APIBAGS Chapter 47

By now, the neck might already be cut. The falling blossoms looked too much like something severed, and Daisy turned from the window. From now on, when she smelled flowers, she would think of Merai.

"How are they settling in? The children?"

"Well, I think."

Not the way Daisy had worried. The children had folded into the estate with surprising ease. The hardest person to deal with at Rohanson Manor was Evangeline, but perhaps because it was Evangeline who had brought them—the children had adapted faster than anyone.

Yulma had gone into the kitchen. Her hands were quick and skilled. The habit of cooking for many had apparently followed her from the orphanage, though—she was regularly scolded for making too much.

Ranen had gone under the butler's wing. She'd always known he was sharp with numbers and clever for his age. She hadn't expected him to catch the butler's eye this quickly. The butler had apparently been standoffish at first, on account of Evangeline having brought him, but now kept the boy close as though attached.

And Mary...

Mary was getting along as if she'd been born Mary Rohanson rather than Mary Gold.

There was nothing to give a young child to do, so she'd been left to roam the estate freely—and she had attached herself particularly to Melek, who'd been locked underground alongside her. Melek had volunteered for stablehand duty, saying he wanted to earn his keep, and the unruly horses had taken one look at him and gone docile—a very warm reception. Mary had been given the assignment of feeding the horses carrots by his side.

One by one, as the children Evangeline had promised to retrieve came back, the ranks would fill.

"Are you satisfied?"

At Evangeline's question, Daisy nodded.

When she'd fled the estate in terror, she had been certain she would never return.

"Very much so."

She hadn't expected to feel this kind of peace—surrounded by the fibrous threads spread like netting across every wall, and all those eyes embedded in them.

A hell of a day to die... Honestly, I should be blowing smoke rings right now. For the aesthetic.

My whole body felt slack and languid. All I wanted was to lie down and have Kanna feed me grapes.

Under normal circumstances, lying around doing absolutely nothing would have been perfectly acceptable. But right now, this was the only rest I was going to get.

After Gabriel proposed we attend social functions together, I became a person who wouldn't have enough bodies even if I had ten of them.

That damned debutante was the problem.

I wasn't exactly the pinnacle of society—I hadn't even debuted yet, which meant that before attending balls and functions in any real capacity, there was a great deal to prepare first.

"Your constitution was so frail you couldn't even manage a debutante, my lady."

Daisy had explained that Evangeline's body had been too delicate for a social debut—but given that she'd apparently had enough energy to make others' lives miserable, it seemed far more likely that the Count had simply kept her back out of fear she'd do something villainous again.

When I sent the Count a telegram announcing the debutante, he'd written back: since arguing wouldn't stop me, I could do as I liked—but please, this once, could I behave normally.

The tutors came with the letter. At least he understood I'd need to relearn things, given the claimed memory loss.

But one or two would have been sufficient... Etiquette, dancing, painting, riding, embroidery—and I had no idea why poetry was on the list. Six tutors, all told. At least there was no history.

Not that the tutors had been much help.

The poetry tutor had apparently trained in literature, and was therefore highly sensitive—he left a poetic metaphor about Rohanson Manor being a fragment of hell in bloom on earth, a hall where demons romped and frolicked, and threw in his resignation without setting foot past the front gate. In plain terms: frightened by Evangeline's reputation, he bolted.

The embroidery tutor watched my finger get accidentally pricked by a needle and draw blood, at which point he wept and begged me not to cut his throat, then fainted. For the record, my embroidery received an official verdict of: not improvable.

Riding had required no instruction at all, since the horses obeyed me too perfectly. The instructor declared after one day that there was nothing left to teach and sent himself home.

The painting tutor had asked about a studio. I showed him to the adjacent storage room—it was somewhat dim, and he'd seemed a little unsettled. He asked if he could look at some of the work. I explained the paintings weren't mine, but lifted all the cloths to show him anyway. He fled.

Which was, honestly, understandable.

Everything Evangeline had painted was the same person.

Same woman. Identical composition. Facing directly forward, every single one. Somehow it gave me goosebumps—like a horror movie, the kind where the eyes follow you when you're not looking. And something about the face was familiar. Who was it.

"Do you know who she is?"

"It must be the late Countess, my lady."

Cold sweat. A momentary slip—that was all.

Looking again—not a horror movie at all. Just art, actually. Evangeline had quite the gift. The familiarity was probably because the face looked like Evangeline.

Daisy explained she'd also come to the household after the Countess had passed and had never actually met her.

In the diary, she'd written nothing but curses aimed at the Count, had wished for death and condemned herself—and in the paintings she was smiling, faintly.

"She was beautiful."

She wasn't my mother. And yet I missed mine.

At least she'd seemed to be able to smile for her daughter. A small relief.

I covered the paintings back with cloth, out of the sunlight's reach.

Anyway. The painting tutor was frightened by the portraits and quit on the spot. The butler had been driven to come personally begging me to observe some limits, as he was finding it extremely difficult to keep the tutors from talking. I hadn't done anything. I felt wronged.

"It's fortunate your body still has its habits, even if your memory is gone."

At least the etiquette tutor had enough professional pride to see me through. Maybe the transmigrator buff was kicking in here—etiquette had come pre-loaded, already running as a passive, no relearning needed.

That's what they call muscle memory. Although the reason I occasionally said something rude without meaning to was presumably my tongue's own version of the same thing.

"Dolly worked hard as well."

"It was all thanks to you keeping up so well, my lady."

I'd been grateful she'd stayed without running, so I'd told the butler quietly to give her a generous bonus.

Dolly broke entirely with the cliché of the severe etiquette tutor. She was profoundly unaware of her social surroundings and genuinely kind-hearted. She likely hadn't even heard of Evangeline's reputation. Was that why she hadn't run.

"The dance instructor will be coming soon. I was told your constitution was frail—will dancing be all right for you?"

The body wasn't the problem. The problem was, once again, the instructor.

I'd picked up the steps quickly enough, but when it came time to actually practice—I'd need a partner—the instructor had found he physically could not bring himself to touch me. He'd been politely declining to actually dance with me ever since.

"Pardon me, my lady—have you finished with your lesson?"

Hena knocked and asked from outside the door. Called in, she greeted Dolly, then handed me an envelope.

The addressee was the dance instructor.

"Don't tell me."

That was exactly it. Strip away all the elaborate justifications and what remained was: since I'd learned all the steps there would be no trouble, I've done what I can, I quit.

"He's quitting too?"

"Yes."

With that, every tutor was gone—Dolly was the last one standing.

The dance tutor was funny, actually—he'd taught me everything he had to teach, so why he was slipping out now was beyond me. Still, at least he'd taught me the steps. Very decent of him.

I told Hena to tell the butler to pay the full tuition regardless.

If he quit partway and got nothing, there was no telling what he'd spread afterward.

Who knew how Evangeline learned everything then fired him without paying a coin might get distorted by the time it left the estate. All I had was money—and now they'd be calling me a miser.

"Yes. I'll pass that along."

"Well... I should be going as well."

Dolly, who had been reading the atmosphere, gathered her things and rose.

"Do you know how to dance, Dolly?"

"I know the basics. But to be your practice partner would require taking the gentleman's role, wouldn't it? I only know the steps well enough for general accomplishment, I'm afraid."

So she couldn't manage the lead part. Right.

"What if you asked Sir Gabriel to serve as your practice partner?"

I suppose... I'd be dancing with Gabriel anyway. I might as well just ask him directly.

Dolly offered her advice, apologized thoroughly, and departed.

With Dolly gone, the afternoon came unmoored. I went back to my room and collapsed on the bed, and Pudding walked across my back in what was technically a massage. Endearing, but completely useless...

Jelly watched this, then shifted into his human form and gave me a proper one. Every knot in my body dissolved. Jelly had a genuine gift for this.

"Did you learn somewhere?"

"My previous employer occasionally had me do this sort of thing."

I'd asked where he'd picked it up and stepped right on a wound. Right—I sometimes forgot, but Jelly was a former slave...

"Making me do this kind of thing—terrible taste, isn't it."

That sounded directed at me, the one currently receiving the massage. I told him that was enough and pushed Jelly off. Fair enough. Bad taste on my part.

"Jelly, do you know how to dance?"

"Would I know human dancing?"

No. He was a werewolf who'd escaped from slavers, so of course he wouldn't. I'd just been curious whether dancing had come along with the massage somehow, and figured I'd ask...

"Do you know?"

Jelly grabbed Pudding's tail and asked. Pudding scratched him.

"What a foul temper. If you don't know, just say so."

No—that was his fault for asking a baby who couldn't talk yet. How much Pudding must want to answer.

"Why dancing? Did the instructor flee too? Humans really are all such cowards."

My point exactly. How is everyone so thoroughly frightened. The world had a severe shortage of people built like Dolly.

"Still, it's good Dolly's still here."

"How much longer would you like her to hold out? A day? A week?"

"I'm not sure."

This idiot—practically holding a memorial service for Dolly's resignation already. Left unchecked, he'd be running bets on when she'd quit.

"She'll need to make it at least two weeks."

"Two weeks. Understood."

My debutante was scheduled two weeks from now. Already late in the season, with balls and functions running in full swing—but there was nothing to be done about it...