The Sorrower walked gingerly through the courtyard, an attempt to give his massive frame deference to the unfortunate number of butterflies flitting through on the breezes that blow between worlds. He walked to the northernmost point, in the center of a row of flowers lining the wrought iron fence, and knelt gently down in the grass. The Hotelier joined him on his right, the black dog on his left.
“Can you feel it, Hotelier?”
“I cannot.”
The Sorrower looked intrigued by this, somehow. “The dog. Its name, please?”
“Grim,” The Hotelier said.
“No.”
“Pardon?”
“Grim is not a name, it is a title. Like Hotelier. Like Sorrower. The grim is the first soul buried in a graveyard, destined -or, perhaps, cursed- to remain forever as a guardian for those that follow.”
The wind went still.
“Your father. He was here, and now he is not. Can you explain?”
The Hotelier’s composure was maintained only by an eternity of practice, though even she couldn’t help the thoughtful furrow of her brow. “He checked out,” she said, “when he decided I was ready.”
“And what was his room number?”
“He… I don’t know.”
“And you know all the room numbers.”
“He didn’t have a room,” The Hotelier concluded. “And if he didn’t have a room, then… he couldn’t have checked out.”
The shadow grew long behind them.
“There is Looming Guilt in this place, Hotelier. But it isn’t yours. It’s his.” With this, The Sorrower looked to the dog, which laid obediently in the grass. “Looming Guilt that is now taking revenge on the institution that produced it.”
“But what-...” The Hotelier looked first at the dog, and then at anything else at all. “What could he have to feel guilty of?”
The Sorrower held still. Behind them, the shadow grew large enough to dim the sun. “What is your name, Hotelier?”
She bristled. “I could ask the same of you, Sorrower.”
“You were born,” The Sorrower said, “you were raised. You told me as much yourself. And before you were The Hotelier, that title belonged to your father. So I ask, what is your name?”
The Hotelier sat back in the grass, now looking at nothing at all. A minute of silence trickled by, counted out by the susurrations of butterflies behind them, wings flapping through the shadow that lurked large in the courtyard. “I was born and raised for this,” she repeated. “To be the Hotelier. Forever. Is that why I was born? He didn’t raise me… he trained me. To be this forever.”
“Indefinitely,” The Sorrower said. “But not without limit.”
Grim let out a whine. Still, the dog could not draw the Hotelier’s gaze.
“He intends to be this place’s protector. That is why he made himself into what he is. I suspect he knew all along that it would be him in this place for the rest of time. Not you.”
“Then why have me here at all, Sorrower?” The Hotelier asked with careful composure.
The Sorrower sighed. “Perhaps he was scared,” he offered. “Perhaps he trained you to be enough, for just long enough, until he could manage on his own. Perhaps he feared he wasn’t strong enough on his own merits, and that he would need you.”
“And he needed me so much that he was willing to have this place erase me as it has our guests in the basement suites.”
“We don’t leave behind guilt because we did good things, Hotelier.”
The Sorrower stood, and bade The Hotelier stand with him. “There was someone I knew, a very long time ago,” The Sorrower said as he reached into his dark leather bag. “The Postmaster is what he was called. Gone, now.”
“He didn’t have a room here.”
“No, I imagine not. But I have here his last letter.” The Sorrower withdrew it from his bag, a sealed envelope, yellowed with age, sealed with red wax.
“I almost expected it click.”
“I believe the ticket was bought and paid for a long time ago.”
“By him?”
“By him.”
The Hotelier held it to her chest. Her facade cracked, and she hurriedly broke the seal on the envelope, holding up the sheet of paper therein so the Sorrower could not see her face. The Sorrower waited patiently for her to read, though he knew better than to prompt her to share.
She shared anyway. Folding the paper once more and tucking it into the envelope, she said “It seems that on top of interviewing candidates for the position of Coachmaster, I will also need to find my own replacement.” The Hotelier once again had the demeanor of the consummate professional.
“A curious turn of events.”
“It seems…” She nearly glanced at the dog, but couldn’t bring herself to commit to the action. “It seems the Hotel will no longer be a family business. We have handed ourselves over to the Hotel generation after generation, each of us giving ourselves up to become a part of this institution; this was so ingrained into me as being a virtue that until now, I’ve not had cause to question it.”
“So you are to find a new Hotelier? And they, I assume, are to find a replacement for themselves once their tenure has come to an end. A cycle which Grim intends to oversee by ensuring this place always has a protector.”
“I am to find a new manager,” she said. “But I think I am to be the last of the Hoteliers.”
“Then you have the distinction of being an endling. An honor, dubious as it may be.”
The Hotelier reached once again into the envelope, withdrawing the train ticket just enough to prove its existence to herself, then sliding it hastily back into the envelope, out of sight. “And you say my departure will fix the guilt in this place?”
“It will help. You will be free, and his conscience, what is left of it, in whatever form it resides in now, will be soothed. But there is a way for me to ensure its departure. Or, rather, I know someone who might be able to help.”
“Even The Sorrower must subcontract?”
“The Piece of Mind necessary to subdue your father’s guilt is… difficult for me to extract on my own,” The Sorrower said, somehow pronouncing the unorthodox spelling of the desired ingredient. “But I know someone satisfied enough with their circumstances to acquire it for me, and who keeps an ear out for messages on the breeze; this courtyard has ample supply of messengers.”
The Sorrower held out his hand, and a small butterfly, pure white in color, landed upon his palm. The Sorrower cupped his other hand gently, gently over it, and blew delicately through the spaces between his fingers.
Something Happened.
Somewhere, a gate opened.
In The Sorrower’s hand was a Piece of Mind, stolen from some incomplete jigsaw, suspended through a metal ring and fashioned into a necklace with twine.
Grim came to The Sorrower when beckoned, and The Sorrower tied the Piece of Mind around his neck.
The Hotelier sighed. “If only all problems could be solved so easily.”
The Sorrower sighed back. “It is never easy,” he said. “I imagine you have some things to attend to before you are ready to make your departure. The coach, I imagine, is not for ones like you and I?”
“A correct assertion. The Coach is one of the amenities provided to our guests, and neither you nor I have rooms.”
“Then call upon me when it is time,” The Sorrower said softly. “I will accompany you to the station.”
The Hotelier didn’t ask how she was meant to call upon him. The pair met eyes, and something happened between them, some quiet understanding filling the space between them like fog rolling on a breeze: She was The Hotelier. He was The Sorrower. Each an endling in their own right.
They would know when to find each other again.
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