Rootbound — The Winter Trowel, Page 2
By Suha · Published
Transcript
Scene: continuation in the Compost Yard. Fern braces the pitchfork and stops, listening hard as steam weaves into a faint shape before her. A caption by her reads: "...Joss?" An extreme close-up shows her tired grey-green eyes, the brass pin in her chestnut-and-silver hair, moonlight on her face. A caption reads: "Nobody's used that name in years."
Image description
Fern pauses mid-turn at the compost pile, steam swirling, and seems to hear a faint name on the warm air.
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.