Book of Enchantments Page 10

  "You missed me by an inch," Heather insisted. "Honestly, some people are so—"

  "Shhh! Mr. Norberg's going to say something."

  Heather craned her neck to see over Dan's head, and Janet nipped around the outside of the group to a place nearer the front. There was no point in arguing with Heather once she decided something; all you could do was get away from her until she found someone else to complain at.

  "Watch your step here!" Mr. Norberg called. The stone footpath curved around behind the Gasthaus, then dropped into three wide, shallow steps and vanished altogether. Beyond was a large area of lumpy gray rock, with an iron railing on its far side. There were a few scrubby trees on the other side of the railing, but as Janet came closer she realized there was nothing beyond them but air.

  "Can everybody hear me?" Mr. Norberg said. "Good. We're standing on the bedrock at the top of the Lorelei cliff. Those of you who've had my third-year German class will remember it from the poem by Heinrich Heine."

  There were groans from the seniors, and some of the juniors looked nervously from them to Mr. Norberg and back. Sure enough, Mr. Norberg's next comment was, "Who wants to explain who the Lorelei is, for the benefit of the second-year students?"

  "Nobody," whispered Rob Shonasai, and Janet smothered a giggle.

  Despite Rob's comment, there were at least three hands raised. Mr. Norberg looked them over and shook his head. "I'd hoped that more of you would have better memories. Dan?"

  "The Lorelei was a beautiful woman who sat on a cliff and sang when the boats went by on the Rhine River," Dan said. "The boatmen who heard her forgot what they were doing and crashed on the rocks." He sounded vaguely bored. Janet wondered why he had bothered to raise his hand. Maybe he'd just wanted to show off.

  "Admirably succinct, though unromantic," Mr. Norberg said. "The Lorelei is, in fact, a German version of the Greek Sirens who gave Ulysses so much trouble. Ulysses got around them by plugging up his sailors' ears, but unfortunately that solution never occurred to the Germans."

  "Why not?" Janet said, then immediately felt stupid because everyone turned to look at her. Dan Carpenter was practically sneering.

  Mr. Norberg wasn't, though. "Probably because it wouldn't have done them any good. Look down at the river. See those two bends? They're close together, and the current is very strong. Furthermore, there used to be a lot of rocks in the water. Until they were dynamited early in this century, this part of the river was extremely dangerous."

  "So the Lorelei is just something people made up to explain why they kept wrecking their boats here," Dan murmured, sounding interested at last.

  "Phooey," said Heather. "I think the Lorelei is much more romantic."

  Dan gave her a look. "You would."

  Mr. Norberg let them take pictures, though he warned everyone several times to stay well behind the iron guard railing. Looking down the steep, rocky cliff, Janet could see why. Just looking made her dizzy.

  "People still die here, you know," Lynnanne Gregory said beside her.

  "What? What are you talking about?" Janet said, turning away from the drop with relief.

  "I read about it in the guidebook this morning." Lynnanne dropped her voice to a thrilling whisper. "They jump off."

  "That's not funny, Lynnanne." Janet stepped back, letting someone else take her place beside the iron railing. "This place is creepy enough without bringing up stuff like that.

  "I didn't say it was funny. But every year, two or three people—"

  "I don't want to hear about it!" Before Lynnanne could continue, Janet shoved her way through the small group of students who were still waiting for a turn at the railing and went to join the larger group with Mr. Norberg. At least they were almost finished here; even if the castle at Marksburg had ghosts, it couldn't be as bad as the cliff.

  When everyone was finished with their pictures, Mr. Norberg led them around the opposite side of the Gasthaus. On this side, someone had put up a statue of the Lorelei, made of gray-white stone. The sculptor thought the Lorelei was a tall, thin woman with long, wavy hair everywhere and a face that was sad and fierce and grim all at the same time. The statue made Janet shiver, and she gave it a wide berth.

  Unfortunately, Peter Fletch noticed. "Hey, Janet, what's the matter? Scared of the witch?"

  "No," Janet said. She didn't sound convincing even to herself.

  "You don't have to be scared," Peter said in a tone of false consolation. "You're not a sailor. You're a girl."

  Janet felt herself flushing, and she longed to make a properly cutting remark, but her tongue was tied in knots. Then, from behind her, Beth Davidson said, "Don't be a sexist pig, Pete."

  "I didn't say she was just a girl," Peter said, suddenly defensive. "I just said she was a girl, and she is."

  "And you are pond scum," Beth said amiably. "And if we don't hurry, Linda's going to clean out the ice-cream stand before we get there. You want ice cream, or do you want to hang around arguing about who's insulting whom?"

  Peter started to reply, thought better of it, and headed for the ice-cream stand, which was already surrounded by students from the tour. Beth shook her head. "Pond scum," she repeated. "You coming, Jan?"

  "In a minute." Janet couldn't decide which would be worse, staying near the statue or joining the mob by the stand. Finally, she headed for the bus instead. If she hung around for a while, maybe she could grab a good seat when they got started again.

  The bus driver and Mr. Norberg were holding a conference in German that was far beyond Janet's ability to follow. It involved much waving of arms and several emphatic phrases that Janet committed to memory in hopes that they might be swear words. She had a dictionary of German idioms that might shed some light on the question, now that she had some idea where to start looking.

  Mr. Norberg turned away with a sigh and saw her. "Janet, would you fetch Mrs. Craig, please? I need to talk to her immediately."

  Janet nodded. If she brought Mrs. Craig back, she'd probably find out what was going on, because Mr. Norberg would have to explain it in English. But if she had to guess, she'd bet there was something wrong with the bus.

  She was right. The bus was dead, and within five minutes everyone knew it, though Mr. Norberg didn't officially announce that there was a problem until their twenty-minute break was over and they should have been getting on board again. It took another hour for the mechanic to arrive, and an hour after that before he admitted that he wouldn't have the parts to fix the engine until the following day. Mr. Norberg spent most of that time on the Gasthaus telephone, trying to persuade the tour company to send them another bus. The tour company refused, on the grounds that all their buses were busy.

  This led to another flurry of conferences between Mr. Norberg, Mrs. Craig, the mechanic, the Gasthaus manager, and an Australian tourist with a rental car who was either very anxious to be helpful or very nosy, depending on whether you asked Mrs. Craig or Peter Fletch. Finally, Mr. Norberg called a conference

  "Our bus isn't going to be fixed until tomorrow," Mr. Norberg told them. "We won't know until then how many stops we're going to have to skip or cut short in order to get back on schedule. Tonight, though, we're going to have to stay here."

  "The Lorelei witch strikes again!" Will Forney said.

  "Don't be stupid," Heather Martin told him. "The Lorelei didn't wreck things. She just sang."

  "This Gasthaus doesn't have quite enough room for everybody," Mr. Norberg went on, "so I'm going to take some of the boys down to St. Goarshausen for the night. Eight of you will ride with Herr Schoengrum, the mechanic; and Mr. Colinwood has kindly offered to drive a few more down in his car. The rest of you will stay here with Mrs. Craig. Mike, Todd, Gordon—" He read off a list of names, and the boys went to collect their bags. A few people had questions; the rest, including Janet, drifted away to help unload bags or do some more exploring.

  Janet crossed the parking lot and sat down on a rock. She wished that she were a boy; then she wouldn't have
to stay in this creepy place. But if she were a boy, she probably wouldn't think it was creepy, or even if she were a girl like Lynnanne or Beth. She sighed. It's only Jot one night, she told herself. Not so long.

  The boys who were going with Mr. Norberg loaded their bags onto the top of the mechanic's van; then a small mob of them crammed inside. Mr. Norberg and three others and the bus driver got in the car with the Australian tourist, and a few minutes later they had all left.

  It was an hour later that Janet realized that one of the boys was missing.

  She wasn't sure how she knew. She wasn't sure how long he had been gone. She wasn't even sure which of the boys was missing. It wasn't Will Forney or Rob Shonasai; they were standing by the back of the broken-down bus, squinting at the engine in the fading light and arguing with each other. Beth was there, too, because she thought engines were interesting, and Linda was sidling up on them because she thought Will was interesting and she didn't want Beth to get in ahead of her. Rich Conway was slouching against the corner of the ice-cream stand. Peter Fletch was nowhere in sight, but only a few minutes earlier Janet had seen him slip around the far corner of the Gasthaus, so it couldn't be him, either.

  Carefully, Janet counted over in her mind all the boys who had gone with Mr. Norberg. Eight in the mechanic's van, and three in the car with Mr. Norberg and the Australian tourist who'd offered to help. Eleven boys. If Will and Rob and Rich and Peter were the only ones who were supposed to be staying with Mrs. Craig, there should have been twelve who'd left with Mr. Norberg. But there had only been eleven.

  If she could only remember the names of everyone who'd left, she'd know who was missing now. But she hadn't been paying close enough attention when Mr. Norberg rattled off his list.

  Mrs. Craig appeared suddenly in the door of the Gasthaus, calling and waving. Dinner must be ready. Janet thought briefly about telling her someone was gone, then shook her head. Mrs. Craig would just say Janet must have miscounted.

  Maybe she had. Maybe there had been twelve boys with Mr. Norberg. Maybe she was worrying about nothing. Janet sighed as she followed the others into the Gasthaus. Maybe she was wrong, but she couldn't quite convince herself. If only Susan could have come on this trip, too . . . But Susan was back in Wilmette, Illinois, and Janet didn't know the rest of the girls well enough to talk to. Not about anything important, anyway.

  The problem preoccupied her through the first half of dinner, so much that she even ate a bite of the dubious-looking shredded vegetables before she realized what she was doing. She swallowed quickly and took a gulp of her orange drink to wash the taste away, hoping no one would notice. From then on, Janet tried to pay more attention to eating and the table talk. She even managed to convince herself that she had no reason to be worried. At least, she thought she had convinced herself of that, until Beth grabbed her arm as she was getting up from the table and said, "Wait a minute, Jan. I want to talk to you."

  "What about?" Janet said warily.

  "Which half of the room you want; whether you read in bed with a flashlight; how early you set your alarm. Mrs. Craig's shuffled all the room assignments around; the two of us are sharing tonight.

  "Oh. Sure." Janet sank back down into her chair. She had been rooming with Lynnanne, who had twice as many bags as anyone else on the trip and who would have changed clothes four times a day if she could have gotten away with it. Janet wondered what it would be like to room with Beth, who argued about car engines with the boys and who seemed perfectly happy to wear the same jeans and Kmart sweater for days at a time.

  The other girls drifted away from the table. Beth glanced around the neat little dining room and leaned forward. "All right, Jan, what's the matter with you?" she said bluntly.

  "I— Nothing," Janet said weakly.

  "Baloney. Something has you spooked. I can tell. Unless you're still upset about this afternoon?"

  "You mean the business with Peter? No. But I can't explain. It'll just sound weird and stupid."

  "S'all right; you've warned me," Beth said. "So what is it?"

  "I think somebody's missing," Janet said, and launched into a more detailed explanation before Beth could object that that was ridiculous. It felt wonderful to tell someone. Beth listened intently, and when Janet finished she sat frowning at the tabletop. "Do you think we should tell Mrs. Craig?" Janet asked doubtfully after a minute. "Do you think she'll believe us?"

  "I don't know," Beth said. She was still frowning. "I don't know if I believe it. I mean, you aren't even sure yourself. And Mr. Norberg and Mrs. Craig are pretty careful about counting heads. They wouldn't just mislay somebody."

  "I know, I know," Janet said. "But still..."

  "And where would your missing person have gotten to?" Beth went on remorselessly. "Somebody would have noticed if he'd fallen off the cliff; there are boats and tourists and cars on the road all day."

  "So maybe I'm crazy." Janet stared past Beth at the darkness outside the Gasthaus windows and shivered. "This place is weird. Maybe the pine trees and the echo and the mountains and everything are making me crazy."

  "Spruce. They're spruce trees, not pine."

  Janet made an exasperated noise. "I don't care what they are! Haven't you been listening?"

  "Mmmm-hmmmm. Tell you what—let's go look around outside. Maybe we'll find something."

  Janet nodded, and together they went out. The sun had set, but a bright half-moon was already well up in the sky. The bus was a shadowy lump on the far side of the parking lot, with the sharply pointed silhouettes of the evergreens behind it. "I bet the bus is locked up," Janet said.

  "If we don't look, we'll never know," Beth replied.

  The bus door was locked, but the baggage compartments underneath were open. Beth dug a flashlight out of the little green backpack she carried instead of a purse and swept its beam into every corner. "Empty," she said at last in tones of great satisfaction.

  "So?" Janet said.

  "So if somebody's missing, they'll find out when they sort out the luggage. So you can quit worrying."

  "I suppose— What's that?"

  "What's what?" Beth said. "I don't hear anything."

  "Shhh," Janet hissed. Beth shrugged, but she didn't say anything else. Janet strained her ears to catch the sound she had heard. For a long moment, there were only the noises from the Gasthaus windows: the clatter of dishes being cleared, Lynnanne and Maggie yelling about something in one of the upstairs rooms, the shouts of the boys clowning around as they carried their bags up to their rooms. Then she heard it again. "I think it's music."

  "Music?"

  "Singing." Suddenly Janet felt very frightened. "Come on," she said, and began to run.

  The beam of Beth's flashlight followed her for a moment, then cut off abruptly. Janet ran around the corner of the Gasthaus, past the ghostly white stone of the Lorelei statue and on toward the cliff's edge. The singing was growing—not louder, but easier to hear. She no longer had to strain to pick out the soft, sweet music from among the shouts and laughter leaking out of the Gasthaus and the noise of her own breathing.

  The dirt footpath was slanted and uneven. Janet stumbled and had to slow down. And then there was rock under her feet, rough and lumpy, and she had reached the clear area at the cliffs edge. The sound of the singing was all around her, but the clearing was empty. Through the gap in the trees at the far side, she could see the lights of St. Goarshausen below, along the river's edge. The Rhine itself was a broad, dark belt with just a glimmer of silver along the far shore where the moonlight was beginning to touch it.

  The glimmer spread and grew brighter, and Janet blinked. Suddenly there was a woman leaning against the iron railing that was supposed to keep tourists from falling down the cliff. Her head was thrown back, and her hair hung loose and pale, almost to her feet. She wore a long, loose tunic that came down past her knees and underneath it a full skirt that covered her feet. Her skin glowed faintly, white and cold, like the glitter of the moonlight on the Rhine. She was
singing.

  "Stop that!" Janet shouted.

  The singing stopped, and there was an eerie silence, sudden and complete. There was no noise from the traffic on the riverside highway, no rustling of the wind in the trees, no faintest sound of shouts and giggles from the Gasthaus a few hundred yards away. Janet could hear nothing but the sound of her own breathing.

  The woman lowered her head and seemed to see Janet for the first time. The expression on her face made Janet feel as if her jeans were torn, her sweater stretched out of shape, and her hair limp and greasy.

  Janet clenched her teeth together, the way she did when Lynnanne was being snide, and took a step forward. "You're the Lorelei, aren't you?"

  "Clever child," said the woman. "Yes."

  "Where is he?" Janet said fiercely.

  "Where is who?" said the Lorelei. Her lips moved without showing her teeth, and the motions didn't seem to fit her words. It was like watching a foreign movie with the sound dubbed in English. With a slight sense of shock, Janet realized that the Lorelei was speaking German, but Janet was hearing her in English.

  "The boy who disappeared this afternoon," Janet said. "You've got him, haven't you? Where is he?"

  "Ah. Him." A flicker of expression crossed the Lorelei's face, but it was gone before Janet could tell what it was. "He's one of the stubborn ones." She looked at Janet with a trace of interest. "I suppose you, too, are stubborn, or you would not have heard my song."

  Janet wondered what was taking Beth so long to catch up. She felt cold and scared, and all she could do about it was to demand for a third time, "Where is he?"

  The Lorelei smiled, and her teeth were dark and pointed. She gestured toward the cliff's edge.

  Janet swallowed hard and forced her legs to carry her across the rough rock. She gave the Lorelei a wide berth and caught hold of the iron railing farther along. Taking a deep breath, she clenched her hands around the rail and leaned over to look down the cliff.

  At first she could see little. The moon was behind her, illuminating the clearing and the ragged gray tops of the rocks in front of her, but then the cliff sloped steeply down into shadow. It was not a sheer drop, and lower down a forest of full-grown trees hid the rocks and soil. Even near the top, where Janet stood, there were small, scrubby trees clinging to cracks and hollows in the rock. Then her eyes began to adjust, and she saw that one of the dark places was not a hollow at all.