The Spia Family Presses On by Mary Leo Page A

the guy. I finally pinned him down and had a chance to talk to him. He’s a real charmer.”
    Like a snake.
    “Don’t let that charm fool you. I’ve heard stories about him that would make your heart stop.”
    I opened the back door of the barn, and as soon as we stepped inside I immediately felt the coolness of the stone walls that surrounded us. No matter what the temperature was outside, inside this stone cave it remained a cool sixty-five degrees. The expansive space was dimly lit from a single row of emergency lights running down the center of the ceiling. They automatically turned on whenever someone walked into the barn. The light switch was on the opposite wall next to the main entrance. We headed in that direction.
    The barn was fairly empty of bottling equipment now because we had moved most of it over to the new facility behind our new tasting room. I thought it would be a real attraction if we could demonstrate our crushing process through large glass windows. After a family vote, it was decided to go ahead with my idea. We would be doing our first crush in the new facility in a few weeks, but the family wanted to keep some equipment in this barn to be able to fill small orders and perform the community crush for hobbyists and growers with small harvests. We all agreed it would be easier. Plus it was a great place for storage.
    We were even moving our now partially dismantled antique millstone, which was taller than me, out in front of the new tasting room before our first crush. Cousin Dickey had imported the stone from Calabria, a southern region in Italy, when he first bought the place. I couldn’t begin to imagine how much that must have cost him.
    As Lisa and I walked deeper into the barn I watched our shadows dance on the tin ceiling. Only there was one too many shadows.
    “Mom? Are you in here?” I yelled as Lisa and I dodged stacked boxes, and a row of blue, olive oil drums.
    No answer.
    We peered around the boxes that surrounded us, and I could hear a kind of squeaking noise plus some labored breathing. The smallest sound reverberated between the stone walls, but I couldn’t figure out why no one was responding.
    “This is creepy,” Lisa said, as she stepped in front of me. “Is there somebody in here?” she said in a loud, demanding voice.
    Still no answer. I had to admit, I was beginning to feel a little hesitant, like maybe we should do this another time, like when the sun was pouring in through the windows instead of moonlight. I reached out for Lisa and we locked arms as a shadow ambled toward the main entrance. “Maybe they’re looking for the light switch,” I whispered.
    “I hope so, ‘cause I’m getting all weirded out in here.”
    “Relax,” I said, trying to calm my own nerves as much as hers. “It’s just my family.”
    “That’s the problem,” she said, letting go of my arm.
    She had a point.
    We stood in a maze of stacked cardboard boxes filled with oils ready to be shipped. Shelves of bottled oils from our last crush closed in on the left while various-sized imported Italian stainless steel storage containers, filled with our more popular oils, sat on our right. We stored some of our oils in a thirty- to fifty-liter fusto so we could fill bulk orders, or specialty orders like five-ounce bottles used for wedding favors. A fusto was equipped with a spigot, which made it easy to fill any kind of order in a hurry, and at the moment, those spigots kept hitting my arm as we walked by.
    Light bounced off the polished steel and we both looked up once again, watching the distorted shadows dance on the tin ceiling whenever we moved. “Bisnonno Luigiano said the dancing shadows were good luck. They belong to the olive goddesses Athena and Minerva watching over our bounty.”
    “Yeah, well, they don’t look like any goddesses to me. More like demons.”
    I didn’t want to go there. I was never a big fan of the dark side.
    “You’ve been reading too many Vamp books,” I