The Ever Breath by Julianna Baggott Read Free Book Online

a cat, but not quite. The voice was sadder, more human.
    “Mewl-mewl,” it cried again.
    Truman remembered the shiny black tail of the cat he thought he’d seen in the bushes when they first arrived. Was the cat still lost out here in the cold?
    “Here, kitty,” he called. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
    The cat cried again, in that nearly human voice. Truman could see only white and the clouded outlines of the nearby bushes, the edge of the house. The cry sounded even farther away, like it was coming from the side yard. He followed the voice. “It’s going to be okay,” he called.
    Truman kept one hand on the side of the house so as not to lose his bearings. The fog was rolling in even more heavily. Now he could see only a white mistiness.
    “Mewl-mewl,” the cat cried. This time it sounded like it had turned another corner and was coming in from the backyard.
    “I’m coming,” Truman called. “Stay still.” He’d decided that, even though he was allergic to pet dander, he’d pick the cat up and bring it inside—however he could get inside. Maybe it was a kitten that had gotten separated from its mother and was now lost in the freezing cold. He would heat up some milk and put it in a saucer.
    Truman was in the backyard now, blinded by whiteness.He could see the small glowing cracks between the boards nailed over the windows in the kitchen. But that was all.
    “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” he called again.
    But there was no answer.
    He turned in a circle, calling, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
    Again, nothing.
    His feet were so cold they felt like they were burning. His face stung. Would the water in his snow globe freeze out here and break the glass? He held on to the snow globe more tightly. He wasn’t sure what to do. Just then, Grossbeak must have pecked at the light switch in the kitchen, because the lit cracks between the boards went dark.
    And all at once Truman felt like crying. He realized, for the first time, how alone he was—not just because his father had disappeared and not just because his mother had left him here. Not just because his sister and grandmother couldn’t hear him. No. He felt really and truly alone in the world. Lost and alone.
    But then he heard the warbled cry of the cat, one more time. “Mewl-mewl.” It sounded muffled, like it was coming from somewhere in the house. That was when Truman remembered the root cellar—the place where Swelda made her browsenberry wine.
    One hand holding the snow globe, he held the other out in front of his face and walked, blindly, toward the sound of the cat’s cry. He padded the snow with one outstretched foot before taking each step. And finally his toe felt the stiff lip of the root cellar door, which thankfully was propped open. He quickly walked down the steps: the first step, the secondstep—and then there was nothing there, only air where a step should be. He landed so hard on the dirt floor that the wind was knocked out of him. He remembered the missing third step that Swelda had warned him and Camille about. What if he had an asthma attack in here? His inhaler was inside his jeans pocket in the bedroom.
    As he stood up, still trying to catch his breath, something brushed his face. He batted it away, but it swung back. He grabbed it and realized that it was a string. To a light? He pulled it.
    A bare lightbulb dangling from the ceiling brightened the room.
    Now he could see why it was called a root cellar. The dirt walls were entwined with roots, like thick ropes, knots, and bulbous joints. They curled all around the cellar, leading out from one specific spot—the base of a tree. The hall tree! Here was its base, living and breathing, inside his grandmother’s dark root cellar. A miracle of a tree.
    There were also rows of bottles on shelves lining the walls and wide wooden barrels and kettles, crocks, strainers, and funnels—all for brewing browsenberry wine, he figured.
    Truman walked over to a table in the middle of the room.