She slipped the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly, and the next thing she knew, she was speeding through a swirling tunnel of rotating light in every imaginable color. The colors blended and melded together like a tie dye pattern. Briefly she thought of the psychedelic drugs of the sixties and the 'trips' she'd heard so much about, but before she could dwell on that, the scene changed yet again. She found herself standing inside a concrete enclosure, with walls of white stone rising ten feet high on each side. Directly in front of her was a gallows with a noose, and before it stood Dieter, naked and shivering in the morning chill.

Jo kept her eyes on his face as she came closer. His own widened in shock and amazement, and Jo realized that he was seeing her, not as Martina, but as Jo.

"Wer sind Sie?"

"Never mind who I am." Jo reached for his hand and clasped it. "Hurry!"

The swirling eye of the cyclone yawned before them, and this time, Dieter did not resist as Jo pulled him forward and into its path, and a mere instant later, Jo was standing alone in the room she'd stayed in at the Baumgartner's.

"Dieter?" she asked softly, but she received no answer. Cautiously, she stepped out into the hallway. Why am I here again? What day is it? Where are the others?

She went downstairs to see Paul and Julia sitting on the sofa, listening to the radio.

"General Otto Lasch has sent emissaries to negotiate a surrender to the Soviets," she heard. "Konigsberg has fallen."

"It's only a matter of time," said Paul.

"Until we are free?" asked Julia.

Paul heaved a heavy sigh. "Until we are finished."

An urgent knocking on the door caught their attention. Paul glanced out the window, then rushed to open the door, and there stood Dieter!

"My son!" Paul embraced him and held him tight, and Julia joined them, kissing him as they both exclaimed their joy at seeing him alive and free and peppered him with questions.

"I was sentenced to die and led to the place of execution," he told them. "I was waiting for the noose to be placed around my neck when an angel of the Lord appeared before me. She spoke to me in English with an American accent and then took me by the hand." Overwhelmed, he struggled to regain his composure as he dabbed at his eyes.

"We - entered a tunnel. I suppose that's what you'd call it. It was made of the most amazing colors you could ever hope to see, swirling madly around in endless circles. At first I thought the angel had come to escort me to heaven, but suddenly she was gone, and I was standing in a pasture. I kept walking until I reached the road, and when I saw it, I realized where I was and came here."

"It's a miracle!" cried Julia. She continued to kiss her son's face, and he embraced both his parents until he looked away and his eyes met Jo's. "Martina."

She remembered the coldness in his eyes at that last meeting in the prison. Perhaps I overestimated your maturity.

Her eyes filled with tears, and a sob caught in her throat.

"I thought you would be glad to see me."

She heard the gentle reproach in his voice, and her chin began to quiver. She ran to him, and then his arms were around her, holding her tight. His fingers gently lifted her chin to look into her eyes.

"What's wrong, darling?"

How could she tell him? How could she say the words? I was the one who saved you. It wasn't an angel. It was me.

"I thought - I thought you were angry with me."

"But why would I be angry at you?"

"Because - because - " She couldn't go on.

"I love you more than words can say, Martina, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"So do you still want to marry me, then?"

"More than anything else in the world!"

As his lips met hers, Jo knew in her heart that everything was all right.

"A search will be conducted when they realize you're missing," Paul told his son.

"I'm not afraid," Dieter replied. "God sent an angel to rescue me, and He will protect me."

"Even so, I think you should lie low for awhile. When they realize you have disappeared, where is the first place they will look?"

"You're right, of course. Yet, where else can I go?"

Jo remembered the Metzgers. "Is there perhaps a large piece of furniture with space to hide behind it?"

"What about that tall bookcase in your office?" Julia suggested to her husband.

"For my son?" Paul's voice was soft with disbelief. "I suppose there might be enough room. I will have to destroy the books that are there, of course, and I shall miss them, but my son's life is far more important."

Everyone rushed to Paul's study, where behind the bookcase was his secret stash of contraband books. Once the books had been removed, there was just enough space for Dieter to squeeze his body into the niche where they had been. Jo was heartbroken.

"How can you just sit there all day and all night, with nothing to do, and not even enough space to move around in?"

"Anything is better than being in prison," Dieter told her. "The knowledge that I am once again among those who are most dear to me gives me more comfort than I can say."

Sleep eluded Jo that night. She just couldn't believe how quickly her life had changed yet again. How had Martina known she would be at the hospital? What if her mother hadn't fallen and been injured? Would Dieter have simply gone to his death?

Dieter. At one time, she'd wondered if she'd ever see him again, and now here he was, right here in the same house with her, but caged up like an animal. Would he ever be able to live like a normal person again? Would any of them survive this war?

She thought of him inside the tiny space behind the bookcase, his legs drawn close against his chest, his arms around them, his head pressed against the wall, his chest rising and falling with each breath he took.

So near to her, and yet so far.