by Tricia Goyer
Behind her, others started taking breaks too, including Nancy, one of the new WAAFs.
“I remember the day I decided to join the war—I was determined to do everything I could to come to London,” Nancy was telling Georgette. “It was the month of my twenty-first birthday, September 1940, and my mother brought home a copy of Life magazine. On the cover was a little girl sitting in a hospital bed. Her head was bandaged, and she clutched her doll.
“Inside there was a story of a six-year-old boy who described how he’d rescued his three-year-old sister from their bombed tenement. In the photo he was punching at the camera, as if he could take on the Luftwaffe all by himself.” She chuckled. “Not too many months later, there was a photo of Saint Paul’s dome emerging from the smoke of raging fires in the streets. I had no idea how I’d get to London, but I knew I had to try.” The woman spoke with excitement and enthusiasm, something Emma had lost over the last six months. When had her eagerness to serve turned into a fight between knowing the necessary thing to win this war and watching it done?
She still did her job, but the reality of war was taking its toll. She needed to get out to the garden and remember that beauty still existed in the world.
Emma moved toward her jacket but then changed her mind. Sunshine streamed through the windows. The day appeared to be warm. The recces had been busy, and now more than a thousand photos were coming in daily from numerous raids. Emma had heard that more PIs, like Nancy, were being trained, but for now, each of them needed to help with the load. She’d volunteered to work an extra half shift each day, planning to catch a nap in the afternoon, but Emma knew if she didn’t get out and get some fresh air she wouldn’t be able to stay awake.
“I’m heading for a quick walk in the gardens.” She attempted to make her voice chipper.
Georgette looked up. She yawned and stretched. “I’m going to go for a walk too.” She had a twinkle in her gaze despite the long night. “It’s Wednesday. Doughnut day! Would you like me to buy you one?”
“Would you be a dear?”
Emma walked outside. The line stretched from the Red Cross kiosk, and the aroma of freshly made donuts and coffee filled the late summer air, mingling with the flowers. She rarely drank coffee in the morning, since she was usually heading straight to bed, but today she hoped Georgette would get her some too.
“Mum, you must be praying hard,” Emma whispered under her breath. “I can’t imagine working anyplace more beautiful. Or safe.”
As Emma strolled to the garden, her mind turned to Will and their time at the church. It had been a quiet, romantic moment after a long day, and she hadn’t wanted to part when he’d driven her home.
She again thought of what things would be like for them after the war. Should she allow herself to fall in love? And if she did, then what? Did it mean she’d stay in England? Would he come to the States?
She walked to the edge of the garden, stopping at the cliff overlooking the Thames. She took a deep breath, preparing to turn back, when a voice broke through her thoughts.
“Most people look at the land and see beauty. I look at it and see questions.” It was a man’s voice. One she recognized.
She turned to see Edward, although he was just a shadow of the fit, erect man she’d started working for months ago. Dark bags under his eyes and worry lines on his forehead dominated his fine features. He’d had a long night too.
“Edward, if anyone has taught me about asking the right questions, it’s you.” Then she followed the direction of his gaze, down to the water. “But tell me, what do you see that I don’t? I’m curious now.”
He chuckled. “Before the war I was a geologist, you know. I was taught to look at the earth and notice the buckles and tucks, just as you’ve learned to measure shadow and light. I suppose that’s what makes us good PIs, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so.” She looked back at him again, and he stared out at the landscape below them. His eyes moved from left to right, as if he were reading a book.
“And do you have questions now?”
“Oh no, my dear. I have already found the answers. It took just a little bit of digging, but I found them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that this land used to be a resting place for nomadic tribes four thousand years ago. Can you imagine that?” He cleared his throat and stood a bit straighter. She could picture him as the professor that he was, standing in front of a class. “If you care to take a short jaunt with me. There’s something more I’d like to show you.”
“Of course.”
They walked past the gardens and into the woods, to the edge of the estate property closest to Medmenham. Edward pointed down toward the river. “See that steep ravine? It’s the remnant of the ramparts of a prehistoric fortification. I am certain that because of ample game and the discovery of flint within the chalk-based cliffs, it became a settlement.”
“Would that be considered prehistoric earthworks?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, I was looking at an old map inside of a book. There was a note in the legend that this was the site of prehistoric earthworks.”
Edward shifted from side to side. He didn’t answer her, but instead he turned around and scanned the way they came. “Can you keep a secret?” Edward asked.
She tilted her head at him and chuckled. “If I can’t, you’d better fire me now.”
He laughed.
“Earthworks are often another name for fortifications. It’s a large bank of soil, usually made for defense. From my research, this bend in the river became a vital asset to protect everything upriver for thousands of years. If one were to start digging around, they’d no doubt find pathways and maybe even secret tunnels.”
Emma thought back to the movement she saw in the trees the day she was heading to London. She turned to focus on Edward’s face. “I imagine one would like to see that, to find those discoveries. It would be pretty amazing for a geologist.”
Edward’s eyes widened. “It would be.” Then he jutted his chin.
“So have you gone down there to look around?”
“I…I’m sorry, I’m afraid not.” He glanced at his watch. “And I’d better be getting back. We need to finish our work before the next shift.” He walked away with a quickened pace and glanced back over when he did. “But if you’d like to stay longer, Emma, I don’t mind. I know you’ve already put in a long day.”
As Edward walked away, Emma lifted an eyebrow. By his response, she had no doubt he’d gone exploring. With everyone so close, living and working together, it was hard for anyone to have a secret. Of course, the same was true for her. How much did the others around her know about her growing feelings for Will? But still…even though she couldn’t picture her life without him, something was holding her back. Something she couldn’t make sense of but she could feel.
Emma looked back down to the river, especially the earthworks Edward had pointed out.
Lord, can you please help me? Can you show me the old foundations I’m not even aware of? The defenses I’ve put up over time? Be a geologist and dig in my heart. As much as I’m afraid to find out, Lord, I’m ready to know.
The fever had come in the afternoon. When Emma woke up from her short sleep, she was achy all over. The doughnut she’d eaten earlier sat like a lump in her gut, and she let out a low moan. Vera placed a cool hand on Emma’s forehead and spoke with an authority Emma hadn’t heard from her before.
“Don’t you dare get up and get dressed. They can handle one day without you—even though you may find that hard to believe. Sleep in. Just rest. You’ll have the whole place to yourself. I’ll come back and check on you during a break.”
Georgette came up and looked in on her and agreed. “I’ll tell Edward you’re ill with fever. Rest now, and if you’re not better in the morning I’ll bring the nurse.”
Emma did not argue. Not only did her body hurt but her heart did too. There was something inside, somethin
g keeping her heart closed off to Will. Emma snuggled farther down under the gray, scratchy blanket to pray.
Dear God, what is it? Why do I feel this way? Why, instead of running toward love, do I run the other way? Is something wrong with me?
She closed her eyes and attempted to drift off to sleep, but instead of sleep a memory rose in her mind. She’d been at a friend’s house playing for the day, and they’d gone to the beach. And there, on the shore, washed up after the rain, had been a sand dollar. It was the first one she’d ever found round and whole, and she couldn’t wait to get home to show her mother. After her friend’s mother had dropped her off, Emma had run inside, but the house was dim and quiet. Her mother wasn’t home. Instead, her father sat at the table reading the paper.
He’d been around as long as she could remember. And even though he wasn’t her biological father, she’d always thought of him as her dad. But that day after she let the kitchen door shut behind her, she stood there for at least a minute, and he never looked up. Instead, he just readjusted the glasses and flipped the page. “Slip your shoes off on the porch and shake them out. You know how your mother feels about sand on her floors.”
Emma had done as she was told, but she kept her sand dollar tucked deep inside her pocket. It wasn’t because she wanted to keep it from him. It was just that she had a feeling he wouldn’t care.
Her mother had arrived an hour later, and Emma had helped her with dinner. She’d been out taking a pie to a friend who’d broken her leg, and Samuel had gone with her. She’d showed the sand dollar to her mother and brother at dinner, and they’d been so excited. But as she expected, her father hadn’t even glanced up.
It was only later, after dinner, when her father and brother went to play catch with a baseball on the quiet street in front of their store, that the full understanding of the pain she carried inside hit her. Though her father cared for her mother, Emma was just an add-on. He couldn’t get one without the other, and he’d accepted that. Still, it didn’t mean he embraced her.
She’d cried for a few minutes until she heard her mother coming to check on her. And then she’d feigned weariness from being at the beach all day and went to bed early. She didn’t think of it much after that—not with questions and tears. Instead, it was just a knowing she held inside. I’m here because I was part of the package. And then, as she considered that, an even deeper pain came. And God could have stopped it. He could have saved my dad. He could have given me a home full of love.
A new thought joined those now. He could have saved Samuel.
Emma tucked her pillow farther under her chin, and in her mind’s eye she imagined holding that perfect sand dollar in her hand but then throwing it down and smashing it on the floor. After all, how could God design so much detail in sea shells, ocean currents, weather patterns, and root systems…and yet completely ignore her?
“It’s not fair,” Emma whispered into her pillow. All I ever wanted was a father to love me, to cherish me and to care. And with that truth a new revelation came. It was as if she were opening up the window to a dark room and letting a flood of light come in, and what she saw in the dark corners made her shrink back.
I feel abandoned, and I’m afraid to be abandoned again.
I feel broken, and I’m afraid to show someone my pain.
I feel unworthy, and I’m afraid to let someone close to see the real me.
But even worse were the feelings she had against God.
You could have stopped this. You could have saved my father. You could have protected Samuel. You could stop this war. Stop the destruction. Stop the death.
If he was a loving God, he would do something about it. Instead, children were separated from parents, wives had to learn to live without husbands, and parents had to bury their sons.
It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense.
She didn’t mean to take this war personally, but in a way she had. Just in the same way she’d taken it personally that God had taken her father away all those years ago.
“You should have seen the way your dad doted on you,” her mother had said when she dared to ask about him once she was in her teens. “He said he’d never seen anything more beautiful, and he’d sing to you every song he could think of. And even though you couldn’t understand, he’d tell you stories of the sea and wind and the feeling of being so small on the ocean waves.”
And then, remembering what her mother said next was like a knife to her heart.
“I remember the storm that came—it seemed to come out of nowhere. And I knew as I heard it rage that night that he wouldn’t be coming back. And I went to your crib and held you and cried, because I knew what that meant to you too.” And years later, when she read Ida’s story and Grace’s story, she pictured herself in those lifeboats rowing out. But she wasn’t saving strangers; she was trying to save her father. And she could almost picture him clinging to the rock, calling out to her.
Emma hadn’t thought about those things for so long, but she realized they had always been there. It wasn’t fair that so many others were rescued but her father wasn’t. It wasn’t fair that Samuel died when other men lived. And it wasn’t fair that she was just a little girl who wanted love, and there were no strong arms to hold her and comfort her. As the hours passed and the day’s tears came and went, she also realized it wasn’t fair that she kept her love from Will because of all the ways she’d been hurt before—ways he had nothing to do with.
Now it’s up to me. I can learn to trust God, even when I don’t have the answers. And I can learn to trust Will too. It wasn’t Will’s fault that she’d been hurt in the past. And she didn’t have to blame God for all of it happening either. She was born into a world of sin. As long as there were greed, pride, selfishness, and men who were willing to hurt others to take all they could get, there would be pain. And until the time came when she too entered eternity with God, there would be death.
As Emma lay there, she came to imagine God weeping with her. She pictured him wanting to draw near even when she held him at bay. And she wondered what would happen if she let him close. Really let him in. The war might not change, but she would. And then maybe she would have something wonderful to offer Will too—a heart of love, a heart of trust.
THIRTY
August 21, 1943
It took forty-eight hours for Emma to feel fully herself, and when she dressed and made her way back to the garden, she was thankful to see Will out on the back patio with his easel set up. His painting of the Thames looked nearly complete, and she guessed it might be too much to expect he’d be around to do a third.
“Emma.” He put down his paint brush when he saw her and pulled her into a one-armed hug. “I missed you the last few days. I heard you were ill.” He sighed. “As much as I begged they would not let me in to see you, the rogues.”
“I think I was pushing myself too hard. And maybe the icy water of the river had something to do with it,” she stately simply with a smile.
She placed a kiss on his cheek and then stepped back. “I suppose it’s too much to ask that you paint Danesfield House again?”
He chuckled. “I’m not sure the Recording Britain curators would appreciate that. Of course I could call it a triptych—three paintings making a whole.”
“Oh,” she purred. “I like the sound of that.”
She gazed down at the river and looked at the spot where she was sure she’d seen a hidden rowboat covered up before. And then her eyes moved to the earthworks. So many mysteries on one stretch of land.
“Are you looking at something in particular?” Will asked as she stepped closer to him.
“Oh, it’s just different—how I look at the world, that is. I’m so used to looking for clues…” She paused, realizing that she almost gave her work away. Emma cleared her throat and tried again.
“I was just looking at different landscape features, that’s all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I was talking to
one of my coworkers the other day, and he pointed out the ancient earthworks—the ones I read about in one of your books.”
“Where?”
Emma pointed down to the river. “See that place where the river bends? That must have been their first line of defense. The brush looks thicker there, but you can see from the shadows that it runs in a straight line up the hill. If I were to guess, I’d say there’s a wall under that. And maybe some type of tunnel system.”
Will’s eyes widened. “Yes, I think you’re right!” He scowled as if trying to remember something. “I remember reading that too and wondering about the prehistoric earthworks. That makes you think, doesn’t it? This location used to be vital for the protection of the area, and now it’s vital for the protection of the world—or at least most of it.”
Emma watched his face as he talked, and from the look in his eyes she knew he understood a lot about what was happening inside Danesfield House, even if she wasn’t the one who’d given him the information. But how? And why? Why would Will be interested in a place like this?
Instead of asking any more questions, Emma decided to tell Will about the assault that happened while she was in London. If she truly was going to give Will her heart, she had to stop hiding from him.
She led him to a bench by one of the garden spots and told him about Robert’s visit and the Bible, and then she told him about the man in the alley. Tears came as she attempted to hide her fear.
“What you’re saying is that he left as soon as you confirmed you didn’t know the man in the photo? That he wasn’t your brother?”
Emma crossed her arms over her chest and pulled them in tight. “If you put it that way, yes.” Then she leaned forward, trying to decide if he was more angry or worried. Emma finally decided it was both.
“Will, what do you think it means?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “But I’m going to London tomorrow.”
