Recap: The children were taken into hiding from a raging storm by Mrs. Hanan. Officers came demanding to know if she’d taken in any Jewish children. She sent the children away through a secret exit.
I trembled as we raced away deep into the woods. I wondered what would happen to Mrs. Hanan. Those men sounded so cruel.
“It will take longer this way, but we have no choice,” Sabrina said.
“I hope Mrs. Hanan doesn’t get in trouble because of us.”
“She’s experienced. She knows how to fool them.”
“What happened to her family?”
We traipsed through a winding path in the forest. The air smelled of pine and lime.
“It’s a very hard story to tell. Her husband worked with Mr. Sanchez. One day, he was transporting a family, and he was caught by an officer. They tried him and killed him. Her children were sent away to Amsterdam for safety, but a storm hit, and the boat never made it there.”
“She’s so brave,” I said.
“Yes, she is, and we are so fortunate she was there to help us.”
“Do you think we will make it to Rabbi Sarna? Will he even be able to help Katie and me get to our time?”
“Hashem is in charge of time and everything else. Keep davening. We have a good day and a half of travel ahead.”
A mist slowly appeared, enveloping everything in a dense cloud. I thought of how Hashem protected B’nei Yisrael in the desert.
“I’m a bit disoriented with this fog,” Sabrina said. “I’m not sure which direction we should go.”
“Should we wait until it lifts?” I asked.
“It’s a brachah to have this cover from Hashem. We need to put as much distance between us and the officers as possible.”
We kept walking, holding each other’s hands. Liselle Rosa was squeezing my hand. “I don’t like this fog. It’s spooky,” she whispered in my ear. “I wish I lived in a different place and time, far away from the Inquisition. Don’t you wish that?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking that I do live in a faraway place and time, but I don’t know how to get back to it.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever see my parents again.” Liselle Rosa started crying.
I mused that she had a better chance than me.
“Shhh!” Sabrina warned.
We kept walking in the soupy fog. We couldn’t see anything on the ground or in front of us. I was staring straight ahead into the soupy fog, and I should have been looking down because all of a sudden, I felt myself falling down, down, down.
“Help!” I screamed.
I landed with a thud. My legs absorbed the impact, and thankfully, the muddy bottom cushioned my fall.
Liselle Rosa peered down over the edge. “Sabrina, Katie, look. Miri fell down that hole.”
“A hunter’s hole.” Sabrina bent over the edge. It was so dark that all I could make out was the shadow of her profile.
My whole body was shaking. I was terrified of enclosed spaces. “Please help me. Get me out of here,” I said in a loud, frantic whisper.
“Katie, be careful. There could be more holes.”
“We have to save my cousin,” Katie said.
I squeezed my eyes shut and davened with my whole heart. This must be how Yosef felt in the pit or Yonah in the fish.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that, davening. I felt something brushing my cheek. It was leaves from a tree branch. Katie was dangling a long branch down the hole. “Grab it, and we’re all three gonna pull you out. Grab on tight.”
I grabbed the end of the branch, and Liselle Rosa, Sabrina, Katie, and little Davey pulled and grunted and pulled.
Please let this work. Please, Hashem. We can’t get a ladder. Please pull me out.
I squeezed the branch hard. I felt the strong tug as they tried to pull me out. I felt myself rising. I shut my eyes tight and prayed that I would get out. Suddenly, the branch cracked, and I was thrown back down.
Am I ever going to get out of here?
“It’s okay,” Sabrina whispered. “We’ll get another branch.” Somehow they found a stronger branch.
It was like this awesome miracle. They pulled me up to the edge of the hole. I grabbed onto the edges of the hole and scrambled out. What a relief to be out of that hole.
“We have to stay here. It’s too dangerous to keep walking. There could be many more of these holes,” Sabrina said.
“How long?” Liselle Rosa asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s too risky to move forward now. Sometimes when the sun breaks out, these fogs can lift very quickly. Let’s hope for that.”
We plunked down on the cold ground and waited for the fog to lift. It might have been two or three hours when suddenly the sun peeked through the clouds and began to burn away the fog.
“Yay,” I said. “Now we can go.”
I noticed Sabrina was not smiling and not moving.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know which direction to go in. The fog got me all mixed up.”
To be continued…
Susie Garber is the author of 11 popular Jewish books, including her newly released historical fiction novel The Blizzard (Menucha 2026) and recently published novel Captured (Menucha 2025). She is also the current news editor of Binyan Magazine.