The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

landing.

I put my lips close to Stefan’s ear. “He’s going to come downstairs.” I was near to tears.

I felt Stefan’s breath on my cheek, and then his voice said very softly, “Stay here.”

No. The moment I realized that Stefan meant to move I was flooded with panic. Suppose he managed to make a break for it and left me here, trapped in the house with the monster? I made a grab for him, with an alarming hiss of fabric rubbing fabric, but I was too late. As swiftly and silently as a cat, he had risen and slipped toward the door. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the dark he seemed painfully visible.

A moment later I heard the first creak as someone put a heavy foot on the topmost stair. Smoothly as a dancer, Stefan slipped behind the door, which stood ajar. His head turned and I guessed that he was looking through the vertical crack by the hinges.

Inexorably, the footsteps came on down the stairs, each one as heavy and final as a prison door closing, the wooden treads protesting under the weight. Kneeling on the floor, I curled my hands around the claw feet of the armchair, clenching them into fists as though trying to anchor myself against a storm.

I squeezed my eyes shut in an agony of suspense, but it wasn’t possible to close them against the series of images that seemed to be running in my head on an eternally repeating loop: a girl of my own age, light brown plaits bobbing as she ran down the street with her Ranzen on her back, running into nowhere; Frau Mahlberg screaming hysterically for Julia; Herr Duster hiding out after the war in the ruins on the Quecken hill, coming back to his lair at daybreak with the blood of slaughtered chickens on his lips. I was really afraid that I might wet myself, so intense was my terror; I squeezed my thighs together, the muscles rigid under the fabric of my jeans.

There was a final creak and then a more muffled thump as whoever it was stepped onto the worn runner in the hallway. There was a pause, and then the footsteps moved slowly down the hall. At any moment they must pass the door.

I opened my eyes again, and could clearly see Stefan still poised behind it, absolutely motionless. Whoever had come downstairs was carrying a light of some kind: the crack between the door and the frame showed as a dim yellow streak. I saw Stefan lean back toward the wall slightly, trying to make himself invisible.

The door, I thought suddenly: the door had not been open when we entered the house, and now it was ajar. Too late to do anything about it now; I ducked my head, trying to compress myself into as small a space as possible, in case the unseen person in the hallway looked into the room.

The footsteps passed the door. There was a slight hitch to them, as though whoever it was had hesitated, perhaps seeing that the door was ajar. But the next moment they had passed it, and I heard the front door open, then softly close.

I sagged forward, my body loose with relief, and let my forehead rest upon the shabby seat of the armchair. Thank you, thank you was all I could think. I heard Stefan’s light footsteps approaching and the next moment I felt his hand on my shoulder. His flashlight clicked on too close to my face, making me wince.

“Are you OK?” said his voice close to my ear.

“I think so.”

With an effort I sat back on my heels. I felt peculiar; my lower jaw seemed to have taken on a life of its own and was quivering as though I were about to burst out crying. “Stefan?” Even my voice sounded strange, vibrating as though I were trying to speak while being driven over rough ground.

“It’s OK.”

“I want to go home.”

There was a silence. Finally, Stefan said, “Pia, I think he’s locked the door.”

“What?” My voice rose wildly. Careless now of being heard, I began to succumb to panic.

“Calm down,” said Stefan quietly. He put an arm around my shoulders.

“He can’t have locked the door,” I babbled. “I didn’t hear him lock it.”

“Pia,” said Stefan in the same low voice, “I don’t think he had a key.”

“That’s Quatsch.” I said eagerly. “He can’t have locked it.” I tried to push Stefan away. All I could think of was getting to my feet and getting out of the house.

“He did lock it,” said Stefan.

Shaking my head, I got up and went to the door as quickly as my cramped legs would allow. I looked into the hallway; the door certainly was closed. I ran to it and tried the handle. Stefan was right. It was locked. I tried it again, rattling the handle violently, putting my shoulder against the door and shoving as hard as I could.

Intransigent as a barricade, it refused to budge an inch. In desperation I kicked the bottom panel, then fell back, panting. Silently Stefan came to stand by me.

“I can’t open it,” I gasped.

“I know.”

Before I could stop myself, I had struck him on the shoulder with the flat of my hand. I could not understand how he could be so infuriatingly calm.

“We can’t get out!” My chest was heaving. Fear and frustration were buzzing through my body like toxins. “He’s locked us in. He’s locked us in. Herr Duster-”

“Pia.” Stefan put out a hand to ward off another blow. “It wasn’t Herr Duster.”

“What do you mean, it wasn’t Herr Duster?” I was beside myself. “Who was it then? Verdammter Dracula-?”

“It was Boris,” said Stefan.

Chapter Forty-four

Boris?” The information stopped me in my tracks. “It was Boris? ”

“Doch. I saw him through the crack in the door.”

“But-but-” I was floundering, trying to make sense of it. “How could it be Boris?”

“I don’t know. But that’s why the door was open. He must have unlocked it.”

“How?” I demanded. “He can’t have a key, can he?”

“Of course not. But that wouldn’t stop him.”

Stefan’s voice was matter-of-fact; closer to the epicenter of Boris’s questionable pursuits than I was, he found the idea of his cousin picking the lock of someone’s house quite unremarkable. “It’s a good thing he didn’t hear us come in. He’d have gone nuts.”

“But-if that was Boris, where’s Herr Duster?”

Stefan shrugged. “Gone away. Like Frau Koch said.” He clicked his flashlight back on, then leaned past me almost casually and tried the door handle, but of course the door did not budge.

“Why did he lock it?” I asked, sullen with the unfairness of it.

“So Herr Duster wouldn’t know he’d been in here-I suppose.”

“Can you unlock it?”

Stefan shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He glanced at me swiftly and took in the hunched shoulders, the fists held out in front of me like claws. Gently, he reached out with his free hand and grasped my wrist. “Hey. Don’t panic.”

“We’re locked in.” My voice sounded unnaturally high.

“We’ll get out.”

“How?”

“I don’t know… we just will.”

“But we’re locked in!”

“You said that.” Stefan’s voice was mild. He cocked his head. “We’re in here already, so why don’t we finish looking?”

The sudden realization that if there were any corpses in the house we were now