The Humming Room

by Ellen Potter

  The movement of the river was dizzying at first. The slate gray water rushed past, twisting and hissing like a tangle of frantic snakes. If you watched one spot you thought the water was rushing north, but if you shifted your glance it seemed as if it were heading east. After a few minutes Roo felt as though she were the one who was moving, and she had to take her eyes off the current to keep from feeling wobbly.

  From this perch, she could see several of the other islands rising out of the restless St. Lawrence. Some had simple cottages on them, but many others had majestic houses with landscaped lawns, still winter dull and speckled with snow, sloping down toward the water. Roo had never seen anything like it. In Limpette, the fanciest building was the library, but its bricks were grimy and the front columns were peeling and listing to the right. These homes were by far the grandest she had ever seen. Yet, they all seemed deserted. No people, no boats. The only movement came from the tops of the pines as they shuddered in the wind.

  The burr of a motor sliced through the river’s hiss. A small boat with a bright green hull and a white canopy curled around the island and was now heading straight for the stone arch entry. Roo stiffened and hurried to her feet, intent on hiding, but it was too late. The men in the boat had spotted her. There were two of them. The older man, with graying hair and glasses, was at the wheel. He raised his hand to her in greeting. Sitting in the passenger seat was a peculiar-looking younger man dressed in a black suit jacket. He had blond hair, as thick as a lion’s mane, and he stared at Roo steadily as the boat pulled through the arch and into the lagoon.

  “Can it be? Is it? The famous Roo Fanshaw!” the older man called heartily to Roo as he climbed out of the boat, carrying a stack of envelopes.

  This took Roo aback. How did he know who she was? She stared suspiciously at the man without saying a word. He approached her, holding out his hand, but when she didn’t step forward to take it, he withdrew it and smiled quizzically.

  “A shy one? Well, that’s all right. Violet’s mouthy enough for twenty Roo Fanshaws. I’m Simon LaShomb, the island mail carrier. Want to run this in for your uncle?” He handed Roo the stack of envelopes, bound by a rubber band, and a small padded envelope marked FRAGILE.

  The man with the blond hair was standing behind the mailman, listening and watching Roo intently. Now he stepped forward rigidly. The movement made the mailman’s mouth flicker briefly with displeasure.

  “And who is the young lady?” the blond man asked, his eyes never leaving Roo’s face. He was a short, square-shaped man with skin too olive colored for his blond hair. His cheeks were thick and oily.

  “Better shake a leg, Doc.” The mail carrier’s voice suddenly turned curt. “The weather is only going to get nastier as the day goes on.”

  “Weather doesn’t bother me,” the blond man said evenly.

  It certainly didn’t seem to. While the mail carrier was wearing a nylon winter jacket, the blond man’s jacket was thin, and beneath it he wore a white button-down shirt, with the top buttons undone.

  “Maybe not, but it’s Valentine who’ll be shuttling you back to Clayton, and I’m sure she doesn’t want to get caught in a storm,” Simon replied gruffly.

  The blond man said nothing. He stared back at the mail carrier with a half smile on his lips, waiting until the mailman’s shoulders shifted uneasily, before saying very pompously, “Thank you for the ride, kind sir.” He bowed with a flourish then started up the path toward the house.

  Simon LaShomb clearly found the man offensive, but he also seemed baffled by him. He watched the man’s retreating back for a few moments, then he shook his head once, to himself.

  “Who is that?” Roo asked.

  “What? That guy? Ehh. Oulette. He’s your uncle’s doctor.”

  “Is my uncle sick?” Roo asked.

  Simon’s eyes flickered to the house, then back at Roo. He shrugged. “Couldn’t say.”

  You won’t say, Roo thought, watching the man’s face carefully.

  “So what do you think of island life so far?” Simon asked her, his voice more cheerful now.

  “I don’t like it,” Roo said.

  “No?” He looked surprised. But then he added, “Well, I guess it is lonely here this time of year. There’s some of us year-rounders on Donkey Island, but you can’t see Donkey from Cough Rock, and all the houses around here are shut up until summer. It feels like you’re the only person on the planet, doesn’t it? Well, when the weather turns, Violet can take you over to Donkey and find you a mess of summer kids to play with.”

  “I don’t care about being alone,” Roo said.

  Simon looked pleased at this. “Well, seems like you’re already a River Rat.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s the sort of person who doesn’t like a lot of jibber-jabber. The river is company enough.”

  “But I don’t like the river,” Roo said, looking out at the agitated waves.

  “You don’t trust the river,” Simon said. “And you shouldn’t. You don’t know her yet and she doesn’t know you. But you got River Rat in your DNA—your grandfather was one. He knew every musky hole for miles around. Your father was a River Rat too. He was always out on the river, trolling between the islands. That kid knew how to handle a skiff before he could ride a bike.”

  This interested Roo. She had only ever seen her father in a boat once, when he took her fishing on a large pond hidden up in the hills. They had stayed for hours. But what she remembered best about the trip was that it was the first time he told her the story about Pendragon, the flying boat. It was a red-and-yellow boat captained by a boy named Vincent, who piloted it above the treetops and through the sky. Every so often Vincent would anchor his sky boat on a rain cloud. Then he would parachute down to earth, always landing in the middle of an impossibly dangerous situation. Roo had loved the story about Pendragon, and whenever she had trouble sleeping, she would beg her father for a new installment about the flying boat.

  “Now, your uncle in there”—Simon nodded toward the house—“he never took to the water. Afraid of it, he says so himself. He doesn’t even own a boat; he has Ms. Valentine shuttle him around in hers.” There was a hint of disapproval in his voice.

  “Then why does he stay here?” Roo asked.

  Simon hesitated, his expression suddenly turning cautious. “I guess he has his reasons,” he replied. “Remember to give Valentine the mail. She won’t be expecting it. I generally bring the mail to the post office on Choke Cherry Island and Valentine fetches it, but when the weather’s nasty I sometimes pop by. Saves her a trip.” He held out his hand again “So long, Roo Fanshaw.”

  This time she gave it a quick, reserved shake.

  The sky was already darkening as Simon’s boat pulled out of the lagoon, spun to the right, and tore off. Its wake rolled back toward the island and thrashed against the rocks for a moment or two before quieting. The water was changing color too. It was now a slick black-gray, the color of wet stone. Here and there an ice floe drifted past slowly. The river had suddenly calmed, yet Roo could feel it gathering itself together, forming something new and spiteful. It reminded her of how the girls at the Burrows’ house conferred while standing a few yards away, quietly plotting some fresh torment for Roo.

  From the west, a large bird appeared in the sky, its neck bent, its long body rising and dipping. A heron. Beneath the heron, drifting on the river, was a large ice floe with a curious dark shape on top of it. Roo fixed her eyes on the shadowy hump, perplexed. The floe skimmed the edge of the island closest to Cough Rock, an oval island with a neat terraced lawn that led up to a magnificent olive-green house. When the ice floe came close to the island, a black figure leapt off the ice and onto land.

  Even from a distance, Roo could see that the figure was a boy. He stood on the bank for a moment, looking around. Then he grew perfectly still. It seemed to Roo that he was staring right at her, though at this distance she couldn’t be certain. The boy turned abruptly and bounded up the
terraced lawn, climbing the ledges rather than the stairs, and disappeared around the backside of the house.

  Roo hurried back over the footbridge, skirted the lagoon, and ran around the edge of the island, trying to catch another glimpse of the boy. At first she saw nothing. But after a few seconds she spotted him again. Astonishingly, he was now standing on one of the lower roofs of the house. Suddenly he raised one arm. Was he waving to her?

  The very next minute, the water darkened and became opaque. The sky seemed to drop closer to the earth, as though the river had yanked it down. A torrent of fine icy rain began to lash at the ground and peck at Roo’s face. She shoved the mail beneath her shirt and pulled up her sweatshirt’s hood, but the thin cotton was already soaked through. Squinting through the curtain of rain, she watched the shadowy form on the roof. Suddenly, the wind changed directions, as though someone had summoned it. It drove into her face so violently that it felt like an assault, forcing her to run. Roo refused. She turned her back to the wind, twisting her head to keep her eyes on the boy. The river grew frantic, crashing against the island’s banks. Then the wind whipped around yet again, even more fiercely now, and this time Roo surrendered, running back to the house while the river thrashed and hissed triumphantly at her back.

  Chapter 6

  Roo burst through the door, very nearly colliding with Ms. Valentine, who was heading out, dressed in a long black raincoat and a leopard-spotted, brimmed rain hat tied under her chin. Her hand flew to her midsection in surprise. But in a blink she composed herself, taking in Roo’s dripping hair and sodden clothing.

  “If you are hell-bent in playing outside in bad weather, no one here will stop you. But when you get sick, there’ll be no one to take care of you either.”

  “I won’t get sick,” Roo said. “I’ve never been sick in my life.”

  “This house was built for sick people,” Ms. Valentine warned. “People don’t tend to stay healthy here for very long.” Her eyes lowered suddenly and stared at Roo’s hand, which was cradling the mail beneath her sweatshirt. “Where did you get that ring?” she asked suspiciously. “I don’t remember you wearing it before.”

  Roo looked at the thin silver ring that she had pilfered from the girls’ dormitory and then lied without any hesitation. “My father gave it to me for my twelfth birthday.”

  “Hmm.” Ms. Valentine’s lips pressed together skeptically. “And what have you got under your shirt? You look like you’re hiding something.”

  With a deft flick of her fingers, Roo tucked the padded envelope into her waistband while she extracted the stack of envelopes from beneath her sweatshirt.

  “The mailman came,” she said, handing the stack to Ms. Valentine.

  Ms. Valentine took the letters and quickly shuffled through them. Her expression lost some of its harshness, perhaps because now she did not have to run out for the mail in the bad weather.

  “Go upstairs, Roo. Change into dry clothes. And don’t play in the rain.” Then Ms. Valentine started back toward the other end of the house, untying her rain hat as she went.

  But Roo didn’t go upstairs, not right away. She waited until Ms. Valentine had disappeared across the lobby and through a small threshold at the far end of it. Roo followed, waiting until she was sure Ms. Valentine was well ahead of her. Passing through the vaulted threshold, Roo found herself in a short foyer that led to yet another lobby, this one far larger than the first. Here, the ceiling was so tall, Roo had to tilt her head back to see it. Covering the walls were dozens of masks, some very wild looking, made from woven fibers and strung with seeds. Others were carved out of wood or gourds, with faces that peered out with alert round eyes, as though she had just startled them. One mask had a curled tongue that stuck out of its mouth.

  Opposite the front door was a staircase, this one much wider and grander than the other. Its banister was carved and it twisted up and around to the second floor. Roo thought she could hear voices coming from above, so she ducked into a corridor off the lobby. There were many doors along the corridor, every one of them shut. Roo tried them all. There was a cozy-looking parlor in one, with a fireplace and two plush maroon armchairs facing each other across a little round table. In another was a tremendously long dining table with a dozen high-backed chairs poised around it. There was even what looked to be a ballroom, with a piano in the corner and wide windows that overlooked the river. Yet every room looked too still. Each time she opened a door, the room seemed to startle, like the faces on the masks.

  All the rooms were on one side of the hall, just as they had been in the other corridor, only here they were on the right-hand side instead of the left. This detail had struck her as odd when she first saw it, but so many new things were happening that she hadn’t had time to wonder about it. Now Roo began to consider this more carefully. The corridor turned gently as she followed it. It seemed to form a large circle, and indeed, after a few minutes she found herself back at her uncle’s office.

  She remembered her first glimpse of the house from Ms. Valentine’s boat. It had looked huge. Yet from the inside it did not seem nearly as big. Maybe it was a trick. Maybe the house was built to impress people with its size when it was really a shell with nothing in the middle. Still, the doorless wall looked newer than the rest of the house, and there were no moldings along the bottom or top. It looked as though the wall were an afterthought, something that was built in a hurry and forgotten. The mystery of the wall nudged at Roo’s thoughts, but she could find no good solution to it.

  Back in her room she pulled the stolen package from under her shirt and put it on the vanity, then peeled off her wet clothes. She changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from her Hefty bag, then sat by the window and picked at a cheese sandwich that Violet had left for her. She stared out at the rain and the river and the hummocks of grayish green islands. She looked for the island where she had seen the boy on the ice floe, but it wasn’t visible from the window. The sky was uniformly gray, with no hint of a break in the storm.

  After she finished eating, she examined the stolen envelope. It was addressed to P. Fanshaw and was marked FRAGILE. HANDLE WITH CARE.

  Who was P. Fanshaw?

  The return address, stamped in dark blue letters, said it was from Taylor-Baines in Philadelphia. Roo tore open the envelope and looked inside. There was something hard and rectangular, swathed in bubble wrap. She pulled it out, picked off the tape at the seams, and unwrapped it. Inside was a plastic box and in the box was a small bone. It might have come from anything—a dog, a cat. Maybe even the bone of a finger? She shoved it back in the envelope, walked down the hall, and put the envelope in the wooden box under the floorboards in the girls’ dormitory.

  There, she lay on the chilly floor. The silence in the house had a sound of its own. Thick, pulsing. Waiting. She listened hard for the humming, but it never came.

  It was the loneliest afternoon Roo had ever spent.

  True, she had never felt the need for other people’s company, but she now realized that she had never ever been absolutely alone. Even in the trailer’s crawlspace, there were living things all around her. Field mice, ants, spiders. There was even a pretty garter snake that would, if she kept very still, slide right onto her sneakers and rest on them. And in the Burrows’ woods there were wildflowers and foxes darting past and chipmunks weaving in and out of the underbrush.

  But here, in this huge house, life seemed to be hiding from her.

  She closed her eyes and thought about the mystery of the walls again. She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she heard was Violet laughing.

  “There you are!” Violet said. She was holding the empty tray from Roo’s lunch and staring down at her with an amused expression on her face. “You’re a strange little person. Have you been sitting here all afternoon?”

  Roo scrambled to her feet.

  “Why are there no doors along one side of all the corridors?” The question sprang from her mind as though she had just been dreaming a
bout it.

  “I don’t know,” Violet answered, looking surprised. “I guess it was just built like that.” She turned and started back up the hall, and Roo followed, jogging to keep up with Violet’s long-legged stride.

  “But there’s all this space in the middle of the house, just sitting there,” Roo persisted. “Why would someone waste it?”

  Violet shrugged. “I guess rich people don’t think about things like that. The Summer People around here seem to live by their own rules.”

  “But my uncle isn’t Summer People. He lives here in the winter too,” Roo said.

  “He didn’t always. He only started living here year-round after he was married.” Violet blushed, the deep, ruddy blush of a dark-haired girl who has said too much.

  “Uncle Emmett is married?” Roo asked, stunned.

  After a hesitation, Violet admitted, “Was.”

  “Are they divorced now?” Roo asked.

  “Listen, Roo.” She stopped by Roo’s bedroom door. “It’s not my place to tell you this stuff. Why don’t you ask your uncle?”

  “How can I ask him anything when he’ll barely speak to me?” Roo cried.

  Violet’s eyes locked onto Roo’s. “My mother says that poking around at people’s private lives is like rummaging through their bedroom closets. You might find a few interesting knickknacks, but eventually you’ll discover something in an old shoebox that you’ll wish you hadn’t seen.”