Disclaimer: Pet Fly's and Sci-Fi's.Spoilers: (Oblique references to certain events only)
Author's Notes: This started with the cross GM is seen wearing in Cypher. And then I was wondering where the fire people in Blind Man's Bluff came from, until I remembered there was a very good reason why Blair Sandburg might have nightmare visions of burnt people who won't stay dead. I added a lighter bit for a buffer between those two, but it's all pretty much angst. Caught a couple of minutes of Saving Private Ryan on a cable preview, that's my only explanation for this. The Muse is in a dark mood.
WWII Drabbles
Part of the The Sparrowhawk Sandburg Series
by
Besterette
Besterette@aol.com
Family HeirloomJim frowned at the textbook lying open on the coffee table. At first, he tried to ignore it and watch the game, but it was there. On the coffee table. Where it didn't belong. So at the first commercial, he picked it up, closed it, and carried it into Sandburg's room. The gap on the shelf told him where it belonged.
As he turned to go, a glint of light on the floor beside the dresser caught his eye. He bent and picked it up. A small gold cross. Huh. Sandburg had a cross? Probably a memento from a Catholic ex-girlfriend. Or a gift from the brothers at Saint Sebastian's. Jim rubbed the cross lightly between thumb and cupped fingers, and dropped it into a blue pottery bowl on Blair's dresser for safekeeping. He went back out to the living room to catch the rest of the game and thought no more about it.
The official passed the businessman onto the train and smiled engagingly at the family group next in line. "Travel papers, please?" The father handed them over, and he leafed through them. The dark-haired man, his pretty blonde wife, and their three children. Victor and Greta Schmidt, their daughters Anna and Lisle, and their son Friedrich. "And your reason for leaving the Fatherland?" he asked, making conversation as he stamped the papers. The boy's hands tightened on little Lisle's shoulders, framing the golden cross that sparkled in the sunlight against her dark blue pinafore."A skiing holiday," Victor explained pleasantly. "For our Anna's birthday."
He handed the papers back and smiled at the older girl. "Such a generous papa." He passed them on, and turned his attention to the next traveler. Victor, Greta and Anna Schmidt boarded the train. Jacob Sandburg picked up his sister Eugenia, all that remained of his family, and followed their neighbors the Schmidts onto the train to Switzerland.
White Shoulders
She climbed the rubble carefully, stumbling a bit, but her eyes adjusted automatically to the darkness. "AFP, Chelsea. Anything I can do to help?"One of the men glanced at her, and then handed her a battered leatherbound book. "Take this down to the valuables, luv."
She paused a moment as the men grabbed what had been part of a table, and passed it down the shaft being dug by the rescue party, to brace the walls. She listened intently, sorting through the anti-aircraft fire and the sirens and the voices of the men. "There's two of them. To the left," and turned to pick her way back down what had once been an Oxford don's townhouse.
Their voices floated back down after her. "Angle to the left."
"What?"
"To the left! That was the Chelsea Angel, she was. A bodysniffer, old man. Found fifteen of the poor sods since she joined up."
"A bodysniffer. Is that the word for what I am?" She shook her head bleakly. An odd quirk that turned up in her family now and again, every family had their secrets: webbed fingers, an aunt in a sanitarium no one ever spoke of. And their senses. A great-grandfather who had eyes like an eagle into his dotage. Herself, blessed and cursed with the five of them. A mere slip of a girl. A man could be off fighting the jerries. But I'll do what I can with the gifts I've been given.
"'ow can she smell anything in this pong?"
She turned the key that unlocked Smell, and took a cautious sniff. And began coughing and sneezing violently. Brick dust, smoke. She locked it again, quickly. It was everywhere after an incident. Not even she could read the title of the book she carried because of the dust. She gave it a quick wipe with her sleeve. The Sentinels of Paraguay. Paraguay. It sounded wonderfully faraway and peaceful.
A warden stood guard over the recovered valuables, on the first stretch of clear pavement. A dented silver tray, and a chipped china clock. She handed over the book, and started back up, sifting through for those faltering heartbeats. But it was too late. She stayed until they brought the bodies up.
She'd been to the shops and was hurrying to get back to her post before curfew, when the sirens went off. Unprepared, the sound drove her to her knees, scattering her packages. Somewhere, under the mind-numbing pain, there was a bright tinkle of breaking glass, a sickeningly sweet smell, and a surprisingly soothing baritone voice.
"Are you all right, miss?"
She looked up, almost drowning in sea-blue eyes. "Yes." She dusted off her skirt and began gathering everything but the wet paper bag. "Blast. A whole bottle of scent, and you can hardly find White Shoulders, I searched for ages..." He handed her the butcher-paper wrapped roast, and she was blessedly relieved that the perfume hadn't ruined the meat. She caught herself, realizing she was being a bit rude. "Thank you, mister..."
"Ellison. Joseph Ellison."
She looked into those so very blue eyes. "Oh! You're an American!" And a very attractive one, at that.
Fire People
A small figure sits hunched over a library table. Pages turn steadily. There is a soft gasp as Innocence is lost forever.Adele Sandburg opened the apartment door, and took a step backward in the face of her sister-in-law's incandescent rage.
"How dare you!" Naomi Sandburg spat, brandishing a thick book about the Holocaust. "How dare you allow Blair to read this?"
Adele's mouth thinned as she regained her composure and her usual sense of superiority. "Well, if you had done your duty and educated your children about their religion and heritage, I wouldn't have had to arrange Blair's bar mitzvah."
"Just because I'm their mother doesn't give me the right to impose a faith on them, when they're grown they'll know who they are and what they believe and their faith will come to them. If I'd known you were going to—" she broke off. "Did you read this? Did you know he was reading this?"
"No. Of course I didn't read it. I don't see what you're getting so excited about, Naomi."
"Blair is a very empathic and intelligent child, but just because he can read and understand material intended for an adult reading audience doesn't mean he should! He's only thirteen, Adele. I didn't want him to know the human race was capable of this. Not yet." And she opened the book to the bookmarked page and the graphic photographs displayed, and showed it to her sister-in-law.
Adele blanched. She knew how proud Blair was that he read so far above his age-group, but it never occured to her that he would research the history of the Jewish faith beyond the basic references. "The ovens..."
~ End ~
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Page last updated 8/15/03.