Beneath the Apple Leaves(54)
“Yep.” Andrew dropped a spoonful of sauce on Will’s plate, watched as the boy inspected his fingers under the table, stretching them out and then balling them into a fist, analyzing whether there could be truth in the statement.
Eveline brought the plate of potato pancakes to the table, served Andrew before Wilhelm. She smiled at the young man. He was good through and through. There weren’t many men built like Andrew, strong in form and sensitive in heart.
“Where’s the meat?” Wilhelm asked.
“Didn’t make any.”
“Why not?”
She held the plate in one hand and put the other at her hip. “Because I didn’t feel like making any, that’s why.”
Wilhelm rolled his eyes. “Must be that woman time,” he murmured.
Eveline took the empty plate to the sink. No, she thought, Wilhelm would never be one of those men, rare as they were. Andrew was one. Frank was one, too. A clear image and thrust of feeling entered. And suddenly she remembered what and whom her dream had been about. She blushed to her hairline, caught sight of Wilhelm forlorn and eating his bland cakes, and she shook with guilt. She brought out the sliced ham and started cooking the side me at.
*
Once Lily arrived, Eveline headed down the creaking steps to the fruit cellar with the lantern hanging from her fist, only inches from her face. At the bottom, she put the other two lanterns she had carried on the earthen ground, lit one and then the other, the three forming a triangle of light with her in the center. The cobwebs hung thick with dust blanketing every corner and hung in strings across every shelf. The temperature was temperate, not too cold, heavy to the nose with the mustiness of dust and dead rodents. The space did little to lighten her mood. For a moment, the task appeared too much to tackle and she just stood within the light unable to decide where to start.
Lily followed down the steps, her boots echoing dull and hollow against the stone walls. “Biggest fruit cellar I ever saw!” she exclaimed. “Hasn’t been touched in forever, I think.”
A line of jars, some cracked, some with indistinguishable green or yellow blobs, crowded two of the shelves, the metal tops swollen and humped.
“Food’s no good.” Lily, oblivious to the cobwebs, inspected some of the glass containers. “Would poison a goat. Not a good one in the lot.” She brushed another cobweb out of the way and wiped the sticky webbing across her skirt. She pulled out some empty jars from the back. “These ones are good, Mrs. Kiser. Come see. Not a crack in them.”
Eveline inspected and, sure enough, they were solid and would be good for pickling after a hot soak and cleaning.
“I’ll run up and get some boxes so we can sort,” said Lily. Her eyes sparkled with the project and Eveline smiled, the enthusiasm contagious. She liked the girl very much, reminded her of herself when she was young. Though the young woman held something behind the eyes, a haunting to every smile.
When Lily returned, the women worked sweeping and wiping down the shelves. The old cloths blackened with dead flies and dust with every swipe. Eveline stopped for a moment and watched Lily work. She was small boned and tiny but not weak. And her face so soft and pretty, it could have belonged to an angel. “You’re a hard worker, Miss Morton.”
“Been working my whole life, Mrs. Kiser. Cleaning up cobwebs as long as I can remember.” Her voice dropped then and fell away. She turned to Eveline and looked about to say more but stopped.
“What is it?”
“Just wondering why you moved out this way. Seems like you had a nice life in Pittsburgh. Frank’s been there a lot. Says where you lived was beautiful.”
Eveline remembered their brick house. The comforts, the warmth in winter from the fireplaces that made January no different from summer. She remembered the cook and the cleaner who came every day at noon. She remembered the proximity to town and the women who would come for tea. The memories brought a weariness to her chore, for she remembered Wilhelm’s face during that time, the pride that nearly blasted out of his skin, the way children and men stared in reverence as if he were a star from vaudeville. And she compared that image to the face she knew now and her chest hurt with the contrast.
“I guess it’s in my blood,” Eveline shared. “Working and living on the land, I mean. Wanted my boys to grow up out of the city, where the air was clean. Learn to work and respect the land.”
Eveline stood up quickly and took the broom to the corner, a sudden urge to move the demons out. Lily took the cue that the subject was dropped and took her broom handle to the ceiling and twirled the cobwebs like cotton candy.
Eveline dry brushed the dirt floor, pulling piles of dried wasps, leaves and other disintegrating objects from the corners. Abruptly, Lily dropped her broom, stared at Eveline as if she had seen a phantom.
“What is it?” Eveline asked.
Lily slowly bent down for the broom, her sight holding tight to Eveline’s shoulder. She moved slowly toward her and whispered, “Don’t move.” With a blurred motion, she knocked something large and black from the woman’s shoulder.
Eveline saw the stunned glossy black spider by her shoe, the red hourglass on its back, and jammed her boot heel into the spider. The long limbs rose and twitched until she ground it immobile.
Eveline held her heart, the pounding thumping in her ears. The room darkened and their eyes drifted to the one window flush with the outside ground. The leaves piled thick and deep and the natural light strained to enter. She looked back at the dead, smashed spider, stepped back with disgust and horror. But it was not proximity to a creature so noxious that made her whimper; it was the one fact she knew about the black widow—the females mate with the males and then eat them alive.