I am running away.
I decide this before lunch.
I decide it when Tommy Frick laughs and says my head is a carrot.
I decide it when Mrs. Webb tells me not to cry because sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me.
Mrs. Webb is wrong.
Names are tiny little knives people throw because we aren't allowed to throw real ones in kindergarten.
So I am finished with school.
And people.
And definitely with red hair.
By the time Dad picks us up, I have already made my plan.
I will go home.
I will pack.
I will leave.
I will never come back unless everyone promises to stop looking at my head.
Finn sits beside me in the back seat and swings his legs. His shoes don’t touch the floor yet. Mine don’t either, but mine swing angrily.
Finn notices.
He always notices.
“What happened?” he asks.“Nothing.”
He looks at my hair.
I turn away fast and stare out the window.
“Was it Maisie?”
“No.”
“Tommy?”
I hate him a little because he knows.
I also love him because he knows.
“Stop talking,” I say.
Finn stops.
For exactly seven seconds.
“If you want,” he says quietly, “I can put a spider in his desk. I saw a big one in the basement yesterday.”
Dad looks at us in the mirror. “Absolutely not.”
Finn shrugs. “I didn’t say I would. I said I can.”
“You may not.”
“I know.”
I look at Finn.
He gives me a tiny smile.
I do not smile back.
When we get home, Mom is in the studio with music playing.
Dad takes off his coat and tells us to wash our hands.
I do not wash my hands.
People who are running away do not have time for soap.
I go upstairs to my room and take my little suitcase from
under the bed. It is pink with white flowers, and one wheel is broken because Finn tried to ride it down the hallway last winter.
I pack important things.
My stuffed rabbit.
A sweater.
Three crackers from the sleeve hidden in my nightstand.
My favorite sock.
My silver hairbrush, even though I hate my hair.
A book I cannot read yet but like because there is a girl on the cover holding a sword.
Then I look at myself in the mirror.
My hair is red.
Very red.
The worst red.
It’s not orange like a carrot but Tommy Frick will probably say it
again tomorrow.
Except he will not.
Because tomorrow I will live somewhere else.
Somewhere nobody can find me.
Somewhere with no kindergarten.
I drag the suitcase down the stairs one bump at a time.
I freeze when I hear Dad’s voice in the front parlor.
He’s talking on the telephone in his quiet work voice. The one that means someone is sad somewhere.
Mom sings in the studio and I can smell her oil paint.
Finn is not in the hall.
Good.
I open the side door very carefully.
It squeaks because everything in our house does.
I wait.
Nobody comes.
So I leave.
The air outside smells like wet leaves and dead fish and ocean. It’s not raining right now but it’s Oregon so it will be soon.
I forgot my raincoat.
I pull my suitcase across the grass.
It makes a terrible sound.
I look back once at the house.
It is huge and gray and full of windows. I think it watches me leave.
I stick my tongue out at it.
Then I keep going.
The carriage house is not far, but it feels far because my suitcase is bad at running away. It catches on roots and stones
and once on nothing at all, which makes me so mad.
By the time I reach the little porch, I am breathing hard.
The carriage house smells different from our house.
It smells… unfamiliar. Like dust and sunlight.
Dad says it used to hold carriages before cars. Finn asked if the horses had names. Dad said probably. Finn asked if the horses were buried here. Dad said no. Finn was disappointed.
I climb the step and open the door.
Inside, the room is dim and cool. Old furniture sits under white sheets. A narrow staircase leads up to the loft.
I drag my suitcase inside and close the door.
There.
I have done it.
I am gone.
I sit on the floor beside my suitcase and wait to feel free.
Mostly I feel hungry.
I eat one cracker.
Then another.
Then I remember I only packed three, so I put the third one back.
I hug my rabbit.
Her name is Beatrice, but Finn calls her Commander Bun because he says she looks like she has seen battle.
I whisper to her, “We live here now.”
Beatrice does not argue.
Good.
Everyone else argues.
I sit there for a long time.
Maybe ten minutes.
Maybe all day.
Then the door opens.
Finn slips inside.
He closes the door behind him and stands there with his hands
in his pockets.
He does not say, “What are you doing?”
He does not say, “You’re in trouble.”
He does not say, “I’m telling.”
He only says, “I found you.”
I glare at him.
“You weren’t supposed to.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
He walks closer and sits cross-legged on the floor across from me.
“Because you were gone.”
“I’m running away.”
“I know.”
“You can’t come.”
“I’m already here.”
“This doesn’t count. You can leave.”
Finn looks around the carriage house like he is considering the rules. “I think it counts.”
I squeeze Beatrice very hard.
“I live here now.”
“Okay.”
He says it so calmly that I get mad all over again.
“You’re supposed to tell me not to.”
“Do you want me to?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
We’re quiet. Then Finn looks into my suitcase.
“You only packed one sock.”
“It’s my favorite one. The bow fell off the other.”
He nods like this is serious.
Then he says, “Mom’s going to notice.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“She noticed when I cut my toast into a triangle and hid it behind the plant.”
“That was toast.”
“You are bigger than toast.”
I hate that he has a point.
I look at the floor.
“He called me carrot.”
Finn’s face changes.
Not big, just a little.
“Tommy?”
I nod, and Finn picks at a loose thread on his sleeve.
“I don’t want to be a carrot.”
“What do you want to be?”
I think about this.
It is a hard question.
“Normal.”
Finn makes a face.
“Normal is boring.”
“You’re only saying that because your hair is brown.”
“My hair is tawny.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Mom said.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
Finn touches his hair as if checking. “I can be a carrot too.”
I look up.
“How?”
“We can paint it.”
“With what?”
“Mom’s paint.”
I imagine Finn with red paint in his hair.
I almost laugh.
“Mom would be mad.”
“Probably.”
“She’d say hair is not a canvas.”
Finn tilts his head. “She says everything is a canvas.”
This time I do laugh.
Finn smiles, but not too much. He is careful with smiles when I
am sad, like he wants to feel the same thing as me.
Then he says, “I like your hair.”
“You have to. You’re my brother.”
“I don’t have to like everything. I don’t like peas.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s red like Mom’s.”
“I know.”
“And Mom is beautiful.”
I pick at the handle of my suitcase.
“That doesn’t count.”
“Why?”
“Because she is grown.”
Finn thinks. “You’ll be grown later.”
“I don’t want later. I want now.”
He nods.
He understands this.
Then he leans forward and lowers his voice.
“If you live here, I’ll bring you food.”
I blink.
“You will?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Toast.”
“I don’t want toast.”
“Crackers.”
“I already have crackers.”
“How many?”
“One.”
“That’s not enough for running away.”
“I know.”
“I can bring cookies.”
My heart hurts less.
Only a little.
But enough.
“You can’t tell.”
“I won’t.”
“Not Mom.”
“No.”
“Not Dad.”
Finn hesitates.
“Finn.”
“What if there is a spider?”
“I’m not afraid of spiders.”
“What if there is a big spider?”
I look around.
The carriage house suddenly seems larger and darker in the corners.
“I’m not afraid,” I say.
Finn nods again, but this time he moves closer because he
knows it’s a lie.
We sit shoulder to shoulder on the dusty floor.
I am still running away.
But now Finn is here, so it is better.
After a while, he says, “We should explore.”
“No.”
“You live here. You need to know the rooms.”
That makes sense. Finn usually knows what to do.
We stand.
The carriage house is mostly one big room with old trunks and plant pots and stacked chairs. There is a ladder to the loft, but Finn says we can’t climb it because if we fall, we’d have to explain why we’re in here.
This is annoying because it is smart.
We look under sheets.
One hides a cracked mirror.
One hides a rolled rug.
One hides nothing, which makes both of us scream, because we are expecting something.
Then we laugh so hard we have to sit down.
I forget about Tommy Frick.
I forget I hate my hair.
For a few minutes, I am only brave Calla in an abandoned
kingdom with my brother.
Then my foot bumps something in the floor.
A ring.
Not jewelry.
An iron ring set flat into a square of wood.
I crouch.
“What is this?”
Finn comes over fast.
His eyes get bright.
That is his discovery face.
“I don’t know.”
I pull at the ring.
It doesn’t move.
Finn kneels beside me and wraps both hands around it.
“Help.”
We pull together.
At first, nothing happens.
Then the square of wood groans.
We freeze.
It sounds terrible, screechy.
“Maybe stop,” I whisper.
Finn whispers back, “Maybe keep going.”
So we pull again.
The door lifts.
Not all the way.
Just enough for a cold smell to breathe out.
A dark smell.
I drop the ring.
The door slams shut.
We both jump.
Then we stare at it.
Finn says, “That is definitely a door.”
“No,” I say. “It’s in the floor.”
“Floor door.”
“That is not a thing.”
“It is now.”
I should not want to open it again.
But I do.
“Do you think we’re allowed?” I ask.
“No.”
“Should we get Dad?”
Finn looks at the floor door.
Then at me.
Then at the floor door again.
“Let’s look first.”
Finn pulls again.
This time I help.
The trapdoor opens with another groan. Underneath is a set
of narrow wooden steps leading down into blackness.
Not basement blackness. Not like at home. This blackness feels… different. It feels like it’s hungry.
Finn takes a flashlight from his pocket.
I stare at him.
“You brought a flashlight?”
“You ran away.”
“So?”
“So I thought we might need things.”
“What else did you bring?”
He reaches into his pocket and shows me a pencil stub, a
thumb tack, and a roll of tape.
“That’s not things.”
“It’s four things.”
I can’t argue with counting.
Finn turns on the flashlight.
The beam flickers, then steadies.
It’s not very bright.
Finn shines the light down the steps.
There’s a wall made of stone. Shelves. Dirt floor. Spiderwebs.
I swallow.
“We can close it.”
Finn nods.
“We can.”
Neither of us moves.
Then he says, “I’ll go first.”
“No.”
“Yes. You don’t have to come.”
He smiles at me.
Because he knows I am scared and I’ll go with him anyway.
He climbs down.
The steps creak under his shoes.
I follow, holding Beatrice under one arm and the railing with
my other hand.
The air gets colder as we go.
At the bottom, Finn shines the flashlight around.
It is a little room under the carriage house.
A secret room.
There are shelves along one wall with jars on them. Empty
jars. Cloudy jars. One jar with something inside that makes me immediately decide never to look at it again.
There are old crates.
A sack that has melted into the floor.
Roots poke through cracks in the stone wall, thin and pale, like bird bones.
The ceiling is low, but not too low for us. It smells like
potatoes even though there are no potatoes. It smells like it rained in here and never dried.
I hold Finn’s sleeve. He notices but does not mention it.
Good.
We walk slowly.
The flashlight shows everything.
A bottle.
Something wrapped in cloth.
Finn crouches near the cloth.
“Don’t touch it,” I say.
“I wasn’t.”
He stands.
The room seems bigger than it should be.
At the back, past the shelves, there is another space where
the light does not reach right away. A deeper dark. A corner
that feels almost like a mouth.
Finn points the flashlight.
The beam flickers.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
But he already has.
The light touches the back wall.
For one second, I see something.
Or I think I do.
Not all of it.
Just the shape. Tall. Wrong. Covered maybe. Or not covered.
A pale edge. A dark curve.
Something hanging where nothing should hang.
Something that makes the cold room colder.
Finn stops breathing.
I know because I stop breathing too and there’s not a sound.
The flashlight shakes in his hand.
“What is that?” I whisper.
Finn does not answer.
The beam shakes over the thing again.
There is a mark on the wall behind it. A long scratch.
Or a shadow.
Or both.
For a moment, I think I see something red.
The flashlight buzzes.
Once.
Twice.
Then goes out.
Darkness swallows everything.
I grab Finn.
Finn grabs me.
Neither of us screams.
That is how scared we are.
Above us, somewhere far away, the carriage house creaks.
Here with us, the black shifts, moving around us.
Finn whispers my name.
“Calla.”
I whisper, “I want to go home.”
He finds my hand.
His fingers are cold.
“Me too.”
We run up the stairs so fast… and it feels like something is right behind us, almost touching us. I bang my knee and
Finn drops the flashlight. He does not go back for it. That is
how I know the thing is real.
Finn always goes back for things.
We shove the floor door closed together.
It thuds into place.
The carriage house is dim and dusty and suddenly wonderful because it is not underground.
For a minute, we lie on the floor beside the trapdoor, breathing hard.
Then Finn says, “We should not tell.”
I turn my head.
His face is pale.
“Why?”
He looks at the floor.
Then at me.
“Because then they’ll ask what we saw.”
I do not want that.
I do not want to say it.
I do not want to remember it all the way.
“What did we see?” I ask.
Finn is quiet for a long time.
Then he says, “I don’t know.”
I believe him.
I don’t know either.
That is the worst part.
The door opens.
Light spills in.
“Calla?”
Dad’s voice.
My whole body goes soft with relief so sudden I almost cry.
Finn and I sit up.
Dad stands in the doorway, tall and serious and trying not to look scared.
Behind him, the afternoon is gray.
Real.
Normal.
Beautiful.
He looks at my suitcase.
At the dust on our knees.
At Finn’s face.
At mine.
Then he says, “Your mother is worried.”
I burst into tears.
Dad crosses the room in three steps and kneels, and I run into his arms so hard he makes a sound.
I sob into his sweater.
Dad holds me.
Finn crawls close, and Dad pulls him in too because Dad knows there is never only one of us.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
“No,” Finn says too fast.
Dad looks at him.
Finn looks at me.
I look at the floor.
The floor looks ordinary.
No door.
No dark.
No thing beneath us.
Just boards.
Just dust.
Just a place where a girl runs away and her brother finds her.
Dad kisses the top of my head.
“Home,” he says.
I nod.
I don’t argue.
I don’t say I live here now.
I let Dad carry my suitcase.
Finn takes my hand.
We walk back across the grass together.
The house watches us walk toward it.
This time, I am glad.
Halfway home, Finn squeezes my hand.
I squeeze back.
“What?” I whisper.
He looks over his shoulder at the carriage house.
The windows are dark. The door is closed. Nothing moves.
Finn turns back and whispers, “I would always find you.”
I look at him.
The wind lifts my red hair around my face.
For once, I do not push it down.
“You promise?”
Finn nods.
“I promise.”
I believe him.
I believe him more than I believe almost anything.
And because I am five, because I am tired, because Dad is holding my suitcase and Finn is holding my hand and home is close enough to smell like supper and mom’s paint, I let
the rest of the memory of that scary black room go.
I don’t look back again.
Return to the Present
