At least not yet, not until she was ready, not until she had a plan. She looked out the window, but all she saw was her own reflection in the glass. Lea was someone completely different than the person she’d been before her grandmother told her to pack up her suitcase. She was the tall, resentful girl who’d once had a mother and a grandmother and a father, who went to school and was the best student in her class, who always followed rules, who had never been kissed, not a real kiss, not one she wanted, who did as she was told, who had no idea there were angels above them.

All through the night they could hear the wheels of the train; the sound soothed them and made them forget everything that had happened. Berlin was far away, it was slipping into the darkness, a tiger of a city filled with soot and ashes, where glass was never swept up, and fires were burned in the hallways of apartment houses, and people disappeared without a trace, and shoes littered the streets, left behind by those who had struggled. The sisters fell asleep in each other’s arms and dreamed of their mother’s kitchen and the babies that had been born there. Lea curled up with her head against the glass. She still had her hand wrapped around the scissors, and in her sleep she saw flowers blooming in their yard, each grown from a murdered girl’s tooth, on a stalk of thorns.

Heart of my heart, love of my life, the one loss I will never survive.

Ava felt something dark approaching, a black cloud of angels. Angel of destiny, angel of confusion, angel of crimes and of discovery, angel of rage, angel of the wicked, angel of the fallen. It happened at dawn, just before they reached the French border. The train suddenly stopped, so unexpectedly people were thrown from their seats, roughly awakened from their dreams. In the thin blue light of morning, they could see German army trucks. Soldiers were shouting orders. It was nearly April but frost was still on the ground. Passengers with suspect papers, or those who had what were considered Jewish features, were pulled from the train and led into the field, clinging to their suitcases, their eyes squinting in the new light. Some wore coats, others had their shoes off and were in their socks as they walked through the tall grass. Women and children were separated, and panicked mothers called out the names of their daughters and sons. Men suspected of being Jews were forced to pull down their pants to reveal whether or not they had been circumcised. A woman argued with a soldier, insisting she wasn’t a Jew. In an instant she was knocked to the ground, where she lay sprawled and unmoving, disappearing into the tall grass. A shot rang out. After that, no one in the lineup argued.