Echo

FIFTY YEARS BEFORE THE WAR TO END ALL wars, a boy played hide-and-seek with his friends in a pear orchard bordered by a dark forest. Mathilde, who was “it,” sat on a boulder, buried her head
against her knees, and began to count to one hundred. The boy hurried away, determined to stay hidden longer than all the others, hoping to impress Mathilde. Her lilting voice intrigued him.
Even now as she counted, her words sounded singsong. “…. thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine …”
Although it was strictly forbidden, the boy ran into the forest to hide. Every few yards, he looked back to make sure he could still see the pear orchard behind him. When it was nothing more than a speck in his view, he sat against a tree trunk within a cluster of pines.
From far away, he heard Mathilde’s faint call, “Here I come, ready or not.” The boy smiled, thinking about the moment he would waltz back to home base, triumphant. He’d have to be patient, though, for it would take time for everyone to be rooted from their hiding spots.
He pulled a book from his waistband-one of the two things he had bought that very morning from a Gypsy for a pfennig. He ran his fingers over the title embossed in the leather cover:
THE THIRTEENTH HARMONICA OF
OTTO MESSENGER
He had not been able to resist the purchase, especially with such a peculiar coincidence. The title held his given name, Otto.