“If we can’t use the mirror, we must use our wits. Where would the troll wife be?”
I hesitated. Trolls were known to populate Norway. But Phillip had not been to Norway, and I really didn’t want to go there unnecessarily. I said, “Where the ship sank? Off the coast of France? He said he had to go east of the sun, west of the moon, but that makes no sense.”
“Where in France was the shipwreck?”
“I don’t know. He said France.” I remembered vividly Phillip’s screams, the horrific stories he told of that awful night, but I didn’t remember the name of the town. “Saint . . . something.”
“Do you remember the name of the ship?”
I could hear Phillip’s dear voice saying it, The day the Lancastria sank . . . “Yes,” I said, “the Lancastria.”
“You need to visit the War Office. Find out what happened to that ship.”
“How can I?”
Kendra and I discussed a plan.
The next morning, early, I traveled to Horse Guard’s Avenue to the giant War Office building. It looked like a temple, a neoclassical building with statues of horses on the front, and I was scared to approach it. Yet what choice did I have? I was not even sure if I was Phillip’s wife. How much longer could I stay here, if he was off to marry another? And what would happen to Phillip?
I walked between the giant stone columns and into the building.
At the first desk, I spoke to a woman who was working. “I need to talk to someone about my brother. He was on a ship. I think it sank.”
She pointed to another office. Once inside, I waited in a long line of women, widows, mothers. When I reached the front, I said, “I’m looking for information about the HMT Lancastria. My brother was on it. He’s missing in action.” I knew it was a lie, but Kendra and I had decided it sounded plausible enough. I could not, of course, ask after Phillip, for they would know he had lived.
“Down that hallway,” the clerk said.
I went down that hallway, then up a staircase, then down to the basement. In each place, I repeated my query, and in each place, I was sent somewhere else. Finally, I was sent to an office in the top-floor cupola. The elevator was broken, so I had to take the stairs. When I reached the very top, the door was locked. I looked around, helpless, then banged on the door.
Someone opened it, and a woman bade me come in.
I was in a tiny room, so tiny as to fit only one desk. A very old woman sat at the desk. I couldn’t see how she had opened the door, for she was nowhere near it and sat at her desk, about to cut up a yellow apple with a red-handled knife.
“What can I do for you, my child?”
“I’m looking for my brother. He was on the ship Lancastria. It sank, and he is missing.”
“Your brother, is it?” The old woman set the knife down and passed the apple from one hand to the other. “Are you quite certain it is your brother?”
She looked at me sharply. Her eyes were blue, as blue as Phillip’s, and I knew that she knew the truth. I could not lie.
“No, it’s not my brother at all. I mean, my brother George is dead, and my brother Jack is missing, but they weren’t on the Lancastria. At least, I don’t think they were. It’s my husband. He was on the ship the night it sank, and he is tormented by nightmares. I believe he may have gone back to pay his respects. I have to find him, but I don’t know where the ship sank, or where he is.”
The old woman stared at the apple with great concentration, then rolled it from one side of her desk to the other. It made a dull, deep sound like a kettledrum.
“Please,” I said, “you must help me. I don’t want to tell anyone about the . . . the tragedy. I just have to find Phillip.”
“Did he say anything else?” she asked.
“He said he needed to go to a castle, east of the sun, west of the moon.”
She set the apple down on the front of the desk in such a way that it would not roll. Once it was there, I could see that it wasn’t a real apple. Rather, it was made of metal that gleamed like pure gold.
She said, “I don’t know where Phillip is, but as reward for telling the truth, I will give you travel documents to get to Saint Nazaire, France. That is where you must pay your respects to the dead of the Lancastria. Perhaps you can find him there.”
She reached into her desk drawer and took out official-looking travel documents, already filled out with my name, Grace Harding, which I hadn’t given her. She handed them to me.
How had she known? Was she a witch? How many witches were there in London?
But I said, “Thank you.”
“And take this.” She held out the apple.
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
“I insist.” With great effort, she pushed it toward me. “I lost my boys in the war as well. Take it for your brother George.”
I took it from her. It was heavier than I’d imagined, as heavy as all the silverware in my new home. Still, I put it inside my purse with the papers.
“Thank you,” I said.