The Orphan's Wish

by Melanie Dickerson

  Kirstyn’s stomach roiled to watch for the third time the same scene acted out. Anna was softening, starting to turn toward him as she let the bag slip from her hand.

  “Don’t be a fool, Anna,” Kirstyn said. “Get away from him. You know he will only strike you again.”

  “Shut up!” Michael turned on Kirstyn, reminding her of a wild boar she had once seen running through the streets of Hagenheim.

  Kirstyn met him stare for stare but said no more.

  Anna’s face was red, and tear tracks stained her face. She sniffed and her sad, pleading expression turned once again to sullenness. “You promise not to hit me again?”

  He smiled and shrugged. “You know I only hit you when you complain and make me mad. But you’re my liebling. I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Anna. You can find a better life than this. He doesn’t treat you well, and he’s lying when he says—”

  Kirstyn saw the fist coming, but she couldn’t raise her hands in time. Pain exploded in her face, and the back of her head slammed into the ground.

  Her vision went dark except for a few points of light, which gradually faded to Anna’s face, hovering a foot above her. Anna looked at her for a moment, then stood and faced Michael. “You could have killed her.”

  “It’s her fault,” Michael said in a high-pitched voice. “She wouldn’t keep quiet. I can’t think when stupid women won’t shut up.”

  They moved away from Kirstyn, Michael with his hands on Anna’s back and neck. He talked so quietly Kirstyn couldn’t make out what he was saying. Her teeth ached where Michael had struck her, and she tasted blood from her torn lip.

  Michael hunched over to look into Anna’s eyes, holding his palm up to her, obviously trying to gain her compliance. Anna was crying again, and then Michael caressed her cheek. She set her hand over his, and then they were kissing.

  Kirstyn closed her eyes to block out the disheartening sight. She lifted her head, thinking now would be a good time to try to get away again, but when she sat up, the ground started spinning and she felt as if she was about to vomit.

  She closed her eyes and imagined her mother holding her, her arms warm around her. If only she could feel Mother’s arms. Hear Mother’s voice, her wise advice. She had once told Kirstyn, “We can depend on the assurance that God cares about us and is always with us.”

  She could usually feel God’s peace, but today that peace was less tangible. So she cried a few tears of her own and fell asleep.

  Herr Kaufmann insisted Duke Wilhelm and his knights stay at his house during the search. Aladdin continued to direct the search, but after two weeks, Herr Kaufmann invited him into his library and shut the door.

  “Aladdin, my boy, sit down.” He motioned him to a chair and they sat facing each other.

  “I understand why you want to help Duke Wilhelm and why you are so set on finding Lady Kirstyn, but . . .” His gaze lowered to the floor. He sighed and shook his head. “It doesn’t seem as if all this searching and striving is accomplishing anything. Lady Kirstyn is still missing and . . . well, I hate to say it, Aladdin—you know I feel great compassion for Duke Wilhelm’s pain at losing his daughter and you losing your friend whom you loved—but you have not done your job for two weeks, and the business is suffering.

  “You weren’t there to set the prices for the new shipment of goods, and some expensive silks were sold for less than what I paid for them. We lost a lot of money there. Everyone has grown accustomed to taking direction from you, and now everything has been thrown into confusion. You wouldn’t think they would have forgotten everything in the past year since you’ve been here, but they have, it seems. I sent a message to Schwartz and Hartmann that they should wait and ask you how much resin the Lithuanians had purchased, but the message was delayed, and . . .” He lifted his hands and expelled a breath. “More money lost.”

  “I am sorry, Herr Kaufmann, I truly am, but I cannot stop looking for Kirstyn. She is alive and being held against her will. I cannot stop searching.”

  Would Herr Kaufmann understand? Or would he throw him out, disowning him for putting Kirstyn above his business?

  Herr Kaufmann sighed again, his shoulders slumping. He lifted his gaze to Aladdin’s. “How do you know she’s alive? She couldn’t be anywhere near here or you would have found her. Perhaps it is time to accept that, if she is alive, you may have to wait for the news of her to reach you.” He lowered his voice, his eyes drooping. “There may actually be nothing you can do to find her.”

  Aladdin’s chest rose and fell more quickly as Herr Kaufmann’s doubt crept into his heart. No, he wouldn’t believe she was dead. She was alive, and he would not give up on her, even if he lost the makeshift family he had found.

  “Even Abu accompanies Duke Wilhelm’s men all over Lüneburg, searching for any sign of Kirstyn and her captors. You and I, who know practically everyone in town, have questioned more people than I can count. We’ve thoroughly investigated every possible sighting, as well as any unusual activity, but every bit of information, every hope, has proven false.”

  “That does not mean she isn’t nearby. She and her captor could simply be well hidden.”

  But Herr Kaufmann’s look was changing from pity to annoyance.

  Aladdin couldn’t stop believing she was alive. To do so was unthinkable. He loved her. Why else had he felt so raw and hollowed out when he left Hagenheim, when he had to leave Kirstyn standing there in the road? He’d always loved her, and if he hadn’t been so determined to make his fortune, he might have realized he had everything he wanted in Hagenheim.

  Herr Kaufmann left the room, and Aladdin suddenly was overwhelmed with the memory of Kirstyn’s eleventh birthday, when her parents had set up her celebration dinner in the play yard of the orphanage. He was around thirteen years old, and he felt himself grow a head taller as Kirstyn turned her smile on him. He was still shorter and smaller than the other boys his age, but Kirstyn never looked at them the way she looked at him.

  “What do you think of the subtlety, Aladdin?” Her eyes had focused on his face.

  “I like it very much. It looks exactly like a rose.”

  They both turned to gaze at the giant confection in the middle of the table. It was surrounded by flowers and vines—decorations for Kirstyn’s birthday feast—and all of her favorite foods.

  “Your cook must be an artist. Does she sculpt other things?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Will you keep the subtlety? Perhaps put it in your room?”

  She laughed. “It would spoil. Besides, we will eat it when the children return from their game.”

  “Eat it?” It seemed wrong to eat something so beautiful.

  “Of course. I shall cut off a small piece now so you can taste it.” She slipped from her seat on the bench and picked up a long knife. She sliced off a piece of a petal the size of her little finger and handed it to him.

  He broke the almond paste and gave half to her. She popped it into her mouth and chewed. “Mmm.”

  He bit off half of his piece. It was mildly sweet and tasted of almonds and vanilla.

  “Do you like it?” She raised her brows hopefully.

  “Very much.”

  “It’s not as good as cake, but my family always eats it on holy days and birthdays.” A wistful look came over her face, and she gazed past him into the open meadow where the children were playing. She turned and looked past the town wall, beyond which lay the forest and the edge of the Harz Mountains.

  “Aladdin, have you ever seen the mountains?”

  “Only the peak over there.” He nodded at the only tree-covered peak visible from Hagenheim.

  “Have you ever wanted to explore that forest?”

  Had he? He’d been too busy trying to excel at all his studies, to impress his teachers and the master at the stable where he worked two hours a day with the older orphan boys. Too busy thinking of ways he might impress Lady Kirstyn and
her father, the Duke of Hagenheim—too busy trying to forget he had ever been a poor orphan in a foreign land, stealing for Mustapha.

  “I have always wanted to go there. Mother used to walk there a lot when she was my age. She grew up in those woods—her adoptive father was a woodcutter. And if she once walked there, why can’t I?”

  “Is it safe? Did your mother give you permission?”

  Kirstyn frowned. “She said I could go sometime if my father went with me, but Father is always so busy.” She turned toward him with an intense look, her blue eyes pleading and expectant. “Would you go with me, Aladdin?”

  He blinked. She was still staring at him.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, thank you!”

  Her face glowed like a sunbeam as she clasped her hands together. He was so fascinated by her expression he couldn’t look away, even when the other children ran back to the table, herded by Frau Litzer, Lady Rose, and Duke Wilhelm himself.

  “But don’t tell anyone,” she whispered, leaning close to him. “It will be our secret.”

  “When will we go?”

  “Someday when the weather is warm. I shall come to you, when you’re finished with your studies, and we shall sneak away.”

  Would she get in trouble? Would he be punished for shirking his duties at the stable? And if anyone discovered he’d been with the duke’s daughter, doing something neither of them had permission to do . . .

  But to see the joy on Kirstyn’s face and know he had a part in it would be worth it. She made him feel as if she needed him—even though she had a large, loving family and he had no one. She had insisted on having her birthday feast with the orphans because she truly cared about making them feel loved. She had confessed to him that she wanted to adopt ten orphans because she couldn’t bear to think of them alone and without anyone to love them, even though she often felt overlooked because of her more demanding siblings.

  How he had needed her—then and now! He had been afraid to tell her that, too afraid of destroying the special bond they shared. They were the closest of friends, like brother and sister, and he needed that, needed her to be his family. But the older he got, the more he loved her as more than a friend, something more than a brother. And perhaps that was part of the reason he’d left. He was too afraid of her rejecting him as a husband—and of her father rejecting him as a suitor.

  But oh, how he loved her. And as much as he needed her when they were children, he needed her even more now. And she needed him—to find her.

  After a month of sending out guards and knights and continuing to question people, the information had all dried up and produced nothing.

  “There’s nothing left to do,” Duke Wilhelm said, unable to look Aladdin in the eye.

  An hour later Aladdin watched the duke and his knights ride away toward Lüneburg Heath, south of town on their way back to Hagenheim.

  As Aladdin wandered through town, unable to concentrate on ledgers or numbers or the price of salt and silk and resin, the boulder inside his chest grew so heavy he could hardly catch his breath. Was Kirstyn out there somewhere, needing help? Or was the one person he loved more than anyone else gone forever? He remembered the look in Duke Wilhelm’s eyes and the expressions on his knights’ faces, and he knew that was exactly what they believed.

  Somehow Aladdin made it to the Church of St. John. He stumbled inside and knelt to pray. He could not stop the tears as he poured out the deepest pleas of his heart.

  “God,” he whispered, “please let Duke Wilhelm find Kirstyn alive. No matter what has happened to her, it changes nothing, God, nothing in my heart or my mind. I will love her even more tenderly if she has been abused. O God in heaven, I vow to you that I . . .” His tears choked off his voice, so he continued to pray silently.

  I will love her and treat her well all the days of my life, if only You will let her be alive and let us find her.

  He prayed until all his words were spent, then finally went home, as exhausted as if he’d been running all day without stopping.

  Aladdin watched the river below his bedchamber window, its slow-moving current occasionally carrying something unusual, like a shoe or a hat or a tree limb. It never seemed to slow down or speed up, never got tired. It just kept carrying itself and whatever else happened to have fallen in, on its way to join the Elbe River.

  A knock came at his door. It was an effort just to draw in enough breath to say, “Come in.”

  “Cook made your favorite.” Grethel’s face appeared in his doorway.

  “That is very kind of her.” Aladdin turned away from the window toward Grethel.

  She came to him. She was wearing gemstone earrings and her hair was down around her shoulders, only partially covered by a veil. She smiled.

  “What are you thinking, standing there like that?” She touched his arm. She was such a tiny thing, at least a head shorter. Her fingers, resting on his forearm, were like a child’s, tapered and trimmed, obviously the hands of a wealthy person unaccustomed to work.

  “Do you want to know the truth?” Aladdin asked her.

  She looked into his eyes without flinching or glancing away. “I do.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I was trying to remember every detail of the last time I saw Lady Kirstyn. I thought I’d always remember it, every detail, every word, and every look, but . . . I no longer do.” It hurt so much, this feeling of being disloyal to her. She deserved to be remembered.

  A memory of one of their walks came to him. They’d sat down beside a tiny spring where water bubbled up. A tree lay beside them, its trunk broken, its leaves touching the ground, but flowers still bloomed on its branches.

  Aladdin pointed to the place where its slender trunk was shattered but still holding together. “Strange that it can be so broken but still so alive.” Just like him.

  Grethel squeezed his arm, bringing him out of his thoughts. “You mustn’t feel bad about that. And I know how you feel, much more than you know.”

  “You do?”

  “I do, because I had a sweetheart once. Father did not approve of him. Johann’s father died not long after he was born, and his mother did the best she could, but she never remarried, so they were very poor. Johann was an artist who wanted to paint portraits. He left to study in Florence. He didn’t know if he would ever return. I never saw him again.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “Five years ago. I was fifteen; he was seventeen. I was heartbroken, especially when the months and years went by and he never wrote to me. It seems if he had truly loved me he would have written to me.”

  Another stab of pain pierced Aladdin’s heart. He never told Kirstyn that he loved her. Did she know? Even in his letters, he was afraid to tell her, and when he said farewell to her on the day he left, he’d been too determined to accomplish his goal of making his fortune to make her any promises, to even admit to himself how much she meant to him.

  But they were speaking of Grethel.

  “I’m so sorry for your heartbreak, Grethel. I think it is only God and His Spirit that can . . . soothe a broken heart.” He almost said “heal a broken heart,” but he wasn’t sure it was possible to heal this pain. Sometimes he did feel a measure of comfort when he prayed, sensing God’s presence.

  “And the passing of time helps too, I think.” She smiled. “I have more experience than you do at heartbreak.”

  He had been glancing out the window, but she continued to gaze intently into his face.

  “Poor Abu has been nearly as sad as you have been. He asked Father yesterday if you would be sad forever.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but she held up a hand to stop him. “I know it has only been a few days since Duke Wilhelm departed, but Abu is a child. He doesn’t understand.”

  “I don’t want him to be sad. Perhaps we could do something to cheer us all, some sort of outing.”

  “We should go to Lüneburg Heath.” Grethel’s eyes were alight now. She could be
quite pretty when her eyes widened with interest. But noticing that only made him long to see Kirstyn. His heart squeezed with pain.

  “Lüneburg Heath?”

  “It is beautiful this time of year. Well, in a week or two it will be beautiful. The heather blooms again in autumn.”

  “We should take Abu.”

  “Abu could bring a few friends, and they could play games. The Heath is very flat, and there’s lots of space for a young boy to run. We can take a picnic.”

  Aladdin let Grethel talk on about a picnic to the Lüneburg Heath, and by that evening, she’d planned it all.

  Meanwhile, business began to capture his attention again. If he didn’t attend to it, all that he had done up until now, including being able to hire more people to work for Herr Kaufmann, would be for naught. So he bought and sold and transported and made sure people got what they wanted. And Aladdin and Herr Kaufmann were experts at getting the things people wanted and giving them to them—at a fair price too.

  But Kirstyn was never far from his thoughts. He still occasionally sent out men to seek Kirstyn. He also wrote to Duke Wilhelm about once a week, asking if any more had been discovered about Kirstyn or her kidnapper, but the letters he received back were short and to the point: it was as if Kirstyn and her kidnapper had vanished.

  The day arrived for them to take their little trip to the Heath. The heather was purple, like a Turkish carpet of all one color but with lots of texture. Abu and a few of his friends, some boys his age with whom he went to school in town, were already whooping and running and leaping through the heather, chasing a hare, then a butterfly, then each other.

  Grethel and two male servants and a young maidservant rounded out the rest of their party, as Herr Kaufmann had stayed home to rest due to a head cold.

  “What do you think of it?” Grethel asked.

  “I like it. The flowers look pretty, and Abu and the boys are enjoying the room to run around and play.” They were starting a game of blindman’s buff, reminding him of his childhood at the Hagenheim orphanage.