Looking Back, It Was Love from the Beginning
How did they manage to sneak in…?
I held Ania’s hand in my right and rested my other hand on the hilt of my sword, casting furtive glances around us. Her anxious face flickered past me, and beyond the reach of the bonfire light the alleys crouched in darkness. Somewhere out there, a gleaming gaze was watching us.
“Edward…”
“Just a moment. Quiet.”
I could not tell where that gaze was coming from. The eve-of-festival heat had the crowds buzzing, and the rhythms of instruments rolled through the air all around us. Sweat beaded on the hand gripping my sword hilt, yet I was ready to draw at any instant.
Our watcher, however, was no half-wit without a plan. The murderous intent that had licked at us like a snake’s tongue soon erased its own presence and vanished. In truth it had never been especially strong—weaker even than the killing aura Rictman gave off when he was truly serious. Whoever it was did not look particularly formidable. A truly powerful opponent would never have scattered killing intent in the first place; the stronger one becomes, the better one grows at concealing one’s presence. So the person trailing us had clearly been sent only to keep watch. Yohan himself had never intended to raise a ruckus at the Brontë ducal house to begin with.
“It’s all right now.”
I took Ania’s startled arm lightly and resumed the dance.
“Doesn’t seem like anyone of real consequence.”
“Those people from before?”
She gave a small shiver, no doubt remembering the abduction on the train.
“Most likely.”
“Will we be all right…?”
“This time I’ll protect you.”
Because if you die or get taken, I’m the one in trouble. I swallowed the rest of the thought and matched my steps to hers.
“You needn’t worry, my lady. I’ll handle it somehow.”
“All right. I trust you.”
The corner of Ania’s mouth lifted softly.
We danced to the music for a while longer, then slipped away from the bonfire once the rhythm began to change. Even though the sun had already set, the eve-of-festival atmosphere kept the whole village lively. Snow was rare in the south, so the little children wore pure, bright smiles at their first sight of it, while the women who looked like their mothers laughed brightly as they built snowmen together. The sight was genuinely pleasant.
Happy families drifted past the restaurants and taverns strung along the village streets as well. Couples with arms lightly around each other’s shoulders and married pairs shared cups in the taverns. Watching them made me think of my own family—the family I had left behind half a year ago, before I possessed this body.
Mother, Father, my younger sibling, my friends. How were they all living? Were they keeping healthy? Would the day ever come when I could return to Earth and tell them I had been away for a while?
“Seobang-nim.”
While I was lost in those thoughts, Ania tugged my arm. She pointed down a narrow alley. A short path ran between the close walls, and beyond it rose a single uphill road.
“Will you keep me company for a moment?”
After a brief hesitation I nodded. The place was a little secluded, which made me uneasy, yet if our watcher chose to show himself I would actually be glad. He was no great fighter; if I could reverse the situation and extract information, I might even dodge Yohan’s threat.
So I followed Ania as she led the way. She began climbing the snow-covered steps at a leisurely pace, and I matched her stride from behind, arms half-raised in case she slipped. As we climbed, the festival heat gradually thinned. The lively voices of the crowd receded; only the snow-laden rooftops of the village and the softly swaying bonfires remained in view. From this distance they looked farther and farther away—as if the world itself were telling me there was no place for me here.
William Radner was not my father, and Ania Brontë was not my wife. We were married on paper, yet I could not love her. The gloomy thought lasted only a moment before I shifted my gaze back to Ania’s back as she climbed the stairs. Where was she taking me? I wanted to ask, but there was surely a reason she had not said.
Ania remembered a long-ago past—the days when she had been an eight-year-old child. Pulling up those memories of a time that had not been happy, when the whole world had looked like nothing but harsh sepia, brought a bitter smile to her lips.
Eight-year-old Ania had been frail. She caught colds at the drop of a hat and spent more time shut in her room than outdoors. And so the emotion most people only feel once they are grown—“loneliness,” that cold, desolate feeling like a winter sea—Ania came to know bone-deep before she was even ten.
Do people understand? That a silent room is more frightening than a stubborn cold that clings and will not leave. That days when children’s laughter drifts in through the window hurt more than days when one’s head is on fire.
Halfway up the stairs the distant past rose so suddenly that Ania stopped and looked back. The man taller than she, standing two steps below yet meeting her eyes, was now her husband—the man she loved so much it hurt—and he was looking at her.
“Is something the matter?”
“No. Nothing at all.”
It had always been Edward. The one who had pulled her out of that crushing loneliness. She had forgotten that gratitude for a long time. Eight-year-old Ania had not known love. She had grown up without even knowing the word “friendship,” so to her Edward had simply been a precious friend—the only friend in a life that had no one else she could call by that name.
Yet time, flowing helplessly onward, pulls people’s relationships apart the way snow slowly melts. After the business between the Brontë and Radner houses ended, Edward never visited the Brontë family again. At first she had felt sad. She still remembered crying for days over the fact that she could no longer see the friend who had come every day. But being born a duke’s daughter meant more than simply being a precious young lady. Ania was the daughter who would one day inherit the ducal house. Her bearing had to be noble; she had to know how to run a business. So she had to become an adult. She had to become a noble. That was why she had lived so long without thinking of the man named Edward…
Yet looking back, it had been love from the very beginning. She had sat by the window every day waiting for Edward to climb the tree, and on the days he did not come she had buried herself under the covers in a gloom that lasted the whole day. Just thinking about what they would talk about tomorrow made her heart swell, and every time they met her world grew wider.
After she became an adult Ania had been engaged several times. None of the engagements had been of her own choosing. Marriage among nobles was simply like that. She had disliked every one of them. The men who courted her were nothing like Edward. They saw only her face. They loved only that face and staked their lives on it. And the moment she showed them her true self they called her a witch—a witch who lured men to their deaths. She never knew which tune she was supposed to dance to.
Ania withdrew further and further into herself. The beautiful face she had always been proud of now felt like a curse. Her heart had been torn into shreds that could never be pieced together again. And then, by chance, she met Edward once more.
“We’re here.”
The top of the stairs Ania had led me up opened onto a small hill. A single modest tree stood there, and beside it a little wooden bench.
“This place…”
We walked a little farther across the not-very-high hill and the whole territory spread out below us—lights glowing in every house, the Brontë mansion visible in the distance. Ania gazed at the view. The lights reflected in her sparkling eyes as if the stars of the sky themselves had settled there. She wore a faint smile like the scent of spring blossoms, then turned to me.
“This place… do you remember it?”
Ania asked. But I remembered nothing. Was it a place that held memories of Edward and Ania? Unfortunately I was not Edward. There was no room for me to force my way into their private recollections. Still, I could at least give her the answer she hoped for. All I had to say was, “Ah, of course I remember.” Yet the words would not come. I could not steal a memory that was not mine and answer as if it were.
No…
I was about to say it when a memory suddenly brushed through my mind—an old memory that was not mine. Ten-year-old Edward Radner and eight-year-old Ania Brontë sitting on this very hill, watching the autumn leaves fall over the village.
“It’s been a long time.”
The words left my mouth before I knew them.
“It really… has been a long time.”
My lips curved upward of their own accord. Fond memories rose. Something warm slid down my cheek.