Preserving the Ingenairii (43 page)

“Just climb back down,” Alec began, but was interrupted by a shriek.

“Look at that snake by my foot!” she said.
 
She danced. She fell.

Alec caught her high above his head, and pulled her into a cradle against his chest as the momentum drove him to the ground.

“I’ve never been that close to a snake before,” she whispered to Alec.
 
“Thank you for catching me.
 
You’re very handy to have around,” she admitted as she rose from atop him and pulled her shoes back on.

One day Jeswyne sighed as she scratched her head, “I want to take a bath so badly.”

Alec looked at her.
  
“We could go to the shore and bathe in the ocean water.
 
I won’t have soap, but it will be better than trying to get clean in the river water.”

Jeswyne looked at him dubiously.
 
“We’ll go tomorrow.
 
It’ll be fun.
 
We’ll call it a holiday!” he insisted

The next morning they each took a sword and a wooden spear, and Alec led the way towards the ocean beach, intending to go to the site of the village where he had found Cassie.
 
The journey was slow going as Alec had to hack his way through a part of the forest they had never blazed a path through before.
 
By lunch time they were past the foot of a prominent hill, and Alec could smell salt in the air.
 
The hill was Ingenairii Hill he realized, and he thought of the many things that would come to occur there in the far off future.
 
Shortly thereafter they burst through a final screen of grasses and beheld the beach, pristine and empty.

“It’s amazing!”Jeswyne exclaimed.
 
“How far does it go?”

Alec had sat down to remove his boots, and Jeswyne copied him as she took off her nearly useless shoes.

“I don’t know.
 
There’s no end in sight,” Alec answered.
 
He realized what he was about to do.
 
“Lady Jeswyne, I apologize for not thinking of this sooner, but I do not intend to go swimming in my clothes.
 
Of course, you’ve seen me without them before.
 
If it makes you uncomfortable, we can take turns.”

Jeswyne looked at him.
 
“I’ll follow your lead, Alec, under one condition,” she said solemnly.

“Promise me that you won’t tell anyone in Michian that you saw me skinny-dipping!” she burst out laughing.
 
But it was only several minutes after Alec had streaked across the sand to the water that she made up her mind to really do the same.
 
She removed her gown, and then began running.

“You didn’t tell me it was so hot!” she shrieked as her feet burned in the sand, and she sprinted even harder to reach the water, determined to hide her naked body in the water as quickly as possible.

“You didn’t tell me it was so cold?” she sputtered as she reached the water and took her first steps in.
 
She stopped, and then felt extremely self-conscious as she stood with her arms crossed in front of her while Alec floated nearby, looking at her.

“Just get it over with,” Alec urged.
 
“It will feel fine within a minute.
 
Don’t torture yourself thinking about the cold, just plunge in.”

“I can’t!” Jeswyne wailed.
 
“Alec, what are you doing?
 
Oh!
 
Stop it!” she gasped, as Alec stood up and ran towards her,
then
began splashing water onto her.

He reached her, and suddenly scooped her up in his arms.
 
He was very conscious of the feel of her body against his arms and his chest, and he stared at her face, just a foot away from his.
 
Then he turned and carried her out into the water, running fast, and submerged himself, pulling her down completely before letting go of her.

Jeswyne gasped and stood up immediately, sweeping her hands across her face and sputtering.
 
The water only came up to her chest, and she crouched down, highly aware of Alec standing next to her, and thinking about the feel of his embrace.

“That was so mean!” she shouted, and struck at him, then punched again, and again.
 
Her blows hit him unchecked and unnoticed, and she stopped to see what he was staring at so intently in the water, his attention focused out away from the land.

“What do you see?” she asked, standing and turning to stare at the horizon with him, a horizon that looked empty to her.

Alec grabbed her and spun her around, and she saw extraordinary joy on his face.
 
He pulled her against him in a hard embrace, and bent down and kissed her lips passionately.
 
“Jeswyne!
 
I think I know how to cure my ingenairii wounds!
 
I think we may be able to go back to our own time!” he said elatedly.
 
“Come on!” he said, and he began pulling her back to the beach.

Chapter 34 – Jeswyne’s Tea Ceremony

They sat next to each other on the beach, and Alec explained his plan.
 
“There is a kind of fish called a blue belly.
 
I’ve used part of it for a remedy before,” he told Jeswyne, who was hanging on his every word.
 
“And there is a sea weed called watergreen.
 
We can get those if we make a boat and a net,” he thought.
 
“On ingenairii hill there was a quarry on the north side, and we can find yellow quartz there, but it will take a little work.
 
And the only other unusual things we’ll need are a feather from a bird, and a drop of your blood.”

“A drop of my blood?
 
Why not your blood?”
Jeswyne asked, but then didn’t wait for an answer.
 
“You really believe you can mix those things together and be able to take us back to our own time again?
 
Oh Alec, that is wonderful!” she began to cry, and leaned over to kiss him.

Alec felt her body against
his,
and her lips on his, and he shared her joy at the hope of return.
 
He placed his arms around her, and leaned forward so that their bodies slid downward, and the kiss became a passionate one as he lay atop her on the beach.
 
He raised his head and looked down at her.
 
Jeswyne looked up at him and smiled, then brought her hands up to his face, and pulled him back down for another long, alluring kiss.

But Alec thought of Bethany at that moment, and raised his head again, then rolled off the girl and onto the sand beside her.
 
“Jeswyne, I’m engaged to be married to a good woman, and I can’t break my vows to her.
 
You are so good, so pretty,
so
desirable, that I can’t help myself from thinking about loving you.
 
But it wouldn’t be right.
 
I can’t do it,” he said.
 
“Especially now that I think I can get us back to a time where I might be able to see her.”

Jeswyne lay in stunned silence for a moment, feeling whiplashed by the sudden turn of events.
 
“You shouldn’t have started that kiss if you thought that!” she said quietly.
 
“I’ve never kissed a boy before.”

“You kissed very well for a first time,” Alec tried to jest.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
You’re completely right.
 
I shouldn’t have done that; not any of it.
 
It is my fault.
 
I saw you and I desired you, and then I realized there is a way to become healed, and I lost my head in the joy I felt.

“Don’t think about it anymore.
 
Please trust me.
 
I’ll take care of you, and I’ll behave as a gentleman from now on, and I’ll take you safely back to the Michian
empire
and restore you to your family,” he promised.

Jeswyne sighed a heavy sigh, not sure what to say or think or how to respond.
 
She felt miserably confused and deflated.

Alec stood and went back to the clothes they had left at the top of the beach, and he pulled his pants on, then lifted Jeswyne’s dress and brought it down to her.
 
“We ought to move down here, closer to the beach and the quarry.
 
We’ll need to build a new hut in this area, so we don’t spend so much time having to walk back and forth,” he pretended not to notice the tears in her eyes, still embarrassed by the scene he had created.

“So you want to build a new home, and a boat, and make fishing nets, and dig a quarry?” Jeswyne said after she shrugged into her dress.
 
“How long is all this going to take?”

“I imagine it will take weeks,” Alec admitted.
 
“But then it will be done, and we’ll be able to leave.
 
And in the meantime, we can relax on the beach and swim all we want to when we’re not working.”

“I don’t know how to swim,” Jeswyne said automatically, before she even realized she said it.

“You don’t know how to swim?
 
Let me teach you,” Alec pressed.
 
“It will be less useful than sword work, but more relaxing.”

“If you’re going to teach me something, I’ll have to teach you something in return,” Jeswyne answered.
 
“I will teach you the name of every state and noble land that belongs to the empire.”

Alec put on a cheerful face, although he had no desire to know more about the Michian
empire
.

And so they began the next phase of their life together, living with a purpose and an agenda.
That afternoon they returned to their hut for the night, and the following morning they gathered the few things they had accumulated, a couple of spears, some food they had prepared, and Jeswyne picked up the pieces of her ceremonial tea set.

“You really want to take those?” Alec asked, eyeing them dubiously and trying to figure out how to carry them

“Yes, there’s no question,” Jeswyne said emphatically.
 
“Don’t even ask again!”

Alec eventually arranged his shirt as a carrier between two spears, and hauled everything to the bottom of Ingenairii Hill.

“Let’s find a level spot around here,” he suggested as he placed everything next to a tree stump.
 
By mid-afternoon he had found
a spot, hauled rocks
to it for a fire pit, and fashioned a crude lean-to they could temporarily use.
 
That night, as they sat by the fire, Jeswyne began her lessons in Michian geography and history.
 

“Five great clans united to form the first empire,” she began.
 
“Each came from their own duchy.
 
There were Canare, Indige, Scarle, Emeral, and Navill,” she began.

“I never heard of Navill,” Alec interjected.

“They do not exist any longer,” Jeswyne told him.

“Why?
 
What happened to them?” Alec asked.

“During the third dynasty, they tried to withdraw from the empire.
 
They were exterminated.
 
Everyone in their duchy was killed,” the girl explained, and the lesson went on.

That night, a heavy rain moved in from the ocean, and Alec and Jeswyne huddled together in the only dry corner of their shelter.
 
Alec wanted to put his arms around the girl, but refrained, still too aware of his transgression the day before.

Over the following days, they began their busy activities.
 
Alec simultaneously built a better hut and began assembling timbers for the boat.
 
He knew he could only build a raft, and he wanted to make sure it would be sturdy enough to withstand the action of the waves.
 
He also began pulling down vines, and showed Jeswyne how to weave them to make a net.