Page 35 of The White Octopus Hotel
You can do hard things, Eve….
The music came to an end, the horse vanished, and the musical notes fell like rain. Eve stood surrounded by it, but not a single drop landed on her skin or dress or hair. Yet Max gasped aloud as he was soaked from head to foot in a deluge so tremendous that a wave of water rushed away from him towards the door. And for a moment—just a blink of a moment—it looked to Eve as if the remaining water drops in the air came together to form the shape of a thrashing tentacle, the tip of which flicked towards Max, knocking the hat from his head and straight into Eve’s hands.
And then it was over, and the room was quiet, without even thesplish-splashof water since the fountains had all been emptied out upon the floor. The only sound was thedrip, dripof droplets falling from Max’s hair and nose and the tips of his fingers. He looked like he had leapt into a swimming pool fully clothed. Eve glanced at thewindow again, but there was no horse. Had it been real? Had any of it been real? Those words she had heard inside her head. She racked her brain but couldn’t remember anyone in her life ever telling her that she could do hard things. It was true—completely and utterly, painfully true—but she didn’t remember anyone ever saying it to her.
“Might I trouble you for my hat?” Max asked, holding out his hand.
Eve passed it over. She realised then that her fingers were trembling, and unfortunately Max noticed too.
“Something wrong?” he asked with a frown.
She swallowed hard. “No. It’s only that music can…it can make you feel a lot of things at once.”
“That is true.”
“That piece is extraordinary,” she added, her eyes flicking towards the windows. Just black sky and white stars. There were no words to explain what that song had meant to her over the years—how it had helped and healed, even when it had hurt as well.
“How nice that you think so,” Max snapped, gripping the end of his shirt and wringing it out between his hands. “But I would have preferred that Eve Shaw—therealone, I mean—had been the first to hear it, since she was the one I composed it for.”
He left the room without another word to her, squelching with each step. Bella had melted away too, so Eve was left alone with the fountains and her tangle of confused thoughts.Couldanother version of herself have been here at the hotel almost twenty years ago? Mrs. Roth had told her that there were three time-travelling keys. Perhaps one of them took a person back to the time of the First World War?
But if Eve was successful in finding a sheet of writing paper and preventing Bella’s death, then she would never have come to the White Octopus Hotel in the first place. She would be a different person—entirely ordinary. No time travelling, no octopuses, andno rabbits. If Max was telling the truth, then did this mean she had already failed? Or was it yet another thread of her current life that would be unravelled if she succeeded?
“No Man’s Nightingale” was such astonishing music and the thought that it could have been written for her—even a different version of her current self—was enough to make her tingle all the way down to her toes.
Yet at the same time, there was that ever-present, creeping prickle of shame. It wasn’t right. Music like that didn’t get written for people like Eve.
Chapter 22
When Eve woke the next morning, it took her a minute to remember where she was—and when. Part of her had feared that the hotel might slip away into the night, and she’d find herself back in the abandoned graffitied shell of 2016 wondering if it had all been a dream, or, worse yet, that she’d have no surviving memories of the White Octopus at all. But her elegant bedroom was still there. When she’d arrived back last night, she’d put on the pair of silk monogrammed pyjamas neatly folded at the end of her bed, the same creamy ivory colour as the inside of an oyster shell.
Still wearing these, she went over to glance through the balcony doors. It was early but some of the guests were already up and about, strolling along the water’s edge in fur coats. Eve was eager to continue the scavenger hunt, so she went straight to the walk-in wardrobe. Today it had selected a tailored Lisa Mae shirtwaister white dress, with diagonal jet buttons and a red undercollar. Accompanying it was a polished pair of strapped low heels in black.
She dressed quickly, thinking that it would be hard to go back to jeans after this. Once again, the comb gave her hair the perfect 1930s finger curls and the tube of lipstick remained upon the shelf.She slipped the lipstick and the scavenger hunt card into a skirt pocket before going downstairs to the lobby.
“Are you looking for the Breakfast Room, madam?” the receptionist asked.
Eve took the directions offered and set off down the corridor. Soon enough, she discovered a light, airy room with marble pillars, a black-and-white tiled floor, and scalloped seating upholstered in powder-pink velvet. Geometric mirrors lined the walls, reflecting the blue sparkle of the lake outside. There were several guests there, having breakfast, admiring the view, or reading the paper. A buffet table at one end was piled high with platters of fruit and croissants, rounds of Gruyère cheese beneath glass domes, and shell-shaped bowls full of honey and porridge.
On the wall above the table hung a large golden sunburst clock, with brass dials and thirty-two golden rays. Eve took a plate—lavender-grey with an octopus motif, same as the set she’d found in France. She selected a croissant and some fruit and went over to a free table by the window, where she dug the scavenger hunt card from her pocket and wrote the sunburst clock into place at number two.
She was about to reach for her croissant when she heard a muffled giggle and realised with a jolt that there was someone hiding beneath her table. She quickly pulled the tablecloth up to peer into the grinning face of a little girl—the same child who’d peeked around the door of her room yesterday. She was a bit older than she’d first thought—perhaps four years old—clutching some kind of mechanical toy in her hands.
“Well, small child,” Eve said. “Are you supposed to be down there?”
She’d never had much to do with children and didn’t particularly like them, since they reminded her of Bella. After causing the death of one infant, it had always seemed prudent to stay well awayfrom all others. Eve hoped the girl would leave quickly or that a hassled parent might appear to retrieve her.
The child’s grin widened. “We’re having a mouse concert. Do you want to see?”
“Not especially.”
The girl pressed her finger to her lips. “Shh. Don’t tell anyone; it’s supposed to be a secret. But my mice can play the most beautiful music in the world.”
Eve’s ears pricked up. Could the girl possibly have the music box Victor had spoken of? Hadn’t he said something about mice musicians? She leaned forwards as the child placed her toy on the floor and wound the key with a mechanical clicking sound. Eve recognised it; she’d seen one just like it at Stanley’s a year or two ago. It was the Merrymakers clockwork mouse band by Louis Marx, consisting of four tin mice musicians assembled around a tin lithographed piano decorated in black, cream, and red. The girl pressed a lever, and the four mice sprang frantically to life, enthusiastically bashing at their instruments. But there was no music. No music at all. Only whirs and clicks. Eventually, it wound down and came to a stop.
“Superb,” Eve said coldly. “Now would you mind leaving me to finish my breakfast in peace?”
The girl scrambled out from under the table, still clutching the tin piano. She flashed Eve a grin and said, “My name’s Nan. And I know whoyouare too. You’re—”
