The Land Beneath Us

by Sarah Sundin

  “Do you . . .” She gave Leah a sympathetic frown. “Do you have something more professional to wear? And your hair . . . could you put it up, perhaps?”

  Leah’s stomach curled up. “This is my best dress, ma’am. But when I get my first paycheck, I’ll buy outfits and get a haircut. I promise.”

  Miss Mayhew’s cheeks reddened, and she returned behind the desk and opened a drawer. “You won’t be paid until the end of the week. That won’t do.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am.” Her eyes stung, but years of practice kept them dry. “Miss Tilletson and the ladies from church in Des Moines gave me money for my high school graduation last week. They were very generous. Very. They meant for me to buy clothes, but after I paid for bus and train tickets and my first month’s room and board, I had nothing left.”

  “You’re working the closing shifts.” Miss Mayhew strode to her and held out a ten-dollar bill. “Tomorrow morning, go downtown and buy an outfit or two.”

  Leah edged back. “No, ma’am. I refuse to take charity ever again.”

  The librarian pursed her lips. “It isn’t charity. It—it’s a loan until your first paycheck.”

  That much money would buy a suit and shoes and a haircut too. “I promise I’ll earn it. Every penny.”

  “I’m sure you will. I’ve known Miss Tilletson since library school, and she said you were smart and diligent.” Miss Mayhew gazed around the room. “I would rather have hired a library school graduate. You aren’t qualified to help with cataloging or research or acquisitions, but you can serve as a circulation librarian.”

  Leah tucked the money into the deepest corner of her bag. “I know the Dewey decimal system, I read all Miss Tilletson’s library science books, and I plan to go to library school after I earn the tuition.”

  Miss Mayhew’s smile twitched between pity and disbelief. “Yes. Well. Why don’t you set your . . . bag in this drawer, and I’ll show you our operations.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am.” A tall blond soldier nodded to Miss Mayhew. “My sergeant told me to read the field manual on service of the 75-millimeter howitzer. Do you have it?”

  “Yes, sir.” She turned to Leah. “Have a seat, Miss Jones. I’ll be right back.”

  “Thank you.” Leah sat behind the circulation desk and set her bag in the drawer—beside a heart-shaped cardboard box with a tag that read “To Myra. Love, John.”

  Her mouth watered. What would it be like to have an entire box of candy to herself?

  She tipped open the lid. She just wanted a look. A smell. About half the chocolates were gone, but a dozen remained, round and glossy, with pretty swirls on top.

  Leah’s fingers strained for the chocolates, but she closed the box and the drawer. Tonight she’d pretend her father had brought her candy. He’d want her to have occasional treats.

  But most of all, he’d want her to find her sisters.

  The bookshelves called to her. If she could discover a picture or a snippet of information connected to one of her memories, then she’d know where she came from. And maybe she could find a Greek surname that sounded like her memory.

  Ka-wa-los.

  When her parents died, she’d only been four, too young to pronounce her name properly.

  With a name and a city, she could locate the first orphanage she’d been sent to, the last place she’d seen her twin baby sisters. Every night she prayed that they were safe, that they had each other, and that one day she’d find them.

  Only then would Leah belong.

  2

  CAMP FORREST

  SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 1943

  Clay laced his hands behind his head to stretch his aching shoulders. It felt good to rest for a day and to know he’d treated Bertie King properly.

  In the camp library, he reviewed the medical guide. Cut the clothing away from the wound, stop the bleeding, apply a field dressing. If the medics had been delayed, Clay would have improvised a ring splint. Then after the medics administered a quarter grain of morphine, King could have been transported to the hospital for surgery.

  How would Dr. Hill have treated this case? The physician’s kind face came to mind, but Clay shoved aside memories of his former mentor back in Kerrville, Texas. Ellen Hill had destroyed that relationship as well. The doctor’s daughter had only dated Clay to catch the eye of his older brother Adler. She’d caught it, all right.

  Did she ever regret that before she died?

  Clay shook his head to clear the pain. Movement behind him, and Clay reached for the newspaper at the table’s edge to slide over the book.

  It was the librarian, not a Ranger, and Clay relaxed.

  Not Miss Mayhew. A petite brunette in a light green suit parked a cart by the rack beside him, where newspapers hung over dowel rods like sheets on Mama’s clothesline. The woman pulled a newspaper off the rack and set it on the bottom shelf of her cart.

  Then she spotted Clay and smiled. “Hello, Private Paxton.”

  Clay froze. He knew her? Round face, dark eyes, olive complexion, Midwestern accent. Had she transferred from the PX? The mess? He rarely forgot names.

  She fingered the curly black hair above her collar, and her smile wavered. “I’m Leah Jones. We met last week on my first day here. I got a haircut and a new outfit.”

  She certainly had. Last week Leah Jones looked like a twelve-year-old street urchin in a tent of a dress. Now she looked more grown up, almost grown up enough to be a librarian.

  Clay broke out in a grin. “Hello, Miss Jones. Don’t you look nice today?”

  Her gaze darted around. “Um, thank you.”

  Probably not used to compliments. “How’s the job? Do you like working here?”

  “I do.” Her face shone. “I believe in libraries.”

  Clay chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “Last week I got the impression you believed in God.”

  Leah plucked another newspaper from the rack. “I think God would say he believes in libraries too.”

  She had an amusing way of speaking. “Why do you say that?”

  “Think about how the Lord loves words. He spoke the universe into being, and he gave us his word both in written form and living form.”

  Clay brushed his fingers over the text before him. “Since the Lord knows everything, I reckon that makes him the ultimate library.”

  “What a glorious thought.” Leah clutched a newspaper to her chest and gazed over Clay’s head. “Imagine. Even the best-read person on earth knows only a fraction of the information in this library, but the Lord has more knowledge than the Library of Congress.”

  Her gaze drifted down to him, she lifted a quick smile, and she removed the last newspapers from the rack.

  Ordinarily, he’d end the conversation there. Since his remaining time on earth could be measured in months, he didn’t flirt with girls. But something about Leah reminded him of a lost puppy in need of a bone and a pat on the head.

  “Have you ever been to the Library of Congress?” he asked.

  “No, never.” She pulled a fat Sunday paper from her cart and laid it over a dowel. “Before I came here, I’d only patronized my school libraries in Des Moines. But when I was little, my parents took me to a grand library that smelled of leather and lemon oil and looked like a starry sky, even by day. I wish I knew where it was.”

  Clay massaged his sore bicep. “Don’t your parents remember?”

  Another paper joined its friends on the rack. “My parents died when I was four. I don’t remember my name, much less where we lived.”

  That shoved the air out of his lungs harder than when Ernie McKillop had thrown him to the ground in training the day before. “I’m sorry to hear that, miss.”

  “Don’t be.” She smiled as if she were consoling him, and she folded the last paper over the rack. “I never wanted for anything, and the second orphanage, the one in Des Moines, treated me kindly.”

  He winced. “But your . . . name.”

  She pulled out the chair across from him and sat.
“I do remember my first name. It’s Thalia. But the people who adopted me from the first orphanage said it was pagan and foreign, since Thalia is one of the muses in Greek mythology. They called me Leah for short and gave me their last name, Jones. When they left me in Des Moines, the orphanage kept the name.”

  Clay’s jaw sagged. She rattled off the tragedies like most girls rattled off their favorite movie stars.

  Leah rested her chin in her hand and smiled toward the bookshelves. “My last name was long and Greek and sounded like Ka-wa-los. Maybe one of these books will tell me. Maybe someday I’ll see a name and say, ‘That’s it.’”

  Despite everything bad that had happened to Clay, he had his name and a home and parents who loved him. Leah didn’t.

  “Listen to me jabbering.” She leaned forward. “What are you reading?”

  Clay grabbed the newspaper to drag over, but it was too late.

  “Guides to Therapy for Medical Officers,” she read upside down. “Are you a medical officer? No, you’re a private. Are you a medic?”

  “No . . .” A dozen excuses bounced in his head, each falling flat. Hadn’t she told him her long and sorry life story? Clay leaned his elbows on the table and lowered his voice. “Listen, none of the fellows know this, so please don’t say anything.”

  Her brown eyes rounded. “I—I won’t.”

  Clay fingered the pages of the book. “I used to want to be a physician.”

  “Oh, but then you were drafted.”

  If only he’d been drafted earlier. “The Army didn’t kill that dream. My brothers did.”

  “Your brothers?”

  Clay drew a long breath and rolled his shoulders. “Half brothers. I worked for my daddy for two years after high school to earn my tuition money. I was accepted into the University of Texas, premed, but my brother stole my savings.”

  Leah gasped. “Your brother? But why?”

  Why had he brought this up? He’d never even told Gene this story. Clay shifted in his chair. “Back in ’41, my brother Adler’s fiancée died in a fall. It was an accident, but Adler blamed our oldest brother, Wyatt, and tried to kill him.”

  “Oh no. How awful.”

  Clay rubbed a page between his fingers. “I tackled Adler so Wyatt could escape. Reckon Wyatt feared for his life and wanted money to get away. So he took mine, every penny of it.”

  “He never paid you back?”

  “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since. Haven’t wanted to.”

  Leah frowned at the medical guide. “And you couldn’t afford college.”

  “Worse. I had to keep working at Paxton Trucking. Adler ran away that night too, and Daddy needed my help.”

  “He ran away too? Because of his girlfriend?”

  “Because of—” Clay almost said, “Because of mine,” but Leah was too young and innocent for that sordid tale. “Because he took out his anger on me in the worst possible way. He’ll never come home again, and that’s for the best.”

  Leah’s gaze grew distant. “I can see why you haven’t been able to forgive them.”

  Clay’s chin jerked back. “I’ve forgiven them.”

  “You have?”

  “Of course. I forgave them long ago.”

  “I’m glad.” She raised a twitchy smile, then glanced over her shoulder and stood. “I should return to work.”

  “Yeah.” Clay’s stomach lurched. Of course he’d forgiven them. He’d prayed that prayer more than once in the last two years.

  Leah grasped the handle of her cart. “No matter what happened in my life, I could always find one good thing to enjoy—a beautiful word, a sunset, a song. I’m glad you’ve found your good thing.” With a serene smile, she patted the medical book and went her way.

  Clay flipped the book shut. Why did he suddenly feel like the lost puppy?

  3

  TULLAHOMA

  MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1943

  The saleslady whisked the pile of dresses and suits from over the top of Leah’s dressing room door. “I’ll take these to the cash register, hon.”

  “Decadent,” Leah said.

  “Decadent?” Darlene Bishop’s laugh floated over the door. “You only bought four outfits today, including the dress you’re wearing home. With the suit you bought last week, that’s only five.”

  Since Leah was accustomed to one church dress, one school dress, and one work dress, five beautiful outfits felt decadent indeed, especially since she could mix components.

  She studied herself in the full-length mirror. Never had she owned such a pretty dress, a buttery yellow shirtwaist sprigged with tiny white flowers and leaves the same sage green as her suit, with a scalloped white collar and cuffs, like someone would wear to a summer lawn party in a novel.

  It fit so well it made her squirm. She hardly recognized herself with a waistline and calves, much less with lipstick and her hair cut fashionably below her chin.

  “Are you finished?” Darlene called.

  “Yes.” Leah stepped into her beige pumps and grabbed the matching shoulder bag. Maybe someday she’d learn to walk in heels. Most girls her age already knew how, but Leah didn’t know what to do with an extra three inches.

  Darlene poked around in a basket on top of a circular rack of blouses. “Aren’t these cute? Just what you need.”

  A kaleidoscope of color radiated from the basket—dozens of jeweled pins shaped like flowers and animals and American flags. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Which one do you like?”

  The bouquet, and Leah cupped the beauty in her hand. Glass blossoms in every hue adorned golden stems tied with a curling golden ribbon. “Maybe next month. I need to watch my budget.”

  Her roommate heaved a sigh as if Leah had denied Darlene the pin, and she flounced to the register. “You have a job, sugar. Live a little.”

  “First I need to live. I have to pay room and board, bus fare, and cafeteria lunches.”

  The saleslady rang up the purchase with cheery cha-chings from the cash register, and she folded each item in a snowy tissue paper cocoon.

  It was all Leah’s. What a blessing.

  Darlene batted mascaraed eyelashes. “Promise me you’ll buy the pin next month.”

  “We’ll see.” She still needed an umbrella and a wallet and a pen.

  The saleslady smiled at Leah. “That’ll be $17.47.”

  Two and a half dollars under her budget, and Leah reached to open her shoulder bag.

  “Shall I ring that up for you too?” The saleslady nodded to Leah’s hands.

  She uncurled her fingers. The bouquet pin? She’d carried it to the counter? What if she’d dropped it into her bag?

  Her heart stopped.

  “Oh yes,” Darlene said. “The camel-colored suit is divine, but that pin would set it off.”

  Leah forced her lungs to pump out words, and she handed the pin to the saleslady. “No, thank you. Not today.” She fumbled for the bills inside her purse.

  What had she almost done? She’d never taken anything from a store before, but then she’d rarely been inside stores. The shopkeepers in Des Moines shooed out the orphans.

  This was why.

  The saleslady punched keys on the cash register, her lips in a thin red line.

  Leah tried to breathe evenly. What sort of things had she taken in the past? Food, for the most part. And lovely lonely things.

  Pearl Gunderson’s hair ribbon of robin egg blue, forsaken on the playground. An eraser, one of the clever typewriter ones on a wheel with a little brush, abandoned on the floor in typing class. Stella Black’s tiny celluloid Kewpie that she always made the villain in her games, left in the mud in Stella’s yard. Leah had taken the doll home, bathed her, made her a dress from a handkerchief, and named her Euterpe after the muse of lyric poetry and music.

  The saleslady handed her a large pasteboard box tied with string.

  Outside in the extraordinary heat and rain, Darlene opened her umbrella. They strolled down West Lincoln past Clayton’
s Shoes, where Leah had bought her pumps and purse with Miss Mayhew’s loan. In the autumn, Leah could buy a second purse and pair of shoes, a set for each season. She still had two shoe ration coupons remaining for the year. How exciting.

  “Here’s Taylor’s Pharmacy,” Darlene said as they turned left onto Atlantic. “They’ll have umbrellas.”

  Leah opened the door, setting bells to jangling, and she clenched her fingers together so they wouldn’t even think of browsing.

  “May I help you?” a middle-aged saleslady called from behind a glass counter, her eyes curved into friendly half-moons.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’d like to buy an umbrella.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, the lady showed her over a dozen, and Leah chose a sturdy one in her price range.

  Leah paid for the umbrella. Beside the counter stood a collection bin for the Victory Book Campaign, emblazoned with a red, white, and blue poster stating “Give more books. Give good books.” How marvelous it would be to have so many books you could give them away.

  Darlene stood just inside the door with four soldiers wearing khaki shirts and trousers and garrison caps. “There she is, fellas. My roommate, Leah. She works at Camp Forrest too.”

  A tall skinny soldier gave her a lopsided grin. “At the PX? The mess?”

  Leah held her breath. She wasn’t used to men looking straight at her or talking to her. “At the library. I’m a librarian.”

  “One of those bookish gals, huh?”

  “Yes, sir. I am.”

  “Sugar, don’t admit that.” Darlene nudged her. “Not if you want dates.”

  Leah didn’t want dates, but she worked up a smile for her friend.

  Darlene shook back her hair. “Leah spends far too much time in the library. She works every night until nine thirty. Then after she closes, she stays an extra hour just to read. All by herself.”

  To research, but the explanation would be wasted again.

  A square-faced soldier with pale blond hair gave her the type of grin Leah had only seen directed at girls like Darlene. “Sounds like you could use a night on the town. How about the four of us, the two of you? Maybe you’ve got a couple girlfriends.”