Chapter 3
“Milady, is there anything I can get for you?”
“No.”
Donna, the maid, was confused by my answer. I myself was looking for something, but I said I didn’t need her help, so of course she’d be perplexed.
“A diary or a journal . . . Did I keep such a thing?”
“I’m not sure, Milady . . . I don’t dare intrude upon your privacy. Maybe your first desk drawer?”
“Thanks.”
Following Donna’s instruction, I opened the drawer. At first glance, there was nothing there, but I could feel the outline of a hidden handle at the base of the drawer. When I opened it, I found a diary with a cover made of dark leather.
Donna must know everything about Tess. How else would she come to know about the first drawer’s trick when she said she wouldn’t invade upon her master’s privacy? I looked sideways at Donna with a hint of suspicion, but I turned my attention back to the drawer.
What an eerie person . . . No matter how private one’s thoughts were, I wonder why Tess felt the need to hide her diary from a maid who’s practically attached to her hip. Of course, a young noble lady’s privacy wouldn’t be taken seriously anyway, so other instances like the maid finding out about her diary must have happened a lot. If so, then wasn’t Tess a bit of a scatterbrain? She should have noticed that her maid was sticking her nose into her business. Right?
I wanted to read the diary’s contents, but I left it alone for now. Though this place was a short distance away from the castle, it’s my first time riding a carriage, so I felt quite tired. And I wanted to save my strength for the dinner that’s to come.
—
At some point, I fell asleep on the couch, but I was woken up by a rustling sound. As I opened my eyes, I saw a maid who wasn’t Donna.
“. . .”
Her eyes were filled with disgust. She was the first maid I encountered with such a gaze.
“I apologize, Miss. It’s almost time for the dinner appointment, so I’m here to help you prepare.”
“. . . Alright.”
As she assisted me in getting ready for dinner, the maid maintained a disrespectful yet business-like demeanor. I didn’t chat with her either. I was curious about why her attitude towards me was different from Donna’s because it was a little shocking to be treated like this for the first time in my life. It somehow added to my fatigue.
After dressing for the occasion, we went on our way. We passed through a bright corridor and arrived at the banquet hall. I would never have been able to see such a fancy interior like this in my life, only in movies. And inside the opulently adorned room were two people sitting at the table.
The middle-aged man sitting at the head of the table was Tess’s father, Wolfgang von Cador, and beside him was Dalton, the firstborn son. Of course, Tess and Dalton weren’t blood related since Tess was adopted.
The two noblemen’s eyes, which were entirely alike, darted to me. They were devoid of any emotion, and as I sat down, they did not say hello. Everyone here seemed to be used to this heavy silence—how taciturn could they be? Even the servants weren’t making any sounds. I could feel that this was unpleasant for them, too, as they continued keeping their heads bowed down, avoiding eye contact.
Our meal was finally served, and the food was as colorful as the room’s interior. The silence was prolonged as we began eating. I could already feel the onset of indigestion even though I was eating such delicious food.
“I heard there’s going to be a charity party soon. It’s a private event, so we can’t be absent.”
“Is it the Milend family?”
The conversation between the two men was too stiff, as if they were employee and employer instead of father and son. Dalton also didn’t show any affection towards Wolfgang while he spoke, but nevertheless, their relationship wouldn’t be considered as a bad one. Their conversation flowed smoothly, and though they excluded me, this treatment didn’t seem to be out of place. It was strange.
I thought that dinner would end without any problems, but I let my guard down too soon.
“Tess, be sure to attend the party,” said Wolfgang.
“Pardon?”
I didn’t expect him to talk to me, so I wasn’t prepared to answer. The father and son looked sharply at me.
“You don’t feel like it?”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll go.”
Ah, I replied too quickly. Because I was flustered, I forgot that I had to speak like Tess. Wolfgang seemed to be puzzled due to the way I answered, and Dalton had a doubtful expression on his face, too.
“Alright. That’s good.”
That was the end of our conversation. No one spoke again after that, perhaps because all three people present weren’t the talkative type. We were eating splendid food, but I honestly couldn’t digest anything well because of the tense atmosphere. The entrée came and went, and in no time, our desserts were served. The fatigue that I’d been accumulating since earlier didn’t disappear—it only turned into a headache. My condition was at its worst right now.
The servants came in with dessert plates. They were all men dressed in green uniforms. I watched them come in, amazed that there seemed to be no end to them, but one of the men stopped abruptly and didn’t move. What’s going on? Somehow, I was entranced by the immobile man.
Then, the servant who had placed my dessert plate from behind me asked, “Miss, is there something wrong? Are you feeling uncomfortable?”
“No, it’s just . . .”
As I answered, I did not look away from the immobile man. His red hair was striking.
“Why isn’t that man moving? That redhead over there—”
Clink!
Startled by the sound of silverware dropping to the floor, I turned my attention to the other side of the room. One of the servants had dropped a fork. Embarrassed, he quickly picked it up and apologized. Then somehow, the banquet hall was thrown into a chaotic atmosphere. Several people looked at me, and my eyes met with the furious Dalton. I’d sensed it in the beginning, but Dalton really had a frightening air about him.
“Here we go again.”
It was said under someone’s breath, so it was audible only to me and not to Dalton and Wolfgang. From that short sentence, I could feel everyone’s hostility toward me.
As I snapped out of it, I realized that the red-haired man had disappeared. In the end, nobody told me anything about him. Dinner ended on a sour note.
—
“Donna, I think the maids here hate me.”
“Milady . . .”
I tried to weasel out the truth from Donna. How did it become this way? I wasn’t sure if it was originally like this in the game, but the servants here were clearly belligerent towards me. Something about the redhead from earlier also still bothered me.
Donna looked at me anxiously. She maintained a professional distance, but she was the maid closest to Tess, so she should be able to give me a proper answer.
“What was it this time, Milady? Was there ash in your food? Or maybe they gave you damaged tableware . . .”
“. . . Huh?”
The relationship Tess had with the servants here seemed to be more one-sided than I originally thought. Didn’t the hostility go both ways?
“Let’s return to the castle now. You’ll just feel horrible the more we stay here.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s him . . .”
Donna hesitated, but she seemed to know the answer. She tried to read my mood first before she answered.
“You’ve always been afraid of the strange things around here. You said you can see things that no one else can . . .”
“. . .”
What had Tess seen in this manor since before?
After I dismissed Donna back to her quarters, I opened the diary I found earlier. The words inside were written in a neat cursive script. Rather than a diary, it seemed that Tess recorded things at random, without any structure.
[ I saw that woman again in the garden. Her white dress was soaked in blood. ]
Just as I thought. Tess could see ghosts.
That’s why I could see them, too, since I happened to possess her body.
Well . . . damn. It’s true that I liked horror games a lot, but that didn’t mean I wanted to experience the same thing in real life. There’s no way someone who could see ghosts would have a normal life.
[ I want to leave this manor. It’s become worse recently. Now they can touch me directly. Some maids think I inflicted this shoulder wound onto myself. They don’t even know what horrible things I experience everyday. They just think I’m doing this for attention.
How funny. I wish all the maids who didn’t listen to me would just die. ]
It was worse than I thought. Apart from the fact that ghosts could attack Tess physically, I learned about Tess’s true self that wasn’t even revealed in the game. The diary was filled with pages of curses, rather than wishes, of wanting everyone to die.
I couldn’t relate to it entirely, but I understood both the owner of this manor and Tess herself. People who couldn’t see ghosts would think that those who could were ominous. But at the same time, it was frustrating for the people who could see ghosts when nobody believed what they said . . .
[ Today is that child’s birthday. On this day, the entire manor is in a shitty mood. And everyone’s especially more cruel to me. I’ll only stay in my room today. Even the von Cadors just ignore me and won’t force me to eat with them today. Of course they wouldn’t want to see me.
And on a day like this, they always come out. The red-haired John comes out of the banquet hall and wanders around the mansion. ]
Red-haired John?
Just as I thought, the redheaded servant I saw earlier in the banquet hall was a ghost. It wasn’t my imagination that I felt something foreboding about him, but I didn’t think he was actually a ghost. I knew it—Tess could see them. Tess knew that ghost’s name, too, but how on earth did she come to learn about it? And the ‘child’ that was mentioned in the diary was probably Lena, the von Cador family’s missing daughter.
[ All the maids and attendants pretend that John never existed. They just don’t want to admit that they killed him. They’re all cunning murderers, each and every one of them. ]
What did this mean . . . ?