The Humming Room

by Ellen Potter

  “I’ve seen everything,” Roo replied evenly.

  Violet looked at her with pity—a thing that Roo generally detested but somehow with Violet she didn’t mind so much.

  “I guess you have.” She sighed and then quickly glanced at the stairs, then back at Roo. “Your uncle was married. For a short time. His wife died two years ago.”

  “How?”

  Violet twisted her lips to the left and considered. Outside, the wind must have changed direction because now it rattled the windows as the rain clicked furiously against the glass.

  “It was sudden. That’s all I know. I didn’t work here back then.”

  “What was her name?” Roo asked, thinking of the package addressed to P. Fanshaw.

  “Ana.”

  That was no good.

  “Does anyone else live here?” Roo asked. “Besides my uncle and you and Ms. Valentine?”

  Violet cocked her head and blew a puff of exasperation. “I’m beginning to think they’ve switched the real Roo Fanshaw for you! Your foster mother told us that you were quiet as a cup, but here you are yammering away with all your questions.”

  “I have a lot of questions,” Roo said, “because everything here is so strange.”

  “That’s just because it’s new,” Violet said dismissively.

  “It is strange here!” Roo insisted. “This morning I saw a boy floating down the river on a piece of ice.”

  Now Violet smiled and shook her head in wonder. “Your first day on Cough Rock and already you’ve caught a glimpse of the Faigne! People can live here for years and never spot him.”

  “The Faigne?”

  “That’s what they call him around here. I think it’s an old term from Guernsey. Most of us Donkey Island people have ancestors that come from Guernsey, an island off the coast of England. We still keep a lot of the Guernsey ways and one thing we love is stories of the supernatural. Ghosts, fairies. Sea people.”

  “I think he made the storm come,” Roo said. It popped out of her mouth, and it sounded silly to her own ears as she said it.

  “That’s not the first time I’ve heard something like that. There’s a fisherman who swears he saw the Faigne flying over Wiggle Room Island on the back of a heron. But then, that particular fisherman is known for sucking down home brew for breakfast. Do you want to know what the Donkey grannies say?”

  Roo nodded.

  “They say the Faignes are water creatures, not human at all. There’s an old story they tell. Many years ago, the water around Guernsey Island had been stormy and violent for months on end. Few local fishermen dared to go out on it, and those who did never came back. So the fishermen got together and thought up a plan. They would send the prettiest girls in the village out on the banks at dusk to try to lure the Faigne to shore, and when he stepped on land, they would capture him and keep him until he promised to quiet the sea. But the Faigne was as cunning as a cat. Every evening he saw one of the girls pacing along the bank. And every evening he just laughed and swam away. One night, though, he saw a girl sitting on a rock in a quiet cove. She was as pretty as the other girls but so odd that the people in the village would have nothing to do with her. Yet she fascinated the Faigne. Night after night they met in this secret cove, talking and laughing, until one day the girl’s brother spied on them and told. The next night the fishermen hid, and when the Faigne came on shore to talk to the girl they swooped in and ambushed him. But the Faigne was faster. He and the girl jumped into the water, hand in hand, and the girl was never seen again. But after that, for years and years, whenever someone spotted the Faigne, there was always a lovely snow-white dolphin swimming by his side.”

  Roo rolled her eyes.

  “Yes, well.” Violet shrugged. “It’s a nice story anyway. My mother says our Faigne is probably just some poor boy without a decent family. I’ve heard that in the winter he breaks into the homes of the Summer People, and squats there. And in the summer, he camps out on some of the islands. The grannies, heaven love them, fill their hats with food and leave them by the shore when they want the river to stay calm for a ride across to Clayton.”

  There were quick footsteps on the stairs, and in a moment Ms. Valentine appeared on the landing, looking agitated.

  “We need you,” she said to Violet in a pinched voice.

  Violet glanced quickly at Roo, as if to gauge her reaction, then without a word she hurried downstairs, with Ms. Valentine behind her.

  Roo waited a moment. Then she quietly crept downstairs, stopping midway when she had a view of the lobby. Crouching down, she peered through the railing in time to see Violet and Ms. Valentine rushing toward the east wing. Roo padded down the rest of the stairs, then paused to listen. Voices were coming from down the hall in the west wing. The lobby was empty, so Roo scurried across it and headed down the hall, stopping before she came to her uncle’s office. Peering around the doorjamb she saw her uncle slumped in an armchair. Dr. Oulette was standing over him, patting the left side of her uncle’s face with a cloth.

  “It’s getting worse,” Mr. Fanshaw muttered.

  “I told you that it might,” Dr. Oulette replied calmly. “Perhaps it’s time for a decision—”

  “I’ll decide when I’m ready,” Mr. Fanshaw interrupted.

  “Of course you will.” Dr. Oulette did not sound at all offended. “Hold still. You’re bleeding on your shirt.”

  “Just let it be, for heaven’s sake! I’m fine.” Mr. Fanshaw jerked his head away from the cloth, revealing a jagged bite mark on the side of his cheek. “Go tell Ms. Valentine to give you a ride back over to Clayton. We’re done for now, I believe.”

  Roo had been so perplexed at this scene that she heard the footsteps too late. She turned in time to find Ms. Valentine hurrying up the hall, staring at her with fury. Ms. Valentine didn’t say a word, which was somehow far more frightening than if she would have bellowed at her. Instead, she opened her eyes wide at Roo, jabbed her finger in the direction of the stairway, and mouthed, “NOW!”

  Roo did as she was told. As she sat in bed she tried to make sense of what she had just seen. Who had bitten her uncle like that? It couldn’t have been Ms. Valentine or Violet. But then who else was in the house? She thought of the humming. There was someone else living here. Someone who was hidden away.

  Roo mulled it over as she waited for Ms. Valentine to come upstairs and reprimand her. But she never did. And that was troubling too.

  Chapter 7

  The following morning Violet came in carrying a tray of breakfast.

  “Good morning,” she said brightly when she saw that Roo was awake in her bed.

  “Is my uncle okay?” Roo asked, her voice thick from sleep.

  “Mr. Fanshaw? He’s fine, I guess. Why?”

  “He was bleeding last night,” Roo said, lifting herself up and resting on her elbows.

  “Was he? Maybe he fell,” Violet said breezily as she put the tray down on the window seat.

  “No. Someone bit his face,” Roo said. “I saw it.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I do know this: If I were twelve and the sun was shining”—Violet opened the window, poked her head out for a moment, then pulled it back in and turned to Roo—“I wouldn’t be lying in bed, worrying about a little scratch on someone’s face.”

  “It was a bite, not a scratch—,” Roo started, but Violet was already heading for the door.

  The house was silent and still. Through the open window, Roo heard the lulling sigh of the waves. It was as though the house and everyone in it, even the river itself, were trying to pretend that nothing had happened the night before.

  Roo ate, then dressed and hurried downstairs, careful to keep her steps light and quiet. There was no one about, not in the west wing at least. She edged toward the east wing, listening. It was silent here too, though she stopped when she approached the threshold, not quite daring to get caught by Ms. Valentine again.

  Outside the air felt as if it had been washed clean. The day
was cool but the sun shone. Yesterday’s storm had swept the last remaining ice floes from the river. The water was calm now, the crests of its shallow waves turning silver in the sunlight.

  Roo picked her way across the path to the bank. When she got there, she gazed at the island with the olive-colored mansion, searching for the boy, the one they called the Faigne. The windows in the house were dark. There was no sign of movement along the terraced landscape. She stared for a long time, waiting for a shifting shadow or a twitching treetop to betray him.

  The river began to make a shush-shush sound, like a mother comforting her child. It drew Roo’s attention away from the house and out toward the water. She watched the ripples rush forward, turning from a fresh blue to a copper color as they came close to shore. She listened to the sound of waves breaking against the banks, as constant and regular as the ticking of a clock. It was so hypnotic that she stood there for some time, listening, until suddenly her eyes darted back to the olive-green house.

  She had the funniest feeling that the boy was watching her now. It made her want to duck out of sight, but the rocks by the bank sloped steeply, offering no cover. A few yards off, though, her sharp eyes spotted a rock that jutted out more than the others. It would have been the perfect place to sit and watch the passing boats in summer, but it was the space beneath the rock that interested her. She walked over, glancing surreptitiously toward the olive house, and knelt down beside the rock. There was a tiny crevice between it and the rock below, just large enough for Roo. In a moment, she had squeezed through and found herself in a little cave with enough room for her to sit slightly crouched or to lie down on her side, legs bent.

  The view was a good one. She kept her eyes fixed on the olive house, which she could see quite clearly from the cave, sure that if she waited long enough the boy would come out and she could catch another glimpse of him. But when she stayed that way for a good hour and there was still no sign of him, she began to wonder if he really was still there after all.

  Sighing, she lay down on her side, her legs bent. Pressing her ear to the ground, she closed her eyes and listened to the hushed singing in the soil. It was such a tiny, complicated sound that it required the steadiest concentration. The stirring of worms’ eggs in their cocoons, the pulse of roots, the minute shifting of bugs. Immediately Roo felt herself relax. Her world collapsed down into a tiny little bundle, just the way she liked it.

  After a while another sound rose above the earth’s hum. A soft pid-pad sound. Roo opened her eyes and looked through the crevice. Something was coming. She kept her body motionless and waited as the sound came nearer, hesitantly, as though nervous. Suddenly a small black-furred face peered into the cave. It was a squirrel, though not the gray type that Roo was used to seeing. This one was charcoal black, with eyes that were bright and quick. He stared curiously at Roo, and she stared back, not daring to move a muscle. They stayed that way for some time until the squirrel suddenly lifted its head. His delicate round ears twitched, and then in a flash he was gone. Roo quickly scrambled out of her hiding place to watch the squirrel dash up the rocks and across the grassy slope, finally disappearing into a tangle of ivy clinging to the house.

  A moment later, she heard a boat motor rev up and saw Ms. Valentine pulling out of the lagoon in her Boston Whaler. In the passenger seat was Mr. Fanshaw, and Roo could see a pair of suitcases in the rear of the boat.

  He was going away again.

  Maybe it was because of what happened last night? She wondered when he’d be back again. Hadn’t Violet said he was often away? It might not be for a very long time. There was no reason for her to care really, but she felt disappointed anyway.

  Each morning Roo woke early and wolfed down her breakfast. She had never had much of an appetite back in Limpette, but lately she always seemed to be hungry. After that, she returned to her little cave. She kept a close watch for the Faigne, straining to catch a glimpse of him, but he didn’t reappear. Still, she found that the island was full of other surprising things if you paid attention. Polished black water snakes that sunned themselves on the rocks then suddenly leapt into the river to churn the water near the bank. A mossy rock that unexpectedly trundled into the water and swam away, revealing itself to be a snapping turtle. Every day she put her ear to the ground inside the little cave and every day she heard something new. Things were moving more briskly in the earth. The sun was waking things up.

  The black squirrel visited with her too. Sometimes he would just peek into the cave, as if to check that she was still there, then scurry away. One time, though, he walked right into the cave and sat with her very companionably, stripping the scales off a pinecone.

  “You must be the only squirrel on the island. I haven’t seen any others,” she said to him.

  He looked at her when she spoke, turning the pinecone in his paws. Then he made a chattering noise, which seemed so friendly and encouraging that she spoke to him again.

  “I wonder how you got here. I don’t think squirrels can swim, so you couldn’t leave if you wanted to, could you?”

  The squirrel let a pinecone scale drop to the ground and glanced up at her.

  “But maybe you like it here.”

  Later that same day she spied the green mail boat tearing through the river, with Simon LaShomb at the wheel.

  I don’t mind him, she thought. Then she crawled out of the little cave to watch him approach the lagoon. This time when he held up his hand in greeting, she held hers up too.

  “Just the lady I’m looking for!” he called out to her. From the back of his boat, he pulled out four boxes and stacked them up, largest to smallest. “These came for you.” He wrapped his arms around the bottom box, gave the stack a quick upward jab with his knee to position it better, then started toward the house. Even with his burden, his long legs glided quickly and easily, so that Roo had to jog to keep up with him

  “What’s in them?” she asked.

  “Too heavy to be tins of herring, too light to be bear cubs. My guess is it’s anything in between. Anyway, it’s awfully bulky for Ms. Valentine, so I thought I’d just pop round with it. So, Roo Fanshaw, what’s the verdict?” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Is Cough Rock growing on you?”

  Roo thought for a minute.

  “I don’t mind it,” she said for the second time that day.

  Simon laughed. “‘I don’t mind it,’ she says.”

  “Why is that funny?” Roo demanded.

  “Because you sound exactly like an old River Rat. ‘Beautiful day out, isn’t it?’ ‘Oh, I don’t mind it.’ It’s high praise from a River Rat.”

  “Well, the river has been quiet lately,” Roo defended her change of heart. “And no one bothers me here. I can do whatever I want all day long.”

  “Well, sure, who wouldn’t like that?” Simon agreed, though his eyes flitted toward her with some concern, before he started up the front steps.

  “Who was that little package for?” Roo asked abruptly. “The one you brought last time.”

  “Hmm. Mr. Fanshaw, wasn’t it? Can you grab the door for me, Roo?”

  Roo ran up ahead and pulled open the front door.

  “But it was addressed to P. Fanshaw, not E.,” Roo said as Simon walked in the house.

  “Eh, people are always misspelling names. It’s amazing that half the mail ever finds its way to the right place.”

  He put the boxes down in the lobby and smiled at her. Roo looked at him carefully. His thick, round glasses obscured the expression in his eyes, but she could see nothing in his face to suggest that he was hiding anything.

  “Well, whatever’s in them”—he slapped the box on top of the stack—“I hope it’s something you don’t mind. So long, Roo.”

  After he left, Roo sat on the floor, picked up the smallest box and put it on her lap. It was a rectangular package the size of a cutting board. She had never received a package before, much less four of them. The shipping label said:

  ROO FANSHAW, COUGH ROCK, CLA
YTON, NY 13624

  She found it oddly pleasing to see her name attached to the island. Her mind reached out toward the future and cautiously toyed with the idea of a life on Cough Rock. Summers that could be spent outside, all day. The earth would sing loudly and she had all the time in the world to listen to it. And in the winter, she could watch the ice begin to glaze the river, quieting it. It might grow so thick that she could walk out on it. The thought of standing on the river both frightened and excited her. And maybe she would see the Faigne again. Maybe…maybe she would even meet him some day. The idea thrilled her though she couldn’t quite say why. She had never in her life wanted to know anybody. Maybe it was because he hid too—and he seemed to do it better than she did.

  She picked at the edges of the packing tape until it came up and then, slowly, she pulled it off across the box’s seam. Lifting the lid she found layers of silver tissue paper with twists of hairline-thin vines printed across it. She lifted up the paper one layer at a time until she uncovered something made of soft, brown material. Pulling it out of the box, the material unfolded, and Roo saw that it was a pair of pants. Brown corduroys, nearly identical to the ones she owned, but new and so velvety that she petted it like a cat. It was her size too.

  The second box held sneakers. They weren’t the same brand as her own torn-up pair, but the color was nearly the same. The box contained another pair of shoes too, which was nothing like anything she owned but was something she might have chosen for herself—brown and plain with flat rubber soles that would make no noise along the hallways.

  The third box held shirts in dark blues and dark greens, the same colors as her own T-shirts, and the last box held several pairs of jeans, some shorts, two nightgowns, and two hooded sweatshirts, nearly exactly like her own.

  “What’s this?” Violet approached from the east wing, carrying a basket of laundry.

  Roo held up one of the sweatshirts.

  “Did you order these?” she asked Violet.