by April White
That was it. That was the thing that clicked. “Who is Seth Walters’ grandfather and where was he in 1944?” I asked.
Connor dropped to a computer and began typing furiously. If Ringo had been here he would have found the answer in one of the books high up on the shelves he’d already scouted. The difference between the young men fascinated me.
While we waited for Connor to complete his search, Arman caught my eye and spoke quietly. “Do we leave this to Shaw and the adults on the Council?”
My gaze was steady. “Believe it or not, Arman, I am the ranking adult.”
Connor piped up with a cheeky tone. “The adultest adult. Better at adulting than anyone I know.”
Arman’s eyes widened fractionally. “Right.”
Connor smirked at Arman’s surprise. “A hundred and fifty years, more or less, will do that to a bloke.”
“What have you found on Walters?” I scowled at Connor, but he was focused on the computer and missed it.
“Hang on …” He read through the page and then clicked a link, read some more. “Seth Walters’ father was Francis Walters, born in 1945 to George and Lydia Walters.”
“Where was George Walters in 1944?” I asked.
Connor looked up at me with genuine surprise on his face. “He was in London, the head of private security for Ronan Rothchild.”
“Why do you look so surprised?” I asked Connor.
He scanned the page he was reading for confirmation. “Markham Rothchild’s father, Ronan, sat on the board at the British Museum.”
“There’s the link,” Arman breathed.
“Tenuous,” I agreed. “But yes, it’s there.”
“It should come as no surprise that George Walters was a bad guy.” Connor’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he did another search. “He spent several years in prison after the war for assault, was accused of some very shady business practices, and then in the 1960s he was arrested for knifing a business rival to death.”
I drummed my fingers on the table, furiously putting the pieces together as I knew Saira would have. She’d have gotten there faster though, which I realized when the last piece fit into place. “The Grandfather Paradox.”
Connor knew what I was talking about immediately and was already nodding. The others waited for me to explain. “The Grandfather Paradox is a time travel conundrum. What if a man traveled back in time and accidentally killed his grandfather before he could meet his grandmother? How, then, could the man have been born to travel back in time?”
“I don’t understand,” Arman said, frustrated.
Connor interrupted with the impatience of one used to being the smartest in the room. “If Tom kills George before Francis is born, then Seth Walters can never be born.”
Arman’s eyes narrowed as he saw the ramifications. “But if Seth isn’t born, then Tom can’t be.”
“Which may be the point.” I said, rubbing my temples. “Nonetheless, all of this presupposes Tom would actually go to such massive lengths to encounter his great-grandfather during a mission designed to steal treasures from the British Museum. I think we can agree it’s an enormous supposition to make.”
That statement seemed to suck all the enthusiasm out of the room, which Arman fought with frustration. “We’re still not closer to figuring out where the missing mixed-bloods are being held, though.”
“Sure we are.” Logan’s voice piped up from the sofa where he’d retreated with Saira’s book. He turned it around to show us a full-page black and white photograph of a stripped out Underground station. Ava gasped.
“That’s it. Except there’s a train standing on one of the tracks. That’s the place Tam showed me.”
“What is that, Logan?” I moved closer to him to see.
“Some urban explorers wrote about visiting all the ghost stations in the 1980s. The British Museum station is the hardest one to get to because they took down the street entrance in 1973.”
“What do you mean, took it down?” I asked.
“They literally knocked the building down and put something else in its place. So now, the only way in is through the Underground tunnels,” Logan finished proudly.
“The Mongers are using live tunnels to bring the mixed-bloods in?” Connor sounded disbelieving, as older brothers will, but Logan stood firm.
“Why not? The trains don’t run at night, and maybe the British Transport Police are Mongers too? It’s not like they’re moving a mass of people. One or two at a time can slip past the Station CCTVs with no problem. I’ve done it loads of times.”
I grimaced. “Of course you have.”
Arman got up and started pacing. “So, when are we going?”
My first instinct was to tell him there was no “we” in this. I would be going alone. But if we found the missing mixed-bloods, someone would need to go to the police, especially if there were Monger guards to deal with. Arman was eighteen, athletic, and from a good family, so his credibility with Scotland Yard wouldn’t be questioned. And he’d probably try to follow me anyway.
But because opposing Arman was second nature, I addressed Ava. “Can you try to contact Tam again?”
“I can try. The visions don’t always come like that, but if he’s thinking about me, we might link up.”
“If you do, please try to confirm they’re in the British Museum station, and let him know we’re coming.”
Arman was just barely keeping his frustration in check, but relaxed just a fraction when I finally turned to him. “Buy as many headlamps as you can, and we’ll bring them to the mixed-bloods. I’d prefer to have the police lead them out, but if we have to do it ourselves, they should be prepared.” Adam nodded and I turned to Connor. “Find out the Central Line schedule, see if there’s an actual map of the tunnels. If you can determine schematics of the stations closest to the British Museum, that would be useful as well.”
And because young Logan looked so hopeful, I added. “Whatever information you can find about how the urban explorers got to the British Museum station will save me from stumbling around dark tunnels like a fool, and would be appreciated.” His enthusiastic nod made Ava giggle.
I looked around the room. They were all so very young, and yet their sense of responsibility and willingness to do something was more advanced than that of many adults I’d known.
I focused on Connor and Logan. “Tell your mum what we’re doing, and I’ll do the same with Jeeves.”
“What about my uncle and the Ladies Elian?” Connor asked.
I turned to Ava. “When is the Council meeting?”
“My mother has called a special session for two days from now, at seven p.m. She has insisted that all Family Heads and their heirs be present.” Ava had a crisp, authoritative way about her when speaking about business that enhanced, rather than contradicted, her ethereal loveliness.
“She needs the numbers to try to remove Rothchild,” added Arman.
I returned my gaze to the young brothers. “No one can say anything to your uncle or to the Ladies Elian. If they decide to go to that Council meeting, and if the Monger ring is used on them, we can’t take the risk they’d tell the Mongers what we’re up to.” I included the twins in my statement, and Arman looked grim.
“Walters won’t be at the meeting. It’s too dangerous for him to be out in public right now,” he said.
“I hope you’re right,” I said, “but with all the Family Heads otherwise occupied, he may decide it’s a perfect time to eliminate his mixed-blood problem. I’ll stay at Bishop Cleary’s tomorrow. Meet me there at sundown in two nights with whatever exploration supplies the Edwards boys think we need.”
Logan’s face betrayed his excitement at being included in the planning, and I hoped it was enough to preclude a desire to participate in the rescue attempt. I had the sense that an outright “no, you can’t come” would guarantee that he’d find a way to join us.
I turned to Ava. “I presume you’ll be going to the Council meeting as well?” She
nodded. “You’ve seen what the ring looks like. Study the Monger hands, Rothchild and his daughter in particular. If that ring appears, get out, and get a message to Jeeves. If Claire and Millicent are there, he will be waiting in the car, and he’ll know how to proceed from there.”
“I will,” she said solemnly. Then she touched my arm with a careful hand. The sudden shock of a vision clouded my head, and her fingers gripped me, hard, as she Saw it too.
Darkness. A tunnel. Danger from all sides – the live rails, Mongers with guns, rats who watched with glittering eyes from the shadows. Then the ghost station, where a hulking train lurked in the darkness, filled with people afraid to sleep too deeply. There was fear, and some anger, in the shadows.
A gunshot. And then panic – people running, following Arman’s call. More shots fired, and a dull metal thud as a stray bullet hit something metallic, something old.
Then a deep rumble. Not a train. The earth itself.
Ava gasped and pulled back as though my arm had burned her hand. She stared into my eyes with a wild look. “It’s too dangerous …”
My heart was still pounding as the vision finally faded. It left a lingering fear in its wake – fear not for my own safety, but rather a deep, abiding fear of leaving Saira alone.
I could sense Ava pulling back, making a different plan, and there was hopelessness in her expression. I touched her sleeve, careful not to encounter bare skin again. “I have to do this, Ava. There’s no other way.”
Her whispered voice trembled as she searched my eyes. “You can’t.”
“You know I do.”
Tears filled her eyes and she shook her head. “Saira will know.”
“What will she know,” I asked Ava gently.
“That you knew you’d die, and you went anyway.”
The Woods
Ringo came back just after sunrise with two rabbits and a pheasant to clean. I took the pheasant because I knew chickens and could deal with the feathers and blood, and because gutting a rabbit was more hardcore than I knew how to be at the moment.
He raised an eyebrow but said nothing about Archer’s absence. Maybe he thought Archer was down below in the cellar. For that matter, maybe he was. I wasn’t going to chase him down though. My ego and confidence had taken a hit, and I was too busy ignoring the prickling of indignation, guilt, and insecurity that had made me slightly nauseous when I’d woken up alone.
After we’d cleaned ourselves up from the bloody work, Ringo handed me the skinned and gutted meat. “Take these to Marianne, would ye? There are some chanterelles in my bag as well for ‘er.” He collapsed on his bed and peeked an eye up at me from the shadows of his stall. “I didn’t see signs the Germans ‘ad been about, and the Maquis are likely down for the day, so ye should be alright if ye go out.”
I hoisted his bag on my shoulder. “Sleep tight.”
“What does that mean?” His eyes were already closing.
“It’s a thing moms say when they’re tucking you in.”
“Well, it sounds ‘orrible, like ye’ll not move and wake up stiff as anythin’.”
“The follow-up to it is ‘don’t let the bedbugs bite,’ because that doesn’t give kids nightmares.”
He chuckled sleepily at the irony in my tone. “No bedbugs when ye sleep on the ground. The rats get ‘em.”
I shuddered. “Right up there with yeasty codpiece. Thanks for that.”
He was still chuckling when I left the barn.
A layer of mist hung over the garden, and it gave the place an eerie feeling of silence – a suppression of sound rather than the absence of it. As if the land itself was holding its breath, waiting for the war to come and spoil it.
The kitchen door of the house opened, and Marianne stepped outside with a basket over one arm, and a beautiful embroidered shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She didn’t seem surprised to see me, and was delighted with the meat I held out to her. “From Louis,” I said softly in French.
She spoke rapidly as she led me inside to the sink, where I laid the meat and washed my hands before digging the chanterelle mushrooms from Ringo’s pack. More rapid French as she happily took them from me and began preparing a marinade of lemon, olive oil, and rosemary. I helped chop the rosemary as Marianne made very quick work cutting the rabbits into pieces, which she dropped into the bowl with the marinade, then covered with a heavy plate. The pheasant was prepared for roasting, and then everything was taken down the stairs to the cellar, which was nearly as cool as a refrigerator. I noticed the gaps in her food shelves and realized that Marianne and Marcel were living a farmer’s version of hand-to-mouth.
We went outside again to find the mist had burned off, and dew on the leaves sparkled in the sunlight. Marianne gestured that I should follow her into the garden, where we spent a very pleasant hour picking lettuce, spinach, early radishes, strawberries, gooseberries, and currants. The little bits of medieval French I’d learned on the river made the sign language intelligible during discussions of simple recipes and gardening techniques, and when Marianne indicated that I should accompany her on a walk, I readily understood.
I asked her, through hand gestures and my limited French, whether it was safe for her to be seen with me, and her answer was a scowl and a tug on my arm as she opened the garden gate. I did a quick appearance assessment, and the phrase ‘what’s the worst that could happen’ played like a perseverant chant through my brain. But I was there to find the Werwolves, and going to the village in broad daylight sounded safer than sneaking around at night ever would, especially with the lurking Maquis to contend with after dark.
Oradour-sur-Glane looked like something from a postcard of French country life. The dirt road ambled past stone farmhouses and gave way to cobblestone streets that wound around small shops with second-floor apartments. We passed several large barns attached to smaller buildings overlooked by a lovely old stone church that sat up on a hill. The town square was at the center of the market district, sort of like a fairground, and several people were out with baskets over their arms, either buying or selling edible things.
A dour-faced woman walked past us as we entered the town square. She was leading a group of about ten rowdy village children in a resolute march. At the end of the line I spotted Marcel walking quietly alone, and Marianne left my side to give her son a kiss on the cheek before he was led back to school. Marcel threw me a quick wave before they rounded the corner, and I thought he looked especially small against the big personalities of his classmates.
Marianne explained to me, in simple language, that the village school was hard for her boy because he was so quiet. I asked if there was another school for him. Marianne hesitated, then whispered the words in French so quietly under her breath I barely heard them.
“For Jews.”
The fear that laced her tone told me everything about the culture in this country that had been occupied by Germany for the past four years. As Nancy Wake had so blithely pointed out, Tom, with his dark gypsy coloring, looked like most of the French people she worked with. Coincidentally, most of the Jewish people in Europe did too. Which meant anyone with the slightest anti-Semite inclination could point at almost any Frenchman or woman and raise suspicion about them, just on looks alone. Even Marianne, with her soft black hair and sun-browned skin, was a candidate for ethnic investigation if she crossed the wrong person. It was a chilling thought to carry as we entered the village square.
Marianne led the way to a short, round woman wearing a crisp white apron, whose basket was similar to the ones we both carried. She reminded me of a mother goose in the way she clucked over the vegetables Marianne held out for her inspection, and then proudly showed off her own fresh cheeses. When the trade of goat cheese for radishes and spinach had been made, Mother Goose clucked quietly to Marianne about various people scattered around the town square, her eyes lighting on each person before beginning another round of gossip.
Marianne didn’t contribute to the conversation except to no
d or murmur the occasional ‘hmm,’ and only as Mother Goose was winding down did Marianne’s eyes finally flick to me. I’d been standing back, out of the line of her sight, but with the carefully guarded expression in Marianne’s eyes I took another step into the shadows of the barn behind me. Cool air hit my back, and I turned to find myself in the open doorway of a working garage. An old Citroën sedan teetered on jacks, and a pair of legs stuck out from underneath the heavy steel car.
The legs bent and kicked the mechanic out from under the fender. I almost stepped back outside, but realized I was more afraid of being noticed by Mother Goose than by the person who had just stood up to retrieve a wrench from the work table.
Especially as she seemed to have more to hide than I did.
Her hair was cut very short like a boy’s, and there were tracks of grease smeared up her arms and across one cheek. From a distance I would have thought she was a lanky teenage boy, but I had done my own masquerading, and I knew to look beyond the coveralls and boots, the chipped and dirty nails, and the short, scruffy hair. She was close to my age and, like me, had no obvious curves, but her cheeks looked soft, even over the razor-sharp cheekbones, and she didn’t have a man’s Adam’s apple.
She reached for a wrench and then spotted me, frozen in place just inside the door. “Puis-je vous aider?” Her voice was husky, and I wondered if it was naturally that way, or if she put it on like the red bandana she pulled from her pocket to wipe off her hands.
I backed toward the door. “Sorry,” I muttered in English before I could catch myself. Crap.
Her eyes widened fractionally in surprise, and I waited for them to narrow. They didn’t, but her voice dropped to a whisper. “Do you need help?” She said in accented English. It didn’t sound like she was asking as mechanic to customer.
I shook my head quickly. “I’m sorry to intrude.”
I continued backing out of the garage, because being English or American in occupied France was not good for anyone’s health.
