Rain poured down heavily. The sound of it striking the windows and echoing through the empty corridor seemed to shake the very foundations. Catherine blinked her eyes.

She blinked rapidly, then squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, distorting the corners of her eyes. Her thoughts wouldn’t organize themselves.

With her hand pressed against the window, Catherine stood for a long while, feeling the raindrops falling beyond the glass through her fingertips. Everything felt vague and uncertain. She felt like someone had thrust a tangled ball of thread into her hands.

Like holding that ball in bewilderment, unable to find where the thread began or even dare to attempt unraveling it, she had no idea what to do.

After standing like that for quite some time, her fingertips had grown stiff enough from the cold seeping into her hands that she finally straightened her body. She pushed herself upright with her frozen hands, not to accomplish anything in particular.

Her head simply throbbed so painfully that she couldn’t bear it any longer.

Catherine rubbed around her eyes to cool the heavy, fevered sensation around them, then let her hand drop. Slowly, she walked toward where the priest and young Saul had been standing. 

The sound of cascading rain striking the glass overhead echoed around her.

Eventually, Catherine’s steps stopped when she reached the spot where the two had been before disappearing completely into the darkness. Catherine stood there blankly for a moment, mulling over the conversation she had just heard between them.

The conversation that had continued since entering this corridor… probably about the secret Saul had kept hidden for so long.

Catherine exhaled a long breath like a deep sigh. Strangely, the more she pondered that conversation, the more she felt an undeniable restlessness and an inexplicable calmness crossing paths within her.

They rippled like a quietly undulating water surface, then surged uncontrollably.

Her chest felt tight from the facts that had been thrust upon her and the complex emotions that had become tangled as a result. Barely managing to exhale again like spitting something out, Catherine turned her gaze toward the far end of the corridor where the priest and young Saul had disappeared.

The far end of the corridor where they had vanished was pitch black. Nothing but pitch black. Not only could she not see the two figures, but she couldn’t see anything else either.

Even though the surroundings were dark, she should have been able to make out the faint outlines of objects.

Catherine felt that darkness was like Saul’s inner thoughts, which seemed unwilling to reveal what they contained. Letting out a low groan, Catherine buried her face in her cold hands. Why on earth does the evil thing show her such scenes?

The answer to this question that had arisen countless times remained unknowable. Because she couldn’t understand it at all, Catherine began to resent everything it had shown her.

If the evil thing hadn’t thrust these things upon her so arbitrarily, she wouldn’t have become curious. Not about Saul’s long-kept secret, not about his past unhappiness stemming from that secret, not about the anxiety he must have harbored. None of it.

In truth, Catherine hadn’t been unaware that Saul was hiding something. She too had had similar thoughts on several occasions.

Since Saul first drew his last breath, Catherine had sometimes gotten the impression that Saul might have suspected something. That first moment when he encountered David had been like that, and so had the moment when Saul breathed again in the dust.

Though she had considered it a foolish thought and never voiced it… looking back, there had certainly been something strange about Saul’s past behavior and the measures he had left behind.

But that had been mere speculation. Catherine had wondered while never seeking answers. The questions Catherine had harbored, the long-kept secret the evil thing had shown her, were things Saul should have told her himself someday. She hadn’t wanted to learn about them this way, through another…

This wasn’t the kind of gamble she had intended to make.

The thought that she had made a terrible mistake wouldn’t leave her. She was horrified at herself for being pleased to understand Saul’s attitude that had puzzled her all this time, and for being glad to learn about him even in this manner.

At the same time, she became unbearably restless at the thought that she couldn’t embrace his long-past unhappiness, and at the premonition that she, like the priest, would never be able to fully understand Saul.

Catherine sank down in the middle of the empty corridor with a bewildered expression. Indescribable devastation and cold emptiness enveloped her.

What Catherine had demanded from the evil thing was merely proof of that absurd proposition that the evil thing was Saul and Saul was the evil thing.

However, the more she faced the scenes the evil thing had presented to prove this, the more Catherine became frightened by the realizations that crashed over her without warning, realizations she found difficult to bear.

Saul had been right. David’s advice had also been right. She shouldn’t have listened. Whatever the evil thing said, she shouldn’t have responded to it. She should have fled from the evil thing. But she hadn’t been able to heed even that simple warning…

Now she didn’t want to see or know anything more. Catherine trembled. Burying her face in her knees, she listened to the sound of rain like enduring a torrent of reproach.

Throughout the time she spent reflecting on her own foolishness, she wanted nothing more than to be buried in that fierce sound and wait for everything to end.

But cold reality wouldn’t leave Catherine alone. She didn’t know how long she had been like that, but it didn’t seem like much time had passed. At some point, far away behind her, she heard a voice.

Someone seemed to be calling out, and she could feel the air trembling. The voice that reached her faintly, almost like an illusion, seemed familiar.

But because that first call had sounded unclear, like a muffled shout, Catherine couldn’t react quickly. She simply tilted her shoulder and froze while looking back toward the path she had come from, trying to determine whether it was her imagination or not.

“Catherine…!”

But the next moment, she heard the voice again. Though suppressed like someone hiding something or feeling afraid, the voice had the strength of someone calling out clearly and loudly. It sounded somewhat urgent.

Though it still sounded unclear like it was coming from far away, it wasn’t unclear enough that she couldn’t recognize the continued call wasn’t her imagination.

Catherine soon recognized who owned that voice. It was Saul. Definitely Saul’s voice. Along with the calls continuing from beyond the turned corner, she could see a faint reddish light approaching from far away. He was coming this way.

The moment she realized this fact, her heart sank like falling into a frozen lake. Catherine sprang up from her spot almost reflexively. Then she backed away to avoid the gradually intensifying light.

She couldn’t face Saul like this. She had no confidence in facing Saul calmly. Complex emotions that hadn’t yet been sorted out seized Catherine. In truth, even without the problems currently troubling her, it would have been the same.

Remembering the last conversation she had with Saul, when she had asked him to abandon their deal, she couldn’t help but feel this way.

Just like Catherine couldn’t understand Saul, Saul wouldn’t understand Catherine either. If Saul had understood Catherine, he wouldn’t have suggested abandoning their deal. Even though their deal was nothing more than absurd wordplay… it was everything to Catherine.

To Saul, it might have been nothing more than a meaningless affair… But that deal was the first proof that made Catherine realize she could stand as a complete, equal being, and simultaneously the only moment when someone who had treated her as a complete being had needed her.

Catherine let out a bitter laugh without thinking. No, no. In truth, Catherine knew too.

She knew that Catherine had been able to exist as Saul’s equal in that deal only because Saul had needed Catherine. It had been possible solely for that one reason.

This belated realization tormented Catherine once again. Certainly Saul had respected Catherine. But could that be called true respect?

Catherine knew it wasn’t. Saul had respected Catherine, but that was nothing more than learned courtesy toward a lady, nothing beyond that.

If Saul had truly respected Catherine, she wouldn’t have been thrown into this confusing situation knowing nothing at all.

The excuse that there hadn’t been enough time for the two to get to know each other, or that there hadn’t been such an opportunity, was nothing but a pretty pretext.

Saul had certainly had opportunities to give Catherine hints. About the reason he had left her such a will, or at least about David’s existence… But Saul hadn’t done so.

Thinking about it now, perhaps all Saul had needed was just an obedient, docile doll… One that wouldn’t harbor any doubts, wouldn’t ask anything, and could fulfill what he desired. But to remain such a being, Catherine had come too far.