The Winter Guest by Pam Jenoff Read Free Book Online Page B

again, this time more of a wheeze.
    She reached for her knife. A voice not entirely her own told her to run. But instead, she drew closer to the bushes, curious. Beneath a scraggly pine tree there was a lump, too long to be an animal, huddled in a pile of leaves. As she neared, the air grew thick with the metallic smell of blood. She pushed aside the branches, then stopped with surprise. A man lay on his side, almost hidden by the leaves. He didn’t move, but is torso rose and fell with labored breaths.
    Helena stared at him. Before today, she had not encountered anyone on her treks through the forest. “Who are you?” she demanded, hoping to sound braver than she felt. He did not respond. Fear rose up in her. No good could come of a meeting with a stranger and she was far from any help. “Who are you?” she repeated. A low, guttural moan escaped his throat. Helena studied the man, whose dark hair was pasted tight to his head by a mixture of blood and sweat. She relaxed slightly; he was in no shape to do her harm.
    “Show me where you are hurt,” she said, more gently now. His arm, which had been covering his midsection, flopped in the direction of his right leg, but there was no visible injury. The stranger wore a uniform of some sort, dirt-caked and torn. She recalled the explosion from the previous night that she had taken to be a bomb. The Nazi jeep she’d encountered earlier had not been looking for her. The full danger of the situation crashed down upon her and she turned to flee.
    “Please,” he croaked just above a whisper, and somewhere in her mind she registered the word as English. Her mind whirled: what was an American or British soldier doing here?
    Freezing, was her first thought as she turned back to him in spite of herself. He lay on the ground and his skin was a shade of blue-gray that she had never seen before. He needed shelter if he was to live. Without thinking, she reached for his arm and pulled as though to lift him, her fingers not quite wrapping around its thick girth. The man was heavier than she expected and did not move, but shrieked with pain, his cry echoing against the bareness of the trees.
    “Spokój!” she hissed, and he looked up, his brown eyes meeting hers, long lashes fluttering with fear. But she could tell from his expression that he did not speak Polish or was too disoriented to understand, so she raised her finger to her lips and shook her head to silence him.
    The church, she remembered then. There was an old wooden chapel, about fifty meters farther along the path into the woods. But if she could not move him, how could she possibly get him there? “Come.” She knelt and put her arm around his shoulder, close to the stranger in a way that made her shiver. Then she tried to stand, more gently this time. But she stumbled under his weight. He fell forward, and as she went to lift him again he waved her off, dragging himself along the ground in a half crawl.
    As he inched forward, she glanced over her shoulder nervously, willing him to move faster. Her skin prickled. A sharp barking cut through the stillness. “Hide,” she whispered frantically, pushing him into the thick bushes. There came a dull thud from the other side, followed by a cry. She crawled through the brush toward him. He had rolled down a steep ravine and into the stream that ran alongside the path. There was another bark, followed by footsteps. She peered out from the bushes, jumping back as a man with a shotgun appeared, an underfed German shepherd on a leash by his side. He did not wear a uniform like the German soldier she had encountered earlier on the road, but the clothes of an ordinary farmer (albeit one she did not recognize from the village). Perhaps he was just hunting or trapping.
    A second man appeared from the opposite direction. “Anything?” His Polish was thick and peasantlike.
    “A small chapel. But I found nothing there,” the other man replied. Helena’s anger rose. These men were