The next day, just as she had declared, Leticiel was in her room sorting through her luggage.
“My lady! What would you like to do with this?”
“Hmm… I have the same thing over here, so you may throw it away.”
She sat on the sofa while she and Nicole went through her belongings. The items were spread in front of the women, sorted into groups, and there were many piles of books on the floor.
The cleanup would have gone much smoother if she had used her sorcery, but unfortunately, Nicole had been eager to help first thing that morning. Leticiel would have felt bad refusing her assistance, so they had ended up sorting through the items a little bit at a time.
“Still, seeing everything laid out like this, it’s obvious that you have a bias,” Nicole murmured, slowing in her work. It was true that she had a considerable number of personal belongings, but many of them were books that she had used to educate herself, along with some needlessly flashy knickknacks. She didn’t keep many records of herself, and few of the items showed evidence that she had used them. The only ones that did were the books that she had read multiple times.
“That’s true. But I want to take everything I can, so I think it’s fine.”
“You have a point, but…”
Compared to Nicole, Leticiel sorted items quickly without stopping. It seemed like the duke and his wife had given Drossell everything they could find to try and raise her value. Leticiel was going to use everything she could.
After dividing the knickknacks she’d been holding into the moving piles, she took a moment to stretch. She’d been sitting in the same position for a while, so her shoulders were stiff. Just then, she saw Nicole place a booklet on top of a pile of books. Although it was a scene she’d seen many times that morning, for some reason, Leticiel couldn’t take her eyes off of the booklet.
Is that…a diary?
Since the books and notepads in the room might have Drossell’s memories or other information related to her written in them, Leticiel had instructed Nicole to pack and take all of them to the new manor because they were “sentimental.”
So she didn’t have a problem with the way that Nicole had sorted the diary. Rather, she was intrigued that she felt nostalgic looking at the diary even though it was her first time seeing it. Something pulsed in her mind and her heartbeat thumped heavily, reverberating in her eardrums.
“What are you going to do with all these books?” Nicole asked, troubled. “They’ll take up too much space if we take them all…”
Her question snapped Leticiel out of it. Following the maid’s line of sight, she laid eyes on the mountains of books piled up on the floor.
“Huh? Oh, right. I think we can take them if we find boxes big enough.”
It’d be nice to be able to carry everything in her subspace, but subspaces weren’t all powerful. For example, there was a weight limit on what could be put inside. She had already put her clothes and accessories from her dressing room inside, so there wasn’t any room for books.
“I think there are some trunks that are no longer used in the manor’s warehouse. I’ll go get them!” Nicole said, fluttering out of the room immediately after.
Once the door was shut, Leticiel looked at the diary. A breeze blew in through the windows, which were open for ventilation, and rustled the diary’s pages. Taking a break from packing, Leticiel reached out and picked it up.
It was a cute diary with small flowers drawn on the cover. It was fairly small, and not very thick. Leticiel skimmed through its contents. Although not much was written for each day, the entire diary was filled up until the last page.
The name “Drossell” was written in tiny, faint letters on the righthand corner of the diary’s cover. It was dated to ten years ago, and the neat handwriting inside didn’t look like it could possibly belong to a six-year-old child.
XX/XX
Mother yelled at me today. She said I’m an eyesore. But I can’t do anything about that. What should I do?
XX/XX
I tried embroidery for the first time! I wasn’t able to do a very good job, but if I practice a lot, I’ll be able to make a pretty flower.
XX/XX
I got yelled at again. By Father, this time. Am I not working hard enough? In that case, I need to do my best.
XX/XX
There’s going to be a tea party, but I’m not allowed to go. Everyone looks like they’re having fun when they play with Christa. I wanted to play too.
In the diary, Drossell wrote about her feelings and doubts she held for her parents and siblings, the joy of being able to do new things, and other honest feelings and hopes any child might have. Judging from the way she wrote and the entries’ contents, it seemed like Drossell was an obedient and naive child.
However, by the time Leticiel had woken up in her body, Drossell was known for her lack of magic and bad personality, as she often threw temper tantrums. What in the world had happened to change her?
“No! Stop!”
Suddenly, a young girl’s voice echoed in her mind. It sounded strange, as if she was hearing from inside her body and not through her ears.
Surprised, Leticiel dropped the diary she was holding. It fell to the floor, opening to a random page with a rustling sound. A moment later, her temples were struck by a tingling pain and a white light flashed in her mind, followed by the unfolding of an unfamiliar scene. All she could see were two girls, the scenery around them shaded gray.
It looked as if the girls alone had been cut out of a scene. They stared at each other’s faces with wide eyes. The girl with pink-blonde hair sat on the ground, while the silver-haired girl stood motionless in shock.
The girl with pink-blonde hair had a small cut on her upper left arm. The silver-haired girl attempted to reach out to her with a trembling hand, but she quickly covered her face with both hands and slumped down in pain.
“What’s wrong?!”
Leticiel was wrapped in white light once more. When her vision cleared, she saw that she was looking down upon her own room from above. It was structured the same as the room she was living in currently, but with minimal furniture and looked utterlly bleak. It was littered with knickknacks, tools, cloth, and papers. At the center of the cluttered room, a silver-haired girl hugged herself with her small hands, her shoulders quaking with ragged breaths. Three adults stood around her.
They looked down on the girl with a mixture of astonishment and fear, as if she were a monster. The mouths of all three moved as they talked, but their words didn’t reach Leticiel.
She was blinded by another burst of light and the scenery before her disappeared just the way it had appeared. “Wh-What…?” she murmured, gently pressing a hand against her forehead. It was covered in a light sheen of sweat.
Even though she’d been looking at them objectively, the sights and voices she’d experienced just now seemed somewhat nostalgic. They might have been Drossell’s memories, but she couldn’t remember anything else. She didn’t know when they happened, why things had turned out that way, or what the girl had felt back then.
Something foggy and vague swirled in Leticiel’s mind. Letting out an exhausted sigh, she turned her gaze toward the diary on the floor.
“Hmm?” Bending down to pick it up, Leticiel noticed an envelope tucked into the open page. Seeing how it had been tucked away carefully in such an old diary, it seemed to be quite important. Pulling it out, Leticiel closed the diary and removed the contents of the envelope.
Dear Drossy,
I had so much fun yesterday! Let’s play again soon!
From, Alec
Inside the envelope was a single, small page of stationery on which simple words were spelled out in a child’s handwriting.
What is this? Leticiel tilted her head at the name written at the end of the letter. Who in the world was Alec? She tried flipping the letter over, but the back was blank. “Drossy” was likely Drossell’s nickname, but who was this Alec kid to her? Who were they, and where did they come from?
Knock, knock. Someone rapped on the door, interrupting her pondering. She couldn’t remember anything else at the moment, so she decided to put her thoughts aside for now.
“Come in,” she called.
“Pardon me.” The door opened to reveal Ruvik holding a tray with a tea set on it. “I’ve brought tea. Why don’t you take a break?”
“All right, I am a bit tired,” Leticiel admitted.
Ruvik poured the tea into a cup and handed it to her. A light breeze swept through the room, gently shaking the steam that rose from the tea.