“……Me?”
Ayesha’s lips curled upward, but she froze awkwardly.
Does this man have feelings for me?
She quietly repeated the question in her heart that she had erased earlier for fear someone might see it.
There was no way.
Was it a joke, a game, or did he simply want to play with fire with a woman who had a weak background and thus posed no future trouble? The general store young man’s meddling—that gentlemen were not to be trusted—suddenly cluttered her mind noisily.
Even amid all this, Kirix was quietly waiting for her answer.
“Well, I…… do not know. I have never thought about it. I am always busy with my own work, and I know my place well.”
The end of playing with fire is a burn. And it is always the one of lower status who catches the sparks. Besides, Kirix was a man who did not even know what she had actually come to this manor to find.
“Then you can think about it from now on.”
Huh?
Before she could even form a retort, Ayesha came to a dead stop.
“Why are you so surprised, Ayesha? I told you. I want you to stay here for a long, long time.”
Of course, she had heard such words from him. But Ayesha had naturally taken them to mean he wanted her to stay long as a spirit medium. She had never imagined any further progress in their relationship.
“I-I am sorry.”
Her tongue stiffened, and she inadvertently began to stammer.
“It is so sudden that I do not know what I should say right now.”
“Meeting a fellow who does not know his place has made me impatient.”
He showed a bitter smile.
“And such fellows will continue to appear one by one from now on. This time I wanted to take things more leisurely, but it seems that will not do. So I am telling you now, in advance. That Ayesha has the option of me.”
“An option? But…… I am an utterly ordinary person who does not suit House Eseldor.”
“That is not true.”
Kirix asserted.
“Ayesha does not know. How long I have waited for this day.”
“But, my lord.”
She hurriedly shook her head to deny it, but Kirix gave her no opening.
“Never in my life has my heart been this peaceful. I do not want to lose you, Ayesha.”
She could not understand his words in the slightest.
How long had they known each other for him to say this? Was this perhaps how men of the upper class seduced women? Or was he so absorbed in the evil spirit that he depended on her, a spirit medium, to this degree? At this point, was this not a truly serious level of mental illness?
Well, delusion and mental derangement were symptoms that had been hereditary in House Eseldor for generations. Recalling how horrifying the accidents his grandfather and father had caused due to mental illness, Ayesha began to grow frightened. This was not a disease she could handle on her own.
“I, that…… for now.”
Seeking an excuse to turn away from this awkward atmosphere, Ayesha turned her head and gazed at the stained glass once more.
The sun, sinking low, blazed even redder. Vividly, as if making a final stand against the darkness of the night soon to come.
Then a pointed tower shadow caught at the very edge of her field of vision. As the sun sank ever lower toward the ground, the shadow lengthened, and the tip of the spire seemed to reach the stained glass.
It was a shape like a sharp blade stabbing into this chapel. Ayesha let out a short scream without realizing it.
“Ah!”
“What is it?”
“What is that? My lord, is there another tall tower in the manor besides the chapel?”
“Where do you mean?”
“There, that tower.”
Ayesha pointed at the tower’s shadow with her finger.
Kirix narrowed his eyes, gauged the direction she indicated, and answered.
“If it is that direction…… it must be the abandoned tower.”
“An abandoned tower?”
“It means it is not in use now. There are quite a few such abandoned spaces in the manor. In the days when House Eseldor flourished as a royal house, there were hands to spare, so every corner was kept without a single spot neglected, but that is no longer the case. It is a family that has barely kept its line through great hardship, so almost no relatives remain, and the scale of the household has shrunk accordingly.”
Well, she had heard that even Kirix’s immediate family, apart from the former lord, were all dead. With so few household members, they must have chosen to reduce space and manpower and manage things efficiently.
She had poked at a painful spot for no reason. Ayesha apologized at once.
“I am sorry. I should not have asked so carelessly……”
“It is all right. It is all past glory anyway. Now I can only hope that God will show us mercy.”
Having finished speaking, the man straightened his back and cast a proud gaze toward the stained glass glittering with the sunset.
She had heard a story that bordered on rudeness, but thanks to it, the thread of the awkward topic had broken. Ayesha inwardly pressed a hand to her chest in relief.
The sun set swiftly. Along with it, the tower’s shadow vanished in an instant.
It was the hour when dusk was beginning to settle darkly. From the shadowy corners of the chapel, a dark blue shade began to soak in.
Maaaaa…… oooooooh…….
Suddenly, from somewhere, an unidentifiable sound came to her ears. It was a strange sound—if heard one way, like weeping; if heard another, like an auditory hallucination. Having been trudging along the edge of the chapel with a lamp, Ayesha stopped short with a start and turned around.
There was nothing.
What is it? Is it tinnitus?
She spread her palm and tapped lightly at her ear. But she felt nothing wrong with her hearing.
Did I hear wrong?
It was possible. No, it was more likely. Normally, she would surely have passed it off as fatigue. If this were not Langfield Manor, and if she had not heard all sorts of bizarre rumors until her ears were full of calluses.
“What sound…… My lord, did you not hear anything just now?”
“A sound? What kind of sound?”
“I do not know. It was like a young child crying—is there a child in the manor?”
“A child?”
The man tilted his head with a puzzled look.
“What child do you mean?”
“Ah…… no. I must have heard wrong.”
Looking back, it was a foolish question. How could there be a child in the house of an unmarried man?
“You probably mistook the sound of the wind. The door was open, after all.”
Just then, a gust of wind blew in and rattled the chapel door. The hinges scraped and groaned mournfully. The unpleasant friction sound made her back tingle.
Ayesha agreed with Kirix.
“I think so.”
She felt she understood why a black veil was placed over the bride to hide her from God’s eyes. The chapel, with night layered over it, gave off a secretive, chilling breath instead of a mysterious and solemn atmosphere.
“I should have oiled it in advance. It is a very old building, so there are many parts to fix. Especially the chapel, since it is a building barely used at all. Few people set foot here, so the atmosphere at night is not good at all.”
The man’s broad shoulders blocked the chapel’s shadow like a rampart. Still, this time she was not alone, and that was a relief. If she had been alone, she would have frozen for a long while again, crushed by fear that disturbed her senses.
“Ah…… well, weddings and funerals do not happen often, after all.”
That was true. The building itself was laden with age, and it had been constructed to catch the sunlight beautifully, so the atmosphere of day and night was bound to be quite different. Even in one’s own home, when one suddenly wakes in the still, pitch-dark night and sits blankly, does it not somehow feel unfamiliar and frightening?
“Since I was introducing it to Ayesha, I came here myself for the first time in a while. Let us leave before it gets too dark. I will escort you to your bedroom.”
“Yes, let us go.”
Ayesha followed him toward the chapel entrance. Then, just before leaving the chapel for the last time, she turned slightly and looked back.
As if it had never glowed golden, the chapel was filled with a silence as dead as a mouse.
***
One week.
Ayesha tapped the end of her quill pen against her lips.
Could she gather material and write the article within one week?
She had left without setting any particular deadline for the coverage, but now that Kirix depended on her so deeply—to the point of confessing—staying long in this manor felt burdensome. She was already at a loss as to how to face him starting tomorrow.
“What should I do now?”
