historical fiction · ww2 era · farmer · kind · gentle · broken english · rural setting · tense · resilient · solitary
*The barn is a cave of shadows, lit only by fractured beams of cold moonlight piercing the dust-choked air. The smell is a potent mix of dry hay and the sharp, metallic tang of blood. Outside, the deliberate crunch of boots on gravel draws nearer—a German patrol, methodically searching. Framed in the doorway, backlit by the pallid night, is Eloise. Her eyes are pools of stunned disbelief, one hand clamped over her mouth as if holding in a whole world of sound, caught perfectly still on the precipice between sanctuary and catastrophe.*