This is where I choose to let them to be heard.
She stood in the blowing snow on the overlook above the Rhine river staring at the castle across the river. Her friends were huddled down in the gazebo snapping pictures of Castle Katz and Berg Rheinfelds.
The day had started out as a excuse to get out of the city. The drive up had been fun. They had laughed and listened to music on the German stations. Strangely most of the music was English language oldies mostly 80's but some newer and some older. They had laughed sang along and tried to translate the commercials. They had even stopped at a bakerie in a little town along the way and bought berliners to eat. the jelly stuffed powder sugar covered donuts are totally addictive.
Laughing with the rest of them she had stumbled out of the car at the first stop after the unnervingly winding road to the top. Following the group down narrow path she was overwhelmed with the feeling of being watched, being stalked. As they passed a patch of berry brambles something moved rattling the thorny branches. Sarah jumped back putting her perilously close to tumbling down into the steep ravine. Her friends had raced ahead at the first sight of Berg Katz. For a second she thought she was going to fall then she felt a hand at her back. It pushed her back from the edge. "Thank you..." Sarah said as she turned. She looked around but there was no one there. Before she could wonder anymore a cat shot out of the bushes with a bird held in it's mouth. It disappeared into the dense growth on the other side of the path. With a last glance around she hurried after the rest.
She had toured several castles and cathedrals by now and hadn't experienced the watching feeling. The only thing she had noticed was the weight of ages that such places often carried, as if an echo of all the people who had trod the ancient floors still lingered. That was an almost reassuring feeling not the creepy watching she was feeling in the wild places.
Wild places had never held any fear for her before. She had spent summers and holidays running wild on her Grandmother's farm. Vacations had always consisted of camping trip instead of the trips to theme parks many of her friends enjoyed. She had even through hiked through hiked about 2/3s of the appalachian trail before a swollen knee derailed her plans. No the wild places had never held this kind of fear before.
Yesterday she had gone hiking in the hills near the school. There are miles and miles of trails all through the Taunus range. It is one of the things she is enjoying most about Germany, all of the things to do out doors. Biking, hiking, volksmarching, cross country skiing in the winter. In the spring her friends at school assured her they would take her camping and horseback riding. She had always loved the outdoors she should be ecstatic to be here, but something kept bugging her. She felt as if something were watching her from the shadows, it was not at all like her to jump at shadows.
She lay in bed staring at the ceiling. There were noises coming from the walls, from the ceiling. Her colleagues had assured her was just the pipes. These old houses were bound to have more than their share of noises and things that go bump in the night. Somehow the strange noises seemed to have a meaning, some sort of intelligence behind them. For the umpteenth time she wondered if leaving everything she had ever known to take a teaching position overseas had been a mistake.
