The Hotel Under the Sand Read Online Free Page B

behind them, end over end, far away across the trackless waste of sand to the edge of the horizon.
    But neither Emma nor Winston noticed.
    They were staring in astonishment at what had appeared before them, rising from where the high dune had been. It was a palace of turrets and spires, verandahs and cupolas, scrollwork and gilded weathervanes. In some places it was five stories tall. It was the most beautiful building Emma had ever seen, and brightly burning lights above the fourth-floor balcony spelled out its name:
    THE GRAND WENLOCKE

5
T HE G RAND W ENLOCKE
    "O H, MY GOSH!” cried Winston. He slid down the bluff to 111 the hotel, so excited he didn’t remember he was a ghost and could fly. “Oh,
look
at her!”
    Emma slid after him, yelling, “But how can the lights still be on, after all this time?”
    “Who knows? It’s as though no time has passed at all!” cried Winston gleefully. He landed on the great front steps and turned, throwing Emma a snappy salute. “Welcome to the Grand Wenlocke.”
    Emma reached the bottom of the staircase and looked up at him. His eyes sparkled, and he seemed almost solid as a living person. Cautiously, she put her foot on the first step. It was real and solid too. She climbed the steps, staring up in wonder. The rising sun lit the gilded weathervanes, cut glass, and carved eaves.
    “Why hasn’t the wind ever uncovered it before?”
    “I don’t know why,” said Winston. “Unless it had something to do with that fence you put up—perhaps it deflected the wind just right! It must have turned the gusts back on themselves, and dug out the hotel. Thank you, Miss Emma!” Winston bowed and tried to open the big front doors for her, but they would not budge. “What the heck?” he muttered.
    Emma walked along the verandah and peered through a window. She saw a big Victorian lobby, with a marble floor and Turkish carpets, and chairs and sofas covered in fancy brocade. Right on the other side of the window was a vase, lying on its side on a tabletop. Its flowers had spilled out, and she could see some scattered on the carpet below. They were big, white, frilly tulips, white cabbage roses, and white delphiniums. They looked as fresh as though they had been picked that morning.
    Emma rubbed her eyes and looked harder. Was there a faint blue glow, flickering over everything? She leaned closer to see. Her nose touched the windowpane, and she felt a sparking shock.
    “Oh!” She jumped back.
    Winston was still struggling with the doors. “I can’t think why they won’t open,” he said. Very carefully, Emma put out one finger and touched the door handle. There was another spark.
    “There’s electricity all around the walls,” she said.
    Winston slapped his forehead. “Of course! It must be Mr. Wenlocke’s Temporal Delay Field,” he said. “Perhaps it’s gotten stuck and stopped time in there.”
    “Maybe you could walk through the wall and unlock it from the inside,” Emma suggested.
    Winston nodded gamely and tried, but bumped into the solid wall and staggered back. “Well, that won’t work,” he said. “And I’ll bet I know why. That out there—” and he waved a hand at the sea, the sand, and the sky—“is all mist and clouds and confusion. Nothing’s solid. But
this
place is real! So you and I—oh, dear. I hope you haven’t passed—er…”
    He stopped before he said it, but Emma knew what he had been going to say. For a moment she was scared. Then she remembered that the electric sparks had hurt, and she was pretty sure nothing can hurt you when you’re dead.
    “No, I’m fine,” she said. “Can we fix whatever’s broken so we can get inside?”
    Winston looked around and pointed to the far end of the verandah where there was a big sloping hatch like a cellar door. “The Temporal Difference Engine was under the cellars,” he said, “and I don’t think the Temporal Field went down past the fruit cellar. Mr. Wenlocke wanted the port wines to be able