“But the book is printed there?”
“Yes, in Salzburg,” I say, reopening my iPad.
“My uncle met a woman named Annika near Salzburg, after the war,” he says. “He never told me her last name.”
Google leads me straight to Dr. Nemeth’s biography on the OSU website. He’s an assistant professor, researching and teaching modern European history.
After skimming Dr. Nemeth’s bio, I study the photograph. He’s a nice-looking man in a rugged sort of way, reminding me of Ryan Gosling in La La Land with his stubble beard and a melancholic look in his eyes as if he’s thousands of miles away. In Austria, perhaps.
“Why exactly are you trying to find Annika?”
“She told my uncle a story, a long time ago . . .” He pauses. “My uncle’s gone now, but I’d like to find Annika or her family, so they can tell me the ending.”
And I want to know as well, Annika’s story, but first I need to make sure we are talking about the same person. “Her mother wrote about a castle in the inscription.”
“If it’s the same Annika, the castle would be Schloss Schwansee.”
Goose bumps trail down my arms. It must be the same woman.
“It’s on the banks of a lake called Hallstatt,” he says.
Dozens of images replace Dr. Nemeth’s profile on my screen. Bluish-green mountains surrounding a pristine lake, medieval houses in a village called Hallstatt hugging the shore. And there’s an ancient castle on the opposite side of the water, no name listed, but it’s near a village called Obertraun.
Poetic descriptions accompany the photographs. Sun-painted mountains. Jagged cliffs. Ghostly fog creeping across the jeweled lake. What would it be like to see a place like this, hike around an alpine lake instead of perusing it from my computer screen?
“This list inside . . . What exactly did it say?” he asks.
“It’s written in German.” I’m not ready to tell him about anything that Charlotte translated. “We bought the book from a seller in Idaho.”
“Where did the seller get it?” His voice has changed, tightened, with this question, and I wonder if he’s intrigued or angry.
“I emailed her today and asked that very same question.”
The bell above the door rings again, and Devon Baker, one of my Saturday morning regulars, tromps inside, tugging on his dad’s hand. His father is a local, but almost a decade older than me. While I attended school with his younger sister, I can’t for the life of me remember his first name.
“She has it, Daddy,” I hear Devon say, dragging Mr. Baker toward me like a magnet about to attach itself to the steel counter.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Nemeth. I need to call you back.”
The man doesn’t seem to hear me. “Can I borrow Annika’s book?”
Hyper-focused, just as I suspected.
Devon rounds the counter and gives me a hug. Then he rushes off toward the castle.
“Just one moment,” I whisper to Devon’s dad. He looks irritated about having to wait, especially since no one except us and a cat are in the store. So much for customer service.
Turning slightly, I try to hide the telephone under my long hair as if Devon’s father won’t see it.
“I can pick it up—”
“No.” I don’t want this man I don’t know to show up at the store. “I’ll scan the marked pages and upload them to Dropbox.”
Then again, I’d like to meet him before I hand over Annika’s list, and hear his uncle’s story. Mr. Baker glances at me again, and I know I’m about to lose a customer if I don’t end the call.
“I’ll bring it to you,” I blurt. Instantly I wish I could take back my words. I don’t want to drive to Columbus or attempt to navigate the crowds at Ohio State.
Devon catapults off the slide, and after his father retrieves him, the man takes a step back as if he might bolt for the door.
“Did you translate any of the notes?” Dr. Nemeth asks, clearly not relenting.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“When can I meet you?”
“Email me at the store’s address,” I say. “We’ll figure out a time.”
He begins talking again, but I disconnect the call.
“Now—” I lean toward Devon—“what can I help you find?”
Devon smiles, his freckles climbing upward. “A Magic Tree House book.”
“I suspect you have a specific one in mind.”
He nods. “The one about the sabertooth.”
I curl my fingers, pretending they are claws. “It’s a fierce sabertooth.”
“I like fierce.”
“Very good then. Let’s see if we have a saber-toothed tiger in stock.” I guide him toward the base of the castle, the section crammed with dozens of Magic Tree House chapter books and decorated with the cutout of a sturdy tree. Devon plucks the sabertooth story off the shelf, and his dad agrees to buy it along with two more in a series of more than fifty books now.
While Devon climbs up the castle steps again, presumably to ride down the slide one more time, I take his books to the counter.
Mr. Baker hands me his credit card. “Devon thinks this place is his second home.”
“I understand. It’s been my second home since I was about his age.”
Mr. Baker’s gaze falls to my left hand, as if someone might have slipped an engagement or even wedding ring on it since story time this morning. Then he smiles at me, any lingering frustration about his waiting gone.
I pull my hand back to reach for a paper bag under the counter. Single men make me nervous enough, the expectations often unclear, but the married ones who like to flirt—nauseating.
“How is Mrs. Baker?” I ask, packing up Devon’s books.
“She moved to Wisconsin a few months back.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, though I’m not entirely sure that’s the proper sentiment.
Mr. Baker pushes his glasses up his nose. “We’ve been separated for more than a year.”
I eye the front door, wishing another child in town would have a sudden book crisis. Or an adult for that matter. I’d be fine with just about anyone, except perhaps Scott, walking through that door. “Hard for everyone, I’m sure.”
“Not so much,” he replies. “We fell out of love long ago. She’s engaged to someone else up there.”
Ten seconds, that’s how long it would take me to sprint to the staircase by the office and be halfway upstairs. I don’t like the way he’s looking at me or the way he’s announced his ex-wife’s engagement as if I’m supposed to rejoice at this news.
“Thank you for shopping here, Mr. Baker.” I hand over the bag. “I hope you and Devon have a good night.”
“My name’s Nate.”
My nod is sharp, dismissive. “Thank you,” I say again, though I don’t want to acknowledge his first name. It’s old school, I know, but titles are not only a form of respect; they keep a safe distance between me and any man who threatens to step into my space.
“Devon and I are having dinner at China Buffet,” he says. “Care to join us?”
Brie’s right. I’ll never marry if I continue to run from every man who expresses interest in me, but then again, I’d rather stay hidden away upstairs for the rest of my life than marry someone who could fall out of love.
“I’m afraid I can’t.” I glance at the clock behind the counter. “I have to work until six, and then I have a date afterward.” No need to tell him that the date involves hanging out with my nephews.
His smile falls slightly, but he’s not deterred. “Perhaps next weekend.”
Devon squeals as he zooms down the slide.
“Let me know if there are any other books you’d like me to order,” I say, escorting both Devon and his father toward the door before Devon decides to climb back up.
He swipes the bag from his dad’s hand. “Thanks, Story Girl.”
“Next weekend,” Mr. Baker reminds me before stepping toward the door. “We’ll go on some sort of
adventure.”
I lock the front door and head back upstairs to prepare for an adventure of my own through someone else’s story.
CHAPTER 10
ANNIKA
LAKE HALLSTATT, AUSTRIA
JUNE 1938
Annika had learned how to read in Volksschule, in the years before Vati decided that she needed to stay home and work with him. Instead of schoolbooks, she now read every word of the newspapers her father brought home to feed the fire in their kitchen stove.
These days Annika almost wished she didn’t know how to turn letters into words or words into the haunting stories that the Vienna newspaper was celebrating these days—the arrival of Hitler into the country that he’d renamed Ostmark, the plunder of shops in Judenstrasse, the mass burning of Jewish and Marxist books in Salzburg, the arrest of Jewish people attempting to leave Vienna, and the expulsion of renowned Jews like Bruno Walter from their positions.
How could the people of Vienna celebrate when some of their innocent neighbors were being arrested and others were being denied the privileges to shop, read, and work?
Annika sipped her coffee, creamy with goat milk, and turned the page as the clock ticked to half past eight. She had more time these days—the only animals on the estate now were chickens and the two goats who feasted on the lawn and rewarded the Knopfs with milk, and Vati had locked the castle after he found her looking through the shoe boxes. The next day he’d monitored while she finished cleaning the rooms, and then hid both the key and the star necklace, probably in his pocket because she’d searched the house while he was gone at night and couldn’t find it.
Perhaps he’d already lost or sold the necklace in a drunken state. Then the Dornbachs would have nothing to fear.
Soon she would begin frying ham for Vati’s breakfast. He was still asleep after another night at the beer hall. He spent most of his evenings there now, probably to avoid being with her or alone with his memories.
The older she grew, the more she reminded him of his deceased wife. Or so she’d heard him say to Hermann when they were working on the chapel.
Sometimes she thought Vati blamed her for her mother’s death, though she would never, ever have done anything to harm the woman she’d loved more than anyone else in her entire life. When she was eleven, she’d stepped away from school, thinking it was only for a season as she nursed her mother and cared for the estate. But in spite of the medicine and rest, her mother grew even more ill. While Vati continued to work, Annika took her mother by train to Salzburg once a week to see a specialist who was never able to diagnose exactly what was stealing her life away.
Then Annika had stayed with her in the hospital, feeling as helpless as Vati. He couldn’t stand to see his wife in such a state, and near the end, when Kathrin Knopf was sleeping most of her days and nights, Vati stopped visiting altogether. Mama told Annika that he was grieving, that she must understand his pain as well. She tried for her mother’s sake, but she never understood how he could abandon his wife in her last days.
Sometimes she missed her mother so much her entire body ached. Other days it seemed there was nothing left to feel, as if she were completely numb to the pain. But the grief always returned. Mama had been gone for almost four years now, but some mornings when Annika woke up, she pretended her mother was still here.
Mama would have sent Annika back to Volksschule—her own schooling had ended at the age of ten, and she wanted her daughter to learn everything that she had not. But no matter what Annika said to try to convince her father, he thought school was a waste, as was the weekly service in Hallstatt’s evangelical church.
She turned the newspaper page again and scanned a spread of pictures, the members of a much higher society dancing at a Viennese ball.
Her gaze froze on the picture of Max Dornbach at the top of the page. Her Max with his warm smile, the one he’d displayed whenever they played in the lake.
Yet he was dressed differently than she’d ever seen him, and in his arms—he was guiding a stunning woman around the dance floor, a woman with dark hair and a pale silk gown that shimmered with an entire galaxy of sequins in the light, as if she were a meteor shower on display. A woman who looked at Max as if her world revolved around him.
Annika pressed her hand against the fold of the paper, deciding right then that she didn’t like sequins.
Max’s name was listed on the right column of the page with the names of others in the photographs. Luzia Weiss—that was the name of the lady dancing with him.
Leaning back against the chair, Annika closed her eyes and forced her frizzy hair into a braid, the tip of it brushing her collar. She wished it were long and silky like Luzia’s hair, perfectly smooth. Wished she had a long gown to wear to a ball.
What would it be like to dance “The Blue Danube” with Max? His hazel eyes, the color of sun and pine, gazing down, her own face flushed from his attention even as her feet kept time with the music. In the sea of dancers that swept through her mind, she pretended that Max was smiling because he was dancing with her.
The stove crackled before her, begging for more fuel, and she reached for the scissors on the counter and cut out all the photographs around Max and Luzia, crumpling the paper into balls before feeding one of them to the fire.
She looked at the photograph again, at Max focused on the woman beaming in his arms. Then she cut Luzia out of the photograph and burned her portrait in the flames with the other old news.
The picture of Max and a roll of tape in her hand, she tiptoed down the narrow hallway and opened the door to her bedroom. Inside, she knelt beside her bed and pulled out a metal box, removing her worn copy of Bambi: A Life in the Woods, a gift from her mother. She used to read about the author, Felix Salten, in the papers. A Jewish writer who lived in Vienna.
Had he left Austria now like Herr Walter?
She tugged the book to her chest.
Bambi was a sad story in one sense, but she related deeply to the roebuck whose mother died, growing up with a father who remained distant for most of his life. A novel about those who chose to kill for power and even entertainment.
Sometimes she liked to think of Max as a strong roebuck, herself as Faline, whom he loved. It didn’t end so well between the deer in Salten’s book, but it would be different for Annika and Max. They shared a history that stretched back much longer than any girl he met in Vienna.
If Vati ever found this photograph of Max, he’d be so angry at her for entertaining silly thoughts about the Dornbach son. He’d probably rip up the photograph like she’d done with Luzia’s and feed the scraps of newspaper into the stove.
But Max would be safe in these pages—Vati never opened any of her books.
She taped the picture of Max to a page near the back of her book, and after saying a prayer for him, she slipped the box under the bed.
Today she would pretend she was Luzia Weiss. And that Max Dornbach was offering her his hand, smiling down at her.
“It’s a fine day for a swim.”
Annika squealed as she turned from the goat, throwing her milk pail to the ground before almost knocking Sarah Leitner over with her hug.
“I’ve missed you,” Annika said. They’d been the best of friends in school, and until this summer, Sarah had visited often when the weather grew warm, wanting to swim together. Annika’s bathing suit was still folded in her bureau, waiting for Sarah to return.
“I’ve missed you as well.” Sarah was dressed in a floral summer dress and sandals, her hair neatly curled. And she held an olive-green knapsack in one of her hands, hidden partially behind her back.
“Oh no.” Annika tried to brush the dirt from Sarah’s dress, but that only seemed to spread it around. “I’ve messed you up, haven’t I?”
“I don’t mind being messed up for a hug,” Sarah said. “My brother said you came by twice last week.”
“I was hoping you could swim.” Sarah’s brother had said she was working at a nearby farm this summer. In Sarah’s
growing up, Annika wasn’t certain her friend would be able to play in the lake anymore.
“Is Hermann here?” Sarah asked, looping a strand of hair behind her ear.
Annika shook her head. “He’s not coming today.”
“I—I have something for him.”
Annika reached out. “I can give it to him tomorrow.”
Sarah clutched the straps of the knapsack closer to her chest. “I’ll find him later.”
Annika sat on one of the wooden stools outside the barn. The sun had tipped over the Alps on the other side of the lake, chasing the morning fog away. “Everything is quiet here,” she said. “Too quiet. Even the Dornbachs haven’t returned.”
“Perhaps they will stay in Vienna this year.”
She couldn’t imagine it, an entire summer without Max. Nor could she let her mind wander to what he might be doing in the city with Fräulein Weiss or another young woman.
The days and hours seemed to spin around her, spiraling out of control. So much kept changing—the rhythm of her life, the people she loved, the news that streamed out of Vienna. If only she could press the cone of the spinning top until it tumbled over, giving her a chance to breathe before the world shifted again.
Sarah sat on a second stool, glancing at the cottage before leaning toward Annika. “Is your father still asleep?”
“He went into Obertraun today.”
“People say he’s working with the Nazis.”
Annika shook her head. “There aren’t any Nazis in Obertraun.”
“Nazis are everywhere.”
A layer of ice seemed to creep across Annika’s arms, and she rubbed her hands over them. “Just for today, let’s pretend there are none in Austria.”
Her friend glanced out at the lake. “Then we must take a swim.”
Sarah pulled her bathing suit out of her bag and the two of them changed in the cottage before diving into the lake together, shrieking when the cold water swept over the heat of their skin.
They raced out to the depths but didn’t swim far before they returned to play near the shore as if they were ten again, splashing each other, diving under the surface to see who could stay submerged the longest, their lungs begging for a breath.
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