Volume 2 - CH 4.2

After the commotion, the villagers returned to their respective homes. They had a quick breakfast before gathering again in the square a little past noon.

The lights of the floats were extinguished. The colored banners surrounding the square swayed in the strong breeze. The crack of whips and firing of blanks continued.

The skit that Ambrose had mentioned was about to begin. Kazuya went to Alan and his friends’ rooms to invite them to watch, but they seemed to be in a bad mood. Although he could sense they were inside, they did not respond. Mildred said that there was an awkward atmosphere between the three, so they stayed in their own rooms without talking to each other.

Mildred also seemed uninterested. “I can watch from the balcony,” she had said.

In the end, only Kazuya and Victorique headed to the square, holding hands along the way.

When they arrived, girls in red skirts were just running out onto the square. The girls stopped in the middle and bowed, carrying baskets in their hand.

Ambrose passed by, talking about various matters to Sergius, who walked too slow. When he noticed Kazuya and Victorique watching from a corner, he turned and said, “It’s dangerous over there!”

“Dangerous how?” Kazuya asked.

“Well, not that dangerous. But it’ll hurt a bit.”

“Wh-What do you mean?”

Ambrose walked away with a mischievous smile on his face. Kazuya looked next to him and saw Victorique frowning.

It’ll hurt? Wait a sec… Oh, no!

Kazuya remembered that Victorique was sensitive to pain. He pulled her hand and left the spot. Victorique continued watching the villagers as they scurried around the square. She looked up at Kazuya as he dragged her away.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“I’m not exactly sure.”

Once they had left their spot, the girls all squealed. They put their hands in the baskets, grabbed the hard hazelnuts inside, and held their hands high in the air.

“One, two…” they cried, then started throwing hazelnuts everywhere.

The villagers looked on with laughter. The nuts landed on the spot where Kazuya and Victorique had been moments ago. Just then, a young bearded man wearing a hat and glasses wandered by.

“It’s Alan,” Kazuya said. “I invited him earlier. Huh, I guess he’s curious about the festival, after all.”

The girls were making a lot of noise, singing a fertility song and throwing hazelnuts at a man passing by. The man jumped up in pain as he retreated. Laughing hysterically, the girls looked around to see if anyone would pass by next. A young male villager approached them on purpose, and they gladly threw nuts at him. Men ran away. Squeals and screams filled the square as they repeated the routine over and over.

“Wow… That looks painful,” Kazuya muttered.

Thank heavens for Ambrose’s warning. If we stayed in that spot, Victorique would have been in a lot of pain.

He glanced at Victorique. She continued observing the villagers.

After emptying their baskets, the young girls retreated with laughter. Then, young men divided themselves into two groups—the Winter Army, dressed in brown and riding horses, and the Summer Army, dressed in blue and carrying spears—and started performing a war dance.

Girls cheered for the Summer Army, while the men danced around them.

It was a long dance.

When the Summer Army finally won, the Winter Army dispersed, and a young man at the center of the Summer Army declared victory.

“Wait, that voice…”

Kazuya realized then that it was Ambrose. The young man looked different from any other youth in the village. The villagers were Gray Wolves with glassy eyes that rejected change, while Ambrose was full of youthful brilliance.

Dressed in blue, Ambrose proudly proclaimed Summer’s victory and this year’s bountiful harvest, waving the torch in his hand around.

“Begone, Winter Man!” he roared, holding the torch over the float parked in the middle of the square.

On top of the float was an ochre-colored papier-mâché piece made by Ambrose that represented the Winter Man. Both the float and the papier-mâché were made of highly-flammable materials. When he dropped the torch, flames instantly engulfed the float and the papier-mache.

Just then, something stood up on top of the float.

Ambrose let out a shriek, his face contorted in shock. He continued screaming with his mouth wide open.

The human-sized papier-mache had stood up and spun around. It kept spinning and spinning while holding its head with both hands, until eventually it fell flat on its face.

“A person?!” Ambrose’s voice carried over the flames. “Let go of me! That’s a person right there!”

Shaking off his companions, he jumped on the float and tackled it, causing it to crash sideways. The entire square shook. Crushed red turnips oozed reddish-purple juice that soaked into the cobblestones.

Someone rushed to the well and returned with a bucket full of water, pouring it over the burning, writhing papier-mâché.

The fire died. The papier-mâché groaned for a while, but then slowly and gradually stopped moving.

“It’s a person,” Ambrose mumbled, stunned. “Soft like a human body. It’s not the papier-mache I made. It changed into a human being!”

A fellow youth pulled Ambrose away, and the young assistant fell on his buttocks.

“It’s a person… Remove the cloth!”

The villagers opened up a path as Sergius slowly stepped forward.

With trembling hands, the village chief peeled away the half-burned cloth on the body. When he removed the covering on the face, a massive shock spread through the square.

“I knew it,” someone mumbled.

On the ground lay a dead man with eyes wide open, his expression one of pure agony.

Alan.

Kazuya tried to cover Victorique’s face with his hands so she wouldn’t see, but she shook him off.

He looked at her with surprise and a little bit of anger. Her calm eyes surveyed the square.

Kazuya followed her gaze as well, and Harminia’s face caught his attention first. The maid looked surprised, but there was a faint smile on her face. Ambrose staggered back up his feet with the help of the others. His face was twisted in shock. Sergius was examining Alan’s body with a grim expression. The villagers were silent as they looked down at Alan’s body.

Loud footsteps came from the manor. Kazuya knew right away that it was Mildred. Her raid hair bounced as she came running.

“I was watching from the balcony of my room,” she said. “Was that a person burning?”

As she approached the crowd, she noticed Alan lying on the ground.

“What? This is horrible!” she cried in a shaky voice.

Derek and Raoul arrived seconds later. When they saw Alan’s condition, they gasped.

“What happened here?” Derek asked, his voice trembling.

“I don’t know,” Sergius said.

Raoul just shuddered silently, but Derek started yelling.

“What did you do?! You won’t get away with this!”

“This was an accident,” Sergius said firmly, regarding Derek’s rageful face. “This imbecile swapped himself with the papier-mache while no one was looking.”

“What did you just call him?”

“He probably wanted to disrupt the festival. He didn’t know he would be set on fire.” He looked at Alan’s body with disdain. “What a foolish guest.”

“There’s no way!” Derek snapped. He was shaking from anger. His already high-pitched voice was almost cracking.

“It can’t be!” he managed. “We knew! This man here explained the event to us.” He pointed at Ambrose. “He said that at the very end, you would set fire to the papier-mache.”

Sergius shook his head. “I believe he was going to jump out of the way right before he caught fire.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

He looked around at the faces of the villagers, but none of them wanted to make eye contact. They seemed to believe Sergius’ words without a trace of doubt. Derek let out a groan of despair and sank down on the ground.

“Elder Sergius,” Ambrose mumbled. “I don’t think this man could’ve done that.”

“What?”

“Just a few moments ago, when the girls were throwing hazelnuts, this young man passed by and ran away when he got hit. He hasn’t come to the square since then, and we have a lot of eyes here.”

“What are you saying?”

“It’s impossible for him to have switched places with the papier-mache.”

Sergius’ glare hushed Ambrose.

The villagers stirred. Glassy, doubtful eyes rested on the village chief.

Irritated, Sergius shot Ambrose a terrifying look. “Don’t say any more. Have you forgotten that talkativeness is the sin of a fool?!”

“I’m… truly sorry.” Ambrose hung his head low.

“What’s going on?! Say something!” Derek bellowed.

Startled by his voice, birds took off from the square and disappeared into the mist.

The rustling of wings faded into the distance.

The square was silent. None answered Derek’s question.