I Will Die for You, My Darling! - Chapter 28
Chapter 28
It was a low, dry voice, a familiar one. Arietta looked up. It was Isaac.
“Hello, Izzy.” Arietta offered her habitual smile. “What brings you here? My mother’s run off, and I’m out looking for her. She’s so childish, really. Where would she go in her condition? She even used the pager to call someone. But I guess she didn’t have time to wait for a reply. The message was unread, and whoever it was just vanished with her.” She chattered on as usual, even tilting her head at her usual charming angle. In her rapid-fire account, she made no mention of the possibility that Seia had drowned in the water basin. Perhaps she couldn’t bear to consider it.
Isaac approached. Despite the rain and cold, he wore neither coat nor umbrella. His hair and thin clothes were soaked. As he drew closer, Arietta naturally tilted her head back. He was only sixteen, but he’d grown so much since last year. ‘Teenage boys grow so fast,’ she thought idly. Beneath dark brows, slashed by a red scar, his golden eyes fixed on her.
The rain intensified, drumming harder against her umbrella. Arietta stood on tiptoe and extended the umbrella over Isaac. The back of her neck and shoulders grew damp, but, unaffected by the cold, she didn’t mind.
As they moved closer, something caught her eye. A few long, dark strands clung to Isaac’s wet hand. But they didn’t look like strands of thread. They looked like hair. And Isaac was wearing black buckled boots. Arietta blinked.
“Were you at my house?”
“Seia is dead.” Isaac’s pronouncement came almost simultaneously with Arietta’s question.
“Dead?”
Isaac nodded. Arietta wasn’t sure how to react to her mother’s death. A sense of loss, like a limb severed, washed over her, but she didn’t know how to express it. In the hollow space within, she smiled.
“I see. That explains why she crawled to the water basin. I suppose she put her head in it.” Considering their close relationship, Arietta’s reaction seemed callous, bordering on monstrous.
“It seems she managed to get out of bed, open the bedroom and front doors, and go outside all by herself. She even used the pager and sent a message. Quite a feat in her condition. All that activity must have made a racket, but I didn’t hear a thing. I must have been sleeping soundly.” Her voice rose slightly, her words tumbling out faster. This was the only outward sign that Seia’s death had affected her.
“So it was you. Mother sent the message to you?”
“….”
“….”
Arietta’s constant chatter ceased, her face falling blank. It was only the second time Isaac had seen her without her usual, almost sickeningly sweet smile; the first being during his visit with the physician. He reached out and cupped her cheek. The gesture wasn’t gentle, yet Arietta closed her eyes.
“…Was she still alive when you arrived?” Arietta’s voice trembled for the first time. Or perhaps it was just the rain that made it sound that way.
“She was dead. Her head was in the water basin.” Isaac’s reply was curt.
Arietta laughed, the sound as sweet and melodious as ever. “Oh, I see. I see. Then there was nothing you could do.” Her long lashes lifted, revealing her silver-grey eyes. They were flickering.
“But, where is her body? You took her, didn’t you? Where did you put her?” Arietta asked, clutching Isaac’s coat, pressing close, a hint of desperation in her manner. “Where is she? Show me. I have a right to see her. I’m her daughter.”
Isaac removed her hand from his coat, holding it briefly in his own. Then, with an unreadable expression and a flat voice, he asked, “A right? You think so?”
Arietta’s eyes widened. “Why should I or the Boss do you any favors? Now that Seia is dead, you’re nothing.” His voice dripped with malice. “Arietta, you have no power now. It’s over.”
As if time had stopped, all of Arietta’s movements ceased.
