Windwood Farm (Taryn's Camera) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the name that drew her to the house from the beginning: Windwood. It didn’t take much to understand where it came from, either. With the house’s position atop the ridge the wind was certainly strong enough to blow you over if you didn’t watch your step. She was going to have to weigh her easel down and clamp her canvas to it. Luckily, the tall maple and oak trees blocked the worst of the wind. She assumed there had once been more woods than what were presently visible, but the ones she could see were thick and dark and almost romantic with their position at the foot of the valley.
    She’d been in constant contact with the president and secretary of the Stokes County Historical Society for almost six weeks and she knew the time was coming when she’d have to go over and meet the women (and presumably men) who were a part of it, especially since they were technically her employers. But so far she’d been engrossed with getting acquainted with the house and meeting Reagan, the rightful owner anyway.
    They hadn’t told her anything about the property itself, just the dates of construction and architectural features she might find interesting. That was enough for her at the time. She’d especially enjoyed the pictures they sent her of the property. Looking back, she’d had no idea that photographs were about to become so important.
    The house and surrounding farm certainly appeared ordinary enough in the images they’d sent her; maybe a little sad and forgotten, but those were the kinds of places that drew her.
    Taryn started her degree program when she was eighteen, but she’d started her career much earlier. Since Matt first got his license at age sixteen, he had driven them around to deserted houses and buildings so she could “explore” (a nicer word than breaking and entering), and the two of them could have mini adventures. Matt was usually just the chauffeur and sidekick in these excursions; they were really all about Taryn. She’d known Matt for more than twenty years and he’d been humoring her for all of them, even when their first mode of transport had been nothing but their bikes and he’d ridden her around on the handlebars, her pigtails flying in the wind.
    At first, she’d taken her 35 mm camera with them everywhere they went and snapped furiously at old barns, gnarled oak trees, and abandoned farmhouses with cracked windows and dilapidated roofs with daffodils growing through sagging porches. For every old house and ancient barn and warehouse they’d discovered, she created stories about the former inhabitants: who’d they been, what they’d seen, how they’d lived and worked. Matt had listened and humored her while her imagination spun tales from the past. She’d hated waiting almost a week for her pictures to be developed back then, but it was exciting, too. She’d had to be much more discriminate with her picture taking when developing the rolls cost money she didn’t really have. She’d made sure every shot was framed to perfection. He’d had such patience with her as she got down on her knees, on her stomach, and even had him boost her up on his shoulders from time to time.
    Then, on her fifteenth birthday, her grandmother gave her a Polaroid camera. That made things really interesting. Although the quality wasn’t as good, she loved having the instantaneous product right in her hand. Sometimes, she took both cameras along with her and snapped until she’d run out of film.
    She hadn’t discovered her flair for painting until she was in high school. Her choices for an elective were between art and shop and even though she loved architecture, she was terrible at woodworking (her parents mistook her 4-H birdhouse for a sailboat), so art it was. Her teacher was tolerant and understanding and helped her to develop a skill she didn’t even know she’d possessed.
    The first building she had reconstructed in a painting was a barn. She loved barns, especially the ones that were used for