The Girl in the Torch

For Annabelle and Olivia

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

—from Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus,” 1883

S
ARAH HEARD THE SOUND FIRST
, a low rumble that she thought was thunder, gently rattling the windowpanes of their house like a shiver. The noise grew louder until she could tell it was hoofbeats, pounding down the dirt road that ran through their village as if one hundred angry drums were beating ever louder, ever closer. She pulled the blankets up so they almost covered her entire face and lay still in the dark, hoping they would pass. Finally the sound grew so loud that it woke her mother, who rolled over and shook Sarah's father. “Wake up!”

“Huh?” he mumbled, still half asleep.

They all slept in one room, the only room of the house, which was little more than four wooden walls, a thatched roof, and a floor. In the past year there had been other attacks, in other villages. So they knew what was happening.

“The horsemen,” her mother said. “They're here!”

Her father sprang out of bed and pulled on his boots.

“Get into the root cellar,” he said. “And don't come out no matter what.”

“Papa . . . ?” Sarah sat up from the straw mat beside their bed.

“Don't question, Sarah,” he said, grabbing her by the arm. “Just do as I say.”

Though it was dark, she could see his eyes were hard and insistent. He turned from her, knocking into the table in the middle of the room. Sarah and her father had been in the middle of a chess match before bedtime and had left the board set up, frozen in midbattle. Now, he sent it flying into the air, scattering the carefully maneuvered pieces across the floor.

Sarah instinctively bent down to pick them up and reset the board, trying to recall what positions she had held and which of her father's pieces had been captured. But that thought was swept aside by her mother frantically pushing the table out of the way to get at the hatch of the root cellar that lay beneath it.

Her mother strained to move the heavy piece of furniture. “Help me,” she gasped.

Sarah and her mother lifted the table while her father grabbed the pitchfork leaning against the wall near the door.

Her mother grasped his arm.

“Please don't go out there,” she said.

He pulled away.

“You both stay here,” he said, with a forceful, almost angry, authority that Sarah had never heard from him before. She had only known her father as a gentle man, a scholar, a buttonhole maker, not someone who yelled commands and used a pitchfork as a weapon. He looked at them and said, “Watch over each other.
And no matter what you hear, don't come out until they've gone.”

Then he went outside.

Her mother paused, as if she were considering running after him. Then she locked the door from the inside with a wooden bar that she needed both arms to lift into place.

She pulled Sarah down into the small cellar that her husband had dug to store root vegetables and grain. Even in the chaos, something nagged at Sarah as her mother closed the door on top of them.
Ivan!
She bolted back into the room.

“What are you doing?” her mother shouted.

Sarah desperately felt around her blankets until her hand closed over the painted circus bear with a round belly and a silver hat with a pom-pom on top. Sarah's father had bought the carved wooden toy for her years ago from a traveling trinket salesman, and she had slept with it every night since. It was one of the only toys she had ever owned.

Sarah slipped Ivan into her pocket and returned to the cellar.

“Foolish girl,” her mother hissed. Then she went silent.

They huddled together in the darkness, barely able to stand in the cramped space among the baskets of grain, carrots, and small yellow potatoes. The noises grew louder and more menacing: angry cries of attack, howls of pain, even some husky laughter. And always the hoofbeats. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes passed with mother and daughter sweating inside the cellar, breathing air that became heavier and sourer as their anxiety rose.

Her mother ran her hands through Sarah's long red hair in an effort to soothe them both. Sarah squeezed Ivan in her skirt pocket.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, they heard the horses' thunder roll back down the dirt road away from the village. Sarah's mother waited another minute, her fingers digging into Sarah's shoulder. Then she sprang up out of the cellar, hoisted the wooden bar off the door, and ran outside.

Sarah gasped as the cold, sharp air stung her lungs, transforming her breath into puffs of steam as she trailed her mother into the center of town. A quarter moon lit the village in blue and black shadows. Dozens of men lay groaning on the ground, as other women and children tentatively emerged from their homes.

Her heartbeat quickened as her mother raced from man to man, looking for her father, calling his name at the dark lumps lying in the dirt. Finally, Sarah saw him, sitting up against a tree. She noticed his red beard first. They were the only two redheads in their village. He looked as if he was lying in a dark pool of oil, but as she got closer, a glint of moonlight struck the puddle, revealing a flash of crimson. It was only then that she noticed the pitchfork in his chest, as if he were a piece of paper tacked to the tree.

Her mother wailed and collapsed beside him, her nightdress soaking up the thick liquid as she unsuccessfully tried to shake him awake.

A horse with an empty saddle galloped through the center of town, trailing its reins behind. As Sarah stared at it, the
chestnut-colored beast charged. It stopped short directly in front of her and reared up with a terrible growling neigh, its front hooves suspended high over Sarah's head. The girl stared into the snarling mouth of her certain death, her entire body frozen in terror.

And then she snapped awake.