Love and Misadventure

Juliette ran back to the ladder and scrambled up, going in search of her father. She didn’t even care that he was in the middle of conversation with Fuller; in fact she came up to them at full speed and practically shoved Fuller out of the way. Sort of; he was so much bigger than her that she couldn’t budge him much.

“Daddy,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath. “There was…on the wall…we went down…Levi…”

“Alright, take it easy for a moment, Jewel. What about Levi?” Henry patted her gently on the back while she recovered from her mad dash.

She managed to draw a deep breath into her lungs and straightened up. “We found the tomb,” she said.

“Are you quite certain?”

“We were in the temple and we went down into the pool, because Levi found an engraving that talked about the sea, and the floor caved in and Levi might be hurt so we have to go.” Juliette was already walking back into the temple, tugging on Henry’s sleeve as she went. “Wait, we need some rope. Then we don’t need to keep moving the ladder.”

Juliette gathered a long bit of sturdy rope and her satchel before hurrying back to the temple and leading a skeptical Fuller and eager Henry to the channel. Fuller called for some of his men to follow them down in case there really was something down there. He seemed to doubt Juliette’s word but she was too concerned about Levi to really care about Fuller right now.

She made it back to where Levi had fallen and looked for a place to secure her rope.

“Levi?” she called worriedly. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he called back. His voice sounded a little strained, but at least he was conscious. She could see him sitting on the ground through the hole in the floor.

“I’ll be right down,” she promised. She jumped as Fuller came up beside her, yanking the rope from her hands. She glared at him and he ignored her, redoing the knot she’d started. Juliette rolled her eyes.

“Can’t you move any faster? I thought you were a trained expert in these kinds of things.” The sarcasm was obvious in her tone and Fuller gave her a dark look. He seemed about to snap at her but then remembered Henry was right behind him. Instead, he just went down the rope first, ignoring her and Levi completely. Juliette hastily shimmied down the rope and rushed over to Levi.

“You’ve really got to stop falling,” she fussed, kneeling next to him. “Have you broken anything? Did you hit your head? Let me look.”

“Good gracious, Levi, are you all right?” Henry came over to them, brow furrowed in concern.

“Yes, Dr. Covington. Aside from my pride, maybe,” Levi muttered. Henry chuckled.

“Don’t worry, my boy; you’re not a proper explorer until you’ve gotten a broken bone or a concussion or a bad case of nausea from eating the wrong berries. Lucky for you Juliette is here. She’ll fix you right up.”

“Henry, there’s passages over here that branch off from this room,” Fuller called, seeming impatient.

“I’ll be right there.” Henry turned back to Levi and Juliette. “You two stay here, make sure Levi is all right. We’ll give these tunnels a bit of a look and see what we find. And Levi?”

“Yes, sir?”

Henry flashed him a grin. “Keep up the good work.”

Levi flushed a little but seemed pleased as Henry went to follow Fuller and Juliette hoped she wasn’t beaming with pride too obviously.

“I told you he likes you,” she said, gently inspecting him for injury.

“You helped give me the idea to come down here,” Levi replied. “And I quite literally fell into this discovery.”

Juliette shrugged, brushing his hair out of his face so she could see if he’d managed to make himself bleed again. She didn’t find any new gashes, but she brushed some sand off his cheek.

“Here, take some of the colwort root,” she said. “Your back must be hurting. You’re holding your head funny, did you hurt your neck?”

“It’s just a bit stiff,” he said. Juliette scooted closer and he tensed slightly as she began to gently prod at his neck.

“Relax,” she instructed. “I’m going to crack it, and then I’m going to work the muscles a bit. Otherwise it’s going to tighten up and you’ll be walking around with your head always leaning to the right. It’s going to hurt a bit, just for a moment.”

“I’m sure it’s not that-ow, son of a bitch.” Levi grimaced as Juliette cracked his neck back into alignment.

“I warned you,” she said. “But it’ll start to feel better now.” She adjusted herself into a more comfortable position and touched his neck, trying to work the knots out.

“Levi, this works better if you relax,” she said after a few moments. “You’re putting all the knots I’ve worked out back in by tensing up like that.”

“Sorry,” Levi mumbled. She worked for another few minutes, then told him to try moving his head back and forth.

“It does feel a lot better,” he said. “You’re good at this nursing stuff.”

“I suppose I have to be, with you being so willing to put yourself at risk for the sake of discovery.” Juliette set her bag aside and then scanned Levi for any other injuries. She tried not to stare too obviously at his messy hair and half unbuttoned shirt. Her gaze flicked down again to her ribbon tied to his wrist and she felt a swarm of butterflies in her stomach. Maybe he was just wearing it to be nice, but maybe he actually liked her. It was strange to think that when she’d first met him, she thought he was a stuffy jerk, and now she smiled and felt fluttery every time she saw him.

“Do you think you're okay to stand up?” she asked, realizing she’d just been looking at him for the past several moments. He winced a little as he got to his feet and Juliette put a hand on his elbow to steady him.

“I’m not sure my back will ever be the same after this trip,” he said, leaning on the wall a bit for support.

“I’m happy to lend my nursing services when you need them,” Juliette replied. “Though you really must try to stop hitting your head. It would be a great loss for the world if anything were to happen to that impressive brain of yours.”

Levi’s ears turned red in that cute way they did and Juliette smiled a little.

“Oh, I’m not all that impressive,” Levi said.

“Of course you are,” Juliette insisted. “You’ll be as famous as my father one day, and inspire a whole new generation to love reading and appreciate history. And whoever it was that wasn’t supportive of your decision to come here, they were wrong.”

Now his entire face went red and he grew flustered as Juliette stood there looking up at him.

“I…thank you,” he said finally. “That’s…thank you. I said that already, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

His face was still bright red but for a moment Juliette thought he was about to step closer to her. They were only a few inches apart as it was. But as he pushed off against the wall, part of it crumbled away and then something was falling out of the wall right in front of Juliette’s face. It was wrapped in tattered old cloth, but some of the cloth fell away to reveal the hollowed out eye socket of a mummified skull. A torso followed the head and one arm flopped out and grazed Juliette’s face with its creepy mummy fingers.

She shrieked and nearly jumped out of her skin. She scrambled back from the mummy and fairly leaped at Levi, clinging to him with both arms like her life depended on it. Her heart was thudding so hard it was almost painful as she cringed and pressed herself tightly against his side. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her slightly away from the mummy hanging out of the wall.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said gently. “It’s not going to hurt you.”

“It touched me,” Juliette said with a shudder. She hugged him tighter as they looked at the mummy.

”Juliette,” Levi said slowly. “I think we just accidentally found Queen Arisha.”