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them these rooms need better circulation,” Cro-Magnon Boy said, taking a few steps toward me. “Hey — is that
     the Mountain House history?”
    I nodded. I wasn’t sure how I felt about encouraging the conversation to continue. Cro-Magnon interaction hadn’t been on my
     wish list for this vacation, or ever.
    “Yeah,” I said. “I was just flipping through it. The pictures from back in the 1800s are amazing. I sort of like it — knowing
     that this place has been around so long. There’s got to be tons of cool stories and stuff.”
    Cro-Magnon Boy’s face lit up. Clearly, I’d said something very right.
    “My great-great-great-great-grandfather built this place,” he said.
    “Great. I mean, seriously?”
    CMB pointed at the couch I was sitting on. “Mind if I sit?”
    “Sure,” I said.
    I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake. Telling CMB he could sit down was kind of a commitment.
    “And yes, seriously. My great-great-great-great-grandparents were Thaddeus and Clementine Kenyon. Thaddeus built this hotel
     in 1841, and the Kenyon family has been running it ever since. Whispering Pines Mountain House is the oldest continuously
     operating hotel in the country, and the only one that has never changed hands over the course of one and a half centuries.”
    CMB talked like a brochure. But I have to say, I was kind of impressed.
    “I’m Kat Roberts,” I said. “So you must be, like, a hotel heir or something.”
    Ted burst out laughing. His flattish features looked much nicer when he smiled, and his gray-blue eyes glittered.
    “Not exactly,” he said. “There are quite a few direct Kenyon descendants. I’m one of about thirty. My dad and two of my uncles
     run the place, which their dad did before them for forty years. Between their kids and their cousins’ kids, there’s always
     a good supply of Kenyons working the Mountain House on summers and holidays.”
    “It’s nice of you to chip in,” I said.
    “Oh, I actually look forward to it. One day, after college I guess, I’m going to work here full time. Maybe even run the place.
     I practically grew up at the Mountain House. That’s why I dorked out when I saw you were reading the history pamphlet, which
     my mom wrote, by the way. I’m going to write a book about it — the whole Mountain House story.”
    “Really?” I asked, impressed for the second time in less than five minutes by Cro-Magnon Boy. The guy had goals.
    Ted was doing the nervous hand-rubbing thing again. He was doing it with his feet too — grinding the toe of his left Reebok
     over the laces of his right Reebok.
    “So you probably know a whole lot about the Mountain House in the 1800s,” I said.
    “Are you kidding? I know it all!” Ted exclaimed. “Okay. That didn’t come out the way I meant it to. But yeah, my grandfather
     used to tell stories for days at a time.”
    “Okay,” I began, “this might sound weird. But does the name Madame Serena mean anything to you?”
    Ted laughed again, transforming his face from Cro-Magnon to not all that bad.
    “You’ve been doing your homework!” he exclaimed, pleased. “Yeah, wow. Let me think a sec.”
    He propped his feet up on the table, still clutching his hands together like they might do something nutty if he released
     them.
    “Well for starters, Madame Serena came to the Mountain House during the Spiritualist movement. Do you know much about the
     Spiritualists?”
    I didn’t know what to say about that. I considered myself somewhat of an expert on anything that had the word
spirit
in it, but I’d never heard of Spiritualists. So I curled my feet under me, got comfortable, and stared at him wide-eyed.
     My plan worked, because he took a deep breath and kept talking without waiting for me to answer.
    “The Spiritualist movement started up around the same time the Mountain House was built. If memory serves, people linked the
     beginning of the movement to the Foxes.”
    Madame Serena had said something about a