Haunting at the Hotel

by Lauren Magaziner

  He tries to dash to the door, but Frank grabs hold of his legs. “Nice try, Ferdinand! If that really is your name!” Frank says.

  “It’s not. It’s Fernando.”

  “No, it’s Stefano,” Eliza says.

  “You’re not leaving until we have some answers,” Mom says.

  “Answers?” Fernando says. “W-what are you talking about?”

  Mom nods at me. I can’t believe she trusts me to take over. I hope I make her proud!

  * * *

  TO ASK ABOUT THE DRIVER’S LICENSE, CLICK HERE.

  TO ASK ABOUT THE LETTER FROM LUTHER, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  I MOVE CLOSER to the wall to look at the blood.

  In the dark, it’s glimmering and bright red. It spells out:

  LEAVE THIS HOTEL,

  OR IT WILL BE YOUR TOMB

  Doesn’t take a genius to decipher that message.

  “How can we leave the hotel if we’ve been locked in a room in the hotel?” Mom sighs. “Either this ghost has conflicting messages, or it’s not very smart.”

  Frank moves closer and sniffs the message on the wall. Then he sticks his tongue right on the wall and takes one big lick.

  “Don’t!” Eliza cries, but it’s too late. Frank is lapping up the blood like a dog.

  “Look, I’m a vampire!” he says.

  Eliza gags. “That is so gross, Frank.”

  “Is not! You eat it all the time!” Frank accuses.

  “Eat what?”

  “Ketchup! Here, have a taste!”

  There’s a pause.

  “Wait—what?” I say.

  “This is ketchup!”

  We all touch the “blood” on the wall hesitantly, since Frank is the kind of person who would think it’s hilarious to trick us into actually licking blood. But I have to admit . . . it does smell a lot like ketchup.

  And it tastes like ketchup too.

  “He’s right!” I say.

  Frank grins. “And don’t you forget it!”

  “Gee,” I say, “I wonder who has the greatest access to the kitchen.”

  “Anyone can get their hands on ketchup,” Mom says. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

  Frank jumps, and the wall rattles. Ketchup slides to the floor. We all glare at Frank. “What?” he says. “I’m not jumping to conclusions. I’m just jumping!”

  “Great, now we’re going to slip in it,” Eliza says, pointing her flashlight down. She hums thoughtfully, then takes a knee. “This is weird, right? Look at the floor.”

  I kneel next to Eliza, take off my jacket, and wipe the ketchup away with it. There seems to be an inlay set into the floor.

  “It’s a compass rose!” Mom says.

  “There’s no rose!” Frank says. “There’s no flowers at all!”

  “It’s just what a navigational key on a map is called,” Mom says.

  In the middle, there’s an arrow. I can move it to face the north, east, south, or west. But which direction should I point the arrow to? If I pick the wrong one, it could spell disaster!

  “We have to figure out which direction the last arrow in the pattern points,” Eliza says.

  “Is there a pattern?” I ask. “It looks very random to me.”

  “There has to be a pattern,” Eliza says, running her fingers over the arrows at the beginning of the sequence. She mumbles to herself, “North, east, west, south, east . . . there just has to be.”

  * * *

  TO TURN THE ARROW TO NORTH, CLICK HERE.

  TO TURN THE ARROW TO EAST, CLICK HERE.

  TO TURN THE ARROW TO SOUTH, CLICK HERE.

  TO TURN THE ARROW TO WEST, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  “WE’RE SORRY FOR disrupting your work,” I say to Sunny. “You can get back to it now.”

  “Thank you,” she says, and she rolls her cleaning cart down the hall.

  “Why did you let her go so easily?” Eliza asks.

  “I’m pacing myself. We’ll have plenty of time for interviews, and she’s not our only suspect. We have lots of people we could talk to.”

  I walk toward the staircase, and Eliza and Frank follow me. The interview with Sunny was shorter than I wanted, and I’m not sure if we gleaned anything important from it. But detectives have to try and try again. This is part of the job.

  And eventually a suspect will crack. Someone has to give us a nugget of good information, or a lead, or a clue sometime. I need to have patience.

  “So . . . does that mean you’d like to talk to Fernando di Cannoli now?” Eliza asks. “Since we chose Sunny over him last time?”

  “Or Cricket,” I say, pointing over the banister. Cricket is at the concierge desk, and I did want to follow up with her. After we asked her about Reese, her voice got high-pitched, so I’m almost certain she’s hiding something.

  * * *

  TO INTERVIEW FERNANDO, CLICK HERE.

  TO INTERVIEW CRICKET, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  “CAN YOU TELL us about the first haunting, Mrs. Winters?” I ask. “How did this all begin?”

  Reese puts her hand on her husband’s arm. “When it started six weeks ago, it was just some normal howling. Some oooooos in the night.”

  “OOooooooooooo!” Frank says, and Eliza elbows him.

  “Where was it coming from?” Mom asks.

  “The first time? Outside . . . the grounds. I remember because I was alone in my room, and I thought Harris might be outside, and I got frightened. The wails were coming from the firepit.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t a wolf or coyote?” Mom says.

  Reese frowns deeply. “There was something mystical about the voice. I know what a wolf sounds like. This voice sounded . . . human. Or human-esque. Like the cry of a banshee. I was going to check, but then the guests were stirring, and I had to reassure them that it was just the wind.”

  “Is there a chance it was actually the wind?” I ask.

  Reese shakes her head. “I just told you—it sounded human. And the second night, the howling moved inside the lodge. What wind is inside?”

  That’s a loaded question when Frank is around. But luckily, he doesn’t break any wind to illustrate the point.

  “What happened after the howling?” Mom asks.

  “This and that. Mad cackling in the night. A few ghost sightings from guests—always in different locations. On the fifth or sixth day, the ghost hung the guests’ underpants from this chandelier.”

  “Underpants.” Frank giggles.

  “After that, I noticed noise coming from the Dead Room—”

  “The what?” Eliza chokes.

  “There’s a door on the second floor, in the staff hallway that’s perpetually locked,” Reese explains. “We don’t have a key, and the hinges are too strong to break. We call it the Dead Room because it’s dead space. Anyway, there was noise coming from the room . . . but it had previously been silent for four decades. As long as I can remember.” She shudders.

  “But sweets,” Harris says. “The Dead Room isn’t even the worst of it. Tell them about the other hauntings. Like that trouble with the mice—remember the mice? Or that horrible hair incident. Which do you think was scarier, January?” he says to his daughter.

  January shrugs, clearly bored. She doesn’t even look up from her music playlist.

  * * *

  TO ASK ABOUT THE MICE, CLICK HERE.

  TO ASK ABOUT THE HAIR INCIDENT, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  “IT’S REALLY NICE of you to offer to help us, January. But I think we can handle it ourselves.”

  January bristles. “Fine! Be that way!” She pulls her headphones over her ears—like she didn’t want to listen to us anyway—and storms across the lobby. When she reaches the foot of the stairs, she turns around and shouts, “By the way, you just made a huge mistake!”

  Her words echo around the lobby long after she leaves. Huge mistake. HUGE MISTAKE.

  I hope she’s wrong about that.

  �
��Now what?” Eliza says. “We did need her help to get Fernando out of the kitchen.”

  “We’ll be fine,” I say. “I know the perfect time to break into that wall safe.”

  “When?” Frank says. “Who? What? Where? Why? How?”

  “Tonight,” I say. “When Fernando is sleeping.”

  * * *

  Night Two

  * * *

  “AOOOOOOOOOO!”

  We set the alarm for three a.m., but this noise is not our alarm.

  It’s the sound of a howl. . . . I want to get up, but I can’t move out from under the covers. It’s so cold . . . the type of cold where I need to curl up.

  “C-C-Carlos!” Eliza says between chattering teeth. “S-something’s wrong.”

  I can hear her shuffling—and I don’t understand how she has the energy to get out of bed, when all I can do is breathe hot air into my hands.

  “The thermostat says it’s f-forty-one degrees,” Eliza says. “Dangerously cold. Get up, Carlos!” She puts her cold hand on my ankle and yanks. “We have to get out of here!”

  “Aoooooooooo!”

  “W-what’s that?” I shiver.

  “Let’s go—”

  She pulls me into a sitting position, and I roll out of bed. She pushes me into the hallway.

  The warm air hits me in a rush, and it’s like my brain suddenly wakes up.

  “Eliza—what happened?”

  “The temperature in our room dropped.”

  “Do you think it broke?”

  She gives me a dark look.

  “Someone wants us to freeze,” I say. I knock on Mom and Frank’s door for a solid thirty seconds, but there is no answer. I try the walkie-talkie.

  “Come in, Mom!” I say. “Are you in your room? Over!”

  “Carlos, I’m . . . skirch . . . Luther . . . snowstorm . . . you were here . . . skirch.”

  “You’re cutting out, Mom!” I say. My heart is thudding. Are Mom and Frank in danger? I already felt so much pressure to prove myself as a junior detective; now I feel like everything is falling on my shoulders. “Mom!”

  “Frank . . . skirch.”

  I look at Eliza. “The snowstorm must be messing with the radio signals,” she says.

  “Aooooooooo!” comes the howling again.

  I ignore it as I look down at the walkie-talkie. “This thing sounds like a dying robot.” I try to chuckle, but it comes out hollow. With Mom and Frank who knows where, it feels like our solid team of four is being whittled away. Maybe it’s a coincidence that they’ve been separated from us, but it feels menacing.

  “Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.”

  The sound echoes down the hallway.

  “What is that?” I whisper. Even though I know exactly what that was: maniacal laughter.

  Eliza takes a deep breath. “Okay, do we follow the sound of the laughter? Or the sound of the howling?”

  “So much for checking out Fernando’s wall safe.”

  I look to Eliza for guidance, and she grimaces.

  “You pick between the laughter and the howling,” she says. “Because honestly? I’m not optimistic about either one right now.”

  I feel frozen from the inside out—Mom and Frank might need me, and Eliza and I may be in trouble. Usually this is where my brain starts whirring. But for some reason, the only thing I feel now is fear.

  “Carlos?”

  “This ghost—it’s ruining my detective skills! I have to prove to Mom that I’m worthy of being here, but right now, I have no gut instincts. I’m just scared.”

  Eliza grabs my hand. “I’m scared too, Carlos. But you are putting too much pressure on yourself. You can make this decision. I’m right here with you.”

  * * *

  TO FOLLOW THE LAUGHTER, CLICK HERE.

  TO FOLLOW THE HOWLING, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  “DO YOU HAVE any ideas about where my mom could be?” I ask Byron.

  I’m still not sure if I trust him, but I’m really worried about Mom.

  “What do you mean?” he says.

  “She went missing sometime around three in the morning. She was right behind us . . . and then she wasn’t.”

  Byron gulps. “Have you . . . have you checked every door, every closet, every room in this lodge?”

  “Why would she be in a room and not come to us?” I ask. “And why wouldn’t she answer my walkie-talkie?”

  “Are you sure you’re on the right channel?”

  “Positive,” I say irritably. “Look, do you have any ideas or not?”

  “She disappeared last night, you say?”

  I nod.

  “Well, if that’s true, then I wouldn’t have seen her. I wouldn’t have known.”

  “Weren’t you out and about last night?” Eliza says suspiciously. “Your stuff was just lying on the chair here.”

  Byron adjusts his glasses, clearly avoiding the question.

  * * *

  TO ASK WHERE HE WAS DURING THE HAUNTING, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  I WANT TO check out that fenced garden.

  “Very gothic,” Eliza says. I’m not sure what that means. “It doesn’t go with the vibe of the log cabin. It’s too . . . spooky.”

  “A perfect hiding place for a ghost?” I say, holding the gate open for her and Frank.

  There’s a fountain in the middle of the garden, and at the four corners there are four statues: a bear, a moose, a horse, and a deer. I edge closer to the deer. Beneath the statue, a plaque reads:

  A buck and a doe went forth down the slope

  On a day that would seem unappealing.

  The snow cascaded, and soon an avalanche

  Left our poor deer both reeling.

  All tangled in knots, they grumbled and griped

  At their poor, unwise venture with feeling.

  “That’s a weird poem,” I say. I look up at the deer’s iron head. “So, do you think this is it? How do we open it?”

  “Like this!” Frank says, crawling on top of the deer’s back. “Giddyup!”

  “That’s not it,” Eliza says.

  Frank reaches forward and grabs one of the antlers. It twists. “Cool! A loose tooth!”

  He pulls on them all, and they all wiggle.

  Eliza leans in closer. She’s facing it head-on. “Look closely, Carlos! The antlers have numbers on them . . . one through eight, from left to right.”

  “But which ones do we pull? And in what order?” I say, throwing my hands up in the air. I just want that key already!

  “I wonder,” Eliza says, “if we already have the answer . . . and don’t even realize it yet.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask as I stare up into the deer antlers. I’m practically willing the deer head to open up so I can grab that key and rescue Mom and why is this taking so long?

  “Look at the plaque,” Eliza says. “I think that weird inscription is a clue.”

  “Okay?” I say. “But I don’t see any numbers in there.”

  “You don’t?” Eliza says. “I do!”

  “Me too!” Frank says.

  “You can’t even read yet,” I say.

  Frank grins.

  * * *

  THE ORDER IN WHICH YOU PULL THE ANTLERS IS YOUR NEXT PAGE.

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 453, CLICK HERE.

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 237, CLICK HERE.

  TO ASK ELIZA FOR A HINT, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  I DECIDE ELIZA is right: it is too dangerous to take the snowmobile.

  “Come on—let’s go on foot,” I say.

  “Aww, man!” Frank says, disappointed. “Why?”

  But there’s no time to explain it to him—we’re far behind Sunny, and we need to catch up. We follow the footprints in the snow, sprinting through the harsh winds and the hard sleet. The more we walk, the harder it is to see.

  Then, suddenly, the footprints disappear.

  “How did this happen?” I say. “Where did she go?”

&n
bsp; I turn around. The footprints behind us are gone too. The falling snow and the gusty wind must have filled in all the tracks.

  Uh-oh. We have to find shelter . . . fast.

  We wander through the woods, but I don’t know where we’re going—we’re totally lost. With no way back to the lodge or the cave.

  I’m getting colder and colder. My brain is all fuzzy, my energy zapped. . . .

  I don’t remember fainting, but I wake up with fifteen blankets over me, looking at a ceiling I don’t recognize. “Uh . . . hello?”

  “Oh, you’re awake! Thank goodness!” says a woman I don’t know, running into the room. “I found you and your friends on the mountain. Is there a parent or guardian I can call for you?” the woman asks.

  Oh no . . . Mom! How disappointed will she be in us? In guilt, I sink deeper into the mattress.

  “You really were totally frozen,” the woman says, tucking the blanket around me. “Like human icicles.”

  Great. Instead of a nice end to this case, I got an ice end.

  CASE CLOSED.

  ELIZA’S RIGHT: WE need Fernando’s alibi. And we’re not going to get anywhere unless we push him on it.

  “Mr. di Cannoli, what were you really doing at three in the morning?”

  “Sleeping. As I said.”

  “LIAR!” Frank shouts.

  Fernando frowns. “Okay. I’ll show you what I was really doing. Follow me.”

  Eliza and I look at each other excitedly.

  Fernando leads us to the door, and we head into the backyard of the lodge. “This way!” he says, gesturing into the wooded trees.