Chapter One
Kitty
Vondelpark, Winter 1941.
Annelies watches the older girl as she skates on her own, her skates kicking clouds of crystal from the ice as she turns. Annelies wonders why she is on her own, when so many skate together. She digs in her skates, and slides over to the older girl. “Hello.”
“Hello.” The older girl skates on, turning slow circles.
“I'm Annelies.”
“Hello, Annelies.” The older girl spins her slow circles on the ice.
“What's your name?”
“I think – I think it should be Kitty. I like cats.”
“I like cats too. But does that mean Kitty isn't your real name?”
“I – I don't know. Does it matter?”
“You don't know your name?”
“I think – I think I've forgotten it.”
“Oh.” Annelies starts to skate alongside the older girl, their skates kicking up ice crystals. “Are you lonely?”
“Lonely?”
“Well, there's nobody with you.”
“People – people don't see me very often. And mostly – they don't like it when they do.”
“I can see you! You're nice!”
The older girl smiles. “Thank you.”
“I'll get my friends! We can skate together!”
“Oh, they won't want to.”
“Yes they will!” Annelies skates over to her friends “Come with me! I have a new friend! We can skate together!”
“Who's that, Annelies?” Annelies' friend Jacqueline looks round.
“It's Kitty! She's over there!” Annelies points at her new friend.
“Annelies – there's nobody there.”
“But... but...” Annelies sees Kitty smile sadly. Then the older girl skates into the rising mist – and is gone.
* * *
Near Merwedeplein . June 06, 1942.
Annelies stares into the store window.
“Hello, Annelies.”
Annelies turns round. “Kitty!”
People come and go. Nobody seems to notice Annelies friend.
“What are you doing?”
“It's my birthday soon. My daddy wants to know what I want him to get me.”
“Ah. Birthdays must be nice. I think I'd like a birthday.”
“Don't be silly. Everybody has birthdays, Kitty!”
“Not when you're dead.”
“Dead? Are you – are you dead, Kitty?”
“That's why people don't see me. Or they don't like it when they do. Like your friends, at Vondelpark.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Oh, it's alright. You get used to it.”
The two girls look into the window.
“What would you like, Kitty? If you had a birthday? For a present?”
“Oh, I don't know. What do people give you, Annelies?”
“Mostly things I don't really want. But you have to pretend you do, so they don't get sad. That's why Daddy said I could choose this year.”
“I think – I think I'd like a letter.”
“A letter? That's not a present!”
“Oh, it would be for me. It would mean someone still cared – someone still noticed me. Nobody does really – not when you're dead.”
“Well, I could send you a letter! But I wouldn't know where to send one to a dead person.”
“Oh, you wouldn't have to send it. Just to write it. I'd know if you did, and I could read it while you were writing it.”
“But that would scare Mommy and Daddy! Because you're – well, you're dead.”
“Oh, they wouldn't see me. You only get so many times you can be seen after you – well, after. This is my last time.”
“So I'll never see you again?”
“No. But it's alright. You'll forget me soon anyway.”
“No I won't! And I will write to you, Kitty! Every day! But I need something to write in. I know! That's what I'll ask Daddy for, for my birthday! A book to write letters in!”
“But won't he think it's strange if you write letters but never send them?”
“Oh, I won't ask for a letter-book. I'll ask for – what about that one?”
“Which one?”
“The red and white one – there!”
“But that's an autograph book.”
“Right! So nobody will know I'm writing you letters! Kitty? Kitty? Where did you...”
* * *
Near Merwedeplein . June 09, 1942.
“That one, Daddy! Please can I have that one?”
* * *
Washington D.C. - 350 And Down
“We could have saved her, Dad.”
“No we couldn't.”
“Because then the world would be different? More Her world?”
“Right.”
“So a little kid had to die, so we could beat Her?”
“Nope. A little kid had to write a diary nobody would have likely read if she lived – but millions of people read because she didn't. Because it made some of them – even just a few – better people after they read it. It made why she wrote it just a bit less likely to happen again.”
“I'm not sure I like this job, Dad.”
“Me neither. I just like what happens if we don't do it even less.”
“OK. So what's next?”
“Next? Next – we take Manhattan.”