Chapter 15 Tristan
TRISTAN
Tristan’s lukewarm shower the next morning seemed like a fitting end to a restless night. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with his bear, but his animal companion was endlessly discontent and making absurd suggestions about the kitchen all night.
Don’t we want bamboo?
I’m pretty sure there’s no bamboo.
Fake bamboo? His panda wheeled. It’s a bamboozle.
It was a terrible joke. I’m not hungry, Tristan protested.
And he wasn’t. Chef made heaping amounts of vegetarian options and Tristan couldn’t possibly insult the man by stopping before he was uncomfortably full at every meal.
It was weird that he still felt empty.
He played card games with the group after breakfast, and skied a punishing trail with Graham and Bastian, returning with a rosy feeling of camaraderie that lasted until the three of them returned to the chalet and the other two were met by their mates.
Tristan was abandoned to the great room, where Magnolia and Lydia were talking fashion and Wrench’s eyes were glazing over.
Wrench was not the kind of nut that Tristan felt capable of cracking, so he went wandering alone in the chalet, looking for more to do. Breck, Darla, and Chef had the kitchen in capable hands, so Tristan went into the dining room and tested every drawer, looking for things to fix.
There were a few loose drawer pulls, and a few hinges that could use oil, so Tristan did that before he wandered back to try the wifi again. The router was running fine, but the password still didn’t work.
His bear wanted to test the locked door again. He didn’t care about the other doors in the hallway marked private, but that one seemed to beckon without reason.
Fix it, his bear insisted.
It’s not broken!
“Who used all the hot water this morning?” Saina asked, when they gathered for an informal midday meal in the dining room. Chef had laid out ingredients for sandwiches with fat pickles and a creamy noodle salad. “My shower barely got warm.”
“Not I,” Breck assured her. “I figured I’d gotten up too late and everyone else had used it up.”
Tristan made himself a cheese sandwich with a handful of sprouts, a stack of sliced peppers, and a generous smear of horseradish. Breck made dirty jokes about thick meat and Darla giggled at him. “My shower was early and it never got very hot,” she said to Saina.
“Hmm,” Saina said. “It was fine yesterday.”
Tristan was about to take a bite of his overstuffed sandwich when he realized that everyone was looking at him.
Of course they were. He was the fix-it guy.
He was too far into his bite to abort it, so he chewed self-consciously and swallowed. “I could have a look at the water heater,” he said. “I found the utility room while I was looking for the wifi.”
“There’s still no wifi, either,” Bastian pointed out. His sandwich was mostly ham.
“It’s like we have a ghost,” Lydia said. Her sandwich was a veritable tower of vegetables with a few lacy layers of cheese and thin-sliced beef. She took several pickles.
“A ghost?” Gizelle stood in the doorway out to the great room, having arrived like a specter herself.
“Nothing to fear, I’m sure,” Chef said hastily. “Even if it does seem to have a penchant for rearranging the kitchen.”
“Tell me it’s not putting the knives out of order!” Breck said with mock horror.
“No, no. Just the cheese and the dishtowels.”
“Maybe it took the information binder that’s gone missing,” Darla suggested. “And I’d swear there were more chips in that bag last night.”
“The eggrolls were gone,” Wrench growled, looking accusingly around.
Lydia put a hand on his arm. “I didn’t need them,” she said peacefully.
“You wanted ‘em,” Wrench said, as if that was reason enough to pound someone for taking them.
Tristan was very glad he was not the eggroll thief. He finished his sandwich while the others mentioned other things that might be missing.
“A hairbrush,” Magnolia offered, “but I’m not positive I brought it.”
Tristan was pretty sure that there had been bites taken out of his vegetarian leftovers, but he wasn’t sure enough to volunteer it.
“I was reading a magazine in the great room that I can’t find now,” Saina said thoughtfully. “Did one of you borrow a safari edition of the National Geographic?”
Everyone assured her that they had not.
“Can you bears smell anyone trespassing?” Bastian asked. “Tex can smell a drop of rattlesnake poison from across an open-air restaurant, could you tell if someone had broken in?”
“I’m afraid my sense of smell is not quite as refined as his,” Chef said. “There have been a lot of people here, especially a few who probably worked here, and the kitchen is full of conflicting smells. It has been very well sterilized.”
“I cannot tell,” Magnolia said carelessly. “Chef is constantly asking me if his spices are correct when he’s cooking, but I only know they are all perfect when he serves it.”
Tristan shrugged when Bastian’s gaze fell to him. “Pandas don’t have a great sense of smell.”
“Besides, who would break in for a few harmless pranks and to rearrange dish towels?” Lydia asked. “Our ghost doesn’t seem to have a vendetta!”
Tristan found a moment in the conversation to slip out. He left his plate on a counter in the kitchen and went down the hall to the utility room.
The water heater was a standard model, and Tristan stared at the settings with a furrowed brow.
It was set to 115, which was unusually low (Travis was adamant about keeping them above 120 to prevent the growth of bacteria in the tanks), and didn’t at all match the blazing hot showers they’d all enjoyed the first several days.
But who would sneak down to the furnace room and turn down the water heater? And why?
Tristan turned the dials back up to a more normal 140 and returned with the report. “It might take a little while before it’s really hot,” he cautioned. “It’s a big water tank.”
“I’d love a hot bath,” Lydia sighed, but she shook her head when Wrench opened his mouth to protest. “I know, I know. I’ll settle for a shower.”
“Who would have turned it down?” Magnolia mused.
“Sounds like a Breck kind of a prank,” Bastian said pointedly.
“I assure you, I have vested interest in hot showers,” Breck said. “Darla cuts cold showers short. I’m offended you’d even suggest it!”
Tristan was still thinking about ghosts when he went back to the kitchen.
Someone had already picked up his plate and loaded the dishwasher, and Chef was deep in singing preparation for dinner.
His offers for help were brushed off, so he returned to his room to see if his makeshift ornaments looked any better with a little mental distance.
They did not.
Tristan paced his room, restless and unwilling to go back down into their cozy company because he felt like so out of step. He just wasn’t feeling the Christmas spirit, and everyone was buzzing about presents and plans.
He waited until the house was quiet to creep out, like he was a ghost himself.