Page 24 of The Alien I Fell in Love with on Walpurgis Night

“This is a puzzle jug. The person who can take a drink from it without having any other liquid spill out wins. This is a new one, so I don’t know its trick.”

“How fun,” Georgiana says delightedly. “And what’s the liquid?”

“An alcohol,” I say.

“Will you go first and show me how it’s done?” she asks Fox who nods and agrees. We both watch as he puts his fingers over some of the openings and takes a sip. Zota goes everywhere and I can’t help but laugh. I look over at Georgiana and she’s laughing too.

“My turn,” she says excitedly. She takes the large jug and after a few seconds of investigations, tries a different option than Fox. When the liquid spills all over her she laughs with us and as she passes the jug over to me, I have the distinct feeling she’s not acting anymore. She’s really enjoying herself.

12

Georgiana

After dinner and an hour trying to figure out Fox’s puzzle jug, Axl escorts me back to our quarters. On the way, I say to him, “I think you owe me for getting us out of the tattoos.”

“That was a stroke of genius,” he tells me quietly and this makes me smile. “People rarely surprise me, but you Georgiana, you’re something else.”

“I’m glad you took me to the shrine beforehand, it set the stage,” I’m conscious to watch what I say.

“But this is not a game. This is real.”

“Okay,” I reply. I assume it’s part of his task here, to confuse me to make this more interesting to watch for the viewers. To make me question these decisions, otherwise it would be really boring if I just went along with everything because I knew it was all fake. So I call this ‘level two.’ Because it all makes sense. That’s a lot of money waiting for me in that cabin and obviously I need to earn it.

We reach our quarters and enter. Once inside I notice the wardrobes are open. “What’s this?”

“I had clothing made for our journey.”

“What about my things at the hotel?”

“I called the hotel and had them put into storage. Don’t worry I paid for it in advance and they assured me your belongings would be kept safe.”

“What did you tell the hotel?”

“I told them that you’d been called away home for an emergency, but would return to get your luggage later.”

“They didn’t think that was odd?” I ask, thinking about the little family-owned hotel in Brocken.

“I don’t know if they thought it was peculiar. They complied easily enough when I transferred money to them.”

“For how long did you say I would be away?”

“A year.”

“A year!? I’m not going to be away for a year.”

“No, but I wanted to be on the safe side. Now let’s look through these clothes and make sure everything we need is here. I don’t think the ship we are traveling on is going to be first class.”

I watch Axl as he begins to look through his clothing. All I see are black shirts and trousers. And there are no tags so I’m not sure what he’s checking for exactly, but I don’t ask. Then he moves over to my side of the wardrobe which has more long black and blue dresses. I don’t mind these dresses, they are comfortable, loose, and warm. But they lack any kind of style. At first, I thought a man must have developed this science fiction role play up because the costumes lacks fashion, but then I realized no man has ever dreamed up women wearing long comfortable dresses so there must be a female costume designer somewhere behind the scenes.

“I’ve never bought women’s clothing before,” he says. “In the Empire, only a married man has that right. But I believe everything I bought now will be suitable for you as my wife.” Then he checks the drawers and finally a small black box on the table. From the box he pulls out two bracelets.

“What are those?”

“Marriage bracelets. They’re genetically coded to us courtesy of the Alliance Force.”

“What for?”

“So that we are always aware of the other person. But don’t worry, it’s not like binding tattoos. We can take them off at our discretion.”

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