3 bar menu

A Ghost Scattering Flowers – Part 02

---

Translator: Kell

---

Later that night.

Avril was in the small room upstairs provided to her, holding a quill pen and groaning to herself. A piece of paper lay before her.

So far the letter contained only what she had written on the train on the way here, about how she had finished reading the book and had nothing to do.

“Hmm. I want to write about fun things to make him feel bitter. But nothing’s really happened yet. What do I do… Hmm?”

Sensing some kind of presence, Avril glanced up.

The door to her room opened, and there stood a beautiful girl a little older than her, with golden hair cut short and eyes as blue as the summer sky, just like her.

“Are you Frannie?” Avril asked.

“And you must be my sworn enemy, Avril.” Frannie studied her for a while. “You should leave right away. This villa is haunted!”

“Haunted?!” Avril screamed.

Frannie seemed to have misinterpreted her scream as caused by fear. Smiling, she dropped her voice low.

“Someone died in this villa seven years ago, you see. A beautiful Italian girl, who was assaulted and abandoned by nobles on vacation, threw herself into the sea with a bouquet of flowers in her arms. Her body was brought to this villa, but attempts to revive her failed. Since then, people have spotted the ghost of a woman in a white dress, holding flowers…. Kyaaaah!”

Avril shrieked, her eyes lighting up with delight. Frannie’s blue eyes narrowed in satisfaction, and she went on to explain how the ghost in the white dress had terrorized the villa’s residents.

Avril, with a twinkle in her eyes, begged for more ghost stories. Sensing something off with her cousin, Frannie slowly backed away.

Avril leapt back to the table. Licking the quill pen’s nib, she began writing at incredible speed.

“I’m having a lot of fun here, Kujou. Get this: this villa is haunted! And…”

As Avril continued writing her lengthy letter, the door to the room opened to the outside, slowly and quietly.

She thought she saw a slim and creepy shadowy figure.

She looked at the door. Not paying it too much heed, she turned her eyes back to the letter.

This time, outside the window, against the backdrop of a starry sky, something passed by, glowing softly.

A single red petal fluttered down from above, landing on the letter.

“Hmm?” Avril cocked her head.

Slowly she looked up.

A woman in a white dress was floating outside the window. Flower petals scattered in the air.

Avril stared blankly at the woman for a while.

Then her breath caught.

“Th-This is the second floor!”

Avril jumped to her feet, not to run away, but to dart straight at the window.

With a strange motion, the woman moved away from the window, leaving petals behind. Avril peered out the window, looked at all directions, but there was no one there.

Not a single soul.

---

“’Not a single soul.’ The letter ends there.”

After he finished reading the letter, Kazuya straightened his back, and expressed his thoughts with a bit of annoyance on his face.

“This Frannie person is hopeless. She’s probably using ghost stories to scare Avril of out of the villa, but if she knew better, she’d know that telling her ghost stories would only make her stay up all night to meet one.”

“…”

Kazuya glanced down at the unresponsive Victorique. Lying on the grass within St. Marguerite Academy’s vast campus, she looked even wearier than before. He felt worried.

Eventually Victorique twitched. She lifted her head up just a little bit, stirring her long, magnificent golden hair.

She was pouting. “What an inane letter! An incredible friend you have there, Kujou.”

“Uh, I’m sorry,” Kazuya mumbled apologetically.

A dry, almost-blistering summer breeze blew softly over the silent Victorique’s small figure, rippling the hem of dress, woven of lace and fine silk.

“Kujou,” Victorique finally said in her husky voice. “Forget that stupid letter and bring me a greater mystery. Or else…”

“Or else what?”

“You will suffer the consequences.”

Victorique softly closed her eyes and let out a tired sigh.

What did she mean by that? Kazuya wondered.

Reluctantly he continued holding up the frilly parasol. He pictured himself sporting weird hairdos, from pointy to swirly.

A summer breeze blew past.

The two stayed motionless like figures in a painting depicting an idle scene.

Heat and silence drifted in the afternoon lawn.

---

The next morning.

Kazuya was eating breakfast alone silently in the men’s dorm’s dining hall. Dressed in a kimono, he had his back straight as he dined on a fried egg sandwich, a bean salad, and a glass of fresh milk.

The sexy, red-haired dorm mother, holding a cigarette in her mouth as she read the morning paper, legs crossed, let out a surprised grunt.

Kazuya glanced up.

“Hey, Kujou. You know that friend of yours with the short blonde hair?”

“You mean Avril Bradley? What about her?”

“She’s on the paper.”

Kazuya bolted to his feet. He rushed to the dorm mother’s side to take a look at the article.

“A White Lady Appears with the Smell of Flowers!”

Kazuya let out a yelp and furiously read the morning paper.

As he raised his head back up, the dorm mother said in a familiar tone, “You can have it. I’m done reading.”

“Really? Thank you!”

Kazuya, having barely finished his breakfast, shoved the morning paper into his pocket, put on his bowler hat, and hurried out of the men’s dormitory.

A second later he returned, his geta clacking on the floor, ran up the dormitory stairs, and took from his room a small, frilly parasol that clashed with his attire, holding it under his arm.

“Victorique!”

And letting out his usual cry, he dashed out of the dormitory.

---

“Victorique! Wait, you’re here again today? You’re gonna get a heatstroke.”

While on his way to St. Marguerite’s Grand Library, Kazuya spotted a white, frilly figure curled up on the same lawn as yesterday, and came to a sudden halt.

Like a lazy kitten, the mass of white frills moved slowly.

Victorique looked up, her stunning golden hair stirring. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Yes, it’s me. Here you go.”

Wearing a stern look, Kazuya opened the frilly parasol and held it over the peculiar girl. He straightened his back stiffly. For a while, they remained silent.

Ms. Cecile passed by them, carrying a bunch of books. When she noticed the pair, she stopped and put her hand on the rim of her large round glasses.

“Is this deja-vu?” the teacher said curiously. “I feel like I’ve seen this exact scene yesterday.” She walked away thoughtfully.

The summer sun was slowly roasting the two of them. A bead of sweat trickled down Kazuya’s forehead. After a few moments of silence, he remembered something.

“Oh, by the way.”

“What is it, Kujou the farting friend of the farting newt?”

“Now listen here… Nah, never mind. Your sharp tongue isn’t exactly something new. Anyway, it looks like there’s something more to yesterday’s letter. I got this morning’s paper from the dorm mother. There’s an article that sounds like a follow-up to the incident described in Avril’s letter. You interested?”

Victorique groaned, still lying on the grass.

“I’m not uninterested,” she said stubbornly.

“You could’ve just said yes. Seriously.”

Kazuya started reading the newspaper.

“A White Lady Appears with the Smell of Flowers?!”

“On the evening of the 25th of July, a strange incident drew attention in this bustling, modern town known as a summer retreat. The incident took place in the first floor of a villa owned by the widow of the late Sir Bradley, a famous adventurer…”

---

The incident that produced the newspaper article took place in the evening, the day after Avril arrived in the Mediterranean.

“Grandma!”

Dusk.

The dazzling sunset turned Sir Bradley’s square house yellow.

“Grandma!”

Avril, wearing a bright white coat over a polka-dot swimsuit, scrambled into the first-floor hall of the villa. When she saw the group of old ladies dressed as nearly as her grandmother—blouses up to the collar and long, ankle-length skirts—she shut her mouth.

She tugged on her coat to cover her legs and stomach, tanned from staying out all day.

Her grandmother smiled and introduced her to her guests. “I have another granddaughter. Avril, where’s Frannie?”

Avril inclined her head. Then she bolted upstairs in search of Frannie, but her cousin wasn’t in any of the rooms.

After looking around for a while, Avril shouted to the first floor. “She’s not here!”

There was no reply.

Avril waited for a moment, and then, feeling something off, she slowly made her way down the stairs.

One step at a time.

She caught a sweet, yet somewhat disturbing scent—different from the smell of the sea that she had grown accustomed to—that grew stronger the closer she got to the first floor.

What’s this sweet smell? Ah, flowers. Smells like flowers.

Avril’s pace gradually quickened.

Stifling…

She was moving faster and faster.

Why does it smell so much? There’s no flowers in this house!

Avril dashed down the stairs, across the hallway, and into the first floor hall.

“G-Grandma!” she shouted.

The old women who had been smiling in the hall just a moment ago had collapsed on the sofa, some sitting on the floor, unconscious. Avril rushed to her grandmother and helped her up.

“What’s wrong? What happened?!”

Her grandmother blearily opened her blue, moist eyes. “Avril… We smelled flowers,” she whispered. “And then…”

The old women soon regained consciousness, none of them sustaining any serious injuries, but no one could offer a reasonable explanation for the sweet smell that filled the flowerless room.

---

---