“Are you hungry?” Jonathan asked Elena.
“Might be fun to check it out,” she said.
They tried the door and found it open, which surprised Shelly since everything else had been closed on Sunday. A life-sized, authentic suit of armor stood guard just inside the door. Shelly stopped and gazed at it in amazement. She wanted to touch it. Next to the armor was a velvet cushioned bench, apparently for waiting customers. Real swords pointed upward with their flat sides forming the back of the bench and offering support to the customer’s back.
“That’s convenient,” Shelly said. “Lean back, and you can get your hair cut while you wait to be seated.”
Elena burst out laughing. Jonathan smiled appreciatively. Shelly was surprised she could think up anything bordering on wit. She was supposed to be nervous and uncomfortable around Jonathan and Elena. She was also supposed to despise this woman who had stolen her only true love. But somehow the events of the past few days were all mashed together and not at all cut and dried.
A woman behind the bar to the right of the entryway called out to them in German. Elena went over to chat with her. Jonathan and Shelly followed.
“They don’t open until six for dinner,” Elena said. “If we want something from the bar, she’ll get it for us.”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Shelly said. “But could you ask her if she knows anything about a Saint Annakapella?”
The woman began to respond before Elena could ask her in German. She motioned toward the door and nodded at them with a friendly smile.
“There’s a Spielplatz down the way,” Elena began her translation. “You know a, what do we call it? Playground. That’s it. Down on the other side of the castle grounds is a playground and a trail that leads to the chapel. A ‘Kapelle’ is a chapel. This one is called St. Anna Chapel.”
“One of many,” Jonathan added for Shelly’s benefit. “There are a lot of St. Anna churches because they’re named after St. Anna’s Church in Augsburg. St. Anna’s was one of Martin Luther’s last hideouts.”
Shelly vaguely remembered hearing about Augsburg in her early church-history lessons. She knew a little about Martin Luther, the priest who turned the religious world of his time against him because he taught that we are saved by God’s grace only and not because of anything we do to deserve it. She hadn’t known St. Anna’s had been his last hideout. Perhaps that was the church from which he had written, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
These details had held little interest to a nine-year-old sitting in a cold folding chair in the corner of the church basement and watching Mrs. Wentchel put figures up on a flannel board. But now it all came alive for Shelly.
She wasn’t hungry or thirsty. All she wanted to do was see the chapel at the end of the trail past the playground. “If you guys want to stay,” Shelly suggested, “I’ll go on down to the chapel and meet you back here in a bit.”
“Sounds good to me,” Elena said.
Shelly turned to go before Jonathan responded. She left the restaurant and strode through the courtyard and down the trail to the playground. Several children were swinging and squealing as they slid down the slide. The mothers sat on a long bench under two tall trees. As Shelly approached, she thought how the two trees seemed to have a comical contest going, each trying to see who could be the first to drop a leaf dead center on the head of one of the mothers. As Shelly strode past them, she thought the tree on the right might be winning.
At the end of the playground, as the woman at the bar had said, a trail led into a thickly wooded area. Shelly entered the woods. Everything seemed suddenly hushed; even the laughter of the children on the playground. The trail was a thick carpet of amber leaves, and the fragrance was intoxicating to Shelly. She stopped and drew it in, trying to identify it. Moss and wood bark mixed with something else. A spicy-sweet, earthy scent. Oh, it was wonderful.
Did my ancestors ever walk through these woods? I can picture it being exactly like this, unchanged, for centuries. Did secret lovers meet here and whisper their eternal pledges of devotion to each other? Did priests or pastors meet them at the chapel at the end of the trail and bless their covert marriages?
Above her, Shelly could hear some birds engaged in a squabble. Somewhere, out of her view, a little bird was giving another bird “what for.” That seemed to set off a reaction in the neighboring penthouses as a chorus of chittering and chirping enveloped her.
She chuckled to herself and kept looking around in the changing shadows for evidence of where the feuding was coming from. On the tree closest to her right, a squirrel darted across one branch and leaped to the next tree with an acorn in his mouth. As she watched him go, a small feather began to float toward her, seemingly out of thin air. Shelly caught the treasure before it touched the ground and examined it closely. She almost expected to see blood on the tip as evidence of the fight that raged in the treetops. There was no blood. The chittering died down. Shelly tucked the feather in her pocket next to the smooth stone and smiled to herself.
She had taken only a few more steps down the trail when she heard something that made her stop short. It was a whistle. One long, one short, one long, with the short a note higher.
Meet me at the tree house, Shelly’s brain interpreted for her. She slowly turned to watch Jonathan stride down the trail toward her.
He was alone.
Chapter Eighteen
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that one,” Shelly said as Jonathan approached. She felt nervous but decided to make light of the situation.
“Do you remember what that one was?” He was now beside her, and they automatically fell into step, continuing down the trail.
“Come to the tree house?” Shelly asked.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Jonathan challenged.
Shelly laughed aloud. That had been one of his favorite sayings as a kid. His dad used to use it all the time, too.
“I’m telling you,” Shelly stated confidently. “Come to the tree house.”
“You’re right,” Jonathan said. “I’m surprised you remember.”
Something in Shelly’s core tightened up like a fist. She wanted to punch him with her words. You would be surprised to know all the stuff I remember, Jonathan Renfield! I remember everything. Everything! You don’t know how long I stifled it all. Now I have it all back, and it’s of no use because I don’t have you.
All she said to him was, “I remember.”
They walked in silence. The trail ended abruptly, and they entered a flat, grassy area where a stately chapel stood. The square building was made of blue-gray stones and was held together with a brown mortar that had blended itself so well with the stones over the years that it was difficult to see the edges. A simple wooden door stood under a stone archway shaped like the head of a bullet. Beside the door stood two life-sized statues on ornately sculpted pedestals. Shelly had no idea who the statues were of.
“It’s locked,” Jonathan said after trying the door. No one was around. The chapel was surrounded by sweet grass and a beautiful view of the valley below where the village snuggled down under a blanket of thick gray clouds.
“I don’t see a graveyard,” Shelly said.
“No.”
“I thought there might be something here. Too bad it’s locked.”
“Yeah,” Jonathan agreed.
“I guess the graveyard is probably in the town. That looks like a church spire over there on the left.”
“Could be,” Jonathan said.
An uncomfortable silence held them together on the cold, gray chapel steps. They were looking all around but not at each other. Shelly touched the side of one of the statues. The unidentified frozen man offered no assistance.
“We should probably go back. Elena will be wondering what happened to us,” Shelly said.
“I’m going to ask you a question,” Jonathan said, not moving an inch. “Did you ever receive a letter from me?”
“Yes.” Shelly cautiou
sly met his gaze.
His eyebrows lifted slightly. “You did?”
Shelly nodded.
His brows seemed to cave in, and his eyes squinted. “Then why didn’t you write back?”
Shelly didn’t know what to say.
Jonathan turned from her and marched out onto the grass. He spun around and looked at her with fire in his expression. “I think I deserve an explanation!” he yelled at her.
She was so surprised to see this side of him that she had no response.
“You never gave me a chance, Shelly. You just freaked out and ran away. What was I supposed to do? I gave you your space. I waited. I tried to understand. How could you throw away our friendship just like that?”
“I was afraid,” Shelly answered.
“Afraid of what?” Jonathan came closer.
“Of marriage. Of commitment. Of not being able to do what I wanted to do.”
“Ah, there it is,” Jonathan said, pointing at her when she made her last statement. “You were afraid of giving up your dreams, but didn’t you see? I was trying to find a way for us both to have our dreams and each other, too. But you weren’t even willing to talk it through. The truth was, you didn’t want me.”
Shelly fought back the tears and shook her head. “That’s not true. We were young, Jonathan. We didn’t know what we were doing.”
His nostrils flared as he took in a deep breath and tried to calm down. “I agree. We were. But we could have worked it out. We could have corresponded or told each other we would go our separate directions for a year and then see if we still felt the same way. You cut me off. What was I supposed to do?”
Shelly’s ears felt cold. Her nose was about to drip from the tears she was holding back. She felt miserable inside and out. “You could have come to me,” she said quietly.
“In Pasadena?”
Shelly nodded.
Jonathan stared at her and then let out a laugh of disbelief and shook his head. “What did you want me to do? Come riding in on a white horse and take you back? Shelly, you don’t get it. No prince is going to rescue a runaway. That would be like kidnapping you from yourself. You didn’t want to be found. If you did, you would have responded.”
“How was I supposed to respond?” Shelly’s voice rose. “You wanted all or nothing. I had no choice but to take nothing. Your plan was all about you, your life, and your college education.”
“And I was wrong,” Jonathan said calmly.
The fire drained from Shelly’s lips. After a silence she said, “I was wrong, too. I should have talked things through with you rather than leaving the way I did. I’m sorry, Jonathan.” The tears began to well in her eyes. “When I came to Europe, I wanted to see you to tell you I was sorry. Please forgive me.”
“I’m sorry, too, Shel. You don’t know how long I’ve waited to be able to say that to you. Will you forgive me?”
“Yes,” Shelly said, blinking back the tears. “Of course I forgive you. Will you forgive me?”
A tear coursed down Jonathan’s cheek. “Yes, I forgive you. I meant what I said in my letter. You’ll always be my best friend.”
Shelly opened her arms, inviting Jonathan to embrace her. He held back. She could see his chest heaving as he harnessed his emotions. His lips remained slightly parted, but no words came out. With his stormy gray eyes he searched her face for understanding.
Shelly slowly drew her arms in and tried to silence her own pounding heart. Jonathan couldn’t let himself go to her. Not here, where they were all alone with their emotions racing, not with their history, their familiarity with each other’s kisses.
He took a cautious step toward her. “Shel …”
“It’s okay,” she said, coaxing a smile to her lips. “You don’t have to say anything.”
He ran his fingers through his fawn brown hair and shifted his weight nervously from his right foot to his left. He looked just the way he had when he had stood at the front door and told Shelly’s mom that his new puppy, Bob, had dug in her garden and ruined her flowers. Jonathan had produced from behind his back a fistful of drooping zinnias, snapdragons, and marigolds—Mom’s trampled flowers—as his peace offering.
This time he had nothing behind his back to offer. He couldn’t even give Shelly back her trampled heart.
“Jonathan, I want you to know that I like Elena. I’m sincerely happy for you. For both of you. And I wish you both the very best.”
He stared at her. Shelly couldn’t read him. It was the same look he had given her the other day right before he and Elena announced their engagement. She felt he was waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t know what it was.
If the situation were different, Shelly would have pursued that thought until she found out what he wanted. She would have opened her heart to him and told him everything she had been thinking and feeling and how she wanted him back. But now she couldn’t put that kind of burden on him. Jonathan was engaged to another woman. As his best friend, Shelly would honor that relationship. She wouldn’t download her emotional baggage on him. What was past, had happened. What was now, had to be.
He continued to wait for her to say something. She wanted to ask if he and Elena had set a date yet, to find out why Elena didn’t have a ring. She wanted to know if they were going to stay in Belgium or move back to the States. She wondered what he had told Elena about Shelly. It seemed all he had told Elena was that he and Shelly were childhood companions, and he had left out the part about their being in love with each other as teens. She mostly wanted to ask Jonathan if he loved Elena.
But all she asked was, “May I have your parents’ new address? My folks wanted me to ask. In case I saw you. I didn’t want to forget.”
Jonathan looked as if he was about to say something, but his lips finally closed, and he nodded. Turning to head back up the trail, Jonathan fell into a quick stride, and Shelly walked beside him. As they entered the woods, she felt a sharp pain in her chest. It was the kind of pain she used to get on cold winter days in Seattle if she ran and then tried to draw a deep breath.
She knew what it was. She didn’t want to admit it, though. And she knew why this pain was happening here in these woods. She was walking beside the only man she had ever truly loved, and the two of them were in the most romantic, enchanting place she had ever been in her life. The woods begged for secrets to be whispered under the sympathetic eaves, for lovers to promise themselves to each other and to seal their pledge with a kiss. Here Shelly and Jonathan walked; yet they harbored no hope of any vows or of any more kisses between them. Ever.
Yes, she knew where this pain came from, all right. This sensation came to anyone who had such a full treasure chest in her heart and then locked it up for good and heaved it into the depths of nothingness.
They emerged from the woods and marched past the playground, where the carefree children still spun each other on the merry-go-round and laughed happily.
Enjoy it, dear hearts, Shelly silently exhorted the young ones. Enjoy your moment of innocence. One day it will be gone.
Chapter Nineteen
I told Elena we would meet her at the car,” Jonathan said in words that were unevenly spaced. Had the woods jolted his soul as well?
“Do you want to walk down the back side of the castle or go around the way we first came up?” Shelly asked.
“This is fine.”
They continued down the wide trail away from the castle wall. Just before the parking lot, facing the valley, they saw a ten-foot-tall memorial surrounded by a short iron fence. Inside the fence grew a dozen rosebushes, guarding the simple yet regal-looking monument.
“What do you suppose this is?” Shelly asked, stepping off the trail to have a look. Jonathan followed her. He was the first to find the carved names.
“Look. The one at the top: Ludwig Rudi. He’s listed as one of the founding fathers of this town.”
Shelly felt a swell of pride in her heritage. “Would you mind taking a picture for my mom?”
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Jonathan snapped her photo, and when he handed her camera back, his fingers brushed softly across her hand. They felt warm on her chilly flesh. Shelly decided right then that the farther she stayed away from Jonathan the better. The two of them could not pretend they didn’t still feel something for each other.
Shelly reasoned that Jonathan wouldn’t have proposed to Elena unless he loved her. And he wouldn’t break a commitment once he had made it.
They needed to be away from each other if his relationship with Elena was going to work. As much as Shelly hated the idea, she knew that the sooner she extracted herself from Jonathan’s life, the sooner he could get on with it. And wasn’t that the true test of love? Being willing to give up something for the other? Shelly knew right then that she loved Jonathan so much she was willing to give him his future, void of any complications from her.
Elena was waiting inside the car, curled up in the back seat taking a nap. She perked up when they arrived and asked Shelly if they had found the grave.
“No. We think we saw a church spire down in the valley. Do you mind if we look for a graveyard near the church?”
“Of course not. You don’t mind that I came to the car, do you?”
“No,” Shelly said.
Elena motioned to her. “You have a little smear of something right there under your eye.” Shelly pulled down the visor and checked the mirror. Her eyes were a puffy, red mess. The smear was mascara that had most likely run when she had started to cry. Shelly dabbed it away. It felt strange to be told by her former boyfriend’s fiancée that she had smeared makeup, which had happened when she cried over that boyfriend.
Yes, the sooner I extract myself from this crazy triangle, the better. There are other fish in the sea, as they always say. Maybe some wonderful man is right around the corner waiting for me, but I couldn’t meet him until I had closure on this relationship.