The route to the cellars was as treacherous as it appeared from the top of the path and – as she slid several feet down the muddy incline – Birdie wondered if following the others had been a good idea after all. Where the sodden ground wasn’t as slick as ice, it threatened to suck her sneakers into the mud.
They’d made it to level ground and almost reached the rubble where Louisa and Kayla had disappeared from sight when Sophia tapped Birdie on the shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“It was my idea to cross the river. I realize now how dumb I was.”
Birdie laughed as she lifted her gaze to the gray sky and let out a sharp breath. “Oh, Sophia. You can’t blame yourself. We all wanted to come. Anything was better than sitting in that storeroom having Friedrich teach us how to be villagers. And Sam’s been pushing to come over here since we met Marielle. Besides, even with the storm, this is still better than camp.”
“Is it? I’m not so sure. At least we’d be dry if we’d stayed at the fortress.”
“Seriously. Don’t worry about it. No one would be here at all if it wasn’t for me.” She ducked through a narrow opening in the rubble, only to find the others climbing toward them.
“There you are.” Sam’s T-shirt clung to his skin. “I figured you’d follow us.”
Sophia folded her arms and glared down at him.
“What’s back there?” Birdie rose to her tiptoes to see around them. “A cellar?”
“A whole lot of nothing.” Kayla’s bare legs were caked with mud. “An empty room with a puddle in the middle.”
“A pool,” Sam corrected. “At least three feet deep.”
“Whatever. There was nothing in it, and that’s the point.”
“We saw one thing.” Sam crept closer to Sophia.
She continued to glare at him, her dark eyes narrowing until the tug of curiosity got the best of her. “Fine. What did you see?”
“Ourselves.” Sam bit back a smile. “The pool was perfectly still. It reflected us.”
“Oh, big whoop.” Kayla gathered her wet hair and wrung it out, the water splattering as it hit the steps. She secured it with a ponytail holder from her wrist. “I’ve got a mirror in my room that’d show the same thing.” She gazed beyond Birdie and Sophia. “Where’s Friedrich?”
“Gone.” Birdie said.
“What do you mean, gone?” Louisa raised an eyebrow.
“He said the storm was too dangerous, and he left.”
“He left? Unbelievable. He is gone?”
“He went to the dock.”
Kayla smirked. “Some prince he turned out to be.”
“His response was reasonable, to be honest,” Sophia said. “And smarter than the rest of us combined. We had no business being on that path in this storm.”
Rich met Birdie’s eye. “Is Raina with him?”
She nodded. “She left with him.”
“So, bottom line, this was a big fat waste of time.” Kayla scooted past Birdie and Sophia. “I’m going to the dock before I miss the next ferry.”
“Hold on a minute,” Sophia said. “You said there was a pool of water? Is it just from the rain? Like a puddle that collected?”
Sam glanced over his shoulder and then back at his sister. “Kayla said it was, but I’m not so sure. It looked to me like someone dug it on purpose.”
“What purpose?” Kayla paused near the entrance. “It’s a ruin, Sam.”
He took a deep breath. “I understand that, Kayla.”
“I wanted to go in,” Ryan added. “But Rich said not to bother.”
Birdie turned to Sophia. “What are you thinking?”
Sophia brushed the mud from her wet jeans. “Sometimes things hide in pools of water.”
“You’re saying the chest could be in the water?” Sam asked. “After all these years?”
“I don’t know. But it’s a possibility, and we came all the way over here, so it feels like we should check it out. We can spare a couple of minutes before we go back down to the ferry.”
“I’ll go for a swim if you will,” Ryan said to Sam, a grin spreading across his face.
“Let’s do it,” Sam said. “Anybody else?”
“I want to see the pool,” Birdie agreed. “But I’m not going in the water.”
“Sure.” Rich considered his little brother. “I’ll go back in there. We were so worried about the storm we could have missed something.”
“Forget it.” Kayla ducked through the opening. “I’m with Fred.”
Birdie and Sophia watched her go, then followed the others down a short staircase into the cellar’s inky darkness.
“Hold on.” Louisa clicked on her flashlight. “There.”
Birdie gazed into the pool. She’d expected an oversized puddle, but this – she had not expected this. “It’s beautiful.”
The water was still, black as coal along the edges and emerald green in the center. It glowed in the beam of Louisa’s flashlight.
Birdie peered into the water. Her face stared back in wonder, as if the reflection was as curious about her as she was about the pool itself. It was disorienting to see herself so clearly, so alive, in the dark water. She closed her eyes to wash the feeling away, but when she opened them her reflection remained.
Beside her, Sam stripped down to his boxers.
Sophia gaped at him. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t need my pants getting any more soaked than they already are. You can wring them out if you want to.”
She scrunched her nose and let the jeans rest where he dropped them.
Sam waded into the water, and Birdie’s reflection shimmered and broke. It dissolved into the pool and disappeared.
“That was so weird.” She rubbed the goosebumps on her arms. “My reflection just vanished.”
Sam slipped the rest of the way in, his head and shoulders bobbing above the surface. “The bottom’s rocky. And it’s deep.”
“Don’t swallow any of the water,” Sophia warned.
“Hadn’t planned to.” He began a calculated exploration of the pool, serpentining along the sides. Ryan stripped down to his boxers and joined him, and together they dove toward the bottom as Louisa’s light pierced the dark water.
Ryan surfaced several seconds later and shook the water from his light brown hair like a wet dog. “I didn’t feel anything along the bottom. I opened my eyes but I couldn’t see anything. It’s pitch black down there.”
Sam’s dark head popped above the surface. “Empty.”
“Well,” Sophia sighed, “it was a long shot. We knew that all along.”
The boys splashed out of the pool, the heavy water undulating around them before resettling.
“Why is it here?” Rich hung close to Louisa. “Have you ever seen anything like it before?”
She shook her head. “It is not normal.”
“It must be spring-fed.” Sam brushed the water from his legs and reclaimed his jeans. “Otherwise, that water would be stagnant and gross.”
“Why is the center so green?” Birdie asked.
“I don’t know, but it reminds me of that legend.” Sam struggled to tug his jeans over his wet skin. “The one we read about last night? I could totally see a dragon hanging out in here.”
Thunder clapped outside, and they all jumped.
Louisa made her way to the opening and peered at the darkening sky. “We’ll have to wait it out. Hopefully, the storm passes quickly.”
“The last one did,” Rich said. “We’ll be fine. Worse case, we have to take a later ferry.”
“Not an option.” Louisa rejoined them. “Unless we want to get caught.”
“You don’t think Friedrich would cover for us?” Sam asked.
“I do not,” Louisa replied.
“He covered for us this morning, when Frau Hamel asked him why we came back from outside the gate.”
“This is different. We’ve abandoned the grounds, and we’ll be late for our training sessions for the festival.”
Birdie circled the room as she listened, running her palms along the smooth stone walls. “It’s like a grotto,” she said, more to herself than to anyone else.
“A what-o?” Ryan asked.
Birdie was alone near the far end of the pool, deep in shadow, while the glow of Louisa’s flashlight cast an eerie illumination on everyone else.
“A grotto. It’s like a cave where mermaids live.”
“Nope, no mermaids.” Ryan skimmed his hands down his bare legs to flick off the last drops of water before pulling on his jeans.
Louisa shuddered. “That is a good thing.”
“Why?” Ryan asked.
“Because they are evil creatures, at least here in the Rhine Valley.”
“Evil how?”
“They lure you with their sweet songs and beautiful faces.” Louisa stared at her reflection in the pool. “And then they morph into frightening creatures that trap you under the water.”
“Sirens,” Sophia explained. “Like the Loreley.”
“And you drown,” Louisa finished.
“Great.” Ryan sat down on the dirt floor and stared into the water. “I’ll keep that in mind before I jump into any more pools.”
“So now what?” Sam asked. “There’s no old wooden chest here, no chess piece. This cellar looks like it’s been picked over.”
“Is there anywhere else we can search?” Sophia asked Louisa.
She shook her head. “Not that I know about.”
Rich leaned against the wall. “Peter said it was here because the villagers stole it.”
“I doubt he was lying to us,” Birdie said. “He seemed to really think that’s what happened, that the villagers from this side of the river took it. And it matches up with the legend Sophia found.”
“If the chest was ever here, it must have been hidden somewhere people wouldn’t have looked,” Rich said.
“They feared the Loreley, so they would’ve avoided the bluff,” Sophia said. “But Friedrich said no one is afraid of this place anymore, and the trails prove it. Something would have turned up before now.”
Silence filled the chamber. Even the thunder ceased to rumble.
“It could be anywhere,” Rich said. “Or nowhere. They could have blown it up with the rest of this village, or melted the chess piece down for metal during the wars.”
In the distance, a horn blasted.
“That’s the ferry leaving the other side of the river.” Louisa walked back to the opening and peered out. “The rain has slowed down. We can make it if we hurry.”