9

When Corey came to, he was staring into the face of a dead chicken.

Gasping, he pushed it away and scrambled to his feet.

Leila was screaming.

“Sorry!” Corey said.

“What just happened?” Leila looked as woozy and confused as Corey felt.

The chicken, saying nothing, remained in a puddle on the muddy road. Next to it was Auntie Flora’s twisted piece of metal, sending up wisps of smoke.

Not two feet away a woman stared at Corey and Leila, openmouthed. She was wearing a gray, old-timey raincoat and too much makeup. She clutched a paper bag full of groceries in one hand and a leaky umbrella in the other. It was raining pretty heavily, and water dripped from the edges of a thick kerchief she’d pulled around her head.

Corey caught a glimpse of a sign that said Rosenheimer Street. The road was lined with two- to four-story buildings, and just ahead was a grand archway marked Bürgerbräukeller. “Where the heck are we?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” Leila said, her face darkening as she spotted the metal shard on the ground. “And I don’t know why you just thought you could hop in time without even discussing it. Welcome to nineteen thirty-nine, I guess.” Leila attempted a smile at the woman and said, “Entschuldigen Sie, bitte.”

The woman eyed them head to toe with a baffled expression, as if they’d come dressed in Halloween costumes. Then she let loose a torrent of foreign words as she snatched the chicken out of the puddle.

“Is that German?” Corey asked.

“A weird dialect of it,” Leila said. “I think she’s calling you a chicken thief. I also think we shocked her. Considering, you know, we appeared out of nowhere from the future.”

The woman had turned and was now heading toward the archway. “WE . . . COME . . . IN . . . PEACE . . .” Corey called out.

“Shouting at her slowly is not going to make her understand English. Hang on, let me try again. I’ll find out where we are.” Leila ran after the woman, asking her a question in German.

Corey scooped up the piece of metal and shoved it in his backpack. He caught up with Leila and her new friend at the archway. His teeth were chattering, but he didn’t know if it was from the cold, the rain, or the time travel. The woman had extended her umbrella to cover Leila but didn’t seem concerned about Corey.

He followed them down a path to a massive brick building with the same name that adorned the archway—Bürgerbräukeller—over double wooden doors. The woman tried them, but they were locked. This caused another explosion of words, as she set down her bags and fumbled in her pocket for keys. “What’s she saying?” Corey asked.

Leila stepped back and lowered her voice. “I’m not getting one hundred percent of it. But this is a major restaurant and she works here. We’re in Munich, Germany, and her name is Maria.”

Corey looked around. “Did you ask her what year it is?”

“Uh, no, that is not a normal question,” Leila replied. “She is insisting that we come in and have breakfast. Someone was supposed to open the place this morning at six thirty, but he didn’t show up. She thinks our clothing is weird, but when I told her we were Americans, that seemed to satisfy her. I said we were orphans visiting an uncle, and he’s at work.”

“That’s so lame.”

“She bought it. Anyway, to answer your question, the artifact said nineteen thirty-nine and that would make sense from the things she said. She mentioned Nazis. She also said that everyone is working around the clock and receiving less for it. Which would make sense for Germany before the war. She’s very opinionated.”

With an exasperated grunt, Maria pushed open the heavy wooden door. Corey caught a blast of pungent air, a combination of food spices, stale cigarette smoke, and spilled beer. But it was warmer and much drier inside, and that counted for something.

They stepped into a marble lobby with a carved wooden desk that contained an old-fashioned telephone with a brass bell and an open leather-bound ledger. But Maria immediately veered to the right, down a wide stone staircase.

It was dark, but Corey could see the outline of an enormous underground space, nearly the size of a city block. At the bottom, Maria pressed a button on the wall. Above them, a matrix of six giant, elaborate chandeliers came to life across a vaulted ceiling. The light bathed a neat array of tables in a soft sepia glow. Chairs sat upside down on the tabletops, like wooden families frozen in place during a dinner. Balconies lined all four walls, containing sturdy railings and more tables. Under one of those balconies, along the opposite wall, was a stage with a podium.

“Schön, ja?” Maria said.

“Yes, beautiful,” Leila replied. “Guess they have entertainment here. Haben Sie Theaterstücke hier?”

Maria nodded. “Und Reden. Sie sind ganz berühmt.”

“‘And speeches,’” Leila translated. “‘They’re very famous.’”

“Kommt,” Maria urged, gesturing toward a pair of swinging doors in the wall.

Leila scampered after her. But Corey’s eyes were stuck on the enormous chandeliers. He’d never seen anything like them. It seemed impossible they could stay attached to the ceiling without crashing down. The light coming through the upper windows was hitting the crystals, thousands of them. He walked into the room, watching tiny rainbows shoot out in all directions.

He was dying to show Leila, but she and Maria had disappeared behind the hinged doors. As Corey turned to follow, he heard a soft crashing noise and the click of a closing door to his right.

“Hello?”

His voice sounded small and weak in the big room. The noise came from the stage area, under the far balcony. Behind the podium and under the balcony was a door in the wall. Corey was sure someone had slipped inside.

Which meant someone was here who wasn’t supposed to be.

He thought about heading into the kitchen to tell Maria, but his eyes landed on a pile of stuff—a chisel, hammer, and mound of rags at the base of a thick white pillar under the balcony.

As he stepped closer to examine, the door’s handle clicked again.

Corey quickly hid behind the pillar. He heard the door squeak as it slowly swung open, and he held his breath.

He waited for footsteps, his heart galloping. He counted to one hundred. But there were no other sounds in the room, no footsteps, no voice, no other person’s breathing.

He waited a few seconds more in total silence.

Whoever had been there must have retreated. And Corey had no interest in sticking around to find out who it was. Slowly he craned his neck around the pillar.

On the other side, a thick-haired man with a beard stubble was looking back at him.

“Gahh!” Corey blurted out, jumping back.

The guy said nothing. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips thin and drawn into a horizontal line.

“L-L—Leila?” Corey rasped, backing slowly away. “Leila?”

With a sharp ssshhh, the man grabbed Corey’s arm and dragged him away from the pillar and inside the open door.