Chapter 2 - The Room Behind Number Seventeen
Silas moved before anyone else.
“Marta, behind me.”
Another shot never came.
That somehow made the first one worse.
Konrad began shouting orders, but the villagers had stopped listening to him. Men scattered behind barrels and stone walls. Women dragged children indoors. Brother Matthias clutched the wooden box beneath his robe.
Silas took Marta by the arm.
“Can you walk?”
“My legs hurt.”
“I know.”
“I can walk.”
“Then stay close.”
They crossed the square.
Konrad shouted after them.
“Voss! If you enter that house, you will answer to me.”
Silas did not turn.
“I’ve waited twenty years to do that.”
Marta looked back.
Konrad stood alone near the punishment chair.
For the first time, the crowd was no longer around him.
The sight gave her a small, fierce satisfaction.
Then another thought replaced it.
Someone had just fired from her mother’s house.
And someone had screamed her name.
They reached the narrow lane leading uphill.
Snow covered old wagon tracks.
Silas moved quickly but not carelessly. He examined windows, rooftops, alleys.
Marta noticed.
“You really were a soldier.”
His expression barely changed.
“Who told you?”
“Everyone.”
“What else does everyone say?”
“That you killed twelve men with a spoon.”
He glanced at her.
Despite everything, Marta almost smiled.
“Only eight.”
She stared.
He gave the smallest hint of a grin.
Then it vanished.
“You shouldn’t believe Falkenwald stories.”
“That lesson is becoming obvious.”
They reached the Novak house.
It stood behind an old pear tree, its branches bare.
Marta had avoided the place for years.
As a child, she sometimes stood outside imagining she could remember her mother at the upstairs window.
She never knew whether the memory was real.
The front door was open.
Silas held out his arm.
“Wait.”
He entered first.
Marta followed.
The house smelled of dust, old wood, and cold ashes.
A footprint marked the floor.
Fresh.
Silas crouched.
“Small boot.”
“A woman?”
“Possibly.”
He followed the track.
It led toward the staircase.
Marta noticed a smear of blood on the railing.
“Silas.”
He saw it.
Not much.
A few drops.
They climbed.
Every board creaked.
At the top stood Marta’s childhood room.
The door had been forced open.
Inside, a lantern burned on the floor.
No one was there.
Marta stepped in.
Her breath caught.
Someone had cleaned part of the room.
Not all of it.
Only one wall.
The faded wallpaper had been stripped away, exposing wooden boards.
One board carried a carved number.
Marta looked at the key.
Silas nodded.
They approached.
Near the bottom of the wall was a small iron lock nearly hidden beneath the floor trim.
Marta inserted the key.
It fit.
A click.
Silas pulled.
Part of the wall swung outward.
Behind it was a narrow chamber.
Marta stared.
“My mother had a hidden room?”
“Looks that way.”
Inside were shelves.
Bundles of papers.
Two sealed jars.
A faded red shawl.
And a wooden cradle.
Marta stopped breathing.
She walked toward it.
The cradle was tiny.
One side had the same falcon symbol carved into it.
Silas looked shaken.
“Marta.”
She reached inside.
A baby ribbon lay beneath a layer of dust.
Once white.
Now yellowed with age.
On it was written:
MARTA ELISABETH—
The surname had been cut away.
Marta touched the torn edge.
“Someone removed my last name.”
Silas said nothing.
On another shelf sat a framed photograph.
Marta picked it up.
Her mother stood in front of this same house.
Anna looked young.
Happy.
Beside her stood a man.
His face had been scratched out with a knife.
Marta’s hands tightened around the frame.
“Is that my father?”
Silas looked at the man’s clothes.
Military coat.
Officer’s insignia.
Then his attention shifted to the lower corner.
A date.
January 3, 1872.
Marta was born that spring.
Silas whispered something under his breath.
“What?”
He took the photograph.
“I know that coat.”
“Whose?”
Silas stared at the scratched-out face.
Before he could answer, movement sounded downstairs.
A floorboard.
Silas killed the lantern.
Darkness filled the room.
Marta heard footsteps.
Slow.
Careful.
Coming up.
Silas drew his knife.
“Stay behind me.”
The hidden room was too narrow.
Nowhere to run.
The footsteps reached the landing.
Stopped.
Marta held her breath.
A woman’s voice came through the darkness.
“Silas?”
His knife lowered slightly.
He looked stunned.
The woman entered the doorway.
She was perhaps fifty, wrapped in a gray cloak. Blood stained one sleeve.
Marta could barely see her face.
Silas whispered, “Elise?”
The woman closed her eyes.
“You remember me.”
“You vanished.”
“I had to.”
Marta stepped forward.
“Were you the one who screamed my name?”
Elise looked at her.
Tears filled her eyes.
“Oh, Anna.”
Marta froze.
“My name is Marta.”
“I know.”
The woman touched her own mouth.
“You look exactly like her.”
Silas moved closer.
“Who shot at you?”
“Jakob.”
Marta’s eyes widened.
“The guard?”
“He followed me here.”
“Why?”
“Because Konrad knows the room was opened.”
Silas frowned.
“How?”
Elise looked toward the cradle.
“Because he’s been watching this house for twenty years.”
Marta felt suddenly cold.
“Tell me what happened to my mother.”
Elise glanced at Silas.
Then at Marta.
“I helped deliver you.”
Marta stopped.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me who my father was.”
The woman hesitated.
Silas noticed.
“Elise.”
She shook her head.
“It isn’t that simple.”
“It is to me.”
Elise stepped deeper into the hidden room.
“Anna arrived in Falkenwald pregnant and frightened. She told everyone the father was dead.”
“Was he?”
“No.”
Marta stared.
“Then where was he?”
“Trying to reach her.”
Silas went still.
Elise watched him.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
She looked at Marta.
“Your father came to Falkenwald the night you were born.”
Marta’s pulse raced.
“What happened?”
“Konrad’s father and three other men stopped him before he reached this house.”
“Why?”
“Because of who he was.”
Silas lifted the photograph again.
“The coat.”
Elise nodded.
“He belonged to the royal border regiment.”
Marta shook her head.
“That means nothing.”
“It meant everything then.”
Elise pulled a ledger from the shelf.
She opened it.
Inside were lists of names.
Land deeds.
Payments.
Signatures.
“The Weiss family did not legally own most of Falkenwald.”
Silas stared at the pages.
Elise continued.
“The land belonged to another family.”
Marta looked at the falcon symbol.
“The founding families?”
“Yes.”
“One of them was my father’s?”
Elise looked at her.
“The strongest claim belonged to your mother.”
Marta frowned.
“My mother?”
“Anna wasn’t Anna Novak when she came here.”
Silas stared.
Elise turned the ledger around.
A name had been written near the top:
ANNA ELISABETH VON FALKEN.
Marta’s fingers went numb.
Silas whispered, “Falken.”
Elise nodded.
“The original family.”
Marta looked around the hidden room.
“You’re saying my mother owned the village?”
“Not exactly. But she had the legal hereditary claim to the land trust governing the valley.”
“And Konrad?”
“His father controlled it as administrator.”
Silas understood first.
“He couldn’t keep control if Anna returned.”
Elise nodded.
“Especially if she had an heir.”
Marta looked down at her scar.
“Me.”
“Yes.”
The room seemed smaller.
Marta struggled to process it.
For twenty-four years, villagers had called her worthless.
Fatherless.
A burden.
A thief.
And all the while—
“Why did they burn this into me?”
Elise looked ashamed.
“I did.”
Marta stepped back.
“You?”
“Anna made me.”
“Why?”
“Because records can burn.”
Elise looked toward the ledger.
“People can lie. Names can be erased. But Anna said if everything else disappeared, someone from the old houses might still recognize the founding seal.”
Marta thought of Silas.
“My mother knew you would?”
Elise looked at him.
“Yes.”
Silas stared at the floor.
“Why me?”
Elise’s expression softened.
“Because she trusted you.”
A long silence.
Marta looked at him.
“How well did you know my mother?”
Silas’s face closed.
“Not now.”
“No. Now.”
Elise stepped between them.
“Marta—”
“No.”
Twenty-four years of silence had been forced on her.
She was finished waiting.
“Everyone seems to know who I am except me.”
Silas looked directly at her.
“Anna and I grew up together.”
Marta blinked.
“In Falkenwald?”
“Yes.”
“You grew up here?”
“Until I was sixteen.”
“No one ever said that.”
“They prefer the mountain-hermit story.”
“Why did you leave?”
Silas looked at the photograph.
“Because Konrad’s father had mine hanged.”
Marta recoiled.
“For what?”
“Treason.”
Elise whispered, “He was innocent.”
Silas continued.
“My father discovered the Weiss family was stealing land income from the valley trust. He planned to expose them.”
“So they killed him.”
“Yes.”
“And you left.”
“I was sixteen.”
“Then you came back?”
“Five years later. Secretly.”
“For my mother?”
Silas met her eyes.
“Yes.”
Marta sensed something he still wasn’t saying.
Before she could ask, Elise suddenly looked toward the doorway.
“Quiet.”
Footsteps below.
This time several.
Silas moved toward the hidden wall.
“Jakob?”
Elise extinguished a second candle.
Voices rose downstairs.
Jakob.
And others.
“Search everything!”
Silas whispered, “How many?”
Elise held up four fingers.
Marta looked around.
“No other exit?”
“There is.”
Elise pulled the cradle aside.
A trapdoor sat beneath it.
She opened it.
A narrow ladder descended into darkness.
“Anna had this built.”
Silas helped Marta through.
Elise followed.
They descended into a stone tunnel.
Behind them, boots entered the bedroom.
A man shouted.
“The wall!”
Silas closed the trapdoor.
“Move.”
They ran hunched through the tunnel.
Marta’s injured knee burned with every step.
Silas noticed.
He slowed.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re limping.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Elise almost laughed despite herself.
“She’s Anna’s daughter.”
The tunnel ended beneath the abandoned mill.
They climbed through a hatch.
Sunlight slipped through broken boards.
Silas checked the windows.
“No one.”
Elise leaned against a post.
Blood had soaked through her sleeve.
Marta approached.
“You’re hurt.”
“Only grazed.”
Silas examined the wound.
“You need stitches.”
“Later.”
Elise pulled a folded paper from inside her dress.
“I came back for this.”
She gave it to Marta.
It was a legal document.
Marta couldn’t understand half the language.
Silas could.
His expression darkened.
“What is it?”
He looked at Elise.
“Where did you get this?”
“From Konrad’s office.”
Marta stared.
“You broke into his office?”
“I used to clean it.”
Silas read further.
“This transfers the Falkenwald valley trust permanently to the Weiss family.”
Marta looked at the bottom.
A signature.
Her own name.
Marta Novak.
She laughed once in disbelief.
“I’ve never seen this.”
“I know,” Elise said.
“The date is tomorrow.”
Marta looked up.
“What?”
Silas understood.
“He plans to exile you today, then file this deed tomorrow.”
Elise nodded.
“With Marta gone, he can claim she voluntarily surrendered any inheritance rights before leaving.”
Marta looked at her forged signature.
For years she thought Konrad hated her because she was poor.
Now she understood.
He was afraid of her name.
“What happens if I refuse?”
Elise looked toward the village.
“He needs you discredited or dead.”
Silas folded the document.
“He’ll get neither.”
A sound came from outside.
Horse hooves.
One rider.
They hid beside the wall.
The rider stopped.
Silas peered through a crack.
His expression changed.
“Brother Matthias.”
They opened the door.
The priest entered, panting.
“I found you.”
“How?”
“The tunnel.”
“You knew?”
“Anna showed me.”
Marta stared.
“Is there anyone in this village who didn’t know my mother’s secrets?”
Brother Matthias lowered his eyes.
“I deserve that.”
He handed Silas another envelope.
“This came to the church twenty years ago.”
Silas read the front.
His own name was written there.
SILAS VOSS.
He looked at Matthias.
“You kept a letter addressed to me for twenty years?”
“I was afraid.”
“Open it,” Marta said.
Silas did.
Inside was a page covered in Anna’s handwriting.
He read silently.
His face drained of color.
Marta stepped closer.
“What does it say?”
Silas folded the letter.
“Nothing.”
She grabbed his wrist.
“No more.”
He looked at her.
“No more secrets.”
Slowly, Silas handed her the page.
Marta read.
Silas,
If you returned too late, then know that I never blamed you.
Konrad discovered who Marta’s father was.
That is why everything changed.
If he learns the whole truth, he will kill her.
There is only one person who can prove her father survived the attack.
Find Captain Elias Hartmann.
He was there.
Marta looked up.
“Who is Elias Hartmann?”
Silas answered quietly.
“The officer who commanded the royal border regiment.”
“Is he alive?”
“He disappeared twenty-four years ago.”
Brother Matthias swallowed.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him.
The priest reached into his robe.
“He didn’t disappear.”
He unfolded a recent letter.
The date was three weeks earlier.
Signed:
ELIAS HARTMANN.
Marta stared.
“Where is he?”
Brother Matthias looked toward the northern mountains.
“He wrote that he was finally coming home.”
A heavy knock struck the mill door.
Silas reached for his rifle.
A man’s voice came from outside.
“Marta Novak?”
Nobody answered.
The voice continued.
“My name is Elias Hartmann.”
May you like
Marta stopped breathing.
Then the door slowly began to open.
