Her arms and legs would not move, as if bound. It felt exactly like being pressed down by a nightmare. Ayesha stood before the mirror for a long while with both legs rooted to the spot.
How much time had passed?
Suddenly, with a thud, the bathroom door opened.
A servant entered, holding cleaning tools in both hands.
All at once, with the sensation of blood coursing through her whole body, a current ran through her with a tingling shock. Only then did strength return to her limbs. Her breath burst out loudly. It was all thanks to the servant appearing at just the right moment.
It was then that the servant, discovering Ayesha standing blankly in the bathroom trying to catch her breath, turned pale and hurriedly spun around to flee.
Why?
What did she see that made her run?
It was right after being pressed down by a nightmare with her eyes open and then waking. There was no time to sort out her thoughts. Startled in turn, Ayesha ran out of the bathroom after the servant.
As she chased, the servant sped up and fled even faster. An unexpected game of tag ensued. Clutching her skirt, Ayesha ran across the enormous bedroom and barely managed to catch and stop the servant just as she was about to open the door and leave.
“Wait a moment! What was that just now? What did you see?”
Since she did not understand what phenomenon she had experienced, her questions poured out jumbled. But the servant was just as flustered.
The woman apologized outright.
“I’m sorry!”
“For what?”
“For offending you, miss. I did not know you were still in the bathroom. There was no sign of anyone, so I thought you had gone out…… Marble gets water stains quickly if it is not cleaned right away.”
“Wait a moment.”
There was a part she could not simply let pass. Ayesha cut off the servant’s words.
“Why are you being so careful around me?”
Sorry for offending her—no matter that it was the relationship between a guest and a servant, that was too submissive. She was merely a guest passing through; she was not a noble, and she had absolutely no relationship with the master of this manor.
If they had met outside Langfield Manor, the woman and she would have been in similar positions. She had simply chosen a more unusual profession; there was no difference in status.
“I have not worked long, so there are still many clumsy things about me.”
The servant made a vague excuse.
“Why does that matter?”
“I heard that I must never speak unnecessary words to you, miss, and that I must be sure to remove myself so as not to disturb you wherever you are.”
“You were ordered to do that?”
The servant nodded.
Wow, the butler grandfather is too much.
Ayesha inwardly rolled her eyes as she thought of the elderly butler. He had wrapped it in plausible language and picked his words carefully, but the butler’s instruction amounted to isolating Ayesha—telling the servants not to approach the suspicious guest, not to exchange words with her.
No wonder the servant’s attitude had been so stiff from their first meeting, and why, apart from “Yes, miss,” she had silently helped only with the task at hand and quickly vanished. She had thought it strange.
Yes, from the servant’s position, that was understandable.
Ayesha accepted it. When people work as part of some organization, they naturally end up watching their superiors’ moods. Just as she herself could not defy the editor-in-chief’s orders and had ended up entering Langfield Manor.
In any case, that was not the important issue right now.
“But even so, was there a reason to run away?”
“Your expression looked so bad that I thought you were angry because of me.”
Since she had been glaring at the mirror the whole time, her expression was bound to look fierce. Having witnessed that exact moment, the servant must have mistaken it for Ayesha glaring at her and fled in a panic.
It was an absurd conclusion. Because she had frightened herself for no reason, she had stirred up unnecessary misunderstanding.
“That is all, right? There was no other problem—you were just startled because my expression was frightening and you worried you had made some mistake, correct?”
She checked again in case she had missed something, but the conclusion did not change.
“Yes, they said that since you are someone who came here for an important matter, I must be extremely careful in all my behavior.”
That butler really does have a slippery side.
He had questioned her purpose to her face, asking whether she had come to seduce Kirix, yet he had told the servants that she was someone who had come for an important matter—it was nothing but a warning wrapped in the shell of respect: “Do not harbor improper thoughts, and be faithful only to the duty assigned to you.”
The servant bowed her head.
“If there is anything uncomfortable while you stay, please point it out to me at any time, miss.”
“Don’t worry. There is nothing. If anything comes up, I will leave a note.”
“Ah, I cannot read letters, so notes……”
The woman blushed. It was not particularly something to be ashamed of. People who could not read or write were fairly common. Moreover, anyone who was literate could have found a job with better pay than a manor servant. Probably, apart from Kirix, the butler, and herself, those who could read could be counted on one hand in this manor.
“Then I will come to clean the bathroom a little later.”
The servant gathered her tools and hurried away.
A commotion that was not quite a commotion passed. As the tension released, fatigue rushed in. Ayesha sat on the edge of the bed, trying to calm her heart that was belatedly racing, then looked at the clock on the wall and was startled.
More than an hour had already passed. And yet the conversation she had exchanged with the woman had been only a few words.
How long on earth had she been trapped in the bathroom?
She was left dumbfounded.
***
“When did you first become aware of the evil spirit’s existence, my lord?”
At dinner, Ayesha cautiously probed him.
The man shared every meal with Ayesha. Even though he must have been frantically busy as a newly appointed lord, he somehow made the time. For him, the fact that a spirit medium was staying in the same manor seemed to be a great source of mental support. Meanwhile, Ayesha, who actually knew less about that “spirit” than Kirix did, was inwardly in a position where she could neither laugh nor cry.
“I do not know.”
He answered.
You do not know?
As the dumbfounded Ayesha stared wide-eyed at Kirix, the man gave a bitter smile and elaborated.
“It means it has been that long.”
“Ah…… that is terrible.”
Had it sounded too trite as comfort?
Ayesha hurriedly thought of what to add.
“It seems you must have tried many methods to drive out the evil spirit.”
“I have probably tried most methods worth trying. For example, there are no mirrors in my bathroom or bedroom. They say some spirits face humans through mirrors. Was that true?”
“Pardon?”
Of all things, the first example from his mouth was mirrors. She was taken aback for a moment. Wasn’t she just coming from a standoff with a mirror?
“Or is that incorrect?”
Perhaps because her startled reaction made her tone come out slightly off, it seemed to have flustered him. Ayesha hurriedly feigned composure.
“No…… that is right. There are cases like that.”
It was a matter in a realm she did not know, but someone connected to spiritualism must have taught him that as a secret method, so for now she played along.
“Another spiritualist once suggested a method of placing the spirit into an animal.”
“Into an animal?”
“He said that if you put the spirit into an animal’s body and kill that animal, the spirit can be eliminated. He also said that the closer the animal is to its owner, the better the effect.”
“Uh……”
Ayesha hesitated.
Setting aside the question of whether that made any sense, she had not expected such a bizarre method to be brought up. If closeness improved the effect, then it would have been an animal raised with affection for a long time, one with a deep bond…….
No. She must not show pity here.
The reporter Ayesha, with ordinary compassion, might grieve over the sacrifice of an animal, but the role given to the spirit medium Ayesha was not that.
Wasn’t this a man whose circumstances were desperate enough that he had come out through the pouring rain to fetch her, a stranger? If he had reached the decision to finally place the spirit into an animal he had raised with affection and perform an exorcism, that meant he had suffered terribly at the hands of the evil spirit for that many years.
That is, if that evil spirit actually existed.
Hearing so much absurd talk was beginning to confuse her mind. Ayesha blocked the doubts that came chasing one after another. In times like this, it was better to think nothing at all.
“That method was successful—”
