Carnelian

  “That would be nice if I knew when Seth was from,” I replied. I still didn’t have a clue to what time period in ancient Egypt he was from.

  The goddess smiled. “Time is a fluid motion and can be described in many different ways. You don’t need to list a year. Not everyone marks time the same way. You have the easiest way to get back to him. Follow your heart, and you will go to him.” I smiled and tried not to be as giddy as I felt. I could just follow the tingles, and I would find him. This was more proof that I was meant to be with Seth. “Just know that playing with time can have consequences you can’t predict. Be careful, and know that by going back you will inevitably change the future.”

  I nodded, and she disappeared in a wisp of air as easily as she appeared. Sparkling dust was on the floor as it had been when I first met her. I felt her presence leave and some of the magic of being around her disappeared. She was gone, but I now knew how to find Seth.

  I looked at my arm which had stopped burning. A faint, reddish line, the same color as the stone had been, was wrapped around my left arm. Upon closer inspection it looked a bit like the henna designs Sim came back with one weekend after heading home to go somewhere with her parents. In the dim bedroom light you could barely make out the lines on my arm, which I was sure would be more prominent in the sunlight. I turned my hand over to see the end of the design on my palm. It was a darker reddish-brown color there. I rubbed the lines a bit and found the dust was not just on my skin. The design was permanent.

  I don’t know how much longer I sat there, but I did just that. I sat on my bed and waited. I had too many questions I hadn’t asked, and she hasn’t answered many. How could I be sure where I was going? Would it hurt? Would I make it back? Could I take Seth back with me? Was I strong enough to do this? More questions filtered through my brain, but one visual answer kept coming to mind. It was Seth’s face. It didn’t matter if I was strong enough or had the answers; for him I would be strong. I didn’t want a future if it didn’t include him. Slowly, my arm with the new writing on it began to tingle. I looked down in time to see my hand disappearing. I was fading just like Mr. Sangre. I was going back in time.

  Chapter 13

  Finding Life Together

  I held my breath as I waited to open my eyes. I could tell I was already somewhere else by the heat that pounded down on me. The dry, blistering breeze blew by me, and thankfully I was still dressed. Time travel didn’t make clothing disappear. I could feel the heat even in the shade I was in. I opened my eyes slowly to the silence that was only interrupted by the wind. I was standing somewhere in the middle of untrimmed palm trees and other small brush like trees that I had no idea what they were. A few feet away I saw an old well with a bucket. I pushed through the lush vegetation to the closest opening to find a small lake, not more than ten feet across. The other side of the lake was as densely forested, and I couldn’t make out a single thing beyond trees. I walked back toward the well.

  I was dressed in odd clothing that covered most of my body. Fabric was draped on me in some sort of dress fashion, but I had no idea how you’d get it on or off. Slowly, I pulled up the sleeve on my left hand to see how noticeable the lines were from the carnelian. There were light brown lines that even in the sunlight didn’t look darker than my best tan. I followed the lines down to my hand and noticed how they darkened as they traced patterns on the back of my hand until they ended around my fingers. If someone was not looking closely, I might have been able to pass off the lines as jewelry or a bad tan. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be in sunlight.

  I looked through the trees providing my shade. There was desert as far as I could see. I scrambled to the other side of the well to look out another direction. There was desert there also. I was in the little circle of trees surrounded by desert. There wasn’t a soul around. This didn’t bode well for me.

  It was quiet. Quieter than I could have ever imagined. In that instant I knew that I had never truly been alone before until now. Not a sound beyond the wind. How I ended up here was beyond me. I was alone at some desert oasis in a time period of who knows when. There was water, but no food. I wouldn’t last long.

  I walked back to the well. At least I had water. I had tried to go to Seth. I had followed the tingles in my arm and expected to arrive in front of him. I hoped he was around somewhere, but I couldn’t even go looking for him. Even I knew it was stupid to go wandering in some unknown desert without water. If the goddess was right, I should have found Seth. I began to have some doubts about us truly being together since he was not around.

  I sat down in the shade and waited. It couldn’t be too long past sunrise, but it was scorching already. The bulky cotton clothing that covered me would be enough to keep the sun from burning me, but the sun was still hot. Hotter than I had ever felt. I was missing the cold Minnesota weather right about now and I found myself fantasizing about the snow I left behind.

  I could hear the animals approaching before I saw them, and I soon realized a group of travelers were heading straight toward where I was. I glanced around. I needed somewhere to hide. I didn’t know who these people were, and I doubted they would be friendly and show me my way to Seth. I had no idea what these travelers would do to an unaccompanied women standing at a well. I should have regretted coming here, but somehow I trusted the goddess would get me back to Seth. I closed my eyes and tried to figure out how I got here in the first place. I needed to find a way back home now, before I was seen.

  The group was getting closer and I had nowhere to hide. This was worse than when the two men had tried to grab me only months before. At least then I had a plan. Here I could formulate no plan. I couldn’t hide my gender, and I could find nowhere to hide period in this sparse oasis. Even the well wouldn’t be enough to cover me, especially since they were probably heading this way for the exact purpose of using the well.

  As the group made it up the last sand dune, I felt the tingles shoot through my hand and arm. I had no idea how the time travel thing worked yet, but I was glad to be able to at this point. Maybe I was going to make it back home after all. I looked down to my hand and realized it was my right hand that tingled, not my new markings. Only one person could make me feel that way--Seth. I didn’t need to hide. He had found me. I did my best to wait by the well as the riders approached, and not bolt for some type of cover, though it felt intimidating. After seeing Seth fight the men that attacked me, I had no fear he could protect me from whatever was coming my way.

  The first man dismounted, and I looked past him to the eyes of the men with him. He had a scarf that covered his face, but I could still see his eyes. The man was not Seth. My worry returned a bit more. If he wasn’t Seth, then who was he? He seemed to be in charge of the group. He unwrapped the scarf around his face, and I sucked in my breath. His eyes were a bit different, but his face was like the one I had been staring at for months now. This man was an older version of Seth. I had one guess as to this man being related to Seth.

  Behind the first man, the next man unwrapped his face from the cloth that was around his head. He didn’t move, but stared at me. Just his stare sent more tingles through my arm. He wasn’t exactly happy to see me, nor was he completely mad. He seemed even a bit confused. Seth was right in front of me. After weeks of waiting to find him, even I was a bit speechless. I broke my stare as the first man moved in front of me. The first man analyzed me intently, not missing even a little bit.

  “Are you alone?” he asked, his voice deep and authoritarian. I nodded. He moved closer and analyzed me more. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but I just waited. “What are you doing out here alone, waiting for someone?”

  “I don’t know how I got here, and I am not waiting for someone right now,” I replied. It was easy to twist the truth craftily to answer the man honestly. I doubted he was one you could lie to. The men around him made it clear that this man was in charge, probably the military general father Seth had talked about. From his looks alone I could tell they
were related. “I don’t know where I am, or even what time it is.”

  “Seti, help feed and get her water while we rest,” the man said to Seth before turning back to the other men behind them. The general nodded to his son and turned to bark orders at the men behind him. Seth nodded back to his father and walked stiffly over to me. He pointed to a tree a bit away from the group, and I walked there. I really wanted to just throw my arms around him, but his attitude told me not to.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Seth asked sternly, once we were far enough away from everyone.

  “Coming to get you,” I replied. Seth sighed and pulled his scarf off his head. He rubbed the short, cropped hair as he looked like he wanted to pace. Instead, he pointed to the base of the tree.

  “You can sit there,” he said.

  I looked over the well to see his father watching us. I followed Seth’s direction without complaining. I was too stunned to complain. This wasn’t the reunion I imagined. Maybe I was too used to Hollywood endings and thought I’d be jumping into his arms while being showered with kisses upon sight, but even so, I expected something. This wasn’t it. He acted as if I was just another person. No one special. I thought I was someone special to him. Something was off with Seth. He didn’t even move to touch me. Seth stood silently beside me as the men went about watering their animals. His father marched among them, checking the men. It was a small group and by far not an army with less than two dozen men.

  “We will rest now, and will travel again to the main army in the afternoon when the sun isn’t as high,” Seth explained. He went back to watching his father and the men. He didn’t say anything more.

  I just sat and waited as people finally began to settle down and sit around the well under the trees. They moved quickly and efficiently with their jobs, and then sat to wait. Ty was not in the group as I looked around. I stole a few glances at my guard Seth, and began to wonder if I did the right thing. He wasn’t looking at me, and he didn’t even seem to care that I was there. I wanted desperately to reach up and touch him. He had been gone for weeks, and it was complete torture. The tingle in my hand was pulling to me to touch him. I looked across the camp and found his father watching us intently.

  The general was wrapped in a white skirt just like his son and men, but there was something different about how he stood and observed the people. My urge to touch Seth faded instantly. The man was clearly observing us and weighing every movement. He had the same-shaped face as Seth, and their lips were identical. I always wondered if any of my traits were similar to my own father. Seth was identical to his father, except for the eyes. His father’s eyes were hard and unwavering, where all had I ever found in Seth’s eyes was love.

  “This way,” the general said, pointing to an area a bit more secluded and off to the side of the men and indicating that I should stand.

  I followed behind the general and Seth, and as soon as we were isolated from everyone else, Seth stood aside. His father eyed me over. His hawk eyes took in every detail of me. It was a bit unnerving, but I stood as still as possible and did not shrink under his gaze. He was imposing and probably more deadly than I could imagine. Life in the military was hard even in the twenty-first century, but I couldn’t imagine how hard the man was before me to live through an ancient war and still be alive.

  “Who are your parents, child?” he asked. He was not being unkind, but very suspicious.

  “My mother’s name is Keeya, and my father’s name was never told to me,” I replied. I really didn’t understand why my parents had anything to do with the situation, but it couldn’t hurt to be honest. My mom wasn’t miles away, she was centuries away.

  “Keeya?” he asked, repeating what I had just said slowly. “Keeya… Hmmm…” he repeated himself as he thought a moment. “You look an awful lot alike to the Princess Hepa I met many years ago,” the general replied, giving me a bit more information of why he was studying me.

  My mouth dropped. How did this man from the past know my mother’s real name? I had only seen it once when I was a child looking through records, but my mother, at one point, was called Hepa. She never went by that name, and everyone knew her as Keeya. I always thought it was strange that she had a different name. Could this man be talking about my mother? Had he traveled to the future? Could this man know who my father was?

  “The missing princess?” Seth asked. His father nodded. Seth didn’t seem to be alarmed that his father could have known my mother. Maybe he knew something else, too.

  “You are very much like her, it’s amazing,” the general said in awe, eyeing me over more. “I can only have one conclusion for the resemblance. You must be related to the princess.” There were no feelings behind his words. He could not have been the one that came to my mother, but then how did he know her?

  “Father, she cannot be. Trust me, her mother is far away from here. I doubt it’s the same person,” Seth interrupted and the general’s hardened stare returned, this time aimed at his son.

  “That’s my mother’s name, though I have no idea how or when you met her. And she isn’t a princess, just a mom,” I put into the conversation. I had no idea how the general met my mother. Maybe he traveled to the future with my father. Seth turned to me finally and his eyes met mine. He was as confused as I was by his father.

  “Yes, I doubt she’s a princess now. I was part of the group sent to transport her to marry the Pharaoh. She went missing along with one of my fellow generals sixteen years ago, and I can now see why. There’s no way she could have married the Pharaoh, pregnant and expected to live. I wonder if he knew and was helping her,” the general said, like he was just stating the facts.

  “Not possible,” I whispered. My mother could not have been from the past. She might not like all the latest technology, but she was from my time. I had pictures of her holding me as an infant. I had proof that she had been in the present for as long as I knew. I searched back through memories. My mother had always been in my time.

  “I suppose it could be just a coincidence, but does she have a scar about this long on her back right under her left shoulder blade?” the general asked. He could see my doubt. I could not reply. She did have a scar. I asked her once how she got it, but all she would say was a childhood accident. “There was an assassination attempted before we left the Nahrin palace with her. She was injured, and it delayed our trip by weeks, giving her time to heal.”

  My legs felt weak like they were going to give out at any moment. The general was sure he knew my mother. I wanted to deny it, but how could he know about the scar?

  “You’ll rest here with me and my son. You will be more protected this way. Don’t leave this area, and stay near the men. There are always thieves around, and a Nahrin princess is a pretty good catch.” He motioned to the mats on the ground someone had put down behind some trees. It was more private than being viewed by all the men sitting around, but not completely private. “Seti, you have done a great job. I don’t know how you knew to go this direction, but it will be to our advantage. We can discuss this later, but you just might have found a way we can solve one of our problems. The Nahrin will be happy to have this girl back, even if it isn’t the one we lost years ago. I’ll be back in a little bit. Make sure she’s fed and well hydrated. We will join the army later tonight, then set up a group to take her north.”

  “Yes, Father,” Seti replied, bowing a little to his father as he left.

  Seth stood by the trees and watched his father walk away. He waited a bit more and then returned to me and found me a mat. I couldn’t help it. My legs couldn’t keep up with the news I had just received. Seth knelt beside me and felt my head.

  “Do you feel okay?” he asked softly.

  Tears I couldn’t stop trailed down my face. I couldn’t look up at him. I had gone back in time to find him, and he didn’t want me. Instead I had found that maybe it wasn’t my father that was from the past but my mother, and I had no clue what that really meant for me. If my mom did
n’t belong in the present, did I? Would the goddess come and take her away? How long would I have my mother for when I returned some day? Seth wiped the tears away and tilted my face up to look into his eyes. In one conversation, my whole world changed. I didn’t even know who I was or where I was supposed to be now.

  “Mari,” he said quietly while pain filled his eyes. “Why did you come after me? How did you come after me? Why didn’t you just stay there? I had to leave some day. I wanted you there and safe. I haven’t even had time look for you yet.”

  “I needed you,” I admitted. “But I can see that you didn’t need me.” I tried to look back down to the ground, but he wouldn’t let me. His hands firmly held my face looking at him. The calluses on his thumbs were familiar enough to make me want to cry more. Here I found him, but he wasn’t still mine.

  “Marcella Navina, I am in love with you. I’ve been in love with you probably since the day I first feel into your lap. I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you, but I can’t. I’m from this time. I had to return. You are from your time. You should have stayed there. No matter how much we may love each other we’re from different times. The best we can hope is for stolen time here and there. I would have found a way back to you,” Seth said, still wiping away tears that were not stopping. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you now.”

  “Let me get this straight. You love me, but don’t want me to be here?” I asked as new tears flowed. He still loved me.

  “Mari, I want you beside me forever. There’s nothing more that I want in the world than to have you.” I hiccupped from the crying, and he gave me a genuine smile. Leaning down, he rubbed his dry nose to my wet one. “I can’t believe you followed me,” he said in awe before kissing me.