This was a timed trial; the flyer with the quickest passage across the continental divide would win the prize—two thousand dollars and a brand-new Model A Ford roadster. It didn’t matter that she was an hour late in taking off. All that mattered was how quickly she flew. But a ten- or fifteen-minute wait on the ground while the storm passed would almost certainly rob her of placing even a respectable third.
Aubrey couldn’t think about that now; the wind was throwing her plane wildly around the sky. It was a struggle just to keep airborne. She had to get down, and fast. There was a winding road down there, no more than a dirt-covered track with barbed wire fences on either side.
The road straightened out for a mile ahead of her and rose on a hill. That would help bring her to a stop quicker. She decided to go for it. Then, as if Mother Nature had heard her plea, the storm ceased its onslaught and her plane levelled out. She flew along over the road just in case. Now she could see a patch of blue in amongst the dark thunderheads and sunlight poured through it, cascading across a field of hay. Cows huddled together in the distance.
She had a choice to make: land and wait the storm out, or carry on. While she weighed the decision, the hand of God, in the form of wind shear, pushed down on her plane with tremendous force. The tendons in her arms straining, her back screaming in agony, Aubrey pulled on the stick to save her plane, save herself. All to no avail. She slammed into the earth at close to a hundred miles an hour.
Aubrey woke with a start, sat straight up in bed and clutched her chest. She looked around and remembered where she was: in her bed in her childhood home in Michigan.
There was a phlegm-choked snore and a cough from the room down the hall where her father slept. She sighed and collapsed back onto the bed. The nightmare of the crash faded away. It had been months since she’d last had it. She’d almost forgotten what it was like.
She rolled over on her side and looked at her dresser. The moonlight lit up the framed black and white photographs. One was of her when she was five. Another at twelve with a horse. Then one of her in the cockpit of a plane, the first time she’d gone for a flight at the local fair. The barnstormer had taken her up, circled over town. She’d begged him to do a barrel roll or loop-the-loop. He’d obliged the thrill-seeking girl with a quick dive down to the grass airstrip outside of town. The surge of her blood in her veins, the buzzing in her stomach as the plane’s nose pointed down at the ground and the spectators rushed up at them, and the hook was sunk. She would fly.
There was a picture of her mother on the dresser, the last one before the typhus took her. Her mother had been kind and soft spoken in all matters except for schooling. How she had drilled Aubrey in French every weekend. Aubrey’s father had met Celine de Ferrière in Montreal in 1908 and brought his new wife home to Michigan. Aubrey was born two years later, the only child in a loving marriage. Complications in the pregnancy had left Celine unable to bring a sister or brother into the world for Aubrey. Those complications had also weakened her. When the typhus came, it was that much easier for it to carry her off.
There was one more photo on the dresser: a young woman, probably her own age. Dark hair, a simple ribbon tied around her forehead, and a sweater. She was sitting on some stone steps, her hands folded in her lap, a dismayed look on her face. She wasn’t looking at the camera but off into the distance. It was the picture the dying man on that Belgian field had given her. His blood still stained the edges. On the back was written Lydia Frick, Wannsee.
Aubrey had forgotten all about the picture until she’d shoved her hand into her pocket on the Paris-bound train. For no earthly reason, she’d kept it. When she got back home, she’d found a simple tin frame in the five-and-dime and put it on her dresser. Her father had never seen it; he never came in the room. Aubrey had memorized the writing on the back. She’d also memorized the name of the person the dying man had mentioned: Lazarus. She fell back asleep, staring at the mystery girl with the dark hair and drab sweater.
Aubrey Endeavours was leading Fergie, her four-year-old Bay, from the barn when there was the sound of a car coming up the gravel driveway. She shielded her eyes as the vehicle approached. It was a Dodge, painted in drab military grey. There were numbers stencilled on the fender and a young man behind the wheel; a figure cast in shadow sat in the back. A government car, way out here in Michigan? It could only be one person.
Arthur Colins, her father’s closest friend. They had been comrades in the war; he was Uncle Arthur to Aubrey. She felt a flutter of excitement as she watched the car approach. It was Arthur who had brought to her the proposition of flying in the European air rally. Her father had given her a skeptical look when she’d mentioned it later, after Arthur had left.
