Winterhouse

by Ben Guterson

  “Summer’s here!” Miles cawed from his cage. “Summer’s here!”

  Elizabeth turned back to the table of contents and examined headings such as “The Incident of the Flying Balloon,” and “Ten Weeks Without Hot Chocolate,” and “The Million-Dollar Flurschen Delivery.” And then one of them seemed to leap out at her: “The Legend of ‘The Book.’” Elizabeth turned to the chapter and began to read.

  The first time I heard anyone at Winterhouse mention The Book was when I was a boy of nine or ten. I was in the library and my uncle Milton said, “Are you looking for The Book?” and I told him I was looking for a book and he asked me if it was The Book and I told him it was just a book I was looking for, and so on, back and forth, until we clarified things. As I grew older I heard relatives mention The Book at various times. So I finally asked my father by saying, “What is The Book?” and he explained it to me. He said there was, supposedly, one book somewhere in the library here at Winterhouse that was special—this was a legend or tale or story the older generation knew about.

  The Book had some sort of message or puzzle in it and there was something very special about that. I don’t know just what that special thing was, but supposedly it would be a very special challenge to figure it out. The only thing was, no one knew which book was The Book. No one knew anything about it or had any clues. As often as I heard my relatives here at Winterhouse mention The Book, there were never any details forthcoming about the title, say, or the color or shape or size of The Book, about whether or not it was thin or thick or whether it was about animals or boats or anything. No one seemed to know! No details at all!

  Another part of the legend was that only someone in the Falls family with true faith could find it, and so every time a new child was born here, by the time they were four or five or so, we would have them wander around the library and pick out a book—hoping it would be The Book. It was all sort of a joke—a “lark,” you might say, something to do for fun and as a way to pass the time or have a laugh. But here’s the thing—if no one knew what The Book looked like, then how would we know if it had been found? So some people said The Book wasn’t ready to be found, and others said there wasn’t really anything like The Book at all.

  Some people said maybe the person with true faith wasn’t the one we thought and someone else in the family who we didn’t think was the person really was the person. So there were always many, many complications to this strange legend, and I never knew what to believe or what not to believe.

  Over the years I came to believe it was all just a story told to make the library seem more “romantic” and interesting. Of course, anything having to do with charms and magic was very interesting to Gracella, and I noticed she was always asking about The Book and seemed very interested in it. I remember she would sometimes spend whole days just looking through the shelves to see if maybe somehow she could find The Book. Which makes me think of a time when I was very young—maybe eight or nine or perhaps younger—and a group of us played a game of hide-and-seek in the library …

  “Strange bird!” Miles cawed. “Strange bird! Strange bird!” He was calling out so loudly and fluttering about on his stand with so much agitation, Elizabeth looked up from the journal and glanced through the open door of the office. Selena Hiems stood there, her hand lifted in greeting.

  “Hello,” Selena said, motioning to Elizabeth. “Do you have a moment? I’d like to speak to you.”

  CHAPTER 26

  THE STATUE AT THE EDGE OF THE LAKE

  SAKE

  SANE

  SAND

  SEND

  SEED

  SEES

  It’s the 26th today, Elizabeth thought, and she recalled the note the Hiemses had given her two nights before. In the aftermath of her fight with Freddy, she’d completely forgotten that this afternoon was the tea to which Marcus and Selena had invited her.

  Elizabeth closed the journal and stepped out of the office. The broad counter on which books were checked out and where Leona’s stamp pad and card box sat separated Elizabeth from Selena, who was dressed entirely in black, as always. She stood with a pleasant but vague expression on her face.

  “So good to see you,” Selena said. “And I do hope you had a good Christmas.”

  Elizabeth was full of confusion, recalling her initial thought that she might actually take the Hiemses up on their offer, if for nothing more than to see what it was they might be concealing in their room. Now, however, the thought of being alone with the two of them sounded about as appealing as a car trip to Smelterville with Aunt Purdy and Uncle Burlap.

  “I had a nice one, thanks,” Elizabeth said.

  Selena was glancing up at the third floor and seemed to have hardly heard her. “I’m so happy,” she said, returning her gaze to Elizabeth. “And will you be joining us this afternoon? We haven’t yet heard from you, and we’re very much hoping to have your company.”

  Her eyes locked on Elizabeth’s. Several seconds passed as Elizabeth felt her mind spinning through the possibilities—and then going blank.

  “I’ll be there,” she said, before she knew what she was saying, and in that moment she convinced herself to visit their room.

  Selena clasped her hands before herself. “We will see you at four o’clock sharp,” she said, and then she backed away from the counter and departed the library.

  * * *

  Elizabeth saw Freddy from a distance during lunch in the dining room; she sat at a different table and tried to enjoy her sandwich with a group of people she didn’t know and who, although they were nice enough, did not have much to say to her during the meal. Afterward, she stood in the wide hallway just outside Winter Hall, looking up at the Falls family tree painted high above, and studied the names and dates.

  “Interesting bunch,” someone said behind her, and she recognized the voice before she turned around.

  “Norbridge!” Aside from the twice-daily check-ins with him—or, more often, Jackson—she hadn’t seen much of Norbridge since before Christmas. “Very nice to see you.”

  “You too.” He stroked his beard and pointed to the family tree. “Fascinating people in their own way. Each of them. Some kind, others not so kind. Some very helpful and thoughtful and dedicated, others maybe not so much. But that’s okay. I loved each for their uniqueness—their idiosyncrasies!”

  Elizabeth didn’t know any of her relatives—only Aunt Purdy and Uncle Burlap. She imagined what a tiny family tree hers would be if someone painted it on a wall.

  “You have such a large family,” she said.

  Norbridge seemed absorbed in studying the painting, and pointed again to the family tree. “Take my grand-uncle Lambert’s son Milton. Outstanding man. Amazing when it came to business, to building things. Winterhouse was already a fantastic hotel, but he had the knowledge and the vision to make it a … a doubly fantastic hotel. Or my dear aunt Ravenna. Just the kindest woman you could ever hope to meet, and in her day renowned as one of the most beautiful women in the world.”

  Elizabeth wanted to ask about Gracella, but before she could, Norbridge continued.

  “You know, one of the less happy things about the Falls family is that, as you can see, we just don’t have a lot of descendants. For one reason or another—untimely deaths, people who didn’t get married or didn’t have children, whatever the cause—the Falls family has all but disappeared. After I’m gone and after Kiona and Lena…” He spread his hands wide, shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “Almost all the women lived to exactly one hundred,” Elizabeth said.

  “And we have no idea why! It seems that as long as they stay here at Winterhouse, they are guaranteed to hit the century mark. It’s unfathomable.”

  “What about your wife, Norbridge? Maria?”

  “There was a school in Nepal she read about in a newspaper. There had been an earthquake in the region and the school needed teachers.” He shrugged. “She decided to go. A few months became a year and then two years. She became ill
and died there.”

  Elizabeth kept her eyes on the wall high above. She did not want to look at Norbridge at that moment because she felt she would be intruding on his sadness. She pointed to the poem written beside the family tree.

  “That poem is interesting,” she said.

  “My grandfather wrote it, I believe,” Norbridge said. “Though I can’t say I’ve ever really understood it.”

  “It seems like another sort of puzzle to me,” Elizabeth said. “Like the message on the book in his painting.”

  “Maybe someone will figure it all out someday.”

  A silence fell between them again. “I was in the library before lunch,” Elizabeth said, “and Leona showed me the journal written by Marshall Falls.”

  Norbridge’s eyes twinkled. “Marshall was a wonderful cousin and an outstanding Winterhouse resident for many years. And as you saw, he liked to write. A lot.” Norbridge furrowed his brow, plucked at one of his suspenders.

  “There were some things about your sister,” Elizabeth said. She pointed to Gracella’s name up on the wall.

  Norbridge hesitated. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “She and Marshall didn’t exactly get along. It’s understandable he wrote some, let’s say, unflattering things about her.”

  At that moment she was overwhelmed with the desire to tell Norbridge what had happened in the library on Christmas Eve, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything about it.

  “Leona told me some things about Gracella, too,” Elizabeth said. “Is it really true that she wanted to destroy Winterhouse?”

  “She had a streak in her. I loved my sister, but something went off the rails with her, you could say. She passed away about a dozen years ago, and I won’t deny I felt some relief. For her troubled soul.”

  Elizabeth looked to the mural once again; what Norbridge had just said didn’t match with what Leona had told her a couple of hours before. “Why isn’t Gracella’s death date written up there?”

  “Oh, you know,” Norbridge said. “I haven’t gotten around to updating that yet. But I need to!” His voice boomed in the corridor. “I definitely need to!”

  Elizabeth was silent, though she couldn’t help thinking Norbridge hadn’t told her everything.

  “Something on your mind?” Norbridge said.

  “No,” she said quickly. “It’s just—everything’s been so wonderful here. I’ve been going sledding and spending time in the library.” She paused, then felt she wanted to say something about Freddy. Mainly what she wanted to know was the truth about Gracella.

  “Maybe you have somewhere you need to be?” Norbridge said, seeming to sense the silence that had grown. “I don’t want to detain you. Perhaps you and Freddy…”

  “We got in a fight,” Elizabeth said. It was a relief to say the words and get them out of her own head. “I don’t think he wants me around.”

  “I doubt that. The two of you seem like you’ve been getting along just fine.”

  “I think I was too bossy with him. I don’t mean to be that way, but maybe sometimes I am.”

  Norbridge was silent and stroked his beard. “I’ve always found,” he said finally, “that when I finally recognize a quality about myself that’s maybe not so pleasant, I’m better able to do something about it. Make a change, perhaps, if that’s what’s called for. I’m sure if you apologize to him, everything will be fine.”

  “I tried.” She was thinking about what it would mean to make a change in herself, but she said nothing more.

  After a moment Norbridge drew himself up. “Do you like telescopes?” he asked, and their conversation about her fight with Freddy seemed to disappear.

  Elizabeth could recall looking through a telescope only twice: once from the balcony of the Smelterville History and Industry Museum (IT’S IN THE SHIM! she remembered the sign announcing in front of the small building) when her aunt and uncle had taken her there for ten minutes during a monthly “Free Friday” visit; and once when Uncle Burlap had designated her “the lookout” while he and his best friend, Al Sturpin, went “birdwatching” at a nearby reservoir but seemed to spend more time “taste-testing” the cans of beer they’d brought along. Neither of those telescopes had been very powerful or very interesting anyway.

  “I think I do,” she said, glad to be distracted from thinking about Gracella. “But I’ve never looked through a really good one.”

  “Come on,” he said, and he began to stride off, leaving her to trail behind him just as she had the night she’d arrived at Winterhouse. “I’ll show you one of the best.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later they were standing in a small room on the thirteenth floor that was minimally furnished—only two sofas, three chairs, and an empty coffee table were in it—but whose glass-enclosed balcony extended ten feet out from the building and featured the most enormous telescope Elizabeth had ever seen. Its base was as thick around as a telephone pole, and the tube of the scope itself was just as broad. The whole thing was made of a shiny brass, and the scope was angled on a delicate set of gears and knobs that made it look like some control panel for a battleship.

  “That is a real telescope!” Elizabeth said, her eyes huge as she stood before it. They were high above Lake Luna and facing the range of mountains to the north; the day was crystal clear and, outside, just a notch above freezing, though Norbridge kept all the windows on the balcony closed.

  “My observation deck,” Norbridge said, spreading his arms to take in the space. It was something like stepping into an enormous fish tank, with the world visible left, right, front, and above. “On a clear night you can see at least twenty million stars. Maybe twenty-one.”

  Elizabeth stepped onto the platform. With the glass walls around her, she felt almost as though she were hovering in the air.

  “Incredible,” she said. She couldn’t think of which list in her notebook this might fit, but it was spectacular to stand here and gaze all around.

  Norbridge gestured to the telescope. “Take a look.”

  For the next fifteen minutes she studied every portion of the landscape before her—the mountains ahead, the broad sweep of the forest, Lake Luna, the distant peaks to the east, and all of the skaters and skiers and sledders dotting the snowy expanses in front of Winterhouse itself—all while Norbridge narrated what she was seeing. The views through the telescope thrilled her, gave her the sensation of traveling miles at a glance or pulling distant scenes right up before her.

  “I never get tired of looking at the world through that scope,” Norbridge said.

  “I can see why,” Elizabeth said, as he nudged the telescope in line with a point at the far side of Lake Luna. She stood back, waited for him to finish; he peeked through the lens and then moved aside for her to view.

  “What do you want me to see?”

  Norbridge said nothing, and she pressed her eye to the glass. Either because of the snow or because she hadn’t fixed the scope on the exact spot before, she hadn’t yet seen what Norbridge had now aimed at: On a stone pedestal set back from the edge of the lake’s ice-coated shore, but not yet where the ice and rocks sloped up to the base of the mountains, was a statue. All in white—marble, Elizabeth guessed—and about five feet high, the statue was a life-sized figure of a young girl, maybe just about Elizabeth’s own age, dressed in a long jacket, mittens, and a stocking cap, as though out for a winter’s day.

  “Who’s that?” Elizabeth said, looking up. The figure had been so unexpected it had startled her.

  “My daughter, Winifred,” Norbridge said. “We always called her Winnie, though.”

  “I’ve seen her in the portrait gallery.” Elizabeth studied the statue again through the telescope. She suddenly recalled Freddy telling her Winifred had passed away, and she decided not to say anything more. Norbridge had become still, and Elizabeth sensed a quiet sadness in him.

  He looked in the direction of the statue. “She left Winterhouse when she turned eighteen. She decided she wa
nted to pursue a life elsewhere, and so she did. I would hear from her from time to time—but she passed away a few years ago in an automobile accident.”

  “I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said.

  Norbridge smiled sadly. He pointed to Lake Luna. “She used to love to go boating during the summers and go skating during the winters. I put that statue there several years ago as a way of remembering her.”

  It was strange, Elizabeth thought: She could barely remember her parents because they had died when she had been so young, and Norbridge had seen his daughter taken from him years before and now thought about her as often as he could. Something in it made her feel both very unhappy and, oddly, very hopeful.

  “You know,” he said, “I was thinking of how you told me about your aunt and uncle. I’m hoping you’ll look forward to returning home to them when your stay with us is done.”

  Just to hear him mention her aunt and uncle made her life in Drere seem a million miles away. All of the anger she generally felt with her aunt and uncle seemed to have blinked out—and she didn’t want to think about returning to it. She realized she had hardly thought of them the past few days.

  “I’m also guessing they’ll be glad to see you again,” Norbridge said.

  Elizabeth shook her head. She felt the familiar irritation welling up in her. She pictured the envelope Aunt Purdy and Uncle Burlap had taped to their door, the measly three dollars—the note they’d left her seemed to sum up everything about them she couldn’t stand. “I don’t think so. We don’t get along.”