“Look at us,” he purred beneath me. “Just like old times.”
Only it wasn’t. Because I remembered with a pang of disappointment that Father sent Huck here to fetch me instead of coming for me himself, that Huck had all but disappeared from my life, and now he showed back up, no apology or explanation—and only because he was instructed to come here. If Fatherhadfound Vlad Dracula’s ring would I even have known Huck had been in Turkey?
Wrenching my father’s journal from where it was jammed between us, I rolled away from Huck and stared at the hotel ceiling until I heard him groan. Then I shrugged out of my coat and blindly offered it in his direction. After a few moments I felt him tug it out of my hand to cover himself.
Neither of us got up right away. We just lay there together, listening to hallway noise.
“You all right?” Huck finally asked.
“Not really,” I said. “It’s been a very bad year.”
He grunted an acknowledgment. “I’d raise a glass to that, but I think perhaps I need to put trousers on. Think the coast is clear? Sounds like those gobshites are gone, yeah?”
“Sounds like it. Huck?”
“Yes?”
“What were they looking for?”
“Probably the same thing they were looking for when I saw them in Tokat—something in that journal. Good thing they didn’t get it, yeah?”
“Good thing,” I repeated.
“Theo?”
“Yes?”
“We need to leave Istanbul tonight. It’s not safe here anymore.”
I was beginning to understand that now. “Where is that place my father was talking about in that letter—where he wants us to meet him?”
“Aye, that. It’s where he stayed this summer. A hotel in Bucharest.”
Bucharest? Romania—my mother’s homeland! Wild. Enigmatic. Brimming with history, mystery, and dark superstitions.
I’d been to Romania only once, briefly, a few months after I was born, when my mother was attending her father’s funeral. Never since. I’d been begging Father to travel there for years, but he would never take me. He had a thousand reasons why.Nothing to see. I have other work. Too far. I don’t have time.What he never said was that he was avoiding Romania because it reminded him too much of my mother.
But my father never said a lot of things. Like that I’d ever see Huck again. Yet here we were, miracle of miracles.
I knew one thing. Whatever danger we were in, it was substantial enough to produce an even greater miraculous feat: it had convinced Richard Damn Fox to change his stubborn mind.
JOURNAL OF RICHARD FOX
June 19, 1937
Orient Express
We’re soon headed out of Budapest and on toward Bucharest. Funny how similar those cities sound. Funny that I’m nervous to leave one and go to the next, as if I’ll encounter Elena’s ghost when we cross the Carpathians. I’m fortifying myself with dry martinis, and I suppose that’s got me thinking sentimental thoughts, because my mind keeps returning to when I arrived in Europe, before I met with Rothwild about this Vlad-the-Impaler ring.
Three days ago I visited Huck on my way to meet Jean-Bernard in Paris. The first time I’d seen him since he left Foxwood. He was in good spirits. I wasn’t. It was terrible leaving him. His aunt is a miserable woman, and I fear he’ll rot there if he stays too much longer.
Truth is, Huck shouldn’t be here at all. He should be home with us at Foxwood. What ever happened to “family first”? Because I feel as if my motley little family is utterly broken, and I don’t know how to fix it. God do I wish Elena were still alive. She’d know what to do.
4
SEVERAL HOURS AFTER THE ROOMinvasion, Huck and I sat on opposites sides in the back of a car provided by the hotel, speeding through Istanbul in the brisk night air. We were headed toward the railway station to catch a train into Europe. Together. As if the last year or so of our lives had been erased.
Appearances could be deceiving though, couldn’t they?
