Heidelberg Effect

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  Damn! How could they have gotten so far ahead of her so quickly? She willed herself to take a breath and slow down. A running nun was an even more bizarre sight than one looking all around like she was watching a circus on parade. How can I look down to avoid calling attention to myself and still find them? In spite of her best intentions, she felt a creeping sense of panic welling up in her chest.

  On the street, the pungent smell of horse manure combined with the aroma of rotting vegetables and mulled spice wine. Ella crossed the street in case there were riders behind her. In her experience, they rarely made an effort to avoid running one down in these congested market walkways. She craned her neck to see over the crowd of people in front of her. They were not moving toward the square as she would have expected. They were just standing. Frustrated, Ella switched her basket to her other arm. Should she just return to the convent? Her companions obviously weren’t too concerned by her absence. They did walk off and leave her. Then again, they probably didn’t even know she wasn’t with them.

  She stepped on a man’s foot and he turned around and snarled at her. He hesitated when he saw that she appeared to be a nun—and that she was looking at him directly in his eyes—but his lips still curled away from his teeth in an angry grimace. Ella was too afraid to excuse herself, fearful that something about her voice or her words would be too out of place in this time, so she dropped her eyes and hoped she looked as penitent and contrite as she was supposed to be. The man moved away and Ella took in a long breath. She decided to slow down. She wasn’t going to find them in all these people and it really didn’t matter anyway—except for the fact that Greta would never want her to leave the convent again.

  It occurred to her that if this was going to be her last taste of freedom for a while, she might as well make it count. She made her way against the crowd to a point near one of the many alleys and stood with her back to the brick wall. She tried to tell whether any part of this Heidelberg was recognizable as the Heidelberg she had known for the last three months. The cobblestone street and the church were the only things she really noted as the same. They looked like they had been superimposed over a very dirty patch of countryside. The crowd seemed to be moving in all directions in a sort of controlled pandemonium. The sounds were a cacophony of talking, shouting and animal noises. Her stomach clenched when it occurred to her that the larger-than-normal crowd might be for an execution. One more reason not to head toward the church, she thought, where the platform would be. She felt safe off to the side and because she wasn’t dodging carts and horses or having to look over her shoulder for would-be rapists, she was able to detect when the crowd began to behave differently.

  It started with a change in the volume of the noise of the street. A growing roar seemed to sweep the narrow road, culminating about a block further up. When Ella looked to see if there was a reason for the crowd’s reaction, she could see that most of the people walking down the road were bottlenecked in front of the main grocer’s. Thinking it might be another escaped pig or even a troubadour or street juggler, Ella edged her way closer to the crowd, most of whom stood with their backs to her. Before she reached them, the mob roared, in approval, it seemed to Ella, but there was no applause. She tried to remember if people clapped in this century when they liked something. Squeezing through the wall of people was impossible unless she wanted to be manhandled.

  She skirted around the group, hoping to find a gap where she could see what the crowd was watching. As she got closer, she could see there were men on horseback in the center of the square. Her stomach did that funny flopping sensation she often got when she felt, as they used to say in Atlanta, that someone had stepped on her grave. She had managed to inch her way past only two people in the crowd when the mob cheered again. This time, she took advantage of the movement and pushed her way to the front of the crowd, using her basket as a battering ram to push her way through. When she saw what the street entertainment was, she cried out and dropped her basket.

  Two hooded men on horseback circled the old nun as she ran to each one and tried to pull them from their saddles. Ella thought Sister Therese must have gone mad until she saw poor Anna, the novice, slung limp and still across the saddle of one of the riders. She ran to Therese, stepping over the basket in the street. The bottle of amber liquid was smashed against the cobblestones.

  “Leave her!” the nun shrieked as she grappled with the boot of the man who held Anna. Before Ella could reach her, the mounted man raised a slender baton over his head.

  “No!” Ella screamed, as he brought it down full force across the old nun’s face. Sister Therese crumpled to the street, her arms upraised to ward off another blow. Ella ran to her. In the back of her mind she could hear the crowd going mad with cheering.

  Dear God, are they applauding the murder of an elderly nun?

  She knelt by Therese and looked into her battered face. Within seconds she was on her feet and facing the two on horseback.

  “You bloody bastards!” she yelled.

  The crowd was stunned silent for a moment and then roared with laughter at her outburst. The man holding Anna began to laugh too but the man with the bloodied baton brought his horse closer to where Therese lay and Ella stood.

  “You are a slimy coward,” Ella said, her voice strong but shaking, “to steal little girls and beat old women. You must have balls the size of lady peas.”

  The man leaned forward in his saddle until Ella was in easy striking distance. She stood, unmoving, her legs planted wide, her eyes tight with fury.

  “I intend that you should find out the size of my balls for yourself,” the rider said smoothly. When he pulled his hood off as slowly as a magician presenting a magic trick, the crowd sent up a cheer that he bothered to acknowledge with a boyish grin and a wave of his bat.

  It was Axel. His dark hair, ruffled by the hood, looked playful and wild. If she didn’t know his heart to be as cold as a pit viper’s, she would have called him handsome.

  “Leave us alone,” she said in her modern German, aware that the crowd was listening and murmuring behind her. She held her chin up and forced herself not to look at the baton in his hands. She could hear no sound from either Sister Therese or the novice. Dear Lord, she prayed, please don’t let this be the end for them.

  Axel wiped Sister Therese’s blood from the bat onto his horse, then crossed his arms over the saddle pommel.

  Ella turned from him to the fallen nun and immediately felt the baton press firmly between her shoulder blades.

  “Leave her,” he said.

  Ignoring him, Ella knelt by the woman. Within seconds a pair of strong hands seized Ella and dragged her away from the nun. Ella gasped and struggled but the man, who had been standing in the crowd, held her firmly.

  She watched Axel swing down from his horse, the baton in his hand. He approached her slowly then swiveled on his heel and went to stand by Therese’s body. Without taking his eyes off Ella, he put his foot on the old woman’s chest.

  “The next time we meet,” he said, “I will have you.” He smiled at her. “But today you are my message bearer.”

  “The hell I am.”

  Axel dropped the bat and pulled his claymore from the sheath on his back. He placed the tip of it on Therese’s breast.

  “I think she breathes yet,” he said to Ella.

  Ella sucked in a breath and lurched toward him but was restrained.

  “You will deliver my message?” he asked, almost sweetly.

  Ella nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “Tell the Mother Superior,” Axel said with a smile, “that Axel Krüger says bit by bit and piece by piece, the moon wanes.”

  Ella ran the whole way back to the convent. She ran not caring that she was making a spectacle, that she was not looking down, that she had lost her basket, that her long hair had escaped her nun’s wimple and was flying out behind her. In her mind she saw Axel’s face leaning down to hers. She was astounded that one man could hold so mu
ch hate. She ran in a panic, her only focus to see Greta, to tell Greta. She needed to see her face. Together they would make a plan. They would get Therese and Anna back. They would stop this madness. Somehow.

  She jerked open the convent door, stumbled into the hall and shouted, “Greta! I need you!” Without waiting for an answer, she ran to Greta’s bedchamber although it was barely noon and Greta never went there in the daytime. Ella pounded on the door but didn’t wait to see if anyone was inside. Instead, she turned and ran to the kitchen. Before she reached it, she saw Greta in the hall coming toward her.

  Just the sight of Greta, walking toward her so tall and erect, filled Ella with a peace as soothing as a mother’s embrace. Ella stopped running and her breathing came in gasps. The closer Greta got, the more Ella could see by the resolute tilt of her chin and the sadness in her eyes that she knew. She already knew.

  An hour later, Greta put on her cloak and spoke to the group of seven nuns huddled before her. “No one is to leave until I return,” she said.

  Ella grabbed her arm. “Greta, no! This is exactly what he wants you to do. You can’t go!”

  “Who would I send, Ella?” Greta asked gently. “If not me, who?”

  Ella looked around at the other women. They looked at her with fear and confusion, not understanding her English. She would offer to go herself and was on the verge of suggesting it, but she knew Greta would go anyway.

  “Promise me you’ll be careful,” Ella said. “Even asking questions—”

  “I will return, Ella,” Greta said. “Or I won’t.” To the nuns, she said, “Do your chores.” She turned to go and then spoke to Ella. “You can help me,” she said.

  “Name it.”

  “Pray.”

  And then she walked out into the cold afternoon air of early November.

  Ella watched her go and had never felt more helpless or angry in her life. She ran to the alcove window to catch a glimpse of her as Greta walked up the narrow lane. Ella watched until she was out of sight and then turned and went into the kitchen, where she spent the day kneading dough and baking. She pounded the dough vigorously, stopping only to peer out the stone window in the front of the convent from time to time to see if she could see Greta’s tall dark form coming down the pathway.

  As the day dragged on, her fears grew. The other nuns and novices were nervous and alternately prayed loudly or wept in despair. Ella watched them go through the motions of their daily chores, their heavy coarse habits dragging in the dirt behind them as they moved. What will I do if she’s gone? she thought. There’s no one in this time who understands me.

  Just after dinner, when Ella and another novice had washed and dried the last plate, Greta returned. The three older nuns scurried around her, helping her off with her cloak, then led her to a seat by the stone fireplace in the main dining room. Ella sat in the shadows and listened as Greta spoke calmly to the nuns. But Ella understood not a word. Once, Greta caught her eye and such pain and weariness was in her face that it took Ella’s breath away. As Greta spoke, the nuns reacted in varying ways. One of the older nuns—usually a veritable rock of confidence and ability—broke down in front of the Mother Superior and sobbed beyond all care. That scared Ella most of all. She knew the woman had been close to Sister Therese. Ella could only assume this meant the worst. She looked at Greta who had a gentle hand on the old woman’s shoulder. She was murmuring to her in the medieval German that Ella found so hard to understand.

  The news, when it finally came her time to hear it, was as tragic as the reactions suggested. Therese’s body had lain in the square until after the men had ridden away to Axel’s castle with the novice.

  “I have a hope that Sister Therese is alive,” Greta said. “They told me she was eventually taken to the Hexenturm.” Ella knew this was what the villagers called the Witches Tower, built in 1392 and used as a prison for women and witches.

  “I pray it means she lives still,” Greta said as she accepted a cup of tea from one of the trembling novices.

  “And Anna?”

  A tear traced down Greta’s cheek as she looked at Ella. “Poor Ella,” she said. “You will never escape the memory of this day. Anna?” Greta shrugged with what looked like supreme exhaustion. Ella thought she saw her friend weaken. “And what of Hannah before her?” Greta said. “And Margo, and Liza, and all the others? What indeed?”

  Later that night as the convent slept and wept, Ella crept along the cold stone passageway to Greta’s bedchamber. She opened the bedroom door without knocking and found the nun kneeling in prayer by her bed.

  “It’s time, Greta,” she said, moving into the bedroom and shutting the door behind her. “It’s time for us to deal with this bastard. I need to go back.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The sun would be another hour before it came up. The street outside the abbey was black and glistening with the rain that had only just stopped. Ella and Greta stood together in the kitchen by the door that led to the little garden.

  “You’re sure about this?” Ella asked, patting the pockets of her leather jacket in a nervous habit as if checking for her car keys.

  “As sure as I can be without having actually done it.”

  “And you think I’ll be able to come back to this specific time again?”

  Greta shrugged. “If not, it won’t matter,” she said. “As soon as you return to your own time, I and everyone you have met here will be long dead and dust.”

  “Really great pep talk, Greta. Might want to work on the whole dead and dust thing, though.”

  “When you came to us that night, you were very emotional, yes?”

  “Hysterical, in fact.”

  “And you were thinking of your mother?”

  “I was,” she said.

  Greta nodded. “Great emotion seems to be the push that makes it happen.”

  “Well, I was certainly emotional when it happened,” Ella said. “And you’re sure I can do this without a storm?”

  Greta held both of Ella’s hands in hers. “Hold your mother’s necklace in your hand when you’re ready,” she said. “Close your eyes and think of her. Think of her looking down on you, loving you. Ask her to help you.”

  Ella leaned over and kissed her friend on the cheek.

  “I pray you return to us,” Greta said simply.

  “Well, God’s been favoring your prayers pretty good lately,” Ella said as she turned to open the door to the garden. The pre-dawn morning was moonless and cold. “I’ll be back. Don’t you worry,” she said. “I just hope it’s not ten years from now.”

  Ella slipped out of the door, blending into the dark and grateful for her black clothes. She stole down the garden path. They had decided she should go to the spot where she had been found. It turned out that Greta had also come to this time from that very spot. Trying to watch where she put her feet on the uneven cobblestones of the garden path, Ella crept quietly to the end of the garden wall and climbed over it.

  When she eased herself to the ground, she looked around to make sure she was alone. Before she even touched the opal around her neck, she could feel something happening, a vibration in her head and fingers. Her jacket was inadequate against the cold but she didn’t feel the chill as she dug into the neck of her shirt and brought out her mother’s opal. When she held it, she felt a door opening in front of her. She couldn’t see it but she could sense it. She closed her eyes and gripped the necklace tightly.

  “Mother,” she whispered. “Help me help these people. Help me do now what you always did when you were alive. Please be with me. I forgive you.” As she spoke, she felt her legs give way and she sank slowly to her knees. Her head began to spin and when she opened her eyes, she saw nothing—not the wall, not even the black branches of the almond trees in the distance. Terrified for a moment that she was caught in some kind of limbo, she forgot herself and cried out: “Mother? Can you hear me?” Suddenly she heard something she had not heard in nearly four weeks: the sound of traffic. He
r vision cleared as if in slow motion and she lurched to her feet. The garden wall was no longer there but the cobblestones were the same beneath her feet.

  She was back.

  Praying that the year was 2012 and not a few decades earlier when the Nazis were rounding up everyone, Ella moved down the dark alley from which she had first disappeared. Above the shops in the alley, she could see apartments with window boxes full of salvia and geraniums. She had no idea what year it was.

  She moved quickly toward the Altstadt. Her apartment was on the other side of it. As soon as she saw the marketplace square, she had to stop and gasp. It was inconceivable that this happy, bustling tourist attraction was the same street of terror and death she had just left.

  The cafés were still open and busy. Even though it was early November, the street was full of students, tourists, and office workers. She was tempted to grab a bratwurst at the outdoor stand and eat it on the way to her apartment. Or a Coke! But she was in too much of a hurry to stop. Too many people were depending on her to collect what she needed and get back as soon as possible. That asshole Axel could be gathering his forces to attack at any minute.

  Ella darted into the shadows and jogged the half mile down residential streets to the street of her apartment. She knew she had paid the rent up to the end of the month. She walked across the street and pulled open the heavy door to her building.

  As soon as she moved into the hallway, the lights flickered on and she had the unshakable feeling that she was being watched. Ignoring the ancient lift, she took the stairs two at a time to the third floor. When she saw her apartment door, she hesitated but shook off her reluctance as irrational.

  The first thing she did when she entered her apartment was to go to the large wooden chest of drawers against the wall in the living room. She pulled open a drawer and took out her iPhone charger and a cloth mail pouch that she sometimes used to carry to the office. She plugged her phone in and waited for it to reactivate. She knew it had to be some time in 2012 because all her things were still in the apartment. That meant it hadn’t been rented in her absence. The screen on her phone buzzed and when she looked at the date, her shoulders sagged with relief. It showed the date as November 2, 2012, only four weeks from the day she had crossed over to 1620.