Winterhouse

by Ben Guterson

  “And to top it off,” she said, “yesterday I saw them in the portrait gallery talking to the portrait of your sister.”

  Norbridge swiveled his head to meet Leona’s stunned gaze. “Gracella,” Norbridge said quietly.

  The room went silent. Elizabeth took Marcus Q. Hiems’s card out of her pocket and handed it to Norbridge; he glanced at both sides quickly and passed it back to her without a word.

  “Is everything okay?” Freddy said.

  Norbridge stood abruptly, walked over to the door to his kitchen, though his movements seemed aimless, as though he’d become too agitated to sit and just needed to walk about for a moment. Elizabeth was beginning to feel even worse; she felt that maybe she’d revealed too much, and that on top of the surprise of finding her and Freddy and Selena outside the library, Norbridge was now becoming overwhelmed with concerns.

  “I’m sorry for going on so much,” Elizabeth said. “I just thought you should know.”

  Norbridge turned sharply. “I’m glad you told me. Very glad.”

  “May I ask if any of it connects to why you’ve been going to the library?” Elizabeth said.

  Norbridge moved slowly to the sofa and sat back down next to Leona. “I’ll tell you why I’ve been going to the library,” he said. “It’s because of The Book.”

  “The Book?” Elizabeth said. The way he’d said the words made it sound ominous.

  Leona looked to Norbridge. “It’s a long story,” she said haltingly, as if to caution him against proceeding. “Maybe we should—”

  Norbridge interrupted her. “I’ll be brief.” He cleared his throat, sat back, and began.

  “When my grandfather Nestor Falls was building Winterhouse, he had some help from a good friend of his who had traveled here from the Far East. The two men had been soldiers together over there years before—travelers, searchers. They even spent some time in a monastery, apparently.”

  “The one on the puzzle in the lobby?” Elizabeth said.

  “The very one,” Norbridge said. “Anyway, after Nestor came back to this part of the world, this friend of his stayed overseas and, according to Nestor, became interested in learning about certain types of philosophy and religion. Even a little bit of magic, though Nestor himself wasn’t much of a believer in that sort of thing. When this friend of my grandfather’s came here, he proposed a little game based on some beliefs he had about good and evil and how it’s up to us to choose which path we want to take. He told Nestor he would create some sort of puzzle, with a key piece of it being a magical book left in the library. The book would be one part of a larger puzzle, he claimed, and if it was solved by someone good and true, Winterhouse would be a place of joy, you might say, indefinitely. A place people would be drawn to for its good cheer, for the way it helped them to renew their own contentment.”

  Norbridge was speaking softly, steadily. He had become more serious than Elizabeth had seen him thus far, and she was enthralled. There was something about the way he spoke that reminded her of the magic trick he’d performed during dinner two nights before, but she couldn’t put her finger on just what it was.

  “Of course, my grandfather thought his friend was a bit crazy,” Norbridge continued. “Who would believe that kind of story? But there must have been something to it all, or else Nestor would have forgotten about it right away. Instead, he passed the tale down to my father, who in turn passed it down to me. Virtually everyone in our family was aware of it, in fact. And in a nutshell, the version I know is that this book—or, as it’s come to be known, The Book, with a capital ‘T’ and a capital ‘B’—has some sort of power over all of Winterhouse if it’s ever discovered. Also, as Nestor understood it, someday it will be discovered—but only by a member of the Falls family.

  “That’s about it,” Norbridge said with a shrug.

  Elizabeth turned over the details in her mind. “Do you mean to say that you’ve been looking for The Book the last few nights?”

  “I have,” Norbridge said. “I can’t explain it, but over the years there have been times when I just get a feeling that I need to look for the thing. It’s almost as if I’m on the verge of discovering it. And I’m going through one of those times now, though I don’t know why.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not much help,” Leona said. “Of course, I’m familiar with every book in the library, and I can’t say I have any idea which one it might be. I’ve looked, too.”

  “Do you know,” Norbridge said, “I can go years without ever thinking about The Book, and then, all of a sudden, I just get this feeling, as if it’s crucial that I find it.” He paused. “It’s like the feeling you get when you’re certain something’s about to happen, but you’re just not sure what it is.” Elizabeth felt Norbridge staring hard at her. “Have you ever felt that way, Elizabeth?”

  She had been growing increasingly agitated as he spoke. She felt he was describing the feeling better than she had ever described it to herself.

  “I have,” she said.

  “Does anyone know what’s in The Book?” Freddy said. “What it’s about?”

  “No idea,” Norbridge said. “That’s the thing. I sort of think one day I’ll pull a book off the shelf, and something will leap out at me and I’ll just know I’ve found it. Until then, I suppose I’ll have to keep looking.”

  “What if it’s just an old story?” Elizabeth said, although she had been thinking all the while about A Guide for Children. “I mean, maybe there’s nothing to it.” As she said the words, something inside herself wasn’t convinced; she felt certain the story about The Book was true.

  “Could be,” Norbridge said, nodding. “It very well could be. But there must be something more to it or Nestor never would have considered it important. I just don’t know why this certainty keeps coming over me, why it’s never disappeared. My father sometimes said that Nestor believed the story more than he let on. I don’t really know if we’ll ever learn the truth.”

  Norbridge stood and took in a deep breath. “Well, anyway,” he said, “our little mystery has been cleared up. And it’s very late.” He looked at Elizabeth and Freddy, his eyes indicating it was time for them to return to their rooms.

  “Do you think the Hiemses are trying to find The Book, too?” Elizabeth said.

  Norbridge studied her for a moment. “We get all types here, you know, and people are drawn to our famous library. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, though it’s not entirely impossible that they have heard about The Book somehow. Still, I need to ask both of you to stay away from those two. We get plenty of oddballs at Winterhouse, as you might imagine. So no more spying or playing detective, okay?”

  “Not a problem,” Freddy said.

  Elizabeth nodded. “I understand,” she said, though she couldn’t really picture herself forgetting the whole thing.

  “I appreciate everything you’ve told me about the Hiemses,” Norbridge said, “and I’ll follow up with them as needed.”

  Leona yawned. “This tea is making me tired.”

  Elizabeth understood it was time for her and Freddy to leave, even though she now felt not so much that a mystery had been solved as that it had deepened.

  “Well, again, I’m really sorry to have caused any problems,” Elizabeth said. “I apologize.”

  “It’s all right,” Norbridge said. He lifted both hands as if to banish any possible bad feelings, and then he looked to Freddy. “How’s the project coming? I’m nearly broke and need to start selling those WonderLogs of yours.”

  “I’ll have a new set of specs for you by tomorrow afternoon,” Freddy said. “I think I’m getting close.”

  “You ought to be paying that young man,” Leona said.

  “Lifetime supply of Flurschen,” Norbridge said.

  “I was just wondering one more thing about The Book,” Elizabeth said, not quite ready yet to leave the subject behind. “You said everything would be okay at Winterhouse if someone good solved the puzzle. But what if someone not-so-good
did?”

  “Ah, that’s the real mystery,” Norbridge said. “About the only other part of the legend of The Book I forgot to mention was that, supposedly, if it falls into the wrong hands…”

  “What?” Elizabeth said.

  “Well,” Norbridge said, “supposedly if the wrong person came into possession of The Book, that person could destroy Winterhouse.”

  Leona clicked her tongue. “You’ll end up giving these two nightmares.”

  As if a window had been opened and a cold breeze was blowing over her, Elizabeth realized the feeling was beginning to stir. She lifted her chin, the better to listen for what might come next; she opened her eyes wide.

  “Are you okay, dear?” Leona said.

  A boom came from behind the door of Norbridge’s den, and Elizabeth, Freddy, Norbridge, and Leona stood and rushed to see what had happened.

  CHAPTER 21

  THE BOOKSELLER’S CARD

  CARE

  CORE

  CORN

  TORN

  TURN

  What they found in the den was a snow globe—the size of a soccer ball, with glass thick enough to withstand a hammer’s blow—lying on the carpeted floor. Its wooden stand sat empty on the desk above.

  “How in the name of Lambert Falls did that happen?” Norbridge exclaimed. He knelt and picked up the globe to examine it. A blizzard of snowflakes within swirled around a slate-gray mansion set beside a cluster of fir trees.

  Norbridge shifted the globe back and forth, studying it for cracks. “That couldn’t have just rolled to the ground by itself,” he said, setting the globe back on its stand. “Was there an earthquake? Did any of you feel anything? A temblor or a trembler? Timber? Temper? The Templars? Something?”

  “Nothing that I felt,” Leona said. “Maybe you left it sitting there at a funny angle.”

  Norbridge held up a finger in protest. “This was not human error on the part of this human!” he said. The den grew very quiet; Norbridge looked at Elizabeth. “Do you have any thoughts at all regarding this inscrutable little incident?”

  She felt Norbridge could see right through her, as though he somehow knew very well that her presence had caused this. Another part of her was wondering why these things continued to happen to her.

  “It’s an enigma to me,” Elizabeth said.

  “Perhaps it has to do with some change in barometric pressure in the room,” Freddy said.

  Norbridge examined him, and then Elizabeth, and then Freddy once more. “Let’s get you both to bed.”

  * * *

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Freddy said to Elizabeth in the corridor of the second floor as they headed to their rooms.

  “That I have The Book?” Elizabeth said. And before Freddy could say anything, she said, “Yeah, I’m thinking that. But how could I have just happened to find it on my first day here when Norbridge has been looking for it for years?”

  “Weirder things have happened, I guess. But, yeah, the probability would be really low.”

  “And I can’t tell him about it now,” Elizabeth said. “I mean, I basically stole it from the library, and if I tell him, he and Leona will definitely think something is wrong with me. Especially after they caught us there tonight and now everything else he told us.” She frowned, the little furrow appearing between her eyebrows. “This is bad.”

  “So why did you take it out of the library?” Freddy said. “I still don’t understand.”

  Elizabeth considered. She tried to think back to the feeling she’d had when she’d been in the nine-sided room; but her memory of that moment was blurry, like something that had happened years before. “I don’t know,” she said. “Something just came over me. It seemed like an interesting book and I wanted to read it, I guess. I just figured no one would miss it.”

  Freddy pushed at his glasses, gave her a perplexed look. “Can I see that card Marcus gave you? Maybe I can look up his shop online.”

  Elizabeth took the card from her pocket, but as she was handing it to Freddy she fumbled and it dropped to the carpet. When she knelt to pick it up, she gasped.

  “Look at this!” she said. She snatched up the card and displayed it between her thumb and forefinger upside down for Freddy. “Look!” she said, her voice filled with urgency.

  “You’ve got it the wrong way.”

  “No! Look at his signature upside down!”

  Freddy peered at the card and saw that the signature of Marcus Q. Hiems, when viewed upside down, looked like this:

  “Sweth?” Freddy said. “I don’t get it.”

  “That’s the middle name of the man who wrote The Book!” Elizabeth said. “Riley Sweth Granger! That can’t just be a coincidence, with such strange names. There has to be some connection between the two of them. Maybe they’re even related, or something. Like, Marcus is a descendant. Maybe that’s how he knows about The Book.”

  Freddy took the card from Elizabeth and examined it carefully, flipping it up and down to study the signature as it changed from “Hiems” to “Sweth” and back again. “That is actually very cool,” he said, “but bizarre!” He handed the card back to Elizabeth. “Still, it’s kind of a stretch to think there’s a connection, don’t you think?”

  “For sure there’s a connection!” She tapped the card against her palm. “And this clinches it for me—I must have The Book.”

  “We should probably just keep all this to ourselves, don’t you think?” Freddy was squinting and seemed to be working through a difficult problem. “Norbridge was pretty upset, and I don’t want to get on his bad side.”

  Elizabeth’s curiosity about The Book and Marcus and Selena Hiems had taken another leap forward with this latest discovery, and she felt on fire to continue investigating. But Norbridge had asked them to let it go—and now Freddy, despite this new revelation, was urging the same thing. If she insisted on pursuing matters, it was doubtful Freddy would go along.

  “I agree,” she said. “I’m really curious about everything, but I agree with you.”

  “The Book, too,” Freddy said. “I was thinking maybe we should secretly return it to the library, like just drop it in the return slot, or you can hide it where you found it. I don’t think it’s anything we should be messing around with.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.” As she considered it, however, the slightest bit of reluctance seeped into her. She also thought again about the strange silver letters that Freddy had been unable to see; maybe there really was something magical about the book, though why she could see the letters and Freddy couldn’t was a mystery.

  “I’m just going to keep it for one more day, though, okay? Just to look it over a little bit more.”

  “That works,” Freddy said. “We can still try to figure out the message in Nestor’s painting. But this other stuff—let’s do what Norbridge says and try to forget about it.”

  * * *

  Elizabeth slept poorly. Another nightmare disturbed her rest, though this time, instead of only the strange dark woman confronting her in the library, there seemed to be other people with her, two shadowy figures she couldn’t make out. She woke up in a sweat, badly shaken. Unable to fall back asleep, she turned on the Tiffany lamp, sat on the couch, and thumbed through A Guide for Children. The letters “THE” still appeared on the front page, and she felt relieved they had remained unchanged. After rereading the book’s final chapter three times and then skimming its many chapters and the strange introduction, she nodded off.

  When she awoke in the morning, after she got ready for breakfast, she sat on the couch and opened the book. What she found made her gasp with astonishment: On the front page, beneath the author’s name and the copyright date, were the letters “THE K” in silver print.

  What in the world is going on? Elizabeth thought. She didn’t know whether to be more alarmed or amazed, but she was absolutely positive now that something very strange was happening, and it sent a thrill through her. A new l
etter appears each day, she thought. The problem was, between promising Freddy she would return the volume and being unable to talk to Leona or Norbridge about it, this was a mystery she would have to solve on her own.

  She examined the book from front to back. The copyright date, 1897, stood out to her. The same year Winterhouse opened, she thought. She read, again, the chapter on the Vigenère Cipher. And then she laid the book on the cushion beside her and considered it, staring at it the way you might stare at some small creature you’re thinking might suddenly wake up and start stirring. She couldn’t stop thinking about whether or not, through some incredible coincidence, this might be The Book. Every bit of evidence indicated that it absolutely was.

  A thought arose in her mind. During all those times when the feeling had come over her, she had been, essentially, its captive. The feeling was something that happened to her, not something she made happen herself. As she examined The Book, though, a curiosity gathered in her about whether it might be possible for her to decide to make the feeling occur, if she could in some way control it. This possibility simmered in her thoughts as a prospect. How she might go about causing or inducing the feeling was a complete unknown, though staring at The Book as she was and allowing her mind to settle just a bit had seemed to put her in a state very similar to what she often felt just as the feeling was welling up.

  She continued to stare at The Book and allowed her mind to become as calm as possible. Her vision went faintly blurry—and in that moment, although she couldn’t be sure, because her eyes right then were so out of focus, she thought she saw The Book quiver almost imperceptibly. She snapped her head straight and adjusted her vision. The Book sat completely still as she stared at it for two or three minutes. She was shaking throughout.

  Did I make it move? Elizabeth thought.

  It hardly seemed possible. Though when the chimes sounded for breakfast and Elizabeth left her room to find Freddy and begin her day, she couldn’t stop wondering about it.

  * * *