Hidden Among the Stars Read online

A few of them raise their hands.

  I open the book and repeat by memory. “‘Fox. Socks. Box. Knox. Knox in box. Fox in socks.’”

  The front door chimes, and I’m hoping it’s Charlotte so I can ask her to help me translate the lines in the Bambi book. But when I glance up, I choke down a groan. Kathleen Faulkner and her six-year-old son, Jack, walk into the store.

  Focus—back to the blue-socked fox in my hands, my words slurring a bit as I continue with the story.

  Kathleen seems like a perfectly nice woman, and her son is adorable—but I am a victim of the smallish-town curse where every resident’s path seems to intersect everyone else’s at one point or another. And I can’t very well turn away the wife and stepson of my ex-fiancé from a reading of Dr. Seuss. I’m only grateful that not once in the past two years, to my knowledge, has Scott Faulkner stepped through the front door.

  Jack squeezes into a space beside my feet, Kathleen joining the lineup of adults curled around the outskirts.

  “‘Let’s do chicks with bricks and clocks, sir. Let’s do tricks with bricks and blocks, sir.’”

  “You messed it up,” Owen, my nephew, shouts. Then he grins as if he’s done my audience a great service by correcting me.

  Unfortunately, the tongue-twisting in this book only gets worse from here, and I’ve lost my momentum.

  I start to read the next page about stacking the chicks and bricks and blocks, but it’s a disaster. Perhaps I should ask if Michael has anything else he’d like to share.

  “I hate to interrupt,” my lovely sister says from behind the parental wall, “but I have it on good authority that chocolate-chip cookies taste best when they’re warm, and I’ve just taken a batch out of the oven.”

  With those words, the fox and his socks are forgotten as my audience surges around the castle steps, up to the counter with the cookies and hot chocolate that Brie has waiting for them every Saturday. Next week, I’ll take a mulligan on the book about the quirky fox.

  “Have I told you lately how much I love you?” I say, slipping beside my sister. About two minutes have passed since she made the call, but only crumbs remain on the ceramic cookie tray.

  Brie collects the paper cups that line the counter and wipes her hands on her polka-dotted apron. Her brown shoulder-length hair is newly streaked with lime green. “I’ve got your back, Callie.”

  “You are the best of sisters.”

  As Brie pours several more cups of chocolate, handing them out to the children, I glance around the busy store until I find Kathleen and her son in the loft, snuggled together on a couch. Surely she knows that Scott once proposed marriage to me, but the fact that he was seeing both of us at the same time in the weeks before our wedding day doesn’t seem to bother her in the least. Unlike me, who can’t seem to move past the betrayal. The colossal failure in the spotlight of our town.

  Two years come and gone, and I’m still stuck, wondering about what might have been while my ex-fiancé has clearly moved on.

  “I wish you could let it go,” Brie whispers, and I worry for a moment that she might break out into song.

  “It only bothers me when I see Kathleen around town.” And when I’m trying to ignore the bump swelling across her abdomen.

  “The wounds of the heart take the longest to heal,” she says.

  “But one day they heal, right?”

  “You just have to meet the right man.”

  I swipe one of the remaining cups of hot chocolate and step back before she starts listing the available men in our church and across Knox County.

  When I was in my early twenties, I longed for a husband and children to love, a family who loved me back. But that would require dating again, and I have zero desire to expose the fragments of my heart and past to another man. I haven’t gone out with anyone since Scott, at least not more than one date and only at Brie’s insistence. Brie thinks a good man will steal my heart one day, but I doubt any decent thief would want the shattered pieces of it now.

  Brie checks out two customers, slipping their books into white bags designed with a bouquet of balloons. Kathleen and Jack are moving toward the top floor of the castle.

  “I’m done talking about men,” I whisper after the customers leave.

  Her lavender-glossed lips pucker. “That’s good because I was planning to ask you about the box you broke into last night.”

  I lean back against the papered wall. “Technically, it was already open.”

  She sighs. “I wanted to give you that book for your birthday.”

  “I promise to be surprised.”

  Her head tilts slightly to the right as she assesses me. “At least you’ll be surprised when I give you your other gift.”

  “You don’t have to give me anything else, Brie.” A little boy whizzes past, holding a book like a paper airplane in his hands. Sometimes I wonder how we make any profit at all. “Where exactly did you get that Bambi book?”

  “From a dealer in Idaho.”

  I sip the overly sweet chocolate. “I found something inside it.”

  Her eyebrows rise. “Money?”

  “No.”

  “More pictures, then?”

  “Wait here.” When I return to the counter, I open the worn cover for my sister and point down at Annika Knopf’s name.

  She shrugs. “We find names in most of our used books.”

  “But we’ve never found this.” I turn to the third page. “There are extra lines on some of these pages. The handwriting looks almost like the font in the printed text.”

  As Brie examines the copy, I watch Kathleen’s son emerge from the slide at the bottom of the castle. His mother descends the spiral stairs to meet him, the bump under her shirt clearly visible as she reaches for his hand. Jealousy rears somewhere deep inside me, peeking its ugly head up over the wall that circles my heart.

  “Did you translate any of this?” Brie asks, and my gaze falls back on the page.

  “I tried, but I couldn’t make out the words.”

  She hands me the book. “I wonder where Schloss Schwansee is located.”

  “I couldn’t find it online.”

  “So you’re off to Charlotte’s . . .”

  “This afternoon, if you don’t need me here.”

  “Have at it,” Brie says before greeting another customer. Her interest in the German notes has come and gone, but me, I’ll obsess until I know what they say.

  Annika Knopf, I suspect, has probably passed away by now, but every time we receive a book with something unusual inside, I want to reunite the item and book with the child who once owned it, as if I could return a piece of what I hoped was a happy childhood. In this case, perhaps Annika’s descendants would be intrigued by whatever she wrote inside this book. In my story-world optimism, I can help provide a happy ending for their search.

  Then again, it’s entirely possible that Annika’s descendants sold this book even though they knew about the handwriting. The money might have been more important than preserving a family heirloom.

  Kathleen reaches for her son’s hand, and before I can escape to the back room, they are beside me. Jack in his pressed shorts, button-down shirt, and a clip-on tie. Kathleen in white capris, a sage-green blouse, and heeled sandals. I, on the other hand, resemble Raggedy Ann, except my curly hair is light brown and I’m wearing black-framed glasses with my striped socks and blue sundress.

  “I’m sorry we were late for story time,” Kathleen says, sounding genuine with her apology.

  “No worries. I’ll be here again next Saturday.”

  Jack eyes the cape tied around my neck. “Are you Superwoman?”

  I swallow my sigh, deciding in that moment that Superwoman is better than Raggedy Ann. “Perhaps.”

  “I like your socks,” he says.

  “Thanks. I like your tie.”

  A stack of new books in their bag, Kathleen and Jack walk out of the store hand in hand, headed north toward the roundabout—known in our town as the square—where
the annual Memorial Day festivities are about to begin.

  Watching Kathleen through the window, my thoughts drift again to how different my life would be if Scott hadn’t met her. I’d be married like Brie, perhaps even have a child of my own. No wandering around a bookstore in the midnight hours for me. I’d be content in my own home, with my own children, not trying to reunite lost items with their owners.

  Drums thunder in the distance, followed by the crashing of cymbals. In seconds the bookstore empties, our customers pouring out onto the sidewalk as they wait for the bands and floats to roll by, the candy raining down from the sky.

  Inkspot curls around my ankles, and I tuck the old Bambi book under my arm to pick up the cat. Together we watch the grand marshal, the mayor of our town, marching toward us, the high school band and color guard close behind.

  In our celebration, we remember together those who served our country around the world, those who lived to tell their stories and those who died fighting against tyranny. And we remember with hope for peace against the tragedy of war, hope that none of my Saturday-morning kids will have to leave their families to fight.

  CHAPTER 4

  MAX

  VIENNA, AUSTRIA

  MARCH 1938

  Gray cobblestones pressed into Max Dornbach’s knees as he knelt in an alley near Heldenplatz and scratched Frederica, the stray tabby cat he’d befriended, behind her ears. A peaceful ruler, her name meant. And right now, they desperately needed der Frieden in Austria.

  Frederica liked it when he scratched her ears, but even more, she liked sharing whatever he brought for her in the rucksack that held his lunch and books for Gymnasium, a rucksack he carried even on days like today when the schools were closed. She mewed when he retrieved the strip of bacon along with a chunk of mild Drautaler cheese, devouring it rapidly from his palm.

  He could almost hear his mother’s voice, scolding him for feeding a stray, but secretly she liked animals as much as he did.

  She wasn’t in Vienna to scold him anyway. Instead of driving back to the city last night, she’d opted to stay at their summer estate for another week.

  A roar erupted from the heart of Vienna, rippling out into the corners of its districts. Crowds had gathered on the lofty road called Ringstrasse, buzzing like a thousand hornets around a nest. Many of them waved flags and belted out the lyrics of a Nazi anthem as if they’d been National Socialists all along.

  “For the last time, the call to arms is sounded!”

  “For the fight, we all stand prepared!”

  Freedom, the Viennese sang—they were finally free from bondage. As if they’d been caged up.

  Max’s stomach turned at the thought of Nazis descending upon their beautiful city today. Vienna’s elegant streets, with their budding tulips and gilded facades, darkened by the shadow of Adolf Hitler, the old cobblestones contaminated by the boots of his henchmen.

  Dr. Weiss had sent Max a telegram while the Dornbachs were at Lake Hallstatt, asking him to visit after the parade. If only he could retrieve the man’s daughter as well and retreat to the lake.

  Much had changed in Austria in the past four weeks. Luzi Weiss and her family, no matter how much Max begged, would never receive an invitation to the Dornbachs’ summer home, even if Frau Weiss and Max’s mother were old friends. Dr. Weiss’s father was Jewish and so were both of Frau Weiss’s parents.

  This hatred of Jewish people already ran deep in Vienna, but the Nazi Party and their blatant anti-Semitism had been banned in Austria until last month. Now with Chancellor Schuschnigg’s arrest, everything had tipped on its head.

  Much of Vienna was celebrating this new alliance with Germany, the new Führer a savior of sorts. As the general director of the Mercur Bank, Max’s father was expected to celebrate as well—front-row seats for the Dornbach family when Hitler ascended to Hofburg Palace for his victory speech today.

  Max refused his father’s offer for a seat of honor, but he’d promised to attend the parade. School had been canceled, businesses closed, so Austrians could crowd the streets as they waited for the Führer to make his grand entry. A much different entry than when a penniless Hitler had attempted to attend the art academy here thirty years ago.

  “Stay away from the parade,” he told Frederica as he brushed the dust off the knees of his trousers. “Too many stomping feet.”

  Max moved toward the boulevard, standing in the back of the crowd, trying to block out the rancid chant in a city that prided itself on beautiful music.

  Couldn’t they see that fighting alongside Hitler would imprison them all?

  “He’s coming,” someone shouted.

  Cheering replaced the song, and his heart sank further. A woman next to him began crying, joy instead of sorrow streaming down her cheeks. This new chancellor was worshiped in these streets as if he were a god. But a god of what? What virtue did he bring?

  Reconciliation, some might say. Hitler was able to verbalize like no one else the anger many Austrians already had toward the Jews, a hatred that had been boiling for centuries.

  About eight hundred years ago, Jewish refugees had arrived in this city, and over the centuries, they’d been repeatedly expelled, welcomed back, and then expelled again, their synagogues burned as they fled. Not until the last century were Jewish residents finally given full Austrian citizenship. Many Jewish families had garnered wealth and prestige among their fellow Austrians in these years, but not everyone celebrated their achievements. Many, the jealous ones, wanted to expel them again.

  A motorcade of open cars crawled up the boulevard with uniformed men marching solemnly beside the vehicles. And then Hitler was there, in the front seat of a Mercedes-Benz, grand marshal of the parade with his black hair slicked back under a brown hat, an awning of a toothbrush mustache over his lips, the sleeve on his overcoat outstretched as he saluted the soldiers lining the streets. His mouth was set in a firm line below the mustache, a hairline crack in the face of stone.

  Austrian hands waved in unison as he passed, hailing high even as they sank low to worship the German Führer who’d promised salvation for Austria.

  “Salute, Max.”

  Max glanced over his shoulder to see Ernst Schmid, his chest drowning in a black suit coat as if he were going to the orchestra instead of a street rally. Ernst was a year younger, still more boy than man with his short hair sticking out in all directions in spite of a generous coating of hair oil.

  Max didn’t reply, but his arms stiffened at his sides, hands in his pockets.

  Ernst’s arm was fixed forward like the others, but his eyes remained on Max. “Heil Hitler,” he barked as Hitler saluted the crowd.

  Max still didn’t move. The motorcade passed by, and the crowd followed after it, clamoring toward Heldenplatz to hear Hitler speak.

  “Heil Hitler,” Ernst repeated, this time to Max.

  Max’s hands burrowed deeper into his pockets. “Heil Austria.”

  Ernst stayed beside him as people swarmed toward the plaza, and he eyed the rucksack slung over Max’s shoulder before glancing back out at the street. “It’s time for you to grow up, Max.”

  “I don’t need to cling to a man like Adolf Hitler to make me feel important.”

  Ernst sniffed, appropriately offended. “Why didn’t you salute our Führer?”

  “You’re not my superior, Ernst, and he isn’t my Führer.”

  “He is all of our Führer.” Ernst’s rigid chin inched up. “And in time, I will be superior to you.”

  Max shook his head, disgusted. The man was the son of the Dornbachs’ former housekeeper in Vienna. Frau Schmid had been released about three years ago for stealing, but Ernst had hated Max long before his mother’s dismissal. Ever since they were children, Ernst had tried to torment Max, stealing things that were his. Max wondered still if Frau Schmid’s purported theft had really been Ernst’s doing, his mother taking the fall.

  “Perhaps one day you will salute for the sake of Fräulein Weiss,” Ernst said, so
unding as if the thought gave him great pleasure.

  Max wished he could slug Ernst right here, as he’d often wished when they were younger. Though he was vocal about his distaste of anyone with Jewish blood, Ernst was obsessed with Luzi. Max had seen him watching her at the Dornbach parties, when Ernst was supposed to be helping Frau Schmid serve the food, but it wasn’t admiration in his eyes. He looked more like a bird of prey ready to attack.

  Ernst would probably be first in line to become a member of the notorious Schutzstaffel. Germany’s bullies. Hopefully Hitler would send him far away to train for the SS.

  “Yes, Max.” Ernst clipped his shoulder. “You will salute, for the Fräulein if nothing else.”

  “I’ll never salute,” he said.

  A footbridge crossed the Wien near Hietzing, and Max followed the street over the river, into this southern district of Vienna. Luzi and her family lived in a coral-painted villa; Luzi’s father practiced medicine on the ground level, and their family lived in the flat above.

  Music spilling from Luzi’s violin streamed out their window, pooling over the street and the park behind their home, beckoning him forward. He could imagine the gentle sway of her body as she bore the weight of her music, cradling her violin. Then the passion in her face, her lips pursed in concentration when she brushed the strings with her bow made from Pernambuco, wood taken from the heart of the tree.

  Luzi didn’t just play music. She was music, embodying a song from her chin down to the black heels she wore for every performance. The same heels her mother once wore when she performed.

  Before he saw Luzi, he must speak to her father.

  The door to Dr. Weiss’s office was unlocked, and when Max stepped inside, the violin music drifted down from the back staircase, into the office. Dr. Weiss looked up from the shelf he was rearranging by his desk. He was about forty years old, a few years younger than Max’s parents, but his dark hair had begun to thin. In a frame above the desk, the only decor in the room, was his medical diploma from the University of Vienna.

  Max had rarely been here when there weren’t patients crowding the front, but with the parade today, he suspected that most men and women were either waiting for Hitler’s arrival or hiding out in their homes.