Boy from the Woods (9781311684776) (28 page)

She
turned
her head to look at him. Michael
was still talking to Thorsten, but somehow he had felt her stare.
He looked back at her, smiling reassuringly. His sweet, genuine
smile gave her strength, and for just one moment, Julia could
forget about all the questions running through her mind. Michael
was here, by her side, to take care of her and help her. He was in
love with her. What could possibly be wrong with this picture? She
was just worrying too much.

She
looked
straight ahead again. Her mother
put a hand on her back, rubbing her shoulder. “He seems like a nice
guy,” she said with a tiny smile. “I’m sorry I can’t be happier for
you right now.”

Julia bit her lip. “Oh,
Mom.”
She held on to her mother’s arm and
decided not to say anything else.

After a
forty-minute walk, they got to the place where the hairpin was
found. Gaby and Axel looked around indecisively. “So… this is the
spot,” Axel stated, throwing Michael a questioning look. He was the
one who’d asked to be taken here, after all.

Michael
nodded. He took a few slow
paces forward,
lightly caressing Julia’s arm in passing. His next few steps were
to the left, away from the search party, and he came to a
standstill next to a young oak tree. And then he closed his
eyes.

Nobody spoke
when he squatted down on the ground to put his hands on the soil
directly
around the tree. A shiver ran
through her body when Julia observed what he was doing. It reminded
her of the way she’d often sat underneath
her
oak – as if she was
somehow connecting with the roots under the earth. As if she could
feel what the tree was feeling. Michael was doing the exact same
thing right now: that much was evident. He was talking to the
forest.

Abruptly, Michael jumped to his feet. “Over
here,” he said softly, stalking off into the woods without
hesitation, the rest following in his wake.

Julia caught
up with him. “How do you know…”
she
stuttered.
“Do you know if…”

“She’s still alive,” he said, slipping his
hand into hers like he’d done it a thousand times before. “Don’t
worry.”

Despite his
words, Julia couldn’t help her mounting anxiety as they walked on,
getting deeper and deeper into the forest. When Michael finally
came to a stop, they were standing in a small clearing next to a
patch of fir trees and the foundations of an old, demolished forest
cabin.

“Look at
that,” Thorsten exclaimed in surprise. “So there really
was
a
house here once.” He cast a look around. “But no sign of a
door.”

“She’s really
close,” Michael said softly, looking up at the sky and cocking his
head as if listening intently.
“She’s
underground.”

Julia’s
mother sucked in a breath.
“What? But you
said she was still alive!”

He nodded. “She is. She’s not
dead.”

“A hole, or a ditch,” Gaby mumbled absently,
nudging Axel. “Do you see any signs of digging somewhere?”

Axel, Gaby,
Thorsten and Mrs. Ebner started to circle the remains of the house,
looking for tracks or traces of digging. Julia didn’t leave her
mom’s side – Ms. Gunther looked shell-shocked, tears running down
her cheeks despite Michael’s reassurance.

She watched
the rest of the group walking around. Michael hadn’t joined them;
he was leaning against
one of the fir
trees and seemed miles away. Julia stared at him and suddenly it
hit her how
different
he was from the rest of them in this moment. He
reminded her of a clairvoyant she had once seen on TV, a man who
was in the habit of helping the police track down missing persons.
Why was Michael so sure they would find Anne here? It
had
to
have something to do with his accident and the blow to the head he
had suffered. It must have given him some kind of second
sight.

As she
watched him, he
was moving away from the
tree, his steps weary like he was some sort of somnambulist.
Michael made his way to an area to the left of the fir trees – a
patch of soil covered in thorny shrubs. Julia followed him with her
eyes, her heart skipping a beat when his foot pounded the earth
below and didn’t make the sound she’d expected. It sounded hollow,
as if a cavity was hiding under the bushes.

T
he others had also picked up on
what Michael was doing, Axel and Thorsten rushing toward him. “What
the hell was that sound?” Axel cried out, squatting down to take a
closer look.

“This is not
solid earth,” Thorsten murmured.
“There’s wood
underneath. Or at least that’s what it sounds like.”
He dug around in the shrubbery, cursing when
thorns cut into the skin of his hands. One of the branches got
stuck in his jacket sleeve, and when he stepped back, he suddenly
seemed to pull up the entire bush, root and all, tearing it out of
the earth.

“No
way
,” Gaby exclaimed.
“Those bushes are
fake
. They were put here by
somebody recently.”

“The earth
around them is tamped,” Axel nodded.

Julia raced
down to the spot where Michael had made his discovery, her mother
and Mrs
. Ebner following suit. Meanwhile,
the boys were busy clearing away the other prickly bushes. It
didn’t take long before they had unearthed a kind of large hatch
made out of dark, wooden planks.

A silence
descended among them, Julia fixing her eyes on the hatch while
fighting back tears. Had Andreas made this to hide her sister? How
could Anne possibly be buried underneath these planks and still be
alive?

“We have to
lift it
,” Axel said tensely, looking
around. “Could we use a sturdy branch as a lever, you
think?”

Julia peered
around and located a firm, thin branch lying under one of the fir
trees. She dragged it back to the hatch. Gaby brought another
similarly-shaped branch, and together, they wiggled them under the
corners of the hatch. Michael and Axel used their weight to lean on
the branches and force the shutter up, while Thorsten tried to lift
it more by slipping both hands under the planks once there was a
tiny crack.

When the dark
wood
en hatch finally came up, all the
packed dirt on top of it fell away with a rustling sound, the last
few thorny branches dropping aside.

Julia’s jaw
dropped when she set eyes on the flight of steep stairs hidden
underneath the hatch. The stone steps
led
to a narrow, underground door.

12
.

“S
o there really
was
a door
in the middle of the forest,” Gaby mumbled absent-mindedly. She’d
moved up to her best friend to put an arm around her
shoulders.

Axel took a
tentative step down the stairs, eyeing the bolt on the entrance.
“You think that door can be opened?” he wondered aloud.

“Hold it,” Thorsten said.
“Shouldn’t we call the police?
We might
mess up clues if we break and enter ourselves. You know…
fingerprints or something like that.”

Everybody
seemed to wait for each other. “Let me,”
Ms. Gunther then spoke. Seemingly calm, she wrapped her
silk scarf around her right hand and walked down to carefully slide
the bolt open. She paused before pushing down the rusty door
handle, biting her lip when the door swung outward with an
ominously creaking sound.

Julia
rushed down the stairs at once. “Anne?” she
called out, stepping into the dark room behind the old cellar door
after her mother. She couldn’t see a thing. Behind them, Axel
shuffled down the steps holding a small flashlight he always
carried on his key ring.

“Oh my God,”
Ms. Gunther gasped.

In the dim
light of Axel’s flashlight, they saw Anne lying on the floor. She
gave no sign of life. Her hands and feet were bound with rope.
Julia stifled a scream, numbly stepping aside when Gaby and Axel
rushed forward to cut the ropes with Gaby’s pocket
knife.

And then, she
felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Everything will be all right,”
Michael whispered in her ear.
“She’s just
unconscious.”

A sob rose in her
throat.
Julia turned around and pressed
her face against Michael’s chest. He kissed her cheeks and held her
tight until she stopped shaking. When she looked up, her eyes fell
on Thorsten and his mother, still standing at the top of the stairs
anxiously clutching each other’s hands. “She’s okay,” she managed
to utter. “She’s still alive.”

In the
meantime, Axel had lifted his little cousin, cradling her in his
arms
as he went upstairs. Anne’s face
looked white as death, but her breathing sounded regular. “You were
right. She was sedated,” he told Thorsten. “This is not normal
sleep.”

“How long do
you think she’s been lying here like this?” Gaby asked, a hint of
panic in her voice. “Chloroform can’t keep people under for this
long, can it?”

“It can if he
used a lot,” Thorsten said. “But a high dosage means Anne could
slip into a coma. We have to call an ambulance right now.” He
whipped out his cell phone and called 112.

Julia was
intensely grateful for Thorsten’s level-headedness and resolve. The
others, herself included, all seemed too shocked to do much. Her
gaze landed on Michael, still standing next to her on the stairs.
She had no idea how on earth he had managed to find her sister, but
she’d be forever indebted to him. With a deep sigh, she moved
closer and flung her arms around him again. “Thank you,” she
whispered. “You saved her life.”

“They’re on
their way,” Thorsten said as he put away his phone. “We’re gonna
have to carry her to the forest edge.”

“No problem. Axel and I can take
turns carrying her,” Michael offered.

“I’ll walk the first bit,” Axel nodded.

Ms
. Gunther caught up with
Michael when the group started moving to get to the edge of the
woods. “How did you
know
?” she asked quietly, her
voice awestruck, her eyes full of wonder.

Julia’s ears
perked up – h
er mother was asking Michael
the exact same question she’d been dying to ask.

Michael shook
his head, keeping
quiet for a long time.
“Instinct,” he replied at last. “I… I can’t explain it. I’m
sorry.”

Julia
squeezed his hand.
“It’s okay.
Really. We’re just so happy.”

As they
approached the edge of the forest, the blue flashing ambulance
lights could be seen through the trees. Two paramedics lifted Anne
from Michael’s arms and carefully put her on a stretcher inside the
ambulance, hooking the little girl up to a monitor
instantly.

Julia’s mom
turned around and addressed her oldest daughter.
“I’m
going with them. Can you go home and tell Gran the news?
As soon as I know more, I’ll call
you.”

A taciturn
crew watched from the bus stop as the ambulance drove away.
Although they were all happy Anne was found, it wasn’t
at all certain she was out of danger. Thorsten
had been right about the chloroform sedation.

“We’ll be
home,” Mrs
. Ebner said when they all got
back to their street. “If there’s news from the hospital, please
let us know.”

Julia hugged
both neighbors tightly. “Thanks for all your help,” she mumbled
when she hugged Thorsten.
“You’ve been a good friend
today. I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you before.”

He smiled. “That’s all
right. No worries.”
He let go of her and
mumbled: “By the way, Michael is a really nice guy. It’s kind of
annoying, but I can’t seem to hate him.”

She smiled back.
“It’s sweet of you to say that.”

“Oh, well,
that’s me,” he winked. “Sweet as sugar, and nothing but praise for
my competitors. I just
really
don’t understand how he
managed to find Anne so easily.”

“Yeah, same
here,” Julia mumbled. She stared at Thorsten as he went inside
before turning around, deep in thought. Her friends had already
gone to the living room, and when she entered, she found Axel and
her grandmother huddled together on the couch, her gran crying
tears of relief. “Thank God she’s alive,” she said in a trembling
voice. Julia sat down to hug the old woman as well.

Once everyone had grabbed tea and cookies
from the kitchen, Gaby tapped Julia on the shoulder. “Is it okay if
I call Tamara? She joined Florian to go see Moritz’s band practice,
but she was worried sick when I told her what was going on. I
haven’t talked to her since I got here.”

“Yeah, of
course. They can
even drop by if they
want.”

“And is it okay if I order pizzas for
everyone?” Michael asked. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but
I’m famished. And I don’t think anybody here feels like cooking at
the moment.”