The Secrets of Winterhouse

by Ben Guterson

  Elizabeth shook her hand. “I’m Elizabeth,” she said, not knowing what more to say. This girl had introduced herself as if the two of them were adults meeting at a party.

  “Freddy’s told me so much about you!” Elana spoke warmly and nodded. She shifted her gaze to Freddy. “Hey, did you still want to go to the lecture tonight?” Elizabeth felt herself recoil; these were exactly the sort of plans she and Freddy usually arranged for themselves.

  “Oh, yeah, for sure,” Freddy said. He pushed at his glasses again.

  Elana put a hand to her forehead as though she’d forgotten something. “What am I saying? Of course, all three of us should go. It’s such a cool subject—some sort of rockcarving code thing—and, well…” She looked to Elizabeth. “You ought to come with us.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Elizabeth said uncertainly. Elana was speaking as though she and Freddy were the ones with plans in motion and she, Elizabeth, could join in if she liked.

  “But if you’re too tired…” Elana said tentatively. “Still, I hope you’ll come.”

  “Elizabeth loves codes and that kind of stuff,” Freddy said. He glanced at her. “So do I.”

  Elana flashed him a glance before smiling again. “Then we definitely all have to go.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Elizabeth said, distracted by Elana’s made-up eyes. “Are you staying here for Christmas?”

  “We got here a few days ago, and we’re staying till January,” Elana said. “It’s the coolest place!” She smiled at Freddy, whose face went red.

  “Elana’s here with her grandmother,” he said.

  “For an old lady, she’s really nice. I can do pretty much whatever I want,” Elana said.

  Elizabeth felt this was an odd thing to say about your own grandmother; in fact, she was feeling there was something too much about Elana overall.

  Elana looked at the seal. “This thing is weird, huh? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Just then, Elizabeth realized where she’d seen something similar. “You know what?” she said, more to Freddy than Elana. “I was in the bookstore in Havenworth today, and there was a book I found there about words and puzzles and codes. It had a chapter on seals just like this.”

  Elana looked at her with genuine curiosity. “I think all those things are so interesting.”

  “That book was very cool.” Elizabeth studied the seal on the floor. She was already thinking of a way to return to the store and was wishing she’d taken a closer look at the book.

  “Elizabeth loves books,” Freddy said.

  Elana looked to Freddy and widened her eyes. “Hey, are you going to show her the—”

  “Don’t!” Freddy said, cutting her off. “It’s a surprise.”

  “Wow,” Elana said to Elizabeth, “you are really gonna love his project. Just wait.”

  “We’re heading there now,” Elizabeth said, hoping this might end their little meeting in the corridor, though it struck her that maybe Elana wanted to join them for whatever Freddy was about to show her. She considered that this girl had seen Freddy’s project before she had.

  Elana seemed to be waiting for Freddy to extend an invitation, but then she turned to Elizabeth and some element of interest evaporated.

  “Well, I don’t want to hold you guys up,” Elana said. “I need to help my grandmother with something anyway.” She reached to hold Elizabeth’s hand again. “I’m really looking forward to us being such good friends. It’s just so great that you’re going to be staying here.”

  “For sure,” Elizabeth said, and she took the other girl’s hand lightly before letting go.

  Elana turned away. “Well, I’ll see you guys tonight,” she said with a wave. “Have a good one!” And she strode off down the corridor.

  Elizabeth watched as Freddy gazed after her. He stopped, looked to Elizabeth the way he might look at someone who’d caught him cheating on a test.

  “She’s pretty cool,” he said softly.

  Elizabeth gave two quick nods. “Seems like it.”

  “I met her at dinner a couple of nights ago.”

  Something was bothering Elizabeth. “When she said she thought it was great I was staying at Winterhouse, did that sound like she meant staying visiting or staying staying?”

  “How would she know you were staying staying?” Freddy said.

  “You’re right,” Elizabeth said, though she didn’t feel so sure. She glanced at the seal once more. “I want to know more about this thing.”

  “Come on,” Freddy said. “Let me show you my project. I guarantee you’ll be amazed.”

  CHAPTER 8

  A VERY DARK ROOM READY

  “Why is it way up here?” Elizabeth said as they exited the elevator on the thirteenth floor and Freddy led her down the corridor. She couldn’t imagine where they were going; last year Freddy had set up shop in a workroom on the third floor.

  “Has to be,” Freddy said with a grin.

  “I don’t get it.”

  They came to an unassuming door at the end of the hallway. Freddy unlocked it, and when he turned on the lights in the huge room, Elizabeth was disoriented by what was before her: A wooden walkway led up from the door to a large, square platform on a wooden foundation at the center of the room. Within the platform sat what looked like an enormous, shallow white bowl that was about ten feet in diameter. The arrangement reminded Elizabeth of those displays in museums where a huge map or diorama is enclosed in a square of railing, and you can walk around it and study it from all sides. But here, instead of some interesting display to view, there was only the vast white bowl within a wooden railing, all set inside a raised platform. It made no sense to Elizabeth. She looked up. A half dozen ropes hung from the ceiling to points around the platform itself, and some scaffolding rose here and there nearly to the top of the room.

  Elizabeth looked to Freddy, who was gazing proudly upward.

  “What is this?” Elizabeth said.

  “Have you ever heard of a camera obscura?”

  “Camera what?”

  “Camera obscura. It means ‘dark room.’” He glanced up at the ceiling. “There’s a little box up on the roof, and it lets light in through a pinhole when you pull some ropes to open it. Then a mirror reflects it down here.” He pointed to the large white bowl. “If it all works right and it’s not cloudy outside, you see everything around Winterhouse projected clearly. It’s like a video camera that puts everything on a screen, but the screen is the white disk there on the platform.”

  Elizabeth squinted at him. “I still don’t get it.”

  “It’s hard to explain,” Freddy said. “I’ll show you some pictures later. But when I get it all fixed up, it’s going to be incredible. You’ll be able to see everything outside Winterhouse.”

  Elizabeth was intrigued; she was also surprised she’d never heard about this before.

  “Camera obscura,” she said, testing out the sound of the words.

  “Yeah,” Freddy said. “It’s like the original photography. Leonardo da Vinci used it and then traced over the projections to make paintings of cities and landscapes. The pulleys are kind of busted up on this one, so I’m working with Jackson and a few of the other guys to fix it all up. Come on, let me show you.”

  They walked up the sloping ramp to the rail-lined platform. Elizabeth ran her fingers across the rim of the large, shallow bowl. “This is the screen?”

  “Exactly,” Freddy said. He was standing in a corner of the platform and untying some ropes there. “It’s kind of a mess in here now, but with some cleanup and repair work over the next week or so, I think I can get it done before New Year’s Eve, maybe even sooner.”

  “I can’t believe I’ve never heard about this,” Elizabeth said.

  Freddy gazed at her in mock stupefaction. “What? What’s that? Something Elizabeth Somers never came across in one of her books?” He began to laugh, and so did she.

  “I’m on it now,” she said. “Research time!” She kept a list headed
“Things I Want to Learn More About” and was always adding new items to it. Recent entries included hypnotism, calligraphy, crocheting, yoga, and how to select the right kind of dog for a pet.

  “Seriously, it’s pretty awesome,” Freddy said. “This one was built by Milton Falls about eighty years ago. On days that weren’t too cloudy, the hotel guests would come in the afternoons and they would get a little demonstration. Norbridge says he wants to start that up again.”

  Elizabeth moved to where Freddy stood beside a control panel full of knobs and levers. Etched on its metal facing plate was a single sentence:

  This device allows one to see beyond.

  —Milton Falls, 1934

  “See beyond?” Elizabeth said.

  “Just another eccentric member of the Falls family.” Freddy’s eyes brightened. “Your family!”

  She laughed but then considered something for the first time: She would be staying here after the New Year, while Freddy would be returning home. It gave her a strange thrill.

  The words on the panel drew her attention again: This device allows one to see beyond.

  Freddy spent several minutes showing Elizabeth the camera obscura, explaining more about the device and its history and operation.

  “And that’s how it works,” Freddy said, at last.

  “Norbridge chose a great one for you this time,” Elizabeth said, glancing at the writing on the control panel. “Do you still think much about last year? Everything that happened?” The two of them had discussed all of it in email, but over the past few months they had left most of that discussion behind.

  Freddy gave a small frown. “Honestly, The Book and Gracella and the Hiemses … It was pretty scary. I try not to think about it too much.”

  It was understandable that Freddy felt this way, Elizabeth thought. She, too, sometimes wished she could forget about everything from the previous Christmas that had been so unnerving. Still, there were pieces of it she couldn’t put out of her mind.

  “Did you know Marcus Q. Hiems died here the same night Gracella did?” she said.

  Freddy’s eyes widened. “I never heard anything about that.”

  “Norbridge and Jackson told me when we were driving here this afternoon.”

  Freddy paused and looked at the huge white screen. “Remember how I wrote you about what happened the day after you left? How I overheard Norbridge and Leona in the library?”

  “I remember,” Elizabeth said. It was something she wanted to discuss with Norbridge. According to Freddy, Norbridge had told Leona something like, “She must have killed him,” and then he and Leona had changed the subject when they saw Freddy.

  “I always wondered what he was talking about,” Freddy said. “Like, who was ‘she,’ and who got killed?”

  “I overheard Norbridge today talking to a friend of his when we met in Havenworth. He was saying he was worried she might come back.”

  Freddy peered at Elizabeth. “She, like Gracella? Do you think that’s who he meant both times?”

  “I don’t know. But it sounded really strange.”

  “You know what I’m hoping for?” Freddy said, and before Elizabeth could answer, he said, “A regular, normal, not-weird-at-all Christmas at Winterhouse.”

  The chimes for dinner began to ring, and Freddy tilted his head with a we better get going motion.

  Elizabeth listened to the sound of the distant bells as she considered Freddy’s words. He was waiting for her to say something.

  “By the way,” Freddy said, “‘camera obscura’ turns into ‘a macabre scour,’ just in case you were trying to figure out an anagram.”

  “That’s a good one,” she said, laughing, as she held out her hand to shake. “And I agree with you. I want a regular, normal, not-weird-at-all Christmas at Winterhouse.” She gave his hand an extra squeeze. “At least, I think I do.”

  CHAPTER 9

  STRANGE TALK AT DINNER ANGER

  Twenty minutes later, after Elizabeth quickly changed into the emerald dress Jackson had left her in her room—number 213, the same as the year before—she headed to Winter Hall with the crowd of guests. The Falls family tree was painted high above the doorway into the enormous dining room, and Elizabeth took a moment to study it. It looked like this:

  The year of Gracella’s passing had been updated: Nothing had been there before. Elizabeth’s eyes traveled across the spread of names—and then she started when she saw her own name beneath her parents’: “Elizabeth Somers/2005/Book Lover and Puzzle Solver.”

  “Some nice changes, eh?” someone said in a distinctive, musical voice beside her. There, dressed in her standard black-and-white outfit, stood the kitchen helper, Mrs. Trumble, just as cheery and plump as Elizabeth remembered her.

  “Mrs. Trumble!” Elizabeth said, throwing her arms around the elderly woman.

  “I heard you were back! And I also heard Mr. Falls say you’re staying with us for quite some time!” She lifted a finger into the air for emphasis. “That is very welcome news!”

  “He just told me about it today,” Elizabeth said. “I still can’t believe it.”

  Mrs. Trumble pointed to the family tree. “You see your name up there?”

  Elizabeth shook her head in wonder. “It doesn’t seem real. I know it’s my name, but it doesn’t seem real.”

  Mrs. Trumble laughed. “It is! It is.” The echo of chimes sounded from inside Winter Hall. “But you should get in and get seated. Dinner’s about to start.” She gave Elizabeth a quick kiss on her forehead. “We’ll catch up soon.”

  * * *

  Elizabeth spotted Freddy when she walked into the enormous hall, with its spread of tables and glittering chandeliers and windows that stretched from the floor to the high ceilings. She’d been in the hall two or three times a day for meals the previous year, but she could never get over how ornate it was, like something from a dream about the perfect holiday celebration. This was, however, Winterhouse’s standard arrangement day after day and meal after meal, everything gleaming and bright, the fireplace at the front of the hall crackling with fragrant hemlock and fir.

  Freddy was craning his neck to spot her and held up a hand in greeting; Elizabeth made her way to his table, at which he was sitting all by himself.

  “Why isn’t anyone else at this table?” Elizabeth said. She scanned to see if she could spot Rodney, the boy from the bus, and his parents. Sure enough, she saw them sitting at a table alone by a side door of the hall.

  Freddy closed his eyes as though trying to make her disappear, and then opened them and said, “Table. Bleat.”

  “Okay, okay,” Elizabeth said. “You’re still good at anagrams.” She looked around. “But why’d you scare everyone off?”

  “I’m saving the seats,” Freddy said. “The puzzle guys wanted to sit with us.”

  Right then, Mr. Wellington and Mr. Rajput and their wives appeared, and everyone sat down to catch up and prepare for dinner. The six of them talked, and Elizabeth answered questions from the adults about what she’d been up to since they’d last seen her, and everyone discussed how wonderful it was to be spending the Christmas season at Winterhouse.

  Suddenly, Elana approached in a shimmering white dress. Behind her came a stooped old lady with white hair wearing a long black gown and shawl.

  Freddy darted his eyes to look at Elizabeth, just as Elana said, “Hello, everyone!” The men at the table stood as Elana and her grandmother settled in.

  “This is Freddy’s good friend, Elizabeth,” Elana said to her grandmother once they were seated, extending a hand in Elizabeth’s direction. The old woman stared at her for a moment, her eyes so dark they were nearly iridescent, like oil catching a glimmer of moonlight on an otherwise black night.

  “I am very glad to make your acquaintance,” the woman said steadily. She didn’t blink.

  “Are you enjoying it here at Winterhouse?” Elizabeth said. She couldn’t have said why, but she felt that this woman had taken an instant dislike to her, and s
he resolved to be decisive in order not to show that she was, even slightly, flustered.

  “Who wouldn’t enjoy being at Winterhouse?” Mrs. Wellington said with a laugh, and everyone joined in with her. Elana’s grandmother seemed distracted by the laughter; she looked back to Elizabeth, but just then a man in a red suit at the front of the room announced, “Dinner is served!” and everyone settled in as a parade of servers burst from the kitchen doors with plates of roast chicken, wild rice, and steaming vegetables.

  “It’s a shame you weren’t here last week,” Mr. Rajput said to Elizabeth when the meal began to wind down. He had tucked his napkin into the collar of his shirt above his tie, and it lay draped across his ample chest and belly. He sighed. “So distressing to think you missed the lecture by … by that gentleman.” He turned to his wife. “What was his name again, dear?”

  A tall, thin lady with several strands of pearls around her neck nodded pleasantly. “His name was Ivan Hetmosskin, and he knew The World Book of Genius Records inside and out!”

  Mr. Wellington paused and held his empty fork above his plate. “Perhaps you mean The Guinness Book of World Records.”

  Mr. Rajput flinched and gave Mr. Wellington an icy stare. “I believe that’s what she said.”

  “What was it that was so interesting about the talk?” Elizabeth asked. She didn’t want to see an argument break out.

  “The lecturer informed us,” Mrs. Wellington began, “in answer to a question by our dear friend Mr. Rajput, that the largest jigsaw puzzle ever created consisted of 551,232 pieces and was made at a university in Vietnam.”

  Mr. Wellington brandished his fork again and swept it across the table in an arc. “I was dubious about that number when he mentioned it.” He turned to his wife. “Very dubious.”