“This was the place her grace loved the most. She often had a table brought out here on days when the weather was nice to have a cup of tea or read,” said Eliza as they walked into another area of the garden. Freshly bloomed flowers could be seen here and there even though it was in the middle of winter. “There are five gardeners assigned specifically to this area,” Eliza continued.
“Five gardeners?” I repeated.
“Yes, my lady. It is a lot compared even to the other lords, but his grace likes to keep this place just how her grace liked it,” answered Eliza.
That was a little dumbfounding. He seemed like such a cold man. I thought the Andantes were known to be heartless and merciless. What happened to that?
“They use magical tools here to confuse the plants, so you can see flowers that bloom in all four seasons in one place,” said Eliza.
“Umm, Liza,” I called.
“Yes, my lady,” answered Eliza.
“Why did my mama… pass away?” I asked carefully. It had suddenly occurred to me that I knew that my mother had passed away, but not why or how.
“…Well, her grace was due in late January, but she had you in the beginning of November,” said Eliza as she looked down at me with a bitter smile. “She stopped by the capital on her way back from her family’s. A letter arrived not long after that saying that she had passed due to childbed fever but thankfully you were alright.”
So it really was because of me. Not some other underlying disease, but simply because of me,
I thought to myself gloomily.
“Don’t look so sad, my lady. I’m sure her grace was happy she could protect you, at least,” Eliza tried to cheer me up. But it wasn’t working. Of course, I knew that people died during childbirth in some unfortunate cases. That was not an uncommon thing, but it didn’t make me feel better now that I knew that it was my own mother who died like that.
Maybe this was why the woman said that I was cursed so often.
“What are you doing here right now?” A familiar voice suddenly called from behind.
It’s Dad!
I thought and immediately turned around to face him before Eliza could even hold my hand. Was his afternoon meeting over already?
Well, I did keep eating for a long, long time after he left, to be fair.
I figured that maybe about three hours had passed since he left the dining room.
“Your grace. My lady had quite a bit for lunch, so we were taking a walk so she could see the garden and help with digestion,” explained Eliza.
“…It’s very cold outside,” he said in an even colder tone. Then, his ruby red eyes scanned me from head to toe. Realizing that he didn’t seem as warm as he did before, I froze in my spot in fear.
Have I done something wrong?
I tried to reflect. It suddenly felt like it got colder. My body started to shake.
“Did she have anything to eat at all?” he asked. “Look at her shaking like a leaf. It looks like she’s starved for days.”
He definitely did not seem pleased. Right when I was starting to get a bad feeling about this, he asked, no, accused Eliza, “Why is she in this garden right now?”
It seemed like he wanted to say that I shouldn’t have been brought here. A suspicion started to form in my head.
He’s not looking at me like that because of Mom, is he?
It definitely seemed like he loved my mother, so much so that he employed not one but five gardeners to take care of the garden she liked so much. And to see the very reason his wife was six feet under in the very place she loved…
He must resent me,
I concluded. And if I kept doing things that would get on his nerve like this, and kept getting cold stares like that…
I’m going to get kicked out
. And with that realization, my heart that was once so full of hope deflated into utter despair.
***
“Are you alright, my lady?” Eliza asked again. She’d been checking on me since the moment we were basically sent back to my room.
“Mhmm,” I awkwardly nodded.
“Don’t be so discouraged, my lady. His grace is just not a man of eloquence,” she tried to cheer me up.
“Not a man of ewoquence?” I repeated as I felt my heart sink. So how much worse is it going to get once he starts expressing his true thoughts?
You little rat! I saved your life, and this is how you pay me back? Don’t you ever dare step out of that room again!
The woman’s voice echoed in my head. Was Dad going to start to talk like her too?
My hands started to shake. I walked over to the bed, completely dejected, and turned around to ask, “Umm, can I wie down?”
“Sorry? Yes, yes, of course, my lady. You don’t need to ask for permission from me,” answered the flustered Eliza.
Really?
My eyes widened. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t need to ask permission before lying on the bed. Until now, I could lie down only when the woman told me to and had to get up whenever she said I had to.
“Are you going to take a nap, my lady?” asked Eliza. When I just nodded without saying anything, she asked with concern, “Do you need anything? Are you hungry at all?”
I quietly shook my head this time. I’d eaten to the point I was about to throw up not that long ago, so my tummy was still very full.
“I’m okay,” I said before climbing up the bed. I watched Eliza tuck me in and then leave the room. A sigh of relief escaped my lips when I heard the door close, but my mind was still buzzing with the danger of getting kicked out.
“What do I do…” I mumbled as I started biting my nails.
Eliza had said that they couldn’t bring me here from the capital because of the beasts, but maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe Dad left me there on purpose because he couldn’t forgive me for his wife passing away. It’s not like the Andantes are known to be a loving family…
My stomach sank. If he weren’t fond of me to begin with, it was highly likely for things to go wrong no matter how much I tried. And no matter how many other options I considered, none even began to compare to being raised in this warm, affluent environment.
It’s not like anyone liked me before,
a sudden thought occurred to me. In my first life, my parents abandoned me and my grandmother abused me. In my second life, my parents didn’t like me as well and only schemed to use me. And in my current life, the woman beat me and abused me.
Maybe how much I try doesn’t matter,
I sniggered. The image of Dad’s cold glare from earlier kept lingering in my head, driving my thoughts more and more pessimistic.
In my first life, my grandmother said that I was a heartless, stubborn girl.
In my second life, my parents said that I was a self-centered, narcissistic, stupid girl.
Maybe the reason things keep turning out like that is that I really just am such an unlikable person. Maybe I never deserved to be loved.
Thinking that broke my heart. Why was I like this? Why did everyone hate me? If I’m someone everyone’s going to hate anyway, how was I supposed to survive here?
“Oh!” I exclaimed as another thought came to me.
In my second life, my parents, who only said the coldest things to me and were not very nice to my other siblings either, treated just one of my siblings differently. Lina, the third child. I remembered my parents even saying that Lina was the apple of their eye, and that they could do anything for her. And even though I felt the blatant discrimination, I couldn’t dislike or be jealous of her either. Lina really was just such a lovable child.
She always lit up the room. No matter how bad things got, she never lost her smile or became dejected. Even in the toughest situations, she would try to find a solution rather than pout and whine. She even knew the right thing to say in every situation.
I gave up on seeking approval from my parents in my previous life, but there always was that underlying yearning for affection. Seeing how Lina got all the love I could ever want and more did get under my skin at times. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to actually hate her.
What if I did what Lina did?
I thought. I didn’t want to get kicked out. Not until I was old enough, at least.
But what I want most of all is…
I recalled the way Dad warmed up a bit when I found the volume of the sphere.
What I want most of all is…
I wanted his approval.
And in order to get his approval, I had to get off my ass and get to work.
Looking back on my previous lives, good things were never just handed out to me. In my first life, I had to study day and night, pinching myself and banging my head against the wall to not fall asleep. In my second life, I ate whatever I could find out in the wild to survive the famine and worked my way to becoming an apprentice to an architect by volunteering to do all kinds of chores no one else wanted to do.
And the ultimate reason I was brought to this castle in this life was that I exposed the woman of her lies that day.
I couldn’t just sit here, worrying about being abandoned.
I mean, it’s true that I was still scared of my father. Just thinking about his distant eyes staring at me and the cold way he was speaking to Eliza sent shivers down my spine.
“No!” I shouted as a clenched my trembling hands into a fist.
If he doesn’t like me, I’ll make him like me.
“Wet’s see who wins,” I said resolutely.
I’m going to prove my worth with my brain, and I’m going to make it here.
I repeated my newly set ambition to myself. I was determined to make the next time we met count.