J. Lennon - Castle

“Oh.”

“Their names were Cybele and Brian Loesch,” I said. “They lived on Jefferson Street, where I grew up.”

She frowned. “Where’s that again?”

“The west end of town,” I said. “I understand it’s where they put the new sports field for the high school.”

She paused before replying, “Oh, right. They never finished that. The high school got consolidated with Milan High.” She looked up at me. “I remember it when I was a kid. Them knocking the houses down.”

I nodded. “It was after my time.”

“I guess so.”

The village quickly gave way to farmland, much of it abandoned and overgrown with scrub. If the area’s misfortune were to continue for another fifty years, it would all be forest again, as it had doubtless been before it was settled by Europeans. The road weaved and lurched, following the hills, and I grimaced as my ill-considered morning snack shifted in my stomach.

Luckily it was not far to the plot of land. Jennifer held a survey map, which she turned this way and that, studying it, then peering out the window. “Okay,” she said, as we passed a road marked MINERVA. “I think this is it, maybe? Starting on the left?”

Even from my vantage point on the driver’s side, it was obvious that the plot of land began, in fact, on the right. Jennifer was holding the map upside down. I told her so, and she corrected her grip with a small grunt of acknowledgment. Clearly she was not the type to accept others’ authority with ease.

The road took on a more steady, if slight, grade now; the car began to climb. The land was heavily wooded, and unremarkable in every way. Yet the sight of it filled me with excitement and foreboding. I felt powerfully the rightness of the decision I had made to return here, and I gripped the steering wheel harder.

We rose gradually on the undulating pavement, and eventually came to a crossroads, the corner of LYSSAand PHOEBUS. There was a clearing here, and a white house, large and clapboarded, with drooping eaves. Saplings grew all around it, right up against the foundation. Beyond it the road sloped away, and in the far distance, outside the influence of the thick gray cloudbank that covered us, I could make out the glimmer of a lake. I drew to a stop on the shoulder.

“That’s the house,” Jennifer said. “Like I said, it needs work. On the other side of the street is Fordham County, and that’s Wanona Lake way down there.”

“It’s a beautiful view,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” she replied, without enthusiasm.

We turned right and continued our journey around the property. From fallow spots along Phoebus Road it was possible, in places, to see over the trees and into the interior of the plot: gentle green swells of forest draining toward the village. Though the odometer indicated that we had covered very little distance, the journey seemed to be taking quite some time; I gave the car a bit more gas. Eventually we reached a road called Nemesis and turned right onto it.

“The roads have unusual names,” I said.

She spoke with rote weariness. “The men who divided up the county named the roads after Greek gods,” she said. “They had this idea it was supposed to be some enlightened, you know, what do you call it.”

“Utopia?”

“Right.”

“I didn’t know that.”

She shrugged. “Well, it didn’t pan out, anyway.”

A little while later the road ran over a culvert; a corrugated pipe jutted out on either side, admitting a small creek. “Okay,” Jennifer said, “this corner isn’t part of the property. The creek cuts it off.” A few moments later we came to Minerva Road and turned right yet again. We crossed over the creek a second time, and soon we were back to Phoebus. We retraced our route, returned to the upper corner of the land, and parked on the shoulder to take a closer look at the house.

The windows were cracked and dirty, and on the door hung a NO TRESPASSING sign. The yard bore evidence of once having been entirely covered with coarse gravel, through which rangy weeds now grew. We stepped onto a rickety wooden stoop, and Jennifer fumbled through a ring of keys. In a moment, the door opened with a creak, and we stepped inside.

I was pleasantly surprised at how nicely the interior had been preserved. The walls were filthy, but the lath was intact, and the wide floorboards were tight and true, if scratched. Bare wires trailed out of ragged holes in the ceiling. Jennifer led me in silence from room to room. We walked slowly, gently, as if in an effort not to disturb someone or something that lived here — but of course there was nothing. The house was empty and forgotten.

The stairs creaked as we climbed to the second floor. There were not many rooms, but they were large and high-ceilinged, and the master bedroom was fully twenty feet square, with a bank of tall windows that, if cleaned and reglazed, would doubtless appear quite beautiful. The view north and east was spectacular.

“That would be the whole property, there,” Jennifer said, pointing. The land sloped gently away from us, and the village of Gerrysburg was visible in the distance through the dusty windows. But what drew the eye was a feature in the very center of the woods: a large gray outcropping of bare rock that jutted out from the carpet of trees. I made a quick judgment of the distance and determined that it had to be at least a hundred and twenty feet tall, if not more.

The sight of the rock moved and disturbed me. Its incongruousness here, the way it interrupted the gentle curve of the land, seemed like some kind of challenge or rebuke. It appeared much the way I imagined a great whale might, breaking the surface of a calm sea to draw a mighty breath; and like a whale, its imposing nature enticed the viewer to conquer and claim it. I stroked my chin, to indicate to Jennifer that I was deep in thought. “Tell me about that rock,” I said.

“I suppose a glacier left it,” she replied, her voice echoing flatly in the empty room. Her arms were crossed and she hugged herself in the damp cold.

“It’s possible to reach it through the woods, I’d imagine.”

She let out a snort of laughter. “If you buy the place, you can do whatever you want,” she said. “I’m sure you could get there, it can’t be more than half a mile.”

I nodded, as though considering. But I had seen enough. I turned to Jennifer. Her eyes widened, and the corner of her mouth twitched. I said, “I’ll take it.”

She scowled, blinking. “What, this place?”

“Yes,” I laughed. “I’ll take it. The price seems reasonable to me.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.”

She stared at me, silently, seriously, judging. “Believe you me,” she said. “I would be totally happy to sell you it. But I just have to know if you have any idea what you’re doing.”

“There’s no need to worry about me,” I said with a smile.

She seemed to soften, her features relaxing, her arms falling to her sides. She sighed. “Well, okay, whatever then. You can still change your mind. Come on back to the office and let’s get started.”

“Wonderful,” I said, and for a moment, I felt as though I should shake the agent’s hand, or engage her in a friendly embrace, something to commemorate the occasion. And perhaps sensing this, she quickly moved into the hallway ahead of me, and down the stairs to the door.

I would spend most of the next month working on the property. At first I was frustrated, when it became clear that it would be at least a week until I actually owned the house and land: lawyers would have to be consulted, meetings arranged. I left it all to Jennifer, however, and set to work anyway. Who could complain? My first act was to call the power company to have them turn the electricity on. But the power lines, having long ago fallen into disuse, would prove to be damaged, and it would take some time to repair them. No matter: I drove into Milan, where there was a large chain hardware store, and bought a generator. I also bought lumber, sawhorses, a circular saw, a sander, screws and nails, a hammer, and a rechargeable drill. Almost at random, I chose several colors of interior and exterior paint, and sufficient cleaning supplies to last me a year. At a gas station, I filled the tank of my SUV, and two five-gallon cans as well. I checked into a motel, paid two weeks in advance, and drove to the house to begin work.