The Secrets of Winterhouse

by Ben Guterson

  “Move?” Freddy said. “I don’t get it.”

  “Have you ever read Matilda?”

  “You and all your books! What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Well, it’s kind of like how in that book she—” Elizabeth began, but just then she saw something on the screen that caught her attention: Two people had departed the back doors of Winterhouse and were heading for the ski shed.

  “Hey, look,” she said, pointing to the white disk.

  Freddy pulled at the ropes, and suddenly the view was of the two people at close range: Elana, dressed in white, and Rodney, in a sleek black jacket and pants, were walking briskly toward the ski shed.

  “Our two favorite people!” Freddy said.

  Elizabeth peered at the screen in amazement. “What are they doing?”

  “Breakfast just started, too. So why are they outside right now?”

  Elizabeth stared intently. The two were talking about something, and then Rodney laughed and Elana broke into a smile.

  Freddy adjusted the view, then backed out; Elana and Rodney reached the ski shed.

  Elizabeth looked to Freddy. “The shed’s not even open right now,” she said. Elana and Rodney appeared with skis and poles in their hands.

  “They’re going skiing, it looks like,” Freddy said.

  “I don’t get it,” Elizabeth said. A bad feeling was growing in her. She watched the two by the ski shed, saw them put on cross-country ski boots, click into their skis, and then push off with their poles along the groomed tracks that led along the west side of the lake.

  “They look like they have somewhere to go,” Freddy said.

  “I think you’re right.” Elizabeth guessed Freddy was thinking just what she was: Gracella’s cabin, the very place from which she and Freddy had once been chased by the spirit of Gracella herself, lay a couple of miles up the trail Elana and Rodney were approaching.

  “I’m going to check out what’s going on,” she said.

  “Elizabeth, no!” Freddy said. “No way, you cannot go out there!”

  She began to hurry down the ramp toward the door. “I have to,” she called. “I’ll see if Jackson or Sampson or someone is around, but I’ve gotta hurry! Let someone know I went out if you don’t see me back here in an hour!”

  “Elizabeth, don’t! Just wait for Norbridge!”

  But she was already out the door and in the corridor, racing for the stairwell so she could get to the ski shed herself, clamp on a pair of skis, and follow Elana and Rodney.

  CHAPTER 28

  DANGER AT THE CABIN TARGET

  Panicked thoughts raced through Elizabeth’s mind as she glided along the ski trail. The morning air was brisk and sharp—her breath flashed away from her in puffs of steam, and her face felt blistered by the cold. But she was too focused on discovering where Elana and Rodney were going and what they were doing to consider how frigid the morning was. She hadn’t seen Sampson or Jackson or anyone else she trusted once she’d departed the elevator on the first floor. There had been no time to waste—no opportunity to detour to Winter Hall or wander around looking for help. She’d needed to get moving right away or risked losing all hope of catching up to Elana and Rodney. Uncertainty filled her as she pushed forward along the twin tracks in the snow; she had no idea what she would say or do when—or if—she found Elana and Rodney.

  After leaving the wide field along the Winterhouse side of Lake Luna, Elizabeth followed the trail into the trees that rimmed the lake along its west side. It was dim here, a world of green hemlock and white snow and blue-black shadow.

  As the minutes passed and she pressed on, she kept scanning ahead for signs of the other two. Her breath pounded in her chest, and twice—ten or fifteen minutes away from Winterhouse—she stopped to recover her wind. Each time she was awed by how quiet it was in the forest, the sunlight streaming silently through the trees. She continued, calculating how far she was from Gracella’s cabin, where she was certain Elana and Rodney were headed.

  An ice-crusted stream came into view and, spanning the short distance across it, a snow-covered bridge. This was the turnoff to Gracella’s cabin. Elizabeth slowed, moved forward quietly, barely gliding. She came to a stop beside a grove of thin alders and removed her skis. Two ski tracks led from the trail itself up the gently sloping hill and directly to the small cabin that sat in a clearing atop the crest. Two pairs of skis leaned upright before its door. Elana and Rodney were inside.

  Elizabeth began to walk, in sunlight again. The snow wasn’t deep, and the tracks had cleared a path for her; she didn’t make a sound. Slowly, steadily, one deliberate step at a time, she moved closer to the cabin.

  “You need to make the lines darker over there,” came a voice—Rodney’s—from inside. These were the first words Elizabeth could make out now that she was ten yards from the cabin.

  “I wish we didn’t have to do this,” came another voice—Elana’s.

  “Well, then don’t,” Rodney said with annoyance. “That’s if you want Mom and Dad to get mad at us.”

  Mom and Dad? Elizabeth thought. Who is he talking about?

  “Really,” Elana said, “this whole thing is awful. I hate it.”

  “Well, do you want her spirit to come here instead of the hotel?” Rodney said. “Let’s just finish the drawing like Aunt Selena told us. Then they can find the thing in the passage.”

  Elizabeth stood listening, straining to catch every word. She felt so stretched with tension, wanting to learn whatever she could—but the cold was settling in on her quickly, and she was terrified she would be discovered.

  “Aunt Selena can stay an old lady for all I care,” Elana said. “She hasn’t been nice to me this whole time. Not at all.”

  “Do you want the same thing to happen to us that happened to her? You want to turn old? Or worse? I don’t like this any more than you do, but we have to help.”

  “I know,” Elana said. “Still, I wish we didn’t have to do any of it.”

  There was silence and then the sound of steps. “I’ll be right back,” Rodney said.

  The thought came to Elizabeth that what she ought to do was silently retrace her steps, ski quickly back to Winterhouse, tell Norbridge and Jackson what she’d heard, and turn it over to them. She looked behind her at the trail and at her skis.

  “Hey!” came a voice. Elizabeth turned to see Rodney in the doorway of the cabin gaping at her. “What are you doing here?”

  For a second, Elizabeth thought to bolt for the trail. Instead, she calmed herself and then, not knowing how she managed it, she smiled and waved.

  “Oh, hey, Rodney,” she said, trying to make it sound like it was the most natural thing in the world to run into Rodney Powter out here when everyone else was back eating breakfast at Winterhouse.

  Elana stepped out. “Elizabeth?” she said, staring in wonder.

  “Hi, Elana.” Elizabeth’s mind was racing, trying to make sure she chose her words carefully. “I decided to go out skiing, and when I stopped by that bridge, I saw skis up here.”

  Rodney turned to Elana. His mouth had remained wide open, and he had an expression on his face that said, What do you make of this? He looked to Elizabeth.

  “Well, you ought to just turn around and go back,” Rodney said.

  Elizabeth thought quickly. “I wanted to apologize, Elana. For what happened at the café in Havenworth.”

  Elana looked at her skeptically. “Okay,” she said slowly before turning to Rodney. “But you should probably head back to Winterhouse.”

  “You were pretty rude to me and my parents, you know,” Rodney said.

  Elizabeth continued walking, came up to the cabin, and eyed the two others with as much sincere-looking friendliness as she could fake. “Like I said, I was just about to turn around. But when I saw this cabin, I thought I’d check it out.” She peered through the doorway.

  “Did you hear me?” Rodney said, fixing Elizabeth with a menacing look.

  Elizabet
h gave him a little frown that said, I don’t have to listen to you, and then stepped forward another couple of steps. “Cool cabin,” she said. “I wonder who it belongs to.”

  “I don’t think you get it,” Rodney said. “You need to get out of here.”

  Elizabeth looked him up and down, and then turned to Elana. “Are you two brother and sister?”

  Elana’s mouth fell open. “What are you talking about?”

  “I heard you guys say something about your mother and father when I was walking up.”

  “Rodney and I are just friends,” Elana said, stammering, “and we came out skiing.”

  Elizabeth felt something drop inside herself, some realization taking hold as she studied Elana’s face. “You were lying when you told me your parents died,” she said. “You and Rodney really are brother and sister. And your parents are making you two do all of this to—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Elana said. And then, pleadingly, she said, “You should get going, Elizabeth. Please.” She looked to Rodney, who stared back at her with a challenging, agitated expression.

  Elizabeth stared past them. The interior of the cabin—completely empty, with only two small windows—was so captivating, the presence of Elana and Rodney was only a slight distraction. “That’s a bizarre picture,” Elizabeth said. On the otherwise spotless wooden floor was a drawing in black ink of the same symbol that was on Mrs. Vesper’s bracelet. “Norbridge will be interested in that.”

  “Norbridge, Norbridge,” Rodney said mockingly. “That old doofus.”

  “I’m going to tell him everything,” Elizabeth said. As the words left her mouth, she realized they sounded slightly desperate; standing beside Elana and Rodney and looking at the picture on the floor of the cabin had made her feel suddenly very frightened.

  “Fine, then,” Rodney said. “Why don’t you run back to Winterhouse?” He looked at her with a cruel grin.

  “You’re a bully,” Elizabeth said. “Your parents are mean to you, so you’re mean to everyone else. But you don’t scare me. I know way more about what you’re up to than you think I do. And I know why you’re out here at this cabin and who it belongs to.”

  Rodney folded his arms and lifted his chin in defiance. “You better be gone in ten seconds.”

  “Oh, do you guys need to do something more here for Gracella?” Elizabeth said. “Maybe she’ll help you find the thing that’s hidden in Winterhouse? The thing you’re looking for? I guess I do know, don’t I?”

  Elana’s eyes snapped wide open. “Leave! You have no idea what’s going on.”

  “Cut it out!” Rodney snarled, turning quickly to glare at Elana. “Don’t tell her anything!”

  “Tell me anything about what?” Elizabeth said, but Rodney spun around in a fury and grabbed her shoulder. “Get out of here!” he yelled.

  “Hey!” Elizabeth said. Pain radiated from her shoulder as Rodney dug in with his fingers. “Let go of me!”

  “What’s going on!” someone yelled, and the three kids came to an instant stop. Jackson and Sampson were walking up from the bridge.

  “What are you guys doing?” Sampson called. Rodney let go of Elizabeth.

  “Were you hurting her?” Jackson said.

  “Yes, he was!” Elizabeth said.

  “She pushed me!” Rodney said.

  “That’s a lie!” Elizabeth said, and then the two men, dressed all in red, with red stocking caps on their heads, stood before them. Elizabeth was so glad to see them she could hardly catch her breath. “He grabbed me because they’re out here trying to help Gracella Winters!”

  “She’s crazy!” Rodney said.

  Jackson looked grim, his eyes flashing to one of the kids and then the next and the next. “Tell me what’s going on,” he said. “Immediately.”

  “We were just leaving,” Elana said, glancing fearfully at Elizabeth, before addressing Jackson. “We were just getting a little skiing in.” She looked to Rodney. “Come on.”

  The two of them stepped off the porch and snapped into their skis. Elizabeth, Jackson, and Sampson stared in silence as Elana and Rodney skied down the small hill, glided onto the trail, and disappeared into the woods.

  Jackson watched until he was sure they were gone, saying nothing the entire time. Sampson came over beside him.

  “Do you want me to—” Sampson began, but Jackson held up a hand to silence him.

  “Not worth wasting any words over those two,” Jackson said, and he turned and looked to Elizabeth. “All well with you, Miss Somers?”

  She was rubbing her shoulder, trying to figure out what had just happened. “I’m fine,” she said and then sighed. “I am really glad you two came when you did.”

  “What was he doing?” Sampson said.

  “I’ll have to tell you the whole thing,” Elizabeth said, shaking her head. “You won’t believe it.” She paused, then turned to look behind her in the cabin.

  “You’re sure you’re all right, Miss Somers?” Jackson said.

  Elizabeth heard his words, but she also thought she heard something behind her. She took two steps into the cabin and listened.

  “Miss Somers?” Jackson said.

  “You okay, Elizabeth?” Sampson said. “We can head back to Winterhouse.”

  “I think maybe…” Elizabeth said, though she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say and was distracted by a vague feeling of dread. She looked around, to every corner of the cabin. There was nothing within—no furniture, no curtains on the windows, nothing hanging from the ceiling—only the strange drawing on the floor. Other than that, there was simply a barren, open, silent space, completely abandoned and still.

  “They made that drawing,” she said faintly, pointing to the scarab. “I think it’s to help Gracella somehow.”

  She cocked her head and listened. The morning was windless and quiet, but she thought she could hear a low noise arising from somewhere, a faint rumbling sound. It struck her this was the same sound she’d heard on the three occasions she’d put her ear to the doors at Winterhouse, the ones with the plaques above them.

  “Elizabeth?” Sampson said. “You okay?”

  She stood listening. The sound grew; something was drawing nearer. The cabin darkened slightly, the way the sky appears when dusk is settling; the slightest tint of crimson colored the edges of her vision, a faint glow of red rimming the frame of her sight, no matter where she looked. Elizabeth shivered, more with fear than from the cold. At some level of awareness, she continued to hear Sampson and then Jackson speaking her name, asking her something or explaining something, but she was too overwhelmed by the sound and her own anxious thoughts and a sudden, growing heaviness in her limbs to take full notice.

  And then, from somewhere behind the rumbling noise or over it or as part of the swelling rush it was making toward her, she heard a voice: “It is yours.” Elizabeth leaned forward to make certain she’d heard the words correctly—and also because she found something … tempting in them. “It is yours,” came the voice again.

  As she leaned so far forward that suddenly the cabin floor seemed to rush up before her eyes, Elizabeth realized the voice was familiar. The floor had slammed into her, she thought, though this made no sense. And just as everything went black, and Sampson and Jackson were over her, calling her name, Elizabeth understood that the voice—the words just whispered to her—was the very one she’d heard in the library the year before when Winterhouse had nearly been destroyed. It belonged to Gracella Winters.

  PART FOUR

  THE YEAR ENDS—AND THE FAR CHAMBER CALLS

  CHARM

  CHAPTER 29

  THE FINAL DOOR DOLOR

  When she considered it afterward, Elizabeth couldn’t recall the moment when she surfaced from sleep and recognized she wasn’t in her own room. When she finally, fully awoke, though, she realized she was under a thick quilt on a bed in a room that was dim and still, and then she understood she was in Norbridge’s apartment and her head wa
s aching badly. She sat up with a start, fully alert. Voices came from beyond the door, which was open just enough to allow in a thin seam of pale light.

  “Did you hear something?” came a voice.

  That’s Norbridge, Elizabeth thought.

  “I think she’s still sleeping,” came another voice— Leona’s.

  “I’ll check,” Norbridge said. “Don’t say anything about Gracella. I don’t want her to be anxious.”

  “Well, she’s going to be anxious whether we mention it or not. She knows what’s going on.”

  Elizabeth was tense with concentration and sat listening for every word.

  “Just don’t make it worse,” Norbridge said. “I’m worried.”

  “You’re always worried! You should say, ‘I’m more worried.’”

  There was a silence, and then the door opened and Elizabeth was staring at Norbridge in the doorway.

  “Ah, Elizabeth,” he said haltingly. “You’re awake.” He glanced behind him. “We were just relaxing out here with some tea. Figured you might be up by now. Why don’t you join us?”

  She pulled the blanket off, rose, and stepped cautiously into the main room, which was lined with so many book-crammed shelves it could almost have been a library itself. Leona was sitting on a love seat and had a blanket wrapped around her; she looked tired—pale and weary, her face drawn.

  “Please,” Leona said, “sit down, dear. It’s good to see you up and about.”

  But Elizabeth stood in place, looked from Leona to Norbridge and back. “What’s going on? I know something’s going on.”

  “Please sit down,” Norbridge said, “and then we can talk it all over.”

  “Elana and Rodney are brother and sister,” Elizabeth said, not moving. “And Mrs. Vesper isn’t Elana’s grandmother. I’m almost positive she’s really Selena Hiems. They made her old somehow. And Gracella is trying to come back to find what’s hidden in the passageway.”