Once inside, where German and French were spoken interchangeably, along with a smattering of Alsatian, Swiss-German, and Swabian-German, Gustov ordered a beer and sat between two stalwart lads who were not old enough to be drinking but did so copiously. Above them on the wall was a stag head with an antler rack of mythic dimensions, like something Beowulf might have felled. Old men played darts and older men played dominoes. The piano was dreadfully out of tune.
Gustov asked about Englishmen. Were there any around? No, they told him, all the Tommies were out in the scrap, humping their rucksacks through the mud. No one here knew of any man from Britain, but they had plenty to say of the quality of British food. The bartender, who’d lost an eye while fighting for his country’s imperial interests in the Boxer Rebellion, said to him, “Everything they eat across the Channel is boiled to death in steam, then covered in a watery white sauce made of wallpaper paste.”
Gustov could respond to that only with a laugh and several swallows of beer.
How many taverns lined this street? It was going to be an interesting night.
****
At half past three in the morning, Ellenor woke when someone entered her room.
She’d spent the evening speaking with Klaus. Though he didn’t press her for her story, she told him nearly everything, from the crash landing on the hill to the trading away of her honey bee pendant for a quilt to keep her warm. There was little reason to lie to him, as he knew that Alec was Sarah’s brother and therefore a Briton here without permission. Klaus would not reveal them to the authorities—or so she hoped.
The only other resident of the house was Klaus’s longtime attendant, Uli, who prepared a dinner of braised cabbage and hot potato salad. Ellenor’s hunger surprised her. She placed a tray outside Alec’s room and knocked on the door but wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer. Holding her own sorrow at bay, she listened to the radio news update with Klaus after dinner and then permitted Uli to draw her a bath. As upset as she was, she was not about to deny the glory of hot water and soap, even if it was wartime soap with no scent.
She returned to her small room to find that Uli had placed a selection of sleeping gowns on the narrow bed; she suspected these garments had once belonged to Sarah Weller, which made her simultaneously grateful and sad. She knew she wouldn’t sleep, but the weight of the last few days pressed down upon her, and she plunged into her dreams…
Now, hours later, she sat straight up, a gasp trapped in her throat. A figure in her doorway was silhouetted by the candle it held.
“Get the hell out,” she hissed in English, too dazed and afraid to remember otherwise.
“I apologize,” Uli said in German. “I would not have disturbed you, madam, if it were not a matter of urgency.”
She thought of Alec. What had he done? “Is Alec all right?”
“Please, madam, follow me. Your friend is fine. I’ve already awakened him. He’s waiting for us downstairs. We must hurry.”
“Hurry?” It didn’t make sense. Yet she knew this was not a piece of the dream she’d been enjoying, the one about boats and parasols and languid river rides. “I’ll be out in a moment.”
Uli left without another word.
Ellenor dressed quickly in clothes he’d provided. In the lamplight, it was hard to see much of the outfit save that it was far more ladylike than what she’d been wearing when she arrived. The fit was somewhat large for her but not so much as to be uncomfortable. She was wearing a dead woman’s clothes.
Ignoring that for now, she joined Uli in the hallway. He led her downstairs, then into the parlor, where French doors stood open to the warm night air. Alec waited there, framed against the dark sky.
She hugged him before she could scold herself for her lack of decorum.
He held her tightly, hungrily, and then let her go. He said softly, “Thank you.”
“Are you…I mean, are you going to be…?”
“Hard to say, old girl. I hope so.”
“What’s going on? Why are we here?”
“Haven’t the foggiest.”
Uli brushed past them. “This way.”
Ellenor’s pulse hadn’t settled since she was torn from sleep. The down-filled mattress had absorbed her, and now—the night air on her cheeks—she realized that whatever intrigue Alec had drawn her into was not quite over yet.
They followed Uli into the garden. The large space was bordered by the house on one side and a tall hedgerow on the other three, completely enclosing the lawn. There were no lights other than Uli’s candle, which he shielded with his hand. The dark shape of a gazebo appeared.
Ellenor walked beside Alec, her new pleated skirt rustling against her boots; she wore the knee-high Wellingtons, as Uli hadn’t provided any footwear when he’d laid out her clothes.
Uli placed the candle on the gazebo railing. “I’ll be in the parlor.”
“Wait,” Ellenor said. “You’re leaving?”
“I won’t be far.”
“What’s happening?”
He kept walking, disappearing into the house.
Ellenor turned back around and was about to say something frantic to Alec when she realized they were not alone. She sensed it. Someone stood just beyond the limit of the candle’s glow, concealed in the darkness before the tall shrubs.
She found Alec’s hand and interlaced her fingers in his.
A dog barked far away. Night bugs hummed.
“Who are you?” Ellenor said, her voice firm.
Alec gave her hand a squeeze. “We know you’re there,” he said. “I’m in no mood for drama or idiotic games, so either show your face or let me go back to bed.”
Seconds passed.
A woman stepped from the shadows and drew back her hood.
“Hello, little brother,” Sarah said.
Chapter Nineteen
Alec threw himself at his sister. He enveloped her with his body, and they both went down to the gazebo floor. He pushed his face into the hollow of her neck and welcomed the tears that leaked through his closed eyes. He gripped her cloak in fingers like claws and inhaled the scent of her fiercely, as if trying to pull her into his lungs.
Sarah, gripping him just as tightly, laughed and cried at the same time.
Alec was born again there on that floor. This was true salvation, not the kind they peddled in the sanctuaries of the Church of England, but a physical sensation of being saved from Hell.
“You’re…crushing me,” Sarah whispered.
Alec withdrew and tugged her into a sitting position. He wanted to stare at her, just to be sure. The candle was not bright enough. “Is this real?”
“Keep your voice down,” she scolded him.
“He said you died.”
“I’ll tell you everything, but not here.”
“Klaus told me that to my face.”
“Because he believes it. He doesn’t know.”
“But his man Uli brought me here to you.”
“Uli knows. He’s one of us.”
“One of who?”
“Later, I promise,” she said quietly. “So…this must be Ellenor.”
Alec glanced back to see Ellenor watching the two of them, a look of wonder on her face that gave him a good idea of how he likely looked himself. Then he turned back at his sister. “How do you know that?”
“Uli told me. She helped you?”
“I wouldn’t be here if not for her. I’d probably be interred in a German prison.”
Sarah nudged him away, and Alec reluctantly released her. She got to her feet and extended her hand to Ellenor. “I’m Sarah Weller.”
“Ellenor Jantz.”
“Well met, Ellenor Jantz. We need to go. All of us. But I want to say thank you for saving the simpleton who is my brother.”
“He doesn’t seem so simple to me.”
Sarah seemed pleased by that. “No, he is not. And apparently he’s gone to extraordinary lengths to find me, so perhaps I should be more polite.”
Alec stood up. He felt like he might be knocked over again by undiluted joy, so he steadied himself on a gazebo post. “What the devil’s going on here, sis?”
“Follow me, and I’ll show you.” She put on her hood and turned toward a thin gap in the hedges.
Alec caught her by the wrist. “Are you all right? Really?”
She smiled in the candlelight. “I am now. With you here, we might just have a shot.”
“A shot at what?”
“Winning.” She disappeared through the bushes.
Alec stood there, processing it, his fingertips shaking.
Ellenor slipped by him. “Come on.” She followed Sarah into the unknown.
Alec forced himself to get moving. The proverb he was thinking of was the one about the cocked hat. That’s where his plans had been thrown. He’d come here with the intention of outracing a bombing attack and hurtling through the smoke with his rescued twin. And now he found himself getting scratched in the chin by shrubbery in the middle of the night as he raced after her.
Alec became a figure in the dark, moving through streets that lacked all context for him. He moved stride for stride with Ellenor, hurrying from one corner to the next, always swaying toward the shadows. Metz felt empty, abandoned. Even the bakers had yet to rise to stoke their ovens. Trash fluttered along the cobblestones like low-flying bats.
Sarah led them to a stable and tack house, a hulking concrete building where no horses lived. With the advent of the automobile, structures like this had been converted to other purposes. This one had become a crude storage facility, the horse stalls full of crates and rolls of telegraph wire. Sarah moved through the lightless building with confidence until she came to a door mostly hidden behind a stack of cavalry saddles. She rapped four times on the door. A bolt slid back from the other side, and the door opened, revealing even deeper darkness beyond.
She turned back to Alec. “Almost there.” She passed through the portal.
Ellenor gave him a slight push. “Keep going,” she whispered.
“Keep going where?” He scowled and trailed after his sister.
After a descent down a set of slick limestone steps, he emerged in a cellar with a barrel ceiling and walls of plastered concrete. Kerosene lamps revealed tables made of doors, a stack of books, outdated military maps, and an assortment of hunting rifles better suited for the farm than the battlefield. In addition to Sarah, two people stood waiting to receive their guests, a man with a face melted by fire and the other with white hair swept back from his forehead and thick eyeglasses balanced on the tip of his nose.
Surveying the room and its contents, Alec realized, almost to the point of laughter, that he was looking at the headquarters of the local resistance movement.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said.
Sarah ignored him. “Roby, Jules, this is my brother, Alec.”
They said hello in their French accents, but Alec didn’t return their greetings. This was another of his sister’s pranks, like the time she got everyone in class to draw dots on their faces and pretend they’d been stricken with the measles. “Sarah, what is this place and what in God’s name are you doing here?”
She opened her mouth to explain, but he interrupted her. “Wait. Let me see if I can piece it together.” He took a few steps into the room, stopping near a pile of black leather overcoats. “You’ve all somehow been wronged by the German government, so you formed a fraternity with a secret handshake and grandiose designs to foment rebellion, and this dungeon is your clubhouse where you come to sharpen your knives.”
Sarah gave him precisely the look he’d expected. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what? Point out how ludicrous this all seems?”
“Are you quite finished patronizing me?”
“I rather think I’m just getting started, actually.”
“Jesus, Alec, you don’t have to be such an arse.”
“Then explain it to me, sis.” He tossed a hand at her. “Please.”
The two men, Roby and Jules, stared at Alec in silence.
Sarah seemed at a loss. Alec had embarrassed her. He didn’t care. What had she anticipated would happen when she came back from the dead and dragged him down into her clubhouse?
“Whatever this is,” Alec said, “you should all give it up while you can still walk away.”
Sarah looked on the verge of lashing out, but then, startling everyone, Ellenor stepped forward and said the only thing that mattered: “This time tomorrow, French planes are going to bomb this city, so we either need to evacuate as quickly as possible or find some way to stop it.”
****
Ellenor accepted the mug of coffee from a pot that had been heated over a coal-burning stove. The man named Jules had liquid brown eyes behind his considerable lenses, and he brewed the pot with care. Coffee these days might consist of whatever a ration coupon could buy—and that wasn’t always coffee beans. Acorn coffee and chicory coffee were often the best that could be found. But this…
“You like?” Jules asked.
She held the heavy mug in both hands. “Incredible.”
“Jules is also an ace mechanic and the closest thing we have to a medic,” Sarah said, taking a seat beside her. Sarah Corbin-Dawes-Weller—now there was a mouthful—stood two inches taller than Ellenor, which put her at around five-ten and solidly in the territory that intimidated most men. Her blonde hair was cropped short and not in any particular style or shape. She had her brother’s jaw and broad shoulders, which fit him attractively but looked blockish on the female version of him.
Alec pulled up one of the wooden chairs between Jules and Roby, completing their circle. For a while they had the sense to say nothing to one another, simply enjoying the warmth of the drink in their throats. Ellenor, not for the first time, marveled at the sudden turn her life had taken.
Eventually Sarah said to her, “I do believe that you’re wearing my clothes.”
“Uli loaned them to me. I hope that’s all right.”
“Of course. He told me that you helped Alec escape.”
Ellenor nodded. “I’m something of an accidental passenger, but I did my part. And you’re trying to do yours. But Alec is afraid you might be going about it the wrong way.”
“Going about what the wrong way?”
“Whatever it is you’re doing down here.”
“And how do either of you know what we’re doing?”
“You’re Franc-tireurs, are you not? Free-shooters?” She pressed on, sensing that Alec wasn’t the only sibling in need of her help. “I can’t pretend to know anything about that. I’ve fired a gun at a human target only once in my entire life, so I have no advice to offer in such matters. But I do know that Alec is risking a court-martial to find you.”
Sarah looked at her brother. “A court-martial? Is that true?”
“Not to get all sentimental on you, sis, but I’d charge a machine gun nest for you, armed with only a blunt bayonet.”
“I know. I wanted to speak with you, to send a letter, something. And I tried. But there is no communication across the border—none. I didn’t know what to do except hope that you were staying safe.”
“I fly fighter scouts for the RFC, love, so ‘safe’ isn’t really discussed.”
“I’d love to hear about that. I really would.”
Ellenor saw Alec return to himself, his foul temper replaced by that glitter he always kept not far from his blue eyes. She said, “Uli explained to you about the plane we took from the Germans?”
“He did. And that might be the most daring thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well, the observer’s seat in that plane was meant for you. Alec intended to fly you out of the city before the bombs fall on your family’s factory.”
“What? You’re saying the factory is the target?”
“You manufacture weapon components for the German army, yes?”
“Of course. That’s the problem. Ersten Industrien is mass-produci
ng shell casings for artillery rounds. But E.I. is not my company. It never was. My father-in-law, Klaus, is the majority owner. In fact, I begged him to turn down the government contracts. I would do anything to stop E.I. from making those damn things. Roby and I even sabotaged a few of their trucks. So…if you’re telling me that the French air service is going to turn the entire building into rubble, then I’m going to count that as the luckiest thing that’s happened to us since my late husband started us all down this path.”
Alec laughed sarcastically. “Let me get this straight, sis. I was hell-bent on spiriting you out of town before the bombers arrived, charging over here like some kind of Templar knight on his stolen steed, and now it turns out you want the bloody factory destroyed?”
“Just because I married a German doesn’t mean I want their soldiers killing our boys.”
“Fair enough. It’s just a hell of an irony, that’s all.”
Ellenor was glad to hear the change in Alec’s tone; he was simply glad to have his sister back, and all the rest was bluster. She watched him for a moment, how he sat there holding his coffee mug by its rim instead of its handle, and then she forced her attention back to Sarah. “But…what about the workers?” she asked.
“What about them?”
“If the building is destroyed—I’m sorry, what was the name of the company again?”
“Ersten Industrien.”
“Yes, Ersten. The workers there are in danger. You might be safe, but innocent people will be killed in the attack. We can’t let that happen.”
“Agreed,” Alec said. “But we don’t have much time to figure it out. The French planes are due to arrive here at Metz tomorrow before dawn, at approximately four in the morning. We need to make sure that civilians are nowhere near that building.”
“Of course,” Sarah concurred. “But neither the E.I. employees nor any random citizen is in danger from an air raid. The bombers will never make it to the factory.”
“And why is that?”
“Because ever since the city began turning all of its efforts toward military contracts, it has greatly increased its defenses against the very threat you’re describing.”
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