The morning after the two robed druids grabbed Jessica promised good times at Cresh Manor. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad, not being able to leave the house without Leif, Taran, Luag, or Lauren. They had fun together. More than that, living together was making them all begin to feel like Jessica’s new and chosen extended family.

The water closet helped the house feel like home immensely. Especially at night. In fact, now she wanted two. Three, if they could put one upstairs.

After another of Senga’s wonderful breakfasts, Lauren went to the focal point in the dining room.

"Let's play a game!"

Taran smiled encouragingly at her and moved to sit in front. Leif had been up to use the water closet, and now he sat down next to Amena and across from Jessica so as not to walk in front of Lauren.

Taran called out, "What shall we play, Forfeits?" He raised his eyebrows three times fast, leading Jessica to believe Forfeits was an adolescent game.

Yep. Leif gave Jessica an embarrassed grin, and even Senga laughed, tsking as she cleared the dishes off the table, so Jessica laughed too.

Lauren smiled her bright enthusiastic smile.

"Nay, my favorite game is charades." She looked around to see if any of the men knew it, but their blank looks showed they didn’t. "Charades is a French word that means ‘speaking tae entertain.’ The game is anything but. Nay, ye canna speak, sae ye act out the names o’… yer favorite stories."

Jessica chuckled, and Leif raised an enquiring eyebrow that invited an explanation, so she gave one. To the whole group.

"I hae a feeling their favorite stories will be things we hae na heard o, and vice versa, Lauren."

But Katherine saved the day.

"I wager we hae all read the same Bible stories. Let's use those."

Lauren smiled huge at Katherine in gratitude.

"Aye! We wull act out Bible stories. Verra well. Sae there's nary a need tae differentiate between the type o' story it is—"

Leif wrinkled his brow in an ‘are you kidding?’ way at the same time as Jessica shook her head no. They smiled at each other at the same time next.

Jessica pulled her eyes away from him and addressed Lauren.

"On the contrary. Some Bible stories are in the New Testament and some are in the Auld Testament, for one difference."

Lauren looked pleased.

"Och, aye. Verra well, sae tae show auld, ye point behind ye with yer thumb this way. Come on. Everyone up and show me ye ken…"

After Lauren showed them dozens of gestures, she acted out Jonah being swallowed by the whale, and Taran guessed it. Taran acted out putting old wine in new wineskins, and Lauren guessed it.

Leif cleared his throat when Lauren got up to take another turn, giving Jessica a ‘wait a darn second’ look, to which she scrunched her nose and nodded yes the tiniest bit.

"The rest o' us would like tae play as well. How aboot if we let Luag take a turn?"

At first Lauren took a deep breath and balled her fists, poor thing. She took the game seriously and was quite competitive. Why should she give up a turn?

Jessica was about to say as much.

But then Lauren surprised her, nodding slightly for no apparent reason and relaxing.

"Ye hae the right o' it."

She turned to Luag and nodded sideways toward the front of the room.

Curiously, Luag winked at Leif when he went up. And then he used gestures Jessica had never seen before, pointing from his eyes to the ceiling and then winding his fist in the air.

Plainly Lauren had never seen these gestures either, because she shrugged, and her eyes looked blank.

But Leif stood up and shouted.

"David fighting Goliath!"

Luag smiled and nodded, then sat to give Leif a turn.

Lauren crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair with her leg over her knee, sulking.

Leif winked at Jessica, and then he put his hand next to his face and pointed down to the ground and then pulled his fingers out from his head as if smoothing back his hair. He curled his arm next to him, almost as if holding a woman close, and then he put his other hand to his neck to protect it.

Taran jumped up this time.

"That fool Samson allowing Delilah to cut his hair!"

"Aye, that's it," said Leif, going to his seat and excitedly turning to see what Taran was going to act out.

This time, Taran used the men’s gestures, and all through his turn, Lauren sank back in her chair even more, crossing her arms more tightly with a scowl on her face now.

Taran noticed her and chuckled.

"Verra well. Let us show the lasses some o' oor warrior movements sae that they can as well succeed at this game o' theirs."

He turned to Lauren, and the two of them gave each other the sarcastic grin children use when they're fighting in front of their parents and can’t say anything mean.

Amena let out a big sneeze.

Jessica noticed for the first time today how quiet the child had been. She should have been jumping up and down ready to explode with guesses during the game, but she was sitting quietly.

At first, Leif raised his eyebrows with an amused look on his face.

"Bless ye, Amena."

And at first, the little girl smiled at her brother.

"Thank ye."

But then she sneezed five more times in rapid succession, covering her lower face in phlegm. And when Jessica went over to let Amena borrow her handkerchief, the little girl’s forehead felt hot.

They had used up all the PenUlt breathers. Their chemical treatment made them extra effective, but one-use only. However, that wasn’t going to stop Jessica from caring for sweet little Amena.

“Leif, she's burning up with fever. She needs her bed. Come help me. Senga, some willow bark tea, if ye please."

Senga went directly into the kitchen.

Leif gently took his sister in his arms and carried her up to his old bedroom and put her to bed, where he sat caressing her hair, smoothing it back from her face and revealing her flushed cheeks.

"Bide in bed. We hae tae go doon tae fighter practice now, but I wull hae Senga bring ye up some broth later. Ye willna need tae use the privy ootside though, because o' the new water closet, remember."

He gave Jessica an absent-minded smile of thanks.

She shook her head and moved over to sit next to him on Amena's bedside.

"I wull carry a chamber pot up and doon the stairs for her. She needs tae bide in bed and rest. I wull bide with her. Ye go doon tae the village."

At first Leif looked grateful, but then his face changed to dismay, and Jessica could see in his eyes all the progress he had made drilling the men in the art of war going down the drain.

"I canna ask ye tae dae that. She's my sister. I should be watching her."

Jessica stroked Amena's hair back from her forehead the way Leif had been doing.

"Nonsense. This is what I trained tae dae. Ye go on tae the village. I wull take care o' her. 'Tis nay trouble at all, I promise."

When she looked up into his face and held his gaze firmly, brooking no argument, he looked back at her with admiration.

“Ye are a fine lass, Jessica. Dae ye ken that?”

Naw. Katherine is fine. I’m average looking. You’re just flattering me.

But he was still looking at her.

Jessica hadn't felt this self-conscious since middle school, when she'd sat behind Steve Lawson in math class. Steve was the guy all the girls whispered about in the hallway as he went by. He ran on the track team, and his long limbs and cute face had all the girls sighing over him. And Steve was nice, not stuck up like most gorgeous guys. He always smiled at her when he turned around to pass papers back, and this had affected her like Leif was affecting her now, only with far less excuse.

But of course Steve had a girlfriend at the time, Stephanie Watts. Stephanie wasn’t in math class with them, but she had minions everywhere. Most of Stephanie’s minions were guys, Jessica was convinced, because no other girls had been looking when Jessica finally got up the courage to smile back at Steve one time when he was passing papers back to her.

But somehow, word had gotten back to Stephanie.

At lunch that day, Jessica was turning around with her lunch tray after just paying when she unaccountably tripped over nothing. This splattered food all over her brand-new trendy outfit that Mom had cut corners to buy for her after much begging. And it was spaghetti with extra red sauce.

Jessica's tears had been for her mother's loss of the money she had spent on the outfit for nothing, but no one else understood that. They all pointed at her and laughed, thinking she was crying because of the embarrassment. Stupid losers.

Stephanie had stood there pointing and laughing the loudest with a glint in her eye that told Jessica this had not been an accident at all.

That was what happened when Jessica set her sights on a man much more good-looking than she was: sorrow and loss, people she loved getting hurt.

The look on Leif’s face reminded her so much of Steve's smile when he turned to pass papers to her that Jessica had to close her eyes for a moment and escape the intensity. It wasn't fair that good-looking men had so much power over women.

But she opened her eyes and gave Leif a nurse’s sympathetic smile. It was all she could manage.

Giving her his own dazzling smile in return, Leif backed out of the room.

Senga came in with the willow bark tea.

Jessica helped the little girl drink it, then stayed with Amena all day and into the evening, wiping the girl’s hot forehead with cool cloths, taking her full bedpans downstairs to the water closet, bringing her cool water and more tea to drink and warm broth to eat — and getting absolutely no rest for herself.

She heard Leif and the other men return to Cresh Manor from the village just after dark, telling herself she hadn’t been listening for her own sake, but for Amena’s. She heard him go into the kitchen, heard his solid footfalls on the stairs.

He came in with three tankards of broth, looking absolutely stunning with the sheen of battle practice on his muscles. He handed Jessica hers, and then looking down at his sister's fitfully sleeping face, he put Amena’s broth on the washstand.

"How is she?"

Guilt assaulted Jessica. Here he was worried sick about his sister, and in her sleep-deprived state, all she wanted to do was ogle him.

"Her fever still burns as hot as ever. I fear for her life. She’s sae hot, I'm afraid tae leave her side even tae empty her bedpan or go get water for her, lest the absence o' my cooling her forehead cause her permanent damage. I'm sae sorry."

Still looking into his sister's face, Leif took Jessica's hand and squeezed it warmly.

“Dinna fash. This is na on ye. ‘Tis grateful I am. Now ye need rest. We will by turns stay with her while ye sleep. Go on tae bed with ye now. Ye can hae my parents’ room. I will na hear otherwise."

Wanting to tell him no but too tired to put up much resistance, Jessica did as she was told, walking down the hall into his parents’ old room, sinking into their clean feather bed, and falling asleep as soon as she pulled the quilt up to her nose.

* * *

The next five days went much as that last one had, with Jessica tending to Amena all her waking hours and only going to bed herself when Leif ordered her to.

And then one night, Jessica woke up dripping in sweat and threw the covers off.

“Hey!” Lauren exclaimed next to her. “What’s the big idea?”

But when Lauren gave Jessica a playful shove of protest at having the covers ripped off her in the middle of the night, she stopped and put a hand on Jessica’s forehead.

“Oh no, Jessica. Now that Amena’s getting better, you’re getting sick.”

“Don’t drink out of my tankard,” Jessica mumbled in warning as she turned over. They needed to know how to avoid getting sick. But she was so exhausted, she couldn’t say any more.

Lauren and Katherine worked something out between them, and soon Jessica felt a soothing cool cloth on her forehead. But she couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to who was holding it. She drifted back into blissful sleep.

Later, she thought she heard something at the window.

A rustling of the furs.

A man’s cry of pain.

A thud.

But she fell back asleep and forgot all about it.