The Nightingale

“She was seven years old.”

“She made it all the way to Amboise. Alone. With no money. She spent two nights in the woods and talked her way onto the train.”

Via

Was it any surprise that Isabelle had run away from the boarding school to which she’d been sent? To this day, Via

“She was nine the first time she made it to Paris,” Via

“If I’m not mistaken, she was expelled two years later for ru

“God help anyone who tries to stop her.”

“She will arrive any day. I promise. Unless she has met an exiled prince and fallen desperately in love.”

“That is the kind of thing that could happen to her.”

“You see?” Rachel teased. “You feel better already. Now come to my house for lemonade. It’s just the thing on a day this hot.”

*   *   *

After supper, Via

Via

Outside, the fields lay beneath a purple and pink evening sky. Her yard was a series of familiar shapes—well-tended apple trees stood protectively between the front door and the rose-and-vine-covered stone wall, beyond which lay the road to town and acres and acres of fields, studded here and there with thickets of narrow-trunked trees. Off to the right was the deeper woods where she and Antoine had often sneaked off to be alone when they were younger.

Antoine.

Isabelle.

Where were they? Was he at the front? Was she walking from Paris?

Don’t think about it.

She needed to do something. Gardening. Keep her mind on something else.

After retrieving her worn gardening gloves and stepping into the boots by the door, she made her way to the garden positioned on a flat patch of land between the shed and the barn. Potatoes, onions, carrots, broccoli, peas, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and radishes grew in its carefully tended beds. On the hillside between the garden and the barn were the berries—raspberries and blackberries in carefully contained rows. She knelt down in the rich, black dirt and began pulling weeds.

Early summer was usually a time of promise. Certainly, things could go wrong in this most ardent season, but if one remained steady and calm and didn’t shirk the all-important duties of weeding and thi

She became aware of something wrong slowly, in pieces. First, there was a sound that didn’t belong, a vibration, a thudding, and then a murmur. The odors came next: something wholly at odds with her sweet garden smell, something acrid and sharp that made her think of decay.

Via

Via

The old woman shook her head. “We are ahead of them. There’s nothing for those in the back.”

Via

“It is more than we’ve had since Tours,” the young woman said in a toneless voice.

“You were in Tours?” Via

“Drink, Sabine,” the old woman said, holding the water to the girl’s lips.

Via

The young mother made a moaning sound and tightened her hold on the baby, who was so quiet—and his tiny fist so blue—that Via

The baby was dead.

Via

“Go inside,” the old woman said to Via

“But…”

The ragged trio backed away—lurched, really—as if Via

And then she saw the mass of black shapes moving across the field and coming up the road.

The smell preceded them. Human sweat and filth and body odor. As they neared, the miasma of black separated, peeled into forms. She saw people on the road and in the fields; walking, limping, coming toward her. Some were pushing bicycles or prams or dragging wagons. Dogs barked, babies cried. There was coughing, throat clearing, whining. They came forward, through the field and up the road, relentlessly moving closer, pushing one another aside, their voices rising.

Via

The house began to shake, just a little. The windows rattled, the shutters thumped against the stone exterior. Dust rained down from the exposed timbers of the ceiling.

Someone pounded on the front door. It went on and on and on, fists landing on the front door in hammer blows that made Via

Sophie came ru

Via

Via

“Don’t leave me!”

Via

There were dozens of people in her yard; mostly women and children, moving like a pack of hungry wolves. Their voices melded into a single desperate growl.