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“Does Mother Hemlock want something?” Coco asked.
“Yes.”
“What does she want?” Brian asked.
“I think,” said Mr. Voland, with a glance at the staircase, “that she wants to keep us here.”
“Why?” they all asked together.
“It will be dark in a few hours. Ghosts are stronger in the dark.”
Coco shrank closer to her friends. The scarecrows in the world behind the mist had hunted in the dark.
“Okay then,” said Ollie, saying what they were all thinking. “But what does she want to do? When she’s stronger in the dark?”
“That is the question, isn’t it?” Mr. Voland smiled down at them, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “I fear the answer might be—unpleasant.”
“But you said ghosts weren’t dangerous,” said Brian.
“The majority are not,” said Mr. Voland crisply. “But the small remainder—can be. We should keep the fire going, if we can. They do not like firelight.”
He wouldn’t say anything else. He knelt and busied himself with the fire. After a minute, Ollie, Brian, and Coco went around to the dining room. The morning light had gone from the windows there. It was after noon, and the room looked cold and gray; shadows gathered in the corners, untouched by the tiny fire. The big dark mirror glimmered opposite the fireplace.
Brian said sharply, “What’s that?” He was staring at the mirror. Coco and Ollie looked, but Coco didn’t see anything. Just the dining room and their three tense faces.
“I don’t see anything,” said Ollie. “Brian, what was it?”
Brian shook his head, still staring at the mirror. He looked shaken. “I thought I saw her. In the mirror. The girl in the nightgown. She’s gone now.”
Coco looked through the big dining room window. At that time of year, she knew, it would start to get dark in only a few hours. The snow poured down outside.
Despite Mr. Voland’s care, the fire was small and sullen. It sputtered. “What’s wrong with the fire?” Coco asked. Ollie had a woodstove at home and knew a lot about fires.
“It’s acting like the wood is wet,” said Ollie. She went over to check the woodpile. “It’s not, though.” Another weird thing. Too many weird things, Coco thought. More than anything, she wanted to go home. But they couldn’t, even if they wanted to. They were stuck.
Trapped, she thought, with an anxious glance at the staircase. We’re trapped.
When the front door clattered open, they all jumped. Coco’s mom and Ollie’s dad came in, brushing snow from their hats and coats. Mr. Adler’s beard was all frosted up, and they both had snow in their eyelashes.
“Lordy!” said Mr. Adler. “It’s definitely snowing!” He stamped more snow off his boots, looked around. “And it’s not much warmer in here than outside,” he added. “Sue, is the heat not working either? How’s the fire doing?”
Mrs. Wilson trudged back into the dining room. “Don just got the fire going again,” she said, with a slightly friendlier nod at Mr. Voland. “Sam’s trying to fix the heat. But . . .”
“Uh-huh. We couldn’t fix the generators either,” said Mr. Adler. “It was the strangest thing.”
“What do you mean, strange?” Coco asked.
“There wasn’t anything wrong with the generators,” put in Coco’s mom. She peeled off her ski jacket and shook the snow from her hair and coat. “At least, nothing that I could find. Except for not working, of course.” She kicked snow off her own boots and went to the fire to warm her hands beside Coco. “How’s it going, hon?” she asked.
“Okay,” said Coco in a small voice. She debated telling her mother about what had happened in the upstairs hall. She decided not to. Her mom would just get annoyed at Mr. Voland for scaring them. She wouldn’t actually believe they’d seen a ghost.
Mrs. Wilson said, “Well, I’ll admit the heating has got the same problem. It seems fine, everything looks good, the propane tanks are full. It’s just not heating. We need to get an expert out, but . . .”
“But no one is getting through today,” Ollie’s dad finished. “Not until the storm ends.” They all turned and looked out the dining room window. The storm didn’t look like it planned to end anytime soon. Even with a small fire going, the lobby and dining room wer
e still freezing. Coco wished she could go back upstairs for her ski jacket. But now she was scared of the long dark hallway, the rattling closet door, the black-dressed figure at the end of the hall, of Mr. Voland’s voice: she wants to keep us here.
All the adults, Coco noticed, looked worried too.
