Rootbound — The White Rose of Number Fourteen, Page 10
By Suha · Published
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Transcript
Bed 14, night. Fern waters the rose with a plain can; thin steam rises. Two panels. Fern: Come on then. You're late, is all. Close on her hand steadying the swelling bud. Fern: He waited thirty years for this one flower.
Image description
Fern waters the rose in the frozen night; steam rises; her steadying hand rests under the bud.
About this chapter
Fern follows the rusted chain Joss showed her to a low iron door set into the foundation of the Rose Bed. Beyond it lies the Spine Corridor, a cold service tunnel under the garden, lined with numbered doors. Door 14 opens onto a dead-end keeper's storeroom abandoned since 1968: a ledger signed Arthur Thorpe, with a folded note that reads 'for Mother - the white rose of Number Fourteen, by rose season.' Fern carries the ledger to Ida, who recognizes her late son's hand, the keeper who died that spring before his rose ever bloomed. Fern returns to Bed 14 and coaxes one impossible white rosebud open in the frozen night; Arthur's translucent ghost appears in the arch, finally able to rest, and Fern bids him go home. Cliffhanger: as Fern carries the single white rose toward the lamplit cottage, a door deep in the Spine Corridor beyond 14 swings open by itself into a rectangle of warm amber light where no room should be.