A tremor coiled down Max’s spine. In that moment, he knew, or at least he thought he knew, what Annika—and Hermann—had done. He collapsed onto the floor of pine needles and dried leaves, sick as the day when Hermann told him that Luzi had been taken away. And he held the book closer to his chest, trying to connect the scattered pieces in his memory.
Annika hadn’t stolen the heirlooms. His friend had been taken away that day in April. And Luzi, perhaps she had thought Max ran away.
It was much too late to change any of it now, but still the questions flooded his mind.
Hermann had told him Luzi was gone, taken away by the Gestapo, and then he’d married her.
Did anyone else know their secret?
Surely some of the people in town must, but perhaps they’d buried it with the destruction from the war.
He didn’t speak to Luzi, though everything within him wanted to tell her that he was okay. They’d never dance again, but this time he could leave with a final good-bye.
But the good-bye would only be good for him. Not for Luzi or Hermann or their children. So much of her life already lay in ruins. He wouldn’t shake the foundation of what remained.
Before he returned to his ship, Max found the finest maker of violins in Salzburg and commissioned him to craft an instrument and hand-deliver it to a certain woman who had once lived for music. And then he went home.
EPILOGUE
Snow sticks to the clear fragments of a stained-glass window—the picture inside, a Madonna watching over Christoph Eyssl’s tomb. We’re an odd group gathered in this chapel above Lake Hallstatt, a week before Christmas. Twenty-three people preparing to open the casket of a man who died nearly four hundred years ago.
It’s taken months to gather all the necessary permits, but Sigmund partnered with Josh, and these two men, along with Luzia, managed to convince people across Austrian ranks about the possibilities. The Austrian chancellor, a friend of the Stadler family, is here today along with some other very important people, most of whom think I’ve spent too much of my life reading fairytales.
I’m most interested in the VIPs who surround me: Charlotte and her sister, Brie and Ella, and a certain man on the other sideof the church, the newest tenured professor at OSU, talking to the chancellor about other places he’d like to dive one day.
“It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” Charlotte says, and I agree with her. She’s gone from having a family of only Brie and me to a crowd of nieces and nephews who’ve welcomed her into their fold. And a sister who clearly adores her.
“I’m proud of you,” Brie whispers to me.
“For what?”
“Your courage.”
I smile at her, the person who knows me best of all. Others wouldn’t think of flying to Austria as courageous, but it took everything I had to get on that plane six months ago. And myeverything was worth it for Charlotte and Luzia. And for Josh...
“I’m proud of him too.” Brie nods toward the man who became my husband last month. “For luring you out of your cage.”
I laugh. “You make him sound so conniving.”
“He’s a smart man for falling in love with you and inviting you into his world.”
“Brie!”
She laughs. “Just saying it like I see it.”
“Thank you for my gift,” I tell her, sweeping my hand across the crowded room, stopping at Josh. “Without you, this never would have happened.”
“Has it been worth it, Callie?”
And I know what she means—not the numerical kind of worth, but has it been worth risking my heart, the safe boundaries of my nest, to accept Josh’s invitation to share our lives as a family.
“Indubitably.”
Violin music travels in from the narthex as we wait for anarchaeologist representing the World Jewish Congress to arrive. Max Dornbach’s great-granddaughter is playing Luzia’s violin.
Even though Luzia can no longer play herself, she’s caught up in Anna Dornbach’s song. And so is Charlotte. The two sisters are sitting beside each other, arms linked. Pity the person, I think, who would try to tear them apart now. I’ve lost Charlotte in one sense, but my heart doesn’t bleed as I thought it might. Instead, it’s expanded to make room for more.
Behind Charlotte and Luzia is a row of eight people from Bolivia and Canada, descendants of a family named Leitner who escaped from Obertraun before the Austrian Jewish people were transported to concentration camps. Besides Luzia, they are the only ones we’ve been able to locate who might have a claim to what, if anything, is hidden in this chapel.
