"Temporis Et Spatii"

CHAPTER 2.

The swelter ascended twenty degrees at any threshold of sun, so I couldn't cool this commotion with a walk. Instead, I sat in my austere rocking chair and - with a furtive glance at the bedroom door, which stood closed and uneventful - hiked my skirts up to my knees. Sewing was an infallible virtue, always a steadfast reravelling of the hours, of the brain. I picked up Mrs. Marigold's snagged turquoise daydress, my needle, and every last fiber in me capable of exiling Draco Malfoy from my head.

Mrs. Marigold. Town gossip; likely peeping through her curtains at this scandalous spectacle of the rich recluse from up the hill careening right on through that spinster's front door. Though I couldn't disagree that one's business ought to be conducted with some measure of tact, I say, let 'em talk. I hadn't the need for friends or anything more than needle-and-thread customers since consumption took Ma and Pa anyhow.

But then, six months later, Draco appeared like lightning cleaving the sky in half. Sunday, July 17th, 1887, smoldering and bright as the surface of the sun; I'll never forget the day as long as I live. He showed up here unexpectedly - much like today - shivering under pounds of his sopping wet clothes. I gave him a blanket and tea and he insisted he didn't need more. In a day his grand estate was built by what could only be imported hires (who could never actually be observed) and just as quickly became his ivory tower: He seemed to prefer no company but mine. We were rather alike in that way, and it proved a brilliant foundation on which to build a friendship. I didn't mind his mysteries, and he didn't mind my plainness. We complemented each other.

Presently, the bedroom door creaked open. I slung Mrs. Marigold's dress on my other rocker and was on my feet, dropping my skirts to protect my modesty.

Draco didn't notice, emerging sluggishly and sitting at the small meal table against the front wall, face slumping to his hands. "I'm sorry for coming here, Cora."

"How do you feel?" I asked. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by his hands reaching for mine (an hour's siesta was simply insufficient to expel alcohol from the body) but my keenness to give them.

"Like shit."

My eyes enlarged.

"Sorry," he groaned. "I'm still drunk."

"You don't normally indulge in drink." My thumbs pawed at his gingerly. "I'm your best friend, Draco. You know you can tell me anything."

He shook his head hard, eyes straining up at me. His voice cracked uncharacteristically. "I … can't. Everything will change."

"Is it the same amount that would change if we made love?" I hadn't meant it to be a blade edge.

Hands and entire countenance swiped from me defensively, smeared his fingertips into his eyes.

I escaped elsewhere as well and found an errantly upturned floor plank upon which I could fixate. My tongue emerged a flummoxed, startled animal. "I've never … known a man's touch," I confessed, blooming fervid scarlet. "I wouldn't … I wouldn't know what to …"

"Cora, it's okay."

"One article for each answer." Outpacing my apprehension, I swiftly unfastened every button down the front of my sepia overshirt, peeled off each arm, and clapped it on the table. Draco surveyed the sequence of it with leaden eyes, but I brazened forward, exposing my worn silk corset and the cotton underslip my breasts filled above it. He could see me now - my shoulders, my narrow freckled arms, my risen bosom. My heart pummeled my ribs. "Why are you going to die at sundown?" I demanded.

"Oh!" His guffaw flayed the air unexpectedly. "That's what they say in old west movies. That part was a joke."

"They say in What West What?"

He shook his head. "Nevermind. Nothing. I'm not going to die."

I studied him for a moment. I had read about visitors from the stars, and this wasn't the first time he'd said something that sounded completely of another world. That was fiction, though; My corset was a tangible verity, and it drew free from the bottom.

"Cora, wait." He lurched forward to take my hand just as my ribcage liberated. "You don't have to do this. I'll talk to you."

I pursed my lips and blinked. "I don't mean to be meddlesome. I only want to help."

"I know." He dug his free hand into his pocket and thumped an exotic branch on the table. Rather, an opulently carved hawthorn rod. Or perhaps an ornate rail from one of his banisters? It captivated my imagination as he reluctantly looked on.

"I'm being hunted," he announced flatly.

"So you greased your holler?"

His icy eyes averted. "Do you have anymore, by the way?"

I swallowed, daring to slide a finger up the bewitching russet shaft. "Isn't that a might ill-advised?"

"They don't know where I am," he explained, "yet. They only know the era and region."

I blinked quizzically. "Era?"

He sighed. His crystalline gaze slithered through every window, reaching, it seemed, to the furthest corners of the territory. Then he squeezed my hand, heaved forward and looked me dead in the eyes: "I'm from the year 2005. You live in a region and era we now call the wild west. I'm a wizard - that is my wand - I was accused of a crime I didn't commit, and I am drinking because all of this means I have to leave you."

I sat there incredulously as his eyes darted earnestly between mine. Was he serious? Draco wasn't typically wont to be disingenuous, yet here he was, gunning down my intelligence like a rabid dog in a field. "How long were you wandering in the heat?" I erupted from my chair and spread distance between us. "I suppose you don't have to tell me, Draco, but I'd appreciate you not spinnin' fine, all-to-pieces webs around me."

He sneered, but retrieved his wand in no particular hurry. "Accio Cora," he commanded.

Something ferociously unseen blasted me back the way I came, barreling me into Draco's ready arms with a shrill clamor. I rained frightened limbs upon him. "Go back to Hell, Demon! Go back to hell across lots!"

"No no no, Cora, it's okay," he pleaded, restraining me as I bucked. "Cora, it's not evil. It's okay."

He kept me with a steadfast strength surprising for a rail of a man, effectively smothering my efforts. I twisted to face him. Ethereal violet oil enraptured dust flecks, riding the guilden rays between us, and evaporated to barren desert air. In its wake, the memory of his lips breezed over mine. "This is me," he soothed.

Inflicting my knee upon his gut, I sprang for the front door, but halted at a disturbance in the knob.

"Accio Cora!" familiarly whisked me to his embrace.

"Bombarda!" he bellowed, and I cried out again when my door detonated to the back wall, inviting in a deliverance of blinding sun. This time, I walloped Draco where a man is not to be assailed, seized the wand from his booze-dulled grasp, and made for freedom. When I saw the intruder staggering to their feet, I took aim.

"CORA! NO!"

"BOM - BAR - DUH!"