Mom's Possessed - Chapter 46

“Cough, cough!”

The dry cough continued.

Aria stretched out her hand painfully while leaning against the bed. The hot water that the maid had brought earlier had already cooled to lukewarm.

Her head was spinning.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve been this sick.’

It was the first time since entering Aria’s body.

‘Still, it’s better than when I was Elodie.’

It was no exaggeration to say that even a slight chill would cause a week-long fever.

Elodie was certainly happy, but she was never free in terms of health. How envious she was of her sturdy elder brothers, unlike herself.

She had forgotten this sensation since becoming healthy. Aria sniffled her dry nose.

It was difficult to breathe.

“Haa……”

The one saving grace was that Bonita, who looked exactly like Elodie, was healthy. It seemed she had inherited Luke’s constitution.

Aria suddenly felt chilled as she recalled the environment in which Bonita had grown up.

Asthma is a difficult disease to manage.

Even a small mistake can lead to death in an instant. Sensitive patients can have an attack just from exposure to someone smoking a cigarette nearby.

She recalled that house.

That very house where the floor creaked from age, dust flew with every movement, and wind and rain seeped right through.

If Bonita had been born with congenital asthma like Elodie, even surviving past one year would have been a struggle.

Aria’s complexion grew even paler than before.

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in……”

As Aria answered limply, the door slid open. Aria’s eyes widened as she stared blankly at the door.

“Bonita?”

She tried to get up immediately. However, her feverish body wouldn’t move as she wished.

To make matters worse, a cough came at that moment. Aria quickly opened her mouth to send Bonita away.

“Bonita, if you stay here……”

“Here you go!”

“……What’s this?”

Aria blinked at the object she received in confusion.

Meanwhile, Bonita had already scurried out of the bedroom, stamping her feet. Bonita, who had passed a thread through the keyhole, said with an excited expression:

“Mama!”

That sound reached Aria’s ears.

Having played with string telephones as a child herself, she quickly realized what Bonita was trying to do.

“Yes…… Bonita.”

“This way we can talk even if Mama is lying in bed. Right?”

Aria pressed her lips tightly together.

Her heart tingled.

Even her illness felt insignificant.

Bonita chattered happily from beyond the paper cup.

“When I said I wanted to talk to Mama, Lady Lisianthus taught me something good!”

“Is that so?”

Aria had wondered how Bonita came up with this, but it was Catherine’s involvement.

“I thought it was a paper cup, but the lady said it’s a ‘telephone’. It’s so amazing. I wonder who invented it first?”

The string telephone was quite a common toy among noble children. It was an invention first created by an imperial duke about 50 years ago.

An interesting fact is that the names ‘string telephone’ and ‘paper cup’ were quite incongruous. After all, the moment you poured water into it, it would immediately get wet and tear, making it completely unusable as an actual cup.

When people asked why such names were given, she left a puzzling answer.

“That’s just what they’re called originally.”

Aria briefly explained such stories. Bonita showed interest in that as well.

“They sound like an amazing person!”

“Well, for someone still alive, there are quite a lot of mythical stories……”

“What’s that?”

Aria had to break quite a sweat at the abundant curiosity. There was an endless stream of ‘why?’, ‘how?’, and ‘so?’.

Still, Aria’s face showed incomparable joy compared to just moments ago as she spoke.

“Ahem.”

Just as Aria was in the middle of talking about the orally transmitted folklore, a cough was heard from behind Bonita.

It was Catherine and the maid Mary following behind her.

Catherine spoke with her usual grumpy expression.

“You seem to be enjoying your conversation with Miss Hilton very much.”

“My lady!”

“Still……”

Catherine showed her disappointment at the title ‘my lady’.

However, she was too embarrassed to directly ask to be called ‘grandmother’.

[Bonita, who came outside?]

Bonita, who had her ear to the paper cup, answered.

“The lady came! And Mary too.”

“Young miss, I’ll go in for a moment. I need to bring medicine and food to Miss Hilton.”

At Mary’s request, Bonita obediently stepped back like a good child.

With Mary entering Aria’s room, only Catherine and Bonita were left outside the door.

Silence fell again.

Catherine grumbled.

“Was it that fun? You hardly talk when you’re with me.”

“Ah……!”

It was just a habitual complaint.

But Bonita’s expression immediately soured.

“I, um…… I’m sorry if I upset you by being quiet. I just didn’t know what to say to you, my lady.”

Catherine felt a pang of regret at the clearly frightened tone.

‘Damn it. This is my problem.’

Honestly, she wanted to be kind to Bonita too.

But it wasn’t easy to change the aggressive attitude she had habitually taken for over 60 years overnight.

Moreover, if she were to make excuses…… there was also embarrassment and awkwardness.

Hadn’t she spouted nonsense about Bonita being a fraud and a fake when they first met?

Even after it was confirmed that she was a blood relative, instead of apologizing right away, she had run out, consumed by her own emotions.

As a result, she ended up in this awkward relationship with her only granddaughter.

She felt self-loathing.

‘But we even held hands and walked last time.’

She had scared her again before she knew it.

By now, she was at the point of resenting herself. But even in this situation, she just couldn’t bring herself to say honestly that it wasn’t her intention.

Fortunately for Catherine, Bonita was an extremely kind child.

“But it’s absolutely not because I dislike you, my lady. You listened to me well last time, and this time you made the string telephone so I could talk to mo-, Aria.”

Bonita tapped her feet and spoke as if embarrassed.

“So I like you, my lady. Um, you might find a young child like me annoying, though……”

“Absolutely not!”

Catherine cried out in shock.

Bonita’s eyes widened.

Seeing that face, Catherine stepped back with a reddened face.

“Ahem. You’re my gra-, granddaughter, so this much is natural. Originally, ‘grandmothers’ are all like this, so you don’t need to worry at all about people saying things like you’re annoying or whatever.”

“Because you’re a grandmother?”

For a moment, Catherine had to try her hardest to control her rising lips.

Still, she couldn’t prevent her mouth from twisting strangely.

She covered her mouth with her hand and coughed.

“Ahem, ahem. That’s right. I am your grandmother, aren’t I?”

Pink eyes turned towards Catherine.

Bonita noticed that Catherine was extremely pleased.

‘Is she happy because I called her grandmother?’

Bonita opened her mouth again.

It was to be certain.

“My lady.”

As the title returned, Catherine’s body stiffened.

Bonita asked, now almost half-certain.

“Would you like me to call you grandmother?”

Catherine’s body trembled visibly.

“That……!”

She remained silent, unable to answer.

Bonita tilted her head.

Although it wasn’t intentional, seeing Bonita like that made Catherine feel like a complete fool.

She muttered, averting her gaze slightly.

“If that’s what you want to do…… I won’t stop you……”

“Yes, grandmother.”

At that, Catherine’s lips quirked up again.

Seeing this, Bonita thought.

‘Grandmother is such an honest person.’

It’s not easy for emotions to show so clearly on the outside like that.

[This is the timeline separator]

Perhaps thanks to Bonita talking to her from outside the door all day, Aria completely recovered her condition in just one day.

“I’m all better!”

Aria cheered as she greeted a morning without a headache.

She jumped out of the soft bed and ran out, opening the door. She looked just like a mischievous boy.

“Oh my!”

A young maid who encountered Aria in the hallway smiled brightly.

The maid, who had not been in the duke’s household for long, was quite favorable towards Aria.

“Miss Hilton, has your cold completely gone now?”

“Yes, I’m strong so I’m good!”

“……Pardon?”

The maid reflexively asked about the strange words she had just heard, but Aria had already passed by.

Aria, who had been running excitedly down the hallway, gradually slowed her pace in front of Bonita’s room door. She turned the doorknob carefully with an excited smile.

If Bonita was sleeping, she planned to sneak into bed without waking her.

Swish.

She opened the door as carefully as possible, wary of making any sound. It was an agonizingly slow speed.

When the door opened just enough to fit one hand, Aria lowered her body and peeked into the room secretly.

‘Bingo.’

Perhaps because it was early, Bonita was sleeping, breathing softly.

The way she occasionally moved her small mouth was so adorable, like someone’s daughter, that Aria wanted to bite her.

Aria covered her mouth and started to slowly widen the door gap. She planned to secretly get into bed and then surprise Bonita when she woke up later.

However, the moment she fully opened the door, Aria’s mouth gaped open as if she had been hit on the back of the head.

“……Luke?”

It was because Luke was sleeping a little distance away from Bonita.