by Laury Falter
CHAPTER SEVEN: THOMAS JURGEN
SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER…
In the afterlife, seventeen years on earth is equivalent to the duration of a shooting star, a period so brief it goes by almost unnoticed. This was not the case for me. Living in the other realm, where time is drawn out and marked by calendars and celestial events, it moved slower, much slower.
The muscular man or woman I anticipated would enter my life and demand to be my guardian never came, and eventually I stopped waiting for them.
That duration should also have eroded my memory of Eran, or at least my feelings toward him. It should have given me time to halt his presence from doing what they did to my insides, allowed me to rationalize away what I felt, given me the ability to recover from the sight of him quicker. It should have given me the upper hand. As it turned out, time had done nothing to help me. I learned this when I unceremoniously shot back into my body on what should have been an uneventful morning.
“They have a new boy over there.”
That statement was laced with enough curiosity that I opened my eyes to find Katharina, my oldest sibling at eighteen years of age, and Osanna, the next eldest, neither of whom ever seemed bored with the topic of other boys, standing at the window.
“He looks like our age,” Osanna said.
They had pulled back the drape and were entirely disengaged from the current conversations raging behind them. There were seven of my family members in all on earth, in this lifetime, and they could hold several simultaneous, synchronous conversations at once, which is exactly what they were doing.
“He’s handsome too…” Katharina said, twisting her head for a better view.
Given Katharina’s and Osanna’s good looks, they consistently had several men vying for their attention and multiple marriage proposals, which had all been averted while they collected a greater entourage of suitors. I was the opposite. Every man who had approached me held no appeal. I preferred a more independent lifestyle, leaving my mother to worry over whether I would ever be married off. To her, every man was an opportunity, unless he had the surname Jurgen.
“Get away from that window,” my mother snapped, pulling aside a reluctant Katharina and Osanna. “What kind of insane man builds a house within a stone’s throw of another? Symon you will get down from that table or I’ll…”
“A Jurgen, mother,” muttered Katharina, “that’s who. One who has bore a beautiful line of men.”
My mother’s mouth fell open. “You will not…,” she hissed, but that was as far as the threat went, the upset being too great for her at the idea of her own child disobeying a family tradition requiring anyone in our family find all Jurgens unbearable.
We were at war. And we had been for generations. The family to the north had claimed our family’s land and then vice versa until eventually no one could remember where the original border had been drawn.
It was an old and tired tale but an unwelcome distraction for Katharina and Osanna. “Friedricha, come see,” Katharina urged.
I sat up. “No thanks.”
“Now there’s a girl with a good head on her shoulders,” my mother mumbled, which they both ignored.
“He’s a cousin they didn’t know they had,” remarked Symon, the youngest in the family and the sneakiest ten year old I knew. “He showed up this morning. I heard them talking behind the Big Tree.”
The Big Tree sat at the corner of the disputed property line, nestled between the main road and a poorly tended field of knee-high grass, which lent a perfect place to hide.
“His name is Thomas,” Symon went on.
“Thomas,” Osanna purred.
I rolled my eyes and pulled myself to a standing position. Breakfast, which consisted of day-old rolls and soup, was still on the table. I sat down to eat and watch the morning entertainment.
“He has something wrong with his voice though.”
Katharina became instantly alarmed. “Wrong?”
“He talks funny,” Symon confirmed.
“With a lisp?” Osanna demanded.
“Like this…’My family sends their regards’,” said Symon, in impersonation.
Katharina’s lip curled up in an unsure frown.
I thought it sounded intriguing.
“That’s called an accent, Symon,” said Ensel, our oldest brother.
“Now finish your soup,” my mother interjected. “You too, Katharina and Osanna.”
Symon grimaced and picked up his spoon, but when she wasn’t looking set it back down again.
Katharina and Osanna remained at the window.
“Girls…,” my mother warned.
Slowly and reluctantly, they let the curtain fall, and my morning entertainment ended. We spent the remainder of the day in the fields, farming, with Katharina and Osanna taking repeated glances at the Jurgen’s home. Unfortunately for them, there was no sign of life, despite the nearly constant feeling that someone was watching us as closely as they were watching them.
Personally, I had no interest whatsoever in learning about Thomas Jurgen. There were far more important matters that required my attention such as the safest path to the Hertzog home and how quickly I could travel it. There would be people waiting for me tonight, ready to send messages to those who had departed from earth. And, as usual, I would be going alone, which always required diligence.
My family knew nothing about my ability or the fact that I took frequent trips to various villages to deliver messages to and from the dead. I wasn’t sure how they would accept it, if at all, knowing that I was the Messenger they had heard about traveling between villages but who never happened to stop at their own.
By those who came to me with messages, I had started out feared and had grown to become cautiously revered, and I couldn’t stand for my family to look at me that way. To them, I was the “girl with a good head on her shoulders”, normal, dependable, quiet. I was the one who did as she was told, without an ounce of interest in anything other than farming and helping her parents at home. To my customers, however, I was known only as the Messenger.
So when night came, and no one was left awake, I slipped out the door and into the bitterly cold darkness all by myself. The full moon’s light caught my breath rising like a translucent ghost toward the sky, causing me to draw the hood of my cloak over my head to lessen the cool, damp air.
I tried to lighten my footsteps across the gravel, paying more attention to the sound and the possibility of waking my family than to my surroundings, or anyone within them.
I was thankful after reaching the dirt road that led into the city and for the sounds of my footsteps quieting. The crunch of gravel my father had laid down around our property was meant to deter intruders or alert us to their presence but it also kept me diligent on my nights sneaking out.
From there, right up to the Big Tree, I felt confident that I had made an undetected escape. Then came the command.
“Stop!”
I swung around, my body flexing into the naturally defensive stance it had learned during training. This was good because someone was swiftly coming toward me.
Dread, laced with panic, flooded every nerve in my body at the sight of the man. He didn’t slow or hesitate in his approach.
As discreetly as I could, my hand found its way inside my cloak to the handle of my sword. The pace of his footsteps increased then, but I withdrew my blade right before he came within arm’s reach.
His own blade came out of nowhere, slicing through the air toward my arm. He intended to disable me, but my arm lifted in time to block his attempt. My sword quivered feebly in my hand and I tightened my grip.
If he noticed, he didn’t show it. There was no slowing his assault, no hesitation in his movement. He was certain about his objective, and whatever it was didn’t leave me in a positive position.
As his sword continued to slide down mine, I twisted it and raised the blade again, just as I had in training.
It was overhead before he could reac
t. When it cut through the air, he stopped my sword with the edge of his own.
Move, I thought.
As I did, he did.
To the left, I thought.
And he followed.
From there we began a morbid rhythm of dancing around the other, swords clanging to a stop at the end of every set, our bodies close enough that I could smell his scent. It was appealing and I was ashamed to come to this conclusion.
It made me fight harder.
I advanced on him as I would my worst enemy, meeting his attacks with equal grace, power and force.
Then his foot landed in the edge of a puddle, so common at this time of year, and I knew he hadn’t thought about our wet wintery earth.
He slipped, and I found the opportunity I had been waiting on.
My sword swung down, as he struggled to regain his footing. My weapon aimed for his neck, and I was sure of its angle, its speed, and its aim.
And yet somehow he turned it all against me.
In a split second, he used my own force to his will, blocking my sword with his and using it to propel himself into a crouch. From there, he lunged.
Before I knew what happened, my back met the Big Tree, and the man’s hand was tightening around my fingers holding the sword.
I let it fall, because I saw no other option.
His free hand briskly slipped up the side of my face and shoved back the hood of my cloak, and then he froze. His jaw, which had been stressed seconds earlier, slackened, and his eyes widened.
“You’re-You’re a girl,” he muttered.
And you’re Eran, I thought and froze.
We stood there, staggered by our realizations.
Before I knew it, or could stop it, that familiar blaze began in my stomach and flooded my torso.
What was he doing here? Did he come as an Alterum, with memory of the afterlife, or was he here by chance, living a life of education?
“I thought,” he stammered, backing away. He laughed to himself and let go of my hands. “I thought you were a boy up to no good.” His eyes sharpened on me, and I wondered if he recognized me at all. “But…you are certainly no boy.”
“No,” I stated, frowning. “I am not.” With my hands free, I pulled my cloak tighter around my shoulders as I glared at him. “What were you doing attacking me? I could have killed you, you know.”
Eran laughed, bending so that he could brace himself against his knees. I took this as incredibly insulting. Only after his humor subsided, was he able to respond.
“I strongly disagree.”
Feeling both the burn of embarrassment and the urge to have him take me seriously, I started toward the road again. “I truly don’t care,” I muttered over my shoulder.
The slosh of footsteps through the mud told me that he was following and then he appeared directly at my side, as if I’d asked him to join me. Again, I was insulted, and I spent several minutes considering ways to dissuade him. I was in the middle of formulating one when he interrupted my thoughts.
“What are you doing out this late at night? A girl like you shouldn’t be alone.”
I chuckled confidently. “I can take care of myself.”
“Hmm, yes…yes…I could see that…,” he said under his breath, although I noticed that he hadn’t stopped or turned around. “Just in case…” He leaned toward me, coming into my view. That smirk I’d seen so regularly at training was planted on his face. “I’m going to escort you.”
“I don’t need an escort,” I snapped.
He jerked back, seemingly humbled by my emotional response, although I doubted that was the case. “May I walk with you then?” he asked in a tone more submissive than I’d ever heard from him. “You might find me to be of some assistance…,” he added.
Of course he would have that belief. Of course…
After all that we had been through I wanted to stop and unleash the frustration I had felt from him beginning the moment we’d first laid eyes on each other. I wanted to tell him that his charisma didn’t work with me, that his legendary status didn’t sway me, that he was nothing more to me than an arrogant, self-serving nuisance.
But I couldn’t.
I wasn’t sure if he even knew who I was – and if he’d come down as a reborn he wouldn’t and nothing I would say to him would make any sense.
“Do as you wish,” I replied, continuing down the road.
“Thank you.” His tone seemed to be tinged with teasing gratitude, as if he had a right to escort me. I was about to correct this assumption when he asked, “So…where are we going?”
My reply was sharp. “To deliver messages.”
His eyes were on me, evaluating what he was seeing. “It’s settled then…,” he declared, “you’ll deliver your messages and I’ll escort you. And I won’t even charge you for acting as your guardian.”
He said this out of humor but I couldn’t seem to stop my response, which came out as a haughty snicker, thick with sarcasm.
He chuckled to himself before admitting, “You know, no one ever treats me this way.”
If you stay, I thought, you better get used to it.
I had the urge to ask if he remembered me, if he recalled the prickly way we had come across each other in the afterlife. But this question was off-limits, unwritten taboo amongst the Alterums who did remember. If someone comes to earth as a reborn you inhibit their intended purpose of learning by bringing up the afterlife, and unless you know for certain one way or the other, you simply do not approach the question of whether they recall it or not. Therein was the problem. I couldn’t ask if he remembered me. He couldn’t ask if I remembered him. Yet, he seemed to answer my unspoken question anyways with his next statement.
“My name is Thomas.”
I almost stumbled when he said it. Because he didn’t use his eternal name, Eran. Thomas was his given name in this lifetime, which told me that he only recalled it and nothing that came before.
So, he had come as a reborn… This made sense. It meant he had been on this earth seventeen years and therefore had come here at the same time as I had fallen. It also meant he had no memory of me.
Taking a moment to study him, I found that he looked exactly the same here as in the afterlife. His face was still strikingly handsome, with the same translucent blue-green eyes; his brown curly hair was kept in the same scruffy style; and his body was just as lithe, muscular, and agile.
“Thomas,” I repeated, although it came out breathless. It sounded full of lust, which was accurate, but I certainly didn’t want him to know it.
My gaze dove to the uneven dirt road.
If he detected my reaction to him, thankfully, he had the decency not to acknowledge it.
“Yes, Thomas,” he repeated. “I’m a Jurgen,” he added before pausing to smirk. As it rose up my breath fell away. “But I’m guessing you already knew which family I come from…”
I bristled at his hinting. “And how would I know that?”
“Weren’t you watching for me today?” When I didn’t answer, he added, “From the fields?”
“I…I…,” I began and had to stop to concentrate on preventing the heat from spreading any farther up my face.
I felt him eyeing me closely. “Or maybe that was one of your sisters, Katharina or Osanna?”
He offered this notion to me as a gesture of reconciliation, a white flag of peace to erase my embarrassment because we both knew I had been just as attentive to the Jurgen home as Katharina and Osanna had been. Where his decency was coming from, I could not tell. It must have bubbled up through a temporary rip in his thick layer of egotism.
“Yes,” he said declaratively with an affirming nod. “I believe it was one of your sisters. So, how long have you been doing this?”
“Doing what?” I asked, stepping over the root of an exposed tree.
I wasn’t sure but I thought the pressure of his hand moved below the cloak under my elbow, assisting me. Yet, on looking back, I saw both arms at his side.
>
“How long have you been endangering-” He cut himself off, quietly cleared his throat, and started again. “How long have you been braving the night to deliver messages?”
“A while,” I said with an upward tip of my head.
He nodded speculatively. “And you’ve been doing it on your own all along?”
“Yes.”
I caught the beginning of an irritated sigh which ended abruptly with another throat clearing. “I see,” he acknowledged.
I sent a glare in his direction and his next question was more banal. “And where are we going tonight?”
“The Hertzogs.”
“Ah…” He didn’t sound impressed.
“There will be other families there. Nearly twenty of them.”
“And where are your messages?” he asked, surveying the length of my cloak, assuming they were hidden somewhere out of sight.
“In my head.”
His eyebrows shot up, I noticed from the corner of my eye. “They’re in your-”
“Head. I memorize them.”
When I gave him a full, unadulterated look, I found his jaw slackened and an awed upturn of his lips. “Now that’s impressive.”
“Thank you,” I replied proudly.
“You’re welcome.” Without pausing for me to take full claim of my ability, he went on to ask, “And you say you’ve been doing this for-”
“Years, Thomas.”
“Right…Friedricha…years.”
At his response, my shoulders stiffened. “You know my name?”
He seemed at a loss for words but overcame it quickly. “Yes, I do.”
“How?”
His head rose to scan the horizon, where a thickening sliver of lights glinted in the distance. “I was curious too.”
“About?”
“You,” he admitted, openly.
I swallowed, hard.
“Why were you curious about me?”
“Because I saw you in the field.”
“So you were in the house…,” I declared.
“Which you were watching,” he replied. “Weren’t you?”
Heat suddenly raced up my cheeks, making me appreciate the dark.