Author's Note- Hey! I'm back. Yeah, Maddison's here. LOL. I got this one up
pretty fast, eh? Oh, I have a HUGE favor to ask. It's not hard. I just NEED
the names of all Syaoran's sisters, which would help another fic of mine
along soooo much! Please and Thank you! (Shoot out to my favorite authors:
Kintora- PLEASE update ur two new fics soon!! Thanks! ^^. Little Wolf Lover-
Please don't stop writing! You're so GOOD at it!) Anyways On wit da fic!!
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October Chill
By: Cobalt-eyedAngel
By closing time Sakura had talked herself into and out of a variety of rationalizations several times over. But each of those rationalizations assumed one of two things, and since Sakura refused to believe she was hallucinating- brain tumor or not- she had to assume she had seen some sort of ghost.
She put out the DISPLAY CLOSED sign, and latched the door and windows from the inside against any stranglers, then she banked down the fire. She wiped down the tables, washed the last batch of mugs, checked the supply of cider, and filled out daily-attendance-estimate forms. The same as she did everyday she worked here. Takashi would be by later, as he was every day, to check that all the candles and cooking fires were truly out.
She could hear the other demonstrators and tour guides calling good night to one another outside, and the crunch of gravel carried in the crisp air as they walked down the path to the covered toll bridge that marked the entrance of the main exhibit area.
To the west were several hundred acres of dense wooded area- owned by the museum and slated for development as more historic buildings were moved here from sites all along the eastern seaboard. Sakura knew from experience that the trees' shadows would be long and gloomy already, reaching the Shaker meetinghouse across the commons from the tavern. Everything as it should be. Everything as it had always been, until today.
Inside the tavern, she was more aware of the smoky smell now than she'd been when the fire had actually been burning. Already her breath was visible in the chill late-afternoon air. All that was left was to douse the candles and go meet her father in the parking lot. Then it was another evening of just her and her father and brother pretending everything was fine. Same as all other days.
And yet...And yet...The doubts and questions she had managed to block during her busyness of providing mulled cider and historical information and period atmosphere now rushed to fill the void inactivity(A/N- another spelling word!! ^^) created.
"Hello," she called, very softly, embarrassed even though there was no one to witness her making a fool of herself. "Are you still there? I'm..."
This was ridiculous. If Tomoyo, who demonstrated spinning and weaving in the log cabin, happened to stop by on her way out as she sometimes did, and found Sakura at this...
Tomoyo would tell her ghosts are silly.
But what was a handsome young man with distress in his eyes, who dressed in colonial garb(A/N- can u guess what it is? LOL) and dissolved in thin air?
"I'm sorry I snapped at you," she told the air. "You startled me; that's all. Please come back."
Now, what had she gone and done that for?
"Hello? Whoever you are? Are you still there?"
Facing the door she felt the draft from behind her, from within the room. "I'm-"
Despite herself she gasped at the sound of his voice. She whirled to face him.
"Don't..." he pleaded. Already he was beginning to shimmer at the edges, the flames from the candles on the mantel behind him faintly visible through his torso. "I'm sorry," he assured her. "I meant no harm."
"Wait!" she cried. "Don't go!"
He didn't become any more solid, but at least he didn't disappear.
"You startled me," she repeated. My Kami-sama, she was talking to someone she could see right through. She backed into the table. She hadn't truly expected him to return. Now what?
His face was pale between his chestnut brown hair and intense amber eyes. That...may have been his normal coloring. But he looked...
He looked, she realized, at least as scared of her as she was of him.
She wasn't used to having people scared of her.
"I'm sorry," She said again. "Please forgive me." The old-fashioned clothes they both wore encouraged a more formal speech.
The boy seemed to gulp.
(Could ghosts gulp?) She forced a smile. "Who are you?"
He looked desperate for something to be doing with his hands. "Syaoran." He cleared his throat. "Syaoran Li."
Instinctively she extended her hand as she said, "My name's Sakura Kinomoto."
He hesitated, wiped his hands on his breeches, (A/N- Another spelling word! Ok, Srry, I'll stop interrupting...) then reached out also.
Their hands missed.
Or rather, they didn't.
Her hand seemed to pass through cold thick air. She shuddered.
As did he. He stepped back, hugging himself as if for warmth. "What are you?" he asked.
"What am I?" she echoed, incredulous, thinking, 'Oh, no. Don't tell me he doesn't even know he's a ghost.'
But he didn't look like a ghost, not anymore. He had fully materialized, or solidified,(A/N- nope, I won't say anything...wait-aren't I right now? Damn...) or whatever it was that ghosts do when you can't see the wallpaper behind them anymore.
His white linen shirt had no bloodstains; nor, except for appearing paler than she'd expect for a man dressed like an eighteenth-century farmer, did he bear any obvious signs of violence or disease. Not like horror-show ghouls. What had killed him?
After stepping away from her, he had put out a hand to steady himself, a hand which now solidly gripped the back of one of the tavern chairs. He looked, Sakura had to admit to herself, like a man who had just seen a ghost.
"I work here," she told him. She sat down on the nearest chair, to prove to him, that she was as substantial as he was. "How did you get here?"
The boy- Syaoran -thought about that for a moment. "I don't know," he said vaguely, glancing round the room as though it wasn't at all familiar. Then he looked straight at her and repeated, "I don't know. What is this place?"
Haunting- and he didn't even know where? "The Tiluke Spa Tavern."
"Tiluke Spa..." He pulled around the chair he'd been holding and straddled it, facing her, close enough to...to touch. He folded his arms over the back of the chair. "I'm from Waterville," he said. "Well, not exactly the town. My family owns acres and acres that have farms. How did I get to be in Tiluke Spa?"
She shook her head hopelessly. He looked so confused, so venerable. "Tiluke Spa's not that far from Waterville," she offered. She didn't have the heart to tell him that the tavern was no longer in Tomoeda but had been transported by truck and relocated halfway across city.
"A day away," he said, and it still would be, if you traveled by horse today. Then more to himself, he added, "How did I lose a whole day?"
Distressed, Sakura put her hand to her mouth, then saw that Syaoran was watching her every move. She folded her hands on the table in front of her.
Never taking his eyes away from hers, Syaoran reached across the table.
She saw that his hands were clean, even under the nails. (A/N- Sakura's so weird, why would you look at a ghost's hands??? LOL.) The fingers were long and slender, though the palms were somewhat calloused. She could see all those details. And then again she felt the cold, almost tangible...something...as his hand passed through hers.
Syaoran wrapped his arms around the chair back. "I think," he said, without looking directly at her, "that I may have died."
And what could she answer to that?
Maybe this was nature's way of telling her to stop feeling sorry for herself. At least she wasn't dead yet. At least she wasn't dead and just finding out about it.
"What day is today?" he asked.
"October twenty-fourth," She answered, and he closed his eyes. She hesitated, then finished: "In the year two thousand-four."
His lips moved slightly, as though he might have whispered a prayer or oath. Or maybe he was doing math. Not that it would require math to see that he was at least two centuries away from home.
Then he looked at her again, swallowed hard, and said, "Well. I guess the chances were always pretty good that I'd die before two thousand-four."
'Don't', she mentally begged him. 'Don't be like that.' "What..." She had to clear her throat and start again. "What is the last date you...remember?"
"April." Again, he was the one to look away. "April thirtieth, seventeen seventy-five."
That was after the battles of Lexington and Concord. (A/N- See! History really does pay off! LOL)
Too bad that by the time she had started working here, she wasn't taking American History anymore. She finally had all the dates and details down cold. Had there been fighting that early at Waterville? He probably was a soldier in the first days of the American Revolution. Should she tell him? She swallowed hard and asked, "And the last thing you remember, were you in Waterville, at the farm?"
"Yes. No." He appeared to suddenly noticed that his breath left no trail of vapor in the chill air as her's did. He held his palm a few inches from his mouth and breathed into it. Seeing her watching him, he got up abruptly, scraping the chair across the slats of the wooden floor. "I don't remember." Absently he rubbed the base of his collarbone, showing above the open neck of his shirt. "It almost seems-"
The tavern door rattled, then someone banged on it. "Yo!" Takashi's voice called. "Sakura. Still in there?"
Sakura had instinctively turned at the noise, but when she looked back, she was alone in the room. It had gotten quite dark, with only the candles on the mantel, though so gradually she hadn't noticed. She should confide in Takashi, she thought, who was one of her good friend's boyfriend and a good friend to her, and he believed anything.
Instead she said, "In a minute, Takashi." She whispered, "Syaoran?" and peered into the corners, though she knew that wasn't where he had gone. 'How sad,' she thought, 'How very, very sad.'
"Sakura," Takashi called, "no over time for winter hours."
Which was a joke because- like most of them- she was a volunteer and didn't get paid at all.
"Right," she said. She pulled her shawl tight around her slim shoulders as she fumbled with the door latch, her fingers clumsy with the cold.
She hadn't noticed that, either.
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Author's Note- Wheeeh, Done! That was pretty long, eh? Whelps I probably won't be able to update this or any of my other fics since I'm spending a week with my friend while my parents are in Pennsylvania. So keep reading this and my other fics over till I do get back! LOL. Don't forget to R&R! Please and Thank you! ~Cobalt-eyedAngel
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October Chill
By: Cobalt-eyedAngel
By closing time Sakura had talked herself into and out of a variety of rationalizations several times over. But each of those rationalizations assumed one of two things, and since Sakura refused to believe she was hallucinating- brain tumor or not- she had to assume she had seen some sort of ghost.
She put out the DISPLAY CLOSED sign, and latched the door and windows from the inside against any stranglers, then she banked down the fire. She wiped down the tables, washed the last batch of mugs, checked the supply of cider, and filled out daily-attendance-estimate forms. The same as she did everyday she worked here. Takashi would be by later, as he was every day, to check that all the candles and cooking fires were truly out.
She could hear the other demonstrators and tour guides calling good night to one another outside, and the crunch of gravel carried in the crisp air as they walked down the path to the covered toll bridge that marked the entrance of the main exhibit area.
To the west were several hundred acres of dense wooded area- owned by the museum and slated for development as more historic buildings were moved here from sites all along the eastern seaboard. Sakura knew from experience that the trees' shadows would be long and gloomy already, reaching the Shaker meetinghouse across the commons from the tavern. Everything as it should be. Everything as it had always been, until today.
Inside the tavern, she was more aware of the smoky smell now than she'd been when the fire had actually been burning. Already her breath was visible in the chill late-afternoon air. All that was left was to douse the candles and go meet her father in the parking lot. Then it was another evening of just her and her father and brother pretending everything was fine. Same as all other days.
And yet...And yet...The doubts and questions she had managed to block during her busyness of providing mulled cider and historical information and period atmosphere now rushed to fill the void inactivity(A/N- another spelling word!! ^^) created.
"Hello," she called, very softly, embarrassed even though there was no one to witness her making a fool of herself. "Are you still there? I'm..."
This was ridiculous. If Tomoyo, who demonstrated spinning and weaving in the log cabin, happened to stop by on her way out as she sometimes did, and found Sakura at this...
Tomoyo would tell her ghosts are silly.
But what was a handsome young man with distress in his eyes, who dressed in colonial garb(A/N- can u guess what it is? LOL) and dissolved in thin air?
"I'm sorry I snapped at you," she told the air. "You startled me; that's all. Please come back."
Now, what had she gone and done that for?
"Hello? Whoever you are? Are you still there?"
Facing the door she felt the draft from behind her, from within the room. "I'm-"
Despite herself she gasped at the sound of his voice. She whirled to face him.
"Don't..." he pleaded. Already he was beginning to shimmer at the edges, the flames from the candles on the mantel behind him faintly visible through his torso. "I'm sorry," he assured her. "I meant no harm."
"Wait!" she cried. "Don't go!"
He didn't become any more solid, but at least he didn't disappear.
"You startled me," she repeated. My Kami-sama, she was talking to someone she could see right through. She backed into the table. She hadn't truly expected him to return. Now what?
His face was pale between his chestnut brown hair and intense amber eyes. That...may have been his normal coloring. But he looked...
He looked, she realized, at least as scared of her as she was of him.
She wasn't used to having people scared of her.
"I'm sorry," She said again. "Please forgive me." The old-fashioned clothes they both wore encouraged a more formal speech.
The boy seemed to gulp.
(Could ghosts gulp?) She forced a smile. "Who are you?"
He looked desperate for something to be doing with his hands. "Syaoran." He cleared his throat. "Syaoran Li."
Instinctively she extended her hand as she said, "My name's Sakura Kinomoto."
He hesitated, wiped his hands on his breeches, (A/N- Another spelling word! Ok, Srry, I'll stop interrupting...) then reached out also.
Their hands missed.
Or rather, they didn't.
Her hand seemed to pass through cold thick air. She shuddered.
As did he. He stepped back, hugging himself as if for warmth. "What are you?" he asked.
"What am I?" she echoed, incredulous, thinking, 'Oh, no. Don't tell me he doesn't even know he's a ghost.'
But he didn't look like a ghost, not anymore. He had fully materialized, or solidified,(A/N- nope, I won't say anything...wait-aren't I right now? Damn...) or whatever it was that ghosts do when you can't see the wallpaper behind them anymore.
His white linen shirt had no bloodstains; nor, except for appearing paler than she'd expect for a man dressed like an eighteenth-century farmer, did he bear any obvious signs of violence or disease. Not like horror-show ghouls. What had killed him?
After stepping away from her, he had put out a hand to steady himself, a hand which now solidly gripped the back of one of the tavern chairs. He looked, Sakura had to admit to herself, like a man who had just seen a ghost.
"I work here," she told him. She sat down on the nearest chair, to prove to him, that she was as substantial as he was. "How did you get here?"
The boy- Syaoran -thought about that for a moment. "I don't know," he said vaguely, glancing round the room as though it wasn't at all familiar. Then he looked straight at her and repeated, "I don't know. What is this place?"
Haunting- and he didn't even know where? "The Tiluke Spa Tavern."
"Tiluke Spa..." He pulled around the chair he'd been holding and straddled it, facing her, close enough to...to touch. He folded his arms over the back of the chair. "I'm from Waterville," he said. "Well, not exactly the town. My family owns acres and acres that have farms. How did I get to be in Tiluke Spa?"
She shook her head hopelessly. He looked so confused, so venerable. "Tiluke Spa's not that far from Waterville," she offered. She didn't have the heart to tell him that the tavern was no longer in Tomoeda but had been transported by truck and relocated halfway across city.
"A day away," he said, and it still would be, if you traveled by horse today. Then more to himself, he added, "How did I lose a whole day?"
Distressed, Sakura put her hand to her mouth, then saw that Syaoran was watching her every move. She folded her hands on the table in front of her.
Never taking his eyes away from hers, Syaoran reached across the table.
She saw that his hands were clean, even under the nails. (A/N- Sakura's so weird, why would you look at a ghost's hands??? LOL.) The fingers were long and slender, though the palms were somewhat calloused. She could see all those details. And then again she felt the cold, almost tangible...something...as his hand passed through hers.
Syaoran wrapped his arms around the chair back. "I think," he said, without looking directly at her, "that I may have died."
And what could she answer to that?
Maybe this was nature's way of telling her to stop feeling sorry for herself. At least she wasn't dead yet. At least she wasn't dead and just finding out about it.
"What day is today?" he asked.
"October twenty-fourth," She answered, and he closed his eyes. She hesitated, then finished: "In the year two thousand-four."
His lips moved slightly, as though he might have whispered a prayer or oath. Or maybe he was doing math. Not that it would require math to see that he was at least two centuries away from home.
Then he looked at her again, swallowed hard, and said, "Well. I guess the chances were always pretty good that I'd die before two thousand-four."
'Don't', she mentally begged him. 'Don't be like that.' "What..." She had to clear her throat and start again. "What is the last date you...remember?"
"April." Again, he was the one to look away. "April thirtieth, seventeen seventy-five."
That was after the battles of Lexington and Concord. (A/N- See! History really does pay off! LOL)
Too bad that by the time she had started working here, she wasn't taking American History anymore. She finally had all the dates and details down cold. Had there been fighting that early at Waterville? He probably was a soldier in the first days of the American Revolution. Should she tell him? She swallowed hard and asked, "And the last thing you remember, were you in Waterville, at the farm?"
"Yes. No." He appeared to suddenly noticed that his breath left no trail of vapor in the chill air as her's did. He held his palm a few inches from his mouth and breathed into it. Seeing her watching him, he got up abruptly, scraping the chair across the slats of the wooden floor. "I don't remember." Absently he rubbed the base of his collarbone, showing above the open neck of his shirt. "It almost seems-"
The tavern door rattled, then someone banged on it. "Yo!" Takashi's voice called. "Sakura. Still in there?"
Sakura had instinctively turned at the noise, but when she looked back, she was alone in the room. It had gotten quite dark, with only the candles on the mantel, though so gradually she hadn't noticed. She should confide in Takashi, she thought, who was one of her good friend's boyfriend and a good friend to her, and he believed anything.
Instead she said, "In a minute, Takashi." She whispered, "Syaoran?" and peered into the corners, though she knew that wasn't where he had gone. 'How sad,' she thought, 'How very, very sad.'
"Sakura," Takashi called, "no over time for winter hours."
Which was a joke because- like most of them- she was a volunteer and didn't get paid at all.
"Right," she said. She pulled her shawl tight around her slim shoulders as she fumbled with the door latch, her fingers clumsy with the cold.
She hadn't noticed that, either.
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Author's Note- Wheeeh, Done! That was pretty long, eh? Whelps I probably won't be able to update this or any of my other fics since I'm spending a week with my friend while my parents are in Pennsylvania. So keep reading this and my other fics over till I do get back! LOL. Don't forget to R&R! Please and Thank you! ~Cobalt-eyedAngel