Twenty

We tore down the back way to a small parking area. The blue van was gone, so I assumed Matt and Fitch had split up and were probably each driving around, looking for us. Minerva had a lime-green MINI Cooper; I squished into the passenger seat and ducked down, and Iris lay flat on the back seat. We stayed out of sight until we were out of town.

As we drove into Silver Bay, I saw the big Victorian hotel looming over the cove.

“ Miramar is Spanish for ‘sea-view,’?” Minerva said. “This hotel started off as a resort and a health spa. A magnet for wealthy people from New York and Boston.”

I gazed at the ramshackle old wreck and tried to imagine that it had been grand in its day.

“After two of the sisters died, our family sort of lost hope,” Minerva continued. “We kept the building, but we let it get run-down. It’s basically just a boardinghouse now.”

“Who lives there?” I asked. My mind was racing. I needed to know everything I could about the hotel if we were to go inside to get Hayley. I kept looking over my shoulder, nervous that Fitch or Matt would pull up behind us at any minute.

“Hardly anyone,” Minerva said. “As the tenants die, the rooms are not re-rented.” She paused, and her eyes flashed with anger. “But one of my favorite people in the world lives there. And she’s the reason I’m upset the family’s not taking care of the property. She deserves better.”

“Who?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” Minerva said.

We reached the stately, faded-yellow hotel. It had balconies trimmed with ornate white gingerbread, and front stairs adorned with fancy carved railings that made it look like a wedding cake. But the paint was peeling, the trim cracked and broken, and a few black shutters dangled, banging in the wind. It was four stories high, and at the top was a turret.

An elderly lady in a white dress stood on the front porch. She looked as old as the Miramar itself. Thankfully, there was no sign of Matt’s Jeep or Fitch’s blue van. We must have beaten them there, so we had some time.

“This is the place,” Iris said as Minerva drove alongside the hotel.

“I thought you didn’t see it,” I said.

“I feel it, Oli,” she said. “Like?.?.?.?a force. I know Hayley is in there.”

I reached back and squeezed her hand. I completely believed her, because I understood the pull of sisters, something unseen and unspoken. A force—just as she had said.

Minerva circled the hotel, and I made a note of all the entrances and exits. There were six doors: one at the top of the wide stairs, two in back, and one that I guessed led to a kitchen, considering the dumpster right outside besieged by screeching gulls. The other two doors opened onto the side porch. There was also a driveway that slanted downward toward garage doors.

“Does Fitch live here?” I asked.

“Not officially,” Minerva said. “But he’s constructed this whole persona as a researcher who needs his own space to work on the cure. That’s why he uses the attic. He calls it his ‘lab.’ Everyone just indulges him. It’s easier that way.”

I craned my neck to peer anxiously at the top floor. If the huge place was mostly vacant and the family didn’t care, it explained why no one had intervened with Fitch taking the girls up to the hidden attic.

My older-sister-ness kicked in, and I began to plan. Even though Matt and Fitch weren’t here yet, I didn’t know who else might be stationed inside, to guard Hayley. I figured that Abigail could be in the attic with her.

“What floors are the occupied rooms on?” I asked Minerva.

“Scattered through the hotel,” Minerva said. “Lower floors, though—the elevator is always broken, and the older tenants find the stairs too difficult.”

Minerva parked on a side street, and the three of us jumped out of the car.

“Ready?” Iris said. “Let’s go inside.”

She was so revved up, it was easy to forget the fact she had been buried alive less than thirty-six hours ago. But it was obvious the physical and emotional trauma had taken a toll. She was so pale, her head wound stood out like Halloween makeup, a black slash. She had dark circles under her eyes. She was clenching her hands to hide the fact they were shaking. I knew it would take superhuman strength for her to return to the attic, the site where she’d nearly died.

“I’m ready,” I said, hiding the fact that I was scared. Not just for my own safety, but because I was afraid I would fail. Fail Hayley and fail the spirit of my sister.

“Iris, can you lead us up to Hayley?” I asked.

“I can try. But we were blindfolded and barely conscious when we got here,” Iris reminded me. “And when Fitch took me out to bury me, I was totally unconscious. So I didn’t see anything.”

“How about you, Minerva?” I asked. “Fitch did that test on you in the attic, right?”

“Yes, but like I said, the inside is a maze,” Minerva explained. “Staircases everywhere, but they don’t go straight up, floor-by-floor—they kind of zigzag through the hotel. Walk up to one floor, then down a hallway, then up to another. We could wind up at a dead end or trapped inside a utility closet or something.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why would a hotel be built that way?”

“A combination of things,” Minerva said. “Don’t forget, it used to be a place where people came to get well. Some of them were famous, like stage actors from New York, so the owners came up with a design to protect their privacy. So the attic, where treatments were given, was very hard to find.”

“What else? You said a combination of things?.?.?.”

“Magic and intrigue,” she said. “The Sibylline sisters were part of the Miramar’s allure. Nothing could be straightforward or simple. Guests wanted to feel they’d checked in to an enchanted hotel. So the owners filled the interior with magical elements, like mirrors everywhere, stars painted on the ceilings, twisty hallways that don’t always lead where you expect them to.”

Iris sighed, frustrated. “I don’t care. We’ll head in there and we’ll find our way somehow.”

Minerva shook her head. “I know I said we should rush over here, but you were right, Oli. We shouldn’t just storm in until we know exactly where to go. Do you want to get trapped again, Iris? What we really need is a map.”

“What are you talking about?” Iris demanded.

“There’s an old brochure that I’m pretty sure maps out the interior so guests could choose their rooms back in the day,” Minerva explained. “I think my great-aunt has it. Come on.”

Iris and I followed Minerva to the front of the hotel, where the very old woman was standing on the wide porch. She was extremely thin, with long, flowing white hair, her face scored with soft wrinkles. Her ankle-length dress was white, printed with faded yellow flowers. She leaned on a cane, watching us carefully. After a few seconds, she sat in one of the rocking chairs.

“Who is that?” Iris whispered to me. “What if she’s part of Fitch’s scheme?”

“I have no idea,” I whispered back. “Let’s talk to her. Find out what she knows.”

Iris and I walked slowly toward the woman, but Minerva ran over to her and threw her arms around her in a huge hug.

When they pulled apart, Minerva turned to us with a glowing smile.

“This is my great-aunt Daphne,” she said.

I felt shocked and amazed—we were actually meeting one of the Sibylline sisters. She lived right here.

“Good afternoon,” the woman said, offering her hand. “I’m Daphne Agassiz.”

“Hello,” I said, feeling another shock at her last name. I shook her hand and noticed that in spite of her apparent frailty, she had a strong grip. I introduced myself and Iris.

“What brings you to the Miramar?” Daphne asked. “Are you here to take the waters?”

“Take the waters?” I asked.

“Yes. You know that this is a place of wellness. Surrounded by the bay, with salt air and fog coming off the ocean, and the chance to swim and heal,” she said.

“That’s not why we’re here,” Minerva said. “Aunt Daphne—”

“Sit with me, girls. I’m the only one of my sisters left now?.?.?. Minerva, you know it gets lonely, having no one to talk to.”

“Aunt Daphne, we would love that, but I need something first. The brochure,” Minerva said.

“What brochure?” Daphne asked.

“That old one from the Miramar. You know, with the map of the interior, so guests could choose their rooms.”

“Darling, I don’t have it anymore. I donated most of the old mementos to the Silver Bay Historical Society,” Daphne said, then frowned. “Or was it the library? Hmm. I spread them around, not wanting to leave any local establishment out. It could even be at the Elbridge Museum.”

I saw Iris’s shoulders slump, but Minerva seemed galvanized. “The Silver Bay Historical Society is just a few blocks away,” she said. “That’s the first place you mentioned, Aunt Daphne—are you pretty sure it’s there?”

“Oh dear, at my age, I’ve learned that nothing is sure.”

“Well, it’s worth a try,” Minerva said. “If I hurry, I can get there before it closes. Hold tight, I’ll be right back.”

“What do you need the brochure for?” Daphne asked, but Minerva was already racing toward her car.

Daphne sighed. “The young ones are always in such a hurry,” she said. “They haven’t learned yet that life is long.”

“Not for everyone,” I said.

Daphne looked at me with a glint in her eyes. “Death comes for all of us, but in its own time. Or is there something specific you’d like to tell me?”

I glanced over my shoulder at Iris, thinking she would tell Daphne about what Fitch had done. But she was silent, and I saw her backing away. Was this all too much for her?

“Your last name is Agassiz,” I said, turning back to Daphne. “Are you connected to the Agassiz Foundation?”

She nodded. “My family started it years ago. My father, to be precise. He sought a cure for a terrible disease. He knew that this variety of parasomnia affected girls with a rare blood type.”

“Type AB negative?” I asked. I’d never heard of parasomnia, but it must have been the condition that ran in the family.

“Yes, how do you know?” she asked.

“I know it’s the disease that took your two sisters. I’m so sorry,” I said.

“It did,” she said. “I had the same blood type, but somehow I lived. It never seemed fair.”

She closed her eyes and looked pale, as if my words had brought all her grief flooding back. I couldn’t help taking her hand. She tilted her head, reading my expression. “You understand,” she said. “You’ve lost someone you love.”

“Yes,” I said. “My sister. And I think she died right here. At the Miramar.”

“Please, no!” Daphne said.

I knew she could see the sorrow in my eyes. We shared that emotion; it came from the unbearable fact of losing a sister. She still gripped my hand.

“Do you know what your great-nephew does upstairs?” I asked.

“Fitch?” she asked, and gave a half laugh. “He’s a sad case. He pretends to be a scientist. Some people present themselves one way, when they are really another.” Daphne paused and shook her head. “You’re never too young to learn that truth of human nature.”

“Do you ever go up to the attic, to see him?”

“Heavens, no.”

“He never takes you up there? Does he do tests on you?”

“What kind of tests?” she asked, clearly puzzled.

“To work on his cure, for the family disease?”

She snorted. “What silliness. How can a boy with no medical or advanced scientific training work on a cure? He’s probably just playing with that obsolete equipment from the old days. He does worry about his sister, I will give him that much credit.”

“She’s up there with him, right?” I asked. “And the other girls he brings here?”

“Dear, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What girls? I find him tiresome. He has appropriated the Agassiz Foundation for his own reasons—to make himself seem like a big shot. He struts about, but I’ll tell you this, Oli: Scratch the surface of a self-proclaimed genius and you’ll find either a pathetic soul or a megalomaniac.”

The latter , I thought. I saw her staring at my wrist.

“Who gave you this?” she asked, tapping the Turk’s head Matt had given me just hours earlier, when everything had been so different.

“A boy I thought I liked,” I said.

“It’s a sailor’s knot,” Daphne said. “A romantic gift.”

I had actually believed that. But that was before I knew, before I heard Matt’s voice whispering for me while he and Fitch scoured the waterfront looking for us.

“It’s a sign of strong feelings—going all the way back to the days when sailors left for months, even years at a time,” Daphne went on. “The gift of a sailor’s knot was a promise, a sign of love. My father gave one to my mother. Their love—for each other and for us—was stronger than anything on earth.”

“They sound wonderful,” I said, thinking sadly how I’d been imagining that for me and Matt.

When I shook myself out of that momentary reverie, I saw that Daphne was staring over my shoulder, where Iris had been standing. She was frowning so intensely, I turned to follow her gaze. There was no sign of Iris. “Your friend—she was there just a minute ago,” she said. “But someone beckoned her inside.”

“Who did?” I asked, upset that I’d been distracted and hadn’t noticed.

“The boy,” she said. “Not Fitch—one of his friends.”

“What’s his name?” I asked. I could hear the ocean roaring in my ears, only it was really my blood, my heart pounding as I waited to hear her say “Matt.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He didn’t introduce me.”

Matt , I thought. The friend was Matt. I didn’t wait to hear anything else. I needed to catch up to Iris and Matt.

“Oli, come back when you can. I enjoyed our visit,” I heard Daphne call as I ran across the wide porch, into the Miramar’s open door.

But they weren’t the last words I heard.

“Hello, Oli,” he said, that familiar voice ringing in my ears as I felt the sting on my neck, as I felt the cold rush through my veins, freezing me, turning me into ice that cracked and splintered and sent me collapsing to the floor.