Tanglewood Grotto

by Susan Finlay

  NOTING THAT THE storm outside had died down and travel was again possible, Sofie and Ryan said goodbye to Ingrid, Helmut, and Werner right after their conversation, telling them they would return soon. Ingrid, Helmut, and his family had been invited to stay with Werner and his family for a while longer to get reacquainted. Ingrid had smiled and seemed happy, although Sofie had noticed her looking over her shoulder often and jumping at noises occasionally, as if she expected something bad to happen any moment. Whatever it was she expected to happen, Sofie didn’t know, unless she was worried someone had notified the Feldgendarms that she was in town.

  After their goodbyes, Sofie and Ryan rode their horses back to Möbius to see Max and Tobias and to fill them in on all that had happened. Sofie hoped Max could take a short break from his work to ride back to Riesen with her and meet her adopted grandfather. What serendipity that both she and Max had grandfathers living in town. She was sure Max would understand why Werner didn’t trust Karl—Max had his own doubts about his grandfather’s trustworthiness.

  The ground was soggy after a big storm and it slowed them down, but they still made it home before more clouds rolled in. Upon arrival, someone yelled out Ryan’s name. Sofie searched to find the owner of the unfamiliar voice as Ryan practically jumped off his horse and ran toward two women she didn’t recognize.

  “Mom! Lisa! How are you here? I mean, how did you guys get here?”

  Sofie’s mouth dropped open, her mind barely able to grasp what was happening. More time travelers? Max’s family? The portal reopened? Her heart did flip-flops as the realization sunk in.

  “Long story, sweetie. Your dad found us huddled in a cave and brought us here to this—whatever this place is.”

  “He found you in our cave? The one under—”

  “No, well, not exactly. He told us all about that one and how you guys boarded up the entrance. I mean, I guess we landed there, but we couldn’t get out. We crawled around in tunnels in the dark and ended up somewhere else.” She glanced over at the younger girl, and if Sofie hadn’t heard the girl’s name, she still would have known who she was—a female version of Ryan, with the same curly blondish hair and blue eyes.

  “Mom thought we were going to die in there,” Lisa said. “We both did. It was awful. Pitch black and cold and full of rodents. Eeew.”

  Ryan scratched his head. “Uh, what was Dad doing in a cave?” He glanced around at the group of his German friends standing around. They only understood bits of English, yet they were practically glued in place and watching everyone. “Where is he, anyway?”

  No one answered.

  Sofie stepped closer to get a better look.

  Ryan seemed to remember her presence finally and said, “Oh, uh, Mom, Lisa, this is Sofie. She’s, uh, married to Dad.”

  Lisa stepped forward, reached out, and hugged her. “Dad told us about you last night. Welcome to the family.”

  Sofie tried to smile, though remained unsure how she felt about any of what was happening.

  Ryan pulled the other woman closer and said, “Sofie, this is, uh, Jenny, my mom. Lisa is my twin. I guess you already figured that out, right?”

  Sofie nodded. What was she supposed to say? Welcome to my home? Had Max offered to build them a cabin in the village? Had he gone out to get more supplies?

  “We’ve been staying with Magda and her family,” Lisa said, seemingly reading Sofie’s mind. “They told Dad we can stay with them until we figure out what to do.”

  Sofie nodded again, still having trouble putting words together.

  Ryan said, “Speaking of Dad, you didn’t answer my question. Where is he?”

  The two women exchanged looks, then Jenny said, “He and his half-brother are out on a search party. That’s actually how he found us.”

  “Who are they searching for?”

  “Tobias. He’s been missing for more than a day.”

  Sofie felt her vision go fuzzy and her legs crumble under her. The next thing she knew, she was lying on the ground, with Ryan hovering over her saying something. She struggled to focus on what he was saying, but he stopped talking and instead reached his hand down to cradle her neck and slowly help her up to a sitting position. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Konrad’s wife, Ulla, brought a cup and handed it to her. Ryan now stood a few yards away talking to his sister.

  Sofie sipped the liquid, attempting to calm herself and focus, then asked, “Where have Max and Konrad looked? Please tell me everything you know.”

  Ulla filled her in on what Max and Konrad had told her last night.

  As Sofie struggled to process everything Ulla had told her, a ruckus and the sound of horse hooves drew the attention of everyone around her. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  Ryan looked toward the noise, then came close to her and leaned down. “Try not to get too upset or read too much into this, Sofie, but Dad’s and Konrad’s horses have come back to the village grounds, alone. We don’t see the guys anywhere around.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MAX BANGED ON Karl’s door and shouted his name. No response. “Come on, Gramps. Open the door.” Still nothing. He stepped back and tilted his head, looking up at the windows. They were normally open, but today they were closed up tight. He and Konrad knocked on the neighbors’ doors and enquired if they knew where Karl and Anneliese had gone. The first neighbor didn’t know. The second neighbor told them he saw them taking a small wagon out of town.

  Great! Gramps knew Tobias was missing. Why the heck would he leave now? Didn’t the old man care about the boy? Then another thought occurred to him: Might they have traveled to Dinkelsbühl? Karl was the one who’d sent Sofie and Ryan there. Maybe he got to thinking Tobias went there, too. Or maybe he had some other reason for sending them all there. He winced. But surely he wouldn’t have taken Anneliese there when he knew Lotte was there with Sofie.

  “We go to stable?” Konrad asked. “Karl rented wagon and horse. Maybe stable master knows.”

  “Good idea. Let’s hope.” Max figured they could also start asking if anyone had seen a little boy fitting Tobias’s description or an old man fitting Vikktor’s description. He suspected Vikktor somehow figured into Tobias’s disappearance. He shook his head, not wanting to speculate. Too many horrible outcomes. Enough to drive him to drink.

  As they walked along the ragged streets, his mind drifted back in time to when he and Sofie had sat in the grass beneath the canopy of an old oak tree, and talked about how they felt about themselves and about each other.

  He’d said, “I realize now that you and I probably don’t even really know each other. We didn’t have a romantic relationship, except in my head. I expect I’m an idiot for thinking we did. In our time, you probably would have had me arrested for stalking. What a loser I must seem.”

  Sofie raised her head and a small gasp escaped her, but he continued. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to push you into a relationship that you didn’t want.”

  She stared at him and then said, “Max, no. It wasn’t all in your head. I’m in love with you, too, but I’ve been going through my own internal turmoil. This has not been easy for me.”

  Did she really just say she loves me? His heart flip-flopped. He wanted to reach over, pull her into a tight embrace, and kiss her, but she sounded sad, so he kept still and listened.

  “For years I’ve blamed myself for the accidents that hurt or killed my family, things that wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for me. Then, when Birgitta got killed, you got blamed, and then you got wounded. Don’t you see? Again, none of that would have happened if it weren’t for me, if I hadn’t stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong.”

  “Oh, Sofie, no. You weren’t responsible for any of that. I needed to know what Ryan and Anneliese were up to. You did the right thing coming to me. You are kind and gentle and loving. I don’t know what happened in your past, but I cannot believe it was your fault. My injury certainly was not your fault, either.”


  Sofie sighed, tears welling in her eyes. “You’re wrong. I cause people to get hurt or die.” Tears rolling down her cheeks, she said, “I should live as a recluse the way your grandmother did and stay away from everyone.”

  Max reached out to hold her hand, but she pulled it away. How could he convince her that she wasn’t responsible? He softly whispered, “Tell me why you think that? What horrible things have you done in the past?”

  Taking a calming breath and letting it out slowly, shuddering a bit, she complied. “It’s hard to talk about. As you said, we don’t know each other that well—at least not our past histories.” She paused, looking into his eyes. “But I trust you. Do you remember that night we hid in the cellar in Riesen? You asked me how Tobias and I learned English, and I told you that we lived in Seattle for several years.”

  Max nodded. “I remember.”

  “Well, you also asked me what happened, why I left the U.S. and came back to Germany,” she’d said. “It’s a really long story, Max.” Her voice cracked with emotion, and she stopped talking.

  He’d reached over and taken her hand in his. “I’m listening. We’ve got all the time in the world. Please talk to me.”

  Sofie looked at him and then, in a rush of words, said, “I met a man there, a professor. We fell in love and married. Tobias and I moved into his house. He was a perfect husband and a perfect father. Tobias adored him.” She paused a moment to regain her composure. “Our lives seemed wonderful. Then I discovered we were expecting a baby, and I was thrilled. We bought baby clothes, prepared the most adorable nursery, and I delivered a beautiful baby girl, Sylvie.”

  She stopped talking suddenly, and looked away, dabbing at new tears with her hand.

  “What happened then?” Max asked, quietly. It must have been something horrible, he could tell, and was obviously difficult for her to talk about. He tried not to push her, letting her tell the story when she was ready.

  “My life was perfect. And then I ruined it. We were in our car. My husband had been in the hospital for a broken leg, which he got playing football with some friends. I had picked him up from the hospital while Tobias was at school. On our way home, my cell phone rang and I answered it, even though I was driving. I was distracted and didn’t see the car in the intersection. We crashed.”

  “Oh, Sofie, I’m sorry,” Max had said. His heart went out to her, figuring it must have been a tragic accident. Jenny had told him many times about trauma patients she’d helped—or tried to help—back when she’d worked in the ER at the hospital. She said the hardest part wasn’t the fact that patients died, but for the doctors and nurses it was trying to comfort the family members who fell apart. Sometimes she’d come home crying.

  Sofie had told him that Jason died at the scene and Sylvie was in a coma for a week, and then she died, too. Sofie said she had cuts and bruises and internal injuries that eventually healed . . . but said she should have been the one to die. Said it was her fault.

  Max had put his arm around her, and she leaned against his shoulder and cried again. He remembered Jenny saying that sometimes all you can do is be there for the survivors and offer them your shoulder for support and your ears for listening.

  Sofie told him, “All my scars—physical and emotional—aren’t enough payment for my mistake. I’m a murderer.”

  Max had pulled her closer as she sobbed. He stroked her hair and let her cry until her tears were spent.

  “You didn’t deliberately cause their deaths,” he had said. “It was an accident. If I’ve learned anything from our time travel journey, it’s that we can’t spend our lives worrying about things we can’t control, and especially not things in the past. You can’t undo what’s already happened. You can only forgive yourself, learn, keep going, and try to do better. I know I’ve been a terrible father to my children. If I’d only paid more attention to them, Ryan wouldn’t have acted out and gotten himself into trouble. But I can’t change the past. I can only work on being a better father to him from today onward.”

  Sofie had nodded, but told him there was more. She said she nearly got Tobias killed about a year later. After teaching her last class of the day, she went back to her office, one that she shared with another professor. His wife stormed into the office. The couple got into a big argument in front of Sofie, and the wife pulled out a gun. Sofie intervened. And the wife finally calmed down and put the gun away. The couple made up and were leaving the office, when Sofie suddenly remembered she was supposed to pick up Tobias from school. Her voice choked up and she stopped talking.

  Max had stroked her hair, realizing that Sofie was looking for ways to beat herself up. He understood that well enough. He’d done that many times before.

  Sofie had driven straight toward the school, in a hurry to get there and was stopped by police cars. There’d been an accident, and paramedics were in situ. She told him Tobias had begun walking home and got struck by a speeding car. “He was taken to the hospital, where he went into a coma. A month later, when he finally came out of it, I quit my job and moved him back to Riesen, thinking he would be safer. So much for that plan.”

  Max had told her, “My father forgot to pick me up from baseball practice one day. I was a typical dumb kid, thinking I could walk home, too, but when I crossed a busy street, a car swerved around the corner and hit me. Didn’t go into a coma, but had a bad concussion and two broken legs. It was my fault for not looking. But, Sofie, these things happen to everyone. You gave Tobias the care he needed after his ‘accident’. Tobias is healthy and happy, and he doesn’t blame you. You can’t be everywhere, protect everyone, and prevent every bad thing from happening.”

  “But it was my fault for not being on time,” she had sobbed.

  “No. Bad things just happen sometimes and they don’t have to be someone’s fault. If you need to place blame, place it on the person speeding near the school. But nobody’s on top of things all the time. That’s why they are called accidents; because the consequences were not intended.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “Yes, I really do. You’ve gotta stop blaming yourself for everything that happens.”

  “I might be a jinx, if nothing else,” she said.

  “I can probably say the same thing about me. Probably we all can at times.”

  Arriving at the stable, Max sighed, barely keeping his eyes from filling with tears at the memories, and pulled himself back to the here and now. They had to find Tobias. Soon. Before Sofie found out her son was missing. She would blame herself again. Max couldn’t let that happen. He just couldn’t. She has already suffered more that any one person should.

  He followed Konrad to where the stable master was working, and waited as Konrad asked the questions in his native German, but his mind was still focused on Sofie. How was she ever going to deal with losing her son? And to make matters worse, she could end up losing their baby because of all the stress this would cause her.

  Konrad finished with the stable master and turned to Max. “Karl visits his frau’s familia. Verstahen, ja?”

  Max nodded. Yeah, he understood the words, but not the reasoning. Gramps, during the search for his step-great-grandson, went gallivanting off to visit his deceased wife’s family. Just great.

  “Did you ask about Tobias?”

  Konrad nodded as a frown creased his forehead. “He know nothing.”

  “Where to now?”

  “Maybe Tobias look for animals?”

  “Hmm. Yeah, with his love of animals he might have gone looking for animals, but he wouldn’t stay away overnight unless something happened.”

  The puzzled look on Konrad’s told Max he didn’t understand, so he struggled to rephrase in German, to no avail, finally giving up and shrugging his shoulders. He started walking toward the houses, keeping an eye out for farm animals, for signs of Tobias, and for any clues.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SOFIE BOLTED TO her feet. She had to act, had to find both Max and her son, but she almost
fell down, because she was unsteady on her feet and still dizzy. Probably not a smart thing to do after fainting. After a moment, she regained her equilibrium, then marched over to her horse, ignoring Ryan’s plea for her to rest a few more minutes. He was obviously concerned for her, worried she would pass out, but what if Max didn’t have that few minutes. What if he was injured? All she could think was that something terrible must have happened. Why else would his and Konrad’s horses have returned to the village on their own? She struggled to get onto her horse, then felt strong arms lifting her. Once seated, she looked around to thank whoever had helped, but no one was there. Ryan was getting onto his horse. Stefan and Wilhelm were approaching Max’s and Konrad’s horses. So they were all going to search for Max and Konrad. She almost cried from relief, but forced herself to stay calm, not wanting them to tell her she couldn’t go.

  “We can split up into two teams,” Stefan said. “Willy and I will search the woods and meadows. Sofie, you and Ryan head back to Riesen and search. I think they said they were headed there, unless something changed their course. We will meet up later, back in Möbius.”

  She nodded, surprised at Stefan taking a leadership role, something she’d never seen him do before. Prodding their mounts, the two teams took off.

  Hearing that Max and Konrad had been headed for Riesen, Sofie wondered if they might have ridden right past them on their way back to the village. She’d been preoccupied with her thoughts and hadn’t paid much attention on the ride back. Certainly she hadn’t been watching for people. She expected Ryan may have likewise been preoccupied with thoughts of Johanna. They’d seemed pretty friendly toward each other back at Werner’s house. Ryan’s German was improving every day, and Sofie had listened to him trying to communicate with Johanna ever since they’d met. Through gestures, and his rudimentary German, he’d had the girl smiling and laughing and practically clinging to him.

  She shook her head, wondering if Ingrid had noticed Ryan’s attentions. What would Ingrid say if Ryan and her granddaughter became romantically involved? Would she react the way Birgitta had and try to squelch the relationship? Sofie hadn’t had a chance, except for a few minutes of whispering, to talk with Ingrid in private since they arrived at Werner’s house.