But he couldn’t command the words to come. His tongue was as heavy as lead. He stuffed his clenched fists deep into his pockets and watched her, waiting for answers. She shifted her position, and Isaac could see that two spots of red colored her cheeks. Behind her, his father seemed to have aged a thousand years, his face thin and pale.

“We’ll be out in a moment,” his mother said. She closed the door with a soft click.

Isaac stayed in the hallway, but their voices were muffled and he couldn’t make out words, even with his ear pressed against the wood.

A few minutes ago he’d wanted to be a spy. And now?

He tried to decipher what his mother had meant. Oh, he knew the word shapeshift. He knew it from fairy tales and the other stories he loved, of monsters and myths. A shapeshifter could change form as if changing a suit of clothes. But he wasn’t at all sure he knew what she meant when she said she could make one.

Isaac didn’t understand. Shapeshift, she’d said. Training, his father had said.

This was not what he thought would help them hide from what the Nazis were doing to his people. None of this—shapeshifting, training—made any sense whatsoever.

*   *   *

It happened quickly after that.

Isaac was told to pick out only a few items to take. “Just what will fit in this pack,” his mother said, holding it up. “With your extra clothes.”

He stood in his room as if struck by lightning. His mother bustled in and out. “Hurry, Isaac,” she said, adding a sack full of sausage, bread, and cheese to his pack before leaving again.

Isaac chose two books from his shelf and stuffed them into the pack.

His father told Isaac that he was arranging to send him away with a total stranger, that they were smuggling him out of his homeland.

“But, wait,” he said to his father. “You’re not coming?” He couldn’t decide which he felt more, frightened or angry or plain confused, especially when his father left the apartment without answering.

As the door closed, Isaac turned to his mother and asked, “Where am I going, Mama?”

“To Scotland,” she said. “Away from the dangers of war. And other things.”

“Scotland?” he echoed.

In his room he pulled out a map. Scotland was far, far away. Over a long stretch of land and then sea.

And what dangers were there other than war?

When his father came back, Isaac met him in the front room. “It’s set,” his father said.

“Papa, the Nazis don’t scare me,” Isaac lied. Then, “I can help you. With . . . whatever. I’m old enough.”

“I know you can,” his mother murmured, glancing at his father.

“You should come, too,” Isaac said, trying to sound convincing.

“Too many people traveling together raises suspicion,” his father said. “But we have a plan.”