6. Uxor
UXOR
WILLOW
Equal parts hopeful and nervous, I only pause when the ground starts to slope downward a bit. As I stand at the top of the incline, I finally get a better view of what lies ahead of me, plus the source of the smoke.
It’s not a house with a chimney like I secretly hoped.
Instead, I see a camp at the edge of some more trees.
A pretty decent-sized fire burns inside a ring of stones, belching enough smoke that I saw it all the way by that weird, freaky river.
A dark brown horse grazes nearby, tethered to a nearby low branch, and something that looks like a bedroll is stretched beside the flames.
Sir trots into the camp before I can stop him.
Since I highly doubt that the horse set the fire, that means there’s gotta be someone else close by. Someone who plans on using that bedroll and probably just moved further into the trees to take a pee or something.
What if they’re not a dog person?
Crap. I have to get Sir.
I hurry downhill, moving as quietly as I can. Which is not very quietly since the grass keeps rustling around my legs and flowers are popping open beneath every step like they’re announcing my arrival.
Hello, stranger. Here comes Willow.
Please don’t murder her…
I’m about halfway to the camp when a man steps out from behind one of the trees.
I stop short. So does he.
For a second, we simply stare at each other.
He’s young. Maybe around my age, though it’s hard to tell with the hard set to his mouth and the short beard covering his jaw.
His dark hair is cut close to his head. A red cloak hangs over one shoulder, secured across a bronze breastplate, and a short skirt made of leather strips falls over his thighs.
Dark leather sandals lace almost to his knees, and I see a sword hanging at his waist, glinting in the firelight.
I blink.
Um. I thought I got tossed into some version of Ancient Greece. But that guy? Correct me if I’m wrong—I’m an English teacher, not history—but that looks like every stereotypical Roman soldier I’ve ever seen.
I don’t think it’s a costume. This isn’t some re-enactor spending his weekend pretending the collapse of the empire hasn’t happened yet.
The armor is scratched and dirty. The sword looks used.
Even the way he stands—feet apart, shoulders straight, one hand immediately settling near his weapon—doesn’t come across like an actor waiting for applause.
I lift both hands and gulp. “Hi.”
His gaze moves over me, lips curving slightly as he takes in my yellow shirt. My short denim shorts. My ruined slippers and the ring of daisies around my feet. In his next breath, his expression changes from confusion to sudden interest.
Uh-oh. That’s worse. Right? That’s so much worse.
He says something in a language I don’t recognize.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I only speak English. Well, that and enough Spanish to get by in New York, but I’m guessing that’s not gonna help either of us.”
He answers in the same language as before. This time, I think I recognize some of it.
Huh. It sounds like Latin. Well, yeah, Will. Of course it sounds like Latin.
He’s a freaking Roman soldier, isn’t he?
Okay. Think. You’ve got this—
Sorry, but no. I don’t.
I took French in high school, and I barely remember any of that. Latin might be useful for recognizing roots on standardized tests, but it doesn’t help when an actual Roman soldier is staring at me like I arrived in a gift basket, wrapped in a bow.
I’m really wishing that it wasn’t summer back home, and that I went to bed in a muumuu. The way he’s watching me… yeah. Uh-uh. I really, really don’t like that.
He stops talking, waiting expectantly.
I shake my head, harder this time. “No. I… I don’t understand.”
He takes a few steps closer to me.
I let out an eep and hurriedly step back.
His eyebrows lift. He says something else, slower this time, pointing first at himself, then toward the camp.
I think I get it. “Are you asking me to come down there with you?”
He nods.
Huh. Maybe he does understand me. Or perhaps my tone and the way I gesture at the camp, then me, then the camp again makes my meaning obvious.
Either way, I’m back to shaking my head.
“No, thank you. I’m just looking for my puppy.”
He frowns.
“Small dog?” I hold my hands about a foot apart. “Dark brown fur. Fiery eyes. Smoke comes out of him sometimes.”
The soldier stares.
Yeah. He has no idea what I’m saying, does he?
He speaks again, then points at me, and any hope that I can grab Sir and quickly head off in the opposite direction dies a quick death as he drops his hand, slowly removing the sword from its place on his hip.
That time, I managed to catch one word.
Femina.
Feminine.
Woman? He’s gotta be pointing out I’m a chick.
I laugh nervously. “Yes. I’m a woman. Very observant.”
His gaze drags over my bare legs before settling on my face again.
He says something else. There are a few words I almost recognize from when I made mythology my complete personality as a pre-teen, Sunday School and holidays at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, or because his word sounds like the same as one we use in English.
There’s Roma.
Rome. Yup. Figured that one.
Serva.
Serve? Is that what one means?
Uxor.
Wait. I know that one, too, from a recent episode of Jeopardy of all things, and I really, really hope that I’m remembering the translation for “wife” wrong. Considering the way the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, a nervous pit forming in my belly, I’m thinking I’m not.
“No,” I say, sudden nerves making the word come out harsher than it probably should’ve.
Instantly, his expression hardens.
Uh-oh. But, hey, in for a penny, in for a pound… “No ‘wife’. No husband, either. I’m not anyone’s wife.”
Actually—
Hush, I hiss, cutting Persephone off. She’s been a trusty hitchhiker so far, but I can’t see how her commentary is going to help me right now.
She sniffs. Fine. If that’s how you want it.
She’s gone. Well, no. Not gone, but recessing deeper inside of me, somewhere she can sulk as—crap!—here he comes!
I was too distracted to notice at first, but, with the sword held out threateningly in front of him, he starts to prowl toward me.
I hold up my hands again, hoping like hell he takes the hint. “Uh-uh. You stay there.”
Nope. He keeps on coming. While I start to scramble back up the hill behind me, hoping to disappear into the woods and get away, he takes one moment to shove his sword back.
Once both hands are free, he holds his palms out, speaking in a calm, patient tone like I’m an animal he’s trying not to startle.
Too late. I’m already super duper startled. Terrified is beginning to creep in, too, as I match each of his steps.
Only one thing keeps me from bolting.
“Sir!”
The soldier hesitates at my unexpected shout.
Good. I’m not leaving here with the puppy, but where is he?
That’s when I make a big mistake. A huge mistake. I take my eyes off of the soldier for a second, searching the camp real quick for some sign of Sir, but once I do, he quickly closes the last of the gap between us. Before I know it, he’s right there, and I’m too late to flee.
Less than two feet away, the soldier says something, then reaches for me.
Even more startled, I slap his hand. “No.”
Surprise flashes across his face, followed quickly on its heels by anger. Lunging at me, he grabs my wrist.
I twist, trying to yank free, but he’s stronger than I expected; another mistake because why would a Roman soldier in this strange place not be strong? His fingers tighten until the bones in my wrist grind together, and when I panic and swing my other hand at him, he catches that one, too.
“Let go!”
He pulls me against him.
I scream bloody murder.
It doesn’t matter that there might be monsters in the woods that I could be attracting right now. Shoot. I think I already found one, and I need any help I can get. I scream as loudly as I can, kicking at his shins and trying to wrench my hands free.
“Sir! Sir!”
The soldier curses. I recognize the tone, if not the words, and with another flash of fury, he turns me around, forcing one arm behind my back, then the next.
Pain shoots through my shoulders. “Stop! You’re hurting me!”
He says something against my ear. My stomach roils as I catch that word again.
Uxor.
Wife.
Oh, God. This is not happening, this is not happening, this is not—only it is.
I’m being abducted by some guy who speaks Latin and wears a breastplate.
The puppy that led me here is nowhere to be found.
As he drags me, I lose both of my slippers, and a small, slender tree pops into existence where I attempt to dig my heels in.
Yeah. Thanks, Persephone. Big help there.
And, yes, I’m being sarcastic. Especially since Sir isn’t the only one missing. Persephone is conveniently quiet all because I hushed her, and now I’m alone as the soldier manhandles me all the way to his camp.
You know what the sad thing is? He’s said “wife” twice now, and all I can think is: Daphne is never going to let me live this down.
Assuming I live through whatever this Roman creep has in mind, that is.
That thought hits almost as hard as the way he yanks on my poor arms.
Until now, this has felt like an adventure.
A dangerous one, maybe, but still something magical.
I fell through a mirror. I found a world full of impossible forests, strange creatures, and flowers that bloom wherever I walk.
Cassandra knew my name, telling me I was a reborn goddess; a voice inside of me agreed.
I had an animal sidekick leading the way before he vanished.
All along, I thought I was the main girl in the story. The heroine. The one who stumbled into a new world and discovered something wonderful waiting for her.
But stories aren’t safe just because they’re stories, and that’s especially true when I think of all the Greek mythology I read when I was in my middle school mythology phase.
Women are cursed in them. Stolen. Turned into trees. Sacrificed to monsters. Trapped in towers until a man decides they’ve waited long enough to be rescued.
And sometimes the man who finds them isn’t the hero.
Sometimes he’s the reason they need rescuing.
I sure do. Because the soldier doesn’t just drag me to his camp.
He maneuvers me around his fire, pausing only long enough to grab something from his pile of supplies.
Next thing I know, my back is shoved against the trunk of a tree.
Bark cuts the backs of my arm for a moment before little white flowers blossom, cushioning my skin.
He’s quick. Before I can break free, he has my wrists in his grasp again. That thing he grabbed? It was a length of rope. With my arms wrenched behind me, he ties them together, effectively trapping me to the tree.
When he’s finished, he steps back.
I swallow hard, forcing myself not to cry.
He says something. Slow and deliberate. I hear uxor again, then a whole bunch of Latin that means nothing to me.
When I don’t react, he huffs, but the disappointment only lasts a second.
His lips part and his eyes go wide before he gestures for me to stay put—as if I can go anywhere—before he disappears into the woods.
Yeah. If I can escape, I’m so going to get out of here before he comes back.
Too bad that I can’t.
I strain against the rope. It doesn’t give an inch. The marks around my wrists burn. My shoulders ache from the way he twisted them, and every time I pull, the rope tightens.
And that’s not even the worst part.
For the first time since I fell into the Other, I think I might be in over my head.