“Young master! Young master Pelliot!”
In the tranquil village of Ordan, where windmills turned slowly with the winter breeze blown down from the mountains, between the fields where the wheat planted in the fall had grown thick and verdant, a lone man ran along the footpaths.
“Young master Pellio~t! It’s time for your studies! Geez, I wonder where he ran off to.”
He had simple straight red hair and thick glasses. Even his gait was somehow unreliable.
“Ah, Armando!”
A cute young girl with freckles came across the path and waved at him. Behind her, a woman carrying an infant also greeted him.
“Hey, Mera! Hello to you too, madam! Your baby has grown a lot.”
Armando stopped and peered at the infant in the arms of the woman.
“Yes. Thank you. He has an incredible appetite.”
“Since mama’s breasts aren’t making enough for him, we’re going to go get goat milk,” Mera said boastfully. Embarrassed, her mother rebuked her.
“Ahaha,” laughed Armando. “By the way, have you seen young master Pelliot?”
“Pelliot? He was walking that way with Thomas and Katts. Just a little while ago.”
“Wha-at?”
Mera pointed to the road that led to the forest to the north of the village.
“Young master!”
Tottering on his feet, Armando ran off.
Following the dusty path desperately, he saw the backs of the three boys in front of him before long.
“Young master Pelliot!!”
“Ah, it’s Armando.”
The fat boy looked back. At those words, the blond boy walking in front leading the way clicked his tongue.
“Tsk, he already found us, huh. Thomas, Katts, run!”
“What, no way.” The fat boy frowned.
“Thomas! We’ll leave you behind.”
“Go ahead.”
“Crap.”
The other two attempted to run off, leaving Thomas, who showed no signs of hurry whatsoever. But Armando caught up to them.
“Haa, haa, haa…Young master Pelliot! Thank goodness, I made it in time…”
The boy with blonde hair grumpily turned his face away from Armando, who held his arm. This was the village chief’s son, Pelliot.
“Katts, you too, let’s go home.”
“What will you give me if I go?”
The skinny, hunchbacked Katts turned his eyes up to Armando.
“S-Sure. If you ask the master, maybe some snacks.”
“Yay.”
“Traitor!”
As Thomas and Katts hurriedly started on the road back to the village, Pelliot sulked.
“All right, young master, let’s go, too. The master is waiting. Today’s the one day in ten the professor comes from the town.”
“I know, but!”
Pelliot looked towards the forest with a dissatisfied expression. But perhaps he’d given up, because he started to reluctantly walk down the path, led by Armando’s hand.
“Why did you decide to go to the forest on today of all days? You’re always told that children can’t go in there by themselves. You’ll incite the wrath of the Mountain God.”
As soon as Armando said that, they heard a roar from deep within the forest that shook the ground.
Boooooaaaagggghhhh, boooooaaaagggghhhh.
“See, it’s the voice of the Mountain God.”
“I know! But!” Pelliot stopped and looked back at the forest over his shoulder.
“…I saw a rainbow.”
“A rainbow?”
Pelliot’s gaze settled on a craggy mountain that rose up across the forest. He seemed to be looking at the mountain’s foot.
“A rainbow, over there? Even though it hasn’t rained here in quite some time?” Armando asked for more of an explanation, but with that, Pelliot hung his head, and not another word was heard from him until he returned home.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, Armando. Good job.”
When Armando brought Pelliot back home, the village chief himself opened the door and greeted him somewhat impatiently. “The professor is already here. Pelliot, go to your room.”
Pressed by his father, the boy climbed the stairs with an unhappy look on his face.
“Armando, could you clean up the barn out back? Yesterday I noticed a hole in the roof. Some water blew into it during the heavy rains last month, and the things stored there are almost ruined.”
“All right.”
“I’ll call a craftsman before long and have him fix the roof, but for now, please take out anything that appears to be damaged.”
“Understood.”
Armando headed towards the barn.
“Speaking of which, I’ve never been inside here before,” he mumbled to himself as he opened the poorly fitting door and set foot inside.
The air was stuffy with the reek of mold. There was also the smell of old books and dust.
A normal person would only have noticed those smells. However, Armando’s special senses also caught a faint aroma hanging further within the air.
“Isn’t that the smell of perfume and cosmetics?”
Without hesitation, Armando walked into the dim, narrow barn, with messy piles of things littering the interior.
“Hmmm…the hole in the roof must be over there.”
A band of light shone through the seams of the roof boards, illuminating the dust dancing in the air.
“The things underneath there certainly have traces of having been wet. I suppose I should take out the things from around there.”
The aroma from before rose up again. Looking for its source, Armando drew near the shelves along the wall.
Several beautifully ornamented wooden boxes were lined up on the shelves.
“Clothing boxes. That one’s cosmetics—it must have been one of Pelliot’s mother’s.”
Armando had heard that the lady of the house passed away from an illness shortly before he had arrived. These must be the possessions she had left behind.
They must have been hidden in the barn for Pelliot’s sake. The boy still deeply missed his mother. Armando also understood that the reason they hadn’t been thrown away was because of the village chief’s love for his wife.
“Fortunately, they do not appear to be damaged…oh?”
Armando looked at a small chair in front of the shelves.
“This is the only place where the dust pattern is different.”
It was as if someone had been sitting there sometimes.
Armando folded his thin, tall body in half and peered at the bottom shelf in front of that chair.
“A book. No, perhaps a diary.”
He looked over the stack of old paper.
“Well, it’s not a diary. This is…a story?”
Moving his face closer, he scented the same faint perfume as from the wooden box.