THE HUMMING ROOM

THE HUMMING ROOM by Ellen Potter

I have been feeling like Mary Lennox over the past few days. Cleaning out the garden beds from last year, I came across some cilantro, dill, and tomato plants that have reseeded themselves and are valiantly pushing through the weeds. I admit I get a thrill when I see those little plants soldering through the weeds. I imagine that's how Mary felt in the Secret Garden when she discovered the little green shoots poking up through the earth.

I'm sure you're all very familiar with Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, but did you know there's a modern version? The Humming Room is Ellen Potter's rewrite, and its foundation is close enough to the original to recognize its predecessor but fresh enough that it brings its own story to the table.

Roo Fanshaw's father is dead. Her mother, well, she was just one of the many girlfriends her father had at one time. She's long gone. Now the police are at the door with a lady she doesn't know to take her to an uncle she's never even heard of. His house? Oh it's enormous, but it's an abandoned tuberculosis sanitarium in the middle of Cough Rock Island. The house is heavy with grief, and it all circles around a locked room of the house, an atrium filled with secrets.

HEADS UP- There is a little bit of native magic.The wife had a certain flower that was called liana, also known as the tongue of the jungle spirits. By whispering someone's name to its tip three times it calls to them. This is how her uncle is called back home. Roo also listens to the ground. She has the gift of hearing if plants are living or not.