“Help your mother with the farm and with all of the people in hiding. Keep your sisters safe. They’re all depending on us. You’ll need to be brave and strong, Wim. And if the Nazis come, I want you to hide with the shadow people. I’ll show you all the places.”

There would be reprisals after the train derailment. The Nazis had killed a fourteen-year-old boy with one of their firing squads when they couldn’t find enough men. She rose when Pieter and Wim did, even though she wasn’t going anywhere, and watched them go into the barn. She was standing in the same place when Pieter returned to say goodbye.

“It’s no shame to be afraid, Wim,” Pieter was saying. “I’m afraid too. But you aren’t alone. God will give you the strength you need.” Lena knew his words were meant for her, too.

They knelt beside the table so Pieter could pray. They recited the Twenty-third Psalm together when he finished. “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me . . .” Then Pieter kissed them both and left. The house seemed unnaturally quiet.

“I’ll show you where Max and Ina are hiding,” Lena said. “Max has important work to do. And they’ll both be hungry.”

With Pieter gone, Lena was reluctant to let her children out of her sight. She needed to run an errand in the village the next day, but it was too dangerous for Wim to be seen, and she was afraid to leave Maaike and Bep behind. In the end, she loaded the girls onto her broken-down bicycle for the trip. She stopped at the manse to see her father before returning home. He sat Maaike and Bep down at his kitchen table and gave them bread with hagelslag on top. “I’ve been saving these chocolate sprinkles just for you,” he told them. “Enjoy your little treat while your mama and I talk.”

Lena told him about the ammunition train and begged him to pray for them. He hugged her tightly.

“Of course, Lena. We carry such heavy burdens through these endless days.”

“Pray for all of us, Papa. The Nazis are going to retaliate after this train is destroyed, and they’re becoming more and more vicious. We heard that the Nazis burned five homes to the ground in one village after the local train station was sabotaged. The families had only thirty minutes to get out.”

“They tried to win the Dutch people over to their side in the beginning,” Papa said, “but they’ve learned that they can’t, and it infuriates them.”

“Is this war ever going to end? I hate what it’s doing to us, what we’re turning into.”

“We have to believe that God will triumph in all this suffering. One day the kingdoms of this world will become Christ’s Kingdom, and His Kingdom is forever.”