To make a long story short, they found her head right away. It was at a fork in the canal. Luckily, the veil of her habit had caught on something and kept her from floating further downstream.
“Yoo-hoo! You’re finally here. I’ve been waiting for you, cutie,” the head spoke.
After all his experiences with various kinds of undead, the sight did not surprise Glenn at all. However, this was the very creature that had stabbed him to death. Her casual attitude, as if what she’d done was nothing, left him speechless.
“Oh, and you brought my body for me. Thank you! You’re so sweet.”
“Uhhh—”
“Oh, right, I didn’t introduce myself… Could you just pull me up?”
Ever the worker bee, Cottingley went into the canal before Glenn could. He grabbed the Dullahan by the hair, veil and all, and pulled her free of the water with a splash. The fairy, who normally handled many of the tasks around the clinic, possessed significant strength despite his small stature.
Cottingley handed the severed head to Glenn.
“Teehee. Nice to meet you…I think? My name is Molly Vanitas. Oh, and I’m not that imposter in the Graveyard City. I’m the real Molly. Nice to meet you, Glenn.”
“Um.” Glenn didn’t know what to say to this self-introduction the wet severed head had just given him. He recognized Molly based on her appearance but hadn’t expected such a bubbly personality.
“Ingrate! What are you so happy about? You’re the one who just murdered Dr. Glenn!” Cottingley cried out.
“Yup, that was me. Sorry, cutie.”
“Idiot!” Cottingley couldn’t hold back his anger at her ludicrous attitude.
She should have been Glenn’s enemy—but she was so cheerful that he lost the desire to pursue her crime. He also thought it would be pointless to demand this severed head, with her tongue sticking out, show remorse for what she did.
That’s not right.
No…his gut told him not to expect her remorse, or even to blame her. Molly was a reaper. Causing people’s death was routine to her, which was probably why she was so casual about it. The first-generation Molly granted death the same way Glenn examined patients.
“Molly,” Glenn said to the severed head in his hands. There was something else he needed to ask her. “I heard…that you were the manager of the Graveyard City before you lost your attachment to life and ascended. But why did you become a reaper?”
“Ohhh, are you interested in me?”
Molly’s first-generation head was spinning round and round by itself. Was that its version of flailing? He found it surreal that the rest of her body stood next to him without reacting at all. Apparently, head and body didn’t move. In tandem.
“Well, you know, I lost my attachment to the Graveyard City, so I planned to kiss the living world goodbye…but then, you know, the Queen of the Underworld took a liking to me.”
“I see,” Glenn was all ears.
“Thus I began my third life…as a reaper, reincarnated as a fairy Dullahan. I am the adorable first-year Reaper Molly, brand-new to the job,” the severed head laughed.
The face looked like Molly, but for some reason, her eyes remained closed. It was the complete opposite of the second-generation Molly’s bulging eyes. Perhaps she’d originally been a woman with narrow eyes.
“Then, as soon as I took the job, I ended up reaping you, Glenn.”
“Reaping?! Do you hear yourself? This is a young doctor with a future! He was not sick in the slightest! It is unforgivable what you’ve done!”
“Whaaat? But people die suddenly all the time, you know? You know that, right, Glenn?” Molly protested.
“That is not the issue! There is supposed to be a plan for the life of living beings! Was his death really already decided?! The way you talk certainly doesn’t make it sound so!”
“Mmmm, I hate when the little fairies get mad at me like this,” Molly groaned.
“Take us to the Lord of the Underworld! She shall explain!” Cottingley demanded.
“Whaddya want to see the queen for?” Molly asked innocently.
“The queen is the only one with the power to bring Dr. Glenn back to life! It was you who put him in this situation, so we shall persuade the queen to send him back.”
“I guess that makes sense…” Molly’s severed head said. She was quiet for a moment, looking back and forth between Glenn and Cottingley. “I have a lot to tell you but—first can you put me back together?”
“Together?” Glenn was confused. When he’d been killed in the clinic, the Dullahan was holding her head under her arm.
“My body is in independent mode right now. Once we’ve been separated for a while, the connection gets fuzzy. If we can be firmly resecured together one time, I’ll still be able to control my body even if my head comes off again. It’s like reestablishing the connection, I guess?”
“Uhm, oh…”
Glenn didn’t entirely understand, but it seemed to be something Molly needed done right away. What she was saying about her head and body being disconnected didn’t entirely make sense in light of the fact that the head was moving while the body wasn’t—it seemed obvious that it would be hard for her to do anything while her body was moving involuntarily.
“Hey, show some respect! If you’re going to kill Dr. Glenn, then explain yourself at once!” For some reason, Cottingley was angrier than Glenn. “Dr. Glenn, take that severed head! The body will probably just get in the way. The head is enough. Maybe she will speak eventually!”
“Ahhh, don’t say that. It’s not easy for me either, you know? Well, that’s top-secret information, though…”
“Have you no shame…?”
The severed head and fairy were frowning at each other. Glenn wasn’t sure what to do.
“Well, you don’t have to do it, but you know I have the key to the central castle, right? You guys want to meet with the Queen of the Underworld and go back to the realm of the living, yeah? Pretty please? Do it for me? If you don’t, you won’t even get to meet the Queen,” Molly warned.
“Erg…You!” Cottingley’s wings quivered at the threatening words.
“Hey now.” Glenn attempted to calm the fairy down. “Why don’t we do as she says for now? We can’t get into the castle without her, after all.”
“Hmph. Well, that may be so…” Earlier, Cottingley had told Glenn not to misunderstand his efforts to save him as proof he cared about him. But he clearly was very concerned about Glenn.
“Also…I can’t overlook someone in trouble who claims to be ill,” Glenn admitted.
“You never stop being a doctor, do you? That’s your sickness,” Cottingley said, exasperated.
“Heh, well…” He couldn’t deny it, but he didn’t have time to think about that now. Besides, he was interested in the physiology of a Dullahan—he had never seen one before.
“So, obsession is an illness that even death can’t cure.” Molly smiled.
“Don’t be cheeky, murderer!” Cottingley cut in.
Glenn couldn’t do anything but chuckle at the severed head’s endlessly flippant words.
“Hm.” He looked back and forth between the upright torso and the severed head he held in his hands. At first glance, the body looked like that of a normal human’s. The only apparent difference was the flame-like substance being emitted from the stump of her neck. A similar substance flowed from the point where the severed head would connect with the neck. The flaming particles transformed into butterfly shapes and danced around in the Underworld air.
“Now then. First of all…” Glenn tried holding the head against the body.
“Ooh!” For some reason, Molly cried out in a sensual, flirtatious voice. “Hey, I’m a lady you know. Be gentle,” she teased.
“Oh, uh, sorry,” Glenn apologized. “Well, I tried to line up your head and neck, but…I’m not sure if it’s because there’s something wrong with the fit, but they don’t join up well.”
“Ohh. Since we were apart for so long, my connection to my body must have been completely cut off. The body is starting to generate a mind of its own. If left alone, we will become completely separate, and a copy of me will start acting on its own,” Molly explained.
“That’s…a thing?” Glenn asked.
“C’mon, it’s not that strange, is it? This is the Underworld. Here, there are only souls with no form. If something goes wrong, or enough time passes…the form we had in life can change,” she elaborated.
Glenn felt like holding his head in his hands—but his hands were currently full of Molly’s head. It seemed that the common knowledge regarding flesh that the living world was bound by didn’t apply here. Everything was vague and nothing was certain in this world. It struck him all over again that this was the Underworld—the world after death.
“Anyway, it would really get in the way of my work if that happened, so make sure you put me back together,” Molly instructed.
“I tried that, but it didn’t work…” Glenn pointed out.
“It’s fine. Aren’t you a brilliant doctor? Your soul hasn’t changed, you know? There’s definitely a way to put everything all the way back in. Just try a few things…then make sure you put it all back where it belongs, cutie.”
“O-okay.”
Glenn was hesitant. It wasn’t like she’d said anything particularly odd, but for some reason, he felt like the first-generation Molly’s words had a deeper meaning. Maybe he was imagining it.
He thought about the issue at hand again. The rules of the living world did not apply here. He was going to treat a soul with no physical form. It went without saying that he’d never learned about such treatment from Cthulhy. However, according to Molly, she’d once been human. He was sure her head had been connected to her body when she was alive, and even if they were separated now, a reaper Dullahan was still meant to be a single being. Even in the Underworld, he should be able to force her to return her to her ideal form.