The Root Cellar

by Janet Lunn

  The ground was covered with leaves from the hawthorn and from the lilac and chokecherry that surrounded the clearing. The creek bubbled swiftly over the stones and bits of old branches that lay clearly visible in its bed. It smelled of wet leaves and moss.

  Rose had never seen any place so beautiful. She turned around slowly, absorbing it all. The glade was quite bare except for the creek and the little hawthorn tree and an old cedar fence post close by, leaning over and half buried in dead leaves.

  On an impulse she gathered a few small hawthorn branches from the ground, ones that still had leaves and a few clusters of berries, and put them into the hollow of the fence post.

  “There,” she whispered. “Now I have a secret garden.” Quietly she went back into the house and upstairs. This time she took off her clothes and got into bed—and slept soundly until morning.

  Ghosts

  When Rose came into the kitchen the next morning, she felt as though she had stepped into a fairytale at the exact moment a spell had been cast. Uncle Bob had his coffee mug halfway to his mouth. George and Aunt Nan had stopped talking. The twins had stopped eating. Everyone was staring at Sam.

  As Rose came through the door, they began. Aunt Nan’s voice was the loudest and most excited. “Why didn’t you say something? Oh, Sam!” she wailed.

  “Come off it, Sam.” George was disgusted, and Uncle Bob scolded, “Now, Sam, you know that’s impossible.” The twins, looking at Sam with awe, began chanting, “Sam saw a ghost, Sam saw a ghost!”

  “Tell me exactly what it looked like,” demanded Aunt Nan. “Well,” Sam began slowly, pushing his hand through his thick hair, his blunt face puckered in a half-embarrassed grimace, “it was like an old lady with a shawl on. At first she was just a shadow—I mean, not a shadow, but one of those things you make when you put your hand behind a sheet with a light on it and make your hand look like a rabbit or something. You just see the shape. It—”

  “It’s a silhouette, Sam, a silhouette,” George interrupted. “It’s named after Etienne de Silhouette in the eighteenth century. He—”

  “Okay, a silhouette, and it walked through that door,” Sam pointed toward the doorway where Rose was standing. Involuntarily she jumped back. George laughed.

  “Good morning, Rose.” Aunt Nan smiled broadly. “Go on, Sam. You said the silhouette came in. What happened to it?”

  “Well, it leaned over as if it meant to put something on the table. Then it disappeared. That’s all.”

  “That’s all.” Aunt Nan sighed happily. “And that’s what I’ll talk about. I’ve promised to go to Toronto today and talk about my books to some kids in a library and I’m going to talk about Sammy’s ghost. Oh, why didn’t I see it? I think I’ll write a book about Sam’s ghost. Do you think I could call it that?”

  “No.” Sam got up from the table. “Anyway, I don’t think it really was a ghost. I think it was probably just shadows. This room is full of shadows. Shadows all over the place. They just look like ghosts. Here’s the school bus.” He picked up his books and his wind-breaker and fled through the door. George was right behind him, and the twins crying, “Wait for us! Wait for us!” trotted after, swinging their lunch boxes.

  Aunt Nan got up from the table. “I completely forgot to tell you, Rose. I promised way last month I’d do this talk. I’m afraid you’ll have to look after yourself today. I really am sorry. Later in the week we can go down and talk to the school. I expect you can find your own breakfast. Oh dear, I really am sorry—just leave the dishes. Have a good exploring time. Oh dear, I have to run. Coming, Bob? I have to get that eight-thirty bus or I’m a cooked goose.”

  Aunt Nan bustled out the door, the collar of her blouse awry, her hair already falling out of its bun. Uncle Bob followed, stopping long enough to say, “I’ll be home around four-thirty. Have a nice day, Rose. There are horses up the road and cows. The woods are full of small animals. Go take a look.”

  Two car doors slammed, there was the sound of the engine starting, and the station wagon took off down the road. Silence.

  Rose sat down at the table and stared at the breakfast debris without really seeing it. She had wanted to ask Aunt Nan some questions, questions about things she had to know, like what should she get for breakfast? Where was the front door key? What should she do if strangers came?

  A tap dripped. The wind rattled an upstairs window. A stair creaked. “There aren’t ghosts,” she told herself firmly. “Sam was right, it was shadows. Ghosts are made up for books and movies. They don’t exist.” Unbidden, the image of the girl in the upstairs bedroom flashed in her mind. A ghost? Was that why everybody had laughed? They really did not know she was there? “Impossible,” she said aloud, her eyes darting around the room. “It was shadows.”

  Silence fell once more. Under the table the cat made a chirruping sound in his throat and jumped up onto Rose’s lap. She screamed. Then she laughed shakily and began to scratch him behind his ears. She liked cats. Over the years she had befriended many hotel and alley cats. This cat was big and soft and gray. “Grimalkin is a good name for you,” Rose told him. “Lots of fairytale cats are called Grimalkin. I wonder how the Henrys found that out.” He put his head down, closed his eyes, and began to purr.

  There was nothing left to eat on the table but toast crumbs. Rose got up and searched the cupboards. She found a box of Shredded Wheat, but there was no milk. She sat down again, crushing a dry Shredded Wheat biscuit, staring glumly at the chair where Sam had sat. She had never felt so completely without comfort.

  Suddenly she remembered waking in the night and finding the glade in the bushes. She leaped to her feet and ran outside, half afraid she would discover that it had been no more real than the girl in the upstairs room.

  The back yard in the morning was full of red and yellow and brown leaves blowing in the fresh wind. Rose pushed her way through the bushes and there, where she had remembered it, was the glade, and in the hollow fence post she found the bouquet of leaves and berries she had put there in the night.

  She sighed with relief. “It’s a good secret.” She picked up Grimalkin, who had followed her, and carried him back to the house.

  For one frightening second as she opened the door she thought she saw old Mrs. Morrissay in the corner of the room, but when she looked again there was no one there.

  “This room is full of shadows,” she said loudly as if to dispel them by the strength of her voice. Nervously she set about exploring the house, partly from curiosity, partly because she wanted to make sure there were no ghosts anywhere.

  The rooms were all depressingly alike in their need of repair. The bedroom over the kitchen, obviously Sam’s and George’s, was full of electrical paraphernalia, half-played games, paints, and an easel set up by the window.

  Aunt Nan’s workroom off the living room was so full of books and papers that Rose could not imagine being able to write in it. Aunt Nan’s and Uncle Bob’s bedroom at the other end of the house looked as though it might be beautiful if it were put to rights, for it was big and sunny. Upstairs, over the living room, was her own room and the other where the girl had been making the bed. It was where the twins slept.

  She looked that room over very carefully and could find nothing in its clutter of clothes and toys and electric trains to suggest what she had seen the evening before. She began to make it tidy, not because she was anxious to please the twins but because she felt that by making her own order there the room would be less likely to change itself into some other room. She folded the clothes, made the beds, put the toys and books in the big wooden box under the window. Then she made the train tracks into an elaborate pattern and set the train on it. She found the electric cord and, by the time she was really hungry, she realized the morning was over and she had spent it playing with a six-year-old’s toy trains. Uncharacteristically, she giggled. “They don’t have to know,” she told Grimalkin.

  As she came through the kitchen door she was certain she saw Mrs. Morrissay standi
ng by the stove, but when she stepped forward there was no one there.

  “I’m sure I saw …,” Rose began, and stopped. On the table was a basket of eggs. “She was here! But where did she go?”

  She ran to the back door and looked out. No one. “Very odd,” she said nervously, “very odd.”

  She found some cheese in the refrigerator and shared it with the cat. Then she went outside again. She followed the creek down to the shore and stood for a while watching it empty into the bay in bubbles of white froth, the tall weeds below the water’s surface bending under the pressure. She wandered through the woods and into the field that lay to the west and amused herself for a time identifying the trees before making her way back to the glade. It drew her. It wasn’t only that it was beautiful. She had the feeling, standing with her back to the thorn tree, that something was expected of her here.

  She was still standing there when she heard brakes screech in the driveway. The school bus had arrived. Rose ran back inside and fled up the stairs. She heard the door burst open downstairs, letting in loud voices. Doors opened, doors closed, a shrill voice cried, “George, give me my toast.” There was the sound of feet pounding on the stairs, whispers, then, “Jimmy! Someone’s fixed up our train!” More whispers, the buzz of the electric train. Silence. The creak of Rose’s door. The twins’ round faces appeared from behind it.

  “Can we come in?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Did you fix our train?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to come and play with us?” asked one, and the other added quickly, “You can have some of our toast.”

  “No, thank you. I have to put my things away.”

  “Can we watch?”

  Rose looked at their eager faces and some of her stiffness softened. “All right.” So while the twins watched and gave her a running commentary on their school and their family, Rose put her clothes away in the closet and drawers. The twins told her that Sam wasn’t going to Italy, that George was a pig because he wouldn’t share his chocolate bars, that their father liked to go fishing, and that they liked hamburgers better than macaroni and cheese.

  “Are we having macaroni and cheese for dinner?” asked Brian (or maybe it was Jimmy).

  “Here’s Daddy,” said the other. Rose heard Uncle Bob’s rumbling voice downstairs. Reluctantly she followed the twins. Uncle Bob was saying, “Oh, good. I didn’t remember we had eggs. That’s what we’ll cook, eh?” Talk between Sam and George ceased abruptly as she entered the kitchen. She felt acutely uncomfortable.

  That night, after Aunt Nan had come home and the twins had gone to bed, Rose settled down in bed to read with the cat beside her. After a while she became aware of Aunt Nan’s voice from downstairs. “Sam,” she was saying, “I know how disappointment can hurt, but your attitude isn’t helping to make that orphan child feel any better. I don’t want to hear another word!”

  “I don’t care,” Sam rumbled (not as deeply but in almost the same voice as Uncle Bob). “She doesn’t do anything to make us feel good either. She’s snooty. She’s a snob. ‘I’m used to Paris, they know me in that hotel.’ ” Sam imitated perfectly Rose’s icy tones. “She goes around in her stupid fur coat glaring at people. She looks like a stuffed owl with pink hair!”

  “Sam, you’re most unkind. Rose has had a hard time. She’s probably shy. She’s lived a very funny life. It’s true she’s very prim, but I suppose her grandmother had something to do with that. And Rose’s hair isn’t pink, it’s the same color as yours. Your Uncle David had hair that color.”

  “No, it isn’t—mine’s red. Hers is pink like the color things get in the fridge when you leave them too long. I wish she’d take her moldy, pink hair and her fur coat—doesn’t she know you shouldn’t skin animals?—and go back to New York!”

  “Sam!” Aunt Nan said sharply. “That’s enough! You’re fourteen years old. I know it’s been hard for you but I think you might—” A door slammed. In a moment it was opened again and Rose heard Aunt Nan’s voice, more faintly: “Honestly, Bob, I think Sam is behaving.…” The door closed.

  Rose was shattered. She had never heard herself attacked like that before. Snooty. Snob. What did he mean? And her hair wasn’t pink! She got up and turned on the light and went to look at herself in the round mirror that hung over the dresser. She pulled furiously at the hated short ends of her red hair. What had she done to make him say things like that? She lay awake most of the night, cold and shaking, saying Sam’s unkind words over and over to herself.

  The next morning she stuffed the fur jacket, and the boots, and the black velvet pants, into the back of her closet and tied a large kerchief around her head. She could not look at Sam. Every time he came into the room she stiffened. She felt exposed, defenseless. She did the chores Aunt Nan set for her in silence, and she spent most of the time in the next two days huddled in her thin sweater with her back against the hawthorn tree in the glade, finding comfort in the creek’s soft gurgle as it flowed over the sticks and stones.

  On Thursday Aunt Nan took her to school in Soames and talked to Mr. Hodgins, the principal, who wrinkled up his face and coughed a dry little cough at the news that Rose had never been to school.

  “I don’t believe we’ve ever had a problem like this before.”

  “You could give her a test, couldn’t you, and find out how much she knows? I’m sure Rose isn’t stupid.”

  “Yes, yes, I was going to suggest that, Mrs. Henry.”

  Rose thought, No, he wasn’t. He’s a fool. But she sat down obediently and read a simple story out loud, wrote a couple of paragraphs about it, did some arithmetic problems, spelled a short list of words, and answered a few questions about geography.

  “Amazing.” Mr. Hodgins coughed his dry little cough twice. “Your grandmother must have been a fine teacher.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well!” Mr. Hodgins was clearly a bit taken aback by her ready agreement. “You can probably go right into grade eight without any trouble.”

  Aunt Nan took Rose to the local dry-goods store afterward. “You can’t wear those good skirts all the time,” she said and bought two pairs of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, a jacket, and a pair of running shoes. Rose put on her new clothes the minute they got home. With her kerchief tied securely around her head she felt, if not comfortable, less conspicuous.

  First thing Saturday morning the phone rang. It was a girl from Toronto to ask if she and her mother could drive out to see the ghost. Aunt Nan had said to all the children on Tuesday, “You must come and visit,” but she had never expected that any of them would. “Come, of course,” she told the girl, and she said it to three others who called that day. It was like a constant parade of sightseers all entranced by the “weird” place where Nan Henry wrote her books. One girl asked Rose admiringly if she was Emily of Shadow Brook Farm, to which Rose replied frostily, “My name is not Emily and this, thank heaven, is the first time in my life I’ve ever been near a farm.”

  That evening as she was setting the table and the last visitor was pulling out of the driveway, she muttered angrily to herself, “This place is like a zoo. Next time someone comes I’m going to jump up and down and ask for a banana.” She turned to see Sam standing in the doorway, grinning. “Don’t laugh at me!” she hissed. She was horrified to realize there were tears in her eyes. “You and your stupid ghosts! You made all those people come! I don’t care if you hate me! I don’t care if you think my hair is pink! I don’t care if you think I’m a snob! Just don’t you dare laugh at me!” She threw down the silverware with a clatter and ran from the room.

  She stood with her back against the closed door of her bedroom until her quivering rage had subsided. Then she sat down at the desk in a cold calm, took out a sheet of the monogrammed paper her grandmother had given her at Christmas, and wrote Aunt Millicent a letter.

  Dear Aunt Millicent,

  I’m sure you didn’t realize when you sent me here that the Henrys are all ma
d. Their house is falling apart. It’s dirty. And they see ghosts. I want to come back to New York. I will go to school. I will go to an orphanage if you wish. I will go any place but here.

  Your affectionate niece,

  Rose Larkin

  She looked up to reach for an envelope and there was Mrs. Morrissay coming toward her through the wall from the twins’ room.

  The Root Cellar

  “Mrs. Morrissay!” A shudder like an electric shock ran through Rose. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  Mrs. Morrissay said nothing. She didn’t move. She stood half in the twins’ room, half in Rose’s, a blue and orange kerchief tied around her head, a dust mop in her hand, looking very ill at ease.

  Rose was trembling. Her hands were wet with cold sweat and she could hardly focus her eyes. Mrs. Morrissay came the rest of the way through the wall and into the room. She was no longer half visible. She was solid, three dimensional.

  “You’re Sam’s ghost.” Rose heard her own voice, strange and shrill and accusing.

  “I ain’t no ghost.” Mrs. Morrissay was indignant. “I’m just plain myself, minding my own business and it happens.”

  “Happens?”

  “I shift!”

  “Shift?”

  “Shift. I’m going along minding my own business like I said, hoeing or scrubbing or mopping, and right in the middle I shift. And you needn’t be so cross, Rose. You ought to know better. It’s not easy for a body to shift. I’m in my kitchen, then quick’s a cow’s tail after a fly, I’m in yours—or your bedroom.” She looked around her. “Oh, Rose, ain’t this an awful sight? It was so pretty.” She went over to the corner by the window and picked at the layers of wallpaper. “See, this here’s the one I put up. It was white with pink roses.” Suddenly she smiled at Rose, a warm, embracing smile. Then she looked out the window.

  “Ain’t it something how them bushes is all grown over? Funny how you can still see where the old garden was.”