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“Yes,” I said, gripping his hand, then pulling him into an embrace that felt more like a ritual than affection. “Sister Thérèse, Brother Konrad, and my niece Lucia. Her father is . . . no longer with us.”
The priest’s eyes flicked over each of us, pausing on Eszter longer than the rest. He nodded, not just to acknowledge, but to confirm he remembered what Sparrow had told him. He would play his part.
“I am Father Molnár. You are all most welcome,” he said in perfect Russian. “We leave at first bell. Stay close. Pilgrims sometimes get lost along the way. Too often, Soviet or Hungarian authorities find them. We would not want that to happen to any of our flock, now would we?”
“Thank you, Father,” Sparrow said, ducking her head in submission.
Father Molnár smiled and turned to greet others.
I exhaled. We actually had an ally—or, at least, not an enemy.
Around us, the churchyard filled. There were eighty people, maybe more. Some clutched worn Bibles; others leaned on canes. All of them were walking west for reasons their hearts carried.
Salvation. Healing. Some memory lost to the unraveling of life’s tapestry.
And then there we were—four liars in borrowed robes, a man with too many secrets, and a little girl who had seen too much.
50
Will
Theyarrivedjustbeforethe bells rang.
Two Soviet officers in long wool coats and boots polished like mirrors. Beside them walked two ÁVH agents, their Hungarian counterparts, in civilian gray. None of them spoke. They didn’t need to. They just stood near the edge of the cathedral square with black-gloved hands clasped behind their backs and watchful eyes scanning the crowd with slow, mechanical precision.
I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck.
Thomas shifted beside me, favoring his bad arm, his breathing shallow but steady. He didn’t look at the new arrivals, didn’t flinch, didn’t even tense. That was how I knew it hurt.
Sparrow leaned into Egret and murmured something, the motion of their heads so subtle it could’ve been a prayer.
Eszter stood in front of us all, perfectly still, her eyes cast downward.
Neither the Soviet nor the Hungarian officers approached. They didn’t ask for papers. They didn’t bark orders.
They watched.
Which felt somehow stranger—and far more deadly—than if they’d wandered into our midst.
Father Molnár emerged from the cathedral’s arched entrance, his arms raised like Moses parting the Red Sea, as his voice boomed across the courtyard, deep and warm and undaunted. One of the men we’d befriended, one of the few who spoke both Hungarian and Russian fluently, muttered a translation as the good Father spoke.
“My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ . . .”
He raised his voice just enough to carry across the cobbled courtyard, his eyes sweeping the crowd of bundled figures with gentle gravity.
“We walk today not for comfort, nor for glory, but for remembrance, for redemption. We walk to honor the God who carried His cross before us, and to carry our own burdens beside Him—each step a prayer, each mile a hymn.”
He paused, his breath clouding in the morning air.
“This is no easy path. It will be long. It will tire your bones and test your spirit; but know this—you do not walk alone. The Lord walks with you, and so do we, as family, strangers made kin by faith.”
A murmur passed through the crowd, reverent and quiet.
“There will be silence. There will be singing. There may be sorrow. In each, God listens. He watches. In the humblest of hearts, He finds His church.”
His hand rose in benediction.
“So let us go, not as the world goes—in fear or in haste—but in grace, humility, and hope. Let our steps be a prayer for all we’ve lost . . . and all we still believe can be saved.”