Catching the Wind(53)

She stood up, the tin in both hands. “Brigitte left us a trail.”

“Left Mr. Knight a trail.”

“Of course,” she said, silently chiding herself. She’d already let this search become too personal, thinking the girl was leaving clues for her. “The point is, Brigitte wanted to be found.”

“And you’ll find her, Quenby.”

The girl from her dream flashed back into her mind. “I hope so.”

And she hoped the contents of these letters would be life-giving for Mr. Knight.

When they reached the river, Lucas brushed off the leaves on a felled log, and they sat side by side to look at the first letter. Quenby snapped a picture of it with her phone, front and back.

On the front of each letter were Lady Ricker’s mundane reports about her baby and the weather and a trip she was planning up to Swindon. On the back sides, the letters were much longer, the German words written in block instead of cursive.

Quenby had learned German from the old fairy tales that Grammy liked to tell her before bed, the ones passed on from the Brothers Grimm. She preferred stories with happy endings, but she’d learned at a young age how a story could haunt you. And teach you about morality.

She opened her iPad case to type the English translation, but before she could attempt to translate Brigitte’s words, she had to decipher her handwriting.

“You want me to help?” Lucas asked, scooting closer to her.

“You know German?”

“No, but—” he held up his phone—“Google is fluent.”

“As long as nothing is misspelled.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“I can read some German.” The breeze fluttered the letter in her lap, and she lifted it. “Perhaps we can figure out what she wrote together.”

She read Lady Ricker’s letter out loud first—about the stresses of trying to dress her new baby with the clothing rations, about baby’s feeding at 5 p.m., about a gift she was sending in a fortnight.

Then she turned to the note in German and scanned Brigitte’s first line about Frau Terrell. Slowly, with the help of Lucas and his phone, she began to unravel the girl’s words.

SEPTEMBER 1941

Frau Terrell translates Lady Ricker’s letters into broken German and demands I read her words into the wireless, even if they make little sense. So I read about a baby boy. Things that interest only L.R. and, for some reason, the Germans. When her boy sleeps. What he wears. When he goes to London with his mother.

I wish I could go to London with my mother. Wish I could go anyplace without Frau Terrell. I tried to run away this spring, but I never found the town. Now Frau Terrell won’t let me outside.

She hovers over me when I speak into the wireless that one of Hitler’s men left behind. Even though she doesn’t understand my words, she tells me I must be precise.

So I am precise. Except with a word or two. Those I change.

OCTOBER 1941

No matter how hard I work, this house refuses to stay clean, as if we are unwelcome guests under its roof. Frau Terrell found a hammer someplace. And a small box of nails. She sent me up to the roof to fix a board that had fallen over the front door.

I kept the hammer overnight—and one of the nails. While she slept, I nailed down the loose board in my room. Now I won’t worry that she’ll find my letters, buried in the floor.

Frau Terrell only speaks to me when she requires me to work. Like Cinderella and her rotten stepmother.

Girl, fix the roof. Girl, sweep the floor. Girl, read the letter.

I hate being called girl, but my name is my secret.

In the old story, Cinderella clung to hope in spite of the cruelness. And she watered the wishing tree outside her home with her tears. Her voice wasn’t her own inside the house either, but by her tree, she prayed. And a little white dove brought her what she needed most.

Still, I wish I’d never screamed, that night when Roger was here. Wish Frau Terrell didn’t know I could speak.

Frau has my voice when she needs it, but I’ll never tell her my name. And I’ve decided, just this moment, that I’m no longer calling the Terrells by their surname either, even in my mind. From now on, it’s Herr and Frau. Names that mean nothing really.

For Herr and Frau are meaningless to me.

NOVEMBER 1941

It’s autumn now, and I feel more like Gretel these days than Cinderella, lost in the deep woods. Without a Hansel.

There’s no Hansel, but there is a witch in my story. And some days I wonder if she might try to devour me. There’s a look in her eyes, of hunger and rage, so I stay in my caged room alone, with the rats.

In the old fairy tale, Gretel and Hansel are abandoned by parents who led them into the woods. Neither my mama nor papa wanted to leave me—they were taken away—but I know what it’s like to be alone.

Instead of a wishing tree, Gretel prayed to God in the tale. And God rescued her.

There is no candy house here. No hidden jewels to find. But I believe there is a God who can rescue me. So I continue to pray, every night. But sometimes, on the worst nights, when the darkness coils around me, when my door and window are locked and the rats chatter, my mind turns wicked.

I imagine Dietmar with pieces of bread, leading me to this house before he ran away, wanting to be rid of me. But in the daylight, I refuse to believe that Dietmar led me here. And I refuse to believe God will leave me.