The woman’s face appeared vacant, her unfocused gaze seemingly fixed on some distant point. The dark circles beneath her eyes resembled those of someone who hadn’t slept for days.

Her lips moved continuously, muttering something indistinct. Even at a glance, she looked unwell.

“Mother!”

Once again, a child’s voice called out to the woman. With the sound of running footsteps, the faint light behind her grew clearer and approached. Under the light that gradually climbed over the woman’s shoulders, Catherine’s gaze was captured by a delicate form suddenly revealed. 

Golden?

Her eyes fell to what the woman held. Curly hair, identical to the woman’s, became visible.

It looked like an infant. In the woman’s arms, a sleeping child’s mouth made small movements. 

For a moment, the child’s face was clearly illuminated. Simultaneously, as Catherine raised her head, she noticed a cascade of golden hair filling her vision.

The woman had somehow moved a step closer. Before the startled Catherine could back away, the woman passed through her, literally passed through her.

While Catherine stood frozen in shock, the woman’s footsteps receded behind her eardrums, having moved through Catherine like a ghost.

This wasn’t the end of it. Before Catherine could regain her composure, the light thrust before her eyes brushed past her.

Catherine instinctively reached out toward the small child running toward her carrying a lamp, only to freeze when she saw the child pass through her once more.

“Mother, don’t!”

What woke Catherine from her stupor was the child’s shouting voice. She turned with stiffened shoulders. At the entrance to the stairway, she saw the child clutching his mother’s skirt. Catherine unconsciously swallowed.

Something strange was happening. The path Catherine had walked was definitely a corridor, but somehow the scenery had changed.

The light from the lamp the child had placed on the floor flickered unsteadily.

“Mother, not Dave!”

The child’s voice rang clearly as he clutched his mother’s skirt. His thin black hair fell disheveled across his pale forehead. Under the lamplight, his fearful eyes shimmered with a cool blue light.

Only then did Catherine realize who the child was. She also recognized the woman’s identity and the infant in her arms. This was Saul as a young child.

The blonde woman was the former Countess of Cavendish, David’s birth mother, who had become the mistress of Cavendish after Saul’s mother died. This was a scene from the brothers’ childhood.

“Father, Father!”

Catherine lifted her chin in surprise at Saul’s urgent calls for his father. In the brief moment it took her to recognize them, the situation had changed dramatically.

The Countess seemed still unaware of young Saul clinging to her skirt.

It was strange how she continued moving forward despite young Saul pulling at her skirt. Catherine unconsciously moved toward them.

Though she knew there was nothing she could do by getting closer, she couldn’t help herself.

As she approached, the Countess’s mutterings became slightly clearer.

“Waiting… for you.” 

Moving even closer, the muttering became more distinct. However, before she could hear everything, it was drowned out by the whimpering of the now-awake child.

“Butler! Nurse!”

The Countess proceeded to the landing with young Saul still attached to her skirt, dragging her feet. Perhaps frightened by his brother’s raised voice, young David, who had been whimpering, suddenly burst into tears.

Despite the sharp rising cry, the Countess didn’t even look down at the child in her arms. She moved like someone entranced, her vacant gaze fixed straight ahead as though someone were calling her.

Catherine, who had instinctively reached out to stop the Countess, halted when she realized her hand couldn’t make contact.

“Mother!”

At the same time, startled by Saul’s urgent cry, she looked around in sudden realization.

Something was wrong. Even considering the late hour, how could the castle be so quiet?

In present-day Cavendish, access to the upper floors was restricted to designated servants for Saul’s stability and safety, but that couldn’t have been the case decades ago.

Someone should have come running at this commotion.

Yet apart from Saul’s voice calling to his mother, the corridor was eerily silent.

A sudden cry jolted Catherine from her thoughts. Young Saul had fallen forward, having lost his grip on his mother’s skirt as she moved relentlessly onward.

“Mother!”

Catherine instinctively reached out again. But before her hand could make contact, young Saul jumped up and ran to close the distance that had opened between him and his mother.

Running so hurriedly he nearly fell, this time he blocked the Countess’s path. Embracing her waist, he shouted at her to come to her senses. His desperate voice echoed pitifully through the quiet corridor.

But once again, the Countess seemed not to hear him. She continued forward, dragging the young Saul who clung to her. Her vacant expression and muttering voice remained unchanged.

Catherine followed behind them, moving away from the lamp left on the floor. She felt her hands growing cold with anxiety. The Countess, with the infant in her arms, finally entered the landing with young Saul still attached to her.

Catherine swallowed hard. Now just a few steps behind young Saul was the staircase.

Saul, with his back to the stairs as he embraced the Countess trying to stop her, seemed unaware of where he was. At this rate, Saul would surely fall. Catherine paced helplessly around the Cavendish mother and son as they moved closer to the stairs.

Even when she reached out, she couldn’t touch them, there was nothing she could do.

She couldn’t understand what this vision was meant to show her, why the Countess was behaving so strangely, or why young Saul was trying so desperately to stop her.

In truth, her thoughts hadn’t even reached that far.

Though she knew this was an event from long ago and that she couldn’t intervene, she couldn’t help feeling disturbed by what was unfolding before her eyes. Unable to bear the tension, Catherine reached out to grab young Saul, only to clench her fingers when they passed through him.

There was no sensation of contact, as though she had merely swept her hand through empty air.

If the Countess didn’t come to her senses, or if no one came to help, Saul would tumble down the stairs.

Even now, Saul was being pushed back toward the stairs, unable to stop the Countess. The young Saul was far too small and weak to stop an adult woman.

“Mother, please stop!”

Catherine was just thinking she should go downstairs to bring help when she suddenly realized why Saul had been so desperate to stop the Countess.

As Saul’s voice rose in a throat-tearing cry, Catherine saw the Countess stop abruptly at the top of the stairs and slowly raise what she held in her arms above her head.

“Not Dave!”

Young Saul shouted once more. The infant David’s crying, loud enough to shake the world, filled the air. But the boys’ voices seemed destined never to reach the Countess.

“If only this child weren’t here…”

Catherine blinked in surprise as she caught part of the Countess’s muttering. She could see the woman’s hands tightening around the child. What would happen next was clear without having to witness it.

“My lady!”

Everything seemed about to unfold as expected. Had it not been for the dark figure that suddenly appeared at the bottom of the stairs, Catherine would have felt no hope in this situation.

Seeing the dark clothing at the foot of the stairs, she unconsciously clasped her hands together in prayer.

“Please.”

Between her whispers came the sound of hurried footsteps rushing up.

But contrary to that hope, the Countess didn’t stop despite the sound of someone urgently climbing the stairs.

She showed no hesitation or surprise at the sudden appearance. She simply continued applying force to her hands holding the child, who was now crying almost convulsively.

“Catherine!”

A man appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Simultaneously, Catherine started at the sharp call of her name.

For a moment, she thought he was calling to her. The mistake was understandable. The man at the foot of the stairs had a face identical to the Saul Catherine remembered.

But Catherine quickly realized the call wasn’t directed at her. The man’s gaze bypassed her. 

Turning her head to follow his pale, stricken gaze, Catherine saw the Countess at the end of it and finally understood that Catherine was the Countess’s name.

At the same time, she noticed the Countess’s eyes, which had been staring straight ahead, drop downward.

For an instant, their gazes seemed to meet. The Countess blinked. Catherine saw her eyelids close once and then open again.

The hurried footsteps continued up the stairs. Amid this, the Countess hesitated, as though sensing the belated change.

And in that brief moment, Catherine foresaw what would happen in the next few seconds.