The Things We Never Said
As I swapped out the lukewarm damp cloth on her forehead, a thousand worries flashed through my mind. Should I apologize for hitting her? What if she won't accept it? Even when I tried to put myself in her shoes, I knew that if someone suddenly slapped me and then apologized, I'd probably get angry and accuse them of giving me the disease and then the medicine. No matter how I imagined things turning out, my thoughts kept tilting toward negative outcomes like Joshua getting mad or running away, so I shook my head to clear them.
That's right. I'm a witch. If I'm a witch, I should act like one.
What if I make her drink a potion that erases memories? If we pretended the fight had never happened, we wouldn't need to apologize at all. We could just go back to laughing and chatting like before, living our happy daily life. But that wouldn't erase the fact that I had hit her. I didn't have the confidence to face a bright, smiling Joshua who had forgotten everything and act like nothing had changed.
If only you'd just let me die back then…! That scene from earlier kept stabbing at my heart. If it hurt this much, maybe it would've been better not to save her at all.
Why did I save Joshua in the first place?
A child orphaned by war. A child so ravaged by famine that only skin and bones remained, just waiting for death. Even infants abandoned from birth, treated worse than animals and forced to beg in front of the village. There were plenty of children in worse situations than Joshua, enough to trip over them. Setting aside excuses like needing an assistant, I couldn't come up with a single convincing reason that would satisfy either her or me.
But still.
If I hadn't saved Joshua back then, the girl who would scrunch up her face in disgust at my affection and say she hated it wouldn't exist. The girl who got completely absorbed in the fairy tales I read her for the first time, eagerly asking what happened next, wouldn't exist. The girl who beamed with joy at her first successful spell wouldn't exist. The girl who finally let out all her pent-up resentment wouldn't exist either.
I didn't want that.
Even if the time we could spend together was a short one, less than a hundred years.
I realized just how large a part Joshua occupied in my life.
I carefully peeled off her sweat-soaked clothes and gently wiped down her body, making sure not to wake her. Even though I was trying to be careful, she kept tossing and turning, and I panicked about what to do until she finally settled. Then I dressed her again and lit some incense with a calming effect.
Soft breathing.
I gently stroked Joshua's flushed red cheek as she slept soundly. Maybe the reason didn't matter all that much.
Her appearance that the burn scars couldn't completely hide. Her silver hair that softly reflected the moonlight. Those snowflake-like eyes that peeked out shyly from between her locks, as if saying hello. And even that butterfly-shaped flower that had settled delicately over the hair covering her right eye.
I carefully kissed her forehead, careful not to wake her.
Joshua woke up right after midnight had passed.
“Mmmnn…”
Her mind was still foggy. As time passed and her head cleared, the memories she had forgotten gradually came back.
What did I even say…
Calling it a mistake wasn't enough to cover how deeply I'd driven a nail into Estelle's heart. It was bad enough that even if she kicked me out of the house tomorrow morning, I wouldn't have any right to complain.
To Joshua, Estelle was a witch who could do anything and knew everything. Even when she'd seen her easily overpower more than twenty orcs, Joshua had wondered if the books might have been exaggerating. After all, the orcs in the books were described as powerful monsters that even adult men would struggle against.
And what about her skill with magic or herbs? That alchemy that could create anything?
If I follow in Estelle's footsteps, maybe I could save someone too?
She had wanted to become someone who could save others, just like Estelle had saved her that day as she cried by her parents' graves. When she decided to save those people trapped behind iron bars, not knowing when they might die, she had stubbornly pushed forward despite Estelle's opposition. She had been confident that she could do anything, just like her mentor Estelle.
Maybe that confidence had gotten too far ahead of her.
The result of not being able to distinguish the right medicine for the situation and only chasing after its effects was something a fifteen-year-old Joshua found hard to accept. When the first two died, she hadn't even had time to suspect anything. Their conditions had been so poor that it wouldn't have been strange for them to pass at any moment. She had told herself that if she just tried a little harder, she could definitely save the remaining two.
She begrudged even the time to eat or sleep. Her body smelled because she hadn't washed, and her disheveled hair had become tangled. It was only when the third one died that a chill ran down her spine. Something inside her head was sounding an alarm, telling her she was missing something.
A memory of studying with Estelle flashed by. She had found a book among the texts about herbs and potions.
The Efficacy and Side Effects of Medicine
Her hands had trembled violently the entire time she read the side effects listed in the book. Her body shivered with chills, and her head burned as if she had a fever.
I killed them.
She didn't want to believe it. She wanted to deny it. She wanted to shift the blame for their deaths onto someone else.
The arrows of resentment that poured out of Joshua flew at terrifying speed and embedded themselves in the target called Estelle.
Come to think of it, Estelle had always done whatever she pleased. She would bring prosperity to a village, then stand by and watch as it was destroyed. From saving Joshua to deciding the life and death of those people. She had wished Estelle would save them too, just like she had saved her.
That resentment also contained all the true feelings she had never been able to express to Estelle until now, so she thought she couldn't just leave things like this. She wanted to bow her head and apologize properly.
When she slowly sat up, something that had been on her head slid down and fell onto her chest. It was a damp cloth that had apparently been on her forehead until just now, now lukewarm.
“I… collapsed, didn't I.”
Skipping meals and cutting back on sleep recently had finally caught up to her. When she touched her forehead, the fever seemed to have gone down, though a bit of dizziness remained.
“Mmm… Joshua?”
“Estelle…?”
The room was dark, so she hadn't noticed Estelle leaning against the bed, asleep. She hadn't expected to see her this soon. Estelle, who had been watching over Joshua and nursing her until she dozed off, felt the same way.
“That is… well…”
“……”
A long silence stretched between the two, neither knowing what the other was truly thinking.
“Estelle, would it be alright if we slept together tonight?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
Joshua moved to one side of the bed and took Estelle's hand, pulling her closer. How long had it been since she'd shared a bed with someone else? Lying in the same bed, under the same blanket. At a distance where their noses would touch if they turned their heads, both Estelle and Joshua swallowed dryly.
“You know… At first, I really hated you, Estelle.”
It was Joshua who found the courage first. At her thunderbolt of an opening line, Estelle wanted to cover her ears and run away. But she knew if not now, there would be no other chance. She turned her head to look at Joshua.
“You might not remember, but… the village I lived in was only able to survive thanks to you. When I was a baby, there was a long famine, and it seems the villagers started leaving one by one. My family couldn't afford to leave, so we were just waiting for the day we'd die.”
Joshua's village had been barren land suffering from famine. The village lake had dried up, the crops withered quickly, and the villagers' eyes had grown sharp from not eating properly for days. If it hadn't been for the old man who seemed to be the village chief's request, Estelle would have left without helping the village.
To Estelle, the chief's request had been a kind of quest. She had been full of plans to help revive the village in exchange for using the people as labor to gather herbs and medicinal ingredients. To Estelle, Garirill had meant about that much.
“Then suddenly these people burst in and the village was turned into a wasteland… I barely survived thanks to my mother's help. At that time, I was hiding alone in the storage shed, and I heard them looking for you.”
In Aria Chronicle, the only ones with the madness to wipe out entire villages just to find a witch were the Heresy Inquisitors. In fact, when she had witnessed the ruined village, seeing the men impaled on stakes and the women's bodies floating in the lake, she had known the Heresy Inquisitors had come. Garirill was a small village precariously straddling the border where the inquisitors could operate, so unless someone had reported the village's abundant harvest, it would have been nearly impossible.
“So… on the day you found me… there were so many things I wanted to say.”
Why did the villagers have to die when you're the witch? Why did Mom and Dad have to die? Please save Mom and Dad.
Joshua didn't bother to voice those words out loud. The seven-year-old Joshua was now fifteen, after all.
Joshua turned her head and met the gaze looking back at her. Had there ever been a time when she'd looked into Estelle's eyes this closely? Maybe the princesses in fairy tales weren't this beautiful.
“When you saved me, I was sure I would hate you for the rest of my life. Do you know how I feel now?”
“……”
Instead of answering, Estelle shook her head. If she said anything right now, the tears she was barely holding back would probably spill over.
“I don't hate you anymore.”
Joshua blushed and smiled brightly.
“The way you teach me all sorts of things, the way you worry about me, why you pay so much attention to me… I think I understand now.”
Just as Joshua saw Estelle as a mother, Estelle saw Joshua as a daughter.
“I made an unreasonable request, and… you have your own position to consider. I was too selfish. I'm sorry for saying such harsh things. Hehe. That's what I wanted to tell you.”
“Mmm… Why are you apologizing, Joshua… I'm the one who should be sorry for hitting you…”
Estelle pulled Joshua into a tight embrace. In this moment, the original story, pure love, none of it mattered. She just wanted this child to live an ordinary, happy life. And if she could watch over Joshua's happiness until the very end, that would be enough.
“Why are you crying…”
“Yeah, it's nothing. You're just so pretty, Joshua. That's why the tears came.”
From worrying about what she'd do if Joshua got upset and wouldn't accept her apology, to what her favorite food was. What colors she liked. What kind of man was her ideal type. What kind of house she wanted to live in. Trivial things like wanting to see the ocean. They talked about all the things they usually didn't, the things they'd put off, until they fell asleep from exhaustion.