A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [65]
However, at seven o’clock the next morning the dog started barking and the engine started grinding, and he was back to finish the backyard. Cici made a few phone calls and discovered the boy’s last name was Clete, and that he came from what a social worker might have referred to as a “disadvantaged background.” His mother had died when he was a baby, and he lived in a single-wide on a half acre outside of town with his father who, Cici was given to understand from Maggie’s subdued tone, drank. This wasn’t much in terms of glowing recommendations, but there was some reassurance in knowing someone who knew him, and, Maggie insisted, he wasn’t a “bad kid.”
Bridget, who worried about how skinny he was, left orange juice and muffins on the back porch for him. Within the hour, they had disappeared. At noon she left two sandwiches, a bowl of potato salad, and a pitcher of iced tea in the same place, and was enormously pleased to find only empty dishes when she returned that afternoon to collect them.
Lindsay was feeling quite pleased with herself as she made her way down the freshly mown path to the dairy barn. The sky was a brilliant blue and the rain had brought with it a cool front that tasted faintly of autumn. It was the perfect day to work outside and, dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and work gloves, Lindsay was ready to start reclaiming the building that would one day house her art studio.
The wisteria that had seemed so picturesque when they had first moved into the house in the spring had overgrown the door, the windows, and roof, and was encroaching upon the stone slab of the entry. Tucking her hair up under her cap, Lindsay made a note to herself about what Noah’s next job would be as she ducked underneath the living canopy and pried the viny tendrils away from the door. The door squeaked on stiff hinges and scraped against the stone floor as she pushed it open.
For a moment she felt like one of those characters in a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, in which you simply know nothing good can happen to the protagonist once she or he has crossed the threshold of what will always turn out to be an enchanted castle. She did not remember the piles of rubble being quite so daunting, nor the debris on the floors quite so thick. Spiderwebs festooned the corners and she clawed at one that clung to her face. The two walls of windows, which had spread such a brilliant light over the building when they first had viewed it a year ago, were now clouded with a year’s worth of grime and, worse, obscured by the creeping fingers of green vines that cast slippery shadows across the floors and the walls. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, one of the shadows seemed to move, to actually slither across the floor. She stepped forward, kicking at a pile of leaves that had accumulated on the floor. The shadow scurried to a corner, formed itself into a coil, and hissed at her.
She didn’t scream at first, because she was too busy choking on her own breath, paralyzed by the hot-flash strobe of adrenaline that surged through her veins. But by the time she stumbled back out into the sunlight the scream had bubbled up through her throat and out of her mouth, and she didn’t stop there; she kept on screaming.
As it happened, Noah had stopped the lawn mower to empty the collection bag. Bridget had stepped out onto the porch to try to tempt the dog with another plate of chicken livers. Cici was rinsing off a paintbrush with a backyard hose. So when Lindsay screamed, everyone heard it.
Bridget dropped the plate of chicken livers and ran toward the sound. Cici left the hose running and, slipping and skidding in the mud, raced around the side of the house. Even Noah, his curiosity aroused by all the commotion, sauntered toward the dairy barn.
They found Lindsay leaning against a cherry tree, gasping for breath and hugging her arms. “S-s-snake!” she managed.
Cici demanded, “What kind?”
And Bridget gasped, “Oh my God! Are you sure?’
To which Lindsay replied, “Of course