The Secrets of Winterhouse

by Ben Guterson

  She studied Norbridge’s painting one last time, and then headed to the library to see Leona Springer.

  * * *

  The library at Winterhouse was so much larger than any other Elizabeth had ever been in or even imagined—three stories high, with scores of rooms and bookcases and so many tens of thousands of books, Elizabeth could have read them the rest of her life and still made her way through only a small fraction—that she’d been speechless when she’d first entered it. Even after all the hours she’d spent in the library, Elizabeth remained staggered by its size, by the beauty of its darkly paneled walls and the graceful atrium at its center, which allowed light in from the glass ceiling high above. The library had an ancient feeling—and Elizabeth loved it.

  “Summer’s here!” came a high, squeaky voice from the office behind the library’s main counter. “Summer’s here!”

  “Miles!” Elizabeth said as she headed for the room. There, sitting at a desk piled with books, was Leona Springer, and on her shoulder perched her green parakeet, Miles, who was continuing to caw, “Summer’s here! Summer’s here!”

  Leona, who was examining a spread of papers, looked up. “I keep telling him it should be ‘Winter’s here! Winter’s here!’” She raised her hand and stretched out a finger, and the bird hopped onto it so that she could present him to Elizabeth.

  “Remember how you thought he was saying your name the first time you met him?” Leona said, removing her glasses to allow them to hang from the delicate chain around her neck.

  “I sure do!” Elizabeth said, running a finger across the bird’s head in a light pat. “So great to see him again! And the library! And you, of course, Leona!”

  “It’s wonderful to have you back!” Leona said. She was a short woman—Elizabeth had been the same height as her the year before, but now she was nearly two inches taller. “I’m ecstatic about that, let me tell you.”

  “So am I.”

  Miles raised his small wings and fluttered to his perch in the corner. “Teatime!” he cawed. “Teatime!”

  Elizabeth and Leona laughed, Leona put a pot of water on to boil, and the two of them sat down to catch up. Over the next half hour, Elizabeth detailed the year that had passed and, mainly, asked Leona about Winterhouse and Norbridge and how things had been at the hotel. They even caught up on some of their favorite books of the past year, and Eliza-beth was surprised and pleased to learn that Leona had read The Name of This Book Is Secret, one of her recent favorites.

  “Leona,” Elizabeth said finally, “some people at dinner last night were talking about secret passageways here at Winterhouse. They were saying there are some doors to passageways inside the walls. Is that true?”

  Leona laughed—not unkindly, just out of surprise. “Who told you that?”

  “Mrs. Wellington.”

  “Very sweet lady, and very knowledgeable about the hotel. But she may have blown things out of proportion.”

  “Well, she wasn’t really saying there actually were passageways. She was more explaining that it’s kind of a legend.”

  “It’s true that at one time there was a walkway between Nestor’s room and the candy kitchen. They said he wanted to be able to sneak a piece or two of candy anytime he liked. But that passageway was blocked off in the kitchen and the door sealed years ago. Nestor also had a passageway put in between his room and this library. However, when they remodeled the place, that corridor was demolished.” Leona smiled to indicate she felt the whole matter had been cleared up. “Why were they talking about it, anyway?”

  “A woman at the table brought it up. Mrs. Vesper.”

  Leona’s face went dark. “Mrs. Vesper. She’s been here twice with her granddaughter. The girl is nice, but the older woman is somewhat peculiar. She was interested in the reference room and spent some time up there after I showed her around.”

  The reference room was the very place where Gracella had ambushed Norbridge and nearly overpowered Elizabeth; it was the very room, too, where Elizabeth had discovered The Book and, after defeating Gracella, rehidden it.

  “The reference room is where I found—”

  “The Book,” Leona said, completing Elizabeth’s sentence. “I remember well.”

  Elizabeth took a sip of tea as she thought about this. “Leona, do you think there might be other things in Winterhouse like The Book? I’ve been wondering if maybe Riley Granger’s game with Nestor Falls might have included more … I don’t know, magical objects.”

  “I can’t say for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The legend of The Book was well-known to everyone here, but at times over the years I heard a whisper or two about other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “It’s interesting that you’re asking me about the hotel’s hidden passageways, because there was always a rumor that there was an object hidden somewhere inside one of them.” Leona paused. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Riley Granger had more than one trick up his sleeve.”

  Elizabeth was hoping she would continue; voices came from beyond the office door.

  “Perhaps we should see if the guests need help,” Leona said, standing. “Are you game?”

  “For sure!” There were few things Elizabeth could think of that sounded more appealing than the chance to assist in the library. “In fact, I was thinking that maybe I could start helping you out here from time to time.”

  Leona put a hand to the glasses on her chain. “If you can manage, I’d love that. I’ll teach you all I can about the place.”

  “Summer’s here!” Miles cawed, and Leona led Elizabeth out of the office.

  “Excuse me,” said a woman standing at the counter. “Do you have a section on ancient history? Greece and Rome?”

  “We certainly do,” Leona said, and she gestured to Elizabeth. “And my assistant, Miss Somers, can show you exactly where it is.”

  Elizabeth turned to Leona with a look of shock. She had wanted to assist, absolutely, but she hadn’t imagined she’d be given this kind of responsibility right away.

  “L-16 on the second floor,” Leona whispered to Elizabeth, and then, loudly, “She is very knowledgeable about the contents of this library.”

  Elizabeth didn’t feel so knowledgeable when, twenty minutes later and after detours—and failed attempts—to find books about traveling in New Zealand and then volleyball and then a language called Esperanto, Elizabeth felt completely lost. She hadn’t helped the woman at all.

  “I thought you were an expert,” the woman said.

  “Well, I don’t know everything yet,” Elizabeth said. “I sort of just started.” She thought for sure this would soften the woman, but instead it just deepened the scowl on her face.

  “I have very limited time this morning,” the woman said, “and I was assuming the staff here would provide capable assistance.” She began looking left and right as if searching for someone who might do a better job of helping her.

  Elizabeth couldn’t believe the woman was being so impolite. However, she told herself she must be unfailingly pleasant—I live here now, she thought, and I’m part of the Falls family.

  “I want to help,” Elizabeth said. “If you’d just be nice about it—”

  “Nice about it!” the woman said, raising her voice. “I just want to know where some books are!”

  It was at this point that Elizabeth told herself not only was she was twelve years old and an official assistant librarian, she also didn’t have to allow this woman to talk to her in that tone.

  “Oh, well, actually, there are books everywhere,” Elizabeth said. She looked in all directions. “There, and there, and over there, and on the shelves over there…”

  The woman’s mouth fell open before she found words. “Why, I have never—”

  “May I help?”

  Elizabeth and the woman turned to the landing at the top of the staircase; Leona stood looking at them with a gentle expression on her face.

  “You certainly may,” the woman said, and after sev
eral complaints about Elizabeth—with a half dozen huffy glares in her direction—she explained what she was looking for, and Leona rattled off the various sections to her and even offered a recommendation.

  The woman fixed Elizabeth with one final steely gaze even as she said, “Thank you,” curtly to Leona before striding off.

  “I blew that one,” Elizabeth said as the woman disappeared down the stairs.

  “We get the cranky ones in here from time to time,” Leona said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Elizabeth never knew what to do when someone told her not to worry about something. She felt that the recommendation itself could only compound the worry. But she recognized Leona meant well, and she told herself she hadn’t done anything wrong until she got upset with the woman. Still, the incident, as minor as it was, returned the same question to her mind that had already popped up a handful of times: What if I don’t fit in?

  “We can’t lose our cool with the guests,” Leona said. “They are paying to be here and enjoy the place, the library included. Even the ill-mannered ones—we have to put up with them.”

  “I don’t believe it!” someone said loudly from the staircase. Leona and Elizabeth turned—and there, in black jeans, tennis shoes, and a black hoodie, stood Rodney, the boy who had stolen Elizabeth’s seat on the bus the morning before. He pointed at her like he was pointing at a two-headed dog.

  “It’s you!” he called.

  CHAPTER 12

  A SURPRISE IN THE JOURNAL INSPIRE

  Behind Rodney, huffing from the strain of climbing a single set of stairs, his mother and father appeared.

  “The girl from the bus!” Rodney said to them before looking back to Elizabeth. The expression on his face had transformed into a combination of joy and revulsion and surprise; he looked like he’d discovered some poor little animal injured in a trap and could now torment it at his leisure. “The one with the book!”

  Rodney’s mother put one hand to her forehead and the other heavily on the railing, all to combat a flush that appeared to have arisen from her small ascent; and his father stood with his mouth open wide in something that looked like shock.

  “The one who tried to take your seat!” Rodney’s mother cried, and she pointed at Elizabeth. “Right here!”

  “May I help you?” Leona said calmly. “My name is Leona Springer, and you are welcome to my library here at Winterhouse.”

  “I am Ernest Powter!” Rodney’s father said huffily. “And that girl beside you! She…” he sputtered. “On our journey here, she…” He couldn’t figure out what more he wanted to say and allowed his sentence to trail off.

  Leona turned to Elizabeth and said, “Yes, my assistant, Miss Elizabeth Somers. May we help you locate something?”

  Rodney pushed his head forward, gaping at Elizabeth the way a person studies an eye chart on a far wall. “Your assistant? What are you even doing here?”

  Elizabeth had been preparing for this question ever since that moment on the bus when she’d heard Rodney announce—and gloat over—the fact that he would be at Winterhouse.

  “Oh, I’m the granddaughter of the hotel owner,” she said casually. “May I help you find something in the library?”

  The eyes of all three Powters went blank; it was as if Elizabeth had just informed them that all their money had been stolen from the bank or their house had disappeared.

  “Granddaughter?” Mrs. Powter said softly, slowly.

  “Granddaughter?” Mr. Powter said, even more softly and slowly. He resembled someone who’d never heard the word before and was simply trying to see how it sounded on his own lips after hearing someone else say it. Elizabeth was enjoying this whole thing immensely, especially seeing Rodney look like he’d just been dropped into the library from a thousand miles away and was now trying to figure out what had happened.

  “Well,” Mrs. Powter said brightly, recovering. “I find that very interesting.” She turned to her husband; he looked as if he’d been asked to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Bulgarian.

  “Elizabeth,” Leona said, “can you please go to the office and finish the filing for me?” She gave her a quick wink. “I’ll join you shortly.”

  Elizabeth nodded, scanned the three people blocking her way to the staircase, and then strode right for them as they parted.

  “I guess I’ll see you around, Miss Granddaughter,” Rodney said in a low snarl as she passed, but Elizabeth said nothing and just hopped quickly down the stairs.

  “She was very rude to us on our bus ride,” Elizabeth heard Mrs. Powter say as she continued to the first floor. The morning light streamed in through the atrium ceiling, and the high bookcases rose all around her like well-trimmed hedges. But the presence of the Powters had upset her badly, as had her first experience of helping a guest as an assistant librarian. She headed for Leona’s office with a thought that threatened to make her unhappy: She might be a member of the Falls family, and she might be at Winterhouse to stay, but adjusting to all of it would not be as simple as drifting off to sleep with a good book in her hands.

  * * *

  To distract herself until Leona returned, Elizabeth decided to peruse the journal Marshall Falls, one of Norbridge’s cousins, had written and that lay on a small podium at the rear of Leona’s office. The journal was enormous—over five hundred pages—and Marshall, though a writer of quirky, meandering, and convoluted sentences, had been diligent about detailing events at Winterhouse until he passed away in 1994. Elizabeth had spent several hours the year before reading portions of the journal, and she had found it both entertaining and enlightening—she had, in fact, learned many things about her mother and The Book and Gracella and Nestor and more.

  Elizabeth spent a moment cooing to Miles before stepping up to the stand that held Marshall’s huge book. It was open to the title page, “A Personal History of the Winterhouse Hotel,” and beneath this, “By Marshall Falls, Inhabitant.” She turned to the lengthy table of contents and found her eyes caught by some of the headings: “The Tragic Deaths of Eugene and Ernest on Mount Arbaza,” “The Half-Million Dowry Offered—but Ravenna Declines!” and “The Summer with No Ice Cream.” She noticed one that intrigued her: “Norbridge Makes His Way—and Then Makes His Way Back.” She thumbed forward to the chapter and began to read:

  It was a curious thing to us when young Norbridge, not two years after Gracella herself disappeared from Winterhouse, decided he also was going to leave. Norbridge announced his intentions broadly and, despite the protestations of parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, guests, staff (kitchen, clerks, maids, et al.), former schoolmates, members of the ski club, seven visiting lecturers, and the cinema star Ruby Jarreau (who was recuperating from exhaustion here), our decent and ambitious Norbridge resolved to separate himself from Winterhouse for “an indeterminate length of time, though I shall return,” as he himself informed us.

  When asked what had prompted him to set out on this adventure or escapade or tour or what-have-you, Norbridge was uncharacteristically evasive, like a man who doesn’t want to explain himself or perhaps has something on his mind and is intent on keeping it hidden. He was like a person in possession of a secret he will not divulge to anyone, not even to a loving second cousin, say, or anyone else in the family, for that matter, no matter how often, even in gentle tones, that person might ask him or even plead with him to make plain his motivations. It was apparent to one and all, however, that Norbridge remained deeply curious about Gracella and what had happened to her. He often spoke of her—with warmth, some would say—and seemed to go so far even as to defend her when members of the family brought up her faults, her character defects, the many times she had been impolite or downright insolent, the strange fascination she had with black magic, the disconcerting dark clothes she took to wearing at all times, and the many improper, even immoral actions she had taken, e.g., the time she stole forty-three dollars from a piggy bank in Cassandra’s room or used scissors on Ravenna’s favorite dress or dumped oliv
e oil in the suitcase of a guest with whom she’d quarreled (note well: this list could be extended for pages and pages; I am offering only an extremely limited representative sampling). Some would say this defense of his twin sister was to be expected of Norbridge—he was always a loyal and generous soul. But others noted something deeper in his interest in and support of Gracella, and it was said that occasionally he, too, had expressed an interest in more serious forms of magic and was somewhat sympathetic to his sister’s pursuits. I never believed this and never saw evidence of it myself. But there were those in our family who wondered if perhaps Norbridge’s proposed journey was an attempt to locate Gracella, maybe to turn her away from the dark path she had sought—or even to join her on it.

  Again, let me be clear that I never read anything more into his wanderlust than the simple curiosity of a young man who has been cooped up in the far north his whole life. Heaven knows many of us here at Winterhouse have experienced a similar strain of cabin fever, and I never begrudged him his departure. I will say, however, I was surprised he ended up being gone for two years. That seemed like overdoing it to me, but far be it from me to question his judgment. When he returned, in the summer of 1956, he had put on twenty pounds of muscle, wore a thick beard, and was full of a confidence so unshakeable, everyone understood that when the time was right, he would lead Winterhouse into its next era.

  Elizabeth skimmed ahead and tried to learn what Norbridge had done while he’d been away or where he’d gone, but she found nothing. She was puzzled—and Marshall’s bizarre way of describing events hadn’t helped. It had never crossed Elizabeth’s mind that Norbridge might have been away from the hotel for any length of time in his younger years; she couldn’t imagine why anyone, once living at Winterhouse, would ever choose to leave.