Keep in a Cold, Dark Place

by Michael Stewart

  Limpy hesitated. She didn’t want to take the sacks of potatoes into the cellar, but with the rubbing, she also was desperate to reach the library which would soon close.

  “I need a decent meal, girl, go!” her father called.

  She closed the door over the ladder, muffling the sounds from below.

  Perhaps Chup would eat a chicken egg. She shuffled away from the barn.

  Beyond the chicken wire, a dozen chickens bobbed their heads in anticipation for the feed Limpy scattered. While they pecked grain, she collected eggs into a basket and marched back to the house.

  “I need to hurry, Pops,” she said, placing the eggs on the counter. The rubbing felt hot in her pocket.

  “Not without dinner on the table you’re not,” he said. “Family first.”

  Family first, repeated her mother’s ghost. What you’ve left of it.

  Limpy sagged, her eyes welling with tears. She turned away to clean the pots and pans from lunch before starting on dinner. She wouldn’t make it to the library.

  “Don’ know what’s gotten into her, Pa,” Dylan said. “Limp’s got a room, a roof, potatoes, same schooling I had—what more do you need?”

  She saved an egg for Chup, the blood from her fingers drying on it to a crusty brown. After dinner was on the table, she cracked the egg into a bowl and left it, shell and all, with Chup in the hope chest. It hooted, but she couldn’t share in its joy. Small golden hairs dusted the nest, which had spread to fill almost half the chest. It was still growing, now the size of a softball.

  “Eat, Chup,” she whispered. “Eat so you can grow up quick and get out of here.”

  And, spurred by her own words, Limpy pulled her tapestry down from the wall and set to work.

  Chapter 11

  Limpy woke to screaming in the middle of the night. The tapestry hung heavily over her legs and she kicked it away. Her father roared at Spud the cat.

  It wasn’t the first time; Spud made enemies of feet left dangling out of bedcovers. Limpy would have smiled and drifted back off to sleep, but his hollering continued. The house shook as he jumped up and down. So Limpy rolled out of her bed and peeked out.

  Light spilled through the crack in the door. Her dad gripped his injured foot in both hands and hopped on the other. She gasped and his head swiveled to stare at her.

  Then he hunched back over his foot, his face a mask of pain. “I’ll kill it! Find it! Kill it!”

  Dylan peered under the bed. Connor checked the closet.

  Limpy backed away; she’d never seen her father so enraged. Spud had nipped at her feet once and it had hurt, but not like this. Could it have been something else? A knot of fear constricted her throat.

  She crept back to the hope chest and sighed relief. Chup slept curled in a cloud of fuzz. With her fingertips buried in Chup’s fur she felt the comforting vibration of its breath. Her pet safe, Limpy slunk back to bed and slipped under the sheets, only to burst into cold sweat. What of the missing hatchling? But, no, it was silly to think that a tiny newborn would have broken into the farmhouse and bitten toes. It must have been Spud. In a few minutes her father settled and the search for the family cat ended without success. But it was a long time after snoring vibrated through the house that Limpy finally slept.

  She woke before dawn and suddenly recalled that she hadn’t seen Spud in the house last night. In fact, she’d been last to bed and had let Spud outside, not in. Fully awake and with a dread that tingled down her arms to shake out her fingertips, she tiptoed to the back door, not daring to turn on a light. She eased it open. There paced Spud, rubbing his fur against the screen door.

  “I know you didn’t do it, Spud,” she whispered. “But you might wanna run.”

  Spud meowed, ready to come in and be fed.

  Limpy shut the door with her shoulder and leaned against it. If Spud hadn’t bitten her father, and Chup hadn’t, then what had? She crept back to the chest and slowly opened the lid. Chup unfurled—eyes blinking up at Limpy, alert and intelligent, fur glossy and dense.

  “Chup!” Limpy bit her lip with excitement. “You’re so big.” Then she frowned at the egg still in the bowl. Chup hadn’t eaten it. And yet, at this rate it would soon be as big as one of her teddy bears. It bounced hopefully with its round mouth and round eyes.

  Chup, chup, it said. And she melted, petting it. Chup shivered with pleasure, shaking its fur and leaning into her hand, licking at the sores on her fingers. She stiffened. She remembered her father’s toes. Was Chup licking her fingers to be cute? Or was it licking the dried blood?

  She pulled back and away. Chup cocked its head sideways and let out a little hoot before scurrying about the chest of drawers, tumbling, and bouncing from wall to wall.

  The panic which had begun to grip her eased. Didn’t Spud eat meat? Didn’t he bite toes? Was Chup any different than a kitten? Maybe. He was bigger. She still had the rubbing in her apron pocket. Gently, she patted Chup on the head once more and it pushed into her palm before curling back into a ball, chupping as it fell asleep. She had to be careful. If her father discovered Chup, he might assume it was his tormentor. He would kill it for certain, seeing nothing but another type of vermin.

  “Don’t worry, Chup, I’ll protect you and your siblings too. I’ll find them something proper to eat rather than toes.”

  She split Spud’s meal with Chup, leaving the dish beside her sleeping pet. Then she set to breakfast. Last night, she’d made good progress on her tapestry and it was over a third done. She’d stitched the trees which lined the road into school and the library. Main Street with its stores was next—the very heart of Flesherton—and after that she could stitch the road out to Hillcrest. But she wouldn’t have another chance to work on it until evening.

  Each weekday she had two hours of work before the bell rang for school. After school, she would work until sundown. During harvest season everyone had to labor extra hard. Although her fingers ached from yesterday’s stitching, she washed and chopped potatoes, setting them to fry in oil. This morning, she would surprise her father. She would be so good. Such a wonderful daughter that he would allow her time to work on her art.

  Having completed her kitchen chores, she was heading to the barn to stitch sacks when Mr. Sotheby’s polished black car roared around the side of the farmhouse and stopped in a cloud of dust. His smile hooked as he opened the passenger door and bowed to the occupant. From the depths of the car stepped a squat man wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He looked like a kid, really, and on his T-shirt an Iron Man symbol actually pulsed with light.

  “Hey there, little potato girl,” he said and, using his phone, took a picture of her with the barn in the background, as if she were something quaint to post on the internet. She forced down her dislike. This man might be the one to purchase the farm and free her. But a small part of her didn’t want it to go to a person like this, thought that the farm somehow deserved better.

  “Limphetta, this is Devon Shaw—the Devon Shaw,” Mr. Sotheby said.

  “Call me Devo,” he said with a wink.

  Limpy didn’t know who the man was, but reached out a hand to shake his. “You going to buy our farm?”

  Devo squinted at her. “Don’t you want to stay?”

  She shrugged, not knowing how to respond.

  “I’ve heard it’s cursed,” Devo said, and from the light in his eyes she could tell that the prospect excited him. “Right here I’ll build the gaming studio. Cursed Games, it’ll be called.”

  “Maybe you’d let your father know that Devo would like to know all about the curse,” Mr. Sotheby said.

  Limpy glanced at the blackened timbers of the stables.

  “The rubble’s still here? So awesome.” Devo jogged over to the ruins with Mr. Sotheby huffing after him. Just then the door to the barn swung open as if the wind had caught an edge. But the weathervane atop the barn roof didn’t even shift.

  Inside the barn, the tractor started fwit fwoo.

  Her brothers, fillin
g baskets in the fields, straightened. Her father pushed out the farmhouse door and scratched at his scalp.

  “You start her?” he asked. When he glanced at Limpy she shook her head. Then he scowled at the car and Devo poking through the wreckage of the stables.

  Before her pops could say anything about curses, the fwit fwoo of the tractor accelerated until the fwit melded with the fwoo into a continuous high-pitched whine. The conveyor ran in a blur and swung so that the end of it twisted toward where Mr. Sotheby stood.

  There came a clunking sound. Limpy’s eyes widened as a potato shot from the conveyor with deadly accuracy, striking Mr. Sotheby in the thigh so hard that he cried out.

  Her father laughed, his scowl flitting from his face to the banker’s. Devo and Mr. Sotheby were targeted by a piece of farm equipment gone rogue.

  Thunk!

  “Watch out!” Limpy warned.

  A potato whistled past Devo’s ear.

  Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

  He ducked for cover behind the old stables’ planks. The potatoes cracked in quick succession against the timber.

  THUNK!!!

  A whole bag of potatoes lobbed high into the air and broke when it struck the ground, splintering a wooden beam.

  Devo and Mr. Sotheby sprinted for the safety of the car. Her father whooped.

  THUNK!!!

  A second bag missed the car windshield by a foot. Dirt shot out from under the front tires as Mr. Sotheby reversed down the road, snaking left and right to dodge the potato sack mortars.

  Her father smacked his hat against his thigh and cheered. “Well that’s finer than a frog’s hair split four ways!” he yelled and looked from Limpy to each of his sons. No one took responsibility. Wrinkles deepened between his eyebrows. He strode toward the barn where the conveyor still whirred, but no more potatoes fired.

  The whine of the engine slowed to a steady fwit fwoo before sputtering to a stop.

  “So who was it? Who tinkered with the conveyor?” he asked. Above, the weathervane squeaked as it shifted.

  In the sunlight and silence everyone shrugged. Limpy flushed. Could her little friends be to blame? Maybe the missing hatchling, or perhaps they’d somehow escaped the potato sack and sabotaged the conveyor. But how? Her father shivered and glanced over at the bones of the stables.

  “School, Dad, I’ve got to get to school,” Limpy said.

  She turned and ran back into the house to fetch her bag. One thing was certain, there was no way she could leave Chup and the others here alone. Not when they might be chasing away other buyers of the farm and keeping her from the city and her future. No. The fuzzy monsters were coming with her to school.

  Chapter 12

  Limpy easily collected Chup, still balled into hope chest blankets. It didn’t even wake as she gently lowered it into the bottom of her bag and then clasped her hands to her chest with a feeling as warm and as fuzzy as her friend. Limpy swung the embroidered knapsack over her shoulder. She snuck past her brothers and father as they labored in the fields and entered the barn through a small door on the far side of the building.

  With the bright sunlight her father wouldn’t be able to see her in the dark barn. Dust flashed in the blaze of light that stretched past the open barn doors to wink off the silver casing of the stitcher. She needn’t have worried about making too much noise. Her father kept laughing about potato sack catapults, and the expression on the banker’s face as he ran to his fancy car under a hail of tubers.

  Limpy climbed down into the cellar. It was like descending into a lake, the cold easing up over her ankles and then sliding along her thighs until she was on the hard-packed floor and submersed in the cool, dank air that swallowed sound from above.

  She hurried to where she’d left the sack hidden amongst the other potato bags and released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when she found it still sewn tight. Her sore fingers picked the stitches out. She smiled down at the blue and white fuzzy creatures inside. Both eggs had hatched. Goo from the egg had dried and flaked away. The white had three long tufts of hair. Two sprouted above the round hole of a mouth to form a moustache that drooped almost to its tiny taloned feet, reminding her of her father. A third tuft topped its head like a Samurai’s topknot.

  “You can be Tufts,” she said, thinking that they deserved names like Chup. “And you . . . ,” she inspected the blue one, which seemed squatter, round and heavy, “You will be Podge.”

  Whereas Tufts chittered and chupped, Podge seemed as mute as Connor.

  Something shifted in amongst the potato sacks in the far corner of the cellar.

  “Hello?” she asked in a wobbly voice. When no reply came, she shuddered and zipped up her backpack with Tufts and Podge tucked safely inside. Chup greeted its siblings with a low hoot.

  Again came the noise behind the sacks, like claws raking over stone.

  If Tufts and Podge had been stitched in the sack, then had the creature in the darkness turned the potato grader into a catapult? Maybe Limpy’s brothers? Or Arnie, as a joke?

  A shadow moved amongst the potatoes. From the box inside the potato sack, she pulled a shard of crimson shell.

  “Here, come here . . . Ghost.” Ghost seemed an appropriate name. But no amount of coaxing Ghost from the shadows brought it into the light. Maybe it was a cat waiting for her to leave so it could have a chance to eat Tufts and Podge. But that wasn’t going to happen with them stowed in her backpack.

  She climbed back up the ladder, paused to satisfy herself that her father concentrated on the grader, and then slipped out the rear of the barn. She took the long way around the old horse stable ruins to keep out of sight. On her bike, her little buddies squirmed in the backpack as she rode to school. Collecting them had cost her ten minutes and she pedaled furiously to reach class before the bell rang. She climbed the short flight of steps to the impatient wave of Principal Dougald.

  “To class, Ms. O’Malley,” he warned her. “Unless you want a late slip.”

  She’d hoped to leave her pets in her locker, but hadn’t the chance to do so under the principal’s watchful eye.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  Belatedly, she realized that she’d never retrieved her book from Connor, nor had she helped him with his reading. Her heart fluttered and suddenly she felt overwhelmed by the responsibility of not only what fidgeted in her backpack, but also having to complete her artwork, and study, and stitch bags, and cook.

  “Are you all right, Limphetta?” asked Principal Dougald.

  She nodded and hurried down the hall to class. Due to the small size of the school, grades six, seven and eight were all in class together. When she had been in grade six this had seemed wonderful, as she’d had a chance to try to keep up with the older kids. Now that she was in grade eight, it felt as though she were one of Bart’s pigs, swatting at flies and chewing corn porridge while waiting for the sun to go down. It was too easy.

  Ms. Summerfield glanced over as Limpy rushed in and took her seat at the front, wishing now that she had a seat at the back with Arnie, who was still in grade seven despite being the same age. The bell rang and everyone stood to sing the national anthem.

  But when the anthem ended, the singing didn’t. At first, Limpy looked around in confusion. Everyone stared at her. A wave of nausea burbled through her. The sound came from her backpack. One of the creatures kept humming.

  To cover the sound Limpy hummed over the top, louder to bury the crooning of the rascal.

  Da, dada, dat, dah . . .

  But the creature matched her volume and then increased, forcing Limpy to break into full song. The girl next to her winced when Limpy tried to hit an especially high note.

  Ms. Summerfield cleared her throat, but Limpy kept singing because her creature friends really turned it on, belting out the anthem in two-part harmony.

  The students laughed.

  “That’s quite enough, Limphetta,” Ms. Summerfield said. “Your patriotism is noted.”


  But the little creatures didn’t stop. Limpy gave the sack a sharp kick and they fell silent.

  “Thank you,” Ms. Summerfield continued, reserving a final glower for Limpy, who shrugged her apology. Emmanuel, three seats down, leaned forward and lifted an eyebrow. “Did everyone have a chance to finish the reading this weekend?” Ms. Summerfield asked.

  No one said anything. No one said anything, because they were staring once more at Limpy. It sounded as though she’d mimicked Ms. Summerfield’s words, and the tone of her voice. It was as if the creatures could throw their voices and make it seem as though the sounds came from Limpy’s mouth. But where Ms. Summerfield spoke perfect English, Limpy spoke gibberish.

  “Uh oogooli uka nana uto lib rara ru unka?” She could only cringe.

  “Limpy, what’s gotten into you?”

  But Limpy couldn’t answer properly; she was too busy covering for the naughty scamp in her backpack who continued to mock her very favorite teacher. “Ibee, obee baddoobee?” Tears filled her eyes as she seemed to copy Ms. Summerfield with gobbledygook. She even moved her mouth to cover for the imps. The class erupted into laughter.

  “Limpy!”

  “Oopah!” Limpy kicked the bag and the sound stopped. “Sorry,” she squeaked.

  Ms. Summerfield studied Limpy for a long moment before returning to her teaching.

  “What is the story about?” she asked and glared at Limpy in a way that Limpy had never been glared at. But the creatures didn’t ape Ms. Summerfield this time. Limpy slumped lower in her chair while Emmanuel answered Ms. Summerfield. Even Arnie had something to say during the class, but Limpy remained quiet, ready to burst out with a request to go to the washroom should one of the creatures decide they had more to say. But they didn’t. They didn’t squirm or make a peep.

  It wasn’t until the end of class that Limpy realized why. After she pulled loose the twine that tied her backpack, she discovered only old pencils and her homework binders. Tufts, Chup and Podge were gone.

  Chapter 13