Jonathan Michael was born on a cold and blustery day.  You could barely hear his cries above the howl of the wind as it echoed down the cold fireplace chimney.  His first breaths were evident in the little puffs above his face in the barren room as his sister quickly wrapped him in the scrap of blanket she’d washed for his coming. 

 A mere scrap of a child herself, she now took full responsibility for this child and her siblings as her mother lay dying in her bed.  Too many babies, too close together left her weak and malnourished.  She barely had the strength to name her new son before passing at the ripe old age of twenty-four.  Such had become the way of life here since the Passage.

 Svitlana laid the child in the basket she’d padded with old clothes.  It wasn’t much but it was all they had.  So much had been left behind during the Passage.  Family, friends, their home, or rather, what was left of their home.  Now with both her parents gone, she was all that stood between them and the camps.  What she could do she didn’t know, but she was all she and the other children had.  She would not let her parents down.

 Straightening her shoulders, she gathered the basin and rag and proceeded to gently wash her mother for burial.  She’d helped her mother prepare others over the years since the Passage.  There had been too many to remember in their trek across the barren wasteland that separated them from their former lives.  She’d sent her oldest brother to inform the counsel of her mother’s death.  The men would be along soon to collect her and she wanted to be done before they arrived. 

 As she bathed her, her mind went back to earlier times when they were all together in Gerron.  She remembered her mother’s laughter and her father’s smile as he watched her playing with her and her brothers in the open fields of their home.  Her grandparents lived on the homestead, too, and were a part of their every day life.  Her grandfather and father were carpenters and had built their homes and the furniture as well. 

 For her sixth birthday, she’d received her first bed that she didn’t have to share with her brothers.  It had been a surprise that they’d worked on during the cold months when she couldn’t master the snow.  Grandfather had carved a wood rose in her headboard and her father had made her a simple chest with leather bindings and a rose carved on its top.  They had been her prize possessions.  

 Now all she had were her memories.  The call to leave Gerron had come in the middle of the night and they’d left with what they could carry and the clothes on their backs.  Her grandparents hadn’t moved quick enough to satisfy the Garak soldiers and they’d been marched off in another direction.  Despite their pleas, she’d never been able to find out what had happened to them in the four years since the Passage.  She had to believe that if they were alive, they would have found them by now.

 Svitlana straightened from her work and gently swept the hair from her mother’s brow.  The tension and tiredness was now gone from her face and she slept the peaceful sleep of forever.  “Mother!” she cried.  “How am I to do this all alone?  How can I do this without you?”  She fell sobbing to her mother’s side, finally letting out the grief of a ten year old child who’s lost her mother.  Her poor, over-burdened shoulders heaved with sobs as she mourned for the loss of her life as she’d known it, her family, and her now role of caretaker of her siblings. 

 She was just catching her breath as she prayed for her mother when she heard her brother’s return with the men to take her mother for burial.  She got up off her knees and straightened her clothes.  She wiped her eyes and stood to her full height.  She was now the head of the house and as such, must be strong for her brothers.  She would not disappoint her parents.  They would not disappoint her parents.

 The sun went behind the clouds and suddenly she felt the cold whip through her.  She must get them all home before the night fell and the snow fell.  She needed to see if they could find any wood along the way so they could have a fire tonight.  The room was already too cold as it was and she would need the fire to fix what little there was to eat.  She would need to start thinking about these things from now on.  This was going to be her responsibility if they were going to stay out of the camps. 

 The camps.  She wasn’t sure of what they were exactly, but she’d heard the grownups talk about them in hushed tones.  They sounded horrid.  She’d heard it said that no one ever came back from the camps once they went there.  Though no one ever said the words, she knew that people died there and she was determined that she would keep them all out of there.

 With one final look at her mother’s grave, she called out to her brothers and turned to head back to their room.  The full weight of the day was beginning to hit home as the baby began to squirm in her arms.  She picked up her steps and told the boys to watch for firewood as she herded them back along the path.  It was now up to her.  She blinked back the stinging tears and swallowed the growing fear that threatened to overcome her.  “I won’t let you down mommy and poppy.  I won’t.  We will make it.  We’ll make you proud of us all.”

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