“Everything okay?” she asked.
“She slept the whole time, Frau Roslyn.” The boy smiled. “She was very good. Are they gone?”
Before Roslyn could answer, the loud pounding of feet came from the stairs near the front of the building.
“Madame Krueger? Madame Krueger?” a voice called from the direction of the footsteps. Male, deep. One of the soldiers, using Roslyn’s surname.
Roslyn looked back at the boy. He was still in the tiny space behind the secret door. “Out,” she said. “Quickly!”
The boy stepped out into the office.
“Madame Krueger?” the voice was closer.
“Take her,” Roslyn said as she held Iris out to Marion. “Get inside. You have to hide.”
“What?” Marion said.
“There’s no time,” the old woman said. “Please. Take her.”
Marion instinctively pulled the child into her arms, careful to point the end of the stunner away from the girl’s back.
“Now get in,” Roslyn said.
“I don’t think I’ll fit.”
“They’ll take her if you don’t.”
Marion nodded as she realized there was no choice. She stepped past the woman and the boy into the small space in the wall.
“I’ll let you out when they’re gone,” Roslyn said.
“What if she wakes?” Marion asked.
“I gave her something to help her sleep. You’ll be fine.”
Before Marion could say anything else, the secret door closed, entombing her and Iris in the wall. The seal was a good one. There was absolutely no light. Marion could never remember being anyplace so completely dark. For a moment she allowed the fear to shake through her like a deep chill. But then she heard the office door fly open, and she froze.
“What are you doing?” It was the same voice that yelled from the stairs, muffled by the closed secret door, but still distinct.
“One of the boys was missing,” Roslyn said, her voice calm and unhurried. “I came to look for him.”
“What were you doing down here?” the soldier asked.
“I… I got scared,” the boy who had been taking care of Iris said. “I was hiding.”
There was the sound of movement, then the scrape of metal along the floor. The desk, perhaps, being pushed back or out of the way.
“Please, no,” the boy yelled out.
“You want to be scared?” the soldier said.
“No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hid. I wasn’t thinking.”
Silence for a moment.
“And you were alone here?”
“What?” the boy said. “Yes. Alone.”
“Please,” Roslyn said. “The boy is young. He saw his parents killed in the middle of the night, so naturally he gets scared sometimes.”
“We’ve all seen people killed in the night,” the soldier said. But Roslyn’s words must have gotten to him. The harsh tone in his voice was gone. “Next time, you don’t hide, you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said.
“Go upstairs with the others.”
Again movement. Feet, not as loud as the soldier’s, moving out of the room.
“Come with me,” the soldier said.
“Where?” Roslyn asked.
“I’m the one who asks the questions.”
“Of course.”
There was the sound of several feet walking out of the office, and then there was silence.
Marion waited, hoping that the sleeping child in her arms would remain that way.
What could the soldiers want with her? Her difference from the other children should have made her less desirable for the soldiers rather than more. Her kind was seldom wanted. Not just here in Cote d’Ivoire, but in most countries throughout the world. Yet this wasn’t the first time the soldiers had come looking for a child like her.
The darkness made it impossible for Marion to know what time it was. She began counting off minutes in an
