Jaelle sat shocked as Richard paid his bill and got up and left, looking smugly over his shoulder at her as he went through the door. Why did Richard’s museum exhibit include a stone carved with a stick figure of John with his unique sword?

She had been with John all these years as he developed that sword and seen countless other people be amazed and amused at it. That was John, no doubt about it.

Why was that stone in with historical stuff about Hadrian’s Wall? It had to be a trick of some kind. John must have contacted Richard and given him the stone. John knew Richard sometimes put up exhibits at the museum…

Vivian came over on the pretense of refilling Jaelle’s coffee, but while she was bending over to do so she put her mouth close to Jaelle’s ear and spoke softly, punctuated by the popping of her gum.

“Is everything alright? You look a little upset.”

The waitress was fast becoming her only female friend nearby, and Jaelle did her best to avoid lying to her.

“I’m not really sure.”

Vivian’s motherly frown of worry showed itself for a moment before she schooled it into her normal cheerful waitress face.

“Yeah, I can see that. Well, you know I’m always here if you need me.”

When Vivian started to leave, Jaelle stopped her with a question.

“What about my check?”

Vivian shrugged with one of those comical smiles that had been cheering Jaelle up over the last six months since John left her — not quite at the altar, but almost. And then she nodded toward where Richard had just left.

“Bossy Guy there paid for yours, too. At least something good came out of seeing him today, right?”

Jaelle scrunched up her face to show that she wasn’t sure about that either, and got up to go to work.

Vivian gave her shoulder a pat, and then apparently unsatisfied with that, moved in close for a sideways hug before she went back to refilling other people’s coffee.

“Like I said, I’m always here if you need me.”

“Thanks, Viv.”

Jaelle looked at her phone for the time and then ran out the door.

Shoot, sitting and gabbing with Richard had almost made her late, and apparently she had just been out “sick” for almost a week, if this morning’s headache and the date on her phone and a weird text from Amber made any sense out of anything.

‘All OK. I told them you had the flu and would be in as soon as you could.’

Time to quit stocking her fridge with beer. She almost always messed up when she indulged at home, but it was hard to believe she had blacked out an entire week! Anyway, Jan was going to be upset.

Timing the cars just right, Jaelle ran across the boulevard.

But why would John give Richard that stone? What would be the point? He was the one who broke up with her, saying ‘Sorry, but we’ve just grown apart, and Regan is more in tune with me now.’

Jaelle and John were water under the bridge. She’d been priding herself this morning at being over John ― until Richard showed her that picture of John on a stone carving.

She ran up the steps to the museum’s small locker room, changed into her long green tour-guide uniform, clocked in, and waved at Jan in her office.

Good, Jan didn’t look angry at her for missing almost a week of work, just relieved to see she had made it in today.

The last thing Jaelle needed was to lose her job on top of losing John. Just the thought made her shudder. She hurried down to the front desk to pick up her first tour, determined not to garner any complaints about keeping them waiting.

But when she rounded the last corner and saw Richard adding the finishing touches to his Hadrian’s Wall exhibit, she felt oddly drawn to it. Against her better judgment, she paused and looked it all over. He had actual stones from the wall, as well as some weapons found on site. It was all fascinating.

But one stone in particular drew her eyes like nothing else ever had.

No.

It couldn’t be.

That had only been a dream.

She stepped right up to the stone and put her fingers in the grooves of designs she herself had made with a nail file. And admitted the incontrovertible truth. She hadn’t just dreamed it. She had really made these designs. Now that she took notice, there were small nicks still in her fingers from doing this.

So it was real.

I was there.

John is there.

And Breth is real!

A wave of pure joy washed over her at this startling turn of events. He’s real. The exquisite specimen of a man who she’d fought beside the past few days was real. She hadn’t just dreamed him into existence. He was a living breathing man who went about naked, wearing only woad painted creatures who animated whenever his muscles moved… Oh, that body. Oh, those blue eyes like deep pools, washing her mind clean with his conscientious regard…

And then pure panic seized her.

How on earth is Breth? Did Nechtan get him after I left?

No.

No, I refuse to believe that. Breth must be wondering where I am. I hope he doesn’t think I left on purpose! I need to get back there.

At the sight of Richard coming over with a disturbing look on his face as if he knew the whole story somehow and was coming over to gloat about it, she took off running toward the front desk, calling out to the group of tourists waiting for her.

“Sorry I’m late! I’ll give you extra-long tour to make up for it!”

She was met with cheers as she slid to a stop on the glossy museum floor and waved her arms to avoid falling. She hammed it up, really waving her arms wide in order to make the museum patrons laugh — and keep them happy. At least she was good at her job. She did her best to concentrate on that until she could drop this tour off at the museum’s gift shop and run back up to Jan’s office with a big smile on her face.

“Jan, I know I just had a sick week—”

But Jan dropped the paper she was working on to her desk, pulled off her reading glasses, and gave Jaelle an incredulous look.

“No way, Jaelle. Marie is on vacation this week, and we need you. I let your little week-long ‘sick time’ slide with the understanding that when you came back, I’d be able to count on you. Whatever it is you’re wanting to run off and do, it will have to wait until Marie’s back, and then you’ll have Monday-Tuesday off as usual.”

With every word Jan said, Jaelle felt a little more of her excitement drain out of her, until at the end she was filled with dread. She couldn’t get fired. She wouldn’t be able to get another job, which would mean moving back in with her parents. Which would be the end of her world.

A hurt look showed on her boss’s face for just a moment, reminding Jaelle of the day Jan had hired her.

* * *

Seven years, six weeks, and three days ago — on her 16^th birthday — Jaelle had timidly crept up to this very same office, resume in hand and hope in heart. She was finally old enough. She could pick out her own clothes. Get her hair cut the way she wanted. Wear makeup. She could if she got a job and made her own money. Her parents had said so. She still couldn’t believe it.

“Uh, excuse me, but… Are you the manager?”

The woman peering through her glasses at the papers on the desk was younger than Mother, but not by much. At first she looked stern and strict like Mother, but then she took off her glasses and looked up at Jaelle. And smiled just the tiniest bit as she reached out toward Jaelle’s resume.

“Yes, I’m Jan Seward, the museum’s manager. And you are?”

She handed it to her, meaning to just introduce herself, but as it was wont to do, her mouth said way more than she had in mind.

“I’m Jaelle Penzag, and today is my 16^th birthday. I’m big for my age… Well, I guess I’m just big, now that I’m full grown…” Ug! Why did her mouth have to go embarrassing her all the time?

Fortunately, Jan didn’t laugh.

“Have you come to apply for the front desk job?”

Jaelle took a deep breath like her friend Amber had advised her to do before explaining where she was coming from.

“I will if you want me to, but the job I really want is the tour guide one—”

At this, Jan grimaced and visibly prepared to let Jaelle down, just as she had feared.

But Jaelle rushed into her explanation, a speech she had been preparing for the past three years.

“I get all A’s in history, and every week I read at least one library book from the history section — not the children’s history section, the grown-up one. I have wanted to be a tour guide here since I was 13, and to prove it, I’ve selected all my history reading from the ancient history section, because I know this is the ancient history library. I’ve been on the tour myself every year for my birthday for the past three years, and I come twice every time you have a free day. I know everything on exhibit here. You can take me around and ask me questions, and I’ll tell you all the answers. I could even take you on a tour myself, to prove to you that I can do it.”

Jan stood up with a skeptical smile and gestured out toward the museum at large.

“Okay, you’re on. This is something I have to see.”

Jaelle shook her fists up and down, she was so excited.

“And that’s not all. My parents and I are fighting members of the Society for Creative Anachronism with Cinnead Brodie. He says he demonstrates weapons here sometimes, and I would love to help him…”

* * *

Jan had taken her in and trusted her with more responsibility than any 16-year-old should have had. She had given Jaelle nothing but respect, and Jaelle was trying to take that for granted. She owed the woman much more than that.

Jaelle let her remorse show on her face and appealed to Jan with her eyes. She wanted to reach out and touch the woman’s arm the way she used to do when she was younger, but her gut told her that would be going over the line into emotional manipulation, so she didn’t, raising her hand up to push her hair out of her eyes instead.

“I’m sorry. Really sorry, okay? You’re right. It can wait till Monday.”

Jan heaved a sigh of relief and put her glasses back on as she turned back toward her desk and picked up her paper, putting on that stern look that Jaelle now realized was just an act.

“See that it does, Jaelle.”

Walking back down to the front desk to pick up the next tour felt like swimming through molasses. It was only 10:30 on Wednesday. She had five whole days of this to endure before she could go back to Breth. It wasn’t fair.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when Cinnead tapped her on the shoulder.

“Where have you been all week? It’s bad enough these bones are old, now they’re rusty, too.”

She smiled at her sparring partner — who also happened to be the museum’s janitor — as she walked by him, rushing to her next tour so she wouldn’t be late.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”