Because the Night

highland royalty

Lily needed answers to the list of questions that was unfolding like a scroll in her head. Her anxieties were like the pen dipped in ink, scratching thoughts onto parchment. She couldn't erase her thoughts, just smear them farther. Get rid of the words, sure, but keep their stain. If she kept thinking at this rate, Lily's brain would become absolutely incomprehensible to everyone — including her. 

So, yeah. She needed answers, stat. Because once she knew who he was, maybe she could figure out how to be around him. Ideally, she would like to stand slumped, casual, like she was around her friends. Not pin-straight like a rabbit the moment he sniffs danger. A blend of a thumping heart and quivering legs that beg to run in the opposite direction. 

This posture was exhausting. It also reminded her she was alive. How dare he? 

The hotel seemed to stretch a mile in every direction (she wasn't far off — after all the additions over its century-long history, the hotel was about half a mile long). How many people within its walls knew about Diego? How many could slip her a puzzle piece and complete the picture? So far, she only had his face filled out, his hard body. She wasn't complaining. That was the picture she saw, but not all that he was. 

As sometimes happens, when the Fates are weaving calmly or a person is just lucky, Lily walked into the answers she needed. The class exited just as a historic tour of the mountain house was beginning. 

Who but Emma, the girl who walked into Lily's little dress-up session in Diego's room, was leading the tour? Emma smiled at the center of a sizable crowd like that's exactly where she belonged. Surrounded. Standing there like a minor deity (at the very least, a forest nymph) Lily could take a better look at her – this person who, obviously, knew Diego intimately enough to barge into his room and pick up a conversation they'd started days ago. 

Emma had long pin-straight brown hair, the kind Lily longed for when she was younger. Her nose was pin-straight, too. If such a thing was possible. Emma's complexion was the kind of perfect it looked like it might take expensive foundation to achieve. The truth was worse. This just was her skin. 

To Lily's embarrassment, Emma caught her looking. "Hey, 2019," she said. 2019? What did she mean?

Then Emma pulled out a chap-stick from the back pocket of her khakis and applied a layer of Burt's Bees to her lips, plumped by genetics and not by a dermatologist's needle. A man asked what she was using. Lily knew he didn't care about the answer. He just took the quickest route to a conversation. 

And Emma took it as a cue to start the tour. She clapped her hands. "Welcome to the tour of Highland Mountain House. I'm Emma. I've worked here for the past ten years. Cleaning rooms at Highland was my first job ever — and I decided, why leave? You all have had the food, so you know what I mean." 

To Lily's surprise, people laughed. Ugh, seriously? Lily thought. Were people seriously laughing at that joke? That said, Emma seemed genuine. 

"Today, we'll be going over the history of the Highland Mountain House and its founders, the Moody family. All have already seen the Lake Room. Some of you more than others," she said, making eye contact with Lily. Surely, this was a pointed comment. The dance classes were held in the pointing to the magnificent room where dance classes were held. 

"So, instead of starting with the obvious, we'll be going into some of the secrets you might've passed by on your walk to the dining room and back again. It's easy to miss the them, if you don't know where to look." 

As the tour moved to go up the famous carpeted spiral staircase at the center of the hotel, Lily grabbed her mom – talking to Al on the side – and said she would meet them at lunch. Annabelle was sad that Lily would be missing their morning swim in the lake. Lily didn't mind missing whatever small talk her mom would have in a bikini across from Al, thank you. 

She scampered up the stairs to catch the end of Emma's caravan just as it stalled at the foot of a hallway. Its yellow walls were covered with framed photos. A tunnel of nostalgia.

"Welcome to the Moody Hal of Fame," Emma announced. "Here's where branches of the Moody family tree unfold in order, starting with Ezra and James Moody, who bought the inn in the 19th century and transformed it into the vacation paradise you know today." 

Ezra and James looked like Quaker versions of Santa Claus. Their beards were long; their smiles, genuine. 

They walked through the years, past wedding photos and collages of Christmas cards.

"Imagine if all of your family photos were on display, all the time," Emma said. "Some of these pictures have caused controversy. Legend has it that Adelina Moody, Ezra's granddaughter, broke into the picture frame in the middle of the night and cut out her ex-boyfriend's head from her prom photos. The headless man. He remains here today." Indeed, there he was. 

"The Moody family are kind of celebrities around here," she explained. "Us employees know the family history — and their legends — as well as we do the trails. There'd be no Highland without the Moodys. So there'd be no Emma at Housekeeping without the Moodys," she said, winking. "The fact that the Moodys are simply the greatest? It only helps with the gig." 

Of course, Emma had to say they were "simply the greatest." They could've been vampires or werewolves, for all Lily knew. They could feed on the guests during the full moon. The Moodys weren't that bad, as it turned out. 

But they were definitely more complicated than "simply the greatest." 

As if she were at a museum, Emma pointed out different configurations of people in photos and explained why this person was sitting at the head of the table (she just had her sweet 16), and why this woman was at the top of a mountain (she was the first Moody to climb Kilimanjaro) and why her  hand was on his knee (the man was her brother; he was grieving). 

Finally, she paused in front of a family of three in the Lake Room. The picture had that grainy, instantly nostalgic quality of any photo developed in the '90s – like all of Lily's childhood photos. The little boy's smile seemed to take over his face. His eyes squinted into nonexistence. He looked familiar — but the man! Lily knew that face. He looked just like Diego. 

Emma paused in front of this photo and inhaled. "All of the Moodys are important, of course. But if you're going to know one branch, it's this one. Adelina – the prom photo vandalizer, remember? — had a son."

She pointed at the man's face. Not smiling, but holding back a smile. The kind of man whose smiles were private. "This is Moses Moody." 

Her finger moved to the slight woman beside him. From the way they stood, this is how they always stood. Beside each other. "His wife, Maria Paez. They met while he was traveling the world. It's a good story — you should ask him sometime."

Lily already knew what was coming next. Still, she braced herself. "And this little guy," she said, "Is their son, Diego. He's around all the time. Not so little anymore, though, right?" 

Emma stared right at Lily while she said it. Part of her was wishing to be zapped into a termite-sized person and scurry into the floorboards, where she could never be humiliated again. The other half admired Emma's confidence and wishes she, too, had the ability to zap someone into a termite. Had she the ability, she would turn her gaze on Emma right now, that's for sure. 

Well. She could do something. 

"Why should we know this family?" Lily found herself blurting the question aloud.

"That's a great question. Sorry, I didn't catch your name?" 

"Oh, are we doing names for the tour. Okay. My name is Lily." She gulped. Just do it, Lily. "But some people call me 2019." 

Emma raised her eyebrow, almost with excitement. "Well, 2019, or Lily, whatever you call yourself. It's a good question. You should know the Moodys because they run the place."