Spirit of the Ruins

by Jenny Lykins

  The wedding night dream, and all the buttons Tylar had faced came back to Ty. He sure didn’t need that particular image in his mind at the moment.

  He clenched his jaw and set to work on the buttons. Every one that fell open made it harder on him to think about going shopping. By the time he freed the last button, all he wanted to do was bury his face in the nape of her neck, breathe in her scent, scoop her into his arms and…

  “There,” he said, grabbing the door knob and escaping into the hall. “I’ll be right out here if you need anything else.”

  Fortunately she managed the rest by herself. Within minutes she stepped from the room with Dan’s white oxford shirt tucked in and buttoned clear to her neck, his jeans hugging her hips and looking better on her than they ever looked on Dan. With a silent moan, Ty realized that she’d left the stiff, structured corset behind. He could see the faint outline of her lacy, white chemise beneath the shirt.

  He gulped. This was going to be a long, long shopping trip.

  “Here,” he croaked, handing her a woven belt he’d grabbed from his brother’s closet. “I thought you might need this.”

  “Thank you,” she said, self-consciously wrapping the belt around her waist.

  “No, it goes through the belt loops, like this.” Ty took the belt and threaded it through the loops for her, turning off his brain and all the ideas popping into his mind. If he didn’t get her out of that house soon…

  He cinched the belt around her tiny waist, tugged on the voluminous shirt a bit to cover the gathered, drawstring look, then took her hand and pulled her toward the door. He didn’t stop until he had her in the car, safely strapped in, and on their way to a public place where temptation would take a backseat to shopping.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Callen kept a death grip on Ty’s hand as he wove them through hundreds and hundreds of parked vehicles toward the largest building she’d ever seen in her life. Every time a car sped past them, she wanted to jump to safety, but Ty kept walking as if he didn’t even notice their impending deaths.

  Finally they stepped off of the obstacle course onto safe ground. Callen tried not to stare at the people rushing about, but curiosity overcame rudeness.

  The women! Heavens, the women rushed about, most without a sign of an escort. Why, even young girls no more than twelve or thirteen walked alone. And the clothing! Callen felt absolutely naked in the britches and shirt Ty had given her. She’d never in her life had on a pair of britches, and without the yards and yards of protective skirts covering her, she felt downright indecent. But she was positively overdressed compared to the women of this time. The most modest of dresses exposed much of the calf, and most of those women wore shoes revealing their feet. But overwhelmingly, both women and girls wore short britches hemmed well above the knee. Some barely covered their…

  Surely Ty did not expect her to dress in such a fashion!

  She peered up at him to see his reaction. He paid these women no more heed than if they’d been swathed from head to toe in heavy muslin.

  Just then Callen caught sight of a young girl from the corner of her eye. She stopped and turned to stare. She couldn’t help herself.

  The girl had stringy, coal black hair. Black lips. Black fingernails. A gold ball protruded from one side of her nose, small gold hoops pierced her lower lip and her left eyebrow, and the girl’s exposed abdomen revealed another hoop – Callen shuddered – piercing her navel!

  Which aspect of the girl’s appearance shocked her more, Callen could not even begin to consider. She almost feared entering the building now. Was that manner of…dress…the norm?

  Ty’s arm curled around her waist.

  “It’s a lot to absorb, I know,” he said. “In this time, you can get away with wearing just about anything. That one, though” – he nodded toward the girl in black – “is something I’ve yet to comprehend. A fashion statement is one thing. That…” – he shook his head – “is something else.”

  Callen watched the girl until she was out of sight, then turned back to Ty.

  “I know I am being unforgivably rude, but…” Words failed her.

  Ty hugged her to him. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve got a lot to see, and almost nothing will be familiar.” He opened the door for her and let her pass. “There has probably been more change in the last hundred and fifty years than in any other time period in the history of the world.”

  Callen would agree, but at the moment she forgot how to speak.

  The building! She could hardly believe her eyes! Though nearly dark outside, the interior was as bright as high noon, with plants growing everywhere, people rushing about. Shops with lighted signs lined the…street? Walkway? Corridor? As she and Ty approached the main area, she could look both directions and see shops for as far as the eye could see. Heavens!

  “What in the world…” She stepped back at the sight of people…sliding up and down a stairway. They certainly weren’t walking, but…

  “It’s called an escalator,” Ty supplied, then led her around to the front so she could see how it worked.

  The very stairs – two sets of them, actually – were moving! She watched as one step after another magically appeared out of the floor to carry people upward, just as they would flatten and disappear for those moving down.

  “Wanna try it?” he asked with a mischievous grin and a little tug. “The women’s department is up there.”

  She dug in her heels and shook her head.

  “No! No, thank you. I…I prefer to walk.” She looked around for stairs that didn’t move, but saw no sign of any. Oh, goodness, would she have to step on those moving things? Was there no other way up? She looked at Ty and tried to gather her courage.

  He smiled down at her, his look so tender her heart melted like a lump of sugar in the rain.

  “C’mon,” he said, then much to her relief, he led her past the…whatever he had called the thing…and into a store glistening with lights and mirrors and thousands and thousands of…everything! Never would she have imagined such a place. Clothing, jewelry, perfumes, cosmetics, shoes, satchels, china, crystal, silver, strange items that she could only guess as to their uses and other items to which she could not even hazard a guess.

  Ty held her hand as he wove them around tables laden with shoes, boots with no buttons, dozens of sandals that showed a woman’s feet. When he stopped at a wall and pushed a circle with an upward pointing arrow, the circle glowed for a moment, then two panels slid open without him even touching them, to reveal a small, mirrored room.

  “After you,” he said with a silly, dramatic bow. Callen curtsied in her ridiculous trousers, then stepped inside, looking for another door. When Ty stepped in behind her, the panels slid shut, then he pressed a circle with the number two on it. The room seemed to vibrate a bit, as if its foundation was unstable.

  “What purpose does this room serve?” she asked, looking at all her reflections, unable to fathom a use for such a small enclosure.

  His smile broadened and one eyebrow quirked ever so slightly. So like Tylar. So mischievous.

  “You’ll see the purpose,” he said, “right about now.”

  The panels slid open again, and Callen looked out on a completely different view from when the panels had closed. She stepped back, flattening herself against the far mirrored wall, but Ty took her hand with a gentle tug.

  “How…” she breathed as she stepped out amongst a sea of women’s clothing. “Is this like the column at Windsor? We step into it and step out somewhere else?” Was this time filled with such portals?

  He blinked, then nodded his head. “Not an analogy I would have thought of, but, yeah, it’s something like that. Only I know how an elevator works.” The doors slid shut without any help from anyone. “It’s actually a…little cubicle lifted by cables from one floor to the next.”

  Callen’s eyes widened. “So this is an elevator!” She turned to look back at the doors. “I have read where some buildings in the cit
y of New York have them, but I never thought to ride in one.”

  Ty squeezed her hand and grinned. “There’re going to be a lot of ‘firsts’ for you in the next few days. I’ll just try to warn you ahead of—”

  “Can I help you find something?” An attractive lady in a dress that revealed much of her calves approached them. She wore a gold-colored badge on her chest that read Lois.

  “Actually, yes.” Ty put his arm around Callen’s shoulders and gave her a little hug. “The…ah…airlines lost her luggage, and she needs a little bit of everything to get her through the next few days.”

  The woman pursed her lips and gave a sympathetic shake of her head.

  “Oh, I’ve had that happen to me. And why is it they never lose anything you hate?”

  Callen nodded her head in agreement, then looked at Ty to make sure she’d done the right thing.

  “Well, let’s see.” The lady looked Callen up and down. “What are you? About a four?”

  Callen slid her gaze to Ty. Four what? He looked just as bewildered as she.

  “Um…we’ve been in Europe for some time, so she’s used to European sizes.” He winked at Callen. “Why don’t you just try a few things and we’ll go from there.”

  Lois took Callen under her wing, pulling out dresses, trousers, shirtwaists, or blouses, as the clerk called them, asking her what she preferred. She took Callen into a tiny room called a fitting room and left her to try on the clothing, knocking a few minutes later to see if she needed another size. Callen wouldn’t have known even if she did. The dresses fit like nothing she’d ever worn before – loose and very comfortable, and thankfully covering all but a bit of her ankles. Lois insisted she model each item for Ty, and Callen judged from his expression whether the clothing was appropriate for this time. He liked the dresses best, and so they walked away with two dresses and a pair of trousers similar to what she’d borrowed from Ty’s brother, only fitting much better.

  They entered an area that even Callen could recognize as women’s under things. She turned to glance at Ty, who had conveniently lagged behind, wandering just beyond the racks of embarrassingly brief lingerie. Callen’s face burned through fittings of what the lady called panties and bras, shocked at the brevity of the garments, yet intrigued by them as well. The women of this age certainly chose to dress for comfort – something Callen thought she could easily enjoy if she could accustom herself to showing so much of her limbs.

  Once they’d selected a number of undergarments, Lois shepherded the two of them to the area with all the shoes. After some eyebrow raising at Callen’s buttoned boots, another lady struggled to remove them so she could measure for her size.

  Apparently no one in this time had anything hand made.

  The woman finally freed the last button, then slipped the boot off, right there in front of everyone! Callen’s gaze flew to Ty as she tucked her stockinged foot under her, out of sight of all the milling shoppers.

  “Is there no fitting room for the shoes?” she asked, horrified that they planned to bare her feet right there in the middle of the store. Lois and the shoe lady simply stared at her, but Ty gave a little laugh and squeezed her hand.

  “They’ll take you seriously, sweetheart,” he said, glancing at other shoppers trying on shoes. Then he looked at Lois with a half grin. “She loves to tease.”

  Callen caught his meaning. Everyone else tried the shoes on right there in the open. She took a deep breath, forced a smile that she hoped looked like she’d been teasing, then slid her foot from beneath her.

  She couldn’t have been more embarrassed if she had sat there absolutely naked. The shoe lady raised an eyebrow at the sight of Callen’s thick, woven stocking, but, thankfully, said nothing. Men, women, and children wandered around, seemingly not the least bit concerned that she’d removed her boots in such a public place. Of course, considering that most all of the women, and quite a few of the men, showed much more of their bodies than stockinged feet, Callen should not have been embarrassed. But they took this environment for granted. Callen, however, did not.

  She and Ty finally decided on two pairs of shoes – amazingly comfortable for ready made. Lois declared that Callen should have everything she needed to tide her over until her luggage was found.

  With the cost finally tallied, the total nearly staggered Callen. In her time, a family of four could live for a year on that amount. Was everything so exorbitant here? Ty, however seemed not the least bit concerned. But instead of handing Lois money, he gave her a small, silver, rectangular card which she happily took for a few moments and then returned.

  Callen got a lesson on “debit cards” as Ty showed her through the rest of the building he called a mall. She knew of credit. Heaven knew, she had lived on credit when the Confederate dollar lost what little value it ever had. But debit was a different concept. And the use of those little cards made no sense to her whatsoever. How in the world did shopkeepers keep track of all those accounts simply by sliding a little card through a machine?

  By the time they returned home, Callen’s mind swam with all she’d seen, all she’d learned in such a short amount of time. She felt so inferior. So naïve. How could Ty possibly think of her as anything but an antiquated bumpkin? Would he take her back now, anxious to be rid of her? How could she ever learn to live in such an overwhelming society, even if they managed to bring Connor with them? And if not, how could she ever expect Ty to leave a world such as this – a world full of luxuries and a life of ease – to go back to her time and live a life of hardship?

  And then, she thought later as she lay in her bed, there was Ty’s brother, Daniel, who knew nothing about her, nothing about Ty’s visits to the past.

  She shook her head. Her temples throbbed. It hurt to think. She rolled over and clutched the pillow to her chest, willing her mind blank, willing herself not to think.

  She just wanted to sleep. To forget Stephen. Evan. To forget that Ty slept in the next room and that she now wore one of his shirts because they’d forgotten to buy a nightrail. She wanted to forget that the shirt smelled like him, that she wanted him in her arms. And she wanted to forget that life, as impossible as it had seemed before, suddenly looked bleaker than ever.

  *******

  Ty lay atop his sheets in nothing but a pair of jeans and a cold sweat covering every inch of his body.

  What the hell had he gotten himself into?

  He stared at the ceiling, his heart racing, his throat constricting as though a pair of invisible hands slowly tightened around his neck.

  The last twelve hours had rushed by in a blur, an exciting adventure of showing the woman he loved his world. Not until he left her in the spare bedroom and had a few moments alone did he even stop to think about the consequences of his actions. Actions totally irresponsible and totally out of character.

  And then reality dropped on him like an avalanche.

  He had stopped her wedding. Grabbed her hand and run away with her. No doubt ticked Stephen off until her brother would kill them both on sight. He had brought her to his time, proven to her what he’d insisted all along – that he wasn’t the Tylar she’d married – then announced that he believed perhaps Tylar somehow lived on in him. He’d overwhelmed her with his world, and even before doing all that, he had told her he loved her and asked her to marry him.

  He sucked in his breath at that memory, plowed both hands into his hair and squeezed. Hard.

  Marriage.

  That one caused the cold sweat.

  How could he marry her? How could he make good on his promise to make it work? She had a son in the past. He had a brother in the present.

  Oh, sure, he’d brought her with him; he could try to go get Connor. But how many times could they pass through the portal? And with how many people? Even if he brought Connor here, would Callen adapt to this time? Everything she saw terrified her. He could see it in her eyes no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Some things fascinated her, true, but she approached everythi
ng with fear. Would she grow to hate this time, and grow to hate him for bringing her here?

  Could he go to her time? Could he take Daniel away from everything safe and familiar? Expect him to live in the past, in a country deprived and devastated by war? Could he ask that of a brother so near to manhood, yet still so young? And, for that matter, could Ty even hope to support them all as a family? He was a twenty-first century photographer, not a farmer or carpenter or any other craftsman of the period. How could he ever hope to go back to the South during Reconstruction and make enough money to support a family?

  His thoughts nearly tore him in two. He loved Callen with a fierceness he never dreamed existed. These past weeks had driven home to him that life without her would be a very long trip down a lonely, dead end road. He couldn’t imagine living without her now. He couldn’t imagine taking her back to the past and leaving her there.

  He believed now that he’d had the chance once, in another life, to love her, to live that perfect dream, even for a moment, yet he’d left her to go to war, never telling her that she was the breath that gave him life.

  He wouldn’t lose her again. He didn’t know how, but they would finish the life they’d started together so long ago.

  Somehow.

  Some way.

  He scrubbed his hand across his face, then flung himself from the bed to pace the floor. Moments later he stood in the hallway outside her door. He could hear her tossing and turning, hear an occasional sigh, then something that sounded like a sob.

  Was she crying?

  His hand flew to the doorknob before he managed to stop himself. If he went in there, comforted her, held her… If he even touched her right now, he wouldn’t be able to stop. He would give in to the urges he’d been fighting ever since she’d flown into his arms and rained kisses on him that first night in the kitchen at Windsor.

  As quietly as he could, he let go of the knob. He couldn’t do that to her. He couldn’t take advantage of her when he didn’t even know how they would manage a life together.