In class, they were studying Jeanne d’Arc, and during these lessons Lea often thought of Ava. The Maid of Orléans had been born to fight, chosen by God. Even though she was a woman, she looked upon war as another woman might rejoice on her wedding day. She was made for battle, and was so fierce that when the British captured her they had to burn her three times, for once was not enough. She had only been thirteen when she was visited by the archangel Michael in her father’s garden, and nineteen when she was burned at the stake. The cinders and ashes from her burning were said to have been thrown into the Seine, although a vial was later discovered in a jar in the attic of an apothecary in Paris. They remained illuminated, as if sparked by fire. In class, they spoke her sainted name in low tones, as if her name had a power of its own.

After class, Lea and Renée sat on their beds in the attic and Lea helped her practice her French. “Not everyone can be Jeanne d’Arc. Sometimes you can’t fight,” Renée told Lea. “Sometimes they cut you open and do terrible things to you.” She let Lea hug her even though she never wanted to be touched. “Nur einmal,” she said. Just once.

They both wished their mothers had not been on trains. They wished there were happy endings. This was why Lea kept the note from Julien under her pillow. So she could dream about another world and another life. At school they were called Renée and Lillie, but when they were alone they called each other by their true names, Rachel and Lea, as in the Bible. We’ll escape, they promised each other. We’ll start new lives, they said. But neither one could look at her reflection, for if they did the girls they had once been might stare back at them, and those girls, they both agreed, were gone.

Ava spent late afternoons in the kitchen, before going out to see to the garden. Time was moving faster all the time. It was the season to clip back the roses. They must be carefully tended, for they wilted in hot weather. The plants had black, leathery leaves and dark thorny branches, and were especially difficult to cut back, not that that would be a problem. Ava was always a hard worker; the nuns commented to each other that she was tireless and could complete one task after another.