A Mad Lady’s Confession - Chapter 67
The narrow passage, barely wide enough for a small child or a slender adult woman to come and go, didn’t seem like a path made for people.
Even though Eleanor was thin, the hem of her A-line dress brushed entirely against the wall and the building.
When she emerged from the narrow passage, another yard opened before her. Unlike the place she had just seen, however, there were no vegetable patches or barns, only a small arched wooden door standing by itself.
The child went over, took hold of the doorknob with practiced ease, and looked at Eleanor.
“Is that the way we need to go?”
The child’s little chin bobbed up and down. Then the child held up the bag of cookies.
“All right, let’s go together.”
Once Eleanor gave her permission, the child took her hand and pushed the door open.
With a small creak, the wooden door opened to reveal surprisingly little. Perhaps it was the back of the orphanage building, but there was only a broad field on a gentle hill.
“What’s here?”
She looked around, but nothing caught her eye. There was only the green grass saturated with the brilliant summer sunlight, two or three goats leisurely grazing on it, and several large, densely foliaged trees.
The child let go of Eleanor’s hand and ran toward the trees as though familiar with the way.
“Where are you going?!”
Eleanor called out, but the child kept running diligently on those tiny legs. Worried that the child might fall or get lost, Eleanor hurried after her.
An adult’s stride quickly caught up with the child’s run. Eleanor followed the child as she slipped between the towering trees, then stopped at the unexpected sight before her.
A small cottage stood in the space hidden behind the trees. It was surrounded by a wooden fence that came up to an adult’s waist, and the child opened the gate with practiced ease and entered the yard.
What was this place? Since it wasn’t far from the orphanage building, it might have been used as a storage shed or perhaps as lodging for a shepherd who lived nearby.
While Eleanor stood wondering about the place before her, the cottage door cracked open.
The child standing in the yard pricked up her ears and turned around delightedly. When she held the bag of cookies high, one girl and one boy came rushing out from inside.
The three children giggled as they ate the cookies. They looked so adorable and lovable that Eleanor opened the gate and stepped inside. At her appearance, the children looked at her with eyes sparkling with curiosity.
“Hello, my name is Eleanor. It seems you all live here?”
But none of them answered. Could they not speak, or were they simply choosing not to?
Then perhaps this was some sort of annex to the orphanage. But it was strange. The child who had led her here and the two children from the cottage were all strange. She had been told that the children gathered inside the orphanage were all of them, so who were these children before her?
“There are cookies and dolls inside. Would you like to come with me?”
Even when she crouched down and asked, the children merely stared at her in confusion before smiling brightly. Just as her puzzlement began to spread again, a creak came from the cottage.
Perhaps sensing someone’s presence, another young child emerged from inside. The moment Eleanor saw the child in a loose shirt and trousers, with slightly disheveled hair, she couldn’t help being a little surprised.
“You look like… the cyclamen blooming in our garden, madam.”
It was the child she’d met in town only a short while ago.
The little boy who’d stood there with flushed cheeks, clutching his mother’s skirt and asking whether he could propose to Eleanor, was standing right there.
“You’re….”
Why was that child here? Could he have lost his parents in the meantime? The mere thought made her heart ache sharply.
The toes of Eleanor’s shoes moved toward the child. Just as she placed a foot on the steps leading up to the cottage, Eleanor suddenly sensed something amiss.
Seen up close, the child looked exactly like the one she’d seen that day, yet there was something different about him. His build and height were subtly thinner and smaller, and above all, he lacked the lively eyes and mischievous expression she remembered from that day.
Was it because he’d lost his parents? If the child had suffered some terrible shock….
Her movement toward him to embrace him faltered when several small figures appeared in a line behind him.
Six little children emerged through the door, their faces wondering what was happening. Among them, two girls caught Eleanor’s attention. The two girls were identical in height, face, hair color, and even expression as they stood looking at her.
A realization began to spread through her mind. Eleanor slowly looked over the children, who were all watching her now.
That child, and this one, and the little boy who resembled the adorable child she’d seen in town a few days earlier, all of them….
“There you are.”
At the low voice from behind her, all the children turned their heads at once. Letting out cries of delight, they pattered over and clung to the abbess’s skirt.
Eleanor slowly turned to face the gray-haired woman. The abbess stroked each child’s head and said, “You look as though you’d like to speak with me, madam.”
Eleanor nodded, her face on the verge of tears.
The abbess’s office was furnished simply and modestly.
When the two of them entered, a quiet-looking girl of about seventeen was sitting at the desk, writing on some documents.
“Marita, would you bring us some tea?”
At the abbess’s request, the girl called Marita answered, rose neatly from her seat, and went outside. The abbess offered Eleanor a seat.
After a brief silence, Eleanor began haltingly.
“…A while ago, I saw a little boy in town. That child… is over there….”
That boy had proper parents. Though they might not have been nobles, they were parents who would wait in line for cookies for their child, comfort him when he felt shy, and love him.
“I understand Horson’s parents live in town.”
“….”
“The child you saw in town was Horson’s twin brother.”
“…But why? That child called Horson has parents.”
Then why was he here? In a place where children who’d lost their parents were gathered, and hidden away as if they were trying to conceal him, at that. Eleanor’s expression asked the question for her.
The abbess’s eyes turned bitter.
“Because he’s a twin.”
“….”
“If you saw Rona and Serpina, you must already know.”
Eleanor didn’t need to ask to know that she meant the two identical girls.
“All the children in that cottage are twins.”
“….”
She couldn’t understand. Why in the world would that matter?
An explanation suddenly crossed Eleanor’s mind, but she tried not to think about it. That couldn’t be it. Not for a reason like that. Over something so….
“What does that… have to do with why the children are here?”
The abbess hesitated before answering bitterly, “Because in Römern, twins are considered ominous.”
“….”
“They’re said to be beings who divided between them the whole share that should’ve belonged to one….”
Superstition surrounding the birth of twins held nearly absolute sway in Römern. At first, they were merely regarded with unease, but at some point, every imaginable unlucky superstition became layered upon them until they became taboo.
“…What in the world does that even….”
Eleanor felt as though she couldn’t catch her breath. Her hands grew cold, and her fingertips trembled faintly. She clasped both hands together and pressed them tightly. It felt as though doing so might make the blood circulate again.
“Of course, it wasn’t like this at first. When I was still a young nun, you could occasionally see twins in Römern as well.”
“Then why….”
“Because His Majesty the Emperor was a twin.”
As Eleanor recalled, all these superstitions began, more precisely, after the current emperor ascended the throne.
After the death of his elder brother, who was originally the crown prince, the current emperor took the throne under suspicion that he had poisoned his brother, who had excelled in every way.
Was that why? Afterward, the emperor never hesitated to disparage his twin brother. The blatant condemnation and denigration of twins followed from then on.
He went around declaring that twins were born to destroy what was right. As though his brother had been the one born wrong and had tried to harm him, the one born right.
“The nobles watch the imperial family’s every move, and the emperor openly treats twins as ominous….”
More than ten years had passed that way. Before anyone realized it, twins had become something that did not exist in Römern. When two were born, people regarded one of them with revulsion, and sometimes both children born together.
“…How could they do that…? For no more reason than that?”
The abbess gave her a bitter answer.
“They say the most frightening things in the world are prejudice, false accusations, and the mouths of those who spread them. They can harm people without spilling a single drop of blood.”
The terror of rumors. Eleanor already knew it well.
“Th-then what about the children? The children who’ve already been born….”
“…In Gammelstad, they’re sent here. Horson knows his brother too. His mother and father come to see Horson once every week.”
“…Isn’t that too cruel?”
The child would suffer all the more for it. He would question his own existence because his parents and sibling wouldn’t take him with them, and once he grew a little older, he would agonize over it. Why didn’t his father love him, just as she once had?
The abbess’s wrinkled face took on a pained expression. With sorrowful eyes, she said, “…Compared to Belgar, this is still better.”
“….”
“In Belgar, in the capital… they get rid of the children.”
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namseokmin
So that explains it I think. I was thinking Eleanor either has DID or a older sister, but she had a twin and she’s covering for her because of the superstition of twins