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Uncle Henry, freshly reborn from his nap, walked out onto the stoop, the slamming of the screen door, announcing his arrival. The hinges could have used an oiling. As a rule, the family eccentricities; great-aunt Millie's hats, cousin Marion's flings, and Uncle Henry's forgetfulness of clothing, to name a few, were to be largely ignored.
"She's a darling", cousin Jason whispered. "That Cissy Mayhew is a rosebud but Marion is fruit that's ripe on the vine." I watched as he dipped a finger under the drain and raised it to his mouth to taste the salty water. He picked up the small blue bag of rock salt and shook some gently into the ice and continued cranking. "Yes sir. Kisses that could melt this entire churn of ice, and I stole me quite a few of those sweet kisses little cousin."
I was 15-years-old and not so little. Cissy Mayhew and I had fondled, (inexpertly but with satisfying results), under the back hedge row last autumn. I thought of the orange and yellow autumn leaves that crackled under us, as we nervously fumbled with our clothing, while feeling each other at the same time. I treaded like a cat when Jason brought the subject up. He was sure the petite dark beauty was his true love and he wrote poems to her. Mostly petite dark verse and some were quite beautiful.
"So why mess around with cousin Marion?", I put a little too much naiveté in my voice but Jason, did not notice. His trousers still mostly constricted his brain.
"I need to know how to satisfy a lady and Marion is more than a willing teacher." He said something low and in an exciting voice about feathers, and on and on he went with the details of his lazy afternoon conquest. All through the heated tale my shadow had attached itself to a cottonmouth and slid around in the cool slow-moving water, occasionally resting on warm branches hanging over the creek.
The late afternoon pressed on into evening and I recalled my shadow just before it dimmed in the waning twilight. Most of the family had left, empty bowls and silverware marking where they had once reclined. . Some simply dissolved to mist and others took wing. Those that lived nearby, mounted horses or climbed behind the wheel of an automobile. The group of golden boys headed to the creek after their rough game on the lawn to spend a feral night wandering along the banks, raiding cornfields and watermelon patches, twisting the heads from scarecrows as they went. Somewhere, Momma shouted for them to replace the divots they had kicked up in the yard but none paid attention. Jason and I gathered the dishes in pails and put them in the kitchen sink, where steaming water waited form them in the deep ceramic basin. The churns we hosed out and set to drain on the back stoop, until the odd mismatched pottery and china dishes could be washed and stored away.

The narrow steps winding up the tower walls from the cellar were cut from the same gray stone as the steep passage, and they disappeared from your vision when you mounted them. My great-grandfather, who took great pride in the body count done during testing, carefully conceived the illusion.