Chapter 5
With Hunter gone, Agnes shows me to my room, which is on the third floor of the hotel, and accessed via at least four different corridors, plus a narrow set of winding stairs, which I’m almost certain I’ll be falling down at some point.
I keep my eyes peeled for any sign of ghosts as we make our way through the old castle, but, with the exception of a few of those creepy oil paintings which look like the eyes of the person are following you all the time (one of them looks a lot like Dante, the hotel manager, actually, which makes it even creepier .
. .), everything seems fairly normal: in a ‘five-star hotel that used to be a castle’ kind of way.
Room number six turns out to be in one of the turrets I briefly saw from the driveway, and I coo with delight at the perfectly round room, which has a four-poster bed, and a free-standing bathtub with little gold feet next to one of the windows.
‘There’s an en-suite shower room through here,’ says Agnes, opening a door to reveal a modern bathroom with a rainfall shower and double vanity. ‘And this is the wardrobe. It’s one of those walk-in ones.’
I sit down on the end of the bed, not sure if my legs are weak from dehydration or just plain excitement.
I can’t believe all of this is for me.
‘The turret rooms are our best suites,’ Agnes adds, seeing the look on my face. ‘They’re super-expensive.’
‘I bet,’ I reply, lovingly stroking a soft tartan blanket that’s draped over the end of the bed.
‘Well, I’ll let you get some sleep,’ Agnes says kindly, seeing me fail to stifle a yawn. ‘Your stuff’s all been unpacked for you, so you can just relax.’
I watch as she gives a cheerful little wave and leaves the room, before turning back to the bed, which looks so inviting that I waste no time in climbing into it, a bottle of water from the mini fridge clutched firmly in my hand, so I can attempt to rehydrate from a horizontal position.
It’s been one hell of a day.
Tomorrow, though, will be better. Tomorrow I’ll wake up refreshed, ready to start over. Tomorrow my ‘journey of reinvention’ will really begin.
Because, let’s face it, it’s not like it can possibly be any worse.
* * *
The next morning, I wake up to find my makeup imprinted on my pillow, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and a scene straight out of a movie outside my bedroom window.
The room I’m in is at the back of the hotel, and it looks out over a vast formal garden and down to the sea.
The sun’s just coming up, and the water shines silver in the early-morning light, a solitary seagull soaring high above the waves.
The grounds themselves are perfectly symmetrical and it’s still early enough that there’s a light dusting of morning dew over everything, creating an ethereal, other-worldly effect that doesn’t seem quite real.
There’s even a small, perfectly manicured maze in the centre of the grounds, which I make a mental note not to enter, because, the way my luck’s being going so far, I’d probably never find my way out of it.
After a quick shower, during which I use each of the expensive toiletries in turn, I put on my best jeans and the new red cashmere sweater I bought the day I got the invitation to the Chrysalis: the magic one, that promised it was going to change my life.
Well, let’s just hope it was right about that.
After a final look in the mirror to make sure I don’t have lipstick on my teeth, I let myself out of the room, trying my best to remember the directions Agnes gave me to the hotel dining room last night.
But it’s no good. After five minutes of walking up and down apparently endless corridors, all of which seem absolutely identical to me, I realise I’m hopelessly lost.
Shit.
What do I do now?
I really don’t want to be late for breakfast – especially not after the way Sabrina warned us all to be on time – but I’m pretty sure I’m just going around in circles here, and getting nowhere.
Quickening my step, I march down the corridor, trying doors at random in the hope that one of them will lead to the staircase I remember from last night.
Most of the doors have room numbers on them, and are obviously guest rooms, but finally I come across one that creaks slowly open when I try the handle, with a noise that reminds me of the sound I made when I was trying to get out of the train bathroom yesterday.
Yes, it would appear I really am going to be reliving that moment for the rest of my life, then.
Shaking my head to get rid of the memory, I step quickly through the doorway, and find myself in a large, but cosy room, with a snooker table at one end, a huge TV at the other, and lots of comfortable couches grouped around coffee tables in between.
The walls are lined with bookshelves – the kind that you need a ladder to reach the highest shelves – and the windows all look out onto the same view of the sea I have from my room, only from a different angle, in which white-tipped mountains are just visible further along the coast.
The sun’s fully up now, but a light mist has come in from the sea, wreathing the building in fog and making it feel a bit like we’re floating in a cloud.
How magical.
I step forward for a closer look, and am just about to snap a quick picture of the view with my phone (which Agnes kindly retrieved from the changing room for me last night) when someone clears their throat loudly, making me jump.
‘Looking for something?’
I spin around to find Hunter Stuart silently watching me from a high-backed chair by the fire. He’s wearing a dark-coloured fleece and jeans, which blend in so well with his surroundings that I didn’t even notice him when I walked in.
‘Sorry,’ I say, my entire body cringing as I remember the last time I saw him. ‘I was looking for the dining room. I’m a bit lost.’
‘I can see that,’ he replies gravely. ‘The dining room’s on the ground floor. This is the library. Well, it was the library. It’s now what they’re calling the “den”. It’s where guests can come to relax and “mingle”.’
He says the word ‘mingle’ the way I say ‘diet’ – as if it’s personally offensive to him. I kind of get the impression Hunter Stuart isn’t a man given to mingling, somehow. And now here I am, blundering in and destroying his peace and quiet.
‘Sorry,’ I say again. ‘If you could just tell me how to get to the dining room, I’ll—’
‘You need to stop apologising all the time, Rosie Winter,’ Hunter says, getting to his feet. ‘You’ve been apologising since you got here. You apologise just for existing.’
‘I’ve been messing up since I got here,’ I point out. ‘Since before I got here, in fact. So I’ve had a lot to apologise for.’
He shrugs. ‘Maybe. Not all of it was your fault, though. You didn’t send yourself that email by mistake, did you? And you weren’t the one who jammed the sauna door shut, either.’
‘Jammed? It wasn’t jammed, was it?’ I frown, trying to make sense of this. ‘No, it wasn’t,’ I go on. ‘I distinctly remember checking to make sure I could open it, because I didn’t want to get stuck in there, like I did in the train toilet.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ says Hunter. ‘But the door was definitely stuck when I tried to open it. I had to force it open to get you out.’
I look up at him, my heart skittering nervously in my chest.
‘What are you trying to say?’ I ask quietly. ‘You . . . you think someone did it deliberately?’
My legs feel strangely weak again, just like they did last night when I almost died in the sauna.
OK, I didn’t almost die.
But I could have.
And the thought that someone in this hotel might have been responsible is making me feel like I might just die again; only this time from fear rather than dehydration.
And before anyone gets to see my magic red sweater, too.
‘No, no,’ says Hunter, making a gesture with his hands as if he’s batting away the thought.
‘No one here would do something like that. The door must be faulty. I’ll take a look at it this morning.
Wouldn’t want anyone else getting stuck in there.
Anyway, come on; I was just about to get to work, so I’ll drop you off at the dining room on the way. ’
I follow him out of the library/den, wishing he hadn’t ended the conversation about the sauna door quite so abruptly.
Because I know he was trying to reassure me, but I somehow don’t feel reassured.
All I feel is a horrible sense of foreboding; and it only intensifies as we make our way through the castle, and back down to the lobby, where Dante is standing behind the reception desk, his jet-black hair and smooth-skinned face making him look a lot like Dracula.
Could Dante have locked me in the sauna?
No. That’s ridiculous. Why would he, after all?
Why would anyone?
I roll this thought around in my mind as Hunter leads me through the lobby and into yet another corridor, before stopping so suddenly that I walk right into him.
‘Whoops! Sorry,’ I say, quickly removing my foot from his ankle. ‘I was in another world, there.’
‘Apologising again, Rosie Winter?’ he says with a smile of amusement. ‘Didn’t I tell you to stop that? Or at least save the apologies for when you’ve actually done something worth apologising for.’
‘Sor— Right. Got it,’ I reply. ‘Got any other advice for me while we’re here?’
Hunter looks at me speculatively.
‘Well, since you ask,’ he says. ‘You might want to try valuing yourself a bit higher. You caved way too quickly last night on the payment thing. If everyone else here is being paid to take a few photos, why shouldn’t you?’
‘Because I’m not a real influencer,’ I remind him, much as it pains me to do it. ‘I’m not even supposed to be here, remember? And I don’t have nearly as many followers as the rest of them. So I’m not as valuable to the hotel as they are.’
Hunter’s eyebrows twitch, but I can’t tell whether he’s surprised or just amused by this.
‘That’s only true if you judge your “value” in terms of followers,’ he replies, in an unmistakably sarcastic tone.
‘Which is a really weird way to make yourself feel bad for absolutely no reason. Look, all I’m saying is, don’t sell yourself short, Rosie,’ he adds, in a softer voice.
‘Everyone has value. Even Sabrina. Well, probably.’
‘Is this a pep talk?’ I reply suspiciously. ‘Or a motivational speech? Because you kind of ruined it with the ending, if so.’
‘Just a bit of friendly advice,’ he replies, shrugging. ‘You can take it or leave it. It’s no skin off my nose. I don’t even have an Instagram account, so I’m the least “valuable” person here, according to your way of thinking.’
I open my mouth to argue with this, because it’s absolutely not what I meant, but he pushes the doors open before I can speak, revealing a large, formal dining room; the kind you always see in period dramas or stately homes, with a single, long table in the centre of the room, and a chandelier dangling above it.
I’m sure I remember seeing another restaurant on the hotel’s website too – a more normal-looking one, with lots of smaller tables to seat different groups of people – so this must be the room they use to host private functions.
Like influencer press stays, for instance.
The room falls suspiciously silent as I enter; a sure sign that the small group of women (and one man) seated around the table have just been talking about me, and one that’s painfully familiar to me from my school days.
So, we’re off to a great start, then.
‘Isn’t that your granny’s sweater, Bex?’ says Daniel Foster suddenly; a statement so utterly random that it takes a moment for me to realise he’s referring to me, as I stand there awkwardly in the doorway. ‘Is she wearing your granny’s sweater?’
‘Oh. My. God,’ squeals his wife. ‘She is. I can’t believe this. You’re wearing my granny’s sweater,’ she tells me. ‘That’s so funny.’
I look down at my outfit, confused to be thrown into a conversation about grannies and their clothing choices.
‘Um, no, it isn’t your granny’s,’ I explain, tugging self-consciously at the sweater in question and wondering if I’ve stepped into some kind of alternative reality. ‘It’s mine. I bought it. I didn’t steal it.’
‘Oh, no, of course not,’ says Bex, her eyes wide with innocence. ‘And I think it’s a really bold choice, actually. I mean, it’s not easy pulling off an old lady sweater like that, but you’re just over here rocking it anyway, aren’t you? Well done, you.’
She smiles sweetly and I open and close my mouth uselessly, not knowing what to say to this. I genuinely can’t tell whether she’s being nice or if she’s just a straight-up bitch. And, either way, she’s just made it very clear that the outfit I so carefully picked out is completely wrong.
‘You can’t call it an “old lady sweater”,’ points out Zara Harris, from the other side of the table. ‘That’s ageist, Bex.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Bex replies, tossing her glossy hair over her shoulder.
‘Some old ladies are very stylish, Zara. I meant it as a compliment. I think it’s very brave of Wrong Rosie to try to pull off something like that.
I would never.’ She smiles again, and this time there’s no mistaking her meaning.
‘Well, I think it’s rather nice,’ says Daniel gallantly, as if he’s trying to make up for his wife’s now-blatant bitchiness.
Bex glares at him, and I look down at my ‘lucky’ sweater, which is turning out to be not-so-lucky after all, and then back up at Bex; who’s also turning out to be a bit of a disappointment, as it happens.
On social media, she always seems so nice; the kind of girl you can easily imagine being best friends with.
And yet, here she is, somehow managing to make me feel like I’m fifteen again, and turning up at school in my sister’s hand-me-downs, or something my mum had unearthed from the depths of a charity shop, because she couldn’t afford to buy us new clothes.
I glance over my shoulder, hoping Hunter might have some more words of wisdom for me, but he isn’t there.
He must have slipped off at some point during the whole ‘granny’s sweater’ conversation.
It’s hard to blame him, really. Instead, to my mounting horror, the doors swing open again and Sabrina Bates comes through them, wearing something that looks like it’s made of papier maché, but which is presumably high fashion.
‘Oh, good,’ she says brightly, looking around the room. ‘You’re all here. Is everyone ready to hear about the competition?’