A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [42]
Their quick search of the house turned up nothing, and they met at the Victrola just as the scratchy old tune was winding down. Lindsay lifted the needle arm from the record. She said, “I don’t ever want to hear another word about ‘Lindsay’s ghost.’ It’s everybody’s ghost now.”
“I don’t know,” Bridget said. “You’re the one who brought a haunted Victrola into the house.”
Cici said uneasily, “We should probably lock the doors and windows.”
Since moving to the country, their suburban paranoia had gradually fallen away, partly because of the intoxicating and addictive nature of sleeping with windows open to the fresh air, and partly because many of the doors had not come with keys. Even now, with clear signs that an intruder had entered the house, they were reluctant to return to the habits that seemed to belong to another place, another time.
Bridget said, “We might be locking it in with us.”
“Great, Bridge. Thanks, Bridge.” Lindsay hugged her arms. “I’m going to sleep so much better now.”
Cici frowned a little. “There’s no ‘it.’ This”—she made a vague circular motion toward the Victrola—“is spring-operated. Obviously we left the needle on the record when we were moving it, and there was enough tension left in the spring from the demonstration at the store to play the record.”
“And it started up all by itself?”
“Sure,” Lindsay said, eager to agree. “Things like that happen all the time. Gravity.”
Bridget drew in a breath. “Okay. I believe that.”
Cici was still scowling at the Victrola. “Then you’re crazy.”
They were silent for a time, brooding. Then Bridget decided, “I think it was the house. And I think it’s saying, ‘Welcome home.’ ”
And at the looks the other two gave her she went on insistently, “Think about it. We have electricity even though the power company never turned on the power. A recipe book appears out of thin air to save our strawberries. And we have background music to make our evenings more pleasant. All of these are good things. The house is welcoming us home.”
“Bridget,” replied Lindsay after a respectful moment, “you are definitely crazy.”
“Entirely certifiable,” agreed Cici.
But neither of them could think of a better explanation, and that night, no one locked her windows.
Summer
Growing
9
In Which the Earth Moves and the Roof Caves In
“Miz Burke, can I just show you one thing?”
The ladies had only been in the house for a few months, but already they knew that those words, particularly when uttered by a workman, were never followed by good news. Cici and Lindsay were using paint scrapers and sandpaper to ready the front porch for painting; Bridget was in the garden. When the heating-and-air contractor poked his head out the front door and pronounced those fateful words, Cici looked at Lindsay, gave a small shrug of resignation, and followed him back inside.
The garden path was still only half restored, but the living room walls had been painted a pale shade of antique gold and the trim—including an endless chair rail and an acre of pressed tin ceiling—had been refreshed with gloss white. The floors were still rather dull and battered looking, but the rock wall in the garden was now eight inches high. Lindsay was still debating how to finish her bedroom walls, but Cici had completed the closets for Bridget’s and Lindsay’s rooms. No one had time to shop for furniture, so they ate all their meals at