Chapter 39

Chapter 39

On the table sat a watery potato soup and a cheap cut of meat with vegetables on the side. The kind of food you would never see at the ducal mansion, of course. In plain terms, it was the sort of meal that considered a commoner’s purse.

“Is it to your taste?”

I asked him, studying his expression.

“It’s good.”

He answered. It couldn’t compare to ducal cuisine, of course, but at least it wasn’t inedible. A relief.

“Is my sister doing well?”

Ren abruptly cut into our conversation. He was staring at the Duke with a rather persistent intensity. I found it rude and shot him a look that said, *Stop that.*

“Because even if I ask, she never tells me anything properly.”

Ren brushed my silent scolding aside without a second thought.

“She’s doing fine. You don’t have to worry.”

I rushed to answer. *Why are you suddenly showing off your insolence? You.*

“What kind of work is my sister doing? I heard she’s assisting the Duke—is that true?”

“It’s true. I told you already. I’m working as his secretary.”

Ren kept pressing on, and I kept cutting him off at every turn. He was unusually talkative today. Normally, he was a kid who never said a word more than necessary, so it felt strange.

“But you don’t have any experience, Noona. How can you be sending so much money?”

He furrowed his brow in pure suspicion and turned his gaze to me.

*Ah. So that’s it. So he finally found it weird!* In my letters, I’d glossed it over by saying the ducal house was overflowing with money, so I could earn that much… but.

Well, I couldn’t blame him. I had been sending too much for a single-income household. To make matters worse, I hadn’t even graduated from the Academy, yet I was working as the Duke’s secretary.

“It has nothing to do with experience. Laura is simply a person of that much worth. Anything else you want to say?”

While I sat there, mouth clamped shut and speechless, the Duke answered as if to defend me. It seemed like he was reading the situation and trying to play along with my story.

“……You call my sister by her first name?”

Ren’s persistent gaze swiveled back to the Duke. I clapped a hand to my forehead. My second brother—a quiet kid for all his bluntness—why on earth was he acting out like this? I had no idea.

“What value could someone with no experience possibly offer to justify such wages?”

Ren asked.

“Ren. Don’t say pointless things. Do you even know who you’re speaking to?”

I dropped my voice and pressed my second brother. He pulled a sullen face, his lower lip jutting out in a pout.

“You seem to misunderstand. I don’t buy lovers with money.”

The duke turned to face the boy and replied. His voice betrayed no agitation at the child’s rudeness.

“If you can’t trust me, then trust your sister. Is that answer enough?”

“……I apologize.”

At that, Ren glanced at me for a moment, gauging my reaction. Then, as if realizing he’d overstepped, he opened his mouth slowly. But the mood at the table had already grown heavy. Roti, who was usually so noisy, quietly spooned her soup in silence. Lucia held Ryan, who sat on her lap, wordlessly pulling him close.

“Little brother. I’ve been neglecting you lately, haven’t I?”

I flashed a broad smile and threatened Ren in a low voice.

Ha ha. You little—you’re dead.

Still, the meal continued after that incident. And before it ended, I rose from my seat.

“I’ll bring the strawberries.”

I’d bought not just ingredients but a load of strawberries from the market earlier. I planned to bring them out for dessert.

Ssshhh—

But as I was picking out the prettiest strawberries in the kitchen, I heard the sudden sound of rain. I turned my gaze toward the window. Thick raindrops were falling from the darkened sky, plip-plopping down.

“It’s raining…… I wonder how late it is?”

Rain clouds blanketed the entire sky, making it hard to gauge the exact time. Thinking I’d better send the duke back before it got any later, I hurried back to the dining room.

As I threw open the dining room door, Roti came into view first, chattering away at the duke about something. Ren sat across from her, still exuding a rigid atmosphere.

That brat…… I’ll give him a proper scolding later.

I gave Ren a quick glare as I set the plate of strawberries down on the table.

That was when it happened. Black smoke began to rise from behind the duke’s back. A ghost, already appearing. It seemed the time was later than I’d thought.

Bang—

Ren slammed both hands on the table and sprang to his feet. The chair he’d been sitting on toppled over with a clatter from the force.

“I said something was off! I knew it felt strange! What’s that? A ghost?!”

The boy spun around and shouted at me.

A ghost, indeed. Damn. I think I’ve been caught by the one sibling who should never have found out.

“……So the reason you’re paid such an absurd amount is connected to that ghost, isn’t it?”

Ren had always been quick on the uptake, even as a tiny child. I should have been more careful from the moment he started trying to dig something out of me — but I was too busy snapping at him for being rude, and I let it slip my mind entirely.

Mm… What excuse could I even make now…?

“Um… Big sister, is it… ghosts?” asked Lucia, looking up at me with worried eyes, unable to see them herself. Roti’s eyes were wide too, scanning the room for clues.

Lucia, who couldn’t see ghosts, looked up at me with an uneasy expression. Roti also blinked, her eyes going round as she took in the scene.

“Later… I’ll explain later.”

I whispered to Ren. Whatever it was, there was a guest present now. And wasn’t that guest my direct superior? I didn’t want to stir up a scene.

As soon as the words left my mouth, the smoke ghost hovering behind the Duke’s back began to ripple like a wave. It seemed to have understood our conversation well enough to gauge the mood at the table.

It wasn’t your fault, though….

Of course it wasn’t. The problem was me and my damn constitution — a body too easy for spirits to slip into. Why else would Ren be this on edge right now?

That kid still remembers, from some day back when he was little, the evil spirit that once possessed me.

* * *

Rain poured down as if the sky had sprung a leak, and what I’d thought would pass soon only grew fiercer as the night deepened. Occasional flashes of lightning split the pitch-black clouds knotted overhead. Vicious weather — genuinely cruel.

I sent Lucia and Roti up to bed early. Roti whined about not wanting to sleep, but Lucia dragged her off, and she had no choice but to follow.

After that, I cleared away the dinner dishes, then took a seat across from the Duke. Ren settled in right beside me. We needed to sort this out — the whole situation.

“Your Excellency, my sister can’t be around ghosts. Please, don’t take her to that place.”

Before I even got a word out, Ren launched straight in, as if he’d been waiting for the chance.

“That’s not true. The ghosts at Cuvershaiden are all docile. They’re no trouble at all.”

I cut him off quickly. I didn’t want to lose a job like Cuvershaiden over this. There was nowhere else that would pay me this much just for being able to see spirits.

“Ghosts? Wait — it’s not just that one?”

But Ren had already latched onto the hint of other ghosts in my words. Damn. I’d let something slip in front of a kid too sharp for his own good. I couldn’t come up with any excuse, so I just bit my lip hard.

“It’s really not okay. You haven’t seen it yourself, sister — that’s why you can talk so easily.”

Ren’s voice began to fray with emotion, like it could crack open any second.

“Don’t make this into something serious.”

I stepped in front of him again. Honestly? Part of me was annoyed. And part of me was scared — what if the Duke really did fire me over all this?

“Laura. Wait. Let your brother speak first.”

But the Duke, contrary to my churning feelings, actually looked like he wanted to hear what Ren had to say.

“Yes. Yes, Your Grace.”

I already knew what he was about to say. It was about a certain event lodged in that shared memory of ours.

“I’ll start with something from when we were children.”

* * *

Before we fell into ruin like this, House Highen used to run a single trading company. I must have been about fifteen back then? I’m not sure. Regardless, an unprecedented boom was swelling the company’s scale, and naturally my parents grew busier than ever. So busy that they would often leave home with only little Lucia in tow. That left just me and Ren in the house most of the time.

We were still fairly young ourselves, but the arrangement wasn’t difficult. Back then, the household had enough surplus coin to keep a nanny, a cook, and maids on staff. They took good care of us.

Yes. And it must have been around that period—when my brother and I first began to see ghosts. But of course, no one believed a word we said. So we built our own world.

“My sister would let a dead spirit possess her body and read its memories,” Ren said. “I would release the soul when the time came.”

His voice trembled slightly as he continued.

That thing.

I met that thing one day as a child—at an hour not even especially late. The sort of time when ghosts shouldn’t be wandering. Looking back, it must have been a spirit strong enough to defy the usual rules.

[Hello!]

She smiled brightly under the long, slanting sunlight.

Most ghosts retain the appearance of the moment they died. A severed neck. A tongue dissolved by poison swallowed in life. But she showed no trace of death whatsoever. She simply looked at me with a serene, verdant smile.

[Hello.]

So I returned the greeting. Unlike any other ghost, she didn’t feel frightening at all. If anything, that bright, clear smile of hers was enough to lift a young child’s spirits. I took a liking to her, and for the first time in my life, I brought a ghost inside the house. I even made a place for her in my bedroom.

And then, by pure chance, I discovered that I could read a ghost’s memories through possession.