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Several weeks passed at the safe house, and Sabine found herself settling in nicely with her new family. She felt a strange smile pass over her lips whenever she thought of that word, "family". It still felt surreal to her, it had been so long since she had had one. But here she was, with a new mom and seven new siblings.

There had been a bit of a learning curve to communication within the house given that it was occupied by two French girls, two Polish boys, and five Germans. Maria was able to translate when she was able, but she had many of her own duties to tend to. Sabine and Rose tried their best to teach the rest French, and together they gleaned some snippets of the other two languages.

As the only head of the house, Maria did everything in her power to protect the children. She'd make the fifteen mile trek to the nearest market when they ran out of food and supplies, and turned away any lost hikers with her soothing voice and brilliant smile. Maria's smile could give even a dying man comfort, and Sabine often felt herself picturing it in times of worry to calm her nerves.

But Sabine knew that Maria's smile also hid misery. Sabine still didn't know the full story, but from what she could get Friedrich to roughly translate, it was a painful one. Friedrich wasn't even her biological son, he was the first kid she rescued after his parents were hanged for hiding a Jewish family. Maria had had her own family before that.

Maria's husband had been sought out as a traitor by the Nazi party after he defected to the Allies and was shot point-blank in the head. The Nazis then came for the rest of his family, convinced that they were traitors too; even the children. Maria watched helplessly as the Nazis sprayed down her son and daughter in a hellfire of bullets, splattering her head to toe with their blood. She had only escaped because she reached the pistol in her bedside drawer before their bullets reached her.

From there on out, Maria became determined to save others to make up for the ones she had not; Friedrich, Ruth, Aleksy and Casmir, Brigitta, Edgar, Rose...and now Sabine. They were her family as much as she was theirs. She loved them like she had loved her own children and absolutely no one was going to hurt them this time.

"What happened to your family?" Ruth had asked Sabine one day. Sabine picked up "happened" and "family" and was able to decipher the rest of the question without further translation.

"They're dead," Sabine gulped and quickly averted her eyes to hide a tear. Ruth didn't need to press further to comprehend her answer.

"I'm sorry," Ruth apologized. "So is mine. The Camps got 'em." Ruth carefully stepped forward to point at Sabine's tattoo so that she'd understand. Sabine knew the answer as soon as she looked into Ruth's mahogany eyes.

"Mine too," Edgar piped up, gingerly rubbing the numbers inked into his forearm.

"I lost my parents and have no idea what happened to my siblings. We were sent to different camps," Brigitta answered.

"Ours as well," Aleksy spoke for himself and Casmir. Being the oldest of the group at sixteen, he had picked up the other languages easier than the rest of the kids and had little trouble keeping up with the conversation.

Sabine had a difficult time understanding their words but she understood the pain in their eyes. She knew all too well the look of somebody who had been through the concentration camps or had lost someone to them. It was a look that never went away, no matter how old you got.

Last to speak was little Rose, "My family died before the camps. My mama and papa were beaten to death in the streets by Nazis and my sisters and brothers were shot when they tried to run away. I hid. I lived."

A heavy silence sat in the air as each child wallowed in their combined pain. Sabine found her eyes lingering to the window and the beautiful greenery that lay outside it. Thick rays of sunshine wedged their way through the glass and lazily stretched out on the wooden floor. She could hear the birds dancing between each other on the branches, their friendly songs intermingling in the wind.

"We should go outside," Sabine suddenly announced to the rest of the group, her eyes still glued to the window and the ethereal landscape it framed. Maria was gathering supplies at the market and advised them to stay inside while she was gone, but Sabine felt a strong desire to forget about her pain and grief in the beauty of the woods. They had been cooped up for a while from intermittent spring storms and today was the first day of promising weather in a while. It felt a waste not to capitalize on it.

The children looked to each other in surprise, unsure of what to say. They also felt a burning desire in their chest to play outside and enjoy the gorgeous spring day, but fear sat on the other side of the scale and balanced it out. While they were fairly isolated from the world, they knew that some stragglers had ventured near their home in the past and could again in the future. Plus, Maria had told them to stay indoors.

"We'll be safe," Sabine encouraged them, trying her best to speak slowly so that they could pick out the words they understood. "We'll keep a look-out."

"I'd like to go outside," Brigitta spoke up, voicing the answer everybody else wanted to say but didn't. Feeling emboldened by Brigitta and Sabine, the rest quickly agreed in unison.

"But what about mom?" Friedrich asked nervously. He also wanted to go outside and feel the warmth of the sunshine upon his pasty skin but he was worried about disobeying the woman who had risked everything to keep them safe. Even though he wasn't the oldest, he still felt an obligation to lead the group given that he was the first one to be adopted by Maria.

"She won't be back for another hour and a half," Ruth argued. "We'll be inside long before she gets back. She'll never even know."

Outnumbered, Friedrich decided to hold his tongue and go along with the plan. He volunteered for look-out and ambled along anxiously behind the stampede of excited kids as they made their way out the door. The fresh air that greeted them on the other side was enough for Friedrich to momentarily relax his worries and enjoy the beauty before him.

Aleksy and Casmir immediately took chase and flew around the house with little Edgar struggling to keep at their heels. Rose found a patch of dandelions and plopped herself right in the middle, picking stems one-by-one and closing her eyes tight as she blew the seeds to make wishes. The fluffy white seeds swung and spun through the air, tickling an unsuspecting Brigitta's nose and sending her into a fit of sneezes.

Ruth wandered around the yard until she found the perfect view to draw in her sketchpad and delicately seated herself upon an ancient stump. She took a moment to study the scene she wanted to capture before consuming herself in the graphite marks she was making upon the page. Friedrich elected to stand as close to the door as he could while still keeping everyone in sight, but every so often Sabine caught him closing his eyes for minutes at a time as he soaked in the sunshine.

Sabine, meanwhile, engaged herself in a leisurely stroll around the house. She was careful to keep a wider breadth so as to avoid running into Aleksy, Casmir, and Edgar, who were more focused on their game of tag than their surroundings. Eventually her distance from the house became farther and farther as she became absorbed in the melody of the woods; the rustling of the leaves fluttering in the breeze, the buzzing of bumblebees zipping from flower to flower, the chitter-chatter of squirrels playfully scurrying along the branches...

Sabine!

...And the cries of Lena still riding on the wind, following her wherever she went. They had faded, but they were still there, and Sabine was sure they would be forever.

"Children!" a cry echoed through the trees, momentarily muting Lena's lamenting. "Children get inside, now!" Sabine followed the voice to the trees beyond the house and watched Maria rush towards them with a look of absolute fear upon her face. She quickly repeated her shouts in French and Polish to ensure that everyone understood, but the message was quite clear:

"The Gestapo are coming!"

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