Need a Ride?

She’d walked the same roads for so long, since before some of them had blacktop asphalt to replace the dirt tracks and wagon ruts that had formed them. Not many road ghosts could claim that kind of age. Most of them moved on when their roads were abandoned. Her? Her roads were never abandoned, never passed over, just paved and widened. She stood on the edge now, the border from state to state where her power waned. She was a Kansas girl and no matter how hard she tried, Missouri and Colorado would never have her. She brushed her skirts, though no dirt ever stuck. No, this was the best way to change them. Her old yellow dress with its apron and layers stuck out. To hitch a ride, she couldn’t be Bess who died on the road in her Papa’s wagon heading west. No, these days she was Betsy or Beth and she was just trying to find somewhere fun.

There was a light coming down the road now and a grin slowly crossed her face. Maybe it would be someone who could take her beyond the corn, beyond the pitch black tar, and out into the light again. She checked over her jeans and t-shirt before holding her arm out with her thumb raised to the sky. The beat-up pick-up truck trundled to a stop beside her and a woman her own age grinned at her from the driver’s seat. Well, her apparent age anyway.

“Need a ride?”

“Sure do, if you don’t mind.”

“Hop in.”

Bess wasn’t good at history, at trends, at fashion. It took her a good twenty miles down the road before she realized something wasn’t right. At least, not right for the here and the now. The woman behind the wheel seemed normal enough, but her clothes could have fallen out of the turbulent parts of the 60s, tie-dye and flowing with a headband keeping her hair back out of her eyes.

“What’s going on?”

“We’ve been looking for you a long time, Elizabeth Miller. You don’t have to move on or leave the roads if you don’t want to, but I figured maybe you wouldn’t want to be alone.”

Rome – Home

They say all roads lead to Rome. To most people, that’s nothing more than a trite bit of humor from a defunct empire boasting about its greatness. To some, though, it’s a truism and a promise. To some who walk the byways time has forgotten, all roads still lead to Rome, imperial and grand. To those wanderers, the past is home more than the now. He was one of those wanderers, in his rundown junker of more rust than whole steel with a tape deck that clicked and refused to play B sides. He hadn’t meant to find his truth in the old words, hadn’t meant to become a wanderer who swore to a code forgotten. But here he was with his sunglasses on, his car pointed north and SPQR emblazoned on his forearm as an oath. Turning his gaze on the girl in the passenger seat, he smiled. She was a client, one of the lost. The Empire was now home only to those as lost as it was. His glance at his mileage. Not much further now. Probably that intersection there. The crossroads had power, even in ancient times. That was his gate today. Soon, they would both be home