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Back The World That We Knew Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover
  2. Epigraph
  3. PART ONE
  4. CHAPTER ONE
  5. CHAPTER TWO
  6. CHAPTER THREE
  7. CHAPTER FOUR
  8. CHAPTER FIVE
  9. CHAPTER SIX
  10. CHAPTER SEVEN
  11. CHAPTER EIGHT
  12. CHAPTER NINE
  13. CHAPTER TEN
  14. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  15. CHAPTER TWELVE
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. PART TWO
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  39. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  40. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  41. FURTHER READING
  42. Copyright

Julien was leaning in the doorway, his face thoughtful. How could he not take note of the girl? There was something beneath Lea’s reserved demeanor he thought he understood. He was that way himself, hiding his true nature, in his case with bravado and sarcasm. Ava caught him watching Lea. She didn’t like what she saw inside him, a wild, reckless heart that spelled trouble. “You can go,” she told him.

“This is his house, not ours. Of course he can stay, although I don’t know why he’d want to,” Lea said with feigned indifference. The truth was, she had noticed him as well.

Julien came to sprawl in a kitchen chair, his long legs extended so that Ava and Lea had to dodge around him. “I can’t cook a thing,” he confided to Lea.

“Why are you proud of that?” Ava said as she cast a wary eye on him. It was difficult to read this boy as she could most people; his thoughts were such a jumble, but his interest in Lea was evident.

“Oh, I’m not,” Julien said. “I just admire anyone who can.”

There was some flour in a canister, which Ava mixed with water, doing her best to make a crust without butter. Trying to charm her was pointless. He had better watch his step if he knew what was good for him. “You might as well be useful,” she told him, suggesting he cut the fruit in thin slices.

Julien seemed pleased to be asked. It was a good excuse to stand beside Lea at the counter. They looked at one another and laughed in a way Ava didn’t understand. Nothing was funny, but such was the behavior of mortals. Illogical, impractical, emotional.

That was how it began.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ARRIVAL

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VIENNE, SPRING 1941

THE RABBI’S DAUGHTER FOUND HERSELF in the outskirts of the small city of Vienne in the Rhône-Alpes region, a little more than twenty kilometers from Lyon. This was the city where Hannibal had arrived and the Romans held chariot races around La Pyramide, an ancient obelisk, an artifact that some local people vowed contained the bones of Pontius Pilate. Ettie was someone else now. She had named herself Nicole Duval, with no proof but her word, for her smudged papers had been worthless, and she’d tossed them away.