The Cradle by Patrick Somerville Read Free Book Online Page A

that signaled tourist destination. Most of the homes along the road were small and simple, like 78. The
     only structure noticeably different was a tall, lean bed-and-breakfast across the road, painted orange and red and white,
     a little gaudy but also grand. A man wearing a straw hat was mowing the lawn, and had been ever since Matt had been parked.
     In the rearview mirror, Matt took a look at him, then at the roof of the big house, then at the white balcony on the third
     floor.
    Enough, Matt thought, and after rubbing his face, he opened the door of his truck and went to the house. There is a cradle
     inside this house, he thought.
    Weeds came up in the cracks of the walkway, and up in the corners, beneath the roof’s overhang and gutters, were whole civilizations
     of spiders. The webs were layered. Matt got the feeling that if he were up on a ladder and passed his hand through them, he
     might go all right for a moment but eventually would find himself stuck, along with the insects.
    A woman was standing behind the screen door, looking at him.
    “You like spiders?” she said.
    Matt just barely kept himself from jumping back and falling down the stairs. She was a short, round woman, her hair gray and
     cut almost like a young boy’s. She was wearing dark blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt. Her face was gnarled—not wrinkled, exactly,
     and not from age, exactly. Perhaps from many years of frowning.
    “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said.
    “Okay. Who are you?”
    “I was just coming up here to talk to you and I got distracted, looking at the webs.”
    “Trust me,” the woman said, voice smoke-grizzled. “They’re not there because they’re pretty.”
    “My name’s Matt Bishop,” Matt said. “This is a little bit strange. In fact, I don’t even know where to begin.”
    “Go on,” she said, still behind the door. “I do strange.”
    “I’m looking for somebody. A woman named Mary Landower.”
    Matt waited to see if it was her. So far there had been no reaction at all. Behind the woman, the cat wandered out into the
     screened-in porch and sat down at her feet. Matt and it stared at one another for a few seconds; the cat looked pleased it
     was getting a better look.
    “Why’d you sit out there for so long?” said the woman. “In your truck.”
    “I was collecting myself after the drive.”
    “Where’d you come from?”
    “St. Helens. Near Milwaukee.”
    “And why do you want her?”
    “It’s a long story,” Matt said. “I’m happy to—”
    “You seem to like spiders, however.”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “You looked at ’em like you liked ’em.”
    “I was only looking.”
    “I’ll tell you what,” said the woman, pulling the door open and stepping out onto the small porch with him. She looked up
     now. There was one mean-looking spider in one of the front webs, perfectly still. Matt thought that if you took it down and
     trained it, you could probably ride it.
    “You clean up those webs for me, and I’ll tell you where you can find Mary Landower.”
    “Ma’am.”
    “I’d say that’s a fairly straightforward deal. Are you about to tell me you’ve got questions?”
    “You’re not her, I take it.”
    “No, I’m not her. I knew her when she lived here. I bought this house from her.”
    “Where is she?”
    “You’ve already used up your questions,” said the woman. “There’s a broom and a Shop-Vac in the garage. I now have to go get
     more birdseed.”
    Okay. Matt cleaned the spiderwebs out while the woman was gone. No matter how out of the ordinary it was, he guessed this
     would lead somewhere. At the very least, it was easy. It made him think of living alone, about not being able to do the simplest
     tasks yourself. What would this woman do were she to fall down a flight of stairs? She would lie there, alone.
    Just as he had seen the webs as a civilization when he first walked up, now it was as though he were a god, coming with a
     cataclysm. This cataclysm was in the