The Root Cellar Child

The Hollis family lived at the end of Dead Man’s Curve, a gravel road that wound up into the piney woods of the Appalachian foothills. Their farm was a patchwork of thin soil and stubborn rocks, where the only crop that ever truly flourished was suspicion. They kept to themselves, as if the world beyond their property line was a plague they had to avoid at all costs. They didn’t send their children to the county school, didn’t attend the Baptist church in town, and never came down the mountain except for supplies they couldn’t grow or shoot themselves. The father, Cyrus, had a face like a crumpled paper bag, and the mother, Lena, had a smile that never reached her eyes. They had two daughters, Ruth and Esther, who were as pale and quiet as mushrooms, and who wore the same faded gingham dresses every time we saw them, which was rare, because my parents considered them ‘authentic’ and ‘charming’ in a way that made my skin crawl.

I was thirteen the summer they came to our house in town, and I was the one who answered the door. Cyrus stood there, hat in hand, and Lena behind him, clutching a bundle wrapped in a quilt. They had finally had the boy they’d been praying for, after a decade of stillbirths and miscarriages, and they’d come to show him off, a strange sort of triumph after all their private grief. Lena pulled the quilt back to reveal a baby so small it was like a wizened little monkey, with a waxy sheen to his skin and eyes that seemed too old. He didn’t cry, just stared at me with a milky blue gaze that made me step back. She said, ‘He’s a miracle, our Samuel. Born on the full moon, right in the root cellar, where the earth is cool and the spirits are strong.’ I didn’t know what to say. My mother, who was always trying to be charitable, made a fuss and said, ‘Oh, he’s beautiful,’ but her voice had a tremble I’d never heard before.

They stayed for dinner, and the girls, Ruth and Esther, barely spoke, their eyes fixed on their plates, as if they were afraid to look at anything else. The baby, Samuel, was laid in a bassinet in the corner, and every so often, Lena would go over and whisper to him, but he never made a sound. At one point, I went to the kitchen to get more water, and I passed by the bassinet. The quilt had slipped, and I saw that Samuel’s hands were not like a baby’s hands. They were long and thin, with fingers that seemed too many, and they moved in a slow, rhythmic way, like they were kneading something in the air. I looked at Lena, and she caught me staring. She just smiled, a thin, tight smile, and said, ‘He’s got the touch, you know. He’s going to be a healer.’ I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the evening air.

They left that night, driving away in their rattling truck, and I thought that would be the end of it. But the memory of Samuel’s strange eyes and those moving fingers stayed with me. A few weeks later, my father decided we should pay them a visit, to return the courtesy. We drove up Dead Man’s Curve, past the haunted-looking trees and the abandoned barns, until we reached a farmhouse that seemed to sag into the earth, its porch warped and its windows dark. The yard was littered with rusted machinery and animal bones, and the air smelled of decay and cut hay. Cyrus met us on the porch, his face even more crumpled, and he said, ‘Lena’s not feeling well. The birth took a lot out of her.’ He led us inside, where the house was dim and quiet, and the girls were nowhere to be seen. Samuel lay in a cradle by the woodstove, and as my mother leaned in to coo at him, I saw that his eyes were not milky blue anymore. They were the color of muddy pond water, and they seemed to follow me, even when I moved to the other side of the room.

Lena came in, looking thinner and more pale, and she had a distant look in her eyes. She didn’t acknowledge us, just went straight to the cradle and picked up Samuel, holding him to her chest like a shield. She started to hum, a weird, off-key tune that seemed to make the air vibrate. My father tried to make small talk about the harvest, but Cyrus just grunted and stared at the floor. Then the girls came in, Ruth and Esther, and they looked even more pale and silent, their cheekbones sharp against their skin. They sat in a corner and didn’t speak, but I noticed that they were knitting something, and the knitting needles moved with a fluidity that was almost hypnotic. I asked what they were making, and Esther looked up at me with empty eyes and said, ‘A blanket for Samuel’s bed. He likes to be warm.’

We stayed for an hour, and the whole time, Samuel never cried, never fussed. He just lay in Lena’s arms, his eyes open, his tiny hands occasionally making that kneading motion. When it was time to leave, I noticed that the quilt he was wrapped in was the same one they’d brought to our house, but now it had a stain on it, dark and rust-colored, like dried blood. I didn’t say anything, but on the ride home, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was profoundly wrong. My mother said, ‘They seem… different,’ and my father just said, ‘They’re just a little odd. Country people, you know.’ But I knew it was more than that.

That night, I had a nightmare. I dreamt that I was in a root cellar, surrounded by jars of pickled vegetables and sacks of potatoes. In the corner, there was a pile of something soft and white, and when I went to touch it, it moved. It was a mass of tiny, writhing bodies, like pale grubs, and in the center of them was Samuel, sitting up, his eyes now black and deep as wells. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead of a baby’s cry, a low, guttural voice came out that was not his own: ‘You should not have come.’ I woke up screaming, and my parents rushed in, but I couldn’t explain the feeling of cold that had settled into my bones.

A week later, we heard that Ruth and Esther had run away. Cyrus came down to town, and he looked like a man who had been hollowed out, his eyes hollow, his hands trembling. He told my father that the girls had left in the middle of the night, taking nothing with them, and he didn’t know where they’d gone. He also said that Lena had taken to her bed, and Samuel seemed to be failing, not gaining weight, his skin getting a grayish tint. I felt a morbid curiosity, and a sense of dread, but I also felt a pull, as if something was calling me back up that mountain. I snuck out of the house the next day, and I walked the long, winding road to the Hollis farm, my heart pounding the whole way.

The farmhouse was even more decrepit, with a sagging roof and a door that stood ajar. I pushed it open, and inside, the air was thick with the smell of rot and something like damp earth. Samuel was alone in his cradle, and when I looked at him, I saw that his skin was translucent, almost clear, and inside his chest, something was pulsing, not like a heart, but like a dark, tangled mass. His eyes met mine, and I saw not helplessness but a terrible cunning. Then I heard a sound from the root cellar, a low, rhythmic scratching. I followed it, down the wooden steps, into the cold, dark earth. The cellar was lit by a single candle, and in the corner, on a bed of straw, was Lena. She was lying on her back, her belly swollen and moving with a life of its own. She turned her head toward me, and her eyes were filled with a horror so profound that I stumbled back. She whispered, ‘He’s not a healer. He’s a taker. He takes and he takes until there’s nothing left.’

I ran out of the cellar, past the cradle, out of the house, down the mountain, and I didn’t stop until I was safe in my own bed. I never spoke of it to anyone, but I knew that the Hollis family would never leave that mountain. And years later, when I heard that Cyrus had also died, and that the farm was abandoned, I told myself it was over. But sometimes, at night, I still dream of that root cellar, and I see Lena’s swollen belly, and I hear the sound of a baby that should never have been born. And I know that Samuel is still there, waiting, kneading the air, taking his time. And I can’t help but wonder if the girls ever found a place where he couldn’t reach them, or if they, too, became part of the root cellar’s secret.