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Fascination – Part 01

A Tale of Black Mandrakes —China, 23 A.D.—

A gentle and sunny afternoon.

St. Marguerite Academy.

Small white flowers blooming on the trimmed lawn swayed in the occasional breeze. A bell rang in the distance, signaling the end of classes. Children of nobility streamed out of the huge U-shaped school building and headed toward the dormitories, careful not to step on the flowers on the grass.

Murmurs, footsteps. These sounds gradually faded until the garden was once again enveloped in silence.

One sleepy, sunny afternoon.

“It’s a curse!”

At the far end of the lawn, near the tall hedges trimmed into the shapes of various animals that separated the school from the outside world, came a girl’s sweet voice. Her French had a hint of a British accent, and sounded like the chirping of a little bird.

But the lovely voice was at odds with the hair-raising topic at hand.

“Mandrakes are cursed root vegetables. It’s used in dark rituals, and looking at it will get you cursed. It’s a staple of ghost stories.”

“Cursed?!” yelped a woman in response. Her French, gentle and soft, had no accent.

“That’s right!”

“Really?”

“Get away from the mandrake!”

“Kyah!”

A girl in school uniform and a woman in a white blouse and a long, white-gray skirt rolled out of the shadows of the lawn, hugging each other. The girl had short blonde hair and big eyes as clear as the blue sky. Her long, graceful arms and legs offered her a blooming appearance. The woman, on the other hand, had shoulder-length, fluffy brown hair and wore large round glasses. Her round, puppy-dog eyes and adorable aura made her seem younger than her actual age.

The girl—Avril Bradley, granddaughter of Sir Bradley the adventurer, and a student from England—bolted to her feet and stared into the bushes. A second later, the woman—Cecile Lafitte, a teacher—rose unsteadily and hid behind Avril.

“I don’t like scary stuff,” the teacher said.

“What are you scared about?” a boy’s calm voice came from behind them.

Avril and Ms. Cecile turned around, holding each other’s hands tight.

The boy, an oriental with jet-black hair and eyes, was standing stiffly upright, watching them suspiciously. As Kazuya Kujou approached them cautiously, Avril and Cecile scurried toward him.

“Kujou, do you know what a mandrake is?” Avril said. “It’s a cursed plant, often mentioned in old tales!”

“I’m scared,” Ms. Cecile added. “Avril said that’s what that weird thing growing there is!”

“It’s a curse. It has to be!”

“Right next to my violets! Nooo!”

They dragged Kazuya into the bushes.

“Uh, I have some business to attend to,” Kazuya mumbled, ready to flee. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

The ladies pushed him deeper into the bush.

“Oh, there’s something here,” Kazuya said.

“That’s it!” Avril exclaimed.

“It’s a weird plant,” Ms. Cecile explained. “It wasn’t there before!”

“Weird?” Kazuya crouched down and stared at the plant growing out of the ground. “It looks like a daikon.”

Its long, thin roots were peeking out of the soil, and it had thick, green leaves. It looked a lot like daikon, a kind of radish from the island country where Kazuya was from.

“Daikon… or maybe a turnip,” he added. “Or a carrot. Either way, I believe curses and superstitions are just a bunch of nonsense. Most events can be explained logically, and to link them to curses and superstitions without taking that into account is… Avril, are you listening? I was talking to you.”

Avril sat down on the grass and flipped through her favorite magazine, one that contained stuff about curses and superstitions. For some reason, Ms. Cecile also crouched down, hugging her knees, and cheerfully read the magazine together with her.

“Where’s the article about the mandrake?” Ms. Cecile asked.

“Give me a sec. It should be around page one-hundred.”

Heaving a sigh, Kazuya stood up. He turned away from them and started walking toward his original destination. He could hear happy shrieks and squeals coming from behind him.

“I really don’t understand girls.” Kazuya scratched his head.

Straightening his back, he started down the path to St. Marguerite’s Grand Library, the gravel crunching under his feet.

The library was filled with a serene silence today, too.

As Kazuya opened the leather swinging doors and stepped inside, he was greeted with the smell of intellect, dust, and silence. Every wall was lined with huge bookshelves. A mysterious, labyrinthine staircase, like a swarm of snakes, led all the way to the high ceiling adorned with majestic religious paintings.

Kazuya didn’t try to climb the stairs today. He only went to the secret conservatory at the top to see a girl, but he knew she hadn’t been there for the past few days.

The girl—Victorique de Blois, Europe’s Wellspring of Wisdom and a mysterious flower adorned with ruffles and laces—had been confined to her little house in the last several days. Her adventures in the eerie monastery of Beelzebub’s Skull on the Baltic coast and the transcontinental train ride home on the Old Masquerade had most likely given her a bit of a fever. So, for the past few days, Kazuya had been picking out books from the library and telling his bored friend strange stories—curious historical accounts that revolved around flowers.

“Hmm. What story should I tell her today?” Kazuya sighed as he looked up at the library’s gigantic bookshelves.

The walls, crammed with tens of thousands of books, issued an overwhelming, stifling ambience.

Kazuya climbed the stairs for a bit, then stopped. “That reminds me, what exactly is a mandrake? It does appear in folk tales a lot.”

Trotting up the stairs, he picked up a few books and sat down on the steps. He flipped through the pages, nodding to himself. A moment later, he stood up and tucked one of the books under his arm.

“Okay, let’s go with this one,” he muttered as he went back down. “I’ve got to hurry. If I take too much time, she’ll get grumpy.”

Straightening his back, Kazuya left the library and started walking down the gravel path once more.

The sun had gone down, casting gentle evening light on the trickling fountains and the white gravel pathway.

As he moved away from the library and returned to the same place as earlier, he heard the same hushed voices.

“Should we pull it out?”

“Good idea. Let’s give it a tug.”

“If it’s a real mandrake, it should let out a ghastly scream.”

“A ghastly scream?! Noooo!”

The pleated skirt of Avril’s uniform and the hem of Ms. Cecile’s long, white-gray skirt peeked out from within the bushes, swaying as they spoke.

Kazuya let out a sigh. As he walked past, he heard a “1, 2…” count, followed by the sound of something being pulled out.

Next came an otherworldly scream.

“Kyaaaahhh!”

Not the mandrake’s, but Avril’s, most likely.

Kazuya stopped and turned his gaze to them. The pair came tumbling out of the bushes.

“What was that just now?” Ms. Cecile asked.

“Th-That was me,” Avril replied. “But I thought I heard something else.”

“My ears were ringing.”

There was dirt on their faces and clothes. Exchanging glances, they swallowed.

A bird twittered in the distance.

It was a beautiful day, the setting sun pleasantly warm.

Avril and Ms. Cecile shrieked at the same time.

“Kyaaahh!”

“It’s a curse!”

“Um, excuse me,” Kazuya called hesitantly. “What are you two on about?”

The women turned to him. Then, they tossed the large, dirty, carrot-looking thing they were holding.

Kazuya took it reluctantly.

“You can have it!”

“The mandrake is yours!”

“I don’t want it. Besides, this is a carrot…”

Kazuya’s face tightened as he remembered that there was someone waiting for him. With a muddy carrot in one hand and a book in the other, he went on his way.

He walked along the gravel path, away from the shrill voices, until he arrived at the flowerbed maze. With a familiar gait, he disappeared inside.

The wind blew, shaking the flowers in the flowerbeds a little wildly.

A squirrel scuttled across the path.

A quiet, evening garden.

Avril looked over her shoulder for no reason. Her eyes snapped wide.

“H-He’s gone!” She rested a muddy hand on her cheek. “Come to think of it, Kujou disappeared from there yesterday, too. I took my eyes off him for a second, and when I looked, he was already gone. How?”

Her short, golden hair stirred.

“Hmm…”

Avril was deep in thought for a while.