༺ S2. Resentment Wished Upon The Stars – 5 ༻
Abraham’s pupils trembled. It was the dismay of someone who had encountered an unexpected event. Every night, he had envisioned his daughter’s return in his dreams, but his mind, as radiant as a star, knew that something like that would never happen.
Hence, the embarrassed perplexity.
Abraham carefully chose his words. Were you expelled from that religion? Do you still believe in those strange things? Have you been harmed in any way?
However, after looking into Isaac’s eyes, he realized that such questions were meaningless. Eyes were the windows to the soul, and inside her window, there was just one thing; a blinding white that scattered the human intellect. A boiling froth.
Therefore, the old man had no choice but to ask an obvious, commonplace question.
“Have you been well……?”
Isaac smiled. That smile was not as if a daughter was happily responding to her caring father’s concern, but rather like watching a monkey play tricks inside its cage.
“Yes, Father, I have been well. My soul is fuller than at any other time in my life and I am spending each day with true significance. It is all thanks to you.”
“⋯⋯⋯⋯.”
“Are you still counting those meaningless stars? Those rocks floating in space, merely made from lumps of dust.”
“They are not meaningless, child. There is meaning in everything in this world.”
“You still fail to see what needs to be seen, I see. Father.”
Despite the conversation’s gentle tone, the atmosphere and the looks in their eyes did not seem like a dialogue between a father and daughter. Tara intervened between them as if to protect Abraham.
“……Who are you?”
“It seems my introduction was a bit late. My name is Isaac. And you are?”
“……Tara.”
“And what about the rest of you?”
Isaac’s gaze turned to Bennett and Niolle. Bennett swallowed dryly at the vivid unease he felt and Niolle felt the universe through her gaze.
Darkness, the chillingly black void. Being, yet also not being. Like a swelling egg or a shrinking heart about to collapse on itself. A bizarre universe that human cognition could only observe in fragments.
“……Aha. You too?”
It seemed like Isaac sensed it as well. A smile blossomed on her face; not one of mocking, but one stemming from joy rooted deep within her soul.
Isaac approached leisurely, took Niolle’s hands, and kissed them politely, filled with affection.
“I am pleased to meet you. Your name?”
“⋯⋯⋯⋯.”
Niolle twitched her lips with a blank expression. As if that itself was enough, Isaac nodded; a connection that continued through the medium of silence.
However, it was a one-sided connection. Isaac, through her demeanor and gestures, seemed to be probing Niolle, conveying something distant yet sinister. Almost as if she was a man courting a beautiful woman with piercing, violating stares.
And, just as she was about to say more──.
“Back off!”
Thwack!
Bennett slapped Isaac’s hand away and stepped back with Niolle in tow, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. It was to protect her. After all, it seemed as though a white snake was baring its fangs at Niolle.
Isaac feigned a hurt, sorrowful expression, caressing her smacked hand as if it was in pain.
“I had nowhere else to go, so I came back. Even strangers welcomed me warmly, so surely, a daughter who has just stepped out for a while……. Will be welcome back, right, Father?”
“……Yes, your room has always been kept ready.”
Isaac’s glance slid towards Tara, examining her from top to bottom. Her gaze lingered on the clothes she was wearing as well. Isaac’s clothes.
“But now, it seems that room is not for me. It is fine, Father. I can forgive you for not believing I would return.”
“I……. have wished for your return, even in my dreams.”
“Your words and actions do not seem to match. The storage room will suffice for me. You can continue to use my room, Ta-ra. Enjoy your meal.”
Isaac politely excused herself and walked up the stairs to the 2nd floor storage room where Bennett was staying. She opened the door, entered, and closed it behind her.
No one moved until her white afterimage had disappeared.
Abraham’s expression twisted in agony. The poor old man, who had always counted stars, covered his face with wrinkled hands and lamented.
“I shouldn’t have shown Isaac the stars……”
It was a belated regret, something that would be inevitably experienced by anyone who was human.
===============================================================
Isaac seamlessly blended into daily life. Unlike the first day, when she was pointed and scathing, she behaved like a kind and polite daughter throughout. She fawned over Abraham and asked Niolle if she needed anything all the time.
Isaac especially paid attention to Niolle. She initiated conversations and asked for her well-being. She laughed at her sentences and acted touched by every little thing she said. All with warm words and unchanged friendliness.
However, everyone at this place── knew it was all a pretense. Despite the seemingly warm atmosphere, tension filled the air beneath the surface.
As if something could happen at any moment.
However, there was nothing they could do. Abraham seemed happy, even if it was all just a facade. The current situation, with his estranged daughter returning home and acting affectionately, was like a dream come true for him.
Therefore, neither Bennett nor Tara could intervene. Bennett, because he was haunted by a conversation he had with Abraham one night. And Tara, because she did not want to see Abraham saddened.
All they could do was take indirect actions, such as surveillance and preparations of countermeasures.
Perhaps the one fortunate thing in this unfortunate circumstance was that the appearance of an outsider temporarily improved the relationship between Tara and Bennett.
“We shall know if she does anything suspicious. I have placed magic at the threshold of the storage room and in Abraham’s room. I have also prepared a familiar for surveillance use. And I hid a rat in the ceiling.”
“I’ve laid something like 『Curse Defense』 too, but…… Weren’t you planning to abandon Abraham if needed? You’re putting in a lot of effort, huh. More than I thought you would. What are you thinking?”
“…….I just thought that woman named Isaac was dangerous. After all, her eyes were not normal.”
“Right, well……. It’s your turn to be on shift today, isn’t it?”
“Do not try to sneakily pass it off to me. Since it is you today.”
As time passed like that, it had reached the 5th day.
Their date of return was approaching. Tara insisted on visiting the university with Abraham today and Bennett, feeling the need to gather information, agreed. At the dinner table that day, they asked Abraham.
“Abraham, could we possibly visit the university?”
“Are you interested in the university?”
“Yes. There is something I want to look into.”
“You seem more interested in the library than the university. Very well. If you can wait until classes are over…… I can guide you myself. Let’s go.”
Abraham happily agreed and the three of them were set to head to Miskatonic University. Right as they were preparing to go out and Tara caused a bit of a commotion, insisting on carrying Abraham’s luggage…
After noticing that Niolle seemed strangely lost in thought, as she absent-mindedly picked at her food… Bennett nudged her shoulder. Niolle turned her head without showing a hint of surprise.
“Did you hear? We said we are going to Miskatonic University.”
[Ah, yes. I heard.]
“If you are not feeling well……. It might be better to come with us. If you are attacked while you are in such a vulnerable state, there would be nothing we could do. If it is too tiring, I can carry you. If not, you could stay in the hideout that was mentioned in the report…….”
[I’m okay. I just didn’t sleep well last night. And you need my abilities in places like libraries, right?]
Bennett nodded. Niolle’s ability to quickly grasp even minor details would be a great asset in their investigation; she would undoubtedly be of help this time as well.
Despite being worried about Niolle’s somewhat strange attitude, he felt it was better than just leaving her to her lonesome. As such, all of you followed Abraham into the noisy machine called a car and headed towards Miskatonic University.
Tara asked if she could try driving and Bennett interjected, telling her not to talk such nonsense. And amidst all this bustling, Niolle remained quiet. The whiteboard and pen did not move.
Niolle’s strange behavior was due to something that happened the night before.
===============================================================
#4 : Pitch
Late at night, a whisper reached Niolle’s ears. Come here. Come here. She woke from a shallow sleep and looked around, only to find Tara sleeping soundly; there was nothing else in her vicinity.
Come here.
The voice in her head even provided a direction to head to. Niolle judged it to be some kind of magic. She carefully left the room and followed the direction that the voice was leading her to.
And at the end of it, she arrived in front of the storage room at the end of the hallway.
Niolle knocked quietly. When she did so, the door opened smoothly, as if slithering. When she stepped inside, she saw Isaac stretching under the glow of the moonlight. She gave her a benevolent smile before speaking.
“Do you believe in God?’
[I believe in the fact of their existence, but not in the worship that comes with it.]
“Have you ever seen God up close?”
[No.]
“What a pity.”
Isaac fluttered her eyelids, as if to find such a belief regretful, and gazed at the vast night sky through the window. Niolle turned her head as well. There was no surveillant in the yard today.
The woman in the white dress rattled on, immersed and drunk on religious fervor.
“Humans cannot possibly understand God. It is because they have inferior sensory organs. With their ears, they can only hear a very narrow range of sounds, and with their eyes, they cannot see colors beyond the spectrum of the rainbow.”
[⋯⋯⋯⋯.]
“However, sometimes… Very rarely, there are those born with the fortune to see a bit more……. The chosen ones. People who see what others cannot. People who are so very close to God. You and I. Even if we cannot reach full understanding, we can grasp at least a part of it.”
She seemed to firmly believe that she was one of these chosen people. And that was the particular driving force behind her religious fervor. While fidgeting her thighs, Isaac sent adoring gazes to the night sky, her excited eyes akin to a person deeply in love.
That clingy affection. The sticky desire that felt almost tangible, as if she would intertwine tongues at any moment if just given the chance to. A flower born from a muddy, depraved mixture of various emotions. A froth, boiling, seething.
Niolle knew what the name of that was. Fanaticism.
“I hope you, too, can…….. experience this joy. Now is a very good time, you see……”
Isaac extended a book towards Niolle; an inauspicious book, bound in some kind of leather. When running a hand over its surface, it seemed to emanate a warmth that dead leather should not possess.
Niolle quietly nodded, then left the room with the book held closely in her embrace.
[⋯⋯⋯⋯.]
Niolle had not lost her mind. It was true she held a deep reverence for the vastness, the dizzying difference in scale, the… something of the universe. However, that did not mean she had any intention of throwing everything away for it.
Whether in the otherworld or her original world, there had always been something that existed beyond the common sense of those ordinary. Something that mere humans could not touch nor do anything to. Whether it was the power of the Imperial Family, monsters that had reached Sublimation, or the death that one would inevitably face, all of such were something that could not be defied. Something that could not dare to be resisted.
Yet, her belief still remained quite simple; she just believed in the righteousness of saving people and the wrongness of harming them. She also had the courage to act on such beliefs. Therefore…
She intended to read this ominous book, obtain information from it, and… help Bennett, Tara, and Abraham. Perhaps……. Even Isaac. Maybe she could be helped as well.
Niolle opened the book in a corner of the room.
The memories of that night were not all that clear.
