Another outing
Chapter 18

Moonbyul's POV

I was very pleased with our day out, even more pleased when Solar asked me to spend the following Monday with her. Sadly, I had to make it through another week of playing servant. It's not fun, believe me. Start work at 6AM and working pretty much until late in the evening. Not to mention the work can be grueling; scrub this, clean that, empty that, chop that, serve this and so on and so on and so on. It's mind numbing, to put it simply.

During my work hours, I've been taking care to work extra hard and be as professional as I can be. Solar is taking a risk, by befriending me. I must not make her look bad by appearing to take advantage of her by goofing off. I find it hard to be with her so often and not be able to do or say anything.

It sounds strange, but in some respect I've turned off my 2018 personality and let my character take over. She's a tough frontier girl and can handle hard work with no complaint, it's one of the ways I cope with the long hours and hard work.

2018 Moonbyul would endlessly and make everyone around her miserable from having to work 15 hours a day. I've got her boxed up pretty good, but she escapes from time to time. Like that withering glare one of the gank trio when Solar and I were out. I would have liked to kick the out of all of them. But that would embarrass Solar to no end and I simply won't do that.

I'm here with her, but it's largely a lie. I lay in bed at night, thinking how I could ever explain this.

But to distract me, I watch movies, read and play games. Since I'm an official time traveler, I decided to actually watch some science fiction. I had saved a few interesting looking ones on my kindle for me to watch. I started with the original Terminator. I liked that movie, it was dark, gritty and intense. I watched about twenty minutes of the second one, before I realized I couldn't stand the kid playing John Connor. He was annoying as and I quickly found myself rooting for the evil Terminator.

The night before my next day off, Solar said she would come by around 9 in the morning, after breakfast. We hadn't discussed any plans, but I have been looking forward to it. Okay, I've been dying for Monday to come, I admitted it, happy now?!

As per normal on my day off, I slept for a bit, got up, washed myself using the ice cold stream water, made myself a meager breakfast and dressed. Of course, I made myself some coffee. I'm starting to get good at using the coffee grinder and the crude coffee pot.

It was already 9AM, I'm wearing my best dress when I heard a knock. I opened the door to see a bubbly Solar standing there wearing a smile. For the most part, I've always found smiles to be annoying. A smile is supposed to make you happy, so what if you don't want to be happy? Don't be smiling your smile and forcing your happiness on me. But I like Solar's smile, she's allowed to smile.

"Good morning, Moonbyul. How are you this fine morning?"

I couldn't help myself and let a bit of my modern snarkyness leak out. So I casually leaned up against the door frame, smirked and retorted playfully. "Well, I don't have to clean your chamber pot today, so all in all. It's a good day so far."

Her eyes opened wide and fell half open but no sound came out. I think she didn't quite know what to say. After a moment, Solar sputtered, looking somewhat embarrassed. "Ah... Ah... That's nice... I guess."

I nodded, "Yes it is, so what do we have planned for today."

Recovering from her embarrassment, she smiled. "Well, I have to go into London this morning. I ordered a ball gown from Paris and they said it would be in today. I'm going to go pick it up from the dressmaker." 

My smirk widened just a bit more, "Aaaand... you need someone to drive." 

Solar suddenly frowned and looked just a bit hurt, I guessed she didn't quite get my humor. "I didn't just need you to drive, I wanted to spend the day with you. A chance to get away from all the..." 

Feeling bad, I put my hand on her shoulder. "I was jesting. Having a bit of fun at your expense. I've been looking forward to today. I'm ready to go if you'd like." 

Solar smiled again and nodded quickly, "Yes, I have a surprise for later. I hope you like surprises."

"Normally I hate surprises. Actually I hate lots of things, but in your case I'll make a exception." I said as I left the cabin and closed the door. 

She had the wagon and horses ready by the barn and soon we were off. Though I was kidding about driving, I did take the reins. 

As our wagon got out of town. Solar, who had been mostly silent, asked. "So Moonbyul, I know you read a lot. What kind of stories do you like to read?"

"I like reading scary stories, ghost stories. Edgar Allen Poe is one of my favorites." 

She shuddered a bit, "I do not like ghost stories. I've heard of Mr. Poe, the American writer. But I've never read any of his stories. Can you tell me about one?"

"Are you sure?" 

"Yes. I think if you tell me about it, it won't be scary." 

"Well, my favorite is Masque of the red death. It's a short story. In olden times there is a kingdom where a terrible sickness has fallen upon the land. Many are dying. There is this prince who doesn't cares about the suffering of his people. So he takes all the nobles and the rich and they seal themselves in an abbey with enough food to last a while. They plan to let the plague run it's course, leaving the commoners to die, then emerge after.

One night, they throw a grand costume ball. All is well, until the prince spots a guest wearing the costume of someone with plague. Angered, he chases the guest trough the abbey, until he reaches him and pulls of the mask. Much to his horror, he sees nothing underneath. It is essentially death itself. Soon the prince and his selfish guests all fall dead due to plague."

Solar seemed to shiver, but at the same time enjoyed my little telling of the story. "That sounds scary. If I read such a story, it would most certainly give me nightmares. Do tell me about another story." 

"Wait, I thought you said they would give you nightmares."

"I like hearing them from you."

A lot of stories I couldn't mention as they had not been written yet, but there were a number of ghost/scary stories that I could mention. I read a bunch of Gothic ghost stories in the last few months of my preparations. 

I told her I liked stories of vampires and briefly described two novels I had read, 'The Vampyre' by John W Polidory, written in 1819 and 'Varney the vampire', written by James Rymer in 1847. Again, she seemed fascinated and scared at the same time. I got the impression that she would not read such stories alone. 

Gradually, the conversation drifted to other subjects and we finally arrived in London. As I drove the wagon through downtown I spotted several woman standing on a street corner, holding crudely drawn signs asking to be given