PART 1: NEW ULM - 1862

THE TRUNK

     Jessamine’s brown eyes were wide as saucers. She loved the game they played, but this was not the way it began. Opa was not supposed to choose their hiding place! Where was the fun in knowing where they hid? She could hear Oma pacing below the loft, jabbering in German.

“What is happening Opa? Why must we hide now?”

He pinched her cheek and lovingly fingered a red curl. “Gott made you rothaarig; maybe they will not harm you.”

“Who, Opa? Who will harm me?” She was suddenly alarmed by his crackling voice and ruddy cheeks gone pale as frost.

He grabbed her by the shoulders, trying hard to soften his tone.“Liebchen, you must listen to me—schnell!” Fingers shaking, he reached for Oma’s sewing kit on the bed stand, and took out her little scissors.

“Take Oma’s scheres to work the lock from innere, if Oma or I do not come to free you mit da key. You are big girl now. Take care of baby schwester and Gott will always bless you.”

Bewildered, Jessamine crawled inside the big black steamer trunk that had carried all her grandparent’s possessions when they emigrated from Germany many years ago. This was a great new hiding place, one she had never thought of before. Opa gingerly picked up the sleeping angel, flag and feather pillow and all, and placed Lizzie in her arms. He kissed them each on their heads, and when he lost his voice, he waved his fingers to caution them in silence. Jessamine would always remember her grandfather's troubled face and watery eyes as he closed them in darkness.

She swallowed the knot in her throat and willed herself to take several deep breaths. The trunk smelled of musty wool and something pungent, like the anise seeds Oma used for baking.  Suddenly, the warm cocoon of dark silence was broken by the distant banging at the cabin door. Jessamine stabbed her fist in her mouth when she heard Oma's scream and Opa's sharp call in German.

At the sound of breaking glass, she began to shake. High, shrill voices pierced the air, crying “Nippo, nippo, nippo.” More thumps and crashes shook the floor and shivered the trunk. The noise woke Lizzie with a start, and she began to whimper.

“Hush, baby schwester,” Jessamine crooned, trying to modulate the fear that choked her own voice. “We are hiding,” she whispered. “We must be quiet, or Opa will find us too soon.” She could feel Lizzie relax against her, and when she found her sister’s little hand, she squeezed it against her beating chest. This was not a game she wanted to play; she understood they were in danger and must keep still, like Opa had instructed.

She tried to pick out her grandparent’s voices amid the thumping and crashing, whoops and hollers, along with an occasional pop that sounded like the fireworks shot off in town last month. When the floorboards creaked, she knew someone had climbed to the loft. Something scraped across the floor, then fell with a crash that jolted the trunk. Cloth ripping, more glass breaking, then someone was at the trunk, fiddling with the latch.

Lizzie squirmed in her arms. “Out,” she cried, before Jessamine could cover her mouth with her hand. She began to whimper and thrash like a hooked fish when the lock was hammered.

“Shhhh,” Jessamine hissed, tightening her arms around Lizzie until she could feel a warm wetness spread over her lap. Her own heart was a fist hammering in her chest. Opa had the key. Surely he wouldn’t be trying to break the lock without reassuring them?
     When a loud thump hit the roof of the trunk, she joined Lizzie with her own terrified scream. The trunk jumped with the force of each successive blow, coming harder, faster now. Tears boiled in her eyes as she stretched and braced herself against each blow, absorbing Lizzie’s kicks and ear-splitting screams, finally muffling her with the pillow, until she could feel her sister go limp against her.

The pounding stopped suddenly and in the new silence she could detect the heavy breathing outside the trunk, louder even than the drumming in her ears. Holding her breath, she wiggled an ear close to the skin of the trunk, straining to pick out any sounds of retreat. A slap on the trunk, footsteps, then from a short distance, an unearthly shriek jump-started her heart. Silence again. Voices below and outside were drifting away, growing distant. Whoever it was had left the loft, maybe left the house. Opa would be back with his key soon, to let them out.
     She jostled Lizzie, but her sister was still limp. Her hands were warm, and when she rubbed her plump arms, she thought she could even smell the friction in the stale air of the trunk, reeking now with the smell of urine. Then it came to her, sharp and sour; smoke.

Juggling Lizzie aside, she took the little scissors in one hand and felt for the lock casing inside the trunk. She pushed the point of the scissors into a little hole and twisted. Nothing happened.  Pushing against the lid of the trunk, she pricked her fingers on a sharp ridge indenting the lid above them. She pounded and kicked both sides of the trunk, then listened for any response from outside. Nothing.

The acrid smell of smoke was growing stronger. She tried the scissors again, jamming it into any crevice or hole she could find, then battered the lock as hard as she could with both leather boots. Something finally snapped and a tiny shaft of light pierced their darkness. Jessamine wedged the scissors into the crack, running it along the length to widen it. With a final thrust that rippled painfully up to her knees, the lid creaked open enough to pull an arm and a leg through, and using her back, she wedged the creased lid open with an eerie creak.

Oma's feather bed was smoldering. The ticking had been slashed and the explosion of feathers had become quick tinder. The dresser was toppled, clothing scattered across the floor, and the blankets that had been in the trunk were chewed by patches of flame. She picked up one of Opa’s shirts and beat at the sputtering flames, until the end of the shirt caught fire.

     “Opa,” she screamed. “Help me!” Billows of smoke were filling the loft, stinging her eyes and nose. Coughing, she gathered up her sister, limp as a rag in her arms, and scrambled down the ladder just as the fire snaked down the bedposts and licked the floor.