Spirit of the Ruins

by Jenny Lykins

  Ty gave her no choice.

  “C’mon,” he said, dusting her skirts as though he did such a thing often. His hand stopped, hovered above her hips. Perhaps he realized his improper gesture…

  “We need to get you out of these clothes.”

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  “I b-beg your—”

  “You’ll stick out like a sore thumb in these. You need some modern clothes.” He scrubbed at the raspy whiskers on his face. “There’re some shops off the interstate in Jackson. I can run in and pick out a few things for you there.”

  Callen simply shook her head. “But Jackson is so far away. It will take us—”

  “Two hours, tops.”

  “What?”

  “Two hours. Trust me.”

  He took her hand then, and led her toward the woods which had encroached upon the remains of her beautiful home. She had no time to dwell on those thoughts though, or even where he was leading her. All thought stopped at the sight of a huge, red metal…thing…sitting among the trees.

  “Remember me telling you about cars?”

  She nodded. She remembered every outrageous story he told her, and she had a feeling her derision was about to come back to haunt her.

  “The horseless vehicle?” she asked, all too certain of the answer.

  “Everything’s horseless now except, well, horse and buggy rides, but those are just for atmosphere. Unless you’re Amish. The Amish still use the horse and carriage, but—” He stopped and smiled at her until her knees went weak. “I’m babbling, aren’t I? I think I’m as nervous about this as you are.” He took her hand, kissed her knuckles, then pulled her to the…car…and opened a door.

  She peered inside.

  A strange little light glowed in front of a window in the roof. How had he lit it? There’d been no light in there before he had opened the door.

  The buff-colored interior smelled of leather and other scents to which she could put no name.

  “Ready?” he asked, pulling her attention away from the big wheel in front of the other seat on the far side, and all the strange things behind that wheel.

  She took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Good. Just step up on the running board. Watch your head. There. Now pull your feet in and I’ll try to get all your dress in there without crushing it too badly.”

  She settled back into the padded seat while Ty pushed and folded the skirts of her best gown, the emerald damask that Stephen insisted she wear to wed Evan. Once her skirts were inside the…car, Ty pulled a strap of sorts from a place near her shoulder and stretched it across her chest and hips. After fumbling a few moments near her left thigh, she heard a solid click.

  “What is this?” She tugged at the strap but it held her fast. “Ty, I don’t like this! What have you done?” Panic seized her with the woven strap holding her trapped.

  He shut the door, trotted around the vehicle, and climbed into the seat behind the leather-covered wheel.

  “Relax,” he said as the panic rose higher in her chest. “Look, it comes undone if you push the button.” His finger depressed a red button by her hip and the strap popped free. “It’s called a safety belt, and you have to wear it. It’s the law.” He pulled his own across his chest and fastened it with a click, then refastened hers.

  “How fast does this vehicle travel, that one must be strapped inside it?”

  Ty gripped that odd, bumpy wheel for a moment and stared straight ahead. When he looked at her, a glimmer of excitement lit his eyes.

  “The future is very fast-paced, Callen.” He took her hand in his. “I need to warn you that this trip might be scary for you, but I promise, everything I do will be safe. The speed we travel, the roads we take. It’ll seem extremely fast to you, but for those of us who live here, it’s absolutely normal.” He met and held her gaze. “Do you trust me?”

  She looked at him…this Ty…her Tylar. Yes, she believed that her Tylar somehow lived on in this man. She had trusted Tylar with her life. She would trust this man as well.

  At her nod, he smiled, inserted an odd-shaped key in the neck of the wheel, then she jumped when the vehicle rumbled to life beneath her. He pulled down on a stick, stepped on one of two pedals on the floor, and the vehicle slowly, amazingly, rolled down the drive all by itself!

  How absolutely, utterly thrilling!

  *******

  The slow roll down the drive at Windsor widened Callen’s eyes and a wonder-filled smile lit her face…until Ty pulled onto the road and headed north. As he brought the car to a calm forty-five miles per hour, he thought she might hyperventilate. The first time an oncoming car whizzed past them, she screamed and buried her face in her hands. collision didn’t occur, she splayed her fingers and peeked at the road, cringing at every passing car until she accepted that they weren’t going to hit head on. When she wasn’t hiding her face, she was gripping the door handle – or Ty’s arm – with a white knuckle hold. And just as she started to relax and not yelp at every car or curve in the road, they eased onto the interstate and nearly doubled their speed.

  Everything she saw generated questions from her, once she managed speech. He had to explain every road sign, from the speed limits to “Watch for ice on bridges” to “Adopt a highway.” He explained why the roads were so smooth. Why there were yellow and white lines painted on the pavement. Why there were blinking lights atop towers. Why there were straight white clouds criss-crossing in the sky.

  When he finally pointed out an airplane at high altitude and reminded her of the flying machine he’d told her about, she took one look at the tiny speck leaving its white streak in its wake and announced that he had better not get any ideas.

  They stopped in Jackson, but not for clothing. He’d already decided that leaving her alone while he shopped would not be the wisest of choices. But they needed to eat, and driving up to a drive-thru window and driving away with food had fascinated her. She was equally amazed at the chicken sandwich, the french fries, and not only the ice in the tea, but that tea was so abundant and inexpensive that anyone could buy it. Ty could barely get one question answered before another popped to her mind.

  After eating, he decided they would have to stop at a rest area, and if anyone was nosy enough to ask about her clothing, Ty would simply tell them they’d been to a reenactment. The hard part came, though, when he had to give her instructions before sending her off into the restroom. He’d never realized how absolutely embarrassing it could be, telling a woman - especially someone like Callen - how a modern facility worked. Her cheeks flamed to pink at his words, and when she finally emerged from the restroom, her entire face had turned a fiery red. Fortunately, only one other car had pulled in while they were there, and though the older couple had looked their fill, no one asked questions.

  To ease her lingering embarrassment – and his – he turned on the CD player, which created another barrage of questions, from how it worked to the type of music. He demonstrated the power windows, which made her jump. He honked the horn. He racked his brain, trying to think of things to warn her about before they could frighten her, but even after her terror on the interstate subsided a bit, she found more things to scare her speechless.

  By the time they pulled into the driveway in Memphis, Ty had nearly lost his voice, and his sides hurt from laughing. Callen had not found the humor in nearly as many things as he had, but she’d been a good sport, for the most part.

  The garage door rose with a push of the button. He pulled in, then closed the door against any inquisitive eyes of his neighbors.

  Callen turned in her seat to watch the door rumble closed.

  “Electricity?” she asked for the bazillionth time. She’d studied Ben Franklin, grasped the concept, but she couldn’t begin to conceive all the uses they’d managed to find for something so invisible.

  “Yep,” Ty answered, then jumped out of the car and went around to open her door.

  She stepped out, her gaze scanning her surroundings.


  “This is the carriage…the car house?”

  Ty didn’t know if she meant the entire house, or just the garage.

  “We call it the garage,” he said. “Callen, before we go in, I need to warn you about something.” She turned and looked at him, the tiniest flicker of alarm in her eyes. “No.” He forced a laugh. “It’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just that, well, I’m not a rich man. My house is small, compared to Windsor. I just don’t want you to be disappointed when you see it.”

  She smiled at him, raised her hand and traced the scruffy line of his jaw.

  “Nothing about you could ever disappoint me,” she said. “It never has, and it never will.”

  Ty hoped he could live up to that kind of faith. He had to wonder if she spoke of Tylar, as well, with her praise, but strangely, the thought didn’t bother him. More and more, he felt a connection with his nineteenth century counterpart.

  “Well,” he said, breaking the spell she had cast, leading her to the door, “welcome to my humble home.”

  She lifted her skirts and preceded him into the house. He wished now that he could have taken her through the front door instead of the mudroom first, but her “costume” wasn’t worth an explanation to any of the neighbors.

  Her gaze missed nothing as they moved through the house. The tour was painfully brief, considering the twenty-three rooms at Windsor, but she looked at it as if it were a palace.

  Ty had reminded her in the car of all the modern conveniences, and the first thing she wanted to see was the oven that cooked meals in minutes, then the refrigerator, then the electric stove. The hot running water didn’t surprise her, but the fact that there was no cistern in the attic heating the water amazed her. Ty never realized how many luxuries he’d taken for granted. Everything was magical to her. The lamps that came on with a flick of a switch, the overhead lights, the fact that the inside of the house was fifteen degrees cooler than outside. He took as much joy in watching her as she did in discovering things, and he hadn’t even shown her the TV, the Jacuzzi tub, Dan’s computer.

  Lord, he loved the way her eyes sparkled in wonder.

  She kept gravitating to the kitchen, fascinated with the fact that an entire meal could be cooked without the use of fire. He knew she was dying to see the microwave demonstrated.

  “I’m starving,” he said, smiling, deciding to put her out of her misery. “You hungry?”

  “Oh, I’m famished!”

  He awed her with everything from the can opener, to the concept itself of canned soup, to the fact that the bowls weren’t hot when he lifted the steaming soup from the microwave.

  He continued to fascinate her by dispensing ice cubes from the freezer door, pouring already cold tea into their glasses, throwing an overripe banana down the garbage disposal, crunching the soup can in the trash compactor. Even pumping the liquid soap to wash their hands held her attention.

  He didn’t know when he’d enjoyed a bowl of canned vegetable beef soup more. Either fixing it or eating it. Callen raved about the soup, as well as the salad he’d taken from its vacuum-sealed bag in the refrigerator. After they ate, he rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. She stood back and watched, that line between her brow again, the tip of her finger between her teeth.

  “This is the machine that washes dishes?” she asked, eyeing the white interior and the blue racks.

  “Hey, you’re getting good at this!” Ty straightened and gave her a wink. “Give you a few days here and you’ll be an old hand at this stuff.”

  She quirked one dark, finely arched brow at him.

  “Had you not prepared me for these sights, I fear I would…” She lifted her hands and shrugged. “…I would be a babbling idiot, which I fear I’ve already come close to.”

  Ty took her hands in his, brushed a gentle kiss against her lips. “You’re doing great,” he said. “If someone carted me a hundred and fifty years into the future, I doubt I’d be taking it nearly as well as you.” He leaned in, pressed his forehead to hers, smiled.

  As the teasing moment stretched on, the smile left their lips. A band tightened around Ty’s chest at her stare, and then his mouth covered hers, tightening the band, setting off fireworks in his brain. Her sigh sent the pyrotechnics blasting through his body, hitting every extremity with mind-jarring force. She leaned into him, returned his kiss with matching fervor. Her hands slid around his waist, up his back, then her lips left his to scorch a trail down his neck, from his earlobe to the hollow at his throat.

  “Ty,” she breathed. “My Tylar.”

  He didn’t care. He was her Tylar. He knew that now. Part of him. All of him. It didn’t matter. He’d kissed her like this before, uncertain of what to do, how not to frighten her, how slowly to proceed. He’d died a thousand deaths that long ago night, wanting to tell her how he loved her, convinced that she deserved better than an overseer’s son. The memory of that wedding night, though, only stoked the fire that burned low in Ty’s belly. He might have the memory, but he hadn’t had the real thing.

  “Callen,” he murmured against her hair, then his hands went exploring on their own. His fingers sifted through her hair to cup her head. His other hand trailed along the thick fabric of her gown, down her back to the flare of her waist. The yards of material, the stiff corset, the tiny waist, forced themselves through the haze of lust, bringing him reluctantly back to reality.

  “Callen.” He pulled away, needing more willpower than he ever dreamed. He cradled her head in his hands. She looked up at him, her eyes dark with unfulfilled passion, undying love. “I want it to be perfect,” he said. “Not in the kitchen.” He swallowed, forcing the words. “Not until we’re married.”

  She looked at him, closed her eyes, nuzzled her cheek against the palm of his hand.

  “I don’t care where we are, darling. I don’t care when. Our souls are married, and I would give myself to you wherever you would have me.”

  His heart pounded in his chest. She wasn’t making this easy. Though she had gone through a wedding ceremony, he had not, and he would marry her before he made love to her. When he made her his, it would be sacred, sanctified, a religious experience. He heard his father’s words. His father’s morals. Not the bastard who had walked out on his family in the twenty-first century, but the loving father of his past. Ty had tried it by the bastard’s standards once. Now he would live by the standards of a man who had truly loved his son.

  With every ounce of will, he kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose, took a deep breath, then pulled her by the hand toward Dan’s bedroom.

  “First things first,” he groaned, letting her know that stopping those snowballing kisses was as hard for him as it was for her. “We need to get you some clothes.”

  In his frenzy of working - cleaning, mowing, and washing everything in sight, trying to forget Callen - Ty had tackled even the toxic waste dump of Dan’s room. For once in years the room looked and smelled clean, and for once Ty didn’t regret breaking down and cleaning it.

  Callen wandered through the room, her gaze zeroing in on the posters papering the walls. Movie posters. Sports figures. Her cheeks blossomed to bright pink at the sight of several with scantily clad models in provocative poses. When she blinked and looked away, Ty decided not to even try to give an explanation. No doubt discussing the pictures would embarrass her more, and she had a few days to adjust to the modern version of…teenage decor.

  He rummaged through Dan’s closet and pulled out a fairly new pair of jeans and one of Dan’s few good oxford shirts. When he held them up to her, her eyes widened and she stared at Ty.

  “Women wear men’s britches in this time?” she asked. “They no longer wear dresses?”

  Ty smiled. “Yes and no,” he said. “They wear…britches, or slacks, as we call them, but they’re usually made to fit a woman. They still wear dresses, too. Just not dresses like this.” He lifted a fold of fabric from her skirts. “I think these will fit you well enough to get us to a store t
o buy you something appropriate.” He handed her the jeans and shirt, then led her to the room that had been his mother’s. “You can change in here, then we’ll go on a little shopping trip.”

  Callen held up the clothing, obviously hesitant yet intrigued by the prospect of putting them on.

  “What is this?” She held the jeans by the waistband and stared at the zipper.

  When had the zipper been invented? The turn of the century? Later? Certainly not in her time.

  “It’s called a zipper,” he said, taking the jeans and running the zip pull up and down. “It’s a fastener, instead of buttons.”

  She tried it herself, cocking her head as the edges magically meshed together.

  “Fascinating,” she breathed.

  He smiled, seeing the world through her eyes, enjoying the heck out of it.

  “Yell if you need help,” he said. Then, “By the way, what kind of shoes are you wearing?”

  She grimaced, then lifted her skirts barely more than an inch. The toe of a brown leather, button-topped boot slid from beneath the hem.

  “My matching slippers went to ruin years ago,” she said. “I’d hoped no one would see that all I have are these boots.”

  Ty quirked an eyebrow. “Trust me, sweetheart, with today’s shoes, those will fit right in. In fact, you might start a new craze.”

  He slipped from the room before that comment could start a whole new line of questions.

  Ten minutes later, he knocked on the door.

  “Are you okay in there? Need any help?” She’d had plenty of time to throw on a pair of jeans and a shirt.

  The door opened a crack and she peeked out at him.

  “I…um…” She cleared her throat. “I cannot seem to reach the buttons…”

  She let the door swing open, took a deep breath, stared at the ceiling, then lifted her hair and presented her back to him.

  At least thirty or more miniscule buttons marched down her back and held the top of her gown together, only three of which she’d managed to undo.

  Good grief, no wonder women needed help getting undressed back then.