had I gotten myself into?
* * * *
When the rhythm of the car abruptly changed, I jolted awake. We had taken an exit ramp.
According to the clock in the dashboard up front, almost three hours had passed since we left King of Prussia. The afternoon sunlight seemed too crisp, the rumble of wheels on pavement too sharp. My stomach growled faintly. Rubbing crusty-feeling eyes, I longed for a stiff drink. I had to press my hands against my thighs to keep them from shaking uncontrollably. God, I wanted to go home.
At the toll booth, the driver paid cash. Then we sped down a rural highway. Two turns later, we were on a narrow country road. Fields to either side had just been harvested, leaving a rough stubble of cut-down cornstalks. A pair of huge red harvesting machines sat idle.
As we drove, farm complexes broke the fields every half mile or so: old houses, ancient barns, silos, sheds, dogs and horses and the occasional cow or sheep. At least they had garbage pickup; at the end of each driveway sat identical green plastic bins stenciled “Waste Management.” A few driveways had bonus items out: a threadbare sectional sofa, a rusted old bicycle, piles of broken-down cardboard boxes neatly tied into bundles.
Then we turned onto a gravel driveway. In crooked letters, the battered metal mailbox said PECK – 2040.
We had arrived. I sat up straighter, studying a large old barn with peeling red paint, three ancient silver silos, and a sprawling Victorian-style farmhouse that had seen better days. A clothesline running between ancient oaks held faded yellow sheets. To the left of the house, in a chicken-wired pen, fifteen chickens scratched and strutted.
My chauffeur pulled up beside a pink Cadillac twenty years out of style, honked twice, then cut the engine. Immediately a plump, cheery-faced woman in a red-and-white checked dress burst from the house. She wore her gray hair up in a tight bun, and a smudge of white—flour?—dotted the tip of her nose. She had that pleasant, beaming expression I had always associated with grandmothers, and half against my will I found myself smiling back.
The chauffeur opened the door for me. I fumbled with my walking stick for a moment, then climbed out awkwardly.
“Hello!” I said through clenched teeth. I tried for a happy note, but it came out as a desperate croak. I had been sitting in one position too long; fierce stabbing pains shot the length of my legs.
“Hello yourself!” she replied. I tried not to wince; she spoke at full volume. “Call me Aunt Peck—everyone does. You must be Mr. Geller? Pete? Petey?”
“My friends call me Pit, Aunt Peck.” Not that I had any left, but Pit was several steps better than Petey.
“Lord above, what an interesting name! You must have quite a story to tell about it!”
“Not really—” I began.
She swept past me, all but bouncing with energy and enthusiasm. The chauffeur had opened the trunk. Without hesitation, Aunt Peck seized a blue leather suitcase and a matching garment bag, then started for the house.
“Come on, Pit!” she called over her shoulder. “I’ve got pies in the oven! Can’t let ’em burn!”
I looked at the chauffeur. “I suppose it’s too late to back out?”
“Sorry, pal,” he said. “Orders.”
I nodded. You didn’t contradict a man like Mr. Smith. Leaning heavily on my walking stick, I limped after Aunt Peck.
* * * *
She was a talker—I’ll say that much for her. As I sat at the kitchen table and worked on a slab of hot-from-the-oven apple pie topped with freshly whipped cream, she kept up a nonstop monologue about everything under the sun except angelic visitors—the farm, her late husband Joshua, the city kids who had just moved in next door.
“City kids?” I prompted. New neighbors explained all the cardboard boxes out for trash pickup.
“Nick and Debby,” she said. “You’ll meet them tomorrow. I always invite neighbors over for Saturday dinner. It makes things a little less lonely. Of course, now that you’re here.…”
I nodded encouragingly. “Have they been here long—Nick and Debby?”
“Oh, a bit over a month, I guess. Maybe two.”
“Ah.” I ate my last bite of pie. My hands kept shaking, but Aunt Peck either didn’t notice or marked it down to my accident.
How closely did the new neighbors’ arrival coincide with the disturbances? Could they be trying to scare her off her land? Pennsylvania had its share of natural resources…what could make her land valuable enough to steal? Oil, perhaps?
“I was wondering,” I said, wiping my mouth carefully on a napkin, “if you have well water?”
“Of course. Why?”
“In the late 1800s, my many-times great-grandfather had a farm in Pennsylvania. He gave up on it and moved to Ohio because every time he tried to dig a well, it filled up with black oily stuff.”
She laughed; everyone who heard it always did. According to family legend, it had really happened. And Marilyn Monroe used to baby-sit my father and uncle, too, before she got famous.
Aunt Peck said, “I bet your family has been kicking themselves ever since automobiles came along!”
“Yes.” I shook my head ruefully. “I guess you don’t have that problem here, though.”
“Oil companies poked around in ’75 or ’76, doing all sorts of surveys, but apparently there’s nothing under Hellersville but water.”
Strike one theory.
“Surely the town has something going for it…,” I said. “Mines? Silver? Gold?”
“Well…there used to be a quarry. They made gravel, I think—but then it filled with water. It’s been a lake for nearly fifty years now. All Hellersville produces is produce.” She gave a wink. “But wait till you taste my tomatoes—they’re as big as softballs and sweet as anything! And my watermelons!” She laughed heartily.
Strike a second theory. If the land had no intrinsic value, why would anyone want to scare her off her farm?
After I finished my pie, Aunt Peck offered to show me my room. She retrieved my bags from the hallway, where she had left them while we checked her pies, then skirted the narrow stairs (which I had been dreading) and headed down a wide hallway. The floorboards creaked loudly as we walked: no one would be able to sneak up on us during the night.
We reached a cluttered family room. The sofa, wingbacked chairs, and ottoman all had plastic over the upholstery. Books, curios, and photos crammed the built-in shelves and the standalone bookcases. A small TV sat next to the fireplace.
We passed through into another small hallway, then came to a small bedroom at the back of the house. It had one window, which looked out across fields stubbled from recently harvested corn. To the left, I saw the edge of her garden—tomato and pepper plants.
I nodded approvingly at the single bed with a white
