She left the phone to charge and looked around the living room before taking the bag down the hallway. It looked different. It looked lived in. Shaking herself out of the thought that someone was living in her apartment, she took the bag into the bathroom, where a sudden longing for a hot shower nearly put an end to any possible resolution to the nunnery’s warlord problem. She saw a razor on the sink and a toothbrush that wasn’t hers.
Someone was living here. That meant someone would be coming back. Hurriedly, Ella flung open the linen closet door and grabbed two bars of soap. A horn honked outside the window and suddenly she was seized with disbelief that she had lived the last four weeks in another century.
How was it possible? Was it all a dream? Had she really gone back to 1620 Heidelberg? Instead of raiding her apartment, should she just go to the nearest med center and get a CAT scan?
The sense that someone was watching her intensified. The thought of getting caught, and leaving Greta to die at the hands of that monster Axel, fueled Ella with added urgency. She had a list of things she would need but grabbed a few other things as she discovered them: a jar of Nutella, a bottle of instant coffee, six tampons, and a washcloth. It’s the little things, she found herself thinking, as she stuffed the washcloth into the bag. Just being able to properly wash her face would make such a difference. She froze as she stood in her dining room, listening to the sounds of traffic outside and straining to hear if there was anything else.
She was sure she had heard something. She held her breath and listened. Except for the cars and trucks outside her window, all was quiet.
The urge to stay in 2012—where it was warm and dry, where you didn’t have to pick the bugs out of your breakfast, where people understood you when you spoke—was nearly irresistible. Ella shook off the temptation and returned to the living room, moving quickly to her desk. She could tell instantly that someone had gone through it. Notepads were upside down instead of stacked neatly as she always had them. A picture of her father was sitting at an angle making it not visible from where she sat at the computer terminal.
She was tempted to turn on her computer, but resisted. She opened the lower drawer of her desk and pulled out the false bottom. From its contents she took the block of C4, six blasting caps and two more Taser shotgun shells. She filled the mail pouch with these. She would have to dig up the Taser in the convent garden and hope it still worked, but a weapon was a weapon. She heard a sudden voice in her head dictating a letter to the manufacturer: “Dear Sirs: I’m writing to report that your product, the Taser XREP, functioned remarkably well when attacking a 17th century German castle even after being clogged with dirt for nearly a month.”
She scanned her apartment bookshelves. There was nothing there she needed. She moved into the kitchen and took a few items from the cupboard. She couldn’t resist opening the refrigerator to see if there was anything still edible in there.
A six pack of beer. Not her brand.
She was beginning to feel off-kilter and edgy. As she turned to leave, she noticed the framed photograph of Rowan next to the television set. When she saw it, she felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. Just the sight of his crinkly, confident blue eyes and his I’ve-got-all-the-answers grin made her want to sit down and cry. She reached to take the photo but immediately realized it was too big. And she was in a hurry. She disconnected her phone from the charger and, without bothering to close the apartment door behind her, turned and ran down the three flights of stairs to the street.
Rowan stared at Ella’s open apartment door.
Son of a bitch! The first time he takes five minutes to grab a damn espresso and someone breaks into the apartment?
He pushed the apartment door wide open with the toe of his cowboy boot and peered in. Dust motes danced in a shaft of sunlight from the living room window. He listened. And then entered the apartment. Within fifteen seconds, he knew it was empty and he knew someone had been in the apartment recently. When he saw the iPhone charger dangling from the electrical socket, he knew who.
The mailbag banged against her stomach as she ran. Images of Axel beating and cutting Greta fueled her urgency. Except for the Taser, she had no weapon, not even a knife. Idiot! Why didn’t I grab a kitchen knife?
She saw few people as she tore down the lonely city streets. She gulped in huge breaths of air, praying she would not hyperventilate before she reached the spot. At the quiet and dark north end of the Altstadt, she ran into the first alley and tried to remember which alley contained the spot near the convent garden wall. She cursed herself for not marking it better in her head.
As she approached the spot, she felt an indescribably intense sadness as she imagined Rowan Pierce’s face. . In fact, the closer she walked toward 1620, the greater her sadness grew. When she reached the portal, she walked right on through. She didn’t need to touch the opal to feel the door open for her, she only needed to think of what she had lost.
She had been gone from the convent only for a few hours of the early morning, but she was still worried about what had happened while she was gone. Greta assured her, nothing had happened at all.
It pleased Ella to see the novices’ delight at the Nutella. She teased them not to get used to it, since it was going to be hard to come by when it was gone. They were used to her not making sense and didn’t question where the treat came from or why there wouldn’t be more. She gave the instant coffee and some of the soap to Greta. The coffee made Greta break down in tears which upset Ella greatly even though she knew they were tears of delight.
Hell, Ella thought, if we’re all going to die this week, might at least enjoy a cup of damn coffee.
It was hard to believe she had not thought of Rowan in the four weeks that she had been away. Seeing his face so unexpectedly in the photo in her apartment brought the memory of his warmth and strength come roaring back into her consciousness. She found herself distracted and miserable with longing to see him again.
“And you saw no one?” Greta asked her.
“No. But it looked like someone was living in my apartment,” she said. “That was creepy.”
“You retrieved the items you need for our problem?”
“I think so. Worse comes to worse, I can always blow the son of a bitch up.”
Greta frowned.
“Kidding, Greta, kidding. One supreme act of violence isn’t going to change anything, blah blah blah. We still need a plan.”
“What can such a plan be?”
“I don’t know yet,” Ella said. “But I’ve got enough C4 to at least get me thinking.”
Greta looked closely at Ella. “There is something different about you,” she said. “Are you sure nothing happened?”
Ella sat down next to her friend. “A little something happened,” she said. “Did I ever mention that I had a sort of boyfriend?”
Greta shook her head.
“I know. That’s weird, isn’t it? It’s almost like he didn’t exist while I’ve been here. Only when I went back, I saw his picture and…” Her throat closed up and she felt close to tears.
Greta reached over and took Ella’s hand. “My poor brave Ella,” she said.
“I miss him,” Ella said, rubbing her tears away. “I miss him so bad right now I can barely see straight. How can I feel like this when a week ago I didn’t even think of him?”
“He lives in Germany?”
Ella wiped her eyes with her fingers. “No, he’s in America. We met before I moved here.”
“And you are in contact with him?”
“Well, we used to phone each other. But I’m pretty sure he’s got someone else by now.”
“I see.”
“I’m probably just all emotional. It’s just strange to be there and then here. Plus, I can’t tell you how worried I was that I was going to slip through the time slot and end up in prehistoric Germany or something.”
“A realistic worry,” Greta said. She took a sip of her coffee.
“I’m better n
ow,” Ella said. “It just threw me to see his picture again.”
“You did not bring it?”
“I thought about it,” Ella admitted.
“Perhaps it’s best this way.”
Chapter Twelve
The next day at the convent was a somber one. Ella went through the motions of her chores, her mind whirling as she worked with plans that she created and discarded one by one. The fact that she had explosives was good but explosives would only be useful if she had a plan. A really creative, brilliant plan. As she kneaded the dough, punched it down and shaped it into loaves, she tried to remember any television plots that might help. She also ran through the plotlines of favorite movies and novels.
When Greta asked her at lunch if she would like help in devising the plan, Ella knew Greta was just trying to pacify her. Ella thanked her but said no, a plan based on C-4 and Taser plugs would not easily be contrived by a seventeenth century nun, even if she had been born in the twentieth century.
The rest of the convent was still in mourning for the two sisters they had lost the day before. The novices looked terrified as if at any moment they might be plucked out of their home and taken away. A very real concern, Ella thought, as she helped wash dishes after dinner. She smiled encouragingly at the younger nuns. Their fear almost radiated off them as they moved about their chores. Waiting.
Frustrated with her inability to form a sensible plan that could save them, Ella found she couldn’t sleep that night. After hours of trying, she grabbed a wool cloak and slipped out of the nunnery and into the garden. Careful not to get too close to the place where the door swung open to her future world, she sat on a stone table in the middle of the garden under a large olive tree. I’m no good at this, she thought. I want so badly to help but I don’t have any ideas. None. Blow up the castle. Only there’s not enough C-4 to do that.
Feeling a wave of hopelessness crash over her, Ella gave away to futility and sadness. Her shoulders shook with her sobs as she wept without restraint. And as she cried, she realized that she too was mourning. Only she was mourning for herself because today it occurred to her that what she had really been trying for, what she had been reaching and hoping for her whole life long—what she gave up Rowan for—wasn’t an international job full of adventure and prestige. What she had really wanted all along was love. The chance to love and be loved. And because she never looked herself in the eye and saw that that was what she truly wanted, she spent thirty years going down rabbit holes and blind alleys—just like her father always told her—looking for something that never existed.
And when the chance for love finally did come into her life, she had thrown it away. She couldn’t even blame it on fate or bad timing or anyone else. And when she finally formed that thought in her head and with it the realization of her failure, she buried her head on her folded arms on her knees and cried until there were no more tears to cry.
Rowan stared at the barmaid and pointed to his empty glass. His cowboy hat sat on the bar next to him. There weren’t many people in this evening so he didn’t worry about taking up an extra stool. Besides, he intended to make it worth Olga’s while. Or whatever her name was. She came over and brought him a fresh whiskey and soda and sat it down in place of the empty one she took away.
“I’ll be needing a double next time, ma’am,” he said.
“I already took the liberty,” she said, smiling sweetly. “You did not drive, did you?”
He was touched that she wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to drive drunk tonight. “No, ma’am,” he said. “I did not.”
“Then the double is on me.”
“I thank you, ma’am. Will you join me?”
“Natürlich,” she said as she placed a glass on the bar next to his and poured a shot of Tequila. “Are you alone?”
“I am alone,” he said, draining his drink.
“Not married?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “Not even close.”
“Are you a cowboy?”
“Guess I’d pass pretty close to it in Heidelberg,” he said, pushing his empty toward her for a refill.
“You are sad about something, I think.”
“You are very good at your job, darlin’. Yeah, I’m sad.”
“I can be very good at helping you not be sad.”
“Well, actually, I think I’ll just let the whiskey handle that,” he said. “No offense.”
“The whiskey will only make you sadder,” she said. “This much I know.”
“I reckon you’re right,” he said. “I guess at this point I just don’t give a shit. I hope you’ll excuse my language.”
The bartender sipped her drink and then pulled a business card out from under the bar. She wrote her number on it and pushed the card across the bar to Rowan.
“When the whiskey does not work, I hope you will come back,” she said. “You must fight love with love. This much I know.”
“Good to know. Danke schön.” Rowan pocketed the business card and tapped his empty drink glass. “Meanwhile, if I could trouble you…”
By the time he left the bar at closing time, he knew he was solidly drunk. And that was perfectly fine with him.
The night before, when he knew he had missed Ella by mere minutes, he had run out into the street as if the night and the silence of the buildings could direct him in some way. Not knowing which way she had gone, he had run without thinking toward the Altstadt.
Now, drunk and defeated, he wove down the noisy party street that was Altstadt in 2012. The night before, at this spot, he thought he’d seen a shadow move on the old stone road leading up to the castle ruins. Tonight, he found himself drawn again to that place. Stupid, he thought. If she wasn’t here last night, she sure as shit ain’t going to be here tonight. And besides, there was no here, here. It was just the beginning of a stone walkway. He stumbled up the dark walkway, then leaned against the stonewall beside it and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. His Glock semi-automatic was nestled in his shoulder holster and he felt it pressing into his chest as he lifted the lighter to the tip of the cigarette. He took a long drag off the cigarette and felt the chill of the November night seep under his thin jacket.
“Where are you, Ella?” he said to the air, the night, the castle stones. “Where are you, girl?”
Suddenly, he felt something move deep inside him. It was a rush of warmth and lust and emotion all at once which seemed to engulf him. He staggered away from the wall and tossed the cigarette down. Inconceivably, drunkenly, he was overwhelmed by the feeling that Ella was there. He looked around and up and down the empty walkway.
She is here! Rowan pushed himself off the wall, opening his arms wide as if to embrace the air or the feeling of her nearness, his heart full as an ocean of longing washed over him. In anguish, he called out: “Ella! Where are you?”
In a rush of movement and nausea that made him think he was passing out, Rowan took two more steps and found himself in front of a garden gate under a full moon. He fell on the gate and struggled to right himself. The gate swung inward with his weight and he fell into a small bed of vegetables.
“Aw, shit,” he said picking himself up and feeling the mud on his knees. “Son of a bitch.” In the recesses of his quickly sobering mind, he could hear someone moving in the garden. And then he heard the one thing he never would have believed he would hear.
“Rowan? Is that you?”
He looked up to see Ella dressed in a nun’s habit coming toward him at a dead run.
She flew down the narrow garden path to the gate, the sharp stones biting into her bare feet, and launched herself into his arms. Her need to touch him and be held by him was as fierce and real as anything she ever felt. She hit him so hard that they both fell to the ground. She grabbed his face with her hands in the moonlight to look into his eyes and make sure it was really him.
“If wanting something so bad can make it appear, then I just brought you here all the way from Dothan, Alabama,” she said.
He held her arms in his hands, his eyes welling and searching her face in shock and disbelief.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, still sitting on top of him. “I can’t believe you’re really here.” In spite of her best attempts not to, she started to cry.
“Hey, beautiful, don’t cry. It’s going to be all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”
“How did you get here? How did you know I was here?” Ella said. She wiped the tears from her face.
“I didn’t know,” Rowan said. “Ella, what’s going on here? Was that you in your apartment yesterday?”
“Yes! Was that you who nearly caught me? Oh, if I’d known it was you!” And she started to cry again.
“Whoa, there, whatever it is, it can’t be that bad, Ella. I’m here, aren’t I?”
She nodded and put her hands out to touch his face again. “I can’t believe it,” she repeated, shaking her head in wonder. “But you really are.”
“Can we stand up? This mud is better for the plants than it is my khakis, you know what I mean?”
They got to their feet and he wrapped his arms around her. They stood silently, just holding each other until Rowan finally pulled away.
“What are you doing in a broken down old garden in the middle of the night?” he asked. “Are you living here? Why aren’t you in your apartment? Why did you quit your job? Why didn’t you call me back? Or your father?”
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