“Very good. Now then, could you list some distinguishing features of Nana’s loins here? If you could draw a sketch too, that would be marvelous.”
“Okay. Um, just his loins?” the girl said.
“Draw his whole body if you can,” Alphonse interjected. An assistant was needed when the detective had a way of speaking that was so easily misconstrued.
“Are you sure you can actually find him?” the boy whispered to himself, evidently feeling the pair might not be very reliable after all.
“Silence, boy’s loins. Everything lies within the realm of possibility for Detective Lottie!”
“Uh, right,” the boy said, taken aback by this pretty young woman who said “loins” every other sentence.
The boy and girl announced that they would look around the west side of the village, so Lottie and Alphonse were tasked with checking the east side. The village wasn’t that large, so the two groups were sure to bump into one another if they kept up their search for an hour.
Scanning the parchment that had been returned to her, Lottie committed Nana’s traits to memory. He has big round eyes, he meows, he likes bright-red tomatoes... Well, this wasn’t the most useful of lists.
Just as Lottie had reached the end of the list, a sudden rustle made her jump. Something had just fallen from a tree!
“Eep! It’s Rolo’s loins!”
Cecily’s cat’s sudden appearance startled Lottie. She was about to hide behind Alphonse, but remembering that he, too, was a man, she instead crouched behind the nearby wall of someone’s house.
“Can you not stand male cats either, my lady?”
“I-It’s not that I can’t stand them. It’s just that I’m not the...best at dealing with them.”
In other words, she couldn’t stand them.
“B-But it’s fine. Rolo’s a cat too—his sense of smell will be most helpful in locating one of his brethren. I permit you to accompany us in the search for Nana’s loins.”
Lottie stepped out from behind the wall and began walking to continue the search with quivering steps. Rolo followed silently.
“Nana’s loooins! Heeere, Nana’s loooins!” Lottie called, in her clear, bell-like voice. Unfortunately, Lottie was putting far more stress on the “loins” part than Nana’s actual name, so it was unlikely that he would come running even if he heard her. Not only that, bystanders were watching with bewilderment written over their faces.
All the same, Lottie fixated earnestly on the mission ahead of them. The desire to safely deliver Nana back to his family bubbled within her.
“So then, how’s your first-ever journey been?” Alphonse said.
“What’s all of this?” Lottie said, with scorn that could be detected in her expression, but not her voice. “Well, there have been a few odd characters, but all the villagers are delightful.”
“I see.”
“They are the same as inhabitants of other towns and villages—royal subjects whom the royal family has a duty to protect. For that reason, I am glad that we came along to the witch village. Yes, I am still concerned about what happened to Cecily, and so I won’t deign to ignore it.”
Lottie—no, Charlotte—was nobly moving forward. Although the princess had a tendency to be scared by the world, it was in times like these that her faithful and honest personality showed itself.
“Your life’s gotten heaps more fun since meeting Cecy, right, my lady?”
“Y-You think? Well, Cecily is my one and only best friend, so I am merely playing my part.”
Even though Charlotte was too embarrassed to say it out loud, in truth, meeting Cecily had given her so much. If Cecily hadn’t come into her life, she might never have been able to grow closer to the members of the Celestial Knight Brigade, let alone go on a journey out of the palace.
“Though I was the one who wanted to make you smile most,” Alphonse said quietly. Catching his whisper, Lottie stopped in her tracks.
“Alphonse’s loins, I imagine you say that to just about every woman.”
Alphonse looked at her in silence as Lottie twitched her nose and sniffed.
“I advise you to stop—it’s the sort of sugary sweet expression you find in romance novels. If you say that to each and every woman you meet, one day you’ll end up with a knife in you. Stabbed right in the back! Stab! Stabby stab!”
Apparently, one stab wouldn’t suffice. As for Alphonse, he just gave a nebulous smile and shrugged.
“You don’t need to worry about that. I’m only saying this stuff to one person.”
“Is that so? Then good.”
If he were saying these things to but one person, then there was no issue. Lottie nodded in affirmation before continuing with the search.
“Nana’s loooins! Heeere, loinsy loinsy loinsy!”
They looked in trees, opened trash cans, and peered down alleyways, but they couldn’t find Nana.
As the sun rose higher into the sky, Lottie—whose stamina wasn’t very great—started to show signs of weariness. However, Alphonse was the one who next came to a stop. With a puzzled expression, he looked behind them at Rolo, who had begun drinking from one of the village’s streams.
“What are you doing back there? Let’s get a move on, Alphonse’s loins.”
Simply following in silence wasn’t the role of a detective’s assistant—he should at times offer comments that might give Lottie the flash of inspiration she needed. That was an important part of his role.
“A question, my lady.”
“Yes? What?”
“This cat...wouldn’t happen to be Nana, would he?”
Lottie blinked a few times in confusion, her long lashes swaying. This was an unexpected remark.
“Whatever are you on about? That cat is Rolo’s loins.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t reply when I call ‘Rolo,’ does he?”
“And he doesn’t reply when I call out ‘Nana’s loins.’”
That was true, yes, but now that Lottie thought about it, cats didn’t usually answer when called in the first place. Cats are a capricious sort, after all.
“Also, don’t you remember? Nana’s loins is white,” Lottie said, as she presented the illustrated parchment to Alphonse. The drawing was done in black ink, with Nana’s body left blank.
“It’s true that Nana’s not colored in, but isn’t that because it would be hard to draw his features if he was covered in black ink?”
The girl had taken care to draw big, round eyes—if she had used black ink all over Nana’s body, then this feature would have been lost. Such went Alphonse’s argument.
Realizing that Alphonse’s words had some sense to them, Lottie politely followed this train of argument. “That reminds me. Witches do like black and red...”
“Yeah, that’s what Cecy said.”
Cecily had said that this was a trait common among witches. It wouldn’t have been strange for many witches to all gladly own cats of these colors.
“But cats with red fur are a rare sort. So I suppose that would mean that most people in this village would have black cats,” Lottie ventured.
“Seems pretty likely to me.”
After all, Greta’s cat, Rolo, was also black.
As Lottie pondered this, she looked down at the black cat who was scratching at a branch at her feet.
“Listen here, Rolo’s loins! Or should I say—Nana’s loins!” she announced, almost as if cornering a criminal suspect. “Allow me to reveal your identity. You’re Nana’s loins, aren’t you?! Answer me!”
“My lady, I doubt you’ll get an answer...”
But then...
“No, I am Rolo.”
...an answer came.
It wasn’t a meow or a mewl, but words spoken in a human tongue. No, that wasn’t quite right—it was as if while Rolo was meowing, words were transmitted directly into their heads.
“Did he just speak?” Lottie asked.
“I...think he did.”
The pair looked nervously at one another. Lottie’s jaw was half open in shock. Alphonse bravely ventured another question.
“So, uh, you’re Rolo? Is that right?”
“Indeed. And what of it?”
He sounded rather pompous, but there was no doubt that it was Rolo who had just replied to Alphonse’s query.
Alphonse couldn’t believe it—right before their very eyes, a cat was talking to them! He was certainly shocked, but as the detective was frozen in complete disbelief, it was up to him to continue the conversation.
“V-Very well. Then where could Nana be, then?”
He had intended for this remark to be directed at Lottie, but a surprising answer came from the talking cat.
“He’s in my shadow, wouldn’t you know.”
“He...? Huh?”
In his shadow?
The pair looked on in absolute confusion, then noticed that Rolo’s long shadow was quivering slightly. It seemed as if it was swaying like a tree in the breeze when, in the next moment, a white cat came slinking out from it.
The cat had big, round eyes. Yes, there was no mistake—these cute round eyes could belong to none other than Nana, Alphonse was certain of it.
“Whew! Now that was a nice dip—the water was just fine. Thank ya, Rolo,” the white cat said, sounding like a countryside lad who looked up to the older Rolo.
It was hard to believe, but yes—the white cat was also talking right into their minds.
“Nana, your owner, that girl, she’s been searching for you. I’d advise you to head home posthaste.”
“You gotta be kiddin’ me! For serious? Jeez, what a pain in the... Right, I should get to jettin’ off back home. Catch ya later, Rolo.”
And with that, the white cat, Nana, dashed off down the road back home.
From a short distance away, a high-pitched squeal could be heard. The pair could easily imagine the teary young girl scooping her little cat up into her arms in joy.
Wrinkling his nose at the noise, Rolo poked out his small tongue.
“Is the matter thus resolved?”
“Y-Yeah. Thanks a bunch,” Alphonse said, bowing his head deferentially.
“Pay it no heed,” Rolo answered simply, before leaping up onto a roof and disappearing from sight.
Lottie observed Rolo through her magnifying glass until he was gone.
“Alphonse... It seems like anything goes in a witch village, huh?”
“You said it...”
And so the pair merely stood in bewildered silence as they pondered what had just happened to them.