"In times of war, you do what you must, become what you must. Some embrace it, some try to resist it, and others abuse it. I am guilty of all three."
Virginia Carroll has been fighting her whole life, against herself and against what she is drawn to...
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Outskirts of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, Normandy, France.
June 5th, 1944
There was a point in training where familiar faces disappeared. Reassignments and missions given, friends were mourned and grief turned to warnings. Leaving Madrid had meant entering a war that had previously felt so distant. My time to cross those golden gates into the occupied land beyond had crept up on me. Now before I knew it, I was huddled in the woods of Normandy, a snake in the grass. I escaped the compound by some miracle
I had slipped back to the outskirts of town but dared not enter its boundaries to speak to Simone. I couldn't risk it. I hid in the woods for five days before the planes started to buzz above me. Knowing that dogs could be used to track me, I had found a water barrel and washed my face and hands, trying to rid myself of the salty stench of blood. If I allied myself with the forest and its damp, earthy scent, maybe I could buy myself a little more time. In the light of the moon, I saw my reflection on the water's surface.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" My voice cracked, a sliver of glass in the pale pink light of dawn. I almost didn't recognize it.
Had this been what I wanted? I had told myself that I wanted to fight in my own war. I had told myself that I liked to be alone. It seemed I had told myself many lies over the two years I'd been active as an agent.
This war, this life was nothing like I had expected, nothing like I had planned. I had been ready for death. I had been ready for so much of it, a cold finger or a hot blow. Whatever the feeling of death, this war wasn't what I had prepared for. It wasn't death, it was elimination. Like this was a game of tag. The breathless panic of a playground game but the thing chasing you wasn't a fellow child and their hand outstretched didn't promise "better luck next time".
If I was captured again, I would have to take my L pill. I'd have to. I had promised myself, racing from the compound, that I would not be taken alive again. The pill was quick. Forty-five seconds.
Forty-five seconds and I'd never see this war play out. I'd never win this game of cat and mouse. I didn't like to lose.
Looking at my reflection in the mirror of the water, I didn't recognize it. I knew it must be mine, how many people were in the woods of Normandy studying their face in the looking glass of a barrel? It had to be mine.
When I was in the flurry and false hope of receiving my assignment, Felix had told me I might be able to send a letter to my family. A letter that gave nothing away of my work in the war, nothing away of my location, status, or possible mission. A letter that removed any personality that might have remained after Virginia had been put to death. I never wrote that letter but I had sat on the roof of the Madrid safe house, waiting for the words to come before it was too late.
I wrote a thousand messages in my head that night, but they never made it to ink-born life on the page, never marked with a stamp. I wrote a thousand messages in my head as I dashed through my reflection in the water, letting the dirt furl in the shattered moon that remained.
