Tara Across Time--NaNoWriMo

Chapter Four

Tara woke up to her waist in foul-smelling water. Flies swarmed over dead frogs and gutted fish. The moon overhead revealed her to be standing in tall reeds. Off in the distance across the narrow river stood what  she thought to be an colorful Egyptian temple.

"Am I in Disneyworld?" she thought.  "I heard they were doing something new. A Cleopatra Exhibit or something like that. Something long and steady floated by into the moonlight. It wasn't mechanical. Then it struck Tara. It was a real Crocodile. "My God! This is Egypt," she thought as her heart leaped in her throat.  She managed to elude the quiet beast by backing off into the tall reeds.

Just then she heard what sounded like a mother and daughter off to her right. Somehow she was able to understand the strange language. She was able to move closer without causing them to notice.

A woman in a blue and maroon striped Hebrew robe was speaking to her daughter. 'Watch the basket, Miriam.  Our son in now in the hands of the God of Abraham."

Before them a reed-covered basket covered with pitch to it water tight bounced as the river's gentle waves rocked it. Tara thought deeply. She hardly ever went to Sunday School as a kid because they had moved around America about twenty times as a girl. Yet she knew in an instant where she was, who stood a few feet away, and who was in the small, floating basket.

This was Moses of the Old Testament. His mother feared Pharaoh would also kill her son if she kept him with her longer and was no longer able to escape his decree to kill the Hebrew slave male children. The girl's name had to be Miriam, who was Moses' older sister. As yet the baby Moses had no name because the daughter of Pharaoh had not drawn him from the water. That would indeed happen in a few minutes or hours.

Somehow the Visitors had placed her three thousand five hundred years in the past to the Nile River in Ancient Egypt. The Great Pyramid of Kufu would be a day or two by boat the South at Giza. She was near Tanus, build by Hebrew slave labor. Moses' people were slaves. Tara had long doubted that Moses actually lived.  Not the she was a scholar. On TV one day a scholarly man said so in an interview.

Forgetting her discomfort in the water, curiosity got the best of her. She wanted to follow the basket and Miriam up river to see if they would got to the Egyptian king's daughter.  Tara was quieter than she had ever been as she took care to keep Miriam and the basket both in sight.

In the distant was a royal bathing area where water was fresher and an number of young Egyptian women frolicking as the sun at length broke over the mountains,in the distant Sinai.  Almost predictable was the covered basket making it's way in the princess's direction with a hopeful Miriam watching. She stood discouraged until she noticed how friendly the daughter of Pharaoh was and the fun she was having.

But they were still quite a distance when Tara was struck with fear. The Crocodile was returning and would be in a good place to consume both Miriam and the baby Moses.

The Sinai Covenant in the Wilderness would never happen, and the Hebrew Nation would never happen if the crocodile killed them both.

If only Tara could divert the crocodile away from its intended prey.

Tara then stepped further into the water between the croc so that he could not see Miriam and Moses. The last thing she remembered was fighting for her life.

"Wow!"  It took Tara a few moments to focus on the blue-clad blur before. "I'm Dr. Angela Schiff, head archaeologist and my medical assistant who helped in your reclamation."

"I don't understand."

The medical assistant stepped forward. "We found you dead in Ancient Egypt. There were crocodile teeth marks all over your body. The teeth we pulled from your body came from a species is long extinct. We were fascinated how someone with twenty-first century casual dress could be in Egypt three thousand years before her time. You could not have traveled through time using the technology currently available to you."

Tara sat up. "Time travel was yet to be invented in my world." She began to stretch her arms and legs.

"Easy," the medical assistant said. "I'm Dr. Boron. After your mummified body was found fairly well preserved, we discovered something unusual about it.  We got special permission from the Controllers to travel back in time to the same spot we found your remains. We were able to determine almost to the minute when you died. Although we were a little late, and we could not make a error correction in our journey through time, our medical expertise allowed us to revive you before your blood dried up and your organs deteriorated."

"So here I am?" Tara said.

"We reproduced your clothes precisely and a few other things from your time period to wear," Dr. Schiff said. "The problem is that your clothes dated from the late twentieth or early twenty-first century."

Tara's casual clothes had a fresh scent.

"Because archaeologists and historians are interested in me, does that mean the Controllers are not going to return me to the the year 2025?"

"I regret that we can't."

"Why?"

"Because you are like a walking museum display. We can't ask questions of mummies wrapped thousands of years,ago. But we can ask you. There are things you know about your time that scholars have long debates. We can make you part of our lecture staff."

"So I am not on my way back to the twenty-first century?"

"Not anytime soon."