Beast Castle

“Episode 61”

Heysh, who had conquered all sorts of toys, classified his one and only younger sister as an annoying little frog. What caught his eye were sleek animals, and he particularly liked well-trained dogs and exceptional hunting falcons. However, his father, not caring to understand his son’s mind, only gifted him a puppy that had just been weaned from its mother.

‘What is this? It’s so tiny!’
The puppy, recognizing Heysh as its master, clung to him, and even Ray, who generally disliked animals, found it appealing. Though she couldn’t bring herself to be too kind to it since it belonged to her greedy brother, she occasionally showed affection by petting it when they crossed paths.
‘Go away.’
Heysh, who had taken care of the puppy for a few days, soon grew tired of it and pestered his parents for another animal. Initially, they scolded and tried to soothe Heysh, but it was difficult to ignore the whims of their cherished eldest son for long.
In the end, the puppy, still not fully grown, was handed over to the farmer who delivered milk, and the only one crying bitterly was Ray. While many adults chided her, saying a young animal wouldn’t remember anything, no one truly empathized with her sadness. They offered half-hearted consolation, saying she would forget as she grew up, and paid no heed to her tears.
But no matter how much she grew or how her clothing sizes changed, Ray never forgot that puppy with its scent of milk. She realized the notion of forgetting as one grows was a lie.

Then, on a sunny day, Ray accidentally saw a dog trailing behind that farmer. The puppy that Heysh had abandoned and Ray had longed for had grown up, wagging its now fluffy tail. And it was wagging it at Ray.
Young Ray probably found the puppy’s lively greeting quite bittersweet back then.
The sky, cleared of white snow, was filled with clouds that resembled that puppy. Ray often thought of the puppy, perhaps because she felt their situations were similar. She assumed she had grown up without a hitch in a noble family but, in truth, was a frightened coward full of scars. Just as Clodan didn’t know, he had noticed that she was hiding something, and the world often blindly trusted preconceived notions.
Ray was overwhelmed with too many thoughts. Distrusting Clodan, she scrutinized even the tone of his passing words. So she knew well. Her cold-hearted husband, Clodan, was acting strange somehow.
First, there was their bedtime routine. With her increased libido, Ray had regular sexual relations like clockwork, but for the past few days, Clodan’s movements had been different. They seemed cautious, one might say. Clodan thought she was too distracted to notice, but that was impossible. Her mind was clearer and sharper than ever.
Second, there was the peculiar contact. While he often hugged her, he didn’t usually rub her belly unnecessarily. Sometimes, he would just rest his hand there for a long time without doing anything. Initially, she thought he was checking to see how much weight she had gained, but this suspicion combined with her first one, giving rise to a new possibility.
Surely not. The thought was almost too absurd to be true, but the possibility, now dragged ashore, was bewildering yet not entirely implausible. A child, her own flesh and blood…
“You’re not thinking of freezing to death, are you?”
The voice, colder than the window against her cheek, interrupted Ray’s musings. Since when had he been watching her? Having briefly gone upstairs for some business, he now closed the open window.
“You’ll catch a cold.”
He wrapped a coat around Ray, but she couldn’t feel the cold. In fact, she resented his hand for blocking the wind’s entrance.
“Are you hungry?”
After saying “Are you,” his gaze lingered on Ray’s belly. Though he continued speaking nonchalantly, one thing was clear: he was concerned about something. And it had to do with her belly.
Surely not. Ray bit her guiltless lip, yet she couldn’t help imagining a child.
A child with bright blond hair and eyes as yellow as Clodan’s, a golden child. Or perhaps an angelic child with glossy black hair and her blue eyes. As she imagined a child with rosy cheeks toddling about, she found it impossible to dismiss the idea entirely.
Even if the odds were one in a hundred, if such a child existed, even the impudent thought seemed unworthy.
“Ray.”
Clodan’s hand turned Ray’s shoulders back. His voice, tinged with anger, spoke to his wife, lost in sweet imaginings, almost as if rebuking her.
“Do you really not want to talk to me at all?”
Ray considered asking him. Whether he was behaving this way because her suspicion was correct. Or if he had some other illness and she was just misunderstanding. If she was indeed pregnant, what kind of child did he want? A daughter or a son? Although she didn’t care about the gender, she wondered if the current state of just giving blood was alright.
But she stopped thinking about it. Realizing anew, she almost dared to hope again. He would never share any truth with her. Even if he did, she couldn’t trust it to be true anymore.
She simply stared down at her belly with a vacant look in her eyes.