Hotel Magnifique(24)
“What’s a trundletvist?” I asked.
The other maids looked equally confused.
“Some posh doodad from wherever that guest calls home,” Béatrice explained. “The Packing List for Elsewhere is unique to wherever you arrive from.”
I smiled at a smaller packing list for pets, should you choose to bring yours along.
“Where’s the room key?” It wasn’t in the box.
“We don’t use room keys,” Béatrice said. “The suite doors are enchanted to open for guests during their stay, then for staff once the guests check out. Each door is also equipped with an interior lock, but don’t you dare turn it. They tend to trigger more enchantments.”
Béatrice then pulled out a crate filled with everything from washing soda to chloride of lime. “Time to work,” she said, and left us to show a couple girls to another suite.
I soon found myself piling armfuls of linens on the floor.
“Soiled linens go in the laundry cart,” said a maid.
“Sorry.” I looked the maid over. She was tall with beige skin that looked sallow, like she hadn’t slept well. “I’m Jani. What’s your name?”
She blinked at the question, so I repeated myself. Finally she said, “Sophie. It’s Sophie.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Of course,” she bit back.
Her strong reaction struck me as strange. “Sorry I asked.”
With a petulant huff, she picked up the pile of soiled linens, leaving behind a throw pillow hovering in the air near my ankle.
I lifted it. A thread stuck out and I tugged it. Probably not the smartest thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. The seam began to unravel, opening a tiny hole in the pillowcase.
The other maids gathered around, awestruck. Evidently, the pillows weren’t stuffed with spun clouds.
I held my hand above the opening. Feathers poured through my fingers, traveling up, up, combining in a single white stream that billowed across the ceiling.
Girls giggled, dancing their fingers through the weightless feathers. The laughter turned to an abrupt silence when Béatrice returned.
Sophie pointed at me. “That girl did it.”
Béatrice was silent. I could practically feel her turn through punishments, judging whether she should get the ma?tre, send me away.
Stop it, I told myself. It was just a silly pillow. But I still froze until a younger, amber-skinned maid plucked a single feather from the air.
“How does it work?” she asked, and Béatrice seemed to relax.
“Most of the magic you’ll see inside are enchantments penned by the ma?tre himself. He is the most powerful suminaire here,” she said. I wanted to know how one man penned all of this into existence, but I didn’t dare ask because Béatrice fixed her steely gaze on me and clapped her hands. “Now back to work.”
* * *
Over the next few hours, I discovered a host of little enchantments that made my job easier: the tissues replenished themselves, the pillows remained perfectly fluffed, even my boots never left a scuff. I tried to be happy with how marvelous it all was, but my mood was slowly spoiled by a series of odd behaviors from the other maids.
I asked a second girl her name and she reacted similarly to Sophie. Then every time I attempted a conversation, the maid would trail off mid-sentence, or wander away, or busy herself in a task, following each rule like her life depended on it.
It went on throughout the day. The maids’ behavior left me so unsettled that after Béatrice excused us to our rooms late into the evening, I had a hard time falling asleep. Zosa’s absence only added to my growing unease.
The next morning, after a series of disturbing dreams, I bolted awake, a terrible feeling still squeezing my chest. Though my first day in the hotel had been filled with wonder, that was beginning to fade the more time I spent here. Everything I’d learned from Bel, the behavior of the other maids, all of it was beginning to gnaw at my thoughts. Something wasn’t right about this place. But aside from conversations, there was nothing tangible I could point to that would prove what I was feeling.
After dressing for my shift, I decided to take a different route to the laundry room and stumbled upon a small gilded chest labeled Wishing Box. Engraved words instructed guests to bring their lips to the keyhole and whisper a wish for something they wanted the ma?tre to create. I turned down another hall and passed a suminaire handing out presents. Guests peeled back striped paper to uncover fistfuls of rose petals that ignited into miniature firework displays in their palms.
The magic seemed harmless enough, and all to heighten the guests’ experience. Still, the enchanted sights didn’t stop the feeling that something was terribly wrong.
“We need to make a quick stop on the fifth floor,” Béatrice announced after I arrived in the laundry room. Of course none of the other maids asked where we were going, so I kept quiet as well.
We soon arrived outside double doors padded with ostrich leather and tufted with pearls. A sign above read SALON DE BEAUTé.
“Lovely, no?” Béatrice caressed the tufts then swiped at the corner of her eye, batting away a tear at the sight of the door. Her reaction seemed a bit much. “Madame des Rêves modeled this room after Atelier Merveille.”