The boxwood closet

The boxwood closet is a secret, circular room hidden in the woods behind 124 Bluestone Road, formed by five boxwood bushes planted in a ring. It stands seven feet high, with walls fifty inches thick of murmuring leaves, and can be entered only by bending low and crawling through a narrow opening. Once inside, Denver can stand upright in emerald light, enclosed by live green walls that shut out the hurt of the hurt world. This hidden space is both a physical location and a psychological sanctuary, where Denver's imagination produces its own hunger and its own food, sustaining her through years of loneliness and neglect.

Formation and Description

The closet is located in a narrow field that stops at a wood, beyond which runs a stream. The five boxwood bushes, planted in a ring, have stretched toward each other over time to form a round, empty room. The walls are made of fifty inches of murmuring leaves, creating a dense, living barrier that filters the light to an emerald glow. The floor is the earth itself, and the only entrance is a low crawl space. This natural architecture makes the closet invisible from the outside, a secret known only to Denver. It is a place of silence and softness, where the quiet is softer than anywhere else, and where Denver can escape the demands and dangers of the world outside.

Denver's Use and Evolution

The closet begins as a little girl's houseplay, a playroom where Denver can be alone. As her desires change, so does the play. It becomes a refuge from her brothers' fright, and soon the place itself becomes the point. In this bower, closed off from the hurt of the hurt world, Denver's imagination produces its own hunger and its own food, which she badly needs because loneliness wears her out. The closet is also the site of her secret rituals, such as using cologne to mark the space. She hides a bottle of cologne there, a gift from Miss Bodwin, and later steals another from her mother, hiding it among the boxwood until it freezes and cracks. The cologne becomes a signal that thrills the rabbits before it confuses them, and its scent permeates the closet, making it a place of sensory richness.

Significance and Contrast

The boxwood closet stands in stark contrast to 124, the haunted house where Denver lives. While 124 is full of the baby ghost's spite and the weight of her mother's past, the closet is a place of peace and self-possession. It is Denver's emerald closet, a term that evokes both the color of the light and the preciousness of the space. The closet is also a place of waiting, where Denver waits for her father, Halle, who she believes will come for her. She spends hours there, dreaming of his arrival, and the closet becomes a repository of her hopes. When Beloved arrives, Denver abandons the closet, finding in Beloved a living companion who provides the racing heart, dreaminess, society, danger, and beauty that the closet once offered. The closet's abandonment marks a turning point in Denver's life, as she moves from solitary imagination to engagement with the world.

The boxwood closet is a powerful symbol of Denver's inner life and her struggle for selfhood. It is a space of her own making, a refuge from the traumas of slavery and the haunting of 124. Its emerald light and living walls represent the possibility of growth and renewal, even in the midst of loss. The closet is also a testament to Denver's resilience, her ability to create a world of her own when the world around her offers little. In the end, the closet remains a place of memory, a secret that Denver carries with her as she steps out into the world to seek help for her family.