MY HEART IN STONE

PART 12:

The image before her in the mirror wasn’t one Rachel had ever purposefully achieved before 

in her life. The little vanities she nurtured in her womanhood: blue eyes, well structured 

cheek bones, gently arching brows, alabaster skin, all were now as sallow and as plain as she 

could make them.  Which had not been hard to downgrade, considering the weeks in Rome, 

the days of crying, the sleepless nights, and the adrenalin expended.  Those had, indeed, taken 

their toll.  Now her skin was not as bright as it used to be, there were dark circles beneath her 

eyes, and the corners of her mouth had developed fine lines and a perpetual frown.  Topping 

that off with a dull-colored wig and a dowdy, shapeless charcoal-colored dress, Rachel could 

see she couldn’t have made the changes any better than if she had employed all the makeup 

artists of Hollywood.  

Still, Rachel fretted that her image was not exhibiting enough of a disguise to fool someone 

like Mikol.  Worse, would Cort even recognize her?  She had to laugh a bit, a rueful chuckle 

over the fact that, of all the scenarios that she had imagined, finding Cort as a plain, uglified 

housemaid was not one of them.

Gerta was even more nervous than she.

“If you do not think this is a good idea, just say so,” the middle aged woman said as she stood 

nearby, tucking in Rachel’s stray hairs, fidgeting over the dress, a size or so too big for the 

young woman; but it seemed to add some weight to her and that helped in the illusion.  “I am 

still a little surprised that you leapt upon my proposal.  I do not think you grasp what you are 

getting yourself into.”

“Trust me, Gerta, after all I have been through these last few weeks, I’m ready for anything,” 

Rachel told her, touching up the tinted lotion that Volos had supplied.  It was a tincture that 

was a bit like makeup, but instead of creating beauty and brightness, its viscous gray liquid

colored the skin with a thin pall of dullness to heighten the image of someone who was used 

to a poor diet and long hours of drudgery.  It disappeared like a light cream into her skin, a 

bit disconcerting; it was worrisome that she might not be able to wash it off at night.

Gerta stared at her image a bit longer, her expression impassive…except for her brown 

eyes.  Those were sharp with worry.  

“I wish there were some other way,” the woman added, wistfully.  She sat down on the edge 

of Rachel’s bed. The younger woman turned to look at her, remembering their conversations 

of two days past.  Since Rachel first confessed to her mission to rescue Cort, both of them

had spilled their lives to each other in breathless amazement.  Rachel now felt hopeful of

rescuing two people, if she could. For Gerta’s proud education in science and discovery had

been lured by the promise not only of secure money, but an ability to cast her lot in for 

several prizes, none of which panned out.  How could they?  Once Mikol let her in on the 

real operations of Neviditelny Kamen and his obsession with similar technology that Sid 6.7 

used to retrieve characters from movies, Gerta, and many others, were trapped.  

“I don’t know why I took a chance to suggest it,”Gerta went on, as Rachel joined her. 

Morning light was beginning to pour into the bedroom.  Their breakfast sat half eaten in

the kitchenette, the aroma of coffee doing its job to charge the two of them on a day when 

nerves were already on edge.  Gerta had come to her room in the wee hours to help her 

don the costume, for this day, Friday, was when she had promised Mikol there would be 

a replacement at the castle.  “I should have known better.  I should have asked some other 

girl, some unsuspecting girl whose future isn’t as bright.”

“And I’m so grateful you did,” Rachel replied, taking the woman’s hand.  “You have to 

know, I have no future if Cort is not freed…if he…doesn’t survive.” Rachel found herself 

swallowing the last few words, the very thought of it choking her.  “You’ve given me more 

of a chance than I had ever hoped for when I arrived.  All I knew then was that Mikol was 

here and he was the one who took Cort, and I wasn’t going to leave until I got him back.”

“Your story is so remarkable.”  A small sliver of a smile turned the corners of Gerta’s 

mouth up. “I am glad you told me.  It was fate that made our paths cross,” she added, 

with a sure nod.  “I fear for Cort and why Mikol has him.  Mikol handles people as a…

well, as a spider handles its prey.  He sucks them dry and then lets them hang.  Sometimes 

he forgets about them.  He’s not likely to forget Cort.  He spent too much time and effort.  

But someday, Mikol will have taken all he wanted and Cort will be left to hang, never 

free.  I knew the moment you told me you were here because of him I had to find a way 

to let you in.  I was so glad to know…please, Rachel, be careful!”  Gerta threw her arms 

around her and hugged her tightly.  

Rachel hugged her in return, unable to speak for her own emotion.  The Wednesday 

and Thursday Gerta had spent in ‘training’ her and readying her for her first day had 

been a whirlwind of more astonishing stories, more reports of what had happened, what 

could have happened, once Cort arrived at Kamen.  It had been both a relief and a 

horrible rip in Rachel’s heart to hear those reports, of how narrowly it come to losing 

him forever when she was nowhere near.  That, she decided, by far, was worse  than it 

had been the time she watched the heart monitors strapped to Cort’s chest go flatline.  

Knowing he had held in so tightly while Mikol flailed away and Henri labored to keep 

him alive, hearing that he recovered and seemed to be progressing beyond all 

expectations was a sweet joy.  Unfortunately, it was also a joy poisoned with dread. 


“Do you think…?”  Began Rachel, returning to staring down her mirror image again.  

She couldn’t get used to  the sight.  “Do you think he’ll see me and know what’s going 

on?”  She had really wanted to voice it as a rhetorical question, but realized it was 

genuinely something she was worried about.

“I have no idea of it.  I haven’t seen him since they moved him to the tower,” Gerta 

replied, a shadow of concern darkening her face.  “I…I…made Mikol fear I was going 

to compromise the situation by trying to talk to him.  Henri takes care of him now, and 

Henri is even more secretive than Mikol, I think.”  She sighed and began pulling together 

the things she brought to help Rachel.  “What we must do is first get you in.  Once there, 

we can figure out how to get back out.  I don’t know how, and it will be hard.  But I can 

see your love every time you say his name.  That has to help with something.”

They cleared her room of their extant messes and she and Gerta paused to pray, 

clutching each other’s hands as though they were two actresses waiting backstage to 

make their first entrance in a play.  Rachel knew she was doing so as someone who had 

not ‘learned her lines’ and joked about it once Gerta’s prayer was done.

“But from what you tell me that is what you were trained to do, wasn’t it?”  

Gerta asked.

“Er…well, yeah, but…”

“You did call your boss last night didn’t you?”

Rachel sighed.  She was afraid Gerta was going to ask.

“Didn’t you?”  Gerta pressed, refusing to open the door until Rachel answered.

“I did, I promise!”

“Well?”

“Terry…wasn’t happy,” Rachel murmured.  She looked upon the former SAS, now 

her supervisor, as a kind of role model, a man whose good opinion mattered a great 

deal, a kind of kindred spirit, especially where it concerned her going into Redemption. 

She had been sent in alone, just as Terry had at the beginning of his story.  She had 

been summarily double-crossed as well.  

This time, however, going it alone was by choice, and Terry was not happy with her

at all.  He’d not been exactly furious, but the tone in his voice during their conversation 

meant Rachel was skating on thin ice.  He was border-line panicked, in fact, to the 

point of threatening to put her on some kind of probation if she didn’t exhibit more 

patience.

Well, she just hated the feeling she got in the pit of her stomach whenever she knew he 

was disappointed in her (which, fortunately, was not very often)…a feeling that lasted 

all of two minutes of hanging up.

Tough cow cookies, she thought.

“What did he tell you to do or not to do?”  Gerta asked, unaware of Rachel’s inner 

dialogue.

“He thinks I should wait until he and Deidre get here. Deidre’s another retriever and 

there are family problems and oh!  All sorts of ridiculous stuff.  I think they are still 

trying to get to…oh, never mind. I wish they would come, but I’ve got to do this now. 

I can’t wait until things clear up there.  He’d do the same if he were in my position,” 

Rachel argued when Gerta’s opened her mouth to voice her own remonstrance.  

They both looked at the closed door of Rachel’s room.

“Are you ready?”  Gerta asked, taking a step forward and grasping the doorknob.

Rachel had, at the last moment, swiped up the star brooch with the intent to pin it 

somewhere unobtrusive. 

“Lead the way,” she said, holding it up and then fastening it inside her bodice. Deidre 

had been right: it was a good luck charm and she felt she needed every glimmer she 

could get.



They entered the castle the only way visible and that through the front gate, a 

utilitarian rectangle opening at the end of a short wooden bridge that spanned a trench 

that was deceptively negligible, but just enough to float the castle out on an island of 

sandstone, out of respectable reach of those who might wish to scale its walls.  Rachel 

could not help but peer down into the innocuous ditch, thinking how surprising it must 

have been for those who had tried to attack and found themselves stuck at twice the 

depth of the castle heights and at the mercy of those waiting in the forest below.  

Surprising that such a small fortress could have such effective prowess in defense.

Big surprises in small packages, she mused as Gerta led her into the tunnel beyond the 

gate and shut the portcullis behind.  The snap of metal on stone made Rachel jump.  

No turning back now.

So she followed Gerta, her trainer now, her supervisor under whom she would be as 

responsible for success as Gerta was for hers.  Mikol must never doubt Gerta’s 

decision to hire an American seeking a full cultural experience in the Czech Republic, 

must never be tempted to make Rachel disappear.  Her family was in a faraway 

country and Mikol knew people in the government on both sides of the Atlantic.  

They’d never be able to figure out what happened.  This Gerta made clear, and 

having seen the gulley, Rachel didn’t let her expand upon it.  She got the point.

But the gulley was not what was on her mind as they crossed the threshold of the 

tunnel into a narrow and odd-shaped courtyard where a stair rose along the 

parapet to her left, and another, beginning at the other end of the courtyard, 

graduated upwards along various landings until it disappeared around the corner of 

a square building nestled to the base of the long tall tower.  

The aft of the castle (for Rachel could not help but think of the complex as like that 

of a ship, not when the tower stood like a foremast against the sky) rose up on a kind 

of quarterdeck of its own and this was where Gerta turned and led her up a second, 

shorter flight of stairs, straight to a broad wooden door.  

There had not been another soul when they entered the courtyard, nothing but the 

sound of the wind whistling around the time worn edges of the stone castle and the faint 

rustle of treetops in the breeze, a distant call of a falcon.  Instead of feeling like she had 

stepped back in time, though, Rachel felt as if there were eyes in corners and niches she

couldn’t see, and knowing that Cort had been taken up into the tower made Rachel 

stare at it with an acute pang of longing.

 She was so close!  If only she could run up those stairs and find him there!   Her eyes 

traveled to the conical top, the face of the tower where a window could be seen to oversee 

the lands around.  Was he there now?  Rachel felt a tap at her elbow and tucked her 

hands behind the apron she wore, tucked her chin under to force her eyes to drop to

more earthly sights.  She would find him, but not yet….

Not receiving an answer, Gerta pushed the heavy door inward and they stepped inside 

the main keep.  

Rachel had been in plenty of old buildings, being a country rambler who loved 

exploring broken down old homes, or touring the historical houses.  There was always 

the smell of aged wood, slight mould, a mustiness that came from old chiffarobes and 

dressers when she opened them.  Limestone houses in the hill country had a particular 

smell as well, of water, lichen, and wood smoke.  None of it compared to the aged odor 

that filled the grand room of the keep.  It was more than the decades, the centuries of 

wood burning fires, remnants of rushes and herbs, and the stale flecks of sweat, 

sickness, and actual life that had passed between the walls.  Rachel felt ridiculous 

putting it in certain terms, but there was nothing else she could think of : she smelled 

history.

Gerta led her up more flights of stairs, the dark mahogany of the wood burnished 

by years of hands gliding over it, the surfaces smoothed and buffed by the oils left 

behind.  They rose up into a second floor where the dining room was set, a decadent 

display of medieval dining finery coupled with the more quaint touches of country 

craftsmanship.  Sunlight filled the room, but Rachel felt herself left cold; maybe it 

was the straight-backed chairs, or the stone floors, unclad with warming carpets.  

She thought that anyone dining here did so with every nerve on end, waiting for 

Mikol to let fall the final blade.

Gerta said nothing as they went; Rachel knew she wouldn’t.  She didn’t trust 

herself just yet anyway, not with thoughts of Cort at every step bouncing through her 

mind.  He was inside these walls, and she was too, and would there ever be a chance 

for her to run to him and tell him it was all over, it was okay, they were going home?

The third level was, in quite obvious terms, Mikol’s office, clad in every item of 

furnishing to counteract the exacting historical accuracy of the dining room. Rachel 

repressed a shudder and a giggle that threatened to surface the same time.  If ever 

there was a bachelor pad to be made this side of Berlin, Mikol’s base of operations 

was it.  Black leather, chrome and retro-70s styling. Ugh, Rachel thought, quelling 

any emotion imbedded in her facial muscles.  For someone who has such power in 

dealing with people and technology, Mikol had questionable…judgment in home 

décor.

The thought of joining Sid in laughing over this bit of personal taste made Rachel 

sober up very quickly.

Well, that, and the fact that Gerta marched straight up to the desk where a large 

high –backed leather chair was turned to view a television screen that had been 

powered off the moment their footsteps sounded through the door.

That, and the fact that the high-backed black leather chair swiveled and Rachel 

came face to face, at last, with the infamously cold-hearted Mikol Grovensky.

ON TO PART 13

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