Read Chapter 10: The Poet's Last Letter

The morning air carried the smell of rain and salt as Elise wheeled her bicycle out of the post office, the letter tucked into the inner pocket of her coat where Falla's pen had once lived. She had not slept. The address on the envelope was burned into her memory: *Ferme de la Croix, St. Martin's, third field past the well.*

The poet's last letter. André Le Mesurier had been writing poems against the occupation since the first week of the German arrival. His words circulated in whispers, handwritten copies passed from hand to hand. The Germans wanted him badly enough to keep surveillance on his old residence. But if he was hiding at the Ferme de la Croix, the address was a risk he would only take if he had no other choice.

The road climbed into the island's interior, hedgerows pressing close on either side. Elise's legs burned against the incline. She had told no one where she was going—not Jameson, not Marguerite, certainly not Weber. The doctor had warned her about walking into traps. But André had been a friend of Joseph's. They had drunk cider together in the summers before the war, arguing about verse and politics until the stars faded.

If Joseph was coming back, André would know something. Something worth the risk.

The farm appeared ahead, low stone walls crumbling into the earth. The barn stood twenty yards from the house, its roof sagging. A rusted well sat at the field's edge, exactly as the address described. Elise leaned her bicycle against the gate and crossed the yard. No dogs barked. No curtains moved.

She pushed the barn door open.

The interior smelled of hay dust and mouse droppings. A few bales stood stacked at the far end, the rest of the space empty. Nothing suggested recent habitation. No blankets, no food wrappers, no ash in the old iron stove against the wall.

Elise stood in the silence, the letter in her hand feeling suddenly foolish. A trap. She had delivered herself to an empty barn like a package.

But the address had come from Catherine Le Huray, the same woman who had forced her to help Jan escape. Catherine did not deal in empty leads. The widow knew things, had connections that reached back years before the occupation.

Elise walked the perimeter of the barn, running her fingers along the wooden slats. At the back wall, behind a stack of feed sacks, she found it—a loose board. She pulled, and the timber swung inward to reveal a gap between the barn wall and the stone exterior. A narrow space, barely enough for a man to lie down.

Inside was a blanket, a tin cup, and a small notebook with pencil entries.

André had been here. Recently. The notebook's last entry was dated three days ago: *The post brings words we cannot speak. But some words carry more than their ink. Look for the dots.*

The dots. Her heart seized. The blue-black marks on the letters she had hidden in her room. André knew about the traitor's code.

She thumbed the notebook's pages. Most entries were love poems—the poet's reputation was well earned—but interleaved among them were names, routes, timings. Delivery schedules. He had been mapping the post office's operations. Mapping *her* operations.

Something else fell from between the pages. A photograph, creased and worn. Two men in civilian clothes, arms around each other's shoulders, smiling at the camera. André. And another man with a familiar face.

Elise's hand shook. The other man was Joseph. Her brother, young and unbroken, standing beside the poet in what looked like a London courtyard, with a pub sign visible behind them. The pre-war years. Joseph had never mentioned knowing André in London. He had said they met on Guernsey after the war began.

A floorboard creaked behind her.

Elise spun. A figure filled the barn doorway—a man in a heavy coat with a collar turned up, face half-hidden by a flat cap. For a moment, she thought Weber had found her. But the man stepped inside, and the light caught his features.

He was young, late twenties, with a narrow scar running from his left temple to his cheekbone. Not Weber. Not any soldier she had seen.

"Miss Martin," he said. "You're early."

"You know my name."

"I know the postwoman who carries what should not be carried." He nodded at the envelope still in her hand. "That letter is for me."

Elise looked at the envelope, then back at him. "You're André Le Mesurier."

"The last letter I wrote from this island was to my mother. She died in the bombing of '40. When I saw that address on my correspondence list, I knew it was bait." He smiled thinly. "But it also meant someone wanted to reach me badly enough to use a dead woman's farm."

"Wait." Elise's mind raced. "This letter—it was sent to *you*?"

"Open it. Read it. It's from a friend in Jersey who thought I was still at my old residence. The Germans intercept it, they know I'm alive. They set watch on the house to catch whoever comes to warn me."

Elise broke the seal. The letter inside was short, written in a neat schoolteacher's hand:

*André — the tide tables are wrong this season. The currents run faster than the officials admit. We cannot trust the published schedules. Come to St. Helier when the moon is dark. There are friends who will keep your secret until the waters are calm. Margaret sends her love, and the child remembers your songs.*

The letter had no signature. But at the bottom of the page, a single dot in blue-black ink.

Elise stared at it. "This letter has the mark."

André stepped closer, looking over her shoulder. His forehead creased. "That's not a code from our network. Our signs are pencil—invisible until wet. The dark ink is someone else's system."

"The traitor's."

"Whoever marks letters with that sign is coordinating with German intelligence. But I've never seen it pass through registered post. I've never seen it on a letter meant for me." His jaw tightened. "This was sent from Jersey by someone the Germans have already turned. They knew I'd come to this farm. They're waiting for me here."

"You came anyway."

"I came because I had no choice." André looked at her, and his eyes held a weight she recognized from Jameson's. "There's a boat leaving Petit Port tomorrow night. Three refugees who need to reach France before the Gestapo finds them. I'm the only one who knows the route."

"Petit Port." Elise's blood went cold. "I helped someone leave from Petit Port. A man named Jan. The escape was clean, but the Germans were waiting near the churchyard."

André's face went pale. "Jan was supposed to carry my last manuscript out of the island. It contains every name of every collaborator I've identified since 1940—including someone embedded in the post office's sorting room."

"The traitor."

"Whoever they are, they knew Jan's route. They knew his timing. If Jan was picked up, the manuscript is lost. And if they know you're here with me now—" He broke off, looking past her toward the field.

A car engine sounded in the distance, growing louder.

"German patrol," Elise said. "They know the farm."

"Or they know to check it because a letter was delivered this morning." André grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the loose board. "In here. Quickly."

They pressed into the gap. Elise's heart hammered against her ribs. The car engine cut just outside the barn. Boots on gravel. Voices speaking German.

Through the crack between the boards, she watched two soldiers enter the barn. They walked the perimeter, kicking at feed sacks, examining the floor. The taller one said something in German, and the other laughed. They came within three feet of the loose board, and Elise stopped breathing.

Then they turned and left. The engine growled and faded.

Elise exhaled. André's hand was pressed against her shoulder in the dark. "The letter you delivered this morning—who gave it to you?"

"Falla. The postmaster."

"I'll need to see his handwriting. And the other letters with the mark."

"There are three. Hidden at my house."

"Then we have one night to find who sent that letter from Jersey before they find us." André's voice had changed—harder, less poet, more soldier. "But first, there's something I need to tell you about your brother."

Elise stiffened. "What about Joseph?"

"He didn't contact the resistance from London. He contacted me—from a village called Saint-Pair, on the French coast. He's been hidden there for two months, waiting for the right tide." André paused. "Your brother didn't leave Guernsey to fight. He left to find you. He knows what happened in 1940—the part that was never in the official record."

"What part?"

André's eyes were dark. "Your brother was working for German intelligence before the invasion. He was the first traitor."