Deadlight-Hall(11)

Exact details of the plan for the children should by now have reached you. Sch?nbrunn has contacts in the country to which the children will be taken – safe homes can be provided for all, and I believe there is some kind of secret list of people who have indicated they are prepared to give shelter. I do not enquire, but I think it is information that can be trusted and all the parents can feel reassured. Siblings will be kept together if at all possible.

I do indeed remember the Reiss twins who undoubtedly possessed that extraordinary gift – it was occasionally somewhat disconcerting in the schoolroom! I have told Sch?nbrunn about them, and he agrees that we must have particular concern for them. Josef Mengele’s spies are in the most unexpected places.

Sch?nbrunn advises most strongly that you do not alert any of the children until the very last minute. You must not risk them inadvertently letting something slip, or being too afraid to obey the requirements of the plan when the time comes. They should take only the minimum of possessions, and the journey itself will cost nothing, but I think none of their families will want to be dependent on charity of any kind. So it is my suggestion that each child is given several small but valuable items. Actual money might pose problems, but jewellery is always sellable.

M.B.

School House, 1943

My dear M.B.

Even amidst the fear and desperation, I smiled at your suggestion to provide the children with sellable valuables. It is so like you to have an eye to the practicalities and the finances.

J.W.

Prague, 1943

Dear J.W.

We think your situation has suddenly worsened. Late last night one of our people sent word that residents in a village thirty kilometres from yours were taken away. This happened just two days ago, and we believe your village will be next.

Sch?nbrunn is putting the plan into action at once. Tonight, as soon as it is dark, you must take the children, and hide out in the old church you mentioned. There is an irony, isn’t there, in making use of a Christian sanctuary to shelter Jews? But if you can be safe there, it does not matter what it is.

Most worrying of all is that we believe within the detachment of soldiers are two of Mengele’s agents. As you know, we always feared this particular menace – there is a general order that any twins, boys or girls, are taken to him. But we now have information that one of his spies has heard about the Reiss girls and their exceptional telepathic gift (we do not yet know how such information could have got out), and we fear that the march to your village is not a general one as the others have been. We are afraid that Mengele’s orders are to take Sophie and Susannah Reiss to Auschwitz. You must make it very clear to those two – to all the children, of course – that during the days ahead, they must never trust strangers.

I would like to think that along with the Reiss twins, the intelligent little Leo Rosendale will be safe. He was such a delight in the infant class I taught for you last summer – such a bright, enquiring mind. But all of the children must be made safe, of course.

Hold firm and fast, as I do – as we all do – to the belief that one day this nightmare will end and we will all live together again in peace and safety and harmony.

M.B.





FOUR


Leo Rosendale had listened to Michael Flint’s account of what he had seen and heard inside Deadlight Hall with dismay. Dr Flint had been deliberately casual – even vague – about the shadowy figure and the voice calling for the children, but it was clear to Leo that Michael had heard and seen the things Leo himself had heard and seen all those years ago. The strange misshapen shadow that walked through the old house, calling for the children …

He had expressed his thanks, and said something about going out to take a look for himself. Flint had offered to accompany him, to which Leo said, carefully, that he was going to think it over first.

But after Michael had gone, Leo sat for a very long time, staring out of his study window. Was he reading too much into this? Was it possible that Michael had encountered nothing more sinister than some local children playing some game? Hide-and-seek, perhaps – did children still play that? He had played it all those years ago in the village where he had lived for the first five and a half years of his life. There had been a little group of them, all good friends. The Reiss twins had been part of the group, Sophie and Susannah. They had been Leo’s particular friends – they had been pretty and clever, and he had loved them both with uncritical devotion. But then there had come a night just after his sixth birthday when they – when all of his friends – had played what had become a macabre game of hide-and-seek. That had been when the nightmare began.