“Changed my mind.”
“Typical,” he quipped, but she ignored him.
Together they managed to remove the floorboard without injuring themselves. And Quenby’s heart began to race. Inside was another tin. “See?” she whispered. “Treasure.”
Reaching into the crevice, she pulled out the tin, opened the lid. Lucas shone the light from his phone over it.
Inside was a fountain pen with a silver star on the cap. A German Montblanc, like Grammy used to have. Underneath was a small stack of folded paper. Letters. Perhaps a dozen of them. They were letters from Lady Ricker to Olivia, written in English, but on the back of each paper was a letter in German as well, dated by month starting in September 1941. They looked as if they’d been scribbled by a child, each letter signed with a simple B.
Brigitte would have been almost twelve when she was writing these. Perhaps she hadn’t been able to practice her handwriting since she left Germany. Or perhaps she was in a hurry. Either way, it was the confirmation Quenby needed. Brigitte had remained in England, at least after her short stay on Mulberry Lane, and her story was intertwined with Lady Ricker’s.
She stood up, the tin in both hands. “Brigitte left us a trail.”
“Left Mr. Knight a trail.”
“Of course,” she said, silently chiding herself. She’d already let this search become too personal, thinking the girl was leaving clues for her. “The point is, Brigitte wanted to be found.”
“And you’ll find her, Quenby.”
The girl from her dream flashed back into her mind. “I hope so.”
And she hoped the contents of these letters would be life-giving for Mr. Knight.
When they reached the river, Lucas brushed off the leaves on a felled log, and they sat side by side to look at the first letter. Quenby snapped a picture of it with her phone, front and back.
On the front of each letter were Lady Ricker’s mundane reports about her baby and the weather and a trip she was planning up to Swindon. On the back sides, the letters were much longer, the German words written in block instead of cursive.
Quenby had learned German from the old fairy tales that Grammy liked to tell her before bed, the ones passed on from the Brothers Grimm. She preferred stories with happy endings, but she’d learned at a young age how a story could haunt you. And teach you about morality.
She opened her iPad case to type the English translation, but before she could attempt to translate Brigitte’s words, she had to decipher her handwriting.
“You want me to help?” Lucas asked, scooting closer to her.
“You know German?”
“No, but—” he held up his phone—“Google is fluent.”
“As long as nothing is misspelled.”
“I’ll risk it.”
“I can read some German.” The breeze fluttered the letter in her lap, and she lifted it. “Perhaps we can figure out what she wrote together.”
She read Lady Ricker’s letter out loud first—about the stresses of trying to dress her new baby with the clothing rations, about baby’s feeding at 5 p.m., about a gift she was sending in a fortnight.
Then she turned to the note in German and scanned Brigitte’s first line about Frau Terrell. Slowly, with the help of Lucas and his phone, she began to unravel the girl’s words.
SEPTEMBER 1941
Frau Terrell translates Lady Ricker’s letters into broken German and demands I read her words into the wireless, even if they make little sense. So I read about a baby boy. Things that interest only L.R. and, for some reason, the Germans. When her boy sleeps. What he wears. When he goes to London with his mother.
I wish I could go to London with my mother. Wish I could go anyplace without Frau Terrell. I tried to run away this spring, but I never found the town. Now Frau Terrell won’t let me outside.
She hovers over me when I speak into the wireless that one of Hitler’s men left behind. Even though she doesn’t understand my words, she tells me I must be precise.
So I am precise. Except with a word or two. Those I change.
OCTOBER 1941
No matter how hard I work, this house refuses to stay clean, as if we are unwelcome guests under its roof. Frau Terrell found a hammer someplace. And a small box of nails. She sent me up to the roof to fix a board that had fallen over the front door.
I kept the hammer overnight—and one of the nails. While she slept, I nailed down the loose board in my room. Now I won’t worry that she’ll find my letters, buried in the floor.
Frau Terrell only speaks to me when she requires me to work. Like Cinderella and her rotten stepmother.
Girl, fix the roof. Girl, sweep the floor. Girl, read the letter.
I hate being called girl, but my name is my secret.