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Petals and Owl – Part 02

An hour later…

“I-I lost my way again!”

Avril stood dumbfounded, flashlight in hand.

The huge maze turned into an even bigger puzzle at this time of night, when darkness had encroached, tormenting those who were lost inside. A familiar path. Familiar flowers. The direction of the moonlight was the only thing she could rely on, but even the clouds blotted out the moon, plunging the area in darkness. Then she got more lost, and by the time the moon showed itself again, she found herself in an unexpected spot.

“What’s going on?!” Avril shouted into the night sky. Tears formed in her clear blue eyes. “I’m lost.”

The complex shape of the flowerbed maze gave the feeling of wandering into the body of a gigantic beast. The intricate, narrow passageways were like intestines surrounded by flowers, the musty smell bringing to mind animals that had eaten flowers for a meal. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted. The next moment, a hoot came from nearby. Avril shuddered.

Sounds like its wings are huge. Must be a huge owl.

Gripped by fear, Avril lowered her stuff.

Hopefully, I’ll be fine. I think we learned in class that owls are carnivorous… Surely, there’s no problem.

Setting her flashlight down for now, she decided to eat some emergency ration to cheer herself up. She took out a piece of chocolate and munched on it. The clouds drifted away, revealing the moon. Soft light touched Avril.

Blooming red, white, and pink flowers surrounded her. Something drew Avril’s attention. She gasped, staring at a spot in the flowerbed. A lone, bright-red daisy was standing there.

As she studied it, the chocolate fell out of her hand.

“Oh…” Her face turned somber, and tears formed in the corner of her eyes. “Hmm…”

As Avril stood there staring at the daisy in the flowerbed, someone came trotting down the path.

Small footsteps. Black shoes covered with black pearl ornaments. A magical, luxurious dress of blue velvet overlaid with delicate French-knitted black lace.

Under the moonlight, the figure stood out like a phantom in the night.

Her golden hair, like an unfurled silk turban, hung down to her ankles, swaying softly as she walked. It seemed like the tail of some ancient creature. Her dark, green eyes were half-hidden by the black silk lace hanging from her small blue hat.

The porcelain doll stopped when she saw a girl in uniform staring at the flowerbeds.

She watched her eerily for a while, then in an indifferent voice said, “Suspicious person. What are you doing there?”

Avril, pensive, glanced at her. “Oh, Victorique.” Her mind seemed to be somewhere else. “I was just thinking.”

“Thinking? Here?”

“Yeah… Do you want some chocolate?”

Avril took a piece of chocolate out of her pocket and offered it to her.

“No, thank you,” the lovely girl—Victorique—huffed.

“Hmm…”

“Farewell.” Victorique turned to leave.

“Ah!” Avril snapped back to her senses and stopped her. “Wait a minute!”

“…What is it?”

“Don’t give me that. I was right. I knew your house was in here. I thought for sure that was the case. Kujou comes here every day, after all. I was right!”

“So loud. Who are you again?” she asked nonchalantly. “An acquaintance of mine?”

“What did you say?! How can you forget that easily? Sure, you might not care about me, but still. It’s me, farting new—I mean, don’t call me that again. It’s Avril. Avril Bradley.”

“Oh.” Victorique clapped her small hands together. “Are you related to Sir Bradley?”

“Yup. He was my grandfather. I love him,” Avril replied briskly. Then, her voice softened. “I was just told that he’s very popular with the ladies of Sauville. Even you, who forgets about me after taking three steps, remember my grandfather, huh?”

“Ahuh. Well, then.”

Losing interest, Victorique took her eyes off Avril and tottered away. Avril tried to stop her quick. As things were, she would not be able to solve the mystery of the flowerbed, and she was not even sure if she could return to the dormitory before lights out. She was currently lost in a huge maze resembling the inside of a beast that had eaten flowers for dinner.

Before she could call her name, Victorique herself looked back at her, which was rather unusual. She was regarding Avril with a questioning look, her golden hair stirring.

“You…”

“What? Yes, as you can see, I’m lost.”

“I don’t care about that. You looked sad earlier. Why?”

Caught off-guard, Avril fell silent. Then slowly, she turned her gaze back to the spot she was staring at earlier.

“Because…”

Victorique marched back to her, her blue velvet dress swaying, and followed her gaze. Her green eyes, like a spirit’s that had been around since time immemorial, narrowed a little.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes.” Avril nodded. Tears in her eyes, she pointed to a black caterpillar cutting a hole on a leaf of a pretty daisy. “A caterpillar,” she said gravely.

“A caterpillar made you sad? You’re an amusing one, farting newt.”

“No, I’m not! It’s not that. I saw this caterpillar, and it reminded me of something. I know, maybe you can give me an answer. It’s about my late aunt. Her name was Daisy.”

Victorique snorted faintly. “Daisy, huh? Not a bad name. It has a virtuous ring to it.”

“Indeed. Daisy was the wife of Sir Bradley Jr., the eldest son of Sir Bradley the Adventurer. Junior was my uncle. To tell this story, I must talk about bugs. His life truly began in the year 1901. When he was 20 years old, he saw a bug.”

Gentle moonlight fell on the flowerbed maze, Avril pointing at the caterpillar, and Victorique, looking up at the void with cold eyes, seemingly uninterested.

---

Sir Bradley Jr., the son of fighter and grand British adventurer Sir Bradley, the pride of England, unsurprisingly, spent all his life trying to surpass his father. In that sense, one might consider Junior to be a true fighter himself, but his battle had a futile and fruitless side to it.

“Pops finished school. In that case, I’m gonna make it big without finishing!”

He left a prestigious boarding school at the age of seventeen for that reason alone. His father was on an adventure trip to the Dark Continent of Africa at the time, so his mother beat him with a frying pan, chasing him around the kitchen and garden. Not letting go of the kitchen utensil, his mother forced him to enroll in a different school.

“My dad is an English gentleman. In that case…”

Then he started hanging out with the town’s delinquents, so his mother chased him around town with a whip. His strict mother was now a gentle and sophisticated old widow, living leisurely in her villa by the Mediterranean Sea, but that’s a story for another time.

Anyway, Sir Bradley Jr. did a lot of crazy things just to surpass his father, and by the time he turned twenty, he was known among Londoners as ‘Sir Bradley’s stupid son’. He and his mother became featured in the newspaper’s comics’ section, depicting him causing trouble and his mother chasing him around. There were even bets placed in pubs and social clubs on what he would do next.

But Junior, however, was more than just a stupid son, for his idiocy beggared even the imagination.

---

“Are you supposed to be bragging about your relative? A weird way to do it, then,” Victorique, glancing at Avril, mumbled tiredly.

The wind blew through the night-shrouded flowerbed maze.

Sitting on the edge of the flowerbed, Victorique, with the elegant motion of a gentlewoman, was waving a blue fan adorned with black plume. With every wave of the fan, her hair fluttered in the faint breeze. Her green eyes, glittering like jewels, were narrowed in boredom.

“I-It’s not weird. My uncle is awesome.”

“Really, now?”

“Yup. I’m just getting to the good part.”

Avril pointed to the caterpillar, which was wriggling as it munched on a daisy leaf.

“What’s wrong with the caterpillar?” Victorique asked.

“My uncle had a lot of doubts when he was a teenager because of his father, but he eventually found his calling. All because of a bug.”

“Hmm…”

Avril resumed talking, and Victorique reluctantly listened, waving her fan.

Clouds rolled in, and the moon dimmed.

Avril’s voice rose.