21. Mother’s Secret

Southern Derin was a sweltering city. The heat was suffocating even standing still.

Sweat trickled down Dion’s face from his forehead to his chin. Clementina stared down at her hand. Their clasped hands grew sticky with perspiration, but he showed no intention of letting go.

When Clementina gently withdrew her hand, Dion stopped and turned around. She smiled and pulled out a handkerchief, wiping her own hand before wiping his. Then she clasped his now-dry hand again.

Dion chuckled and swung their joined hands.

“This way.”

Today Dion and Clementina had disguised themselves as provincial nobles who’d come to southern Derin for recuperation. Clementina had to put on a pitiful expression with her slender frame.

Welia, in the western region of Derin, was renowned for treatment and recuperation. Many herb shops sold medicinal plants effective for various ailments.

Since arriving in Derin, Dion and Clementina had spent their days wandering through Welia.

“I haven’t seen anyone like that. And ten years ago? How am I supposed to remember that?”

“Oh my! Ten years ago, you say? Well, our herb shop is famous, so people must have come through. But so many pass through, I can’t tell who’s who!”

“Let’s see, a woman who resembles this young lady. It’s hard to forget a beauty like you, but I couldn’t say. By the way, Miss, any interest in working at our shop? We’d have customers flooding in!”

They’d visited more than twenty herb shops, but Clementina couldn’t find the answer she sought.

“Want to rest?”

It had to be today. Once tonight passed, they’d have to return to Drasia. Throughout the ball, they’d spent their days wandering Welia and their nights dancing. Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her, but she couldn’t stop.

Her mother Caroline Sustain’s trail ended right here.

Clementina couldn’t easily sit down despite Dion’s urging. Resting even a moment felt like her mother’s traces would vanish.

Dion sensed her hesitation but insisted.

“Let’s rest. Your under-eyes are dark. Though that’s attractive too.”

Clementina glared at his joke. He rubbed under his nose with his finger, forcing back a laugh.

“You’ll really collapse at this rate. Ah! There’s a tea house right here. How about it?”

When Clementina turned around, there really was a tea house. It looked completely out of place in Derin.

Welia had many herb shops, but they all matched Derin’s overall atmosphere—sand-colored brick walls, red roofs, rows of planters filled with orange pottery.

But the tea house behind them was entirely different. The slightly tilted walls looked ready to collapse any moment, and the gray-and-purple mixed bricks were unlike anything she’d seen before. The black window frames and cloudy windows that looked draped with cobwebs made her question whether the place was even open for business.

“I don’t think it’s open.”

“Really? Hello! Excuse me!”

When Dion pulled at the door and it wouldn’t open, he started knocking. The door slid open sideways.

“What do you think you’re doing! Slide it sideways! Can’t you see? Are you stupid? An idiot? Why are you trying to break down the door?”

“Ah, ah! I’m sorry.”

Dion apologized with his knocking hand still raised. The person who emerged from inside was a middle-aged woman. Gray streaked through her hair, and metal ornaments hung from her nose and ears. The gaunt, short woman held a broom and struck it down hard, raising white clouds of dust.

The woman wore a dress mixed with black and purple. She looked like someone heading to a funeral.

The woman looked Dion up and down, then spotted Clementina standing behind him and widened her eyes.

“Huh?”

Her face clearly showed recognition. She narrowed her eyes and approached Clementina, but once close, she rolled her eyes and shook her head left and right.

“No! Of course not. She couldn’t be this young. Back then she was half-dead.”

The woman left those strange words behind and turned to walk back into the shop.

Clementina and Dion turned to look at each other. Both their eyes trembled. They swallowed simultaneously, then stepped into the shop without hesitation.

Inside, the shop differed from its exterior appearance. Rather than dark and gloomy, it felt surprisingly cozy. A few wooden tables and chairs, purple lace curtains, and a mobile with several small cats dangled in the breeze.

In the center of the shop, a cauldron large enough to fit a child bubbled away. It seemed to be the source of the scent filling the air.

True to Derin’s style, potted climbing plants decorated the walls. The pots were black pottery rather than orange.

The establishment was indeed a tea house.

“Mm, hmm!”

The shop owner in the kitchen glanced at them over a waist-high partition wall, then turned back to her work. When Dion craned his neck to peek into the kitchen, he saw her chopping well-dried plants with sharp cuts.

“Don’t spy like that. Go sit down.”

When Clementina tugged at Dion’s sleeve, he reluctantly turned his head.

Dion and Clementina settled at a sunny window seat. In the center of the table sat a small black vase with flowers. The flowers looked familiar. They resembled lily of the valley but were purple. Clementina tilted her head. Did purple lily of the valley exist? They looked so unusual and pretty that she thought it would be nice to plant them in Aeskis Castle’s garden.

Or perhaps in a small garden in front of her house, if she ever lived alone.

As Dion and Clementina sat blankly, the shop owner approached. She carried a black tray holding teacups. The deep purple cups had white lily of the valley painted on them. Inside was water steeped with unidentifiable leaves and madeleines with an orange sheen.

“……Um. We haven’t ordered yet.”

When Clementina spoke softly, the shop owner snorted.

“Small voice, but you talk just like your mother.”

“M-mother? You know my mother?”

“Maybe I’m mistaken. I must have seen wrong.”

“Ah…… Is that so?”

“What do you mean ‘is that so’? If you’re going to ask, see it through. I thought you looked alike, but you’re frustratingly timid.”

When Clementina opened and closed her mouth wordlessly, the woman raised her eyes and laughed loudly. Her slightly upturned eyes were striking.

“Do you know Caroline Sustain?”

Dion flashed a charming smile and asked the woman calmly. The woman tapped his cheek with her index finger as if he were cute.

“Don’t smile so prettily without fear. What if you get eaten?”

At the woman’s words, Dion wiped away his smile and spoke politely.

“I was showing respect for my elders. You might be a friend of my wife’s mother.”

“Hahaha. Coming here was a coincidence?”

“A coincidence, yes. But are there really coincidences in the threads of fate? We merely cross stepping stones someone has laid out.”

“Um……”

Clementina raised her hand. She didn’t care about any of that. Her bottom kept fidgeting at discovering a clue about her mother here.

“What’s with you? Why are you waving your hand? To think Carry’s daughter is such a weak thing. I’m taken aback.”

The woman stared down at Clementina. Clementina felt intimidated but straightened her back. Her hands seemed to tremble, so she gripped her skirt. Dion, sitting beside her, placed his hand over hers and squeezed.

“E-excuse me. I heard my mother came here to Derin about ten years ago for recuperation because she wasn’t well. My mother is Caroline Sustain. Do you know her?”

“No.”

The woman sat across from Dion and Clementina. A fluffy gray cat appeared from somewhere and jumped onto the table. When the woman stroked the cat’s nose bridge, it purred and closed its eyes.

Clementina’s face fell at the woman’s answer.

“But I do know a Caroline Estrelada who looks exactly like you. She came to this shop until four years ago.”

“Who?”

“Her hair was a slightly deeper blonde than yours, I think. Golden hair and golden eyes, her face so pale she looked like she hadn’t eaten porridge for days—wouldn’t have been strange if she collapsed in the street.”

“My mother?”

“No, Caroline Estrelada looked ready to collapse and die. Your mother is Sustain, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. My mother is Caroline Sustain, but that’s her married name.”

Clementina nodded like a fool, rolling her eyes. It seemed forced, but this couldn’t be a coincidence. Only one person in this world looked exactly like her—her mother.

The woman seemed uninterested in Clementina’s story, stroking the gray cat’s closed eyes with both hands and scratching behind its ears. The cat lifted its head slightly and purred loudly. Now it even opened its mouth slightly in bliss.

“The woman I knew was Estrelada. She had the worst personality of anyone I know.”

“Oh! That’s right! Then it must be my mother! My mother had a terrible personality.”

“Haha! Really? Then I suppose it is your mother. But you know what? She wasn’t just called ‘mother.’ At least the person I met wasn’t someone who would have existed only as a mother. She had a name. Caroline Estrelada. Not someone’s mother.”

While stroking the cat, the woman stared at Clementina with a penetrating gaze.

Her face seemed to ask, ‘How are you living?’

Are you living as Clementina Sustain? Or as Clementina Aeskis?

Are you living your life according to your own will?

“This is Clementina. The strongest woman I know. Her personality is similar to Caroline’s too. Not exactly pleasant.”

Dion, who’d been resting his chin in his hand, popped an entire madeleine into his mouth and spoke. He had no particular interest in this conversation. Whatever her mother was like, he was only grateful she’d brought Clementina into existence.

Oh, and he was grateful to Caroline for bringing Leon’s cub into being too.

“Where did she go?”

“Ho! This one’s quite cheeky. Where did you pick him up?”

The woman pointed at Dion disapprovingly, but her smile suggested she wasn’t serious.

“I don’t know. She said she was going to a homeland she’d never visited.”

“Homeland?”

Clementina tilted her head. What could her mother’s homeland mean? She’d heard little about her mother’s family.

“Where water flows, many trees, warm……? And many animals……?”

“Good heavens! You don’t mean—she called some jungle her homeland?”

“Haha! She must have lived somewhere else originally. She told me it was a homeland she’d never been able to visit. When I first met her ten years ago, she said she was returning to a homeland she’d never seen.”

“Ten years ago is when Mother disappeared.”

“She kept coming to this shop until four years ago. Sometimes once a month, sometimes once every six months. Each time I saw her, she’d lost more weight—I thought each time might be the last. And every time she said she was returning to her homeland.”

“Four years ago? Mother was alive until then. And yet we could never meet.”

Clementina’s head drooped. Had her daughters meant nothing to her mother? She’d suspected as much, but having it confirmed wasn’t pleasant.

Clementina smiled bitterly.

“Do you sell medicine here? What was wrong with her?”

The woman turned to look out the window. She seemed to recall the distant past. Her eyes held both joy and sadness as she thought of someone dear.