One Degree of Freedom by Iron Stream Media

ONE DEGREE OF FREEDOM

TA R Y N R . H U T C H I S O N

ONE DEGREE OF FREEDOM BY TARYN R. HUTCHISON Illuminate YA Fiction is an imprint of LPCBooks a division of Iron Stream Media 100 Missionary Ridge, Birmingham, AL 35242 ISBN: Paperback 978-1-64526-302-9; eBook 978-1-64526-303-6 Copyright © 2020 by Taryn R. Hutchison Cover design by Megan McCullough Interior design by AtriTex Technologies P Ltd Available in print from your local bookstore, online, or from the publisher at: ShopLPC.com For more information on this book and the author visit: www.tarynhutchison.com All rights reserved. Noncommercial interests may reproduce portions of this book without the express written permission of LPCBooks, provided the text does not exceed 500 words. When reproducing text from this book, include the following credit line: “One Degree of Freedom by Taryn R. Hutchison published by LPCBooks. Used by permission.” THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE by CS Lewis © copyright CS Lewis Pte Ltd 1950. Commercial interests: No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by the United States of America copyright law. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are all products of the author’s imagination or are used for fictional purposes. Any mentioned brand names, places, and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners, bear no association with the author or the publisher, and are used for fictional purposes only. Brought to you by the creative team at LPCBooks: Bradley Isbell, Tessa Hall, and Rylie Fine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hutchison, Taryn R. One Degree of Freedom / Taryn R. Hutchison 1st ed. Printed in the United States of America

P  ONE DEGREE OF FREEDOM A fierce heroine who reads banned books—my favorite kind of hero! And for book nerds like me, literary references abound in One Degree of Freedom, by Taryn Hutchison. Brilliantly conceptualized and beautifully written, and a coming-of-age tale set in the Cold War era, with characters you fall in love with and root (and cry) for. Adriana comes to understand her family’s place in the world around her and makes incredibly difficult decisions as she recognizes and stands for her own beliefs. Meticulous research and excellent writing immerse readers in the setting and show life during the times, as Adriana and those she comes to meet travel on their journey. ~Kim Childress Book Editor Girls’ Life Magazine Enchanting and captivating, One Degree of Freedom is a novel I could not put down. Taryn R. Hutchison transports readers into 1980s Romania with visceral clarity and hope-filled resonance. Fans of classic authors like Louisa May Alcott and current YA historical greats, like Stephanie Morrill, will fall in love with Hutchison’s honest and sincere voice. ~Tara K. Ross Author of Fade to White Cohost of The Hope Prose Podcast Taryn Hutchison has vividly brought to life one of our modern world’s most challenging decades, set in a country so few of us learn about or experience. Through the eyes of teenagers Adriana, Gabi and their friends, readers are plunged into Cold War-era Romania in this compelling narrative that grabs you from its first pages. Government spies, family bonds, hidden rooms, fierce friendships, 5

the search for faith, childhood rebellion ... it’s a book that will draw in and enlighten YA readers while reviving nostalgia and longing among older generations. Hutchison deftly weaves hope among darkness, reminding us that all we have to do is return to the stories where our heroes exist, so that we can become the heroes of our own lives. ~Catherine Campbell Author, Editor, & Essayist (Writers Digest, NYT) Rich with Romanian culture and vibrant imagination, One Degree of Freedom explores the liberation found in books and how fiction often reflects its readers. Hutchison crafts an immersive read perfect for fans of historical and classic literature, seamlessly blending nostalgia with relevant truths, not to mention an abundance of secret tunnels, wardrobes, and dusty reading nooks. This novel is sure to captivate booklovers of all ages. ~Caroline George Award-winning author of Dearest Josephine From the beginning, I felt like I was immersed in a classical tale. The voice is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis, with Hutchison’s own flair. I immediately fell in love with the detailing, and I’m certain readers are going to feel completely that they’ve traveled back in time to 1980s Romania, a time which I’m certain we all wish we knew more about. Luckily for us Hutchison fills us in, and we cannot help but fall in love with Adriana and her curiosity and imagination. She reminds me of a 1980s Lucy Pevensie. I can’t wait to see what else this author writes, and she’s definitely one to watch. ~Hope Bolinger Author of The Blaze Trilogy and The Dear Hero Duology

Taryn Hutchison has crafted a compelling story about a young girl coming of age in the tightly controlled government state of Romania when it was under Communist rule. She immediately drew me in with her strong characters and authentic details. Hutchison allowed me a glimpse of a world I had heard of but had never experienced. Because of her vivid storytelling, I got to feel what it was like to live under such a repressive state. Yet, her story is full of hope, courage, and even joy. It’s the kind of story I’d like to read again, just to be reminded of how circumstances don’t have to determine our trajectory. And I can’t wait for my teenage granddaughter to read it! ~JoHannah Reardon Author of The Blackberry County Chronicles Set in 1980s communist Romania, One Degree of Freedom is a tale of bravery perfect for those who grew up with a love for literature. By the time I finished reading the first chapter, I completely fell in love with it (there were several audible gasps of excitement). The voice! The references! The suspense! ~Alea Harper YA author Graphic designer In One Degree of Freedom, Taryn Hutchison displays her gift of capturing the atmosphere of the time and place. Taryn understands what the day-to-day life was like for the ordinary person living under Communism. I can easily identify with Adriana because I was a Romanian teenager in the 1980s. From the very start of One Degree of Freedom, the names Taryn chooses for her characters, the sensory details, the accuracy of events mentioned from our history, take me all the way back to that era, where each of us had to find our own

degree of freedom. Her story evokes many memories I have from a time where access to information was “classified” and there was no way to really know what was going on in our country. I can’t wait for my three children to read this book. ~Dana Alupei Dove Global Ministry Representative, Central and Eastern Europe Poetic, empathetic, emotionally riveting! One Degree of Freedom demands to be read as a true depiction of communism at its height, written by a brilliant author who witnessed the final demise of such a sad era. The story of 15-year-old Adriana will capture young readers and teach an important history lesson. Older readers will remember the cold war and the terror they felt as the Eastern Block finally fell. Taryn Hutchison is an author whose appeal requires attention. ~Madelyn Bennett Edwards Author of The Catfish Trilogy As an avid reader of historical fiction and particularly little-known tales of female heroines, I was delighted to meet Adriana in One Degree of Freedom by Taryn Hutchison. The strong characters, references to classic children’s literature, detailed historical research, and smooth writing made me feel a part of Adriana’s world. This book will appeal to readers of all ages and has excellent potential for use in the classroom. ~Peggy Wirgau Author of The Stars in April

To my Romanian friends, who have lived what I could only imagine. Prieteniilor mei români care au trăit ceea ce îmi puteam imagina.

ADRIANA NICU’S F A M I LY A N D F R I E N D S

In Bucharest: » » » » » » »

Ramona Nicu, her mother (Mama) Daniel Nicu, her father (Tati) Violeta Zaharia, her aunt Mihai Zaharia, her uncle Gabriela Martinescu, her best friend Alexandru Oprea, her classmate Corina Lupu, her classmate

In Armonia: » »

Margareta Dumitrescu, her grandmother (Bunica) Bogdan Nicu, her great uncle

Adriana’s Reading List 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott Heidi, by Johanna Spyri A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery 11

ONE

ADRIANA: THE WARDROBE

Mid-November 1987 Bucharest, Romania

    curtains in Adriana’s room. “You can’t stay in bed all day,” she said. Adriana stretched, cat-like, shifting the things buried in her comforter. Her well-loved stuffed dog clung onto the edge. Her mother rescued the animal before it fell and fluffed up its tattered ears. “Good old Laika.” As soon as she grabbed it, something else crashed to the floor with a thud. “What’s this?” “Oh! That.” Adriana tensed. “It’s a book for school.” Mama picked it up. “The Lion, the Witch … I don’t think so. This is an English book. It’s forbidden!” She grabbed Adriana’s arm and jerked her upright. “You owe me an explanation, young lady. Where’d you get this?” “Umm …” “It was my sister, wasn’t it?” She squinted her piercing eyes. Adriana stared back. Mama’s eyes were like dark chocolate, hard and bitter. “Get dressed. We’ll discuss this before I go to work,” Mama said.

TA R Y N R . H U T C H I S O N

As Adriana got ready, she heard her mother pacing the length of the small flat. She always did that when something bothered her. But Mama wasn’t the only one upset. Adriana had been reading the book for weeks now, sneaking times to read without anyone knowing. She’d nearly finished it, and now that she’d reached the part where she couldn’t put it down, where something terrible was about to happen to Aslan the lion, she got caught. How could she have been so careless? When she stepped into the living room, she found her mother waiting on the sofa, her hands folded in her lap, her lips pursed, and her back straight as Professor Popa’s ruler. Wherever she’d stashed the book, Adriana couldn’t see it. Mama patted the seat beside her. “Come, sit. Don’t be afraid.” She paused as Adriana sat on the edge of the sofa. “You’re young, and my sister manipulated you. She’s the one I’m angry with. I’ll speak with her.” Mama let a deep sigh escape and lowered her voice. “But you must promise me not to fill your head with this nonsense. I’d better not find you with any more English novels. Ever again. I can’t have you causing trouble for our family.” “Are you going to tell Tati?” “No. Your father doesn’t need to know. He’d be furious, and there’s no reason to upset him. He carries so much pressure already. It’ll be our secret.” Adriana already had more than enough secrets to keep. “Now, go eat your bread,” Mama said. “I’m late for my shift. I won’t have you starving.” “I’m really sorry.” “That’s a start, but it’s not enough for you to get your book back.” She leaned over and grabbed Adriana’s chin, turning it to look straight into her eyes. “I just don’t want you to fall for the lies. That’s what these books are. Lies. I want to protect you. It’s what parents do.”

One Degree of Freedom

“Yes, Mama.” “And Adriana?” “Yes, ma’am?” “Does Gabriela know about your reading?” “No. Of course not.” “Keep it that way. Do I have your word?” “Yes.” “Give me a kiss then. I’ll see you for dinner.” With that, Mama left. Adriana had planned to spend the day—a day free from school—inside reading, but now she had no book and the last place she wanted to be was this stifling apartment. Her mother didn’t understand her. How could she take away the one thing Adriana truly enjoyed? She grabbed her engineering textbook—it could come in handy for a cover—and practically strutted toward her aunt’s flat, her chin held high. Her mother might think she’d forbidden her from reading, but didn’t Aunt Violeta say she had more books for her? Maybe she could find one herself. Why couldn’t her mother be more like her aunt? Aunt Violeta and Uncle Mihai both brightened any space they were in. Her parents were the opposite. No one ever noticed Ramona or Daniel Nicu. Except for her. She couldn’t help but notice when they tried to control her life. They forced her to follow the rules, no matter how dumb, while her aunt’s attitude seemed to be, What rules? Her parents both obsessed about everything looking perfect from the outside. Well, she’d play along. She could look obedient. They would never catch her reading again, but she refused to give it up. She cut straight through Cişmigiu Park, from her entrance at the west end to her aunt’s at the east. Usually, she meandered the side paths or stopped to skip stones from the bridge. But not today. Today she had a mission. She was focused so intently that she

TA R Y N R . H U T C H I S O N

almost didn’t hear the guard when he demanded to know where she was headed. “To my aunt’s flat,” she said, displaying her textbook. “To study.” It wasn’t fair. Mama could read when she was Adriana’s age, so why couldn’t she? She tried to imagine her mother and aunt caught up in reading stories when they were girls. It was hard enough to picture them young. Her mother reminded her of the older sister in her novel, Susan Pevensie. Cautious, responsible, ordinary. That’s how she’d describe her mother and Susan. Aunt Violeta was like the youngest child, Lucy. Warm, inquisitive, fearless. So was Adriana’s best friend, Gabi. Adriana longed to be bolder, like them. Lucy explored her wardrobe; Adriana could start to be bolder by exploring the one at her aunt’s. It nagged at her. How did her aunt get lost inside it? She turned onto Aunt Violeta’s elm-lined street and, as always, looked beyond the gray exteriors to imagine the fine buildings in their former glory. The houses on this street were some of the few old ones still standing in Bucharest. The rest had been razed to make room for forests of plain sixteen-story apartment blocks erected to house more workers for the State. Mama said the new buildings were far superior; Adriana didn’t agree. She tugged open the thick wooden door, strode across the black and white hexagonal tiles in the foyer, and climbed the curved staircase, sliding her hand up the wooden balustrade until the stairs deposited her at the top, on the third floor. There, she inserted her skeleton key into the door marked Familia Zaharia. The neighbor’s door opened just enough to show the top of a gray head. “Good morning, Mrs. Stoica,” Adriana said. “Nobody’s home.”

One Degree of Freedom

“My aunt gave me a key.” Adriana waved her textbook in front of her. “She told me to come study in a quiet place.” Mrs. Stoica sighed and closed her door. Adriana entered the flat and plopped her book and fountain pen on the kitchen table. The textbook fell open to the full-page photo of First Lady Elena Ceauşescu, world-renowned chemist and author of most of their science books, a good page to have on display. Just in case. Whenever Uncle Mihai said he wondered how Mrs. Ceauşescu found time to research and write all these textbooks, what with her other duties, Aunt Violeta would laugh and wag her finger at him. Adriana strode into her aunt and uncle’s bedroom. The pine wardrobe, so large it practically filled one wall, commanded attention. It was painted a vibrant blue and adorned with swirls and green-stemmed flowers in hues of red, gold, and light blue. She opened the arched double doors. Behind the clothes rod, shelves with neatly-folded sweaters and several paperback books lined the right side. She flipped through the books. No novels. All government-approved. All safe. Hadn’t her aunt’s whole body disappeared inside the wardrobe that day she retrieved the book for Adriana? There must be another shelf farther back. Adriana thrust her arms behind the hanging clothes. Her fingertips smacked against the pine back before she expected they would. It didn’t make sense that she had reached the back already with only her forearms submerged. The wardrobe’s enormous size must be an illusion, a trick to make it appear deeper than it really was. Still, she knew how to check it out. A few things from her science classes had sunk in. She stepped back and measured the outer side with her arm extended, the way any good engineer without a ruler would do. It was deeper than the length of her arm.

TA R Y N R . H U T C H I S O N

She double-checked the inside distance. The interior was markedly shallower. Odd. Adriana ran her hands up and down the smooth back behind the hanging clothes. Nothing unusual there. She pushed the folded sweaters and books to the side and found some sheet music crammed behind them. As she reached to lift the music, her fingers felt a bump behind the built-in shelf. She pressed the bump. The back of the wardrobe slowly swung toward her. She jumped back and landed on the floor. A chest-high door appeared in the apartment wall behind the wardrobe. Adriana scrambled to her feet and reached in to turn the handle. The door pushed away from her, opening into a dark hole. She leaned in to look. Hidden in the wall of her aunt’s flat was the most fantastic thing: a secret room. This was about as exciting as Lucy Pevensie stumbling onto snow at the back of her wardrobe. She had to go inside. Even with her petite frame, Adriana had to stoop a little and turn sideways to fit inside the opening. She tripped as she did so and stumbled into a dark, cool chamber that seemed to be dug out of the wall. The small space smelled musty, like the mildew she cleaned out of the bathroom. A tiny window high up on the opposite wall shed a little light, but it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust. When they did, two cots materialized, back-to-back, with a long table and two chairs across from them. The beds were made, as though guests were expected. The table held a lantern, stacks and stacks of books, and a dusty typewriter. Adriana had only seen a typewriter once, locked away in her father’s office at the plant, but she’d never touched one. They’d been illegal her whole life. From a distance, she heard the faint squeak of the apartment door opening. Uncle Mihai shouldn’t be home yet. She stood still, her sense of hearing as hyper-alert as a cat’s. Without making a sound, she leaned forward, reaching into the wardrobe as far as she

One Degree of Freedom

could to close its outer doors. She slid the hanging clothes back together on the rack and pulled the back of the wardrobe toward her. Then she closed the door to the secret room and crouched behind it. Just in time. Two muffled voices seemed to come from another room. She strained to listen. “It’s not here,” a man said. The other voice, too distant to make it out, was low enough to belong to a man. “I’ll look in this room. Just hurry,” the first one said. Slow, heavy footsteps thudded across the floor. Adriana sat on the cot in almost total darkness, and held her breath as she heard shuffling sounds in the bedroom. The footsteps came closer to her hiding place. She pressed her hands tightly against her mouth, willing herself to stop breathing. The wardrobe doors creaked open. Hangers slid along the metal rod and clothes thumped against the wall she squatted behind. “We’d better go.” The man on the other side of the wardrobe spoke. “Before they come home.” Adriana remained immobile long after the men left. She didn’t realize she’d held her breath the whole time until she finally exhaled. She waited several more minutes before she forced herself to stand. Gingerly, she opened the chamber door and stepped through the wardrobe into the bedroom. She tiptoed through the flat. Whoever they were and whatever they’d rummaged through, they’d put everything back in place. If she hadn’t heard them, she’d think she had been dreaming. Her heart banged against her ribs. She was in no state to read, nor to be alone.

TA R Y N R . H U T C H I S O N

She picked up the telephone and dialed Gabiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s number. Before Gabi answered, she heard another noise. A breath came over the line.