Foliage cleverly concealed the entrance to the ancient cave, rendering it nearly invisible to the casual hiker. Friedrich was not a casual hiker, however, and as they watched, he selected a thick limb and pushed it to the side, instantly creating an opening into the blackness beyond.
He turned to them. “Who is first?”
Leaves rustled and birds called back and forth.
Friedrich held the limb, waiting.
Louisa chuckled.
Ryan eyed the opening skeptically. “Did anyone bring a flashlight?”
Birdie wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but a narrow hole behind a tree limb had not been it. It reminded her of the tunnels, and that was enough to give her pause.
“You are like small children.” Friedrich ducked under the limb into the darkness. He reemerged a few seconds later toting a black duffel bag. He unzipped it and handed them each a flashlight.
“I guess you really do come here a lot.” Birdie eyed the bag as she took a light.
For the first time since she met him, Friedrich smiled at her. “Yes.”
He clicked on his light and shined it into the opening as he held the branch back again. “Now, who is first?”
This time Ryan stepped up and Sam and Rich followed close behind, clicking on their flashlights as they ducked inside.
“I don’t know.” Raina peered into the dark opening. “Is it safe?”
“Only one way to find out.” Birdie brushed the foliage aside and stepped in behind the boys.
To her relief, the cave was open, airy, and almost festive from the dancing lights of the many flashlights. The cavernous chamber appeared well used, with a blackened fire pit surrounded by flat-topped stones. Water seeped down the limestone walls in several places, pooling on the floor.
Sophia turned in a circle to study the chamber. “What is this place?”
“It is nothing. Teenagers from Sankt Goar and the other villages hike here to hang out. It is normal in Germany,” Louisa said.
“This is where Marielle hid.” Rich ran a hand over the cave wall. “Do you think it looks the same now as it did then?”
“Yes,” Friedrich said. “It is the only cave at Burg Rheinfels. If there were others, I would have heard about them – or discovered them myself.”
“How deep does it go?” Sophia wandered a few yards away.
“Fifty meters?” Friedrich said.
Rich did a mental calculation. “That’s what? Almost a hundred and fifty feet. Pretty deep.”
“What’s back there?” Sophia shined her flashlight into a broad, twisted passageway at the far end of the chamber.
“The cave has a series of rooms connected by those passageways.” Louisa crossed to Sophia. “Follow me. I’ll show you.”
They hiked deeper into the connecting chambers, and the air grew so cool and damp it clung to Birdie’s bare arms and left the taste of a penny on her tongue.
“We don’t go back this far very often,” Friedrich said as they moved through another chamber, this one smaller than the first.
“Why not?” Birdie asked.
“The smell. It is not so bad today, but sometimes animals leave droppings here and the walls absorb the odor.”
Birdie washed the light from her flashlight over the floor. “What kind of animals?”
“Small ones.” He paused, searching for the words. “Foxes and raccoons. Many raccoons.”
“The raccoons find potato chips or other scraps that were left behind,” Louisa added. “But it doesn’t seem like anyone’s been back here for a while, so the raccoons probably lost interest.”
They passed through a short, twisted passage that led to a chamber not much larger than Birdie’s bedroom at home. She’d never felt so far away from that bedroom as she did right now.
“The main rooms end here,” Friedrich said.
Sophia stepped up to the stone wall and ran a hand over its surface. She made her way around the room, examining the curves of the wall as she went.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked.
“Investigating. The walls are mostly smooth in this chamber, except for here.” She rubbed a section where faint ridges formed a rough shape.
“It looks like some kind of ancient carving.” Sam trained his light at the shape.
Sophia shifted a few steps to the left. “And here. There’s a slash in the stone. You can feel cold air flowing up from it.”
“What’s back there?” Rich asked.
“There are many other sections of the cave,” Friedrich said. “We do not have the proper equipment to explore them.”
“So Marielle came here,” Rich said. “I wonder if she made it.”
Friedrich glanced at Birdie and then back at Rich. “There is a way to see.”
“That’s what I was thinking too,” Rich said.
“You have the glass?” Friedrich asked.
Birdie’s shoulders sagged. The aventurine was cool in her pocket and she wanted it to stay that way. “We completed our quest. Marielle escaped. Besides, we had a hard time getting back earlier today. The aventurine only works when it wants to, and even if I could control it, I can’t guarantee we’d be back in time to meet our parents.”
Friedrich dug under the collar of his shirt. “I thought about that.”
He tugged a nylon cord and displayed a silver whistle that dangled from its end. “You said that a loud noise from the present brought you back.”
“Like the cruise ship’s horn,” Rich said. “That’s what broke the spell back in the woods.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Birdie looked from Rich to Friedrich. “Although I’m not sure ‘spell’ is the right word.”
“And when I tried to make a loud noise back in the storeroom, it failed – Louisa had to use something in the present to draw us back,” Friedrich said.
She didn’t like where this was heading.
“So I will take a piece of the present with us and we can make the loud noise.”
“Do you think that will work?” Kayla asked Birdie as she eyed the whistle.
“I have no idea.” But as much as it killed her, she had to admit that bringing a whistle was kind of brilliant. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
“You mean you had that whistle the whole time?” Raina slouched against the wall. “Why didn’t you use it before?”
“In the tunnels?” Friedrich smirked.
Raina considered his question. “Okay, so maybe that would have been bad.”
“It looks like there used to be steps here.” Sophia was still exploring the chamber and knelt to examine the crevice in the wall. “But they’re all caved in.”
“Caved in?” Sam knelt beside her to get a better look. He glanced over his shoulder at Friedrich. “Are you sure it’s safe in here?”
“Very safe.” Friedrich threaded the whistle back under his shirt. “Now and back then.” He pointed to a steel shaft that was embedded in the wall a few feet from where Sam was kneeling. “The townspeople reinforced the cave so they could use it for storage during the war.”
“No way. Did the Nazis keep bombs in here?” Ryan asked.
“Ryan!” Rich batted at his head.
Friedrich sighed. “There were no bombs in here.”
“It was artwork, mostly,” Louisa said. “Paintings, statues, things that were irreplaceable if Sankt Goar was destroyed in an air raid.”
“What’s an air raid?” Raina asked.
“Seriously?” Rich turned to his sister. “You don’t know?”
Raina shrugged.
“It was war. World War II. The Germans bombed their enemies, and the Allies – England, France, and eventually the Americans – bombed the Germans. Many towns were destroyed.”
“It is a dark chapter,” Louisa said.
“So, the people from Sankt Goar hid their paintings in this cave?” Sam asked.
Louisa nodded. “It was normal. There are underground mines and caves all over Germany where town treasures were hidden.”
“Also, stolen art.” Rich checked Friedrich’s reaction before continuing. “The Germans stole art from families and other countries and hid it in the caves and mines.”
“This is true.” Friedrich glanced at the steel shaft. “As Louisa said, it was a dark period of our history. But in this cave, there were only the town’s treasures. The artwork and also historical documents and archives. Some of the items you saw in the museum were kept here.”
“So would that stuff have been here for Marielle to find?” Raina asked.
Rich wiped his hand over his face and shook his head. “No, Raina. Napoleon destroyed the fortress long before World War II. And Marielle would have lived centuries earlier, in the late 1400s.”
“You know I’m no good at history.”
“You could at least try to get the right century.”
“It’s time.” Friedrich looked hard at Birdie.
She hesitated. The whistle was a good idea, but it might not work. They could get stuck in the past. But if they went back, they’d know for sure if Marielle escaped.
She looked at the others. “You’re sure you all want to try this again?”
They gazed back at her expectantly.
“Okay then. I’ll try.” She retrieved the aventurine from her pocket and unwrapped the soft cloth that protected it. As soon as she did, she felt it grow warm in her hand, and the room shimmered. “It looks like we’re supposed to be here.”
“Is it happening?” Raina grabbed Rich’s arm.
The cave grew brighter as iron sconces embedded in the limestone walls cast a warm glow. It was still a cave, but rather than a barren chamber, it was stacked high with wooden casks and smelled deeply of wine. The carving on the wall came alive with colorful paints.
Raina yelped as a torch fired to life above her head. “You almost caught my hair on fire!”
Sophia stepped away from the wall. “Oh, my gosh. Look!”
On the opposite end of the chamber, Marielle hovered between two towers of casks.
And she was not alone.