In the night she stood at the kitchen window at the back of Claire's house and in the dark saw her own reflection; the gauze taped over the injury on her cheek and a glimmer in her eyes when she moved her head. Far away she could see the moon reflected in a silver track on the Talbot River. A difficult night. She should have stayed in bed, but it wouldn't let her. She knew what it was and she shouldn't have let it in, but tonight once again she couldn't keep it out. "And you?" David had said to her the last time she saw him. "Can I ask how you're doing with it. With Trevor?" He never called him her dad or her father, always just by his name. "I'm doing all right." "Got to the bottom of it yet?" "There's a bottom?" "Very deep down. You'd probably drown getting to it. But I think you found a way to swim to shore, and the water has gotten shallow and now you can walk. Keep on walking, Kate. I think you're almost on dry land. He's gone, you know." "I know that. Most of the time. In my head." But not tonight; a tidal night dragging her back into the deep. The silver track on the river was the trundle path and she was the girl of that day and she was walking the path with her father. As they often did. He had just said something to her about another war shaping up in Europe, and that he was being sent once more to Germany on a diplomatic mission to gauge the situation first-hand and then to report back, when she heard footsteps behind them. A moment later two men in long coats and hats passed them on either side, as if encircling them, and when the men were a dozen paces ahead, they both turned and one of them took his hand from his coat pocket and raised a handgun and fired twice. And immediately the men hunched their shoulders and hurried away. Her father had fallen down, and in shock and disbelief she knelt by his side. She could see it so clearly again, the blood pulsing from his chest while she tried to keep it in with her flat hand, but there was blood flowing also from his mouth and nose and she tried to stop it with her other hand. Then she realized that he couldn't breathe and she turned him on his side and turned his face downward for the blood to flow and clear his airways, but it didn't help. She cried for help as loud as she could, screamed and wept for it in horror and disbelief. The two men were gone from sight and she was alone with her dad dying. He tried to say something and she put her ear to his mouth but heard only his blood. She stood up and screamed again for help, waved her arms and knelt down and raised his head and held it in her lap, and this would forever be her last image of him, his head in her lap as he lay dying. Eventually a man and a woman came along the path and saw them. The woman talked to her and held her, trying to calm her while the man went to fetch the police. The policeman asked questions and wrote down her answers. An ambulance came and two men took her dad away. There was blood on the hard soil of the path and in her shocked state she thought they should take that as well, because they'd have to get it back into him. She called to them and pointed at the blood, and they looked at her strangely. Excerpted from The Orphan Girl: A WWII Novel of Courage Found and a Promise Kept by Kurt Palka All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.