Chapter Twenty-Two, Part One

Robert was boiling some coffee when Sophie came downstairs, already dressed and with her hair in a ponytail.

“What’s for breakfast?” she asked.

He gave a guilty start. They had brought home food for last night’s dinner, but somehow Robert had forgotten to plan ahead for breakfast. Why hadn’t he gotten eggs or oatmeal? “I guess we were too tired to think properly yesterday,” he confessed. “I’m sure we can find something, though.” He rummaged among the contents of the pantry and pulled out a couple cans of peaches. “This will have to do for now. We’ll stock up later today.”

Since Sophie was eager to demonstrate her new can-opening expertise, he let her open the cans and scoop the syrupy peaches into bowls. The fruit was gone in no time, and after their few dishes were washed, it was time to see what state the lodge was in.

At the back of the apartment was a door that led into the lodge’s business office, since the apartment had once been for the use of the lodge’s general manager. Unlike the apartment, the lodge had not been kept up after they closed it for good, and there was a thick layer of dust everywhere. “I hope you brought a handkerchief,” Robert said. He brushed some dust off a calculator. If it still worked, it would be useful in his accounting. Then he opened a few file cabinets at random while Sophie wiped the dust from a computer monitor.

“Is this a television, too?” she asked.

“No, it’s a computer. They told you about computers in school, didn’t they?”

“Yes, but we never actually got to see one.”

“It would’ve been used for a lot of things, but mainly for communicating with customers and making sure the money we took in was sent to the bank.”

“Can it still do those things?”

“No.” When Sophie seemed puzzled by this answer, he added, “Even if it still works, which I doubt, it has no way to communicate any more. Computers all over the country used to talk to each other, but that’s no longer possible.”

“Why not?”

Robert sighed. If it weren’t for Will Channing, he’d be in Santa Fe right now working to solve this very problem. “It’s complicated. Let’s go look at the rest of this place.” From this office one door led into the main foyer and another to the area behind the front desk where guests used to check in. Since the front desk would probably only engender further questions about defunct technology, Robert led her into the foyer instead.

This room was open and spacious, with electric chandeliers, dusty leather chairs and sofas, and paintings of mountains on the walls. A few stuffed deer heads gazed down from the walls, moldering and reproachful. Sophie gazed all around in fascination.

“Guests would come in through the doors over there,” Robert pointed to the double doors they had viewed from outside the day before, “and they would go to that big counter over there to check in. That means they told the clerk on duty their name and the clerk would look them up on a computer or in a ledger, and tell them what room they would be staying in.”

“They couldn’t choose their own room?”

“If they had been here before and had a particular room they liked, they could ask for it, but most people just took whatever room they were given. Most of the rooms were the same anyway. There were only a few special ones, and those were more expensive, so not very many people asked for them.”

Sophie nodded wisely. “Especially after the Resource Wars started, I bet.”

From here, Robert led Sophie to the restaurant, which interested her only slightly since she had seen restaurants on their train journey from Lexington. The ballroom, which she had anticipated seeing decorated for a dance like at home, proved only to be a long windowless space with a few chandeliers, some electric wall sconces, and a piano in one corner that was badly in need of tuning.

Sophie was visibly bored when her father took her into the lounge, but here she caught her breath in delight. A massive fireplace dominated one wall, with plump sofas in a semicircle in front. In a second row behind the sofas were small tables where people could sit and visit with each other if they weren’t keen on the sofas. And off to one side was a space with a few pool tables. In the bookcases nestled on either side of the fireplace were books, of course, but also boxes that Robert took her to examine.

“Games and jigsaw puzzles,” he explained needlessly, because of course Sophie had played with such things at Northwind.

“Clue!” she said, and reached for one of the games. “I hope it has all the pieces.”

Robert had been hoping she would be interested in Scrabble or Monopoly, but of course that would have been out of character for her.

“Can we take some of these back to the apartment?”

“Of course. This all belongs to us, so take anything you like.”

While Sophie picked out a couple of games, he brushed the dust off the jigsaw puzzles and selected one that might serve as a nice distraction when he wasn’t going over the store’s accounts or writing long letters to Santa Fe about communication strategies. They placed their selections on a table to take back to the apartment after they were finished looking around.

“If you like,” he said, “We could have a Christmas party here this year. I’ll get someone to come out and clean the chimney, and make sure there’s no damage in need of repair. Then we can get a Christmas tree, build a big fire, and have all your school friends come over for popcorn and hot apple cider. Would you like that?”

“I guess so. But I don’t have any friends yet.”

“You will, though. And yours will be the best Christmas party in Castaño.”

Sophie considered. In Kentucky, it had always been someone else hosting the parties. Even her birthday parties had been held on Northwind property, with her mother providing a cake, and the Northwind kitchen providing everything else. The idea of being a true hostess was a little intimidating, but Sophie liked the idea of having enough friends by December that she could have her own Christmas party, so she nodded. “Let’s go upstairs and see the rooms now.”