Winterhouse

by Ben Guterson

  Elizabeth stared at the tangle of names, pressing her book to her chest, but she hardly had a moment to take it all in before a gentle voice beside her said, “You don’t want to be late, miss. Please feel free to sit anywhere you like once you get inside, but do make your way into the hall.”

  A tall, sturdy woman wearing a white server’s smock and black skirt stood beside Elizabeth. She was at least as old as Aunt Purdy, though her cheeks were a pleasant rosy red, her eyes twinkled, and she wore a narrow hat on her head that reminded Elizabeth of the kind she’d once seen on a man serving ice cream at the drugstore in Smelterville. That was the only time Aunt Purdy had allowed Elizabeth to share an extra-small cup of ice cream with her and Uncle Burlap.

  “I’m Mrs. Trumble,” the woman said. “At your service.” She tapped the thin brass nameplate affixed to her smock.

  It seemed to Elizabeth that the woman’s speaking voice and her singing voice might almost be identical; she had never heard a voice quite as musical before.

  “Thank you,” she said. “My name’s Elizabeth.”

  “Yes, the puzzle expert,” Mrs. Trumble said. “We heard all about it. You arrived last night.” She tipped her head in dismissal. “But please make your way in.” And then she joined the flow of people streaming ahead and disappeared.

  The puzzle expert? Elizabeth thought, wondering how Mrs. Trumble had heard about the incident from the night before. She couldn’t help smiling to herself as she resumed walking.

  When Elizabeth entered the dining hall she found herself in the largest room she’d ever been in: round tables rimmed with gleaming place settings, huge windows that allowed views of snow-heavy trees and distant peaks, hundred-candled chandeliers strung across the ceiling, and a stone fireplace at the far end that was crackling with a haystack of logs.

  More than this, though, the hall was packed with people—probably over four hundred, talking and laughing or sitting quietly and studying the morning sky through one of the tall windows. It was like when you go to a concert and the orchestra is tuning up and the audience members are finding their seats—that’s how it seemed in the dining hall, that same air of readiness and excitement, as though something interesting and pleasant was about to happen and everyone was in a good mood because of it.

  Elizabeth studied the table to her right. The places there were filled already by what appeared to be a single large family: two grandparents, two parents, and four young children, all of whom were talking and laughing with one another. She found herself wishing there had been an empty seat so that she could join them.

  Some chimes began to play. Elizabeth looked to another table near her that had a couple of unoccupied chairs, and took a seat. As if on cue, everyone in the hall did the same, so that within one minute, not a single person was still standing. Elizabeth was glad to sit by the rear door because she had some idea it wouldn’t be proper to sit too near the fireplace in front. There was a lectern up there and a long table at which sat some important-looking men and women, including Norbridge Falls. Elizabeth looked around quickly to see if she could spot the man and woman in black, but she didn’t see them anywhere.

  “I like sitting in the back because then you can leave pretty easily whenever you’re done eating,” someone said beside her, although the seat had been empty just a moment before.

  Elizabeth turned to see a boy about her age, sitting with a thin laptop computer closed on the table before him. He wore brown corduroy pants and a wool shirt that seemed a size too large. He had black hair and dark brown eyes, and his glasses were even bigger and chunkier than the ones Elizabeth wore.

  “I just picked the nearest empty seat,” Elizabeth said, a little flustered. She couldn’t recall a boy ever talking to her out of the blue like this.

  “Did you just get here?” he said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before.” He lifted a hand as if waving at her across the room. “My name is Freddy, by the way.”

  “My name’s Elizabeth,” she said. “I arrived last night.” She ran her eyes over the adults at the table, all of whom were talking with the people beside them and seemed not to have noticed the two children. “Is this your parents’ table?” she said quietly.

  “No,” Freddy said. “They’re in Europe on vacation. They’ve been sending me here at Christmas for three years now, which is fine with me. I wouldn’t mind living at Winterhouse.”

  “I’m by myself, too,” Elizabeth said, a bit surprised to learn that this boy was in the same situation as herself. “My aunt and uncle sent me here. That’s who I live with—in Drere. That’s the small town where we reside.” She loved to use the word “reside.”

  Freddy closed his eyes and said nothing. It looked as though he was counting to himself or had maybe forgotten something and was trying to remember what it was. He opened his eyes. “‘Reside,’” he said. “You can turn it into ‘desire’ if you switch the letters around.”

  Elizabeth felt her stomach drop. “You’re kidding me.”

  “No, seriously. You can.”

  “I know!” she said in amazement. “I mean, you do anagrams, too!”

  “All the time. My mind just sort of starts doing them automatically.”

  “Do you know you can turn ‘Santa Claus’ into…”

  “‘Casual Ants,’” Freddy said. “Sure, I know that one. How about ‘astronomers’ into ‘moon starers’?”

  Elizabeth laughed, partly because she was amused and partly because she was stunned to meet someone else who liked anagrams. “My full name is Elizabeth Somers,” she said. “And the best anagram I’ve ever made out of it is ‘heartless zombie.’”

  Now it was Freddy’s turn to laugh. “That’s better than mine. My full name is Frederick Knox, which turns into ‘dork neck fixer.’”

  “That’s a good one,” Elizabeth said. “I do them all the time. The letters just start to rearrange themselves on their own. I read The Secret Garden once, and I kept mentally turning ‘garden’ into ‘danger’!”

  “The Secret Danger,” Freddy said. “I like that.” He closed his eyes again and then popped them open after three seconds. “It can also turn into ‘ranged’!” he said.

  Elizabeth sat back heavily in her seat. “You. Are. Good!”

  Freddy pointed to her book. “Like to read?”

  “All the time,” Elizabeth said. “I love books.” She pointed to his laptop. “And you like computers.”

  Freddy pushed at his glasses. “Actually, the owner of the hotel has me working on a project for him, and I’m doing some research. I’m trying to figure out how we can use the walnut shells from the candy kitchen and turn them into a fuel source for the people in the village nearby. You see, we could compress them and…”

  “Wait a minute,” Elizabeth said, leaning forward. “Are you talking about Norbridge Falls?”

  Freddy nodded.

  “You’re working on a project for him?” Elizabeth said.

  “He’s given me a new project three years in a row.”

  “That’s incredible,” Elizabeth said, genuinely impressed.

  “I call the one I’m working on now the Walnut WonderLog. I’m trying to figure out the right sort of adhesive to keep the shells together so that they don’t burn too quickly. And then maybe there’s a way to automate the whole thing.”

  Elizabeth had never heard anyone in her class use a word like “automate” before.

  “See?” Freddy said, lifting his laptop and showing her its underside. There, taped securely along the bottom, was a piece of paper that looked like this:

  NUTS

  NETS

  SETS

  SEES

  FEES

  FEEL

  FUEL

  “That’s what I’m trying to do,” he said. “Change walnuts into fuel!”

  “A word ladder!” Elizabeth said, raising her voice. She looked around the table to see if anyone had been disturbed; but the noise in the hall was still so great that no one seemed to have noticed
her excitement. “I love those, too,” she said. She’d once seen an article about word ladders in a magazine—how to turn “head” into “tail”—and she’d been hooked.

  “It wasn’t easy to come up with it,” Freddy said.

  “You did it in six steps,” Elizabeth said, very impressed. “My favorite is head, heal, teal, tell, tall, tail. Head to tail!”

  “That’s a good one!” Freddy said, setting his laptop down.

  Elizabeth was thinking about the two words—“nuts” and “fuel”—and almost before she knew it she blurted out: “I bet I can do yours in less than six steps.”

  Freddy squinted at her. “Good luck. My head still hurts from working on it.”

  She laughed lightly. “So how long have you been here?”

  “A week,” Freddy said. “With three to go.”

  “Same as me.”

  “Norbridge checks in on me sometimes, but I’m pretty much on my own.”

  A man in a red suit at the front of the hall said, in a loud voice, “Breakfast is served!” and a line of waiters brought out steaming serving plates of scrambled eggs, sliced ham, jelly-filled crepes, and chocolate-chip pancakes. Everyone in the hall settled in to eat.

  “I could show you around the hotel later, if you like,” Freddy said as their plates arrived. “But it would have to be after lunch. I have some stuff to do on my project this morning.”

  “That would be great,” Elizabeth said. As glad as she was to have met Freddy, and as eager as she was to explore Winterhouse, she had been planning to visit the library when it opened. “I was going to check out the library this morning anyway.”

  “Good plan,” Freddy said. He took a huge bite of his pancakes and began chewing away. “If you like libraries, you’ll love the one here. You’ve never seen anything like it.”

  CHAPTER 9

  THE TALKING BIRD—AND ITS OWNER

  BIND

  BAND

  SAND

  SANE

  SAME

  NAME

  When breakfast was over, and after Freddy had explained to Elizabeth how much there was to discover at Winterhouse—the ice skating and the sledding, the two swimming pools in the basement, the tower at the top of the hotel where you could see the mountains all around, the nightly concerts that weren’t as boring as they sounded, the movie theater, the bakery where you could get free cookies, and on and on—she departed for the library. Freddy had talked to her—or, rather, at her—during the entire meal, and it struck her that maybe, because he didn’t know about Aunt Purdy or Uncle Burlap or the sort of house she lived in, he simply took her for a regular girl who just happened to have ended up at Winterhouse for a holiday stay. That she would just be plain Elizabeth Somers for the next three weeks was definitely something she hadn’t thought about during her long trip from Drere, and now she was glad of it.

  When Elizabeth arrived at the library entrance at nine o’clock exactly, the doors were locked, and no one appeared to be around. As she stood wondering what to do, a noise came from the other side of the heavy doors, the handles turned, and a woman two inches shorter than Elizabeth and with a snow-white bun of hair appeared in the open doorway. The woman wore a blue skirt and a gray sweater. Glasses hung from a chain around her neck. On her shoulder sat a parakeet that was so green it appeared to be some sort of lime-fruit sprung to life. Most startling of all, it looked right at Elizabeth and said, “Somers here! Somers here!”

  Elizabeth let out a loud gasp. It knows my name! she thought with alarm.

  “Well, good morning!” the old woman said.

  “Hello,” Elizabeth said, trying to calm herself from the shock the bird had given her. She eyed the bird again, who had gone silent and was bobbing its head, before turning back to the woman. “Are you the librarian?”

  The woman raised her eyebrows with delight. “I am,” she said, and then she pulled her chin in and looked to the parakeet on her shoulder. “And I keep telling him it’s ‘Winter’s here! Winter’s here!’ Not ‘Summer’s here!’” She sighed. “But he’s got a mind of his own. Miles is his name.” She opened the door wide and maneuvered a jamb into place with her foot. “And my name is Leona Springer. Winterhouse’s one and only librarian.”

  “I’m Elizabeth,” she said, the little mystery about her name cleared up. “Elizabeth Somers—with an ‘O.’ Nice to meet you.”

  “Well, that is a coincidence!” Leona said. “You must have thought he knew your name!” She began to laugh.

  “I was surprised,” Elizabeth said. “That’s for sure.”

  “Well, I’m just opening for the day,” Leona said. “So you are right on time.”

  The library behind her was dark, and Elizabeth couldn’t see anything beyond some silhouetted shapes of what appeared to be shelves; but as she’d understood from the night before, the space was vast, much bigger than just a single room. Elizabeth sensed its size the way a person can sense a huge open field on a black night just by standing on its edge. And then Leona reached to the wall and flicked on a switch, and Elizabeth found herself looking at a three-story hall that held more books than any library she’d ever imagined. Her mouth fell open.

  “Your first time in the library,” Leona said. She began to walk away from Elizabeth as though she had some appointment to get to. “I’ve seen that look a million times before.”

  “Summer’s here!” Miles cawed. “Summer’s here!”

  “Please come in,” Leona said, “and I can show you around.”

  Elizabeth stepped inside and found herself in an enormous atrium bordered on all sides by bookshelves that lined the walls. Where the shelves topped out at the rim of what would have been the ceiling of the first floor, there was an ornate molding all the way around, and then a second level visible above, and then one above that, all the way up to a huge skylight; there was a walkway around the top two levels so that people could stroll about and look for books. Elizabeth had the sensation of standing at the bottom of a huge well or pit, but one so airy and open she felt as though she might lift up and float to the windows high above. All around and above her was a grid of paneled wood shelves and thousands and thousands of books. Leona had retreated to the long row of a desk to one side, but Elizabeth had not moved.

  “Come on, dear,” Leona said, laughing and waving Elizabeth to her. “You look like you’ve never seen a library before.”

  “Not one like this,” Elizabeth said. “It’s enormous!” She put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, sorry—too loud.” Her voice was echoing in the vast space.

  Leona dropped her arms and looked all around. “It’s just the three of us right now—Miles, you, and me. It will be quiet in here soon enough.” She cupped her hands to her mouth and said, in a playful voice, “For now we can be as loud as we like!” She began to laugh.

  Elizabeth laughed as well; she had never met a librarian like this before. “I thought it would be a little room or two,” she said, because she didn’t want to explain that she’d come and peeked in the night before.

  Leona laughed again. “A bit bigger than that, I’d say.”

  “It reminds me of a book I read last year called Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library,” Elizabeth said.

  “I loved that one,” Leona said. “Read it when it came out.”

  “You did?” Elizabeth said. Aunt Purdy, who was a little younger than Leona Springer, had never shown the least interest in the books Elizabeth read. Elizabeth could hardly believe that someone with white hair would have read—and enjoyed—the same kinds of books as she did.

  “I read all the good ones,” Leona said. “Always have.”

  “Not only was it a good one,” Elizabeth said, “but it was set in a library, so that made it twice as interesting for someone like me. I’m a bibliophile.”

  Leona swiveled her head to her and hesitated before speaking. “If you’re a book lover,” she said, “you’ve come to the right place.”

  “Trouble!” Miles cawed from Leona’s shoulder
and began to bob his head. “Trouble!”

  Leona looked to the doorway as if she understood what the bird’s clamor signified, and her eyes widened. “Our illustrious proprietor, Mr. Norbridge Falls, pays us a visit!” she said. “Miles always tips me off.”

  Elizabeth looked to the entrance, and there, scanning the immense ceiling above as if he’d never been in the library before, stood Norbridge Falls.

  He pointed to Elizabeth. “So now you’ve met Miss Leona Springer,” he said. “The one guest I can’t convince to check out of Winterhouse!”

  “They allowed you to leave early for recess today, did they?” Leona said to Norbridge with a laugh.

  “I heard someone was tormenting a parakeet in here,” Norbridge said, laughing in return. He nodded to Elizabeth. “A very good morning to you, our puzzle whiz. And I hope you had a good rest and a nourishing breakfast. Do you have a moment, please? Just something I want to mention briefly, and then you can get back to enjoying the library—if Miss Springer will allow it.”

  Leona gestured to Elizabeth with a look that indicated she was welcome to rejoin her once she was done. “Don’t turn your back on that man,” she said to Elizabeth, and then she headed toward the checkout desk. “He’s a known pickpocket.”

  Norbridge frowned wearily and sighed so that Leona would be sure to hear.

  Elizabeth giggled as she approached Norbridge. She had never heard her aunt and uncle talk this way, teasing each other, but so gently it was clear they enjoyed the other’s friendship. But as Norbridge led her out into the corridor and then stopped to look at her, his face changed, and Elizabeth couldn’t help feeling that maybe there was something wrong. Perhaps, she thought, her presence here at Winterhouse had finally been uncovered as a huge mistake and she would be asked to return home.

  “You slept well?” Norbridge said. “Good morning so far?”

  “Absolutely,” Elizabeth said. “I met Freddy Knox. He told me about the project he’s working on for you, and he’s going to show me all around later.”