Bitter Seeds Read online

  Then he floated. Out the window. Down a hole into the dark earth, because the faeries had come to spirit him away. Into cold, damp warrens, where all the lost children went. Will shivered. The faeries sang to him, but he didn’t like their language.

  Mr. Malcolm found him. Craggy-faced Mr. Malcolm, who had died long ago. He tore into the faerie mound with rough, strong hands. He lifted Will and carried him away, to hide him from grandfather, just as he used to do.

  Motion. Darkness. Tires ringing on macadam. The smell of leather seats.

  Daylight on polished walnut, flowing like honey through mullioned windowpanes. Ravens cawing in the distance.

  Moonlight. Flannel. Ice water. The taste of stomach acid. A bucket. Strong hands.

  Will woke in a four-poster bed, vaguely surprised to find himself alive. His head floated on a raft of goose-down pillows. He realized he was naked beneath a mound of blankets. Cool bed linens caressed him. He ran his hand through the sheets. Soft, fine: Egyptian cotton, high quality. It soothed the stump of his missing finger.

  He cracked one eye open, but the room’s walnut paneling was polished to such a high gloss that the glow of sunlight caused a flare of pain in his open eye. He squeezed it shut, satisfied that he knew this place.

  His nose twitched at a whiff of something sweet. Attar. If he could have mustered the strength to look, he knew he’d find a decanter of rosewater and a porcelain bowl on the bed stand.

  Somewhere off to his left, he heard the clink and gurgle of somebody pouring from a service. A few seconds later, his stomach did a somersault at the smell of strong Indian tea. This time he did attempt to turn his head, but the effort left him exhausted.

  He woke again some time later. Minutes, perhaps, or hours. The scent of tea still wafted through the room, less intensely than before. The ser -vice had cooled. The light had moved, too, enough that it didn’t hurt to squint.

  A figure stood silhouetted before a panoramic bay window. Will couldn’t tell if the yellow sunlight was from a sunrise or a sunset.

  Sunset. These windows faced west, he remembered.

  The man by the window held a saucer. He sipped from a cup, staring outside. Will recognized the way he held himself, the turn of his elbow and wrist as he sipped. Tense. Uptight. Even here, now, in his own home.

  The tickle in Will’s throat became a cough when he tried to speak. He worked up enough saliva to swallow down the gravel, and tried again.

  “Good evening, Your Grace,” he croaked.

  Aubrey turned from where he’d been staring out the window. “William.” It came out as a sigh, betraying the slightest hint of relief and worry. “I feared we’d have to call the physician back.”

  Hunger clawed at Will. It wasn’t a hunger for food, but for something else, something that would fill his body with liquid gold. Yes, Will wanted to say. Call the physician, call the man with the painkillers. The craving had been his constant companion for months. Will knew it intimately. Though strong and insistent, it was diminished from what it had been.

  “How long—?” Will’s voice broke into another raspy cough. He didn’t have the energy to finish the sentence, but his brother understood.

  “Several days.”

  Aubrey moved to the bedside. He set his cup and saucer on the tea service and poured a second cup. Will’s mouth watered. “Here,” said Aubrey. “Can you sit up?”

  Will worked himself into a sitting position. The effort made his head spin, but he resisted the temptation to close his eyes again. Aubrey propped a spare pillow behind him. “Here,” he said, offering the cup.

  Will wrapped his fingers around it. It was the good china, the Spode pearlware. That must have been a mistake; the lustrous Spode was meant for honored guests. The tea warmed Will’s fingers. It was strong tea, with lemon, the way he liked it. He wondered how Aubrey had known this, or if somebody on the kitchen staff remembered how Will took his tea. It soothed him, and eroded the burrs that scraped his throat.

  After half a cup, he rasped, “How did I get here?”

  “The proprietress of the, ah, that place. She contacted us in quite a state.”

  “Because I hadn’t left my room in several days.”

  “Because you hadn’t paid. She said she had a, ah, guest on the premises who insisted, rather loudly I understand, that I would cover his expenses.”

  “Oh.”

  Aubrey sat in a century-old hand-carved oaken chair across the bed stand from Will. “What were you doing there?”

  Will took a long slow sip, thinking about how to answer his brother’s question. “I needed a change.”

  “But why there? Why didn’t you come home?”

  “I’m rather unsure where that is these days.”

  Aubrey quirked an eyebrow. Even during a heart-to-heart talk, or what passed for one, he strove for an elegant, understated comportment. The man was so entrenched in his position that he looked upon everything, even himself, with utter seriousness. “That’s an odd thing to say. We grew up here, you and I.”

  “We had different childhoods.”

  Aubrey drained his cup. He poured the last of the tea for Will, then sent the service out with a servant whom Will didn’t recognize. He supposed most of the house hold staff would be strangers to him. Who remembered the way he took his tea?

  Sunlight on the near wall turned orange, then red, as it inched upward. The windowpanes crisscrossed the sunlight with thin shadows. Will nursed his tea. It was strong, astringent; it had steeped too long.

  Aubrey’s chair creaked when he uncrossed his legs. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

  “What happened to you, William?”

  “We had different childhoods.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the truest answer I have to give.”

  The sun set. Aubrey turned on the lamps in opposite corners of the room. They spilled warm light across rugs that one of Will’s forebears had obtained in India.

  Will dozed off and on. Each time he woke, he was surprised to see that Aubrey had stayed. Will felt strangely pleased by this.

  “I dreamt of Mr. Malcolm,” he said. “Do you remember Mr. Malcolm?”

  “Who?”

  “Malcolm. Grandfather’s steward, long ago.”

  Aubrey shrugged. “Of course.”

  “That’s good. He was a good man. He should be remembered.”

  Aubrey pulled a pocket watch from his vest pocket. It clicked open. He read it, frowned, and put it back. He said, “I’ll have the kitchen bring you something to eat. Can you eat?”

  Will’s stomach gurgled. “I shall try.”

  “Excellent. Well, then.” Aubrey crossed the room, toward the door. “I’m having guests tomorrow evening. I presume your convalescence will last longer than that.”

  It wasn’t, Will noticed, a question. “Who can say? Perhaps I’ll be on my feet sooner rather than later. Whom are you having?”

  Aubrey hesitated. “I think it would be better for all if you indulged in a few days of bed rest.”

  “Ah. You’d prefer if I not make an appearance tomorrow. Is that it?” Will asked.

  “It would avoid unpleasant questions.”

  “Unpleasant?”

  “My own brother in a, a, one of those places. What image do you think that projects?”

  Will ignored the spinning in his head when he sat upright. “I’m frightfully sorry to have inconvenienced you, Your Grace.”

  “Don’t be like that—”

  “You wanted to know what had happened to me. Well, I’ll tell you this. I’ve done far more for the war effort than you and your charities will ever manage.” Will’s voice cracked. He had to clear his throat before continuing. “I’ve done things you’d . . . I’ve been fighting a war and I’m exhausted beyond my capacity to express. I couldn’t bear it any longer. Just like father.”

  The mention of their father cracked Aubrey’s imperturbable façade. Aubrey, being the older of the pair, remembered
their father more than Will did. Sadness tightened the corners of his eyes. He shook his head.

  Quietly, he said, “No. Not like father. You’ll get better.” His rueful smile diminished, but did not erase, the look of regret in his eyes. “You’ll be your cheerful, aggravating self once more.”

  Will couldn’t see his brother clearly, because his eyes were watery. “I would like that very much.”

  23 May 1941

  On the road, near Magdeburg, Germany

  They made decent time, rushing east from Bielefeld, but at the cost of rapidly depleted battery stores. The task of clearing the roads fell mostly to Reinhardt, who could vaporize the ice and snow as quickly as their three-truck convoy came upon it. In places they used Kammler, too, for tossing aside downed trees and other detritus, but Spalcke lacked his pre de ces sor’s finesse, meaning he couldn’t make the telekinetic clear roads on the fly. This panicked, unscripted race wasn’t a patch on the Götterelektrongruppe’s perfectly choreographed performance in the Ardennes.

  And it was a race; nobody denied that. Their destination was the point of contention. In the past three hours, they’d received several conflicting sets of orders over the radio.

  Klaus rode in the lead with Reinhardt. He swapped out the other man’s battery as their truck plunged through another cloud of steam. The vapor froze to the truck when they emerged onto another clear stretch of road. The windshield wipers rattled quickly across the window glass.

  The driver cleared his throat. “Herr Obersturmführer . . .” He trailed off, obviously reluctant to address either Klaus or Reinhardt specifically. The two had been arguing all morning, which made the driver fidgety. Nobody wanted to be stuck in the middle when supermen fought.

  The driver pointed. They were bearing down on a junction where several roads met. A signpost indicated the distances to cities in various directions.

  “East,” said Reinhardt.

  The familiar copper taste filled Klaus’s mouth as he angrily called up the Götterelektron. “South,” he said.

  The driver bit his lip.

  Reinhardt repeated himself. “East. We’re going to Berlin.” The air inside the truck became very warm.

  Klaus turned to the driver. “Pull over. Get out.”

  The truck barely skidded to a halt before the driver jumped out.

  Klaus ran a hand over his face. “Reinhardt. There are three of us. Two and a half,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the truck containing Kammler. “You think you’re going through the batteries quickly now? How long will they last when you’re fighting an army?”

  “That’s what we were MADE FOR!” Acrid smoke wafted up from the upholstery beneath Reinhardt.

  Klaus dematerialized, willing his body transparent to the surging heat. He reached forward with one ghostly hand and unplugged Reinhardt’s battery. It quenched the supernatural warmth. Klaus released his Willenskräfte.

  Reinhardt’s pale eyes frosted over with rage. “Do you know how many ways I’ve imagined to kill you?”

  “The Soviets were watching us,” said Klaus, attempting to deflect the threat with reason. Over the years, he had likewise imagined countless scenarios for dealing with Reinhardt, and even Kammler, should the situation arise. Few suggested a clear victory for anybody. “They want the doctor’s research. They’re probably advancing on the farm right now, while there’s nobody to defend it.”

  Reinhardt grabbed the loose wire dangling above his battery. “If that were the case”—click—“surely your sister”—snap—“would have given ample warning.”

  He had a point. But Gretel had her own purposes, her own reasons for doing things. It was possible she had foreseen an attack and had chosen to stay silent; perhaps the best outcome came about when Klaus and Reinhardt arrived from the north, rather than being present when the attack came. Klaus expressed this to Reinhardt.

  “You’re making excuses for her,” Reinhardt said. “Perhaps she wanted us on the road, so that we could get to Berlin when the invasion came.”

  Klaus didn’t voice his suspicion that Gretel worked according to her own plan, a blueprint to which the war was merely a side note. Instead, he said: “My first instinct is to protect the Reichsbehörde. Gretel must know that. I am certain it’s what she foresaw.”

  “You can’t bear to be away from her, can you?” Reinhardt sneered. “You two always were overly close.”

  The electric tingle of the Götterelektron surged back into Klaus’s mind. “This is perfect. I’m getting a morality lecture from a necrophiliac.”

  The air around Reinhardt shimmered with another surge of heat. Klaus gritted his teeth, grabbed Reinhardt, dematerialized, and pulled him outside through the side of the truck before it went up in flames. They landed in a puddle, which instantly flashed into vapor. The contact with Reinhardt blistered Klaus’s hands. It was painful.

  “That’s it,” said Reinhardt. “You’re going to smolder to death.” Mud bubbled beneath his boots.

  Spalcke, who had been riding with Kammler in the truck behind them, was standing on the road. “What are you two doing? And why have we stopped? I gave no order to halt.”

  To Spalcke, Klaus said, “Shut up.” And to Reinhardt, he said, “Just listen to me for a moment.”

  Spalcke’s lips moved silently while he clenched and unclenched his jaw. He appeared to come to the same conclusion their driver had, deciding it wasn’t in his best interests to get involved if Klaus and Reinhardt fought.

  Klaus turned his attention back to Reinhardt as the salamander was gearing up for an attack. He held up his hands. “Wait! We’re wasting time. This won’t achieve anything, and it won’t get you to Berlin any sooner.”

  Reinhardt narrowed his eyes. “You agree we should go east, then?”

  “No. I propose we split up. You go to Berlin, and I’ll return to the farm.” He pointed. “You take one truck. I’ll take another.”

  This settled the matter because it gave Reinhardt what he wanted. After that, they quickly worked out the logistics over Spalcke’s vocal but ultimately impotent objections. They split the remaining batteries evenly between the three trucks. Reinhardt took a driver, another one of the LSSAH men who’d been transferred to the Reichsbehörde and who knew how to swap out batteries. Spalcke, Kammler, the radio operator, and the third driver were consigned to the last truck. When Spalcke started to yell about insubordination and tribunals and courts-martial, the air around him shimmered briefly before he doubled over.

  They were ready to depart for their separate destinations within fifteen minutes. As Klaus climbed into his truck—the one that stank of melted Bakelite—he said, “Go find your glory, Reinhardt.”

  “Go find your beloved sister.”

  Klaus’s driver put the truck into gear. A stack of charged batteries sat piled on the seat between them.

  They turned right at the crossroads, heading south. They were followed by a second truck, which carried Kammler and Spalcke and the large store of depleted batteries. Klaus watched in the side mirror as Reinhardt continued east through the intersection. A few seconds later, the road curved, and Reinhardt’s truck disappeared from view.

  The south road was just as icy and snowbound as the roads they’d driven out of Bielefeld. Klaus urged the driver to greater and greater speeds. And to his credit, the driver kept them on the road, though nothing could have been fast enough for Klaus. Rather than clearing the roads as Kammler and Reinhardt had done, Klaus willed the entire truck insubstantial when they encountered snowdrifts, stuck automobiles, and other obstructions. Spalcke and Kammler quickly fell behind.

  The weather improved as they neared the Reichsbehörde. Icy roads became slushy roads, then muddy roads, then roads. Snow-heavy tree boughs became naked limbs popping with green buds. It was as though they had traveled from the depths of winter to a pleasant springtime over the course of a hundred kilometers. Klaus massaged his aching fingers, waiting.

  They were minutes from the farm, s
unlight and shadow flashing over their truck as they barreled past oak and ash trees, when Klaus heard the first explosion. The ground heaved. A crack echoed through the forest.

  The driver pushed his foot to the floor. Klaus checked the gauge on his battery, reassuring himself it held a complete charge.

  They emerged onto the Reichsbehörde grounds. The facility hummed with frantic activity. Cargo trucks lined the gravel drive. Mundane troops and white-coated technicians ran between the trucks and the buildings, loading the trucks with crates, filing cabinets, specialized electrical and medical equipment. A row of troop transports had been parked on the training field. Klaus realized they had brought reinforcements to defend the farm, and now the empty transports were being used to evacuate personnel. Klaus saw one of the Twins being pushed into a transport. There was no sign of Gretel.

  They skidded to a halt in front of the ice house. The staccato chatter of automatic weapons fire rippled through the forest on the eastern edge of the farm, along with the rumble of diesel engines and the rattle-clank of tank treads. Klaus saw movement and flashes of red in the trees.

  He jumped from the truck and hit the ground at a dead run. The metallic tingle peculiar to fresh batteries buzzed into that place in his head where his willpower resided.

  Another explosion. More gunfire, closer now. Close enough for Klaus to hear screaming.

  Gretel wasn’t in the first transport. Or the second. Or the third. She certainly wasn’t loading equipment, and she wasn’t advising the reinforcements. Nobody knew where she had gone.

  Klaus found his sister in the barracks that had replaced their sleeping quarters in the demolished farmhouse. She was sitting on a cot, back to the wall, thin legs stretched out before her and ankles crossed, reading poetry. A rucksack lay at her feet.

  “Gretel!”

  The corner of her mouth quirked up. She dog-eared her current page, closed the book, and looked at him. “Welcome home, brother.” The ground shook again. Gunfire chattered outside, followed by the thump of a mortar shell and more yelling. She scratched her nose. “Did you have a successful trip?”