Clouds (19 page)

Jonathan didn’t say anything. She was having a hard time reading him. He had developed new expressions and shifted his jaw in a way that mystified her. What did it mean? She didn’t know.

Silently they walked up the dirt road, each of them matching the other’s long-legged strides in perfect rhythm. They both had to slow when Elena joined them. Up the road they went until they entered the castle courtyard. To Shelly’s surprise, next to the ancient cistern was a stage, complete with flying banners and enough folding chairs to accommodate an oom-pah band. It seemed so out of place with the rest of the grounds.

“I think that’s a restaurant,” Elena said, pointing to a door that seemed to lead into the castle area.

A few other people were shuffling around, but there was no sight of a visitor’s information sign. Shelly realized that they were off the beaten trail, and it was unlikely many people would come here desiring a tour. The place seemed to be more of a local park or community hangout than a tourist attraction. Of course, with her limited experience with castles, Shelly found it hard to believe that anyone could be nonchalant about having a castle in the backyard. But then, that’s how people used to react when she lived thirty miles from Disneyland and
told them she had only been there once.

“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
 

I
t’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 cautiously 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.