Page 47 of The Piper's Pursuit

“That’s a horrible thing to carry around. You were just a child. That man who beat his son to death deserves the blame, and you have to stop carrying the guilt of it.” Should she reach out and touch his arm, to console him?

“I deserve to carry it. Wolfgang carried it too, even though it was mine to carry, not his.”

“God can give you peace.” It was as if the words came out of her mouth before she even thought them. Unable to resist, she lifted her hand and placed it on his arm. “Jesus carried it to the cross so you wouldn’t have to carry it. Don’t you believe that?”

He turned his head and looked her in the eye. “Who told you that?”

“I heard it from my priest. But it is the Easter story, is it not?”

Was she imagining that he was leaning into her hand on his upper arm? And that his expression was softer as he gazed into her eyes.

“It’s easier to believe it when it’s applied to someone else.” One side of his mouth quirked up.

“I suppose that’s true.”

“Get up!” the guard yelled. “Get back to work. Your rest is over.”

She quickly pulled away her hand, which had begun to feel much too warm and comfortable on his arm, and they went back to work. But something had shifted, something deep inside her was leaning, leaning toward Steffan. And she wasn’t sure if it felt good or... terrifying.

Fifteen

Steffan sneaked a glance at Katerina as she worked. She had not complained once since they’d been in this mine—four days and five nights. All that time Steffan had been studying the guards and watching for an opportunity to escape. Katerina was doing the same, as they had discussed the guards’ patterns, which ones seemed the least adept at fighting and the least likely to kill them, and how they might escape.

The guards had relaxed their rule against Steffan and Katerina talking to the children. The night before last, the guards did not stop the children from gathering around Katerina while she sang them a lullaby and talked softly with them. A couple of the littlest ones even climbed into her lap while Kat caressed and cuddled them. It gave Steffan a very unsettled feeling, however, that he couldn’t explain. But every day the desire to set them all free grew stronger.

Then last night Steffan had had a dream that Hennek changed his mind and decided to kill Steffan and Katerina, scared they were going to escape. Steffan awoke feeling a renewed determination to find a way out, thinking that perhaps the dream was God’s way of telling him that now was the time to make an attempt.

Later, as they sat eating the midday meal of bread and cheese and dried fruit, he noticed Katerina staring at his face. “You resemble a priest I knew when I was a child.”

“An ugly priest?”

“No.” Katerina smiled.

Her smiles were like a rainbow after a hard rain.

“No, this priest was kind and always talked to me when Mother would take me to the church to pray. We were very poor after my father died, and once he gave us food.” She shrugged. “I liked him. Do you remember your priest when you were a child?”

“Yes.”

“Did you like him?”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time you went to confession?”

Steffan coughed and raised his brows. She was obviously waiting for him to answer, so he thought about it seriously and cleared his throat. “I have not been to confession for a long time. But I would like to go. Soon.”

“Why?”

“Why do I want to go soon?”

“No. Yes. Well, I meant, why have you not been to confession in a long time?”

“Because for a long time I was not sure I trusted God. And even after I decided I could trust Him... it had been so long since I’d confessed, it was just hard. Hard to admit... how long it had been and how much I had to confess.”

“I’m sure you do not have that much to confess.”

He raised his brows again. “I cannot tell if you are in jest.” Katerina didn’t seem a particularly naïve person, but if she thought he didn’t have much to confess, then she did not understand what he had done in Poland.