The light was soft that late morning, falling in narrow strips through half-drawn curtains onto the old desk, where stacks of papers, folders, and plastic sleeves rose like careful little towers. The room smelled faintly of old wood, freshly brewed coffee, and the lavender from laundry drying somewhere in the next room.
Sven sat in Patrick’s old desk chair, his stiff left leg propped on a red ottoman with white dots. The room was small, its window facing southeast, the wallpaper worn but kind. It was no longer Katja’s son’s room. It was their office now.
Katja sat cross-legged on the floor, her short, fiery-red hair spiking in all directions like an ’80s punk. She toyed with the strands absently, surrounded by a half-circle of plastic sleeves, index cards, scanned documents, and printed photographs. At the table, Sven was sorting handwritten pages by century, from the thirteenth on the left to the twentieth on the right. Between them lay fragments—letters, excerpts from chronicles, drawings. It was chaos, but with its own logic.
“More Latin,” he muttered, tapping a sheet in a plastic sleeve. “Here. Could be a place name. Or maybe a title. And look, the crest appears twice, but the texts don’t match.”
Katja stood, picked up her coffee from the old bookcase where she’d set it safely aside, and leaned over his find. “Hm. That one… Sub crypta silentii…” She glanced at the translation app on her phone. “… beneath the chamber of silence. Or the silent crypt. Sounds like a metaphor.”
“Or not a metaphor,” Sven said, scratching his head. “Maybe it’s literal.”
Their eyes met.
“You mean under the monastery?” Katja asked.
“Exactly. Look at this.” He reached for a thin, parchment-like sheet. “This one’s from around 1618. The monastery was officially bankrupt. But that same year, records of payments suddenly appear—gold, gemstones, goods from Venice, Persia, North Africa. And then this…” He pulled another letter from the seventeenth century and handed it to her. “A Lübeck merchant. I’ve already translated it. It says, word for word: ‘For the threshold of knowledge I paid three ducats. For the glance behind the mirror, six more.’” He let the letter sink and gazed out the open window at the fields. “What if it was an entrance? A secret passage, reserved for those who could pay?”
Katja rested her chin in her hand. “But how does that tie to the order? To the Ordo Silentii? Or the monastery, Pax Viventium?”
“Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe the monastery was just the site. The abbots of the Ordo Pacis Benedicti knew, kept quiet, took their cut. That’s what I think. Look: all the donations from peasants and nearby villages were recorded by various monks. But the payments from… let’s call them visitors… every single one was written down only by the abbots. I tell you, they were the only ones who knew the truth. Maybe they weren’t monks at all, just men in robes. Alchemists. Scholars. From every faith, from every land. Rich men promised they could conquer death.”
Sven lifted a hand, asking for a sip of her coffee. “And maybe they went in… but never came out. Who’d ever know?”
Katja glanced at the window. A bird streaked past, its sharp shadow flashing across the wall. Outside, it was bright, but inside her grew a faint chill.
“If those chambers really existed,” she said softly, “then maybe they were never destroyed. Only forgotten. Buried. Or hidden. When was the monastery destroyed?”
“During the Thirty Years’ War. A lot of monasteries burned. Especially the ones occupied by the Swedes. Fits the timeline. Our monastery was said to be destroyed around 1630. Protestants, probably revenge or fear of heresy. But from then on, no more mention of underground chambers. Nothing. Everything just… stops.”
Katja nodded. “Exactly. Maybe the soldiers never knew. Maybe someone wanted it forgotten. Maybe someone needed it forgotten.”
They both leaned back. The silence that settled was the kind that comes after a realization without a name. Something was there. They could feel it. Still blurred, still shapeless, but real.
Sven was about to speak when Katja’s phone buzzed. She reached for it, saw the name on the screen.
Marit.
A silent glance between them. She answered.
“Marit?”
What she heard made the world stop for a moment.
Katja said only one sentence.
“We’re coming right away.”
She lowered the phone. Sven’s eyes searched hers.
“Sina is gone,” she said flatly.
Sven was on his feet at once. His leg protested, but he ignored it. “What do you mean gone?”
“Just gone. Marit was asleep, dead to the world, shaken to the core. Sina… the bed was untouched. Marit thinks she slept outside on the garden chair. The terrace door was open. The question is: did she leave on her own or…”
Without a word, Sven pulled on his jacket. Katja hurried into the hall and tossed him his cane with practiced ease. He caught it, and as quickly as he could, followed her while she grabbed the house key. Sven locked the door as Katja started the car.
“We go straight to Marit,” he said.
Katja nodded. “I’ll call the station on the way. Maybe someone saw something.”
Their BMW slipped around the corner almost soundlessly.
In front of the house the air shimmered with midday heat, birds quarreled loudly in the lilac bushes.
Inside, the house stayed quiet.
Through the wide open window of Patrick’s old room, a summer breeze lifted the sheer white curtains, making them billow like a ball gown in motion. The wind teased a single sheet of paper on the rug, lifted it, let it flutter down again, as if testing what had been left behind.
All was silent. Only the crunch of gravel outside could still be heard.