Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) (21 page)

“And then there’s the little matter of Berlin.” Marsh hadn’t yet formed a plan for dealing with the farm. The thought of dealing with the REGP files in Berlin was an overwhelming complication.

“Trust me,” said Gretel. Something dark moved behind her eyes, like a shadow upon her soul. “I know what to do.”

Marsh started to ask, but the visitors had left. Pabst called to her.

“Get away from him.”

“Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer.”

Gretel released Marsh’s arm and traipsed down the corridor, trailing flower petals in her wake.

Marsh followed Pabst into the briefing room. Pabst ordered him to sit. Pabst took a seat across the table and started a wire recorder.

“Tell me about the demons,” he said.

Marsh’s mission, and his survival, relied upon his ability to convince his hosts of his sincere desire to join their cause. But he hadn’t had the time to prepare a cover for his knowledge of Will’s family and those creatures called Eidolons. The only way to guarantee consistency across multiple questionings was to tell the truth. And he hated himself for it.

It was a gamble. And a damn dangerous one at that. Marsh could envision scenarios where the knowledge Will carried could become the crucial hinge upon which Britain’s fate turned. What if he gave the Jerries the insight they needed to overcome Britain’s supernatural defense?

Would Gretel tell him if he had? The commander had been vehement about not trusting her.

The only saving grace, to Marsh’s mind, was the fact that he knew damn little about any of it. Just bits and pieces Will had dropped about his grandfather from time to time, and what Will had told them on the strange afternoon they attempted to show Gretel to an Eidolon.

“Tell me everything you know about these warlocks,” said Pabst.

And so Marsh did. Again.

eight

30 May 1940

Walworth, London, England

I don’t know how he did it, but two weeks after my doppelgänger arrived in Germany, history changed.

Clever, clever bastard.

Well, I liked to think he had something to do with it. But I couldn’t deny Gretel’s hand lay heavy over the events described daily on the wireless and in the papers.

The defense of France was failing. The Wehrmacht had outmaneuvered the British Expeditionary Forces and their French allies. They’d been routed. Completely. Utterly.

Same as last time.

Now the allied soldiers were holed up along the coast. Hundreds of thousands of men on the beaches of northern France, all waiting for rescue. Waiting for evacuation. Waiting to see if friendly ships would come to take them across the Channel before the Jerries finished them off.

Same as last time. But.

This time, they were holding out. This time, the ships were coming in. Tommies were coming home by the thousands. By the tens of thousands.

Last time, they’d died on those beaches. Jerry had slaughtered them to the last man. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Britain had lost an army.

But now, several days after the Dunkirk evacuation had been expanded to include civilian boats, the flow of rescued soldiers showed no sign of abatement. The Miracle, some folks had begun to call it.

I’d never been a student of the details of history. Living through the war, fighting in it, had been more than enough. Never felt much need to reexamine it. So I couldn’t begin to guess which troop movements and armored column maneuvers were holdovers from the original history and which were fresh alterations, carefully chosen by Gretel for this new time line. Detailed information of that nature was too sparse anyway, and would be for years. But I could see the general shape of how she was doing it.

The Germans relied heavily on the Luftwaffe to pound the encircled refugees and prevent ships from approaching the beach. I’m sure it seemed like hell on earth to the men trapped there, but it was a damn sight better than it could have been. Last time around, they’d forgone the aircraft and moved in with heavy armor. At least one entire panzer division had arrived at Dunkirk before the first rescue ship could begin hauling waterlogged Tommies aboard.

Last time around, Göring hadn’t been in charge of the Luftwaffe. Gretel had had him removed early in the war. I wondered how she would sell the evacuation to her superiors. They couldn’t be pleased by it.

Liv set our tea service on the low table in front of the sofa. The service was new, but it had been a chipped and battered thing when last I saw it.

“Thank you.” It was weak, brewed from twice-or thrice-used leaves. But the company made up for it.

She sat across from me, within reach of the wireless. Close enough to touch.

“Do you take your tea with sugar, Commander?”

A formality, of course, and I declined. My first experience with rationing had forced me into the habit of taking my tea without sugar. A habit I’d never broken; it served me well now that I was stuck with rationing again.

“Raybould hates his tea without sugar. I think the rationing might drive him mad.” She unfolded a cloth serviette to reveal a treasure: a whole sugar cube, glittering in the afternoon sun.

I coughed. Sat upright, narrowly avoided spilling tea all over myself.

“Where on earth did you get that?”

Liv had a particular smile. It could make you feel like you and she had just shared something deeply private, deeply important. Something funny, dire, sexy, frivolous, and momentous all at the same time.

She flashed that smile at me now as she gently scraped her teaspoon along one edge of the cube, dusting her tea with sugar. “Raybould thinks he knows all my hiding spots.”

I did. I could have sworn I did.

“I think perhaps he has underestimated you.”

“Oh, he’s clever in his own way.” She sipped. Fixed me with a sly look. “I suppose that’s why you chose him.”

During the course of my afternoon visits I’d managed to give Liv the impression that I was responsible for having Raybould Marsh tapped for another protracted Foreign Office errand. She couldn’t come out and say how much she resented it, of course—that would have been unpatriotic—but she had been a bit frigid at first. She supported King and Country and husband but that didn’t prevent her from being brusque, all sharp edges and cutting wit at first. But it didn’t last. I knew the woman. Knew her so well.

That was the hardest part. Pretending I didn’t know how to woo her. Pretending I didn’t want to. Pretending part of me didn’t fixate on how I could steal her away so easily once she stopped seeing my scars. When I’d first won her heart, I hadn’t known her half as well as I did now. What if her husband never came home?

No. She wasn’t my wife, I reminded myself. My wife had died at the end of the world. I had to take what I could, and I did. I was grateful for every moment of her company. Because if, luck willing, we won this war and Liv’s true husband returned, would I have any choice but to fade into the shadows like a lonely ghost? I couldn’t bear the thought of it. I had to find a way to stay close to Liv and Agnes.

Liv clicked on the wireless. Her hands shook when she took her teacup again. She covered her nervousness well. But I knew the questions tugging at her mind. How long could Britain’s luck last? Would this be the day it broke?

Every Briton followed the news from Dunkirk. And although every day brought more soldiers home, the nation was caught between optimism and terror. France was going to fall. The evacuation was fragile; it could collapse at any moment. How many Tommies were fated to die on the beaches?

All of them, the first time around.

I remembered that day. That terrible day. She’d dropped a dish when the first news came. Liv and I sat in the den, practically glued to the wireless, listening as the details unfolded. Much like we were doing now, and had done for the past several days.

Funny thing. Go back in time twenty years and the huge events change while the little things repeat themselves.

Sometimes Liv twirled a finger through an auburn lock while she listened to the dispatches. Sometimes she pursed her mouth, hard enough to whiten peach pink lips. Sometimes she frowned. She put on a brave face, but I knew she was concerned. Frightened.

It was so goddamn hard not to stare at her.

I had to play along, feign the same apprehension. Had to play the part of the grizzled naval commander, projecting fragile confidence as events teetered on a knife edge. Had to be a regular Englishman, worried that our army was soon to die on the beaches.

Even though that wasn’t going to happen. I knew this because I knew Gretel. Knew her well enough to understand what she was doing.

Every soldier rescued from the French coast was one more soldier put to the defense of Britain if Hitler tried to invade. Each and every evacuated soldier lessened Milkweed’s incentive to trust our national defense to the warlocks. Lessened our dependence upon the Eidolons.

Gretel had worked a miracle. Not her first, and unfortunately not her last, probably, but the first I could appreciate. This was concrete proof that my mad mission wasn’t impossible. Proof that things could change.

It opened up so many possibilities I couldn’t begin to catalog them all. For the first time, I had a glimpse of the world through Gretel’s eyes. History was a mutable thing. It could change, like a river carving a new course, changing the fates of armies and nations. And so, too, could the course of individual lives change.

Agnes’s life could change. She could
have
a life.

I was grateful for the gift. Even if it did come from the Devil herself.

The radio warbled with static. We sipped our weak tea in cordial silence while Agnes napped in her bassinet. Every day, every hour with Liv was less awkward than the one before. She was slowly warming to the commander. She’d warmed to Raybould Marsh very quickly, and he to her. I had to keep reminding myself that I was here as a different man. That other me would throw all of this away without even realizing it. Stupid, stubborn ass.

The six o’clock news confirmed my suspicions about Gretel’s strategy. What little German armor was present to dog the allied soldiers had been withdrawn. In its place, the Luftwaffe unleashed another day of heavy attacks on Dunkirk itself.

Interesting that Gretel had left Göring in charge this time around. What mistake would he make? What would he overlook? What would he underestimate?

Well, the RAF, for one. It was engaging the Luftwaffe, providing cover for the retreating troops. That hadn’t happened last time. It hadn’t been possible.

Official estimates said upwards of fifty thousand men would be rescued by the end of the day, British and French together. Almost twice the total number of men who had escaped Dunkirk during the first two days. The evacuation was accelerating.

Liv finished her tea. She turned off the wireless with a shaking hand. Released a long, pent-up sigh. Her eyes met mine briefly. I knew that look. I suddenly realized why the news from France had her wound so tightly. She didn’t believe her husband had gone to America. She suspected otherwise.

But just then Agnes awoke and distracted both of us.

Agnes mewled. One little arm poked from beneath her elephant blanket. It shook with the jerkiness of baby muscles. I concentrated on my tea. Tried to ignore the icicle piercing my heart.

Liv lifted our daughter. Their daughter. “Shhh, shhh, baby girl.” She held Agnes close, rocked her. “Are you hungry?” She rocked and hummed while Agnes mewled. “No, not hungry. Do you need a change?” More humming, and a sniff. “No, not that. You miss your father, don’t you?” Agnes settled, calmed by her mother’s voice.

“Me, too, baby girl,” Liv whispered. “Me, too.”

It was agony, seeing this family but not being a part of it. The wanting burned hotter than the fire that had taken my face.

I couldn’t stand it. I gathered my courage. “Mmm … May I?”

Liv’s eyebrows went up. She hadn’t pegged the commander as one for children. And she didn’t know me well. Or, that is to say, she didn’t realize she knew me very well indeed. But she looked at my face, and whatever she saw there, it changed her mind.

“You’d be doing me a kindness. I must put supper on, or I’ll be eating at midnight.”

She started to show me how to hold a baby, but I knew what to do. It came back so quickly. Liv laid Agnes in my arms. My baby was lighter than a snowflake and smelled just as clean. Cleaner.

I’d forgotten the little creases of baby fat under her eyes. Forgotten her tiny fingernails. Forgotten the way she scrunched her face in her sleep.

Oh, God. My baby daughter.

I didn’t kiss her. God knew I wanted to. But it would’ve been the end of Liv’s courtesy if she caught me at it. And I think my beard would have been too tough, too scratchy, for Agnes’s newborn-soft skin.

It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before Liv returned. She surprised me. I didn’t look up. Didn’t want her to see the wetness on my cheeks.

“You’re very good with her. Do you have children, Commander?”

“No,” I said too quickly, shaking my head. But something broke inside my already ruined voice. Liv heard it. “Not anymore,” I confessed.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

I knew it was dangerous, spending time with Liv and Agnes. But I told myself it was the best thing I could do.

There was nothing I could do about the Reichsbehörde at the moment. I’d trusted that to more capable hands. As for the warlocks … well, Milkweed didn’t have a cadre of warlocks yet, and it wouldn’t until Will returned. After his travels about the country, tracking down every last warlock in Britain, he’d instantly know me for an imposter. Though I’d missed the opportunity to make him think I was one of them, I still felt confident I could make Will my personal double agent within the Milkweed coven.

But the issue of Gretel remained. She’d killed Agnes the first time around, but what now? What were her intentions toward my daughter? My wife? Something cold scudded behind Gretel’s eyes when she spoke of Liv.

I was glad Gretel had changed the course of events at Dunkirk. But that didn’t make me inclined to trust the bitch. We had too much history for that.