The Promise

- As we walked down the narrow path, the branches of the trees stretched high over the road, reaching for each other. If it were a sunny day, it would have felt comforting. However tonight was cold and dark, and the trees appeared menacing. I never had wished our father could be with us more than at that moment. When he promised he would always be there to guide us and protect us after Mamma passed, I believed him. How was I to know when we ran in the field to play, dashing around his strong arms spread wide for a hug, that chance to embrace him, would be our last?

He was the greatest man I had ever known. Wise beyond words, always able to give advice without seeming too pushy. He had a way of providing you insight in a manner that seemed as if you had thought of it yourself. He would ask me often, “Joseph, have you ever considered this, or have you thought about that?” After Mama disappeared, he was all we had. We understood, she was gone in a way that meant she wouldn't be coming back, even if we weren't able to feel the gravity of what that truly meant until we were much older. But suddenly all we had was each other. When the men came to take us, when I saw them kill our father, I grabbed my sister’s hand and ran as fast as we could into the woods. With barely more than the clothes on our backs, I began doubting if I had made the right decision. My stomach was already aching as we were just about to sit to eat our meager rations when their tanks pulled up.

As we silently crept down the path, I worried if I had run the right way. I couldn’t see much as the moon was only a sliver, I wondered if I had been turned around when we went back for my sister’s dolly, the last thing she had of our mother couldn’t be left behind. I decided the safest thing for us at that exact moment would be to seek refuge from the constant drizzle of bone-chilling rain that had begun to fall, in the trunk of a giant hollow tree. Papa always said it is better to be safe than sorry. As we huddled close my sister Lizzy began to smack her lips, when I looked away from my scouting position over to my sister, I saw her hand extended with a piece of an orange nestled in her palm. I savored the slice she gave me, and it instantly revitalized my tired eyes just in time to see the bird fly up. Not just any bird, not a sparrow, mother’s favorite because of the tune Papa whistled, but a barn owl, bigger than a sparrow but slightly smaller than our farm cat. Much like the owl that perched on the tree outside my bedroom window each evening. However, there was something different about this owl’s eyes, they seemed to peer into my soul, almost like he recognized me. They were dark brown like Papa’s, but with the same mischievous twinkle, I had hoped to one day earn in my own. The rain was letting up and I had begun to motion to Lizzy that it was time to move, when the owl began flapping its wings in the opening of our exit. What on Earth is this batty bird doing I wondered? It was then that I heard leaves crunching further down the path. I remember how terrified I was when I recognized the sounds to be none other than footsteps, and they sounded as if they were marching in unison. It was the Nazis! If they had seen me poke my head out it would have given away our location. The marching seemed as if they would never stop, I hugged my sister and sat back against the tree, trying to remain in the shadows, The owl hopped down into the tree with us. Did this batty bird, just save our life? I must have dozed off briefly because I was startled by the hoots of the owl and jostled out of a dream of being in my old bed back home with Papa. When the owl noticed I was up he anxiously flew out the tree and back in, a couple of times. “Alright, I suppose you want us to follow you now?” I said to the owl. I hoisted my still sleeping sister into my arms and began to follow the owl through the woods. “How does the owl know where Auntie lives?” I heard Lizzie mumble before she passed back out. I began to also wonder, where was this bird taking us? As we ventured further and further off the path, I felt safer. away from the foot soldiers and scouts, maybe stood a chance at surviving. Suddenly, the owl flew back directly at me, knocking me down a ravine, Lizzy rolled from my arms, we both tumbled down the hill coming to a halt between two slopes with a small cliff overhead. I grabbed Lizzy’s arms, whose hands were still tightly gripping her dolly, and raced under the cliff, trying to rationalize why the owl had done that, I heard the eerie screeching of the owl over the area where we had tumbled, I heard gunshots ring out, and belligerent laughter. The soldiers were shooting at the bird! Having spared us again, the owl swooped by us, glancing at me with a look that I understood as it was the same piercing stare I had received from Papa a few times when I grew too close to the hot irons in his blacksmith shop. Lizzy and I pressed into the cliff and brushed leaves over our legs for camouflage, her little doe eyes locked with mine. Assuring me that she knew the severity of our impromptu game of hide-and-seek and the need for silence. The owl drew the hungry soldiers further and further away. We sighed with relief. If it weren’t for the cover of night and that owl, who knows what would have become of me, and of Lizzy. Not much time had passed, and I could hear the hoots growing closer, less alarmed, so I whistled Mama’s sparrow song and the owl followed. It came right to us. Laying on us, its wings spread wide. Was the owl hugging us? Maybe it had lost its family too?

We traveled like that throughout the night and when the sun rose, we found a spot to hide. I fashioned what we could for cover out of fallen tree branches and leaves and we slept for the entire day. Lizzy woke me to inform me that she needed to go to the bathroom, I turned my back so she could have privacy and covered up the signs of us being there with more leaves and we began the next leg of our journey. The owl leading the way. Just as we had done the night before it flew ahead and alerted us to danger. Sometimes the owl would toss things at the soldiers from the trees, to disorient the sound of us moving off to safety. Sometimes it would sit with us, standing lookout, the moon had completely extinguished itself by the fourth night and the owl served as our eyes. We had to be getting close, I needed us to be getting close, Lizzy had become too weak to make it very far on her short thick legs. Thinking about her legs and how papa used to call the rolls of meat on her thighs his biscuits and would pretend to gobble them up, pained both my heart and my stomach. We wouldn’t make it much farther, and I recalled how wonderful the picnic papa packed for our short trip tasted on our last visit to Aunties. We had gone to fix her pickup truck, and along the way Papa sang, “One night and two days away, here we come Auntie, we are coming to play.” To keep us close, we made up songs for the trip and Papa told us stories of past travelers who had entered the woods and never came out on the other side. It had been 4 nights since we left everything we had known, surely we were almost there. I hoped she had waited, had been able to wait, her husband was a Nazi soldier. He was different than most, he loved all of us, more than the Fuhrer. After they slaughtered all their farm’s swine to feed their men, Kristoff’s loyalty to the Fuhrer was no longer a question. Because even more so than us, he loved his pigs.

Right, when I felt like I may have to crawl with Lizzy on my back, the owl stopped, we had come to the tree line of the black forest. As much as I had feared the dark forest as a small child, I knew it was just a little bit further before we would arrive at Aunties and the fear of the forest the Nazis roamed was greater than that of the witch who searched the black forest, looking for souls that were lost. To run into the witch meant you would be turned into a goat, or bullfrog, or maybe even an owl? Was papa the owl? Was it his kind eyes that I recognized, his shelter from the storm provided by the owl’s wings, his guidance, and misdirection of the troops that had enabled us to come this far? The owl took off swiftly, by now I knew what that meant, RUN! We raced through the forest, a new burst of energy overcame me, I put Lizzy on my back and her tiny hands held on to me tightly, the doll kept slapping into me with every step, but I didn’t care, we were almost there. My legs pushed and pushed and pushed until I could see the outline of her home and then I collapsed. Muscle spasms took over my legs and I shoved my shirt sleeve in my mouth to muffle my screams of pain, the owl raced on towards the house and I heard the hoots get further away, it was then that I noticed Lizzy had gone too. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t cry out, I was too close to the Nazi’s Forest to make a sound, I put my ear against the Earth and heard the footsteps approaching from a distance, but which way? I closed my eyes, knowing that if she was safe, Lizzy would have no one. If I had even a sip of water, I would have cried. But I heard the soft cooing of the owl, and the footsteps were now upon me. I was being scooped up and the smell of Auntie’s perfume enveloped me like a blanket. I’m not sure how much time passed when I woke up, but I was warm for the first time in a week, Lizzy was asleep at my feet in Aunties’ hidden cellar, and right there beside me was the barn owl. Auntie would go on to tell me how the owl, followed closely by Lizzy had alerted them to our arrival, and that once we were safely stored amongst the potatoes, the owl would perch outside, not in the many trees but atop the old pickup truck, the one that Papa loved to tinker with when we would come to Auntie’s. The owl never left, maybe he’s a batty bird, maybe another lost soul met the witch? Or, perhaps, Papa was just keeping his promise to protect us? That’s why we decided to name him Oliver, in honor of our father. And thanks to that brave and batty bird, we still had each other. Oh, and Kristoff and Auntie, they got more pigs.