Chapter 49
“Hey, hey! Where did you go? Did you go home?”
About ten minutes had passed. A woman’s voice rang out loudly as she looked around. But Apollion noticed that her voice was trembling.
‘…Wait a minute.’
That voice… felt familiar.
A clear, gentle soprano. Most of it was drowned out by the sound of rain, but there was no mistaking it—this was Petunia’s voice.
Apollion observed her for a moment. She was muttering to herself, pulling something out of her pocket and tossing it about.
At that moment, a beam of moonlight caught something sharp in her hand and it gleamed.
A silver, sharp-edged implement. Surely that was…
“A fork…?”
In her hand was a silver trident-shaped fork, held firmly as if ready to stab anyone who came near.
Was this some new kind of spell, using blood to cast a curse?
A thousand thoughts flashed through Apollion’s mind.
If she were casting a curse, he needed to stop her immediately. If she were sleepwalking, he had to get her back into the mansion safely.
But what if it was something else?
Should he approach or not?
It wasn’t long before Petunia noticed Apollion watching her, lost in thought.
Hearing the clatter of metal hitting the ground, she looked up in alarm. There she was, frozen in fear.
‘What’s going on?’
Apollion was confused. Normally, the one who should have that expression was him. But Petunia was staring as if she’d seen a ghost.
Summoning his courage, Apollion stepped closer.
Petunia hesitated when she noticed him, then started backing away, suddenly reaching into her pocket again.
Something round rolled out of her pocket and bounced across the grass.
Apollion stepped closer to see what it was.
Her pockets seemed to hold an impossible number of things. One by one, round objects kept spilling out.
“Ah!”
Distracted by gathering the objects from her pocket, Petunia didn’t notice how close Apollion had gotten.
Finally realizing the figure before her, she screamed and hurled something directly at Apollion’s face.
A sharp, pungent smell hit his nose—no, more precisely, it struck him.
Clutching his nose in surprise, Apollion looked at what Petunia had thrown.
Rolling on the wet, muddy ground were… none other than cloves of garlic.
The same garlic the chef had ordered in bulk, saying it was excellent for stamina.
“Go back to where you belong! You wicked thing!”
Petunia shouted, her already-large eyes widening as if they might pop out. Her voice, cutting through the rain, was like a Pansori master breaking through a waterfall.
Apollion took the fork from her hand. It was just a fork, but seeing the wild look in her eyes, he felt it could instantly become a weapon.
Yet Petunia still seemed unaware of who he really was, screaming as though he were a ghost.
“M-Madam! It’s me!”
Apollion tried to calm her while desperately insisting.
“You… you wicked thing! Pretending to be a person—”
“I’m really telling the truth, madam! It’s me! Apollion Teabrite!”
After repeating himself several times, Petunia finally seemed to accept that it really was Apollion.
“Madam!”
Just as he relaxed, thinking he had calmed her down, Petunia’s eyes rolled back and she collapsed to the ground.
＊＊＊
It’s damp. It’s suffocating.
The heavy humidity pressed down on me as I lifted my eyelids. In the corner of the gazebo, I could see Apollion crouched there.
“Hmm?”
Why am I here?
I tried to get my bearings and sat up. A jacket that had been wrapped around me fell off with a soft thud.
A thin indoor jacket of dark gray. Apollion’s.
“Are you awake?”
“Ah.”
A bursting sound escaped my mouth as I recalled the events before I passed out.
“Oh…”
I was left speechless.
If I remembered correctly, I had mistaken him for a ghost…
“….”
Sure enough, a few cloves of garlic and some salt that hadn’t fully dissolved lay where I had been lying. And in Apollion’s hand was the silver trident-shaped fork I had been holding.
Why is he holding that?
Apollion, seemingly unaware of my shattered mental state, spoke calmly.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“…Chills, yes.”
…In more ways than one.
I didn’t bother finishing that thought.
“Then shall we go back into the mansion?”
“No. Go in without me.”
Cold. It’s like a fork just pierced my chest.
The fact that all of this wasn’t a dream made my whole body freeze. I didn’t even have the courage to look at Apollion.
“How can I leave you alone in this rain?”
“I really am fine.”
“You’ll catch a cold if you stay out here like this.”
“I’m sturdy enough.”
Apollion looked exasperated at my stubbornness. His chivalry—always coming out at the wrong time, always acting gentlemanly.
“Then shall we wait until it stops and go in together?”
“…I don’t think it’s going to stop anytime soon.”
I looked up at the pitch-black sky. Low-hanging clouds were tightly packed, and although the rain had eased slightly, it would take a while to clear.
“Please, just leave me….”
I begged him. Having mistaken him for a ghost, and now throwing garlic and salt… I couldn’t meet his gaze.
Only the sound of the rain filled the heavy silence between us.
I kept my head buried in my knees out of embarrassment.
The first to break the silence was, unexpectedly, Apollion.
“Madam… I’ve been wondering about something for a while.”
I lifted my face from my knees and looked at him.
‘…When did he even take the garlic?’
Like an old man rolling a walnut in his palm on the subway’s priority seat, he rolled two cloves of garlic in his hand.
“What is it that you’re wondering?”
At my question, Apollion glanced down at the garlic in his hand before speaking.
“Why did you have garlic and salt?”
“….”
“And… this fork.”
Apollion held out the trident-shaped silver fork I had been holding.
I felt such embarrassment that I wanted to stab myself in the crown of my head with it. There’s no shame in the world like this.
“Madam?”
“Well… it’s—”
Apollion prompted me again. He had rarely asked me to respond before, so I was slightly taken aback.
He looked at me silently for a moment, biting his lip, then met my gaze directly. His voice was calm.
“To be honest, when I first saw you, I thought you were a suspicious person.”
“….”
“You were muttering strange spells, shouting into the void… and kept sprinkling garlic and salt.”
Suspicious indeed. If it had been me, I would have called the police, thinking she was mentally unstable.
Ah, but there’s no police here.
I wanted to stop him from enumerating all my odd behaviors, but I was too embarrassed to look up.
“…So I thought maybe you were casting some kind of strange spell.”
“…Yes?”
I looked up, surprised.
His eyes, fixed on me, met mine in midair.
“There are many forms of curses and spells.”
“….”
“So I thought perhaps you were trying to cast a curse on someone.”
“Ah,”
I suddenly realized why he had been so insistent on staying by my side.
“You thought I was casting a curse…”
“Embarrassingly, yes. That’s what I thought for a moment.”
His deep navy eyes, like the night sky, looked at me. In them was trust, tinged with a faint worry.
Somehow, I felt like the clouds had formed in his clear eyes. I needed to show him that all his worries were unnecessary.
I quickly spoke.
“Well, I never did anything to make you worry. I swear, I know nothing about curses, spells, or magic.”
He nodded silently, signaling me to continue.
The words I needed to say next required a bit of courage, so I took a deep breath.
“I woke up to the sound of rain and saw a man standing in the garden… completely still, in the rain.”
“….”
“At first, I thought he was an intruder and considered waking the guards, but then I thought it was strange. An intruder wouldn’t just stand there, getting soaked.”
“….”
“He showed no sign of entering the mansion.”
I glanced at Apollion as I spoke. His Adam’s apple moved noticeably.
“So I thought… in this pouring rain at dawn, he could only be a ghost.”
“….”
“It may sound silly, but I’m quite superstitious.”
“…Not silly at all.”
He shook his head vigorously. I had thought he might be teasing me with his exaggerated reaction, but judging by his expression, that wasn’t it. So I continued.
“So I came out to check if it was really a ghost.”
“…Something like that is usually for the servants or guards to do.”
“But if it turns out to be nothing, it’s embarrassing, right? Waking everyone up in the middle of the night just seems… awkward.”
I scratched the bridge of my nose, feeling sheepish.
And inwardly, I sent him a mental plea: “Please, stop asking now!”
