Tending to Grace by Kimberly Newton Fusco

hardly believe the girl stays out there so long. When they finish one day, they head for the woods and a while later the girl and Agatha drag another tree into the backyard.
    I’m hanging out laundry one day when the girl walks up behind me.
    â€œHave you ever seen one so big?” She laughs delightedly as she holds out a frog the size of one of her boots.
    Its bulging eyes look at me without blinking. Its legs hang down, its webbed feet spread.
    â€œUgh,” I say, holding a towel in front of me.
    â€œOh, don’t worry none,” she says, giggling. “He won’t hurt you.” She puts the frog into a canvas bag. “There’s a race at the school on Friday. I catched this big guy in the creek across the road. Want to come race him?”
    Naaaaah, I think. I shake my head and hang up Agatha’s purple T-shirt.
    â€œHow come you never talk to the Crow Lady and me or nothing?” She buckles the flap of the bag over the frog. I shrug and hang up some of Agatha’s underwear.
    â€œThis is really going to be fun, you know. It’s a frog race.”
    â€œNo th-th-thanks.” I reach over and grab a pair of my socks.
    â€œWhat can be more fun than racin’ a frog?”
    I hang the socks on the line, toe to the top. “Cl-cl-cl-climbing that m-m-m-m-mountain.” I nod to the horizon.
    â€œIt’s far up there. My pa would kill me if I went.” She swings the pack over her shoulders. “I know another mountain that’s closer. I’ll take you there if you don’t tell anyone and if you promise to go to the frog race.”
    I consider her offer.
    â€œMy name’s Bo.” She holds out her hand. I check it for frog goo.

51
    â€œWh-wh-where’s the mountain?” I sputter.
    Bo points to a church steeple in the center of town. We have just run most of the three miles here.
    â€œThat’s no m-m-m-mountain.”
    â€œIt is so.” She laughs.
    I stand straight and face her. “I r-r-ran all this way, I was expecting a m-m-m-mountain.”
    â€œIt is. Don’t be mad. We’ll see clear to Boston up here.”
    Bo runs up the stone steps and pushes the front door open and walks inside. I look behind myself and then follow her. I feel like a burglar.
    â€œIt’s always open,” she tells me. “For people to come pray.”
    We walk into a front hall. Straight ahead, sunlight rushes into the sanctuary through stained glass windows, and a statue of Mary, crowned in roses, watches me. Please don’t tell anyone I’m here, I tell her. I don’t want to be a hypocrite or a fool.
    â€œThere’s not much to hold on to up there,” Bo says as she reaches up and climbs onto a ladder that runs up against the back wall and through a hole in the ceiling. “Watch out for the nails. And whatever you do, don’t touch that rope. ”A thick rope hangs through the hole and ends in a coil on the floor. “It rings the bell.”
    Someone’s going to come is all I can think. Bo climbs through the hole in the ceiling and disappears. I take my first step and by the time I have crawled through the first hole and see that I am climbing up through the attic of the church, she has climbed through another hole, up another story. Old hymnbooks and robes for the choir, broken chairs, a box of opened paint cans, and a piano stool with its legs hacked off lie on the floor. Having lived with Agatha all these weeks, I know the difference between a mousetrap and a rat trap. Rat traps lie in a heap near a rolled-up carpet. My arm touches a spiderweb as I wrap my fingers around the ladder rungs and climb.
    Next I’m inside a narrow space, almost as wide as our outhouse. Rusted nails poke in from the outside. The wood smells tired. I think of a tinderbox and keep climbing.
    â€œYou got to keep moving,” Bo says. “Else you get scared. That’s the trick of the whole thing.”
    The wood creaks