Behind the Vines

Dead ivy stems don’t snap easily; they shred like wet twine. I hauled an old blunt hand trowel over from the porch steps and wedged it behind the thickest tangle clinging to the stone foundation. It took three hard shoves with my boot against the handle to break the root grip. A brittle slab of vines peeled away in one piece, dropping dirt into my socks. Right behind it, flush against the damp gray fieldstone, sits an old cast-iron vent grate. One of its narrow rusted bars is bent clean inward, leaving a dark gap that smells like stale cellar dust and cold draft. I know that draft.