The next morning dawned bright, the warm sun splashing through the butter-yellow curtains of the hotel room. Mrs. Blessing cranked a window open to let in some fresh air while Birdie showered and dressed in the bathroom. When they were ready, they went downstairs and picked up bananas and granola bars from the buffet in the lobby.
“Guten Morgen,” Birdie’s mom said to Herr Mueller as he rushed by with a full pot of coffee.
“Coffee, Mrs. Blessing? To go?”
Birdie’s mom held up a paper cup with steam rising from under the lid. “I found some at the buffet. Thank you, though. You are very kind.”
“Do you have an umbrella? Chance of storms again today,” he called over his shoulder.
“Yes, in the car. Danke!”
Herr Mueller nodded and was off again, serving the other guests in the restaurant. Birdie noticed the couple who checked in the night before, appearing calmer and more collected as they heaped food onto their plates at the buffet. Sam and Sophia were there, too, shoehorned into a table near the window with their parents and looking perfectly miserable.
“Are those your friends? Do you want to wait and walk with them?”
“No. Their parents are driving them to the fortress. I’ll see them up there. We can go.”
Mrs. Blessing checked her phone. “Okay, good. We’re right on time.”
They retraced their route from the previous morning, following the broad sidewalk down Heerstrasse to the parking lot. With fairer weather and better spirits, Birdie saw the village in a new light and smiled as they passed a string of souvenir shops with cuckoo clocks and beer steins in the windows.
She liked Sankt Goar, she decided. It was compact, with only a few roads that looped up the hillside, and there was little traffic this early in the morning. As they passed a short side street, a group of children with matching T-shirts and daypacks trailed behind two teachers. They wandered down the middle of the road and didn’t seem at all concerned that a car might appear to ruin their outing.
They passed a group of senior citizens enjoying the morning sun at an outdoor café and Birdie smiled at them. Unlike Bruges, Sankt Goar was a town first, with ordinary people living in the half-timbered houses that lined the roads, and a tourist destination second.
When they reached the small gas station at the far end of Heerstrasse, she hugged her mom goodbye and watched her cross the empty street to reclaim the rental car from the parking lot. A few blocks above them, the train whistle moaned.
“Good luck with the old guy!” Birdie called to her.
Her mother half-turned, the highlights in her hair sparkling in the morning sun. “Thanks. See you at the festival!”
The festival.
Right.
Birdie glanced at Burg Rheinfels rising high upon the hill.
From down here, it looked like an impossible climb, but she knew from Herr Mueller’s map that there was a trailhead just a few blocks away at the youth hostel. She slung her pack onto her shoulders, rescuing her dark hair from beneath the heavy straps, and started toward the trailhead, passing the gas station and making a straight climb up the road toward the railroad tracks. As she crossed them, she could make out a flashing red light on the train that had just rumbled through.
A few yards beyond the tracks, she turned toward the hostel and saw the Hennesseys starting across the parking lot.
“Hey!” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Wait up!”
Raina tapped her brothers on their shoulders. They were all wearing jeans and sneakers, just like she was, probably to fight off the chill of the storeroom.
They stopped to let her catch up.
“If it isn’t shimmer girl.” Raina’s hair was in a ballerina bun again. “I thought you got a ride to camp.”
“Be nice, Raina,” Rich said.
“I told my mom I’d walk today.” Birdie tried to ignore the dig. Shimmer girl? Really? “We have to walk halfway here to get to our car, anyway. Are you guys staying at the hostel?”
“My mom would never stay at a hostel,” Raina said.
“No.” Rich shot Raina an irritated look. “We’re at a bed-and-breakfast in Bacharach. We took the train to Sankt Goar this morning.”
“Right. You said that yesterday. How long did that take?”
“Ten minutes?” Rich bent slightly to hold open a crooked garden gate at the edge of the parking lot as they all passed through. Beyond it, they climbed a narrow path bordered by several long-neglected flowerbeds.
“My mom and I rode our bikes to Bacharach for dinner last night. It’s a cute little town.”
“Emphasis on little,” Raina said.
The sun was bright and the breeze from the river was cool as they climbed the hillside trail, which veered up into a scraggly patch of trees. Birdie’s shoulders were weighed down by her pack, stuffed full with a set of pajamas, a change of clothes, her toothbrush, deodorant, and a tube of toothpaste.
The one thing it didn’t hold was the aventurine. She’d left it tucked in the suitcase, far away from Burg Rheinfels and the other campers. If Sam and Sophia wanted to talk Friedrich into taking the ferry across the river to search for the long-lost chest, that was fine, but they wouldn’t do it with the aventurine along for the ride. Yesterday proved too dangerous and unpredictable, and she wouldn’t put anyone in harm’s way again. She’d been careless, and they’d almost all paid the price.
The events of the day before hung unspoken in the air as they hiked up the trail, and she could sense the siblings trying to think of a way to broach the subject.
Ryan finally came out with it. “So, what’s the story with that stone?” They’d made it halfway up the hill and paused to catch their breath. “I’m still shaking my head about it. Part of me wants to believe it was a big setup, that Friedrich and Louisa planned the whole thing. But it seemed so real.”
“It’s technically glass, not stone. Although it looks like a river stone to me.”
“Where did you say you found it?” Rich seemed even taller this morning, standing a few feet above her on the trail. His hair was windblown from the walk and, for the first time, Birdie noticed a splash of freckles on his cheeks. She glanced at Ryan and Raina and saw they had them too.
“In Bruges. That’s where we stayed in Belgium. It’s where I met Kayla. She and her grandparents were staying at the same bed-and-breakfast as my mom and me.”
“Did weird stuff happen there, too?” Ryan asked. “Like what happened yesterday? Is that how Kayla knew you had the stone – oh wait, I mean glass? What’s it called again?”
“Aventurine. And yes, weird stuff happened. We – my friend Ben and I – found a rare book that belonged to a boy who lived there.”
“And?” Ryan bounced on his toes. Birdie couldn’t tell if he was excited or just trying to stretch his feet.
“And, that boy – his name was Henri – was not from our time. The aventurine opened a window to the past somehow, just like it did yesterday. We used it to help return the book to him.”
“What do you mean, opened a window to the past?” Rich asked. “How?”
“It worked the same way it did yesterday. There was a legend in Bruges about the aventurine – that it came from Venice and had mystical powers. Although no one thought it was real. But then I found the glass and, well, all I can say is Ben and I were definitely in some other time when we helped Henri.”
“Is that how you got that enormous bruise on your head?” Raina’s lips twisted as her eyes locked on Birdie’s forehead.
She smoothed her bangs over the spot. It had faded to yellow overnight, with a few ugly shades of green still mixed in for good measure.
“Nice, Raina.” Rich shook his head. “Why do you have to be like that?” He met Birdie’s eyes and she could tell he was searching for the truth there. “So that’s what happened yesterday? We all traveled back in time? It wasn’t some hoax that you cooked up with Louisa and Friedrich to juice up the camp? Maybe with projectors and actors?”
“I wish. But no, it wasn’t a hoax, at least not on my part. The girl we met yesterday – Marielle – was from the past as far as I can tell and she needed our help to escape from the guards.”
“So we helped her,” Ryan said.
“Yes.”
“And that’s it?”
“Probably. Maybe? Once we helped Henri, everything went back to normal.”
“But did we really help Marielle? The chest is still missing,” Rich said. “We ditched her in a cave with armed guards, don’t forget.”
“Sam and Sophia were wondering the same thing last night. They did some research and discovered that there really was a Princess Elisabeth whose dowry disappeared.”
“You’re kidding,” Ryan said.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, what a load of BS.” Raina pushed past Rich and tramped up the trail. “I think Friedrich set it up so that girl and the guard dressed up like we will be tonight and then led us on the stupid quest.”
“What’s your problem this morning?” Rich asked her. “Did you wake up on the wrong side of bed or what?”
“Or maybe the wrong side of the Atlantic?” Ryan snickered.
Raina kept going, climbing faster and not bothering to answer her brothers. Birdie stepped behind Rich on the trail, jogging a little to keep up.
The subject dropped, and Birdie was grateful that the grade kept them breathing too hard to carry on the conversation.
The morning was too beautiful for an argument, anyway. At the end of each switchback, she let her gaze linger on the view that stretched below them, the broad river winding through the gorge. She took a mental picture of it, hoping to preserve the memory for a while before spending the rest of the morning cooped up in the underground storeroom.