better than the dreadful ringing he alone could hear.
More bees rushed out into the air. At the top of the hive, his fingers hit against what felt like a piece of metal. He pulled at whatever it was, then used the knife he’d taken from the kitchen to work it free, and it soon dislodged. When he took it out he saw that it was a flat tin covered in honey. He was stung several times, and the feeling burned through him so that he didn’t notice the other stings that followed. His arms and neck were dotted with red welts, but it didn’t matter. He loped back to the barn, the bees following him until a gust of wind came up. They scattered and he laughed because they forgot about him and went back to their work in the hive and he felt lucky, which seemed such a far-fetched thing to feel, and yet it was there, making him grin with the joy of his discovery.
He sat down in the cool barn, beside the goat, who nudged him, curious.
“This is not for you,” he told Bluebell.
He scraped the honey from the tin and devoured it. It was so delicious he didn’t think of the stingers in his hands and neck. Then, when he had eaten his fill, he began to feel the sharp pain of the stings. He pulled the stingers out as best he could, then dunked his head in a bucket of water, shivering with the cold. He had figured out the puzzle and found what a thousand soldiers would have never come across, not if they searched for a thousand days. He went inside, and in a kitchen drawer he left the identity papers and a note telling Marianne where her father’s remains had been laid to rest. He scrawled a brief message for his brother as well.
I’m not sure it’s safe to stay. I’ll go to the church. I’m sorry.
He thought it best to leave Monsieur Félix’s farm quickly, in case the soldiers should return. He left Bluebell tied up in the barn with plenty of feed and water. He cleaned off the knife on the grass, and kept it with him. Just in case. He hated to think of Marianne finding the house in such terrible disorder. She would read the note he had left, then go out and stand beside the turned earth where her father lay. He hoped Victor would be there with her. As for himself, Julien was grateful for the air and the sun and for the strength of his own legs. He had kept his one and only promise to Lea. He was alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BELIEVER
VIENNE, AUTUMN 1943
JULIEN FOUND HIS WAY BACK to Vienne through the maze of forests and towns by following the L’s he had carved into trees. He lodged at the church for three days and nights, the limit of anyone’s stay. A stranger’s presence became too noticeable after that, and one never knew when the authorities might come by.
On the fourth day, he had no choice but to leave. He passed the Roman ruins that had once been the temple of Augustus and Livia, and frankly didn’t know where to go next. By now, there were starving people everywhere. The Germans took whatever they wanted from shopkeepers and farmers until there was nothing left. It wasn’t safe to be in the street, so Julien retreated into someone’s garden, his presence camouflaged by the surrounding bushes after he had cut down some branches with his knife. He had no way to contact his brother, and the best he could do was to occasionally check in with Father Varnier, so here he was, sleeping beneath the rhododendrons with their flat, shiny evergreen leaves.
In the morning it seemed he hadn’t been as well hidden as he’d hoped. The elderly couple that lived in the house peered out at him from their window. Starving, he went to knock on the back door to ask if they might need household work done in exchange for a meal.
“You’re a carpenter?” the old gentleman who answered the door asked.
“More or less,” Julien said.
It was a lie but he supposed he could learn. He was hired for the price of a meal, which he wolfed down before the work had even begun. There was a hole in the roof, and although the old gentleman could still climb up the ladder that was propped against the house, he needed a helper to carry the heavy