The Ever Breath (6 page)

But there was no answer.

He turned in a circle, calling, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

Again, nothing.

His feet were so cold they felt like they were burning. His face stung. Would the water in his snow globe freeze out here and break the glass? He held on to the snow globe more tightly. He wasn’t sure what to do. Just then, Grossbeak must have pecked at the light switch in the kitchen, because the lit cracks between the boards went dark.

And all at once Truman felt like crying. He realized, for the first time, how alone he was—not just because his father had disappeared and not just because his mother had left him here. Not just because his sister and grandmother couldn’t hear him. No. He felt really and truly alone in the world. Lost and alone.

But then he heard the warbled cry of the cat, one more time. “Mewl-mewl.” It sounded muffled, like it was coming from somewhere in the house. That was when Truman remembered the root cellar—the place where Swelda made her browsenberry wine.

One hand holding the snow globe, he held the other out in front of his face and walked, blindly, toward the sound of the cat’s cry. He padded the snow with one outstretched foot before taking each step. And finally his toe felt the stiff lip of the root cellar door, which thankfully was propped open. He quickly walked down the steps: the first step, the second
step—and then there was nothing there, only air where a step should be. He landed so hard on the dirt floor that the wind was knocked out of him. He remembered the missing third step that Swelda had warned him and Camille about. What if he had an asthma attack in here? His inhaler was inside his jeans pocket in the bedroom.

As he stood up, still trying to catch his breath, something brushed his face. He batted it away, but it swung back. He grabbed it and realized that it was a string. To a light? He pulled it.

A bare lightbulb dangling from the ceiling brightened the room.

Now he could see why it was called a root cellar. The dirt walls were entwined with roots, like thick ropes, knots, and bulbous joints. They curled all around the cellar, leading out from one specific spot—the base of a tree. The hall tree! Here was its base, living and breathing, inside his grandmother’s dark root cellar. A miracle of a tree.

There were also rows of bottles on shelves lining the walls and wide wooden barrels and kettles, crocks, strainers, and funnels—all for brewing browsenberry wine, he figured.

Truman walked over to a table in the middle of the room. It was covered with yeast sacks, gears, a bucket of corks, fine woven cloth, and tools he couldn’t name. In the corner, in large baskets, were the berries themselves—so pale they looked like small, bright full moons. Truman dipped his hand into a basket of the cool fruits. He could feel the soft prickle of their fine downy fur, soft as peach fuzz. He realized that he was breathing in calm, regular breaths.

And then the cry. “Mewl-mewl.”

He’d almost forgotten the cat! He looked around the edges of the root cellar and caught a glimpse of it darting along the far wall before it slipped into a hole dug in the dirt amid a network of vines.

Truman walked to the hole, got down on his knees, and tried to peer into the darkness. “Come on out!” he called. “I’ll keep you safe.”

He couldn’t see anything and so he reached into the hole, clutching the snow globe with his other arm. His hand slid down a steep and crumbling tunnel lined with bumpy roots.

“Where are you?” he whispered. “What kind of tunnel is this?” He let his arm follow his hand and then let his head—chin tucked—and his chest follow.

He heard the cat mewl, but now it sounded like she was saying “Follow, follow.”

Truman crawled down this strange, dark root-lined tunnel. The tunnel seemed to widen ever so slightly, but still he felt like he was being swallowed by the dirt. He thought back to the day before, when they were looking for his grandmother’s house.
Swallow Road
. He thought of Swelda’s tasting tale—the one he’d swallowed piece by piece. His heart raced in his chest. Would he be able to get back out of here?

It was too late to worry about that. The tunnel narrowed now, and he had to crawl on his elbows.

“Follow, follow,” he heard again.

The tunnel was tight, and the roots dug into his bony knees, but up ahead he saw something glowing.

He crawled more quickly.

It was a wine bottle glowing like a lamp. The label read “Swelda’s Browsenberry Wine.” Up ahead he saw another
glowing bottle and then another and another. He kept following them on his belly through the dirt, until he heard mewling again. But it wasn’t just one voice. It was many voices, all mewling at the same time.

Then, without warning, the tunnel widened into a round room. The ceiling was suddenly tall enough for him to stand up. A tall root, straight as a post, shot up from the earth. It was encircled by glowing jars. The root was thin and delicate, with five thin offshoots that formed a hand: four long branchlike fingers and one thick thumb. It was poised as if it should be holding an apple up in the air. But it was empty. And the pinky on the hand looked brittle and was curling slightly inward, as if injured.

Truman stepped around the jars. Although the room was dug out of the earth and wrapped in roots, it seemed like a sacred place. Where
was
he?

He heard the cat’s human voice again: “Follow, follow.”

It was coming from the other side of the room, where the tunnel continued. Truman looked over his shoulder. He wanted to go back to the house, to his bed, to Camille’s snores. What good did his imagination ever do him? It got him in trouble during the day and it made it impossible to fall asleep at night. But, this very moment, he was imagining that there was something at the other end of the tunnel—something magical. He thought of the Breath World in his grandmother’s tasting tale, and he could almost feel it calling to him from deep in the tunnel that lay in front of him. Was it real? And was this the way to it? He knew that if Camille were here she would say something like “Truman is afraid of the teacup ride at the amusement park. He’ll turn around
any second now and come home.” But he wasn’t turning around. He wasn’t going home. He would follow the tunnel and see what was on the other end.

As he walked across the room, he stepped on something with his bare foot—something small and crisp, stiffer than a leaf, but not as hard as a bone. He shuddered and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to know what it was. He kept on going, and when he reached the mouth of the tunnel, he held tight to the snow globe and kept crawling forward.

The tunnel went on, and Truman wondered how long it was. What if it didn’t
have
an ending? He started to feel confined, a little claustrophobic. Was the tunnel getting tighter?

Finally, he saw a distant light. He crawled faster. His hand patted the dirt until he found one root and then another and another. He climbed the roots as if they were a ladder. And when he popped his head out of the tunnel, he saw two cat eyes, peering at him from a small, dimly lit room.

But it was not a cat—or not completely—because, as it reached forward to help him from the hole, it offered its pale little
human
hand.

Truman stood in the small, dimly lit room. Everything was blurry, as if the room were underwater. There were strange catlike creatures weaving around his ankles, sniffing at the hems of his pajama pants, nosing his bare feet. There had to be a hundred of them at least. He was looking for the cat who’d led him here, an indistinct, furred black form, but now he couldn’t tell one from the next—and these obviously weren’t just cats. The creatures padded around on their back paws and human hands, and when they looked at Truman, they seemed to understand more than a cat would, though he wasn’t sure what made him think that, exactly. They were all making soft mewling noises in the backs of their throats.

Truman looked around at the room. A potbelly stove, a tiny stone sink, cupboards, a square table with one lonely chair, a lantern sitting on the windowsill, a small bed stacked with quilts. He thought of Camille’s snow globe with the little hut inside it and the woman peeking out the window. The room looked how he imagined the inside of the hut to be.
And the snow globe woman had cats on her shoulders. Could … could this be the same hut?

He looked over at one of the creatures, poised on the table, who’d picked up a piece of deep red fruit the size of a mandarin orange, and watched it peel the fruit open, just the way Truman would—first digging in a thumbnail and then pulling away the rind like bits of thick leather. Truman pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, hoping things would be clearer. But it didn’t help. The animal cocked its head and stared at Truman as if they knew each other.

“Were you the one calling to me in the snow?” Truman asked finally.

The animal nodded and held the fruit up, offering him some.

“No, thanks,” Truman said, not sure what to make of any of this. “Are you all cats?”

The mewler nibbled the fruit in its hands. “Mewlersss,” it hissed, and the others echoed, “Mewlersss, mewlersss, mewlersss…”

“Mewlers?” Truman said, trying the word out. Could these mewlers be the kind of creatures that were kicked out of the Fixed World? If they were, then could this really be the Breath World itself, the one from his grandmother’s story?

Behind the potbelly stove there were three mewlers knitting. Each had a ball of blue yarn and needles. They seemed to be making woolen hats.

“Hey,” Truman said to the mewler eating the fruit, “my grandmother has one of those hats.”

“Hatsss, hatsss,” one of the knitting mewlers hissed,
and the other knitting mewlers repeated, “Hatsss, hatsss, hatsss …”

Just then, Truman heard a buzz, and three large flying bugs zipped past his face. Their wings sounded electric. One of the mewlers leapt from the table onto Truman’s shoulder, trying to swipe at the bugs in midair. Instead the mewler hit Truman’s glasses and sent them flying across the room. Truman groaned, but when he looked around, everything came into sharp focus—without his glasses on.

He was stunned. He took a moment to drink in the room with real clarity. But then another mewler leapt right on top of the snow globe in Truman’s arms.

“Hey!” Truman said. “Watch out!” He stumbled backward and accidentally stepped on a paw. That mewler let out a violent screech and the others hissed, arching their backs.

“Sorry!” Truman said, inching back toward the tunnel. Maybe these creatures were kicked out of the Fixed World for a very good reason. Maybe they hated humans. “I think I should go home now. I’m not supposed to be here.”

Then, from the other side of the room, there was a loud snort. “Who is it? Back again? Not this time!” The bed that Truman had thought was covered with quilts actually had just one quilt, covering a small, pudgy woman who was now rustling awake. She grabbed a rolling pin from under the pillow. “Listen here! I’m armed! And me mewlers are set to attack!” She waved the rolling pin blindly in the air.

The mewlers, taking their cue from her, became aggressive. They started grabbing Truman’s legs, their claws digging through his pajama pants into his skin. He toppled over and they pounced on him. “Stop it!” he shouted. “Get off of me!”

“Where’s Praddle? Is she home yet? Praddle?” the old woman was calling. Was this the mewler who’d led him to this terrifying place? “Who is it, mewlers? Who is here? Another thief?” And then Truman felt a hand reach into the pile of mewlers and pull him up by his pajama top.

For a brief moment, he was face to face with the old woman. She stared at him with her large eyes, one of which was a shocking bright blue and the other shiny and black—not an eye at all, really. It was more like a large, shiny black pearl!

And then Truman, gripping his snow globe with both arms, let out a scream—so sharp and high and sudden that it surprised even him. The old woman was shocked too, so much so that her hand sprang open, releasing Truman, and the mewlers all reared back.

Just as Truman scrambled to his feet, one mewler jumped and landed on his back. He had no time to shake it off. He hurled himself toward the front door, flung it open, and ran out into the dark, snowy night.

“Praddle!” the old woman was crying into the wind. “Praddle! Come back!”

With the swirling snow globe clutched to his chest and the creature on his back, Truman ran through the snow, dodging trees, jumping and stumbling over dips and roots. His heart was pounding in his ears. He could barely see in the dark. The snow was coming down fast. He kept running until he found the courage to glance behind him. No one was following—except the mewler hitching a ride on his shoulder.

“Get off!” Truman shouted breathlessly, and then he doubled over, his hands on his knees.

The mewler slipped off Truman’s shoulder.

Truman looked at the mewler. “You’re that cat that got me into this in the first place. Aren’t you?”

“Mewlerrr,” she said.

“Your name’s Praddle, right?”

Praddle nodded.

Truman sat down on a rock, set the snow globe by his side, and rubbed his icy feet with his hands. “Well, Praddle, any idea on how to get me
out
of this?”

Praddle wrung her hands and shrugged.

The wind whipped Truman’s hair and ruffled Praddle’s shiny fur. Truman closed his eyes and tears slid from the corners. And when he closed his eyes, he saw the image of two eyes—one blue, one a black pearl. “Was that woman Swelda’s sister?” Truman whispered. “Ickbee?”

“Yesss!” Praddle hissed.

“Why did she want to kill me?” Truman cried.

“She wasss being sssafe!” Praddle hissed.

“Really?” Truman snorted. “She was about to bludgeon me with a rolling pin!”

“She’sss been waiting for you!”

“She could have shown more hospitality,” Truman said.

“You should go back to herrr!”

“I’m not going back there. No way.” But where
was
he going? It was dark and cold and snowing. “I’ll probably get frostbite and have to get my nose amputated,” he muttered. He thought about Camille and wished she were with him. She’d know what to do. She’d read enough books about disasters to know something about how to survive.