Chapter 42
42
A Place That Doesn’t Exist in the World
Leila’s gaze shook as she took in Kyle’s dazed eyes, his pale face, his disheveled hair and clothes.
“Don’t do this, Kyle. We’re… over now….”
“Let’s go anywhere. Just the two of us, to a place where we can be happy together. That’ll fix everything.”
Muttering like a man who couldn’t hear a word, Kyle grabbed Leila’s hand and started dragging her along stubbornly. Leila resisted with all her might, but Kyle didn’t budge an inch as he strode forward.
“Mr. Leamer! Mr. Leamer! Look over there! Leila’s being dragged away!”
A garden worker who happened to witness the scene shouted at the top of his lungs. Bill’s face flushed beet red as he whipped his head toward the direction the man pointed.
Tossing aside the pruning shears, he bolted after Kyle in a frenzy. The startled workers followed in a chaotic rush.
“Kyle Etman! Let go of that hand right now!”
Bill’s roar, fueled by rage from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes, boomed like thunder.
Before Leila could even try to intervene, Bill caught up and swung his fist straight at Kyle’s face. Even as he staggered and fell, Kyle refused to release Leila’s wrist. She tumbled down with him into the rose bed.
“Leila!”
Bill cried her name in a scream and rushed over to help her up. But her cheek and the back of her hand were already scratched by thick rose thorns.
Kyle’s dazed, entranced eyes began to regain focus bit by bit. When his clear vision finally took in Leila’s bloodied face, he paled and shot to his feet.
“L-Leila! Are you okay? There’s blood….”
“I’m fine.”
Leila calmly pushed away his hand from her face.
“You’re hurt much worse.”
“No, I’m….”
Only then did Kyle notice the blood seeping through his shirt and the back of his hand. His cheek and nape stung sharply too, but he couldn’t care less.
“It’s okay, Uncle.”
Leila hurriedly said it to Bill, who was stepping forward again toward Kyle.
“Kyle.”
Her clear, brimming eyes held Kyle’s face.
“There is no such place.”
Leila’s smiling lips trembled faintly. Her eyes and cheeks burned red, but her voice remained steady.
“A place where just the two of us can be happy… Kyle, no such place exists in this world.”
“Leila….”
“When you do this, it hurts me so much. I don’t think I can bear it.”
“Leila, please.”
“So live well. I’ll do the same.”
“How can I do that without you?”
“Go to university as planned, study hard, stay healthy, and become a great doctor.”
Even facing Kyle’s pain-twisted expression, Leila smiled. Tears streaked her cheeks, sparkling brilliantly.
“Kyle. My kind friend Kyle Etman. That’s the you I want to see.”
Before he knew it, Kyle was crying too. He clenched his teeth to swallow his sobs, staring at Leila with reddened eyes.
“If you live well, I’ll live well too. And if we keep living well like that as time passes, maybe one day we can smile and greet each other again.”
“…I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Leila.”
The sobs he could no longer hold back spilled from Kyle’s lips.
“It’s all my fault. Everything’s my fault. Because of me, you… I’m sorry.”
Sharp sunlight poured down on Kyle like shards of broken glass as he collapsed into the flower bed. Leila quietly shook her head and knelt down in front of him.
“No. Don’t say that, Kyle. I don’t hate you. How could I?”
“Leila.”
“So live well, okay? You will, right?”
Kyle, gasping like a man with a noose around his neck, burst into hot tears and pulled Leila into a tight embrace. Her pristine white blouse began soaking up blood from his wounds and his tears.
Bill, who had been sighing repeatedly, could no longer watch the two children and turned his head away. The workers standing a few paces back were no different.
Bill glared at the scorching sun with eyes full of resentment. He wished more fervently than ever that this wretched summer would end soon.
Kyle Etman left for the capital sooner than planned. He claimed it was because there was much to prepare for university entrance, but no one bought that excuse.
On the morning Kyle departed, Leila woke earlier than usual.
Coo coo coo.
She turned her head toward the cooing from the windowsill and saw Phoebe.
Putting on the glasses she had taken off, Leila slowly approached the window and flung it wide open. A letter was tied to Phoebe’s ankle. Phoebe was a pigeon trained to fly between Leila’s and Kyle’s bedroom windows. Leila knew whose letter it was without even looking.
After hesitating for a long while, Leila finally untied it.
Leila, I’m leaving for the capital today. To the place I should have gone with you, but I’m slinking away alone like a coward.
I won’t feed you that plausible lie about this being the best for both of us. I’m running away in the end. Turning my back on this hopelessly messed-up reality and leaving you behind. Pretending I couldn’t help it because of your words that it’s okay, acting the coward like that.
I’m sorry. I know too well that words like these can’t wash away your wounds, but I had to tell you. I’m sorry for your mother’s wounds against you, and for my pathetic failure to protect you from them. My foolish impulsiveness in thinking everything too simply and pushing forward hurt you. I think I finally understand that now.
But Leila, I’ll come back to you. Not too late—I swear I’ll return to you.
You might be right that there’s no place in this world where the two of us can be happy. But Leila, if no such place exists, I’ll create one no matter what. And I’ll take you there.
As you asked, I’ll live well until that day. So you live well too.
My beloved Leila, goodbye.
Leila slowly read down the letter filled with Kyle’s neat handwriting. The morning breeze rustled the tousled golden hair veiling her cheeks.
Only after a long moment did Leila turn from the window. She tucked the letter deep into her desk drawer and hurriedly began her morning routine.
It was a frantically busy day. She cleaned the entire cottage meticulously, not tolerating even a speck of dust, and prepared a feast of delicious food. After Bill finished lunch and headed back to work, the servants from nearby Arbis who were close to them visited the cottage.
“Are you okay, Leila?”
Madam Mona asked worriedly, offering a basket brimming with sweet cookies and cakes.
“Yes.”
Leila smiled as she accepted the gift.
“Thank you. Come in and have some tea before you go.”
“No, no tea.”
Madam Mona waved her hand dismissively, and the Arbis maids who followed nodded along.
“Right. We’re just glad you’re okay.”
“Yeah. First loves never work out, after all. Surely there’s a man far better than Kyle out there….”
“Oh dear, look at the time! We should hurry back. We have to prepare tea time for Madam.”
Madam Mona shot a glare at the maids, who were starting to babble nonsense, and cut them off quickly.
After seeing them off, Leila carried the heavy basket back to the kitchen. As she unpacked the cookies and cakes one by one, her hands suddenly froze. There was a cookie baked with peach jam—Kyle’s favorite.
Leila stared blankly at the seat across the table where Kyle always sat. The days when the three of them would gather around this table would never come again. Memories of delicious food, warm lamplight, and lively chatter floated silently over the empty spot and settled.
Blinking slowly, Leila hurriedly finished sorting the basket and stepped out of the cottage. She grabbed the old tool bag and hat hanging by the back door and headed toward the path leading into the woods.
Fennel. Mistflower. Buddleia.
Leila whispered the names of the flowers blooming along the wayside as she walked.
Wrens. Swallowtails. Grasshoppers.
She named birds and insects too. The clinking of odds and ends in her bag mingled with her low murmuring like a quiet song.
Leila’s diligent steps forward halted before a majestic tree standing by the Shulter River. She climbed it as naturally as breathing.
Huddled between sturdy branches and the trunk, Leila gazed vacantly down at the lazily flowing blue waters of the Shulter.
The sparkling water scales dazzled her eyes.
“It’s been handled as you instructed, sir.”
Hessen reported after ending a brief call. Mathias nodded slowly, understanding without explanation, his gaze still fixed on the river beyond the large window.
“It seems a telegram will be sent to him personally by the end of the day.”
With that additional remark, Hessen finished his report on the assigned task and smoothly moved to the next topics. The dinner next week and invited guests. The visit from Count Brandt and his wife. The need for more servants. The routine reports and Mathias’s curt replies proceeded in sequence.
“Then I’ll take my leave.”
Having completed his duties, Hessen departed the Annexe.
Left alone, Mathias descended the stairs slowly to the lower floor. The Annexe was built floating over the river. Half of the first floor, which housed the boathouse, connected directly to the water. The boats always moored there could head across the river anytime with a loosened rope and a few strokes of the oar.
Mathias stripped there and dove straight into the river. Passing the arched boathouse entrance, blinding sunlight poured over his bare skin.
Swimming languidly with the current, Mathias moved with such fluid ease that he almost seemed part of the river itself.
Regret for what one hasn’t obtained is always greater and more tenacious by nature. Once possessed, it proves disappointingly trivial and worthless. That woman would be no different.
Breathing heavily, Mathias willingly acknowledged it. It was ridiculous to be swept up in a fleeting desire that would fade after a brief stay, yet he accepted without qualms his burning longing to have her. And now, he could. The boy whose vaunted first love he couldn’t protect in the end was gone, and Leila remained. Everything in his world had fallen precisely into place. Perfect order.
As he turned to swim back toward the Annexe, the sun began to set gradually. Mathias’s eyes narrowed at the familiar majestic tree on the riverbank. And there, in the spot where he had glanced indifferently, was the woman, absurdly enough.
Leila.
Murmuring her name quietly sent ripples across the water’s surface.
