The Huntress

by Kate Quinn

They called her die Jägerin—the Huntress. She was the young mistress of an SS officer in German-occupied Poland, the hostess of grand parties on the lake, a keen shot. Perhaps she was the rusalka the lake was named for—a lethal, malevolent water spirit.

That business about the six refugees she killed after feeding them a meal—” “Children,” Ian said quietly. “Six Jewish children, somewhere between the ages of four and nine.”

“The file still lists her birth name. Tony Rodomovsky, allow me to introduce Nina Graham.” The woman in the hospital bed, the woman who had seen die Jägerin face-to-face and lived, the woman now standing in the same room with

him for the first time in five years, a razor in her boot and a cool smile on her lips. “My wife.”

“Seb had promised to get her there. I kept his promise for him.” Ian looked at his partner. “He was my little brother. The only family I had left. And Nina watched die Jägerin murder him at Lake Rusalka.”

Home wasn’t merely an address.

There was some relief in the thought, some regret, some pleasure. No need to rank one over the other.

“Is a Russian thing. Sit around, drink too much, talk about death.” She pushed her empty plate away. “It makes us cheerful.”

Building a generation is like building a wall—one good well-made brick at a time, one good well-made child at a time. Enough good bricks, you have a good wall. Enough good children, you have a generation that won’t start a world-enveloping war.”

Time is a wheel, vast and indifferent, and when time rolls on and men forget, we face the risk of circling back. We slouch yawning to a new horizon and find ourselves gazing at old hatreds seeded and watered by forgetfulness and flowering into new wars. New massacres. New monsters like die Jägerin. Let this wheel stop.

Let us not forget this time. Let us remember.