Not your best deflection, Jordan thought. For once I surprised you. Or Ruth did. She filed that away for later. “The name came from Scottish settlers. A selkie is some kind of Scottish water nymph. Like a mermaid, or—”
“A rusalka?”
Jordan tilted her head. Her stepmother, she noticed, had almost seemed to flinch. I’ve never seen you flinch before, not once. Of all the things to rattle Anneliese, why this? “What’s a rusalka?”
“A lake spirit. A night witch that comes out of the water looking for blood.” Anneliese waved a dismissive hand, but the gesture looked jerky. “A horrid old fairy tale, I can’t imagine why I thought of it. Don’t tell Ruth, or she’ll never sleep again.”
“ . . . I won’t.”
“You’re such a good sister to my Mäuschen, Jordan.” Anneliese touched her cheek, this gesture coming easier. “Let’s go home.”
She smiled, went past Jordan toward the car. Jordan looked after her, no more uncertainty in her gut. She didn’t know what all this meant—a struggle by an alpine lake, violins and water spirits and Iron Crosses. But Jordan had a sudden urge to shove her father into the car and drive like hell, rather than let Anneliese in with them.
Who are you? she thought for the thousandth time. In her mind’s eye she saw Ruth recoiling at her mother’s blood-smeared hand, and an answer whispered, full of conviction.
Someone dangerous.
GARRETT LOOKED UNEASY. “I don’t know about this . . .”
“Just keep her distracted.” Jordan glanced past his shoulder toward the kitchen where Anneliese was humming like a tuneful bee. She’d been cooking up a storm in preparation for Thanksgiving in a week’s time—my first Thanksgiving as a proper American! as she said gaily. The house smelled of sage and sugar, and early snow fell past the curtains outside to complete the vision of holiday perfection. Jordan felt no warm holiday spirit; her stomach was churning.
Garrett raked a hand through his brown hair. “If you really need to ransack your stepmother’s room—”
“I do.” Because Jordan had spent the last weeks since Selkie Lake going out of her mind with conflicting theories, and enough was enough. She’d looked through Anneliese’s things before, when she was on honeymoon, but had found nothing. This time she was going to find what she needed, no matter what it took. By keeping the Iron Cross, Anneliese had shown she wasn’t above keeping mementos of her past. There had to be something to find.
Once Jordan would have had no trouble walking into her father’s room and going through it with a dusting rag in hand as excuse, but Anneliese had put a stop to that. Jordan wasn’t exactly forbidden in the room, it was just that Anneliese in her deft way had instituted lines that were not to be crossed. “I’d never dream of going into your room uninvited,” she assured Jordan. “Every woman needs her privacy. Just as new-married couples need theirs!” That little hint of marital intimacy had made Jordan uncomfortable enough to drop the subject. Very convenient.
Something was in that bedroom. There was certainly nothing in the rest of the house; Jordan had spent the last few weeks covertly combing through all the other rooms under pretext of holiday cleaning: running her hands under mirrors, inside picture frames, behind bureau drawers. Nothing.
Garrett was still arguing. “At least wait till she’s left the house—”
“I tried a few days ago, when she went shopping. I had to dive out again when she doubled back to get her gloves.” Also convenient, Jordan thought. Maybe Anneliese was keeping an eye on her, every bit as much as she’d been keeping an eye on Anneliese. “Keep her distracted. I can’t do this if I think she’s going to sneak up behind me on those little cat feet.”
“You’re actually scared, aren’t you?” Garrett sounded dubious. That stung, seeing he didn’t trust her instinct, but if she was being honest, Jordan couldn’t blame him. When she laid all her suspicions out, they sounded preposterous. Jordan and her wild stories.
“What if you do find something?” Garrett asked, but Jordan pretended she hadn’t heard, just headed into the bedroom.
Put it all back exactly as you found it, she warned herself, lifting up the folded nylon slips in the first drawer with fingers like tweezers. Nothing in Anneliese’s drawers, nothing in her lined-up shoes . . . Garrett’s voice floated from the kitchen; he was telling Anneliese something about pilot training, how college classes were boring compared to