Chapter 27
Rain poured down so heavily it was impossible to lift one’s head. Beneath it, she had long since lost her body heat. With a hazy gaze, Mila sensed that the end was truly approaching. She had anticipated this conclusion ever since being trapped in that horrifying green room. Even so, she was not consumed by hatred.
In a way, perhaps she was glad to escape that prison, even like this. She felt happy just to be free from the gaze of that devil who stood at her door every evening, observing intently to see when she would die. She had no lingering attachment to life.
In her next life, she prayed she could live freely.
“Waaah! Waaaaah!”
However, the piercing cry caused Mila’s heavily closed eyelids to tremble and open slightly. With great effort, she lifted her deathly pale, almost bluish hand and curled her body, using all her strength to embrace the baby crying in her arms.
Oh, my child, don’t cry.
Her feeble struggles felt so pitiful. It was unbearably heartbreaking to see the icy rainwater dripping onto the baby’s face. If only she could wipe away the rain falling on that tiny face and cradle the child comfortably in her warm embrace.
“Waaah! Waaaaah!”
Mila strained with all her might to keep her eyes open at the sound of the baby’s desperate cries. Tears and rainwater mingled endlessly as they streamed down her face. It felt as if her soul was sinking into a deep pool of anguish.
Mila gasped for breath, overwhelmed by the thick sorrow seeping from her heart. Wasn’t this terribly unfair? Even if this was how she departed, even if this was the end of her miserable fate and wretched life. But not for the baby. It shouldn’t be like this.
The endless pouring of rain felt spiteful. Resentment welled up at how it stole away this little one’s body heat. But her vision was already fading to blurry afterimages. This can’t be. Please, help. Anyone, please, at least save the baby.
Her shoulders went numb as strength rapidly drained from her body. Mila sensed the end approaching but couldn’t bring herself to close her open eyes. With unseeing eyes, she prayed with all her might. If there was a god, or any being at all, she would offer even her soul if only the baby could be saved.
Perhaps her desperate plea, bordering on anguish, reached something.
A miracle occurred for Mila as she barely managed to exhale a thread-thin breath.
It had existed for a long time as spores in the deepest part of the forest. A fairy that was unaware of its own nature, it had simply drifted through the forest like dust. Swept along by the unprecedented downpour, it flowed with the rainwater along the ground and by chance made contact with Mila.
Fwooosh!
The Black Fairy absorbed Mila just after she had drawn her final breath.
A shadow like a puddle of water enveloped Mila in a circular shape, then slowly took on human form. At last, exhaling a long breath, it opened its eyes to see fierce rain pouring down all around. The force was so violent it felt like being stabbed by spears all over the body.
As she slowly looked around, the transparent forest was reflected in her black eyes that had lost all human qualities. All the memories belonged to Mila, but beyond that existed the instincts of the Black Fairy.
In her arms, the baby who had cried itself to exhaustion lay sleeping, taking shallow breaths. Looking at that tiny thing, she suddenly felt a part of herself was empty.
“…Life force is lacking.”
The black spores swept along by the rain that had made contact with this body were insufficient. It was difficult to even perfectly take on human form. Since it hadn’t fully absorbed a life, it couldn’t molt either. It needed to immediately absorb another life, one of the same species as this body.
If it failed to do so, it would die.
What caught the Black Fairy’s eye was the tiny baby in her arms. Mila’s daughter, whose closed eyes, nose, and mouth were all so incredibly small that time seemed to fly by just gazing at her endlessly. At the same time, it was a bundle of life with almost no lived memories – the most appealing prey possible for the Black Fairy.
“I’m hungry…”
Mila, half-transformed into darkness due to lack of strength, lowered her head and opened her mouth wide towards the baby. Perhaps sensing her intent, the limp baby suddenly opened its small eyes slightly and looked at her. The tiny life form, face swollen from crying and pale from the rain stealing its body heat, saw its mother’s face and smiled weakly.
“…”
The moment she saw that small smile, struggling with all its might as if about to fade away, Mila’s memories came flooding back like a bursting dam, filling her completely and pushing back her instincts in an instant.
The baby crying endlessly in her arms, closing her eyes in despair as she listened to that sound until the very end – it all came back in a flash. The baby who had been wailing at the top of its lungs now smiled contentedly upon seeing Mila’s face and reached out its small, chubby fingers to her.
Ah, so you cried so fiercely because you wanted to see this face.
“My child…”
Tears streamed down from the eyes of the Black Fairy who had become Mila. As the black tears fell and touched the baby’s cheeks, she reached out with her indistinct hand and gently caressed them. Though she had lost her emotions, she retained her memories. It could never truly be Mila, yet at the same time, it was Mila.
Despite the terrible hunger that felt like it would tear her body apart, she turned her head away and curled up. She enveloped the baby with her greatly swollen body to keep the raindrops falling on her back from reaching it, and closed her eyes.
* * *
She opened her eyes again when she heard voices in the distance. The forest at dawn after the rain had cleared was shrouded in a thin mist. The Black Fairy looked down at the baby sleeping soundly beneath her, then raised her body and turned her head with a rustle towards the direction of the voices.
“Um, Butler, is this really alright? If the master finds out later…”
“He’ll lose interest and forget about ordering us to abandon the baby in a few days anyway. We can raise it in the maids’ quarters until then.”
-Rustle
For a moment, she considered devouring them, but feared that absorbing too many humans would blur the memories of the original individual. The more the fairy’s nature strengthened, the more her current attachment to the baby would fade.
While she hesitated, they had somehow approached very close, their voices audible nearby.
“Butler, with all that rain yesterday, there’s no way that little thing could have survived, right? Come on, let’s just go back without seeing anything unpleasant, shall we?”
“Be quiet and just lead the way.”
The man glared disapprovingly at the back of the old butler walking ahead.
‘They say when you start doing things you’ve never done before, your time is up. I guess that old man doesn’t have much time left.’
It was unsettling that the butler, who wouldn’t bat an eye even if several people died right in front of him, would come into the forest at dawn to look for a baby. However, the man was an outside servant of the mansion. In his position of only handling dirty work, thinking unnecessary thoughts would shorten one’s life. Though he grumbled inwardly, he didn’t stop walking.
-Whoosh!
“Argh!”
Suddenly startled by a large shadow flashing before his eyes, he covered his head with both hands and stumbled backwards. The beast-like thing swiftly climbed up a tree with a rustling sound. Even at a glance it was as large as a person, sending chills down his spine.
“What are you doing?”
“Butler! Over there, a beast, a huge beast…!”
The man shouted while the butler, who had gone ahead, discovered the sleeping baby and rushed over to pick it up in surprise. The butler frowned and snapped at him irritably as the man stammered and pointed up at the trees.
“What?! A beast?”
Alarmed by the mention of a huge beast, the butler jerked his head up to look, but seeing only branches too thin to even support a cat, he sighed.
“How pathetic. What beast could climb those flimsy branches? At most it was a squirrel. Stop wasting time and get up!”
“B-but… No.”
It was clearly a shadow large enough to pounce on him. But the tree the man looked up at had only a few thin branches, so he rubbed his eyes in disbelief. However, no matter how he looked, it didn’t seem possible for a person-sized beast to have climbed up. The surrounding trees were the same.
Then his gaze fixed on one spot. A large, sunken patch of ground and an empty space.
“That place…”
It was where the man had dumped the maid’s corpse last evening. The missing corpse. As he realized this, a chill ran down the man’s back. He’d disposed of corpses more than once or twice before, but for some reason, looking at that spot made his whole body break out in goosebumps. The man hastily got to his feet, steadying himself on the wet ground.
“Wait, wait for me! Butler, just a moment!”
The man ran after the butler, who had already gone far ahead on his own. The maid – where had the maid he’d dumped gone?
-Rustle
Meanwhile, the Black Fairy, who had been peering down at the man’s head, fell to the ground as if melting after he disappeared. In the moment she hesitated, conflicted between the instinct to devour humans and Mila’s memories wanting to protect the baby, the man had fled.
“My child…”
The fairy stared blankly in the direction the man had disappeared, then lost her form again, becoming like muddy water and seeping into the ground. Then she began moving towards the mansion where the butler and man had gone.
* * *
As the butler had said, the baron didn’t show much interest even when the sound of a baby crying was heard in the mansion again. For a while, the baby grew up in the hands of the maids in the most secluded room of the mansion.
Unable to endure her hunger, the Black Fairy ate the animals in the mansion one by one. However, this only quenched her thirst momentarily. Nevertheless, she precariously maintained that state and stayed near the baby. She was able to endure because it hadn’t yet been a month. After devouring the red bird in the reception room last, she took the form of a bird during the day, then became Mila at night to soothe the crying baby.
Perhaps they could live like this for a long, long time. Until this little one grew up, walked around, ran to her calling her name and hugged her, and eventually met someone to love and lived happily ever after like a princess in a fairy tale. With her by its side.
The Black Fairy leaned her head on the crib railing, gently swinging the baby’s tiny fingertip as she imagined such a future.
However, this time couldn’t last long. By chance, the baron noticed baby clothes being carried by a maid passing in the hallway and became suspicious.
