation that wanted to surface. “Is somebody out here?” I continued moving forward, but the squeaky sloshing of my rubber boots hardly concealed my approach.
I peered past each separation, beyond the horses, the gear, and the odorous bales of hay. When I reached the last stall, I stiffened in place. Gripping a pitchfork with both hands, the person in question, thrust it perilously in my direction. I jumped backward and gasped. “No! No, no, no!” The words slipped through my stuttering lips. This cannot be! Pulling my wet hair out of my face, I rubbed my eyes for further clarification while my heart pounded wildly through my chest. Long black hair clung to the woman’s face and against her wet garments. An all too familiar scowl formed on her mouth as she shoved the pitchfork forward, once more, in my direction. I hastily dodged out of range and threw my hands up in defense. Growling, she bared her teeth like a feral animal.
“Margaret!” I yelled. “Stop!”