To minimize noise, I tread up the side edge of the steps that after a short landing bank left. At the top, I hook right to enter a hallway and startle at a ghostly form.

My own, I realize, and breathe. It’s only my shadowed reflection in a gilded mirror at the end of the hall. From beneath the last door on the right, the glow of a lamp marks my destination.

Quick but quiet.

I forge on, every tiny creak of the floorboards stalling my heart, until I grasp the doorknob. Hoping to high heaven this is the correct one, as there’s no other way for me to verify it, I turn the knob slowly. The door opens a crack, enough to reveal a bedroom. My gaze drops to a figure on the floor, where a little girl sits on a rug. A pink bow hangs from the back of her dress.

Feeling more assured, I open the door wider. She twists and looks up from the doll in her hands. From her honey-colored braids to her sapphire eyes, she looks so much like Thea—a five-year-old version of her, as Arie said—that I can’t find my words.

“Who are you?” a voice snaps in Dutch. Not from the girl. My attention jumps to a woman by the window. She’s rising from a chair with a pinched face. A frilly maid’s cap covers her hair.

And I remember: the housekeeper is expecting Arie.

“You’re Gerda?” I say in her language, the question perfunctory. Or calamitous if the answer is no.

The lift of her head qualifies as a nod, barely.

“I’ve come for Evelien,” I explain. “Her uncle”—unsure which name she knows Arie by, I default to ambiguity—“he’s waiting outside.”

Her skepticism is palpable. Perhaps she truly cares for Evelien. Either way, given the risks on Gerda’s part, any deviation from the expected merits alarm.

“You can check for yourself.” I try to speed this along. “Look down at the courtyard if you’d like.”

Evelien watches Gerda. Past the shade, the woman strains to find Arie, who I suddenly realize could be hiding among the hedges, looking out for the guard.

When she rotates back to me, it’s with a white cloth in her hand. Is the signal no longer needed? She doesn’t say, just moves to the rug and kneels before Evelien. The long, gray skirt of Gerda’s uniform pools between them. “You’re going to go with this nice lady now. Understand, child?”

Evelien’s gaze skitters between us, the scalloped collar of her floral dress nearly hunched to her ears. Gripping her doll, she launches herself at Gerda. The poor girl must view me as yet another stranger threatening to rip her from the life she knows.

Which I suppose I am.