Inherit the Past (The Bavarian Woods Book 1)

by Susan Finlay

  The man rolled over, his hands rubbing his sore head. He said something, and then the other man was running at him, carrying something long and metal. Max’s first thought was ‘sword’, but it wasn’t shiny. When two prongs stabbed him in the abdomen, he remembered the hayfork he’d seen last night near the entrance when they’d first entered the barn. The man pulled it back out and turned and aimed it at Ryan.

  Max lunged at the man and knocked him down. When Max looked up, the first man, whom Ryan had hit, was struggling to get up. Max yelled to Ryan, “Run! Get our horses and ride as fast as you can.”

  For once the boy did what Max told him. Max followed Ryan and their horses through the barn, half running, half stumbling because of his wounds, which he was covering with his hands. Warm blood oozed over his fingers, coating them like a glove. His head was woozy and he thought he might pass out or die from blood loss, which he saw was significant when he glanced over his shoulder once—puddles dotted the ground behind him, leaving a trail that would make him easy to track—but he kept moving.

  He vaguely heard the German men talking behind him, but his head was fuzzy now and he knew he probably wouldn’t have understood them even if they’d been speaking English.

  Outside, Ryan was standing next to their horses. “Dad, are you okay?”

  Max made it to his horse, but couldn’t form any words. Through a brain fog, and with considerable help from his son, he somehow mounted his horse without passing out. The next thing he recalled, Ryan was holding his horse’s reins and they were on the top of a hill overlooking the farmstead, the hill where Max and Ryan had waited and watched the farm in the early evening.

  Max tried to sit up straight and catch his breath. He couldn’t speak. The sun was higher now and he could see Ryan’s anxious face.

  “Oh, man, you’re bleeding badly. What should I do?”

  Max tried to speak but still couldn’t get words out.

  “Dad, I don’t know what to do. Should I go into town and look for a doctor?”

  Max moaned and thought he was going to be sick. “Can’t …go …to …town. Need … get away from here.”

  “Can you ride?”

  “Don’t know. You lead us.”

  Ryan’s face blanched. “You’re scaring me. Please don’t die.”

  “I’ll try not to.” Max tried to smile. “Look for a secluded place where we can hide.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  AS SOFIE RODE through the countryside, she kept replaying the night of Birgitta’s murder and the days immediately following. Tobias had cried off and on the first day, insisting that it was his fault Birgitta was dead. If he hadn’t alerted his mother that Ryan and Anneliese weren’t with the others, none of the rest of the awful events would have happened. Everyone had assured him he wasn’t to blame, and he’d finally quieted. The truth was, though no one other than Karl had stated it, and even he hadn’t put it in so many words, Sofie knew the blame landed on her shoulders. If she hadn’t rushed to tell Max about Ryan and Anneliese’s tryst—waited at least until morning—Birgitta would still be alive. Max and Ryan would not have quarreled and they wouldn’t now be on the run. Everyone would have gone to bed in the gasthof, gotten a good night’s sleep, and arrived at the farm the next day.

  Sofie sighed, unable to hold in her deep regret and sorrow. I almost got my son killed a year and a half ago when I got involved in other people’s business and neglected to pick him up from school. In her grief, she blamed herself for the death of her husband and daughter the year before that. She shook her head, struggling to change her train of thought, but the past wouldn’t release its grip. She knew she hadn’t deliberately done anything to hurt anyone, but she seemed to have the knack for inadvertently creating disastrous chains of events.

  When Karl pulled up alongside her, she tried to think of something to say but couldn’t. He didn’t say anything. He simply smiled and nodded to her. They rode on in silence until they passed through a small village. She asked Karl if he’d ever been there before. He said he had sold a few clocks to a nobleman who lived in a nearby manor. That got Karl talking about his clock making and helped pass the time.

  Soon they stopped for a rest and ate a quick bite of food. The night before, she’d spoken with Gerhard. He’d seemed to relax a bit and told her that his wife was named Monika, and they had four children. Sofie still didn’t know if his wife was Max’s mother. It wasn’t exactly the kind of question you could come out and ask. Karl had earlier cautioned her, saying that if Gerhard was ‘their Monika’s’ husband, he probably didn’t know about her past, and if revealed, that could create a huge problem. Best to wait until they met Gerhard’s wife, verify her identity, and talk directly to her.

  Sofie’s mind drifted back to Birgitta’s murder. She didn’t want to believe it, but Tante Lotte could have killed her, as Karl thought. It wasn’t as if Sofie had never seen Lotte lose her temper and lash out at someone. Two years ago, her great-aunt had gotten into a physical altercation with a woman while attending a local fair. Apparently, the women had at one time been friends, but had become enemies because the other woman had accused Lotte of stealing a bracelet and necklace from her. The jewelry was indeed in her possession, but Tante Lotte had sworn that the other woman had given her the jewelry. Of course getting into an altercation didn’t mean she was capable of murder. No one had been injured, and a few days later, the two women had even worked out their differences.

  If Lotte didn’t kill Birgitta, then who did, and why? Sofie had only recently met her travel companions, but found it hard to imagine any of them actually killing someone. Perhaps a stranger—another traveler or a robber—had done it. She recalled that as she’d walked across the road to the stables that dreadful night, she’d felt as if someone was watching her. True, she hadn’t really seen anyone, and had written it off as her imagination, but she had felt watched all the same. And what about Max’s assertion that someone hit him over the head and knocked him unconscious? Could that have been the same someone?

  Karl pulled up beside her again. “We are almost there. We look for Max and Ryan now.”

  MONIKA, SITTING ACROSS the table from Lotte, struggled to assimilate the news that her mother had recently passed away and that Karl had, effectively, remarried many years before her passing. He’d married Birgitta. Although unsure how she felt about his remarrying, her emotions swung from happiness for her father to pity for her mother. She was hardly in a position to judge anyone, though, since technically she was a bigamist as well, having left behind a husband who had probably missed her in spite of their marital difficulties. The fact that her father had chosen to marry Birgitta was far more problematic.

  The older woman was watching her and seemed to be trying to keep her face expressionless, but Monika saw the corners of Lotte’s mouth tilt upward slightly as she delivered the news.

  The wretched woman is enjoying this. She has not changed a bit. Monika sipped her coffee, trying to ignore Lotte and concentrate on her own memories.

  Monika already knew about her father’s prior time travel escapades. When she was twelve years old, he had confided in her about how he’d met Margrit, her mother, here in the eighteenth century. As he told her his story, in 1949 a twenty-year-old Karl, an apprentice at a clock factory by day and a fiddle/violin player at a local tavern in the evenings, had lived with his mother in their ancestral home. After his mother had passed, leaving the house to him, he had asked his closest friend, Vikktor, to help him clear out some old stuff his mother had stored in the cellar. They came across a boarded up door that Karl’s mother had, on numerous occasions, vociferously warned Karl to stay away from. Of course curiosity got the better of the two young men. Karl, with Vikktor’s help, had yanked off the boards, exposing an unusual tunnel. Too late, they had discovered just how unusual the tunnel really was and were both transported into the past. Then, a few days later, they had accidentally become separated from each other.

  For weeks Karl had searched
for his friend. On one of those days, running desperately short on food, Karl had arrived at a nearby farm and met Margrit who was seventeen years old at the time. She convinced her family to let Karl stay temporarily as a farm hand. She had followed him around, bringing him food and drink, smiling at him whenever he looked her way. But Karl, knowing he would be going back to his own time if he could, had tried not to get involved with her.

  After finishing his chores one day, Karl had traveled back to the cave, unaware that Margrit had followed him. While exploring the cave, he was unexpectedly transported back to his own time. He was deliriously happy to be home until he discovered that Margrit had been transported as well. He didn’t know how to make the portal work or how to be sure to get her safely back to her own time, consequently he didn’t try to send her back to her family. Karl did the only thing he could do—he married Margrit and tried to make up for ruining her life. Ten months later, she gave birth to their daughter, Monika.

  “I knew of course that mother was from this time,” Monika said.

  “Do not blame your father for seeking companionship,” Lotte said. “He told me after I came here with Max and Sofie that soon after you and he arrived here you tried several times to use the tunnel to get back home, but it did not work.”

  Monika nodded, recalling their failed attempt to get back.

  “He also told me that he tried again later, after you two got separated, but still was unable to make it work.” Lotte paused and sipped her tea before continuing. “So it is not really surprising that Karl would turn to Margrit’s family as a few of the only people he knew here. He said that when he could not find you he assumed that you had tried yourself and made it home to your own time.”

  Monika contemplated it all. “You are saying Papa has been here all along?”

  “Ja. He lives in Riesen where he is a clockmaker.”

  Monika leaned against the back of the bench, her head touching the wall. “That makes Birgitta my aunt and my stepmother. I cannot wait to meet her.”

  Lotte looked down into her cup, swirling the dark liquid around, then looked up and said, “Unfortunately, you will not get to meet her. She was murdered several days ago in Altenmünster, while we were staying at a gasthof. Two members of our group are suspects.”

  Monika’s mouth gaped open. Finally, she said, “Oh God. That is horrible. Did they kill her?”

  Lotte shrugged and sipped her tea.

  “How is Papa handling it?”

  “He was devastated of course, as we all were. But he seems to be handling it well enough. However, Birgitta’s granddaughter, Anneliese—you met her—went into hysterics, making traveling here quite a bit more difficult.”

  “She is all right now?”

  “It is hard to say. She has barely spoken since then.”

  They sat in silence watching the flames in the fireplace die out. Then Monika asked, “What did the boy mean when he said he does not think he is related to me?”

  Lotte squirmed and stared at the floor, piquing Monika’s curiosity.

  “My brother, Vikktor—you have heard of him, of course—is the grandfather of Sofie and great-grandfather of Tobias. When Tobias learned that our families knew each other, he wondered if we were related. Of course, we are not. How much do you remember of your father’s friendship with Vikktor?”

  It was Monika’s turn to look away to keep Lotte from seeing her face. She’d heard her parents talk about Vikktor all right, the man who had first time traveled with her father but who had been imprisoned in the past, returning thirty years later after finally figuring out how to work the portal. Only the damn man had refused to share that information. If he had, she and her father wouldn’t have been stuck here and could have gone home. The damn thing was, her father and Margrit had made it back somehow. That meant it was possible. But try as they may, they never could figure out how that happened, how to repeat it when she and her father wanted to return. They had eventually stopped trying.

  She’d seen Vikktor off and on after he returned when she’d come back from the U.S. to visit with her parents in Germany. Vikktor had come to her parents’ house and would talk to her father late into the night, usually in whispers. On a few occasions, curious about what they were talking about secretively, she’d sneaked downstairs after she’d gone to bed and eavesdropped. Between snippets, she’d pieced together enough to know that Vikktor Sonnenberg was a criminal and that her father might somehow be involved.

  “He and Papa were close, as I recall. Vikktor was one of the few people who ever came to their house. Mutter disliked strangers. Papa would get embarrassed by her, too. Where is Vikktor? I have not thought of him in years.”

  “Always on the move. I never know where he is or when he will turn up next.”

  “Have you seen him or heard from him since you arrived in this century?”

  Lotte looked away from her and did not answer.

  Stubborn old woman. Always playing it cagey. When Monika was a child, Lotte would come to Riesen sometimes to check on Vikktor’s house during his absence. She had never reported him missing, but instead told people that he was ‘living abroad’.

  Changing the subject, Monika asked, “What happened to my mother? How did she die?”

  “She had a heart attack,” Lotte whispered. “Her death is what brought Max and his boy to Germany. Karl was saddened by the news, but thrilled to see Max and the boy.”

  Monika tried to recall her father’s face and her son’s face. Max was only nineteen, or maybe twenty, she couldn’t remember for sure, when she saw him last. He was away at college, his hair had grown long and scraggly, and he’d sported a beard and mustache, something that had irritated his father to no end. Of course, she mused, in this time period he would have fit right in.

  “Is Max all right? Where is he?” she asked. “And how are Tobias and his mother connected to him?”

  Lotte told her the story of how they came to be here, and when she finished, Monika shook her head.

  “So Max only recently met this woman, barely knows this country, and now he’s missing,” she said. “Is he in love with Sofie?”

  Lotte shrugged. “No one tells me anything. If I had to guess, I would say ja.”

  “And Sofie?” Monika asked.

  “Oh, I think she has feelings for him,” Lotte said, “though she tries to hide them. I know my niece.”

  “What about Jenny, Max’s college girlfriend?” Monika asked. “When I last saw him, he was serious about her, even considering marriage, I think. Did he marry her?”

  “I cannot answer. He talks a lot, but in English.”

  Lotte continued telling Monika the rest of their story, telling her that Max and his son were on the run, each being a suspect in the murder of Birgitta, and that Karl had for some reason, known only to him, helped them escape.

  Monika was overwhelmed with the sudden revelations that had been dumped on her in the past few hours. Her head felt as if it would burst. Her own life, with the recent discovery of her daughter’s pregnancy, was in enough turmoil. And now, with her other family and its problems piled atop, she wondered how she would handle it all.

  Worst of all, how was she going to explain everything to her children?

  Once retired for the night, Monika tossed and turned, her mind active and thoughts continuing to plague her. Her husband and teenage sons might be in danger. She was confident in their abilities to take care of themselves, and yet she couldn’t help but worry about them. What if the killer wasn’t only after Birgitta, but the rest of them, too?

  She realized she was not only worried about her current family, but also about her Max, too. She was ashamed to admit, even to herself, that she hadn’t worried about Max in years.

  Oh, God, what am I going to do? Gerhard knew about her other family, but her children knew nothing about her previous life. What would they say? How could she tell them about her displacement in time? In her early days here, she’d worried about this very thing happening
but after all this time, she’d assumed the two would never meet and her secret would die with her and Gerhard.

  Part of her was thrilled at the prospect of reuniting with her father and Max and meeting one of her grandchildren. She just wished she could have met all of them away from here and not have to explain everything to her children.

  If everything came out in the open, would it destroy her family? What if they—Karl, Lotte, Max, his son, Sofie, and Tobias figured out how to get back to the twenty-first century? Would they expect her to go with them?

  On the other hand, what if they decided to stay here?

  She finally drifted off to sleep, but her sleep was filled with unsettling dreams. When she awoke the next morning, she felt drained. Splashing cold water on her face from a basin near her bed helped some. She dressed and then walked down the staircase that led directly to the kitchen where her oldest daughter was preparing breakfast.

  “Mutter, you look awful,” Hanna said. “Are you ill?”

  “No, child,” she said, smiling weakly. “I am tired. It has been a hectic week.”

  Hanna gave her mother a hug and a warm smile, then poured her a cup of milk.

  “Thank you,” Monika said, taking the offered mug. “What would I do without you?”

  Instead of sitting down at the table, Hanna stood there, looking at her with a puzzled expression. Monika knew it wouldn’t be long before her daughter started asking questions.

  Before Hanna had a chance to begin, Tobias wandered into the room, rubbing his eyes.

  Monika was glad for the distraction, hoping Hanna wouldn’t question her about Max in front of the child.

  “Are Tante Lotte and Anneliese still asleep?” Tobias asked.

  “I think so,” Monika said, getting a confirming nod from Hanna, and smiled at the boy. “Are you hungry?”

  Tobias nodded. His hair was tousled and he looked innocent standing there holding a cat that was almost too big for him to handle.

  She got up, gathered bread and butter, set them on the table, and set a saucer of milk on the floor for the cat. After sitting back down, she motioned for Tobias to put the cat down to lap up its milk and sit next to her. Did he know about Birgitta’s murder? Was it upsetting for him? She wouldn’t bring it up.