Chapter 34

If this is the real end – 17

 

Clack, the sound of something being torn to pieces rang out.

I thought it sounded almost as if something was severed with scissors.

I quickly tried to search for the source of that sound, but the black feathers were filling all my vision, plunging me into the darkness and I couldn’t see anything. I no longer knew whether my eyes were closed or opened.

I was about to raise my voice, but a gentle voice held me back. A voice that seemed to be singing, that seemed to be whispering. 

 

“That child is my precious, very precious princess, Ilya.”

 

Or maybe it was a voice full of solemnity, as if it was warning me.

I didn’t need to confirm it to know it was mother’s voice. At that time, I was looking at mother’s face reflected in the mirror, and she was also gazing at me.

Yet I could not remember her expression clearly.

Was she laughing? Was she sad? Or did she have the same expression full of love as usual?

 

“Mother.”

 

This time, I heard an anxious voice like that of a child. A heartrending and sad voice, that made you want to unconsciously stretch out your hands to hug the child.

In the middle of this pure darkness, a small hand was extended. As if it was looking for something, or was saying goodbye to someone, it moved from left to right.

I was certain it was only my imagination that made it look like it was struggling, but the fact it gave me the feeling that it was drowning wasn’t necessarily a false impression.

I prayed for someone to grasp that hand. Because it was the only thing I could do.

           

Please, may someone seize the small hand of that pitiful child.

 

“… … It is not poison.”

 

What? Just now, what did you say? I couldn’t quite hear it.

Bam, Bam. A sound echoed, as if a fist was hitting hard on a desk.

I was driven by the urge to put my hand on my ears to block this sound, but I noticed it was a noise that came from inside me.

Matching the systematic echoes of that sound, my body was shaking. I realized it was the pulsebeats of my heart. If it continued like this, my heart would cease to function.

That’s what I thought, yet I could only helplessly endure that cramping pain.

When I opened my lips to gasp some air, the sound of gulping down saliva resounded.

 

“So, she won’t die. That’s what worried you, right?”

 

I could see mother’s back as she had stepped up from the dresser.

The noise I made by catching my breath and gasping in surprise was absorbed by the carpet.

Reflected in the mirror, were the silhouettes of mother and I as I gazed at her back.

I remembered this shaken gaze. Uneasy, lonely, sad.

Even though it was my own face, it felt like looking at the face of a stranger.

I have seen this scene. At that time, I was looking at mother across the mirror.

It looked similar, but it also didn’t. Yet, it certainly looked alike. That’s the feeling I got.

That’s why I noticed it. Pulling the drawer just a little bit, inserting her fingers in the narrow gap, she took out “something.”

Only by watching the same scene for a second time could I understand how important those trivial gestures were.

My heart, which has been beating strongly since a while ago, made an even louder noise. My vision which continued to shake irregularly regained its stillness, the sensation of my feet stepping on the carpet came back.

The breaths I was exhaling were making the air shake, I actually felt that I was existing now and here.

           

… … Time had... turned back.

           

I didn’t have any evidence to make me think so. It could also be a long dream, but I understood with certainty it wasn’t the case.

Because after all, I had experienced this sensation any number of times. Each time I went back to the past in the blink of an eye, my body kept its five senses.

It might exactly be the same feeling as when a baby is taken out of its mother’s womb. Even though I should not remember this sensation, I thought so.

Despite the lack of wind, I noticed the air touching my skin. My blurred vision was cleared up of all shadows, and as if my face got out of the water, my hearing returned suddenly.

 

“Since she started attending school, that child became energetic. Yes, a lot livelier than before.”

 

It was a sentence I remembered hearing. It was justified. Because I had heard it once “before.”

Her hairstyle and attire, and even her standing posture that I couldn’t forget, were etched in my memory and wouldn’t go away.

At the very moment the setting sun was about to end its duty, she slit her own neck.

That person I was supposed to have lost for all eternity, was now standing in front of me. At a distance close enough for my hands to reach her.

The previous me was in deep thinking and missed the omen of her ominous words. Having already lost her sanity, mother was staring at me absentmindedly while her right arm was slightly stiffened. Her shaking shoulder was the proof. It was probably because she was preparing to raise above her head the “something” that was tightly grasped in her right hand.

Now I understood this well, and that’s exactly why I couldn’t afford to hesitate even for a second.

That ‘something’ seemed to be floating in the quiet and dim twilight, resembling a white moon. As it trembled, it reflected the light and tore the night apart.

 

“Mother.”

 

In the middle of the darkness, a young voice called mother.

I couldn’t say if it was a hallucination or words I said myself.

 

“But that’s not good, then. That situation... that child must be hopeless. It mustn’t become like this.”

 

Those words sounded like a signal. As if the paralysis of my body was dispelled, my petrified body became free.

Almost throwing myself on her, I seized mother’s right arm. It was slender to begin with, but there was no flexibility in it. It felt almost as if I was grasping a bone.

Before I had noticed, she became so thin.

The one who immediately let out a groan, was it me, or mother?

Anyway, I succeeded in preventing mother from slitting her own neck with her right hand. I bet she never expected me to do that. Unexpectedly, I could easily restrain her arm.

           

… … Even though she had carried out such a gruesome death.

           

To think I could prevent it so easily.

“… Mother.” I reflexively called her, but I didn’t know what to say after that.

We collapsed on the carpet, our bodies entangled as I held her thin body in my arms.

A knife fell out of mother stretched out hand. It rolled on the ground. With my arm I swept it away, throwing it in a distant place that mother’s hand couldn’t reach.

Then I straddled mother’s body and restrained her. She did resist a bit, but not to the point of struggling violently, and before long I knew mother was drained of her strength.

Hugging this body very, very strongly, some sobbing leaked out of my mouth and I bit on my lips.

           

Even though I could stop her so easily, so quickly, so uneventfully.

At that time, my mother had died.

 

“Why… Why did you…?”

 

My shaking throat couldn’t inhale air well and I ended up sobbing. I wept like a young child.

Even if I didn’t want to cry like that, I couldn’t suppress it.

“Why,” did you die, I almost asked, despite the fact the mother who was here now was alive, was breathing.

 

“It’s you... who ask that?”

 

I was questioned by a voice so cold you wouldn’t imagine it belonged to a person who tried to kill herself.

When my hands loosened unconsciously, under me, mother twisted her body and repeated in an incoherent mutter, “… It’s you… who ask that…?”

We stared at each other at point-blank range, close enough for our cheeks to touch.

 

“You made Silvia leave this house.”

“… What?”

 

I failed to ask her what on earth she meant. The words wouldn’t come out well.

 

“You tempted her to do so. I never forgot the day you mustered all your strength in this fervent speech, saying it was for Silvia’s sake. Even “that” husband was moved by it. Although his heart could not be moved by anyone else, because you had insisted so much, he allowed Silvia to attend school. But you knew. How to manipulate him at will. … Right, you incited him. Isn’t that right?”

 

Mother didn’t give me any answer to my question “why did you die?” Naturally. Because she didn’t die. It was a good thing. …

… No, it should have been a good thing, but an uneasiness I couldn’t shake away blocked my throat.

           

In all those lives I had repeated again and again and again, there hadn’t been even one that had gone like I had planned.

The more I wished for something, the more I strayed from my path, bent back and forth, then failed.

Therefore, the corrections I wanted to make never once came true.

However, now, I had fulfilled my desire to save mother. I had changed the “past” according to my wish.

For the first time, it seemed like I had accomplished something.

 

“You truly... did well, didn’t you?”

 

If you only cut off these words, you would likely misinterpret them as a praise.

But the emotion floating in those verdant green eyes, was blame.

Did I do something wrong again?

 

“My husband … loves Silvia. No, he loves her mother. The princess… So, he always obeys that person’s wishes.”

 

But when she blinked her eyes once, an intoxicated expression appeared in them.

Just like father who loved the foreign princess, mother also adored her master.

Even if she ended up abandoning her hometown for that person’s sake, mother might still consider herself as the princess’s maid.

 

“Silvia said she wanted to go to school, mother. That’s why I…”

“No, no, it’s not true. Because that child had given up. She had given up leaving this mansion.”

 

A dark shadow was casted in those green eyes that were looking up at me.

I once heard mother’s friend praise those eyes oozing with light for being like green leaves basking in the morning dew.

Mother was not called “the flower of high-society”, but even if she stood side by side with the person holding this title, you wouldn’t think she was inferior.

It’s not that she was excelling at something. But she was a special person.

And that person’s eyes had become stagnant and dark, cloudy and polluted.

           

… … I... until now... have felt that I was already dead.

           

I remembered the words I heard my little sister say in one of my lives. As her gaze was clouded by a shadow, she had muttered them, looking like she would erupt in a cry at any moment.

Because of her frailness, she wasn’t allowed to do anything. The only activity she could do at best was taking a daily walk.

I vividly remembered her smiling silhouette when she said she was “living” like everyone wished, but she couldn’t do anything except breathing.

 

“… Did you know? That Silvia was thinking like that. She was living, having given up everything. … Did you lock her up while knowing this?”

 

Each time my words left my mouth, my throat contracted and I started to suffocate.

It felt like someone was attacking me, strangling me.

With her back still leaning on the floor, mother tilted her neck in deep curiosity, like a lost child, and looked at me with innocent eyes.

 

“Well, isn’t it safer like this?”

 

That’s the only way to protect that child, isn’t it? She whispered as if telling a secret.

“I have made a vow. To protect that child to the end. We promised to her highness, to take care of her more than of our child.”

No longer able to reply anymore, I continued to look at mother who appeared to have lost her mind. Not minding my emotions at all, she was even smiling, telling me, “because that child was a genuine princess.”

 

“… And despite that, you put drugs in her tea?”

“Because that’s the only thing I could do. To keep that child in the mansion.”

“Then… it was all for the sake of preventing Silvia from going outside…?”

 

Just for a reason like this, my little sister had to drink such a thing?

 

“To begin with, Silvia was a child that shouldn’t go outside. It’s true that her body is frail and it’s a good excuse.”

“Mother, but, Silvia is… Silvia wants to become healthy…. She said she envied...”

 

… healthy people. I couldn’t finish my sentence.

My vision was blurring, my voice wouldn’t come out. My little sister lived on the border between life and death.

I wondered, when was it again when she was affected by an illness and lost her life?

I only went once to visit her as she was on the verge of death, and that child, who had withered away to the point of having thin arms like dead branches, had whispered, “I’m jealous of you, big sister. I wish I had been healthier.”

I didn’t reply, and that child also might not have been expecting anything from me. It was surely just a soliloquy.

Then why, did it remain in my memory so clearly?

 

“But I love that child. I cherish her very, very carefully.”

“… Carefully?”

“Yes. That child was always... my lovely princess. She is my one and only precious daughter in this world. That’s why... I’m sorry Ilya.”

 

“D-don’t say it, mother. Please.”

“That’s why... I have never……”

 

Ah, wait. I didn’t want to hear the rest.

My lips, which had dried up completely, exhaled an arid breath.

I couldn’t even tell if I had spoken up those words or not, but mother thin fingers gently stroked my cheek. The warmth I couldn’t help but desire in my childhood was there, here and now.

Yet, it felt like gravels of sand were thrown into the depths of my heart. I couldn’t help but feel a dull pain.   

 

“D-don’t say it, mother. Please.”

“That’s why... I have never……”

 

I promptly covered her soft lips with the palm of my hands.

Sill, her muffled voice was resisting, trying to say some words.

That’s why I pressed down that person’s face with even more strength.

Everything I had believed in, was gone. 

 

“Do not say it, mother, don’t. Don’t say it, d-don’t say… …”

 

That you don’t love me, even if it’s a lie, don’t say it.

Don’t say you didn’t love me even once.

I didn’t want to know that, in this world, no one had ever loved me.

No, in truth, I already knew since long ago, but still, I wanted to pretend I didn’t.

 

“My... mother. My, and mine only... mother.”

 

That’s right.

 In reality, she should have been my mother and mine alone.

Until the day, until the moment Silvia was born into this world.

 

“Once is fine, it’s fine even only once, so lie. Tell me… that you love me.”

 

I felt mother’s breath on my palms and heard her groaning voice.

I wanted to hear these words too, but I couldn’t move from that spot, nor could I remove my hands. My only thought was that I had to block her words.

The voice that rejected me sounded like a signal announcing the end of the world.

 

“Mother, mother... do you... love me… …?”

 

In the green eyes, which were wide-opened, I could see the face of a child who had broken down in tears.

I saw her ashen hair and her eyes of the faded color of fallen leaves.

 It was a face that looked terribly familiar.

That figure who kept crying was pitiful, sorrowful, and made my heart ache.

 

 “… … Mother !!!!”

 

That’s why... someone please... save that child.

 

Someone please, save her from that despair.

 

Chapter 33                                                      Chapter 35