They were all killed in a carriage accident].
It was after midnight. I was alone in the house, reading the letter that had come to me.
Outside the window, the rain was pounding the ground. The dark room was illuminated by a fierce flash of lightning, then darkened again.
[He was dead].
It took me a moment to realise the sentence. I had lost all my family; I had lost my home; I had lost my family. Even if she had abandoned her home and her family, she had no intention of leaving them behind.
” Lisa!”
A voice called out to her.
Without thinking, I stood up and ran down the stairs. The man outside called my name several times and knocked on the door. I hesitated to open the door, then tugged on the doorknob.
As soon as I opened the door, the rain-soaked man swept me into his arms. His breathing was ragged from running.
“……are you okay? No, that’s not what I want to say……. I’m just so glad you’re okay, and I’m sorry for being selfish, I’m sorry. Lisa.”
He stammered, then stroked my back. The wetness of his clothes against my bare skin bothered me more than his gesture.
“Lisa.”
“I always……. I hated my father, but I never wanted him dead. I hated my family, but I didn’t want to lose them. I just…….”
“It’s not your fault.”
“……I wasn’t greedy. I wasn’t greedy for anything. If I was greedy, it was just for my family. I wanted a family.”
“Then…… with me. Make a family with me, and let’s make a happy ending.”
I could feel the man’s hands trembling. But now I didn’t want to be greedy for anything.
* * *
I was poor.
My first life, to be exact.
Born in South Korea, I was the only daughter of a cult-obsessed mother and a gambling addict father.
It wasn’t a normal family, so my life wasn’t normal.
I gave up college and my parents for money. And it was money that killed me.
Until the day I died, I dreamed of living the life of The Hero of Fenton Street, which I had read since I was a child, and I hoped that in the next life I would have a lot of money.
That’s probably all I wanted.
Money. Cheques.
But who knew I’d end up with a life that was not only rich, but worse than the one I’d had before, a life of a character with a line in The Hero of Fenton Street.
“Lisa, what the hell are you doing?”
I had been in this corner of the house for ten years now.
I looked at the woman intercepting the book in my hand.
“I was reading a book.”
I said, stating the obvious. Jezebel looked at the mechanics book I was reading and threw it to the floor.
“Lisa, I told you, don’t look at the book.”
I wasn’t looking at pornography, and I wasn’t reading a book full of violence. Jezebel was always like that.
She was jealous that of her six children, I had the most brilliant mind, which is why she never gave me a tutor.
Eventually I persuaded Silke, who was a year older than me.
“You don’t want to study, do you?
“Why do you ask?
“Then why don’t you let me do it for you?
She was the kind of girl who hated studying and books, so it worked. We made a careful plan and for six months I took over her education.
At first, the tutor didn’t like it, but when she saw that I understood her at once, unlike Silke, she became enthusiastic.
But the soft-spoken Silke had told the fourth, her twin, Swell, all about it.
‘lisa.
‘What is it?
“You want to study, don’t you?
Swell demanded that I take over his classes. When I reluctantly went into the room to fulfil her request, the tutor was still nagging me.
The next day, the tutor told Jezebel all about it. In one fell swoop, all my plans had been thrown out the window.
From then on, she would pounce on me if I even looked at a book.
“But you said I could read a couple of books.”
“You were wrong, stay away from books for the next month!”
It was an odd thing to be scolded for studying, but it wasn’t as if I didn’t understand Jezebel’s feelings; she had every right to feel sick to her stomach when the five children she had borne in her own womb were outnumbered by the children of others she had picked up outside.
Lisa Marsen, illegitimate, with dark red, curly hair and yellow eyes.
The child of a woman who worked in a brothel and a father who was an earl.
The woman who bore me had warned him that if he didn’t raise me as a count’s daughter, she would tell the world about the dirty count’s body that had been rolling around in the streets. Terrified by the threat, he had taken me in.
“I can’t, Lisa. I’m sending you on an errand. Beatty!”
Jezebel called for Beatty, the maid who was to run the errand with me.
“Mistress, what do you want?”
“I need you to run an errand with Lisa. I just need you to deliver something from the storeroom.”
I got dressed to go out while Beattie went to the storeroom to get the items. When I walked out the front door, Beatty came running in with the package.
“Oh my, did you get dressed by yourself again? Miss?”
“You’re in a hurry, and it’s just clothes, I can put them on by myself.”
“But miss, next time, don’t do it alone, call me!”
“Okay, okay. Okay.”
“Miss! Miss Lisa, where are you going?”
A panicked Beatty called out to me. I hadn’t intended to run a frivolous errand in the first place.
I ran off into the woods, and Beatty quickly followed. After passing through the trees, a small lake came into view. It was still winter, so there were no fish in the frozen water.
I assessed the thickness of the ice on the lake and climbed onto it. After playing in the slippery water for a while, I saw a flower garden at the far end.
The colourful flowers were showing off their colours, and one in particular caught my eye, a purple flower that only blooms in winter.
“Miss!”
“Wait! Let’s take a look!”
“Wait, wait, wait!”
I ignored Beatty’s urging and ran to the flower garden.
I pushed my way through the long blossoms that reached up to my head. I could feel the scent of someone ahead of me. After a few more steps, I spotted a boy and girl sitting in the middle of the field.
Their silver hair, which matched the flowers, glistened in the sunlight. Their piercing blue eyes, deeper than the ocean, seemed to pierce through me. My body stiffened at the sight of the two doll-like figures.
“Huh? The girl next door!”
The little girl said, pointing her finger at me. The boy who spotted me at the same time closed the book he was reading and frowned.
I could tell he didn’t like me.
“Let’s go, Yune.”
The boy stood up from his seat.
“Why? I want to stay!”
“Your mum told you to come quickly.”
This is the first time I’ve ever seen them face to face.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t know them.
Behind the flower garden, I saw the Duke’s house on Fenton Street. It was my mansion, my neighbour to the Marsens, and the home of the hero of my possessed novel, The Hero of Fenton Street.
Yes, that pretty boy glaring at me now was the hero, Euric Fenton.
…… who would one day put me on death row.
The Marsens and the Fentons had been at odds for a long time; the Marsens were full of dirty tricks.
Euric , the future lord of House Fenton, had uncovered them and put all the Marsen men on death row.
“Let’s go, Yune.”
“No, I want to stay a while longer, my neighbour’s sister is here, okay?”
Little did Yune know, the male protagonist, Eurik, didn’t like the Marsen children from the start.
“Whenever I see the stupid Marxen children, I feel dirty.”
I remembered a description I had read once.
I was about to step out of the way when the book in Eurik’s hand fell in front of me.
The three of us stood still as soon as it landed.
In the small silence, I lowered my head to look at the open book. I thought he was reading some kind of heroic tale or autobiography, but he was reading a children’s book.
It was a book I’d read when I was two years old and hadn’t even looked at since.
‘Oh, I wonder if he brought it to read to Yune?
I was secretly thinking.
“Huh? It’s my brother’s favourite book!”
Yune said, tearfully.
“…….”
“…….”
The book was worn, so it hadn’t been read more than once or twice.
I picked up the book that had fallen in front of me and dusted it off. I held it out to Eurik, who was now in front of me and snatched it out of my hand, his face bright red.
With the book in his arms, Yurik turned on his heel and headed for Fenton Manor. I grabbed my sister’s hand.
“Sister next door!”
It was then. Yune suddenly called out to me.
“Name, what’s your name?”
“……Lisa, Lisa Marsen.”
“Lisa? That’s a beautiful name! See you later, pretty girl!”
She smiled broadly and gave me a big wave. I timidly waved back.
It was a sudden encounter. In my daze, I heard Beatty’s voice in the distance, as if she had been looking for me all this time.
“Miss! Where are you? Miss!”
“Oh…….”
I ran over to Beatty, who was standing there almost on the verge of tears, thinking she had lost me.
“What a surprise, I thought I’d lost you!”
“I’m sorry.”
“What on earth were you doing?”
“Just……. I happened to have some pretty flowers. It’s getting late, let’s go to town before my mum scolds me.”
