The Rusty Jug - Chapter 14 + Epilogue

Chapter 14

Jin made himself stay in his bottle for eight months before he visited Lia again. This time when he visited, he didn’t even look at her before snooping through her things. He figured that if he so much as glanced in her direction, he would take advantage of her sleeping body again.

He found a picture of three different classrooms full of students, and a stack of papers Lia had graded. He smiled; happy for her. She’s doing so well!

He wandered the rest of her house, and as much as he tried to stay away from the walled off room, curiosity drew him to it like a magnet. He wondered if she had left it alone completely. Or has she turned it into a shrine to me?

To his surprise, it wasn’t walled off anymore. For some reason, Lia had re-painted it with pictures of a teddy bear, donkey, tiger, rabbit, and something that had a pig’s nose but that Jin couldn’t actually figure out what it was. Are these supposed to be pictures of stuffed animals?

She had also filled the room with a variety of stuffed animals, and a baby-sized chair. Or maybe it’s a swing? In any case, it was much too small for Lia to use, and it puzzled him.

He wandered into the kitchen, and found a small chair with its own table-like tray. On the kitchen table was a stack of odd shaped cloths that Lia was in the process of sewing into what looked like extremely tiny, thick, bulky underwear. What in the world? He scratched his head.

Jin heard Lia stumble in the hallway, curse sleepily, and enter the bathroom. He silently drew closer to her, listening as she relieved herself. I hadn’t expected her to wake up!

“Ouch! Stop that!” Lia muttered to herself. She flushed the toilet and rinsed her hands for a second in the dark.

On her way back to bed, she stumbled – “I said stop that, it hurts!” – tripped, and would have fallen against the wall, but Jin caught her.

“Jin!” Lia gasped. “But I made my third wish!”

“You did?” Jin asked incredulously.

“I must have. There’s no other way to explain it,” Lia replied.

“You couldn’t have! I’d be stuck in my bottle until my next master,” Jin insisted.

“But one night I dreamt I was talking to you, and I made a wish… My wish came true, so I figured that I must have said it out loud… Well… Part of it did, anyway,” Lia told him.

“What was your wish?” Jin asked, knowing that it wasn’t for him to return to her. She wouldn’t have had to wish that, merely order him to do it. Slowly, he realized that her stomach was huge compared to normal, and that it was moving.

Lia grunted, and breathed purposefully as if she was in pain. “Stop kicking me,” she whispered.

Jin abruptly let go of her, and examined her stomach. “Lia, you’re pregnant!”

“That was my wish,” Lia informed him.

“I don’t understand,” Jin replied. “If you wished to get pregnant, than how am I still here?” He magicked a vase to float across the room. “And able to use magic?” If his curse had been broken somehow, he’d be powerless.

“Well. If I remember correctly, I wished to have your baby and to spend the rest of my life with you,” Lia confessed softly.

“Oh Lia!” Jin exclaimed in an equally soft whisper. He hugged her tightly, feeling happier than he ever had in his life. “I love you so much!”

Lia began to cry at his announcement.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“I’m so happy to hear that!” Lia sobbed. “I was so afraid that I had made you hate me!”

“To be honest, I wanted to, but I just couldn’t. I’ve been… haunting you; visiting every once in a while as you slept. I’m so proud of everything you’ve accomplished without me, and I was afraid I’d just mess it all up again.”

“Oh Jin… I’ll admit I was messed up before you left, but my plan had always been to work my way towards something like I have now. I’ve learned a way to make money that doesn’t involve stealing, stripping, or sex. God! I haven’t had sex in so long… Anyway, I feel… that if you had been here with me, I would have still gotten to this point… I would have just shared my journey with you.”

Jin kissed Lia. “I’m sorry I made you go through it all alone.” He grinned and added, “But you should know, you did have sex not so long ago… Probably right about the same time you made your wish.”

“Really?” Lia grinned in return. “More please!”

Jin scooped her up, and happily carried her to bed.

*******

A month later, Lia was happy that her classes were over for the summer before her baby decided to be born. Some of her students even threw her a baby shower. She had so much more stuff for her baby than she needed, but she figured it was better to have too much than not enough.

Jin had spent his voluntary time in his bottle typing up some of the events of his life. He was grateful that his clock kept track of everything for him because it was relatively easy to recall things he had long forgotten. He was even able to see how it would make an interesting fiction novel, and so wrote it as a series of short stories in which the “bad guy” was the main character.

During the month after his reunion with Lia, he found a magazine that published a few fiction stories each month, and had submitted his first one. It was the one in which he was cursed by a witch. Time had even given him the perspective to write her side of the story fairly accurately.

“Hey Lia!” Jin called out to her as he held the mail he had just retrieved from the box. She was in the kitchen cooking a ton of food to freeze so that she would have “instant” meals to reheat and eat after the baby was born – when she didn’t feel like cooking.

“Something wrong?” She asked loud enough for him to hear.

“That magazine has decided to publish my story!” Jin announced. “I think I am going to submit the next one… Maybe they’ll serialize it.”

“That’s great news!” Lia congratulated. There was a sudden splash and Lia gasped.

“Are you okay?? Did you spill some soup?” Jin asked. He didn’t rush to her because he could breathe easily, so he knew she wasn’t in danger or hurt.

There was a loud clatter, and Jin decided to rush to investigate after all. He found Lia bracing herself with the counter. “What’s wrong?”

“They assured me that I’d know when it was time! They said I’d feel contractions!” Lia cried in surprise and excitement, and a tiny bit of panic.

“What do I do?” Jin demanded.

 Lia tried to laugh. “Calm down Jin. We can't both fall apart!”

Instantly, Jin felt calm; his order would not let him feel otherwise. He helped Lia to a chair, and held her hand as she sat down. She scrunched up her face in pain, and panted.

She pointed to her lap. “I don’t think there’s time to do much other than catch.”

Jin looked between her legs. She still had a habit of not wearing underwear, and was in fact wearing nothing but an apron. He saw the baby’s head. “I think you are right.”

“I have to stand!” Lia insisted. Jin steadied her, and watched as she squatted. He prepared himself to catch the baby.

Lia grunted with effort, and resisted the urge to hold her breath. She had the overwhelming urge to push, and after what seemed like several minutes, but was actually only one, she felt a great relief. There was now blood and other fluid on the kitchen floor, but she didn’t care.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” She asked excitedly. She hadn’t wanted the doctor to tell her. She figured that she would be happy either way, so it didn’t make a difference.

“A girl!” Jin proclaimed.

“Oh Jin, she’s gorgeous, and looks just like you!”

“That’s funny; I was going to say she looks like you.”

Both Lia and Jin were crying in happiness, and Jin kissed his daughter on the forehead before handing her over to her mother. Lia held the newborn as her body finished its task, and Jin helped when he could. Soon enough, she was sitting on a chair attempting to nurse the baby for the first time.

Relax Lia… You can do this!

*******

Lia was sitting on the couch two weeks later, nursing her daughter – who they had decided to name Jia Lin – when the doorbell rang.

“Jin? Can you see who it is?” Lia asked.

Jin was already halfway there, and said, “Sure.” He opened the door to find a man and woman dressed in business attire. “May I help you?”

“We’re looking for Lia Beaumont,” the woman stated.

“Why?” Jin asked suspiciously.

“We are private investigators hired by Hannah Beaumont in order to find out what happened to her granddaughter, Lia, who went missing nearly 15 years ago when her parents were murdered. We just want to talk to Miss Beaumont to see if she is who we are looking for,” the man explained.

“Listen, Lia’s been through a lot, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to go digging up painful memories,” Jin informed them.

“Hey Jin, who is it?” Lia called out.

“I don’t want to tell you,” Jin called out in return.

“Why not? Is it a surprise? One of my students perhaps?” Lia asked as she awkwardly got out of the chair she occupied.

“No, they say they are private investigators,” Jin answered.

“Really?” Lia asked curiously, closer now. A moment later, she appeared in the hallway. She was wearing a dress, and had one side of her top lowered to accommodate Jia, who was attached to her nipple.

“Are you Lia Beaumont?” The man asked.

“Yes,” Lia confirmed. “Is something wrong? Or are you hoping I’ll testify against more gang members?”

“Neither. Can we come in?” The woman asked.

Lia shrugged, and stepped back to let them in. Jin took Jia from her since he could tell the infant was sleeping more than eating. He gestured a reminder to Lia to cover up, and Lia absently complied. Her attention was focused on her unexpected guests.

She led the PI’s to the kitchen table, inviting them to sit. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“No thanks,” they replied and then introduced themselves. “Can you tell us about your parents?”

“My parents were killed when I was 8. I don’t remember much about them. Just that they loved me,” Lia shrugged.

“What were their names?”

“I don’t really remember, um Alex.. Alan maybe, and Fran or… or nan… Nancy maybe… Why?” Lia knew that they were listed on her birth certificate – which she had had to provide when she first enrolled in college – but she hadn’t really dwelled on them much as dwelling on them inevitable had her dwelling on their death and her time in the gang.

“Almost 15 years ago, our client’s son and his wife were murdered. Our Client’s name is Hannah Beaumont, and their names were Alan and Francis,” the woman informed Lia as the man finished writing down what Lia had said exactly.

The woman continued, “Alan and Francis had an 8 year old daughter named Lia who disappeared that day, and though police and other investigators searched for her, she was nowhere to be found.”

Lia snorted softly, "Yeah. The gang leader was good at hiding us girls.” She shuddered at the memories of that night, and then shook them away. “Are you saying I have a grandmother who has been searching for me all this time?”

“If you are who we are looking for, yes.”

“How did you find me now?” Lia wondered.

“To be honest, we’ve only just started looking. Mrs. Beaumont had given up all hope years ago, but she recently became ill, and she thought it would be worth trying again. She hired us, and we started with an internet search.”

The man took over. “There was a recent birth announcement listing you as the mother, and then a few school related records that went back about 3 years… and then nothing. So, we figured that we’d come talk with you.”

Lia told them her story, editing it to save time – else it would have taken hours if not days – and she didn’t think they really needed to know everything. Afterwards, they both looked close to tears.

“Well, we have a DNA sample from Mrs. Beaumont. If you agree, we will have your DNA tested to see if you really are her granddaughter. She asked us not to contact her until we were certain,” the man explained.

“For the record, we do believe you are who we’re looking for,” the woman added, “but our job is to prove it. Early on, a couple of unscrupulous people learned of our client’s tragedy, and tried to pass off other girls as the missing child. Mrs. Beaumont does not wish to go through that again.”

Lia nodded, and agreed to do whatever she needed to do.

A month later, she was reunited with her paternal grandmother and various other family members. They threw her a huge celebration, and she was so happy that she cried for about an hour straight. It had never once occurred to her to look for her family!

She hired the PI team to look for her mother’s family, and soon had more relatives than she knew what to do with! A part of her heart resented being stolen from this life, but mostly the experience was healing. She finally felt like she had people who cared about her!

It turned out that both her parents came from mildly wealthy families, and she stood to inherit a good chunk of money from her parents and their families. This was fine – in Lia’s opinion – but she realized that she didn’t need it. I’m able to take care of myself now! She put it all into a trust for Jia.

Epilogue

Lia finished grading assignments, and stretched. She needed to prepare for the first round of a new “tournament” sponsored by the college she worked at. She went into her basement, which had been converted to a gym.

On her way, she looked out the window looking into the backyard. Jin was playing with Jia, who was 17 months old and just starting to talk. She smiled and watched for a moment.

“Ok Jia, that’s enough for now. I’m going to put you down.” Jin had been twirling Jia around, and now set her on her feet.

“Up!” Jia demanded, and Jin complied with a smile. He tickled her, and put her back down.

“Up!” Jia demanded once more, and Jin promptly picked her up again.

“Do you want me to swing you again? Daddy’s tired,” Jin explained.

“Gen!” Jia insisted, and Jin sighed, but twirled her around some more.

Lia laughed. “You can say no to her, you know!”

“I know,” Jin grinned at Lia. He set Jia on her feet, and took a step in Lia’s direction.

“GEN!” Jia shouted and stamped her foot. Jin laughed. “Okay, last time.” He picked his daughter up, and swung her around a bit more.

“You’re going to spoil her!” Lia laughed, and continued on her way.

“I know, but that is a father’s prerogative.

Lia turned her thoughts to the tournament. It was the state kickboxing competition, and her school had decided to host it when Lia had called to their attention that the Kickboxing Association was looking for a new – bigger – venue. She’d entered it for fun, and her students had teased her.

“You’re a tiny little thing! Watching you kickbox would be hilarious!”

She had merely smiled, and invited them to come watch.

After practice, she made dinner, and wondered where Jin was. She looked out the window, and saw Jin dancing with Jia in the back yard. Jia squealed happily.

“If you’re hungry, come eat!” Lia ordered, knowing that it was the fastest way to get Jin to come inside.

Sure enough, Jin carried Jia inside.

“No! NOOOO!” Jia protested.

“Stop it Jia!” Lia admonished.

Jia screwed up her face as if she wanted to throw a tantrum, and made a bunch of grunting noises. Finally, she gave a growling sigh. “Yes mama.”

Lia cocked her head to the side, and looked at her suspiciously. This was not the first time since Jia had learned the word yes that she had uttered this phrase, but it was the first time she had done so when she so obviously didn’t want to.

Jin set Jia in her high chair, and Lia placed a plate of warm but not hot food in front of her. “Be sure to eat your broccoli.”

Jia nodded, and started eating her butter covered steamed broccoli. Lia scratched her head. Something’s not right here…

“Daddy eat!” Jia thrust a floret in Jin’s direction, and he ate it. “No more now, I have my own.”

Lia looked from her daughter to her man, and it dawned on her. Jia had Jin’s blood in her veins, and apparently his curse to obey her. Hmm…

“Jia… make that cup fly here to mama.”

Jia looked at the cup Lia pointed to, and a look crossed her face that plainly said cup, come here! The empty cup floated over them. Jin dropped his fork in astonishment.

If she has Jin’s blood and curse, she must also have my “power” over Jin because of my blood. How to know for sure… “Jia… tell daddy to run.” Lia chose a word Jia could say.

“Daddy, run!”

Jin promptly ran around the house, and couldn’t force himself to stop.

“That’s enough Jin,” Lia commanded. They looked at each other in horror. It had never occurred to either of them that Jia would have powers. Though it did explain why Jin rushed to pick her up every time she cried. And here I thought he was just fussing over her because he wanted to spoil her!

“Oh boy! That’s going to make life interesting!” Lia finally commented.

“Great, now I’ll have two females forever telling me what to do,” Jin joked.

*******

Jia grew up a handful, but she also grew up strong, independent, and wise enough to choose her words carefully so that she didn’t order her father around needlessly. When she had her son, he turned out to have her “powers” too, and Jin realized that his curse was forever bound to Lia’s bloodline. He prayed that he would die when she did, but it turned out that he didn’t.

He had used his magic to appear to age with her, but in reality, he was still the same as ever. He had lived more than a full life, and wanted nothing more than to join his beloved in the afterlife. Damn that witch for cursing me! Haven’t I already learned my lesson?

He and his daughter agreed that he would go into his bottle and not come out. They agreed that she would keep his jug safe, and then bid her son to keep it safe when the time came. Jin was grateful for the much needed rest.

Years passed, and then, one day he was summoned from his bottle.

“My dad was right! There is a man living in this bottle! Are you really my great great grandpa?” Jin had no idea how many generations had passed.

Jin stared at the girl in fascination; she looks just like Lia! He instantly knew that he would never love this girl in the same way that he loved Lia, but he wanted to be part of her life. He used his magic to become her age, and grinned at her.

“Let’s play!”

She laughed. She knew that she had the strange ability to do almost anything she wanted, and was dying to know what it would be like to play with someone with the same ability. We could get into so much trouble!

“I can tell we are going to be the best of friends!” She took his hand, and they ran off to find something fun to do.

This should be interesting!

The end.