Secrets and Shadows: Day 7

Word Count: 42,007

Summary of Events:

After his mother made significant efforts to prevent their departure, Emil, Zygfryd, their two younger brothers, and their father left to go help in the defence of Warsaw, with the Germans having arrived on the southwestern side of the city. Having guns, Emil and Zygfryd were pressed into backing up soldiers, but only until Zygfryd got shot in the ear; Emil then worked to get Zygfryd home — despite their being pursued by a German soldier with Emil's gun empty and Zygfryd unarmed — for which he commandeered a car that the German shot one of the tires and the rear window out of . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"When he saw the opportunity to turn to the east — which happened to be to his right — he took it, only to have the car seemingly surge out of his control and slam itself into the wall of the building he'd been trying to go around.

"You've just made things worse, you know that, right?" Zygfryd asked.

"Does it really matter at this point?" Emil demanded. "I'm trying to get you to safety!"

He hauled Zygfryd out of the car and hurried for a sheltered place to hide.

Zygfryd moaned and suddenly became a dead weight in Emil's arms, nearly pulling him to the ground.

"Zygfryd!" Emil cried, cold fright seizing his breastbone.

He lowered Zygfryd to the stone and looked at him. Zygfryd's eyes were closed and he laid quite still. Emil put a finger to his neck and felt a throbbing that was rather feeble.

"No," Emil whispered. "No Zygfryd; you can't do this."

Quickly Emil took his shirt, wrapped the body of it around the shoulder yoke, and wrapped his shirt around Zygfryd's head, tying the sleeves together so that the part he'd wrapped was around Zygfryd's ear.

He then managed to haul Zygfryd to his feet, lower himself so that his shoulder was at Zygfryd's abdomen, and haul Zygfryd over his shoulder.

In spite of his brother's dead weight, Emil did his best to run. He had no idea how close the German might be to him, and at this point in time he wasn't really all that inclined to find out.

Several gunshots sounded behind him. He was pretty sure it was the German, but he couldn't really run with Zygfryd's weight on his shoulder.

Suddenly pain shot through his lower back and the back of one of his legs, causing Emil to stumble, with Zygfryd's weight only pulling him down faster.

He reached for Zygfryd's head and felt a terrible pain in his hand when Zygfryd's head slammed his hand against the stone.

Quickly Emil rolled over and laid himself down on top of Zygfryd. He didn't even bother trying to reload his gun, knowing that his hands would be much too shaky for that sort of thing to be remotely successful.

The German strode toward them, his face emotionless and cold, like it'd been chiselled out of stone and was incapable of showing any sort of expression.

He cocked his gun and put the barrel of it against Emil's forehead, where it felt warm, not cold, which Emil guessed was from the fact that it'd been fired repeatedly recently. It soon felt like it was burning his forehead.

Suddenly there was a shot, but no searing pain went through Emil's head, pulling blackness with it as he'd feared.

Instead the German's face suddenly spread out into a surprised and alarmed expression and he fell down on Emil hard — a hardness that was only worsened by Emil's position overtop of Zygfryd."

Secrets and Shadows: Day 6

Word Count: 36,033

Summary of Events:

Keeleigh got called by her supervisor at the Village and they discussed her trying to come back to work the next week in the middle of her search for a non-relative who could read Polish. Kornelia accused Olga of turning off the radio — which she didn't like listening to because of all the war news — when she'd been in the cellar at the time; frustrated and hurt, Olga ran off, only to encounter Zygfryd, who talked with her about that, and much more, while he went to enlist in the civilian defence force being created to help protect Warsaw from the Germans. Keeleigh drove to work, but found herself too stressed to even try going out and playing her role, so she was sent home, where she decided to look in the other cardboard box . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"Many of the papers in this box were much older than those contained in the other box. On top of that, there weren't any card-shaped ones.

In fact, Keeleigh noticed that there was a significant quantity of loose photos scattered in the box. She picked up one and looked at it. It appeared to be shot in a studio and showed a sizeable family of dour-faced people.

There was an adult couple, both of whom were holding little boys in their laps; the one on the woman's lap looked to be about two, and the other one looked to be four. Standing behind them were two quite handsome young men in the middle, each with a young woman beside them, and then two boys to the left and two girls to the right, the left side having a girl in front of the boys, and the right having a boy in front of the girls.

On the back of the photo all it said was 1938.

So then the two adults were her great grandparents: Zbigniew and Klementyna, and on their laps were Uncle Gustaw and Grandpa, and then Uncle Olek was in front of Aunt Malwina and Aunt Jadwiga, while Uncle Igor and Uncle Jarek were to the left, and it looked like Aunt Kornelia was beside them.

Aside from them, though, were four others: a little girl who looked younger than Olek — probably about six — a young woman who looked about the same age as Aunt Kornelia, and two strapping, handsome young men in the middle.

Was the little girl Adelejda? Was the other young woman Olga? And who were the young men? Keeleigh felt sick and confused. Olivia seemed to be right. There were more children in the family, children who hadn't been miscarried.

Setting the photo aside, Keeleigh took up the next one. It was all the same people, only the year was 1937 according to the back, and everyone looked younger.

The next photo had a tiny infant Grandpa, and was dated 1936, the year he'd been born. That had to mean the photo had been taken in December, possibly after Christmas, because Grandpa's birthday was the eighteenth of December.

The next photo was dated 1932; it had an infant in Klementyna's lap, and no Gustaw or Grandpa. Being as the next oldest child was a boy — and by count had to be Uncle Olek — that confirmed that the little girl was the infant.

After that photo Keeleigh found one with Zbigniew and Klementyna looking much younger and having only the two boys, who looked to be one and three in the picture. It was dated 1920.

Who were these boys? Keeleigh had always thought Aunt Kornelia was the oldest, but it seemed that there were two boys older than her. Had they died in the war or something? If so, why weren't they even remembered by the family for that?"

Secrets and Shadows: Day 5

Word Count: 30,011

Summary of Events:

Keeleigh went over to her best friend Olivia's house and told Olivia all about what she'd learned from the papers, and they Googled the name of the woman Keeleigh had seen at the funeral, which led them to find out that her family ran quite a large farm. Olivia suggested that the woman was another great aunt of Keeleigh's, but Keeleigh wasn't convinced . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

""They didn't have contraception back in the twenties," Olivia said.

"I know that," Keeleigh replied.

"So then why's there a four year gap between Olek and Gustaw?" Olivia asked.

"There could've been a miscarriage," Keeleigh replied. "There were a lot more of those back in the day too."

"There could also be another girl," Olivia said. "A girl by the name of Adelejda."

"But I've never met her," Keeleigh said.

"Her Christmas cards to the family are being kept under lock and key in a steamer trunk," Olivia said. "I think this Adelejda is a great aunt of yours."

"We don't know what year Adelejda was born," Keeleigh said. "What if she's from either of the years Uncle Olek or Uncle Gustaw are from?"

"Twins?" Olivia suggested.

"There are no twins in the entire Niemcyk family," Keeleigh replied. "I have my doubts."

"But doesn't it make sense?" Olivia asked.

"It does," Keeleigh replied. "But why wouldn't I have met her?"

"Because she married a Ukrainian?" Olivia asked.

"That means nothing," Keeleigh replied. "If she'd have married a German I could see it, the Niemcyks have a hate on for the Germans."

"Who could blame them?" Olivia asked. "They were in Poland when the War started, weren't they?"

"Yeah," Keeleigh replied. "And besides, Dad married a Ukrainian and they don't have any issue with Mom."

"We need to go look through that box," Olivia said. "That's got to be where the answers are."

"But I feel like we won't be able to find out the answers unless we know Polish," Keeleigh said.

"So then what are you saying?" Olivia asked.

"I feel like we should find someone who speaks Polish — and someone who's not related to my family," Keeleigh replied.

"Why can't it be one of your relatives?" Olivia asked.

"They want the papers to go to Aunt Jadwiga," Keeleigh replied. "And I fear that if they go to Aunt Jadwiga I won't be allowed to look at them. In fact, if they find out that I have them they might blow a gasket."

"Even your parents?" Olivia asked.

"I don't know," Keeleigh replied. "But I don't feel like I can trust them not to tell Grandpa. I feel like he and his siblings for sure, though, will get upset if they find out I have these papers. That's why I lied to Diane."

"So you do think this Adelejda Myshaniuk is your great aunt?" Olivia asked.

"I don't know," Keeleigh replied. "I mean, it does make sense, but I feel like there's something hiding in those boxes. Something they want to keep a secret.""

Pronunciations:

Gustaw: goostahv

Jadwiga: yah'dveegah

Secrets and Shadows: Day 4

Word Count: 24,008

Summary of Events:

Keeleigh opened the sealed Christmas cards and discovered some of them were from a different woman who appeared to have had a daughter who died as a young child; she told her brother about it, and was flabbergasted when he didn't seem to believe her. Olga went to deliver bandages to the church and overheard an announcement that Britain and France had declared war on Germany, which bolstered everyone's spirits. Emil was helping load up debris to be used for constructing barriers on the edges of Warsaw when he spotted his youngest brother wandering the streets alone and brought him home only to learn that Olga was out looking for him; Emil then set out to find Olga as a bombing raid began, and ended up getting thrown into a lamppost by a nearby bomb-blast . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"He staggered back toward where the bomb had exploded, feeling a wretched revulsion in his stomach. He hoped Olga hadn't been right where the bomb had landed. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if she had been.

As he got closer he tried to shout her name, but he felt like something was lodged in his throat that he couldn't get his voice past, so he went on in silence, desperately searching for Olga.

"Emil!" a sudden, desperate scream from behind him made him whirl around so quickly that he fell down.

Hardly a moment later Olga, looking dusty and bedraggled, with eyes red-rimmed from tears whose trails formed muddy lines down her face, was by his side.

"Emil, are you alright?" she asked.

"Now that I've found you, yes," Emil replied.

"I've lost Benedykt!" Olga cried. "You have to help me find him!"

"I found him," Emil replied. "He's safe at home with Mama. That's how I found out you were gone, so I came to find you."

Olga looked relieved, but tortured. "I didn't mean to lose him!"

"I shouldn't think you would," Emil replied, slowly sitting up again. "You may be selfish at times, but you wouldn't wholly abdicate a responsibility like that."

"They're not going to believe me," Olga sobbed.

"Nonsense," Emil said, swiping some of the mud off her cheeks with his thumbs. "I'll vouch for you, and I'm sure Mama wouldn't be inclined to think as ill of you as Kornelia does."

He struggled to his feet again. Olga scrambled up beside him.

"You're not alright," Olga said.

"I'm just a little shaky because the bomb-blast threw me into a lamppost," Emil replied. "I'll be fine once I have a moment to sit down, but we need to get home before the bombers circle around again."

"You're bleeding Emil," Olga said.

"No I'm not," Emil replied. 

"Yes you are," Olga insisted.

Emil looked down, thinking she was just referring to his pant leg's wetness, but when he looked down he saw that she was right; blood had soaked his shirt. As soon as he looked at it he felt the searing pain tear through his side and he dropped to his knees."

"I need to get you help," Olga said.

"Help me up," Emil said.

"No, you need to stay here," Olga said. "I can't carry you."

"I'll lean on you," Emil said. "You should be strong enough to help me stay upright."

Olga looked at him fearfully, but eventually helped him to his feet.

He draped his arm around her shoulder as his legs threatened to buckle underneath him. Now that he'd realised he was wounded he felt much weaker than he had before, but he wasn't going to let that stop him in any way."

Secrets and Shadows: Day 3

Word Count: 18,045

Summary of Events:

Olga and the rest of the family were ordered downstairs by Emil as a bombing raid struck them; once the bombing was over they went to start cleaning up and rescuing people. Keeleigh opened one of the boxes and discovered it contained cards and letters from over sixty years — including many that had been unopened — and identified the woman she'd seen at the funeral as one of the senders. Emil worked hard helping the men sift through the debris for dead and living in between bombing raids . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"All the boyish imaginings Emil had possessed of what it would be like to beat back the Germans were shattered, but even still, part of him hoped that they would be able to repay the Germans as they'd been served yet, and make the Germans realise how inglorious and unglamorous war was.

Pulling back a piece of concrete too heavy to lift, Emil though he heard something and scanned the sky quickly.

No aircraft were in the sky, no one was next to him; he looked down toward where he'd been pulling debris from. He hauled at the wood, cracked and broken like even a child could break a twig or a piece of kindling.

After digging for a bit he listened; there was whimpering coming from inside the wreckage.

"Life!" he shouted.

Instantly several nearby diggers hurried over to help him pry away wood, brick, concrete, and all manner of other debris until they finally found the source of the whimpering.

It was a dog, whose one leg was trapped under what looked to be the remains of a window or door frame. Laying on it was a small child, who looked unharmed.

Quickly a man reached in to check the child's signs of life.

"Alive," he whispered, before gently collecting the child into his arms.

The dog barked and struggled against the timber, obviously upset that his charge was being taken from him.

Another man bent over with a hatchet and chopped at the wood pinning the dog's leg in place. Emil reached for the dog, who turned and snapped at him.

He managed to catch the dog's muzzle in one hand and felt for a collar with the other. Once it was found, he seized hold of it.

As soon as the dog was freed it lunged to its feet, barking, and tried to surge over the wreckage to the man carrying the child it'd been guarding, but Emil restrained it, managed to collect it into his arms, and carried it after the man.

They headed for the church, the strongest building in the area — even if it was just as windowless as the rest — where the living were being tended to in the sanctuary-turned-hospital while the dead were identified and prepared for burial in the basement-turned-morgue.

By the time they reached the church the child had roused and was screaming at the top of his lungs. Women who were helping treat the wounded quickly relieved the man of the child and sought to soothe him.

As Emil stepped inside the church he saw the women carrying the child over to one of the wounded. They talked to the woman, who then cried out with a measure of joy and relief before taking the child up in her arms."

Secrets and Shadows: Day 2

Word Count: 12,010

Summary of Events:

Olga's oldest brother, Emil, and second brother Zygfryd were up late arguing and woke up Adelejda, which prompted them to quieten down and go to sleep. Keeleigh — given time off work because of the incident — was called by her dad's cousins, who were looking for help going through her Great Aunt's things, and Keeleigh offered to help; she found a sizeable storage room full of things, including a trunk which she was particularly interested in opening . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"She put the key into the lock and turned it until she heard the click. Carefully, she then lifted the lid and looked inside.

It didn't look like anything spectacular, it was just two of the most battered old cardboard boxes Keeleigh had ever seen in her life.

One box was plastered with stamps, as well as having an elegant, spidery cursive spelling out a mailing address.

Mr. Zbigniew Niemcyk was the recipient, and she noticed that Canada was spelled with a K. The return address explained that, however, as the sender had shipped it to Canada from Warsaw.

Considering that the name on the box was Zbigniew — her great grandfather — Keeleigh guessed this box had been handed down from Klementyna to Kornelia and then to Malwina.

That also suggested that it was some really old cardboard, and explained the rather interesting stamps that plastered a good portion of the box top.

Both it, and the box beside it, had Kornelia written on them in an elegant hand, as well as a different word, which Keeleigh was quite sure was Polish.

In addition, they had writing in a different hand that wasn't quite so elegant, which read Malwina, suggesting as Keeleigh had guessed: her great grandmother had left the boxes to Kornelia upon her passing, and Kornelia had left them to Malwina.

Keeleigh wondered why they'd passed over Uncle Jarek, considering that, even still, he was alive, and he was the child between the two girls. Unless maybe they suspected he wouldn't be interested in the contents.

She quickly texted the Polish word to Dad. He knew enough Polish to speak to his parents in it fluently, which they did sometimes — Keeleigh guessed that it was to discuss private family affairs mostly, probably things like wills and inheritances — so he should know any word she would encounter here.

"Oh," Bev's groan startled Keeleigh, and she turned to see Bev standing in the doorway.

"I figured you wouldn't appreciate seeing this," Keeleigh said. "At least everything's labelled, so it should make life a little bit easier."

"How much stuff did they have?" Bev asked.

"A lot," Keeleigh replied. "Just to your right is boxes of clothes from when your husband was a little boy."

"You can't be serious," Bev said, turning to the boxes.

Keeleigh was going to reply, but her cell phone sounding turned her attention away, and she found that Dad had replied: Papers. If that wasn't generic, Keeleigh didn't know what was."

Pronunciations:

Emil: ehmll

Zygfryd: zeegfreed

Zbigniew: z'bihgneew

Klementyna: klehmehnteenah

Jarek: yahrehk

Secrets and Shadows: Day 1

Word Count: 6,127

Summary of Events:

Attending her Great Aunt's funeral, Keeleigh noticed a woman who looked uncannily like her deceased Great Aunt, but wasn't her last living great aunt, which left her baffled. Olga was distracted from her reading by her oldest brother arriving home with news that the Germans and Soviets had signed a pact that — according to him — meant that one of the two intended to attack Poland, which distressed her and sent her fleeing back to her book. Keeleigh tried not to think about the woman at the funeral at her work, which was helped by a couple approaching her station; when the wife left, however, the man started to chase Keeleigh with intent to do things Keeleigh wasn't interested in . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"Kathy stepped toward him and tried to engage him, but Keeleigh could tell her efforts were going to be nothing but futile; she just had to hope that he could be drawn far enough away from the door that she could get out without getting caught.

"I'm not interested in what you're doing," the man said. "I'm interested in guiding this young lady back to her little sod house."

Keeleigh held her place as the man started toward her, despite Kathy's valiant efforts to try and distract him with something, anything.

Once he got close enough to her and far enough from the door Keeleigh bolted. The man shouted and, unfortunately, was hot on her heels. Kathy and Olivia followed him out of the door, but stopped there, looking rather helpless.

Keeleigh ran as fast as she could toward the next station. It was — fittingly, Keeleigh had to admit — the station where the live pigs were kept.

She was close enough to make out two people, but not to be able to identify who they were, when a hand seized her shoulder and she was abruptly halted.

The man put his mouth to her neck and kissed her. Keeleigh screamed at the top of her lungs and struggled against the man's hold, only to have him bare his teeth and sink them into her neck, as if he was going to hold her there by his mouth alone.

Instantly the two people launched into action, one of them — whom Keeleigh was quickly, gratefully, able to identify as Brett — vaulted over the fences like an Olympic hurdler, while the other figure, Nate, went around.

Brett peeled the man's hands off of her without a word, and she quickly pulled away from the man's mouth as Nate ran up. Keeleigh stepped toward him slowly and shakily.

"Pretend you're my husband, please," she whispered in Ukrainian.

Nate pulled her close against him, which she appreciated, as she was sure she wouldn't have been able to stay standing much longer if she'd been left on her own.

"Just what do you think you're doing sir?" Nate asked, looking quite unimpressed.

"I wasn't doing anything," the man replied indignantly. "She completely misinterpreted my actions."

"We shall see what there's to be said about that," Brett said coldly, pushing the man ahead of him.

"Your pretend police constable can't do anything to me," the man said.

"What pretend police constable?" Brett asked. "We don't have a pretend police constable. We only have real ones."

"Are you okay?" Nate whispered in Ukrainian.

Keeleigh shook her head, tears pricking at her eyes suddenly.

"Should we call your parents?" Nate asked.

Keeleigh nodded.

Nate gently guided her around and started her after Brett and the man, who continued to discuss the legitimacy of any police that might be present at the Village. Keeleigh felt completely shaken and hoped that the next place they would be heading was the gift shop where the RCMP would be called, and that they wouldn't spend any time pretending to summon the RNWMP."