BXBX NOVEL Chapter 108
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And as if my guess was correct, Jennette’s tearful voice was shaking uncontrollably.
“I explained to you multiple times from the very day I heard Mrs. Rosaria was in critical condition till this morning. Insisting like this won’t help you.”
“But…”
“Look at you. How are you going to follow anybody around when you can’t even control your basic emotions?”
“But she’s my aunt, she’s family…”
“Sure, she is. But when you come face to face with her coffin, aren’t you going to cry even harder?
.
At that moment, I silently inhaled.
What? Mrs. Rosaria’s dead? Jennette’s aunt?
I was shocked to hear such unimaginable news. Wasn’t she supposed to be working hard backing Janette up to become the heir presumptive?
[TL notes: heir presumptive – First in hierarchy for the succession of a throne, but can be replaced by someone else.]
How could she die so all of a sudden when she had been as healthy as she could’ve been before taking Athanasia out in the book?
It feels like yesterday that Janette got all hyped up to see Count Rosaria coming over to the Islands! What happened?
“Only the two of us will attend the funeral. So Jennette, stay inside the room and get yourself together.”
Roger told her with a stern voice. Both his look and tone showed a strong will to not take her, no matter what happened.
I watched in silence as Jennette’s tears rolled down her chin drop by drop.
Eventually, Jennette, having failed to get her point across, sobbed and left.
“Father, I’ll go see her for a moment.”
“Sure.”
After Ezekiel followed Jennette’s steps back into the house, Roger’s deep sigh echoed inside my ear.
“I’ll try my best comforting her. Go alone, dad.”
“How did it all come down to this…?”
I stood up on the tree, leaving Roger suspirating and his consoling wife behind.
I could now teleport to Jennette’s room now that I know where it is. I saw her close the curtains to her room with her tearful look.
Knock knock.
“Jennette?”
Now I was inside the mansion, hidden in a corner on the 2nd floor corridor watching Ezekiel knock on the door to Jennette’s room.
Choke. But why am I sitting behind this flower pot looking like a loser? I’ve got my invisibility on too.
Eh, I get that watching people in secrecy is sort of a bad habit…
But I didn’t even try to move away from that spot as I was thinking of it.
“JennetteI need to leave for the Rosarias soon.”
Not getting any response behind the door, Ezekiel started to talk to the closed door by himself.
I sat behind the flower pot, listening to what he had to say.
“Tell me what you heard before. I’ll make sure to tell them.”
Eh? Heard before?
“Jennette…?”
Ezekiel’s low, soft voice called her name again.
A heavy silence filled the space for quite some time. Ezekiel just kept facing the door without a hint of what he’s thinking.
A moment later, click opened the door.
Between the door was Jennette, crying. Similar to when I saw her at her window, she had her veil off and her face was flooded with tears.
Jennette simply cried looking at Ezekiel just outside the door. Perhaps she had realized that trying to talk to Roger was going to be in vain.
“Jennette.”
After looking at her for a moment, he slowly raised his hand.
“It’s alright.”
His arm wrapped around Jennette’s exhausted shoulder. I watched in silence as Ezekiel hugged Jennette.
“It’s okay to cry.”
Sob, sob…
“There’s nothing wrong about being sad over a loved one pass away.”
Ezekiel’s low whisper and Jennette’s shallow sob traversed the room like a wave in a calm sea and into my ears.
“And you not being able to do anything deepens the sorrow…”
“Sob…”
A mental picture of the two in a greenhouse with a sea of white roses flew past my mind.
It was when Ezekiel was to leave for Arlanta and Jennette didn’t want him to leave her. He comforted her, patting her on the shoulder with his rather clumsy hands.
“Jennette, it’s not like we can’t understand how you feel.”
But this time, Ezekiel’s comforting hands were a lot more skillful and sophisticated than those at the greenhouse.
And Jennette was crying endlessly in his arms. Hugging Ezekiel on his back, she sobbed sorrowfully enough to make me cry…
“Umm… Can you…”
She let out a tearful voice.
“Give this flower?
“Surely.”
“That I loved her so much… sob. I still love her…”
“Yes, I can.”
“And that I’ll miss her… for the rest of my life.”
Having told Ezekiel her wishes, she started crying as if the wave of emotions hit her again. I just noticed the white flowers in Ezekiel’s hands.
Ah. Jennette couldn’t even hand her aunt a farewell flower.
“I’ll make sure.”
Ezekiel whispered to Jennette, crying.
I kept on looking at them, filled with a mysterious sensation. Then after a while, I left the scene, feeling somewhat frustrated.
I was on the reed field once again.
It seemed like teleporting when my feelings aren’t all that stable is more likely to move me here. Is this like a checkpoint, sort of?
“Ahhhh…”
Anyway, I spat out my suppressed voice as I lay down on the field.
What’s going on these days? Claude gets amnesia, Mrs. Rosaria suddenly dies…
I watched the clouds go by above my head, speechless. The relentless dancing of the green-brown reed leaves filled my eyesight.
It also reminded me of the interaction between Ezekiel and Jennette I just witnessed. That had my brain in shambles all over again.
Oh, I miss Lucas again. He would make fun of me. Like all this doesn’t mean anything. Like you don’t even need complex thinking.
“Ah, I’m going off-track, aren’t I?”
I want to make this clear that I didn’t want the story to unfold how the novel did. Choke. Of course! I don’t want to be framed for poisoning nor have Claude kill me.
But on the flip side, Mrs. Rosaria passing away could mean something good for me.
But when I think of Jennette crying over her aunt’s death, I feel kinda strange for a bit.
She wasn’t, at least for me, an amiable person. But to Jennette, she was her only aunt.
If I were young when this happened I really wouldn’t have cared that much… But our friendship over the tea parties and letters had me getting butterflies in my stomach.
So that evening, I snuck into Alpheus’ mansion again.
Similar to what I had seen in the daylight, the residence had an eerie vibe to it.
The two biggest factors to this vibe would be 1) Jennette who lost her aunt, and 2) Duke Alpheus who got his plans all messed up.
I don’t know what Roger was up to but since he always kept tabs on me, he was planning something with Mrs. Rosaria.
Huh. Now that I look at it, Roger’s plans don’t go too smoothly unlike in the novel.
He’s set everything up nicely but unexpected things keep happening in execution. Claude who seemed like I was getting along nicely with suddenly loses memory and freaks out, Mrs. Rosaria, an ally to Jennette, also suddenly passes away.
Kek. So Roger, don’t use other people as your tools and do stuff with your own hands, alright? You’re living your best life! What—why would you even want more? You’ll lose all your hair if you keep stressing over those kinds of things!
After a short period of mourning for Roger’s hair, I focused my magic on my fingertips. Then the note on my palm floated away into the terrace in Jennette’s room.
Tap!
I tried the same thing with the green unripe fruit from the tree next to me.
Tap!
As I kept launching stuff, I noticed someone at the window. The curtain covering the room finally opened.
The face that appeared through the open curtain was palely lit with the moonlight. But her eyes were still brightly red, maybe because she kept sobbing even after Ezekiel left.
After looking around for a moment, she picked up the note on the terrace and opened the door. I watched her from afar.
[I shall meet you in three days, at this hour; from your friend.]
Her eyes became wide open when she read the note. She looked around even more but not being able to find me, she went back into her room.
I watched quietly as she closed the terrace door with the note in her hand and left the mansion shortly after.
* * *
“Excuse me.”
As I wrote in the note, I visited Jennette’s room three days later. I kept scouting the mansion three days prior to my visit since I was worried that she would have told Roger or someone else about the note. But fortunately, no such sign was to be found.
I walked into the glass terrace door, as if it were welcoming me.
“Good evening, Miss Margaret.”
As I stood up on the floor with the moonlight shining, I saw Jennette standing all by herself. Seeing her alone in the calm darkness… It makes her look like a wandering ghost. Or a nocturnal goddess. But anyway I’m gonna admit, I’m lowkey scared now.
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