Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) (33 page)

Will said, “I’m sorry, Pip. I gave it my very best, I assure you. But Olivia was quite determined.”

A nauseating dread hit me so hard I thought I might sick up then and there in Will’s parlor. They had slipped away, out of my reach, to where I couldn’t protect them. It was exactly the kind of momentary lapse that Gretel could exploit. It was exactly the waking nightmare I’d struggled to avoid. And this time I was going to lose them both.

“Obviously, you didn’t try hard enough,” I said. “And don’t call me ‘Pip.’ Save that for
him
.” We’d never found a convenient shorthand for discussing my younger self. But Will knew my meaning. “Otherwise you’re likely to make a hash of things.”

I slammed the glass down hard enough to crack it. “I have to get to Williton. Now.”

Will perched on the edge of a chaise longue upholstered in long stripes of royal blue and sunflower yellow. He raised his hands in a gesture of supplication. “I think you can relax just a bit. They’re safe.”

“They’re
not
safe. They’re safe when they’re close to me. Gretel won’t kill me. Everyone else is expendable.”

“But they’re not in Williton. She did take your warnings to heart.”

A frisson of panic ricocheted through me. If Liv had gone to her aunt’s house, I’d know where to find them. But if she wasn’t there … “Did she tell you where she was planning to take Agnes?”

“Coventry,” said Will. He fished around in his billfold. “I gather auntie made introductions for her and the little one.”

“Coventry is full of factories, you fool!”

Will handed me a slip of paper. I recognized the stationery from the pad Liv kept on the hallway table beside the telephone. She’d left an address. No telephone number.

“When did they leave?”

“Yesterday.”

In moments, I was out the door and hailing a cab. I gave the driver an address in St. Pancras. The taxi itself might have served my purposes, but I didn’t have time to worry about petrol. But I knew a place where I could find a reliable car along with a spare petrol canister.

Funny how the big things change, while the little things stay the same.

14 November 1940

Reichsbehörde für die Erweiterung germanischen Potenzials

Marsh woke with the sun low in the western sky. His breath had frosted the inside of the windscreen, spreading the sunset into a soft, pink glow. The stink of mildew from the tarp was permanently frozen into his nostrils.

Though the temperature had already dropped with the sun, and the coming night promised to be unseasonably cold, Marsh left the tarpaulin in the car. It was too stiff, too prone to getting caught on underbrush, too loud. A quarter of an hour passed while he picked his way under half-fallen trees, around brambles, and over the occasional hillock. Tiny mounds dotted the forest floor around the farm. Weather and the slow encroachment of the forest had softened their contours to the point they were almost invisible to the eye, but they became apparent as Marsh trudged over them. They were too uniform in size and distribution to be natural formations. Dozens of tiny graves, they were.

Marsh huddled in the underbrush a dozen yards from the treeline. It gave him a decent view of the farm. It was just as busy as it had been on the day he’d been taken by the SS. Things had begun to wind down with the onset of evening, but Marsh could see Heike limping to the mess hall from what appeared to be a new version of the obstacle course. Behind her, LSSAH men collected the flags she had successfully dislodged.

Light from the farmhouse windows shone on the gravel drive and the black Mercedes parked there. Probably a staff car from Berlin, ferrying members of the OKW for consultations with Gretel.

The underbrush rattled in time with Marsh’s trembling. He clenched his muscles to suppress the shivering, which drew out the ache in his chest and shoulders. The cold ground evoked agonizing throbs from his bad knee. He tasted salt; his nose had run, trickling wetness across his upper lip. His face was too numb to feel it.

The farmhouse door opened. Marsh ducked. Jaundice-yellow lamplight stretched halfway to the tree line. Two men emerged from the house, followed by the silhouettes of von Westarp, Pabst, and Gretel. Marsh couldn’t make out the visitors against the glare from the house, but neither had a size and gait to match what he remembered from his brief glance at von Runstedt.

Bits and pieces of the parting conversation drifted to Marsh’s muffled ears. He caught something about the Luftwaffe, and London. Marsh strained to listen as Pabst bid good-bye to the visitors: Generalfeldmarschall Keitel and Reichsmarschall Göring.

Gretel stood in the doorway, staring into the forest.

Marsh retreated into the brush as the car rounded the gravel drive. He huddled behind the gnarled, mossy roots of an oak while the car’s headlamps raked the trees. Soon the Mercedes entered the forest and was gone.

Twilight slid into full darkness. The farm fell silent, but for the occasional murmur of conversation as mundane troops departed from the mess hall in pairs and trios. His stomach gurgled. How long since he’d eaten? The incarceration had weakened him. Now the cold, hunger, and lingering disorientation from the Eidolon conspired against him. He awoke to the sound of footsteps crunching through the underbrush. He fumbled for his pistol.

A voice in the shadows: “Hello, darling. Have you missed me?”

“Missed you?” Marsh had to force the words past the gauntlet of his chattering teeth. “I nearly rotted in that cell, you bloody miserable bitch.”

Gretel clucked her tongue. “I thought you wanted my help getting to Berlin.”

“If I’d wanted to get arrested, I could have managed that on my own.”

“Yes, that’s true.” She plopped down beside him, sitting cross-legged in the brush. She wore a leather coat over a dark blouse and gray trousers. She held a thick bundle in her lap. “Although the torture would have left you incapable of completing your mission. Oh, well. I’ll know better next time.” She handed the bundle to him. “I brought this for you.”

It was a wool overcoat. Marsh recognized the scent of aftershave on the collar. “This is Pabst’s coat.”

“He won’t be needing it after tonight.”

Marsh flung the coat over his shoulders. Savoring the warmth as he fished around for the sleeves, he said, “I see you’re still in Berlin’s good graces. What have you been telling them while I was away?”

“Very little,” she said. “They want advice on where to concentrate the bombing campaign.”

That explained Göring’s presence. He commanded the Luftwaffe, or did earlier in the year, before Marsh had been hauled off to rot in an SS prison cell.

At least Britain was still in the fight. Seemed like a lifetime ago since he’d been taken to Berlin. What was the state of the world? The war? His family?

Bombing campaign. The chill in Marsh’s body seeped through to the pit of his stomach. “How long has this campaign been on?”

“They shifted to civilian targets in September.”

My God. Liv. Agnes.

“I’m sure it’s been a grand success thanks to you.”

“Oh, Raybould.” She laid her hand on his forearm. He flinched away. “The war could evolve so much differently. You’ve no idea.”

Moonlight shone briefly on her teeth as she smiled at him. She leaned closer, affecting a conspiratorial whisper. “I tell them what they want to hear. Tonight, for instance. Coventry was already on their list.”

“What’s going to happen to Coventry?”

Gretel stood. “You must be quite hungry. You’ll be safe if you wait here.”

She headed toward the farm, in the direction of the mess hall. A few crunching footsteps put her out of earshot of the loudest whisper he could muster. Marsh hugged his knees to his chest, folded the hem of Pabst’s coat around his legs, and pulled his hands inside the cuffs. The shivering hadn’t subsided, but the pain in his muscles was tolerable now.

More tolerable, anyway, than the aching despair in his mind and heart.

His home had been subject to months of bombing. His wife, if she still lived, surely thought him dead. And what of Agnes? He’d missed so much of her first year. She wouldn’t be his newborn baby any longer … if he ever saw her again. Where were his wife and daughter at this moment? Were they warm and safe? Did they have a home? Had Liv already grieved for him and moved on? Agnes needed a father.

The Eidolons’ perfect, lightless, lifeless universe had nothing on the chasm separating Marsh from everything he cared about. The things he saw in the presence of an Eidolon were alternate unrealities, distortions, might-have-beens. Mere phantoms. But the gulf between a cold patch of ground in a Thuringian forest and a cozy mock Tudor in Walworth was undeniably real, and crushing in its immensity.

Isolation. Alienation. Loneliness. A bramble of thorns lodged in his chest. He couldn’t breathe.

Marsh wiped his eyes when Gretel returned carrying a covered tray. Wisps of steam escaped through a hole in the lid. Marsh’s stomach gurgled.

Gretel knelt beside him. From a coat pocket, she produced a fork, knife, and spoon. Marsh took them. She pulled a cloth serviette from her other pocket and tried to tuck it into his collar. He knocked her hands away. She stuck her tongue at him; it glistened in the moonlight.

One plate contained stewed cabbage, carrots, and onions, all swimming in butter and black flakes he took to be pepper. Another held a steaming slab of corned beef. She’d taken a thick slice of brown bread, too, and laid it atop a bowl of stew.

“Thanks,” he said.

“I wanted to bring milk, but it didn’t fit on the tray,” she said.

He tucked in. Gretel tied yellow ribbons into her braids while he ate. After a few moments, she said, “You’ll make yourself ill if you don’t slow down.”

An uncomfortable churning in his gut proved her right. He forced himself to chew more slowly. But once the food had blunted the razor edges of his hunger, he questioned Gretel while devouring the rest of his dinner.

“What’s happening at the farm?” If Gretel’s colleagues had been deployed into the field, tonight’s efforts would be for naught. “Is everybody here tonight?”

“No,” said Gretel.

Shit.
“Give me a rundown.”

“I warned the doctor and Pabst that the farm would fall under attack. They recalled Kammler and Buhler from the North Atlantic to help with the defense. And they postponed further deployments of Reinhardt and my brother until the crisis has passed.”

That was a good start. But: “What about the others?”

“Heike has made great strides with her training. Pabst was preparing to send her to England. You have good timing, Raybould. Oh, and one of the Twins is at OKW headquarters in Berlin.”

“And her sister?”

Gretel shrugged. Did that mean she didn’t care, or didn’t know? “She isn’t here.”

Nothing they could do about the Twins tonight. Marsh would just have to hope that fulfilling the commander’s odd requirement would lead to closure on that front.

Marsh tore the bread in two. The melted butter had congealed again in the cold night air, but it suffused the bread with a creamy slickness. Delicious.

He chewed, slowly. “And how is Liv?”

“Keep eating. You need your strength.”

“How is she?”

Gretel sighed. “She’s alive. I don’t know details.”

“I think you’re lying.”

“I see the future. I’m not omniscient.”

Marsh scraped the bread around the bottom of the bowl. The last flecks of stew had gone cold, but he didn’t let a drop go to waste. Gretel hummed to herself. Her eyes were dark as his cell in Berlin. Darker.

He said, “You know why I’ve returned, and what I plan to do. Why are you so pleased?”

The corner of her mouth quirked up. “I’ve finally solved a long-standing problem.”

14 November 1940

On the road to Coventry, England

I raced the fall of night in a stolen car, haunted by the ghosts of never-were and might-still-be.

A memory of Liv occupied the passenger seat. She’d come with me the last time I stole the old man’s car. And she was there now in my mind’s eye, clutching a pink blanket covered with elephants and baby stains.
What if she’s cold,
Liv had worried.

The sweet-sharp tobacco scent of Stephenson’s Lucky Strikes leached from the upholstery into my clothes and hair. But in that other time line, the car had smelled of Agnes. Only Agnes.

That history had never happened. And it wouldn’t repeat itself. No. It would be worse this time. Tonight, Gretel would attempt to kill Agnes
and
Liv.

A curve in the road forced me to downshift. I stomped the clutch. The engine screamed in protest. So did I, inwardly, begrudging every bit of lost speed, every wasted moment. Stephenson liked his Rolls Royce Mulliner because of its smooth ride. Now, though, that suspension made the car sway like a sloop in a gale as the tires screeched across macadam.

The headlamps slewed across marshland and hedgerows. I had ripped the grilles from the headlamps, so I was driving in violation of the blackout regs. But I’d never find my way to Coventry otherwise. Didn’t know if I could find the place in bright daylight, much less now. I’d never been to Coventry before. I’d committed Liv’s forwarding address to memory, but I had no map of the town.

One thing at a time,
I reminded myself.
First thing is to get there.

The wild sway of the headlamps settled on another dark, treelined tunnel. The clutch
clanked
under my foot. I slammed the car back into gear and gunned the engine. A heavy thud shook the car; the canister in the boot had just tipped over. Nothing to do about it but hope the lid held.

I sniffed the air for the scent of spilled petrol, but still all I could smell was Agnes. That memory had never faded. Not during all those lonely, accursed years. But it was stronger now, after weeks and months of stolen time with my wife and daughter. My main memory of Williton—the Williton of the other time line, the Williton that Gretel had subjected to nine hours of bombing—was the mingled smells of baby powder and high explosive. That mélange had insinuated itself into countless nightmares over the years.