Soul Intent

by dennis batchelder

  Where was she?

  Flora turned her head and stifled a scream as her nose brushed against somebody’s cheek. It was James. The memories of the Nazis and the clearing and the papers rushed back at her.

  She and James must be inside the barn. The officer and the storm trooper were talking outside. They held her and James captive.

  Was James even alive?

  Flora quietly pulled herself to her knees, fighting nausea from the overwhelming pain in her head. She leaned close to his chest.

  He was breathing.

  She looked around. They lay with their feet against the barn wall, directly across from the entrance. A small table and a few wooden boxes stood on her right, and two tiny cots occupied the space on her left. She couldn’t see the officer and storm trooper, but it sounded like they were just outside the doorway. The officer probably still sat in the dining chair.

  Flora turned back to James. His shirt and shoes were missing. She checked and was relieved to find her own clothes intact.

  They had to get out of here.

  Flora shook James’s shoulder, but he didn’t move. She decided they needed a weapon. She crawled over to the boxes next to the table.

  The first box held a half loaf of bread, a plate, two chipped teacups, and a bent spoon.

  The second box held the leather portfolio. Flora opened it up and withdrew the four sheets of paper she had dropped earlier. Somebody had smoothed out the crumpled parts.

  Flora had just put the papers on the table when she saw the storm trooper enter the barn. He was clad in James’s shirt and boots. He carried an oil lamp in one hand and the rifle in the other. The light from the lamp almost reached her.

  Flora dropped to the floor behind the boxes. She peeked out between them, and saw the man set the lamp on the table.

  She cursed as he spotted the papers. Before he did anything, she leaped up, grabbed the second box, and ran at the man. She thrust the box as hard as she could into his stomach.

  The man fell to the ground, and the rifle clattered to the floor. Flora picked it up and rammed the butt into the storm trooper’s crotch.

  He gave a strangled moan and curled into a fetal ball. Flora swung the rifle by its barrel and clipped the soldier on his ear.

  The storm trooper’s body lay still.

  “Sturmann?” a voice called.

  Flora flipped the rifle around. She worked the bolt action like the storm trooper had done. She placed the butt firmly against her right shoulder, then walked toward the door. Her finger rested on the trigger guard.

  The officer appeared in the doorway. He held a cane in one hand, and the door frame in the other.

  Flora closed her eyes as she pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  She opened her eyes.

  The officer bared his teeth. “No bullets, fraulein.”

  The storm trooper had tricked James with an empty rifle.

  There was no time to lose. Flora flipped the rifle around and swung the stock at the officer’s head.

  The Nazi dropped his cane, let go of the door frame, and grabbed the stock in both of his hands.

  Flora held onto the barrel and tried to yank it out of his grasp.

  The officer lost his balance and fell into Flora.

  She stumbled backward into the table. The oil lamp crashed to the floor, smashing its reservoir.

  Flora twisted, and she and the officer hit the ground. With a desperate push, Flora shoved him into the puddle of oil.

  Blue flames spread across the slick. They cast shadows onto the barn walls. The flames licked at the officer’s blond hair.

  He tried to leverage himself up, but his palms slipped in the oil, and he fell back into the flames.

  The papers—Flora struggled to get up and grab them before they burned.

  The officer grabbed the rifle and used it to pull himself to his feet. A cry escaped his lips, and Flora could see the pain twist his face. He hobbled over to the papers.

  Flora scrambled back and grabbed the cane. She swung it at the officer, and it connected directly with the wound on this thigh.

  The officer screamed and fell down, right on top of the papers.

  The fire was spreading. An expanding orange ring had ignited the straw on the floor. Flora had to get out of the barn. She threw a look at James.

  She made one last try for the papers, but the officer was able to deflect her attack with his good leg. The kick tumbled her onto the storm trooper, and she felt something crack in his chest.

  She forced herself to her knees and crawled to James. She grabbed his legs and pulled with all her might. Somehow she dragged him out the door, wincing as his head bumped over the threshold.

  By the time she got James out of the barn, the fire had spread across the floor and was working its way up the walls.

  The SS officer burst out of the doorway and collapsed on the ground. He clutched the papers in his burnt hands.

  Flora bent down and pulled them out of his grasp. Only slivers remained—the rest was charred and illegible. The officer let out a low groan.

  Flora took the charred bits and stuffed them down her blouse. She stood up and kicked the officer in the head, as hard as she could. She kicked him again. Then she wrapped her arms around James’s legs and pulled him toward the woods.

  twenty

  Present Day

  Sterling, Massachusetts

  “It took me over four hours to drag James through the woods and get him home,” Madame Flora told us.

  “So that’s why James always acted a bit odd.” Val said.

  Madame Flora nodded. “He never recovered from his head injuries. It was a year before he came back to work, and then all Archibald could do for him was put him in the elevator. He didn’t remember Nuremberg, and he never did recognize me.”

  Maybe that was for the best. “What happened when you showed Archie the scraps of paper?” I asked.

  She scowled. “He refused to accept my word of what we had read, and James wasn’t able to corroborate. All that sacrifice—for nothing.”

  It looked to me like it was all James’s sacrifice.

  I was still trying to wrap my head around the complexities in Archie and Madame Flora’s relationship. I was sure the journal held the answers.

  But first things first: I needed to track the gold. Young Flora’s scheme must have failed, or Archie would have returned the gold, and it wouldn’t be missing now. “So I’m guessing the Nazis never got to assert their ownership,” I said.

  “Archibald could have declared the gold stolen, with or without their admission,” she said. “He was just too scared.”

  “What could he have been scared of?” I asked. “He was an overseer—a master of Soul Identity.”

  “You’ve been here a year, and you’ve got a lot to learn,” she said. “Archibald was brand new, living under the thumb of executive overseer Isabella Vida.” She frowned at me. “And let me tell you this—Vida’s thumb was heavy. She ran this place like it was her own empire. Sterling after the war was a beehive of political intrigue—always buzzing with plots and counterplots, back-stabbings, and vendettas.”

  I had a hard time picturing Soul Identity steered by anything other than the gentle hands of Archibald Morgan. “You’re claiming that Archie had no choice but to accept Goering as a member and deposit his loot,” I said.

  “He had a choice, and he chose to let the gold in.” She shook her head. “Increasing Vida’s collection of famous and infamous members was the primary objective those days. Archibald viewed Goering’s deposit as his price of admission to Vida’s inner circle.”

  Isabella Vida must have been a real piece of work. “She was more manipulative than Feret?” I asked.

  “Feret was an amateur.” Her face hardened. “Isabella Vida, friend of presidents and board member of museums, was a snake. She was the coldest, most calculating person I’ve ever met.”

  And here I thought, ever since she shot Feret, old Madame Flora held
that honor. “When did Archie take the reins?” I asked.

  “Around twenty years ago,” she said. “His success with Goering gave him enough power to be elected as the new executive overseer after Vida died.”

  “He certainly doesn’t seem to be that political,” I said.

  “No, they got lucky with him,” Madame Flora said. “When Archibald became executive overseer, the world was changing and democracy was blooming, and he capitalized on it.” She was quiet for a moment. “I get frustrated at Archibald, especially at how he always puts business first, but I’ll give him his due—once he worked his way to executive overseer, he did transform Soul Identity into a kinder, gentler, happier organization.”

  I noticed how Madame Flora’s features softened as she talked about Archie. Were the hard looks and sharp tongue she used on him earlier today just her public defense? Or was she trying to scam me, like she did last year when she had me convinced that she didn’t know how to work a fax machine?

  The old Gypsy lady knew a lot more than she was admitting. “Why do you say we’re in danger now?” I asked.

  “The Nazis have been chasing that gold ever since James and I confirmed Soul Identity had it. They’re strong, and they’re motivated by revenge.” She stood up and poked her finger into my chest. “I’m going back to my room. Heed my warning, Scott. Stop your investigation before you get somebody hurt.”

  Val showed Madame Flora out, then came back and sat down next to me. “That was a little spooky,” she said. “Are you going to stop?”

  “Are you crazy?” I pulled the copy of the journal out of my laptop bag. “She just got me more interested.”

  twenty-one

  Present Day

  Sterling, Massachusetts

  It was almost midnight when I threw the copied journal pages onto the table. They slid toward the edge, and Val saved them from falling to the floor.

  “Any luck?” she asked me.

  “None.” I slumped in my chair. “Maybe the alphabet is from outer space. Does Soul Identity believe in extra-terrestrials?”

  She smiled. “Don’t be silly.”

  “Just in case, I’ll search for alien alphabets.” I opened my laptop and ran a search. The results spanned from Klingon to cartoon alphabets to characters drawn by those claiming to have been abducted by aliens. None of the characters matched ones in the journal.

  Then I clicked on a link for Alien Adventure, a 1999 Belgian movie. The plot summary told how a space gypsy tribe called the Glagoliths stumbled onto a not-yet-opened amusement park on Earth.

  “Hold on—Glagoliths?” Val asked. “I’ve heard that word before.” She typed on her laptop, then smiled at me. “You found it.”

  I leaned over and looked at the same style characters from the journal on her screen. “Found what?”

  “Glagolitic writing.”

  “Is it alien?”

  She threw a pencil at me. “It’s an ancient Slavic writing language—the precursor to Cyrillic. We learned about it in Soviet History class.” She clicked her mouse. “Here’s the full alphabet.”

  I grabbed the pencil and the first page of the journal. “Let’s see what it says.”

  After a couple minutes, I smiled and held up the sheet.

  V

  al pointed at the last four characters. “That’s not a word.”

  “It’s got to be a date,” I said. “Look up Glagolitic numbers.”

  Val typed at her keyboard, then turned the laptop so I could read it.

  The old Slavs used letters to represent each number, similar to the ancient Greeks and Hebrews. I added them to the journal.

  “

  Where was Glagolitic writing used?” I asked.

  She looked at her screen. “The Yugoslav coastal area.”

  “Like Istria?” Madame Flora’s homeland, according to the twins.

  “Especially Istria.”

  I flipped through the pages and saw the journal contained four entries, all from 1946.

  Thirty minutes later, I read the first sentence out loud: “Bengeski niamsi, te bisterdon tumare anava.”

  “That’s not English. And it’s not Slavic-sounding, either,” Val said.

  “Or Italian or German,” I added.

  She smiled. “Is it alien?”

  I thought about that movie again…the plot mentioned a space gypsy tribe.

  Flora was a Gypsy. “It must be Romany,” I said.

  Val typed on her keyboard. Then she frowned. “Did you know that Romany’s an ever-shrinking language? They only have three thousand words left.”

  “You found an online dictionary?”

  “I did.” She took the sheet from me.

  After a bit, Val grinned. “You’re such a smarty. Here’s your translation—Cursed Germans, may your names be forgotten.”

  “If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can hear that bit of melodrama coming out of the mouth of a seventeen-year-old Flora,” I said. I rubbed my hands together. “This may take us a while.”

  By sunrise we had completed the first two entries. Flora had extended the limited Romany vocabulary with a mix of Italian, Croatian, German, and English, and we were able to translate almost every sentence.

  I looked at Val and rubbed my eyes. “It sure starts with a bang.”

  Flora’s Journal

  28 September 1946

  Cursed Germans, may your names be forgotten. May malignant diseases waste your bodies. And may your grasp at immortality fall short.

  Once upon a time a young princess lived with her father the king and her fairy godmother in a beautiful castle by the sea. The fairy used her magic to bring people joy and comfort.

  Then disaster struck. Evil wolves killed the king and captured the castle. The princess and her godmother escaped and hid, alone and starving, deep in the woods.

  The wolves destroyed many more castles, and they killed many more good people. A vast army joined together to fight against them. After many years, they defeated the wolves, and they rounded up the surviving leaders and put them in a cage so they could kill them.

  The strongest wolf in the cage had fierce magical teeth, made out of the bones of his victims.

  The princess and her godmother still starved in the woods, for although the people had won and they had rescued the beautiful castle, they kept it for themselves.

  One day a knight in shining armor sent a message to the fairy godmother and the princess. He offered them a new castle in a land far away. But to get there, he wanted the fairy godmother to use her magic and make the strongest wolf immortal.

  The princess didn’t want to help the wolf who killed her father. She didn’t want to help the wolf use his magical teeth forever and ever.

  But her fairy godmother said they would perish if they remained in the woods, so they agreed to help, and they traveled to the wolf cage. While the fairy prepared a special talisman for the wolf, the princess decided to destroy the magical teeth before they too became immortal.

  The captain refused to help her, even though she pleaded with him many times. One brave knight did volunteer, and he and the princess set off together on a quest to destroy the teeth. But although they tried valiantly, cunning wolves tricked them and almost killed the brave knight.

  Now the princess doesn’t know what to do. The wolf still needs to be defanged. The captain doesn’t care. And time is running out.

  But the princess will never give up. Never.

  1 October 1946

  When you are given, eat. When you are beaten, run away.

  The captain came to the princess, who had been hiding in her room for the three days since the brave knight was wounded. The talisman was ready, and the wolf’s magical teeth would soon be deposited in a safe place, there to await his return from death.

  The captain asked the princess to befriend a guard and pass messages to the wolf. She didn’t want to help, but the captain forced her to by swearing that he’d harm her fairy godmother if she didn’t.

&nbs
p; So the princess searched for other ways to destroy the wolf’s magical teeth. Her fairy godmother made a special truth-telling potion to use against the captain.

  When the princess gave the captain the potion, he told her where the magical teeth would be hidden. He told her he had to save them so he could become a general and help kill future wolves. And then he confessed his love for her.

  When the captain left, the princess was horribly confused. She wanted to help the captain, but she was still determined to destroy the wolf’s magical teeth.

  twenty-two

  Present Day

  Sterling, Massachusetts

  Val let out a whistle. “The first entry matches what she told us, but the next one—Flora and Mr. Morgan—wow.”

  I couldn’t wait to hear how the fairy tale ended. I held up the translation. “Time to show Madame Flora our copy. Maybe that’ll shock her into filling in the gaps.”

  We walked downstairs and knocked on Madame Flora’s door. When she opened it, I pushed past her and sat down on her couch without saying a word. Val sat next to me.

  The old lady stood in her bathrobe, her arms crossed. After a long moment of silence, she cleared her throat and asked, “Are we playing charades?”

  “Good idea,” I said. I held up three fingers.

  “Three words,” Val said.

  I nodded and held up a single finger.

  “First word,” Madame Flora said.

  I nodded and pointed at her.

  “Flora,” Val said.

  I nodded and held up two fingers.

  “Second word,” Madame Flora said.

  I pointed at her again.

  “Drabarni,” Val said.

  I nodded and held up three fingers.

  “Let’s cut this short,” Val said. “Third word is 1946. As in your journal from 1946, found in Hermann Goering’s soul line collection.”

  Madame Flora sucked in a big gulp of air. She dropped her hands to her sides. “Archibald snuck you a copy, didn’t he?”