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Siblings – Part 02

Inspector Blois had a bitter look on his face. “No accolades this time,” he said. “What a shame. Gideon Legrant, you’re free to go. A carriage is here to pick you up.”

“So I’m in the clear?” Gideon got up and started walking with the bouncy gait of a gazelle.

“Of course not,” Inspector Blois said tiredly.

“But someone’s here to pick me up.”

Detectives appeared from the corridor and exchanged looks. The Ministry of the Occult probably called, forcing them to release Gideon. Amid the awkward and heavy atmosphere, Gideon casually put his things—the contents of Jupiter Roget’s memento box, the umbilical cord, portrait, perfume bottle—into his suitcase and gently closed it. Victorique watched him silently.

“Are you ready? Then let’s go. There’s a carriage on the ground floor. I hear your sister is in it too. Come on, hurry up!”

“Yes, sir!” Without turning around, Gideon left.

Victorique watched wordlessly as he moved away. The thin smoke rising from her pipe wavered faintly.

“Lumberjack, wait!”

A low voice stopped Gideon. He looked over his shoulder. Victorique regarded his face, glowing with relief that the crisis had passed. She got up from her chair and trotted toward him.

“What is it?” Gideon asked.

“You were a delightful traveling companion. It’s a shame that you have to leave, so I thought I’d share some parting words.”

“Hmm?”

Inspector Blois looked grimly into his sister’s face. He knew better than anyone that his sister would not feel anything about a traveling companion. Gideon stared back at Victorique with a puzzled look on his face.

“Bring your ears closer,” she said. “Crouch down. I can’t reach.”

“O-Okay.” Gideon crouched down and brought his ear close to Victorique’s lips.

“Run,” Victorique murmured in the sinister, husky voice of an old woman.

“…What?” Gideon whispered back. “Why? I’m free now. I can go home with my sister. Why do I have to run?”

“You’re free only if you got the memento box, no?”

Gideon’s complexion slowly changed. “What do you mean?”

“That box you killed the Orphan to get is a fake one. That’s what I whispered in the Orphan’s ear before she passed away. I told her to rest assured. That the memento she took from the monastery is a dummy. That’s why she looked relieved when she died.”

“What?!”

“I pretended not to notice you stealing the contents of the box from the Orphan’s handbag because it was a fake. I wanted to confirm who the Orphan’s enemy was. The real memento box was already taken out of the monastery by Cordelia Gallo. What you have is an identical imitation that she left behind. An examination would immediately reveal that. The handwriting is different from Jupiter’s own, and the portrait is probably new, not from his childhood. It’s only a matter of time before they learn the truth, Gideon.”

“No way…” Gideon’s face gradually turned pale.

Inspector Blois was waiting impatiently in the corridor.

“Wh-What do I do?”

“Run, Hare!”

“What?”

“Marquis Albert de Blois and the Ministry of the Occult set this whole thing up, but there’s no rule that says the children can’t win. Run away. Run as far as you can, Hare. Together with your sister.”

“Hare? What are you talking about?”

“There was a case a long time ago. Shortly before the Great War, there were poor hares—boys and girls—who were gnawed to death by adults. They died one after another on a sinking luxury liner, without knowing why. Innocent children, about the same age as us. Anyway, just run. I’ll see you around, Gideon. Someone’s kind brother whose hands are stained with blood. Young, cursed Lumberjack, who goes on chopping down trees for his sister.”

Gideon staggered to his feet, staring down at Victorique. Fear and anxiety flashed in his gray eyes. But a moment later, he gave a firm and determined nod.

Handing his suitcase to Inspector Blois, Gideon made an effort to walk with a spring in his steps. He even whistled as he skipped.

“Well, aren’t we in a good mood?” the inspector muttered.

Right before he could turn the corner, Gideon looked back and gave Victorique a small, grateful nod.

Once he was out of sight, Victorique trotted back to the room. She sat in her chair for a while, alone. Her beauty seemed to block the passage of time itself. It looked as if a luxurious porcelain doll was left propped up in a chair for ten or even a hundred years. A strange tranquility filled the room.

Smoke drifted from her pipe. Her golden hair cascaded down.

“Have I made even a little progress?” Victorique mumbled to herself in her low, husky voice.

The words of her older brother Grevil replayed in her ears. That nasty voice that had mocked his young, terrifying sister.

It was shortly after the case which resulted in Grevil sporting his hair in the shape of a cannon.

“You’re an ignorant princess locked in a tower.”

“You have no power to put anyone in despair.”

“Because the little Gray Wolf has never loved anyone.”

She was much smaller then and much less human than she was now. A little Gray Wolf who terrorized people, locked up in a tower, burying her brilliant mind in a sea of books.

She recalled the unforgettable words whispered by Cordelia, the mother wolf, as she climbed up the tower and handed her a gold coin pendant.

“Mother loves you. Even when we’re apart, I will always come to you in your hour of need. Victorique, my beloved daughter.”

The days she spent wandering through a sea of books, searching for the meaning of her mother’s words. The anxiety that filled her tiny heart, and the longing for her mother. And the curious, foreign boy hailing from the orient.

“Have I made a little bit of progress in solving the mystery of a lifetime?” she murmured in a trembling voice. “To unmasking this cold and burning emotion inside my chest that seems to be constantly hidden under a veil.”

She sat still for a while.

A thin wisp of smoke wafted from her pipe, and her golden hair rustled. A while later, Victorique stood up and opened the window with both hands.

Outside stood department stores and brick buildings. The paved streets were filled with people. Parked in front of the police station was a carriage, from which adults in suits emerged and greeted Gideon. Gideon smiled and said something, pointing to the suitcase he had asked Inspector Blois to carry. The young man then cheerfully got on the carriage.

Victorique, looking down from a window far above, mumbled, “Run.” The door on the other side of the carriage swung open. “Run, hare!”

Gideon stepped out silently first, followed by a petite girl of about seventeen with waist-length, black hair. Holding each other’s hands tightly, they ran through the busy street. An oncoming car blared its horn at them, and a horse-drawn carriage almost ran them over.

The adults still didn’t seem to realize their escape. The men in suits and Inspector Blois were talking about something.

A moment later…

Amid the blaring horns and the jolly accordion music, a man in a suit glanced back at the carriage, pointed, and shouted something.

Men scattered in all directions, running. Victorique could hear them shouting Gideon’s name all the way up to the fourth-floor window. The young man gripped his sister’s pale hand tight and raced through the crowded streets as fast as possible. The men chased after him like hounds, but a carriage blocked them. The two kept running, huddled close like lovers. The girl’s long, black hair fluttered, and then slowly darkened like a terrifying nightmare at dawn, until eventually they turned a corner and vanished like bubbles.

“Run, hare,” Victorique said. Her icy, emotionless face twisted faintly. “History is moving. A storm will come once more. But never, ever let the adults catch you. You must live for each other, and no one else.”