“I find her really creepy.”
I recalled the words that she—that Clarice’s mother—had said, almost spitting them out.
She had lost her husband when she was still young. The child she had given birth to may have been the guardian and protector of their home, but she was still, so to speak, a complete stranger.
She told me she found everything about the place creepy.
“But at the same time, I feel like I want to understand it.”
That afternoon—
—she told me about it.
She must have felt she was surrounded by strange people, and even her daughter was weird, so she had no one she could really talk to and no chance to find someone. She relayed her thoughts to me bit by bit, slowly, as if she was carefully considering the meaning of each of her words.
“I can never forgive the Crescent Moon Witch, Clarice. But you know, it’s funny. Even though she’s supposedly a different person inside, her smile is the spitting image of my husband. She’s a complete stranger to me, and yet, when she’s eating her meals, the way she moves is exactly like my husband. It’s probably just a coincidence, but whenever I see those features in her, it makes me happy. It does, even though I ought to know she’s a completely different person who just borrowed my daughter’s body. Even though I’m fully aware that the person in front of me isn’t actually my daughter.”
Her tears overflowed, dripping down her face.
She told me how, the first time Clarice ever stood up, she had been so happy that she’d nearly cried. But after many days had gone by, Clarice had simply become independent of her mother.
Without saying a word, she had grown up. Or rather, it may have been better to say that she had reverted back to being the original Clarice.
Her mother’s days were filled with sorrow. Any suggestion she made was thwarted by a chilly objection from Clarice, and whenever she went out into town, she found only useless meddling and looks of misplaced envy.
And when she went back home, there was a complete stranger wearing her daughter’s skin.
But that didn’t necessarily mean everything about her life was awful.
“Every year on my birthday, that girl—well, she would buy me flowers. The flowers my husband liked. When I asked her how she knew to get those, she said she asked around with my husband’s friends.”
Continuing her reminiscent story, she smiled, even as she was still crying. “Once I started spending all my time moping in my room, she went out of her way to buy me books from foreign countries so that I wouldn’t be bored. Lately, I haven’t been cooking much, but whenever I get a whim and come into the kitchen and start cooking, that girl looks positively delighted. Even though her cooking is better than mine anyway.”
She told me those gestures were all part of the childish side of Clarice, a side that she absolutely never showed to the people of the city.
Even though she knew the person wearing that smiling face was a complete stranger, “Each and every one of those little gestures made me so happy. I must seem like a fool—,” she said.
“……”
Unable to find the words to answer her, I simply stared at her in silence.
Theirs was a warped parent-child relationship, and it certainly must have been a far cry from the ideal one she had imagined. However, they did indeed have a blood relationship, and although they were strangers, at the same time, they were still parent and child.
“Those days were filled with misery, but there were also lots of little joys, I’ve realized lately.”
A human life is by no means a perfect thing, and each life is filled with countless failures and setbacks. I was certain she must have realized that truth to a painful degree in her lifetime thus far.
Even so, she said, “I’m sure there are plenty more unpleasant things in store for me and that my future is full of things so painful, I won’t be able to stand them. But even so, I still feel like I want to try to find common ground with the girl. Because right now, I’m the only mother she has—”
She added that she was sure she was the only one who could ever get close to the girl in any real way.
Clarice’s mother, who had been living for so long in a life that had gone off track, smiled as she said that to me.
“I wonder if it would be strange for me to eat something like this now, even though I’ve always rejected her.”
She lowered her gaze to where last night’s leftover stew sat. It was something Clarice had made. She had left a little out for her mother before she’d gone.
Shaking my head, I answered, “I think it will make her happy.”
The woman heard my response and nodded in apparent relief and lifted a spoonful of stew to her mouth.
She tasted one of life’s small joys.
✦ ✦ ✦
“My mother was killed by the wandering dead. I cannot forgive myself for my own weakness.”
The following afternoon, a throng of people crowded around in front of the Crescent Moon Company building. The fourth floor of the building had been destroyed. They had heard about the uproar the previous night and all the details later, and many people were there grieving the death of Clarice’s mother, tears streaming down their faces.
They were crying as if their own mothers had died.
“Lady Clarice! Please do not be sad!”
“We are with you!”
“We will be by your side always!”
“Hooray for Lady Clarice!”
“Hooray!”
She was surrounded by mindless supporters.
“Everyone…thank you.” Laying a hand on her chest, Clarice put on a smile. “Please, everyone. I hope I can count on you to believe in me and follow my lead once more. I promise that nobody else will ever end up like my mother.”
I wondered how the citizens saw this young woman. She was such a skilled actor.
I wondered if she looked like a courageous young woman who was bravely putting on a smile even though her mother had just died.
I wondered if she looked like a magnificent witch and a worthy guardian.
“……”
That afternoon—
—while the people were surrounding her with applause and cheers—
—I turned my back and headed for the city gates. I did not say good-bye to Clarice. It didn’t seem like the right situation for it, and I didn’t have that kind of relationship with her.
During the day, the city was brimming with life.
Children passed me, pointing up at the building where the fourth floor had been destroyed. In their hands were dolls patterned after Clarice.
I was certain that even after everything that had happened, the dead were not going to stop appearing.
And she was not going to stop killing unborn children.
And despite that, the people there would keep living lives devoted to her, sacrificing all their own happiness for the Crescent Moon Witch, Clarice.
Just like the dead.