The Secrets of Winterhouse

by Ben Guterson

  The tour of the candy kitchen, led by one of the young women who tied lavender-colored ribbons on the Flurschen boxes in the last room before they were packed away for delivery, was identical to the one Elizabeth had taken herself the year before. It would have been interesting if she hadn’t been familiar with the details already. Elana, however, was fascinated by everything. She asked so many questions throughout, it was like she was preparing for an exam. She asked if all the rooms had always been arranged as they were currently, why some rooms had bookcases in them and others did not, if it was possible to visit some of the back rooms without a guide, and on and on.

  “We have a very curious guest!” the tour guide said at one point, by way of making light of what had become an awkward number of queries.

  “This place is just so interesting!” Elana whispered to Freddy.

  Elizabeth found it all very disconcerting, especially when, at the end of the tour, rather than sampling some Flurschen or admiring the antique mixing pots, Elana glanced to the doorway of the kitchen with an oddly sad expression and announced she needed to go check on her grandmother.

  “I thought we were going skating,” Freddy said.

  “Definitely,” Elana said, a hint of reluctance in her voice. “I just think I need to go see how my grandmother’s doing. Why don’t we meet at the rink in half an hour?”

  Elizabeth felt there was something very peculiar about this sudden need of Elana’s; it was as though she wanted to stay with her and Freddy but for some reason felt compelled to depart.

  “Okay,” Elizabeth said. “We’ll meet you there. I hope your grandmother is okay.”

  “Thanks,” Elana said with a weak smile. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Doesn’t it seem like there’s something really off with her?” Elizabeth said to Freddy as they stood staring at the empty doorway through which Elana had just departed.

  He turned to her and bit his lip.

  “Even though she said her grandmother lets her do whatever she wants,” Elizabeth said, “it’s like she’s afraid of her or something.”

  Freddy looked to the empty doorway again. “Let’s go to the rink. But I agree with you. Something’s strange with both of them.”

  “You think something’s strange with them,” Elizabeth said as they headed outside. “Let me tell you what happened in the library this morning.”

  CHAPTER 14

  A SHOCKING ATTACK TAKING

  Elana never did show up at the ice-skating rink, which gave Elizabeth and Freddy plenty of time to discuss the strange doings with the Powters and the possibility that there might be something hidden in Winterhouse’s secret passageways. At dinner, Elana appeared alone and explained her grandmother hadn’t been feeling well and she’d needed to keep her company throughout the afternoon and then would need to stay in with her for the evening.

  “The plot thickens,” Elizabeth said to Freddy as they headed for an after-dinner swim in the basement pool, stopping by the diorama in the lobby first to race trains. “There’s something going on with Elana that she’s not telling us.”

  “Did you know ‘Elana Vesper’ can be turned into ‘vane leapers’?” Freddy said.

  “Okay, you worked a long time on that one. Admit it.”

  “She’s … different.”

  “I sort of feel sorry for her,” Elizabeth said, though she wasn’t sure just how sorry she felt. Every time she wanted to give in to sympathy, she considered that Elana was, without a doubt, prettier than any of the girls she knew back in Drere.

  “You can also get ‘reveal aspen,’ if you work hard,” Freddy said.

  “Someone’s been thinking a lot about Elana’s name,” Elizabeth said curtly.

  Freddy pointed ahead. “Let’s get to the swimming pool.”

  * * *

  The next day passed quickly. Freddy worked on his camera obscura. Elizabeth spent the morning helping in the library and then went skiing in the afternoon after working for an hour on the puzzle in the lobby. Elana remained with her grandmother in their room. Or, at least, that’s what she reported over dinner, which was the only time all day Elizabeth and Freddy saw her. Norbridge had left Winterhouse on an errand. The Powters seemed to have disappeared.

  After a movie in the small theater in the evening, Elizabeth and Freddy were heading to their rooms when the moonlight beyond the large window in the hallway caught her eye. She stopped. Lake Luna was gleaming, and the mountains on its far side glowed gently.

  “I love the view from here,” Elizabeth said. She stared at the huge, billowing clouds that gleamed in the moonlight. “That looks like something out of James and the Giant Peach.”

  Freddy glanced up. “Those are cumulus clouds,” he said. “Or maybe cumulonimbus.”

  Elizabeth sighed. “Okay, Mr. Science. But that doesn’t sound nearly as interesting.”

  Elizabeth looked to the ice rink and the skaters who were gliding around it in the lamplight. On the side of the shack where people borrowed skates, standing in thin white snow pants and a white parka, her black hair pulled back by a white bandana, was Elana. Next to her, smiling at something she’d said, was Rodney Powter, his black hood resting loosely on his head as he stood at a casual angle. He spoke, and Elana lifted her chin and laughed brightly.

  “Hey, look at that,” Elizabeth said as she watched them talking.

  “What?” Freddy said, glancing out the window.

  “That’s the guy, Rodney Powter, that I was telling you about, and Elana’s talking to him.”

  Freddy frowned. “Is there something funny about that?”

  Elizabeth couldn’t put her finger on it, but it looked like Elana and Rodney were already friends, and good ones at that. They were speaking so familiarly.

  “I guess not.” She watched them for a moment more before moving from the window.

  * * *

  Elizabeth passed an hour on her bed reading a book she’d found in the library, Damien Crowley’s The Lake in the Forest; and then she sat at the cherrywood desk in the corner and opened her notebook. She had begun a new list the day before—“Things on My Mind/Things I Want to Look Into/Things I Want to Know More About”—and now she was examining it:

  1.   The newspaper clipping about my parents—and my parents, in general

  2.   What Norbridge and Professor Fowles were discussing at the Silver Fir Café

  3.   What the secret passageways in Winterhouse are all about

  4.   What the Powters were doing in the library

  5.   If there might be other “powerful” objects hidden in Winterhouse

  6.   What the Winterhouse seal is all about

  7.   Why Mrs. Vesper is so spooky and why Elana is afraid of her

  8.   How a camera obscura works

  9.   What Norbridge means about something that tempted my mother

  10.   Why Norbridge really left Winterhouse for two years

  11.   Why Elana is a little strange

  She considered whether her list was complete but decided to leave it alone for now. The Crowley book lay on the edge of the bed, and it drew her attention. She stared at it—and immediately, with the expertise she’d gained from a year’s worth of practice, allowed her thoughts to become still and her mind to focus on the book, even as her vision blurred. The familiar tremor moved within her; the room became deeply silent. With a sudden twitch, the book stirred. Elizabeth inclined her head and intensified her concentration. The book jumped from the bed as though some invisible spring had gone off beneath it, and it landed directly in Elizabeth’s hands.

  “Oh!” she cried out. “That’s never happened before!”

  She studied the book. This was something new, and all she could do was look at the volume in amazement. She was about to set it back on the bed when a thought came to her: Maybe now that I’m at Winterhouse, the power is even stronger.

  A noise—like a person running—came from the hallway. Eliza
beth jumped up and opened her door and, just as she glanced down the corridor, she saw Rodney Powter dash past at the very end, though he didn’t turn his head and so did not notice her. He was gone almost before Elizabeth realized what she’d seen.

  She heard voices from the direction of the candy kitchen and headed to it. As she turned the corner, she saw a cluster of people outside the kitchen. There were five bellhops in their red suits, three of the kitchen staff, and a few people Elizabeth didn’t recognize—guests, maybe, though they looked purposeful. As she came closer, Elizabeth saw everyone was moving brusquely with anxious expressions; she thought maybe there was some mechanical problem they were addressing, a water leak, perhaps, or a small fire. Jackson was in the circle by the door.

  “What’s going on, Jackson?” she asked.

  He turned to her, looking like someone who has just seen a bad accident. “Miss Somers,” he said flatly, arranging the small hat on his head, “I must ask you to return to your room, please. Right away.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  Jackson twisted his body to stare at her. “Please return to your room!” he said sternly.

  She had never seen or heard him like this—not even close—and it alarmed her. She stood in place, not sure what to do.

  “Elizabeth, please!” Jackson said.

  She began to back away slowly. “Okay, I’m going.”

  Jackson turned to the kitchen entrance without saying anything more. Elizabeth continued to back away, still watching the group of people.

  “It was Mrs. Trumble, for sure?” someone said, though Elizabeth couldn’t see who.

  “I hope she’s all right,” someone else said.

  Elizabeth stopped, and at that moment Jackson glanced in her direction. He gave her a stern if pleading look and pointed a finger down the hallway; Elizabeth raced back to her room.

  * * *

  One hour later, after listening at her door and spying at the peephole to see who might pass by, Elizabeth left her room and headed for the candy kitchen. The doors were closed and the lights were out, but Sampson, the young bellhop, was stationed in front.

  “Hi, Elizabeth!” he said enthusiastically, the way he might if they’d run into each other on a street in Havenworth.

  “Hi, Sampson,” Elizabeth said, and then, not wasting any time: “I saw a bunch of people here earlier, and Jackson asked me to go to my room because something had happened to Mrs. Trumble. Is she all right?”

  Sampson’s expression turned serious. “You heard, huh? Yeah, she’ll be all right. They’re still trying to figure out what happened, Norbridge and everyone. I guess she thought she heard something when she was walking by the kitchen, and when she went to check it out, someone attacked her, and then she blacked out.”

  “What?” Elizabeth was alarmed to think that someone would have harmed a defenseless lady like Mrs. Trumble, and she immediately thought of Rodney Powter racing away. “I can’t believe anyone would hurt her.”

  “I know,” Sampson said, nodding. “I think she was more scared than anything. She’s in the infirmary now, but I don’t think she’s hurt badly.”

  “I saw Rodney Powter running away right before it happened.”

  “Yeah, someone else saw him, too. Norbridge talked to him, and I guess his parents said he was just wandering around and got scared when he heard a noise, so he took off running.”

  Elizabeth thought that sounded very improbable, but she decided not to ask Sampson more about it. “So no one knows what happened?”

  “Not that I know of. Still, if someone really broke in there, that’s kind of weird. I mean, there’s nothing to steal.” Sampson looked left and right, lowered his head, and then spoke softly. “I think someone must have broken in, though, because there was a bookcase pulled out, like someone was trying to get into the Walnut Door there.”

  “The Walnut Door?”

  “That’s what we’ve always called it. The candy guys used to bring huge bags of walnuts through a back door in the old days. It was a shortcut from outside, but they walled it up a long time ago.”

  Elizabeth’s head was spinning as she listened. “I never noticed it before,” she said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

  “You wouldn’t, because they put a big bookshelf in front of it. That’s the weird thing—I don’t know how anyone would know about the door even being there.” He looked down the hallway again. “You can take a peek if you like. I mean, you’re Norbridge’s granddaughter.” He stepped aside as he turned the handle of the door to let her in. “But go kind of fast, okay? It’s back there in the shelling room.”

  Elizabeth stepped inside. She made straight for the shelling room and saw, immediately, a bookcase on the far wall pulled away at an angle. Behind it, as she drew up close to observe, was an unremarkable brown door with a brass handle; it looked like the door to a broom closet.

  Elizabeth glanced behind her and then tried the handle. It was locked tight. She ran her hand across the door and studied the bookcase. There didn’t appear to be much to see. She was about to leave when she noticed a small brass plaque above the doorsill. She stood on her tiptoes to get a better look, and this is what she saw on the plaque:

  WINTER

  THE CHARM SEEMS SUCH A COMMON THING

  IN FORM AS SIMPLE AS A RING

  She stared at the words, moved closer, and read the lines a dozen times. When she felt sure she had them memorized, she looked away, recited the words five times, and then looked at the plaque just to make sure she had everything fixed in her mind. She was about to leave when she felt moved to put her ear to the door and listen. She couldn’t say why she wanted to do this, but before she knew it, she had placed her head against the door and was straining to hear if anything from within reached her ear. As she stilled her own breathing and listened, she heard, from far away, what sounded like a low hum, like the noise an airplane makes before it takes off or the sound you hear in an elevator as it carries you to the top of a building. Elizabeth listened for a moment and wanted to make sure she wasn’t just hearing the beating of her own heart echoing in her head. And when she was certain that, indeed, there was something making a noise from somewhere deep beyond the door, she left.

  “Thanks for letting me look, Sampson.”

  “No problem,” he said. “I just hope they figure out who did this.”

  “Me too,” she said, the lines from the plaque dancing in her head. She lifted a hand. “I better get back to my room.”

  Sampson smiled. “Later!”

  Elizabeth ran to 213, took out her notebook, and jotted down the lines she’d memorized. And then she added two new entries to her list:

  12.   What the words on the plaque above the Walnut Door mean

  13.   Is the Walnut Door one of the entrances to Winterhouse’s secret passageways?

  There’s a connection, she thought as she lay down on her bed. And I’m going to figure it out.

  PART TWO

  CHRISTMAS APPROACHES—AND THE ALARM CHIMES

  CHARM

  CHAPTER 15

  A REGRETTABLE MEETING BLAME

  When Elizabeth entered Winter Hall the next morning, it was already nearly full with guests seated for breakfast. Elizabeth looked around for Sampson or Jackson, hoping for more news about what had happened the night before or how Mrs. Trumble was doing, but she didn’t see anyone she might ask. She scanned the room without locating Freddy, and so she took a seat at the nearest table. Although she was troubled by the events of the night before, she was pleased to find herself sitting with a friendly family of six from Wyoming, who told her they made it a point to come to Winterhouse every year for Christmas.

  “I’m going to be living here from now on,” Elizabeth told them proudly, and they congratulated her and said perhaps they would see her again in future years. Elizabeth realized how glad this made her feel, that not only would she now have a real home, but that she’d have the chance to see people like this fami
ly again.

  “There you are,” Freddy said, appearing with a plate of food in his hands and Elana beside him. Elizabeth felt instantly deflated; what she wanted was time alone with Freddy to talk to him about what she’d discovered in the candy kitchen.

  “We were looking for you,” Elana said. Her cheeks were rosy, as though she’d already been outside skating that morning and the color had lingered. Without Elana noticing, Freddy flashed Elizabeth a look that said, I couldn’t get rid of her, and then he and Elana settled in at the table and joined in the conversation with the family from Wyoming. When they left, Elana said, “I guess people come from everywhere to stay here.”

  Her words sounded dismissive—“silly” was the word forming in Elizabeth’s mind—but Elizabeth was resolved to be as nice as possible to Elana. Don’t take offense, and don’t give offense, she thought. She took a deep breath and said, “How’s your grandmother doing?”

  Elana put a hand to her chest. “Much better, thank you. I think she’s just tired out from being here at this cool hotel. So much going on.”

  “Speaking of going on,” Freddy said, “did you guys hear some noise last night?”

  “Mrs. Trumble got hurt,” Elizabeth said. She wasn’t sure she wanted to bring this up in front of Elana, but there seemed no point in holding off now that Freddy had asked his question.

  Elana began shaking her head. “Mrs. who?”

  “One of the servers,” Elizabeth said. She decided not to provide too many details—and definitely nothing about the door or the plaque—in front of Elana. “She blacked out in the candy kitchen.”

  Elana continued to look puzzled. “Is she okay?”

  “Sounds like it,” Elizabeth said. “She’s resting, I guess.”

  “Well, I should be going,” Elana said abruptly. Her face had gone white, and she looked as though she needed to lie down. “I need to get some skating in this morning. I have a big competition coming up when I get home.” She stood to leave.