Winterhouse

by Ben Guterson

  The room grew silent again. Leona shifted in her seat. “It’s been a long night,” she said. “Maybe it would be best if we all went to bed.”

  “Exactly right,” Norbridge said. “A good night’s sleep will do all of us good. I’d like you both to go to your rooms, and we can talk more about this tomorrow.”

  Elizabeth and Freddy looked to each other, and then stood as if on cue.

  “We’ll get some rest,” Freddy said.

  “Yes, we’ll get some rest,” Elizabeth said.

  “And remember what I said about not leaving Winterhouse,” Norbridge said as they left his apartment.

  * * *

  “You returned that book, right?” Freddy said before they parted ways at the staircase a few minutes later.

  “A couple of days ago,” she said. She felt awful lying to Freddy, but at this point she had to see what the silver letters would spell out so she could solve Nestor’s code. Then, at the first opportunity after that, she would return The Book to the library and be done with it once and for all. No one would be the wiser.

  “Good,” Freddy said. “Well, I’m gonna get some sleep. I still can’t believe everything that’s happened.”

  “I know.” They shook hands. “I’ll see you tomorrow at breakfast.”

  “Elizabeth, I believe you. Something’s going on. And even though I’m kind of nervous about all of it, I’ll help you if I can.”

  She took his hand again and shook even harder. “Thank you.”

  Three minutes later, after she’d raced to Room 213 and locked her door tight, Elizabeth went to get A Guide for Children from her drawer. It was missing. She dug through all the shirts she’d piled atop The Book, even shoveled them onto the floor until the drawer was completely empty and then began searching all the other drawers, just in case she had made a mistake somehow. She checked under her mattress and under the bed and in the closet. But it was no use—she couldn’t find A Guide for Children anywhere.

  Someone had stolen The Book.

  PART FOUR

  THE YEAR ENDS—AND THE HOUR IS LATE

  RATE

  RACE

  RACK

  ROCK

  LOCK

  LOOK

  BOOK

  CHAPTER 31

  A DARING HUNT FOR CLUES

  HINT

  MINT

  MIND

  FIND

  Three days passed—three quiet days. From her room, Elizabeth kept occasional watch through her window at night, but she saw no crimson light and no sign of the Hiemses at the bridge, which was in easy view. In fact, on the afternoon of the day after the incident at the cabin, a BRIDGE UNDER REPAIR—DO NOT ENTER sign went up in front of the bridge, and it was strung with red tape and barriers were placed at either side. When Elizabeth asked Jackson about this, he explained that Norbridge had been meaning to reinforce the bridge for some time, and as a safety measure it had been closed off.

  He’s trying to keep the Hiemses away from it, Elizabeth thought. She was convinced the pair wanted to attempt something—put symbols, maybe, or magical markings on the bridge—to allow the crimson light to pass over and enter Winterhouse. She was also convinced the Hiemses had taken The Book from her room, but she had no proof of this and, of course, couldn’t share her suspicions with Freddy or Norbridge or Leona. They would think she was a thief or a liar or both—and, as she had to admit to herself, as well-intentioned as she felt she’d been, she really had made a mess of things by taking and then keeping the Granger book, and now she had to figure a way out of it on her own.

  If only there was a way to get into the Hiemses’ room, she thought. She pictured herself retrieving The Book and maybe, just maybe, taking a look in their crate to see what they were hiding. If that crimson light really is Gracella, and if she gets inside Winterhouse and gets her hands on The Book … Elizabeth tried not to think that far ahead. It was a torment to her that A Guide for Children had been stolen just when the keyword was about to become clear. All Elizabeth knew was that the first two letters of the keyword were “AR,” but when she looked in the dictionary and found hundreds of words that began with those letters, she felt even more lost.

  She and Freddy stayed inside Winterhouse, and although Elizabeth’s worries about the Hiemses and Gracella and The Book were on her mind throughout, the time was otherwise peaceful, even enjoyable. Her nightmares ceased, she read and swam and visited the library, she worked on the puzzle with Mr. Wellington and Mr. Rajput, she attended two concerts and two movies, and she even helped pack some of the boxes of Flurschen in the candy kitchen, all while avoiding Marcus and Selena Hiems, who seemed to rarely leave their room. Twice she went by Gracella’s locked room, though she felt so uncomfortable in the dark hallway she only lingered for a minute or two. She visited the portrait gallery and kept trying, halfheartedly, to break Nestor’s code with keywords beginning with “AR.” And in her own room late after dinner each night, when the hotel quieted, she practiced summoning the feeling and was consistently able to move one of her books, a solid volume of The Wind in the Willows, ever so slightly. She told no one about this, but it made her feel not only pleased but accomplished. That she was able to do this seemed … magical. That was the word that kept coming to her mind.

  Why me, though? she wondered—in fact, had been wondering now for many days. Why am I able to make things move, and why did I see the silver letters in The Book and Freddy didn’t? All of this was a puzzle to her, and she couldn’t understand how she—Elizabeth Somers, who lived with her very poor aunt and uncle in Drere and had somehow ended up at Winterhouse for three weeks—seemed to be at the center of so many unusual things.

  It doesn’t make any sense, she thought.

  * * *

  On the third morning of their confinement, Elizabeth sat with Freddy in his workshop as he put the final touches on his WonderLog. It had taken him much longer than he’d hoped to finalize the composition and process, but now his latest WonderLog burned steadily in the fire ring without either crumbling away or flaring up too quickly.

  “I think I’ve finally got it just right,” Freddy said.

  Elizabeth had long since made an entry in her notebook—“Most Famous Inventors I’ve Ever Met”—and put Freddy’s name in the first and only position. She was glad their disagreement had faded away.

  “Norbridge should let you stay here permanently now,” Elizabeth said.

  Freddy laughed along with her. “I wish!”

  As they talked about the upcoming New Year’s Eve party and even—yet again—about the Hiemses and what the connection might be between them and the crimson light and the bridge, Elizabeth worked idly on a coded message. On the wall, alongside the wrenches and screwdrivers and hammers, hung a silver skeleton key that looked just like the ones used for all the rooms in Winterhouse, and Elizabeth had, on occasion, wondered why this one was in Freddy’s workshop.

  “Here,” she said, handing Freddy a piece of paper and the alphabet grid she’d made in her notebook.

  He glanced at the message, which was this: Bsuk au alr pps wgt alny tm yspnmal zh kzg deyq? (Keyword = Flurschen).

  Freddy took up a pen and began working through the code. When he was done he glanced at the key on the wall. “This one?” he said in answer to her message, and when she nodded he said, “I think it opens most of the doors here, but I’ve never used it.” He took it off its hook and showed Elizabeth the word stamped on it: “Master.”

  “Do you mean you think with that key we could get into any room?” she said.

  Freddy looked at her sidelong. “But we wouldn’t want to do that, right?” He hooked the key back on the wall and went to the fire ring.

  Elizabeth’s mind was racing with thoughts of seeing what was inside the Hiemses’ room, but she said nothing to Freddy about this.

  “I guess if someone left it there,” she said, “then they wouldn’t mind if we used it.”

  Freddy shook a finger at her in mock scolding. “Seri
ously,” he said, “it looks like one of those keys they use in secret societies or something. Like the Masons. I did a report on them once.”

  A thought came to Elizabeth, and she reached for the pendant around her neck. “There’s a symbol of a key on my necklace,” she said, holding it up for Freddy to examine. “I don’t know why.”

  “Maybe it has to do with one of those societies.”

  Elizabeth tucked the necklace back under her shirt. “I never thought of that.” Something about what Freddy said made sense to her, though she couldn’t figure out why.

  “Quick!” Freddy said out of the blue. “‘Mason’! Anagram!”

  “Moans!” Elizabeth said after considering for five seconds.

  “B-plus.”

  “B-plus? Why?”

  “Took you too long.”

  “Like your WonderLog?”

  “Touché!”

  * * *

  An hour after lunch that same day, Elizabeth was reading in her room when she looked out the window and saw Marcus and Selena Hiems walking toward Lake Luna. She watched them for several minutes, and when she was certain they were, indeed, going for a stroll and were bound to remain outside for at least a little while, she dashed out of her room and headed for Freddy’s workshop.

  “What’s up?” he said as she burst in.

  “Remember how you said you would help me if you could?” she said as she caught her breath.

  He nodded suspiciously. “This doesn’t sound good.”

  Elizabeth pointed to the key hanging on the wall. “Just five minutes,” she said. “I just need your help—and that key—for five minutes.” She strode to the wall and gave Freddy a “May I?” look before snatching up the key and heading back to the door.

  He stood. “I’m not even gonna ask where we’re going,” he said, and they headed to the stairwell and climbed up to the eighth floor where, not three minutes later, they stood panting before the door of Marcus and Selena Hiems.

  “I don’t like this,” Freddy said.

  She pointed to his watch. “You don’t even have to know whose room this is—”

  “I know whose room it is!”

  “Well, I won’t say a word more about any of it. Just keep your foot in the door once I go in, and when five minutes have passed, yell for me and I’ll come out.”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  With those words Elizabeth realized that from the moment she’d seen the Hiemses out her window until now, she had been in a fury of excitement. Suddenly, she considered what she was about to do and she felt nervous. The key in her hand felt cold, like some alien object she’d chanced upon and now thought she should return. She looked at the closed door, and she thought of the crate that was inside the room and of The Book that surely must be in there, too.

  “I think I do,” she said. And she put the key in the lock, turned the handle, and entered.

  The large front room, where she’d sat with Marcus and Selena for tea four days earlier, looked just as she recalled; she spent a moment scanning the books in sight on the table and shelves and then searching under the sofas and behind the chairs to see if The Book might be hidden somewhere. Nothing. She turned to the unlit corridor; there were three doors along it, all closed. When she opened the first to find it was only the bathroom, she felt relieved at how ordinary, how normal it appeared before closing the door. A minute, maybe almost two, had gone by since she’d entered the Hiemses’ room.

  Elizabeth opened the next door and switched on the light. A crisply made bed, an open closet filled with clothes on hangers, two suitcases in the corner, and a bureau with a half dozen books on it met her eyes. Again, it all looked so commonplace, so completely ordinary, Elizabeth felt almost reassured. There certainly didn’t seem to be anything creepy or threatening about the apartment thus far.

  Very quickly she looked through the contents of the closet and opened all the bureau drawers and checked under the bed. Still no sign of The Book.

  A thump sounded from somewhere close by. Elizabeth stood and listened. The noise came again. She shut off the light, closed the door behind her, and stood in the dark corridor to listen. The sound, she was certain, had come from the third and final room. With a deep breath, she moved to it, twisted the handle, and opened the door.

  Once she flicked the light on, she was baffled by what she saw. The room was almost identical to the one she’d just been in, although there were no clothes in the closet, no books on the bureaus, and no luggage on the floor. All there was in the room, aside from the standard furnishings, was the long plywood crate laid out on the bed like a coffin waiting to be opened. Elizabeth gasped. She had been certain the crate was somewhere in the apartment, but seeing it like this was so disorienting it took a moment for the sight to register with her.

  Something thumped from within the crate, and it jostled on the bed slightly. Elizabeth stood rooted in place. As if she had been shot by something, the feeling suddenly wrenched at her from within and a crash sounded in the room she’d just departed. The crate thumped again.

  “Elizabeth!” Freddy called. “It’s been five minutes!”

  With a trembling hand, she stepped forward and reached for the lid of the crate, which appeared to be sitting loosely atop the long box. When she touched the wood, it felt unusually cold.

  “Elizabeth!” Freddy called again. “Come on!”

  The crate thumped once more. Elizabeth placed her other hand on the edge of the lid.

  CHAPTER 32

  THE CORNER OF THE PORTRAIT

  CORDER

  CARDER

  HARDER

  HERDER

  HEADER

  READER

  The lid was fixed tight, and even with both hands tugging at it, Elizabeth was unable to lift the top away to see what was within. Whatever it was began to shift inside as if demanding to be let out.

  “Come on!” Freddy yelled. “Now!”

  Elizabeth turned off the light, closed the door, and raced toward the front door where Freddy was waiting—and then she stopped.

  “Give me one more minute!” she called.

  “We should get out of here!”

  The feeling was coming over her again—and then, for some reason she couldn’t understand, she looked to the coffee table. A stack of books sat there. She’d already seen The Book wasn’t among them, and she realized something was drawing her to a pile of papers beside the books. With an overpowering sense of intuition, she reached for an envelope among the papers and examined it and the note poking through the slit-open top. Written on the front of the envelope was Selena Hiems; the address was a town she’d never heard of, and the postmark was a date seven years earlier.

  Elizabeth drew out the letter that was within and began to read:

  I write this in haste. A crate will arrive for you within two days—in it will be the mortal shell of your mother, suspended in a state close to death. She found it necessary to expend nearly all her powers during a critical moment of confrontation, and it has left her just shy of her ultimate end. Through her facility with the Dredforth Method, however, she liberated her spirit body from her physical body at the last moment in order to preserve them both. Now each will enter a period of recovery until such time as they can be reunited. Her spirit form will, most likely, return to the place of her birth and wait; her body must remain under your care. At some future point, if you yourself keep your powers strong, you will learn when and how to assist your mother, which most likely will entail the aid of a member of the Falls family, knowingly or unknowingly. Simply wait—the path will clarify for you in time, and if your mother’s spirit is revived, and if her body is kept nearby, the union will occur and our glorious lady will resume her reign. I trust you have the ability and resolve to carry out the task required. Note well: Do NOT open the crate yourself! In Her Service—D

  “Come on!” Freddy called.

  Elizabeth returned the letter to the envelope, tucked it back in the pil
e, and left the room.

  “What kept you?” Freddy said.

  “You won’t believe this!” she said as she pulled the door closed behind her. “There’s something in there. I swear! And I found a letter that explains everything.”

  “What do you mean something’s in there?”

  “There’s a box like a coffin in the back bedroom, and there’s something inside it! And I just found a letter that says Selena is Gracella’s daughter, and she’s supposed to find a way to bring her mother back to life. It all fits together! I know what’s going on.”

  Freddy’s mouth fell open. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  A chilling thought came to Elizabeth. “I’m positive they brought her body here, and they’re trying to help her come back to life. All it’s waiting for is her spirit, that crimson thing I woke up. I’m sure of it.”

  “You really think there’s a body in there?”

  Elizabeth bit her lower lip and looked at the carpet. Her mind was racing. “I’ll make up a story or something,” she said, “but I’ve got to let Norbridge know he has to come here and look in this room.”

  * * *

  To her immense relief, ten minutes after she and Freddy left the Hiemses’ room, they found Norbridge and Jackson together in Grace Hall. She concocted a story for Norbridge about seeing the Hiemses taking a puppy into their room—against hotel regulations—and pleaded with him to retrieve the poor thing right away.

  If they’re hiding Gracella’s body in that crate, she thought, Norbridge will find it.

  The rest of the day, however, ended up being anxious for Elizabeth and Freddy. They didn’t see Norbridge at all, not even at dinner; and then the concert they attended in Grace Hall turned out not to be a distraction, because they were both too worried about what they had discovered and what might happen next. By concert’s end, with no sign of Norbridge, Elizabeth and Freddy were on edge.