The trouble began, as trouble so often does in a marmot colony, when the adults fell asleep. By late October the Rocky Mountain alpine tundra lay buried beneath an increasingly unwelcoming combination of frost, snow and wind. The wildflowers had surrendered. The grass had turned brittle. Even the pikas had largely stopped shouting at one another.
Deep underground, the marmot colony had settled into its winter routine. Sleep, snore, occasionally twitch and dream about eating things that would be entirely unavailable for the next several months.
Forty marmots occupied the communal burrow. Forty furry bodies formed a sprawling, interconnected arrangement of tails, paws, bellies and questionable personal boundaries.
The adults were hibernating. Mostly.
A few snored with the determination of lumberjacks felling ancient forests. One occasionally squeaked in his sleep. Another had apparently dreamed of being chased by a golden eagle and was running furiously in place, accomplishing nothing except kicking dirt into his neighbor’s nose.
Then there were the youngsters.
Pip Whistlewick was awake. This was not unusual. Pip had a natural talent for being awake when he ought to be asleep, hungry when he had just eaten and curious about precisely those things the adults had forbidden him to investigate.
Pip’s two closest friends, Tumble Thistledown and Juniper Pebblepaws, known to everyone as Jinx, were awake, too.
Tumble was awake because he had heard a noise. Jinx was awake because Tumble had made a noise while investigating the noise. Pip was awake because he had discovered something interesting. Something forbidden. Something that had been mentioned in hushed tones by older marmots for generations.
The Haunted Passage.
“Tonight,” Pip whispered, “we investigate.”
Tumble’s ears flattened.
“Tonight? As in tonight tonight? In the dark? During hibernation? When practically everyone who might rescue us is unconscious?”
“That’s the general idea,” Pip said.
Jinx yawned. “There are no ghosts.”
“Then you won’t mind coming along,” Pip replied.
Jinx narrowed her eyes.
She hated it when Pip made a reasonable argument. It deprived her of several excellent opportunities to feel superior.
“Fine,” she said, “but when we discover there’s nothing in there, I expect an apology for wasting my time.”
“And when we discover a ghost?” Tumble asked.
“We won’t.”
“And if we do?”
“Then I’ll apologize to the ghost.”
Pip grinned. The expedition was officially underway.
The Forbidden Passage
The Haunted Passage lay beyond the oldest section of the burrow, past the sleeping chamber where the colony’s most senior marmots had settled in for the winter.
Its entrance was little more than a narrow opening between two slabs of rock. The earth around it was dark and damp and several thick roots protruded from the ceiling like the fingers of something attempting to escape from underground.
A cold draft drifted from the opening. It made a faint, hollow whistle. Woooooo.
Tumble stopped walking.
“That,” he whispered, “was a ghost.”
“That,” said Jinx, “was air.”
“Air doesn’t whistle like that.”
“Of course it does. It’s called wind.”
“Wind doesn’t live underground.”
“Neither do ghosts, apparently, but here we are.”
Pip squeezed through the entrance. “Come on. If we find anything interesting, I’ll let you both take the credit.”
Neither friend believed him, but both followed.
The passage sloped downward, twisting between layers of compacted earth and stone. Roots dangled overhead. Small pebbles crunched beneath their paws. Somewhere in the darkness, water dripped with the slow, deliberate rhythm of a clock counting down to something unpleasant.
Then came the scratching.
Scritch.
Scritch.
Scritch.
Tumble clutched his little protective stick. “It’s following us.”
“It’s probably a mouse,” Pip whispered.
“What kind of mouse scratches like that?”
“A mouse with something to scratch.”
Jinx rolled her eyes, although she was now walking directly behind Pip, rather than in front of him.
The scratching stopped. All three froze. A moment passed. Then something brushed Tumble’s back. He shrieked. Pip shrieked because Tumble had shrieked. Jinx shrieked because both of them had shrieked and she refused to be left out of anything.
The three youngsters bolted. They charged around a bend, skidded across loose dirt and careered straight into a narrow opening they hadn’t noticed on the way in.
The ground disappeared beneath their paws. For one glorious terrible moment the three young marmots were airborne. Then they landed in a heap at the bottom of a short earthen slope. Dust filled the air. Pebbles rattled down around them. A root landed across Pip’s back. Nobody moved.
Finally, Jinx lifted her head. “I would like to revise my earlier position.”
Pip coughed. “About ghosts?”
“About this being a worthwhile use of my evening.”
Tumble was staring at the ceiling. “Something is coming.”
From somewhere above them came a slow, dragging sound.
Scrrrraaaaape.
Scrrrraaaaape.
Scrrrraaaaape.
Then a low whistle. Woooooo.
Pip swallowed. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Pip,” Jinx whispered, “if you say that one more time, I am going to bury you under this root myself.”
The Thing in the Darkness
The chamber was larger than it first appeared. Its walls were lined with twisted roots and a scatter of old leaves lay across the floor. The air carried a strange smell. Earthy, musty and faintly sweet.
Tumble sniffed. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Pip asked.
“Ancient vegetables.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is now.”
At the far end of the chamber, something shifted. A shadow rose against the wall. Two eyes gleamed in the darkness.
The youngsters pressed themselves together so tightly that, for a moment, they resembled a single exceptionally anxious marmot with too many tails.
A voice rumbled from the shadows. “Well, well.”
The three friends stopped breathing.
“Visitors.” The shadow moved closer.
“It’s the ghost of Ol’ Whiskers!” Tumble squeaked.
Pip tried to stand heroically in front of his friends. Unfortunately, his hind paws were wedged beneath a root, so the resulting posture looked less like a fearless defender and more like a marmot attempting to reverse out of a burrow that had become too narrow.
Jinx opened her mouth to explain that ghosts were impossible. Nothing came out.
The shadow stepped into the faint light. It had whiskers. It had paws. It had a familiar, slightly lopsided face and a tuft of fur that appeared to have been styled by several decades of underground living.
It was Ol’ Whiskers. Alive, entirely solid and looking rather pleased with himself.
“Well,” he said, surveying the heap of frightened youngsters, “I see the passage has been receiving visitors.”
Tumble’s jaw dropped. “But … but … you disappeared!”
“So I have been told.”
“You vanished one winter!” Pip exclaimed.
“Briefly.”
“Everyone thought you were haunted!”
“Everyone thinks a great many things.” Ol’ Whiskers settled onto his haunches and brushed a bit of dirt from his shoulder. “Now, would one of you care to explain why three young marmots are tumbling around in my cellar in the middle of hibernation?”
The silence that followed was so complete that the distant snoring of the colony seemed deafening.
“Your cellar?” Jinx finally managed.
“Indeed.”
“Your haunted cellar?”
Ol’ Whiskers looked mildly offended. “Haunted? Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve had enough trouble with the ventilation without adding ghosts to the maintenance schedule.”
The Truth About the Haunted Passage
Ol’ Whiskers helped the youngsters free their paws from the roots and guided them toward a relatively dry patch of earth, then he sat down and began to explain.
The strange whistle came from a narrow gap in the rocks where the winter wind found its way into the burrow.
The scratching came from loose roots rubbing against the walls whenever the earth shifted.
The eerie shadows were cast by the crooked roots and the irregular chamber walls.
And the smell? Ol’ Whiskers paused. “That’s private.”
Pip stared at him. “You really aren’t a ghost?”
“Not unless the definition has changed considerably since I last checked.”
“But why did you disappear that winter?”
Ol’ Whiskers sighed with the theatrical patience of someone who had answered this question many times and expected to answer it many times more. “I dug this chamber years ago. I needed somewhere to keep my personal supplies, away from the communal storage area.”
“Supplies?” Jinx asked.
Ol’ Whiskers glanced toward a recess in the wall. There, tucked behind a screen of roots, sat a small collection of carefully arranged containers. “Dandelion wine,” he admitted. “For medicinal purposes, naturally.”
Tumble’s eyes widened. “You dug an entire secret tunnel to hide wine?”
“A cellar,” Ol’ Whiskers corrected. “A proper cellar requires planning, craftsmanship and an appreciation for privacy.”
“And you let everyone think you were a ghost?” Pip asked.
“I did not let anyone think anything. Marmots are perfectly capable of inventing nonsense without my assistance.”
Jinx looked at the containers. “Does the wine actually do anything medicinal?”
“Certainly.”
“What?”
Ol’ Whiskers considered the question. “It reminds me that I am old enough to have made it.” He paused. “And that I am old enough to know better than to explain its virtues to youngsters who have just fallen down a tunnel.”
Tumble nodded solemnly. He had no intention of ever approaching the cellar again.
Pip, however, was still thinking. “So all those stories about the haunted passage were just ordinary things that looked frightening in the dark?”
“Most frightening things,” Ol’ Whiskers said, “are considerably less mysterious when you understand them.”
“Most?” Jinx asked.
Ol’ Whiskers smiled. “I’ve lived a long time, little one. I prefer to leave a little room for surprises.”
A Lesson for Three Young Marmots
Once the youngsters had recovered their dignity, which took considerably longer than recovering their footing, Ol’ Whiskers led them back up the slope. He didn’t scold them. He didn’t threaten to tell their parents. He didn’t even make them listen to a lengthy lecture about the dangers of unsupervised exploration.
Instead, he stopped at the entrance to the passage and looked at each of them in turn. “Curiosity is a fine thing,” he said. “It’s how we learn about the world. It’s how we discover new places, understand strange noises and find out why the best dandelions always seem to grow just beyond the reach of our paws.”
Pip nodded.
“But there’s a difference between being curious and being careless.”
Tumble glanced at the dark tunnel.
Jinx examined her paws.
“When you sneak off without telling anyone where you’re going,” Ol’ Whiskers continued, “you make it much harder for someone to help you if things go wrong. And when you’re frightened, it’s easy to turn a small problem into a very large one by running in the wrong direction.” He glanced down the slope. “Or three wrong directions, in your case.”
Pip looked embarrassed. “I thought being brave meant not being afraid.”
“That’s a common mistake,” Ol’ Whiskers said. “Bravery isn’t pretending you aren’t frightened. It’s knowing when to carry on, when to turn back and when to ask someone who knows the way.”
Tumble raised a paw. “What if the marmot who knows the way is a ghost?”
“Then I suggest you ask whether he’s a friendly ghost before you start screaming.”
Jinx snorted. Pip began to laugh. Soon all three were giggling, the tension finally draining away.
Ol’ Whiskers gave them a gentle nudge toward the sleeping chamber. “Now go on. Your parents may be asleep, but that doesn’t mean they won’t notice three missing youngsters when they wake up.”
“Will you tell them?” Pip asked.
Ol’ Whiskers considered this. “I might.”
The youngsters groaned.
“Or I might simply mention that the Haunted Passage has been unusually noisy tonight.”
“That would be terrible!” Tumble cried.
“Indeed,” said Ol’ Whiskers. “Imagine the rumors.”
The Final Fright
The three youngsters crept back into the communal sleeping chamber. The colony remained undisturbed. Forty marmots continued their winter slumber, entirely unaware that three of their youngest members had narrowly survived an encounter with a ghost who preferred privacy and fermented dandelions.
Pip squeezed into a warm spot between two sleeping adults. Jinx curled up beside him. Tumble wedged himself into the very center of the marmot pile, where he calculated that any supernatural attacker would have to get through at least seventeen other marmots before reaching him. He considered this an excellent defensive arrangement.
For several minutes, all was peaceful, then a tremendous snore erupted from the other end of the chamber. It was deep, guttural and strangely musical. WOOOOOOOORRRRRK.
All three youngsters launched themselves into the air. Pip landed on Jinx. Jinx landed on Tumble. Tumble landed on a sleeping uncle, who grunted, rolled over and continued snoring with renewed enthusiasm.
From his sleeping hollow near the wall, Ol’ Whiskers opened one eye. He watched the youngsters untangle themselves. Then he smiled and tucked his nose beneath his tail. “And that,” he whispered to himself, “is why we don’t go looking for ghosts when we’re tired.”
Somewhere beyond the sleeping chamber, deep in the ancient passage, came a faint sound.
Scritch.
Scritch.
Scritch.
Pip pulled his tail over his head. Jinx closed her eyes very tightly. Tumble quietly relocated to the middle of the marmot pile. After all, there was no sense taking unnecessary risks, not when there were perfectly good adults available to stand between you and the supernatural.
Or the snoring. Or, for that matter, Ol’ Whiskers’ medicinal supplies.
Happy Halloween from Marmot Adventures!
Remember, be curious, be brave and ask questions.
And if an ancient tunnel starts whistling in the dark, make sure you know whose cellar you’re standing in before you investigate.
