by Susan Finlay
A loud squeak made him jump and turn around. The door had closed itself, making it even darker.
“Hey, could one of you come down here and bring your flashlight. I need to get better light. I need to find the door handle.”
“I will,” Tobias said, his voice shaking. “Do you think this is a dungeon?”
Max stuffed his flashlight into his waistband and looked at Tobias. “I don’t know? Can I borrow your flashlight? I only caught a glimpse before mine stopped working.”
Tobias handed him the flashlight. Max waved it around to get a better look at the surroundings.
“You’re right. This does look like some kind of tunnel. It smells odd, too, don’t you think?” He sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose at the disgusting odor. “Smells kinda like a mixture of sulfur and gunpowder.”
“Yeah,” Tobias said. “It really stinks.”
Max focused the light with one hand and ran his free hand along the wall in front of him, searching for the doorknob.
Ryan moved closer and shined his light on the wall, too.
When Max found the spot where it should be, he groaned. “Damn! The handle is broken off.” He tried to pry on the edge of the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Seeing no other choice, he started pounding on it with his hand and yelling Sofie’s name. While he waited, he shined the flashlight on the walls on either side of the entrance.
To Tobias, they looked extremely rough and contained miniscule crystals that sparkled like diamonds. Max touched the crystals, then drew his brows together. Tobias remembered what his mom had said about the meteor. Unlike the common stone of the rest of the cellar, the wall blocks were made from meteor material. “I’m scared. What if my mom and Tante Lotte don’t hear us?”
“It’ll be all right.”
Almost as soon as he said it, though, a rush of frigid air sent shivers through Tobias’s body. “Where’s that cold coming from?” Tobias asked, his teeth chattering.
“Damned if I know.” Max touched the wall again, and it began to tremble, along with the floor beneath them, gently at first but with increasing intensity. An earthquake. Max pulled Tobias closer and started to reach out for Ryan . . . and his flashlight went out again. Ryan wasn’t there. “Ryan! Ryan! Where are you?”
“Here, Dad. I’m here, but I can’t see you.”
A deafening roar that sounded to Tobias like a jet engine revving up made all of them jump. The shaking stopped for a second.
Tobias let out his breath, and then the sound changed to an explosive whooshing, and the shaking began anew. He held his breath again, as long as he could, as if that would save him, but he couldn’t hold it any longer. While they stumbled and swayed, Tobias could tell that Max was desperately trying to hold onto him so he wouldn’t get lost. The next thing Tobias knew, he was spinning . . . The whooshing noise hammered his ears, distorting his senses. Was he really moving in circles? He felt as if he was being turned inside out and he thought he was going to be sick.
Just when he thought he would pass out, Tobias slammed onto the ground. It was pitch black around him but the sound and shaking seemed to have stopped, except that his ears were ringing and his head was still spinning. At least he thought it was. He flipped onto his back, put both his hands on his head, and moaned. As his dizziness subsided, he slowly pulled himself to a sitting position.
“Tobias! Ryan! Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m over here, Dad! What happened?”
“I’m scared,” Tobias said, his voice shrill in his own ears. “Everything’s black.” His heart was racing and he thought he might throw up.
“I don’t know what happened,” Max said, his voice echoing. “I can’t even see my own hands in front of my face.”
Tobias bent his knees and wrapped his arms around them to keep warm. Why wasn’t the flashlight on? Did it get broken in the—the—whatever it was? He shivered.
A few moments later a dim light splayed, but it lasted only a minute or two.
What was he supposed to do? Tobias couldn’t think of any time in his life when he’d been this afraid. His mother wasn’t there, only these two strangers he’d only met today. Worst of all, he couldn’t tell where he was or where Max or Ryan were. He thought he could hear breathing nearby, which was probably Ryan.
After several moments, Max’s flashlight came back on. Max was standing, and moving toward Tobias. Halfway there, Ryan’s flashlight also came on. Oh, good. Ryan was nearby. Tobias’s heart rhythm slowed. With a second light now shining, Ryan began moving and Tobias followed as closely as possible.
Max almost tripped over something, and bent down to see what it was. It was Tobias’s flashlight. As Max bent over to retrieve it, the flashlight miraculously also came back on. It was providing more light than his own, consequently he turned off his flashlight and stuffed it back into his waistband. He stood up straight again, and was nearly knocked over when Tobias threw himself against Max and wrapped his arms around his waist, crying. Max stroked Tobias’s hair and said, “I don’t know what happened, but we’ll figure it out. Don’t cry. It’ll be okay.”
Tobias, tending the traumatic memory, sighed. Why can’t Max always be that way? Why does he only treat me like he cares, sometimes?
JENNY SHADED HER eyes as from the bright afternoon sun and stared at the old house, deciding it looked creepy and might even be haunted and that’s why people stayed away. Yep, definitely high on the creepy scale. It looked like something out of one of the Gothic mystery novels she’d read when she was a teenager or maybe out of one of the horror movies she and Max used to watch when they were first married. She shivered.
“Oh, Mom, this is a cool looking cottage. OMG, look at the flowering bushes, the wildflowers in the garden, and those awesome old gnarly trees. It even has a thatched roof and a round turret. So romantic, don’t you think?”
Jenny smiled, without comment. That was her daughter—a hopeless romantic. She’d been that way since she was a little girl wanting to dress up like Cinderella or a princess, dreaming of knights and dragons and princes. A few years from now, after college and a few broken promises from men, her attitude would probably change. She hoped she was wrong, but for most people she knew, life was a far cry from a romantic fairytale.
“Can we go in? Do you have a key to the house?” Lisa asked, anticipation of an adventure in her voice.
“No. Where would I get a key? The attorney for your great-grandmother’s estate said he gave the keys to your father.”
“Oh, I guess we’ll have to pick the lock or something.” She glanced sideways at her mother and added, “See, we should have asked for a police escort. You thought I was crazy when I said that.”
“Ha-ha, yeah, I’m sure they would have agreed to coming out here with us and breaking into a house.”
“Well, if we told them there might be dead people inside—”
“Lisa! Don’t say that!”
“Sorry.” Lisa’s head drooped down like a naughty child.
Jenny put her arm around Lisa’s shoulder. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I guess I’m edgy because of what people said back in town, and the isolation of this old place.”
“It’s okay,” Lisa said, looking up at her mother and smiling sweetly. “I understand. I love the way it looks, like out of some mystery book, but it kinda gives me the creeps, too, when I think about what those people said. I can imagine this house featured in a Grimm’s fairytale story.”
They walked up to the gate and Jenny opened it. “A picket fence. I’ll bet your father drooled over it. Back when we were first married, he talked about us having a charming house with a picket fence someday.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.” Lisa took out her cell phone and snapped photos to the left and then the right of the garden path that crept along for about thirty feet until it reached the front door. Then she snapped several pictures of the house. “I guess Dad and I are more alike than I realized.”
Jenny smiled to
herself. Yeah, they were both dreamers, Lisa and Max. Ryan was more like his mother. He even wanted to become a doctor. Lisa, on the other hand, wanted to be an interior decorator—or interior designer, Jenny could never keep the two straight—anyway, whichever it was, it was more in line with architecture, again like Max.
They tried the front door and were surprised when it opened. Jenny wasn’t sure if she should be happy about that or not. She took a deep breath and entered the house. The entry was round. She looked upward. Of course! The round turret was above the entry. She ran her hand along the wall, searching for a light switch. When she flipped the switch, nothing happened.
Lisa opened the front door back up, sending light inside.
Jenny smiled and said, “Good idea. Let’s have a look around.”
At they explored the entry area, Lisa took some photos of the entry hall and the circular staircase. From there, Jenny opened a door, and they entered what appeared to be a parlor. The room was fairly dark and seemed spooky.
“You don’t have a flashlight in your backpack, do you?” Jenny asked.
“Nope. Oh, wait, I do. It’s not much. It’s a mini-light that I brought for reading. You know, one of those book lights. I got it for Christmas.”
“That’s better than nothing.” Jenny suddenly remembered she’d bought one of those miniature flashlights at the hardware store so she would have one in her purse for nights when she worked the late shift. A woman alone in a parking garage needed two things: a flashlight and mace. She’d kept both in her purse for several years, and kept them operational. She reached into her purse and dug around until she found the flashlight.
With the two tiny lights guiding them, they made their way through the shadowy house, climbing a winding, stone-staircase made of the same stone as the floor and the thick stone walls.
“Wow!” Lisa said, snapping photos left and right. “This is way cool.”
By the time they got to the kitchen, Jenny too was impressed—not that it was pretty or anything, but it reminded her of fairy tales she’d read as a child.
They found a storage room, and from there, went down a rickety staircase to a root cellar and stayed close together as they looked around. Lisa opened a door in the back, near the staircase and they both went inside. The door closed and her light suddenly went out.
Jenny’s light went out abruptly, too. Her hair stood up on the back of her neck again.
Lisa said, “Uh, Mom, didn’t Dad tell us that his mother and grandfather disappeared from this house years ago and were never found?”
“Oh, my God, he did . . . I’d forgotten all about that.” In the dark, neither saw the other’s instant look of panic.
INGRID FELT LIKE she was a burglar as she, Sofie, and Ryan slipped inside the gasthof, glancing around to make sure no one saw them, and hastened up the staircase to their room. They hastily gathered up their belongings—Ingrid wondering how they would prove the items were theirs if anyone questioned them but she tried not to think about it—and crept back down the stairs and out the door.
At the stables, they loaded everything into their wagon and hitched up the horses. Ryan motioned for Ingrid and Sofie to climb onto the wagon, but before he could follow suit, the stable master rushed toward them and asked if they would be back.
“Probably not,” Sofie told him. “We will leave town and continue on our journey. We were only passing through.”
The man wrung his hands together, his eyes flicking from them to the open doorway. “Oh, well, I’m supposed to notify the Feldgendarms when you show up here.”
“Why is that?” Sofie asked, apparently trying to mask her panic.
Ingrid slumped her shoulders and hung her head down, trying to make herself smaller and, if possible, fade into the background.
He cleared his throat. “There’s been a murder in town. As far as I know, the Feldgendarms have no suspects yet, but they are especially interested in any travelers, more importantly, any outsiders.”
Ingrid stifled a gasp, wondering if she should try to sneak out the back and run away. With her gone, Sofie and Ryan might not feel as worried; after all, the only thing they were hiding was her, and if she was gone . . . .
“You told them about us?” Sofie asked.
He nodded. “They were here a short time ago.”
Was there a way out, a way that she could leave without the stable master noticing? If he caught her trying to sneak out, that would land them all into much hotter water.
Sofie said, “We don’t even know anyone in this town. As I said, we were just passing through, really. Why would they think we could be involved?”
“The dead man, Johan Stumpf, was a good man and had no enemies in town. Our local priest told the Feldgendarms that three strangers inquired about Herr Stumpf this morning, less than an hour before the murder.” He shrugged.
Ingrid raised her head, then looked away quickly. The murdered man was the same man the priest here in Dinkelsbühl had sent them to talk with. What were the odds of that? Did Vikktor know they were searching for him and that they wanted to speak with Herr Stumpf? She glanced around, half expecting to see Vikktor peeking out from behind a hiding spot and sneering at them.
Sofie turned to Ryan and translated, then said they should leave now. They all climbed into the wagon and Ryan steered the horses out of the stables but reined in the horses when a uniformed officer stepped in front of their wagon the moment they were on the road.
“What’s going on?” Sofie asked the man in German.
“We have been waiting for you,” he said. “We need you to come with us.” Another officer stepped out from behind a house. “You must come with us for questioning.”
Sofie nodded.
Ingrid tried to keep her face calm, remembering that she often showed her emotions in her face and that had gotten her in trouble many times. Must remember the story we made up. She glanced at Sofie and Ryan. Would they remember?
She looked at Ryan. His eye kept twitching and he nervously was shifting his weight. Mein Gott, he could get us all in trouble. She thought about Ryan’s attitude toward her. He could be trouble. He could betray her by accident, or he could betray her to get her out of their lives. One of the Feldgendarms asked him a question in German, and Ryan shrugged and told Sofie, “Tell him I don’t speak German.”
She did, and the officer shook his head, his mouth tight. He turned to Sofie then and said, “You will all need to come with us.”
Ryan was instructed by the officer, with Sofie translating, to return the wagon and horses to the stable.
An hour later, after questioning them, and having explained that they were looking for Vikktor and were directed by the priest to see some man named Johan Stumpf, who might possibly know Vikktor, the Feldgendarms released all three from custody, but instructed them they could not leave town.
“Why? Are we suspects?” Sofie asked. “We have answered all of your questions and it should be obvious we did not know Herr Stumpf or have any reason to kill him.”
“Until the case is solved, you are suspects.”
Ryan said, “What did he say?”
Sofie translated, and Ryan’s shoulders drooped.
Ingrid had pretended to be hard of hearing and stayed silent throughout the interrogation, letting Sofie do most of the talking and only speaking when asked a direct question. No sense drawing more attention onto herself. The Feldgendarms seemed to believe their cover story and identities.
They returned to the stable, once again retrieved their belongings, and returned to the gasthof. After paying for a second night and taking their stuff back to their room, they headed downstairs to the dining hall.
A young woman greeted them. “Will you be eating in our dining hall?”
“Yes,” Sofie said. “There are a lot of people here today. I didn’t think there were so many guests in the gasthof.”
“We get locals here in the dining hall because our food is better than the tavern’s and whole families
can eat here.”
Sofie nodded, then the three followed the young woman to a table and ordered their meals.
While eating lunch, without making it too obvious, Ingrid listened to some people talking at the next table about the murder. Obviously it was the biggest news in the small town.
“Herr Stumpf was good to those two grandchildren,” an elderly man said. “He was teaching young Peter to build furniture and houses. That boy was his pride and joy.”
“He doted on Johanna, too,” a woman, possibly his wife, said. “She is the one who takes care of everyone in the family. Sweet and hardworking. She’ll make someone a good wife. I just wish Johan could have been there to see her marry and have a family.”
Another woman, slightly younger, said, “I feel sorry for Helmut. He lost his wife five years ago, raised those children by himself after that, and now he has lost his father-in-law.”
“What do you mean, he raised the children by himself?” the older woman said. “Herr Stumpf would be horrified to hear that. He helped with them. Do not forget it!”
The younger woman crossed her arms and pouted. After a sufficient wait, she said, “Herr Furst needs a new wife more than ever. I should pay him a visit.”
“Hmph,” the elderly man said. “I expect he’ll want someone younger than you. Helmut has already turned away several local women: Frau Kemp, Frau Beyer, and Fraülein Schimmel, to name a few.”
The woman stood up, gave a scowl, and stormed off.
Ingrid’s mind raced. They were talking about the man she’d seen in Riesen. Herr Furst. Helmut.
The elderly man and woman left a few minutes later.
Ingrid watched them, and when they were out of hearing distance, she said in English, for Ryan’s benefit, “My son Helmut Furst might be the son-in-law of the murdered man. We have to go see him.”
Ryan pushed his chair back, stood up, and said loudly, “What do you mean he could be your son? Did he time travel, too?”
Sofie said, “Ryan, quiet, you’re drawing attention.”
Ingrid licked her lips as she quickly glanced around at the other guests. Their curious gazes told her they had heard but hadn’t understood any of what he said.
