Ellora's Cavemen: Tales from the Temple IV (27 page)

“Yes.” Wai plastered a smile on her face as she cocked her head to regard her. For reasons unknown, her pulse was shooting up through the roof. Maybe she was getting sick. “I just got a little dizzy for a moment.”

The phone rang, turning Julie’s attention. Wai took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, grateful for the interruption.

Just get out of here. Walk out those doors, get some fresh air, and you’ll be fine!

Her gaze darted back to the double doors. Luckily she had chosen to wear the spaghetti-strapped, cotton, tie-dye dress she’d bought while vacationing in the islands, for it was humid now that the rain had stopped. Lord knows she felt overheated as it was.

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Her heart pounding, she swiped the palm of her hand at the beads of perspiration dotting her hairline as she made her way back to the double doors.
You can do this. Stop
acting like an idiot!

Her nostrils flaring, Wai took in one more cathartic tug of air, then threw open the doors.

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Jaid Black

Chapter Three

She let out the breath with a tiny laugh. The doors slammed shut behind her.

Wai’s heart had been racing like she’d expected to run into King Kong, but what she found instead was a very quiet, deserted, Revolutionary War era village. Log cabins crafted from trees, clay, and packed dirt were perfectly lined up, one after another, down a long grassy pathway that had probably been a dirt street in its heyday.

The colony was beautiful. It stirred something inside her, an unnamed emotion, but the something was wonderful—not frightening.

I feel like I’m…home.

In awe, she began walking toward the first log cabin on the right side of the

“street”. Wearing sandals, her feet were instantly saturated by a combination of mud and dewy wet grass. She didn’t care. She was too lost in anticipation to give her dirtied shoes and feet more than a passing thought.

Reaching the first cabin, Wai wanted to see what lay inside it. She squinted her eyes as she walked through the smallish door; it took her pupils a moment to adjust to the practically nonexistent light. When they did, she smiled.

The inside of the cabin was simple, quaint. In the middle of the antiquated home was a fireplace. To the left of it was a log bench, a barrel and heavy stick for churning butter, and a few large kettles for cooking. To the right of the fireplace was the bedroom—a tiny straw bed covered with animal pelts. The entire cabin was as big as the dining room in Wai’s apartment.

Breathing deeply, she inhaled the earthy scent of the little abandoned cottage. An instant peace stole over her. The cabin smelled of grass, dirt, and nature. The cabin smelled…right.

Preparing to exit the small, dark place, her peripheral vision was snagged by an oddity she saw in the farthest corner. Frowning, she walked over to where the tiny bed lay and looked down to the dirt floor behind it.

What the…?

There in the corner, wedged within the foundation of the cabin—logs and dried clay—was a torn piece of fabric. She bent over to get a better look at it. She stilled.

“This makes no sense,” she murmured.

Picking up the piece of worn fabric, which genuinely looked to be over two hundred years old, she stared at it with a surrealistic gaze. Tie-dye. The piece of fabric had been tie-dyed. And, what’s more, it was a perfect, if faded, match for the exact colors that had been tie-dyed into the spaghetti-strapped cotton dress she was wearing—canary yellow, deep purple, and robin’s egg blue.

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Wai blew out a breath. She had no idea just what in the hell was going on, but things were getting stranger by the second. Throwing the piece of cloth to the floor, she ran out of the cottage and, gasping for air, leaned up against the side of it.

It was just a coincidence. Calm down! You’ve been feeling strange ever since Jack returned
and now you’re reading too much into things!

She repeated the mental mantra a few more times until her heart rate came down.

Continuing her journey through the abandoned village, Wai reminded herself that she wasn’t the only woman in the world who had vacationed in Jamaica and brought back a tie-dyed dress as a souvenir. Obviously someone had torn their dress back in that first cabin and whomever it was that kept up the village hadn’t noticed it. The cottages were dark. Overlooking a simple piece of fabric would be very easy to do.

Feeling better, she resumed her tour of the village. A candlemaker’s cottage, the cabin of a blacksmith, and then a few nondescript homes that looked to have belonged to Lenape Indians.

By the time she reached the large, one-room schoolhouse, Wai was back to feeling her old self again. Glancing around it, she smiled as her gaze landed on a painting hanging on the left wall. “Hans painted that,” she said nostalgically. “Hans Benedict.”

She blinked. Walking over to where the Christmas-scene work of art hung, she stared at the signature on the painting.

Hans Benedict, 1776

Wai’s jaw dropped open. How could she have known that?

“I-I must have learned about this painter in school,” she breathed out, semi-hysteria tinting her words. But her gut told her something different. Her every instinct screamed that Hans Benedict was not, nor had he ever been, a famous painter. Hans had been but a schoolboy.

What the bloody hell is going on?

Sprinting from the schoolhouse, Wai ran as fast as her feet would carry her. Her pulse picked up in tempo, her heart slamming against her breasts. Soggy grass and mud spattered against her calves, oozed between her toes.

You’re running the wrong way. Go back to the reception center…

By the time Wai came to a sudden stop, she was a good half-mile from Julie—and sanity. Panting for air, it took her a moment to realize just what she had run into, where it was she was standing.

In the middle of a graveyard.

Feeling dizzy, she slowly whirled around in a circle, taking in the sight of at least thirty headstones. They weren’t modern, sleek, marble markers, but crudely cut, jagged stones that lay on smooth backs. She read the first stone her gaze landed on.

Here lies Sarah, daughter of Elizabeth and Samuel. Born in 1772. Went to sleep in 1773.

Wai blinked several times in rapid succession, forcing the tears at bay. Sarah had been but a year old when she’d died. She looked to the next stone.

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Here lies Samuel, husband of Elizabeth and father of Sarah and Hans. Born in 1751. Went
home in 1776.

Sadness engulfed her. She ached for Hans, felt his sorrow as though she’d been there to comfort him the day his father had died.

Wai closed her eyes briefly, a shaky palm lifting to cover her forehead. “What’s going on?” she whispered. “I’m scared.”

Glancing up, her light brown gaze drifted to the end of the cemetery, to two stones that lay apart from the others. As if in a trance, she slowly walked toward where the headmarkers lay. She didn’t want to see the tombstones, but felt as though she had to.

Coming to a stop before the first one, she took in a deep breath of air and exhaled.

Her gaze slowly drifted down to the stone.

Here lies Puawai, wife of Jack. Birthdate unknown. Went home in 1776.

Wai clutched her belly and gasped. Feeling as though she might faint, her gaze flew to the next headstone.

Here lies Jack, husband of Puawai. Born in 1747. Went home in 1776.

“Oh my God,” Wai murmured, goose bumps creeping up and down her spine. She knew she was going to faint. She blindly felt around for something—anything—to hold her steady. “This isn’t happening.”

Falling to the ground, she cried out as her knees hit hard earth. Jack…he was real.

No! This can’t be!

It was her last coherent thought before her head hit Jack’s gravestone. Gasping from the pain searing her skull, Wai’s eyes rolled back into her head and closed.

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Chapter Four

Wai awoke to the sound of horses neighing and the clip-clop of hooves. She moaned, her eyelids batting rapidly, fighting to open. Her head pounded, her knees were sore.

“Please wake up, miss.”

“Are you injured?”

Where am I?

“Do you speak English?”

“Perhaps we should inform the preacher. He speaks her tongue.”

My tongue?

Forcing her eyes open, it took a blinding moment to adjust to the light. Sitting up, an instant wave of nausea stole over her. Whimpering, Wai hugged her tummy, drawing her legs up underneath her. She squinted, trying to make out the faces of the two children hovering near to her.

“She is ill, Hans,” a high-pitched, female voice said.

“I shall fetch the preacher.”

“No.” Wai fought with her vision, opening and closing her eyes until she could see more than mere silhouettes. When at last her eyes cooperated with her, she stared at the children—and had to do a double-take.

They were dressed like…pilgrims.

The girl, roughly ten years old, wore a simple light blue dress with a white apron covering the majority of it. Her hair, long and blonde, had been twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck, a big, white bonnet covering the top of her head. The boy, probably twelve, possessed shoulder-length brown hair that had been tied back into a leather thong at the nape of the neck. He wore a white shirt under a long, brown jacket adorned with dozens of fancy buttons. Brown pants were tied off at the knee, white stockings covering the rest of his legs.

Wai blinked. She took a quick glance around and noticed that she was no longer sitting in front of a gravestone. There were only ten or so headmarkers in the graveyard now, and absolutely nothing where she was at—only high, untrimmed grass lay beneath her.

No Jack. No Puawai…

Had she dreamt the entire thing?

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Jaid Black

Swallowing roughly, Wai looked toward the reception center. She couldn’t see it.

All she did see was other people a ways down the road, all of them tilling the fields or running about, all of them dressed in the same antiquated clothing as the two kids.

“I-I thought there weren’t any school trips scheduled today.” These people had to be wearing period costume, volunteer actors who staged colonial reenactments for kids.

“That’s what Julie said.”

“Julie?” the little girl inquired. She frowned. “Are you well, miss? Shall we fetch the preacher for you? Or Old Annie perhaps?”

“No!”

“Don’t be alarmed,” Hans said quickly. “They say Old Annie’s a witch, but we all know better. The preacher said she’s a fine Christian woman. She just knows a lot about roots and herbs, is all.”

“She learned the healing arts from a Lenape woman,” the little girl qualified.

What the bloody hell are you two talking about?

Wai’s heart began to race, her pulse quickened. She felt ready to pass out again. Or vomit. “I don’t understand what’s going on,” she whispered. “Where am I?”

The more she looked around, the less familiar the environment appeared. What had once been a grassy path that led straight down the middle of the village was now a well-worn street of packed dirt.

Slowly standing up, she looked over to the kids. Hans glanced down at her bare legs, then up to her nipples, which stabbed against the tie-dyed sundress. He blushed and looked away.

“Oh my,” the little girl said, “you’re all but naked!”

“Ursa,” Hans chastised, his blush deepening. “The Indians don’t know better. We aren’t to judge. Or to stare.”

“Indians know quite a lot, thank you.” Wai frowned. “You take the role of actor a little too far.”

Hans looked truly confused. He was silent for a moment and then, “Why don’t we go see the preacher together, miss? He’ll get you some food. And some proper—I meant to say
clean
!—clothes.”

Wai looked down to her mud-spattered dress. “I can change at the inn.” Something wasn’t right. Something felt weird. Namely, these kids seemed too authentic for her liking. The desire to bolt was overwhelming. “I just need to leave,” she breathed out.

“Have you a settlement near to here?” Ursa asked. “We haven’t heard tell of any.”

Stop this! Stop all the bizarre talk!

Forcing herself to walk, Wai ignored the children and began stumbling toward the entrance of Schoenbrunn. Her light brown eyes rounded when she still couldn’t spot the reception center.
What is going on? Somebody wake me up from this nightmare!

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She heard the kids follow on her heels, but continued ignoring them. Men and women, both whites and Indians, stopped what they were doing and stared as she walked by, their jaws agape as they looked her up and down.

“Is she a Lenape?” she heard a white woman whisper.

“I’ve never seen a tribal dress like that one,” a Lenape female muttered.

These people are crazy! Every last one of the lot!

Wai began to walk faster. She noticed Hans and Ursa running ahead of her, but paid them no heed. She moved as quickly as she could down the dirt road, praying she would see the reception center.

Nothing. It was as if the ground had opened up and swallowed the building whole.

Hans and Ursa came charging out of a log cabin, an older man in tow. He was dressed in head-to-toe black and white, his outfit similar in style to Hans. Was he the preacher the kids had spoken of?

“Don’t be afraid, miss,” the older man said gently, making his way toward her. His English was heavily accented, sounded Eastern European in origin. She stilled as he approached, her spine going ramrod straight. “None here will harm you.”

He drew closer. And closer still. When she and the preacher made eye contact, Wai’s breath caught in the back of her throat.

Oh. My. God.

“David Zeisberger,” she murmured, her eyes unblinking. Chills zinged up and down her spine. Perspiration broke out on her forehead, between her breasts.