Page 14 of The Treasure House

“Absolutely not.” This kid was going to be the death of me. “You’re not so much to look at one if you see one.”

Flo rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

Jake cleared his throat. “If you take the place, which I doubt you will once you’ve seen inside, you can hire someone to come mow the grass and cut things back. I know a guy.”

I tried to imagine what that would cost, given the scale of the job. The yard looked huge.

“It’s got the bones of a decent garden under all the overgrowth,” he said, staring at the impenetrable greenery. “Somewhere back there is an old vegetable patch, and a well, and a bunch of crabapples. You could make crabapple jelly if you’re the jelly-making type.” He gave me a sideways look and rubbed his nose. It was probably clear I wasn’t the jelly-making type.

But maybe I would be, if I had an orchard of crabapples?

“There are some outbuildings too. But they’re also full of culch.” He seemed demoralized on my behalf as he considered the yard. His hair tumbled back from his furrowed brow. “Anyway, we’d best get in.”

Get in? How? As far as I could see, there was no way to even reach the back stairs that led to the porch.

“These push back easily enough,” he said, pushing more red-berried limbs away as he inched along the rusty corrugated iron that formed the right half of the porch. “This here is the laundry,” he called over his shoulder to me, tapping the iron sheeting. “It’s in original condition, you might say.”

I could feel the bushes scratching at my bare arms and legs and wished I’d worn jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, instead of a tank and shorts. Especially given the threat of snakes. I noticed Jake’s hand drift down to brush Flo’s shoulder, just to make sure she was safe and following close.

“Down the other end there’s a screened porch. It used to be quite nice, back in its day.” He paused. “But the screens all need replacing.”

Everything needed replacing. The back stairs looked rotten through.

“They’re not as bad as they look,” Jake said, when he saw my horror. He stood on them to show me, then jumped up and down on the middle step. “Safe enough.”

“Why couldn’t we go in through the front door?” I asked as I watched Flo follow him up the rotten-looking stairs.

“It’s boarded up.”

I’d seen that much. “But why?”

“The glass is smashed. Like most of the windows.”

Right. This place might be on the market for a song, but how would I ever afford the cleanup? New glass for the front door and windows, new stairs and screens for the back porch, a complete cutting back of the backyard… The costs were adding up and we hadn’t even set foot inside the house yet.

Flo wriggled past Jake as he opened the back door. “Mom, look at this place! It’s a museum.” She disappeared to the right.

“Be careful!”

Jake stepped back to let me by, but the space was narrow and once again I ended up rubbing against him. Once again, I felt that slow shiver flow through me.

“She’ll be okay. I went at it with the bug spray a few days ago,” he assured me, his voice oddly tight. “There’s no spiders or anything.”

Oh, good God, I thought as I took in the interior. Spiders or no spiders, it was horrifying. The place wasn’t a museum, it was a junkyard. It was far worse than the photos had shown. The “laundry” on the right was nothing but a lean-to made of corrugated iron; it looked like it was being held together by rust. It was filled to the brim with antique appliances, chief among which was a laundry mangle that must have been more than a century old. It was a tall cast-iron contraption with two big wooden rollers, which were turning now, thanks to Flo, who was gleeful with her discovery.

“Watch your hands with that thing,” Jake warned her. “It’s wicked painful if you get them caught in the rollers.” He was standing close behind me and I could smell the salty, woody scent of him. Like driftwood warming in the sun.

“What is it? A torture device?”

“A mangle,” he said calmly. “It’s how people used to squeeze the water out of their clothes and sheets.”

“Cool! Mom, we’re keeping this.” Flo gave the rollers a cheerful slap with her hand, like she was smacking the rump of a horse she’d bought at auction.

There was a stack of discolored copper tubs in the back corner of the lean-to, and a water pump over a concrete trough. And then there was the proper junk: an old stroller and a couple of rusty bicycles, both missing wheels; parts of a baby’s crib and a brass bed; old tin cans with faded or missing labels; even an ancient surfboard that must have been nine feet long.

“There’s a bathroom through that door at the end there,” Jake told me, pointing to a door. “The toilet still works. Kind of.”

“Kind of?”