The Serpent of Paradise - Chapter 29

Anastasia stood by the window and looked outside through the curtains. She could see the carriages that arrived late the previous night. The mansion’s servants tirelessly unloaded the furniture piled high on the freight wagons. Anastasia’s eyes moved busily. She recognized some pieces, such as beds and bookshelves, but there were also furnishings of unfamiliar shapes whose purpose she couldn’t begin to guess.

The unfamiliar furniture wasn’t the only thing that surprised Anastasia. A week had passed since Mikhail came to Edenhurst, and every day, an unbroken procession of carriages continued arriving from Sokolov.

Anastasia alone saw dozens of carriages, each filled not only with furniture but with all manner of objects intended to fill the mansion.

‘They said all of it was brought from the Sokolov mansion.’

According to the maids, all the furniture came from Mikhail’s home, the mansion in Sokolov. Yuri, who visited Edenhurst previously, prepared everything in advance on Mikhail’s orders.

There were enough items to make the once-empty Edenhurst appear full. Yet all these things came from a mansion large enough to store them. Anastasia thought of Edenhurst’s storeroom. The storeroom beside the basement room where she lived for several years was filled with carpets and curtains replaced with the seasons, along with various odds and ends.

But even that space would be completely full if all the furniture in her current room were placed inside. Yet there was a mansion with a storeroom capable of holding enough objects to fill this entire mansion.

‘Just how large is the Sokolov mansion?’

Anastasia was startled by the thought that suddenly occurred to her. It was the first time in her life that she had ever wondered about a place other than Edenhurst.

After all, Edenhurst was the most beautiful and perfect place in the world. She always assumed that everything beyond Edenhurst resembled the rural village where she lived as a child….

Meanwhile, once the carriages finished unloading and moved around the back of the mansion, Anastasia stepped away from the curtains and turned around. The skirt she wore spun with her. Looking down at it, Anastasia abruptly turned again. The swaying hem flared into a wide circle, tracing a beautiful line.

Following the path of the hem with her eyes, Anastasia spun this way and that several more times. Each time, a beautiful red flower of fabric bloomed inside her room.

“Ah….”

Perhaps she became too absorbed in her game. After spinning continuously, dizziness swept over her. Anastasia dropped onto the edge of the bed. Her body bounced on the soft mattress. Anastasia stood and sat down several more times, enjoying the sensation.

Though it was a simple movement, like a crow rolling through winter snow, she was genuinely delighted.

Eventually, dizziness swept over her again, and Anastasia collapsed onto the bed. The bedding wrapped around her face. It was filled with a warm, comforting scent. The scent of fabric dried beneath the sun. The same scent that clung to her clothes after she dried them in the ruined chapel within the midsummer forest.

The scent alone reminded her of brilliant sunlight, so whenever Anastasia went to the chapel, she deliberately spread the clothes she wore over the rocks and let them soak up the sunshine. At night, she embraced those clothes, thought of the sunlight, and endured the cold.

Anastasia lifted her face from the bedding and sat up.

“The chapel….”

She hadn’t gone to the forest for a week. It hadn’t rained during that time, but Anastasia was worried about the shoes she hid beneath the stone bench.

‘I need to go and check.’

Anastasia rose and approached the door. She placed her hand on the handle, then let it fall weakly. No one specifically ordered her to remain in this room. Even so, Anastasia hadn’t taken a single step outside of it of her own accord.

Until now, everyone has always ordered her not to come out. But….

“Just cry as loudly as you need to.”

The voice that told her she could freely do what everyone else forbade brushed past her ears. At that moment, Anastasia pressed the back of her hand against her reddened nape. After standing alone for a long time to cool the heat, Anastasia looked down at the clothes she wore.

Despite fleeing from the maids’ hands a week ago and refusing to wear them, Anastasia now obediently wore whatever clothes they gave her. Of course, the garments still felt unfamiliar. Her arms were exposed, as were her ankles. Some even had necklines so low that the upper part of her chest showed.

When Anastasia recoiled in horror and begged them to return her old clothes, the maids became distressed instead and pleaded with her not to kneel. Then they ran to the carriages arriving from Sokolov, found a shawl she could wrap around her neck, and draped it over her.

Thanks to that, Anastasia continued wearing the new clothes the maids gave her. They were made from soft fabrics and cut in styles she had never worn before. At first, they were so loose that she looked like a child wearing an adult’s clothes. But the maids spent an entire day hovering around her with needles and altered everything until it fit her perfectly.

Clutching the clothes tailored to her body, Anastasia bowed to the maids again and again.

“Miss, please don’t do that. We only did what we were supposed to do.”

The maids shifted anxiously at Anastasia’s thanks, not knowing what to do. There was no contempt in their eyes.

‘Before… they became angry….’

When she first came to the mansion, the maids assigned to her politely bowed their heads at the count’s order to provide her with suitable clothing. But after withdrawing, they cast cold looks at her.

Then they realized that as long as they obeyed the count’s orders to keep Anastasia confined to her room and bring her to his study once a month, he didn’t care much about her condition. After that, Anastasia’s life became extremely difficult.

“Can’t we just give her clothes Miss Catherine can no longer wear? Don’t put too much effort into it.”

“But she’s so thin that nothing suits her.”

“Who cares? She can’t walk around wearing something like a burlap sack, so this is actually perfect.”

The maids assigned to Anastasia looked at her as though she were filthy refuse. It was only natural at the time, when the countess’s crying never ceased.

At first, they at least gave her wearable clothes. But once they realized Anastasia never told the count anything and was afraid of them, their bullying grew increasingly severe. Eventually, they threw her a scrap of fabric rather than clothing.

“Starting tomorrow, you’ll wear this, miss.”

She heard them snickering. Even so, Anastasia couldn’t respond and accepted the fabric they held out to her. It was shaped in a way that made it impossible to wear properly. It was clearly an old work garment worn threadbare by one of the large stable hands.

“Go ahead and put it on. I think it will suit you.”

“D-Don’t….”

“Don’t be shy. What are you doing? Hurry and undress her.”

The maids seized Anastasia and forcibly removed her clothes. They forced the old garment onto her emaciated body. Once the maids released her, Anastasia hugged herself against the cold seeping through the worn fabric and realized that the garment was so large that it kept slipping below her shoulders.

“Please give me something else….”

“My, miss. You’re throwing a tantrum that not even Miss Elizabeth or Miss Catherine would throw.”

Their clothes were perfectly tailored and required no alterations. But Anastasia didn’t know that, so their words sounded like a rebuke. Who was she to make demands that even the real young ladies never made?

“We’ll take the rest of your clothes to be washed.”

The maids gathered every other garment and closed the door behind them. Their delighted laughter came from beyond it. After they left, Anastasia sat curled up in a corner of the room and trembled. They didn’t even leave her a blanket, so she had nothing to cover herself with. Creak. At that moment, the door opened slightly. Thinking the maids returned, Anastasia raised her head with relief, then caught her breath.

An eye was watching her through the narrow opening in the door. An eye concealed in the darkness, staring at her. Its gaze traveled over her as though licking her face, then her neck, and finally the chest exposed through her thin clothing. As the gaze crawled across her entire body, Anastasia remembered her father’s words.

Never show anyone your face or your body. You are a serpent who tempts people and causes them to sin.

The eye hidden in the darkness watched Anastasia for a long time before disappearing.

From that day onward, Anastasia wore layer after layer of clothing. So the eye that sometimes visited at night couldn’t see her. Since she was the wicked one, she needed to stop that eye from committing any more sins.

That eye undoubtedly belonged to….

“Miss Anastasia!”

“…!”

At the voice calling her, Anastasia gasped in surprise. The dark, cold memory vanished in an instant, and she found herself back in the warm, sunlit room.

“My goodness, are you all right? Why are you sweating so much…?”

The maid standing before Anastasia reached out with a startled expression.

“Ah!”

Anastasia recoiled and knocked the maid’s hand away. Had she been holding her breath? Starved for air, Anastasia inhaled roughly. Her briefly spinning vision slowly returned to focus. Then she remembered swatting the maid’s hand away moments ago.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to….”

“No, it’s all right. You didn’t answer when I knocked, so I took the liberty of coming inside. Are you truly all right?”

Despite having her hand struck away rather painfully, the maid showed no displeasure. She merely looked concerned. Her name was Natasha, and she was the maid assigned exclusively to Anastasia.

“But wh-what is it?”

Anastasia no longer hid herself when speaking with the maids. Even so, memories of the past made it difficult for her words to come freely, and she still stammered. But the newly arrived maids from Sokolov always treated Anastasia with a smile, never once looking at her strangely.