I alone saw the Marquis’s eyes glint faintly, as if they were shining slick. It was the gaze of someone watching an interesting phenomenon, shooting straight into my back. Bearing his stare with difficulty, I quietly tugged my hand downward, trying to hide the small handkerchief folded between our hands. Erhan and I moved as naturally as possible.
The Marquis and my mother did not follow us.
It seemed the two of them had their own arrangements, for they simply stood there, watching as we disappeared. Of course, my mother was still covering her mouth with an expression of moved emotion as she looked at me, while the Marquis continued to fix his eyes on me as though observing.
“……”
Once we passed through, there was no sound but that of Erhan and me walking.
Servants must surely have been trailing behind us, yet not a single sound came from their feet, which was eerie.
The corridors of House Serpentine I glimpsed in passing were gloomy and chilling.
Perhaps because this was a family that lived off sorcery and curses, all the decorations were ancient, and there were piles of things whose uses I couldn’t even guess.
Even the paintings alone give me goosebumps.
What on earth is with this family? The scattered paintings mostly depicted grotesque scenes—strange beasts with holes in their necks, or monsters eating half-cut human bodies. Above all, there were truly countless snake-related objects. As we walked, I kept passing endless snakeskins and taxidermy.
It was only natural that I, not being especially brave, grew frightened by the grotesque interior decoration. Without thinking, I gripped Erhan’s hand tighter, and he flinched immediately, which startled me so much that I let go.
Thud—the handkerchief, wedged between us like a link, fell to the ground.
“……”
Erhan stopped in place, staring at the dropped handkerchief. His expression looked somehow confused.
As though finding it strange, he fixed his eyes on it, and contrary to what I expected, he picked it up. Then, without taking my hand again, he walked forward.
“Here it is.”
When the large door opened, the room I would live in from now on was revealed. Unlike the ominous corridors, the room was fairly decent. Perhaps because they took into account that I was a child, the furniture was all low in height, though still entirely antique.
“If you need anything, call out to anyone outside. They’ll do whatever you order.”
Behind Erhan as he said this, a servant stood silently in place. An ordinary person would at least nod if given such an instruction, but a servant of House Serpentine did not.
Standing utterly still, as if they would not move even a single step without an order, as if that was absolute obedience, they looked like a chilling doll.
Moreover, it was uncertain whether they were even looking at me, since every single one of them had their faces hidden. Hastily turning my head away from the cursed puppet-like appearance, my eyes locked directly with Erhan’s.
He was exhausted.
My first impression of him had been that of a young noble, radiating the aura of someone raised in love. But now, only signs of weariness and fatigue were plain to see.
I stared back at Erhan, who no longer bothered to manage his expression, waiting for him to tell me to follow since he was supposed to show me around the mansion. At that moment—
“Disgusting……”
…Wait, me?
How could someone say that straight to another’s face? I looked up at him in disbelief. But Erhan’s expression was so miserable that I couldn’t even bring myself to protest. His eyes were twisted as though he might burst into tears at any moment, and even his eyelids were tinged red.
It felt like I had just glimpsed Erhan’s true face through a crack in a carefully crafted mask. Not a single word would form into a sentence to leave my lips.
How could a child make such a face? Perhaps he hated me and was calling disgusting the unchildlike way I had acted just now, or perhaps he meant my very existence was disgusting.
Why do you look like you’re the one in pain?
I was the one insulted, yet he seemed the one more tormented. In that brief moment, what I saw in Erhan’s emotions was nothing but self-loathing, despair, suffering, fear, and exhaustion—nothing but terrible feelings.
I could say nothing, and before I could even reply, he spun around and stormed off.
Bang!
The door closed with a fairly loud noise. The servants who had been in the corridor stood motionless. Soon Erhan’s retreating footsteps echoed away, until at some point, even those footsteps disappeared.
Should I chase him?
Leaving with a face like that—what kind of feeling would he leave behind in others? Beyond needing to make a good impression on Erhan, I felt that someone with such a face was bound to cause trouble if he did anything at all. After a brief hesitation, I opened the door to go after him, only to nearly faint.
“Do you require anything?”
A servant’s face was right in front of me.
A face shrouded in cloth, marked with bizarre symbols drawn in dark red ink—whether it was blood or something else, I couldn’t tell.
“The young master has returned to his own room.”
Glancing down at the servant’s feet as he spoke mechanically, I was even more shocked. They were barefoot, but the soles of their feet were unnaturally swollen, as though something had been put inside to prevent any sound.
So that’s why there was no noise earlier?
Are they insane? What kind of thing is this to do to a human body?
Of course, this was indeed a household that recycled the vilest of criminals through sorcery, scrubbing them clean to reuse—but actually witnessing the traces of cruel sorcery was revolting and chilling. Staring at that face, I looked past the slightly bowed servant into the corridor. Just then, the sun had set, and the surroundings were already very dark.
Wow, this is really scary.
I wanted badly to chase after Erhan, but I couldn’t bring myself to.
It was a scene where it wouldn’t be strange if something jumped out at any moment, and I felt that ignoring this fear and going out would only get me into trouble.
Creak—I quietly closed the door again as though I had never opened it, clutching my pounding heart. Then I slid under the blankets and let out a sigh.
Will I be able to adapt here?
Today had been nothing but a series of things hard to accept.
A suddenly gained stepfather, a brother, and a dreary mansion.
Not a single thing was to my liking, and Erhan’s expression still weighed on my mind.
But my five-year-old body soon drifted drowsily into sleep, and just before I fell asleep, I thought that life here might be fairly quiet.
On the surface, at least.
***
“Young master.”
A voice called.
“Young master, you must wake.”
Young master—that was the familiar title by which the servants addressed me. I knew I had to get up, but it wasn’t easy to raise my body. Partly it was this damned weak body, prone to too much sleep, but also perhaps the effect of having dreamed for the first time in a long while.
“Young master.”
“All… right…”
Mumbling, I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was the room filled with bright sunlight. And, of course, the servant’s chilling face that I could never get used to.
Seeing the face covered in white cloth with bright red sorcery scrawled where the eyes should be, my body flinched reflexively in shock. But I quickly apologized, rubbing my face dry.
“Sorry, you startled me.”
No reply came.
Even if he heard the apology, he showed no pretense of accepting it, as though such a response hadn’t been programmed. He merely pointed to the basin of water set out before me, laid down a change of clothes, and walked out.
Even when he walked, not a sound was made. But I was no longer at the age to dive under the blankets in fright as I had in childhood. After washing my face, I took the towel the servant handed me and dried myself, gazing into the mirror. Reflected there was a face pale as white flour.
Amber eyes that resembled my mother’s exactly, and—perhaps thanks to my real father—hair so light it was nearly blond, tinged faintly red under sunlight. My hair stuck up wildly, and I combed it down roughly.
“Mmhm.”
My voice was starting to change strangely with age, so every morning my voice sounded odd.
Clearing my throat unnecessarily, I combed my messy hair, which stood up persistently as though showing off last night’s rough sleep.
Why did I suddenly dream of the day I first came to the Serpentine mansion?
Nine years ago—the day I arrived here—reliving it in a dream left me with a truly strange feeling.
“Fourteen.”
Now I was fourteen years old. The time when I was too shy to speak properly out of clumsy pronunciation was long past. My mother no longer worried about my slow development, and contrary to expectations that I would not live smoothly, nine whole years had already passed with me surviving as a member of the eerie Serpentine family.
Maybe it’s because it’s about time Erhan returns to the mansion.
For Erhan was, in truth, nearly absent from the Serpentine mansion. After all, the last time I saw him was the very image I had just seen in the dream.