Lacrima: Chapter Fourteen
Heroine
“Ran in?” Konrad, baffled at what Bae told them, gawked at the door of the zen garden room. “How? Why?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know!” Bae felt her inward wheels spin off their axes. “She told Service to rearrange the room, propped the door open, and bolted in. I mean that’s the how, but I have no idea why.”
Konrad crept closer to the portal. His bottom lip quivered. He then turned away.”So, she’s with Service?”
“Or at least where Service is,” Job said, pacing the length of the hall. “She’s been so invested in the mysteries of the mansion. I suppose she had to see it for herself.” Impulsively, he slammed his fist onto the window. It issued a dull thump.
Catherine was shaping up to be the prime suspect, he thought. Now, she’s crawling in the understory of the mansion.
Making an escape?
Advancing the next motion of her plan?
Raw impulse?
What is it?!
“Everyone.” Lucille crossed to the center of the incidental triangle Bae, Konrad, and Job formed. Job and Bae locked their attention on her. Konrad still absorbed himself with the door. Lucille Azure held her hands out. “Let’s calm down. Catherine made a hasty decision. We don’t have to follow her footsteps.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Konrad said.
“What do you mean?” Lucille asked.
“Catherine making a hasty decision,” he clarified. “She didn’t seem the type.”
“It seems like she was, in actuality, that type,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”
Bae flexed her fingers. Her hairs stood on their ends, pin-sharp. Deep inside, a furnace burned. “If she could-”
“NO!” Lucille’s shout shattered the still air in the mansion. Shivers traveled between the other guests. She summoned a rawness from her throat they thought alien to Lucille. Her blue eyes lifted upward, hitting the light and seeming to burn. Casting a look to all of them, the three arrested themselves. “We’re not losing another person tonight. Let’s call it a night. We will figure this out tomorrow, if we can.”
“Our best shot to get her back-” Bae started, but Lucille raised a hand for her to stop.
“Bae, you don’t know what’s down there,” she said. “No one knows. That might be why Catherine wanted to go so bad. To find out. But you know what they say about curiosity and the cat.”
Biting back her will, as she always did, Bae diminished herself. Lucille’s command struck her with the force of a hammer. Her metal yielded to the blacksmith’s stroke. Bae didn’t like to be fashioned for someone else’s desires, but it was the only existence she ever knew.
“Konrad made a good point,” Job brought back up. “That seemed uncharacteristic of her.”
“Guys, we’ve only known her for a day,” Lucille put into perspective. “People hide parts of themselves all the time.”
“Still…” Job wasn’t convinced. Not in the slightest, but what could he do?
Bae’s insinuating she would go after Catherine, he thought. But Lucille’s right. That’s headstrong at best. Suicidal at worst.
“Are we not going to try and get her back?” Konrad pleaded.
“Konrad,” Lucille cooed. “What can we do that won’t get us killed?”
Bae started: “We don’t know-”
This time Lucille interrupted Bae’s protest with an understated hush. She placed a long finger to Bae’s lips. Like that, Lucille sealed her words away. Chained her desire. Her fetters were always others.
“Exactly.” Lucille’s intensity shifted to a subtlety. “We don’t know. Neither did Catherine and look where that got her.”
Bae Yuri settled, knowing Lucille had to be right. The spell washed over her just like last night when Bae needed comfort most. Now, it hexed her with a force she didn’t consent to. This time, someone else pushed her down to that sunken place. Her muscles moved underneath her skin - restless.
“This mansion is unraveling us,” Job concluded, pinching his glasses off his nose. He rubbed his face with the other hand. “First, Argus. Now, Catherine. And the rest of us are left disturbed.” Shaking his head, he returned his specs to their rightful place.
“Everyone is getting too fixated on the mansion,” Lucille added. “Argus wanted to break into rooms and Catherine has now literally broken into the basement. One died. The other threw herself into the floorboards. Let’s stop focusing on the mansion.” She brought her hands together. “Can’t we have a vacation?”
“But Lucille,” Konrad poked. “Some of us came here because of Lacrima’s mysteries. Me included. Catherine was onto something. I want her to be back.”
“As do I.” Lucille narrowed her eyes. “Konrad, I don’t want to lose you or any of you. Let’s go back to the dining room. We can talk more there.”
Lucille started back down the hall, but no one followed her. She glanced back. Job took a beat before capitulating. “Bae. Konrad. Take a few minutes, but it’s not good to be alone. Think about what happened to Argus and Catherine.” With that, she walked with Job, whose face was pinched with pensiveness.
Konrad and Bae eased toward one another, but not looking at the other. They couldn’t escape from the sight of the Catherine-swallowing room. With Lucille out of her vicinity, Bae’s desire began to chew at her.
“I saw how she did it,” she said.
“We don’t know what’s down there.”
“No, we do.” Bae stripped off her hoodie, tied the sleeves around her waist, and let her arms breathe. “Catherine’s there.”
“Do you really think you can get her back?” Konrad wondered.
She heard the pleading in his voice. She heard the pleading within herself.
“I-” Bae stopped. Worries. Doubts. Sowed by others. Harvested by her. “I know I want to… I need to try…”
“Can I help?” he asked.
“Lucille will be mad enough if I go.”
“Lucille’s not the one we’re trying to save,” he stated. “Let her be upset. We need to make sure Catherine’s okay.”
“I agree.”
A thought came to him. He brought a hand up and presented it to Bae. “If you’re not back by tomorrow at this time, I’ll follow after you.”
Bae pondered the open palm, hesitated, but then ultimately shook it. She could accept Konrad’s help. In this case, she felt it gave her all the more reason to not fail.
“Come back, will you?” Konrad clasped her one hand with both of his.
“With Catherine.” Bae slipped from his grasp, then cracked her knuckles. She ensured the room’s door was open. Her lips moved of their own accord: echoing Catherine’s command to Service.
Service appeared.
Service responded.
Service shot into action.
Bae Yuri didn’t allow herself to see the shades, only the gap. This time it came from the right side as you walked into the zen garden. She hit the floor and skidded across the boards. Her leg connected with the static-frayed form of a servant. Sharp, electrical pain made her grunt, but the slide carried her into the dark.
Bae fell for three seconds before hitting the ground. Landing with a roll, Bae dispersed the impact. With the harsh angle, her ankle rolled. A crunch of cartilage made her think she sprained it. On the ground, she flexed her feet. The ligaments, evidently, weren’t detached, though injuriously sore. Still, she pulled herself up. Her eyes adjusted to the meagre light. Blue lines like the ones above highlighted tiles below her and the tops of the walls above her. Instead of cold, exhaust heat swarmed around her. Beads of sweat formed on her brow.
“Catherine?”
Her voice carried throughout the massive area - more open space than strictly a room. Bae scuttled around to maybe find a clue. With the heavy darkness, she couldn’t see much. Then, the shape of her phone reminded her she could produce her own light. She snapped on the flashlight function and beamed the floor around her. There wasn’t a single scuff, footprint, or streak to go off.
The sheer solitude closed in on Bae, but she ignored it. For now.
With no other leads, Bae aimed herself in an arbitrary direction. She crawled forward, trying not to put much weight on foot and hoping her phone didn’t run out of battery.