50

Will

T hey arrived just before the 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.”

He crossed himself and lowered his voice so the assembled stepped forward to hear.

“May the Lord bless you and keep you. May His face shine upon your journey, and may His mercy meet us at the end of every road.”

As the first pilgrims stepped forward, Father Molnár glanced at the Soviet officers.

They gave no sign, no approval or denial.

They gave only silence.

And we began to walk.

By midmorning, we had crossed through the city’s edge—the crumbling industrial belt where chimneys stood like broken teeth and every brick held the soot of a war no one wanted to remember—into Budapest’s heart.

None of our watchers, neither Soviet nor Hungarian, followed. None appeared along our path. We’d been examined, searched, observed. Apparently, they thought it was enough.

At least, for now.

The group moved slowly, deliberately.

Older pilgrims paused often. Younger ones carried their burdens with less grace.

I kept one eye on Eszter. She played her part—shy, mute, never straying more than a pace from Sparrow. A few times I caught her holding Sparrow’s hand as we walked. The sight offered warmth on a wintry day.

Thomas, though . . .

He was trying.

God, he was trying, but the pace wore on him. The cold bit into his wound, and his shoulder was sagging by noon. He never complained, never slowed enough to draw attention, but I saw the tremor in his fingers, the sheen of sweat despite the chill, the way he kept flexing his good hand, like the act of moving something helped him stay upright.

Around us, others sang softly or prayed in murmurs.

Rosary beads clicked.

Crutches creaked.

We walked through fields of dry grass, past burned orchards and abandoned train cars, until the city began to fall away.

By sundown, the church appeared like a miracle. It was a low stone building on the edge of a pine grove, its bell tower crooked but proud. Smoke curled from a chimney. Its wooden doors swung open before we even reached the steps.

Inside, there was blessed warmth.

And the scent of freshly baked bread.

And the flicker of candles on stone.

Father Molnár spoke with the local priest while volunteers passed out food—thick soup, dark bread, small apples that had seen better seasons. Blankets were distributed. Pallets lined the nave like a patchwork quilt. Some pilgrims wept, grateful to be indoors. Others prayed, knees pressed to stone.

I found Thomas by the edge of one pallet, his eyes closed and arm clutched to his side. I kneeled beside him and pulled the bottle from my coat.

“Take a drink.”

“I’m fine,” he muttered.

“You’re not. You’re the color of smoke, your gait’s shot to hell, and your eyes look like . . . Just take it, okay?”

He didn’t open his eyes. “If I take it now, I won’t wake if something happens.”

I pressed the bottle into his palm anyway.

“We’re safer here than anywhere in Hungary,” I said. “Besides, you won’t have to. I’ll be watching.”

He opened his eyes at that. His gaze was soft and distant, but he was there.

“You always are.”

I handed him the flask—just enough water to wash the vile syrup down—and waited until he swallowed. Then I sat beside him, my back against the cold stone wall, and let the silence of the room settle around us.

Someone hummed a hymn in the corner.

Sparrow whispered with Egret across the nave.

Eszter slept already, curled in her blanket like a leaf folded in on itself.

Farkas lay beside her, his eyes wide, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. I doubted he saw much. He looked lost in thought—or some dreadful dream.

Thomas’s head tipped as he fell asleep. He didn’t speak again.

He didn’t have to.

We’d made it through day one.

By grace and grit.

And tomorrow, we would walk again.