Laila spoke with an astonished voice.

“Are you saying you picked all these lilies of the valley yourself? Aline, who took you there? There are no lilies of the valley around here. Where did you pick so many of them?”

Aline, who had been keeping her lips shut, said,

“From Mr. Toad’s house. There was a very pretty baby crib there. But the baby grew up and left, and the lady left too, he said. I felt sorry for Mr. Toad.”

It was a story that made no sense at all. Laila was very nervous about the fact that Aline had met a stranger, but there wasn’t a single scratch on Aline’s body. Rather, her cheeks were flushed pink as if she had been out playing happily.

“The mister,”

Aline said, turning the pages of the book.

“Said it was mother who discovered the field of lilies of the valley.”

At that moment, Laila’s eyes blinked quietly. Then she slowly examined the small white flowers scattered on the floor. Though not greatly curved and not particularly lush, the tiny, cute bell-like shapes hanging down were very adorable.

Aline said,

“The mister had a message he wanted to pass on to mother.”

“A message to pass on?”

Aline tilted her head and said,

“He said mother would be happy. Mother’s… suffering has ended, and because someone named Lilith blessed mother, she can live learning to love, he said.”

Laila’s eyes grew wider and wider as she listened to Aline’s words.

There weren’t many people who could give her such a message, especially someone Aline would call ‘mister’. She thought of the man who had the same black hair and red eyes as herself.

Aline said,

“As the mister was leaving, he told me his name was…”

“Badin.”

This time, Aline opened her eyes wide, staring at her mother as if wondering how she knew.

Badin, was it? Laila laughed inwardly. Even though she knew that ‘disappearing’ was a meaningless word for demons, part of her had thought he had completely disappeared and found peace.

But it seems that wasn’t the case.

Badin existed in some form, somewhere, and this time he had taken Aline, giving Laila a fright. If he were here right now, she felt like she could kick his knees, asking what on earth he was doing.

“Where did Badin take you, Aline?”

“To that mister’s house.”

“To a dark place with nothing in it?”

Aline shook her head.

“No, it was a small house. A house with trees and dry grass and windows that looked like they were painted with milk. There was, mother, a very big cauldron too. And there was an old bed and dried leaves hanging on the walls.”

It was a rambling explanation, like a small child babbling, but Laila could picture the scene exactly in her mind.

It was her house. The house she had lived in and left. It must have been the very house where her mother, and the mother above her, the first witch Lilith, had lived, mistakenly believing Badin to be a man who loved her.

“Why did Badin take you there, Aline?”

“I don’t know,”

Aline said.

“Maybe he wanted to show it. Like showing off a jewelry box.”

“A jewelry box?”

“Mr. Toad…”

Aline pondered deeply.

“He loved that house. I could tell he really liked it. The baby crib, I mean.”

“Was there really a baby crib?”

“There was. But no baby. It had holes shaped like doves.”

Perhaps it was the crib used when Lilith gave birth to Badin’s child. The bed Laila had used wasn’t strictly a baby crib, and it certainly didn’t have dove-shaped holes.

He must have created an illusion of the distant past there, longing for the child he could never see before his eyes.

Emptiness and obsession are separated by just a hair’s breadth. Just as something that seemed like it would kill you if you lost it or couldn’t have it just yesterday is forgotten so easily the next morning.

The space left behind becomes a gaping hole, causing a momentary sense of emptiness, but soon something else would fill that vacant space.

Almost all humans live that way. The ability to eventually forget what they once desperately wanted. That ability to forget is perhaps the greatest blessing and fortune for humans.

Badin, not being human, couldn’t possess that ability. That’s why he said he could neither love nor not love Lilith.

— Too much time has passed to love.

— …..

— But too much time has also passed to lose that love.

When was that baby crib made? Before Lilith knew Badin’s secret? Or after? Either way, the thought occurred to her that Badin had never once seen a baby lying in it.

That too might have fueled his emptiness.

“How did Badin take you there?”

At that, Aline grinned broadly and raised both arms high.

“We walked through the sky!”

“…Walked through the sky?”

“Yes, really. When I held the mister’s hand and walked, we could walk in the sky. The houses looked like tiny boxes and the roads were very thin. Like the yarn you use to knit my socks, mother.”

Laila didn’t know where the un-disappeared Badin was or what he was feeling. If he came to meet her, she wouldn’t turn him away at the door, but if asked if she missed him or wanted to see him, that wasn’t the case either.

Laila didn’t think of Badin as her father, but Badin still seemed to feel Laila was his daughter. So he must have shown himself to Aline as well.

‘If that’s really the case, it’s like the silly behavior of an old man,’

Laila thought.

“Mother.”

“Yes?”

“Aren’t the lilies of the valley pretty?”

Aline picked up one of the flowers scattered on the floor. They would all wither in just one night, but Aline had brought them so carefully that not a single flower or stem was damaged.

“Did you bring them for me?”

“From the field mother discovered.”

Aline nodded with a serious expression, as if that were important. Laila fiddled with the lilies of the valley she hadn’t seen in a very long time, then tucked one behind Aline’s ear and said,

“You will surely be happy.”

Aline opened her eyes wide, as if to ask what that meant.

“That’s the message this flower wants to convey,”

Laila said.

“You will surely be happy.”

Whether she understood or not was unclear, but Aline smiled brightly and hugged Laila tightly. Aline, who had been resting her ear against the round, swollen belly, gently placed two lilies of the valley against Laila’s stomach.

“You will surely be happy.”

Laila closed her eyes and smiled.

“Laila! Aline!”

Eustar’s urgent voice shattered the quiet moment between mother and daughter. Aline, who had been leaning against Laila’s belly, suddenly burst into laughter.

“Father’s hair is a mess.”

Eustar sighed and sat down with a thud, touching his forehead.

“You two didn’t conspire to scare me today, did you?”

He asked in a voice drained of all energy.

“First Laila, now Aline. Aline, where on earth did you go? Everyone is out of their minds with worry.”

“I walked in the sky with Mr. Toad.”

Aline said, still rubbing the two flowers back and forth on Laila’s belly. Her small body was drooping and she was yawning constantly, seeming sleepy.

“Mr. Toad… Aline, what did father say? Didn’t I tell you not to talk about it?”

Aline slowly rolled her large lime-green eyes and closed them, pretending to be asleep. Eustar burst into laughter at her nonchalant attitude, and Laila said,

“She says she met Badin.”

Eustar expressed his agreement with Laila’s words by saying nothing.

“I didn’t think he would come here again,”

Laila said.

“I thought he had settled in a very… quiet and peaceful place and would stay there until the end of the world.”

“From what I heard, he seems to dote on his great-granddaughter,”

Eustar grumbled slightly.

“They say he showed Aline a toad.”

Laila made a short laughing sound. It didn’t seem like something Badin would do, but then again, she thought he might have done such a silly thing for Aline with a straight face.

“We should bury this with Milia’s shoes.”

Laila said, picking up one of the lilies of the valley. Eustar looked at her with puzzled eyes.

“Who is Milia?”

“A child I met. I brought her shoes. I want to bury them under the pomegranate tree in the royal palace.”

Laila looked down at Aline, who was sleeping soundly surrounded by the clear, bead-like flower buds. Only happiness awaited this child’s future. Just like the two children yet to be born.

And if Milia were to be born as another life someday, that child too would live happily. No matter what they were born as.

‘Is wishing for happiness ultimately a chain passed down from mother to daughter?’

Laila thought. Did she have such a chain too? The touch that occasionally caressed Laila’s cheek as she pretended to sleep in bed. The fingertips roughened from handling soil and herbs were the chain her mother had left for Laila.

Then what could she leave behind? For Aline and the children yet to be born, and for Eustar.

Could she show them a path that would surely lead to happiness?

Folding away the burning concern in her heart, Laila rested her head on Eustar’s chest. The three family members – Aline, Laila, and Eustar – fell asleep amidst the lilies of the valley scattered throughout the room, exuding their fragrance.

It was a sleep as clean as falling rain, and as sweet as soft earth.

− End of Side Story