“Thank you.”
“Take care, Annika,” he said before rowing away.
She hurried up the bank, and as she neared the cottage, she heard the rumble of a car engine again. She rushed into her bedroom, sliding the bolt across the door, and minutes later, her father’s boots clapped down the hallway, the slam of his door shaking her room.
When his snores finally rattled the thin walls, she turned on the lamp and dumped the contents of the bag onto her bed. Some pieces were wrapped in brown paper, rolled in so much masking tape that they looked like one of the boulders along the lake. She brushed her hands across the loose pieces. Gold necklace. Ruby brooch. Six silver teacups with saucers.
Teacups that she’d seen displayed in Sarah’s dining room hutch.
If her father found this, she had no doubt he’d sell the items and return to the tavern, drinking away the profits. Or he’d use the items to bribe other people in their community. She couldn’t let either happen, for his sake or the sake of the families who valued these things.
Annika retrieved herBambibook from under the bed. Inside, stuffed between the pages with Max’s photograph, was the onionskin list from Max. But if Vati or someone else ever opened the book, the paper would slide to the floor.
As she sat cross-legged on her bed, Annika began to meticulously record the items that Hermann brought for her, but instead of putting the words on onionskin, she wrote them inside the pages ofBambi. Her father might open the cover, searching for paper, but he’d never think to scan through the text.
After she finished recording each item from Hermann’s list,she transcribed Max’s records into the book as well. Tomorrow afternoon, when her father was gone, she’d take Max’s place in the forest and bury these items between the animals in the ground. Then she’d burn both Max’s and Hermann’s lists. These treasures, they would be safe in her care.
CHAPTER 22
“May I look through the Hatschi Bratschi story?” I ask Charlotte before settling into one of her two living room chairs. We have less than an hour before story time begins—and she’s my featured guest—but it’s enough time to look at this old book.
“Of course,” she says, nodding toward the bookcase. “Would you like some hot tea?”
“Yes, please.” Usually I help her brew the tea, but I want to examine the book while she’s in the other room.
When she slips into the kitchen, I inchHatschi Bratschis Luftballoncarefully off the shelf. The blue spine is cracked, ready to split, and the last thing I want to do is damage Charlotte’s only connection with her past.
Inside the cover is the name I remember well.
Luzia Weiss.
White light.
I skim the pages, hoping that whoever this Luzia was, she wrote something in the pages like Annika did, but the only handwriting is the fancy script recording her name.
What would Charlotte say if I told her that perhaps the name Luzia originally belonged to her mother instead of her? I’ll hold that information close to my heart until I find out what happened to her family, if I can find out. Annika’s story somehow connects with this Luzia Weiss’s story; I desperately hope it also connects with Charlotte’s.
It seems impossible, but like Mrs. Murry told Meg inA Wrinkle in Time, you don’t have to understand things for them tobe.
I don’t understand all that is happening, but I’ll search until I can find answers. And I pray that I find a thread of joy stitched into the sorrow and agony of war.
Liberty hasn’t returned my calls, but I have a list of questions ready for when she does and some new information as well. Early this morning, Dr. Nemeth sent me a photograph of Schloss Schwansee, and then the birth and marriage certificates for Annika Knopf from theEvangelische Pfarrkirche, the evangelical church in Hallstatt. They didn’t have a death certificate on record for her.
The Dornbach family, Dr. Nemeth said, owned Schloss Schwansee before the war, but according to the certificates on my iPad, Annika was only sixteen when she married the caretaker of the castle, a man named Hermann Stadler.
One of the students on Dr. Nemeth’s team is taking the train to Salzburg tomorrow to find out who owns Schloss Schwansee now.
Charlotte places a mug of green tea in front of me.
“Thank you.” I take a sip as she glances out the window at two songbirds perched on a slender branch.
“Listen,” she whispers.
“What is it?”
“They’re singing for us.”
I quiet my racing thoughts and listen with her to the melody of these birds, simple yet sacred in a sense as they embrace this gifting of song. Charlotte’s gaze travels down to the book with the wicked wizard on the cover searching for children to steal.
