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Chapter Text

Pavel's twelve-year-old son Felix came dashing through the front door, slamming the heavy wooden panel behind him. Even in the darkness broken only by candle-light, Pavel could see the terror in his eyes.

"A— a creature," Felix gasped out. "In the stable."

Pavel cursed. Grandma, who had been braiding garlic by the fire, raised her wrinkled head in alarm. Pavel crossed the tiny room of their cottage in one stride, seizing the crossbow hung across their hearth. He owned a rifle, too, but he had learned— oh, he had learned— that bullets did no good.

"Stay with Grandma!" Pavel cried to Felix, and ran outside, his heart pounding in his ears.

The stable had two stalls, one for their milk cow and another for their draft pony, and Pavel came to a halt in the moonlight, listening intently. To his surprise, neither animal seemed distressed. The last time a creature had descended on them, the cow had kicked and brawled while the pony screamed and burst free of his stall. For a moment he wondered if the creature had killed them, but then he heard the soft chewing of the cow, working her cud, and a soft huff and stamp of the pony's hooves.

Perhaps Felix had been mistaken.

He realized he hadn't brought a lantern, and so he retreated in the door, but nearly ran into Grandma in the process.

"Let me see." Her voice squeaked and cracked with age— she was his mother's mother, who had outlived all her children. Pavel's throat squeezed with anxiety, but Grandma held aloft a large wooden crucifix that Pavel himself had carved. He leaned down and kissed it, praying it would be enough, and grabbed a lantern, still holding the cocked cross-bow. Felix peeked out and Pavel shot him a severe glance, making the boy shut the door. Inside, he would be safe.

Step by step, they walked toward the stables. His lantern-light fell on the animals, and they were both perfectly at ease. The pony made a soft noise of greeting, tossing his head.

Pavel let out a breath, watching as Grandma petted the animal's nose. It was a false alarm, praise God.

He turned, and came face to face with a man.

Pavel screamed, reeling back, his finger fumbling on the trigger of the crossbow, and the bolt zipped from the string, missing its mark by a mile. The man flinched and jumped back into the shadows, and Grandma thrust out her hand, clutching the crucifix.

For a tense moment they stood there.

Then the man said, in a voice raw but desperately human, "Bitte. Bitte…" And then a string of words in a language Pavel didn't speak.

Hand trembling, he raised his lantern. The man was half-crouched, flinching away from the light. He was emaciated, wearing only a dirty white shirt and trousers that hung on him. His hair and scraggly beard were dark brown, and his feet were bare and bloodied. When his eyes adjusted to the light, they were wide and bloodshot, blinking at Pavel as if he'd never seen a human before.

The man turned his head slightly, and Pavel saw the raw wound on the side of his neck.

He choked, on tears or terror or both.

"Grandma," Pavel said in a low shaking voice, "hold the lantern."

She didn't respond.

Pavel trembled. He needed to reload the bow, needed to fit the heavy wooden bolt into place and shoot the creature through the heart and then cut off its head, before it was too late, before another one of these creatures destroyed another member of his family.

Grandma took a step forward.

"Grandma!" Pavel's voice was a terrified whisper.

She took another step, still holding the crucifix aloft. Pavel felt frozen to the ground, unable to set down the lantern or do anything.

Grandma looked the man in the eyes, and pressed her lips to the crucifix, then held it out toward him.

As Pavel expected, he flinched back with a hissing sound, but then he blinked a few times and leaned forward, the gaping wound on his neck shifting as he leaned toward Grandma.

Pavel was nearly passed out from terror.

Cringing as if it burned him, the man leaned down and kissed the crucifix too. Then he fell onto his knees, buried his face in Grandma's skirts, and began to sob.

Pavel stared, all the fear draining out of him, leaving him shaky. Grandma turned, her eyes barely visible through the wrinkles that enfolded them. "He is no creature," she said, "only its victim."

Pavel set down his bow and ran over to the two of them, reaching out to touch the man's arm. The man was wailing now, but did not push away as Pavel slipped his arm under his shoulder and hauled him up to hurry him inside. Whatever had done this to him might still be around. He guided the thin man toward the door, herding Grandma ahead of him, glancing back and forth at the dark trees around the clearing of their house.

Once inside, Grandma placed the crucifix over the threshold of the door, and Pavel eased the man down into the chair by the fire.

Felix stood in the corner of the room, staring with wide eyes that seemed equal parts afraid and curious. He had grabbed one of the braids of garlic and was clutching it in his hands. "Who is he?"

"Someone who needs our help," Pavel said. "Boil water immediately, and fetch some wine from the cellar."

The man was half-passed out, sprawled in the chair with his head lolling back, his dark eyes staring through the ceiling. Now that Pavel could see him better in the firelight, he realized this was barely a man at all, but a boy— his face was young, aged beyond its years by a horror that Pavel unfortunately knew all too well.

Grandma rolled up her sleeves and pushed past Pavel toward her corner of the main room, where she kept her bundles of herbs and little glass jars of remedies. Pavel watched her work in silence as she gathered the familiar treatments: yarrow and hyssop to boil into a poultice, a paste of beeswax and onion juice to apply to the wound afterward, and a little jar, seldom used, of powered root of cypress euphorbia— used to treat rabies.

As she prepared the herbs and Felix brought up wine, Pavel knelt beside the man— the boy— and rubbed his cold hands gently. The young man's head lolled forward, and he blinked, as if trying to get his eyes in focus. Pavel smiled at him, trying to avoid looking at the gory wound on his throat. "Do you speak Romanian?" he asked.

The man stared at him blankly. Pavel switched to German, though he knew little of the language: "Do you speak German?"

The man slowly nodded, as if unsure of himself. "Ja."

"My name is Pavel," he said in German.

The man blinked, uncomprehending. Perhaps he didn't speak as much of the language as he said. Pavel went for most basic communication, tapping his own chest. "Pavel."

The man slowly nodded, then tapped his fingers to his own chest. "Jonathan," he whispered. And then he began to sob again, whispering, "Jonathan," over and over again.

Pavel was surprised to hear an English name— what was an Englishman doing out here in the middle of the Romanian wilderness? He looked at the wound again and shuddered. Perhaps it was best not to know. He poured a little glass of wine and offered it to Jonathan, who at last stopped crying long enough to take a few sips. Grandma hobbled over, mixed a little of the euphorbia root into the wine, and gave it to him. Jonathan coughed, but swallowed.

Grandma shooed Pavel away, and dumped the handfuls of herbs into the basin of hot water Felix had prepared, sending a cloud of fragrant steam into the air. Pavel watched from the side as she pulled up a chair next to Jonathan and began gently washing his torn flesh. The young man squirmed and panted in pain, but accepted the warm cloth on his neck. When she had cleared all the dried-up blood and dirt away, the wound was still ragged. It looked just like the one on his wife's throat that day, the day she had bled out in his arms. Like an animal had seized the throat with its teeth and shaken it as a dog shakes a rat. Pavel turned away, tears stinging his eyes.

After cleaning Jonathan's throat, Grandma pressed a hot poultice to it, and tied a clean strip of cloth around his neck to hold it in place. Then she moved down to clean his muddy, bloodied feet. "Danke," Jonathan said every time she cleaned away a bit more blood. It seemed to be one of the only German words he knew, and after a while he was repeating it like a prayer: "Danke, danke, danke…" When she finished, and wrapped the same poultice in bandages around his feet, he leaned back on the chair with a euphoric sigh, his eyes fluttering closed. But she had one last herbal remedy to give him. She tapped his shoulder and tucked a garlic clove between his lips. His eyes opened, and he tried to turn his head, but she clenched her fingers into his hair and pressed the clove in more insistently. "You must," she said, and although Jonathan didn't speak Romanian, her tone was clear. With a soft whimper, he chewed the clove, gagged, but managed to swallow.

Grandma's face grew soft, and she stroked his hair. "Good child. You will be safe now."

Jonathan looked like he was moments from passing out, so Pavel helped him move to the nearest bed, which was his own— he would sleep on the floor tonight. He laid the thin body down and pulled the blanket over him, tucking him in the way he always tucked in Felix.

Jonathan seemed to be wavering in and out of consciousness, but he was still whispering, "Danke." Pavel and Grandma stood side by side, both overcome with emotion.

They had not been able to save Pavel's wife, but perhaps they could save this man.

*

In the morning, Jonathan was gone. And so were Pavel's shoes, a water skin, and a sackful's worth of cheese and sausage. "That thief!" Pavel cried, pained to the heart that his hospitality would be repaid so.

Grandma looked up from where she was sitting by the fire, looking offended. "Nonsense! I woke up when he did early this morning, and I gave him your shoes as a gift, along with provisions."

Pavel stared at her. He'd have to go barefoot for a month before he saved up enough to buy new shoes. "Grandma!"

She shook her head, brooking no argument. "'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,'" she quoted, "'for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.'"

Pavel groaned to hear the Scriptures quoted at him in such a time, but he knew not to argue with Grandma. And as he looked out the window, which was gray and heavy with the threat of rain, he could conjure only feelings of concern for the mysterious young man, not anger. The boy was going to need those shoes.

"Do you think he will be all right, Grandma?"

"Yes," she said with confidence. "He will meet others like us along the way."

Pavel shivered as rain began to fall.

Chapter Text

Cristian shuffled down the cobblestone street toward the ticket-station, still yawning and shaking off the aches and pains that assailed him each morning. The sky was growing flax-yellow behind the sloping roofs of the village, and the air was unusually chilly for June, prompting him to wear his coat.

It wasn't as if anyone ever showed up at the station for a ticket at five-thirty in the morning, but a job was a job, and so he dutifully marched toward the station, holding his lunch-pail with one hand and rubbing sleep from his eyes with the other. Pigeons flew from their homes and circled above, and he heard larks singing in the fields beyond the train tracks.

He wondered who he might see at the station today. Probably old Pichler and his daughter, headed to Klausenburg for the weekend, and perhaps Madame Alnwick, returning from her trip to visit her cousin. There was rarely anyone new. And the one person he did want to see, more than anyone else in the world, would not be coming.

He'd gotten the letter from his son Luca yesterday. It wasn't enough that Luca had abandoned his life in the village in favor of going to university in Bucharest, but his letter informed Cristian that he was spending the summer with a friend in Constanta instead of returning home. Cristian was trying hard not to be bitter about it, but his mind turned over the words of the letter like a dog worrying a bone.

The train station came into view: a wooden platform a few feet off the ground, with a tiled awning over it, next to the small booth where he'd sit all day and punch tickets.

Then he looked harder, and noticed a dark something alongside his booth. He squinted to try to figure out what it was (he didn't need glasses, even though his wife kept telling him he did) and realized that it was a person, curled up into a fetal position against the wall.

Cristian stopped and stared, and for the briefest second, he irrationally wondered if it was Luca, come back to visit for the summer after all. Then he shook his head, chiding himself for such a silly thought, and cautiously climbed the steps onto the platform, planning to wake up this vagrant and chase him off.

As Cristian stepped up on the platform, he saw that his initial impression hadn't been as far off as he thought— this haggard young man was not only around Luca's age, but had some superficial features in common: a thin frame curled up around his satchel, dark hair that fell in loose curls on his forehead, and a slightly hooked nose (though Cristian hoped Luca would never grow such a scraggly beard). The boy was gaunt, almost impossibly so, his skin almost grey, and around his neck was a dirty bandage. He was shivering and twitching in his sleep, huddled against the building to block the unusually chilly breeze blowing from the north.

All thoughts of chasing him off died away as Cristian looked down at the poor shivering boy. For a moment, the boy might as well have been Luca, lost and alone and cold— and who would help him, if not Cristian? There was no one else around.

Using the edge of the building to help him, Cristian crouched down, and gently shook the boy's shoulder.

The boy awoke with a full-bodied scream, startling Cristian so much that he lost his balance and almost fell backward. Before he could right himself, the young man had leaped to his feet and dashed away in a sprint, taking a flying leap off the platform. He hit the cobbled pavement hard, stumbled, and fell to his hands and knees, where he stayed, trembling and panting.

"Easy there!" Cristian said, hauling himself up to his feet. In the flurry, the boy had left his satchel, so Cristian leaned down to pick it up, then walked to the edge of the platform to hold it out. "Don't forget this."

The young man struggled to his feet and turned, staring at him with wild eyes. Then he began to speak a torrent of words, so quickly and incoherently that it took Cristian a few seconds to realize that he was speaking a foreign language. Not German— maybe English? He couldn't quite tell. Whatever language it was, the boy was crying now, from his crazed, bloodshot eyes, his voice becoming thick and choked. Cristian looked around as if searching for someone to tell him what to do, and when the boy rushed at him, he jumped back, dropping the satchel, which fell off the platform into the young man's hands. The boy rooted around inside the satchel for a moment, then pulled out three gold coins and pressed himself against the edge of the platform, holding up the coins, still speaking a stream of tearful words.

Where on earth had he gotten these? Stolen them? But they weren't like any money Cristian had ever seen. Cristian looked once more from left to right in search of the answer to this puzzle, but it was just him and this stranger, and he had to decide for himself.

Suddenly, the boy collapsed on the edge of the platform, his face against the boards, his hand still holding up the coins. He was still sobbing, and his speech had dissolved into a single English word, one of the few Cristian knew: "Please please please…"

Cristian found tears in his eyes, and he scrubbed them away with the heel of his hand. Slowly, wincing with his stiff joints, Cristian crouched down again, and leaned forward to rest his hand on the young man's head. The boy's sobbing grew less violent, and his shoulders dropped a little.

"Yes," Cristian said in English. He didn't know what the boy had asked of him, but he figured that hearing a reply his own language would do him good. It worked: the boy raised his head, blinking and looking hopeful.

"Cristian," he said, touching his own chest.

The boy sniffed, then, oddly, held out his hand to shake Cristian's, in a formal gesture. He took the bony hand in his wrinkled one, surprised by how firm his grip was.

"Jonathan," the boy said.

"English?"

Jonathan looked confused for a moment, and then a spark of recognition came into his eyes. "Yes."

Cristian smiled at him in what he hoped was a reassuring way, and then stood up and pointed toward the ticket-booth, indicating for him to come back up on the platform.

The boy nodded in understanding, and then leaped up onto the platform, so lightly that Cristian blinked in surprise. With the boy standing tall before him, he felt a wave of unease: both the bandages around his neck and the front of his shirt were covered in dry blood. But the boy seemed unbothered by it, so Cristian decided not to try to remove any of the bandages. Instead, Cristian led him toward the ticket booth, motioned for him to wait, and then stepped inside and tore off a ticket to Klausenburg. It was a bigger city, and Jonathan would be more likely to find an English-speaker there who could help him.

Cristian stepped outside to find Jonathan waiting for him, standing with his hands folded in an oddly formal way. It was eerie, seeing the bloodstained clothes, too-big shoes, and ratty beard and hair on someone standing so tall, so politely. "Here," Cristian said, handing him the ticket.

Jonathan took it with a nod of his head, then held out the coins again. Cristian shook his head, but Jonathan insisted, and at last Cristian took one of the coins, which made Jonathan visibly relax. The boy nodded, said another stream of English words, ending with a phrase Cristian understood: thank you. Then he walked over to the benches under the awning and sat down, turning the ticket over and over in his hand.

Cristian watched him for a long moment, wondering where he had come from and how he had gotten into such a state. He prayed that Luca would never fall into circumstances such as these, but it was easy to imagine his own boy at some foreign train station, just trying to get home.

He noticed that Jonathan had begun to shiver again; the platform was breezy, and it was likely the boy was chilled from sleeping out in the open overnight. Cristian hesitated, then stepped out of the ticket booth and brought his coat over. Jonathan looked up in surprise, but sank into the coat gratefully when Cristian draped it around his shoulders. He was still shivering, though, so after a moment's hesitation, Cristian sat down next to him and gently linked both arms around him, rubbing his arms vigorously in hopes of getting his blood moving again. Jonathan's eyes fluttered closed and he leaned into the touch, sagging against Cristian's side. Within a minute, Cristian's hands slowed and Jonathan was fast asleep on his shoulder.

So it was that Cristian sat for half an hour with a stranger in his arms. Luca had often fallen asleep on his shoulder— the boy had suffered nightmares when he was little, and Cristian couldn't count the number of nights he had sat in his easy chair by the fire with Luca curled up against him, keeping him safe from the terror until he fell asleep again. At some point, they had stopped, and he couldn't remember when. He couldn't point to a single memory of Luca in his arms as the last time; his memory did not know it was important to preserve this moment in crystal, did not know that later he would weep because he couldn't remember the last time his boy had slept against his shoulder.

He had always despised the old people's advice to him when he was a young parent, telling him that children grew up too quickly. But now he knew it was true. Luca was off living his own life, and the only boy in his arms was a stranger who didn't even speak the same language.

But somehow, it was good all the same, to sit and watch the sunrise with Jonathan asleep on his shoulder.

At last the sound of the first train of the day approaching stirred him from his reverie, and he squeezed Jonathan's arm, waking him gently. Fortunately this time Jonathan woke without violence, and pulled away from his shoulder, blinking in the sunlight.

Cristian pointed to the ticket in Jonathan's hand, and then at the train. Jonathan stood, saying something that sounded polite and grateful. Cristian's coat was still around the boy's shoulders, and he realized that the Jonathan was going to wander off with it. He started to say something, but then thought better of it. He could afford a new coat later. Jonathan needed the coat now— not only for warmth, but to cover up the alarming blood-stains on his clothes and the bandages around his neck. The less wild he looked, the better.

The ticket-taker, a man named Adrian whom Cristian saw every day, looked curiously at Jonathan, but ripped his ticket and ushered him inside. Cristian followed close behind, flagging down his acquaintance. "Hello, Adrian. I don't know who that poor fellow is, but he appears to be English. I'm trying to help him get home. You'll help him, won't you?"

Adrian was a decent man, but he could be gruff. "That's not my job," he said shortly, but then softened when he saw the pleading look on Cristian's face. "I'll notify the station-master in Klausenburg. There is likely someone who speaks English there."

Cristian took his hand and shook it heartily. "Thanks, Adrian."

Adrian huffed in response, and then tipped his hat and hopped back on the train.

Jonathan was at the window now, huddled against the glass and staring out in the distance. Cristian slowly raised his hand and waved, remembering how he had tried to catch Luca's eye when he left for Bucharest. Luca had only nodded, and then looked away. But Jonathan met his eyes and raised his hand tentatively, waving back. For a moment, his haggard face softened into a smile.

The train pulled away with a screech of metal and a puff of steam, and Jonathan was gone.

Cristian stood on the platform, staring at the empty tracks, for a long time.

Then he returned to work, with only the strange gold coin in his pocket to convince him that the whole thing had not been a dream.

Chapter Text

"Help!"

Nicolae's head shot up in surprise, hearing the shrill voice scream the unfamiliar word across the echoing station building. He tucked his pocket-watch away and strode toward the source of the sound, trying to keep his head up and his manner authoritative. He could already hear the stir of sounds around the station, people murmuring or even crying out in surprise. Nicolae walked faster, then broke into a light jog, feeling anxiety humming inside him. He'd just gotten this job last week— the youngest person to ever be station-master in Klausenburg— and he was not going to have any conflict, not on his watch!

It was easy to find the crowd of people, jostling and chattering nervously in a wide arc around one of the ticket-windows. Nicolae shouldered his way through, breaking out of the crowd to find the source of the conflict: a pale, thin man a few years younger than himself, screaming in a foreign language and waving his arms at one of the ticket-taking windows.

"Someone call the police!" a man shouted behind him, and Nicolae felt a sharp pain at the words, bad memories flooding his mind.

"No need," he said in a loud but measured voice, and strode quickly toward the young man, drawing a long, deep breath as he did so. He knew what it was like to lash out in a crowd, to have people pointing at him in terror, to have the police called on him. It had been many years since Nicolae had had a seizure in public, but the memory was fresh, and whatever was going on with this young man, Nicolae knew he didn't want that for him.

"What's going on?" he said. His voice was loud enough to be heard over the man's shouting, but still calm.

The young man whirled on his heel to face him, and a woman behind Nicolae screamed, as if afraid the stranger would strike him. The man did look terrifying, it was true: hair matted, skin pale, body crouched with an animal-like posture, huddling inside a coat far too big for him. The stench of his unwashed body hung around him like vapor. Nicolae held his ground, standing with his arms down and his palms open, still keeping his voice clear and calm. "What is the matter, sir?"

The man's eyes roved around, as if having trouble settling on him, but when he spoke, in a language Nicolae recognized as English, his voice had died to a whimper. "Please help me."

He only knew a few phrases in English, but one of them he could use now: "I will."

Just then, a conductor— one Nicolae knew, a stern man named Adrian— rushed up to him, panting as if he'd been running. Adrian doubled over to catch his breath, then gasped out, "I'm sorry, sir, this man got away from me."

"He's with you, then?" Nicolae asked, looking in confusion between the wide-eyed young man and the stormy-faced conductor.

"Lord no! I was told to help him get where he's going, which was here, so he's your problem now!"

"He's English?"

"Clearly," Adrian sneered, "as you can see from his violent demeanor! All I know is his name is Jonathan. Maybe you can get him to say where he's from and why he looks like an animal."

Outside, a train whistled, and Adrian swore and sprinted back out the door to catch his train before it left without him.

The crowd had calmed down a little bit, and so had the young man— Jonathan. Nicolae tried to keep his body language relaxed as he turned to the crowd. "All right, go about your business. Everything is under control." Then he turned to Jonathan, gave him a warm smile, and said in English, "Come."

Jonathan nodded. He was still trembling, but walked beside Nicolae across the room and into Nicolae's office, where the hostile stares of the passengers wouldn't make things worse. Once inside the door, away from the prying eyes and fearful looks, Nicolae let out a silent sigh of pent-up stress, crossing his arms and squeezing them for a moment before deliberately relaxing.

He motioned at a hard-backed chair, and Jonathan sat, clutching his satchel in his lap and his too-big coat close around his collar, suddenly still and silent, as if he hadn't just been screaming and nearly foaming at the mouth. In these close quarters, the smell of him was so bad that Nicolae had to work hard to keep from covering his nose. Jonathan stared at Nicolae, and Nicolae was struck by the terror that haunted his eyes.

Nicolae took a moment to collect himself, feeling his own hands trembling. He didn't know how exactly he'd known that this man wasn't actually violent— it had been instinct. Nicolae had never forgotten how helpless he felt in the throes of a seizure, his teeth clenched onto his bloody tongue, his mind aware as his body thrashed, his fear rising like a tide as people called for him to be locked up, for him to be dragged away to an asylum. In those moments he had always longed for someone to walk up to him calmly, for someone to understand…

He shook his head, trying to come back to the present. If he had just come out of a seizure in an unfamiliar place, what would he want? Water, and food. He gave Jonathan a smile and then reached over to grab his lunchbox and a tin cup half-full of water. He offered these, and Jonathan reached for the water first, chugging it down as if he'd never drunk before, and then took his offered sandwich (it was a very nice sandwich, too: cold cuts layered with greens and a delicious paste of pickled garlic his neighbor had given him from her garden). Jonathan tore into the sandwich like he was a wild animal at a carcass, then paused, flinching as if it burned him (probably the garlic— the Englishman had probably never tasted anything with flavor before). But he immediately resumed.

Nicolae let him eat in silence for a while, ignoring the stares from his fellow workers through the windows. Then Nicolae scraped together his few words of English. "Jonathan," he said, and the man looked up as if shocked to hear his name. "Where are you from?"

Jonathan blinked at him, his mouth still full of food. At last he chewed and swallowed, and his voice came out, hoarse from all the shouting. "I don't know."

Nicolae smiled at him, even as he grew frustrated. "Where are you from?" he asked again, trying a different inflection. He didn't have more vocabulary to ask more specific questions: Where, exactly, in England do you hail from, and how can I get you there? Do you still live there? Why are you here? Why on earth are you so haggard? Why are your shoes and your coat too big? What are you running from?

"I don't know," the young man repeated, and his eyes filled with tears.

"Oh dear," Nicolae said, unconsciously switching back to his native language, but Jonathan was fully crying now, the tears running down into his sandwich as he continued to eat.

"You poor thing," Nicolae murmured, fumbling in his pocket for his handkerchief. He gave it to Jonathan, who sniffed and dried his tears as he chewed the last of the sandwich. Most men might have scoffed at a young man crying in front of a stranger, but not Nicolae. Too many times he had been the one sobbing as the seizure's grip left him. He never grew used to the shame, to the horrible pitying looks that people gave him, even as no one stepped in to help.

Jonathan still looked hungry, so Nicolae handed him the rest of his lunch— an apple and a crusty roll, and Jonathan tore into them with the same desperation. In the meantime, Nicolae sat at his desk and pulled out a pen and paper, then consulted the map. The furthest west that any direct line ran from here was Buda-Pesth, so he wrote a letter to the station-master there, instructing him to try to aid the young man in getting further west from that point. He signed and stamped the letter, then stood up, beckoning Jonathan to follow him back out into the station.

Jonathan shrunk back, but Nicolae smiled encouragingly and held out his hand. Jonathan reached out slowly, and then his hand slipped into Nicolae's, surprisingly smooth (he had expected it to be rough and callused, like a laborer's hand). Nicolae helped him to his feet and then, hand in hand, the two of them went out into the station building, out one of the back doors, and to the platform for the train bound for Buda-Pesth, which would be rolling in any moment now. Nicolae stood beside Jonathan, who was still wiping his tears on the handkerchief, and tried to ignore the burning stares of the fellow passengers.

When the train arrived, Nicolae handed the letter to the conductor, telling him to drop Jonathan off in Buda-Pesth and give the letter to the station-master there. The conductor was a grizzled old man who looked none too happy about having Jonathan as a passenger, but Nicolae stood tall and gave him a look of stern authority, and so the man said he would.

Nicolae nodded to Jonathan, squeezed his hand, and helped him step up onto the train. When their hands parted, Jonathan looked down at the handkerchief and started to offer it back, but Nicolae smiled and shook his head.

Jonathan's voice was small, still with a slight tremble. "Thank you."

Nicolae's heart squeezed in his chest. He wished he could do more. "You are welcome."

Jonathan breathed a sigh, almost smiled, and hopped onto the train.

As Nicolae walked back into the station building, his stomach grumbled with hunger, as if to complain about him giving away his lunch. "Hush," he told his stomach as he moved on to his next task.

Wherever Jonathan was heading, he hoped he would get there. At least Nicolae had given him the best chance he could.

Chapter Text

Maria was half-asleep in the sunshine slanting through the train windows; she was on her way home to Oradea, just shy of the Romania-Hungary border, after visiting some friends in Klausenburg. The week-long visit had left her exhausted down to her bones. She wasn't exactly elderly yet, but she felt how settled in her ways she'd become; she was getting too old for all this traipsing around the countryside. Plus, her older sister Elena, whom she lived with as a caregiver, would be eager to see her. The old bullet wound in her leg ached, and she was looking forward to the comfort of her own bed tonight.

Vaguely, Maria heard the carriage door open, and the conductor's gruff voice, speaking to the car at large, made her open her eyes. "Excuse me," the conductor said, "does anyone here speak English?"

Maria considered closing her eyes and going back to sleep, but her curiosity got the better of her. "I do," she said, sitting up. Her brother had married an Englishwoman, and she had learned the language fluently, even though she was a bit rusty now.

The conductor stepped toward her, tipping his hat. He looked to be in his late forties just as she was, though the sour look on his face did not give a very pleasant impression. "Beg your pardon, Madam," he said. "There is a passenger in the adjacent car who keeps asking me things in English, and gets agitated when I can't answer. I'm afraid he's liable to become violent! But if you could stand safely behind me and translate his words, I would be much obliged."

Maria huffed. "I should think you would throw off this ruffian at the next stop, if you consider him such a threat."

The conductor sighed in exasperation. "I would, Madam, but I have strict orders from the station-master at Klausenburg to take him all the way to Buda-Pesth." He tapped a letter tucked into his breast pocket.

Maria considered hunkering down in her seat like a hen on a nest and refusing to come with him, but the small voice nagged in her head, the one that pressed her to always help a person in need— even now, even after all she had sacrificed for others. "Very well," she said brusquely. "Make it quick!"

She got to her feet, leaning on her cane, and she saw the conductor wavering between offering her an arm and leaving her alone. He at last settled for leading the way down the aisle, Maria limping behind him, through the rear door and into the car behind them. The conductor slid open a glass door that led to a little compartment with two benches facing each other. A young man was sitting in it, gazing out the window, and he startled when the door opened.

His appearance was alarming, all scraggly hair and dirty clothes too big for him, but the stench that hung about him was worse— not just unwashed body, but the unmistakable smell of mouldering flesh.

For a moment Maria froze, the scent hooking into her mind and dragging her back to the places of the past that she tried so hard to ignore: to the stench of the hospital tents, the groans of the dying soldiers, the rows of young men with limbs hacked off or bullet holes spangled through their bodies. She and the other nurses had saved who they could. It was never enough.

"Madam?" the conductor said, and Maria realized that she had shrunk back. Inside the compartment, the young man quickly stood and half-bowed, his hand moving toward his matted hair as if wishing he had a hat to tip. The loose collar of his coat fell to the side, and she saw a bandage soaked in dried blood wrapped around his neck. It was eerie to see him acting so prim and proper in the state he was in.

"Good day," the young man said in English.

Maria smiled at him, and replied in the same language. "Good day." Then she turned and sent a fiery glare at the conductor, switching to her native language. "You didn't tell me he was injured!"

The conductor held up his hands to protest his innocence. "I don't have time to play nurse to every passenger."

"Well, I am a nurse, and I demand you locate the first aid kit on this train and bring it to me immediately."

The conductor glanced from her to the young man, who was standing uncertainly, as if waiting for a good moment to break into their conversation. "And leave you alone with him?"

Maria smirked. "Don't worry, I'm armed." She held up her cane meaningfully. "Now go!"

She may not have served as nurse since the war, but she had not lost any of her commanding presence. The conductor flinched as if he'd been slapped and bustled off down the corridor.

Maria turned to the young man, but before she could speak, he said, "Excuse me, Madam, could you tell me when this train gets to England?"

Maria stepped into the compartment and sat, gesturing him to do so as well. His body language was fairly relaxed, so she didn't feel any fear. "This train go to Buda-Pesth," she replied in English. "You can go to England from there."

The young man's face clouded, but then he rallied, and with a nod of his head, said, "Thank you. But how will Mina find me there?"

"Who is Mina?"

"My fiancée."

Maria considered carefully, wondering if there were truth in his statement or if he was under delusion. "I am sure she will be wait for you in England."

The young man's face brightened. "Ah. Good." His eyes drifted to the countryside flying by the window, and he absently scratched at his bandaged neck, which was just the opportunity Maria was looking for.

"Does your neck have pain?" she asked.

The young man started, as if having forgotten that she was in the car with him, then nodded. "Not much."

"I am a nurse. May I examine your neck, —?"

"Jonathan," he said, with another tip of his invisible hat.

"And I am Maria. Jonathan who?"

He stared at her as if she'd asked the most incomprehensible question. At last he just said, "You're a nurse?"

"Yes."

"My neck hurts. Perhaps you could look at it?"

"Of course." Maria kept her smile fixed in place, categorizing the symptoms as she observed them. Confusion, short-term memory loss, pallid skin, dehydration. And then whatever had caused the blood. "Take off your coat and come sit."

Jonathan followed her instructions, removing his coat to reveal a ragged shirt underneath, smeared with the same dark brown bloodstains. Maria felt apprehension prickle at her— it was one thing for a tramp to be dirty, but this was a lot of blood. He settled obediently in place with his hands folded in his lap. The smell radiating from his wound was fetid, but also strangely herbal.

Maria took his pulse first, surprised at how icy his skin was to the touch. His heartbeat was slightly fast but still within normal range, and when she pressed her wrist to his grimy forehead, she found it ice-cold as well, with no sign of a fever. Jonathan leaned slightly into her touch, his eyes half-closed.

Just then the conductor returned with a metal case, still looking at Jonathan as if he expected him to bite. Maria sent him off to get Jonathan a glass of water, and unpacked the kit, finding it meagerly supplied, but enough for her purposes.

Jonathan was a model patient, keeping perfectly still and quiet as she unwrapped the bandages along his neck, bracing herself for what she might find underneath. Fortunately, it was not as bad as she had feared: the skin was white and oily, scattered with rows of intense red puncture marks, some of which were dripping fluid, but the wound mostly appeared to be healed. It appeared that someone had applied a poultice of some kind, and she caught a faint whiff of an herb— perhaps yarrow— amid the dirty bandages.

"Tilt your head to the side."

Jonathan did, but as Maria reached out to touch the base of his neck, he flinched away, a muffle whimper coming from his mouth.

"Does it hurt?"

Jonathan didn't reply. He was staring into space, his muscles gone limp. Maria decided not to touch his neck again if she could help it, and carefully examined the red marks. They appeared to be a bite of some kind— her first thought was a human bite, but humans didn't have canines long enough to create these kinds of punctures. A dog, perhaps?

For a moment she wondered if Jonathan had rabies. But no, the bandages seemed at least several days old. If he'd been bitten by a rabid animal more than a few days ago, he would be dead by now.

"I must clean your wound," she said. Jonathan nodded, and Maria set to work, applying antiseptic that made Jonathan squirm in pain, and then putting clean bandages back on the wound. When she had knotted the bandage, Jonathan slumped against the seat, panting as if he'd survived a great ordeal.

Maria looked at the bloodstains on his shirt, and asked, "Do you have other wounds?"

Jonathan put a hand to his chest, as if trying hard to remember something. At last he spoke reluctantly, as if doubting his own answer. "…Yes."

"May I clean them?"

Jonathan slowly nodded, but his expression had turned vacant again. His hands went to the buttons on his shirt and worked slowly but steadily, revealing the pale, almost-corpse-like skin beneath. His gaze was faraway, staring out the window.

When he shouldered off his shirt, Maria had to stifle a gasp of horror.

His chest, his shoulders, his stomach, his back— every bit of skin that she could see— were covered in similar bite marks. Most of them were old, having healed over and begun to fade, but others were oozing with infection.

Whatever had bitten him had done so continuously and methodically, day after day, marking almost every inch of his skin.

Maria looked at Jonathan steadily, taking his hand. "My child, what happened to you?"

Jonathan's whole body tensed up. He began to tremble, and then to shake, and she instinctively knew that he was a single instant away from having a complete breakdown.

Everybody reacted differently to trauma. Some of the soldiers under her care had been silent, deathly silent. Others wept day and night. Some swore and berated her, some begged her to kill them. Some detached themselves from their bodies until she felt she was speaking to a husk, not a person.

Now, as then, she had to act quickly.

"Your fiancée's name, it is Mina?" she asked, squeezing his hand.

Jonathan's gaze latched onto her, as if he were a drowning man catching a rope in the ocean. "Yes," he said, his voice strained, his body still shaking.

"Tell me of her. Is she lovely girl?"

"Yes," he said, and Maria watched his trembling grow less, even as his grip in her hand grew tighter. "But, but more than that. She is kind."

"Very good," Maria said, gently touching his arm to make sure that he wouldn't shrink away when she bandaged him. "What do you like to do, while you are courting?" Maria slid her hand out of his and dipped her gauze into the antiseptic.

Jonathan's face showed a twinge of distress, but he was focused inward now. "We take walks," he said uncertainly as Maria began to clean and bandage his wounds. "By the sea. I think. It is blue water, and it glitters like diamonds under the sun, or molten lead when it's cloudy. I hold her arm and we walk together. We like to visit graveyards and ruins. She always tries to befriend the ravens with breadcrumbs from our picnic lunches." He had fully relaxed now, allowing Maria to quickly work over the remaining wounds.

"It sounds like you are very much in love. That is good for a young man, to be in love."

"When will I see her again?" Jonathan's voice trembled.

Maria drew a measured breath, closed her eyes. She had so many memories of other young men who showed her pictures of their wives and fiancées and sweethearts, who asked her, as she bandaged their bloody stumps and sewed up their bullet wounds and held their hands as they bled out or succumbed to gangrene, when they would see their sweethearts again. At the end of the war, Romania had its independence, but she would never be able to scrub the blood and ooze and gore from her memory.

"I'm sure you will see her soon," Maria said, trying to keep her tone cheerful. Then, she made a decision. "When you arrive at Buda-Pesth, you must go to a hospital and take some time to recover."

Jonathan looked startled. "But I must go straight to Mina!"

"You must write to Mina and tell her to come visit you."

Jonathan turned sharply, grabbing both her hands in supplication. "But I don't know where to find her!"

Maria saw the crazed look in his eyes— he was as likely to end up in an asylum as a hospital at this point, but she must make sure, somehow, that that would not happen. "You will find her in time," she said, willing the words to be true. "You must heal, first."

The conductor returned with water, and made a soft noise of repulsion when he saw Jonathan's wounded body. As Jonathan drank the water and Maria finished the bandages, she instructed the conductor to bring her suitcase. When he did, Maria unpacked a night-shirt that she wore, a plain silhouette that was simple enough to serve as a man's shirt, as long as he tucked it in. She handed it to Jonathan, and he thanked her and slipped it on. She took his old shirt and balled it up along with the filthy bandages.

She stepped to the conductor, who was hanging around outside as if unsure what to do. "Let me see your orders," she said, and her tone brooked no argument. He handed them over and she read the letter, which instructed the station-master at Buda-Pesth to do everything in his power to return Jonathan safely to England.

"Hand me a pen," Maria said.

He obeyed, and she wrote a post-script:

Escort this man as soon as possible to the nearest reputable hospital— he has infected wounds and is in need of treatment. Do not seek to place him in an asylum: medical care will put his brain right more quickly than any other course of action. Respectfully yours, Maria Albu, infantry nurse of the 7th Regiment

She shoved the letter back into his hands and fixed him in her sternest gaze. "You must see that this man and this letter are personally delivered to the station-master."

The conductor squirmed under her intense eyes, but mumbled, "Very well."

Maria returned to sit next to Jonathan, who had pulled on her white night-shirt and tucked it in, which made him look a little less ragged.

"I'm tired," he said.

Maria patted him on the shoulder. "Then go to sleep. It will be many hours before Buda-Pesth."

He smiled faintly at her, and then bunched his coat into a pillow and leaned on it. Within a few minutes, he was asleep.

Her stop in Oradea was coming soon, and her heart squeezed painfully at the thought of leaving him alone. But she didn't have enough money or time to go to Buda-Pesth with him, and her ailing sister was waiting for her at home. This was all she could do for now.

When the train stopped at Oradea, Maria rose painfully to her feet, then leaned over and touched Jonathan's forehead, placing a silent blessing on him. She limped off the train with a heavy heart, hoping and praying that the goodwill of others would bear him safely home.

Chapter Text

Sister Agatha wove through the chaotic crowds of the Buda-Pesth train station, her suit-case weighing heavily on her arm. She and five other of the sisters were on their way home after a week-long medical training session, where they had learned a host of new techniques that they would be taking back to the hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary. Her brain was buzzing with the new information. She had known when she chose to become a nurse that it would be difficult, but some days she felt that it was impossible to keep track of all the knowledge she needed to serve both God and mankind.

Her stomach was grumbling as she shifted her suitcase to the other hand, and she hoped a late dinner would be waiting for them back at home. Being in huge crowds like this made her feel claustrophobic; she couldn't wait to return to their quiet haven on the outskirts of the city, where she could attend to her patients one on one, where the morning and the evening prayers gave her space to breathe and sing and meditate.

"Sisters!" The voice that rang out through the crowd was unfamiliar, and everyone in the group turned to see who had called them. A man about Sister Agatha's age shouldered through the crowd toward him. Based on his uniform, it was the station-master, and he had a crumpled letter in his hand and a relieved expression on his face.

The most senior of them, Sister Margaret, stepped forward to talk to him. Sister Agatha set down her suitcase, trying to discreetly stretch her aching back as she prayed for patience to deal with this interruption that was delaying her arrival back to her own bed.

The station-master's story, however, caught her attention. He had recognized them as sisters from the Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, and flagged them down because he wanted them to take a patient who had come in on the most recent train. "The fellow was carrying a letter, with orders from the Klausenburg station-master to take him as far west as the line ran— as well as a postscript by a nurse instructing that the man should be admitted to a hospital."

"What is his condition?" Sister Margaret asked.

"Looks half-dead to me, Sister. Has a crazed light in his eyes. But I can't understand a word he says— he's English."

Sister Agatha perked up at this. "I speak English," she put in. She had spent several of her teenaged years there, before her family move back to Buda-Pesth. Her use of the language was rusty, but fluent.

Sister Margaret turned to her, nodding in the decisive way she did just before giving instructions for surgery. "Sister Agatha, we will come speak to this man." She spoke to the other sisters, instructing them to wait for them in their carriage.

Fortunately someone took Sister Agatha's suitcase, and she walked quickly, winding through the crowd behind the other two toward the station-master's office. They were told that the young man's name was Jonathan, but that beyond his nationality, his background was a mystery.

They opened the door, stepping into a dimly-lit room scattered with papers, reeking with the smell of an unwashed body. Upon their entrance, a gangly young man sprang to his feet, his hand reaching toward his head as if trying to tip his hat. Sister Agatha almost gasped: his bedraggled, bearded face and ratty hair made him look like like he had just stepped down from a crucifix. All mankind were made in the image of Christ, but this young man was particularly striking in the resemblance.

She took a deep breath and stepped forward, summoning her English from the depths of her memory. "Hello, I am Sister Agatha. What is your name?" She already knew it, but she hoped it would be a gentle first contact.

Jonathan took a step back, staring at the cross hanging about her neck with wide, bloodshot eyes. Sister Agatha noted his appearance, running through her lists of diagnoses to try to guess what might be the matter with him. He was alarmingly pale and thin, as if he hadn't eaten a wholesome meal in years. He wore a coat and shoes too big for him and a woman's nightshirt tucked into his raggedy trousers. Someone with obvious expertise had recently bandaged his neck. He reeked, as if he had not washed in weeks, and he was tensed, like a wild deer about to bolt.

"It's all right," she said soothingly. "I'm here to help. Can you tell me where—"

The man hurled himself at her. The station-master cried in alarm and started to jump forward, but Sister Agatha didn't flinch— she had been attacked by patients a hundred times, and her eyes tracked the trajectory of Jonathan's thin body, watching as he pulled up short of her and threw himself at her feet.

"Have mercy!" Jonathan sobbed, clutching her skirt with both hands. "Please, have mercy!"

She heard Sister Margaret let out a breath behind her, and the station-master glanced quickly between the two of them, as if wondering whether to intervene and pull the man away. Sister Agatha crouched down slowly, placing one hand on Jonathan's shoulder, and then, when he didn't flinch away from her touch, the other. Jonathan was sobbing now, curled up into a ball with his face tucked into the hem of her dress. She fought the urge to wrinkle her nose at the smell of him, determining that she would give him a bath the instant he arrived at the hospital.

"You're safe," she said softly. "I promise you are safe."

"I can't find her," Jonathan sobbed, his face still buried in the fabric. "I've looked and looked, but I can't find her!"

Sister Agatha held his shoulders, feeling them shake beneath her gentle touch. "We will help you find her," she soothed, hoping to later discover who he was talking about. "But for now, you need to rest. Will you let us take you somewhere you can rest?"

At last he lifted his head, his eyes and nose running and red. "I'm tired," he whispered.

"Then you will come with me?"

He stared at her eyes in an unfocused way, still sniffing. Then his eyes traveled down to the cross hanging at her neck, and his hand moved toward it in an almost involuntarily movement.

Sister Agatha reached into her pocket and pulled out her rosary, holding it out to him. His eyes locked on it. His breathing sped up, and his face flushed with an emotion she couldn't quite read. But with an almost inaudible, "Thank you," he reached out and closed his hand around it. He flinched as if it hurt him, but clenched his fist more tightly.

"Come," she said gently, and when she took his arm and stood, he rose with her, shaking as if he might fall over any moment.

The station-master's shoulders relaxed in relief, and Sister Margaret gave her an approving nod. With Jonathan leaning heavily on her arm, she took a deep breath and followed Sister Margaret back into the station.

It was a tight fit in the coach with their extra passenger, and the stench of Jonathan's body was difficult to bear for a while, but he was quiet and courteous, and within minutes had fallen asleep, slumping onto Sister Agatha's shoulder. She reached up to steady him whenever the coach went over a bump, wondering what his story was and what road to recovery lay ahead of him.

His hands were in his lap, and as he slept, the hand crushing the rosary fell open. Sister Agatha looked at his palm in the dim light with concern.

He must have been clenching the beads exceptionally tight, for there were bright red marks on his palm in the shape of the beads. The marks were so bright, and slightly raised, that they almost looked like burns.

The coach jostled, and she steadied him again. No matter. They would see to everything once they got him safely to the hospital.

*

Jonathan awoke, for once, not because of a nightmare. It was the gray of early morning, and he had no idea where he was, but that was nothing new, so he tried not to trouble about it. He hoped that Mina would come see him today, or that he would be able to stand up and walk out to find her. He felt there was something terrible he was forgetting…

His eyes swept the small room, falling on a portrait visible from his bed. It was the kind of portrait he had been taught to regard as idolatrous, featuring a man and woman who were clearly Joseph and Mary, holding a small Christ-child between them. Jonathan was ashamed that he felt a deep sense of comfort as he looked at their serene faces.

His eyes roamed to the small table near his bed. There laid his journal. He didn't remember what was in it, or why it was important, but it was more important than his own life, so looking at it made him feel better. He wanted to reach for it, tuck it under his pillow where it would be safe, but he was too weak to even move his arms.

His hands twitched, and he realized that he had a rosary clutched in his left hand, the beads and especially the tiny cross burning on his skin as if they were hot coals. With an effort, he drew his hand close to his body, over his heart, and felt the burning feeling intensify, like a fever driving away a cold. He didn't know why, but this was comforting, too.

Next to his journal were some other effects he didn't recognize: a satchel, coat and shoes he was pretty sure were not his, a handkerchief, and a nightshirt that appeared to be a woman's. As he stared at them, he got brief flashes of what might be memories— the smell of herbs and garlic, a strong arm around him, the taste of a sandwich, a woman's voice asking him to tell her about Mina— but he couldn't piece them together into anything, and he was afraid to try.

He returned his gaze to the holy couple and Christ, letting his breath slow, letting his mind let go of the frantic questions he had.

Perhaps tomorrow, he would set out in search of Mina. He wasn't sure how he was going to find her, but he knew he would.

Deep down, he trusted that he would find people to help him along the way.