ALL NOVEL 14. A Friend
“And who might you be?” Mortimer asked.
“Uh… excuse me, my name is Milk, I was asked to look for information about the man around here.”
“Around here? What does this mean?” Custodio crossed his arms, compared to the cranky dude in the flat cap, the dude looked massive.
“Uh, around the area of Onzaga. I have been going through the rural area Here,” the guy handed Mortimer a small card. “My employer is Mr. Valentin Periwinkle, he’s the brother of the man I am looking for.”
At the mention of Valentin, Caruncle scowled at the little guy. What the hell was Valentin looking for? He hadn’t looked for her for the 10 years she had been chained to rot away. Why was he looking for him now?
To keep track of her, yes. The mere thought made her mad.
“You got late.” Custodio pointed at the coffin. “The guy has gone out cold.”
“Oh my god! Is this…” The guy walked a little closer to the coffin trying to see the body from where he was.
“Yes,” Mortimer answered. “He was one of the servants of this manor, until today.”
“What happened?”
“He was mopping the floor and he slipped,” Custodio said as he turned on another cigar. “He cracked his head wide open with the corner of the desk and that’s the end of the story.”
“Mopping the floor?”
“Yes, any questions?”
“Well, his fingers…”
“Right, I guess that explains you what happened then.”
“I… I see.”
“I hope your discretion on this matter but… this house has seen better days. I thought I could get some cheap labor if I bought him but, oh well, lesson learned, wouldn’t you say?”
“Uh… right, sir. Excuse me, might I take a photograph? I know this must be incredibly rude and inappropriate, but if I take a photo I can show my employer that–”
“Go ahead,” Custodio smiled at him as he sat down in one of the chairs at the side of the coffin. “Might as well take the souvenir now that you are already here.”
“Thank you, sir. Please allow me…” Milk took the bulky camera from the caleche and placed the tripod on the grass, he took a while to properly set the thing and when he looked into the camera he finally noticed Caruncle’s womanly form at the side. She was still scowling, breathing in and out slowly trying to dissipate the anger. “Oh,” Milk blushed at seeing her. “Excuse me miss, if I take the photo you might end up appearing on it and–”
“Don’t worry,” Custodio waved his hand. “Maybe if she appears in the photo then it wouldn’t look quite as grim.” He chuckled.
“Haha, right, well, if you’ll allow me, then…”
Before the man took the picture, Caruncle lowered her arms and looked at the camera with her eyes wide open and an empty expression on her lips. The final photo pictured the corpse in the open casket and her polite face in the frame.
“Thank you.” Milk put the camera back on the caleche. “I think that is all, thank you for your help, sir.”
“Right, make sure you get to the city before the sun sets.”
“Y-Yes, thank you.”
“Have a good trip my good man!” Mortimer waved at him, he looked back at Caruncle one last time and blushed yet again.
Once the man had left, Custodio stood up and looked at the girl in the wheelchair. “IThat was on me, I should take care of all loose ends while you are recovering.” Caruncle looked at him but I don’t know exactly how to describe the expression she was making. I think it was something between that annoyance she had, but there were also traces of a smile in her lips, I just thought she was angry.
“Mortimer,” Custodio said while keeping her eyes on hers. Both of them were looking at each other in that angry, sorta happy way that was creeping me out. ”Continue with the funeral.”
“Ah, yes, sir!” Mortimer broke off his trance, I caught him smiling at both of them, entertained by their contest.
“Miss Elena, as I have mentioned before, you aren’t the first one going through this path, but I do have the hope in my heart that you and I can get along. That is all.” He sat down in the rusty chair and smiled at the man in the trench coat. Custodio on the other hand raised an eyebrow at him.
“Is that it?”
“Ah, yes, sir, that will be it for the moment.”
“Hmph, alright. Elena, you might forgive us for the precary conditions of your funeral. I am not rather fond of priests, and while there are people I know that could help us with this ceremony, due to the nature of this burial, I hope you understand that we should keep things as quiet as possible.”
“Some word is spread around still about the burials your father does for his own servants, Miss Elena.”
Caruncle was just looking at them trying to make sure she was actually listening, she was still thinking about the guy in the cap and the corpse behind her, the corpse she still wanted to kiss.
“Ha, many people I know do funerals for their own slaves. They just never say that stupid word out loud,” Custodio threw the cigar at the floor and stomped it with his foot.
“Right, sir, please… I cleaned this spot just this morning, if you could–”
“Elena, we are going to hold two minutes of silence. You cannot speak, but one minute will be for you to think your own words about your past life, the other minute will be given out of respect. All of your life, everything that happened on it, everything that you went through, we will all stay silent for a whole minute in its memory, and after this minute, that will be it. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“Then, let us begin.”
The both men stayed silent and Caruncle got to thinking. A minute for her to say anything to her old self, it was odd she had to face the damn corpse but when she tried to turn around the chair she was stopped by the butler. It was all happening so fast that for a little while I thought her brain would finally explode.
The man behind her, the body, the vermin, the idiot, the wreck. No, no words came to her mind. She traced her steps, first it was the other world she knew, that… now felt so far away… and then she had to grow up yet again in this other world… and, how old was she when she left? Then it was time in the basement… no, the time in the basement it’s not something she wanted to remember, no, then, she was here, and, she was able to write, she hadn’t forgotten how to write, that was funny. There was a beautiful afternoon at the top of the hill of the Pisces Library she clearly remembered and that once she thought was enough to have given meaning to her life. She thought that maybe she could have died that day and–
“Now, time for the prayer.” Custodio stood up, I was half sure it hadn’t been two minutes yet.
“She who drowses in the shadows,
Where twilight dwells vice,
The mistress that from her whims we dawn from,
No more than a harlot or a whore,
Abandoned us in this soil,
Retaliation for our ire we still seek,
Until we finally leave our mortal coil.”
I sat down on the third chair that stayed empty, somewhat bored. After the coffin was placed inside, he started digging, throwing dirt inside it I mean, you know what I mean. Once the thing had been closed, Caruncle was finally allowed to look back at it, which I thought was weird, but well, she had been weird with the guy too, so whatever.
The wind was blowing and I felt incredibly cold.
***
"Though your movement is limited, Elena, it is no excuse to let grace falter. Even while seated, a lady must maintain the elegance that defines her station. Your back, my dear—straighten it. Imagine a string pulling you upward from the crown of your head." Mortimer repeated yet again, with the corset and bulk of clothes on, even while they were outside she felt hot and tired.
Caruncle tried to adjust her posture, but as she straightened her back, she winced slightly, her discomfort visible. Her hands, meant to be placed lightly on her lap, tightened into fists for a moment before she forced them to relax.
"Your hands, Elena. A lady’s hands should never betray her emotions. Release the tension. Control, my dear—everything is about control."
Caruncle exhaled softly, trying to release the tension in her hands. Her shoulders stiffened, and her back slumped slightly as she shifted, trying to find a comfortable position. She glanced at Mortimer in frustration.
"It only has been a few days since you fell from the window, miss, your leg will take a while to recover, but that doesn’t mean we should be teaching what we can in the meantime. Again—straighten your back."
Custodio was looking at her with a skeptical look through the window. He had already finished a cigar and was already starting a new one. In front of him at the other side of the desk was a meek man around 30 years old, probably 5 years older than Caruncle.
“And you are telling me that you found a way to bring back the dead, Mr. Esparza?” He asked him with eagerness in his eyes.
“No, again, not exactly, you just can’t simply take a rotten corpse and give it life.” He scratched his head while trying to read in his notebook. “If I have enough good parts, fresh body parts, I can use the enchantment and that will stitch them back together into a living being.”
“But how can the spell know how to stitch together the body parts?”
“My theory is that it uses a template.”
“A template?”
“I’m not really sure, but it only works on humans, if you try to bring back another animal, it won’t find enough parts to stitch together, and the spell won’t work, I have already tried with several cats, it just didn’t work.”
“What did you do with the cats?”
“We have a crematorium in the lower plant of the manor.”
“I see.”
“I might try with some other animals later, but so far neither cats, dogs, parrots, cows, pigs, chicken have worked. Only humans have so far, and they still have to be fresh, if they aren’t fresh, it doesn’t work.”
“Oh wow, I sure hope Lassie doesn’t come around here, she is an adventurous cat and sometimes she doesn’t come back home for weeks. I haven’t seen her for the last two weeks actually.”
“Right.” Custodio continued writing in his notebook while he periodically looked at Caruncle working with Mortimer to improve her posture.
“She’s a siamese cat with splotches in her face, have you seen her around?”
“And… I think that was the last log for the day…” Custodio didn’t look back at the man, he was now just mumbling to himself.
“Sir? You haven’t seen her, right? Right?”
“Yup, that’s it.” He kept on mumbling.
“Uh… sir?”
“Yes?”
“What have you done with the people you brought back?”
“Oh you know they just eventually die on my hands, I keep testing the limits of the enchantment myself so I keep removing body parts to see at what point the spell stops working.”
“And then you put their organs back in?”
“No, organs don’t last long.”
“So… Do you just–?”
“Getting a crematorium wasn’t cheap, I might as well use it as much as I can.”
“R-Right.” The man kept looking back at Caruncle over and over, sometimes he asked Custodio something, but he didn’t bother looking back at him.
“What is it that you look, Sebastian?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir. It’s just that your daughter is so lovely, it really brightens one’s day to see her.”
“Yeah, well, I'm not looking for suitors for her right now.”
“Oh no no sir! I didn't mean to imply anything of the sort.”
“Right.”
“Why is she learning etiquette, though? She looks rather old for that kind of–”
“She has amnesia.”
“Amnesia? What happened to her?”
“You ask too many questions, Sebastian. I rather have you ask things about the enchantment you are supposedly interested in.”
“Uh, I might need to try it myself, first, but for that I would need a body.”
“I'm not going to get you any bodies myself, slaves are expensive enough as of right now.”
“Oh, no matter! I think I can ask my father for some… arrangements, I suppose, I'll see what I can do.”
“Then, is there anything else that you need from me? Or are you done bothering me?”
“Well, it's just…”
“What is it now?”
“Can I talk to her?
“To who?”
“To your daughter, sir, if it's alright, I would like to introduce myself, I was thinking we could maybe talk a little.”
“She doesn't talk.”
“Pardon me?”
“She doesn't talk, she's mute.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, even if she doesn't talk I feel I could still introduce myself and tell her—”
“Sebastian, I didn't invite you to my home because I didn't want you to nose in my own affairs, now that you have gone through the job of tail me to find where I live so we could have this so called lesson you want, I conceded because I felt it would be enough for you to leave me alone, but I'm not going to let you bother my daughter or get further into my life more than I want you to.”
“I mean, sir, I understand your need privacy and if you find me inconvenient I will leave right away, but I was thinking that maybe, perhaps, I could work as a small acquaintance to the lady, I imagine that she must feel rather lonely here and maybe making a small friendship could do her some good, even if it's just me. Wouldn't you say so?”
“That’s still a no, and if we are done here, I expect you to be out of the manor in 10 minutes or less.” Custodio stood up and walked out towards the door.
“Sir, please…!”
Outside the manor, Elena was finally taking a break, Mortimer said he would prepare coffee and left to the kitchen, saying he wouldn’t take too long. Once Sebastian was outside the manor he directed himself towards Caruncle, who was absent mindedly looking at the clouded sky. It really seemed like the sun never came out in that place.
“G-good morning?” Sebastian said, slowly walking to her field of vision. Caruncle got startled and almost jumped out of her chair.
“My apologies, I didn’t mean to scare you!”
Caruncle studied him from head to toe, the guy looked normal, non threatening, he was dressed with a normal, stiff suit and had some books on his hand. She noticed he was the guy Custodio was talking with just before, she couldn’t run with her leg still injured, but it was probably still okay, what did the guy want with her anyway?
“So, uhm… my name is Sebastian, nice to meet you, ma'am. I’m an acquaintance of your father, I thought I could present myself now that I’m on my way out.”
Caruncle shook her head while pointing at her throat.
“Oh, I know about your condition, ma’am. Don’t worry.”
She seemed to relax for a bit but kept looking at him closely, detailing him. She looked at his eyes, his nose, his lips, she couldn’t quite figure the guy’s mood out, and that was making her feel uneasy.
“Uh, your father and I go a long way back. Do you know what we study?”
She shook her head again.
“Well, it’s actually a very interesting subject! We are studying arcane magic!”
She raised an eyebrow.
“See, arcane magic, or well, that’s how we call it, it’s the art to control reality.” He lowered his notebook and put it on the table in front of her. “In the society I am from we have the theory that the world wasn’t created by the god Xenothropides, but a goddess called Jazmin.” He looked back at her and she nodded while looking through the notebook. “Jazmin left this world abandoned, but the way she created the world was documented in a grimoire. Our group found a few of these pages in some ancient ruins. Well, it wasn’t me, it was a bunch of old guys 50 years ago, but well… they managed to decipher some of the spells, and we have been working to decipher more spells!”
Looking through the notebook, Caruncle actually recognized a few of the texts and illustrations, they had been part of one of the books she had seen at the library of Pisces. If the spells were real tools she could use, then things would have been a lot more interesting. Sigh, she couldn’t actually use the spells, they required the enchanter to speak out loud.
“I’m sorry miss, I must be boring you with all my talk, aren’t I?”
She pointed at the pen Sebastian was holding.
“Oh, are you asking for my pen?”
She nodded.
“Here you go, miss.”
She looked at the list of already deciphered spells. There was a spell called Echo of the Forgotten: It summoned the whispers of lost souls, but with no guidance or knowledge, only meaningless fragments of their last thoughts. Death’s Lullaby: It made the caster fall asleep for 3 days or so. Veil of Eternity: Enveloped the caster in a protective aura that rendered them immune to the passage of time. It was not used since it basically killed any human who used it. Infinite Echo: It amplified a sound or a word to echo endlessly across dimensions. It was theorized that one could use it to communicate across vast cosmic distances, but when humans used it it just created an irritating, never-ending noise with no purpose. Out of the thousand of spells she saw back in the library of Pisces, those 4 were practically useless. She remembered hearing Custodio talking about a resurrection spell when he was talking with Sebastian in his study, but that seemed to be everything they knew.
She started writing in the book, trying to see if she could remember any spells whatsoever. It had been probably almost 20 years since she went to the damn library, and she couldn’t remember anything of the book of spells at all. Back then, she thought it was just a rather mediocre book of poetry so she never paid attention to it.
“Well, I guess it is my time to leave.” Sebastian said while reaching for the pen, Caruncle stopped him and continued writing, there was an incomplete spell on the book, it read “Perfect Memory: It helps the caster remember anything in specific they have gone through with clarity.”
“Miss, you are lovely and everything, but those are very delicate spells and I rather not have you scribbling in my–”
When he looked back at the book, he noticed that the spell seemed to be completed. It had taken him 2 years to try to decipher half of it, but the woman in front of him seemed to have finished it in two minutes. Caruncle looked at the finished enchantment. “Another useless spell.” She thought and grimaced. It was useless, she couldn’t use any of the spells or even remember any of the useful ones. Working in magic was a futile endeavor anywhere she looked.
“Sebastian! I told you to leave right away!” Custodio yelled at him from the entrance of the front door.
“Oh, right sir! I’ll be going now, my apologies!” He took the notebook and the pen from Caruncle and walked towards his carriage, his driver was waiting for him, half asleep. “I hope we can talk later, ma’am, thank you for your time.” Sebastian took her hand and kissed it, making her blush terrybly. She looked away and waved at him with embarrassment still on her face.
“Wake up! Wake up right now! Yes, we have to leave!” He could be heard from the entrance. “Home! Where else? Let’s go! Now!”
The man finally left after a while. Mortimer brought in the coffee and she started drinking while looking at the clouds. With the clouds always over the sky, it was always hard to know what time of the day it was. They were starting to feel more like a sterile ceiling, a ceiling of a never ending room that extended towards the horizon and covered it all, making her feel trapped.
“Magic is stupid after all.” She thought to herself, she was just trying to distract herself from the hand kiss, which still embarrassed her.