The world’s on fire. Bombs rain down, and someone falls as the gunshots ring. She can’t see well enough, but she needs to know who it is.

“Fraulein Mueller!” calls Frau Schmidt’s harsh voice, jolting Lise-Marie out of the war zone in Am Westen Nichts Neues and back into the war zone of her classroom. “Put that filth down, young lady. You’re disrupting the other students.”

Lise-Marie looks around and realizes that the others are all standing, performing their heils, and she hurriedly throws her hand up as the bell rings. Then, she’s gone in a flash, racing with her book in tow out of the room before her teacher can snatch it from her. Breaking through the school doors and hopping onto her bicycle, she flies across the several streets it takes to get back to Herr Ahren’s bookstore. She rounds the corner and grins. Her bike turns into a massive battleship, and Lise-Marie is suddenly a swashbuckling pirate traveling the seven seas. Germany is long behind her.

“Good riddance,” she mutters under her breath, docking her boat and slapping her hand on the battered old sign that hangs atop the entrance: Lise-Maries Land der Geschichten. Lise-Marie’s Land of Stories. Herr Ahren put it up after joking for months about how she spends more time there than he does.

She bursts through the door, flopping onto the cushion by the windowsill. “Hallo, Herr Ahren!”

“You’re fourteen now, Lise-Marie, shouldn’t you try for a little more decorum?”

“I’m a pirate, Herr Ahren. I don’t have any decorum,” Lise-Marie says, putting on a thick accent and putting a hand over one of her eyes.

Herr Ahren sighs from behind the counter and puts his face in his hands. “Of course.” He frowns at her, but Lise-Marie can see the corners of his mustache twitching upward. The stress of the day finally leaves her, and she almost forgets about the words heil and Hitler.

Later, she again thumbs through the pages of Am Westen Nichts Neues when a knock on the window startles her. She turns to meet the eyes of a blonde boy wearing a brown uniform. He sticks his tongue out and runs away, paint still in hand. Lise-Marie sighs. “Herr Ahren, the Hitlerjugend are out again!” she calls, and the owner soon appears from behind the counter.

“Those kleine ratten, what did they do this time?”

“The ‘good of the country,’ I bet. That’s what Vater would say at least.”

“Your father says a lot of things, none of them good.”

“A fair point. He’d be the plundering type of pirate.” Herr Ahren laughs a little at her joke, but Lise-Marie can see that his eyes are tight and squished together. She continues, “The one I saw had paint, but they may have been ripping up books again.”

Herr Ahren swears, heading towards the front of the store, and Lise-Marie sadly glances at her barely-read page before sticking a bookmark in to follow him. She meanders a little, making sure that all the expensive leather-bound novels are still intact—it would be costly to lose those—and checking that none of the Jugend are still inside. “Nope, they didn’t get the books this time.” Her voice echoes around the empty bookstore. “Hey, Kinder und Hausmärchen! I can’t believe I used to be scared of those. Oh, Paradise Lost. Do you think I should reread that, Herr Ahren? It was really good actually, before Vater found it at least. I got a real good lecture about the superiority of Germany after that one.” Chuckling, Lise-Marie finally makes her way outside. “Everything seems to be all right inside, Herr Ahren. What about out—”

“Go home.” She’s cut off by Herr Ahren’s voice. Its harshness makes her turn cold, and she snaps her head over toward him. He’s staring at something by the window, but it’s too far for her to get a good look.

“What? It’s only half past six, there’s still over an hour until you close shop.” The words sound like pleading, even to her ears.

“Lise-Marie. Go home.” He steps toward her, and she flinches. His face softens a little. “I’m sorry,” he sighs. “I’m sorry for being harsh, but it’s not safe for you to stay here tonight. Remember what we talked about when you and I first met? Well, it’s happening. So go home. Please.”

Lise-Marie’s eyes widen. She’s going to protest, but the words die on her lips as Herr Ahren stoops down and hugs her. It’s quick, but he’s warm, and she caves to the comfortable feeling.

“Okay, I’ll go home. See you tomorrow, Herr Ahren.”

He doesn’t respond.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” Her voice is small.

“Yes, I’ll see you tomorrow Lise-Marie. Sleep well…”

“…in the land of stories.”

Lise-Marie goes back inside to pack up her stuff. She tries and fails to prevent a sniffle as she leaves her book on the cushion for another day she hopes will come. She remembers a conversation from when she was little and stupid when she spoke happily about what they taught in school and how her father agreed with the Führer’s ideas.

“Some people want to hurt others because they’re different. Like how the evil stepmother hated Aschenputtel because she wasn’t her biological daughter.” She hadn’t understood it, even then, but it’s hard for a child to consider their parent’s words as fallible. Little Lise-Marie wandered into the small bookstore with wide eyes and horrible words on the edge of her tongue, and Herr Ahren was the one to show her that there were other sides to her father’s ideas.

“But Aschenputtel never did anything wrong!” Lise-Marie told Herr Ahren.

“I know she didn’t, but the stepmother hated her anyway.”

It was a long conversation, and Lise-Marie was terrified by the end. After reassuring her that the evil stepmother couldn’t get her in the bookstore, Herr Ahren confided in her that there were still villains in the world. Only these were ones whose weapons were their words and fists and guns. Ones who clawed their way to power and hated those they considered beneath them.

Lise-Marie learned a lot of things that day, and now, as she walks out of the bookstore, she remembers.

“But why, Herr Ahren?”

“I don’t really know, Lise-Marie.”

His words flash through her head as she walks past the window to see a word painted on the glass. In a piercingly red color, it seems to burn through her eyes. Lise-Marie pedals home, trying to ignore the way it reverberates through her head.

Jude.

The bookstore may no longer be safe from the villains.

********************

The next morning comes too slowly for Lise-Marie, who tosses and turns her way through the night. Finally, she gives up and cracks open the spine of one of the various books scattered around her room. As her eyes grow weary, Lise-Marie creeps into the hallway, intending to grab a snack, but she stops dead at the end of the carpet. The door to her father’s room is wide open.

“Oh no,” she whispers, readying herself for whatever will be awaiting her downstairs, but the kitchen is silent. It should be a triumph, but all it does is lend her uneasy anticipation as she strains to hear the outside world. No sounds come, as their house is too far away from the city streets.

Then, the sun peeks out from the east, the birds begin to call, fog dusts the ground, and the door to Lise-Marie’s house bursts open. “Mädchen, get down here. NOW!”

Lise-Marie stands ramrod straight in the middle of the kitchen, trying to figure out how to make it seem like she was peacefully asleep upstairs. She’s distracted though, as her father’s footsteps thud menacingly towards her. “In here, Vater! I was just about to make you breakfast,” Lise-Marie says, as sweetly and calmly as she possibly can. The thuds grow louder, and the kitchen door swings open with a loud crack.

“Are you loyal?” her father asks. His eyes are puffy and bloodshot, and he looms over her with his much larger body.

“What?” she whimpers.

“Are you loyal to your Führer?”

“Yes, Vater. Of course, I am.” She bows her head, the perfect blonde and blue picture of a dutiful daughter and citizen.

“Then why—” his voice raises even higher than before, “—have you been frequenting the business of one of them? A daughter of mine, fraternizing with a Jude!”

Lise-Marie flinches backward, her thoughts growing panicked. How did they do this in the storybooks? How did Aschenputtel escape her evil stepmother? What did Paul do while facing the Frenchman? How did the garden fall? There’s no prince in sight, and killing her father is out of the question, so Lise-Marie realizes she must take the devil’s approach. “What? He was a Jude?”

Lie. Deceive. Survive.

Her hands quiver, but she hides them behind her back, making sure to add enough anguish to her voice that her father may not recognize what’s true from the lies. It’s easy; she’s feeling enough pain as it is. She doesn’t know how she ever used to believe these things.

“You didn’t know?” Her father’s voice calms for a heartbeat.

“Of course I didn’t know! He—” she chokes “—he looked just like a normal person!” A glob rises in her throat, and she finds herself blinking back tears. Lise-Marie: the snake in the grass, spreading propaganda and lies.

Lise-Marie’s father, in a rare moment, walks close and wraps his arms around her. She lets the tears flow then, knowing he’ll construe them as frustration. “Oh, I’m so sorry, dear. I should’ve taught you more signs to know how to recognize them. They’re very tricky people, and it’s no wonder a little girl like you got tangled up in their lies. But don’t worry.”

Lise-Marie looks up into her father’s bloodshot eyes, sees the mania there, and buries her head back into his chest. There’s something crusty on his shirt, and the hug feels nothing like Herr Ahren’s warmth.

“Why not, Vater?” The muffled words sit for a moment, and Lise-Marie prays.

“Because we took care of a whole bunch of them last night.” She can practically hear the smile on his face. “We broke down their stores, beat them black and blue, and threw the filthy men into the Führer’s new camps. And the one who tricked you, well, don’t worry darling. I made sure he paid for his crimes. He won’t bother you any longer.”

An arrow pierces Lise-Marie’s heart, and she can’t breathe. Pushing off from her father’s chest, she feels the strange crust underneath her fingers and looks at the brown shirt he’s wearing. It’s tinted red. She dry heaves, and Lise-Marie fades away as she realizes she can no longer be herself if she wants to get through this.

********************

The next few months pass in a blur, as do the masks Lise-Marie wears. She’s Jane Eyre, moving around the house as though it’s Thornfield Hall, and Buck, making her way through the cold German wilderness when the school bells chime. When she passes the burnt remains of Herr Ahren’s bookstore, her sign broken and smashed on the ground, she’s Raskolnikov. Maybe this is the punishment for her crime of growing attached.

“Guten Morgen, class! I have exciting news,” Frau Schmidt says, grinning at her pupils. “The Führer has an important assignment for you all, so we’ll be having a class field trip tonight outside in the town square!”

The class immediately begins to clammer around, yelling for the teacher to tell them what the assignment is, and, more importantly, whether or not the Führer be there. Lise-Marie sits silently in the back row, finding solace in the copy of Julius Caesar that she managed to hide from her father’s purge. Her eyes blur as she rereads a page for the third time, trying to block out the shrieking vitriol surrounding her.

“Frau Schmidt, Lise-Marie’s got another one of them nasty Jude books!” a boy peeping over Lise-Marie’s shoulder suddenly shouts.

Lise-Marie jumps, her hand leaving the book while the pages flop down to close itself. “It is not! It’s a play by Shakespeare. You know, one of the greatest playwrights of all time?”

“Hmmm,” the boy says. “Sounds like a Jude to me.”

“Students, please! Fraulein Mueller, we’ve been over this. I thought you would’ve given up that silly obsession with reading, especially after the little incident that your father told me about.”

Lise-Marie clenches her fists together and bows her head, mask firmly in place. Macbeth screams at her to fight back, but Juliet warns her away from poisonous words. “Sorry, Frau Schmidt.”

“I think you’ll have a good time at our event tonight, Fraulein Mueller. Be sure to bring your little books.” Frau Schmidt smirks, then turns to the chalkboard and begins writing.

Hours later, as the sun goes down and Lise-Marie’s class gathers around the rest of the schoolchildren on the cobblestone town square, one of the teachers lights a fire. There are hundreds of people gathered in the town square, minus the Führer, much to the disappointment of many of the students, who stand in a long line complaining about the bugs and the smoke and the standing.

Lise-Marie is clutching her book for dear life, her throat slowly closing as the line moves closer and closer to the fire. Her father stands near the blaze, handing something to each student as they approach. His brown uniform is perfectly clean now, not a speck to be found, but Lise-Marie still feels stained.

When she finally makes her way to greet him, he grins at her. “Hello, darling. You’ve already brought the kindling. How perfect! That dirty Jude was giving you horrid things to read, dear. But here’s your chance to be rid of them.”

Lise-Marie stares at him in horror, then back down at the last beloved book from Herr Ahren. For a moment, she almost falls back into her disguise. She longs to become someone else, another character, anyone who could make their way through this, but she can’t. It’s then Lise-Marie realizes that she can’t fall into the mask of a character because they’re just as at risk as she is.

This isn’t a book. This is real life, and sometimes, in real life, you must go against your soul.

She hardens her heart and throws her last book into the fire.

For a second, she swears she hears it scream—Caesar betrayed once more—but she turns away. Lise-Marie’s land of stories is gone and will never come back. Her class raises their arms as the fire burns, and Lise-Marie’s face is carefully blank as she calls heil, heil, heil. She hates herself for it, but it’s all she can do.