by Susan Finlay
“Let’s go inside, shall we?”
“Yes!” Tobias shouted.
“Nein!” Lotte said. "Es ist verhext. Wir müssen zurück. Dies ist ein schlechter Platz."
Tobias said something to her in German, then translated it for Max. “I told her it isn’t haunted. Even if it is, your grandma was nice, right Max?”
“I hope so.” Max set down the cooler and after digging through his pockets, he pulled out the ornate skeleton key the attorney had mailed to him last week. He fingered the key, turning it over and over, and wondered what secrets it might unlock. Maybe they really would find some clues to the disappearance inside the house.
“Damn, this lock is something else.” Max took the key back out and stuck it in for the fourth time. “I don’t think I’ve ever had such a hard time unlocking a door.”
Tobias laughed. “Ours does that sometimes. You have to put the key in just right.”
Max smiled and nodded, then laughed with relief when the lock clicked and the door finally swung open. He picked up the cooler and carried it inside, setting it down inside the doorway. Ryan, Sofie, Tobias, and Lotte followed him inside, and they set down their bags in the round entry hall.
Max ran his hand along the wall, searching for a light switch. When he flipped the switch, nothing happened. “Maybe the electric company shut off power after Grandmother’s death. Good thing we brought flashlights.” He reached into the big bag and pulled out the five lights, handing one to each of them.
With their lights beaming, shadowy light bounced off the walls, revealing a winding, stone-staircase made of the same stone as the floor and the thick stone walls.
“Wow!” Tobias said. “This is cool.”
“Oh, this is amazing,” Sofie said.
Max studied the dark hall and his heart raced with excitement. Antique oil lamps were set within recessed stone alcoves in the hall and along the stairwell on one side. He could imagine them lit up, giving off the right amount of light to create a spooky glow. His mind instantly conjured up a movie setting again with giant cameras, lights, costumed peasants, and a German king, only this time there were also men in elegant garb and white wigs and women in gorgeous evening gowns. Clearing the errant thought from his mind, he looked ahead and spotted a smallish-door on the right, set-back and partially hidden. He pondered whether he should go directly up the circular staircase or open the mysterious door to see where it led.
Before he made a decision, Tobias pushed past him and opened the door. Max smiled at Sofie, then tipped his head and smiled, motioning her to follow her son. Lotte followed her, glaring at Max as she passed. Ryan lingered in the hallway a moment, as if undecided about exploring the house, but then he, too, went through the doorway ahead of Max.
Max stooped to pass through the doorway. Inside the quaint parlor his nose twitched at a musty smell. He aimed his flashlight to his left. Set into the back wall of the parlor was a pass-through fireplace. He squatted down and while looking through the opening, caught a shadowy glimpse of the kitchen. Sight of an old wood-burning stove made him smile because he hadn’t seen one of those since he was a little boy and it brought back fond memories of his great-grandparents and their cabin, which suddenly made him realize the reason it was so dark in the house—besides no electricity—was that the shutters on the windows were closed, as they had been in his grandparents’ cabin when not in use. Hmm, that’s weird, he thought. Who closed the shutters, and why? A moment later it dawned on him. The attorney had probably hired someone to do it to prevent looters from entering.
Max told everyone to stop for a moment and then he went back outside to open the shutters. When he returned to the parlor minutes later, everyone had shut off their flashlights and were milling about.
Although eager to explore the kitchen, Max restrained himself and scanned the parlor. His eyes rested on an antique roll-top writing desk that was open and piled high with old papers. Next to the desk sat a pair of wooden bookcases filled with antique books.
The center of the room featured an old settee with a flowered print of red, green, blue, and beige and a matching chair, both pieces of furniture worn and faded. Nestled between them were a small elaborately-carved table and a red hurricane lamp.
He spotted an old-fashioned ornate baby-grand piano off in one corner next to a large wooden cupboard. “Oh, that piano is exactly like the one I saw in an old movie when I was a kid.”
Lotte shook her head in disgust and walked away.
“It’s quite an interesting relic,” Sofie said. “Do you play?”
“Yeah, some.” Max chuckled. “You know, I had many years of lessons when I was a kid. I remember complaining a lot. I probably would have been more excited about them if I’d had that piano.”
Sofie laughed softly.
Max walked across the room and stroked the piano’s keys, thinking it seemed out of place for a witch to own a piano. He shrugged, then glanced back toward the fireplace. From this perspective, everything looked a little different. The mid-day light shone through the two small front windows, casting shadows in places and giving the room a warm but slightly eerie feel. Max thought it added a mysterious element to the place.
Tobias walked over to the windows nestled within arch-shaped alcoves created by the thickness of the walls. With a bit of effort, he managed to climb up and sit in one of the alcoves. “This is cool. It reminds me of a miniature castle.”
“Yes, it does,” Max said. “I have to admit I’m impressed with this old cottage.”
Sofie smiled and nodded. She and Max walked around the room together, looking at faded book jackets, knickknacks, and photographs. Sofie suddenly gasped loudly.
Max stopped and looked at her, concerned. She was standing about four feet from him in front of a group of framed photographs. Her face had blanched. “What’s wrong? Are you ill?”
“Is . . . is that your grandfather in that picture?” she asked, pointing, her voice strangely shrill.
Max, having moments earlier passed the photos without paying much attention to them, was unsure which picture she was talking about. He stepped closer and studied them. “Ah, I see the photo. Yeah, he’s the man in the hat. The woman is my grandmother. I recognize her from photos my mother showed me when I was young. “Why do you ask?”
“The other man next to her is my grandfather,” she whispered.
Max raised his eyebrows and moved his gaze back and forth between her and the picture. “Oh, this is too weird.” He scratched his head and thought for a moment. “Well, I guess in a way it’s not that surprising. I mean, you told me earlier today that the house you live in has been in your family for generations. It’s feasible that our families knew each other. After all, this is not a densely populated area. Most likely, everyone here knew each other, right?”
Sofie cocked her head, looking deep in thought. “I suppose that makes sense. I did inherit the house from my grandfather. He grew up here in Riesen and he told me the house has been in our family for at least a few generations.”
“This one, too. I mean in our family,” Max added.
“Does this mean we’re related to him, Mom?”
She didn’t answer.
“No, I don’t think so,” Max said. “It looks like our families may have been friends, though.”
Sofie still looked as if she’d seen a ghost.
“Are you upset that our grandparents knew each other?” Max asked.
“No. I’m just surprised at this unexpected turn of events. Why didn’t he ever bring me here to visit when we came to Riesen? We spent some summers here when I was a child.” She gave Lotte an odd look, which Max didn’t understand.
Sofie then said something in German to Lotte. She responded with, “Nein. Ich habe noch nie zuvor gesehen."
“Tante Lotte says she didn’t know your grandparents.”
Tobias pointed to another photograph. “Is that your mother?”
“Yeah. I think that was taken before Mom was married. He
r name’s Monika. That one over there,” Max said, pointing to another photo, “is of both my parents, about five years before my mom disappeared.”
“Is this you?” Tobias asked, pointing to the last one.
“Yeah, that’s my parents, me, and my sister Diana. I was about twelve, and she was ten, I think.” Max smiled, remembering the day they all went in for that photo. He and his sister had squabbled throughout the sitting. They kept poking each other to get the other one to make a stupid face and ruin the photo, thus making the photographer retake it again and again. Their parents had gotten angry with them and had sent them straight to bed when they got home.
“You were a cute kid,” Sofie said.
“I didn’t see any family photos in your house,” Max said. “Don’t you have photos of your parents?”
Her face crumpled for a second. “No, none at all. I never knew my parents. They died shortly after I was born.”
“Didn’t your grandfather have any photos?”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you? But, no, he didn’t. He told me his ex-wife, my grandmother, kept them all. After she passed away, he didn’t know what happened to them.”
“That’s too bad.”
She nodded.
Tobias led the way into the next room, a sunlit kitchen in the back of the house, with larger windows looking out into the woods. He ran to the windows and shrieked with delight when two roe deer ran through the grass right behind the house.
Max and Sofie shared a smile, then Max stared out the window, craning his head to see the fields where crops were growing, but he couldn’t see them from there. Sighing, he walked over to the table and plopped down on one of the wooden chairs, similar to the ones in Sofie’s kitchen. “Probably would have been more comfortable to sit on the sofa in the parlor,” Max said, “but I didn’t realize how tired I was from all the walking until now.”
Sofie sat down in an adjacent chair, and Lotte followed. Ryan stood next to Tobias at the window.
“You know,” Max said, as he looked around the roomy kitchen, “that looks like a genuine wood-burning cooking stove. Judging by stove, sink, and faucet, I think this place hasn’t been updated in at least a century.” He studied the black iron stove with a narrow chimney and smiled, noticing an old-fashioned tea kettle sitting on top of the stove, a pile of small logs remaining on the floor, and three oil lanterns hanging strategically around the kitchen for light.
After five minutes of rest, Max rose and walked over to the cupboards next to the stove. The cupboards were in need of some serious help. The paint had worn thin and the knobs were either broken or missing altogether. He opened one of the doors. Inside rested two big bags containing what looked like rice and flour. Above the cupboards, two unpainted pine shelves held jars of various sizes and shapes. Max assumed from the looks of the jars that they were filled with spices, oats, and probably sugar though the latter could have been salt. Assorted utensils, pots, pans—dented, tarnished, and worn from years of service—hung from the underside of one of the shelves.
Against another wall a large pale blue dresser stood, also in dire need of help, filled with worn dishes. Adjacent to that was an antique ice box.
“This kitchen and almost everything in it is antique,” Max said.
“I think you’re right,” Sofie said. “It may not have the original kitchen, but it’s still quite old.”
“I’m wondering if there is even a bathroom in this house,” Max said. “I certainly hope so. There must at least be an outhouse, right?”
Sofie laughed. “I would expect so. Maybe we should finish looking around.”
They spread out in different directions. Max opened a door leading out of the kitchen. Thinking it was the bathroom door, he was surprised to find a large walk-in pantry instead. It actually seemed more like a small general store, he thought, with canned goods, empty jars for canning fruits, a large can of kerosene, assorted bolts of cloth, sewing needles and thread, etc.
Tobias yelled, “Here it is.”
“What?” Max asked, yelling out from inside the pantry. “Where are you?”
“I found the bathroom. It’s in here, behind the kitchen cupboards.”
When Max walked back into the kitchen, he found Sofie smiling and motioning for him.
He walked over to the cabinets and peeked behind them. “What am I looking at?”
“Look down.”
He raised his eyebrows, then looked downward. “What the hell?”
Sofie laughed, and clapped her hands together.
Tobias and Ryan stood at the foot of the stairs, shining their flashlights up onto the wall. They smiled and waved their arms.
“The bathroom’s in the cellar?”
Sofie shrugged, and laughed again. “Well, at least it’s indoors.”
She turned to Lotte and spoke to her in German, but Max didn’t wait for her reaction. He rushed down the stairs, wondering what else was down there. Tobias opened the door. There it was—a small windowless room with a very old crude toilet. There was nothing else. No other rooms. Max stood there scratching his head, and shook it, laughing, and walked back up the stairs.
“This is a weird place,” he said. “Definitely unique.”
“Can we go upstairs now?” Tobias asked. “I can’t wait to see what’s up there.”
“Me too,” Ryan said.
Max said, “Sure, why not. But you’ll need your flashlights until we get the upper shutters open.”
Climbing up the twisting, uneven steep stone steps made Max a little short-winded, but he wasn’t sure whether it was due to exertion or anticipation. He was more excited about the place than he’d expected. He couldn’t wait to see what other surprises the house held.
Ryan, being young and strong, took the steps two at a time and squeezed past his father, bumping into him. Max smiled. At least the boy finally seemed excited about something.
Upstairs, the floor was unpolished natural pine, the stone walls remaining natural, unpainted. The bedrooms were plain, with simple furnishings, only a single window in each of the three rooms for light. He was a bit surprised that the windows still opened easily enough, allowing him access to open shutters.
“These bedrooms remind me of jail cells,” Ryan said. “I think they would make me feel claustrophobic. I’d rather sleep outside.”
To Max the rooms were quaint, invoking memories from his early childhood when he and his family had visited his father’s grandparents in a small Oklahoma town. Max and his sister had sat at their kitchen table, eating homemade cookies and drinking milk. Afterwards, they’d played in the woods nearby, chasing dragonflies while trying to avoid mosquitoes. He gently touched the bed in the largest room and was surprised to find that it was a feather bed on a weathered-wood frame. He grinned, remembering an old John Denver song. A worn wooden trunk with iron hinges and leather straps, a wardrobe cabinet, and a wooden rocker completed the room. “Wow! This place is a museum.”
Sofie laughed. “I’ve seen many old buildings in Germany, but this is one of the most interesting houses I’ve been inside.”
“You know, I’ve always been a history nut. Even studied it and collected bits of it in the form of antiques. I had no idea that my family owned such a magnificent piece of it.”
“Are we going to sleep here tonight?” Ryan asked.
A loud thunk sound coming from downstairs made them all freeze momentarily.
“Mein Gott!” Lotte whispered. She clutched her heart, and Sofie put her arms around her shoulders.
“What the hell was that?” Max asked.
For several more breathless moments, they waited and then a loud crash made them all jump. Max sprang into action and ran toward the spiral staircase. He strained to see downstairs, but the spiral curve made it impossible. “Who’s there?”
Tobias said, “If there is someone there, they probably don’t speak English.”
Max smiled and looked at Tobias who was standing next to Sofie, then he headed dow
n the stairs with the others following him.
“Whoa!” Max yelled.
CHAPTER FIVE
SOFIE CAUGHT HER breath and felt her face flush as she bumped into Max on her way down the staircase. Apparently, he had stopped in his tracks the moment he’d yelled out, “Whoa!” How was she supposed to know? Her flashlight in the dark stairwell didn’t help much because of the twists and turns the staircase made. Instinctively, she’d stuck out her arm to stop Tobias, whom she knew was coming down right on her heels.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Max,” Sofie said. Although she’d knocked Max forward, he had luckily managed to brace himself and avoided falling down onto the stone.
Max shrugged. “Do you see our uninvited guest?”
Sofie peeked around him and stared at the intruder in the entry hall. The largest raccoon she’d ever seen was slowly rummaging through the bags of food they’d brought with them and had left sitting on the stone floor entry. A small table near the door was overturned and a large statue that had been on top of it had tumbled to the floor and shattered. The raccoon backed out of one of the bags with something clenched in its mouth, and froze upon seeing it had acquired an audience. The creature then calmly turned around and scuttled back out the front door.
Everyone burst into laughter—even Tante Lotte.
Sofie said, “I like animals but I’m glad it’s gone. That was one large raccoon and one of the oddest experiences I’ve had in quite a long time.”
“What did he have in his mouth?” Tobias asked.
Max said, “I’m not sure, but it was probably your lunch.” Tobias giggled. “You know,” Max added, “this is going to make a great story to tell my daughter back home.”
“You have other kids?” Tobias asked.
“Yeah, Ryan has a twin sister. They both graduated high school a few weeks ago.”
Sofie gave Max a sideways look, wondering about him once again. She’d been reluctant to ask much about him or his family because she didn’t want to get too close, but she was curious.