Chapter 36: A Wide Variety of Gnomes

Sage and Jeremy arrive in Champs les Sims.

Their first stop is to the local market. Sage is amazed by the wide variety of garden gnomes on display.

Sage asks the shopkeeper if there are any old tombs in the neighborhood for her to explore.

He gives her a curious look and shrugs, "Eh, there is an old burial mound out behind the Nectary."

Jeremy really wanted to visit the art museum or the nectary, but he lets Sage drag him out to the old burial mound.

"Look," she says, pointing excitedly at the ground, "There's an entrance here."

"You don't really want to go down there...?"

"Of course I do!"

"I bet that's a hidden door behind that pile of rocks," Sage declares, setting to work on the obstruction with her pick axe, "Wane McMottder says hidden entrances or treasure are often buried under piles of rubble like this."

Sage turns out to be right, when the rubble is cleared, a door is exposed. Without hesitation, she walks in to the formerly sealed tomb.

"Wouldn't you rather be tasting nectar, or browsing through the museum?" Jeremy asks, knowing what he'd rather be doing, "This place is creepy. And dirty. And probably dangerous."

"This is what I've wanted to do since I was kid," Sage says, "We can visit the nectary and museum later."

Jeremy sighs, "Okay. If you don't mind, I'll go back to the market and wait for you. I'd probably just slow you down."

Sage promises she'll only be a few hours exploring the old tomb and she'll meet him at the cafe for dinner.

When she discovers the skeleton behind a hidden door, she's glad Jeremy isn't here to be freaked out by it.

Jeremy shopped in the market, picking up some books at the bookstore and buying a few trinkets from the general store. Night fell and he finally had hid dinner alone in the cafe.

As the market square emptied, he went back to the hostel to wait for her, reading his books until after midnight, when he finally gave up waiting and went to bed.

Sage completely lost track of time while exploring and looting the old tomb. She feels just like her hero, Wane McMottder.

She doesn't realize how late it is until she gets back to the hostel at 2am. She slips quietly into bed with Jeremy, not wanting to wake him.

"I was worried about you," Jeremy says when he wakes in the morning to find her with  him.

"I'm sorry I missed dinner with you," she says, "Let me make it up to you."

After they finally get out of bed, they go to the cafe for breakfast. while Jeremy is finishing his meal, Sage drops by the relics shop to talk to the merchant about her recent acquisitions.

"You got these from the old burial mound?" Andre Lefebvre asks, perusing her old vases and broken pottery shards, "People are always digging up little treasures around there, but no one has actually entered the tomb. Some of these pieces are worthy of display in the museum. I would know, as I am the curator there." After they haggle over prices, Lefebvre finally makes her an offer she's happy with. He looks her over a minute before continuing, "We are having some issues at the museum, strange sounds coming from the basement. From behind the walls in the basement. No one can figure what is making the sounds. Maybe you could find a way behind the walls and investigate?"

Sage agrees to take the job.

"Don't try to steal anything," he warns, "Everything is catalogued in detail, I will know if anything is missing."

Jeremy finally gets to visit the museum.

"I have to investigate something in the basement," Sage tells him, "Look around for awhile while I'm working. If I'm not back in an hour, don't wait for me here, go to the Nectary of whatever you like, and I'll meet you back at the hostel later."

"This isn't much of a vacation for you," Jeremy protests.

"This is exactly what I want in a vacation. but I don't want to spoil yours, so have a good time while I'm busy," Sage answers with a smile, not understanding that Jeremy's disappointment comes from her absence, not from boredom.

Jeremy does as she suggests, and visits the nectary, where he tries his hand, or feet as it were, at nectar making.

He tastes some of the fine aged nectars.

And spends the evening fishing in the river near the hostel.

Sage discovered a large network of sealed chambers beneath the museum basement, and after much exploring, and looting of objects that couldn't possibly be catalogued, she finally discovered the remains of a long dead curator who had been trapped here and was now haunting the museum. By returning his remains to his family crypt, Sage appeased the ghost and solved the mystery of the strange noises in the museum.

This time she makes it back to Jeremy before midnight.

Their plane is leaving soon. Jeremy had wanted to propose at some suitably romantic moment in their vacation, but no such moment occurred, since they spent so much of their trip apart. So after their breakfast in the hostel kitchen, Jeremy gets on his knee, and fumbling clumsily with the ring box, proposes. Sage happily accepts.

When they arrive home, Jeremy giddily tells the news of their engagement to his future mother-in-law.

Scout greets Sage with a big doggy hug.

Following her family tradition, Sage gets a tattoo, a small design on her wrist.

Sage and Jeremy opt for a private wedding. Getting their two large extended families together for a party would take too long, and Jeremy is eager to make it official.

Very shortly after their return, Sage finds that she's pregnant. Jeremy is so excited, he puts off starting his new job so he can be with Sage continuously through her pregnancy.

"You're reading 'Totally Preggers'," Kelsey observes.

"Yeah," Sage sighs.

"And, are you? Totally preggers?"

"Yeah," Sage sighs again.

"You don't seem happy about it," her mother says.

"I did want to have children...someday. But this is so sudden. And I was planning to go to China right when we got back from France. Now I'm stuck here."

Kelsey knows how she feels. But while Kelsey had chosen to set aside her dreams of travel to raise her unexpected children, she fears her daughter takes after Chayton more than herself and might not be able to turn away from a life on the road.