Elizabeth reflects on “the feeling,” a stomach flutter that always precedes strange, inexplicable events, such as objects falling or breaking for no reason. After an overnight train ride and a long wait at the bus station, she boards a bus for Winterhouse. Hungry and with little money, she wonders how her aunt and uncle could have afforded a holiday, as they have little money. A woman sits beside her and tries to interfere with her crossword puzzle, but Elizabeth easily solves the clues herself. Later, Elizabeth notices a man and woman dressed in black staring at her from the back of the bus. They continue to watch her for the rest of the ride, making her deeply uncomfortable.

As the bus ride continues, Elizabeth dozes off and has a nightmare about a menacing woman in a dark library. She wakes. After a while, holding her pendant and praying for something good to happen at Winterhouse, she sees the hotel’s lights come into view as the bus slows. She is awestruck by its grand and beautiful appearance. The man and woman in black also get off, retrieving a large, coffin-like crate that they claim holds their book collection. As Elizabeth stands outside, the woman approaches and addresses her as “Elizabeth Somers.” Elizabeth is unnerved that the woman knows her name.

The woman in black says she saw Elizabeth’s name on a bookmark sticking out of her book. Inside the magnificent hotel lobby, a friendly bellhop named Jackson confirms that Elizabeth is an expected guest. While the couple in black loudly argues with another employee about their room and the large crate, Elizabeth notices two elderly men, Mr. Wellington and Mr. Rajput, working on a massive 35,000-piece jigsaw puzzle at a long table.

Elizabeth meets the hotel’s owner, Norbridge Falls, a charismatic older man who performs a small magic trick for her. As he introduces himself, the couple in black continues to cause a scene. Norbridge leads Elizabeth away, and they stop at the jigsaw puzzle table. Elizabeth immediately sees where a piece fits and places it correctly, impressing both Mr. Wellington and Mr. Rajput. As Norbridge leads her from the lobby, the couple’s argument escalates, with the man screaming at the bellhops to be careful with the crate.

Norbridge gives Elizabeth a tour of the hotel, showing her eccentric historical displays like Ernest Shackleton’s pants and a room permanently reserved for a billionaire couple. Elizabeth tells him that her parents died in a fireworks accident when she was four, though her memories of the event are vague and unsettling. In a hallway, Norbridge offers her something called “Flurschen,” the hotel’s special candy. Tasting it, Elizabeth is overcome with a powerful but inexplicable sense of familiarity. Norbridge performs another magic track but his cheerful demeanor falters when he points out the library and begins to mention its hours, losing his train of thought mid-sentence. When a bellhop named Sampson urgently calls Norbridge away, Elizabeth thinks she hears them mention the library as they hurry off.

Elizabeth settles into her comfortable room, number 213. After hearing a faint noise outside her door and seeing nothing through the peephole, she resumes reading. Sometime later, curious about the library, she slips into the hallway to visit it. On the way, she recalls a recent argument with Aunt Purdy after she found an old photograph of a young boy bearing her aunt’s handwritten caption, “Since we lost you, I will never love another child again” (58). Elizabeth finds the library doors locked but peers through a small glass window beside them. Inside, she sees Norbridge with a flashlight, searching through the books for something. On her way back to her room, she sees the couple in black arguing with Sampson, demanding to be let into the library. She watches from her room until the man turns and stares directly at Elizabeth’s slightly ajar door, which she quickly closes.

At breakfast the next day, Elizabeth notices a large, painted family tree of the Falls family on the dining room wall. A server, Mrs. Trumble, greets her. Elizabeth sits down and meets Freddy Knox, a boy her age who is also staying at Winterhouse alone. They quickly bond over a shared love for word puzzles, like anagrams and word ladders. Freddy reveals he is working on a project for Norbridge: inventing a fuel source called the “Walnut WonderLog” from the nut shells used in the hotel’s candy kitchen.

After breakfast, Elizabeth goes to the library and is greeted by the librarian, Leona Springer, and her parakeet, Miles. The bird startles Elizabeth by saying “Somers here!” but Leona explains he is trying to say, “Winter’s here!” Elizabeth is astounded by the enormous, three-story library, and she and Leona connect over their love of books. Norbridge arrives, and after some friendly banter with Leona, pulls Elizabeth aside. He asks her to check in with him or Jackson twice a day, a request she finds puzzling. He deflects her questions about the previous night. Leona gives Elizabeth a tour of the library.

While exploring the library, Elizabeth is drawn to the third-floor reference room. Just as she approaches, “the feeling” washes over her and the room’s door swings open on its own. Inside, she climbs a rolling ladder and discovers an old, jacketless book hidden behind a row of other books. This is A Guide for Children: Games, Secrets, Pastimes, and More by Riley Sweth Granger. Its chapters contain odd instructions on how to deceive adults. Believing the book is important but knowing that—as a Ference title—it cannot be checked out, Elizabeth hides it in her backpack. As she leaves the library, she sees the mysterious couple in black browsing books on the second floor.

Before lunch, Elizabeth studies the Falls family tree again, along with a strange poem painted next to it. She notices that an unusual number of women in the family lived to be exactly 100 years old. At lunch with Freddy, she tells him about Norbridge’s odd request to check in daily. She also mentions seeing Norbridge in the library late at night, and Freddy shares he has seen Norbridge acting strangely near the library. To lighten the mood, they engage in a word ladder competition. After two ties, a woman at their table suggests they use their names, “Fred” and “Beth,” as the start and end words. Freddy finishes first, but Elizabeth’s solution uses one fewer step, resulting in a third tie.

Returning to her room, Elizabeth discovers her wardrobe has been filled with new clothes in her size. She and Freddy head outside, first exploring the Ice Castle and the ice rink, walking on frozen Lake Luna, and watching cross-country skiers, before spending the last daylight hour sledding. Later, Elizabeth is confronted by the man in black as she leaves her room. He introduces himself as Marcus Q. Hiems, a bookseller, and gives her his business card. He asks her to inform him of any interesting books she finds in the library and then warns her to be cautious around Norbridge, accusing him of being a book thief who hides his stolen collection in the Winterhouse library.

Elizabeth tells Freddy about her encounter with Marcus. They are unsure whether to believe him but agree his story could explain Norbridge’s strange behavior in the library. As they walk to the hotel’s portrait gallery, Elizabeth is drawn toward a locked door at the end of a dark hallway. Freddy explains it was once the room of Norbridge’s sister. As Elizabeth steps toward it, “the feeling” strikes her, and a glass light shade from the ceiling crashes to the floor right where she was previously standing. In the gallery, they see portraits of the Falls family, including a 1989 portrait of Norbridge beside his wife and late daughter, Winnie, and a painting of Norbridge as a child next to his twin sister, Gracella Falls, who looks wary and distant. Freddy tells her Gracella allegedly ran away at 18 after delving into “black magic.” Elizabeth notices that the portrait of the hotel’s founder, Nestor Falls, shows him holding a book with lines of coded text on its pages. As they realize it is a secret message, the lights in the gallery go out.

The lights come back on, and Jackson the bellhop apologizes, explaining he didn’t know they were inside. He tells them that no one, not even Norbridge, knows the meaning of the coded message in Nestor Falls’s portrait. Later, at dinner, Norbridge performs a magic show. Using hand puppets, he tells a story about a girl who saves her family from an evil witch. For the finale, he transforms the witch puppet into a live raven that flies away and the girl puppet into a white dove that lands on his shoulder, amazing the crowd. During the performance, Elizabeth is discomforted by the woman in black staring intently at her.

That evening, Elizabeth speaks with Mr. and Mrs. Wellington and Mr. and Mrs. Rajput at their puzzle table before going swimming and attending the evening concert. Mrs. Wellington recalls knowing Norbridge’s sister, Gracella, as a child, describing her as a “strange” but brilliant puzzle-solver. Mr. Rajput’s comment that they shouldn’t “scare” Elizabeth by discussing Gracella makes her uneasy. Just after midnight, Elizabeth is woken by a noise and feels compelled to return to the library. Finding the door unlocked, she slips inside and hides. She overhears Norbridge and Leona discussing Marcus and his wife, who had been in the library earlier. They are talking about something of value that Marcus is looking for, which Norbridge has also been trying to locate. Norbridge also says he wants to keep a close watch on Elizabeth, explaining that he has a “feeling” about her. When Elizabeth accidentally makes a sound, Norbridge and Leona leave. Now suspicious of Norbridge’s motives, Elizabeth decides to keep Marcus’s warning to herself for the time being.