If she could find the weapon left by the Dean to bolster her involvement in the case, the answer suddenly became clear.
Staying idly at home, unable to read or learn cooking, was simply unrealistic.
Recalling that morning, the two detectives and the police officer had not divulged the chauffeur’s cause of death from beginning to end.
What was the reason?
Ghervil could only conclude that they were deliberately concealing the truth from her—indirectly proving that the incident involving Scard, the chauffeur, was connected to her.
Officer Clovie had witnessed the chauffeur’s panicked escape that morning on the way to the police station; as a professional police officer, she surely deduced the likely circumstances by piecing together the events.
This realization suddenly clarified Helm’s initial cold gaze and demeanor towards her.
One of the individuals responsible for his brother’s death stood directly before him; even if not directly causing it, it was reason enough for him to harbor ill will towards her. Considering his identity and position, his need to restrain himself and remain calm had manifested as cold indifference.
For Ghervil, the death of someone due to her presence was a burden her upbringing would not allow her to bear idly, remaining at home as if nothing had happened.
She walked over and forcefully pushed open the unlocked wooden trapdoor leading to the cellar.
A blast of cold air, rising from the pitch-black space, significantly lowered the surrounding temperature.
A wooden staircase, appearing rather flimsy, offered the only descent.
Cracks of varying sizes, extending along the grain of the wood, marred both the handrail and the steps.
How old could this be?
She was unsure if the stairs would bear her weight; surely her slight frame wouldn’t pose a problem.
Lighting the oil lamp nestled in a recess to the right of the entrance, she cautiously descended, gripping the handrail and testing each step.
With every step, a faint creaking sound emanated from the joints of the wooden planks and the handrail.
The planks themselves felt sturdy, the sounds likely originating from the cracks, and the solid sensation underfoot encouraged her to continue.
Having descended about a meter from the entrance, she paused.
The light was already dimming, with weeds at the entrance obscuring much of the natural illumination.
The faint lamplight flickered, transforming the environment entirely.
It was chilling, dark, and oppressive, as if she had stepped into another realm, with sparse, indistinct rustlings echoing from the surrounding space—a perfect embodiment of the ominous atmosphere one might imagine in a dangerous cellar.
Her right hand, devoid of a lantern, gripped the handrail tightly.
Strictly speaking, influenced by her past ailment, her emotions had been incomplete; basic feelings like love, hatred, joy, sorrow, and guilt would be diluted and muted within her, as if the neural pathways controlling emotions in her brain had been partially severed, preventing her from experiencing them authentically.
Now, her new body allowed her to fully experience emotions, bringing with it a side effect: she instinctively cherished the ‘authenticity’ these emotions provided, making her feel no different from anyone else in the world.
A consequence of this was her inability to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emotions, or which to embrace and amplify versus which to disregard and discard; she accepted almost all of them indiscriminately.
Thus, she found herself unable to reject this rare sensation of fear.
A brief moment of reflection dispelled some of her burgeoning anxieties.
The flickering orange flame confirmed that the area was ventilated, eliminating any possibility of oxygen deprivation.
This was reality, not a television drama; what dangers could possibly lurk in the cellar of a respected abbey dean?
It was merely some fool overthinking things, frightening themselves unnecessarily.
Relaxing her body, she lifted one foot to test the step below, only to find herself missing her footing—the next plank was actually broken!
“Ah!”
“Rip…”
Her attempt to grab hold again came too late; having relaxed too much, she found it impossible to regain her balance, and her entire body tumbled down, landing with a heavy thud as the most cushioned and resilient part of her body scraped against the stairs before hitting the ground.
“My butt… it hurts so much…”
After a while, she struggled to turn over, rubbing her bruised backside, which felt as though it had split into four, and whimpered as she reached for the oil lamp lying nearby.
Retrieving the lamp, she stood up, brushing dust from her clothes by its faint glow, and assessed her injuries.
There were no serious injuries—save for a fiery stinging sensation on her backside and a patch on her outer thigh.
Pulling up her skirt, she revealed a large, ragged, oval-shaped tear in her white stockings, stretching from her upper thigh almost to her knee, exposing reddened and swollen skin beneath.
She recalled hearing the fabric tear during her fall; her stocking had caught on a protruding plank, ripping it open and scraping her skin.
It was the broken section.
Shuffling to the edge of the stairs, she clearly saw the broken plank—the very spot where she had missed her footing—and a wave of indignation washed over her.
It was barely a meter from the ground; such a height… even if she had simply jumped, the damage wouldn’t have been so severe.
A few scrapes and bruises were nothing; what truly pained her was the pair of nylon white stockings the Dean had prepared for her.
When she had visited the shop, she’d inquired about the price of nylon stockings; they were several, even more than a dozen, times more expensive than traditional handmade pure wool stockings, truly a luxury among luxuries.
The chemical industry of this era was underdeveloped, making the production cost of such synthetic fibers extremely high.
Yet she detested wearing wool stockings, and with summer upon them, the breathable, lightweight nylon was undoubtedly the superior choice.
She felt like weeping; the Dean had left her four pairs of stockings in total: two thicker wool pairs for cold weather, and two nylon pairs for warm weather.
Now one pair was ruined, leaving only one, which meant she’d have no spare for washing.
Wearing thick wool stockings in the summer, the sticky sensation of sweating after just a few steps would be unbearable.
“Squeak… squeak…”
Just as her spirits flagged, the sparse, rustling sounds, like those of mice, which she had heard while descending the stairs, now emanated from all directions.
In the darkness, pairs of tiny red pinpricks of light appeared, hundreds of them, densely packed together.
The growing volume of their scuttling suggested there might be even more.
She remembered the rats she had seen at the abbey that day; their eyes were, without a doubt, identical to these.
A shiver of dread crept up from her feet, and she instinctively recoiled, reaching behind her to find the stairs.
She was merely curious, yet also terrified; she was not oblivious to danger, nor fearless of death.
Her continuous retreat yielded no sign of the stairs.
This shouldn’t be; she had barely moved since her fall, and logically, the stairs should have been right behind her, within reach even with the slowest retreat.
‘What in the world was happening…’
‘And where had the light from the cellar entrance gone… Had someone closed the trapdoor?’
That was highly unlikely; she couldn’t have failed to hear the trapdoor being closed.
In the pervasive darkness, only the incessant, moving red dots and the steadily fading oil lamp flame were visible, while amidst the scuttling of rodents, a rapid, shallow breath could be heard.
“Crack!”
Her heel suddenly caught on something that felt like wood.
All the ceaselessly moving red dots froze; without a doubt, the sound had captured their attention.
They began to converge, staring intently at her, and within moments, the red dots dispersed from two sides, slowly encircling her.
Ghervil understood: they intended to form a perimeter, trapping her.
Yet she refused to simply await her fate; even as her limbs felt sluggish and disobedient, she hurled the only thing that could barely be considered a weapon in her hand—the oil lamp—with all her might towards the densest cluster of red dots.
The flame was too small, offering little hope to begin with; it dwindled to a mere spark in the air before even hitting the ground, and where it struck, the red dots briefly scattered, only to completely engulf the extinguished spark moments later.
She had no time to spare for them; she bolted backward, running towards any area devoid of the ominous red dots.
“Ugh…”
After only a few steps, her head collided with something hard, producing a resounding ‘thud’ before she tumbled to the ground.
Ignoring the throbbing pain in her forehead, she whipped her head around to see countless red dots alarmingly close, with some of the nearest already at her feet, beginning to crawl onto her body.
“No!”
A blindingly bright light pierced through the darkness, forcing her to shield her eyes with her hands.
She gasped for breath, yet the tearing, biting pain she had anticipated across her body never came.
Opening her eyes, she found the entire scene transformed; a warm, yellow light now hung above her.
A face she would never forget stood before her, gazing down, its features and expression sharply defined by the lamplight.
It was a relatively young face, with dark golden pupils, yet marked by a stern, rigid, and aloof expression that seemed oddly incongruous.
“Are you still alive?”
The woman in the nun’s habit extended a hand to her.
“You nearly knocked over my bookshelf.”