Page 87 of The White Octopus Hotel
Anna shook her head. “No. That’s not true. She’s just…She’s in so many broken bits and doesn’t know how to fix herself. But she doesn’t blame you.”
“She does.”
“She doesn’t. She’ll come and live here with you at the hotel if you ask her to. I know because it’s already happened.” Anna smiled. “You met her here a few days ago. She was so looking forward to having afternoon tea with you one last time. That’s what she was holding on to, I think. We all knew she would die later that same day, because you told us that as well. But she was determined to see you.”
“Afternoon tea?” Eve faltered. “Are you saying that…Mrs. Roth…?”
Anna nodded. “She assumed the name of Roth when you did. But she always kept Jane.”
My own daughter died recently.
If I could see my daughter one last time, I would be honoured to tell her that she was the single greatest joy of my life….
Eve realised she was shaking as she took a step closer to Anna. “Can any of what you’re saying be true?” she whispered.
“I’m sorry, Mum,” Anna said. “But we have to go now.”
The wordMumrang and rang in her ears.
“Go where?” she asked. “If the White Octopus Hotel has been your home all this time, then what will you do next?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Anna smiled. “We’ve known this moment was coming for a long time and have been planning ourfuture for years. I love the White Octopus with all my heart, but the hotel belongs to the two of you.” Her eyes flicked towards Max. “Or rather, the two of you belong to the hotel. That’s what you always used to say. That you were caretakers for this place. That it chose you. That’s why it allowed you to take your memories with you—because it knew you were coming back. You aren’t guests here. You never were. The hotel is your home. Ours too, for a while. I loved my time here, but now I’d like to do something on my own—perhaps even create a different kind of hotel with a different kind of magic.” Her eyes glittered. “I have such plans, Mama. I know you’ll never get to see them, but I promise you they will be every bit as spectacular as what you did here.”
Harry set the framed sketch of the map down beside the piano. “The hotel won’t look quite the same in 1895. And you’ll see that it reinvents itself throughout the years, moulding itself to the era. But you’ll find plenty that’s familiar.”
“All that remains,” Tristan said, “is to wind the clock once the three of us have gone.” He looked at Eve. “Do you remember how to do it?”
She nodded. “Yes. But I won’t. I already told you. It’s not what I signed up for. Happily ever after isn’t why I’m here.”
Max had his hands in his pockets, leaning against the piano. “That goes for both of us.”
Anna laughed. “Well. Who said anything about happily ever after? You and Father—you loved each other so intensely, so completely, but I’m not going to pretend there weren’t arguments and difficult times. I’m not going to tell you there wasn’t heartache and suffering. Of course there was. There had to be. But still. All I know is that I would like, one day, to meet a woman who looks at me the way you two looked at each other. I’ll chase after a love like that.” She straightened her shoulders. “Now. This next part has nothing to do with us. Perhaps we’ll see you again. Perhaps we won’t. And, Mum, please don’t torture yourself later when you think of thismeeting and what you would have liked to say to us. We already know.” She pulled a postcard from her pocket and handed it to Eve. There was a photo of the White Octopus Hotel on the front. “For you to write a message to Dad,” she said, “asking him to come and help you at the hotel. When the time is right, give it to me—the younger me, I mean—and tell me to post it for you on the seventeenth of November in 1935. For now, though, it’s goodbye.”
Eve watched the three of them head out the door and climb into the last sleigh, waiting at the entrance. Then there was the swish of blades on snow, and they were gone, over the frozen lake, leaving Max and Eve alone in the lobby.
“You know,” Max said, rummaging in his pockets for a cigarette, “I categorically did not sign up for this, but…if it’s being handed to me on a silver platter, then I’d be a damned fool not to take it.”
“What?” Eve asked incredulously, thrusting the postcard into her bag. “Go back in time like she said? Make a life together like she said?”
“Why not? You love me, don’t you?”
“I…What makes you think that? I never said that.”
He took a draw on his cigarette, exhaled smoke. “You did, actually. To Anna, just now.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, look, you can deny it all you like, but I won’t believe you. You’re a damn poor liar.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.”
Eve could feel herself getting angry. “Look, even if Ididlove you—and I’m not saying that I do—but even if I did…it’s not worth the risk.”
“Do you truly believe that?”
“Yes.”
