Read The Spirit Wood for Free Online Page B

from ground level to a height of eight or ten feet. It appeared to have been threaded, as if for camouflage, among the trees and brush. Sometimes the wire seemed to disappear altogether for a stretch, but knowing where to look and what she was looking for, Meg was always able to find it again just a bit farther on.
    “Peter, don't look now—and I do mean that—but there appears to be a lot of very mean-looking barbed wire on our side of the road.”
    “Where?” he said. “I haven't seen any.”
    “Back in the trees, a few yards in from the road. A lot of it's wound around behind tree trunks and branches, but it's there, and it's been there for the last quarter mile or so.”
    “You mean, you think it's ours?”
    “I'm getting that feeling.”
    “I thought it was illegal to string up barbed wire in an area like this. I wonder who Gramps was trying to keep out.”
    “Or in,” said Meg in mock-ominous tones.
    Peter laughed. “The Dark Secret of Arcadia. Maybe we'll find I've got a grandmother locked in the attic of the house.”
    “If you do, I hope she doesn't mind dusting.”
    “Pay dirt,” said Peter, slowing the car and indicat-ing two slim stone pillars on the opposite sides of a tall, black wrought-iron gate. “You see any number on it?”
    “Not yet, but give me a couple of hours,” Meg replied, scanning the elaborately filigreed gates, molded into a thousand intricate curves and swirls. Part of the design, she thought, might be the number of the house, but as she studied the gates all she could see were fleeting half-formed shapes, swimming in circles, dancing uncoalesced just beyond her imaginative powers to formulate them. What beautiful work, she thought with the artisan's eye. Nobody does work like this anymore. Nobody could.
    “Bingo,” Peter said. “Ten on the bottom of the gatepost. This, believe it or not, is the place. How do you think we get in?”
    “Open the gates and drive through?”
    “That may be easier said than done,” observed Peter, putting the car into neutral and climbing out. He walked to the gates and peered down the rough gravel driveway. Meg saw him push at the gates, but they didn't even shake. Then she noticed a white intercom box mounted on the left pillar. Leaning her head out the open window, she called, “Sherlock! There's an intercom on the gatepost. Try that.”
    Peter saluted briskly, then grimaced as if the gesture had hurt his arm; he pressed the button on the box. After a few seconds, a crackly voice inquired, “Who?”
    “Peter Constantine. I believe Mr. Kennedy called to say—”
    “I unlock the gates,” the voice interrupted. “Just follow the drive. But don't get out of the car.”
    Before Peter could ask why not, the gates clicked and swung ponderously open. Peter looked at Meg as if to say “Don't ask me what's going on,” got back in the car, and drove through. The driveway swerved to the left after fifteen or twenty yards and meanderedthrough thick trees, up and down slight inclines, past an occasional bit of open ground. It reminded Peter of certain historic houses and parks he'd visited, places where robber barons had built retreats and where summer concerts were now held in outdoor pavilions. But there, the lawns were carefully mowed, the hedges clipped, and there were signs pointing to parking fields or rest rooms. Here, everything had a wild, untamed air about it; if he hadn't known he was in an enclosed, private estate, Peter would have guessed he was simply out in the woods somewhere. The grass along the sides of the drive was lush and green, but uncut; the trees had been planted with no apparent plan or symmetry and, even to Peter's untrained eye, seemed to need pruning, if that was the right word for untangling some of the broken thickets or pulling out some of the felled, moss-covered trunks.
    “Something tells me the caretaker here isn't real big on landscape gardening,” said Peter.
    The driveway began to rise, very slowly but