The House of Winter Read online

  BOOK

  The House of Winter

  Isobel Bird

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Follow the Circle:

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  “Look at all the snow,” Annie said as the car wound its way along the narrow road through the mountains. “I can’t believe we’re only a couple of hours from Beecher Falls. It’s like being in another world.”

  “It’s hard to imagine that there’s actually a hotel up here,” remarked Cooper. “We haven’t seen any houses or anything for a long time.”

  “The hotel was built in the eighteen hundreds as a place for wealthy people to get away from everything,” explained Sophia as she drove her SUV along the snowy road. “It was supposed to feel remote. That’s why it’s nestled way back in these mountains.”

  “How did you start using it for retreats?” Annie asked her.

  “It’s owned by friends of mine,” answered Sophia. “Their family built it. Over the years it got harder and harder to maintain the place because people wanted hotels that offered more than just pretty scenery and a remote location. So Fiona and Bryan decided to turn the place into a retreat center. Now they rent it out to corporations and groups who want to hold gatherings there. Once a year, at the Winter Solstice, they let us use it for the week.”

  “So they’re Wiccan?” Cooper asked.

  Sophia shook her head. “Not really,” she said. “They’re more general all-around pagans. But they’re not witches in the usual sense.”

  “They sound nice,” commented Annie.

  “They are,” Sophia said. “And they have twin daughters who are around your age. Lucy and Nora.”

  “So, what exactly will we be doing this week?” Cooper inquired.

  “A lot of different things,” Sophia replied. “You’ll find out more about it tonight, but basically this is a week of celebrating Yule and welcoming back the sun after the longest night of the year.”

  “It’s hard to think about the longest night when it’s so bright and sunny out right now,” Annie joked.

  “It will be dark soon enough,” said Sophia. “And because there’s no town around the hotel to light the place up at night it seems even darker. It’s really a wonderful place to celebrate the sabbat.”

  “Just think,” said Annie. “A whole week of rituals and classes and all kinds of stuff. This is the longest we’ve ever spent doing witchy things.”

  “I’m really pleased you could all get away for the week,” Sophia said. “I think this will be a very special time for all of you, and I hope you get a lot out of it.”

  “I know I will,” Cooper told her. “After the whole divorce thing with my parents, it will be nice to be with a bunch of witches and not have to worry about all of that.”

  “And I can certainly use a week away from Aunt Sarah while she gets ready for Becka and Mr. Dunning to come for Christmas,” added Annie. “I’ve never seen her so worked up about anything.”

  “What about you, Kate?” Sophia asked. “You’re awfully quiet back there.” She looked at Kate in the rearview mirror and smiled at her. Kate, who was sitting in the backseat with Cooper, gave her a small smile back.

  “I think it will be fun,” she said simply.

  While the others had chatted easily during the ride, Kate had been almost completely silent. The truth was, she was excited about the retreat. But she also couldn’t help but think about the fact that she was going to see Tyler for the first time since she’d discovered that he and Annie had basically fooled around behind her back. She’d accepted that she and Tyler were probably never going to be a couple again and she’d been able to slowly mend her friendship with Annie, but the wound was still tender. She couldn’t deny that.

  Sensing Kate’s hesitance, Annie and Cooper settled into an uneasy silence. But Sophia, who knew nothing about what had happened among Kate, Tyler, and Annie, continued to talk.

  “I love these retreats,” she said. “It’s nice to just get away from everything and spend time with other witches. It really brings you closer together. A lot of the people who will be here are friends I see only a couple of times a year.”

  The girls listened as Sophia talked, each of them lost in private thoughts. The fact was, it was a difficult time for each of them. While they were all looking forward to a week in the hotel, they also knew that there were going to be challenges involved with being there. As they drew closer and closer to their destination, they couldn’t help but think about what was awaiting them there.

  Kate and Cooper, in particular, were relieved to be going on the trip. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan had only reluctantly allowed their daughter to resume attending the weekly Wicca study group, and she’d been sure that they would say no to the trip to the mountains. When asking their permission to go, Kate had tried to make it sound more like a ski trip than a week of ritual and magic. Even so, they had been less than thrilled by her request. To her surprise, however, they’d ultimately agreed that she could go, but only after several long phone calls to Sophia and several anxious days of waiting on Kate’s part. Even then, Kate had expected them to retract their permission up until the moment the car had pulled away from their house and she could breathe a sigh of relief.

  As for Cooper, her mother was also hesitant about her involvement in the Craft. There had long been an uneasy truce between them regarding the subject, and since Mr. Rivers had moved out of the house, they hadn’t spoken about the topic at all. Mrs. Rivers never asked her daughter about class, and Cooper never brought it up. When it came time to mention the trip, Cooper had asked her father’s permission first. His reply—“As long as it’s okay with your mother”—had both irritated and worried her. She knew that her father was worried about doing anything that might upset the fragile relationship that existed between the three of them because of the separation, but she’d been afraid that perhaps her mother would use the opportunity to make a statement regarding her feelings about witchcraft by denying Cooper permission to go. But when Cooper had mentioned it one morning as her mother was leaving for work she had simply said, “It’s up to you. If you want to go, go.” While not the enthusiastic support Cooper would have liked, she’d been happy just to have avoided a fight about the matter.

  Sophia turned the car onto an even narrower road. It seemed to lead straight into a forest, and the arms of the trees met overhead as they drove through what felt like a tunnel made of shadows and light as the afternoon sun filtered down through the branches of pine. Then they shot out into daylight again, and the girls gasped in unison as they saw what was in front of them.

  “Is that it?” Kate asked, her voice filled with awe.

  “That’s it,” confirmed Sophia.

  “Wow,” Cooper said simply.

  “Double wow,” echoed Annie.

  Before them sat a huge, old hotel. It was situated in the center of a ring of snowy mountains, the tops of which rose up around it. The hotel itself was enormous, an elaborate Victorian building with ornate carvings, several tower rooms with pointed roofs, and stained-glass windows looking out at them like multicolored eyes. Two wings of rooms stretched out on either side of the main building, and smoke puffed gently from several chimneys.

  “I
t’s beautiful,” Annie said as Sophia pulled the SUV up to the front and parked it beside some other cars that were already there.

  “Wait until you see the inside,” said Sophia. “Come on.”

  They got out and retrieved their bags from the back of the car. Then they walked up the neatly shoveled path to the front steps of the hotel and went through the door. Once inside, the girls set down their bags and looked around in awe.

  The lobby of the hotel was done in red. Almost everything was red, from the deep red of the walls to the red velvet upholstery on the couches and chairs that were arranged in comfortable groups all around the enormous room. A huge chandelier, its hundreds of individual crystals sparkling with light, hung from the ceiling over their heads, and classical music floated softly through the air.

  “Look at that tree,” Annie said, nodding at an enormous pine tree that stood in the center of the lobby. Its spreading branches were strung with what seemed to be thousands of white lights, and ornaments of all kinds hung from it.

  “That’s the Yule tree,” Sophia told them. “The ornaments on it have been used since the hotel opened. Every year they add some new ones, but some of those are almost a hundred and fifty years old.”

  “Sophia!”

  A woman emerged from a doorway behind the long wooden check-in counter, distracting them from looking at the tree. She had deep red hair that complemented the colors of the lobby, and she was wearing a burgundy-colored shirt with jeans. She walked quickly toward them and embraced Sophia warmly.

  “Fiona,” Sophia said. “Merry meet.”

  Fiona laughed as she released her friend from the hug. “Merry meet yourself,” she replied gaily. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Since last Yule,” Sophia said. “How are Bryan and the girls?”

  “See for yourself,” answered Fiona. Then she turned and called out, “Sophia’s here,” in a loud voice.

  Moments later a man emerged from the doorway. A little shorter than his wife, he had curly black hair and an easy, crooked smile that made his chin dimple. He, too, came over and hugged Sophia.

  “Has it really been a whole year?” he asked, shaking his head. “It seems like you were just here.”

  “It goes by quickly,” Sophia told him. “I bet the girls are all grown up now.”

  “They’ll be sixteen this Yule,” Bryan said.

  “Where are they, honey?” Fiona asked her husband.

  “They could be anywhere,” he answered. “I’m sure they’ll turn up.”

  “I wanted them to meet my girls,” Sophia said. “Bryan and Fiona, this is Cooper, Kate, and Annie. They’re part of my group this year.”

  Fiona and Bryan shook hands with the three girls. “You willingly signed up for her boot camp?” Bryan asked them, cocking his head at Sophia. “You’re braver than I am.”

  “She’s not so bad once you get the drill down,” Cooper deadpanned.

  Bryan laughed as Sophia pretended to be horrified by Cooper’s remark. Then the front door opened and another group of people came in.

  “Bryan, why don’t you take this bunch up to their rooms while I say hello to the new arrivals,” Fiona said.

  “Will do,” answered Bryan. “Follow me, folks,” he added to Kate, Annie, Cooper, and Sophia.

  They picked up their bags and followed as Bryan walked down the hallway that stretched to the left away from the lobby. The corridor seemed to go on forever, then they came to a staircase and Bryan started up it.

  “We saved you the best rooms in the house,” he remarked as they climbed.

  “Ah,” Sophia said. “The ghost rooms.”

  “That would be them,” Bryan replied.

  “Ghost rooms?” Annie asked.

  “Indeed,” Bryan told her. “Didn’t Sophia tell you that the hotel is haunted?”

  “By who?” Cooper said.

  “All kinds of people,” said Bryan as they ascended another flight of stairs. “Doomed lovers. Murdered gangsters. Failed businessmen. All kinds of people died in this place.”

  “How cheery,” remarked Kate grimly as she switched her bag to her other shoulder. “So, which ones do we get?”

  Bryan went up a final set of stairs, and they found themselves in another hallway. “You get the best ones of all,” he told them as they walked halfway down and stopped in front of a door. Bryan took out a key and held it up. “You get the honeymoon ghosts.”

  The girls looked at each other. “Okay,” Cooper said, “I’ll bite. What’s the story?”

  Bryan grinned wickedly. “It’s quite a story,” he replied. “It happened in 1923. A young couple, Rose and Edgar Whiting, came to the hotel to get married and to spend their honeymoon here. It was a grand affair. They rented the entire place. The rooms were filled with their guests. On the day they married, Rose was beautiful in her wedding dress and Edgar was as handsome as could be in his tuxedo. The wedding party afterward was legendary, lasting long into the night. Finally, in the early hours of the morning, the couple retired to these rooms.”

  Bryan paused dramatically, letting them all wonder what could possibly come next. After an agonizing wait, he continued. “When the maid came in the morning to bring Rose and Edgar their breakfasts, she found them…dead.”

  “Dead how?” Annie asked.

  “Aren’t you a morbid one?” commented Bryan, looking at Annie curiously.

  “It’s not a good story unless we know the how part,” Cooper explained.

  “This is quite a bunch you have here,” Bryan said to Sophia. Then he turned back to the girls. “That’s the strange part,” he said. “Rose had been poisoned and Edgar had been shot through the heart. But no one could tell which of them had died first, so they never knew if it was murder or some kind of suicide pact.”

  “Why would they kill themselves on their wedding night?” Kate said. “That doesn’t make sense. Of course, they had to have been murdered.”

  “That’s what the police thought,” Bryan said. “Except that the door was locked from the inside. The maid had to use her key to open it.”

  “But if she had a key, someone else could have had one as well, right?” said Cooper skeptically.

  “There were only two of them,” Bryan said. “This is one of them.” He waved the key in his hand at them. “The other one is in the hotel office.”

  “A locked-door mystery,” Annie said. “How very Agatha Christie.”

  “And this one was never solved,” Bryan said. “To this day no one knows what happened in these rooms. But people who have stayed here report that all kinds of weird things happen.”

  “What kinds of things?” Cooper asked.

  “Voices,” Bryan answered. “Glimpses of shadowy figures. Things disappearing. Faces in the mirrors. Think you can handle it?”

  Cooper laughed, and Bryan looked surprised. “I grew up with a ghost,” Cooper informed him. “And let’s just say that all three of us have friends in the spirit world.”

  Bryan cocked an eyebrow. “Then this should prove to be very interesting,” he said as he inserted the key in the lock and turned it.

  The door swung open silently as Bryan motioned for them to enter. Kate stepped inside first and gave a little scream. The others rushed forward to see what had startled her, and were surprised to see a girl standing in the room. She looked back at them blankly, as if they had interrupted her doing something.

  “Nora,” Bryan said. “What are you doing in here?”

  The girl pushed her long red hair back from her face and looked around the room. “Oh,” she said. “I just came in to make sure everything was clean. Mom told me you were going to put people in here this week.”

  The girl smiled at Kate and the others. “It’s not every day that someone stays in the ghost rooms,” she told them.

  “Everyone, this is my daughter Nora,” Bryan said.

  The girls all nodded and said hello, and Nora smiled back at them. “Hi,” she said.

  “Where’s Lucy?” B
ryan asked his daughter.

  Nora shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “Last time I saw her, she was going to see if they needed any help in the kitchen.”

  “I’m right here,” said a voice from the doorway.

  They all turned and saw another girl standing there. She was an exact copy of her sister, right down to the clothes she was wearing. She stepped inside the room and greeted the girls and Sophia. Then she looked at Nora. “I was looking for you,” she said, her voice even but not warm.

  “Sorry,” Nora said. “I was right here.”

  “Well,” Bryan said. “We should get you girls settled. Annie and Cooper, I thought we’d put the two of you in this room. And Kate,” he added, walking to a door set into one wall of the room, “I thought you could sleep in the adjoining room with your friend Sasha when she arrives.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Kate, peering through the door into the other bedroom. “So, where did the honeymooners die?”

  “In this room,” Nora said quickly.

  The others looked at her, and she blushed. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to sound like some kind of death freak or something. It’s just that when you live here you kind of get used to telling the story.”

  “Tell me about it,” Cooper remarked. “I get to tell the story of the ghost in my house about ten times a week during the summer.”

  “You live with a ghost?” Nora asked, sounding interested.

  Cooper nodded. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  “I’d like that,” said Nora.

  “But right now you and I have some chores to do,” Lucy said.

  Nora’s face fell, but she nodded. “Lucy’s right,” she said. “We’ll see you guys later.”

  The girls left. Then Bryan said, “Sophia, I’ll show you to your room now. It’s down the hall. Girls, if you need anything just call the front desk. Otherwise we’ll see you at dinner tonight. It’s at six in the dining room downstairs. Oh, and here’s the room key. Don’t lose it, now. There’s just the one.”

  Annie took the key from him and put it in her pocket. Bryan and Sophia left, shutting the door behind them.