As we neared number twelve, I could see the windows were still punched out and the walls charred by a fire I prayed had not destroyed the food stores in the basement. Though Saul had told me that he and his father had come to the ghetto briefly after leaving their village, I had not pictured him living here, just blocks from me, until now. I took in the house, which was so much smaller and more run-down than the building my parents and I had occupied, imagining how they had managed with a half-dozen other families, crowded into shared rooms.

I tried the front door. Despite the decimated condition of the house, it was locked. I was afraid we would have to navigate the broken glass and climb through one of the windows. “Let’s go around back and look for a cellar door,” Ella suggested. We slipped through an alleyway between the houses, crouching low so no one would see us. In the rear, we found a cellar door and pried it open. I crept down the ladder into the cellar first, praying the rotted rungs would hold. Ella followed. I stopped, caught off guard by the dirty, too-close ghetto smell that had filled my lungs all of the months we were here, and which lingered now still. After breathing the stench of the sewer for so long, it was almost pleasant by comparison.

Hurriedly, we walked to the cellar wall that Saul had told me about and felt for the hidden compartment. There was a panel that slid back, just as he promised, revealing a cavernous empty space, meant for hiding things. Only the place he had described was empty.

The food he had promised was not there.

13

Ella

Standing beside Sadie and looking down into the empty space where the food should have been, my heart sank. “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling the weight of her disappointment wash over us. Sadie did not answer. She stood still, her eyes sad and hollow.

“We should go,” I said after a few minutes had passed. It wasn’t safe for us to linger in the ghetto building.

Sadie shook her head. “It has to be here. I can’t go back without it.”

What now? My mind raced. “We can look around,” I said, although I really had no idea where. Despite the war, Ana Lucia did not keep extra food stores in the house because she feared attracting mice. Instead, she trusted that her money and contacts would always allow us to have enough to eat. So I could not steal what Sadie needed from her. Krys appeared in my mind. We had not parted well and I was unsure he would help me. But he was my only option and deep down I knew that he would not refuse me if there were something he could do. “I have a friend who might be able to help.” I instantly regretted my offer. I had no reason to think he could manage to find food in such a short amount of time. But I had to try.