“Missing just means they haven’t found a body,” Ethel said.
“Don’t say body. I can’t think of Jack like that.” But I thought of Phillip’s sunken ship, all the men on board. They were likely “missing.” Ethel was right.
In the weeks that followed, I had nothing to think of but grief. We had a small funeral for George. Then we wore black and went about our lives as if we weren’t wondering how anything could ever be the same again. We shuffled about our lives by day, and at night, we sat in the dark, remembering what would never be, the good times that wouldn’t be had, the weddings, the nieces and nephews never born. There was nothing even to look forward to. I cried every night for George and Jack, but especially for Jack, whose body lay God knew where in France. And the bombs continued to fall, one, two, even three nights in a week, without warning, so we never knew what was coming.
Only when the weeks became a month did I admit I was still thinking about Phillip, the man from the party. I thought about him all the time, about that day, the first time I’d felt like a grown-up. I wondered if he wondered about me. Probably not. Still, I looked for him on the street, at the grocer’s, everywhere, but I didn’t even know what he looked like, other than tall with blond hair. I asked people who had been to the party, people like Helen and Dora, who was now Mrs. Private Ned Stone, but they didn’t know who he was. No one did. I hoped maybe he was searching for me, and I went to the only places I thought I might find him, near the elementary school. And Regent’s Park, where it smelled nothing like springtime in an atomizer. All of London stank of smoke and sulfur and motor oil and death. It was gray and hazy and cold as ice. I would never find him.
Over dinner one night, we were discussing, as usual, the possibility of leaving London.
“A bomb hit the Bank of England yesterday,” my father said over a dull dinner of mostly vegetables and rice. “I think you should go and stay with my aunt Lydia. It would be safer.”
“But we’d be leaving you,” my mother said. “We could all stay in a shelter.”
“That bomb gutted the Underground station. I want you to leave. If you left, I wouldn’t always have to worry about you if there’s a bombing.”
I knew he didn’t mean he wanted us to go away, just wanted to make us safe. Still, it sort of hurt to be sent away.
Mum started protesting. We all did. But then there was a knock on the door.
When we opened it, it was Kendra, the girl from our building. I didn’t know her very well, but we nodded hello sometimes, and once she’d brought us a cherry pie with a cutout of a crow in the crust. Now she brought with her a tall man with piercing blue eyes, eyes that looked somehow familiar.
“This is John Harding. He has something to ask you.”
My mother invited him in. “I apologize, sir, for not being on dress parade.” She gestured around to the dusty tables, the wilted plants. “My two sons, we lost them in the war.”
“Two sons?” the gentleman said. “It was my impression that only one was killed.”
Mum winced, and my father said, “Well, yes, that is true. It is George we buried. Jack is only missing. It’s hard to hold out hope, though.”
“Oh, but you must,” the man—Mr. Harding—said, sitting down on our father’s favorite wing chair. “That’s why I’m here. I had something, ah, to ask you.” He looked at Kendra.
Kendra picked up on it. “What Mr. Harding is trying to say is, he has a proposal, that is to say, a favor to ask you.”
“What?” Father said.
“What I mean to say is, we have reason to believe that your son Jack is alive.”
A sharp intake of breath from Mum. “Reason? What reason?” She was shaking, and there were tears in her eyes.
“I am a woman of certain . . . powers,” Kendra continued.
We looked at her strangely. The room went as silent as the nighttime, when we waited for the bombs to fall. Finally, Ethel said what we were all thinking.
“What does that mean? Powers?”
“Witchcraft,” Kendra barely whispered. “I can bring you back your son Jack.”
“Back from the dead?” Mum’s voice caught.
“No, no, he isn’t dead,” Kendra said. “Not at all! I can find him. I can help him.”
“Leave this house!” My father was screaming. “How dare you torment her like this?”
“John.” Mum was clutching at my father’s elbow. “What if it’s true? What if she knows something?”
“Knows witchcraft? Knows something the British military doesn’t? How is that possible?” He turned to Kendra again. “I want you to leave! And you also!” Father gave Mr. Harding a shove.
“Please!” Mr. Harding said, and his eyes seemed desperate. “Please listen!”
Kendra walked to the door, but as she did, she withdrew an object from the carpetbag she carried. A mirror. When she reached the door, she turned it toward my mother. “It’s magical. Ask to see whomever you wish.”
Mum recoiled from the mirror. “I can’t. What if I ask to see Jack and he’s . . . dead?”