Chapter Text
She had been in a gray, abandoned city — somewhere in Europe. What country, she could not be sure. But she knew one thing for sure: this was no North American city.
Thin snow dusted the ground, melting slowly into slush. Fog hung heavy in the air. No people. No signs of life for what felt like miles. She walked. Her feet carried her out of the ruins and into the woods.
The forest was dead — bare branches like skeletal fingers, no birds, no animals. Silence pressed in. Then — a sharp snap of branches. Esme quick turned around. A little girl stood there; toddler aged. She was tiny, pale, golden eyes wide with terror, straight bangs, ginger-tangerine braids slightly disheveled.
“Don’t be scared, sweetheart,” Esme whispered, her motherly instincts surging. She took the child’s small, cold hand. The little girl nodded with trust, and they walked together through the lifeless trees.
In the distance, a figure appeared between the trunks — a man in a stark black military uniform. The little girl gasped, clutching Esme’s hand tighter.
“That’s the man I’m scared of!” she cried.
“How come? Who is he?” Esme asked, voice low.
“He’s after me!”
Esme’s blood ran cold. She grabbed the little girl, held her tiny trembling form in her arms. She walked faster, then ran as the little girl looked back and whimpered, “He’s running!”
They fled through the dead woods until an abandoned house emerged from the fog. Inside, dust and shadows reigned.
Esme spotted a small crawl space beneath the stairs. “Hide in here,” she told the girl. “Don’t make a sound. I’ll come find you soon.”
The child nodded and crawled in. Esme tucked herself into a shadowed alcove nearby. The man entered.
Heavy boots on creaking floorboards. Esme peered out — and horror seized her.
He had no face. No eyes, no mouth, no features at all. Just smooth, blank skin beneath the black military cap — with a little silver skull symbol. The faceless man searched the house.
Esme held her breath. After long, agonizing minutes, he left. Heart pounding, Esme crept out and pulled the little girl from the crawl space. She hugged her tightly, stroking the braids.
Reinhard Heydrich gave an order to his men: “The little Canadian. The little one with the red-orange hair. Find her.”
He was talking about Heaven-Leigh, the angelic girl who had been seen going into and coming out of his bedroom, more than once. The girl he was captivated by.
You could say it was an affair. But, in reality, it was one sided.
Every distant engine, every footstep on the stairs below, every raised voice in the street made her heart slam against her ribs. She knew what he was. She had always known. The fear had never left her, not even in the moments when his hand had been almost gentle against her cheek, when the cold precision of his attention had briefly softened into something that looked, from the outside, almost like possession.
She had never wanted him. That had never mattered.
Heaven-Leigh was petite, only 4”10. A known fact in her family was that she had petite or short relatives on both sides. She also had long, straight ginger-tangerine hair with bangs, that she wore in double braids, or high pigtails on a good, carefree day. She didn’t like to be called “strawberry blonde”, she insisted she was a redhead. Amber eyes that looked yellow. Freckles. And a sweet little dimple that must have melted the icy heart of Reinhard Heydrich.
A few of the girl’s known Canadian acquaintances still in Berlin were brought in for quiet conversations that left them pale and careful with their answers afterward. Nothing.
Nicholas, her father, was born in 1904. He had married Esme, a pretty-faced woman with short hair, and the same age as him. They had married young, about seventeen years of age or so. They had been given their own cabin in their tiny, forested, remote community, surrounded by lakes, somewhere in the far north of Ontario. Only way in and out was through float planes and canoes. Although you can walk on the frozen lake in the winter time. Winter was brutal, but they survived, like their ancestors had before them.
Nicholas was part Korean. Nicholas had pale freckled skin, a mystery where he inherited it from, and black hair, and the same golden eyes as his beloved daughter. And Esme, was half Inuk (of the Inuit people), half Japanese. She also had pale skin, but she had bronze eyes, and the same colour hair as her daughter, another genetic mystery. Esme had originally hailed from the Northwest Territories. That made Heaven-Leigh mixed herself. She was born in autumn 1922.
Nicholas had never wanted children; he vowed to spare them from the horror of residential schools and the oppression their people faced. When Esme announced the pregnancy, he took a long walk in the snow. He came back three hours later, reluctant but still wanted to figure it out. When Heaven-Leigh was born, he was in love. He was a doting, protective father.
So how did an Indigenous girl make it to Germany in the first place, one may ask? Well... Heaven-Leigh was forced to attend residential school at the age of five. A requirement for all Indigenous children. A nightmare that had come true for her father.
But the corrupt Indian Agent, Wesley Ross, made a deal with Nicholas, about a couple months later. To spy in Europe, in exchange for Heaven’s freedom. Nicholas took the deal with the devil.
Wesley Ross words to Nicholas were: “Golden Raven, I always knew you were smarter than the average Injun.”
Nicholas’ Indigenous name was “Golden Raven.” The elders in his community had given him that name. It fit him perfectly; he was like a trickster. He could play a part and play it genuinely. It was like a premonition; his career that would land him in Nazi Germany.
Like the raven bird, Nicholas could easily mimic other people’s voices and accents. He could also remember faces very well. Heaven was returned, and soon the family was forced to move to Ottawa.
Heaven attended a public school, full of Caucasian children. She fit in, with her light skin, light hair, and light eyes. She was popular. Some kids would tell her “You’re one of the good ones.”
In their Ottawa home, they hadn’t abandoned their culture; they used sage. Esme still did beadwork and sewing projects. They drank water with rat root. They ate moose meat and fried walleye, and sometimes muktuk — raw beluga skin and blubber — whenever Esme’s family sent from the Northwest Territories.
Heaven and her family spoke a mixture of Ojibwe, Cree, and Inuktitut, in private. English in public — always. And they studied German every evening. The language, the history, the fast-growing Nazi Party.
And when it was time, they sailed for Europe.