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 Tim Weaver

MISSING PIECES
 Contents

BOOK ONE
1: Rebekah
Chapter 1
Before
Chapter 2
Before
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Before
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Before
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Before
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Before
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Travis
Before
Chapter 13
Before
2: Break
Before
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Before
Chapter 16
Before
Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
Before
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Home
Before
Chapter 21
Before
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Before
Chapter 24
Before
Chapter 25
Before
The Call
3: The Prison
Chapter 26
Before
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Before
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Before
Chapter 31
Before
Chapter 32
Before
Daybreak
Before
4: Roots
Before
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Before
Chapter 35
Before
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
The Interview
Before
 Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Before
Chapter 40
Before
Missing Hours
5: The Storm
Before
Chapter 41
Before
Chapter 42
Before
Chapter 43
The Stranger
Before
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Doubts
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Before
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Midwinter Pier
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Waiting Game
Chapter 53

BOOK TWO
6: Open Season
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
A New Life
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
The Fix
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Life Raft
Chapter 60
 Chapter 61
Meetings
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
The Crossing
7: The Secret
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Identities
Chapter 68
Before
The Back Seat
8: Freedom
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
A Message
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Out of Hand
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
The Plan
Chapter 78
Family
Chapter 79
Exorcism
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
9: The Scar
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86

Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
 About the Author
Tim Weaver is the Sunday Times bestselling author of ten
thrillers, including I Am Missing and You Were Gone. Weaver has
been nominated for a National Book Award, selected for the Richard
and Judy Book Club, and shortlisted for the Crime Writers’
Association Dagger in the Library award. He is also the host and
producer of the chart-topping Missing podcast, which features
experts in the field discussing missing persons investigations from
every angle.
A former journalist and magazine editor, he lives near Bath with
his wife and daughter.
For Camilla
BOOK ONE
 1

REBEKAH
 1
She stumbled along the aisle.
It was so dark, she could barely put one foot in front of the other,
her hands out – helping her feel her way forward – her hair soaked,
skin slick, clothes matted to her body. When she got halfway down,
she stopped and looked back. It was like she was adrift in some vast
black ocean.
The window she’d crawled through hung in the shadows, like a
picture frame, glass still ragged along one of its edges, the rest
shattered on the floor beneath it. She could hear rain on the roof – a
relentless, mechanized rhythm – and see lightning flaring in the sky:
whenever that happened, her surroundings would briefly strobe into
life, giving her the chance to try to make sense of what was around
her. She needed food, a change of clothes. But more than either of
those, she needed a mirror and a sewing kit because the blood
wasn’t just leaking into her eyes now, it was running all the way
down her face.
Wind shook the bones of the building.
She was terrified. She was hurt. Worse, she was totally and
utterly alone. Just give up. Something tremored in her throat.
Drop to the floor and give up.
She squeezed her eyes shut, pushing the voice away, waited until
the next fork of lightning, then made a beeline for the back of the
room. In the darkness, she fumbled around, knocking things over,
but soon had her hand around what she’d been looking for.
A flashlight.
She switched it on.
A dazzling white glow skittered ahead of her and she saw how
small the place was: it had seemed massive in the pitch blackness,
but it was just thirty feet across.
 She swiped a candy bar from the nearest shelf, ripped open the
packaging and took a bite, ravenously hungry. Then, as more blood
ran into her eye, she switched her attention to the other side of the
room, where boxes of Band-Aids were lined up. It wasn’t until she
was right on top of them that she realized there was a first-aid kit
too, half hidden at the back of the shelf. It had everything in it she’d
need – scissors, antiseptic, sterile dressing, butterfly closures. But no
needle and thread.
Her strength faded – and then something caught her attention
close to the counter.
Fishing equipment.
Under the glass was a bait needle, on the counter a selection of
fishing lines. She scooped up the thinnest thread she could find,
plucked a Zippo from next to the cash register, then returned to the
first-aid kit.
Nearby there was a mirror on a rotating stand of sunglasses. She
shook off all of the glasses and adjusted the stand so that the mirror
was at eye level. Unravelling the fishing line, she fastened it to the
needle, then used the scissors from the kit to snip off about six
inches of thread. She took a breath and leaned into her reflection,
tilting her head, so she could see the wound next to her right eye.
She’d glimpsed it in the windshield of her car a couple of hours ago
– maybe three, maybe four: she had no idea what time it was now –
but the dirt on the glass had helped conceal the severity of the
injury.
Another wave of emotion hit her.
‘Why is this happening to me?’ she said softly, her voice barely
audible above the rain. She sterilized the end of the needle with the
Zippo, readying herself for what was coming, but then her eyes
filled. Tears mixed with blood, pink trails casting off down her
cheeks, like coloured roads on a map.
She could suture in her sleep, so it wasn’t the idea of stitching
her face together that was overwhelming her.
It was something much worse.
‘Please let there be someone else here,’ she sobbed, her words
smudged. She raised the needle to her face, her hands shaking. ‘I
don’t want to be alone in this place.’
 Before
Even the dead can talk.
That was what Rebekah’s father kept telling her at the end. She
hadn’t taken much notice at the time. Over those last few months, in
her bedside vigil, she’d watched the gradual deterioration of body
and mind, an old man, borderline hallucinating, talking about things
that made no sense. Where once there had been strength and
colour, now her father’s skin was waxy and translucent, an atlas of
pale blue veins. He’d become the ghostly inverse of the person
who’d brought up the three of them.
In those moments, Rebekah would hold fast to the image of him
before he got ill: their guardian and keeper, the glue that had held
them together. He would sometimes allude to the impetuous kid he’d
been when he’d shipped out to Vietnam, but it was always hard for
Rebekah and her brothers to imagine him that way. Growing up,
they rarely saw him lose his temper, and pretty much the only
impulsive thing Henry Murphy had ever done had happened before
any of them was even born: he’d married a woman he’d known for
only four months.
At the time, he was stationed at RAF Lakenheath, at the US Air
Base there, and it was in Cambridge, twenty-seven miles away, that
he’d met Fiona Camberwell. She was twenty-four, a village girl who’d
never been further west than Peterborough, so she was totally
swept up by the idea of being with an American from New York City.
A year after they got married, Rebekah’s brother Johnny was
born. Less than two years later, Rebekah arrived, and soon after
that, Henry – following an honourable discharge from the army –
became a police officer in the Cambridgeshire Constabulary. He
immediately fell in love with the work, even though he was only a
bobby.
But at home things weren’t as good.
Rebekah’s father rarely elaborated on what had gone on in those
final few years, but early on Boxing Day morning in 1985 – as the
tinsel caught the glow of the tree, and fairy lights blinked in the
windows – Fiona had walked out on them, just a blur of red hair and
pale skin. At the time, Johnny was five, Rebekah was three, and
their younger brother Mike only eighteen months.
They would never see their mother again.
Rebekah watched her father’s coffin being lowered into the
ground. The day was dark, almost monochrome, rain somewhere
close, its charge in the air. A couple of times, she looked out across
the East River, and saw sun breaking through in the distance – but it
faded as quickly as it had arrived, a promise unfulfilled, and they
were left there, abandoned, staring into the murk of the grave.
She looked around at the other mourners, at Johnny next to her,
at the priest reading monotonously from a Bible. Finally, her eyes
went to the parking lot. There was no sign of the Jeep. No sign of
Gareth.
Where the hell was he?
Beside her, Johnny moved closer, and she felt him take her hand,
grasping it in his. Momentarily, she was surprised, unused to such a
show of affection from her older brother, but when she glanced at
him, he winked at her reassuringly, as if he could see right into her
head. ‘He’ll be here, Bek,’ he whispered softly.
Rebekah gave Johnny’s hand a squeeze in return, unsure if he
believed what he was saying, or whether he was simply doing what
he always did: insulating her, trying to make things better. He’d been
doing it ever since their mother left, but it had become more
frequent once they knew their father was terminal, as if Johnny had
subconsciously moved into the space that Henry was relinquishing:
the patriarch and bulwark.
 Johnny gripped her hand a little tighter and, as the grey morning
and last rites came back into focus, Rebekah saw why: a Jeep
Cherokee was pulling into the lot next to them.
She looked at Gareth, seeking him out behind the windshield,
and when their eyes met – anger coursing in her veins – she left him
in no doubt as to what she thought of his late arrival.
Her husband looked away.
 2
Rebekah woke with a start, uncertain for a moment where she
was. But then it all pulled into focus: the shelves on either side of
her, the debris scattered at her hands and feet. The first-aid kit. The
bait needle.
The general store.
Getting to her feet, she looked at the smashed window: a
rectangle of butter-coloured light was leaking in and across the
room. Next to it was a clock on the wall. The last time she’d
checked, it was 5 a.m. Now it was nearly ten.
She’d slept less than five hours.
The pain in her face had got worse during the night, throbbing in
the space next to her eye, flaring in her ear, her cheek, her nose.
The fishing line, as thin as it was, had been agony going in, the bait
needle even worse. She had antiseptic but nothing to numb the pain
of stitching herself back together.
Nothing to numb the pain of being in this place.
Alone.
She moved to the broken window. Using the edge of the counter,
she hauled herself up and through, trying to avoid the glass still
rooted to the frame. She heard something tear, felt the glass snag
her pants, but she managed to wriggle through without puncturing
her skin. The previous night, she’d used a dumpster to climb up to
the window; this morning, it had rolled away from the wall,
propelled by the ferocity of the wind, and her feet flailed as she tried
to find a solid platform.
She dropped onto the dumpster’s lid, then down into a bed of
mulched leaves. When she looked around her, it was like the
aftermath of an explosion: branches had been torn from the trees,
debris from the harbour was scattered everywhere – roof tiles,
clapboards, huge lakes of seawater.
 For a moment, as she stood gazing out at the Atlantic, she felt so
small, so swamped by the enormity of her situation.
She was still alive. She was still breathing.
She’d survived.
But she was trapped a hundred and one miles of ocean from
anywhere.
The thought dragged at her, made her stumble slightly. And then,
as that hit home, something else took hold – more urgent and even
more desperate.
Johnny.
That was when her eyes landed on the bicycle. It lay on its side
outside the store, pretty much exactly where she’d left it the night
before. If she was going to find Johnny, she had to go back to the
forest: that was where she’d last seen him.
It was where her Jeep was too.
She picked up the bike and started pedalling, her stitched wound
hurting as she gritted her teeth, pain streaking all the way down the
right side of her head. Pretty soon, it became so bad that her vision
blurred. She tried to ignore it, cycling hard out of the town, up onto
the road that would take her along the southern flank of the island.
The further she rode, the colder she got: it dulled the pain in her
face, but it turned her fingers to ice, then any patch of exposed skin.
A mile, then a second. By the third, with the cold cutting through her
like a knife, she realized she was going to need more clothes,
quickly.
Up ahead, a gas station appeared on the left.
She knew she must be close to the forest because she
remembered the gas station being nearby the day before, and the
houses opposite, boarded up, swamped by weeds and long grass.
Her eyes switched back to the gas station: there was a huge pile of
old tyres at its rear, hemmed in by a chain-link fence. She hadn’t
seen it the day before but in that pile there might be one that fitted
the Jeep.
She’d come back later.
For now, all that mattered was Johnny.
She had to find her brother.
 Before
After the funeral – after Rebekah had avoided Gareth at the wake
so obviously that, eventually, he’d had no choice but to leave – she
and Johnny decided to take their father’s rust-eaten Plymouth Gran
Fury for a drive across the Verrazzano Bridge. The plan had been to
take it out to Staten Island and then loop back, a journey for old
times’ sake, a way to be close to their dad, to something he’d loved,
because he’d always loved the Plymouth. But when they got to
Staten Island, they decided to keep going.
They headed down the Parkway to an old motel near Union
Beach called the J. It was special to them, a place their father had
taken them every summer when they were kids, even though he
could barely afford it. Except when Rebekah and Johnny finally got
there, the motel was closed – and not just for the day.
In that moment, as they looked at the derelict building, then at
each other, tears filled their eyes. They knew why: there was a
strange resonance to the place, a symmetry to this ending, as if the
life of the motel had ceased alongside their father’s.
Back in the car, Rebekah said, ‘Dad kept repeating something
weird at the end.’ Johnny glanced at her. ‘“Even the dead can talk.”’
This time, her brother looked at her like she was losing it.
‘That’s what he kept telling me. He said he learned it as a cop.’
‘Okay,’ Johnny replied, although it was clear that he remained
unconvinced. ‘I might use it in my next book.’
‘I’m serious, Johnny.’
 He nodded, as if realizing his comment hadn’t landed. ‘Dad was
on his way out, Bek, you know that.’
‘So?’
‘So you know how he was. He was mumbling a lot.’
‘You really think I misheard? Why would I mishear that?’
Johnny didn’t say anything, just smiled reassuringly, but she
could see the answer in his face. Because we just lost our dad.
Because we’re grieving, and we’re hurt, and we’re tired.
In that moment, on that day, what Johnny had said to her
seemed to make sense. But, in the weeks afterwards, she started to
think more about what her father had repeated, about what he’d
believed, the rules he’d adhered to, and then memories of Rebekah’s
mother returned, as they always did eventually. In truth, Rebekah
had never stopped thinking about her.
She was always there, their stranger and betrayer, a woman
who’d not shown any interest in her kids, never put up any sort of
fight for them, even after their father – when Johnny was thirteen,
Rebekah eleven, and Mike nine – had made the decision to move
them to New York. She’d never sought out Rebekah in the years
after that either, even when Rebekah had made the tough decision
not to go to the States with the others, but to stay behind in London
and take up a fully paid athletics scholarship at a prestigious private
school. In the weeks before he left her, Rebekah’s father had sat at
the kitchen table and cried his eyes out every night, even though he
knew what an opportunity it was for her. He’d even promised to fly
Rebekah out to the US at the end of every school term, even if he
had no idea how he’d ever pay for it.
But Rebekah’s mother just remained silent.
Until the year Henry Murphy had returned to New York with
Johnny and Mike, and Rebekah had headed to halls of residence in
north London, the four of them had lived in the same house Fiona
had walked out of, so it wasn’t like she didn’t know where to find
them. They had the same phone number. Henry worked at the same
police station. If she’d come back at any point in those eight years,
she would have found them easily.
‘Has Mum called today, Dad?’
 For a long time, Rebekah would ask Henry the same question.
He’d always insist that the four of them eat together, so she’d most
frequently ask it at the dinner table, and whenever she did, her
brothers would stop, the same as her, forks paused above their
plates, and await their father’s answer.
But their father’s answer would always be the same. ‘No, honey.
She hasn’t.’
‘Why?’
Henry would reach to Rebekah then, to whichever of his sons
was on the other side of him, and put his hands on their arms,
reassuring them, settling them down. ‘I think if your mother was
going to call, she would have done it by now. But it’s not your fault.
None of this is any of your fault. You’re the best kids any parent
could have asked for.’
‘Is she dead?’
Mike.
It was always Mike who asked that, spoiling the tenderness of
their father’s words. He was the youngest, so he had a ready-made
excuse for his tactlessness, but he remembered Fiona less too. He
had been a baby when she left, his mother just a flicker in the dark.
‘I don’t know, Mikey,’ their father would say.
‘If she was alive,’ Rebekah asked, ‘she’d want to see us, wouldn’t
she?’
But their father would never respond to that.
After six years apart from her family, only seeing them in the
holidays when Henry could afford to fly her out, Rebekah decided
she’d been away from her dad and her brothers too long and applied
to American universities. At eighteen, she completed her A levels
and bought a one-way ticket for New York.
In that time, her mother still hadn’t come up for air.
By then, Rebekah’s resolve had hardened, and she’d convinced
herself she didn’t give a shit. When she arrived at JFK, the three of
them were waiting for her, and she knew straight away that – as
alien as America was to her – she’d made the right choice to leave
the UK. Home wasn’t a place.
It was wherever her family were.
 And so, on that first day, as her father drove them back to their
house in Brooklyn, as Mike made jokes about his sister’s plummy
accent and Johnny talked passionately about the novel he wanted to
write, she told herself she was completely at peace.
But, like all lies, eventually it fell apart.
 3
She bumped onto the mile-long track that left the main road and
went down the slope to Simmons Gully. On the descent, every dip
and crag seemed to spear at her through the saddle, the vibrations
shuddering up her arms and into her face, but eventually the track
flattened into a muddy, uneven parking area.
There was only one car: her Jeep.
It was coated with fallen leaves, sown by the storm, but
otherwise it was exactly as she’d left it. The window was still
shattered, the tyre still slashed.
She put the bike down carefully, suddenly afraid: what if
someone was here? What if they were waiting for her to come back
to look for Johnny?
‘Johnny?’ she said quietly, fearfully. She looked at the wall of
trees that surrounded her. ‘Johnny?’ she said again, a little louder,
then waited for any reaction from nearby: any noise, any sign of
movement.
All that came back was silence.
She headed into the forest, following the path she and Johnny
had taken less than twenty-four hours before. Somewhere, close by,
there was a stream. Soon, though, the sound of it faded, the trees
grew thicker, roots punching through the ground like fists, and the
path became a clotted, unnavigable maze, swamped with leaves and
fallen branches from the storm. Pretty soon, she realized she was no
longer on the route she was meant to have taken and had
unwittingly carved out a new one. She was lost.
Panic hit her.
As she retreated, trying to get back to the trail that she and
Johnny had used the day before – the trail that had led to the dig
site – she called out.
‘Johnny!’
 She was shouting, her desperation making her careless.
‘Johnny, it’s me. Johnny!’
If someone was still there, they’d have heard her. They’d be
coming for her. I shouldn’t be shouting his name like this.
I shouldn’t be –
She didn’t get to finish her thought.
Suddenly she was stumbling sideways into a tree trunk. It
stopped her dead. Winded, her hands slimy with moss, she looked
up at the branch that had come out of nowhere and swiped her in
the throat.
Tears welled in her eyes.
She wiped them away, trying to gather herself, but instead she
slumped to her knees, thinking of the last time she’d seen Johnny:
the glimpse of him ahead of her in the trees as they’d run for their
lives.
She let herself cry, let it consume her, then hauled herself to her
feet again, going through her pockets automatically, searching for
her cellphone. Except it wasn’t there. All she could feel were the
keys to the Jeep.
Her phone was long gone.
It had been taken for a reason: there were no utility poles on the
island, no physical phone lines, and only one cell tower.
And a cell tower was no good if you didn’t have a cellphone.
She continued her retreat, back in the direction she thought
she’d come, mud caking her. Her hair was damp, her skin cold, and
under the shade of the trees she’d begun to shiver. She called
Johnny, then again once she’d found her way back to the trail.
And then she came to another stop.
What if her cellphone hadn’t been taken away from this place
completely, just dumped somewhere in the forest? If it was close
enough, she could use the Bluetooth function in the Jeep to connect
to it – and she could make a 911 call from the car.
A charge of adrenalin hit her.
She broke into a sprint.
 4
She yanked the driver’s-side door open and slid behind the
wheel. The passenger seat was soaked with rain and strewn with
glass from the smashed window; the dashboard was wet too, the
instruments misted, and there were leaves everywhere.
She didn’t worry about any of it.
Putting her keys on the centre console, she pushed the ignition
button and listened to the Cherokee rumble into life. The
touchscreen display blinked – the clock showing the time as 14:12 –
and then the Jeep logo flashed up and disappeared, and two rows of
icons filled in.
She leaned forward, tapping a finger to Phone in the bottom row,
but she already knew something wasn’t right. There was no
Bluetooth logo on the Phone icon, as there should have been, and
when she hit the next screen, she felt her whole body cave: no
cellphone was connected. She tried searching for one, knowing hers
would automatically have paired if it was close enough, and after ten
seconds, a message appeared, confirming nothing was in range.
‘Shit!’
She smashed the steering wheel with the flat of her palm, then
again, and again, so frenzied, she accidentally hit the horn.
Its blare was shockingly loud in the quiet of the forest.
Slowly, she slumped forward, her head almost touching the
wheel, and stared into the trees, forlorn.
‘Why?’ she muttered.
She was so cold she couldn’t feel her fingers.
‘Why is this happening to me?’
The wind gently stirred the leaves inside the Jeep.
She turned to the back seat, searching for something – anything
– she might have discarded the day before that she could put on to
warm herself.
There was nothing.
Just two empty child seats.
 Before
Kyra wouldn’t stop crying.
‘Ky, please.’
The traffic hadn’t moved in ten minutes. Rebekah had a
headache behind her eyes that she just couldn’t shake. And every
time she thought of her father, she felt like she was going to burst
into tears.
Worse, her and Gareth had barely talked since the funeral. In
fact, now she thought about it, they’d hardly spoken in months –
certainly not a conversation of any substance. They didn’t sit down
to dinner together. He had breakfast at work. They went to sleep at
different times, because she was the one getting up during the
night, and by early evening she was fried. Her entire focus was Kyra,
and Gareth’s focus was …
Rebekah paused.
She didn’t actually know what Gareth’s focus was.
The sound of her phone snapped her out of her thoughts. A
second after it had started buzzing on the passenger seat, it
switched to the Cherokee’s speakers. As if on cue, the display in the
centre console flashed GARETH. Seeing his name surprised her. He
never called from work.
She hit Answer. ‘Hello?’
‘Hey, sweetheart.’
That immediately pissed her off. This was pretty much the first
time he’d tried talking to her in two weeks, apart from his muted
Another random document with
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 DREAM.

I dreamt that, standing on a height,

I wished to plunge me in the sea,
When, lo! a spirit of peace and light,
This wondrous song sang unto me:
‘Await the spring! I’ll soon be here;’
I’ll say, ‘Again let manhood rise!’
The mist from clouded brows I’ll clear,
And dreary dreams from heavy eyes.
Back to your Muse her voice I’ll give,
And once again you’ll find the days
All blessed—as you bind the sheaf—
Reaping your unmown upland ways.
 A SICK MAN’S JEALOUSY.

A heavy cross, the lot Fate laid upon her—

“Suffer! be silent! weep not! feign the smile!”
And he, to whom her love, her youth, her will,
Her all, she’d given, her torturer proved the while.

For years no greeting with a friend knew she;

Subdued, in sadness, and in trembling fear,
Bitter, unreasoning, sarcastic jeers,
Without a murmur, ’twas her lot to hear.

“Hush! tell me not you’ve lost your youth for me—

That you’re distracted by my jealousy;
Nay, tell me not! My grave is close at hand,
While you are fresher than spring’s blossoms be.

“That day, the day when you at first loved me,

And heard from me, ‘I love,’ in whispered breath,
Curse not that day! The grave is near for me!
I will right all, redeem all, by my death.

“Cease! Tell me not the days for you are sad;

This invalid a jailor cease to name.
For me remains the cold gloom of the grave;
For thee the embraces of another flame.

“Full well I know thou dost another love.

To spare, to wait, this seemed a tedious plan.
Oh, wait awhile! my grave is very near!
Let Fate end that which Fate in me began!”
Such cruel, torturing, insulting words—
Lovely, yet pale as chiselled marble—she
In silence heard, and only wrung her hands.
What could she answer to such jealousy?
 THE LANDLORD OF OLD TIMES.
(Loquitur.)

Before the Emancipation of the Serfs.

To whom I like I mercy show,

And whom I like I kill;
My fist—my only constable,
My only law—my will.
A blow from which the sparkle flits,
A blow that knocks the teeth to bits,
A blow that breaks the jaw!

After the Emancipation of the Serfs.

The mighty chain is snapped in twain,

Is snapped and bounds asunder.
The landlords clutch one broken end;
At t’other peasants blunder.

The fields remain unploughed and bare;

The seed is left unsown;
No trace of order anywhere,
O mother-land, our own!
Not for ourselves thus sorrow we;
We grieve, O native land, for thee!
Oh, true-believing peasantry!
Russia’s your mother small;
The Tsar’s your little father.
And that for you is all!
THE RUSSIAN SOLDIER.

Then up there comes a veteran,

With medals on his breast;
He scarcely lives, but yet he strives
To drink with all the rest.
“A lucky man, am I,” he cries,
And thus to prove the fact he tries.
“In what consists a soldier’s luck?
Pray, listen while I tell.
In twenty fights, or more, I’ve been,
And yet I never fell.
And, what is more, in peaceful times
Full meal I never knew;
Yet, all the same, I have contrived
Not to give Death his due.
Again, for sins both great and small,
Full many a time they’ve me
With sticks unmercifully flogged,
Yet I’m alive, you see!”
FROM MAIKOF.
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.

For a long time last night I for sleep vainly yearned.

I arose, my room window wide throwing;
The night with its silence oppressed me, and burned,
O’er me odours intoxicant blowing.

Of a sudden the hedge ’neath my window-sill shook;

My curtain blew back with a shimmer;
And in floated a youth with a beaming look,
Just as if from the moonlight a glimmer.

Gliding up to my couch, came my wonderful guest,

Whispered he, as a smile his lips parted,
“Why from me, with your cheek ’neath the pillow prest,
Like a startled wee fish, have you darted?

“Look up! I’m a god—god of visions and dreams,

Secret friend of the innocent maiden;
And for thee, my own queen, for the first time, I ween,
With a bliss from on high come I laden!”

He spoke—and his hands my face lovingly seek;

From its nook he it tenderly presses;
Then a burning kiss fell on the curve of my cheek,
And his lips sought my lips in caresses.

Neath the breath of his mouth my strength seemed to have flown,

From my breast unclaspt arms I extended,
And there breathed in my ears, “You’re my own! you’re my own!”
Distant notes, with harp’s melody blended!
Swiftly glided the hours; when I opened my eyes,
Rosy dawn through my chamber was streaming;
Alone, locks dishevelled, I trembling arise,
And I know not the drift of my dreaming.
 WHO WAS HE?
A STORY OF PETER THE GREAT.

Upon the mighty Neva’s bank,

Along the winding woodland way,
A Horseman rode, in forest wilds
Of elm, of pine, of mosses grey.

Before him rose a Fisher’s hut;

Beneath a pine, by the blue stream,
An aged, bearded Fisherman
Was mending his boat’s broken beam.

The Horseman said, “Grandsire! Good-day!

God help thee, friend! how liveth thou?
Doth thou catch much? and tell me, pray,
Where doth thou sell thy takings now?”

The old man answered sullenly,

“Are fishes in the river few?
And other market have I none,
Except the town, there, close to you.

“And how am I to fish to-day?

What kind of turmoil’s here, you see!
You fight; and, in the fight, a shell
Has smashed my fishing-boat for me!”

The Horseman bounded from his horse,

Without a word the tools he grasped;
And in a twinkling planked the boat,
The rudder in the stern set fast.
“See, now, old friend, thy boat’s all right!
Out on the water boldly set;
And, in the name of Peter’s luck,
Cast forth into the deep thy net.”

He vanished. Mused the stern old man:

“I wonder who the de’il was he!
In every inch he looked a king,
But plied the hatchet splendidly.”
 THE EASTER KISS.[8]

Soon “the Sun-bright Feast-day” cometh,

I will claim my Easter kiss.
Others, then, will stand around us;
Pray, my Dora, mark you this!

Just as if I never kissed you,

Blushing red before the rest,
You must kiss, with downcast eyelids;
I will kiss, with smile represt.

FOOTNOTES:
[8] It is the custom in Russia for all friends meeting on Easter
morning (known as “Sun-bright Feast-day”) to exchange kisses
three times in the name of the Trinity.
 ON LOMONOSSOEF.[9]

God chose him from his earliest years;

Revealed, ’mid glittering icebergs stood,
In northern light, in gleam of stars,
In roar of wave, in hum of wood,
And bade him leave his Fisher’s net,
And led him forth from town to town,
That “Rus”[10] to him from gloomy cot
To sparkling palace, might be known;
And led him to famed Western climes,
That there his genius might obtain
All knowledge, from the earliest times
Made known to mighty chosen men;
That, from their torch of knowledge, he
Might light his own, and, with right hand
Uplifted high that all might see,
Illume with it his native land.

FOOTNOTES:
[9] Lomonossoef—the first great Russian scholar—was the son
of an Archangel fisherman.
[10] Ancient name of Russia.
 PROPRIETY.

Ferdinand, the King, was courtly!

Pink of nice refinement he;
All the naked plasts of Venus,
Placed he under lock and key.

But the Herculean statues,

Left he in their places bare!
Men he did not mind offending;
Hurt the ladies? He’d not dare!
 THE SINGER.

Beautiful I’m not, I know;

Useless I in fight;
How to men and maids am I,
Such a dear delight?
Songs, like sounds that ’mid strings stray,
Fill this breast of mine,
Smiling round my lips they play,
In my eyes they shine!
 A LITTLE PICTURE.
AFTER THE PROCLAMATION OF THE 19TH FEB., 1861,
FREEING THE SERFS.

See, in peasant’s cottage, flickering

Shines a little fire,
Where, around a little maiden,
Draws a circle nigher.

And from word to word her finger

Slowly pointing leads,
As, with effort, to the peasants
She a paper reads.

Deep in thought, intently listening,

They a silence keep;
Save when some one bids the women
Hush the babes to sleep.

Mothers soothe their crying infants

With the teething toy,
While they, too, to catch the reading
All their ears employ.

Seated in the chimney corner

Now for many years,
With bent head the grandsire gazes,
Though he nothing hears.

Is the maiden clever, that they

Thus to her give heed?
Nay! but simply in that household
She alone could read:
And her lot it was to read out,
To the peasants old,
The glad news of longed-for freedom,
Which the paper told.

The full meaning of the message

Knew not she nor they;
But all, darkly, felt the dawning
Of a better day.

Brothers! see, the day-dawn flushes!

Darkness yields its place,
Sons of yours, ere long, will look on
Daylight face to face.

More and more let darkness lighten!

Day arise in might!
Even now, in vision, see I
Rays of rising light.

They are shining on the forehead,

Gleaming in the look,
Of that thoughtful little maiden
With her little book.

Freedom, Brothers! This is only

First step on the way
To the kingdom, where, in knowledge,
Shines eternal day!
 THE ALPINE GLACIER.

Dank the darkness on the cliff-side;

Faintly outlined from below,
In their modest maiden gladness,
Glaciers in the dawn’s blush glow.

What new life upon me blowing,

Breathes from yonder snowy height,
From that depth of limpid turquoise
Flashing in the morning light?

There, I know, dread Terror dwelleth,

Track of man there is not there;
Yet my heart in answer swelleth
To the challenge, “Come thou here!”
 THE MOTHER.

Little sufferer—all on fire!

All’s to him so trying!
On my shoulder lean thy head,
On my bosom lying!
I will walk about with thee,
Sleep, my own sweet dearie.
Shall I tell a little tale?
“Once there lived a fairy”—
No? Thee likes not silly tales?
P’r’aps a song will take thee!
“Pine-wood rustling dark and dank,
Big fox, wee fox, wakes he.
In the dark pine-wood will I——”
Is my own pet sleeping?
“Gather blackberries for thee
Brimful baskets heaping.
In the dark pine-wood will I——”
Hush! he fast is sleeping.
Open wide his feverish lips,
Like a wee bird, keeping.

“In the dark pine-wood will I,”

Walks the mother, singing—
Till the long dark night declines,
Back the day-dawn bringing.
Singing—while her weary arms
With dull pain are tingling—
Walks the mother; with her sighs
Frequent tears are mingling;
And scarce stirs the restless child,
Tossing in its fever,
Ere again that song resounds,
Soft and low as ever.
With thy scythe depart, O Death,
Spare the tender blossom!
Fierce the fight ere she will yield
Baby from her bosom.
With her whole soul will she shield,
E’en though sore affrighted,
That mysterious flame of life
Which from her was lighted,
For scarce rose that little flame,
Ere to her revealed was
What of love,—of wondrous power,—
In her breast concealed was.