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Winter Morning – Part 01

“Dance you shall,” said he, “dance in your red shoes till you are pale and cold, till your skin shrivels up and you are a skeleton!”

Hans Christian Andersen, The Red Shoes

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Prologue: The Girl

A woman was locked in a stone tower.

Surrounded by a frigid forest, the structure, slender with nothing but a narrow spiral staircase, looked more like a huge sword made of ice than a stone tower. The only things visible through the small square window was the moon and the dense forest. Not a single beast’s cry could be heard from the woods. For a forest, winter was the season of death.

At the very top of the tower, in a small room as cold as an ice storage, a woman was chained up. No, she was too young to be called a woman. Her tiny face was frozen with fear, anger, and sorrow. She was staring at a spot on the wall with eyes as cloudy as the dead’s. Her simple clothes, which seemed like just white fabric, were hardly enough to keep out the midwinter cold.

Two steel chains stretching from the walls held both of her pale wrists.

Every time the woman, or rather the girl, moved a little, the chains rattled, stopping her.

The night wind howled outside the tower. The girl swallowed, and her shoulders quivered. Her pale lips slowly parted, revealing pearly white teeth.

The wind stirred horrifying memories. Between her lips peeked a hole as dark as the abyss, and from within it came a dreadful howl.

The cry of a beast, deep and loud, rose from the depths of her emaciated body.

The stone tower shook so violently that it looked as if it might collapse at any moment.

The girl’s small shoulders were trembling. Eventually she lifted her head.

Eyes gleamed darkly beneath her unkempt hair. Opening her lips once more, she let out a spine-chilling cry that ripped through the night.

The wind battered the stone tower like spindrift. The girl’s cry and the wind’s howling mingled to create an ominous sound that echoed endlessly through the wintry forest of death.

---

The winter sun was shining down on the garden of St. Marguerite Academy.

Snow that had fallen silently through the night piled up on the grass, the roof of the gazebos, and the iron benches, glistening white in the morning sun.

Even the crystal statue of the goddess in the middle of the fountain, frozen in a layer of snow, twinkled. It was early on a Sunday morning; there were no students, teachers, or gardeners about.

From the pure-white carpet of snow on the lawn came the sound of soft footsteps. A small Asian man wearing a thick coat, buttoned up to the top, a bowler hat, and a scarf wrapped twice around his neck, was walking slowly, silently, through the desert of undisturbed, early-morning snow.

It was Kazuya Kujou.

His tightly-pursed lips, combined with his yellowish skin and jet-black eyes, both rare in this country, made him look grumpy.

Upon closer look, Kazuya was holding a large carrot firmly in his right hand. Like a samurai brandishing a sword, he held the carrot out in front of him.

“Here, here.”

In response to his low, sheepish call, a chunk of snow, or rather a small and round hare, appeared from behind a tree.

Kazuya’s expression softened. “I knew it! A rabbit!” A pure, childlike smile appeared on his face.

He bent down and offered the carrot. “I saw you jumping through the snow out the window of my room earlier. It’s a cold Sunday. I’d bet Victorique’s even more bored than usual. Come, little bunny. Come with me to visit the terribly whimsical, mean, smart, snarky, and lonely Wellspring of Wisdom.”

The hare’s red eyes, round as a glass ball, blinked. Staring at him blankly, the creature hopped away.

“Wait! Don’t go!” Kazuya quickly went after it, his pace quickening as the hare bounded.

From the other side of the lawn appeared Avril Bradley, a foreign student from England. What she was up to so early on a Sunday morning, no one knew. She was wearing a trench coat and a hunting cap on her head. Holding a large magnifying glass in one hand, she was studying the snowy ground like a detective.

Kazuya, holding out a carrot, and Avril, holding a magnifying glass, bumped heads under a large tree. Avril yelped. Snow fell from the branches.

They brushed the snow off their hats.

“Good morning, Kujou. What are you doing?”

“Uh, you know, chasing a rabbit.”

“Why are you holding a mandrake?”

“It’s a carrot.”

“I’m actually looking for a necrostone.”

“Besides, mandrakes aren’t real,” Kazuya explained gravely. “It’s just a fictitious plant often found in the ghost stories you read… Wait, what did you say?” He gave Avril a curious look.

Avril smugly took out a book from her coat pocket titled Ghost Stories: Volume Four.

“So necrostone is a stone from Africa that has been around since ancient times. If you make it into powder and drink it, your corpse won’t rot even after you die. Not only that, but your soul also remains, so corpses that don’t decompose walk around at night. They come home to their families, saying, ‘I’m home, where’s my snack?’ or ‘What happened to my room?’ and then… Wait, where are you going?”

“I’m, uh… kinda busy. Oh, crap. I’m gonna lose the rabbit!”

Kazuya trotted away, and Avril, holding a magnifying glass like a young detective, followed close behind.

Kazuya found the rabbit curled up under a bench. Gently, he reached for it and picked it up.

Ms. Cecile passed by on the pathway in the distance, yawning and rubbing her eyes drowsily. She was wearing a soft coat and a brown woolen hat on her head. She glanced over at Kazuya, who was holding a rabbit happily, and rubbed her eyes again as she went on her way.

Avril, already tired of searching for the supernatural stone, put the book and magnifying glass in her pocket.

She clapped her hands. “I know. Hey, Kujou. Since it’s Sunday, how about going shopping with me in the village?”

“Shopping?” Kazuya wondered. “What are you buying so early in the morning?”

“There’s a human chess tournament before Christmas break. I need to buy materials for the costumes. Right now I can take my time and choose before the others wake up.”

“But I need to take this rabbit to—” Kazuya shut his mouth and turned to the winter sky.

The snow had stopped falling in the middle of the night and the sun was shining brightly. The library tower, a majestic stone structure that filled the sky, loomed over them.

A hall of knowledge. An altar that housed books, the greatest in all of Europe. A large building, terrifying yet always quiet.

Kazuya’s heart ached. He closed his eyes for a moment.

Avril pulled on his arm, and he staggered forward with a grunt.

“Wh-What is it?!” he exclaimed as they ran.

“We’re going to the village. We’ll be the store’s first customers! Run, Kujou!”

“I can’t believe you.”

The hare escaped from Kazuya’s arms and landed on the ground.

“Ah.”

Red eyes blinked, then the hare bounded away across the snowy plains, its round butt swaying.

“There it goes.”

“Let’s go!”

Crestfallen, Kazuya headed toward the academy’s main gate, with Avril pulling him along.

---

The year was 1924.

The Kingdom of Sauville, a small European country, also known as the little giant of Western Europe.

A thick forest marked its border with Switzerland. An endless expanse of beautiful rural landscape separated it from France. A dazzling summer retreat along the Mediterranean Sea demarcated its boundary with Italy. If the Gulf of Lyon facing the Mediterranean was the magnificent entrance to this kingdom, which was long and narrow like a mysterious corridor, then the Alps on the other side were the secret attic hidden deep within. Surrounded by world powers, it had a long history, surviving even the Great War, and was now safely sailing onto the modern age like a small boat. At the outskirts of a village located at the foot of the mountains quietly stood a school where the atmosphere of the Middle Ages still lingered.

Saint Marguerite Academy.

Boasting a long and grand history, though not as long as the kingdom itself, it was an educational institution for the children of aristocracy, a place shrouded in a veil of secrecy. A large French-style garden surrounded the U-shaped school building, while the campus itself was hidden from view by tall hedges. Rumors said that some of the kingdom’s secrets were born and buried in this mysterious school.

After the end of the Great War, the academy began accepting students from some allied countries.

Fifteen-year-old Kazuya Kujou was one of them. Hailing from an island country in the Far East, he was accepted for his excellent academic record, but the students’ unwelcoming attitude had given him a hard time in this foreign land. Then he met a mysterious girl named Victorique de Blois, a descendant of the Gray Wolves. Confined in St. Marguerite Academy, also known as the kingdom’s secret arsenal, she possessed astonishing intelligence.

Before he knew it, Kazuya’s life as an international student had begun to revolve around Victorique.

---

“Please stop pulling my arm, Avril! You’re gonna rip it off!” someone screamed as they walked past the boys’ dormitory.

Snow had blanketed the garden, turning it into a white and fluffy Christmas cake that had just been topped with cream and ready to be decorated. It was a chilly morning, but in the dining room on the first floor of the boys’ dormitory, the large, blazing stove provided warmth enough to redden one’s cheeks.

On a simple chair by the window, the dorm mother, Sophie, was sitting with one knee propped up. Her fiery-red hair was pulled back in a bun, and her large breasts peeked out from under her apron. She lifted her freckled, mischievous-looking face.

“Wait, was that Kujou?” she mumbled to no one in particular. She scratched her neck. “Which reminds me, he just barged in with a sleepy face earlier, asked for a carrot, and pointed outside while saying something. Then he left.” She cocked her head. “I think he mentioned something about a rabbit. Well, whatever.”

She reached for a cup of honey tea filled to the brim and looked down at the newspaper spread open on the table.

The front page featured a rather disturbing political article. “Breakdown of Alliance?”, “Joint Meeting Soon!”, “Possible Firestorm in Eastern Europe?”, and other ominous words were written all over it.

Sophie frowned momentarily, then flipped through the pages.

Her breath caught in her throat. Holding her cup of tea, she read the article in the entertainment section.

A play was going to be performed at the Phantom, a long-established theater in Saubreme, the capital of the Kingdom of Sauville. And the name of the play was…

“‘The Blue Rose of Sauville Returns!’ Let’s see here… It’s been ten years since the mysterious death of Coco Rose. The legendary play that detailed the life of the beautiful, pure, and lonely queen who still lives on in people’s hearts will be performed again starting tonight.’ Wow!”

Sophie gripped the newspaper tight and looked into the distance.

“I-I wanna see it…”

Thinking back, when she came to St. Marguerite Academy to work as a maid, she collected photos of the lovely queen and pasted magazine clippings on her walls.

Sophie contemplated for a while, scratching her chin. Then she stood up and gulped down her tea.

“All right. I’m checking it out!” She placed her hands on her hips. “Saubreme is just a short ride away. It’s Sunday, and as long as I return tonight, I’ll be fine. Let’s go!”

A strange, golden drill was moving across the snowy landscape outside.

Snow fell from a branch.

Somewhere a little winter bird chirped.