Volume 4 - CH 3.2

There was no longer any sign of Inspector Blois and his detectives in the clock tower.

The huge, old carpenter lumbered across the pathway, carrying his carpentry tools on his back.

The door to the clock tower was blocked with a rope to forbid entry, but both Victorique and Ms. Cecile were able to get in just by bending down a little.

They walked at a leisurely pace, down the humid and darkly-lit hallway. They were a little tense, feeling some strange presence. A sense of vertigo washed over them. It felt as if space itself was distorted, as if their heads were being squeezed tight by some unseen hands.

They found the stairs and climbed up. Victorique took careful steps. Ms. Cecile, on the other hand, in an attempt to quickly ascend the stairs, stumbled and fell all the way down with a shriek.

Victorique paid the teacher no heed. Ms. Cecile quickly followed her.

Victorique stopped by a small window right before the room with the clockworks. Ms. Cecile also studied the window. A shadow zipped past outside, and she screamed.

“Keep it down, Cecile.”

“B-But we’re on the second floor. How could there be someone outside the window? Are they extremely tall? About three meters? There’s no one like that in this school. They must have been floating in the air.”

Victorique left Ms. Cecile alone and reached for the door to the room with the clockworks.

“I believe floating people are commonly referred to as ghosts,” Ms. Cecile said, removing her round glasses with trembling hands.

“Ahuh.” Victorique opened the door.

“Please talk to me! I’m scared!” Ms. Cecile looked around the corridor. “Don’t leave me alone!”

“Scaredy little wimp.”

“I’m not a wimp! I’m a teacher, and that means I’m more dependable than my students, or I wouldn’t be able to guide them.” She followed after Victorique, using the color white and pink as a guide.

The eerie sound of the clockworks echoed low throughout the room.

Round machines, of different sizes but all incredibly huge, were turning slowly, gears meshing with each other. Overhead was a high ceiling shrouded in darkness, from which a pendulum rhythmically swung side to side, cutting through the air, producing a cold, sinister draft that caressed the cheeks.

Victorique and Ms. Cecile looked around the room, at the workshop of the mysterious masked alchemist, who once held the kingdom of Sauville in the palm of his hands.

The ebony table, thick with dust, was still littered with lab equipment. On the wall beyond the table was a bright stained-glass window of unusual design, depicting a garden full of purple and yellow flowers. One red flower bloomed in the middle.

Ms. Cecile had placed her glasses on a nearby old chair. She glanced around, but she couldn’t see well, so she reached for her glasses again.

Clink!

The glasses fell off the chair and rolled on the floor without anyone touching them.

Ms. Cecile shuddered, as if a cold hand had seized her heart. She crouched down, picked up her glasses, and looked for Victorique.

But before she could call for the girl, she sensed something unseen strode across the room. The invisible apparition dropped Ms. Cecile’s glasses on the floor as it passed in front of her.

The floor creaked, as though someone was walking.

And the door, which should have been closed, opened without a sound.

The unseen had left the workshop.

Ms. Cecile let out a scream.

Victorique jumped. “What’s the matter?” she asked in her husky voice.

Ms. Cecile, completely forgetting her role as a teacher, stomped her feet in panic, and with incredible speed, bolted out of the workshop, across the hallway, and tumbled down the stairs.

She thought she passed someone on the stairs, a handsome guy with red hair peeking out of his hat, but she wasn’t quite sure.

Screaming at the top of her lungs, she dashed out of the clock tower through the rope, and far, far across the lawn.

Meanwhile…

Kazuya left the cemetery with steady steps and a straight back, and Avril reluctantly followed him. She suggested a number of times to stay a little longer, but Kazuya shook his head firmly.

Breathing a sigh, Avril gave up and left the shadowy, fenced cemetery.

Just then, a young woman was walking toward the cemetery from the village. The bouquet of flowers in her hands indicated she was visiting someone’s grave.

The young woman was singing in a slightly alluring voice.

Africans say,

March, march I say!

Till the hens sing!

Till the stars fall from the torn roof!

Du da du da doo…

Even in dreams

March, march I say!

Du da du da doo…

The woman began skipping as she hummed, getting into the song. Even Avril, who was walking next to Kazuya, started rocking her body side to side.

The woman had long, reddish frizzy hair and a voluptuous body. Tall, she looked good in her red dress that matched the color of her hair. And her chiseled, striking features…

“Huh?”

Kazuya stared at the woman. He thought she looked familiar. Noticing his gaze, the woman stopped.

“Oh, Kujou! What are you up to?”

It was the sexy, red-haired dorm mother that Kazuya met every morning in the dormitory cafeteria. She was holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.

“Oh, I see you’re with a girl. Are you on a date, then? In a cemetery?”

“N-No, we’re not. We’re looking into the incident at the clock tower. What about you?”

“My parents are buried here. I come here whenever I feel like it. Oh, hello, gravekeeper. Thanks as always.”

The dorm mother placed the bouquet of flowers on a new grave at the very front of the cemetery. She began mumbling something. Perhaps she was talking to her deceased parents.

Kazuya started walking, but then stopped. “Hey, Avril,” he called. “Have you heard that song before? The one the dorm mother was singing just now?”

Avril cocked her head. “A couple of times, yeah. When I was shopping in the village, the lady at the cash register was singing it. What about you?”

“I heard a man on a wagon singing it while I was walking down the street. Is it a popular song? But you don’t really hear it outside the village. What a weird song!”

“True…”

Kazuya and Avril looked at each other.

“Hmm… I’m pretty sure the word gold appears somewhere in the second or third verse of the song…”

“Really?” Avril cocked her head, then started singing slowly to remember the lyrics.

Pretty sisters, mother, and father!

Flesh and blood is cheap, bread is expensive, but keep on rowing!

Du da du da doo…

Gold and black skin

Row, row I say!

Du da du da doo…

When she finished singing, they glanced at each other. The dorm mother, having finished her mumbling, chimed in with a cigarette in her mouth.

“This song has been around since I was a kid,” she said. “During autumn, we would sing it together while harvesting grapes. You don’t know about it?”

“Not really…”

“My mom told me that there used to be a lot of Africans around, but they all died at once from an epidemic or something. The song was inspired by them. Do you know about it, gravekeeper?”

The old gravekeeper, squatting and pulling weeds, looked up. “Huh?” He looked confused at first, but eventually remembered. “Ah, yes. It’s been so long that I’d forgotten about it. If I recall, that was at the end of 1873.”

“You just said you forgot about it, but that’s an awfully specific date,” Kazuya remarked.

“That’s because something huge happened at the beginning of the next year that I’ll never forget. The old king of Sauville passed away and the young Crown Prince succeeded him as king. The whole kingdom was in mourning for his death, and there were many festivities afterward to celebrate the succession of the new king. The king’s death was so sudden that it created a huge fuss. That’s why I remember the exact year. The former king died in the beginning of 1874, and at the end of the previous year, seven or eight Africans died and were buried there.” The gravedigger pointed to a corner of the cemetery.

Kazuya and Avril looked around and found a large burial mound under the dark shade of tangled dead branches. There was no cross or anything, just a small hill where the Africans were apparently buried.

“I don’t know how they ended up in the village or why they died,” the gravekeeper said. “Maybe I just forgot… Anyway, all the young Africans died, so we had no choice but to dig a hole and bury them. No proper graves or anything, though.”

“I see…” Kazuya nodded. “It’s a song about those Africans. What does it mean, though?”

“Who knows? I have no idea,” the old man said. “Are you leaving?”

“Ah, yes. Thank you very much.”

Kazuya bowed and was about to leave the cemetery with Avril, when the gravedigger said, “There’s a famous ghost story about the Protestants’ grave as well, but I suppose you’re not interested.”

“No. We’ve got to go… Hey, Avril! Come back! What about your match with Victorique? We’re running out of time!”

Not lending Kazuya an ear, Avril tottered back to the gravedigger, like a moth drawn to a flame.