Tanglewood Grotto

by Susan Finlay

  She bent her head and groaned. World War II had been bad enough. Back then she had been a little girl. Now, here, in the late eighteenth century she was an old woman. Both age groups were generally treated as worthless in most of society. Her mind wandered awhile, lamenting about how unfair it all was, generally feeling sorry for her lot in life.

  Then it hit her; the man who’d talked with the priest back in Riesen. She sat up straight. Mein Gott, how could she have forgotten already that she’d started making plans in her head yesterday to go to Dinkelsbühl? She shook her head. I must be going senile.

  Could that man somehow be her son? It seemed farfetched, sure, but was it possible? He could have time traveled, too, couldn’t he? She clapped her hands together and smiled. Then the smile in her mind turned into a frown. The argument they’d had the last time she’d seen him—the night before he left home for good—consumed her brain. She pushed it away like a rotten piece of meat and sighed heavily. What if the man was her son? Was he still upset with her? Would he tell her to get lost like Karl and Vikktor did?

  Something furry touched her bare foot, tickling it. Lotte jerked, letting out a loud squeal and looking down. Damn mouse. She reached for something to swat the mouse with and then heard a soft meow. “Mein Gott, it’s you, Valkyrie, what are you doing back here? Does Tobias know you are here?”

  “He does.”

  Lotte looked up and gasped. Sofie and Tobias were standing a few feet away, the light from the fire giving their faces a reddish glow. “Tobias, you promised you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “I’m sorry, Tante Lotte. I tried to get away without anyone noticing.” His eyes glanced to the side, at his mother. “She knew something was up. She wouldn’t let me bring the food and she made me bring her here.”

  Sofie said, “He tried to pretend he was just going out for a walk again, but I saw him sticking food into a cloth bag. I could have assumed he was planning a picnic for himself and the cat, but I know my son and know when he’s lying or feeling guilty.”

  He hung his head down.

  Lotte said, “Don’t worry, Tobias.”

  “You shouldn’t have come here, Lotte,” Sofie said. “And what were you thinking, asking a little boy to sneak food to you?”

  “I’m not a little boy. I’m ten now,” he said, indignant. “Stop treating me like a baby.”

  Sofie glanced at him and shook her head. Turning back to Lotte, she said, “You’re dangerous and you’re a liar, Lotte. I can’t believe all those years . . . I was gullible, but then why wouldn’t I be? I was a child. I trusted you and Vikktor. I thought you were both my family.

  “I’m sorry. I trusted Vikktor, too. He told me he’d taken you away from a very bad man and that he would protect you, with my help. Why would I question his story or suspect he was lying? I didn’t know what kind of man my brother was becoming.”

  Sofie didn’t respond. She stood staring, her arms crossed and her glowing red face stern.

  Lotte sighed and fought back tears. “Don’t worry, dear. I’m leaving today. I just have to pack up and I’ll be on my way and out of your life forever.”

  “I thought you were going back to the twenty-first century when you left Senden. Didn’t Vikktor send you back?”

  “No. Yes. No. It’s hard to explain.” She sighed hard, her shoulders heaving, not knowing how to explain. She didn’t fully understand it herself. Rubbing her eyes to clear away the tears, she continued. “Vikktor told me he was sending me back. He took me back to the same cave that we came out of when we first time traveled.” She cut off Sofie’s hopeful look, saying, “No, don’t know how he got the portal to work. He made me turn my back so I couldn’t see. He was secretive, as you know.”

  Deflated, Sofie nodded. “Yes, I remember. Go on.”

  “I landed with a loud thud on the floor of the tunnel in Margrit’s cellar. I remember screaming out in pain and rubbing my bottom and my left leg, both of which had taken the brunt of the fall. I’d been sure my leg had broken—or at least a bone cracked—based on the way the portal had expelled me, throwing me bodily up against the wall.”

  “Wow,” Tobias said, sitting on a nearby boulder. “I didn’t think about it hurting to go back through the portal.”

  She nodded. “Fortunately for me, nothing was broken and after a few minutes I was able to move about. All I needed to do was get out of the darn tunnel. I changed position and tried to look around, but it was pitch black. Vikktor had kept his word and got me back home. But why couldn’t he have sent me through a different tunnel—one easier to navigate, I wondered? He had told me on several occasions that he’d found better time portals.”

  “I would have been terrified to be there alone in the dark,” Tobias said, his eyes wide. “What did you do?”

  “Carefully, I crawled in the darkness to the door, grabbed hold of the door frame and pulled myself up to a standing position. I searched for the doorknob. My hand scratched and clawed all over the door. Where was the doorknob? Then I remembered Margrit having overheard Karl and Monika talking about sending her back in time. I thought, Oh, mein Gott! There isn’t a knob on this side. How could I have forgotten? That’s how we trapped Karl and Monika in there.”

  Sofie nodded, leaning against a wall.

  “You know the story, don’t you? About how Max’s mother, Monika, and Karl got stuck here in the past?

  “Yes. You and Karl’s first wife, Margrit, had trapped them in the portal tunnel because Margrit believed they were going to send her back to the past where she’d originally lived, and she didn’t want to go back.

  Lotte nodded. “I regret that day more than you will ever know.”

  Sofie said nothing.

  “It must have been really scary for you to be trapped in the tunnel,” Tobias said. “What happened then? How did you get back here?”

  “Well, I sank back down on the floor after realizing I was trapped in the tunnel. I didn’t know what to do. I wondered if I would get transported back in time again, or if I would die right there in the tunnel. I wondered if maybe I would end up in some place different. Another time period. But no. After a few days crawling about—at least I think it was a few, it sure felt that way—I landed back here in the cave. That was about two months ago. At least that’s what Karl told me.”

  “Wait. What? When did you speak to Karl?” Sofie asked, standing straight, moving away from the wall.

  Lotte chewed on her lower lip, kicking herself, wishing she hadn’t mentioned him. Too late now. “I . . . I uh, saw him yesterday, in Riesen. I wanted him to help me find Vikktor. I was worried about Vikktor, since I haven’t seen him after that time travel debacle. You know what Karl told me? He told me Vikktor wants nothing to do with me.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t know. I had been worried something might have happened to him, but according to Karl, Vikktor is fine. Why did he betray me? He knew that I wouldn’t get back home using that portal. It makes no sense. If he wanted me gone from his life like he told Karl, why not just send me back home permanently through a portal that would work?”

  No one spoke. The cat made herself comfortable on Lotte’s lap and purred. Lotte stroked the cat’s thick fur. It felt good to touch another living being.

  “All right,” Sofie said. “I will go to Riesen and talk to Karl. Tobias will stay here with you until I return. Don’t go anywhere.”

  Lotte went cold. What was Sofie up to? “Why do you want to talk to Karl? Are you going to turn me over to the Feldgendarms?” She tried to appear stoic as she waited for Sofie’s response, but in her mind she imagined her own body crumbling to the ground like a broken statue, due to the strain.

  “I want to know what is going on. What is Vikktor up to? As far as we know, he is the only person who knows how to use the portals. That’s a good reason to find him, and from what you just told me, Karl has recently been in contact with Vikktor, unless someone is lying.”

  “I told you the truth. I swear it
.” She didn’t mention the man named Helmut and her sliver of hope that he might be her son. Sofie was always trustworthy before, but she now held a grudge against Lotte and might really be going to Riesen to get the Feldgendarms. Best to keep Dinkelsbühl a secret for now in case she needed to run away. That old town was the only hope she had left.

  SOFIE HIKED BACK to their small village, found Max, who was busy working, and filled him in on what she’d discovered and about Vikktor’s deceit, sending Lotte back to her own time a few weeks ago, but her ending up back here. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I want to ride to Riesen and speak to your grandfather. I should only be gone an hour or so.”

  “I don’t know, Sofie. I’d go with you, if I didn’t have so much work to do.” He ran his hand through his hair. “But to be honest, I’m not sure you should get involved with Lotte and her problems. She’s not really related to you, didn’t she tell you that when we were in Senden? And she’s still wanted by the police.”

  “You should have seen her, Max. Her hair is almost all gray now, not brown, and she chopped off part of it.”

  “So. She is seventy-six, isn’t she? I would expect her to get gray hair. I’m getting a few gray hairs, myself, and I’m only forty.”

  “That’s not my point. It isn’t just her hair color. She’s always worn her hair really long and in a braid wrapped up into a bun near the top of her head. I suppose she may still be able to braid it and style it up, but right now it’s hanging loose past her shoulders and she looks like an old hag.”

  “At least she still has her teeth, right?” He smiled.

  “You’re joking, but it isn’t funny. Yes, she has her teeth, but she’s lost a lot of weight and I’m worried about her.”

  “Okay.” He held up his hands in submission and the smile disappeared. “I’ll try to be more serious. Tell you what, you can take her food, like Tobias was doing, and something to drink for a few days, and then send her on her way. She has no right to ask you for any other help.”

  “She didn’t, actually. It was my idea. Biologically related or not, she’s still . . . well, it’s not that easy to write her out of my life entirely. She practically raised me. I don’t trust her and maybe never will again. That doesn’t mean I can turn my back and act as though she doesn’t exist. Besides, Vikktor knows how to work the time portals, and Karl might know where he is. Don’t you want to find out more about the portals in case we someday want to use them?”

  His eyes sparkled like a child’s, the way they had when he’d first seen the little alcoves in Riesen back in the twenty-first century. She’d made her point.

  “Oh, I’d love to get hold of that old man, Vikktor, I mean, and pick his brain,” he said.

  “Then I’ll go and talk to Karl.”

  “Okay, but don’t do anything that will upset Gramps. We need him and he needs us.”

  She hugged Max and kissed him, then hurried to the corral where they kept their horses.

  At the town’s gate, she slowed her horse’s pace and entered. She had only been back to Riesen once during the past two months, and that time she was riding in Karl’s—Gramps’s wagon. This was her first time to come here alone. It still amazed her that the buildings appeared much the same as in the future, though the town’s similarity ended there. A foul-smell assaulted her and made her want to retch. She’d thought she would be used to the stink by now, after living in a makeshift village with rough port-a-potties and livestock on the property, but apparently she wasn’t. Or maybe it was her recently acquired morning sickness that was bothering her stomach.

  Horses were standing about in the streets, snorting and whinnying, swishing their tails to keep the flies and other clouds of flying insects at bay. Chickens and pigs roamed about freely, further befouling the muddy streets, something that she was finally getting somewhat used to, even though she disliked it. Once they got their own farm well-stocked, she hoped she would develop a fondness for the animals roaming around.

  Someone in a house near the town wall leaned out from a second-story window and emptied a large basin down onto the street below, causing the horses and livestock to scatter. The same thing had happened on the night when she, Max, Ryan, Tobia, and Tante Lotte had first arrived four months ago, after time traveling. The animals weren’t the only source of the disgusting stench.

  The word ‘stankgemach’ had sprung to mind then and now, and she cringed, remembering something she’d read about privileged homes in eighteenth century Germany having a privy, or stankgemach, in the top story. The owners would empty the contents of the privy, or toilet, onto the streets below.

  The town was bustling with activity this morning as she rode through the streets, looking for Karl’s clock shop. Most of the houses were three-story buildings, with a store or workshop on the ground level and flats for the families up above. Sofie recognized some of them from the Riesen of the present. They were ‘Fachwerk’ or timber-framed construction, with the spaces in between the timber beams filled in with brick or with wattle and daub.

  She left her horse at the stable and walked the short distance to Karl’s shop. The door was open and Sofie strode in.

  Karl looked up from the clock he was working on, a look of surprise settling on his face. “Sofie, what are you doing here? Did Max come with you?”

  “No. He’s working.”

  His brows shot up. “Is something wrong?”

  She glanced around the small space. “Where is Anneliese?”

  “Upstairs, sleeping. She had an upset yesterday. I had to sedate her, the poor girl.”

  “Because of Lotte?”

  He pursed his lips and nodded, setting down the clock he was working on. “So, I guess you know that Lotte is in the area? That’s why you came here.”

  “Yes. Tobias found her living in a grotto in the woods not far from our village.”

  Karl picked up a small hand tool and made an adjustment on the cuckoo clock. “Anneliese saw her. She wanted to alert the Feldgendarms. No matter how much I dislike Lotte, I couldn’t allow that; not when she wrote the confession to help me out.” He tested the clock and then said, “I found one of Birgitta’s tonics—something that she kept around the house for those nights when she couldn’t sleep because of her arthritis. I gave some to Anneliese.”

  Sofie nodded, wondering what he would do when the girl woke up, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Will you make sure Lotte leaves?” Karl asked. “Maybe you can take her somewhere.”

  “I will, but first I want to know about Vikktor. Why did he send her back to the future through a portal that he knew wouldn’t actually get her back? He knew the door to the cellar couldn’t be opened from the portal.”

  “How should I know?”

  “You told Lotte that Vikktor doesn’t want anything more to do with her, didn’t you? That means you’ve been in contact with him. If he doesn’t want anything to do with her, why didn’t he make sure she got back to the future?”

  Karl picked up a different clock, one that was only partially built and then searched for something. “Ah, there you are hiding,” he said, picking up an odd looking tool. “Where was I? Ah, I remember. I don’t know if she told you this. Vikktor used Lotte to help him get a wagon that he needed at the last minute, in Senden.”

  “She didn’t tell me, but I guessed as much.”

  “After she wrote the confession to Birgitta’s murder to help you, Max, and me—which I might add was really more to help ease her own guilt for lying to you all those years—well, Vikktor was angry. Her confession made her a liability to him.”

  “Huh? Why is that?”

  He looked away, as if trying to decide how much to tell her. “Vikktor—is my oldest friend. I don’t want to betray him. All I can tell you is that his activities aren’t exactly legal. As a criminal, he didn’t want to get on the Feldgendarms’ radar, so to speak.”

  “Is he a smuggler? I’ve wondered.”

  He shrugged. “During the two
months Lotte was traveling around with us looking for Max’s mother, Vikktor would find her from time to time, yet he refused to help any of you get back home. That made Lotte angry and suspicious. She began questioning his business practices and letting him know she didn’t blindly trust him anymore. She wanted to know if he knew more about the portal’s history, who first used it, and what it was used for. She also questioned whether he knew where her son, Helmut, went when he left home, because Helmut and Vikktor had a big argument right before Helmut left home.”

  “Did she find out anything?”

  He shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell her a thing. She also told Vikktor she wanted to tell you the truth about you not being related to either of them. He warned her not to do it, saying he would send her back to the future where she would live the rest of her life alone, without any family.”

  “But she did it anyway. Why didn’t he send her back?”

  He shook his head. “Well, for one thing, she wanted him to. That rankled him. He’d told her that, because it was supposed to be a deterrent or a punishment. Second, Vikktor didn’t want to show her his main time travel portals, and the more he thought about it the less he wanted to send her back. But you know Lotte—she wanted it and she kept harping on him. To shut her up, he told her he would take her back to the portal where she’d come through before. He promised her she would get back safely. Told her he’d done it many times. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ he said. She didn’t like the plan and argued about it, but finally gave in. But he knew damn well she wouldn’t be able to get back. He left her there for days, and then the portal reopened and tossed her back here in the past.”