Baby, close your eyes
Don't open 'til the morning light
Don't ever forget
We haven't lost it all yet
All we know for sure
Is all that we are fighting for
Baby, don't forget
We haven't lost it all yet

~The Fray

He didn't know what day it was when it happened. He barely knew the month. It would be over two years later that he finally discovered that his miracle came the very night that every miracle deserted the book thief.

Max Vandenburg was near death. Dachau had nearly beaten the life from his frail body. As he lay in bed each night, it often hurt his chest to simply breathe, to force the fleeting seconds of his life in and out of his exhausted lungs. He kept waiting for Death to come for him, steeling himself for using the last of his strength to deliver that promised punch to the saukerl's face.

However, his wait only lengthened. Max did not know at that time that he was not fated to die in the camp. He would meet Death many, many years later. He would not punch Death, as he had always envisioned, but would sit up in his bed, whisper a goodbye to his sleeping wife, and be lifted tenderly into a sky of brightening pink – almost the exact hue of his wife's lips.

But for now, Max Vandenburg was weakening as each day passed. The important thing is that he believed he would not make it much longer. That is why the miracle came at all.

He fell asleep the night of October 7th near midnight. Even with the oncoming cold of winter, he crawled into his filthy bunk and drifted into unconsciousness quickly. At first, he did not think the dream was any different from the others. The Hubermanns – Hans and Rosa – sat at the kitchen table, smiling over at him. Hans had his accordion strapped to his chest and he rhythmically pumped the bellows, his fingers gliding perfectly across the keys. The song wrapped itself around Max's tired body and cushioned him; a grateful smile flickered on his haggard face, but it found its abode too hostile to stay for long.

That was when Max realized that this dream was different. Whenever he had seen the Hubermanns in his dreams, they had been silent at the table; the accordion had not breathed out any songs for him because Max had forgotten the beautiful voice it spoke with, along with the taste of real food and the feeling of warmth.

Then Rosa spoke to him: "Max. The house is lonely without you."

Hans' words followed his wife's. "The basement is just a basement now. The walls need more of your paintings, Max."

Stunned, Max stared at the couple who had taken him in when it certainly meant severe punishment, even death, to do so. He fought to speak to them, but the words literally died in his throat. They tasted worse than the ash that came from the cremation building across the camp.

Finally, he choked out, "I'm sorry." His voice was not breaking; it was already irreparably broken.

"I miss you, Max. I wish I could steal you from this place the way I steal the books."

Coughing, Max shifted onto his other side, his own ribs digging painful into him. Standing over him was the girl. The young woman, really, for that was what she had become in the time he had been gone. Her darkening blonde hair flowed over her shoulders and her dark brown eyes looked straight into him, past his skeletal body and into his very soul. He could feel it flutter to life inside him.

"Liesel, I-"

She stopped his words with a gentle, airy hand on his mouth. "It's okay, Max," she whispered, leaning over him. "I know."

For a single instant, he let her cup his face the way she had when she found him in the line of Jews tramping dejectedly through Molching. He wanted to say so much to her, but he couldn't find the words. When she gently slid her palm from his gaunt face, he panicked, tried to get up and take her hand, hold her there with him. He could not rise.

"Liesel!" he called desperately. "Liesel, please!"

Her face became one of terror and she began screaming, shouting for her papa and her mama. Max did not understand what was happening. Liesel screamed and when Max looked back to where Hans and Rosa had been sitting, they were gone. Hans' accordion lay on the floor amongst the remains of the obliterated table.

Liesel screamed Max's name. He lurched over to look at her, injuring himself with his own body, but she was gone.

He was still in his bed, but the building around him was dark and his fellow prisoners snored with creaking lungs and raking coughs. Max sat up painfully, wide awake, and looked around, desperately searching for Liesel, but the dream was long gone, taking her with it.

Max wanted to cry, but the tears had run out, leaving him truly abandoned. It wasn't until he dropped his head into his hands that he noticed the bread.

It sat at the foot of his bed: a hunk of bread the size of his emaciated fist. It stared back at him, daring him to believe that it wasn't a lingering part of the dream fooling him. He reached out and when his fingers closed as tightly as they could around it, he knew it was real. He forced himself to eat it slowly, knowing his body couldn't possibly take it all in one bite even though his first instinct was to shove it in. When he fell asleep again, he had a fleeting triumphant thought that he would evade Death for just a little longer.

Max did not know where the bread came from, nor did he ever find out. But it was his miracle. His miracle the same night everyone on Himmel Street but Liesel Meminger died in the bombing. He and Liesel became each other's miracle, each other's promise that some things can be beautiful in this world of ugly and wretchedness.

That hunk of stale bread is the reason Max Vandenburg returned the Liesel. It is the reason that the Sky Stealer and the Book Thief were reunited.