Novel Jumper

Chapter Nine

 Very, very slowly, Connor lowered his head until his lips were next to Lilia's ear. His breath stirred her hair as he spoke. "Don't...draw... your dagger."

Lilia released her hold on her dagger. Not knowing what to do with her hands, she twined the hem of her shirt in her fingers and bent her head.

There they stood, for how long Lilia had no idea, while the hoofbeats passed. After the initial fear has passed, she became acutely aware of how close she was to Connor. She fought the sudden, powerful urge to lean into him for comfort, finding herself glad for their close proximity, because it was hiding her blush as she stared at the forest floor.

Finally, the hoofbeats faded until they could no longer be heard. Still, Lilia did not dare to move until Connor had carefully peered around the tree trunk to confirm that they were in the clear.

He stepped away from her, surveying the path grimly. It was marred with dust and mud from horse's hooves and men's feet.

"We would have been killed instantly if we were seen, no questions asked," Connor told Lilia as he bent to pick up a swathe of fabric that had most likely fallen from a horse's saddlebag.

"Why? Surely we could be valuable to them somehow," Lilia pointed out, remembering hearing in her social studies class about how the British navy had once kidnapped people off of the sea to serve in their forces.

Connor looked at her sideways. "You're right. They probably would want to use us. Maybe I would be tortured for information - but of course, they would think that I didn't have the information, even if I did, so they would be torturing me out of sheer enjoyment. And you - " Connor took a deep breath. "You would be pregnant in weeks."

Lilia, feeling violently uncomfortable, hugged herself and shuddered. "I hate being a woman in this world," she muttered.

"Is your world kinder to women?"

Lilia was about to reply in the affirmative when she realized that in many places, it really wasn't. It was simply her privileged life that kept her from fearing the issues that women of this world and even other areas of her took as everyday living.

"No," she said in response to Connor's question. "Although, where I lived, if a girl was...if a man even attempted something like that...the man back at the inn, for example. He would be put in jail for years."

Connor shot her a wide-eyed look. She thought it was due to the iron punishment that the man would get until he asked, "Mere years for such a disgusting crime?"

That gave Lilia pause. Then she remembered what had become of the man at the inn. A penalty for such a crime here was obviously death - if not from the government, then from bloodthirsty townspeople. In her world, the sentence was actually far more lenient.

"I just can't figure it out," she said thoughtfully.

"Figure what out?"

"Which world is the better one. I keep thinking that my world is better, because something like that incident probably never would have happened. But then, you point out something without even meaning to that makes this world look so much better."

"You're right, I don't mean to. And I don't think you should be comparing our worlds. Both seem to have their ups and downs. Besides, they're very different places. You could never really accurately compare them."

"I guess you're right," Lilia said. She bit her lip as Connor unfolded the cloth and examined it closely. I'm comparing the worlds like I'm choosing the better one to live in...don't get ahead of yourself, Lilia. Just get home.