The Prosthetic Girl - 3
Once the two of them were home again, they shared a simple lunch and settled into the living room to wait out the afternoon until dinner.
While they waited, Ed went through my documents, and Charlotte sat across from him reading a book titled Charlotte and Carlos.
A book with her own name on it. She seemed to have realized that Ed had chosen the name Charlotte after seeing that very title. And given the way Ed had flinched, just for a second, when she picked it out, the guess was almost certainly right.
When Charlotte was about halfway through, Ed rose quietly from his seat.
But the two of them were sitting face-to-face, so if he had meant to slip away unnoticed, he failed completely.
"Where are you going, Master…?"
"To start dinner."
Ed left the living room with Charlotte still behind him—and she followed, planting her cane on her right side and setting off after him.
She was slower than she would have been with a complete set of limbs, but noticeably faster than when she walked on the prosthetic leg alone. In no time at all she had reached the kitchen where Ed was.
"Why did you follow me?"
Ed, who had been pulling out ingredients and preparing to cook, spoke with a look that said he had expected as much.
"Um… I thought I might help with something…?"
She didn't seem to have had any particular plan when she chased him; she couldn't quite answer his question cleanly.
"I'll take the thought. I'm not so bad at cooking that I need help from a girl who has to keep one hand on a cane."
"Well… when you put it like that…"
Cut off so flatly, Charlotte scratched her head, a little sheepish. Then she found a place to sit nearby and spoke to Ed's back as he worked.
"I just get uneasy if all I ever do is take… You—you aren't going to throw me out, are you…?"
"Once you've adjusted to the leg, I'll put you to work on everything, so don't worry about it."
"Then… just until then, please."
That was the end of Charlotte's words. Ed made no reply and began chopping. Charlotte started to say something—"Ah—"—but closed her mouth just before the sound could leave it, and checked the back of her neck instead.
"Master, there's one thing I wanted to ask. Why did you remove my brand?"
"I'll say the prosthetic arm mattered more than the brand."
"So the arm and the brand were interfering with each other, then. Does that mean you bought me from the start just to fit me with a prosthetic?"
"…Just think of it as having gotten a new arm."
"Ah—no! I wasn't trying to pick a fight! It was pure curiosity. It's just… things are so different from what I first imagined. Even conversations like this aren't anything like a normal master-and-slave relationship."
"What you first imagined, is it."
At those words, Ed's knife paused for a beat. He started moving again almost at once, but Charlotte had been watching only his hands, and she caught the unnatural hitch.
"Should I tell you…?"
"…I don't mind."
His voice sounded as if she'd struck a nerve. Charlotte smiled faintly at that and began to talk.
"Well… you had such a cold look about you, and you brought me out to a place this remote. I was sure it would be some awful experiment, or that something painful was going to happen to me."
"…I'm not here because I enjoy it either. Can't be helped."
"Oh—then may I ask why you live out here?"
"You're getting familiar with me awfully fast. Fine, I'll tell you. Wait a moment."
Ed finished organizing the cooking in a flash and washed his hands lightly. From the way he had piled everything into one pot, it looked like a dish that would be done with nothing but heat.
"If you can walk, follow me. If not, wait here."
"Ah—I can follow. I'll be up in a second."
"Then do that."
Ed watched until Charlotte had levered herself up with the cane, then started walking—at a pace deliberately slow enough for her to keep up.
"We're here."
The place Ed had brought her to was a storage shed. The only thing remarkable about it was a small table heaped with stacks of paper—though a faint current of mana ran through them, so they were clearly no ordinary sheets.
"A… warehouse."
"Charlotte. What do you think those things on the table are?"
"I'm too short to see well… Ah—maps."
"One more question. Which way from this forest do you think leads down to the village?"
"Hmm… wouldn't you just walk in one direction and eventually leave the woods?"
"That's what everyone thinks. Try picking up one of these maps."
"Ah—all right."
Ed handed her one of the maps from the table, and Charlotte took it in her left hand. She unfolded it, but with only one hand she couldn't quite hold the whole thing open to study it.
"One second—I'll check it with both hands."
She moved over to the wall, set her cane upright against it, leaned her back against the wood, and spread the map open with both hands.
"Huh—the drawing on the map looks like it shifted a little. Am I right?"
"There's a spell on it that shows your current position. So—"
"I think I get it! Are you here because of people who get lost in the forest?"
"It's a perfect spot for turning around fools who wander in without knowing better, and for keeping wild animals from straying down into the village on their own. I live here because it's a job I get paid for officially. If it weren't, I'd be living somewhere ordinary."
"Is that so? I think I could live in a place like this just fine."
Ed had been about to answer that that was only true for a day or two—when a high, sharp sound rang out from the kitchen, and he bolted from the shed.
Left alone, Charlotte took up her cane again and trailed after him at a slow shuffle. By the time she arrived, Ed had finished dinner preparations right on cue, and with his support she was able to take her seat.
The food Ed set out was something Charlotte had never seen before; she asked its name along with a string of compliments. Ed told her, then added, "You'll eat just about anything, won't you."
Charlotte flinched at that for a second, then brushed it off with, "Until not long ago I couldn't get anything proper to eat."
Looking at the atmosphere alone, she didn't feel like a purchased slave so much as a kid he'd picked up somewhere. Just fitting her with a prosthetic arm and leg seemed to have dissolved whatever wariness she had left toward Ed.
Which made sense, Ed thought—he hadn't bought Charlotte as a slave in the first place. She was a quick learner, too, and she kept landing on the answers he wanted; talking with her was actually enjoyable. Proof of that was right in front of him: even now, he was answering her questions in little circles instead of straight on.
Charlotte's questions. Ed's answers, which needed a bit of deduction. Charlotte coming back with, "I think I get it." In that rhythm, the two of them kept talking all the way through the meal.
After dinner, Ed cleared the table, laid a map out on it, and spoke to Charlotte.
"There's a lake nearby where you can wash. You know how to use the map, so go rinse off lightly over there and come back."
"So that part drawn on the map really was the lake. I can manage that distance on my own. I don't know how long it'll take, though. Then… I'll need washing things, and a change of… clothes…"
Charlotte ticked the items off on the fingers of her right hand, then carefully looked up at Ed.
"…What is it?"
"No—it's just, I only thought of it after I said it… Master, do you… have any women's underthings… in the house…?"
"…"
A brief silence. Of course Ed had nothing of the sort, so he struck a thoughtful pose for a moment.
"Just wait a little. I'm working on a solution right now…"
"O-of course! I'll wait as long as you need!"
Charlotte's current outfit was a shabby cloth garment—the same one she had been wearing when Ed bought her, mended in clumsy patches here and there. A little too dirty to put back on after washing. As for what she had on underneath, who could say—but a change of clothes was a change of clothes.
"…I'll lend you a shirt. Try it on for now."
"Ah—yes! All right…!"
Ed rose quietly, brought back a top that was a bit large even for him, and handed it to Charlotte. She pulled it on over the clothes she was already wearing.
"It's pretty big…"
"It's a slightly oversized one I bought for around the house. I've never worn it, so don't worry."
"No, that part doesn't really matter…"
Charlotte made a dubious face, then wobbled to her feet. The shirt Ed had given her was so large it reached her knees.
"If I wear this with nothing underneath, it's going to show way too much of my shoulders…"
The neckline was oversized too, and the fabric hung off her shoulders instead of sitting around her throat.
"I'll give you a pin to fix the collar. That should be enough for a single day."
"Th-that works, I guess…"
Charlotte scratched her head, sheepish again. Well—it was her own body that would be on display. She probably hadn't had room to think it through that far.
"I-I'll go wash…"
Charlotte gathered up the map, Ed's shirt, the pin, and her cane, and rose from her seat—or rather, she tried to and couldn't. To put it plainly: Charlotte could not walk without her cane, so her right hand held the cane. That left only her left hand, and even if she was adapting quickly, a prosthetic was still a prosthetic. She was bound to keep dropping things.
"I'll carry those. You focus on walking."
"Ah—yes…"
"I know the way, so leave the map."
The two of them got up slowly and set off toward the lake outside the house.