Spirit of the Ruins Read online

  SPIRIT OF THE RUINS

  By Jenny Massie Lykins

  Copyright 2013 Jenny Massie Lykins

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Though the beautiful Windsor Ruins truly grace the area I’ve described north of Natchez, the Windsor family and the history of the house in the story are works of fiction, as well as a certain bit of building design discovered by my hero.

  The loftily-named Office of Correspondence with the Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army existed, and Clara Barton, appointed by President Lincoln, was the first woman ever appointed to head an office in the Federal government.

  The story of the steamboat, Sultana, is true, and was the worst maritime disaster in history, including the Titanic. The events, and my description of the disaster, are as historically accurate as my research could make them, however I’ve taken the liberty of adding one extra name to the small list of survivors.

  This book is dedicated to Ginny Brenoel and Donna Pratt Vanhoose. If not for your encouragement, this would still be gathering dust…

  PROLOGUE

  Mississippi, 1840

  Pierre Chalmers smiled at the little boy and girl. They had been kind to him when others, adults and children alike, had treated him so shabbily. He would reward these children and give them a gift that would someday change their lives, if they used it wisely.

  This he knew, for Pierre Chalmers had “the sight.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ty McCall focused the wide angle lens on the towering, free-standing antebellum columns of the deserted Windsor Ruins, then the eerie feeling that someone watched him lifted the hair at the nape of his neck.

  Slowly, he lowered the camera and turned, scanning the woods, the neighboring pasture, the dirt drive and green carpet of grass from which the awesome columns rose. A few birds chirped and flitted through tree branches, a swarm of gnats hovered in a patch of sunlight, droning bees mated with the Mississippi jasmine that permeated the air with its sweet scent. Nothing. Nada.

  He glanced behind him once more, shrugged, then turned his attention back to finding the perfect angle to capture the setting.

  The magnificent pillars were all that remained of the stately Windsor Plantation. They surrounded him, sentinels still, to the ghosts of a bygone era, outlining the beautiful L-shape of the home that had burned to the ground in the 1800s. For some unknown reason, those columns had survived, most of them completely intact.

  It’d been a lucky accident, making that wrong turn off the Natchez Trace and then following the signs to the ruins out of idle curiosity. When he’d bumped up the rutted dirt road, then rounded the bend to the sight of two dozen columns rising up from a lawn of closely clipped grass, he’d grabbed his camera and walked into photographer heaven.

  Now, to just focus in on –

  “Tylar.”

  He froze again.

  The hair on his neck snapped back to attention as he jerked around at the whisper, searching the grounds for a feminine owner to the soft voice.

  The deserted view hadn’t changed since the first scan. No woman beckoned to him. No one was even in sight. Had he really heard his name whispered?

  Nah. It had to be his imagination. Besides, no one ever called him Tylar. At least not for the last decade and a half.

  A breeze ruffled through the thick foliage surrounding the ruins. Maybe he’d just heard the wind in the trees. Yeah. That had to be it.

  He wandered over to his camera bag, glancing to his left and right, convinced himself he was alone, then pulled out a telescopic lens for the next shot. He lost himself in the artistry, choosing the best column, focusing on the two red berries of the wild strawberry plant that had somehow sprouted on the top of the column base a good five feet above his head. He worked every angle, got a nice contrast where the stucco had crumbled away to reveal the brick and mortar beneath, then he stretched out on his back at the foot of the column and shot the picture from the ground, capturing in the same frame a fuzzy, white full moon already riding high in the clear blue afternoon sky.

  He pulled the tripod up through the open sunroof, mounted the camera, then framed the shot to perfection from atop the car.

  “Oh yeah,” he breathed. Long black shadows stretched across the velvety grass where the spirit of a home lingered, and blue sky peeked through the lacy leaves of the trees. The dying sun bathed the ancient pillars in a golden light. The setting held such a sense of tranquillity, he would die happy if he could just manage to capture the spirit of those ruins on film.

  He adjusted the angle one more time, then bent over the camera and twisted the lens into focus.

  His heart skipped a beat. His breath froze in his chest.

  He buried the viewfinder deeper into his eye socket, held down the shutter button, auto-wind whirring…and stared at the misty form of a house taking shape within the columns.

  Chillbumps crawled up his neck clear to his scalp. What the devil—

  “Tylar.”

  He jerked, lost his balance, flailed backward. A cloud of dust mushroomed around him and his breath exploded with an OOPH! when he hit the dirt and gravel flat on his back.

  “Ohhh, hellll.” He lay there, waiting for his bones to stop rattling, trying to suck at least one good breath into empty lungs. Once he determined that nothing but his pride was damaged, he dragged himself out of the gravelly dirt, then limped to the other side of the car.

  In just those few moments of chaos, the sun had set. The lone pillars rose as silhouettes against the deepening violet of the sky, every bit as stark and beautiful as the first moment he’d laid eyes on them. Not a sign of a house to be seen.

  He wheezed, leaned heavily on his knees, shook his head clear. Man, he was jumpy. The light had reflected off something in his lens and caused an optical illusion. Simple as that.

  And the whispered name? Wind through the trees. Nothing more than wind through the trees.

  He dusted off his jeans, popped and cracked his body into an upright position, then dragged the tripod and camera from the roof of the car and stowed them in the rear.

  What in the world had gotten into him, blowing nearly a whole day at one location? As one of the contributing photographers to a series of books focusing on each of the fifty states, he’d been to dozens of locations in as many states, but he hadn’t spent more than a day in any one area, let alone a few acres of Mississippi backwoods with a bunch of pillars next to a cow pasture.

  But the place had given him such a sense of peace; something he hadn’t felt in...he didn’t know if he’d ever felt that peaceful. Certainly not since he’d taken over the care of Daniel.

  With a sigh, he climbed behind the wheel and fired up the engine, popped in his favorite CD, then bumped down the rutted drive toward the road to Route 552. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t resist the urge to check out those columns again, just one more time, in his rearview mirror.

  He stopped long enough in the hotel lobby to FedEx the film to his lab in Memphis, along with a note to process the rolls and return the prints ASAP. As soon as he saw the results, satisfied that he’d gotten the best possible shots, he could move on to St. Francisville and start working his way around Louisiana. One more state to catch on film, and he could go home
to Memphis and spend some time with Dan.

  *******

  Two mornings later, Ty picked up the overnight package from the desk in the lobby. He’d been out before dawn, catching Natchez at sunrise since dreams of haunting voices and ghostly houses had awakened him at an ungodly hour for the second day in a row.

  “Will you be checking out this morning, Mr. McCall?” the clerk…what was her name? Natalie?…asked from behind the counter.

  Her voice didn’t sound at all like the one in his dreams. Comparing them all to a phantom voice now, McCall? He shook off the thought and blinked eyes burning with fatigue. He’d been on the road too long.

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I look at these.” He waved the stiff, fat envelope, pressing the elevator button with his elbow as he juggled three cameras, a tripod, and the package.

  Ten minutes later he sat on the hotel bed while chills rippled up his spine, his heart battering within his chest so hard he could barely draw a breath.

  Three images of a house, misty yet solid, lay scattered across the bedspread. The house looked exactly as it had through the lens...with blurred edges, like a picture out of focus. Solid, yet fuzzy at the same time. There were three of them. All exactly alike. Three pictures of a ghost house caught on film before the shock from the voice had jerked his hand off the shutter button.

  In the space of a thundering heartbeat, he snatched up his equipment and the pictures, then stormed from the room. Not bothering to wait for the elevator, he raced down the three flights of stairs and charged across the lobby.

  “I’ll be staying until further notice,” he called to Natalie, then loaded the gear into his Explorer and shot out of the parking lot, nosing his way through traffic, heading north toward the Natchez Trace Parkway. Every few seconds his gaze drifted down to the pictures laying face up on the passenger seat.

  The blurred image of the house among sharp, clear columns sent fresh shivers up his spine. This was no glare from the sun, or a double exposure, or anything else that someone could explain away. It was the ghostly picture of a house that had burned to the ground in the nineteenth century. Another sensation, like the warm breath of a beautiful woman, swept through him at the thought. If he had really seen the house, had he really heard the voice?

  He turned off the Trace, winding his way along the back roads of 552 until he finally found the small sign to the ruins. He turned the Explorer up the dirt drive and rounded the bend, not quite certain of what he might see. Would the house be visible again?

  He slowed to a stop, draped his hands over the wheel, and stared.

  Hell.

  At least two dozen people stopped eating, filling plates, playing badminton and croquet, and looked up expectantly, then went back to their activities when they determined he wasn’t one of them.

  How hard would it be, he wondered, to convince them all that he was a park ranger and that they were going to have to take their little picnic elsewhere?

  Yeah, right. Knowing his luck, this was a park ranger picnic, and he’d be taking pictures of the inside of a cell for impersonating Smoky the Bear.

  The smell of food sifted through the car’s air conditioner, reminding his stomach that he’d skipped breakfast to catch the morning light reflecting off the river. Resigning himself to an unproductive afternoon, he whipped the car around and headed south again. Port Gibson was closer, but there was a nice little grill on Silver Street in Natchez Under the Hill. If he was going to have to blow the afternoon, he might as well do it with good food, a view of the mighty Mississippi, and maybe a little research of the Windsor Plantation.

  *******

  After lunch, Ty made his first stop at the visitors’ center to get an idea of where to begin his search. One of the clerks sent him to the library, where he came up empty, then he moved on to the historical society. He wasn’t any luckier there. One of the little ladies manning the desk suggested he try the courthouse.

  Bingo.

  Well, not exactly bingo.

  He found some architect’s drawings of the house but nothing on the family or the history of the home.

  “Won’t do you any good,” the balding clerk answered Ty’s question about where to find more information. “We’ve got about all the documents there are, if the library and the historical society didn’t have them. The river’s flooded and changed course so many times, we’re lucky we’ve saved any documents at all from that far back.”

  Ty slid the drawings back toward the clerk and thanked him. He didn’t need drawings; he’d seen the real thing.

  And had pictures to prove it.

  Once back in his car, he headed north to the Trace and back to the ruins, chomping at the bit to expose another few rolls of film. Would he see the house again? Would he hear the voice? Had it been a once in a lifetime fluke?

  He turned at the sign, dodging the now-familiar potholes in the drive. Surely the family picnic, or whatever it was, had dispersed after the six hours he’d killed on his trip into Natchez.

  A half dozen or so diehards still lounged on blankets in the grass, looking as if they planned to camp out there.

  Well, hell.

  He let the car roll to a stop, then sat there and drummed out a beat on the steering wheel while he formed a plan of action. The quirky side of him - the side long forgotten while trying to be both mother and father to Dan - rose up out of the ashes in which it’d been buried for far too long. He climbed out of the car, shut the door, then moved to the passenger side.

  “Didn’t I tell you it was breath-taking?” he asked in a voice that carried on the breeze as he opened the door and carefully helped out...no one. Closing the door behind him, he turned and surveyed the ruins, took in a deep, appreciative breath, then cocked an ear to one side and studied the columns. “Yes. I believe you’re right. But I never would have noticed the similarities.” He put his arm around an imaginary waist and strolled along the front of the ruins toward the picnickers. “Do you think so?” he asked. “We’ll have to look it up when we get home.”

  As he neared the little group, he turned his attention to them and made a point to guide his “companion” with him.

  “Beautiful day,” he commented to the group of wide-eyed onlookers. Most of them simply stared. A couple of them nodded warily and murmured agreement.

  “Family picnic?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Yes,” one benevolent-looking lady answered, though a tad cautious.

  “Oh, you’re right, dear!” He turned to gaze lovingly at the empty air beside him, then grinned and looked back at the group. “Excuse my manners. I’m Ty McCall, and this is my wife...Callen.”

  Callen? Now where the heck had he come up with a name like Callen? It had rolled off his tongue as easily as his own.

  Six pairs of eyes grew even wider, and the entire group, as one, backed away by several inches.

  “I know, darling.” He turned back to the empty air he held in the crook of his arm. “We really do need to plan a family get-together of our own. Well,” – he faced the whites of twelve eyes – “we won’t interrupt. Enjoy this wonderful weather.”

  He and his “wife” strolled along the back side of the ruins, chatting amiably to the background sounds of car doors shutting, engines coming to life, and tires spitting gravel across the parking lot. By the time he reached the far side of the property, the ruins were as deserted as a school room on a weekend.

  He laughed out loud, then turned and bowed to the air beside him.

  “Thank you, m’dear,” he drawled with a Rhett Butler accent. “You were magnificent.”

  Without wasting another second, he sprinted back to the car, pulled his gear from the back, then set up the tripod on the roof of the car. He’d parked in the same spot as the day before, and now he busied himself with framing the setting as he had when he’d captured the ghostly image of the house. A bank of clouds rolled across the sky, blocking the dying sun, fading the shadows so that no shades of light and dark played among the column
s.

  “Damn.” He straightened, shoving a handful of hair off his forehead. It didn’t feel right. Nothing felt right. The deserted grounds still seemed alive with rowdy picnickers; the haunting quality of the previous day gone. Had the whole thing been just a product of his over-active, over-worked imagination?

  He’d almost convinced himself of just that, until his gaze dropped through the open sunroof to the passenger seat, to the photograph of a misty house illuminated by the last rays of a setting sun.

  He turned back to the camera and focused, then shot the picture. He shot dozens of pictures. He yanked another camera from the backseat and wandered among the columns, taking ridiculous angles, always glancing over his shoulder with a hopeful glimpse for the sun. Even on the most overcast of days, sometimes, just minutes before setting, the sun will drop between the clouds and earth, then light the sky with that glorious golden-orange glow. If he saw even a hint of that special light shoot from the horizon, he would head back to the car, to the exact spot where he’d seen the house the day before, and use those precious moments of light.

  As he worked with an almost desperate quality now, taking pictures, watching for sunlight, he kept one ear cocked for the velvety whisper of his name. He stopped at times and just stood still, willing the sound to drift in the air.

  The gray sky darkened to the color of soot before he finally gave up and packed away his gear. The night seemed to bring back rational thought – something he’d lost track of for a while – and he had to laugh at himself. He closed the back of the Explorer then walked to the driver’s door, his steps muffled in the grass by the evening dew.

  “Callen, my lovely wife,” he said with a teasing shake of his head, “you deserted me when I needed you most. Have you no heart—”

  “Tylar.”

  He jerked, banging his head on the top of the doorframe.