Tanglewood Grotto (The Bavarian Woods Book 2)

by Susan Finlay

  “I don’t understand. If he wanted her gone, why did he double-cross her? Why didn’t he make sure she would stay in her own time period?”

  Karl shrugged again.

  “Out with it, Karl. Tell me what you know.”

  He sighed, glanced toward the door, then said, “He told me that she is a loose cannon in the future, because she knows about his operation—I mean, his business—and she isn’t wanted for murder there, so he has no hold on her there. She could tell someone who has the power to destroy everything he’s worked for.”

  Sofie gasped. “But—” She stopped talking, trying to organize her thoughts. “Wait a minute. You said that she asked Vikktor about her son, Helmut. Are you saying she thinks Vikktor had something to do with his leaving home?”

  Karl began fiddling around with his clock and tools. “I know nothing.”

  “Where is Vikktor? You talked to him recently? Where can I find him?”

  “He doesn’t tell me where he’s going. He finds me when he wants something. That’s all I know.”

  “Fine. If you need me, you know where to find me,” she said. She turned to leave, then stopped in the doorway. “You do know that Max is having trouble with the house construction, don’t you? He’s afraid he won’t be able to build it. If we could work the portal, he could get better tools that would help him. Think about that. We need to find Vikktor.”

  Karl pursed his lips but didn’t answer.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AFTER WALKING FROM Karl’s clock shop to the stable and getting her horse, Sofie rode through town past her future house, the house where she had first met Max, the house she’d inherited, or is it would inherit, she didn’t know, in the future from her supposed grandfather, Vikktor. The house in which she’d lived with Lotte and Tobias until they’d time traveled. Who was living in that house now? An ancestor? Could Vikktor be living in that house when he wasn’t away on business? It wouldn’t actually surprise her if he was, now that she knew how sneaky the old man was. He’d lied to her for years, making her think that he was her grandfather and that her parents had been killed when she was a baby. She still didn’t know who her real parents were. Neither he nor Lotte would tell her. Lotte claimed she didn’t know the answer. Well, it’s time for some answers, she resolved. She turned her horse around and trotted back to the house. A middle-aged woman with three young children came out of the house and walked away, briskly. She shook her head. Oh well, Vikktor obviously didn’t live there now. Sighing, she turned around again and started back toward the city gate. As she rode, thoughts niggled at her. Seeing that woman and children come out of the house really didn’t tell her anything for certain. Vikktor could live there or still own the house, couldn’t he? He might rent out part of the house to lodgers. He might be gone on one of his business trips. How many times had he left her with Tante Lotte and told them he was going on a business trip? Lotte had practically raised Sofie, because Vikktor had been gone so much. Oh well, too late to find the woman now, she thought as she headed for home.

  By the time she arrived back at Möbius, she was determined to find Vikktor and get answers. She put the horse back in the corral and then searched for Max around the village.

  As she searched, looking through the compound, it struck her again how idyllic their village seemed to her, with seven newly constructed cabins, each charming in its own way, spread out over grass land surrounded by tall mature trees. While the cabins were primarily for sleeping and providing needed alone time, near the center of town there was also a well-thought-out communal kitchen near a fire pit where the residents could spend evenings sitting around and telling jokes and stories. There was also a horse corral where they kept their shared horses, and would soon add a hen house and hopefully a barn.

  While looking idyllic in her mind’s eye, the village also lately looked chaotic, because the men were in process of building the stone house which Max had inherited from his grandmother in the future and they constantly had building materials scattered about, making Sofie and the other wives sometimes feel as if they were living in the middle of a trash dump.

  The house they were building needed to sit in a specific place, above the cave opening containing the time portal that had brought Max, Sofie, Tobias, Lotte, and Ryan to this century. For safety sake, Ryan and Max had sealed up the entrance to the cave to prevent anyone from going inside and getting accidentally sucked through the portal. The others didn’t know about the portal, and had wondered why they didn’t want to use the cave for storage, but Max told them only that they would later on build a root cellar.

  Eight men had been chopping down trees in the heavily wooded area nearby and dragging the lumber here, where they were shaping the logs for use in framing the house, leaving chopped off chunks of tree everywhere. They were also sorting through hundreds of boulders, again scattered around the area, trying to figure out how they were going to stack them up to build the two-story house. Obviously they would need to build some sort of lifting equipment when the time came.

  After she found Max and related what had happened in Riesen, he said, “So, let me get this straight. Vikktor double-crossed Lotte when he said he was sending her home, because he figured she was more of a danger to him in the future than in this century?” He scratched his head. “That doesn’t make much sense. She could get him in trouble here, too.” He hesitated, mouth slightly open and eyes looking deep in thought. “Oh, wait a minute. The only way she could get him in trouble here is if she went to the police—the Feldgendarms—and told them about his criminal activities.”

  “Right,” Sofie said, “and she won’t do that because she would get herself in arrested.”

  “Well, I can see his point. He’s safe from her, I guess, but only as long as she doesn’t get captured. Wouldn’t she tell them about his activities then?”

  Sofie thought for a moment. “Sure, if she could get the Feldgendarms to listen to her. And then, she would have to give them enough information to make them believe her. I don’t know if she knows enough details.”

  “Hmm. I don’t like where this is going.”

  “I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt,” Sofie said. “I loved him. I thought he was my grandfather. He was kind and loving to me and did everything he could to give me a good home up until I went away to college. Then he faked his own death, left me alone and sad, betrayed Lotte, and now I find that he’s a criminal and a liar. I can no longer trust him.” She paused, thinking, then continued. “Regardless, I need him to come clean with me and with Lotte. He owes us that much. You know I don’t like confrontations, but I have to find him and get answers. Our lives and Lotte’s life depend on it.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “I want to take Lotte away from here. For our safety as well as hers. We can’t take the risk that the Feldgendarms will find her living near us. If Anneliese turns her in, we could be arrested, too. While we’re away, we can search for Vikktor, too.”

  “I can’t get away from here and I can’t spare any of our crew. There’s too much to do before winter gets here.”

  “I know. Lotte and I can go alone. We can take a couple of our horses.”

  “You can’t go alone—just two women. That’s too dangerous and you know it. Not gonna happen.”

  Sofie glared at him. No man, not even her husband, was going to tell her what to do. “We’re leaving in the morning.” She turned to leave, but stopped when Max grabbed her arm.

  “Sofie, don’t do this, please. You don’t even know where to look. You’d be traveling with a wanted criminal. It’s insane.”

  “I have to find Vikktor.”

  “What’s really going on here, Sofie? This isn’t like you.”

  She looked him in the eyes and said, “You have family here. Your grandfather, your mother, siblings, your son. I don’t even know who my family is. Vikktor does. If he really did take me away from here to the future when I was a baby, then my family might be here.”


  Max didn’t say anything.

  “Remember how determined you were to find your mother here in the past. You wouldn’t take no for an answer. How can you expect me to let this go?”

  “I’m not saying you should never search for Vikktor or for answers. It’s just that the timing is terrible, you know that.”

  She sighed. “All right, I agree with that, but we also have Lotte hiding in a grotto nearby. Are you willing to take her into our community and risk getting arrested along with her? Or do you want to chase her away and have her die out in the middle of nowhere? Don’t you have any compassion? I thought you did? Am I wrong?”

  Max rubbed his eyes. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you what. I need a break from this construction stuff anyway. I’ll ride to Riesen and talk to Gramps. Then you and I can sit down and talk again. Go get Lotte while I’m gone. Bring her here and give her something to eat.”

  “Well, why the hell didn’t you go with me to Riesen? You know I just got back from there, don’t you?”

  He looked sheepish. “Yeah, I know, I deserve that. It’s just that you caught me at a bad time earlier. I was right in the middle of something, and I didn’t have time to really think things through, you know?

  “I guess I understand.” She sighed, another thought occurring to her. “You aren’t going to bring the Feldgendarms here?”

  “Nope. I promise I won’t.”

  Sofie kissed him and gave him a big hug, squeezing him and not wanting to let go. “Thank you. I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

  “I KNOW THIS is a really old city and there’s charm in that, but really, couldn’t they update these streets,” Jenny Hollander said as she lifted a foot and checked to see if her heel was still intact. She’d caught one or the other of her two-and-a-half inch heels on raised cobblestones at least three times since she and her daughter had started walking around Riesen an hour ago and she was worried she would break a heel. If she did, she would end up wasting precious time shopping for a new pair of shoes. Indeed, that was the kind of luck she’d been having lately. She’d only brought a small carry-on bag on the airplane and the clothes and shoes she was wearing, which she’d figured was plenty for her short stay. It still perturbed her that her boss only allowed her to take one week of her accumulated vacation time, two days of which were taken up by the long flights from the U.S to Germany and back. She’d argued with her boss but acknowledged that, yes, the hospital was understaffed and, yes, Jenny was the Head Nurse of her department, which made it her duty to get back to work ASAP. That didn’t mean she had to like it.

  “Well, I think the uneven streets are charming,” Lisa said in no uncertain terms. “My German teacher in my junior year of high school showed us slides of towns similar to this one. We all drooled over them. I wish my friends could see this place. They will just die when I show them my pictures. It’s almost a circle, you know; the town, I mean. That’s what I realized when I saw the aerial view postcards outside one of those shops we passed earlier. How cool is that?” She snapped a couple of photos on her cell phone, and then continued. “Some of my friends got to go on that class field trip to Germany last year and they came back with incredible pictures and stories. I don’t know why you and Dad wouldn’t let me go with them.”

  “We told you why. We were divorcing and didn’t need more to worry about. Besides, we were saving up money for your graduation trips. I think that was more important, don’t you?”

  Lisa shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Woulda been nice to see cool places like this with my friends, though. It’s not the same hanging out with my mom.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. You always take things the wrong way.”

  “Right. You never mean it when you complain about me.”

  “Hey, I’m not as bad as Ryan is with Dad. You should hear how he talks about him. I’m surprised they came here together. I hope one of them didn’t kill the other.”

  “I’m just worried that Ryan may have gotten into a tizzy and taken off on his own. You know how your brother gets sometimes. Your father would have gone searching for him, sure, and probably gotten himself lost.”

  “Yeah. He can be a real pain in the butt.”

  “Your father or your brother?”

  Lisa laughed. “Both, actually.”

  Jenny smiled, but her smile quickly fell flat when she remembered the reason they were here, searching for two errant males. “Wouldn’t you think one of them could have called us at least or gotten word to us? It’s crazy that we’re traveling all the way to Germany to hunt for them.”

  Assuming a worried look herself, Lisa replied, “Yeah, it’s not like either of them to stop communicating. Ryan and I text each other all the time. Well, at least we did until he came to Germany. He just stopped. Something bad must have happened.”

  “Are you telling me it’s been more than two months since you heard from him and you didn’t bother to say anything until I called you and asked?” She’d been preoccupied with her own problems—a breakup with her boyfriend and moving into a tiny apartment until she figured out what to do—and hadn’t even noticed how quiet her kids had been until she got a call from the university telling her that her son hadn’t shown up for his New Student Orientation and hadn’t checked into his dormitory, which she’d already paid for. Damn. You spend hard-earned money on your kids to get a good education. Do they care? Apparently not. It’s not their money going to waste.

  “It’s not my job to keep track of my brother. Just because we’re twins doesn’t mean we’re joined at the hip, you know. It’s your job. You’re his mother.”

  “Hey, after you two graduated in May, you both accused me of smothering you every time I called or asked what you were doing or where you were going. You said you were adults and could take care of yourselves. You basically told me to bugger off. So I back off and you conveniently forget that when it suits you.”

  Lisa pushed her chin out and stared straight ahead, not answering. Jenny stared at her daughter, not really expecting an answer. Lisa looked a lot like her twin brother—an innocent face, light blue-gray eyes and the same curly light brown hair. No, actually, on second thought, Lisa’s hair had lightened some and was more blonde than light brown these days, more like it had been when she was a little girl. Probably bleached by the sun. Or had she lightened it herself? Shows how much I know about my kids now that they’re grown. Of course, now that she thought about it, Ryan had a stubble of beard and mustache the last time Jenny had seen him. Hmm. Not so baby faced anymore.

  Jenny sighed and kept on walking. Kids. The first twelve years are easy. It’s when they reach the teen years that it becomes a tug-o-war. You go against your desires to protect them, push them out the door, as you know you should, to allow them to grow up and find their place in the world. All the while you are aching to draw them back in because you don’t want to lose them. On the other hand, they fight you every step of the way. Guide them, they know more than you, tell you to stop babying them and fight like crazy to get free from you. When you give them freedom, it’s someone else’s fault when everything goes awry—usually your fault. Never-ending. She shook her head, thinking about it. Of course it sometimes works the opposite, too. Two of her older nurses at the hospital in California complained that just when they thought they were free of their kids and the responsibilities of raising them, their kids came running home and wanted to move back in. Geez.

  After several minutes of quiet, Jenny asked, “Do you know where we’re going? Have you located the street on the map yet?”

  “Nope. Maybe you can find it, Mom.”

  Lisa handed the map and the piece of paper with the address to her mother. They sat together on a bench outside some shop. After five minutes Jenny said, “I can’t find it either. Do you remember any of that German you learned in school? It’s been years since I studied the language. Maybe between the two of us we can ask somebody for directions.

  They went int
o the shop nearest the bench and came out with the directions. “Well, that was easier than I expected. That shopkeeper was very nice.”

  Lisa agreed and said, “You know, now that I think about it, Ryan told me right after graduation that he’d agreed to go on the trip with Dad, but only after Dad had bribed him with chaperone-free travel after they took care of the inheritance—the house business. So, maybe they did that and then went their separate ways.”

  “God I hope not. But that still doesn’t explain why neither of them returned home or called or emailed. That doesn’t sound like either of them.”

  As they walked through the town and made their way toward one of the arched gates that would take them out of town and to the house her ex-husband had inherited from his grandmother, Jenny studied the town wall. The sentry walk along the wall looked about fifteen feet above the streets. In some spots, houses were built right into the wall, or at least that’s the way it looked from her vantage point. Everything—the houses, the wall, and the streets looked old and time-worn, but she had to admit there was a charm to the picture. The only part she found truly ugly was the brown roofs slanting downward from the sentry walk. Shingles needed replacing, or at least scrubbed to get rid of the bird droppings and mold. Yuck!

  “Mom,” Lisa said, breaking into Jenny’s thoughts, “I’ve been thinking about what that woman said in the store when we asked for directions. I tried to tell her we were looking for missing relatives. I’m not sure if she understood, but she nodded, as if she did. Then she said something that I didn’t entirely understand. It sounded like she said they’ve had other disappearances from here and people are scared. Maybe I misunderstood.”

  “I hope you misunderstood.”

  “Did you hear any of my conversation with her?”