#52

Perhaps it was inevitable for something so unrealistic to fade away from the start. The vivid black memories were swept away by the flowing time, completely losing their color. After about three months, nightmares became significantly less frequent. Five months later, deep sleep was possible almost every day. Still, occasional small mutters couldn’t be prevented.

This person is human.

Griselda would repeat as if praying. When a sudden chill ran deep through her chest. When nursing her firstborn son. One night two weeks ago, when she saw her sleeping firstborn open his eyes without blinking once, staring into the dark void, she recited more desperately than ever. This person is human.

Is human.

“I saw a bat.”

Griselda’s husband mumbled as if talking to himself.

“Pardon?”

“A huge, enormous bat… I’m not sure. If it was really a bat. It was too large… Strangely, it only had one wing.”

It was about a year after the princess consort gave birth to the twin siblings, on a certain afternoon when he confessed his unspeakable anguish, unable to distinguish whether it was truly a nightmare or reality.

Meeting her husband after a very long time, his complexion had darkened noticeably. His lusterless, dry blonde hair was quite pitiful. His gaunt cheeks, as if he hadn’t even had gruel, made him look like a completely different person.

“It’s always dark.”

The husband said gloomily.

“It seems to be night. I’m floating in some unknown space, maybe near our bedroom door. It’s chilly, but strangely, I can’t feel my body. I can see black water seeping through the twisted window frame. I see that water flowing down the walls and pooling on the floor. I hear the distant sky rumbling, so I think it might be rainwater. So I think it’s some rainy night…”

The husband swallowed his words for a moment. Griselda was quite bewildered. Which part was so distressing? As he himself had once told Griselda, until then, his story also seemed like nothing more than a simple bad dream. A giant bat. Despite the absurd content, his voice was quite serious and complicated, which was rather worrying, but Griselda listened quietly for now.

“And it… The bat… is standing in the pooled water on the floor.”

“Standing? The bat?”

“Yes. Standing on two legs. In some ways, it looks more like a person than a bat.”

What made her heart sink came next.

“It also has a snake-like tail. So… It’s a giant bat, standing like a person, with a snake’s tail. Whatever it is, it’s clearly a winged creature bigger than any ordinary man. Black, dark… Its skin is bluish-black, almost like bronze. It looks like some devil or… some kind of demon.”

Griselda immediately recalled the demon standing on the bed in the birthing room. The back of her neck suddenly chilled. Her heart raced wildly. The only reason she could shake her head inwardly, thinking it couldn’t be, was because the demon in her nightmare had no wings.

That huge creature was certainly not bird-like, even at a glance.

Of course, its appearance was unspeakably ugly, with bronze skin and a snake’s tail, but it was clearly a one-armed creature without wings. No, when she last saw it, an arm had grown. Yes, an arm…

Goosebumps spread rapidly.

“At a glance, it looks almost like your shadow… Yes, it stands behind you. Always standing behind you. And you stand in front of it, beside the bed. You stare at something on the bed with an expressionless face. Your face is so pale and unlike you that when I approach, I see black moisture flowing down your cheeks, like the rainwater from before. And on the bed…”

Her husband swallowed dryly as if about to say something unspeakable, then spoke with difficulty.

“There’s a newborn.”

“…A child?”

Griselda asked, half startled. Her fingertips and toes began to tremble. What on earth was this? She could hardly breathe, wondering if he was possibly dreaming about what she had seen.

However, her husband, absorbed in recalling the dream, didn’t seem to notice her shock. His blue eyes, half-hidden by golden eyelashes, were staring blankly into space. He answered slowly.

“Yes. I don’t know whose child… Actually, the child was crying too, yes… The child is crying hysterically. As if about to die. I stupidly only notice the crying sound around then. While I’m at a loss, unable to do anything without a body, the bat spreads its wings. I call out to you, but you don’t seem to see or hear me.”

“…”

“At that moment, you look just like a doll. It grabs your arm, and you surrender your body to it. That’s how it looks. I think, why don’t you run away? Why do you give in so easily? Maybe you can’t resist? Then, you… lean over the child.”

After saying this much, her husband couldn’t continue for a while. The part that seemed to painfully grip him, draining all vitality from his body, appeared to be the following content.

His tightly closed eyelids trembled slightly. This man always grabs people like this once in a while. This vulnerability that didn’t suit him at all made one corner of Griselda’s heart ache.

Her husband was one of the warriors who had accompanied the princess consort from the Dukomen territory. Although everyone from there lacked vitality and was gloomy, her husband was particularly cold among them.

A man with a frame too small for a swordsman, but with eyes sharper than anyone else’s. A man with an impression of ice layered upon ice, difficult to even approach.

Griselda was terrified when she happened to meet that man, whose shadow was even difficult, in a narrow corridor. When he handed her a bouquet of wildflowers he had picked like a mountain, she almost screamed. His still cold expression moved only his lips to speak. Saying he was sorry, that it was okay to decline, he stepped aside to make way.

The two stood still with the sunlight streaming through the narrow arrow slit between them like a boundary. The man, completely stiffened under the shade, didn’t even twitch his fierce-looking eyebrows, yet his complexion alone turned red and blue, making a fuss all by himself.

Griselda was almost panic-stricken. Although people’s temperatures can vary depending on the situation, isn’t this too different, she thought.

No, why are there so many tears? Griselda had to pat the back of her husband, who was tearing up, on what could almost be called their first meeting. He was truly an unfunny man.

To tell an even funnier story, Griselda loved such a husband dearly. And was loved in return. The two had a fairly passionate romance. Before long, they even had a child, which led to marriage without any matchmaking. They were happy.

But the child was stillborn. Griselda understood for the first time that day what grief that tears one’s heart apart meant. It was a sorrow she managed to endure somehow because her husband was by her side.

Needle-like sunlight pierced through the leaves and fell on their heads. Griselda cupped her husband’s cheeks, which occasionally glistened in the windy tree shade. He clutched Griselda’s hand with his eyes closed.

Griselda composed herself. He’s struggling. It’s not the time for me to lose my wits first over a dream that’s not even mine, like being startled twice, first by a pot lid and then by a turtle.

“It’s alright.”

She spoke soothingly.

“I’ll listen. Go on and tell me.”

Her husband slowly opened his eyes. His blue eyes, the only part of his visible exterior that couldn’t hide the pain, gazed at Griselda. He embraced her body as if shrinking. And then, a low voice resonating in her ear.

Griselda opened her eyes wide.

Called by the butler around sunset, her husband returned to the training ground. Griselda stood absentmindedly under the tree, watching the night shadows creeping towards her feet. The dream’s conclusion was somewhat shocking, but she didn’t feel greatly frightened because it was certainly not something that could happen.

Why on earth would I?

She was not the kind of person who would do ‘such a thing’ even if she died and came back to life. But strangely, her mind was echoing emptily and felt numb. Yes, it’s not something that could happen. But I, I’ve experienced such a thing once before…

“Father.”

Suddenly, a scene she had witnessed just a few days ago came to life before her eyes. It was the ice-cold back of the princess consort, who had seemed calm for a while after giving birth to the twins, but recently had a recurrence of seizures.

Outside the window, night rain was falling softly. The air filling the inner room was damp. The princess consort stood next to the cradle where the twins lay, murmuring softly.

“…Do you know? I resented you. I didn’t understand. Why you couldn’t bury or burn it. Why you always… like that… circled around the basement like a sick person wandering outside the castle walls looking for opium poppies. You could have even given it to someone else.”

It was a voice like a swamp.

“…But now I understand. Perhaps you couldn’t bear it either. Unable to use it but unable to throw it away, you couldn’t endure the anxiety. That’s why you… …It’s so strange. I had no choice but to summon him again. It seemed there was no other way to quell this burning anxiety. Strange, isn’t it? A strange… thing. Strange…”

The pale backside stared blankly into the cradle before leaving.

Suddenly feeling a chill, she came to her senses. Griselda didn’t know how long she had been lost in thought. It was dark all around.

She raised her head to check the sun’s position. In the ash-swallowed sky, no light was visible. In the western corner, black clouds thick like thorny bushes could be seen slowly extending their branches towards the fortress. Tonight…

It seems it will start earlier than usual.