Ollie blinked. For a moment his slate gaze was wide and confused. Then something settled in it, and he shrugged. “Whatever. Going live in five, four, three, two, one.”
“Who’s that?” Shay asked again.
“Her name was Anna,” Ollie said. “She was briefly married to your sixth great-grandfather.”
“Sixth great-grandfather? What does that even mean?”
“Exactly what it says. He was three generations before Rudolph, if that helps, but on the other side of your family tree. From your father’s side.”
Shay sucked in a breath. “So the Danish stuff comes from my mother? I never thought to ask the other day.”
“It was a lot to take in.” Ollie shifted. In Shay’s imagination he moved closer, but he couldn’t be sure. “But yes. The Danish blood comes from the maternal side. Anna was Lithuanian.”
“Lithuania? That was part of Prussia, right?”
“It’s complicated, but the region where I found records for Anna would certainly have been considered Prussian at some point.”
“Wow. So I had family on both sides of the war?”
Ollie nodded. “It’s likely.”
Shay studied the picture again. The woman had an angular face and wore tatty clothes. “She looks wild. Tell me about her?”
“Wild would probably be a good way to describe her.” Ollie reached for one of his magic books and set it carefully on the small table. “I think you’ll like her, though. After last time, I figured you needed to see something—or someone—that resonated more with your own life.”
“I felt something for Rudolph.”
“I know you did.”
Shay swallowed.How did you know?But he didn’t say it. Couldn’t. Because asking the question would force Ollie to answer, and Shay wasn’t sure he could handle whatever he had to say. “What kind of person was she? She doesn’t come off rich or noble.”
A beat of silence. Then Ollie dragged his gaze back to the book. “She wasn’t, but she did rub shoulders with Lithuanian nobility, especially when she was younger. She was an accomplished musician—she played all kinds of instruments, like you.”
“Seriously?”
Like magic, the weirdness cloaking the room faded away. Ollie spun the book so Shay could see it. “Seriously. At eighteen, she was the principal lutist for the royal court, unheard of for a peasant girl. I haven’t managed to find out how she was able to learn so many instruments as a child, but she had an uncle who had some kind of craft. It might’ve been that he made instruments for the nobility and she spent her childhood around him.”
“That’s mad,” Shay whispered. “What happened to her?”
“Lotsof things. At some point, she left the royal court, possibly to marry, but there’s a gap after that of around ten years. The next records I found have her roaming the countryside, playing folk music in religious sects on all kinds of instruments.” Ollie flipped a page. “I don’t even know what some of them are called.”
Shay stared at the series of photographs spread over the double page. “She smoked a pipe?”
Ollie laughed. “Yes…. Anna was a rebel. A free thinker, I suppose you could call her. Eventually, she broke away from religion too and roamed around on her own, playing in villages she happened across, writing poetry, though I haven’t found any of that. I do have a recording of the style of music she might’ve played, if you want to hear it?”
“Fuck yeah.”
Ollie shot Shay a look that made his toes feel strange. “I thought you might say that.”
Shay’s boots suddenly seemed too tight. He thought he’d steeled himself enough to spend the day with Ollie, but somehow he’d forgotten how intense Ollie was. How a single glance could make it seem as though Ollie could see not only how he felt in that moment, but every emotion that had ever crossed his heart.
The tingling in Shay’s feet spread. He watched Ollie tap at his phone and then set it close to Shay. On the screen, Shay recognised the Spotify logo, but everything else was in another language. “What’s the song called?”
“It doesn’t have a name,” Ollie said. “It was recorded by some Lithuanian students in the seventies from some parchments in the National Museum.”
A deep stringed bass cut off any reply Shay might have made. It throbbed and rose in volume until it was joined by a chanting vocal—layered female voices that left goosebumps on Shay’s skin. It was haunting and beautiful and nothing like he’d imagined.
When it was over, he let out a long breath. “Wow. I thought it would be more… fuck, I don’t know. Simple, maybe? Rougher? That was so delicate.”
