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Surviving Renovation

By Diane E. Tatum

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Chapter 1
Moving to Adams …

Kate exhaled a breath of tension she didn’t even realize she was holding as she drove into the small town of Adams, Tennessee. She had said good-bye to her modern apartment in Nashville. Everything she wanted to keep in her life was in the trunk, the back seat of her car, and a storage rental. While it wasn’t a long way from Nashville, the change in her life was complete. Even her boyfriend Brian had ended their relationship. saying the less than one hour drive was too far to travel while he pursued his own dreams as a musician in Music City, USA.
When Great-Aunt Katharine died, the lawyer had contacted Kate about the will.
“To my dear niece, Kate Winslow, I leave the entirety of my estate including the family home at Four-Fifteen Spring Street, Adams, Tennessee.”
Kate had visited her Great-Aunt Katharine as a child every summer until she was ten and remembered a place of wonder: creaky stairs with green oriental carpet held down at the risers with heavy brass rods, wavy rainbow window glass, a mysterious attic full of treasures and antique furniture, a fabulous library in the turret, and a porch that wrapped around the house. The porch swing was her favorite place in the summer to enjoy the evening breezes and fireflies.
Too many summers had passed since she’d visited her aunt in that lovely Victorian home. It had been her grandmother’s home and her great-grandmother’s home before that. When her aunt had become ill, she’d moved from her wonderful three-story home to a one-story care facility, lingering for so many years at the edge of a mysterious reality.
Siri broke into her thoughts. “Turn right onto Church Street in 0.4 miles.” She passed the Red River Baptist Church, established in 1791.
“Turn right onto Highway 41.”
When she reached the stop sign at the US Post Office, Kate turned into the small-town world of Adams. All the houses were southern homes in various states of decay. Some had been renovated. Some had been replaced; some had been allowed to fall in.
Highway 41 split the town. Traffic with no intent to stop before the Kentucky border seven miles away zipped by. City Hall was housed in the old Bell High School with a museum and replica soda shoppe inside.
“Turn left onto Keysburg.” A sign at the intersection announced the Historic Bell Witch Cave nearby.
“In 0.3 miles, turn left on Spring Street.” Kate made the turn.
Half a block from Keysburg, Siri GPS announced, “You have arrived at your destination.”
Kate did a double take. This was not the grand house she remembered as a child. Aunt Katharine’s home was now an old, destitute Victorian house. The windows were boarded up. The gravel driveway to the alley had large, stubborn-looking weeds growing in it. The color was no longer the teal she remembered, but a sad gray. She drove her car over the bumpy drive to the garage that faced the alley shared by all the other houses on that block.
“Siri, put gravel and yardwork on the TO DO List.”
The garage had carriage house style doors, sporting a multi-colored mural of spray paint graffiti. It included an inspired version of the town’s most famous character, Kate Batts’s Witch, also known as the Bell Witch.
“Siri, add paint the garage door on the TO DO List.”
Kate climbed out of her royal blue Fusion and pulled open the wooden doors. She moved a few collapsed stacks of newspapers and plastic flowerpots to the sides in order to make room for her car. Paint cans, spider webs, clay pots, and other debris were piled on top of more clutter.
“Siri, add declutter garage to the TO DO List.”
She pulled the car in and closed the alley garage door. The door from the garage led into the backyard, the Secret Garden of her childhood. Now it was covered in dead overgrowth. The back of the house was just as bleak as the front.
“Oh, Siri, what have I done?”
Siri replied, “I don’t know that answer,” to which Kate just sighed.
Kate used her key to enter the back of the house into the large kitchen. The boards on the windows blocked the natural light. She wandered through the house, at once familiar, yet totally strange, covered in sheets and dust.
“Siri, I’m going to need a motel for tonight.”
She waited on the front porch swing, which also needed a fresh coat of paint, for the utility turn-on services to arrive, resulting in the miracles of water, electricity, and natural gas. Internet and cable TV could wait for now.

Kate’s first stop the next morning after the motel breakfast was the town hardware store.
The bell jangled as she opened the door.
“Good morning. What can I do you for?” The man who perched on a stool behind the counter was bursting at the seams of his overalls. His smile just as wide.
“Hi, I’m Kate Winslow. I just inherited my Aunt Katharine’s house on Spring Street.” She offered her hand and then thought better of it. I don’t know who this is! However, it would be rude to withdraw it now.
The man grabbed her hand and shook it with gusto. “Little Katie? I remember you from ages ago. I’m Uncle Porter. Not really your uncle, but that’s what you called me when you came to visit all those years ago.”
Kate tried to dredge up a memory of him but failed. “Wow. That’s been fifteen years ago I’m afraid.”
“Sorry Kathy has entered glory. Seems once folks go to a care facility, no one remembers to tell the neighbors and friends from their life before dementia. I sure have missed Kathy. She was a dear friend of mine.”
“I’m sorry. The obit was supposed to run in the local paper.”
“Water under the bridge now. How can I help?”
“I want to open the old house and make it into a bed and breakfast. I need a handyman to help me. Know anybody reliable?”
Porter twisted his mouth and stroked his face. “He’s pretty busy, but I’ll check with Billy. If he can’t help you, I’ll recommend someone else.” He took a card from a holder on the counter. “Here’s his information. Can I give him your number?”
“Of course.” Kate dug around in her purse until she found an old business card and a pen. She wrote her cell phone number on the back. “Here’s my number. Everything else is history.” She scratched out her old business info then added 415 Spring Street. “I can use his help right away.”
“I’ll let him know as soon as I see him.” Porter tapped the card on the counter. “You know, Adams ain’t a bustling city like Nashville.”
Kate smiled. “I know. But everyone in Nashville has to escape to somewhere. Small town rural Tennessee is as good a place as any, I figure.”
“Good luck in your venture. Billy will be glad to see you again.”
“Thanks. I should probably look around. I’ll need some hardware stuff to make a dent in the rust, dust, and drop cloths.” Kate turned away from him, grabbed a basket, and began choosing stuff from the shelves: trash bags, paint brushes, cleaning supplies, a hammer, wrought iron decorative house numbers, and a gallon of teal-gray paint, Number 1526 Victorian Seaside, to cover the graffiti on the alley garage door. Billy? Is that the boy I used to pal around with when I was here as a kid?
Porter had disappeared by the time she brought her mishmash of hardware supplies to the counter. She dinged the bell and hoped that was why it was there.
A young man appeared from the shelves of clutter behind the counter. His dark hair was short but shaggy. His dark brown eyes took in hers. “How can I help, ma’am?”
“First, don’t call me ma’am. I’m not my mom.”
The man smiled. His teeth weren’t braces-straight nor model perfect, but his smile raced to her heart. “Is there something else you’d like me to call you? After all, you are the new girl in town.”
“Call me Kate.” She ran her hand through her long auburn hair. “I want to buy all this.”
“Big project, Kate?”
“Opening the house at Four-Fifteen Spring. I just inherited it from my Aunt Katharine.”
“That’s been empty a long time.”
Kate nodded. She’d already given this stranger way too much information.
He nodded, as though understanding why she’d pulled back, and rang up all the items. “One hundred fifty dollars and forty-five cents, Kate.”
She handed him her credit card. The first of much more. She sighed.
The man ran her card then handed it back to her. “Nice to meet you, Kate Winslow.”
“I didn’t get your name.” Kate held her breath. He is so lovely.
“Will Bell, no relation.”
Kate stared at him. “No relation?”
“Yeah, to the Bell Witch. No relation to the Bell family of Adams folklore.”
Kate smiled. “Nice to meet you, Will Bell, no relation.”
“See you around, Katie.”
The bell on the door jangled as she departed. Katie. She’d spent half of her life, since middle school, trying to rid herself of that nickname, so she’d be taken seriously in her profession. But something about Will saying it made it seem okay. After all, she wasn’t in Nashville anymore.

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