Chapter 6: December 1931

The tower stairs were narrow and steep and went around four times.

At the top was a round office with windows on three sides, and all three looked at the lake.

Mr. Coe sat at a rolltop desk with a pot of tea and two cups.

"Sit down, Miss Duquette."

I stayed standing.

On the wall behind him hung a small framed card, yellow with age, written by hand in brown ink.

It was the card from my desk, all nine rules, line for line.

At the bottom, in the same hand, it was signed.

H. Coe. December 1931.

Next to it hung three photographs in a row.

The first was men in shirtsleeves on a half-built porch, with a date in white ink: 1899.

In the middle stood a young man with a mustache, holding a set of plans.

The second was the hotel staff lined up on the finished porch in winter coats, dated 1931.

In the middle stood an old man with silver hair combed straight back and a gold watch chain.

The third was dated Winter 1987, and it was in color.

The same old man stood in the middle of it, with the same watch chain, and he hadn't aged a day.

At the end of the row stood a skinny teenage girl in a chambermaid's apron, with her chin up.

Her hair was parted on the left.

It was my mother at seventeen.

Next to her stood a lanky boy in a clerk's vest, grinning at whoever held the camera.

I looked from the photographs to the man at the desk.