Hi, so here is the penultimate chapter of this story! I am so glad that i can soon bring this story to a close. The next chapter will be the last and will bring this story to a conclusion that will coincide with the end of the film. Also this story will be more film based when it comes to the ending than real life.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

Please Read and Review.

And again some historical liberties.


That's My Story

Chapter 14-Deals With Our Devils

The penultimate chapter of this story. The Nazi's invade the convent where the Von Trapp's are hiding, Liesl comes face to face with her past as there is a desperate attempt to escape.


They were pressed up against the back wall of the convent hidden from the windows when the knock came, it was sharp and harsh and it left Louisa in no doubt who it was. Liesl gave a moan but covered it by shoving two gloved knuckles in her mouth. Louisa felt something prick at her eyelids and she tried to blink back the tears that came so rapidly right now.

Their mother ran a hand down Liesl's arm in a comforting manner and Liesl made an effort not to break down. How much longer could her sisters nerves keep this up for Louisa didn't know but she knew that the edges were being frayed of Liesl's rather impeccable composure. Brigitta next to her tucked her hand into Louisa's elbow and she felt her sister give a shuddering breath, a doorbell rang and a nun in black sped past her only to be stopped and shushed by the Mother Superior who looked white to the lips but resolute in a way that was extremely comforting.

And then there father was stood there moving fast and his face so hard and lines showing that she had never seen before. He gestured with his head towards the door and following the Mother Superior the Von Trapp children and their mother ran up two flights of stairs and into what must have been a combination of a courtyard and a crypt. Louisa saw the night sky peppered with stars against an inky blue, felt the warm breeze that served to remind her that it was still summer even though the whole world felt cold in a way that would never be warm again. She saw the mountains in the distance that separated Austria from other countries such as Switzerland, so cold that there was snow all year round and thought to herself even as she helped Gretl across the uneven stones of the large crypt, that this would be a wonderfully, simple place to find God.

The back of the room was made up of headstones weather they be of actual people or a tribute to the saints Louisa could not see her eyes straining in the darkness just to make out what was in front of her. She could see however that they were wide and gleaming, cool stone weathered with the wind coming from the windows that had no glass in them and they were big enough to hide behind providing the iron gates that kept them safe from harm remained closed.

She swallowed. The cross from the stairs took maybe half a minute but the way her limbs were acting made it feel like it was so much more. She wanted to hide away and never see the light of day again—it was hard to believe that just this morning they had been practicing on top of that half stage where Uncle Max had remarked rather forlornly that 'Everyone's Cross These Days' like it was their opening number.

Immediately they were through the iron gates. Liesl took hold of Brigitta and Marta pushing them forwards. Fredrich turned on his heel quick as a flash and she paused watching him, his hair shining against the night sky was like some sort of candle and Louisa watching him thought with a stab of terror as she noticed—even when her mind was whirling and moving at a thousand miles an hour—that her hair was the same shade of blonde and that they might be seen standing out about the darkness. She bit her lip so hard she could taste the coppery tang of blood on her tongue. God knows it was either that or start weeping unconsolably right there and then.

Their father was deep in conversation with the Mother Superior. He was talking about abandoning the car as soon as he got to the hills. The Mother was telling him that the borders had closed. Louisa shot a look at her brother, granted he was not Brigitta who would have been able to decipher what that meant for them and also for most of the rest of the world this side of the Atlantic but she saw Fredrich rear backwards as if he had been struck and she pressed close to his side watching everything and trying hard to decipher it.

The boarders were closing—well that was to keep everyone in under German occupation that much was obvious even to her—the Germans did not want anyone fleeing the new wonderful order they had imposed on the people that had wanted it so much (at least that was what she knew was going to be printed in the newspapers when the morning came and everything once again turned on the heal of its axis). She knew that it made things easier for the deportations that she knew (she knew) had been going since the beginning of this nightmare that saw her standing here at the age of thirteen with nothing more than a suitcase and a bag in the car that was somewhere in the grounds of this convent.

The whole thing made her head hurt. She found that she wanted nothing more to do than to go back to the bed that she had deliberately left unmade, crawl under the covers and sleep away whatever it was that was on the horizon brewing like dark clouds.

The borders were closed.

They were trapped.

"Alright" their father said, and Louisa watched him. The man that she had known, the gentle man that had hugged them and bought them presents and had seen them had gone. Back was the naval captain, the man so utterly controlled in everything he did that he was almost unmovable. Captain Von Trapp was not easily defeated. Louisa could almost see her father's brain moving at a hundred miles per hour. She wrapped one hand around her brother's elbow and took it as a sign of how worried Friedrich was that he didn't throw her off.

"Alright then we will go out up into the mountains and cross the border on foot"

"The children"

That was their mother, Louisa thought that was an excellent point to make. While she and Friedrich and Kurt might have managed it, they being the ones who had made it outside each day and were used to walking, hiking and running she couldn't see Marta and Gretl doing it. She certainly couldn't see Brigitta climbing over mountains and rocks and into the harsh wilderness. Her sister was all books and pens and paper. Liesl could do it but her eldest sister was tired and she was struggling and she was too used to putting the feelings of her siblings before her own. She had been playing at mother for so long sometimes Louisa knew it was hard to switch off. Liesl could do it but for how long? Even Louisa had to admit that she would struggle to carry on for long without rest, without a plan, without some sort of ending for her and for her family that didn't see them separated across the world where the lines between what was good, what was bad and was evil were so blurred it was impossible to see.

Their father turned and he took stock of them half in shadow, half in moonlight—his two children who had the golden blonde hair—Gretl's having the occasion shade of brown to it—and he smiled at them though they both knew it to be false. The two of them who at the start of this summer where nothing had been set in stone and they had thought themselves invincible in their pettiness to make the newest governess's life hell had changed from children into adults and the knowledge that came crashing down upon her served only to turn Louisa to tears which she blinked back furiously.

Her father pressed one knuckle against the underside of her chin and with another hand pressed it hard into Fredrich's shoulder.

"We can do it without help father"

Louisa shot him a look that she knew even if he didn't pick up on it was far from sisterly.

"I know you can, now get behind a headstone and keep quiet. Now"

Louisa did not wait to be asked twice.

She let go of her brother's hand and darted behind a headstone trembling from head to foot. She was aware of Fredrich on one side and Gretl pressing into her side her blue eyes still unaware and unafraid. Louisa felt something crack at her five year old sister who had started the day dancing around a stage with her sister and was ending it by crouching behind a headstone, suddenly an unwanted criminal in her own country. If it was hard for her to understand then the Lord only knew how hard it was for the younger ones to understand. She was aware that everyone was hiding, their mother with a whispered murmur was there soothing Gretl's headscarf back and wrapping her hands around her body holding her close. If there was ever a reason to believe the inevitable was coming, then it was that. Louisa took a breath trying not to vomit.

It was happening.

It was happening.

And then after a silence that seemed to stretch for years but was in fact only minutes, she heard it. The sound of footsteps coming up the well-worn steps to the crypt—the steps that nuns had travelled upon with the deepest devotion and was now being pounded by the tread of the Nazi jackboots.

She rammed a knuckle into her mouth and forced herself to breathe—she forced herself to close her eyes and sit there. She would not rock back and forth but never before had she wanted in her life to be like her little sister who was being comforted by her mother. Fredrich caught her eye and there was something grim in that expression. His face was pressed as close to the edge of the stone as he could get without being seen.

He was waiting.

Louisa took another breath, and then another.

She bit her bottom lip forcing herself to stay silent.

The clash of a hand on the metal grate shaking harshly made her inhale. Without looking at her, her brother gripped her by her shoulder so tight that she was sure that he was going to leave marks. Louisa took the touch to steady herself as a light that was a torch shined into the darkness of a couple of headstones.

She took another breath.

Another rattle, another headstone.

She took another breath.

She felt sick.

They were two headstones away.

And then they were upon them.

Fredrich reared back like a snake and Louisa buried her head in her knees and forced half her skirt into her mouth to keep her cry inwards. Her mother pressed a hand to the top of her head and she watched even though she tried to keep her eyes closed even though she could see the light on the stones of the wall above her.

The light turned to the stone that was hiding the rest of her family. There was more than a little force behind this push against the iron as if the officer wielding the torch knew that there were more people behind the stones. Louisa peeped upwards to see Liesl and Brigitta both duck their heads. The look on their father's face was perhaps to dreadful to comment on in that moment. Louisa ducked her head downwards into her lap and tried to breathe.

There was a moment where she sat there and the ringing of the gates sounded. And then she heard it.

The gasp.

It came from Liesl.

Of course It came from Liesl.

The look on her sisters face told Louisa all she needed to know in that moment.

It was Rolfe.

Of course it was fucking Rolfe.

Louisa had never hated him more.

There was a long pause as their father took stock of it. How much he had known about the situation between his eldest and Rolfe, Louisa did not know but she thought that he knew more than he was letting on. The look on his face was sharp and too the point and Louisa ducked her head so that she could avoid that glare. She did not want to think about what this moment was. That was between Liesl, their father and the boy who had gone down the steps with the rest of the members of the Hitler's Youth.

Louisa waited until their father told them to stand up. She thought her legs might give out from her but she stood up all the same. She shivered into her coat and forced herself upwards. How the hell she was supposed to get over the mountains when she could barely stand was beyond anything she could ever think about.

And that was when it happened.

Rolfe.

A gun.

Pointed at their father.

Liesl let out a little scream and a plea that Louisa couldn't hear over the beating of her own heart. She reached for her sister's arm even as her brother grabbed hers. Their father remained completely in control.

"Maria" he said and there was no emotion in his voice. Actually there was. Later when she was older and wiser and the world had gone to rights again she would realise that it was amusement and a bitter resentment in his voice. But she was thirteen and she was not as old as she had always wanted to believe.

"The children"

She was aware that she was being pushed backwards down the steps.

"Father" she hissed but her brother shook his blonde head.

"Louisa" Fredrich said shaking his head again. "Louisa, he knows what he is doing."

He looked hopelessly at her and Louisa had to look away even as they slid into the car that was by some God-given miracle waiting for them. She slid into the seat and leaned back feeling older than she had ever done in her life. There was a long moment where she was on tenterhooks waiting for the gunshot that would either end the life of a seventeen-year-old boy or the life of her father.

It never came.

And then suddenly her father was there sliding into the car. He said nothing as he reversed and sped off and Louisa did not dare ask him. Instead she took another breath and forced herself to take another breath of the clean night air. She thought she was going to be sick and that was before she took stock of how fast they were driving down the damn rocky road.

They drove for an hour before they reached the rocky outlines that were the mountains, Louisa enjoyed much of the luxury that came with a car as she could. She enjoyed being Austrian for just a second longer as each second passed.

She waited for the sound of sirens to wail behind her showing that the Nazi's had caught up with them leaving the nuns who had taken them in despite the dangers in peace.

The sirens never came.


And there you are-I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and i will do my best to have the next one published completing this story sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter-The Von Trapps escape into the mountains, towards their new life. Louisa takes stock of all that has happened and what is in store for her future in the final chapter.