“What do you mean ‘bad person’? Who was it?”
Kisa hurriedly bent toward her nanny, but the woman merely shrugged her shoulders.
“How would I know? I really only heard that much. Well, perhaps the two of you went outside and encountered some rough neighborhood children or persistent street ruffians?”
The nanny nodded several times, as if her speculation made perfect sense.
“You and Young Master Daniel were wearing nice clothes, so you would have attracted attention. Still, it’s a tremendous relief that you both returned safely.”
“…….”
Kisa stared into space momentarily before turning her gaze back to her nanny.
“Nanny, could you tell me more about that time?”
“Pardon? Why?”
“It’s bothering me for some reason.”
“You should be getting back to bed now.”
“I’ll go to sleep after hearing it. If I don’t, I’ll be too curious to fall asleep.”
“My goodness, it’s not even a pleasant story…….”
Despite saying this, the nanny folded her arms and began searching through her old memories.
She was too fond of chatting to refuse Kisa’s request.
“Well, that day, Marquis Lowens visited the mansion with Young Master Daniel, just like any other day. I was suffering from a severe cold at the time, so I was mostly confined to my room. But around early afternoon, suddenly one of the maids came looking for me, pale as a ghost.”
The incident had been such a major event that the nanny remembered it vividly, despite it being more than ten years ago.
[Would you believe it, Miss Kisa and Young Master Daniel were nowhere to be found!]
It was only natural that there would be a commotion when children not yet ten years old disappeared together.
Upon hearing the news, Count Vansfelt flew into a rage, scolding the servants who had failed to properly watch the children, making them tremble with fear.
[Marquis Lowens tried to restrain the Count. He was relatively calm.]
This was because Daniel, being quite the troublemaker, had a history of disappearing on his own several times at his own home.
The Marquis suggested that his son might have enticed Kisa to go out to play, and proposed that they send out servants to look for the two children before filing an official missing persons report.
Count Vansfelt accepted his friend’s suggestion, and servants from both families were dispatched throughout the capital city to search for them.
However, several hours passed without any sign of Kisa and Daniel, and they had just decided to file a missing persons report to get help from the police when…
“Miraculously, the two of you returned. And on your own feet, no less.”
Daniel was holding the crying Kisa’s hand with one hand while carrying a cat’s corpse in his other arm.
“Miss fell asleep as soon as you arrived at the mansion, so the Count and Marquis took Young Master Daniel aside to question him about what had happened.”
But no matter how much he was scolded, Daniel wouldn’t reveal the details.
Even the statement about meeting a “bad person” outside was only extracted after considerable pressing.
“After discussing it, the Count and Marquis decided to let the matter go. Although there had been quite a commotion, everything ended without any real trouble. The family doctor examined both of you and found that Miss and Young Master were both perfectly fine. Miss had been crying because of the cat.”
Kisa could roughly guess what happened next without having to hear it from the nanny.
Considering the timing, that was the only opportunity Daniel would have had to secretly call Kisa out and create the grave for Mustache Jack in the garden.
Kisa reflected on her hazy memories.
‘Come to think of it, it was near sunset.’
Everything seemed to have been bathed in a red glow from the sunset.
In that sunset, Daniel had hurriedly dug the ground with a shovel while Kisa weakly watched.
Looking back, the main reason Kisa had been so dejected at the time was probably not just the shock from the cat’s death, but primarily because she had just woken up after collapsing into sleep.
Moreover, Daniel, who had slipped away after being scolded by the adults, must have been hastily digging the ground to bury the corpse before it was time to leave.
‘No wonder my memories of that time are so vague.’
On that very same day, Kisa had experienced a major event that required her memories to be erased.
“Actually, Miss had been fussing a few days before that. Saying that cat was nowhere to be seen. But I never imagined you would go outside with Young Master Daniel to look for the cat…….”
Kisa tilted her head at the nanny’s lament.
While the circumstances suggested her words were correct, Kisa somehow didn’t quite believe them.
Daniel had been particularly attentive to Kisa during that period, but would he really have been kind enough to leave the mansion with her to look for Mustache Jack?
Daniel didn’t particularly like Mustache Jack, and whenever he visited the Vansfelt mansion, he was busy going out to play by himself through the dog hole.
‘Wait, the dog hole?’
Kisa immediately decided to confirm a suspicion that had just occurred to her.
“Was the hole in the wall near the back gate also sealed up at that time?”
“Ah, yes. Once they discovered that you and Young Master had slipped out through there.”
“I see.”
She had just assumed it had been sealed at some point, but there had been a specific reason after all.
Kisa fell into deep thought.
What on earth had happened outside?
The reason Kisa left the mansion was surely Mustache Jack, even if Daniel had other motivations.
That tabby cat had been precious to young Kisa at the time.
It wouldn’t be strange if she had lost her memory due to the shock of discovering Jack’s corpse.
‘But something doesn’t seem right…….’
Daniel’s mention of meeting a “bad person” outside also bothered her, and although she couldn’t explain why, she had a feeling that wasn’t the whole story.
What could have happened? What could have-
“Ugh,”
She clutched her forehead as a sudden headache struck.
“Miss!”
The startled nanny rubbed Kisa’s back.
“Are you alright? Are you in pain?”
“Thinking about what happened back then just gave me a bit of a headache…….”
“Oh my goodness! I suppose I shouldn’t have brought it up after all. Please lie down quickly. Should I bring you a headache remedy? Or should I call for the doctor?”
“It’s fine. I’m feeling better now.”
Kisa allowed herself to be pushed onto the bed by the nanny while stopping her from leaving immediately.
After tucking Kisa in tightly, the nanny instructed her with a worried expression.
“Don’t try to recall unpleasant memories and just rest easy. You’ve already been looking rather weak lately. And it seems you haven’t been sleeping properly either.”
“……So you knew.”
Kisa wasn’t the only one who had noticed her poor condition; Seyard had as well.
“Of course I knew. Who has been closest to Miss all this time?”
After a brief silence, Kisa spoke up.
“I don’t understand it myself. Why I’m like this. How should I put it…… I feel uneasy.”
Kisa found herself sharing her honest feelings.
Despite everything, the nanny was still her nanny. Although Kisa couldn’t fully like her because she was more Count Vansfelt’s person, she had still filled part of the void left by Kisa’s mother.
“I should only have happy things ahead of me, but strangely, I feel anxious. And because I don’t know why I’m feeling anxious, I feel even more anxious.”
The nanny gently stroked Kisa’s hand that had peeked out from under the blanket.
“It’s alright, Miss. It’s natural for you to feel anxious. After all, you’re about to start a new life.”
It was a wrinkled hand.
“There’s no one who’s only excited about becoming family with a new person and leaving a familiar home and beloved people for a strange place. All brides-to-be feel melancholic like you, Miss.”
“……Is that really the case?”
“Of course. It’s a symptom commonly called pre-wedding depression.”
“Did you feel that way before your wedding too, Nanny?”
“I did. It was a long time ago, but yes, I did.”
Listening to the nanny’s words, Kisa closed her eyes. A slight sense of relief filled her chest.
‘Yes, that must be it.’
The nanny, with more life experience than Kisa, was assuring her.
This anxiety enveloping her now was merely a rite of passage that everyone getting married goes through.
So it was nothing to worry about.
Nothing was wrong.
Afterward, the nanny told her own story of how anxious she had been before her marriage and how that anxiety had disappeared after the wedding.
Kisa fell asleep to the gentle sound of her voice as a lullaby.
Fortunately, she didn’t have any nightmares this time.
However, deep inside her, some form of anxiety still lurked.
The next day, Kisa hurried to the Duke of Hillan’s mansion as if being chased.
She wanted to confide in Seyard about the dream she had the previous night.
Only when she was by his side could she completely forget this inexplicable anxiety.
He was someone who always listened attentively to Kisa’s stories and provided comfort to her heart.
He silently listened as Kisa spent quite a long time explaining her nightmare, the cat named Mustache Jack, and the commotion that had occurred at Count Vansfelt’s mansion more than ten years ago.
“……I see.”
After the story ended, Seyard met Kisa’s eyes.
“To have experienced such a thing in your childhood, you must have suffered greatly.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that bad.”
Kisa waved her hand dismissively, feeling embarrassed to receive such sympathy from someone who had to leave his home at a much younger age than herself.
“No, it was. To have even lost your memories, how difficult it must have been…… My heart aches for you.”
He seemed genuinely regretful.
“However, dwelling on past events isn’t particularly beneficial either.”
“Ah, yes. That’s true.”
Suddenly, his hand moved toward Kisa’s wrist.
Seyard fingered the diamond bracelet he had given her as an engagement gift and said:
“You mentioned that no matter how hard you try to remember, the memories don’t come back, right? Then why not just forget about it?”
“Pardon?”
A subtle smile appeared on his sculpture-like face.
“Focus on the happy present and future rather than the painful past.”
