Chapter 51
“Father, please!”
Silla clung desperately to one of her father’s legs.
“You little brat, let go of me!”
“You’re going to hit Mom again!”
“You really are something else!”
Silla held on tenaciously, but her father kicked her off, sending her sprawling.
“Ha! So, even if her face is half-decent, there are idiots who’d still think she’s okay, huh?”
Having pushed her away, her father grabbed a poker lying by the fireplace and strode toward her mother. Silla swayed, dizzy, but crawled toward her father again.
“No, that’s not it! I was just helping someone caught in a trap you set! I was there too. I saw it clearly. I’m telling the truth!”
“You expect me to believe a person got caught in a trap I set for beasts? This isn’t charity work—how could someone with open eyes get caught in a trap?”
Her father raised the poker high. Her mother didn’t flinch or crouch, only stared blankly at his raised hand. Her eyes had lost all light.
Seeing her mother like that, Silla clung to her father’s leg once more.
“She fell while gathering herbs, that’s all! Father, please!”
“How can I believe that brat?”
“Do you think she would have put her wrist in a trap just to attract a man? She could have lost her hand! What kind of crazy person would think that?”
“Are you calling me crazy now?”
Silla dodged the swing of the raised poker.
“Dodged? Dodged! If a daughter has one brain cell, she should prevent her mother from marrying recklessly, not just defend the mother! And you only side with her!”
Swish—another swing of the poker came.
This time, she barely avoided it. Silla exhaled in relief, thinking she almost got hit, when suddenly a voice rang out:
“Stop it!”
It was a scream with all her strength. Both her father, poised to swing again, and Silla, who instinctively shrank back, froze, looking at her mother.
No matter how poorly her husband treated her, even breaking her arm and leaving her unable to use it properly, her mother had lived her entire life quietly without raising her voice.
“It’s disgusting. Not only did you break my arm, now you want to break my daughter’s legs too? If I wanted to marry someone, do you think I would’ve stayed silent all this time? I’d have done it ages ago! Found a younger, better-looking man! I came to this marriage as if sold off, lived all these years with a man like you, and now you want me to marry some old herbal-gathering fool?!”
Her mother’s shouting itself was shocking, but the content was even more outrageous. Her father was dumbfounded, his mouth opening and closing. Even Silla stared at her mother in disbelief.
The smell of alcohol. Silla realized for the first time that her mother smelled of alcohol. She had been sipping it because of indigestion. So the contents of the bottle were alcohol.
What a continuous string of surprises. Her mother drank?
“So… you admit you married someone young and handsome? Who was it? The blacksmith’s son? The fruit shop owner? Or that widower you delivered the water pail to the other day?”
“Yes. That’s what he was like. As they say, you only see what you want to see. You just hear it as ‘womanizing’ because it involves you?”
“What?”
Her father’s hand holding the poker trembled. She didn’t know when it might swing at her mother. Silla’s gaze was fixed on her father’s hand, unable to leave.
“At the tavern, Hena. Did you think I didn’t notice you conspiring with that woman for years? Every time I saw her at the market, I noticed the glances and signals!”
“W-what…”
“You underestimated me. Why have I lived with a man like you all this time without running away? It’s all because of Silla. Afraid people would call me a motherless child. Afraid some fool would touch Silla. Afraid I couldn’t find a proper husband like her mother did! My life like this is only until Silla gets married!”
The poker shot up into the air. Her father’s eyes had lost all rationality.
A hoarse voice escaped from his crooked mouth.
“Why hold back until your daughter gets married? I’ll make sure you don’t have to.”
The poker sliced through the air like a knight’s sword.
Thud!
Her mother collapsed as if her body had crumbled.
Frozen, unable to move, Silla finally rushed to her mother.
“Mother! Mom! Open your eyes!”
She cradled her mother’s broken head, but blood gushed endlessly, soaking Silla’s feet.
Silla looked up at her father with eyes full of resentment. He still glared down at her mother, raging.
Disgusting. Horrifying.
Silla bit her lip and looked at her mother again. Though her mother’s eyes were closed as if dead, she was still breathing.
‘What should I do?’
She felt she had to rush to the village to fetch the local doctor, but leaving her mother meant her father could beat her to death before she returned. Staying beside her mother was terrifying because of the blood.
While sobbing and unable to decide, her mother twitched her eyes and barely opened them.
“Silla.”
A whisper barely audible. Silla wiped her tears and whispered back.
“Mother, I’ll fetch the doctor. Just hang on.”
“Silla.”
As Silla stood to leave, her mother spoke again.
“Run.”
Startled by the unexpected word, Silla froze.
“Run from this house.”
The words, barely reaching Silla, were her mother’s last will. She had passed away in her small arms without even closing her eyes peacefully.
Silla looked down at her mother’s pale face, then at her father, who appeared shocked by her mother’s death.
Bastard.
Hiding her hatred, Silla gently laid her mother down.
“…You shouldn’t have done something that could get her killed. Bury her in the back hill.”
Her father dropped the poker and left the house.
Outside, it was already dark. Watching him disappear toward the village, Silla clenched her fists.
Without a proper funeral or anyone to help, Silla dug the grave alone until dawn. Her father did not return while she buried her mother in the cold earth.
On the way back home, carrying her pickaxe and shovel, something caught Silla’s eye—a plant that looked like an ordinary weed.
‘This will help Mother recover. Mix its juice with Brodin at a 4:1 ratio and give it to her in water. Don’t use hot water—if the temperature rises quickly, it becomes extremely poisonous.’
She recalled when she was eight or nine, her father broke her mother’s arm, and Zenon, the village doctor, had said this while treating her. He wasn’t a noble doctor but was considered a healer in the village.
‘What if I mix it with hot water and then cool it down?’
The doctor replied as if she were a complete fool:
‘Have you ever seen poison become harmless just because it was cooled? Don’t think stupid things. Remember, never use hot water. Just use cold water… no, better yet, just the juice. Then give cold water to drink afterward. Brodin is available, right?’
‘Yes, I take it when I have a stomachache.’
‘Good. It’s the most common remedy.’
Silla tossed her tools aside and crouched in the backyard, starting to dig the plant.
Her father was likely at the tavern drinking. By dawn, he’d come home snoring, and by midday, he’d yell for water.
Silla gathered the plant, ran inside, confirmed Brodin was in the house, placed a kettle on the fire, and began extracting its juice. If she mixed it with water now, by tomorrow morning when her father woke, the medicine would be ready.
✿ ✿ ✿
“Father was the first to give her that plant?”
Ellen asked, shocked.
“Yes. I must have made the medicine properly. She died while he was yelling for water.”
Silla snickered.
Ellen and Roil exchanged horrified glances. A husband who broke his wife’s arm, a daughter who killed her father—they were both terrifying.
Her mother was pitiful, her father a source of ultimate evil, and Silla…
“I packed my things while he was asleep. When he yelled for water, I brought it, then quickly left the house.”
Ellen and Roil didn’t seem to matter to Silla anymore. She continued her story regardless of their shock.
“I went alone to find my cousin who married a wealthy merchant in Roanoke. It was the only place I could go. I thought feeding myself wouldn’t be a burden since they were wealthy. But when I arrived, she was living even better than I expected.”
“…”
“Living in a large house, wearing nice clothes, eating well, being served by staff—it made me not want to leave. But I had to eventually, or I’d be back to my old life, doing all the chores, earning money, patching my clothes…”
“…”
“I was so worried about that, I didn’t even notice my cousin’s half-brother looking at me strangely.”
Ellen and Roil recalled their childhood memories. This was the girl who came to her cousin’s house and was mistreated.
“And then I met you all. That day.”
Silence filled the prison after her story, except for Venner, who handed warm tea to Ellen, Roil, and Sir Leti.
Ellen sipped the tea, realizing she had been shivering from the cold, having been so engrossed in Silla’s story.
Roil didn’t touch the tea and asked another question:
“What about your mother?”
“Simple. I had made poison at the old house to use on the Countess. If you check the work logs, it’ll show I took two days off a few days ago.”
“…”
“When I went to my old house, the plant was growing abundantly in the backyard. I had to extract juice from all of it. To frame someone else, I needed more than usual.”
Silla mentioned framing someone so casually that Ellen almost mistook it for standard procedure.
