Hidden Among the Stars
Page 1
PRAISE FOR MELANIE DOBSON
Hidden Among the Stars
“Star-crossed, forbidden love and the disappearance of family members and hidden treasure make a compelling WWII story and set the stage for modern-day detective work in Dobson’s latest time-slip novel. Exquisitely penned, with strong faith elements, Hidden Among the Stars is Dobson at her best.”
CATHY GOHLKE, Christy Award–winning author of Until We Find Home
“A stunning family mystery, this novel is poignant, resonant, and long after the last page, its breathtaking twist will have you asking, ‘What would I have done?’”
SANDRA BYRD, author of Lady of a Thousand Treasures
“Hidden Among the Stars is a glorious treasure hunt, uniting past and present with each delightful revelation. Dobson celebrates faith and the strength of human spirit in true-to-life settings, high-stakes decisions, and heart-gripping characters. It’s must-read historical fiction that left me pondering well-crafted twists for days.”
MESU ANDREWS, award-winning author of Isaiah’s Daughter
“With great skill and grace, Melanie Dobson weaves the past and present together in a beautiful story of love that goes far beyond the superficial. A master at storytelling, Dobson leaves readers with an unpredictable and completely satisfying ending.”
HEIDI CHIAVAROLI, award-winning author of The Hidden Side
Catching the Wind
“Dobson creates a labyrinth of intrigue, expertly weaving a World War II drama with a present-day mystery to create an unforgettable story. This is a must-read for fans of historical time-slip fiction.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review
“Dobson skillfully interweaves three separate lives as she joins the past and present in an uplifting tale of courage, love, and enduring hope. A strong choice for historical fiction fans who appreciate well-developed characters and settings.”
LIBRARY JOURNAL
“A beautiful and captivating novel with compelling characters, intriguing mystery, and true friendship. The story slips flawlessly between present day and WWII, the author’s sense of timing and place contributing to the reader’s urge to devour the book in one sitting yet simultaneously savor its poignancy. A hint of romance supports the plot yet never overwhelms it.”
ROMANTIC TIMES
“A childhood bond, never forgotten, leads to a journey of secrets revealed and lifelong devotion rewarded. Readers will delight in this story that illustrates how the past can change the present.”
LISA WINGATE, national bestselling author of Before We Were Yours
“Another captivating weave of great characters, superb storytelling, and rich historical detail from talented wordsmith Melanie Dobson. A story to remind us all that resilience springs from hope, and hope from love.”
SUSAN MEISSNER, author of As Bright as Heaven
Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor
“Masterful. . . . Mysteries are solved, truths revealed, and loves rekindled in a book sure to draw new fans to Dobson’s already-large base.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“[This] poignant mix of historical and contemporary family drama . . . delivers a beautifully redemptive love story that will appeal to a diverse audience of readers.”
SERENA CHASE, USA Today’s Happy Ever After blog
Chateau of Secrets
“Amazing characters, deep family secrets, and an authentic French chateau make Dobson’s story a delight.”
ROMANTIC TIMES
“A satisfying read with two remarkable heroines.”
HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY
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Visit Melanie Dobson’s website at www.melaniedobson.com.
TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Hidden Among the Stars
Copyright © 2018 by Melanie Dobson. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph of woman copyright © Ildiko Neer/Trevillion Images. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph of castle copyright © Federica Violin/Shutterstock. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph of Nazi flag copyright © Everett Historical/Shutterstock. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph of starry sky copyright © Zoonar/MarkusGann/Thinkstockphotos.com. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph of blue texture copyright © Gile68/Thinkstockphotos.com. All rights reserved.
Cover illustration of border copyright © insspirito/Pixabay.com. All rights reserved.
Designed by Gearbox
Edited by Sarah Mason Rische
The author is represented by the literary agency of Natasha Kern Literary Agency, Inc., P.O. Box 1069, White Salmon, WA 98672.
Matthew 28:20 and Revelation 21:4 are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Job 19:25-26 is taken from The Holy Bible, American Standard Version.
Judith 9:11, Psalm 27:1, and John 15:13 are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.
Hidden Among the Stars is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Tyndale House Publishers at csresponse@tyndale.com, or call 800-323-9400.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dobson, Melanie, author.
Title: Hidden among the stars / Melanie Dobson.
Description: Carol Stream, Illinois : Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., [2018]
Identifiers: LCCN 2018007552| ISBN 9781496428295 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781496417329 (softcover)
Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939-1945--Fiction. | GSAFD: Historical fiction. | Christian fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3604.O25 H53 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018007552
Build: 2018-08-21 16:16:13 EPUB 3.0
TO MICHELE HEATH
My amazing first reader and forever friend
Thank you for teaching me how great hope can be found in the midst of suffering
Contents
Part 1 Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part 2 Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Part 3 Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Callie’s Collection of Children’s Books
About the Author
Discussion Questions
For thy power sta
ndeth not in multitude nor thy might in strong men:
for thou art a God of the afflicted, an helper of the oppressed . . .
a saviour of them that are without hope.
JUDITH 9:11 (APOCRYPHA)
CHAPTER 1
ANNIKA
LAKE HALLSTATT, AUSTRIA
MARCH 1938
The blade of a shovel, cutting through frosted grass. That’s what she remembered most from the spring of 1938. In the year that followed, on the darkest of nights, she could almost hear the whisper of digging again. The sound of Max Dornbach calling her name.
“Annika?” His confident voice bled into the fluid sounds of that evening, but her heart took on a rhythm of its own, twirling like the feathery seeds of dandelion caught in an Alpine storm.
How did Max know she was hidden behind the pines?
When she peeked between the branches, he was looking straight at her. Reluctantly, or at least attempting to appear reluctant, she stepped out from her haven, into the cast of blue moonlight, Vati’s winter coat buttoned over her calico chemise.
Temperatures had dipped to near freezing again, but Max wore a linen shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Strength swelled under those sleeves, arms that had rowed a wooden fuhr boat around Lake Hallstatt nearly every summer of his seventeen years, carving his muscles like the fallen birch her father liked to shape into benches and chairs.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked, though she should have been the one questioning him. He’d awakened her when he snuck by the cottage she and her father shared in the woods.
At first she’d thought it was Vati who crept by her window, on his way to the tavern, but then, in the beam of light, she’d seen the threads of blond in Max’s brown hair, the shovel resting against his shoulder as if it were a rifle readied for battle. She liked to think he’d purposely rustled the branches because he’d missed her these winter months as much as she’d missed him.
“You woke me.” Annika took another step toward him. “I didn’t know you’d returned from Vienna.”
“My parents wanted a holiday.”
The Dornbachs visited at Christmastime, but rarely in the spring while Max was studying in Gymnasium. Unlike Annika’s father, his parents thought an education with books and such was important.
“I’ll tell Vati you’re home,” she said. “He can light the furnace.”
“It’s not necessary.” Max stomped the heel of his boot onto the shovel to remove another pile of earth. She imagined the rust-colored clumps yawning after their hibernation this winter, shivering in the frigid air. “My father already lit it.”
She hadn’t realized Herr Dornbach could do such things on his own, but then again, even after living fifteen years—her entire life—on this estate, Annika knew little about Max’s parents. Neither Herr nor Frau Dornbach bothered to befriend someone beneath their rank. Certainly not their caretaker’s girl.
Annika scanned this knobby plot of land, harbored between the pines. “Why are you digging at night?”
When he shook his head, refusing to trust her with this, her heart wrenched. She’d never told another soul any of his secrets. Not about the dent in Herr Dornbach’s motorboat four summers past or the gash in Max’s leg that she’d helped wrap or the evening he’d cried when he lost Pascal, the pet fox he’d rescued from the forest.
Pascal now rested peacefully in this piece of earth along with numerous rabbits, four cats, two squirrels, and a goldfinch, each grave marked by a pyramid of stones that Max collected from the cliffs on Hoher Sarstein, the mountain towering over his family’s estate.
When they were younger, Annika had helped Max conduct a service for each animal, solemnly crossing herself as they transferred the care for these animals over to Gott. Once a laugh slipped from her lips, as they’d been reciting the words from Job.
“But as for me I know that my Redeemer liveth, And at last he will stand upon the earth: And after my skin, even this body, is destroyed, Then without my flesh shall I see God. . . .”
They’d been burying a beetle named Charlie in the dirt, and the thought of this creature standing before a heavenly being, his six spindly legs trembling in awe, made Annika laugh. Looking back, it wasn’t funny—irreverent, even—but she was only eight and quite nervous at both the thought of death and the unknowns surrounding the afterlife. All she could see was a frightened Charlie, feeling as small as she would feel under the gaze of the almighty God.
Max hadn’t invited her to another funeral since that summer, seven years past. She thought he’d stopped burying his pets, but apparently he’d been burying them in the night, when no one would ridicule him.
She moved closer to the hole. A cloth seed bag rested near the shovel, partially hidden behind Max. “What are you burying?”
“Oh, Kätzchen,” he said, shaking his head. He’d called her kitten since she was in kindergarten. As if she were one of his pets.
Annika’s hands balled into fists, and she buried them deep in Vati’s pockets. “I am not a kitten.”
Max resumed his work. Blade against earth, determined to conquer the soil. When she lifted the bag, he swatted her away. “That’s not for you.”
“Did you lose another animal?” she asked, still holding the cloth rim. It was heavier than she’d expected.
He shook his head again, this time more slowly. “I fear we’re about to lose everything.”
This new tone frightened her. “I don’t understand.”
He scooped out two more mounds of dirt, and she dropped the bag into the hole. Then he pushed the dirt in and smoothed his shovel back and forth over the ground as if he were trying to iron out the wrinkles. “Come along,” he finally said, hiking toward the wall of pine trees that separated this plot from Schloss Schwansee, his family’s castle.
“What’s wrong, Max?”
“The parliament approved our annexation into Germany.”
“I know,” she replied, glad she was already privy to this bit of news. “Vati is pleased.”
“The German Reich is no longer willing to tolerate the suppression of ten million Germans across the border.”
That’s what Hitler had said on the wireless last month. Salvation was what he promised, the rescue of Austrians who’d been mistreated. Anschluss—as he called it—was prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles, but their new Führer didn’t seem to be daunted by treaties or the fact that the Austrian chancellor wasn’t interested in a union between his country and Germany.
Her father had celebrated the Anschluss at the beer hall. He’d fought as a foot soldier in the Great War, and this new union, he thought, not only would revitalize Austria, it was reparation for their empire’s bitter losses twenty years ago. This time, Vati said, no one would defeat a unified Germany.
Max stopped at the edge of the trees, light from the castle’s windows filtering out onto the lawn, erasing the blue haze of moon. “Your father’s pleased because he isn’t Jewish.”
Annika shrugged. “None of us are Jewish.” Except her friend Sarah, but Hitler would hardly concern himself with the Jewish Austrians who lived back in these Alps. Only summer tourists—and the occasional skier—visited their mountains and lake.
Max planted his hands on her shoulders, anchoring them so she couldn’t shrug again. She tried to focus on his eyes, but his touch electrified her, a jolt that ricocheted between her fingers, her toes.
“Adolf Hitler isn’t a savior. He’s the devil incarnate.” Max’s eyes flashed, the fierce edge in his voice frightening her. “And he won’t be satisfied with the devotion of our country, Kätzchen. He’ll want the hearts of our people, too.”
She’d heard the stories about Hitler and his thugs, about the years Hitler stirred up trouble in the streets of Austria, but still she protested. “Hitler’s home is in Berlin now.”
Max released her shoulders and stepped out from the mantle of pine. “It won’t stop him from trying to build his Reich here.”
Annika s
hivered as she followed him toward the cottage she shared with her father, though she tried to pretend that the trembling deep inside her, flaring across her skin, was from the cold. She’d never heard Max speak of politics before. Usually he talked about his animals or school or the music he loved in Vienna. She, his devoted audience, listened to his stories every summer and in the winter weeks when he came to ski.
To her right, the gray slate on the castle’s turrets glowed in the moonlight. Back in the seventeenth century, the owner of the local salt mine had built this place as a fortress between the mountains and the lake. The upkeep and expansions kept her father and now her employed year round, though one day she dreamed of being the mistress of this castle, sipping tea in the parlor instead of scrubbing its floors.
Max tucked his shovel into the large shed where Vati kept his tools and equipment. “You’d best go home. Before your father begins to worry.”
Annika dug her hands into the coat pockets. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“It’s only for a day.”
“Still, I’m glad.”
He lifted her right hand from the warmth of her pocket and pressed his lips against it. “Don’t let one of Hitler’s men steal your heart, Annika.”
He released her hand, but it stayed before her, suspended in the air.
Shouting erupted inside the main house, Herr Dornbach swearing. And then the voice of Frau Dornbach stole through the open library window, yelling back at him. Max moved quickly through a side door that led into the castle, and then he closed the window to silence the fight, at least to her ears.
Annika shuffled across the ice-glazed grass, to the lakeshore. Birch benches were scattered across the property, but this bench near the reeds was her favorite.
Sitting, she pulled her arms out of the large sleeves and wrapped them tightly over her chest. Tiny clouds rose with her breath, each one climbing in the air as if it wanted to scale the mountain ridge that curled around the lake, a glorious sea creature guarding its den.
Moonlight shimmered on the water, and several lights flickered on the other side of the lake in the village called Hallstatt. When they were children, she and Max had dreamed about one day swimming across this expanse of lake together, racing to see who would win. They’d never done it, of course. Vati wouldn’t have cared if she tried, but Frau Dornbach took great care in keeping her only son safe.