Hotel Minnesota

Minnesotans have a special relationship with the seasons--especially with winter. Being in tune with the seasons is a survival skill, there.

But Cara ignored the biting below-zero windchill and the blizzard warning as she packed her car. It’s Minnesota in winter, she reasoned. There’s always snow. And she really didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to drive to her cousin’s wedding.

She could feel the scratchy throat and the tight head that presaged a cold, and she would rather travel tonight before the sneezing and the stuffiness set in. She would leave after work, drive late, and be able to sleep in a little in the morning.

So even though her little Jetta protested--diesel engines do not like the cold--she drove north, watching the sun sink in an increasingly steely sky as she traveled up I-35.

Five hours to Grand Marais, if she stopped for supper in Duluth.

The first flakes were already falling as she descended into Duluth, so she decided to skip supper. She was halfway there and making good time as she drove north along the Lake Superior shore.

She could always slow down if the snow got heavier. Better to arrive late than not at all.

She was somewhere past Castle Danger when the wind picked up, buffeting the compact car and tossing snow around like a child shaking a snow globe.

To her right, past the thin guardrail, the shoulder dropped into the nothingness of Superior. The road flickered in and out of existence as gusts blew off the lake. Cara gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white as the snow, and forced herself to breathe slowly.

She had only another hour to go. It was an hour too far.

She had to stop for the night.

She saw a sign advertising lodging at the next exit and her decision was made. Moments later she pulled up in front of the Wendy-Go Lodge.

The man who stood in the doorway, next to the wooden sign, was a true Minnesotan, a burly blue-eyed descendant of Vikings. He held the door with one hand and a Coleman lamp with the other as he ushered Cara inside.

“Thank heaven!” he said as the door sealed out the wailing wind. “Why the hell are you out on a night like this?”

Cara had just been thinking the same thing. “Do you have any vacancies?” she asked.

“We did. Now we don’t. You get the last room.”

Odd, for a resort to be full this time of year. “Is there a hockey tournament in town or something?”

“No. Come over here and get checked in.”

Two more Colemans lit the registration desk, and the great room opened up behind it. Timber beams crossed the open ceiling. A great chandelier fashioned from deer antlers, arranged in a six-pointed star, hung from the center beam, and light from the six points barely penetrated the high shadows. Deer antler sconces lined the pine paneled walls and the great stone fireplace. Candles burned throughout the room and on the half-dozen tables.

Each table was full of blonde people enjoying a late supper or an early nightcap.

Well, Cara thought, it was Minnesota. She had her fair share of Scandinavian genes.

“Sorry about the mood lighting. Power’s out with the storm,” her host explained. “We have a backup generator, so there’s heat. No one’s going to freeze to death. But we need to conserve electricity.”

Cara sneezed. Yes, she was definitely getting a cold. “As long as it’s a warm bed, it’s great,” she said.

Her host shoved a clipboard across the counter. “Just fill out the top part for now,” he said. “We’ll take care of everything else later. You need help with your bag?”

“I’ve got it, thanks.”

He passed her a key. “Room 206, up the stairs to the left. I’ll show you the way.” He hefted his Coleman. “Once you’re settled, come on back down to the lounge and we’ll get you a drink. A night like tonight needs a brandy by the fireplace.”

Cara wasn’t a liquor drinker. “Got any pinot grigio?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “Not during the off season. The locals prefer something with a little more kick. Or beer; I’ve got both Pabst and Schlitz on ice.”

“Maybe I should just get some rest. I think I’m coming down with something.”

“We won’t keep you up late, I promise. I’m Bob,” he added, holding out his hand. “I run this place. Well, my wife and I ran it, until recently. I’m just trying to do as good a job as she did.”

A murmur of conversation followed them through the lounge. One of the guests touched Bob’s arm as they passed.

“Sorry to hear about Susan,” the guest said.

“Well, it’s for the best,” their host replied. “A blessing really, she went quickly in her sleep. We knew she was going to get a lot sicker, and she didn't want to linger.”

Other guests murmured condolences, and Bob’s gaze flickered between his visitors in acknowledgement.

In her room, Cara splashed water on her face and considered her options. Stuffiness was gathering in the back of her sinuses. She should just go to bed. On the other hand, the whole motel was in the great room. It must be a family reunion, she decided. Not much tourist traffic this time of year. And Bob was so friendly.

What the hell, Cara thought. She was coming down from the adrenaline high that had gotten her here, and a drink would probably help her sleep.

Ten minutes later she was nursing a Pabst, tracing patterns in the sweat off the bottle, and getting to know the locals. Guests, she corrected herself. They wouldn’t have rooms here if they were local.

They all knew Bob; they all went way back. Repeat visitors were good for a small business.

Pictures of local natural attractions, in rough wood frames, adorned the walls. She recognized Split Rock Lighthouse--you couldn’t call yourself Minnesotan if you didn’t know that one--and Gooseberry Falls, from years of family trips. She stared at another picture of an odd forked river, knowing she had seen it somewhere before.

“You ever been?” the woman sitting across from her asked, following her gaze. “The Devil’s Kettle isn't too far from here.”

“Ah.” Now she recognized it. The river split over a sharp precipice, half of it a normal waterfall, and half of it disappearing into a mysterious hole. “No, I never have.”

The man at the next table leaned over. “You should see it. It’s way more impressive in person. No one knows where the water goes. They’ve dropped dye and all sorts of objects and even GPS trackers into there, and they’re never seen again.”

“It comes out somewhere underground in Lake Superior, they say.”

“They say. It’s all speculation. The bedrock around here isn’t the type to form underground waterways.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Me, I think it’s magic.”

Cara almost laughed, but she wasn’t entirely sure he was joking.

“I’ll put it on my list,” she said softly.

Conversation flowed around her as she looked at the other pictures. Tettegouche Falls, the Duluth Lift Bridge. Bob joined her table just as her gaze came to rest on the last picture, the one next to the registration desk.

This one, labeled 1969, showed a couple standing by the lodge sign. The man was a plaid-clad lumberjack; the woman was a rare beauty with raven hair, high cheekbones, and tip-tilted, feline eyes.

“The original Wendy,” Bob said, “and her husband, who was also Bob. Sue and I stayed here on our honeymoon, way back when, and we kept coming back over the years. And then 3M was cutting jobs, and I was offered an early retirement, and Wendy and Bob were looking to sell...and here we are. We had to keep the name, of course. Wendy was the heart of this place. Hell, she still is.”

Bob stood up, abruptly disappeared into the office, and returned with a dusty bottle and a tray of shot glasses. He passed the glasses around the tables, hoisted the bottle.

“Been waiting to crack into this,” he said, “and tonight’s the night!” He twisted the seal and made the rounds, filling each glass.

“What is it?” Cara asked.

“Homemade,” he replied, winking at her.

She sniffed; even the fumes made her head spin before she even tasted it. This was some special sort of moonshine. Hell, she thought, the moon wasn’t even shining tonight.

She shook her head. She must be tired; it would be time for bed soon.

Bob finished his rounds and hoisted his glass.

“Sometimes we drink to forget. Tonight we drink to remember. To Wendy!” he saluted.

“To Wendy!” came the chorus, and a dozen glasses tipped back.

The liquor lit its way down Cara’s throat, causing her to cough. She felt it work its way through her nerves, suffusing her limbs with heat.

“That’s got a kick,” she muttered.

Bob laughed and poured her another shot.

One by one, the candles on the tables guttered and died, the logs in the fireplace burned to embers, the room became darker. And one by one, Cara drank the shots that Bob poured.

At some point she laid her head on the table.

And at some point she lifted her head to realize she was the only occupant of the spinning, darkened room.

She stumbled toward the stairs. Odd, she hadn’t noticed before that the stairs went down as well as up. She walked down the stairs, not questioning why this seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do. A tiny voice in her head--the voice that always let her know after-the-fact when she was making poor decisions--told her that she was very drunk, and she was not going to have a good morning, and this was not going to help her impending cold. She ignored the voice.

The nondescript door at the bottom of the stairs opened into a nondescript hallway with another nondescript door that opened onto another set of stairs.

She kept going, some self-preservation instinct making her hold the railing tightly as she descended the stairs to a hallway that sloped gently downward.

The candles set into the wall cast pools of light that did not quite touch. She stepped through the shadows, surfacing into each pool before diving into the darkness again.

She did not remember which realization came to her first, that the walls had turned into rough-hewn stone, or that she could hear, somewhere ahead, the sound of running water.

The sound pulled her forward, and the darkness cloaked her so completely she failed to notice when she was no longer in the passageway.

The flickering light ahead was a fire and she was in a cavern. Unlike the fire in the great room, which had boldly pushed the night away, this fire struggled to keep from being smothered by the darkness. Smoke swirled around the figures surrounding it. Cara walked the well-worn path toward where the humming voices and the whispering water conjoined and echoed through the cave. On the far side of the fire, silvery flashes hinted at the presence of an underground river.

She didn’t wonder about the other people. She knew they were the other guests of the hotel. Firelight flickered off a nose here, an eyebrow, a pair of lips. They glanced at her as she came up to the fire, nodding greetings, never questioning her presence here.

Bob stepped into the light, briefly doubling in Cara’s drunken vision before becoming one person again.

“Tonight we gather,” he proclaimed, “for the feast! One of us has left, choosing to partake no longer. But a new guest has come. Be welcome, everyone!”

He stepped past the fire, and Cara heard a splash before he reappeared with a large silver cup. Chalice, said her drunken mind, goblet. She couldn’t giggle, she told herself sternly. This was serious, even if she wasn’t entirely sure what this was.

“First,” Bob said, holding the goblet aloft, “a toast to whet the appetite. May we never become the prisoner, the unkilled beast. May we always be the feaster, never the sacrifice!”

“May we always be the feaster, never the sacrifice!” the voices around her echoed, and the goblet was shared, each person taking a healthy draught and passing it on.

Cara repeated the words as the goblet came to her, and she tilted the last of the liquid into her mouth. It trickled down her throat, icy and clear, tasting of minerals and wilderness, pine forests and rocky shores, and untamed places underground. It was the sweetest thing she had ever tasted, intoxicating as the moonshine.

“Now,” Bob said, pulling something from his belt that glinted in the firelight, “we feast!”

Other glints appeared in others’ hands, firelight gleaming off of keen edges.

A low moan--that may or may not have been the north wind swirling through the underground tunnel--rose from the back of the cave.

Cara heard the clank of chains.

Something moved, shrouded in smoke, in the shadows beyond the fire.

Her eyes stung as Cara peered at the half-glimpsed thing. She had the impression of antlers rising from a gaunt brow, cadaverous limbs stretching from an emaciated torso. She blinked, trying to determine what she was seeing. The weakly flickering fire and her own blurred vision kept the image from fully coalescing.

Bob approached the shape that might have been alive, that spoke with the wordless voice of the wind, and he raised his hand, firelight flashing on steel, and made a quick swipe. A streak of red splashed against the rock and Bob lifted something to his mouth. One by one, the other guests, the other feasters, did the same.

Cara should have been horrified. The small after-the-fact voice tried urgently to whisper to her, but her foggy mind could not acknowledge it, could not acknowledge anything but what was in front of her, the here and now, and then somebody slipped something into her hand, something warm and slippery and alive, and she had no choice but to lift it to her own mouth.

It sat upon her tongue, salt and iron and heat, and for an instant her mind and memories were not her own and she saw the feast stretching back before history and the brotherhood-sisterhood-purpose of the feast and the consequences of refusing the feast and the stretching gaunt never-ending hunger and the sacrifice; and the smoke cleared and she saw, for just an instant, a shadow of angular limbs held in chains and high sharp cheekbones and the pain of a private hell in tip-tilted catlike eyes.

And then she swallowed and the heat entered her body and the darkness took her.

~~~~~~~

Cara sat upright, blinking in the dazzling sunshine reflecting off the snow outside her window.

She had forgotten to charge her phone, and the bedside clock blinked a steady 12:00. She had no idea what time it really was, but the sun being high in the sky was not a good sign.

The fragments of the odd, intense dream swirled away as she dressed and crammed clothes into her overnight bag, and nearly ran down the stairs to the registration desk.

She found Bob working the omelet station at the lodge’s breakfast bar.

“You can check out if you’d like,” he told her, “but you can’t leave.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed.

“Not until the snowplows come through, anyway. Your little car wouldn’t even make it out of the parking lot right now. Sit and relax, have some breakfast.”

“But I have to be in Grand Marais by noon!”

“Plenty of time. It’s only about thirty miles from here.”

Cara tried to connect distances and times in her mind, but the numbers didn’t add up. “I guess I got farther than I thought last night.”

“You were damned lucky, being out in weather like that, is all I’ll say. How’re you feeling this morning?”

“I--” Cara paused, and evaluated herself for the first time. How many shots of moonshine had she drunk last night? She’d been black-out drunk; she should have a cotton mouth and a splitting head this morning.

She didn’t.

In fact, she realized as she took a deep, experimental breath, her throat was no longer scratchy and there was no pressure in her sinuses. Her impending cold was gone, a false alarm.

“I feel great,” she said, wondrously, truthfully.

“All that fresh north shore air,” Bob winked at her. “It’ll do you wonders. Now have a seat, and tell me if you like your omelette with ham or with sausage.”

The plow rumbled through not long afterward, and, fortified with a deluxe three-egg ham and cheese omelette, Cara paid for her lodging.

“You’ll come see us again, right?” Bob told her as she hoisted her bag to leave. “You’d like it any time of year. Summers get a bit touristy, but it’s always good to meet new people. I’ve met a lot over the years.”

A stray thought made her ask, “How long have you had this place, anyways?”

“Thirty years already. God-willing, I’ll be here another thirty.”

Thirty years since he’d taken early retirement. Even if early retirement meant mid-fifties…

She blinked at the man with the salt-and-pepper hair, the healthy build, and realized that he looked no older--younger, in fact--than her own father. Even though, if math didn’t fail her, he had to be at least her grandfather’s age.

Drifting fragments of memory swirled in her mind like snow in a blizzard, not quite ready to land.

“Good north shore fresh air,” he winked at her again. “See you next year!”

And as she loaded her bag into the car and flipped the sun visor down against the blinding brilliance of new-fallen snow, she knew, without a doubt, without knowing how or why, she would be back again.