At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [91]
“So what if it is? We’re supposed to be cleaning out this junk.” But reluctantly, he returned with the shovel, and even helped her dig out the layers of packed dirt around the ring.
Less than ten minutes later they both stepped back, gazing at the six-foot panel of solid wood set into the stone floor, with the iron ring affixed to it in the center. “Will you look at that?” said Lori in amazement. “It’s a door! A trapdoor! I wonder what’s down there?”
“Spiders,” replied Noah.
“Mom, come here!” Lori called. “You won’t believe what we found! Aunt Lindsay, Aunt Bridget, come look at this!”
By the time the women arrived, Noah and Lori had used the metal ring to swing the door upward on a pair of powerful hinges. A couple of spiders did, in fact, scurry out, along with a surge of cool, damp air, but once they were gone, nothing more frightening was revealed inside than a set of sturdy stone steps.
“It’s like a castle dungeon,” said Bridget in awe. Her voice echoed as she leaned over the opening.
“Or a treasure cave,” agreed Lindsay, wide-eyed.
“What do you suppose it is?” Cici wondered.
“Maybe where they used to hide out from the Indians,” Noah suggested.
“Or where they hid the Confederate Treasury.” Bridget’s voice barely contained her excitement.
Lindsay shot a dry glance her way. “With our luck, it will be in Confederate bills.”
“Lori, run to the house and get some flashlights,” commanded Cici impatiently. “Hurry!”
And so, in an instant, the gray aftermath of disaster was transformed into a morning of adventure and possibility as, one flashlight beam at a time, they made their way down the stairs and into the vast cellar below.
“Smells like somebody puked down here,” observed Noah.
They stood close together at the bottom of the stairs, the slow sweeping beams of their light crossing and occasionally glinting off the round curves of something metal. Their voices echoed.
“Sour,” agreed Lindsay.
“More like moldy bread,” said Bridget.
“Oh, my goodness, I think I know what this place is,” Lori said excitedly. “It’s the cave where they used to age the cheese!”
Cici swept her light along the wall near the stairs, and found a switch. There was a buzzing and flickering overhead, and, one by one, a bank of fluorescent lights sequenced into life. They found themselves standing in a vast concrete room with a steel door at the far end, surrounded by giant, dusty steel vats with tubes and pipes connected to them.
Bridget gave a little shudder, her eyes wide as she looked around. “It’s like Frankenstein’s laboratory!”
“Nope,” said Cici. “It’s not a cheese cave either.” Smiling, she flicked off her flashlight. “It looks to me as though Noah and Lori have discovered what remains of the old Blackwell Farms winery.”
They bombarded Ida Mae with questions at lunch. Why hadn’t Ida Mae ever mentioned the winery beneath the barn? Why was it hidden away like that? Where did the steel door, which they had tried with all their strength to open, lead? Why had all that equipment been abandoned like that? How long had the place been closed up? And why had it been kept such a secret?
Ida Mae, complacently serving up homemade vegetable soup and fresh buttermilk cornbread, replied, “Weren’t no secret. You just never asked before.”
“I swear, you are the most exasperating woman!” Cici exclaimed. “All this time, a part of this county’s history has been sitting down there and you never said a word.”
“And not one single bottle of 1967 Shiraz with the original label,” Lindsay felt compelled to point out, a trifle fatalistically.
“Ida Mae is right, you know. We knew about the winery before we bought the house, but it never occurred to us to wonder where it was.”
“I wonder if the equipment is worth anything.”
“Maybe.” Cici tasted her soup. “We could do some research, try to sell it on eBay or something.”
“What I don’t understand,” Lori said, “is why they put a winery in the cellar of a barn.”
Ida Mae gave her a disparaging look. “You ever hear of Prohibition?