“Where did she go?” Rich drew up quickly as the trees arced and shimmered around them. A patch of soft earth near his feet crumbled away, and he jumped back. Louisa didn’t stop in time and plowed into him.
“Whoa.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders to steady her.
She glanced toward the edge of the cliff and cuddled into him. “Thanks.”
“A better question is, where did we go?” Sam said.
After the forest had shifted around them, they’d been left on a strip of ground that was little more than a catwalk, halfway up the mountain overlooking the valley. A series of switchbacks ran up and down the mountainside.
“Wait a minute.” Sam peered over his shoulder. Where the boulder should have been resting on the ground, a tangle of leafy vines and dark brown tree roots camouflaged a narrow crevice in the cliff face. “That’s it.” He edged closer. “That’s the tunnel.” He brushed away the foliage to reveal the crack in the rock.
“That was the tunnel.” Ryan reached Sam and seized a long vine. He pulled it away and pointed to a tight stack of rock and sediment.
“The entrance was here.” Sam ran his hand over it. “You can tell. But it’s so compacted that we’d need a backhoe to restore it.”
“Good luck with that,” Kayla said under her breath as she contemplated the drop to the valley floor.
Sophia followed Kayla’s gaze down the hillside. “What about Marielle?”
“Oh, who cares?” Raina threw her hands into the air as she spun on Sophia. “Marielle is on her own, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Hey.” Rich dropped his arm from Louisa’s shoulder. “There’s no reason to be nasty to Sophia. It’s not her fault.”
“You know what? You’re right.” Raina pointed to Birdie. “It’s her fault.”
“Hey!” Rich took a step toward her.
“It’s okay.” Birdie held up her palm. “She’s right. We wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t brought the aventurine to camp. I’m sorry about all of this. I’d take it back if I could.”
“Well, we’re in it together now, aren’t we?” Rich said. “So be nice, Raina.”
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at her brother. “We could have been crushed. So I don’t exactly feel like being nice.”
Kayla turned to Friedrich. “Do you know where we are?”
“Of course.” He pointed to a spot far above them. “You do too. We stood up there this morning. That’s the parking lot.”
“How do we get back up there? I’m no rock climber.”
Birdie eyed her filthy sandals but said nothing.
“We can’t climb it. We need to get to a trail.” Louisa scanned the woods. “Trails crisscross the forest. One will lead us up to the main road, then we can follow the fortification wall back down to the fortress gate.”
“Are you sure we won’t get lost?” Kayla eyed the switchbacks.
“We’re sure.”
Kayla didn’t look convinced.
“We know the trails because we come up here sometimes,” Louisa explained.
“You and Friedrich?” Raina curled her nose.
“No.” Louisa waved the words away a little too quickly. “With my friends.” She looked at Friedrich. “Uh, what I mean is—”
“Teenagers hang out in these woods,” Friedrich said. “They meet up here sometimes.”
“Why?” Kayla picked a long vine out from under her sandal strap as Raina slapped at a mosquito that had landed on her thigh.
“We hang out.” Louisa shrugged. “Sometimes we bring drinks.”
Kayla’s face lit up. “Really?”
“Is no one else wondering what the heck is going on and where Marielle went?” Ryan asked. “Because I am.”
“We don’t have time to worry about that.” Friedrich stared at the valley floor where Marielle had disappeared. There was no sign of her now, no sign that she’d ever existed. He checked his watch, then began surveying the surrounding brush. “Louisa is correct – we need to find the trail that leads to the road. If we’re not back by the time camp ends, they’ll start looking for us.”
“Who’s they?” Ryan asked.
“Your parents,” Louisa said. “And Frau Hamel.”
“We’re walking home, or to the hotel, or the train station, whatever,” Raina said.
“It’s a bed-and-breakfast,” Ryan said.
“Yes, but we’re not.” Sophia brushed dirt from her arms. “And our parents will be like maniacs if they come to get us and we’re nowhere to be found. I got lost at the park once and they called the police and the fire department.”
“You were three, Sophia,” Sam said.
“Still—”
“Here.” Louisa tramped over a clump of woody weeds and pulled a branch aside. “I can make out the edge of the trail. We’ll need to jump to reach it, but I think we can make it.”
“So, again,” Ryan called to the others after he’d leapt across to the trail. He was the last one to jump, and zigzagged behind them up the switchbacks toward the road. “We trudged all the way out here through a tunnel that doesn’t exist to help a girl who’s gone missing and no one thinks it’s weird?”
“Oh, it’s weird alright,” Rich called back to him. “But I’m guessing Marielle is hiding in the cave by now. Friedrich said she knew the way.”
“So that’s it?” Ryan stopped. They’d reached the end of the last switchback and stood at the bottom of a ruined staircase that sliced straight up a crevice in the ancient rock. At least a hundred crumbling stone stairs led to the top.
“That’s the road.” Louisa pointed to the top of the stairs. She was in the lead, breathing hard from the climb, and she stopped to face him. “What do you propose we do?”
“I’m with Ryan.” Sam glanced at the large watch face on Friedrich’s wrist. “Why did we come all the way out here just to turn around? It’s not that late. We have two hours until camp ends. Why rush back?”
“Uh, mosquitoes.” Raina brushed another one from her bare leg.
Sam ignored her. “I mean, what about the cave? You said it still exists. Do you know where it is?”
Friedrich and Louisa were silent.
“They know,” Raina said. “Look at their faces.”
“So let’s go check it out,” Sam said. “It seems silly to go back to the storeroom after coming this far.”
“He has a point,” Rich said. “And I’d kind of like to see a cave that old.”
“It’s not that exciting,” Louisa said.
Rich shrugged. “Neither is the storeroom.”
“It’s Friedrich’s decision.” Louisa faced him. “As head counselor.”
Friedrich took his time thinking about it. He checked his watch, then considered each of the campers. “Okay. But we all must go. We cannot split up. Frau Hamel will get suspicious if she sees only some of us going to the storeroom.”
“Great,” Kayla said. “Let’s hope someone left some beer.”
“We will stay together?” Friedrich repeated, and they nodded. “But we must be back by fifteen – I mean three-thirty – before your parents arrive.”
“Then we better start hiking,” Louisa said as Friedrich pushed past Ryan and reclaimed the path down the mountain.
“Watch out for that.” Rich stepped over a curl of fresh animal dung that steamed in the middle of the path.
“Guess we aren’t the only ones here,” Sam said.
Birdie passed through a cobweb and stopped to brush the sticky tendrils from her face and bare arms. “We’re the only ones here today. At least the only ones this tall on this trail.”
They followed the switchbacks down the mountainside for several more minutes, sheltered from the sun by the towering trees. Cool, damp air blanketed the woods as they descended, and the scent of rain and decaying leaves grew stronger.
Friedrich took a sharp left and ducked onto another trail that led deeper into the woods. It was not as steep and hugged a hill where pine trees grew thick. Birdie inhaled the fresh air.
“This is much better than the storeroom.” Sophia stepped up beside her.
Raina pushed past them. “Are we almost there?”
Friedrich halted on the trail. “Yes.”
If your itinerary allows, explore the German countryside by car. You’ll be rewarded with beautiful vistas of immaculately tended farmland, forests, and rivers. Explore a castle hidden in a wooded glen, or a cave deep in the forest where legends of dragons and fairy creatures thrive. —Marty McEntire, Europe for Americans Travel Guide