The Master Craftsman, page 30
“We must run, Mama,” he hissed.
Together they pushed forward, Augusta clutching her bag with one hand and her son with the other.
“STOP!”
The warning rang out behind them, but Eugen did not stop or hesitate. He pulled his mother’s arm and swung her in front of him, pushed her forward. Augusta willed her frozen feet to cooperate, putting one in front of the other. The clearing grew brighter.
They were steps away when another shot rang out. The tree beside Eugen’s head splintered.
“Run, Mama, run!” he shouted.
Stumbling, Augusta pushed through to the clearing and fell onto the field. She looked back to see Eugen stagger out of the trees behind her. He grabbed her elbow and pulled her to her feet. Looking ahead, she saw two men running toward them. They had guns raised and were shouting something.
“We are Finnish! We are Finnish!” Eugen shouted, holding up his hands in front of him.
Augusta burst into tears and looked at the boys wearing the flag of her homeland on their chest. She grabbed Eugen’s hand.
“I’m home,” she cried.
Present Day
Ava straightened up and shivered as she looked around the dark attic. She could hear Xander and Lazovsky climbing the ladder behind her. Flicking open the flashlight on Xander’s phone, she quickly shone it around the room, looking for nails in the wall. Finally, in the far back corner, she caught the glint of metal, and she rushed toward it just as Xander climbed into the attic behind her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nick said there’s a journal hidden behind the wall up here,” Ava said. She stepped over a box and weaved her way around two old trunks that were stacked on top of one another. She ran her hand over the top of one of them, wondering what was inside. More hidden treasures? Secrets of a family past about which she knew nothing?
She stepped up to the wall and ran her fingers lightly over the five nails hammered to look like an X.
“X marks the spot,” she murmured. She tugged on the top nail, but nothing happened. She pulled again, this time noticing that the wood moved a little. Setting the phone down, she grabbed the head of the nail with both hands and began to wiggle it back and forth. Slowly, the board shimmied, loosening the other nails, until they all popped out, with Ava nearly falling backward. Xander caught her shoulders and set her back up.
“Easy now,” he said.
Ava shrugged his hands off her and reached inside, grimacing as she felt grit and dirt.
“Worried about those Finnish spiders?” Xander asked.
Ava rolled her eyes. “Stop acting like we’re friends.”
Xander clucked his tongue. “But we are friends, Ava. We’ve shared our deepest, darkest secrets and bonded over our daddy issues. You and I are just alike.”
Ava was about to shoot back a retort when her hand brushed the corner of a book. She reached farther into the crevice of the wall and pulled out Lida’s journal. Lazovsky stepped up behind her and peered over her shoulder.
“What is this?” he asked.
Ava brushed off the top of the book and held it gingerly in her hands. She ran her fingers along the edge of the pages, feeling the indent where a piece of notebook paper was folded inside. She casually slipped her hand into the book, then turned to peer back into the hole in the wall, sheltering the journal from Xander and Lazovsky.
Xander grabbed her elbow and spun her around, pulling the book from her grasp. The loose piece of paper fluttered to the ground. He bent down to pick it up.
“Is this what you’re trying to get without us seeing?” he asked.
Ava stood silent.
Xander unfolded the paper and turned it over. He glanced up at Ava. “What is this?”
“It’s a translation of Lida’s journal in which she writes down a conversation she overheard between Alma and Isla. Alma told Isla about a treasure given to her by Fabergé. She and Isla hid it somewhere on this property.”
Xander quickly read the page, then turned it over. “This is a map,” he said, his mouth spreading into a grin. “You were going to try and get this out so we wouldn’t find it, weren’t you?”
Ava shrugged. “That’s what Nick told me to do, but I’m on your side now, remember?”
Xander leaned in. “There are no sides, Ava,” he said. “It’s every man for himself.”
“And what does this mean, ‘every man for himself’?” Lazovsky asked. He grabbed the paper from Xander’s hand and slowly backed up, training the gun at them. “It means this?” he asked. He cocked the gun and pointed it at Ava.
“Oh, sod off, mate,” Xander said. “You can’t shoot her now. No way Nick has made it that easy on us. He said she had to be the one to call him for the next step, remember?”
Ava stood frozen as she stared, for the second time that night, down the barrel of Lazovsky’s gun.
“Is true,” Lazovsky replied, lowering the gun just slightly. He then swiftly lifted it, pointed at Xander, and pulled the trigger. Ava yelped, clapping her hand over her mouth as Xander hit the floor, clutching his stomach and gasping.
“Maybe I need her little bit longer,” Lazovsky said, lowering the gun to his side, “but I do not need you.”
Xander lay panting on the floor as Ava stepped back, her hands shaking.
“Come,” Lazovsky barked at Ava.
She looked down at Xander, his face contorted with pain as his eyes blinked slowly. She reached down and pulled the journal from his hand.
“Try to hold on,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “He won’t let you live.”
Ava stood and weaved her way back to Lazovsky, who grabbed her arm and pushed her toward the opening that led down the ladder. She quickly descended, formulating a plan. When she reached the bottom of the ladder, she moved back, allowing Lazovsky to descend. He stepped into the rugged hallway and turned to face her.
They walked back into the great room, where Maxim now dozed in the corner, his book splayed open in his lap. Ava caught the title and blinked a couple of times. The Russian man escorting them around Finland was reading a tattered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. If she hadn’t been so terrified, Ava would have laughed.
Lazovsky laid the map on the table and gestured Ava over. “This is a joke?” he asked.
Ava stared at him. She tried not to think of Xander lying in the attic above their heads with a gunshot wound to the abdomen.
“Tell me what Nick said,” Lazovsky growled.
“Let me read the journal entry first,” she answered, crossing her arms.
Lazovsky narrowed his eyes, then picked up the paper and handed it to her.
Ava took the paper and read her great-grandmother’s journal entry aloud:
“I heard them talking today. I knew Alma had a secret. I knew there was something she hadn’t told us. She came back from Russia changed. She was so quiet and jumpy. She teaches art at the local school, and everyone there loves her. They think she’s wonderful, and I suppose she is, yet she still thinks of me as a kid.
“But I know the secret now. Alma brought something back with her from Russia. She didn’t go into detail. She told Isla it was too difficult to explain, but that she wanted to show Isla because the secret was eating at her. She asked Isla to help her conceal it. She hasn’t even told her husband about this secret, and she told Isla! They were talking in low voices, but I heard where they agreed to meet. Twenty paces beyond the black rock in the center field where they played as children. She and Isla don’t know that I heard them, and they don’t know that I followed them later. The secret hidden in the dirt. Now I have my own secret. Layered tight beneath the place most loved. That’s how you conceal a secret. But nothing stays hidden for long unless you cover it and don’t tell a soul. And I won’t. It’ll stay hidden forever now, because I’ll never breathe a word of it to another living being. They think me too young for secrets, but they don’t know that I’m better at keeping them than anyone.”
Overhead, Ava heard a thump. She looked up, then shifted her gaze back to Lazovsky.
“Your boyfriend is not yet dead,” he said with indifference in his eyes.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
She turned back to the paper and looked at the drawing on the back side. It was clear Nick had drawn the lake, marking where the house was. Little else was drawn except in the top right corner of the map where he’d drawn a cluster of trees, and in the opening, there was a round figure drawn with the words “black rock” written beneath.
She looked up at Lazovsky and shrugged her shoulders. “It seems easy enough,” she said. She knew her voice sounded small, and she loathed the way he looked down on her.
“Is stupid map,” he growled.
“Well, we could call Nick and ask him.”
Lazovsky shook his head. “No. We don’t need Nick. We go on our own. If we don’t find the egg before sunrise, you die.”
Ava shivered as Lazovsky tossed her a sinister smile. He jutted his chin toward the back door.
“We go now,” he said. “Only a few hours until sunrise.”
Ava turned and followed him out of the house. They walked past Maxim, who had picked his book back up and was reading once again. Her final vision was of him turning the page, slowly taking in the Great American Novel.
Hello? Nick?” Zak shouted into the phone as he squinted out at the road, which had narrowed into two lanes, barely wide enough to fit two cars. Thankfully, he and Carol appeared to be the only ones on the road.
“Where are you guys?” Nick asked.
Zak glanced at the map on his dashboard. “GPS says we are thirty minutes from the destination.”
“I need you to pick up the pace, Zak,” Nick said.
“Nick, what’s happening now?” Carol asked.
“Ava is with Xander and Evgeny Lazovsky, a crook of a man without a soul. It’s not good.”
Carol dropped her head in her hands.
“Zak, when you get to the destination, you’ll have to abandon the car and follow the path through the trees. It will take you to the place I told Ava to go when she gets away.”
“If she gets away,” Carol barked, the words spilling from her lips in a half sob. She clapped her hand over her mouth and shook her head.
Nick began coughing again.
“Zak? Carol?” Sylvie’s voice came over the speaker as Zak pressed harder on the pedal and sped up.
“Sylvie, we’re here,” Zak said.
“Listen, Nicky isn’t doing well,” she began.
“Sylvie, so help me, right now I don’t care how Nick is doing. My daughter is being held hostage in the middle of Finland because of him.”
“I know, Carol. I know.”
Sylvie’s voice immediately disarmed Carol. She collapsed against the seat. “I’m terrified, Sylvie,” she said.
“I know, Carol. And you have every right to be. Hold on a moment.”
Zak and Carol could hear Sylvie murmuring in the background. Zak glanced back at the GPS and slowed down to turn onto another road, this one narrower than the last.
“Carol, I’ve got Tom here with me,” Sylvie said.
“Tom?”
“My friend. The doctor. He’s working to get Nicky calmed down. Tom just gave him a shot that we’re hoping will give him the energy he needs to guide you all through the next couple of hours. In the meantime, I’m going to be Nicky’s mouthpiece. He needs to rest and trying to talk is causing his lungs to spasm.”
“Okay,” Carol said. She stared out into the dark horizon, the light of the moon dancing across the treetops with a gentle glow. More stars than she’d ever seen before dotted a perfectly clear sky. It was so peaceful, yet completely contrasted the icy terror that fought to overwhelm her.
“Nicky says that you have to follow the path to the little house on the south end of the lake. Hold on, he’s writing something down.” Sylvie paused. “Well, he wants to know if Zak has a better internal compass than you do?”
Carol pursed her lips.
“What does that mean?” Zak asked.
“Nick wants to know if you have a better sense of direction than me, and this is not the time for making jokes,” Carol said, raising her voice and leaning toward the dashboard.
“He says he’s not trying to be funny,” Sylvie said. “He just wants to make sure you go toward the south because he told Ava to go to the same place.”
“What do we do once we get there, Sylvie?” Carol asked.
“Nicky says that Ava will hopefully be there hiding in the . . . what, Nicky? The . . . hidden space beneath the floorboards.”
Carol pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, we’ll find the path,” she said.
“Carol, you can’t give up yet. Ava’s smart and she’s quick. Don’t project an ending for this story, okay?”
Carol was quiet for a moment before responding. “Okay,” she said, calmer now. “Thanks.”
“The GPS says we’ll be there in ten minutes,” Zak said. “I feel like we’ve driven to the middle of nowhere, though. How will we know when we’re there?”
Carol and Zak could hear Sylvie’s muffled voice as she spoke quietly to Nick.
“He says you’ll come to a long driveway. Pass that and drive a half mile down the lane. On the left you’ll find a wooden fence. That’s the head of the path. Follow that . . .” She paused again. “I can’t read that writing, Nicky.” A beat later, she spoke back into the phone. “Follow that to the hideaway house to meet Ava.”
“Okay, Sylvie,” Zak said. “I’ll have my phone with me.”
“On silent, I hope?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Call when you can,” Sylvie said.
In the background, they could hear Nick coughing again. Seconds later, the line went dead. Carol and Zak drove on in silence, watching the ETA tick down. Zak slowed as they approached what looked to be the driveway.
“Drive a half mile more,” he murmured. Two minutes later, he pulled to a stop and shined his flashlight across the lane at a rickety wooden fence tucked into the high grasses.
“So, we have to follow a path beyond that gate?” he asked.
Carol pushed open the door and stepped out. She didn’t notice the cold anymore, nor did she miss a beat as she walked toward the fence, despite the fact that she had been a lifelong, self-declared, indoors girl.
Zak hopped out behind her, rushing to catch up.
“It’s terribly dark,” he said. “Do you think it’s safe to shine our lights?”
“I think it’s less safe to try and walk a strange path through the woods without a light,” Carol said.
Zak flipped the flashlight of his phone back on and shone it down at their feet. A narrow path, barely visible through the overgrowth, stretched out before them.
“Well,” he said. “I suppose the only thing left to do is . . .”
“Follow it,” Carol said. She pushed open the gate and marched forward with all the determination of a mother bent on saving her only child.
Lausanne, Switzerland, 1920
Augusta pulled the door closed behind her and made her way down the stairs, pushing out onto the street and inhaling deeply. The morning air caught in her lungs while the cool mist that hung in the sky nipped at her cheeks. It would be a lovely autumn day.
She turned and stepped into the narrow alleyway that would lead her out to the main thoroughfare near the river. She could just barely make out the outline of the distant mountains in the space where the buildings parted. Within moments, she had cleared the buildings and crossed the quiet street, the sun not yet having made its way above the mountaintops but casting its morning light out enough for Augusta to be able to take in the sights of the Swiss town.
Lausanne reminded her of St. Petersburg in many ways. The river cutting a path around the outside of the city gave the appearance of home, though she supposed Lausanne lacked the magic of Petersburg. But still, there was a comfort in being so close to the water. If she closed her eyes and listened to the waves gently lapping against the walls beneath her feet, she could, for the briefest moment, imagine she was back home. She could pretend it was all as it once had been—that she was home in the place where she’d raised her children and built an empire alongside her husband.
Augusta opened her eyes and pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders. The present came roaring back the instant she saw the skyline, beautiful and pure, but not St. Petersburg. The present was much less sweet than the memories of the past, for behind her in the small flat that she currently shared with her two eldest boys, her husband was dying.
“Mama?”
Augusta jumped at the sound of his voice. She turned to see Eugen stepping up behind her. He wore his suit, the same one he wore nearly every day. It was faded now, no longer crisp and dark like it had been in the days when he ran the House of Fabergé next to his father. Still, he looked dignified standing there against the backdrop of the waking city. Augusta reached out her hand and clasped his, marveling at the way it felt to hold the hand of this man who had once been her little boy. He had aged over the last two years, hair gray and face drawn. He looked more her peer than her son. How strange it was to feel so young inside but to have so many years behind her that her child could be considered an old man.
“How is he doing?” she asked.
Eugen looked away from her, his eyes drifting out to the water. When he was a little boy, he used to run ahead to the very edge of the riverbank and teeter on the side, always so brave and bold. He was never afraid of falling in, and somehow Augusta always knew, despite the fact that he charged forward toward the rushing waters, that he would keep his balance. He’d been steady from very early on.
“He’s weak and in and out of consciousness,” Eugen said.
Augusta drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, squeezing his hand. He knew she hated when they tried to sugarcoat things. She looked out over the lake toward the mountains, which were growing more defined by the minute as the morning mist burned away and the crisp, September air showed signs of warming.
