Winterhouse

by Ben Guterson

“I’m sure he looked into it,” Freddy said as they stood outside the hall.

  But when she checked with Jackson before going to her room, he said he didn’t know what had come of the matter and suggested she get a good night’s sleep.

  “All is fine, Miss Somers,” Jackson said. “I can assure you.”

  Elizabeth had an awful night, kept dreaming of crimson lights out in the frosty darkness beyond the hotel’s walls or even flitting by in the corridor outside her room. Images of the old woman in black raced through her mind as she tossed and turned, and then Marcus Q. Hiems or Selena seemed to be chasing after her along an endless hallway. Deep in the middle of the night she got up and looked out her window for several minutes, and at one point she thought she saw a flicker of crimson in the western sky, though she told herself she was so full of worry she must have imagined it. By the time the chimes rang for breakfast, Elizabeth felt as though she hadn’t slept at all.

  “Everything was fine when I checked their room,” Norbridge told Elizabeth when she found him in Winter Hall twenty minutes later. “Nothing out of the ordinary. No dogs or cats or bears or anything. Mrs. Hiems was napping in the back room, and Mr. Hiems was reading quietly. All normal.”

  “I’m sure I saw something,” Elizabeth said, her distress resuming. “You checked everywhere? That crate of theirs?” A thought came to her. “What if that wasn’t Selena napping? What if it was … someone else?”

  Norbridge was looking at her as if she’d told him she was going to levitate and he was waiting for it to happen.

  “You don’t believe me?” she said. She was on the verge of telling him everything—that she had been in the Hiemses’ room herself and that she had found the letter addressed to Selena—but she felt this would upset Norbridge more than convince him. “You don’t believe I saw something?”

  “I believe you’re very agitated,” Norbridge said. He leaned forward and whispered, “I have everything under control. Please, don’t worry.” He reached to the side of her head and made the Winterhouse coin materialize once again, holding it up before her with a look of satisfaction.

  At that moment it wasn’t merely distress that Elizabeth felt—it was agitation that Norbridge didn’t seem to be taking her seriously.

  “It’s just a trick, Norbridge,” she said. “And I really hope nothing bad happens.”

  She turned away from him and left to join Freddy at the table for breakfast.

  * * *

  Although it was the final day of the year and everyone was preparing for the big party later that evening, Elizabeth passed the hours in a miserable daze. She felt certain the Hiemses were putting their plan into place and that Norbridge simply didn’t understand how dire things were. She conferred with Freddy over breakfast and then again at lunch and then twice more in his workshop; she tried to read—without luck—in the library and in her room; and she even helped Mr. Wellington and Mr. Rajput with their puzzle for forty-five minutes before giving up because she couldn’t find a single piece that fit.

  Just before dusk, as the late-afternoon light faded outside, Elizabeth found herself alone and wandering around the portrait gallery looking at the pictures. Each time she went to the long hall, she puzzled over Nestor’s portrait, tried to make sense of the painting and why the artist had included the strange coded message. She examined her notebook as she stood before the portrait, looked at all the words she and Freddy had tested out as the possible keyword and all the ones starting with “AR” she had tried herself. It seemed futile. A thought came to her: as often as she had studied the painting, she realized she’d never once thought about who the artist might have been. There wasn’t even a signature on it. Why, she wondered, hadn’t the artist painted his name?

  She moved closer to the picture and examined its bottom edge. The frame seemed to pinch the canvas, as though the lower fringe of the painting had been cut off—or was concealed. She placed a finger on the portrait right where the frame held it, and a fraction of an inch of the canvas rode up from the frame along a small arc where she pressed. As she ran her finger steadily to the right, a thin extra sliver of the painting was revealed—though just barely, given how tightly the canvas was fixed. When she reached the lower right corner, however, the top of a signature edged into view, just enough for her to see: “R. S. Granger.”

  Elizabeth felt as though a splash of cold water had hit her in the face. Riley Sweth Granger, the author of A Guide for Children, had painted this picture. He must have been the friend of Nestor’s that Norbridge had described, the one who had left The Book in Winterhouse and created the whole strange game—he’d even called himself a painter in the odd introduction to his book, she remembered. And this painting of his connected to all of it, somehow, brought the pieces together in some way she felt just on the verge of discovering. The only missing piece was the keyword. If only she could figure out the key and break the code.

  “Such a lovely painting, isn’t it?” someone said behind her.

  Elizabeth clamped a hand to her chest in instant panic. She didn’t even need to turn around to recognize the voice, but when she did, she saw just who she had feared.

  Selena Hiems.

  CHAPTER 33

  A DESPERATE PLEA

  FLEA

  FLEW

  FLAW

  FLAG

  SLAG

  SLAY

  STAY

  “Something about the colors he uses, you know?” Selena Hiems said, moving forward so that she was standing just beside Elizabeth as she continued to regard the painting of Nestor Falls. “And how he places the objects in such fine relationship to one another.” She pointed. “And there’s that lovely book, as well, with such intriguing lines of words on it.” She turned to stare into Elizabeth’s eyes. “Don’t you agree?”

  Elizabeth felt at least as panicked as she’d felt inside the Hiemses’ room when she’d stood before the crate, but from somewhere deep inside she told herself she would not show it.

  “I know what you and your husband are up to,” she said. “And I know you stole a book from my room and you’re trying to get Gracella Winters back in Winterhouse.”

  Selena’s eyes flickered with astonishment, but she kept her cruel gaze on Elizabeth.

  “You’re such a clever girl,” she said softly. “You know so many things, it appears.” She looked away and pointed to the painting. “But do you know the key to unlocking this mysterious little puzzle before us?”

  “Even if I did, it would be the last thing I’d tell you!”

  Selena let out what sounded like a low snarl. “Very unwise to be so disagreeable. To be such a nuisance.” She moved her face closer to Elizabeth’s. “If you know something, you ought to tell me now. It will spare you so many … difficulties later.”

  “I … I do know something,” Elizabeth said.

  Selena arched her eyebrows in expectation.

  “I know you’re not going to get away with anything!” she yelled, and before Selena Hiems could grasp what was happening, Elizabeth sprinted for the door to the portrait gallery and left her behind.

  “Rush off, dear!” Selena called. “It won’t help you in the end!”

  But by then Elizabeth was in the corridor, racing to find Norbridge. She would have reached the lobby in less time than it took her to brush her teeth, had she not stopped when she noticed—through the enormous picture window on the landing—a figure on the bridge that crossed the creek. The light outside was nearly gone, but even through the snow that was now gently falling, Elizabeth could make out the scene as she stood gazing through the window: On the far side of the bridge, Marcus Q. Hiems was using something—a knife or screwdriver, she couldn’t tell—to scratch lines into the low brick wall. He stopped his furious scraping for a moment to adjust his stance, and then resumed.

  This was all Elizabeth needed to see before she raced off.

  * * *

  “Slow down, slow down!” Norbridge said to Elizabeth when she found him in the
corridor outside of Winter Hall speaking to a cluster of bellhops and waiters.

  “I need to talk to you right away!” she cried.

  Norbridge excused himself and the two of them stepped into a small pantry just off the kitchen.

  “What is it?” he asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I don’t know where to start!” Elizabeth said. “Selena and Marcus are trying to get Gracella into Winterhouse right now! I’m sure of it. I just saw him out by the bridge, and she scared me in the portrait gallery and started talking about Nestor’s code on his book.”

  Norbridge leaned forward and squinted. “Please, slow down. Just take it from the top.”

  “You have to stop the Hiemses right now! I’ll tell you everything, but you have to do something about this right away!”

  Norbridge bit his lip and looked off. “Gracella passed away many years ago,” he said. “I know what you think about the light you saw and what happened at the cabin, but—”

  “Norbridge!” Elizabeth said. “You know something bad is happening! I know you and Leona know that, and there’s more going on than you’ve told us. Gracella is here. They brought her body in that crate, and now they’re trying to help her come back to life. I wish you would listen to me!”

  He stared at her sternly as if about to get angry or deny things or tell her how she was mistaken—and then the lines of his face relaxed and he said, simply, “Tell me everything—everything—you know.”

  Within five minutes, and with little detours and explanations along the way, Elizabeth told Norbridge all of it: how she had found A Guide for Children in the library on her first day and taken it to her room, but that now it was missing; how she had visited the Hiemses for tea and what they had said; how she had sneaked into their room and heard a noise from the crate and read the letter addressed to Selena; and how she was certain Riley S. Granger had painted the portrait of Nestor and hidden a secret message in it that the Hiemses wanted to discover.

  “Listen to me, Elizabeth,” Norbridge said when she was done. “I want you to go to my room and stay there until I come get you. We have our New Year’s Eve party tonight, and I need to go about things carefully, but I’ll look into all of this. Do you understand?”

  Elizabeth felt her stomach sink; she had just done everything in her power to help Norbridge and keep anything bad from happening to Winterhouse, and she was uncertain if he understood just how urgent the situation was.

  “Don’t you believe what I’m saying, Norbridge?”

  He pursed his lips. “Elizabeth, let me check into things, and we’ll sort this all out.”

  “But I just saw Marcus by the bridge! You can catch him right now!”

  “The most important thing is for me to follow up as I see fit!” Norbridge said. He twisted away from her in anger and opened the pantry door. A circle of workers were waiting outside.

  “I need one of you to walk Miss Somers to my room, please, and see her in,” he called.

  He looked to Elizabeth and held up a finger before her face. “Stay there until I come for you,” he said.

  “Norbridge—”

  “Stay there until I come for you!” he repeated, and then he left.

  Five minutes later, Elizabeth was alone in Norbridge’s apartment.

  CHAPTER 34

  THE KEY IN THE LOCK

  SOCK

  SICK

  SINK

  SINS

  SITS

  FITS

  Elizabeth sat on the sofa in Norbridge’s living room and watched the snow falling outside the window in the lamplight. The chimes rang, announcing dinner would begin in an hour; Elizabeth wondered just how long she would have to wait until Norbridge came for her.

  It had been several days since there had been any new snow at Winterhouse, and despite everything that was on her mind and how anxious she felt, it was soothing to watch the thick flakes drift by the window in silent descent. Elizabeth gazed out into the night; she felt the warmth and silence of Norbridge’s room and gave a yawn as she remembered just how fitful her sleep had been the night before. It was a little while later, after all these thoughts and more had slowly curled through her, that she sat up with a start and realized she had fallen asleep on the couch. She looked at the clock on the wall: 8:16. Three hours had passed.

  There was a sandwich on a yellow plate under plastic wrap in the refrigerator with a note that said: “For Elizabeth.” She wondered if a bellhop had slipped into the room unheard while she had been asleep and left her this food. She took the plate, sat at the dining room table, and thumbed through her notebook as she ate. The list of keywords she had attempted—row upon row of crossed-out possibilities—stared back at her like a challenge, and with a chill she recalled how Selena Hiems had asked her about Nestor’s painting just a few hours before. Why hadn’t she been able to figure out the keyword? How could Riley S. Granger have made it so difficult to uncover?

  Elizabeth stared at her empty plate. Her thoughts began to still, and she allowed her vision to go soft. A flutter went through her, and she focused her eyes more intently on the yellow plate. The tremor swelled and her head began to buzz and then, just as the feeling moved through her, the plate lurched to one side, tipped over the edge of the table, and fell to the floor with a crash. Elizabeth nearly allowed the moment to end, but something kept her fixed in her state—and she felt the pendant around her neck turn slightly warm. She reached a hand to it, but the moment passed as she sat clutching her necklace. The silver letters from The Book came to her—“THE KEY IS AR”—and she felt herself extending the sentence in a way she hadn’t before: “THE KEY IS AROUND…”

  She let out a gasp as she held the necklace firmly and stared at it for a long while; the word “Faith” and the picture of the key beneath it seemed to stare back at her. Something turned in her mind like the turning of a key in a lock. She wrote “Faith” above a table of letters she made in her notebook and began matching the first line of the code in Nestor’s painting with this word, letter by letter. What she found was that “Yhmll bozwz tf ubuj azx ttrm mofn qgr” turned into “These words of mine are more than ink.”

  Without stopping to think what she was doing, she worked through the entire code, and in twenty minutes she had translated all twelve lines:

  These words of mine are more than ink

  They hold more power than you’d think

  And if you’ve traveled on this road

  You’ve solved my Vigenère code

  If in your hands you hold The Book

  It’s up to you then—saint or crook?

  If it’s the last, be cruel, be mad

  And utter this: “I choose the bad”

  But if the first, calm if you would

  Intone just this: “I choose the good”

  I write these lines on August eighth

  Remember always: Keep the faith!

  Elizabeth sat and examined the words. She read them over and over, soaked up their rhythm.

  What can this mean? she thought.

  She closed her notebook, stood, and moved to the window to look out but saw only black sky and thick snowflakes tumbling by in the lamplight. And why would a necklace around my neck have the keyword?

  As her mind spun with these thoughts, Elizabeth glanced at the door to Norbridge’s room; it was ajar. She’d not been in his room before, and from where she stood she could see a painting—nearly as high as the ceiling and a good three feet wide—in a corner of the far wall. Elizabeth pressed the door open and stepped inside to find a room filled with bookshelves and ceramic figurines and lamps and pictures. The painting, though, was what held her eye: a family portrait of Norbridge, his wife, Maria, and their daughter, Winifred. In the bottom right corner was printed JULY 1995, and the background was Lake Luna and the mountains beyond. Norbridge wore a black suit, looked dashing and strong. Maria, with her dark hair and gentle green eyes, wore a white dress and looked as regal as a queen. She had a pleasant, m
ysterious expression on her face, and she was gazing just past the artist, it seemed, as though staring at a distant sky. Between Norbridge and Maria stood Winifred, wearing a violet dress and strands of purple ribbon in her hair, smiling as if she’d just heard the answer to a puzzle and was glad to have her curiosity eased. On a gold chain around her neck was an indigo circle of marble rimmed in silver, and printed on it was the word “Faith” with a small key beneath.

  Elizabeth gasped and touched the necklace around her neck—which, she realized, was the very one the girl in the painting before her was wearing.

  A minute later, Elizabeth was racing to Winter Hall.

  CHAPTER 35

  A CRIMSON GLOW IN THE LIBRARY

  BLOW

  BLOT

  BOOT

  BOOK

  LOOK

  The enormous hall was packed with guests, all of whom wore their dress-up best; a string quartet was playing lively music, and helium balloons floated above everything; streamers stretched across the ceiling and were draped over the enormous windows. Everyone was laughing and talking and enjoying themselves, and the waiters were scurrying all about. Elizabeth was frantic to find Norbridge.

  “Finally!” someone said behind her. Elizabeth turned to see Freddy, dressed up for the evening in corduroy pants and a white dress shirt. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  “You won’t believe everything that’s happened today!” Elizabeth said, leaning close to him and speaking urgently. She looked around quickly as though even in that moment she’d focused on Freddy she might have missed spotting Norbridge. “Have you seen Norbridge? Is he here?”

  “What’s going on?” Freddy said. He was looking at her as if she were speaking Latin.

  “Freddy! I don’t have time to explain everything, but a whole bunch of things have happened since I saw you this afternoon. I solved Nestor’s code, for one, and I’m positive the Hiemses are helping Gracella. Also, I think I might be connected to Winterhouse somehow.” She took her pendant from inside her shirt and showed it to him. “This used to belong to Norbridge’s daughter. And the word on it is the keyword for Nestor’s message!”