Choose the Chaos: Room 413 Episode Three: The Cold Door

Last time, Vivienne Wren found the fourth floor of The Ashwick Grand.

Which was impressive, considering the hotel insisted it did not have one.

The hallway was too long. Every door was numbered 413. Snow drifted from the ceiling. A nameless little girl warned her to choose a room before the hotel chose one for her.

Three doors called to the key.

One warm. One cold. One musical.

Naturally, Vivienne chose the cold door.

This is Choose the Chaos, a playful interactive story-game experiment where strange choices lead to stranger doors.

And The Ashwick Grand has excellent terrible judgment.

Episode Three: The Cold Door

The key slid into the lock by itself. Vivienne did not appreciate that.

“I prefer to be consulted,” she told it.

The key ignored her. Typical.

The cold door opened into a ballroom frozen beneath moonlight.

Tall windows glittered with ice. Blue chandeliers burned overhead. Frost covered the parquet floor in delicate spirals, though some of the patterns looked less decorative and more like footprints. Hundreds of them. Circling.

At the center of the ballroom stood a long dining table set for thirteen.

Twelve chairs were occupied.

Not by people, exactly.

By frost and memory wearing the shape of people.

A man in an evening coat with one hand pressed over his heart. A woman in pearls who stared at an empty plate. A soldier with a bandaged throat. An old woman holding opera glasses. A boy with ink-stained fingers.

The thirteenth chair was empty.

Vivienne looked at it.

“No, thank you.”

At the head of the table sat a woman in a white fur stole, her face hidden behind a veil of ice crystals.

She turned toward Vivienne.

“Finally,” the woman said.

Her voice sounded like a silver spoon tapping porcelain in a dead house.

“The witch has arrived.”

Vivienne kept her wand low.

“I’m here on holiday.”

The frost woman laughed softly.

“No one comes to Ashwick for holidays.”

“That does seem to be the hotel’s opinion.”

Behind Vivienne, the nameless girl hovered in the doorway, pale and unfinished, her blue ribbon bright against her dark braid.

“Don’t eat,” the girl whispered.

Vivienne looked at the table again.

The supper was beautiful. Too beautiful. Silver dishes, sugared fruit, roasted meat, winter cakes, dark wine, and steaming bowls of soup.

Suspicious soup, naturally.

Vivienne lifted her wand.

“Revelo.”

The glamour peeled away.

The food was not food.

Each plate held a memory.

A child’s first snowfall. A woman’s wedding dance. A soldier’s final letter. A boy’s ink-stained notebook. A laugh trapped inside a sugar cube. A lock of hair tied with blue ribbon.

The thirteenth plate was empty.

Waiting.

The frost woman gestured to the open chair.

“Sit, Miss Wren.”

Vivienne sat.

The nameless girl made a tiny distressed sound.

Vivienne folded her hands neatly in her lap and looked at the frost woman.

“This is a lovely supper,” she said, “but I would prefer tea.”

The ballroom went still.

Even the chandeliers seemed offended.

The frost woman’s gloved fingers curled against the table.

“Tea?”

“Yes.”

“You enter my supper and request tea?”

“As a guest,” Vivienne said. “Unless The Ashwick Grand has abandoned hospitality entirely.”

For one long moment, no one moved.

Then a servant made of frost appeared beside the table carrying a teapot carved from ice.

The tea it poured was dark blue and smelled of winter roses, grave soil, and old secrets.

Vivienne did not drink first.

She looked at the frost woman.

“Will you join me?”

The nameless girl whispered, “She won’t drink first.”

Vivienne did not look away.

“Then neither will I.”

The frost woman stared at her through the veil of ice.

Then, slowly, she lifted her cup.

And drank.

Only then did Vivienne sip.

Cold flooded her mouth, her throat, her chest.

For half a second, every bell in The Ashwick Grand rang at once.

Then the ballroom sharpened.

The frost woman was no longer only veiled ice. Vivienne saw the shape beneath: older, tired, furious, and grieving so hard the room had frozen around her.

A name rose in Vivienne’s mind.

Lady Elspeth Ashwick.

Lady Elspeth lowered her cup.

“Well,” she said. “That was unwise.”

Vivienne set her cup down.

“Most useful things are.”

Lady Elspeth allowed one question.

She asked, “Which door in the hall has a proper hotel room behind it?”

Lady Elspeth smiled thinly.

“Practical.”

“Alive,” Vivienne said. “I prefer to remain so.”

Lady Elspeth leaned back in her chair.

“The warm door is not yours. The musical door is not yours. Room 413 is behind this ballroom.”

“Of course it is.”

“There is a servant’s passage. Three turns. Left, right, left. No mirrors. Then a green door with a brass hare.”

The nameless girl stepped closer.

“Can I leave?”

Lady Elspeth looked at her.

The ballroom temperature dropped.

Then the old woman said, “For now.”

Vivienne stood.

“Thank you for your hospitality.”

Lady Elspeth’s mouth almost moved.

“Do not mistake me for kind, Miss Wren.”

“I didn’t.”

“Good.”

The servant’s passage waited behind a curtain of frost.

Vivienne took the nameless girl’s cold hand.

Left. Right. Left. No mirrors.

At the end of the passage stood a green door with a brass hare.

The hare’s ears twitched.

Vivienne stared at it.

“I am too tired for decorative judgment.”

The brass hare blinked.

Then the door opened.

Behind it was a proper hotel room.

Warm fire. Four-poster bed. Writing desk. Wardrobe. Heavy curtains. Tea tray. Bathroom door. A window overlooking the snowy west gardens.

Her suitcase was already waiting beside the bed.

So was her folded broom-cane.

On the pillow sat a card written in elegant black ink:

Welcome, Miss Wren.Please enjoy your stay. Do not let the forgotten sleep in the wardrobe.

The wardrobe knocked once from the inside.

Vivienne sighed.

“I really wanted to unpack first.”

Want to play along?

Roll a six-sided die and let the hotel make one questionable decision for you. Or choose the option you would take.

1. Open the wardrobe.The card specifically warned against the forgotten sleeping there, which means the wardrobe is absolutely everyone’s problem now.

2. Ward the room first.Vivienne is not touching anything else until salt, silver, chalk, and common sense are involved.

3. Question the nameless girl.She was allowed to leave the ballroom. That does not mean Lady Elspeth released her for free.

4. Inspect the bathroom mirror.Haunted hotel bathrooms are never just bathrooms. This is probably plumbing with opinions.

5. Read the room like a spell circle. Room 413 may be a hotel room, a trap, a sanctuary, or all three wearing nice curtains.

6. Go back to the lobby and find Cecily.If the hotel is going to be dramatic, Vivienne may need an ally with gossip, pearls, and a suspicious little dog.