11. Wonderland (40)
11. Wonderland (40)
"79 points!"
Ella shouted triumphantly as we exited the theater.
I let out a low whistle. It was the highest score of any performance we had seen in Wonderland.
"Ticketer's recommendation algorithm really is useful."
"No kidding. Back-to-back scores in the 70s."
Kiklings flitted through the air around us, giggling. They seemed to laugh all the more, the more entertaining the performance was.
"We've already seen four! Should we head back to the Falcon's Nest? We should have dinner, too."
Ella shook her head at my suggestion.
"I'm fine. Not really hungry."
The sparkle in her eyes signaled she was ready to push through the entire night. Knowing her personality—the kind that ran until her stamina hit absolute zero—I couldn't help but worry.
"Aren't you tired, Miss Elphi? We have the ensemble tomorrow."
"Don't worry. I've saved enough energy for that. What, we're parting ways tomorrow and you're not feeling the least bit sad about it?"
A sulky look crossed her face, her lips jutting out in a pout.
"Not at all. I was just worried you might be overdoing it..."
"Oh, you're worried about me?"
Ella practically glued herself to my side, linking her arm through mine with an almost embarrassing degree of clinginess.
Ever since we'd come up from the Judicial Theater's basement, she had been strangely affectionate. The way she was so forward now, it almost felt like she was treating me as Wonderstein, not Oz.
Had she caught on to my identity?
But I quickly dismissed the worry. If she had, an alert for the Mask Play Quest's failure would have appeared.
"Let's sit down at a nearby café for a bit. And then we'll watch just one more before heading back. What do you say?"
I sighed lightly, as if I couldn't stop her, and nodded.
"As the lady wishes."
"Great. Then carry me to the café!"
She stretched her arms out toward me, and I burst out in disbelief.
"You just said your stamina was overflowing!"
"And you said you were worried I was overdoing it?"
Seeing her shameless counterpunch, I shook my head once and knelt down.
"I have no choice. Climb aboard."
"Hehe, I think I've spent more time riding on you here than walking on my own two feet."
"At this rate my Persona might deform and grow a saddle on my shoulders."
Even on the way to the café, she kept peppering me with questions.
Mostly about my life here.
What I did in my spare time, how I met Rumi, what my other guests were like.
Drawing on my knowledge from the game, I adapted the ridiculous backstories behind my sub-quests into amusing anecdotes and fed them to her.
"Pfft, did that really happen? Living here does sound kind of fun."
"Even if you come, it won't be for decades, right?"
At my words, a self-deprecating smile touched Ella's lips as she murmured.
"I doubt it'll take decades..."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing, nothing... More importantly, hmm... when you were in the land of the living, what kind of performances did you do?"
"Me? I was just a clown. Nothing famous."
"What was your stage name?"
I stopped myself just short of saying Torch Dancer's name. Better to stick to the original plan than offer up a sloppy clue.
"I forgot."
"Where did you live?"
"Forgot that, too."
"Your family? You don't remember a single name?"
"Nope. All forgotten."
But the more I used it, the more the amnesia excuse, perfectly logical in theory, came off as blatant evasion.
She seemed to realize I was lying, too, because she answered in a slightly sulky voice.
"If you don't want to talk about it, fine."
We arrived at the café and went up to the second floor. The place was crowded even late into the evening. Most of the patrons were fairies, with a few locals sprinkled in. Spotting an empty table by the window, we claimed it.
"Hey, look at that."
Ella chuckled, pointing out the window.
A large playbill hung there. The sight of it made me laugh along with her. The theater was staging Christian's Faded Away.
"Should we go see that in a little while? It'd be perfect for our last show here, don't you think?"
"Let's do that."
Before long, our order arrived—drinks, fruit, pastries.
She must have been hungrier than she let on, because the moment the food was set down, she demolished more than half of it in a flash.
"This is good. The food here really suits my taste."
With that, she leaned back in her chair and stared out the window, blankly, for a long time.
Was the food making her sleepy now that her stomach was full?
I was just about to voice the thought when she spoke up.
"Hey. Do you think it'd be okay if we just lived together like this?"
The question caught me completely off guard, and my mouth snapped shut. She tilted her head to look up at me. Her eyes were not those of a person joking. She was serious.
My lips parted, my mind racing for the right response, before I carefully ventured.
"You mean... live in the afterlife?"
She propped her head against her hand and gazed up at the ceiling.
"I just thought it might not be so bad to stay here. You, me, and Rumi. The three of us. Putting on shows together, going out together, working together. I looked around after we left the Judicial Theater earlier, and there were a lot of decent mid-level properties up for auction. Seemed like the three of us pooling our resources could handle the rent."
"...But you're a living person, Miss Elphi."
"Then should I die?"
She asked it playfully, but her gaze held no levity at all.
My voice rose without my permission.
"What about the Circus Grand Prix?"
"Ah, right. There was that. Then how about I die in two years?"
"Miss Elphi!"
I snapped. It was something I could never have done while wearing Wonderstein's mask. It had been a long time since I had gotten this worked up.
My head a tangled mess of anger and worry, I raised my voice.
"What's gotten into you all of a sudden? Is it the truth about Kirkeus? Is that weighing on you?"
"That's not it..."
She paused a moment, then continued.
"The truth is... at the Duet Song Festival... you saw correctly. My eyes really were welling up with tears at the end."
Then? So it had been as I suspected. My eyes hadn't deceived me.
She let out her words like a sigh.
"There's a man I like, and he might actually be a demon."
I groaned inwardly. I knew exactly who she was talking about.
"Like the story in Faded Away?"
Ella nodded.
"Yeah. But there are more differences. In Faded Away, the blind woman falls for the demon even knowing he was lying. And after she regains her sight in the second half, she still loves him. But I'm not sure I'd be the same. The demon in Faded Away is a good person despite his appearance, but the man I like might really be a demon underneath it all."
She let out a long sigh and stared down at the table.
"I have about a week left now—maybe two. Around then, it'll all come clear. What he's done. I'm scared. To find out. And I'm even more scared that afterward, I'll hate him for it."
She stopped, glanced at my expression, and suddenly shifted topics.
"You know, I'm an orphan. My master cut me out of my dying mother's womb, or so the story goes. My master said my mother was an acrobat, and right before she died she said my father was... a clown, maybe? Neither of them was famous, apparently."
She paused for a moment, stealing a sidelong glance at me.
"I've heard that when you die, your family comes to greet you in the afterlife. I was hoping for that when I came here. But it looks like that was a lie."
I didn't know why she was suddenly telling me all this, but my mind flooded with a single mission: I had to cheer her up, somehow.
"You're still alive, Miss Elphi. That's why your family couldn't feel the Soul Echo. And acrobats without Inspira have less than a 30% chance of reaching this place. They might simply not be here."
"Is that so?"
Some of the melancholy seemed to lift from her voice, so I forced a cheerful nod.
"Besides, the afterlife isn't going anywhere. There's no harm in arriving a little late, after you've lived a full life."
"But you might not remember me by then."
Her emotionally charged words caught me off guard.
What had I done to make her this attached to me?
A flicker of doubt rose in me, but instead of objecting, I did my best to persuade her.
"I might forget my own name, but I will never, ever forget yours, Miss Elphi! Even if thirty, forty years go by! So come when you're old and gray! I'll be waiting!"
Maybe my sincerity got through to her.
She wiped at her eyes once, then smiled brightly.
"Really? Promise!"
I hooked my pinky around hers and swore it.
A little while later, we headed off to see the production of Faded Away from the playbill.
We sat side by side and took in the performers' passionate acting.
The version we saw was close to the original that utilized every acrobatic discipline. There were a few adapted passages, mostly in the segments meant to draw audience participation.
It was exactly what Ella had described as "the endemic problem with Wonderland's theater." The performers here craved a reaction from the crowd. Because of that, they often forced over-the-top choices that undercut the overall polish of the production.
Seated in the audience, we played our role as spectators. We cheered when cheering was called for, booed when booing was warranted.
When the play reached the middle act, the song we'd performed—"The Most Ordinary Village in the World"—came on.
The actor playing the Demon delivered the closing line I had missed with splendid flair.
I glanced sideways at the seat beside me, half-expecting her to be looking at me as well.
But she was dozing, her head resting against my shoulder.
She never fell asleep this early.
The fatigue from directly confronting Kirkeus this morning must have been catching up to her in full force. I scooped her into my arms and slipped out of the theater midway through.
She didn't open her eyes until we reached the entrance of the Falcon's Nest. The sensation of gravity from rapid travel seemed to have jostled her awake.
"Nnngh! ...What? Why are we back at the lodge?"
"You fell asleep, Miss Elphi, so I carried you out."
"Ah, you should've woken me up."
She grumbled lightly, but mercifully didn't suggest we turn back.
Rehearsal seemed to be over already; the lights in the waiting room were off.
But the sound of an instrument drifted out from inside the theater. I couldn't see who it was, but I had a pretty good guess.
It was a low, resonant bass.
A woman in a pure-white horned mask stood on the stage. Maybe it was because the sky over Cadsun was locked in permanent twilight, but despite playing an undeniably upbeat piece, the whole performance felt strangely mournful.
Perhaps the mask she wore was to blame.
Horns and all, it looked like a demon's visage, but the expression on it seemed caught somewhere close to weeping.
There was no way I wouldn't recognize it. I was the one who gave her that Halloween mask.
The Weeping Woman. La Llorona.
Even to my layman's ears, Reina's playing was rough. It wasn't like her at all. Mistakes kept slipping in—plucked strings that went dead, notes choked off too soon.
I could sense that something had happened to her. But the sight of her playing was so desolate that I didn't dare interrupt.
After the music ended, Ella walked up to her.
"What's wrong? Are you okay?"
Only then did Reina notice we had entered, flinching in surprise and pulling her hands from the instrument.
"Just... getting some air."
"At this hour? With your instrument?"
"The wind here blows upward anyway. The sound won't reach the bedrooms."
"I didn't mean it as a criticism. And why are you wearing a mask?"
"The mask?"
Reina lifted a hand to her face. Her slender, pale-white fingers traced over its surface.
"Even if I take it off, underneath it there's just..."
She stopped, letting out a long sigh.
"Never mind. I'm going for a walk. Don't follow me."
With that, she stepped off the stage and walked out of the building.
I almost went after her but stopped myself.
If only I were in my Wonderstein form—or better yet, if I could use the Status Window's auxiliary functions.
My eyes lingered anxiously on the door she had just left through.