Tourists #AtoZChallenge T

The castle didn't look like much to Max. That was to be expected. He was 16, spending spring break with his parents and nerdy little sister, in Germany of all places.

At first it was fun to joke about with his friends. The names of some of these places? Hilarious. Worms. Ha. Wartburg. Ha-HA!

Why couldn't they take this trip later in the year? Max would be 17 before Oktoberfest, and could have really enjoyed the trip then!

"Another moldy old castle?" He muttered as he looked up at the blocky beige building. His mother smacked his arm with her rolled up tour brochure. "Hush. It's your heritage." She smiled at Mrs. Lofgren, just descending from the tour bus, and waved her over. "Jody!"  Max didn't even bother to roll his eyes; he just wandered to the side to lean against a bollard.

The group followed a tour guide through room after room. Bad enough he was stuck on vacation with his family; it was a trip organized by their church: Sites of Martin Luther's Life. Of course they came. After all, his parents were so Lutheran they named their kids Martin and Katharina after Luther and his wife. Gross! Thankfully, everyone knew them as Max and Katy, so it didn't matter much.

Still, he had to admit some of the things he was seeing were pretty cool. And super old! Against his instinct, Max found himself looking around with the other Tourists.

"...and this room is where Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, allowing commoners to read it for the first time. You can see a replica of his desk..." The tour guide was explaining details about the room as Max looked around.

An animatronic ghost was seated at the table with quill and ink pot, going through the motions of copying the Bible into German. "Cool..." Max breathed. He felt his mother's arm drape his shoulders. She leaned down. "I'm glad you're finally enjoying this," she said with a contented smile. He shrugged out from under her arm and moved over to get a closer look at the "ghost". No one noticed, as the guide was explaining other elements of the room.

Max leaned to see what was on the paper in front of the "ghost". It was all German so he couldn't read it, but he was amazed to see that words were being added as the ghost worked. Seeing movement in the corner of his eye, he turned to see another animatronic ghost at the door. This place really went all out! This new ghost spotted the Luther ghost and crossed the room, passing through the tour guide as he did so. Max's jaw dropped. Not animatronic. Real?

Ghost number two stood near Luther and leaned down to consult with him for a moment. Max heard whispers of German, under the murmuring of the tour group who were now milling around looking at things in the room. He looked at his fellow Tourists. None of them seemed to be interested in this corner. Could they not see the ghosts?

"Hey, you're Martin Luther, right?" he ventured to ask, but the ghosts were still talking. "Look, hello?" He waved a hand in front of where Luther had been writing, forcing both ghosts to look at him. "Hi." He smiled. "Are you THE Martin Luther?"

Luther glanced at his companion in confusion, and Max wondered if he understood. He pointed to the seated ghost. "You. Martin Luther?"

"Ja, ich bin," came the answer with a nod. Luther raised his eyebrows at the boy and turned back to his ghostly companion. 

"Whoa, man!" He looked around again, but since no one seemed to see the ghosts, he couldn't very well tell them. "Luther, Luther, hey, my mom's a big fan. Hey, hey..." He waved to get his attention again, then pointed to his mom. "My mom. Big fan. She loves you!" Luther and his partner glanced over toward the group, then Luther rolled his eyes and muttered something before returning to his work. 

Max got in closer, trying to make out words on the page. He didn't know German, but if this was a German Bible, surely some words would be recognizable. As he reached to point at a word and try to say it, Luther suddenly turned, exclaiming "Geh weg!" in angry German. Max backed up a step in alarm, but not far enough for Luther's comfort. He picked up the inkwell and threw it at Max. 

Max ducked sideways, but still felt the ghost-of-an-inkwell pass through his cheek and watched it shatter silently on the plaster wall behind the tile oven. Max spun around, eyes wide, and rejoined the group as they left the room. His mom smiled at him. "You liked that room, huh Max? You seemed obsessed with the writing desk."

He returned his mom's smile, but said nothing. His mind was turning over what had just happened. His mom was still talking. "Can you believe he actually threw an inkwell and stained the wall?"

Max stopped, aghast. "You saw that?"

"Of course not! It was 500 years ago, and don't lollygag." She pulled him forward with her. "The guide told us about it. Did you miss that part? The legend is that he felt the devil was present in the room and threw the inkwell at him. The stained plaster is gone of course, but he certainly made a mess!" 

Max smirked. "Cool." Now he was a part of history. Or he could tell his friends he was anyway.

Thanks for visiting my #AtoZChallenge! All month I'll be writing flash fiction, with the theme "Audience Participation".
Now it's your turn, lovely audience member. Do you have a writing prompt to suggest? Don't worry about choosing a letter of the alphabet, just leave me a word, a thought, a place, a concept... anything! and I'll add it to the list.

"Tourists" was inspired by a combination of prompts. "Dismissive Ghosts" was provided by Tired Hamster of Very Important Stuff Here, in a comment left on my N post, here. "Renaissance" was provided by Anstice Brown of Curious Daydreams, in a comment left on my F post, here. Thank you both! This took a little research, but I had fun. I hope you do, too.