The Life and Times of Bonnie Chance

Reunion

With no where else to go, Bonnie and Carol decided to pause for a moment to catch their breath and rest, taking turns staying awake to keep watch in case someone came looking for them. Carol sighed while she huddled against her sleeping older cousin for warmth. Her shift had only just started, but it was hard staying awake with so little sleep in such miserable conditions. Both girls were feeling fatigued from their ordeal. But, despite her own wounds, Carol knew Bonnie was equally tired, if not more, from the poor treatment she received at the hands of the Hittites and their cruel prince; and from fighting back against their enemies so hard to save them, healing and protecting her while she was injured.

'Dusk just came... Must wait a little more to be sure...' Carol thought, guessing the time by how long she felt they had been sitting there. 'Hittite soldiers surely must discuss for a long time...' She sneezed. "Achoo! So cold!" she whispered, pressing closer to Bonnie again. 'I wonder how Memphis is doing...' She closed her eyes, feeling anxious for him and his wounds. "Pleaseee, God... Please protect him!" she prayed quietly. 'I hope he is still alive... Poor him, just because of me!' She started crying quietly so she wouldn't wake her cousin. "Memphis, please forgive me... At first, we didn't understand each other... Now it's changed... To me, you've become cuter... and more congenial... It's a pity that I just understand that now... it's too late... Already too late... Hu... Hu..." Her crying woke Bonnie.

"Mm... Hmm? Carol... are you crying?" Bonnie asked a little groggily, waking up completely when she realized that she was. "What is it?"

"Ah... I..." Carol responded with melancholy, surprised when Bonnie's expression suddenly hardened, and she held up a hand to stop her.

"Shh! Sorry, but you hear that, right?" Bonnie whispered urgently. She thought she could hear the sound of water being disturbed.

–∞–

Mutallu stared down at the contents of Bonnie's bag, which he had removed and laid out on a table before him.

"W-What... What is this...?" he wondered aloud, surprised by many of the strange, incomprehensible objects. A silver mirror polished beyond perfection that open and closed like a clamshell with one half that enlarged its reflected image to show every pore in the skin, a wooden stick with a core of what appeared to be soft lead, a strange instrument of metal wire framing translucent circles of glass, a bright red shiny hard case shaped like lips containing two different shades of a peach-colored substance with the consistency of lard and a pleasant smell, a hard square case containing a palette of three shimmery colored powders and black powder and a vial of black tar and tiny brush with a fine tip and a thin stick with small sponges on the end and a small wooden stick with a kohl core, an unnaturally smooth piece of papyrus with strange markings and an impossibly detailed and smooth painting of Bonnie's face sealed inside a strange clear wrapping, scraps of a strange sort of papyrus with more strange markings and less detailed and colorful faces on them, odd coins of no discernible value, a metal box of white tablets with a strong peppermint scent, a bottle made of clear material that wasn't glass that he had never seen before yet shared similar properties to the unrecognizable materials of the other containers, a small book of more strange papyrus connected by a spiraling metal wire through holes at the top, a yellow box of something like thicker papyrus with more strange symbols containing scentless white tablets, a metal rectangle container that made a small spark when he touched a moving part, more odd papyrus, stretchy rings of unfamiliar material, a hair comb made with more of the same strange hard material as the other nonmetal cases, a leather-bound book that didn't feel like normal leather, a yellow cloak of a more flexible version of the nonglass material that had been folded up into a very small and compact bundle. Metal clothing pins that bent and curled to hook into a hood that protected the wearer from being pricked, a rod that shined a flameless light when he moved a tab on the side up, ripped up pieces of odd papyrus, a metal container of hard sweets, a pack of papyrus wrapped strips of another unfamiliar substance, papyrus wrapped strips of sticky fabric with absorbent white pads in the center, a bottle with an odd mechanism on top that sprayed a liquid with an unusual odor, Egyptian jewelry, a necklace with a scorpion on the pendant, another necklace with a strangely shaped pendant, and a ring of unusual quality of craftsmanship. The ring intrigued him. It appeared to be too fine to have been made by human hands. Its stones were set in an eight-pointed star design, with sparkling blue sapphires surrounding a gleaming opal. As he stared into the flawless, strangely cut, deep blue stones that flickered and shined in the torchlight like cold blue flames, a terrible truth dawned on the diviner. That girl was not of this world.