Haunting at the Hotel Page 23

  “I think, as we read the poem, whenever we hear a word that corresponds with the symbol, we press it immediately. Ready, Frank?”

  He stands at attention. “Yes, ma’am!”

  Eliza flashes her light on me. “I’ll read the poem out loud. Whenever you hear a word that has a symbol that goes with it, you tell Frank. And Frank, you press the buttons.”

  “Wooooooo!”

  Eliza clears her throat and reads.

  In sun and in snow,

  This household stands tall.

  Our love for it grows

  Spring, summer, and fall.

  But winter is what we cherish the best,

  For Winters we are, and Winters are blessed.

  * * *

  TO PRESS MOON, LEAF, HOUSE, STAR, SUN, LIGHTNING, FLOWER, HEART, SNOWFLAKE, CLICK HERE.

  TO PRESS SUN, SNOWFLAKE, HOUSE, HEART, FLOWER, SUN, LEAF, SNOWFLAKE, SNOWFLAKE, SNOWFLAKE, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  WE WALK ACROSS the lobby to the mailboxes. They’re behind the door, near a window that overlooks Sugarcrest Mountain—in the distance, we can see the lights from Luther’s hotel, the Super Hotel Express.

  There are five silver boxes mounted to the wall, protruding out quite a bit, one for each member of the Sugarcrest Park Lodge staff: Reese, Harris, Fernando, Cricket, and Sunny. The only problem is that we need a key to get into each person’s box.

  “Rats,” I say.

  “Where?” Frank says excitedly.

  “There has to be a way to put the mail in the mailboxes,” Eliza says. “See how there’s no slot to slip the envelopes in? I bet there’s a way to open all the boxes at once, so whoever’s delivering the mail can slide letters into their correct spaces without having to open each box individually.” Eliza takes a look underneath the mailboxes—then she moves to the side, so she’s wedged right between the wall and the mailboxes. “Look! There’s another way in.”

  We squeeze next to her to find a snowflake-shaped lock built into the side of the last mailbox. Each of the snowflakes has a dial on it, where we can flip from numbers one through seven.

  “We have to open this,” I say. But how?

  “I think . . . ,” Eliza whispers. “Could it be? No. But maybe.”

  “Spit it out already!” Frank says.

  “I think this might be a magic circle. All the numbers on each line have to add up to the same sum. We have to use the numbers one through seven, but we can only use each number once.”

  I scratch my head. I feel like I’ve done one of these before. It’s like a distant memory.

  “If we figure out which number goes in each circle to make every line add up to the same sum, I’m sure it will open up these mailboxes, and then we can see what’s hiding here.”

  * * *

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 15, CLICK HERE.

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 12, CLICK HERE.

  OR TO ASK ELIZA FOR A HINT, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  “THE FLORAL ARRANGEMENT arrives at three o’clock,” I say, setting the grandfather clock to three. Nothing happens.

  “I think you have to pull this weight here,” Mom says, reaching forward. The clock starts chiming, and on the third ring, the clock swings open. Completely, off the wall, to reveal a tiny pathway into the walls.

  “Here we go!” Mom says. She looks giddy about this new discovery, and now I know where I get it from.

  Mom files in first, then Frank, then Eliza, and I’m last. Every passageway we go through is narrow and full of cobwebs. There are no lights, but I didn’t expect there to be any inside the walls.

  Every so often, we hear voices through the walls. Fernando di Cannoli and Byron Bookbinder are having a discussion in the fire den. In the hallway, Harris is bellowing on the phone to Luther Covington. In the library, Reese and January are shouting about her future career, which seems a bit early, if you ask me. January is barely a teenager.

  But we don’t have time to linger and listen. I feel like we’re racing toward the end—to the final piece of this long and haunted puzzle.

  We don’t know what we’re looking for, but soon we find it: a set of staircases goes down into the dark. We shine our flashlights, but the dark seems to eat up all our beams. There’s no telling what’s down there.

  Mom takes a step forward.

  “Mom, no!”

  She turns around and smiles widely. “You make me brave, hijo. The only way we’re going to solve this is to keep moving forward. We can’t let fear stand in the way of getting to the truth.”

  “If we get into trouble, we’ll solve our way out,” Eliza says. “One problem at a time.”

  “That’s what we always do,” Frank says, pulling on my sleeve.

  A knot in my stomach loosens. I think I have been letting fear control me this whole case. Ever since Mom went missing on us the first night . . . I don’t think I’ve taken a breath since—not even when we found her again.

  I sigh deeply and let go of my anxiety—all the worst-case-scenario worries that are tripping over themselves for attention in my head.

  And then I nod. And Mom nods. And Eliza nods. And Frank says, “NOD!”

  The four of us go down into the dark.

  At the bottom of the steps, there’s an iron door. It almost looks like a dungeon down here. It must be some sort of cellar.

  We open the door.

  “Welcome,” says a cool voice. “I was thinking you’d find our little spot.”

  I look frantically around for the source of the voice, but I can’t find anyone. This tiny room is empty, and yet . . .

  “Take a seat.”

  I know that voice.

  “We prefer to stand,” Mom says.

  “Suit yourself. I think you’ll be doing a lot of lying forevermore, so you can stand while you can.”

  Eliza and Frank are crawling around the room while Mom and I are straining to listen to the voice. Frank finds something and points, and we slowly and carefully walk over to him.

  It’s a speaker.

  No one is down here.

  “Yes, I’m afraid it’s true,” the voice says. “Sorry to say I couldn’t join you. I have a previous engagement upstairs. Don’t worry, the door locked behind you, so you’ll have your privacy.”

  “I thought you lost your master key . . . Sunny,” I say, finally recognizing the voice.

  “What an easy lie,” she says with a laugh. “Completely unverifiable. No one can prove I didn’t lose my key. And while the storm is raging, Reese and Harris couldn’t call a locksmith to get the locks changed. It allowed me to very easily slip into your room.”

  “And Reese’s room all those times?”

  “Oh, I don’t need a key for Reese’s room. I have a spy on the inside.”

  Spy on the inside? What does that mean?

  And why is she even doing this?

  * * *

  TO ASK WHY SHE’S DOING THIS, CLICK HERE.

  TO ASK WHAT SHE MEANS BY A SPY ON THE INSIDE, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  TIME TO TURN the tables on the ghost.

  “Eliza, Frank—find the exit. Get Reese and the police!”

  “Hey, that rhymes!” Frank says. Eliza grabs her brother by the hand, and the two of them run.

  I am fully aware that Mom and I are the bait. We’re the distraction for the ghost, just here to buy Eliza and Frank more time.

  But that doesn’t mean we’re helpless. We have things in the basement that we can use. Like these millions of hanging cloths that are projecting these freaky ghost holograms . . . which we could use to tie up the ghost. But there’s also that patch of mud, near the bottom of the slide. If we can lure the ghost over there, then maybe we’d get it stuck. Or at the very least, slippery and dirty.

  * * *

  TO TRAP THE GHOST IN THE HANGING CLOTHS, CLICK HERE.

  TO LURE THE GHOST INTO THE MUD, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  WE HAVE TO go search for Mom and Eliza. I could never
forgive myself if something happened to them while Frank and I were just lying around on the hotel bed.

  “Come on, Frank!”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Uh . . . sneaking! Crawling!”

  He jumps up faster than I’ve ever seen him. “YES!”

  We leave the room without being totally sure where we’re going next. But the second the door clicks behind us, I pull Frank against the wall. The hallway is still and quiet. Too still.

  I don’t understand—sure, the sun is down, but it’s not bedtime! There shouldn’t be a haunting this early. But it definitely feels like the calm before the storm.

  Goose bumps prickle on my arms.

  Then we’re flung into darkness.

  I cling to Frank, and he hugs me back—which is the first time I’ve ever gotten a nonfidgety hug from him. That’s how scared he is. I’m practically shaking, because I can faintly hear a hissing noise. Are ghost snakes a thing?

  I’m starting to think we shouldn’t have given Mom and Eliza our flashlights. I dig into my pocket and fumble with the key . . . and try to find the keyhole to go back inside our room. I can’t see a thing—I’m running my hand all over the door.

  And right when my fingers brush the keyhole, the hall lights come back on. At the end of the hallway, there’s a girl standing in fog. I can’t see her face, but she’s got blond pigtails. She’s wearing a blue dress, and her hands are red, like she’s been finger painting with blood.

  Nope, nope, nope.

  “Come play,” she says with a sickly sweet laugh.

  “W-we’re good here,” I say, my voice shaky. I try to put the key into the door, and I drop it accidentally.

  “Come play,” she says between giggles.

  “What games do you have?” Frank says. “Monopoly? Clue? Connect Four?”

  Does he not notice her bloodstained hands? I wrap my arms around him protectively. Because I don’t trust him not to walk over to her.

  “Thank you for the offer, but it’s a hard pass,” I say.

  “Come play,” the girl says again, more demanding this time. The giggling is gone.

  The lights are snuffed out again.

  And then there’s a terrible sound—the world’s most terrible sound. Mom screaming from somewhere above us. The lights come back on.

  “MOM!”

  The girl at the end of the hallway darts around the corner. I sprint after her. I don’t even have to make a choice here—my feet run of their own accord. I think we must be running toward the Dead Room. But to my surprise—and horror—in front of the Dead Room, there’s an attic ladder that’s been pulled down by its string.

  I did not agree to creepy old attics when I took on this case.

  But what choice do I have? The girl is halfway up the ladder. I climb behind her, and Frank is behind me.

  When I get to the top of the ladder, I turn around and help Frank. It’s freezing cold up here, and I can hear the winds smacking the house. The light is dim—enough to see, but not well.

  I do not see Mom or Eliza.

  “Hello?” I call. “Mom? Eliza?”

  I hear Mom’s shriek again. This time she says my name. “Carlos!”

  “Mom!”

  I run through the attic, between stacks of boxes taller than me, past old dusty cloths. The floor creaks beneath my feet—I’m fairly certain that the wood is rotted.

  “Carlos!”

  Now I know that came from my left. I barrel through some junk on the ground, kick my way past a fire extinguisher, and duck under an old moth-eaten drape.

  “Carlos!”

  The same exact inflection as before. I’ve hit the wall, but Mom isn’t here. Where is she?

  Frank comes running behind me. “You’re fast!”

  “Carlos!”

  That’s when I see it: a speaker. So Mom isn’t here. She isn’t screaming. It’s just a sound bite that they probably got off her when she was stuck in the Dead Room. It was all a trick, and I fell right into their trap.

  We have to get out of here! I pull Frank back the way we came, but there is a ghost blocking my way to the ladder. A different ghost. Not the creepy little pigtailed girl, but a ghastly green one that looks like it has boogers for skin.

  Worst of all, the ladder is all folded up into the attic—a giant chain and lock are wrapped around the rungs. There’s no way out.

  “Carlos,” Frank says, pointing at the ghost. No—he’s pointing behind the ghost. All the way across the attic, there is a single window . . . and our only chance of escape.

  But the ghost stands in our way.

  * * *

  TO KNOCK OVER THE BOXES ONTO THE GHOST, CLICK HERE.

  TO SPRAY THE GHOST WITH THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  WE NEED TO get to the chimney. If we can crawl down it, then we’ll be back in the house. We can shout for Mom and Eliza—the chimney puts us where we need to go.

  “Come on!” I say, yanking Frank away from January. He screams—she was really holding his hair tightly. “Run!”

  “Oh no you don’t,” Sunny says, moving to block us. But she doesn’t know where we’re going, and she runs the wrong way. Perfect!

  I give Frank a leg up. He crawls into the chimney, and I follow.

  “After them!” Sunny cries.

  “I’m not crawling in there!” January says.

  “Well, I’m too big!”

  I can hear them arguing as we shimmy down the chimney. Only . . . it’s getting narrower and narrower, and I don’t think we’re both going to fit.

  “Frank, move your leg!” I glance over at him, and he’s totally smushed against the wall. And so am I . . . there’s nowhere for either of us to move. We are wedged in.

  “We’re Santa!” Frank says.

  “No,” I groan. “We’re stuck!”

  CASE CLOSED.

  I EDGE CLOSER to the table and pick up a paper. I go to read it, only . . . it’s a series of scribbled numbers. But how do I convert the numbers to letters?

  968 46 843 56229, 63 46 843 4255.

  9428 8463?

  84733. 36 668 438 228448.

  4 63837 36.

  Go team kind

  Minus the D, you mean

  “Eliza, can you look at this weird number code?” I ask her, and she crosses the lair to come to my side.

  She takes one look at the numbers and laughs. Then she pulls her phone out of her pocket.

  “There’s no cell reception right now because of the storm! That’s not going to work.”

  “It’s not for calling people. It’s for this!” She shows me her screen.

  “It’s a phone code,” she says. “The numbers translate to letters. The tricky thing is that each number could be three or four different possible letters. So I recommend starting with the small number sequences. Those should be easier. And work your way up to the big ones.”

  968 46 843 56229. 63 46 843 4255.

  9428 8463?

  84733. 36 668 438 228448.

  4 63837 36.

  * * *

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 7, CLICK HERE.

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 3, CLICK HERE.

  OR TO ASK ELIZA FOR A HINT, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  “WE HAVE TO warn Harris,” I say as I stare at the translated message I’ve written on a sticky note.

  GET OUT REESE

  OR I AM COMING FOR YOUR HUSBAND TONIGHT

  “You want to talk to Harris?” Eliza says, reaching down and touching some of the green jelly. “Because I want to talk to Fernando. Between the license, the Luther letter, and a food item as a prop in multiple hauntings, I think it’s time we got some answers.”

  At that moment, everyone files out of the fire den. Reese, January, Sunny, and Byron seem to be heading back to their rooms. I notice that Harris goes to his office. Fernando goes to the kitchen. Something isn’t quite right.

  “Excuse me,” Cricket says to us, rubbing her eyes. “You’r
e in my seat.”

  We get up and walk over to Mom.

  “Well?”

  I hand her the sticky note.

  “Hmm. Rather nonspecific, don’t you think?” Mom says. “It feels like the ghost is running out of threats.”

  “So you don’t think Harris is in danger?”

  “On the contrary, I think he’s in more danger. It seems to me like coded messages and random howling noises don’t work on Reese. I think the ghost is figuring out that the only thing that will really send a message to her is action. Action focused not on Reese herself, but on someone she loves.”

  “So . . . Harris is in trouble.”

  “Unless we stop the ghost—and fast,” Mom says.

  “Then let’s go,” I say, pulling Mom and Eliza toward the kitchen. “Fernando is our biggest lead. We have to confront him.”

  We head to the kitchen, where Fernando is standing at the kitchen island. Just staring at an empty bowl in front of him.

  “Why didn’t you go back to bed like everyone else?” I say. “Are you plotting with Luther again?”

  Flustered, he drops the bowl he is holding.

  “Oh a-my! Look at the time! I must go—”

  “Not so fast,” Mom says. Even though she’s smaller than him, she has a really strong don’t-mess-with-me-because-I-am-in-no-mood-for-nonsense presence. It stops Fernando cold.

  “W-what do you want?”

  “An explanation,” Eliza says. “For this.” She reaches into her backpack and pulls out the license we found in the safe.

  “It’s not mine!” Fernando says automatically. It’s almost like a knee-jerk reaction.

  “Then why is your picture on it . . . Stefano?” I say. Fernando di Cannoli begins to sweat. And his eyes dart to the door, like he’s looking for an exit. “I . . . I . . .”