Whispers from Yesterday (34 page)

Karen felt a terrible sinking sensation. This wasn’t right. The road shouldn’t be climbing and twisting this way. She’d taken a wrong turn. She should have been at the ranch by now.

She carefully applied the brakes and brought the old truck to a halt. Even with the heater going full blast, she was cold.

Where am I?

She took a deep breath, mentally scolding herself. She didn’t need to be afraid. She had only to turn the pickup around and drive back to the highway. That was all. How difficult could that be?

She squinted, trying to see beyond the snow, trying to see the surrounding terrain. It was pointless. There was only the snow.

If I’m careful I don’t have to see. Even this old truck can be turned around by inches.

Taking a deep breath, she put the pickup in gear, twisted the steering wheel, and pressed gently on the gas. Little by little by little, she changed the direction of the vehicle. Finally, it was done. She was facing downhill. Now she could drive back to the highway, get her bearings, and find her way home.

“Thank God,” she whispered.

She pressed gently on the gas pedal. The truck started forward. Suddenly the earth fell away.

Tuesday, September 14, 1943

Mikkel is dead. The news was brought to me today by the Gestapo. The man smiled as he told me, and I could see that he was warning me. No, not warning. Promising. He was making me a promise that I would not escape the wrath of the enemy.

Oh, my sweet, wonderful Mikkel. How I wish I could have held you in my arms one more time, Just to tell you how very much I have loved you. It was you who brought me to Christ. It was you who taught me to seek God in His word. You were a lamp to my feet, showing me the way to salvation. You were my husband, my lover, the father of our dear Rose.

But you are safe now, my darling. They cannot torture you again. You are in the arms of our Father and will never know pain or suffering or want. You will have only joy for the rest of eternity. As much as I hurt, as much as I mourn my loss, there is comfort in knowing you are safe again at last.

Esther

Thursday, September 30, 1943

Dear Diary,

The Abrams family is in hiding in the secret room. The word came out that the Germans will begin rounding up Danish Jews at the start of Rosh Hashanah. None are safe in their homes because the membership lists and archives from the synagogue were seized and will surely be used to find all the Jews in the country.

The greatest fear is that little Jacob, who is only five months old, will cry and be heard from the street. A baby’s cry is different from a toddler’s. But we hope, if Jacob cries and is heard, that we can fool others by saying it was Rose.

We must get the Abrams out of Denmark to Sweden. It will have to be soon. Everyone knows the Germans will act quickly and with vengeance once they discover the Danes have thwarted their efforts to deport these innocent people.

Esther

THIRTY-TWO

Her head hurt.

Her body ached.

And she was cold. So very cold.

Karen opened her eyes, at first not remembering what had happened. Then it all came rushing back. The truck had gone off the road. She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious after striking her head, but it had been long enough for the battery to run down. The headlights cast a pitifully weak yellow glow into the silent night.

And it
was
silent. Absolutely silent. The wind had stopped blowing. The snow had ceased falling. There was only darkness and silence. Nothing more.

Be calm,
she told herself.
There’s nothing I can do until morning.

There. She didn’t have to be a Girl Scout to know that much. She simply had to wait for daylight. It couldn’t be much longer. Maybe three hours. Maybe less. She could stand the cold for that long.

The winter emergency kit!

She should have thought of it immediately. Dusty had explained to her about the emergency supplies he kept in his vehicles during the winter in case of a breakdown. If this didn’t qualify as an emergency, she didn’t know what did.

It wasn’t until she unfastened her seat belt and started to turn on the seat that she realized the truck had come to a rest at an angle. Perhaps as much as twenty-five degrees. The creaks and groans that accompanied her movements did nothing to inspire her confidence in the vehicle’s stability.

She moved more slowly, rising to her knees and reaching behind the seat. The large duffel bag was easy enough to find, even in the dark, and with only a little effort, she managed to drag it from its narrow resting place.

Settling forward on the seat again, she released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Then she unzipped the duffel. The first thing she withdrew was the thermal blanket. She wrapped her legs and lower body in it, hoping she would soon be warm enough to stop shivering. The next item she found was the flashlight. She hadn’t known what a marvelous invention the flashlight was until she slid the switch and the cab was illuminated.

Better. Oh, so much better.

She pointed the beam of light into the bag. Matches and a couple of oversized candles. Flare gun and flares. A box of crackers, several canned food items with pull tab tops, and about a half-dozen candy bars. Several large bottles of water. Aspirin, bandages, ointment. There was even a small Bible.

She smiled, thinking of Dusty putting that Bible into an emergency kit. How like him. If he were in her shoes, he would probably find more comfort in those pages than from anything else in the duffel bag.

Maybe he was right.

She opened the Bible.

The stark white landscape was almost blinding.

Dusty stood on the front porch as the ambulance drove away, Patty and her newborn son inside it. The paramedics had assured him that both mother and child—a boy, weighing five pounds—would be fine, despite his early arrival. And in a few days, the baby’s adoptive parents would take him home to a family who would love and nurture him.

Thank You, God, for Your mercy. Strengthen and keep them safe in the palm of Your hand. Thank You for giving Patty the courage to do what was best for that precious little life. And Karen … O Father, keep her safe too.

The past hours had been some of the longest of Dusty’s life. When he’d arrived at the ranch and found Karen gone, everything inside him had screamed for him to go in search of her right then—even while it was still dark. But Patty had been in labor and he’d been needed. He hadn’t been able to leave.

But now …

Hearing a sound behind him, he turned to find Sophia watching him from the doorway.

“The search-and-rescue team has been dispatched,” she said. “They’ll find her.”

“I’m going out.” He turned again, looking south, toward the mountains. “Up there.”

“But there’s no reason she would have taken that road. The Basterra farm is the other way.”

“I know.”

“The van would never make it with all this snow. You’ll need a four-wheel drive.”

“I’m taking the horses.” “Dusty, are you sure you—?”

“I can’t explain it, Sophia. I just can’t shake the feeling that’s what I’m supposed to do.”

She touched his arm. “Then do it. And God go with you.”

When next Karen opened her eyes, it was day. But the light brought no comfort with it. For now she could see how truly precarious her situation was. Worse than she’d imagined.

The truck had slid down an incline and come to rest on a ledge. Beyond the ledge was a long drop to the canyon floor below. The driver’s door couldn’t be opened; it was wedged against something hard, and snow had piled up against the window. The passenger door was free, but even if she got out of the truck, there was no way she could climb back to the road without help. The mountainside was too steep.

She was trapped. Trapped and freezing.

Is this how I’m going to die?

She almost laughed. How ironic. She had tried to kill herself and failed. Failed miserably, just as she’d failed at much of her life. Now she wanted to live, now she’d found reasons to go on, and she might be about to die.

Cold and alone.

Beloved, you are not alone.

She must be hallucinating. The hit on the head. The cold. She was delirious.

Beloved, you are never alone. I am with you always.

O God. Why couldn’t I find You before? All these weeks, I’ve looked and looked.

I am with you, beloved.

She closed her eyes against the stark white reality beyond the windshield. She was afraid, and despite the gentle Voice speaking in her heart, she
was
alone.

I have loved you with an everlasting love.

I’m so unlovable. Even my own parents couldn’t love me.

I am your Heavenly Father, and I declare that you are loved. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Nothing about you is hidden from Me for I formed your inward parts and wove you in your mother’s womb. I wrote the days that are ordained for you in My book when as yet there was not one of them.

Karen opened her eyes, looking through the frosty windshield toward the wintry-blue sky. “So is this the day You wrote in Your book, God? Is
this
it? Is
that
what You mean by love?”

At that moment, the strangest thing happened. She stopped shivering. The cab grew warm.

And suddenly, she
knew.

She wasn’t alone.

She wasn’t hallucinating.

He was with her.

“Jesus?” she whispered.

I am here.

Tears flooded her eyes. “Why?”

She couldn’t have explained what she was asking, even to herself. But Jesus—her Savior and her Lord—knew.

Beloved, you were the joy set before Me. For your sake, I endured the cross, despising the shame. Because I so loved Karen Butler, I came.

Weeping, she covered her face with her hands. “You died for me. You died for
me.
Because You love me. O Jesus. Jesus. How could I not see?”

At last. At long last, she understood. This was what Grandmother Sophia knew. This was what Dusty knew. This was what Esther had known.

She remembered the final entry in the journal. Remembered the words and understood them as she hadn’t before. When she’d closed the diary that morning, she’d cried but hadn’t truly understood. Now she did.

A love like this could change the world. A love like this
had
changed the world.

And now it had changed Karen.

She stopped crying. She almost stopped breathing. She lowered her hands.

“I’m not afraid anymore.” It was a statement of joyous wonder, a declaration of faith.

She was loved, and she was no longer afraid. Not afraid to live. Or to die.

Wednesday, October 6, 1943

Dear Diary,

It isn’t dawn yet. The house is quiet. In another hour I will take food up to the Abrams and then I will tend to Rose’s needs. But for now, this quiet time is mine alone.

I dreamed last night of Mikkel. It was one of those odd, disjointed dreams that make no sense in the light of day but seem so real at the time. I was running toward him, yet never reached him. There was fire all around us both. The heat of it seemed to be searing my skin.

Just before I awakened, I heard him say, “No matter what, Esther, we will praise the Lord. Remember that, my dear one.”

My heart was hammering when I awakened. I prayed, asking God what the dream meant, asking Him to take away the fear and confusion. I picked up my Bible and began to read, seeking comfort therein. And He was ever faithful to provide it.

The first thing He told me was not to fear the fire. For when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace, not even their hair was singed nor did the smell of fire pass on them. Those men of God knew He could save them if such was His will, but even if He didn’t, they chose to obey Him, saying, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”