Rootbound — The White Rose of Number Fourteen, Page 2
By Suha · Published
Transcript
The Rose Bed arch foundation at night. Fern pushes frost from a low iron door set into the stone, calls out the key ring, and opens the door. Three panels. Fern: A door. Hidden in the footing. Her brass key ring, seven keys, the longest held to the lock. Fern: Seven keys. Let's see which one you want. The lock turns; the door opens onto darkness. Fern: That's not a wall behind it.
Image description
Fern brushes frost from a low iron door in the arch foundation, then turns a key in its lock and opens it onto darkness.
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.