Chapter 2
The young master kissed me again. This time, it lasted a bit longer. I decided to wait patiently. This happened about five times. Finally, exhausted, I pushed his chin away with my hand.
“Young master, you have to know when to give up. Now please help me up.”
“Unbelievable…”
The young master dropped me again and stood up. My head almost cracked when my face hit the floor.
Why on earth would you make a doll out of porcelain! It’s so fragile.
I struggled to get up using my arms. My legs were still trapped under the mannequins, so I could only barely raise my upper body.
Or rather, only halfway. I looked up at the young master in a rather impertinent posture.
“Please get my legs out. And stop staring at me like that.”
“No, this can’t be happening. Forget it! I don’t care what happens to you. Whether you imitate Anna or whether you contain fragments of my memories of her, I don’t need it anymore. Anna isn’t here!”
The young master turned and walked away. It was difficult to follow his receding figure with my eyes.
“Where are you going! Get me out first!”
Am I going to die again less than an hour after I woke up? Goddess, why did you bring me back to life? Was it to give me one last glimpse of the young master’s face?
If only I had seen the head butler’s face, I could have at least talked about the year-end settlement…
I closed my eyes. Death again. My second death wasn’t frightening. Since I’m a doll, I probably won’t feel any pain.
Let me just shatter like this. Forgetting all memories of the young master, the year-end settlement, everything.
A large shadow fell over me. The air vibrated.
I opened my eyes slightly and saw a giant golem. It was the young master’s prized golem, “Baby.”
Despite its name, the golem boasted a massive physique. It was a doll created to defeat the monsters that appeared on the outskirts of the city.
Just as I closed my eyes again, facing imminent death, I heard a voice.
“Stop!”
It was the young master. He’s sometimes late to the party, or rather, overly cautious.
It was the most unglamorous mode of transportation ever. The young master tucked my upper body under his arm and walked away.
He must have been unable to retrieve my lower half because he pulled a small hammer from his cloak pocket and smashed the area below my waist.
He carried me, now just a torso, like a pig.
I protested his careless and indelicate method, but it was no use.
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll smash your head too.”
I decided to keep quiet.
The young master entered through the back door of the mansion. The place I was in must have been the garden behind the mansion. It was where the red spider lilies were grown for the next festival.
The red spider lilies cultivated by the Count’s family were famous for their beauty. Those beautiful flowers were now buried under a pile of dolls.
“Young master.”
“……”
“Young master!”
“What.”
“What are you going to do with the red spider lilies? Why are you breaking all those dolls?”
“I don’t need them anymore. I’ve decided to give up. I was going to put it all behind me today.”
“……”
“I decided to finally end it today, but…”
The young master took me to the workshop. The workshop was filled with the scent of wood and oil. Pigments for making paints were scattered everywhere.
Sunlight streamed in through the window leading to the attic. The young master spread a blanket on a stool and roughly placed me upright.
“Oh, there’s something I haven’t told you.”
“What.”
“I’m glad to be alive.”
The young master sighed. Taking off his cloak and putting on an apron, he looked like his usual self.
No, he was a bit taller. Taller and broader-shouldered than the young master I remembered. He had changed a little.
“Young master, have you grown?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re twenty, right?”
“I’m twenty-five.”
Twenty-five? Has it been five years since I died?
Wait, maybe this isn’t the young master. Maybe it hasn’t been five years, but fifty? Maybe the young master I knew is actually an old man now, and this is his son or something.
“Are you really Young Master Lupin Zepetto, the Count’s son?”
“Half right. I am Lupin Zepetto.”
“Which half did I get wrong?”
“I’m the Count. Now shut up. I’m going to fix you.”
The young master pulled up a stool and sat down. He then carelessly dragged over a bucket of clay with his foot.
Looking around, I saw the chair I used to sit in. There was a flower on it. Freshly picked today, it seemed. A freesia. The refreshing scent of the bright yellow freesia.
“Young master.”
“What.”
“I want to smell the flower on the chair.”
“You don’t have nostrils, so you can’t smell it. And that flower is for Anna, so don’t covet it.”
“I have two things to say. First, please give me nostrils when you fix me. Second, I am Anna.”
The young master turned me over. He roughly scraped the broken edges of my back.
“I also have two things to say. First, you’re not Anna. Anna died five years ago. It seems my magic flowed into you incorrectly, causing this delusion. You’re not Anna. You’re a lump of magic. My memories are mixed in, making you spout such nonsense. And second.”
The young master grabbed my hair and lifted my head.
“Shut up. Before I smash you.”
“Yes, sir.”
I’d better be obedient.
The young master carefully kneaded me back together. He scraped or removed the broken parts and reattached them. He smoothed out the uneven areas with his hands.
He used magic to harden the body he had recreated.
The work continued in silence for a long time. I was bored. I couldn’t even sleep.
“May I offer a suggestion?”
“No.”
The young master concentrated on his repairs. But in the end, he gave in.
“Go ahead.”
“Are you really not going to give me nostrils?”
“…I’ll give you nostrils.”
“Thank you.”
The young master moved the stool aside and sat down on the floor. The head butler would have been horrified, but I was used to it.
The young master preferred the floor when he needed to concentrate or work on larger projects.
He had once made me sit on the floor and draw on a large sheet of paper.
I often snuck into the workshop while the young master was sleeping and looked at our artwork by lamplight. That was about a year before I got sick.
I was indeed Anna.
I had memories that the young master didn’t know about. Maybe my revival was really due to his magic.
It felt strange to call it a revival. I was a doll.
But I was Anna. If I say I’m Anna, then I’m Anna.
I figured my soul, unable to rest easily because it pitied the young master, must have wandered the earth. Then it entered this doll.
Why this doll, though? I stretched out my arm and tentatively touched my body. My cold body was smooth. Judging by the curves, I was a female doll. A female doll.
“Young master.”
“What now.”
“Can I see a mirror?”
The young master glared at me. It meant I was interrupting him. He was working on the clay for my legs. Even I knew I was speaking at a crucial moment. My legs couldn’t end up mismatched.
Ignoring me, he continued to sculpt my legs. He spent a long time shaping my calves and then formed my toes. Five toes on each foot. Good.
“Young master, my finger is still broken.”
“You’re really noisy.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that. The young master always called me noisy. Even so, he never turned me away and offered me a seat in his workshop. So I could come and watch him whenever I was bored.
The young master was a kind person. Even if he was always a prickly eccentric, he was kinder to me than anyone else.
As I rested my chin in my hand and watched him, a drop of water fell onto the clay of my leg. First one drop, then a scattering of droplets seeped into the area around my thigh.
The young master was crying. I said nothing and just watched him quietly. I knew there were times when I had to be quiet too.
Silently, he wiped away his tears and went back to shaping the clay. Light seemed to gather at his fingertips, and the clay quickly hardened. In a slightly choked voice, he said,
“Estella.”
I brushed aside my tangled hair. It was a familiar name.
Estella was the name of the doll the young master made for me. An early creation he made for me when I whined that my older sister had one and I wanted one too.
I remembered him, gruffly telling me to sit in front of him and handing me a palette. He gave me a brush and said,
‘You color the lips.’
I mixed pink and vermillion and applied the color to the pure white porcelain doll. I applied it too thickly, and it looked gaudy.
The young master chuckled and wiped away the paint from the doll’s lips with his hand. He poked my cheek with his paint-stained finger and laughed, saying, ‘You’re really clumsy.’
The doll, touched by his hand, transformed into a beautiful woman, brimming with life.
“Young master.”
“What.”
“I don’t think I need to see a mirror.”
“Right.”
The young master lifted my upper body.
“Let’s attach your legs now.”
The young master’s cheeks were wet. Wiping away his tears with my hand, I said,
“Don’t forget the nostrils, okay?”