The rest of the morning passed quickly as they explored the nooks and crannies of the ruined fortress, navigating the crumbling stairs to the top of the remaining fortification walls, tracing the patrol routes of the medieval guards, and marveling at the bird’s-eye view up and down the river.
On the road below, rumbling buses came and went, delivering a United Nations of tourists to the grounds. Birdie and the others peered at them through slits just wide enough for an arrow to slide through and stuck their heads out of murder holes that had once been used to pour hot tar on invaders.
When they weren’t up high fending off enemies or dodging camera-toting tourists, they went low, crawling through dark underground passages to reach other parts of the ruin. They visited the museum, too, a static collection of old cannonballs and glass cases filled with artifacts and maps.
By the time they returned to the storeroom two hours later, Birdie was dusty, hungry, and ready to sit down, no longer concerned about the cool, musty air. The lunch offering seemed like a feast on metal trays, and she wasted no time digging into a baguette lined with thinly sliced ham. She took a bag of chips and a small can of soda too.
Sam shoved the costume piles to one end of the table to give everyone a place to sit. Louisa clicked the music back on, and before long they’d emerged from tired hunger into lively conversation.
“I hate to break up the party,” Friedrich said a while later, not sounding particularly sorry as he interrupted Sophia, who’d been describing what it was like to live near the beaches in Hawaii. “But only five minutes remain before we begin our next activity.”
“You can finish telling me later,” Birdie said.
Sophia nodded and smiled.
“What’s next?” Sam asked as he reached for another baguette. “The gift shop?”
“Next, we determine your roles in the pageant,” Friedrich said. “And we must go through the costumes and find one that is appropriate for each of you.”
“Are they clean?” Kayla eyed the garments suspiciously. She sat at the far end of the table, a few chairs removed from the rest of them.
“Of course,” Friedrich said. “We clean them after each festival.”
“Good.” Kayla pushed her chair back and stretched her legs out long, crossing them at the ankles. “And after we get our costumes?”
“Then you will learn more about the roles you will play,” he said. “It is vital that you are believable. The festival is important to Burg Rheinfels and we must maintain its reputation. So, take a few minutes now to clean up and then we will start.”
“I’ll be right back,” Birdie told Sophia, checking her watch as she grabbed her pack. She tossed her mini soda can into a recycling bin near the door as she made her way up the stairs and outside to the ladies room, which was across the path from the ticket kiosk.
To her relief, the booth was dark and there was no sign of Frau Hamel. A paper clock stuck to the window showed she’d be back after lunch.
Although the restroom had modern plumbing, the workers at Burg Rheinfels had tried hard to make it look like it was from the Middle Ages. To flush the toilet, Birdie yanked hard on a long wooden handle that was suspended from a chain in the ceiling. To wash her hands, she used an iron pump to push water into a massive stone basin.
She was turning to leave when she glimpsed herself in the wavy mirror above the basin and realized that the breeze during the walk along the fortification walls had not been kind. She pulled her brush from her pack and repositioned the swoosh of bangs over the bruise on her forehead. She considered the result.
Not bad. Not bad at all, really.
But… how could she look so normal?
This camp, this day, was so not normal. Nothing had been normal for a very long time.
Normal was swimming at the pool with her friends or going to the library to get the summer reading books her teachers always assigned. Normal was going on vacation with her dad and mom and Jonah.
Normal was definitely not staring at herself in a creepy mirror in a foreign country, alone, after running around a bombed-out fortress all morning with a bunch of strangers.
So much had changed, and yet the same girl stared back at her from the mirror.
Voices outside broke her train of thought. She slipped the brush back into the pack and opened the door, smiling weakly at the mom and little girl waiting there.
She flung her pack onto her shoulder and headed down the sunny path to the storeroom. There were no trees in the stone ruins for shade, although she imagined that as the day went on, the walls would cast long shadows. She considered taking a side trip to the gift shop to find a pair of sunglasses, but then imagined Friedrich sending out a search party and thought better of it.
She was still thinking about the gift shop when a pinpoint of heat radiated against her back.
She stopped in the middle of the path and glanced up at the sky.
The heat couldn’t be from the sun. It was too focused, too limited to one small spot.
She wiggled her hand into the space between her pack and her back, trying in vain to rub the spot. Her heartbeat quickened as she realized the heat was coming from inside her pack – and getting hotter. She swung it from her shoulder and, kneeling along the path, rummaged inside until she found its source.
The aventurine.
“No,” she whispered as she pulled out the small piece of cloth. “Not here. Please, not here.”
She glanced up and down the path. The nearest tourists were several yards away and hadn’t seemed to notice her.
She carefully unfolded the cloth, revealing the quarter-sized piece of glass, its rich cinnamon hue enlivened by golden speckles. It was the first time she’d looked at it since she’d left Bruges and a wave of memories flooded back.
Ben trapped in the old bar.
Henri running from those awful boys.
The dead expression in Eva’s eyes.
They’d escaped, but it had been close. It had been Kayla who’d come through in the end. She needed to remember that.
The small piece of glass was as beautiful as she remembered, its golden speckles swimming in the coppery background. The souvenir. That’s what Ben had called it.
She ran her thumb over its surface, which was growing hotter.
She glanced around. Everything still seemed okay – the sandy path, the tourist group making its way toward a bus outside the gate.
But the speckles continued to swirl, glowing brilliantly.
Birdie knew what would happen next – they would slam together into a shape. A shape that was a clue. A shape that wouldn’t change until she figured out what it meant.
“Bist du verloren?”
Birdie closed her fist around the aventurine, praying it didn’t get any hotter. She looked up, her alarm growing at the sight of Frau Hamel.
Had she seen the glass?
“You are lost?” Frau Hamel switched to English.
“No, ma’am.” Birdie stood and brushed the sand from her bare knees. “Er, nein. Sorry. I don’t speak German. Just headed back to camp.”
Frau Hamel eyed the storeroom door. “It will be cooler in there, out of the sun.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She slipped the glass into her pack and hurried down the path, trying to process what just happened. As much as she wanted to be sure of what she’d glimpsed on its surface, she didn’t dare take the glass from her pack again. She could feel Frau Hamel’s hawkish glare on her back, and knew the woman wouldn’t turn away until she was in the classroom.
But Birdie had seen the image as she closed her hand, if only for an instant.
It was a flower.
A beautiful rose.