Chapter 35: What Was Left Behind, I
Weißer Hirsch was quiet.
Even the wind made little sound. Pines rose in slow, deliberate lines along the hills, their needles muting everything beneath them. The retreat village had once been a Roman outpost, or so a rusted sign near the station claimed. Now it served as a place for recovery—old men with weak lungs, children with crooked spines, windows who spoke to no one.
I stepped off the cart and onto the stone path that led toward the chapel. The driver tipped his cap and turned back down the hill. I hadn't told him where I was going. I hadn't needed to.
The streets weren't streets at all—just paths carved between homes and sanatoriums, all half-hidden behind fences draped in ivy. No one looked directly at me, but I could feel the weight of eyes from behind lace-curtained windows.
I asked a woman sweeping the steps of a bakery if she knew anyone named Clara Weiss. She didn't blink.
"She helps out at the orphanage," she said. "White building, near the edge of the forest. You'll pass the chapel on your way."
I thanked her and kept walking.
I walked until I found the orphanage. It was smaller than I expected. A whitewashed building with a wooden cross set above the door, nestled beside the edge of the forest. A woman swept the entry steps. She glanced at me, then looked away without a word.
"Excuse me," I said. "I'm looking for someone."