Chapter 9
There were still four days before the ceremony and if today was anything to go by, Ginny suspected Rhys would need a lot of memory cards.
The excursion for the day was to the sleepy town of Sand in Taufers.
South Tyrol appeared to Ginny to be a series of almost disconnected valleys, spreading like veins from the artery of Bolzano to the south.
This valley was the smallest capillary, the road disappearing to nothing at the end.
The border to the north was closed, not because of politics, but because the mountain was too steep, too wild for a road.
Only hikers crossed into Austria from here.
The forest was thick and in every direction she glimpsed mountains, most with no signs of human habitation.
But there was history in this little valley – a lot of it.
Sophie’s sister, Tash, and her two kids, were posing on their way up the hill, a piece of that history in the background of the photo.
The mediaeval castle was built up high, standing guard over the town, with grey stone battlements and a central tower. They approached on foot, via a steep path under the autumn leaves.
Toni’s nine-year-old son, Cillian, fell into step beside Ginny.
She often joked that she attracted children.
She never knew what to say to them, since she hadn’t spent much time with any kids in her close family, but they seemed drawn to her anyway.
Usually, she was proud to be the child whisperer, but something Kira had once said echoed in her mind that day: she was simply the easiest to manipulate.
Perhaps kids scented weakness.
‘I thought pine trees weren’t deciduous,’ Cillian commented, looking up at the forest. ‘I’m sure we learned in school that they’re evergreen.’
Ginny followed his gaze and frowned. She’d thought pine trees were evergreen too, but the forests were dotted with tall conifers in bright yellow. ‘I… I don’t know.’
‘They’re not dying, are they?’
Ginny bit her lip over a grimace. She didn’t like to hear him use that word when his own father was gone.
It had taken his mother, Toni, nine years to find love again, but she seemed happy with her new boyfriend, Gabri.
He’d moved to England for her – from Elba, the most romantic Italian island in the Mediterranean – so he clearly loved her.
‘I’m sure they’re not dying. Maybe you should ask Gabri. He knows about plants.’
‘He knows about flowers,’ Cillian said with an exaggerated eye-roll. ‘And herbs,’ he added. ‘Our kitchen stinks.’
Ginny grinned at him. ‘Or we could ask Andreas’s dad. I bet he knows.’
‘He could certainly tell you,’ Ginny heard from behind her.
She turned to find the groom himself, hands in his pockets, his usual grim expression on his face, walking behind them.
‘He even has the word for forest in his name – Oswald. But it’s simple enough.
Most species of conifer are evergreen, but not all.
The yellow ones are larch.’ He ruffled Cillian’s hair affectionately.
Ginny’s skin prickled just before she heard the subtle click of a shutter and she turned to find Rhys behind his camera – hiding his face, although his hunched shoulders gave her the impression he’d like to disappear into it entirely.
She wondered if he’d captured that sweet moment between Andreas and his godson.
Rhys lowered the camera slowly and gave her what was probably supposed to be a smile.
She turned away again, perplexed at the odd tautness between them that she couldn’t shake.
‘It’s kind of like magic,’ Ginny said, turning to Andreas with forced brightness. ‘Evergreen forests that still have autumn colours. You’ve got castles and pristine lakes and we’re going to a waterfall next. You’re going to convince me that South Tyrol is a fairy land.’
‘It’s not fairies that have a long tradition here. It’s witches,’ he replied with a flash of his eyes.
They crossed over what had once been a drawbridge into the outer keep and Cillian ran ahead to peer down a shaft with a safety grille on top.
Whether it was for fetching water or dropping hot oil on enemies, Ginny couldn’t be sure.
The military past of the castle was clear, with its wooden galleries on top of the walls for fending off attacks, and slits for arrows.
Passing through an arched doorway, they spilled into the central courtyard of the keep, where a single lime tree rose between the old stone walls of the castle buildings, the leaves a gradient from yellow to orange. Tita was talking to their guide for the tour of the historic rooms.
‘I could really imagine getting married here,’ Ginny commented.
‘Do you look at every place as a possible wedding location?’ Andreas asked.
‘Occupational hazard,’ she said with a shrug.
He studied her. ‘But do you imagine your wedding in all of these places?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘In my head, I’ve had dozens of weddings.’ Maybe because she’d never come close in real life. Or maybe she just wanted a party, she thought with a frown. ‘But this will be your only one,’ she said in a wistful tone.
Andreas didn’t reply for a long moment. Then he simply said, ‘Yes.’
Ginny hesitated, trying to interpret the silence and failing.
It was one of life’s miracles how each person found their soulmate, because she never would have guessed her vibrant friend Sophie would fall in love with gruff, uncommunicative Andreas Hinterdorfer, no matter how much raw charisma he wordlessly exuded – emphasis on the ‘raw’.
Gathering courage, she asked, ‘Is everything all right?’
His throat bobbed. ‘Yes,’ he repeated.
That meant no. Ginny couldn’t speak mountain guide, but she understood enough to fear that this wedding would not be as special as she hoped.
Willard approached and clapped Andreas on the shoulder. ‘It’s just last-minute nerves, right? The first one of us to get himself a trouble and strife – a summit I’ve never attempted!’
‘A what?’ Andreas asked.
‘Trouble and strife is rhyming slang for wife,’ Ginny explained through gritted teeth. Perhaps she preferred it when the Great Heart crew was monosyllabic.
She followed the group up the stairs and into the historic rooms, which turned out to be a pleasant distraction.
It was certainly a particular aesthetic.
Everything was wood-panelled in knotty, stained timber.
The furniture was made of more wood; there were busy rugs on the floor and dark oil paintings on the walls.
Ginny took a selfie with a suit of armour and admired the tiled heating ovens.
On the way back down, she caught up with Caro. ‘Andreas is very quiet. Do you think everything’s okay?’
‘He’ll turn up for the ceremony, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ Caro answered.
‘That’s not really my measure of client satisfaction,’ she grumbled in reply. ‘Do you think I’m torturing him with all this wedding stuff?’
She laughed. ‘He’s the one who decided to seal the bond for life.’ She said that part with a mock sigh. ‘Honestly, I’m a little surprised he went for a big wedding. My brother is not happy in crowds, especially not in front of them.’
Ginny’s skin prickled with dismay.
‘I assume it’s what Sophie wanted, since she’s a wedding planner.’
‘Sophie has been… preoccupied,’ Ginny said weakly.
‘I think it’s like that thing where doctors make the worst patients.
She didn’t seem to want to focus on the wedding for long.
I know the pregnancy has been distracting her – of course it has.
I just didn’t want her to compromise. Fuck, I hope I’m not making them miserable. ’ She groaned.
By the time they made it back down to the town, she could no longer see the romantic view of the summits and the narrow valley. Her thoughts were stuck, spinning problems and solutions faster than she could note them down.
A nudge at her back made her jump and she whirled around to find Rhys behind her.
Clutching her chest, she grasped his arm to steady herself – or hold him back.
Either way, her gaze fixated on the spot where her fingers were bunched in the woven fleece of his sleeve, the silver bracelet peeking out.
She forced her fist to unclench and pulled back.
‘Er, I was just wondering if you had any thoughts about how I should photograph the zip lining?’
Zip lining. For a moment, she’d blissfully forgotten the next activity on the schedule for the day – the adventure activity she did not have the head for right now. ‘Shit.’
When Rhys raised his eyebrows, she realised she’d said that aloud.
Ginny walked with the hardy group of adventurous guests along the rushing creek to the other side of the town, under vivid golden willows, past a stone church and countless alpine houses with wooden balconies, in the direction of their second destination for the day.
A light mist had banished yesterday’s bright sunshine, the peaks shimmering in and out of focus in the moist air, bringing a brief glimpse of barren rock and ice, which disappeared again before Ginny could believe she’d seen it.
In the town itself, a sense of battening down the hatches pervaded.
The glimpses of white up above presaged what would arrive in the valley in a few short weeks – the first snow.
But for now, the temperature was a mild twelve degrees – enough for a cosy chill and nothing more – and the mountain slopes were alive with colour.
After the houses thinned and the surroundings turned to fields and forest, they crossed over another stream and met Sophie and the rest of the group in the car park.
The mountains weren’t silent and solemn here.
The gentle background hum of rushing water infused the air with anticipation – or perhaps it was just Ginny’s wariness of the activity her colleagues at Great Heart had organised for the afternoon.
‘It’s not difficult. You just get strapped in and off you go, flying over the waterfalls,’ Kira had said.
The words hadn’t comforted Ginny then and they didn’t help now, as she peered up the hill, still unable to see the line through the trees.
This one wasn’t exactly a zip line; they called it a fly-line.
It was a permanent construction, like a narrow monorail.
Passengers sat in a harness attached with a bracket that controlled the speed.
It was safe even for Tash’s four-year-old daughter. ‘Very tame,’ Kira had also said.
‘Very tame, my arse,’ Ginny muttered under her breath, imagining dangling over the waterfalls and maybe losing a wedding guest or two in the white water.
It didn’t help Ginny’s unease when Sophie said, ‘I’m going to stay here and enjoy a San Pellegrino in peace,’ pointing to the little café and deli. A lush vine grew thick over the pergola, the leaves pink and yellow.
‘Are you sure? It’s apparently a beautiful walk.
There are three different waterfalls,’ Ginny replied, since she’d pretty much memorised the guidebook – and had been hoping for an opportunity to talk to the bride in a non-confrontational setting that wouldn’t hint at how much Ginny was overthinking everything.
‘It’s the walk back while the rest of you are flying that I’m not so keen on,’ Sophie said with a dry smile, resting a hand on her belly. ‘But you are doing it, Ginny. You can have a nice scream, when you’re scared. Andreas will look after you.’
‘I can stay with you,’ Andreas offered.
‘No, you go and enjoy yourself,’ she insisted. ‘You know Cilli will love it. Get me a video of Tita. She’s been looking forward to this ever since Kira booked it. I’m completely fine on my own for a minute.’
Whatever Sophie thought of all these wedding events, Ginny had no choice for the moment but to leave her be.