Funiculi Funicula Café

The Funiculi Funicula Café is the primary setting of the novel. All of the novel's scenes in the narrative present take place in this location. For roughly 10 years, the café has been "the subject of an urban legend . . . as being the one where you could go back in time" (21). Once this legend spreads, the café receives an influx of customers interested in traveling in time, particularly into the past. The women of the café, all members of the same family, are the ones capable of facilitating these time travels. Prior to her death, Kazu's mother Kaname directed the customers' journeys through time. After her death, Kazu has assumed control of the time travel ritual. The café connects all of the characters' disparate lives one to another, and creates a common narrative thread between their storylines.

The Past

The past is the realm to which the majority...