I go to the door, pressing an ear to the wood before I turn the lock. The empty hall outside our room stretches to the other empty rooms of the empty apartment. As it should. Everything is as it should be.And then a noise shoots through the silence. Louder than a gun. A grenade of fear inside my chest. And I know the sound I have missed.Someone is knocking on my front door.They know. They know. They know.The words beat with my blood.Another mattress spring pops, and I feel Helena coming up behind me. She doesn't speak. She is six years old and doesn't have to be told that this is not the time for questions.The knocking comes again, louder, this time with a whisper through the cracks."Stefania?"It's a trick. The Gestapo want me to open the door without a fuss. So they don't have to break it down. So they can give a nice, unblemished apartment to some nice German officer and his law-abiding wife with clean hair and mended stockings.Maybe this means they will shoot us outside, like Mr. Schwarzer.The whisper comes again."Open the door! Fusia!"The Gestapo does not know me by that name.I run for the door, hands out, fingers already searching for the newly repaired lock. I know it isn't him. It can't be him. But I fumble and twist at the lock anyway, then fling open the door. Helena gasps. Or maybe the gasp came from me. Because the bare bulb hanging in the hallway has shown me that it's not him. It's not who I thought it would be at all. Excerpted from The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron 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.