The Root Cellar - Part VI
A novella.
Funny how I feel so needy after curling up on Rick’s sofa—like my former baby self. I want to be held, fed and if I had on a diaper right now I’d surely crap it with whole-hearted fervor. And just as indescribably confusing objects enter a baby’s field of view for the first time, I’m also frightened like a baby after “seeing” what I’ve seen.
If I could teeth on something, I would. For the moment, the edge of this wine glass will have to do.
Who to tell. Talk to. Anyone? Is that even advisable? Under most circumstances I wouldn’t dream of taking off the armor, but this feels like a red alert. Surely at some point Rick will ask about the jars. My “close friends” in Nashville are only about an inch deep with me, but only because I’ve never allowed them to go deeper. I pick up my phone and scroll through my contacts to make sure Angela’s number is still there. I’m relieved to find that it is.
While I’m still gazing at the screen, the phone almost vibrates out of my hand. It’s a string of text messages from Rick, flooding in all at once. Scrolling, I see there’s at least one from every day he’s been gone. Everything okay?/Just checking in/Hope all is well/Plenty of wine in the pantry/Did the estimate make sense?/Extra dog food in the basement/Still on schedule to be back tomorrow—hope to see you then. The last one is a selfie of Rick holding a monster rainbow trout shimmering in the sunlight, the reflections of which have turned the angler’s proudly smiling face into a kaleidoscopic light show of pink, green and blue dots.
He must’ve been out of tower range most of the time. Apparently, he’s now reached 4G civilization.
I start to sob uncontrollably, because for some reason, it’s exactly what I need to see right now: a real man holding a real fish.
Go figure.
* * *
With my hand on Skip’s warm, fuzzy belly, I doze lightly for a couple of hours—building and rebuilding the house in my mind to keep it occupied with an image I can control. When I come to, I notice it was already dark outside and seems colder inside. I feel flushed with perspiration collecting along my hairline and behind my ears. After a few minutes, I try to stand up but immediately sit back down, my head spinning and temples pounding.
If cold and flu season has arrived early in an attempt to invade my usually hardy immune system, I guess I could be in worse places to sweat it out.
Eventually, I drag my aching body into the kitchen and put down some food for Skip and refill the water bowl. Then I duck into the pantry, find a can of chicken noodle soup and warm it up in a saucepan.
Now perched on a stool at the island bar, I’m trying to slurp down as much soup as possible while staring at the HOPEFUL jar on the granite countertop, the big channel-lock pliers lying next to it—my preferred “key” to unlocking the past. Though the thought of tasting it turns my stomach. Not just because the yellowish-orange liquid looks so unappetizing through the glass, but because of what it might reveal.
Even so, independent-minded, grown-ass women don’t give up. Even if they’re feeling a bit feverish or puny (or paralyzed with fear).
And, of course, it’s the last jar.
After pouring a fizzy, ice-cold glass of ginger ale as an emergency chaser, I grab the pliers, twist off the lid and brace myself for what may escape from the 52-year-old time capsule. Holding my nose, I dab my pinky finger into the gloppy potion and taste it. Cinnamon-apple. Hints of sinus-clearing peppermint. It’s actually quite good, which is why I don’t hesitate to grab a teaspoon out of the drawer, scoop some out and swallow it down. It’s soothing, so much so that alI I can think about is being unconscious for a few days. Of course, after establishing an indisputable trend with the other jars, it’s likely some sort of “manifestation” will disturb my slumber or later appear when I least expect it.
I can only hope it is something truly hopeful.
Despite the fact that it's only a little after eight, it’s all I can do to walk Skip one last time before dragging myself upstairs to bed, hoping the sound of the rumbling waterwheel will lull me into a state of delicious oblivion.
It doesn’t take long.
What I want is absolute, bottom-of-the-well blackness—to know nothing, to be nothing. But instead I’m suspended in a cloud of tiny, swirling crystals. A total whiteout, almost as if I’m trapped inside a snow globe. Eventually silhouettes materialize below me. Ink-black tree limbs stripped of life flank the shadowy outline of a house. Drifts of snow swallow the porch. Everything stops. A moment later I see the first shock of light flying through the air like a flaming cannonball, which crashes through one of the windows of the house. Then another through the other window. Seconds later, the house spits fire from every crack and crevice and Skip is in my face, licking it madly as if I’m covered in Thanksgiving gravy. I’m on the floor, naked and shivering, drenched in sweat. Holy shit.
Somehow I remember the quilts Rick mentioned in his note.
Trembling, I pull myself up, turn on the bedside lamp and stumble to the closet. After opening the door, I grab a quilt from a stack on the top shelf and yank, but several come tumbling onto the floor along with a tattered photo album which teepees at my feet. Several old photos spill out plus one flimsy object that’s yellow and wrinkled. It’s a newspaper clipping—face up. One that, even in my feverish delirium, I recognize from the December 21, 1970 edition of the Pulaski Citizen.
The headline reads: Five die in Ardmore County fire.
As I’m bending down to pick it up, the floor and my feet and the clipping start spinning in circles and I, too, am finally spun away into the oblivion I had hoped for.
#
Smoking along, can’t wait for the Epilogue!
Off to read the epilogue!