The Secrets of Winterhouse

by Ben Guterson

  She looked up; a light snow had begun to fall against the steep mountains that rose nearly at the edge of town. Piled snow lined the streets, and the air was much colder than Elizabeth had imagined. She pulled her jacket more tightly around her. The music ended, the crowd clapped, and a cluster of people made their way across the street. Elizabeth asked directions to the Silver Fir Café of a woman holding the hand of a small girl.

  “Turn the second corner,” the woman said, pointing. “You can’t miss it.”

  The two blocks to the café were just as busy as the one on which the gazebo stood, and Elizabeth realized Havenworth was much larger than she’d thought—she passed two chocolate shops, a toy store, and a little place named the World-Famous Chapelaria that made hats. She noticed a bookstore, too—Harley Dimlow and Sons, Booksellers—and was tempted to peek in, but she wanted to make sure she wasn’t late to meet Norbridge and figured she’d be able to talk him into a visit to the store after lunch. When she reached the Silver Fir Café, she shook the dusting of snow from her hair and slipped inside. It was a large, bright place, with walls extending to a high ceiling and painted with so many birds—jays and nutcrackers and owls and sparrows and red-tailed hawks—the café was like an aviary or some lively, colorful forest.

  “Seat, miss?” Elizabeth dropped her eyes from the dazzling walls to see a brown-haired man in a kitchen apron standing before her.

  “I’m actually meeting my grandfather. I think he’s here already.”

  The man bowed and made a slow glide with his hand into the space behind him, inviting Elizabeth onward. “Please explore. I’ve never been accused of keeping a young lady from her grandfather.”

  Elizabeth laughed as she moved past him. It was just before she rounded a corner into a small room at the back of the café that she heard Norbridge’s voice.

  “Nothing exactly has happened,” he said. “But I intend to remain vigilant. You just never know about these things. You think you know, and then something happens, and what you know is that you know you didn’t know at all.”

  Elizabeth halted. Her grandfather was talking to someone, and although a part of her understood she should turn the corner and say hello, another part of her felt an instant curiosity about what was being discussed. Norbridge was the most reassuring person she’d ever met, and yet something in the few words she’d happened to overhear alarmed her. Elizabeth stood listening.

  “Vigilance is imperative, yes,” came another voice—a man’s—in response, “although if nothing has happened, then perhaps you are being too cautious?”

  “I don’t know that there is such a thing as too much caution in this instance,” Norbridge said. “If there is any possibility that she might attempt something again.”

  “But all you have to go on is one of these vague feelings you get. I’m not discounting your powers of intuition, my good man—”

  “It’s exactly what I felt last year at this same time, and we all know what happened then.”

  Elizabeth hitched her backpack high onto her shoulder and, regretting already that she’d eavesdropped on her grandfather for even a minute, turned the corner.

  At the table before her sat a black-haired man wearing round eyeglasses and a heavy brown suit. He looked to her with curiosity, and as he did, Norbridge wheeled about. When his gentle eyes rested on Elizabeth, he rose and opened his arms to enfold her.

  “My dear, my dear,” Norbridge said, and she dropped her backpack and wrapped her arms around him as well. “You have returned.”

  “Norbridge,” Elizabeth said, “I’m so glad to see you!”

  She stood hugging him tightly, feeling all the uncertainty drain from her. The smell of woodsmoke on his coat and the grip of his strong arms around her made her feel twice as glad as she’d expected.

  He loosened his embrace and backed away a step like someone examining a painting. “Look at you! Not that you can look at yourself. But what I mean is I’m looking at you, and you look as fantastic as you did last year but with even more wonderful Elizabeth-ness about you. It’s incredible! How do you do it?”

  Elizabeth couldn’t help laughing. Norbridge—with his snow-white beard and ruddy cheeks and thick overcoat and high-laced work boots—was laughing, too.

  “Well, you also look wonderful,” Elizabeth said, picturing him on his morning hike or spending an hour chopping wood. “With lots of Norbridge-ness!”

  Norbridge lifted an arm and flexed his biceps beneath the heavy folds of his wool coat. “I work at it!” He dropped his arm and turned to look behind him. “But how rude of me! Elizabeth, I’d like you to meet Professor Egil P. Fowles, one of the most renowned—no, let me amend that—the most renowned scholar of Egyptian hieroglyphics in the entire northern region, and the headmaster of our local school. All this despite prevailing in our chess battles only a handful of times his entire life.”

  The man with the round glasses smiled wryly and nodded. “Your grandfather is a gentleman,” Professor Fowles said, “although he fails to recall our lifetime record stands at 617 victories for me and 409 for him. I am also only a dabbler in the fascinating field of hieroglyphics, but I am guilty as charged when it comes to serving at our fine school here in Havenworth.” He stood and extended a hand to Elizabeth. “And it is my pleasure to finally meet the one and only Elizabeth Somers. Hardly two sentences escape your grandfather’s mouth without him uttering some sort of accolade for you. I know how glad he is—indeed, how glad we all are—to welcome you back to Winterhouse.”

  Elizabeth wasn’t sure if she was going to laugh or cry, she was so overwhelmed with this reception and with finally seeing her grandfather again. At the hollow of her neck, where her pendant lay, she placed a hand, even as she shook Professor Fowles’s. “It’s my pleasure to meet you, sir. Returning to Winterhouse is all I’ve been thinking about the whole year.”

  Norbridge reached for a chair from the empty table beside them and was about to slide it over. “Then please sit down, and let’s catch up.”

  Egil P. Fowles moved his hands before him, as if he were clearing away a wisp of fog. “Please take my seat. I really must be going. My wife will lock the door if I’m not home within”—he raised his watch to his eyes—“seven minutes.”

  Norbridge glanced at his friend, and for a moment he seemed to be deciding what to say. The two men looked at each other, and Elizabeth felt something wary and conspiratorial was passing between them. It was a look that said, Please, let’s keep to ourselves the discussion we were having.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation,” Elizabeth said.

  Norbridge waved a hand. “Oh, we weren’t talking about anything,” he said lightly. “Just the same old gossip from forty years ago.”

  “Right, right, right!” Professor Fowles said quickly, with a nervous laugh. “Just two old codgers repeating our tales, our stories, our stale glories! The glory days, right, Norbridge? Such good times we used to have!” He gave a slight shake of his head and then sighed before extending his hand once again to Elizabeth. “Well, I hope to see you at Winterhouse soon. Quite a pleasure to meet you—and I must be going.”

  He gave Norbridge a salute and strode around the corner.

  “A dear friend,” Norbridge said, staring into the space Egil P. Fowles had vacated. “A dear, dear friend. And someone who refuses to acknowledge how often I’ve checkmated him.” He looked to Elizabeth and gestured to the empty chair. “And now you are here.”

  “I really hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

  Norbridge shook his head. And then he reached just behind her ear and, bringing his hand back before her eyes, presented her with a miniature rose.

  “Your magic is as good as ever!” Elizabeth said, taking the flower.

  “How was your journey?” Norbridge said, but before she could answer, he declared, “Let’s eat!”

  CHAPTER 3

  UNEXPECTED REVELATIONS TRAVELED

  Over lunch, as Elizabeth ate an egg salad san
dwich and Norbridge drank three cups of tea with his mozzarella and tomato panini, she told him all about the previous year—that is, the eleven-plus months since she’d last been at Winterhouse. She told him about school (uninteresting, aside from the time she spent in the library), about life in Drere (increasingly boring, especially after her visit to Winterhouse), and about her aunt and uncle (not as mean as they’d once been, but still very unpleasant). There had been times when the last year had felt endless, that the weeks until she would return to Winterhouse were moving more slowly than any period in her life; but now that she was recounting the time to Norbridge, it seemed the year had passed in a blink. What she most wanted to ask him about, though—his progress on working out a way for her to live at Winterhouse permanently—remained unspoken for now; Elizabeth figured he would mention it soon enough, and she didn’t want to put him on the spot.

  “You say your aunt and uncle haven’t been as hard on you?” Norbridge said.

  She thought back to the afternoon before, when Aunt Purdy and Uncle Burlap had driven her to the train station in Drere. “It was actually pretty unusual yesterday,” she said. “They came with me to see I got on the train, and when we said good-bye, they acted sort of … sad. I’ve never seen them that way before.” Elizabeth had been puzzling over this ever since.

  Norbridge arched his eyebrows. “Maybe they were sad. I’d think anyone would be unhappy to see you go.”

  “For three weeks? I’d think they’d want to throw a party!”

  Elizabeth was sure Norbridge would laugh at this, but he only sat looking at her in a way that suggested there was something he knew but wasn’t saying.

  “Last year when you left,” he said, “I asked you to give serious consideration to something. Do you recall what that was?”

  She remembered their parting clearly: Norbridge had told her to be very careful about using her power, and she felt she had honored his warning as best she could. Over the past year, although she’d experimented with it during many nights alone in her room—causing a book to scoot or one of her shoes to jump—and even been tempted to use it on occasion, she’d done her best to keep it concealed. Of course, there had been the time during an argument with Aunt Purdy when Elizabeth had made a plate shatter in the kitchen sink, and it had scared her aunt and uncle so badly they’d retreated to their room and left Elizabeth alone. And there had been the time at school when she’d been so mad at Alan Kirpshaw and his endless insults she’d made his lunch tray tip over and flood his lap with chocolate milk and a bowl of chili. But these incidents had been rare, and she’d been provoked so badly each time, they seemed excusable.

  “I do,” she said. “You told me all of us in the Falls family have some sort of power, and it’s important that we use it wisely.”

  “And have you?”

  She thought back to the hour before, when she’d made Rodney’s bag dump onto his head. “About ninety-nine percent of the time.”

  “Let’s get that to one hundred,” Norbridge said, winking. “It’s not easy, I know. There have been times when I’ve been ‘discussing’ something with a difficult guest, and the impulse has come over me to make his pants drop or his glasses squeeze his head just a tiny, tiny bit. But, of course, I can’t do those sorts of things. My sister got carried away with all of that, and you see where it led her. Dark, destructive mayhem and misery and … and more.”

  Elizabeth was thinking back to several strange moments from the year before when she’d experienced a small flicker of that “carried away” feeling. She’d felt it especially when Gracella herself, during their battle in the library, had tempted her to dismiss Norbridge and Winterhouse and join her instead. The possibility had been fleetingly—and oddly—attractive, as much as she had tried to forget about it.

  “I understand,” Elizabeth said as she took a bite of her blackberry pie. She was dying to ask about just when, exactly, she might be able to live at Winterhouse—or if he thought it was going to happen at all.

  “You know,” Norbridge said, “after you came last year and I learned how your aunt and uncle were connected to your mother, Winnie, I began putting some pieces together.”

  Elizabeth became still; she was eager to learn about her parents.

  “We’ll have time at Winterhouse for me to explain everything, but your aunt and uncle filled in several gaps for me.” Norbridge stroked his beard. “I told you last year that your mother decided to leave Winterhouse because she felt she was in danger over The Book and what Gracella might attempt. She felt it was best to leave, cut all ties, at least temporarily. I lost contact with her completely—by her design—and I can only suppose she thought that was the safest approach.” He paused. “But there was something more.”

  Elizabeth put her fork down.

  “She had confided in me—she was thirteen or fourteen at the time—that she occasionally felt … I don’t know how to put it other than she told me that she sometimes felt tempted by the story of The Book and Gracella.”

  “What do you mean tempted?” Elizabeth was fully alert.

  “Evil is a powerful thing,” Norbridge said. “And a very attractive thing, too. I think what she meant was that the power Gracella represented spoke to her.” He leaned forward once more, and Elizabeth felt sure he was choosing his words very carefully. “I would say it’s something many of us at Winterhouse have felt before and have struggled with. I think what Winnie wanted me to know was that she feared her own inclinations. So she ended up leaving Winterhouse until she felt certain she wouldn’t succumb.”

  Elizabeth felt confused. Norbridge was describing a picture that was only half complete. “Did you find out anything more about her?”

  Norbridge reached into the breast pocket of his wool shirt and removed an envelope. From it he took out a folded square of newspaper and reached across the table to hand it to Elizabeth. “Take a look. This is something I found a few months ago as I checked into things.”

  She opened the clipping carefully, the way a person removes delicate wrapping paper from a gift, and stared at the headline of the article: MOTHER AND FATHER PERISH IN AUTO ACCIDENT; CHILD SURVIVES. She flicked her head up and met Norbridge’s eyes. He made a motion with two fingers, urging her onward. “It’s from the newspaper near where your parents lived.”

  Elizabeth took a deep breath and returned to the article.

  December 17, 2009—On Tuesday evening just after eleven o’clock, the Northside Fire and Rescue team responded to an anonymous motorist’s call reporting a vehicle in flames on Highway 17 five miles east of Verano. The crew found a smoldering Toyota Camry and, inside, Ferland Somers, 28, and Winifred Somers, 26, residents of Verano, both of whom were declared deceased at the scene. Their daughter, Elizabeth, 4, was recovered from the backseat of the car and sustained no injuries.

  “We have no idea what could have caused this,” said William Bexley, crew chief. “We’re guessing mechanical failure because there were no other vehicles involved. But honestly, if I didn’t know any better, it almost looks like something struck the car.”

  An investigation is ongoing; Child Protective Services will retain custody of the couple’s daughter pending identification of relatives.

  Elizabeth turned the clipping over but found nothing more of importance there. As she tried to keep her eyes from filling with tears, she read the article one more time and then, without looking at him, handed it back to Norbridge. She felt numb and wasn’t sure just what she wanted to say. Declared deceased at the scene. The words made her feel that her blood had stopped. She almost wished she hadn’t read them.

  “I never knew what happened until I located this article last April,” Norbridge said.

  Elizabeth picked up her fork and poked at a stray blackberry seed on her plate, and then another and another. She was only half listening to Norbridge; she kept seeing those words before her: Declared deceased at the scene.

  “I looked into the investigation that was conducted and—”

&
nbsp; “I wish you hadn’t shown me that,” Elizabeth said. A man and woman at the closest table glanced at them before returning awkwardly to their meals. Elizabeth’s eyes were overflowing with tears.

  Norbridge’s mouth fell open. “I … I thought you would want to know. I had this notion that you might find it easier to talk about it here first. That’s why I had you meet me.”

  “But I just wanted to come and see everyone!” Elizabeth said. “You, Freddy, Leona! I just wanted to…”

  “I’m sorry.” Norbridge looked stunned, as though he was overwhelmed to see Elizabeth suddenly so sad. “I’m afraid I’ve made a terrible mistake. I thought here in Havenworth would be the better place to discuss it.”

  Elizabeth grew more confused the more Norbridge spoke. She wanted to know everything about her parents it was possible to know, but to be ambushed like this, to have the excitement and anticipation she felt about finally coming back to Winterhouse sidetracked by this revelation when all she’d wanted to do was return, was distressing. She didn’t even know what she wanted to say to Norbridge, and she felt that if another word escaped her mouth, she might burst into a fit of sobbing she couldn’t control.