Greenglass House

Negret and Sirin commence their search for the missing items. Negret passes the potted poinsettia plant noticing its distinctive fragrance. Figuring that the items would not be hidden in the occupied rooms, they search the empty guest rooms. At first, nothing inside the room looks out of place, but as he looks closer, Negret notices that the wrapped soap looks strange. When he opens it using his keys, he sees that someone has hollowed out the bar, and hidden inside is Mr. Vinge’s watch. They decide to hide the watch in the Emporium until they locate the other two items. As soon as they enter the attic space, Negret knows someone has been inside. Noticing a strange shape under a pile of canvas, Negret inspects it and finds Mrs. Hereward’s ditty bag hidden underneath. Getting a closer look at the gate image on the bag, Negret notices it has a gold lantern hanging from it.

The duo prepares to leave the attic to search for the notebook when they overhear Georgie and Clem speaking in hushed tones. The conversation reveals that the ladies do know each other and had some type of arrangement regarding the notebook before entering the house. Clem did not steal it, but she has read it. They also mention someone named Owen. Clem comments on Georgie’s sweater, which is strongly scented from the spilled perfume and Negret knows that it is the same scent he smelled on the poinsettia. Clem says, “What’s a cardigan between moonlighters” (164). When the coast is clear, Negret races to the potted plant and finds the notebook buried underneath the soil. However, when they examine the contents of the notebook, there are no words, just lines of incomprehensible code.

Since they cannot translate the code, Sirin suggests they make a list of what they do know about each guest so they know what their next move should be. As they are reviewing Mrs. Hereward’s story, Negret notices that the image of the house on the bag has the same Chinese characters on it as his key set. Negret says they must hide the retrieved items so no one suspects that they stole them. He wraps them in paper and plans to hide them under the Christmas tree with the other gifts. Milo’s mother summons him to lunch. Meddy says she will stay in his room to continue sorting through their evidence, but Milo asks her not to disturb the order in his room.

The snow turns into a blizzard, and as tree limbs crack under the ice, Milo’s parents worry they will lose power and be forced to use the generator. Dinner is tense again. Mrs. Hereward accuses Clem and Dr. Gowervine of being the thieves. Clem interjects that the thief might be using misdirection and only pretending to have lost items. She suggests they search her room. Dr. Gowervine also says they are free to search his room. Tension mounts and Meddy suggests Milo tell them he found the stolen items. Meddy makes the bells on the Christmas tree jingle and Milo wonders how she darted so quickly to the other room. Everyone moves to the living room to investigate the jingling and Milo tries to casually suggest that his parents open the gifts, pretending that they are Christmas presents, to throw off suspicion that he stole the items. When Mr. and Mrs. Pine unwrap the watch, bag, and notebook, everyone is stunned. Though Meddy wants him to keep their secret, when Georgie mentions that Milo has been investigating the theft, he must tell the truth. Milo, who assumes his role as Negret, explains how they found each item and hid them so the thief would not find them. Sirin watches the guests’ reactions to see if they reveal anything. After everyone disperses, Milo asks Mrs. Hereward about the Chinese characters on the bag. She explains that they spell out the name of the house, Lansdegown.

Mr. Pine goes to investigate a large crash outside with Milo and Georgie. Mr. Pine sends Georgie and Milo to search the railcar pavilion while he goes further afield to check the outbuildings. Suddenly they see a man, collapsing with exhaustion having climbed the stairs since the bell was frozen, and race to help him inside. Once inside, the ladies begin to treat the man for hypothermia and Milo notes that he looks like him. The man introduces himself as Owen, and when Clem arrives, he says, “I told you I’d find you, Ottilie” (190). Georgie mutters the word “no” and Clem just says, “You win” (191). Ottilie is Clem’s middle name.

Milo, still stunned by Owen’s sudden appearance, goes to search for his father and finds him at the entrance to the Nagspeake Belowground Transit System, or BTS, a failed railway system still used by smugglers wishing to travel incognito. Mr. Pine is with Brandon Levi, one of the conductors of the train, and Fenster Plum. Brandon Levi apologizes for the loud crack but explains that he had to break down the frozen door. The group takes another route back to the inn so that the guests will assume that they came in on the road and construct a cover story for why they are there. Just as they arrive at Greenglass House, a violent gust of wind knocks out the electricity, plunging the house into darkness.

The blackout causes the guests to fall into a panic and Mrs. Hereward and Dr. Gowervine begin yelling at one another. Milo intervenes and asks for help collecting firewood and candles while Mrs. Pine and Fenster, who is posing as a gardener, retrieve lamps from the basement. Georgie offers to tell a story to calm everyone down. She relates the story of two thieves named the Otter and the Eye, who both fell in love with the same woman. The story is obviously the story of Clem and Georgie who both fell in love with Owen. Owen is adopted and his middle name is Lansdegown. Georgie came to Greenglass House to find more information on Owen’s birth family as a gift to him, but he loves Clem. Georgie is heartbroken and claims that she no longer cares to find out the secrets of the inn. Georgie’s story makes Mrs. Hereward cry, and Fenster wants to make her a cake to cheer her up. Hearing Owen’s story, so much like his own, makes Milo want to help uncover the secret. He asks Mrs. Hereward about the symbolism of the gate, but she does not know of it.

Milo tells Meddy about Fenster’s true identity. They slip into their game personas and Negret postulates that Georgie, not Clem, stole the chart from his room. He thinks she wanted him to find it, but he is not certain why. Dr. Gowervine offers to tell his story and relates a tale about a glazier named Lowell Skellansen who was a cohort of Doc Holystone but went missing. Dr. Gowervine believes that Skellansen made the picture window in room 5M, Clem’s room, and it contains coded messages about Holystone. Before he disappeared, Skellansen made a cartoon vidimus for the customer to see his planned window design. Sirin and Negret confer and conclude that Mr. Gowervine is there to find the hidden vidimus.

Most of the guests retire to bed, leaving Mr. Vinge, Milo, and his mother. Mrs. Pine asks Mr. Vinge about his occupation, but he responds simply that he is retired. Mr. Pine, Fenster, and Brandon return from checking the generator and report that someone has sabotaged it and that they will soon be without power. Mr. Pine tells Milo that he needs a candle to walk to his room, but Milo asks if he can use the lantern he found in the attic. As he inspects the lamp, he notices small scratches on it. He remembers there is a flint set inside the rucksack. Milo realizes that this is one of Julian Roamer’s relics and asks his father if he can give them to Mrs. Hereward. When they light the lamp, the flame burns blue. Much later, a sound awakens Milo in the night, and he sneaks out of bed to investigate. He thinks it sounds like a doorknob turning, but his search turns up nothing and he returns to bed anxious to see what the morning holds.

Milo awakens on Christmas Eve expecting the house to be in chaos over another robbery, but instead, he finds Lizzie and Mrs. Caraway laughing hysterically, watching Fenster and Mrs. Hereward trying to bake a cake for Georgie.

Per their family Christmas Eve tradition, Milo plans to stay in his pajamas all day. His parents left him a gift outside his door. There is a card attached to the gift telling him how proud they are of him, and inside Milo finds his father’s Odd Trails figurine. Meddy explains that some RPGs use tabletop boards and figurines to visualize the game. Milo feels guilty for creating an imaginary father for Negret instead of using his real father as the inspiration.

While the cake bakes, Fenster goes with Brandon and Mr. Pine to repair the generator. Milo wraps the lantern and gives it to Mrs. Hereward, who is grateful for the gift. The men repair the generator and power is restored to the inn. Over breakfast, Mrs. Hereward addresses Owen, who has recovered from the previous day, and explains that she might be related to him. Owen says he would cherish more information since he was a foundling. Mrs. Hereward explains that the original owner of the home was a British privateer named Bluecrowne who built the house in 1812. Mrs. Hereward is a descendant of Bluecrowne’s daughter Lucy from his first marriage, but she thinks Owen may be related to Bluecrowne’s son Liao from his second marriage to a Chinese woman. The name Lansdegown originated when Lucy and Liao tried to translate Bluecrowne phonetically into Mandarin. Seeing Owen’s reaction to learning about his origins moves Milo to give him the blackjack keys. The emotional moment inspires Clem and Georgie to reconcile, and Georgie announces that she plans to leave the inn as soon as possible. Mrs. Pine explains that since the phone lines are down, they must raise a flag to call for a boat.

Owen gifts Milo a dragon figurine he has kept as a good luck charm because he never owned anything connected to his ancestry. Overcome with emotion, Milo can barely speak to thank him. Dr. Gowervine interrupts the peace by angrily yelling that someone stole his satchel, which is full of his Skellansen research. Milo follows the adults to search the rooms when Georgie catches him alone and gives him the original nautical chart and a picture of the window in 5M she took with the pinhole camera. She explains that she brought the camera as a red herring to confuse Clem. As they examine the chart together, she explains that there is an image of a ship on the paper along with the gate watermark. She doesn’t know what it means, leaving it for Milo to solve. Clem meets with Milo and explains that the gate does exist because she found part of it in an antique store in town. The gate once stood at another entrance to the inn that is now covered over with a garden. Clem gives Milo a lockpick kit. Milo slips into Negret and asks her to teach him how to use the picks.