The House of Winter

by Isobel Bird

  They got up and left the room, practically running down the hall and then down the stairs to the lobby. It was strangely empty when they arrived, as if everyone had gone to their rooms to sleep and left it for them to explore. The fire was burning down in the fireplace, and in the center of the room the shadow of the Yule tree towered over them.

  Lucy led them to the wall opposite the reception desk. She pointed to a spot about twelve feet above the floor, where the round face of a clock looked back at them.

  “You probably didn’t notice it because it wasn’t chiming,” she said.

  “So where does the key go?” asked Cooper, not seeing a door.

  “Watch,” Lucy replied. “This is kind of cool.” She went to the wall and began running her hands over the carved wood paneling that covered it to a height of about four feet. A design of roses and vines ran along the top, and this is what she was touching. After a minute of hesitant fumbling, she found what she was looking for.

  “Here it is,” she said.

  The others moved closer to see what she was talking about. It was difficult to see, so Annie picked up a candle from a nearby table, lit it using a pack of matches someone had left nearby, and held it close to the wall. Then they could see that Lucy’s finger was on a keyhole that had been built into one of the roses in the carved design.

  “They built the door into the wall,” Lucy explained. “But we never had the key so we could never open it.”

  “Never say never,” Cooper told her, taking the key from her pocket. She held it close to the keyhole.

  “It looks about right,” Sasha said.

  Cooper took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing,” she said as she slid the key into the hole, where it fit perfectly. She turned it in one direction and nothing happened. The key didn’t even move. But then she turned it in the other direction and suddenly a panel in the wall swung outward.

  “Mystery solved,” Cooper said. “At least part of it, anyway. Who wants to go first?”

  “I will,” Lucy said.

  She opened the door wider and, taking the candle from Annie, stepped through. She was followed by Sasha, Kate, and Annie, with Cooper bringing up the rear. They had to stoop to get through the door, and once inside they found themselves in a narrow, low-ceilinged hallway. Lucy crept along it, holding the candle in front of her.

  The hallway ended a few minutes later at another door. When they stopped before it, Kate sighed. “Great, another door and no other key,” she said.

  “We don’t need one,” said Lucy, trying the handle of the door and finding that it opened easily. She peered inside. “It’s a room,” she said.

  They stepped into the room. It was small, and there was very little in it. A small wooden table and a chair sat in the middle of the room, and beside it was a stack of old books and papers. Annie went over and began to examine them. She picked up a paper and peered at it in the dim light.

  “It’s a letter,” she said after a moment. “From Porter to Alice.”

  “My hero!” interjected the bundled-up Sasha.

  “Read it,” Cooper said.

  Annie cleared her throat. “Dear Alice,” she read. “I know this will be hard for you to hear, but I feel that I must go away. Things with Mary have become strained, and she has changed. I do not think it is safe for you if I continue to stay here. Please know that I love you with all of my heart, and that one day I will return for you. Until then, keep yourself safe. I do not know what madness has overtaken your sister, but I fear for you both if it remains unchecked. Please, for my sake, take great care. And remember that we will be together again one day, and soon. All my love, Porter.”

  Annie looked at the paper for a moment longer. “It’s dated August 3, 1873.”

  “He must have written it just before he drowned,” said Lucy.

  Annie placed the letter back on the desk and began to look at what else was there. She glanced at the books and put them aside, but she looked at the papers carefully. “These are Alice’s notes about the spells she did,” she said. “It’s like her own Book of Shadows or something.” She looked closely at a piece of browned paper. “A spell for fighting sadness,” she read. “It sounds a lot like one of the meditations we do in class.”

  “So Alice had her own little secret room just like Mary did,” said Cooper. “But how is that going to help us?”

  “Maybe this will,” Annie said. She held up a piece of paper that had been folded into quarters and stuck between the pages of a notebook.

  “What is it?” asked Sasha.

  “The missing page from Mary’s diary,” Annie replied.

  The other girls went over to see what Annie was looking at. She sat in the chair and spread the paper out on the desk so that they could all look at it at once. It was brittle and brown with age, and the edges were crumbling. On it were drawn several diagrams, and there were lines for a spell scrawled all over it. The girls had just started to read it when a noise startled them.

  “I should thank you for doing my work for me,” said Nora, stepping into the room. “I had no idea my sister was so clever. On that point I underestimated her. But now it doesn’t matter. I have what I need. Give me the paper.”

  “Or what?” Sasha said.

  Nora laughed. “Have you forgotten already what the cold kiss of the pond felt like?” she said. “Perhaps a taste of fire would remind you?”

  “Meaning what?” Annie shot back.

  A cruel smile spread across Nora’s face. “This hotel is old,” she said. “It would burn quickly, don’t you think?”

  “So would this paper,” Annie said, holding the edge of the paper close to the candle flame.

  “If you burn the paper I will burn the hotel anyway,” said Nora coldly. “But if you give it to me I will let you live. Some of you anyway.” She looked at her sister, who looked at Annie.

  “Don’t burn it,” she said. “Give it to her.”

  “What?” said Cooper. “What do you mean, give it to her?”

  “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” said Lucy. “Just give it to her.”

  “But—” Kate began.

  “You should listen to her,” said Nora.

  “Why should we trust you?” snapped Sasha. “Look what you did already.”

  “Yes,” said Nora. “Look what I did already. And that was just the beginning. If you don’t give me the paper, you’ll see what else I can do.”

  “Give it to her,” said Lucy again. “Please.”

  Annie took the paper away from the candle flame. She handed it to Lucy. “You give it to her,” she said. “I can’t.”

  Lucy walked over to Nora and held out the paper. “Here,” she said. “Now leave them alone.”

  Nora took the paper, folded it, and put it in her pocket. “It’s not them I want,” she said. “It’s you.” She grabbed Lucy by the wrist, and Lucy cried out in pain.

  “Let her go!” Cooper said, but Nora was already dragging Lucy from the room.

  “Don’t follow us,” Nora warned Cooper. “Stay here until we are gone. Then you may leave. But be warned—any more interference from you and you will all meet the same fate.”

  Cooper started forward again, but Kate and Sasha held her back. “Don’t,” Kate said.

  “But we can’t just let her take Lucy,” Cooper said.

  “We’ll figure something out,” said Kate. “Just don’t make things worse right now.”

  “Worse?” Cooper scoffed. “How could they be worse? Nora has Lucy and the spell. We have nothing.”

  “Actually, we have something,” Annie said.

  The others turned to look at her.

  “What do we have?” asked Cooper doubtfully.

  “We have the spell,” Annie said, holding up a piece of paper.

  “What are you talking about?” said Kate. “You gave Nora the spell.”

  “I gave her a copy of the spell,” Annie replied. “Apparently, Alice copied it into her own notebook, too, probably in ca
se Mary found the original. See, here it is.”

  The others gathered around the table again, looking at the paper. Like the other one, it was covered with diagrams and lines of text, although in a much neater handwriting.

  “I noticed it right before Nora appeared,” said Annie. “I hid the notebook on my lap so that Nora wouldn’t see it.”

  “Okay, so we have the spell,” Sasha said. “But so does Nora. And she has Lucy. That still puts her one up on us.”

  “I know,” Annie admitted. “But at least this way we can figure out exactly what she’s going to try to do tomorrow night. Maybe then we can think of a way to stop her from doing it.”

  “Let’s take this back to the room,” Cooper said. “We should also bring the rest of the stuff, just in case.”

  They each gathered up an armload of books and papers, clearing the floor of the mess. Then they left the room, advancing back down the hallway. When they reached the lobby they climbed out and looked around. It was still empty. Cooper shut the door and locked it again, pocketing the key.

  The girls went back to their room. There they sat on one bed with the paper in the center as they all read the lines of neat but tiny handwriting. After a few minutes Annie looked up.

  “Is this for real?” she asked.

  “It looks like it,” said Cooper.

  “We’ve never seen anything like this before,” Kate remarked. “It looks like Mary is really going to kill Lucy.”

  “But that’s not Wicca,” objected Sasha. “No way, no how.”

  Annie sighed. “No, it isn’t witchcraft,” she said. “But it is something that people used to do in certain cultures. They believed that by killing someone you could gain that person’s strengths or powers. Apparently, Mary thought that she could gain Alice’s powers in the same way. But Alice killed her instead, so it didn’t work. Now Mary has taken over Nora’s body and she’s using her, and she thinks that if she kills Lucy she’ll get her powers and be unstoppable.”

  “Now we know what she’s up to,” Kate said. “So how do we stop her?”

  “That’s the part I haven’t figured out yet,” Annie said. “I have to think about it.”

  “Don’t think too long,” said Cooper. “It’s almost morning already. Today is Yule, and tonight is when Mary-Nora-Whoever-she-is is going to make her move. We need to figure something out before then.”

  Annie rubbed her eyes. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  “Do you think we should ask for some help on this one?” said Kate quietly.

  “You mean tell Sophia?” Cooper asked.

  Kate nodded. “This isn’t like we just did a spell that worked out wrong,” Kate said. “This is someone’s life.”

  Cooper looked at Sasha and Annie. “What do you guys think?” she asked.

  “I think that if I were Lucy I would want all the help I could get,” Annie said.

  “This is all new to me,” said Sasha. “I know I could use all the help I can get.”

  Cooper nodded. “I think I’m with you guys on this one. Let’s find Sophia.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “You three have gotten into some weird things since I’ve known you, but this one beats everything,” Sophia said. Then she turned to Sasha. “And you aren’t even in the dedicant class yet. I hate to see what happens to you next year.”

  “It’s not like we asked for it,” Cooper said defensively.

  “I know,” Sophia said gently. “I’m not blaming you for any of this.”

  They were all standing in Sophia’s room. Half an hour before, they had woken her. After much telling and retelling of the story of the past few days, Sophia had been brought up to speed. Now she sat in a chair; she was dressed in her robe. Outside, the blackness of night had given way to the gray of morning, and the room was lit with watery light amplified only slightly by the fire burning in the fireplace.

  “Do you really think Nora is going to try to kill Lucy?” asked Kate.

  “From what you’ve told me, it isn’t Nora who’s doing anything at all,” Sophia answered. “It’s Mary. For all intents and purposes, Nora isn’t involved in this at all.”

  “Except that she believed what Mary’s ghost told her and went along with it all,” Cooper said.

  “Who was all upset about feeling blamed just a moment ago?” asked Sophia, raising an eyebrow.

  “Sorry,” said Cooper. “But Nora didn’t have to do what she did.”

  Sophia sighed. “Power is hard to resist,” she said. “We don’t know what Mary promised her. She just made a mistake.”

  “But killing Nora?” said Annie.

  “If Mary is as unbalanced as Lucy says she is, then I wouldn’t disbelieve anything,” Sophia answered. She picked up the paper that Annie had given to her and looked at it. “But it looks like she’s not so much planning on killing her as she is draining her of her power,” she said. “Although if she overdoes it Lucy could definitely end up damaged.”

  “Should we tell Mr. and Mrs. Reilly?” Annie asked, voicing the question that had been nagging at her ever since Nora had dragged Lucy out of the hidden room.

  The others looked at Sophia, who was studying the paper intently. She looked up at them.

  “Yes,” she said. “We will. But not everything.”

  “Not everything?” Cooper said. “Which part of everything do we leave out?”

  “I’m going to tell them that Lucy and Nora have been influenced by the ghosts in the hotel,” Sophia said. “That will be hard enough for them to accept.”

  “Don’t you think they deserve to know how serious things are?” asked Annie.

  “I have an idea,” Sophia answered. “For it to work, everyone involved has got to be in the right frame of mind. Telling Bryan and Fiona that their daughters are in grave danger won’t help things. It will just make them worry, and that will upset the energy of what we need to do.”

  “What do we need to do?” asked Kate.

  “A Yule ritual,” Sophia told her. “Today is the shortest day and the longest night. It was the birthday of Alice and Mary O’Shea, and it’s the birthday of Nora and Lucy Reilly. That’s why Mary wants to perform her ritual tonight. Not only is it her birthday, but it’s the day when the light and the dark battle for control of the world. She wants the darkness to win out over the light. To fight her, we have to make sure that doesn’t happen. We have to fight her with all the light we can summon up.”

  “Just tell us what to do,” Annie replied.

  “You’re each going to need to use your greatest strengths,” said Sophia. “You’re going to have to work together and draw on everything you’ve learned about ritual and magic so far this year. Now, I’m going to have to talk to some of the other leaders here and get their help. We’ll all meet and decide how best to approach this. In the meantime, I’d better go find Bryan and Fiona and tell them the girls are missing. That should be a wonderful way to start the day.”

  “Do you want us to go with you?” asked Cooper.

  “That might be a good idea,” Sophia said. “I’m sure they’re going to have questions that I can’t answer.”

  Sophia dressed, and the five of them went downstairs. It was very early, and the lobby was still deserted. But a worried-looking Bryan was standing behind the counter when they appeared.

  “Have any of you seen Nora or Lucy?” he asked. “We haven’t been able to find them all night.”

  “They were with us,” said Kate, and Bryan’s face relaxed.

  “I hoped they were just hanging out with friends and fell asleep,” he said. “It’s so unlike them not to check in with us.”

  “But they’re not with us now,” said Annie, causing a puzzled expression to return to Bryan’s face.

  “Where are they, then?” he asked.

  “We need to talk to you and Fiona,” said Sophia kindly.

  Ten minutes later they were all seated in the Reillys’ private living quarters, drinking hot tea while Mr. and Mrs. Reilly sat o
n the couch.

  “Sophia, what’s going on?” Mrs. Reilly asked. “Where are my girls?”

  “Somewhere in the hotel,” Sophia said.

  “But you don’t know where?” asked Mr. Reilly.

  Sophia shook her head. “They’re hiding,” she said vaguely.

  “What?” asked Bryan. “Why would they do that?”

  Sophia took a sip of tea and held the mug in her hands, as if the warmth of the rising steam helped her think more clearly. “You know how we always joke about the hotel’s being haunted?” Sophia asked.

  Mr. and Mrs. Reilly nodded. “But those are just stories,” Fiona said. “What does that have to do with my daughters?”

  “The hotel is haunted,” Cooper said.

  The Reillys looked at her. “What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Reilly.

  “Two girls died here many years ago,” Annie explained.

  “Yes,” Bryan said. “The O’Shea girls. They were distantly related to our family.”

  “Well, they’re back,” Cooper said. “And Nora and Lucy have been talking to them.”

  Mrs. Reilly put her hand to her head. “I don’t believe this,” she said. “Why are you making up such a story? Where are Nora and Lucy? Did they put you up to this?”

  “It’s not a story!” said Sasha, standing up. “You have to believe us! There are ghosts here. Mary tried to kill me by pushing me in the pond, just like she killed Porter Wills. And now she’s got Lucy. Well, Nora does, because Mary is using her body and—”

  “What Sasha means is that the girls have been inf luenced by the ghosts of these dead girls,” Sophia said as Cooper and Annie pulled Sasha back down on the couch and made her sit quietly. “We think that they feel a connection to them because of sharing a birthday and because of also being twins.”

  “That still doesn’t explain where they are,” Bryan said.

  “They’re hiding,” Cooper said. “We think they’re planning some kind of ritual for this evening—something involving the ghosts of Mary and Alice O’Shea.”

  “Then we just have to find them,” said Mrs. Reilly. “I don’t understand why we’re sitting here talking about this. They have to be somewhere in the hotel. We’ll just search every room.”