Shadow on the Mountain by Margi Preus

Author:Margi Preus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amulet Books
Published: 2012-09-20T16:00:00+00:00

window on the second floor slid open, and a familiar face appeared. “Espen!”

It was Solveig. At least she hadn’t called him “chowderhead,” he noted. That was encouraging.

Moments later, he heard the side door being unlatched. “Hello!” she said, brightly, as if he was just coming to pay a casual visit. “What brings you by?”

Espen opened his mouth but found himself speechless. “I … uh … that is …,” he stammered.

Solveig grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside. “Sit down,” she said.

What could he say? He couldn’t tell her everything. “I am … uh … I have to avoid the Labor Service,” he blurted out.

Solveig’s parents came down the stairs, her mother wrapping her robe around her. “Hello,” she said. “Is there trouble?”

“You remember Espen,” Solveig said. “Ingrid’s brother? He has to stay out of sight for a while. The Labor Service is looking for him.”

“Ah,” her father said. “Well, you’d better stay here, then. You can sleep on the couch, close to the basement door. If you hear anybody knocking, take all your things and run down into the cellar right away. Be sure to take your shoes, too.”

He led Espen down the stairs. “We can handle whoever might come,” he said. “There’s the storm door that takes you out the back, if necessary.”

Espen tried the latch and saw it would open easily.

When they returned upstairs, Solveig’s mother said, “You must be hungry. Let me see if I can find something for you to eat.”

Espen remembered the cake box, and even though he’d meant it as a gift for Ingrid, he held it out to Mrs. Dahl. “Here’s a little something,” he said.

“My goodness!” she said. “That’s very kind of you! What is it?”

He shrugged. “A surprise?” he said.

“You don’t know what’s in it?” Solveig laughed.

“Not really,” Espen said. “Haven’t you heard the joke about the lady who came out of a store carrying a paper bag, and all the others standing in line asked her what it was? ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but it was only one krone!’”

The Dahls laughed at the joke, and Solveig said, “I’ll fix some tea, Mama. You sit down.”

Mr. and Mrs. Dahl sat at the kitchen table with Espen, and they talked while Solveig put a kettle on the stove and took out cups and saucers. Espen heard the pleasant rattle of teaspoons being placed on saucers, and then Solveig’s sharp intake of breath when she opened the bakery box.

“Espen?” she said.

He got up, went to the counter, and looked into the box. There was no cake. He saw at a glance that the box was full of letters and documents, and that at least some of them were in code. And they seemed to be spattered with … yes, blood.

He shut the box quickly. It had been stupid of him not to look! He stole a glance at Solveig, and she signaled to him with her eyes: Don’t say anything to my parents.

Espen replied with a small nod of agreement and set the box under his chair.

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