Salt to the Sea

by Ruta Sepetys

My conscience mocked me, picking fights like a petulant child.

The hunter preyed on the fatigued and weary.

I had to move but felt so tired.

Real

But brave warriors, we brush away fear with a flick of the wrist. We laugh in the face of fear, kick it like a stone across the street.

Honors are for the dead, I’ve told them. We must fight while we are alive!

I did not want to go outside.

Real

In my head the sentences were intact, but I wasn’t sure they came out that way.

Tears stirred inside of me. I did not want to cry.

The old man spoke of nothing but shoes. He spoke of them with such love and emotion that a woman in our group had crowned him “the shoe poet.”

For me he was a conqueror, a sleeping knight, like in the stories Mama used to tell.

Get out of here, you pathetic slug.”

But I had no treatment for what plagued people the most. Fear.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to speak to anyone.

What I had was no one’s business.

Now, leave me alone,” I said.

Me core

Yes, I frequently watched you eating your breakfast before school.

It is giving stalker

didn’t need his criticism. I carried enough guilt on my own.

What did she say her name was? No, it didn’t matter. She was ugly. That’s what I told myself.

I told myself it wasn’t stealing. It was protection.

My letters were unopened. He hadn’t even cared enough to read them.

In my mind, I scaled such mountains of combat often.

My recitations seemed to bother my fellow sailors, but could I really blame them for being jealous of my archival facilities?

this dude annoys me greatly

So I talked to the trees as I walked, hoping their branches would carry messages up to Mama and let her know what I had done, and most of all, that I would try to be brave.

We had decided to press on, following the shoe poet and his ambitious walking stick.

Would a German girl open my desk and find my treasures inside?

The knight saved me and now I had saved the knight. Why didn’t that make me feel better?

What had human beings become? Did war make us evil or just activate an evil already lurking within us?

My record with boys was not exactly successful. I seemed to have a talent for picking the wrong ones.

Same girl, same

I am making these types of sacrifices every day, allowing others to eat from my spoon.

Yeah no I don't like this kid

What an idiot I was. If I could detect a flawed painting so quickly, why had it taken me so long to see the truth about Dr. Lange?

Walking through someone’s home and personal possessions felt not only like trespassing, it felt like a violation.

Honor lost was everything lost. He would not allow his family or legacy to be stripped from their land. They would die with dignity.

The nurse girl was even prettier when she was stubborn.

Germany was finally telling people what they should have said months ago. Run for your lives.

The war would end. We would all go home. Wouldn’t we?

Zarah Leander’s voice lived in my head, whispering the words, It’s not the end of the world. I hoped she was right.

He wanted to tell her things. She hoped he would tell her things. But he would not.

So now I risked everything, confronting fate and the knowledge that I had authored my own demise. But only if I failed.

Poet didn’t know the truth. I had already preserved myself. I had left Lithuania and those I loved behind. To die.

My confidence would hold no currency.

If I died, who would say the same of me?

Poet was a star, with skills as good as any cinema actor.

I sorted through the personal items in my case, reflecting on how much I had left behind.

War had rearranged my priorities.

I thought it was passion for art. It wasn’t. It was greed and power that excited him in a perverse way.

It was calculated and clever, putting an unknowing young apprentice in the middle to blame later, if necessary.

People had fought for it, killed for it, died for it. And I had it.

The war was full of brutality. Were there any nice young men still out there?

What a group we were. A pregnant girl in love, a kindly shoemaker, an orphan boy, a blind girl, and a giantess who complained that everyone was in her way when she herself took up the most room. And me, a lonely girl who missed her family and begged for a second chance.

The nurse sobbed, clinging to me. I sat, paralyzed, wanting to put my arms around her, but knowing I couldn’t.