Rootbound — The Winter Trowel, Page 1
By Suha · Published
Transcript
Scene: night in the 04 Compost Yard. Fern, small against the dark brick wall and the huge moonlit sky, turns a steaming compost pile with a pitchfork; warm steam drifts. A caption reads: "04 · Compost Yard." Fern looks up, listening. A second caption reads: "Some promises the garden keeps itself." (No speech bubbles on this page.)
Image description
Fern Ashby turns a steaming compost pile alone in the walled night garden, a full moon overhead and one old apple tree at the far edge.
About this chapter
While raking the Compost Yard at night, Fern hears a name in the steam. The ghost of Joss Millard, her great-uncle who died in the yard in the hard winter of 1963, waits for one unfinished errand: he never buried his mother's trowel under the old apple tree as he promised before the frost took him. Fern searches, finds the trowel nicked at the corner with a fern stamped near the tang, and learns through Ida why Joss still lingers. When she buries it, the old apple breaks into impossible blossom and Joss fades. In the root pit he reveals the trowel's buried secret, opening the next numbered-location mystery at the Rose Bed arches.