London and Sir Reggie walked over to the library, where she onceagain found the door closed—and locked.
“I can’t believe this,” she growled under her breath.
She knocked sharply on the door.
“Emil, are you there?”
Once again, she thought she heard a muffled whispering soundinside.
And once again, Sir Reggie let out a suspicious-sounding growl.
London stepped back and crossed her arms.
“Emil, I’m going to use my master keycard to let myself in there.”
There was a scuffling sound, then Emil’s voice replied.
“London, just—wait a minute.”
London stood waiting until the door opened. Standing inside andlooking thoroughly embarrassed were Emil and Amy. Their faces were red. Theirhair and clothes mussed. Emil was actually tucking in his shirttail.
“Well,” Amy said stiffly, straightening out her own blouse, “thanksso much for your help with my … uh, research, Herr Waldmüller.”
“Ahem,” Emil said, “I’m always glad to be of assistance, FräuleinBlassingame.”
Looking more ridiculous by the moment, Emil and Amy actuallyshook hands.
Then Amy almost tripped and fell as she brushed by London in afutile attempt at a casual exit.
As soon as Amy was out of sight, London burst into laughter.
“What do you find so amusing?” Emil inquired with as much dignityas he could muster.
“What do you think?” London said with a guffaw. “You and Amy—anitem! I had no idea.”
Emil looked at the floor and shuffled his feet.
“I am glad it gives you—so much glee,” he muttered.
“Is this why you’ve been behaving so oddly toward me lately?”London asked, trying to calm her laughter. “Is this what you were doing when Ifound you listening to that oompah band this morning, and you lied andsaid you had some sort of business to attend to? Were you having some kind ofa—a tryst with Amy?”
“If you must know—yes, I was.”
“Why did you have to act so weird about it? So furtive andsulky? Why didn’t you just come out and tell me what was going on?”
Emil looked genuinely surprised by the question.
“I … I did not want to hurt your feelings,” he said.
London sputtered in an effort not to burst out laughing again.
“Emil, listen to me. I’ll admit, I had sort of a crush on you fora while. But not anymore. As teenagers like to say, I’m so over you.”
“Oh,” Emil said with a look of startled disappointment. “Well.Why did you not … inform me?”
“I guess I did not want to hurt your feelings,” Londonsaid as her laughter started to wane. “Look I’m glad we’ve got this out in theopen. I mean, we’re both professionals, and we’re both adults, and we’ve gotjobs to do.”
“Agreed,” Emil said with clumsy formality.
“We work well together,” she added. “I hope that will continue.”
“Of course.”
“Meanwhile, I’ve got to get back to my rounds. I came herelooking for a map of Amsterdam. Could you lend me one?”
“Yes, I’ll get one for you right away,” Emil said, lookingrelieved. He turned to a nearby bookshelf, found a map, and handed it to her.
London delivered the folded paper map to Letitia, who was mostgrateful.
*
After London finished her rounds for the night, she took herexhausted little dog back to their room, where he fell fast asleep on the bed.With so many things still going around in her head, she didn’t think she couldsleep yet so she headed up to the Rondo deck to enjoy the night air.
The Nachtmusik was sailing along the Main River on its wayto the much larger Rhine, which the boat would follow on its way to Amsterdam.
After all the turmoil of the last couple of days, it was good tostand at the railing, feeling feel cool breeze blow through her hair andwatching lights from small towns pass by on the riverbank. She let her mind gostill and quiet and enjoyed the low, comforting rumble of the Nachtmusik’sengine.
Suddenly she thought she heard a voice whispering in thedarkness.
“Fern Weh.”
She almost turned around to look and see who had spoken when sherealized the truth.
It was me.
I said it myself.
It hadn’t occurred to her that the mysterious name from a postedad back in Regensburg was still wafting through some distant part of her mind.
“Fern Weh,” she said again. “Fernweh.”
Said as a single word, it meant “wanderlust.”
She knew she still had the tiny slip of paper with the phonenumber written on it. She remembered the phone message she’d heard when she’dtried to call that number.
“Die von Ihnen erreichte Nummerist nicht in Betrieb.”
“The number you have reached isnot in service.”
She had to wonder yet again—wasthere even the faintest possibility that Mom had left that ad and that number,and that Fern Weh was the name she had assumed for her travels? Had Londonfound that number too late to reach Mom, after she had moved on to some newlocation and some new phone number?
How can I possibly know? she wondered.
How will I ever know?
She felt a craving deep inside—andan urge to do something, anything, to find out the truth.
She took out her cell phone andwent online and ran a search on the name Fern Weh. While she foundthousands of entries for Fernweh as a single word, she didn’t find anyinstances of someone using it as a name.
Then she found herself thinkingahead to the next leg of their voyage.
We’ll be in the Netherlands, she thought.
Her Dutch was rusty, so she lookedup “wanderlust” in an online Dutch/English dictionary:
Reislust
Without stopping to think, she rana search on the word. Of course, once again she came up with thousands ofentries. Then it occurred to her—maybe she should try it as two words, just asthe word had been divided in German.
She typed in the words:
Reis Lust
She was startled to run across awebsite with those two words as its name. She opened it and found herselflooking at a single page with three lines of text written in large, cursiveletters:
Reis Lust
elke Europese taal
65 Poppenhuisstraat,Amsterdam
London felt a jolt of surprise.She didn’t know what to make of what she was seeing. The last line wasobviously an address.
But the second line?
She was quickly able to translateit in her head.
any European language
She gasped aloud.
Was
