Guidelines for the Perfect Goodbye - Chapter 4
Like flowers wilting in the summer monsoon, she had aged rapidly. Wrinkles creased her emaciated skin, and her hair had turned white. She was no longer recognizable as a woman in her twenties.
The ravages of time affected not just her appearance. Her mind had changed too.
The death of her husband had completely transformed her. She no longer believed in people, not in loyalty, love, or anything at all.
Yet, she found her cynical self somewhat pleasing.
Distrust and vigilance were the basic conditions for meticulous revenge.
***
“Mother, look there!”
A young boy pointed down the corridor of the small chapel.
“That must be the madwoman.”
“Shh, be quiet.”
His mother quickly covered his mouth. They were a noblewoman and her son visiting the convent for penance.
“You can’t make noise in the convent.”
Even as she said this, her eyes were fixed on the gaunt woman walking down the corridor.
The woman, in her shabby appearance, hummed a tune as she walked. Her situation was apparent without needing to know her history.
“We pretend not to see such things.”
She cautioned her son and then gently clasped her hands together.
“Lord, have mercy on that poor woman…”
***
After being confined to the convent, Cecilia wandered like a madwoman daily, singing among the buildings no one visited.
People tried to stop her, but it was only temporary.
Before long, Cecilia stood under the corridor again, raising her voice at the entrance of the small chapel.
She laughed at her own voice and entered the chapel. Inside, where no one frequented, the air was thick with dust and mold.
Cecilia descended to the basement of the chapel.
A sacred place where the relics of an old saint were said to be kept.
But no one cared for it.
Even death had its hierarchies.
Just as her husband’s death was deemed less significant than the debts of the first son of the Pierce Duchy, the death of a saint of ambiguous fame was forgotten in half a century, sinking underground.
In the darkness where she couldn’t see an inch ahead, Cecilia used the moss-covered stone wall as her guide.
Soon, she felt the concave surface of the wall under her fingers. She lit a candle she had placed earlier.
As the room filled with yellow light, nettles growing on the stone floor and red letters on an old stone slab caught her eye.
Only then did Cecilia finally stop singing. She had already confirmed several times that Christian’s watchers did not venture into the basement of the small chapel.
She gazed at the runes on the floor with more intensity than ever. It was the ‘spell to turn back time’ secretly taught by her mother, who had been a gypsy.
It took a while to draw the runes inconspicuously over a short period. But now, the end was near.
Cecilia bit her finger to draw blood, completing the characters, and then sat down on them.
Her mother had said that three things were needed for the spell to work fully: blood, tears, and one’s remaining lifespan.
“Nothing is free, Ceci. Every act demands its price.”
She was ready, no, willing to give her entire remaining life if it meant fulfilling her purpose.
This year… her twenty-seventh summer, was the limit of Cecilia’s afterlife.
“It’s okay. I’m not afraid. …I’m not afraid.”
As she repeated her resolve, her nails dug deep into her flesh. Blood seeped into her palm, but she didn’t flinch.
She whispered softly,
“I have a right to live better than this.”
Her brow, unmarred by pain, began to furrow slightly.
“…I have the right.”
She had lived a life overshadowed by her illegitimate birth, always repressed and manipulated. A life she hadn’t chosen.
She was an illegitimate child of a nobleman and the daughter of a gypsy. Her mother, abandoning her gypsy life to dance in high society, caught the eye of Count Lasphilla but never became his wife until her death.
And she projected her unfulfilled desires onto Cecilia, wanting to make her a respected noble.
She had no idea why her mother went as far as to commit murder just for the sake of marrying her daughter off to the illegitimate son of a duke. Cecilia could never understand…
It was something she would never know. But if she could turn back time, perhaps her mother wouldn’t have to become a murderer.
If given another chance at life, Cecillia would divorce that man herself.
She would give him the chance to be with his true love. She would never love him, not even for a moment… not even at their first meeting.
Just as she had the right to be happier, so did he.
She would take back what was hers and return what was his.
And to the hyenas who coveted even what belonged to others, she would show a fate worse than death.
If she could go back.
If only she could go back.
‘…I must go back.’
Her desperation was palpable. If this didn’t work, everything would end too unjustly.
Too unfairly.
Wasn’t such an ending too cruel?
‘Give me a chance, too.’
Cecilia closed her eyes, recited the spell, and prayed.
For a slightly more valuable… more ideal ending.
Finally, a trickle of clear liquid fell slowly from her chin.
All the conditions were met.
The conditions for Cecilia Harper to regress to Cecilia Lasphilla.
She would return.
Back to the time before everything was destroyed, to the moment when she could set everything right.
