Chapter 3: The Elevator Stops at Floor Thirteen

Every grand hotel has a floor it prefers not to discuss. Ours had a thirteenth, officially, though the buttons skipped from twelve to fourteen and the guidebooks claimed the numbering was superstition. We all knew better. The old cage elevator, brass and mahogany and slightly out of breath, would sometimes sigh to a stop between floors as if it had heard a better offer. At two in the morning, it did exactly that, with Anselm and me standing inside it.

We had been carrying the room service tray for 614, a pot of black tea and a plate of untouched shortbread, the order she placed every night and, as far as Odile could tell, never ate. The elevator shuddered, the lights dimmed to amber, and the doors parted onto a corridor with deep red carpet I had never seen in my nineteen years. Anselm crossed himself in the quiet, unostentatious way of a man who has done it before.

At the end of the corridor, a woman sat on a velvet bench beneath a wall sconce, one leg crossed over the other, a glass of something pale in her hand. She was dressed for a party that had ended an hour ago, black dress, long gloves folded on her knee, dark hair swept up and starting, delightfully, to fall. She looked at us as though we were a pair of late guests. 'You are Marguerite,' she said. 'Valentina. I have heard a great deal about you from the lady in 614.'

I do not rattle easily, but I will admit that my voice came out a shade lower than usual. I asked her what she was doing on a floor that did not exist. 'Waiting,' said Valentina, 'which I do beautifully.' She patted the bench beside her, and I sat, tray and all, while Anselm hovered like a very respectful lamp. She smelled of orange blossom and cold marble. She told me she had known the woman in 614 long before this hotel, and that the brass key was not the first thing left on a counter between them.

She would not say more, and she wore her silence the way some women wear pearls, with total confidence. When I stood to go, she touched my wrist, lightly, two fingers, and the sconce flickered. 'Tell her I said the winter is not over,' she murmured. 'And tell her I have kept her room warm.' I turned back toward the elevator, and found that its doors had already begun to close. I reached for them. I was one second too late.

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