Cocot knew she had no choice but to go through Jean-Baptist's workshop and down into the cellar. She stood by the side of the chalet, staring at the closed door. It had always been her mother's job before, even if she was supposed to go along and help count and sort the jars and cans of food.

"He's in there, you know, Mother," Cocot had dared to say once.

"I know," had been her mother's reply. "I used to come and sit with the memories when I was waiting for you, just as I would come and watch him before I became—before I—before we were married."

Cocot leaned forward and put her head on the door to the workshop, her hands trembling. Just another one of her mother's explanations that she had not understood and another problem that had not been fixed in time. She swayed in place, rolling her forehead on the cool wood, and whispering to herself that she could do this, she had to do this. She could not let Jean-Baptist's shadow keep her from the storage cellar any longer. There was something she had to see.

Standing straight, left hand flat on the door above its carved rose blossoms, she whispered her charm. "Open, for I mean no harm here. By my voice, by my heart, know me and let me pass." She removed her hand to search for the key on her cluttered key ring and unlocked the door.

As always it was dark, dusty and very dry inside. The windows had been shuttered since Jean-Baptist passed away. A few timid beams of sunshine knifed their way into the room, lighting the floor and table in stripes where they fell. Cobwebs stretched across the walls, animal droppings and dead flies littered the corners and dust covered the wide table and work bench where wood working tools lay in neat rows.

She checked the tools before stepping inside. Shadows and memories cannot lift iron, steel or wood, but she wanted to be sure all the same because Jean-Baptist did not know he was dead. He paced the room endlessly, trapped between the four walls, repeating the same gestures as in life, on and on. She could feel him there. Sometimes, she could hear him at his work.

Today, the room was silent and the dust was just as thick as ever. She would have to cross the entire floor to reach the trap door to the cellar. It was three running leaps, or a dozen quick steps, depending on how fast she could make her legs go. She tried to lift one foot, but it was full of lead. Behind her, the afternoon sun was bright in the garden.

Hands shaking and heart beating its way up through her chest, she forced herself to study the dark interior of Jean-Baptist's domain. Nothing can hurt you here, nothing can hurt you. She put her hands on either side of the door frame and half crouched in a racer's stance. Three steps was all it took, if she ran fast enough. Go!

Cocot dashed across the room, counting out four steps this time before she reached the trap door in the far corner. She flung herself down to unlock the latch and yanked the door up. There was a lantern hanging from the roof of the cellar below and she grabbed it. Sitting with her legs dangling on the ladder, she fumbled for the flint and steel in her pocket and struck them together, frantic for a spark to light the wick.

A floor beam creaked behind her.

"Nothing can hurt me here, nothing can hurt me," she whispered, striking the rock and metal bar together again. "Come on, light!"

A spark flickered and she blew on the cotton wick until a tiny flame bloomed. Relief washed over her—so long as the lantern shone, nothing could harm her, her mother had promised. Twisting from where she sat, Cocot waved the bone and glass lantern at the empty workshop. There was nothing behind her, and her heart began slowing now that the lantern was lit.

"Keep this lantern at all times in the cellar and use only this lantern to light your way," her mother had said. "The oil will never burn out and the flame will never fade for as long as you trust it to protect you."

"Why, Mother?" she had asked.

"Why not, my little poppy? This was the only extra possession I brought with me from home. Remember, strike a new flame with flint and steel each time you need the light, and it will protect you."

"But it's just a lantern, how can it protect me, Mother?"

"So many questions," her mother had laughed. "Some questions have no reasonable answers and some things need no explanations."

Even so, Cocot kept a suspicious eye on the floor boards as she descended until she could pull the hatch shut over her head.

If the workshop was dry and dusty, the cellar was dank and heavy. A musty smell pervaded the tight space.

She gathered up the few jars of pickled vegetables, syrup, fruit preserves and one store-bought can of beef and set them on the shelf next to the ladder. There was an onion wreath that looked good, but a handful of soft, brown carrots in the sand were not worth eating. She would have to carry them up, though, so they wouldn't rot down here. She would not be coming back for as long as she could put it off. Though when fall came, she would have to bring down her winter supplies.

But there was another reason she came today. Another of her mother's warnings and mysteries. Cocot was supposed to leave the top shelf be and not reach into the shadows. Her mother never told her why, only warned her not to.

Cocot swept her hand across the top shelf. The air felt strange to her hand up there. She had to push as if sweeping through water, but it was perfectly dry. On her last try, her hand knocked over a hidden glass bottle in the back. She heard it skittering and caught it before it crashed to the floor.

"And what were you doing back there?" she asked. Not expecting an answer, she turned it around to check the label.

Her mother – the fastidious labeler. Every jar or can she prepared, every bundle of dried herbs or onions, every bag of carrots she brought down was labeled with a tag or sticker with what it was, the date it was prepared and any other relevant information about its origins or use.

The label tied to the bottle puzzled Cocot. Malevilum, Lessoc Fountain, Spring Equinox 1879, Do Not Open! The words were in red ink and there was a drawing of black, thorny vines around them.

Raspberry vines?

"Eighteen seventy-nine," Cocot said out loud. It was nineteen fifty-one now, so the label was over seventy years old. There was no doubt it was her mother's handwriting and drawing, though.

Of course, her mother had been very old when she died....

The milky white liquid swirled, stirred up from its near spill off the shelf and the glass felt warm. Cocot held the bottle closer to the lantern light, thinking perhaps she had missed something. The contents began to spiral faster. Her first instinct was to throw the bottle, as if she picked up a stone only to find a huge, hairy spider crawling on it. She resisted; she didn't want the bottle breaking on the stone floor.

Feathery tentacles in pale lavender and blue reached for where her hand touched the glass and then up to the top, as though searching for a way out. Whatever was in there, it was looking at her, hating her. The glass grew warmer, or was she colder than before?

Hairs prickling on her arms and neck, she shoved it back on the shelf, carefully pushing it into the hidden corner it came from.

Cocot stepped away from the shelves to put as much space between her and the bottle as she could. There was nowhere to go in the cellar, though. She was having a hard time breathing and she hastily tied everything into her apron.

She climbed halfway up the ladder, ready to blow out the lantern. From this view point, she couldn't see the bottle at all, despite being eye level with the top shelf. The lantern light cast a shadow that hid the corner perfectly. That explained why she had never seen it before when she came down with her mother. It was hidden there on purpose.

Why would her mother put something that was obviously dangerous with the food stores?

Leaving the cellar was almost as difficult as getting there in the first place. Cocot braced her legs to run and she leaned over to blow out the light. With a puff of air the light was gone. She had to race to open the hatch, crawl out, drop the hatch, lock it and make for the outside door. When she reached the threshold, she was almost surprised to see the sun shining and the garden the same as before, except for a rabbit nibbling on the spinach.

She slammed the door to the workshop and held the handle in place until she found the right key and turned the lock with a metallic whimper.

"Lock and key, closed up tight. None shall pass; be it shadow, creature, fae or light," she said, left hand on the door.

She stood there a moment, catching her breath.

A voice behind her whispered, "Shsh...cohcohh..."

Cocot whirled around. "Who's there?" she cried. The rabbit startled and darted to safety.

The girl peered across the garden and dirt road to the trees and brambles of the forest, but there was no one nearby. "Is someone there?" she called, stepping warily from the doorstep to the chalet's corner. She peeked with one eye around the edge, but again, there was nothing.

A gust of wind stirred the trees—the end of a branch scraped against the wooden shingles. It made a shuh-shuh-shuh whisper. The tension and fear drained away from Cocot's muscles and she laughed nervously. She should probably climb the roof and break the branch off before it damaged the shingles. That was what her mother would have her do.

"Tomorrow," she said. "I'll do it tomorrow, I promise."

She gathered her food items from the ground and tossed the carrots in the compost bin, until she had a better idea and tossed them up the lane so the rabbit would let the spinach sprouts grow.

The brambles near the chalet rustled and Cocot jumped, her heart skipping several beats. A bird or squirrel. It's just a bird or a squirrel! She abandoned the garden and rushed to other half of the chalet where she lived. Fearful of every tiny noise, she flipped through her set of keys.

The ritual at this door was the same as for the workshop; she had to find the key, say the charm, and unlock the metal lock. Once she was inside, she set the food on the table with a groan of relief. She breathed in deeply, smelling the scent in her home that spoke of safety and happiness. It was part wood smoke from the stove, onions and mint from the cooking, lavender soap that she used on the clothes and oddly, drying leaves in autumn. Everything was fine.

Her eyes strayed to the inner door, the one that linked her living space to the workshop. The chalet was divided roughly in half by a wall. The door between the halves, the one that Jean-Baptist had used to go back and forth from the living area to the woodshop was locked and neither Cocot nor her mother, had the key. Mother and daughter would go out and around to the workshop's outer door when they needed to go to the cellar.

There were thirteen keys on the key-ring Cocot had inherited; six of them were useful, seven were for locks long lost and none of them worked on the heavy iron bolt that kept the inner door shut. Cocot kept them all, though.

"Never throw away anything today that you might need another day," her mother said.

Silence reigned in both halves of the chalet. She set about straightening the jars and starting supper.

That evening, she sat in her chair, soaking up the last warmth from her wood burning stove, Sarina. This was the most difficult time of the day, except for when it was night and she could not sleep. Evenings meant the light fading away completely and the darkness pressing in, weighing heavy on her shoulders and chest. She was cold—her clothes were never warm enough, the blankets never thick enough, even now in the spring.

But worse than the cold was the emptiness where her mother was supposed to be. Cocot did not have enough wood to keep a fire going in the stove during nighttime, nor enough candles for extra light. After her mother had died, she had kept candles lit through the dark hours of winter's end, but there weren't any left. After eating dinner Cocot had no choice but to let the darkness come.

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