Prague. 14th December, 1941
Dense clouds shrouded the city from the rest of the world. Snowflakes floated down to the tiny girl huddled beside the stone that marked the Rabbi’s grave. In her hand was a folded paper. The prayer her step-father had penned in his shaky hand, using the last stub of pencil in the shop.
A glittery flake landed on her cheek. Her body was half-buried in snow, curled against the stone. Her coat was the cast-off of a smaller girl, not even big enough to button to ward off the freezing temperatures. Her shoes were too big, one with a broken buckle. Far past curfew she hid there, half-asleep in her exhaustion. Eight-year-old Charlota Katzova had nowhere else to go.
The paper had arrived that morning; their names had been called. They were to depart Prague on the train. Her papa would never survive the journey, let alone what awaited them at the other end. And with the rest of her family gone, there was no one to help her.
Men’s voices whipped on the wind through the cemetery. Two frozen little-girl fingers flexed, the only indication she’d heard their approach. She had no strength to move. The paper contracted in her grip, the fold as loud as a whip crack. Charlota held her breath. There was nowhere to hide.
The men chatted as they strode along the edge of the cemetery. She kept her eyes closed until their voices faded. Then she exhaled.
The grave was as cold as the ground. No life inside. No hope for Papa. She fought past the ache in her muscles and threw the paper away from her. It hadn’t worked. All those stories of triumph and victory. As though God actually cared what was happening. He didn’t.
They had been forgotten.
A single tear ran down her cheek and froze against her chin. Distracted by the sensation, she didn’t notice she was no longer alone. Not until she felt the heat against her face. Charlota snapped her eyes open. He was bigger than Papa.
But it was not a man.
It crouched, close enough to touch.
Charlota pushed herself up to sitting. She wasn’t scared.
He was shaped like a man, but had no features on his face. Only a blank mask of mud. No eyes. No nose. No mouth. No ears. No hair. No definition below his shoulders except the outline of his body.
He leaned toward her, now at eye-level with her. Blank sockets bored into her. Charlota’s breath hitched, but she swallowed and took another, knowing what she was supposed to do.
Before she could begin, it touched her. A single stub of finger against her cheek. Warmth spread from that one spot throughout her entire body. It grew so hot she cried out. He lifted his finger from her skin. Charlota touched her forehead, now beaded with sweat. Her dress clung to her. Cheeks flushed. Had she ever been this warm? It felt like a fever, though she was not sick.
The heat gave her strength to lift both hands. She touched the sides of his face, her palms where his ears should have been. As though some understanding passed between them he brought his head closer to hers. Charlota breathed on his forehead and whispered the words papa had made her recite.
“You are now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”
She exhaled once, but it kept coming. Drawn from her against her will. The plume of her warm breath turned from cloud-white to glittery silver. Torn from inside her.
Given into this thing.
The pain in her lungs swelled to a ripping, tearing feeling. Like being destroyed from the inside, out. The scream filled her head but no sound came from her mouth. Just that silver.
Her soul.
Charlota fought against the creature. He would take everything that was inside her. Strength infused her then, as the prayers of her people surrounded her like a blanket.
Hope had come.
She closed her mouth.
Charlota lifted a finger. Traced the four Hebrew letters into the clay of its forehead. Before she ran out of strength entirely. Or before the next patrol came.
The creature stiffened. The letters were absorbed into its skin. Charlota dropped her hands and watched as the thing began to change.
Mud collapsed in on itself as it shrank inward.
Smaller.
Smaller.
Until it was the same size as her.
Features began to form. A long nose. The outline of two eyes, lashes and lids. Thick brows. The thin set of her lips. Her hair.
Within seconds her own eyes stared back at her from her own face. It wore her clothes, including the yellow armband over the sleeve of her coat that denoted her heritage. It even had the haircut her mother had given her two years ago.
When it smiled it seemed as though Charlota looked into a being much older than her eight-year-old face.
It lifted a hand as she had done, and touched her on the cheek. Charlota understood at once what was inside this being.
The thing she had called forth was at once both completely her, and something so unholy that it would be both their salvation and their destruction.
She screamed.