episode_0077

[Episode 77] – Once upon a time, in a certain world (4)

“I’m… going to remarry soon. The only thing that’s difficult is now. My new partner isn’t…bad. He’s my son-in-law, but he’s a businessman and has a lot of money. He has a big mansion… and…”

“…Huh?”

Catherine felt her vision go white and dizzy, so she closed her eyes tightly and took a deep breath. Hoping that this was a dream, she closed her eyes tightly and slowly opened them again, but Trisha’s face, smiling brightly and talking about remarriage, did not change.

“I hate it…”

“Yes?”

A voice, cracking and pleading, seeped into her ears. Catherine weakly grabbed Trisha’s hand in a voice so desperate and sorrowful that it seemed as if it were really her own.

“Trisha… If it’s about the children’s marriage, I’ll help you… You know that, right..? I’m a countess… Don’t marry a man you don’t know, and come into the count’s house. If you come into the count’s house as his concubine… All problems can be solved…”

“Catherine..?”

“Please, please. Please. The Count is a living corpse who can’t die anyway. I can help you with everything, from the children’s coma to your worries. Okay? Trisha. Okay?”

Trisha answered in a soft voice, stroking Catherine’s hand, almost as if she was begging her. The way she spoke, as if she was soothing an angry child, drove Catherine even more crazy.

“Catherine, thank you for your concern. But… if I become a concubine, my daughters will also be called concubine’s children. I… don’t like that.”

“I can stop you from hearing that. You know… please…”

“…No, Catherine. I don’t want to burden you, my friend.”

“It’s not a burden… It’s not a burden… Trisha…”

“I may be like that to you, but… If I were to become the concubine of an unconscious count, there would be a lot of talk. Catherine, please understand. I don’t want to be a burden to you.”

A calm voice until the very end, an attitude that seemed to listen to the tantrums of a child until the very end. In the end, that attitude and voice made Catherine lose the string of reason she had barely been holding onto.

Hehe, Catherine’s teeth were filled with sobbing laughter. After all, did Catherine look like a child to Trisha? No matter how much Catherine cried and begged, no matter how much she begged and sobbed, it was no use to Trisha.

“Then what about you..? If a nobleman remarries a commoner just for money… wouldn’t that be talked about more in social circles..? Your children won’t be able to avoid criticism either..?”

“That’s…”

Catherine was no longer in her right mind. She just gave in to her emotions and screamed, not even knowing what was coming out of her mouth.

“Look at this! Look at these!”

Catherine opened the clutch she was holding, took out the jeweled jewelry, and threw it on the floor. The jewels clattered and crashed to the floor.

“Have you ever seen such jewels?! You haven’t?! What do you know, when you save money and even ride a public carriage to the ball?!”

“……”

“The things I brought today were just things I found rolling around the Count’s house! Do you know how much the jewels scattered on the floor are worth?!”

Catherine continued to scream, kicking the jewels she had dropped on the floor nervously. Trisha just watched Catherine’s nervousness.

“The jewels in the Count’s house are so much more than this!! They’re so expensive that they can’t even be compared to the jewels you’re wearing!! Can your husband afford this much for you?! No matter how good your business is and how much money you have, what’s the point of it!! You’re just a commoner!!”

She screamed at the top of her lungs. She screamed so loudly that she didn’t care if she bled. She screamed so loudly that she was out of breath. Catherine felt dizzy and staggered.

Even though she vented her anger and screamed like that, Trisha didn’t say anything. If she had been so rude, I could have slapped her, but Trisha just looked at Catherine in confusion.

Catherine, who could taste the pungent blood on her neck, begged Trisha once again. Please reconsider, please listen to her story. Catherine begged Trisha that she would give her everything.

but…

“Listen…”

Position too.

“Come with me to the Count’s house… Yes..? I can grant you anything you ask… The title of Countess… is quite high, isn’t it..? Now…you can become a Countess too… Then your daughters can marry better men…”

Honor too.

“You won’t think about it… I promise… I won’t let anyone curse at you or your family… Okay..? Please… I beg you…”

Even ‘money’, which was believed to be magic.

“If you want, I’ll buy you something better than the jewels on the floor… Pretty jewels… Pretty dresses… Don’t you want those? I’ll buy them all… I have a lot of money… You know that… Or is there anything else you want..?”

“……”

“I’ll do anything you ask me to do… I’ll put everything you want in your hands… Okay..? So… stay by my side… Please.. So…”

It didn’t reach Trisha.

“….I’m sorry.”

Catherine looked at Trisha with empty eyes, her eyes blank. She wondered if she had misheard, but Trisha tore Catherine’s heart apart once again.

“I’m sorry, Catherine.”

She felt as if the ground beneath her feet was falling apart. As if she was being dragged down an abyss, Catherine fell to her knees on the floor, feeling an inexplicable sense of floating.

After that, my memory was hazy. Trisha wiped away Catherine’s tears, took her to the carriage heading for the Count’s house, and then disappeared.

Catherine, who had come to her senses faintly in the rattling carriage, shed tears once more. What could have been the problem? Was it wrong to lose her senses and shout?

I didn’t mean to say that, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Trisha. Catherine cried in the carriage on the way back to the Count’s house.

Catherine, who arrived at the Count’s house, was troubled. She couldn’t give up Trisha. She loved Trisha. She was proud that no one in the world loved Trisha more than she did.

So I couldn’t give Trisha to some fucking guy I didn’t even know. But Trisha didn’t care about the position and money I had accumulated.

Catherine was locked in the Count’s house, worrying every day. She wondered what to do to make Trisha not remarry and come back to her.

Even ‘money’, which she thought was magic, didn’t work on Trisha. At that moment when she was thinking like that, a memory that had flashed through Catherine’s head suddenly came to mind.

“If you have any really tough times, come back anytime. The solution is always at home.”

Her mother’s last words lingered in her mind for some reason. Aside from sending money and letters to her hometown every month, Catherine had never been home to see her mother since she came up to the capital.

When she married the count, she only sent a letter. She even received permission to marry from her mother through a letter. She had nothing to say even if she was called an unfilial daughter, but for some reason, today, her mother’s last words lingered in Catherine’s mind.

“I guess I’m really having a hard time…”

Catherine looked up at the ceiling and sighed deeply.

It’s been a month since Trisha rejected her confession, and Catherine’s mind has been worn down from digging into Trisha’s marriage prospects for a month.

The more Catherine learned about Trisha’s future husband, the less she understood her. The business he had described as being good at was also going downhill.

Rather, I was surprised that it hadn’t failed until now. I wondered what on earth Trisha believed in to remarry a man like that. I was worried that maybe he was deceiving her.

No matter how much I thought about it, I thought it would be better for Trisha to come in as a concubine and stay by my side. For Trisha, for the children. And for myself.

Catherine closed her eyes tightly and decided to cool her head for a moment. She was thinking of going back to her hometown after a long time, seeing her mother, and asking her to come to the Count’s house if it was okay with her.

*

The hometown she had arrived at after a long time was just as she remembered. The townspeople did not recognize Catherine and simply treated her with respect, wondering why a noble lady would come to such a rural place.

Leaving the townspeople behind, who were groveling and groaning, Catherine headed to the house where she had lived. She thought that her mother must be living comfortably, since the amount of money she had been sending her every month was not small.

Catherine chuckled as she thought about what her mother would look like when she saw her successful mother. Did she still call her a descendant of fairies? She climbed the hill to find the house where she had lived.

“Huh…?”

She was speechless when she saw her house, which looked like it would collapse at any moment. Catherine ran into the house in a hurry and screamed as if she was going crazy when she saw the house covered in dust.

“Mother?! Mother! Where are you!”

No matter how much she shouted, her mother’s voice was not heard. The dust that had accumulated in the house proved that no one had lived in this house for at least several years. But Catherine still searched every corner of the house.

The broken kitchen, the broken windows, the dusty dining table, no matter how much I looked, I couldn’t find any trace of my mother. Up until now, I had sent money to my hometown every month and occasionally sent letters, but I didn’t worry too much because I received a reply from my mother without fail, but when I returned home, there was no one at home.

Catherine paced the dusty house in a state of maddening anxiety. If something happened to her mother in this situation, she would never be able to remain sane.

As Catherine wandered around the house, she found a letter and a wooden box on the wooden bed in the room she was using. It was a letter from her mother, written in her mother’s awkward handwriting.

Catherine opened the letter and checked the contents. She read the first line and sighed in relief. Fortunately, the contents of the letter did not say anything bad had happened to her mother.

‘My dear Catherine, if you are reading this letter, it means you are back home. Don’t worry about me, I have only re-entered my family with the money you sent me. You will be able to see them when you visit them. Just in case, I will write their address on the back of the letter.’

“Mom too, really…”

Catherine sighed in relief after reading the contents of the letter. At the same time, annoyance welled up inside her. Up until now, there had been no mention of going to her maternal grandparents’ house in the replies to her letters. Catherine cooled down her annoyance and continued reading the letter.

‘You must have come back to this house because you had a hard time. You are stubborn like me. I thought you wouldn’t come back to the house for any reason after you left home. You must have made a promise to yourself that you wouldn’t return home until you succeeded in the capital.’

“Ugh…”

‘I think that if you come home like that, it must mean that something difficult has happened. I wish it hadn’t happened, but there’s no way you would come home otherwise. I’m really worried about you reading this letter.’

The contents of the letter my mother wrote were as painful as a needle pricking my heart. Even though I hadn’t seen her in years, my mother seemed to already know what I was thinking.

‘Do you remember what I told you the day before you left? If you ever have a really hard time, come back anytime. The solution is always at home.’

Catherine recalled the conversation she had with her mother the day before she left home. It was certainly no different from what she had said, reminding us not to forget that we were descendants of the Fairy line.

‘You’re a smart kid, so you might have come home to find a solution. You’re an ungrateful daughter who has forgotten the favor of raising you and has never shown your face since you left home.’

Catherine laughed bitterly as she read the paragraphs in the letter that were insulting to her, because she could not even refute her mother’s letter.

‘I leave this for my ungrateful daughter. Open the box, and do not forget. You and I are descendants of someone, and the things in the box were made for someone. Please do not forget and use them well.’

Catherine tilted her head as she read the paragraph, recalling the story her mother always told her that had become ingrained in her ears. ‘We are descendants of fairies, and fairies are beings who can cast forgotten magic.’

‘If you read this letter, please send your letters to the address on the back from now on. The villagers are sending the letters you sent to me instead, but I can’t ask you to do this forever. I will always be waiting. Your mother, who always misses you and loves you.’

The letter ended here. Catherine carefully folded the letter her mother had left behind and put it in her bosom. Then she looked at the small wooden box next to the letter.

What on earth could be the solution that was vaguely written in the letter? Catherine dusted off the wooden box and slowly opened it to check inside. And what was inside?

“…? Book?”

There was an old book in the box. Catherine took it out of the box and opened it carefully. It was hard to read some of the words because of the scrawled handwriting, but it was enough to understand the contents.

“…..ha.”

Catherine burst into laughter after finishing the book. The content of the book was unrealistic and full of fantasy. It was like the fairy tales her mother used to tell her when she was little.

“How to turn a pumpkin into a carriage… How to turn old clothes into a dress… How to turn a mouse into a horse… A lizard… Where did my mother’s delusions come from? What’s the story…?”

Catherine, who was skimming through the book, suddenly stopped on the last page. In a book full of fantasies and useless spells, there was something that particularly caught Catherine’s eye.

The magic written on that page.

It was a magic that granted the caster’s earnest wish.