Page 3 of The White Octopus Hotel
“And how did you come by yours?” Max asked.
“I…” Eve trailed off, recalling the childhood dream she’d once had that a magician had given it to her, but the truth was that she didn’t know where it had come from. “I can’t remember. I’ve just always had it. I suppose I found it somewhere.”
“I suppose you did.” He leaned forwards a little. “You know, sometimes the end is also the beginning.”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind.”
“Have you travelled a long way?” she asked carefully. She was starting to wonder whether he was quite all there.
A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Well, yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, you could say that. But it was worth the wait.”
“How did you happen to come across my name?” Eve asked. “It’s just that I normally specialise in valuing paintings, you see, so—”
“Do you not think,” Max interrupted, looking at her closely, “that it’s high time you stopped valuing paintings and started producing some masterpieces of your own?”
Was he trying to make a joke? If so, Eve couldn’t bring herself to laugh. But beneath the fabric of her black jeans, the octopus tattoo on her thigh began to burn upon her skin.
“I’m not sure that I follow,” she said. “Are you looking to have something commissioned? This is an auction house; we don’t create new work here.”
“That’s a pity.” Max set his coffee cup down. “But no matter. The reason I came here was to give you this.”
He reached into his trousers pocket and gently set an object on the desk between them. It was a small, ornamental octopus.
Chapter 2
Eve stared at the octopus. It was pearly white, with long tentacles sprawled around it, elegant and strange. The very tip of one tentacle was black, like it had been dipped in ink. There was a small hook on top of its head, as if it had once been attached to something else. Its eyes were ancient and wise. Her thigh burned worse than ever. The tentacles tattooed onto her skin were of her own design and almost identical to the ornament in front of her.
Suddenly, Eve was no longer in the auction house at all, but back home, surrounded by dozens of her sketchbooks, the pages all full of octopus drawings. Over the years, she had filled up volume after volume with twisting tentacles and giant, staring eyes. And every single octopus had one tentacle with a black tip. It was such an unusual detail that she was shocked to see it in the ornament before her now.
She’d never tried to turn any of her sketches into paintings—though she had thought about it, had longed to do it—and she’d never shown them to anyone, ever. Yet she couldn’t get away from the feeling that Max Everly knew about them somehow, that he knew about all those sketchbooks neatly stacked up at home, and the fact that octopuses both fascinated and delighted her. When shemet his eye, she was almost certain that his gaze flicked, just once, towards her thigh, as if he knew about the tattoo too.
“Some sorrows seem like too much for any one person to bear,” he said softly. “I know all about that. But there is light to be found as well, I promise you.”
Eve shook her head, trying to clear it, trying to find her way back to a normal conversation. “I don’t understand. Is this the item you were hoping to have valued?”
“Oh no, I’m not interested in valuing it. I doubt it’s worth much. Please,” he said, “take it as a gift.”
“I couldn’t possibly—”
“It’s for you,” Max insisted. “It was always meant for you.”
There was a sudden catch in his voice, and Eve was startled to see that he was blinking back tears. She was sure now that he must have escaped from a retirement home or something. There was probably a group of worried carers out searching for him.
“It’s very kind of you, really,” she began firmly. “But we have policies here, and I can’t accept any gifts from clients.”
“I’m not your client.”
“Even so, I can’t—”
“Youmust!” he cried. For the first time since walking in, he looked a little unsure of himself, a little desperate. “You already have. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. Now you have to do your part.”
“All right,” Eve said, speaking quickly because he was starting to sound quite distressed. Perhaps the best thing to do was to play along. “All right. It’s very kind of you and I’m sorry, I don’t mean to seem ungrateful.”
He took a deep breath. “Everyone should have something on their birthday.”
“It’s just that…Wait. How do you know it’s my—?”
