Free The Root Cellar by Janet Lunn

long frightening night had seemed as permanent as the house. It came as a surprise to see their long slanting shapes in the late afternoon sun.
    She had a sudden electrifying idea. She began to run. She no longer noticed the cold. She was hot with excitement. She ran until she reached the root cellar. Breathlessly she flopped down on the crackling leaves and studied the closed doors.The shadow of the hawthorn tree fell across them parallel to the opening between them.
    “Where was it the day I went to Will and Susan’s?” whispered Rose. “Where was it?” She closed her eyes, trying to remember. In her mind she saw the doors revealed by her feet scuffing the leaves away, the trees and bushes making patterns and shadows over them. “Yes,” she murmured, “yes, it was! It was in the middle. Exactly in the middle.” She opened her eyes. The hawthorn’s shadow was to the left of the opening, not more than an inch. She waited, her fists clenched anxiously. Had it just been or was it coming? She did not move; her eyes were riveted to the opening.
    Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the shadow moved toward the crack. Rose held her breath, her body tense as a runner’s waiting for the starting flag. Then, when the shadow fell just where the hook-and-eye latches met, she pulled open the doors, ran down into the root cellar, and came up beside the little garden in the Morrissays’ backyard.
    She sat down beside the creek, letting out long breaths of relief. The chickens were pecking in the garden; the sheep and Pearly the cow were grazing beyond the creek. Only the sound of Pearly’s bell tinkling as she moved and the chirping of robins in the trees broke the stillness of the warm afternoon. She hurried down pastthe creek to the bay, then back up to the orchard looking for Will or Susan. She realized as she approached that the apple trees were not in bloom as they had been last time. They weren’t even in leaf.
    “Time must be strange here, or at least not the same as ours,” she decided.
    As she walked through the budding trees in the orchard, she felt again the magic of that other day. A squirrel scurried out onto a branch at the sound of her approach, and she felt the peacefulness of it all settle over her once again. She heard voices coming toward her. One of them was a deep male voice. In a sudden panic, lest she be discovered by strangers, she hid behind the nearest tree. Within seconds the voices were almost beside her. Then whoever it was stopped.
    “And don’t you dare breathe a single word of what I told you to Ma or I’ll cast a spell on you, Susan Anderson. There’s ways and ways of casting spells and you know it because it was your own gran who told us, and some of ’em you can do from far away and I’ll do ’em for certain sure if you tell.”
    Rose peered out from behind her tree. It was Susan and Will, a taller, older Will with a deep cracking voice, like George’s. He was over six feet tall now and his straw-white hair had darkened to a deep gold color. Susan wasdifferent, too. She was taller than Rose and looked older. Rose was horrified. How old were they? How much time had gone by?
    “She ain’t to know,” said Will fiercely.
    “But Will,” Susan clasped and unclasped her hands nervously in front of her. “If you run away it’ll kill your ma. It truly will. She says there’s a curse on your family.”
    “I know what Ma says. Don’t she say it every morning of my life? I can’t hardly stand to be around. It’s like living with the dead, living here. Why don’t she go home to Oswego? My aunts are jolly folks and so are my cousins. She only come here to marry Pa. Her folks don’t belong here and I don’t belong here neither. I’m going to take myself back there, and Steve and me we’re going to join up. They been asking for recruits again and we’re—”
    “Will Morrissay! You’re never going to do that!” gasped Susan. Will clapped his hands over Susan’s mouth. “Shut up! I