CH 19

She turned to see Ellie standing behind her.

“Are you sick? No, wait!”

With a loud thud across the floor, Ellie grabbed Isabel by the shoulders.

“What is this, your face, oh my god, look at the shadows under your eyes, your lips are all busted open, your eyes are all bloodshot!”

“It’s okay…”

“What’s okay! Oh no, come on, get over here.”

Ellie quickly shoved the refreshment trolley she was pushing into the hands of another maid and grabbed Isabel.

“It’s been a few days since I’ve seen your face. Have you been sleeping lately? Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Belle asleep! Right, I haven’t seen you during meal times either!”

“I haven’t had much time lately, so I’m going to…”

“Even if you don’t have time, you still need to sleep!”

Ellie cut off whatever Isabel was about to say, grabbing her arm and storming off into the common room.

“I have other places to be.”

“No! Mrs Donna said we were all going to get together at mealtime anyway!”

“Mrs Donna?”

I couldn’t think of any reason why Mrs Donna would call the servants together.

In fact, there wasn’t much that the head maid, who oversaw the entire mansion’s maid staff, had to do herself. Most of the time, the head maids of each department under her would relay what she had to say.

At the last state dinner, if not for the fact that many high nobles had come, there would have been no need to summon the maids.

Isabel shook her head, but obediently followed Ellie as she tugged on her hand, and then she heard something unexpected.

“The second floor is off limits for the time being.”

Mrs Donna said.

It was a blow to Isabel, who used to sneak upstairs every night.

The other maids looked at each other in disbelief, but when Mrs Donna spoke next, they all understood.

“The mansion is big, big. Rumour has it there’s a ghost.”

Mrs Donna cleared her throat.

“They say there’s a ghost on the second floor, knocking out the maids and taking them away… What, is that the rumour?”

All the maids fell silent. The rumour had been circulating for a while and had finally reached the head maid’s ears.

“From now on, if any of the maids spread the rumour again, I will punish them severely. Also, until the rumour dies down, the second floor will be off-limits to servants for the time being, so don’t think of doing anything stupid.”

“Anything stupid?

Ellie whispered from beside her as Isabel looked puzzled.

“Well, it seems that since the rumour spread, there have been instances where they’ve deliberately wandered around on the second floor and startled the other maids.”

“…Who told you that?”

“Uh, who was it, who said they were teased up there?”

I couldn’t think of anyone, because there was no such person.

At least not in the nearly week that Isabel had been hiding on the second floor.

It was possible that she had simply been out of time, but that didn’t make sense.

The second floor was where the Counts lived. There’s no way anyone would have the nerve to wander around and make mischief there.

It didn’t even make sense to think about it, and if it was coming straight from Ellie’s mouth, it seemed like it was already a public rumour.

‘Then…’

This wasn’t about preventing pranks, it was about preventing access.

‘The rumors about the servant who acted as a ghost must have been intentionally spread.’

Isabel frowned softly. This was not good. It would likely limit her ability to sneak and hide.

And that night, she realised she wasn’t wrong. As she ran down the stairs after Ellie late at night, she saw Olga with a lantern.

Isabel quickly turned and ducked behind a pillar. With the bright light still shining behind her, it was clear that Olga had no intention of leaving the area.

‘What can I do? If I don’t go down this staircase, I’ll have to cross the corridor to get to the closet.’

There was no way she could take the other staircase and cross the corridor without being detected.

As Isabel stood nervously, her eyes caught sight of the window.

‘There was a window… in the front of the closet on the second floor.’

The window slid out from the inside, but it wasn’t locked, so pulling it open from the outside would be no problem.

‘Let’s climb down the wall from the attic to the window.’

This would have been unthinkable for the old Isabel. But in Eileen’s body, it wouldn’t be impossible.

Isabel slowly backed away and went back into the attic. She stood in front of a tiny window that she could barely squeeze through.

She gripped the sill and peered down, and the view sent chills down her spine. If she fell, she would die, or at least not be able to walk on her own feet.

‘But I have to.’

She grabbed the upper window sill and pulled her upper body out. A gust of wind blew her hair all over the place.

“Haa…”

Her breath leaked out as she exhaled. Isabel gritted her teeth and pulled her legs all the way out of the window before gripping the wall to stand.

Her body swayed precariously with each gust of wind. She took a short breath and looked sideways.

She could see brickwork and long terraces jutting out from the street, interrupted for decorative effect.

‘The shortest way down to the closet window on the second floor is through the terrace on the far left of the third floor and straight down.’

It wasn’t as short as it looked.

Isabel removed her trembling hand and moved it to the left. She calmly gripped the protruding brick hard, but it crumbled to dust.

Isabel barely held back a scream. One of her hands was flailing in the air, and her upper body, which had been thrown outward, jerked sharply to the right.

All she could do was strain her right hand and desperately hold on.

“Ugh…”

With all her strength, she pulled her upper body up. She could feel every muscle in her arm straining with uncanny clarity.

When she finally managed to get her left hand back on the brick, Isabel glanced down to catch her breath. She still had a long way to go.

***

Thunk.

The second-floor window opened, and Isabel’s body rolled inside. It had been half an hour since she’d moved from the attic to the outside.

Isabel landed on the floor and sagged against it.

She could feel sweat running down her back against the wall. Despite the cold winter wind, her whole body was drenched in sweat.

It wasn’t a matter of physical ability.

Eileen Nova’s body was more disciplined than Isabel had realised. She had plenty of strength, and her palms were calloused so gripping a rough brick would only cause a slight redness, not rawness.

The problem was how to use it. Isabel had no idea where to distribute her strength, or how to move her body in an efficient way.

If she was in a desperate situation, her body would take care of itself, but it didn’t.

‘I can’t tell you how many times I almost fell.’

It wasn’t the first time her hands had slipped or a brick had crumbled because she’d grabbed in the wrong place. Her limbs had tangled as her body instinctively calculated where to move.

‘But I’m here.’

She lifted her eyes and saw the closet door in front of her. Olga was guarding it from the opposite staircase, so if she didn’t make a fuss, she wouldn’t hear it open and close slightly.

Isabel hurried inside the closet and closed the door behind her.

The familiar smell of dust tickled her nose. She ducked her head, hugged her knees, and peered through the crack in the closet door. The tiny crack looked out onto the corridor.

‘I wonder if I’ll see anything today.’

She thought to herself, and then shook her head.

She was afraid that something might happen in the corridor right now, and if you asked her if she was here at dawn every day just to find out, you wouldn’t be wrong.

In fact, as much as she wanted to know, Isabel wanted to know nothing.

It couldn’t be good.

It couldn’t be joyful, happy, or fun. What could be good about having to keep her arms tied behind her back?

Isabel was terrified every moment. In her imagination, Margarita was being bullied by someone, and sometimes she cut herself.

None of it seemed real, but it all seemed plausible, and she was terrified that it was all happening right now, right in front of her eyes.

‘Cowardice.’

Ten years of running from death, and she doesn’t even want to know what happened to her daughter.

Hehe, Isabel laughed, the corners of her mouth turning up. It was a small, airy laugh.

It was ridiculous and funny, and she couldn’t help herself. Where had she been when she’d taunted the knights with her nonsense, even with the whip in front of her?

Was Isabel’s courage something she could only muster once in the face of death? Was it just self-consolation to say that Margarita was the only meaning of life, the last thing she had left?

Isabel smiled and gritted her teeth, and did not take her eyes off the corridor for a single moment, until that dawn passed and another morning came.

Then it was daylight.

Her legs were purple and swollen from lack of blood, and her neck, which she had been craning, was too stiff to turn to the side.

Isabel rubbed her eyes, which had been open the whole time, and opened the closet door. Her eyes were bleary and she could barely see. When she managed to grope her way out, the first rays of dawn were streaming through the windowsill.

Almost dragging her legs, Isabel collapsed in the hallway.

‘Nothing happened.’

Olga and Mrs Donna were the only ones who had passed through the corridor in the early hours of the morning. Another uneventful night had passed, as it had for several days.

Isabel found it hard to contain the disgust at her own relief at that fact.

‘I’ll come back tomorrow, if nothing happens today. If not tomorrow, then the day after. Repeat until I find it.’

She hadn’t thought it would be easy to find out, but her mind was threatening to slacken overnight. Isabel whipped herself into shape.

She got back up and started up the stairs, then remembered she’d forgotten to pick the flowers.

The dusky light outside the window told her it was time for the Count’s residents to wake up and get moving.

Isabel hesitated for a moment, then ran down to the garden and plucked a few snowdrops. The petals of the snowdrops had been curled up all night, and now they were opening to welcome the morning.

‘Have a good morning. Rita.’

Isabel, who had made her way to Margarita’s room, left a small bouquet on the doorstep.

They looked shabby on the red carpet. Countess Grey probably had far more colourful and luxurious flowers delivered every day, and these were nothing more than wildflowers she’d throw away.

‘But at least once, if you’ll look at them.’

‘And if you smile, that’s enough.’

Isabel stood hesitantly in the doorway, and as she turned to return to the attic, the doorway opened.

There stood Margarita, blinking green eyes like her own.