“What?”

McNally clearly thought I was a crazy woman.

“You must not know, but this place has been abandoned for over ten years. There’s not even electricity!”

“There aren’t any ghosts, are there?”

“How would I know!”

“Well, it doesn’t matter.”

When a person is about to die, they stop being afraid.

With one foot already in the afterlife, if I meet a ghost, I’ll just ask them to tell me about the other world.

“She’s insane! Truly mad!”

McNally muttered.

“The moment she entered this place, that woman’s spirit must have possessed her!”

“Who?”

“That cursed woman from 130 years ago who ruined this place. That damned family turned Clairfield into a complete mess!”

“What are you talking about?”

But McNally ignored my question and walked away, grumbling.

“Hey you!”

I shouted at his back.

“Leave the keys here! You’re fired!”

“What?”

“It seems this management job doesn’t suit you.”

“How dare you speak to me like that! Go get struck by lightning!”

McNally turned to look at me, then violently threw the bundle of keys onto the ground.

He spat, then quickly turned and walked away.

You’re the one who should get struck by lightning.

“By the way, I’ll pay your final management fee in cash, so if you want it, make sure to come here tomorrow afternoon!”

I shouted loudly from the top of the stairs.

I hate making conciliatory remarks, but I still need someone to help with the final cleanup, so I have no choice.

A person like that will definitely come back for money, even after suffering such humiliation.

When he sees the horrible state of things, he’ll regret coming back and curse me.

I wish someone other than that guy could handle my final arrangements.

But there’s no choice. I have nobody.

I had cleanly rejected Attorney Hwang’s offer to take responsibility for selling and converting this foreign—and unfamiliar European country’s—real estate into cash before I left.

Before departing, I sold everything—my apartment in Korea, furniture, clothes, and possessions.

Except for Attorney Hwang, no one knows I came here.

I have no lingering attachment to my remaining life, nor do I need unnecessary concern or sympathy.

I just planned to quietly face death alone in a remote place in a foreign country.

After McNally’s black umbrella disappeared, I picked up the keys he had thrown away and retrieved my bag from the car.

At the entrance, I took out the heavy brass key, inserted it into the hole, and turned it. With a clunk, the door opened.

Behind me, rain was falling steadily, and in front, a dark, black door gaped open.

From inside came faint smells of dust, mold, and old wood.

I carefully pushed the heavy door and entered.

Clang!

The heavy door closed behind me.

My life until now was over.

***

The inside of the castle was quiet and dark.

After closing the door, the sound of rain from outside became very faint.

When I turned on my phone’s flashlight, I could see an incredibly high ceiling, a dust-covered enormous chandelier, and large staircases spreading out on both sides.

Only then did it start to feel real that I had actually entered a castle.

Even though it had now become a haunted house full of cobwebs.

The cold air against my soaking wet body made me freezing cold.

As I climbed to the second floor, shivering, my eyes suddenly caught an oil painting hanging on the wall.

It was a large picture filling the landing between the first and second floors—a portrait of a young woman.

Her honey-bright blonde curly hair, flowing abundantly to her waist, stood out.

Beautiful, voluminous hair that had definitely never worried about issues like thickness, texture, or perms.

Her skin was marble-pale, and her eyes were a mysterious blue-violet.

The woman, wearing a dress the same color as her eyes, was turned sideways with her face slightly turned toward the viewer.

Was this the woman McNally mentioned? The one who “ruined all of Clairfield” while living in this castle?

Yet, even facing an old portrait inside an old, dark castle on a rainy day like this, I didn’t feel scared at all.

No, rather, I felt strangely familiar with it. Am I going crazy?

Standing in the middle of the second-floor corridor, I could clearly see the floor below through the railing.

After hesitating briefly, I turned right and followed the long corridor.

When I reached the dead-end room and carefully opened the door, I immediately felt it.

Ah, this is it!

Judging by the large four-poster bed and fireplace, it seemed to have been someone’s bedroom.

A heavy, antique marble clock sat on the mantelpiece.

Seeing the clock hands stopped at 10:37 gave me a slightly strange feeling.

Under the fireplace, ashes and half-burned wood pieces were piled up, with a half-full matchbox lying nearby.

I tore up the magazine I had been reading on the plane, placed it on the wood pieces, and lit it. It slowly began to blaze.

Seeing how quickly the smoke escaped, the chimney didn’t seem to be blocked, but just in case, I opened the window slightly. Dying from suffocation tonight wasn’t part of my plan.

Outside, it was now completely dark.

The rain was still pouring heavily, but warmth gradually spread throughout the room. The crackling sound of burning wood began to calm my mind.

I took off my wet clothes and hung them up, then rummaged through my bag and layered on whatever clothes I could find.

After removing the cloth covering the bed, I examined it—though slightly damp, it looked fairly decent.

Still, I needed to check every corner carefully just in case.

Surely there wouldn’t be scorpions or poisonous spiders? Or even fleas or bedbugs.

I slipped my hand under the mattress and……

Huh?

I pulled my hand back in shock.

Aaaah! What was that? Something just touched me!

I went to the opposite side of the bed and carefully lifted the mattress.

There was something hard here.

It didn’t feel like an insect, but something solid and angular……

I reached deep inside and pulled out the object.

This is…… a book?

It was a hardcover book wrapped in deep blue-violet velvet. The color looked familiar. That is……

The woman’s dress! It was the same color as the dress worn by the woman in the portrait downstairs.

Though the color had faded and the edges were worn, the inside was quite intact. On the inside cover, I could see fine, beautiful penmanship.

[Clarence A. Philoraine.]

I turned another page.

[My Records]

A novel? Or a diary?

Though slightly tilted, the handwriting was as neat and tidy as if printed, making it not difficult to read.

I turned another page.

[February 7, 18xx

I turned twenty-three today.

But I have no attachment to life.]

……What?

Suddenly, I became fully alert.

The owner of this diary was a person from the distant past, but we shared the same birthday and age.

And at just twenty-three, she seemed to have given up on life, like someone who had lived it all.

Like me.

My hands suddenly began to tremble.

I quickly flipped through the medium-thickness diary and found it densely filled about halfway through.

If this person was truly the woman McNally mentioned…… this would be a record from over a hundred years ago.

It felt somewhat eerie, but at the same time, I became unbearably curious.

In the end, I forgot about the cold, the fear of an unfamiliar place, the persistent headaches that always tormented me, and the fear of death.

I wrapped myself in the old, worn blanket, sat in front of the fireplace, and opened the diary.

And as if enchanted, I fell into the story of the woman named Clarence Philoraine.

***

The firelight from the fireplace began to dim.

The outside was growing faintly bright, suggesting the rain might have stopped.

I had ended up staying awake all night reading about Clarence Philoraine’s painful life.

My heart felt strangely heavy.

If the contents of this diary were true, the woman named “Clarence” lived only four more months after her twenty-third birthday.

Though she was the only daughter of a baronial family with this magnificent castle and estate, Clarence’s life was not easy.

Her father, the third Baron Philoraine, was an incompetent dreamer who ruined everything he touched, and her mother was the youngest daughter of a cadet noble family, raised delicately and merely a fragile princess.

When their finances fell into serious crisis as all his irresponsibly undertaken ventures failed, the baron eventually turned to gambling.

In the end, he squandered the entire family fortune, and the neglected estate became desolate.

He incurred enormous debts and was even reported to other nobles.

The despairing baron, drunk, fell from his horse and died.

After the baroness also passed away following a lingering illness, Clarence was left alone.

With just the huge castle and the impoverished estate.

The dozens of servants who once worked there had all left, leaving only the loyal butler Hubert and a lowly maid Marina.

The world outside the castle was cold to a fallen noble.

The estate people disregarded her and refused to treat her as the new baroness.

Everyone mocked her, ignored her, worked together to isolate her, and directed at her the resentment that should have gone to her parents.

As reality harshly changed, Clarence’s self-esteem gradually diminished.

While turning the pages of the diary, I could feel her already diminished spirit growing increasingly darker.

The taunts of being an “old maid without a dowry” and the position of a “fallen noble” dragged Clarence deeper into the mire.

And then “that person” appeared.

The person who broke Clarence’s will to somehow keep trying to live despite such hardship and ruined everything.

“That man.”