Catherine, who had been watching him approach, suddenly blinked when she noticed something strange about young David’s walking.

David was walking while pressing one hand against the wall, almost groping his way forward. His behavior looked like someone walking through darkness where they couldn’t see even an inch ahead.

Catherine lowered her gaze, turning away from David who was coming from the side. Then she looked at the lamp sitting alone in the corridor directly ahead of him and the light dimly illuminating its surroundings.

It was strange. Though there was a corner between the two corridors… the lamp’s light clearly extended beyond the corner.

However, young David was slowly groping along the wall as he approached Catherine’s direction. Like he couldn’t see any light at all.

No, he really seemed unable to see. Otherwise, there would be no reason for young David to grope his way down the corridor.

Catherine’s gaze touched the lamp sitting alone in the corridor and returned. While Catherine wondered about young David’s behavior, he had somehow reached the front of the landing. 

David stopped walking with a hesitant air and slowly looked around with a tense attitude. Then, like something was bothering him, he couldn’t approach further and leaned his body while craning his neck, peering around like trying to look down below the stairs.

“……”

However, there was no way he could see below the stairs from where he stood without fully entering the landing.

Catherine watched what young David was doing, then saw him reluctantly approach a couple more steps closer with a hesitant air.

Finally standing in the middle of the landing, he leaned his body while craning his neck like trying to look down the stairs again.

Then when something seemed about to become visible, he would shrink back and then peek again repeatedly.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out what young David’s strange behavior meant. After doing this for a while, David finally squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, then approached near the stairs like he had made up his mind.

Slowly releasing the tension from his hunched shoulders, David looked down below the stairs with narrowed eyes and muttered.

“Nothing’s there…”

He stood still with an expression mixing undisguised disappointment and emptiness, looking down below the stairs while letting out a thin breath.

At those words that sounded deeply disheartened, Catherine realized that young David had come out to confirm the Countess’s ghost he had seen just before.

Catherine’s gaze was heavy as she watched young David’s attitude of pouting his lips. At that moment, fragments slowly rose and sank in her mind: the Countess’s strange behavior that the evil thing had shown throughout, her death, Saul’s tears apologizing for failing to protect his mother, and the sudden appearance of the Countess’s ghost.

Catherine slowly blinked while looking at young David who had come out to confirm his mother’s ghost again.

Catherine suddenly thought that the accident the Cavendish brothers experienced and the series of events the evil thing had shown were certainly connected to each other. However, she still couldn’t quite guess what relationship existed between those events…

“…I thought maybe.”

Young David’s muttering was heard. Catherine frowned, recalling what he had been doing just before. Perhaps he had wanted to meet his mother?

Catherine speculated, remembering David’s voice rising in surprise when he heard Saul’s whispered call while looking at the ghost.

However, while Catherine guessed at young David’s behavior, she found it difficult to understand his choice to return to the landing again.

Since the Countess had died when David was still an infant, it made sense that he would be curious about his mother’s existence, having no memories of her.

But… thinking of David’s behavior that had clearly been bewitched just before, his returning alone to the landing out of mere curiosity about his mother felt reckless…

At least it did to Catherine. She didn’t mean to blame young David. It was just… since Catherine also had no memories of her mother, she simply found it difficult to understand.

Probably like David, what Catherine knew about her birth mother was only very fragmentary facts. All the executioner who raised Catherine had told her about her ‘mother’ was that she had exactly the same wheat-colored skin and jet-black hair as Catherine, was very beautiful, and had been sentenced to death as punishment for brutal murder.

Catherine knew nothing about what her mother’s personality was like or what she enjoyed. Since there was no way an executioner would have had opportunities to interact with death row inmates, such superficial stories were probably all he could tell Catherine.

In fact, he probably hadn’t even wanted to tell her that much… The distinctive skin color that resembled her mother stood out even among those with white skin, so he would have had no choice but to discuss it.

But for Catherine… the story about her mother that the executioner had told her still sounded like someone else’s business.

It had been that way when she first heard the story as a child, and even now it didn’t feel like her own. She knew nothing about what kind of person her mother was, and wasn’t curious.

Perhaps it was because Catherine had a foolish man who loved her, so she didn’t feel the empty space…

While thinking, Catherine suddenly saw David, who had been staring down the stairs unable to give up his lingering attachment, quickly raise his head like he was startled by something.

“…Gasp.”

At the same time Catherine focused on his sudden attitude, young David gasped sharply in surprise and covered his mouth. Then he began looking around like searching for something. 

Before she could figure out what caused that strange behavior, David’s voice flowed out carefully, almost like whispering inside his mouth.

“…Mother?”

Mother? Catherine blinked. Then she frowned. Mother? She found it difficult to understand David’s sudden whispered call.

David’s call sounded like… he was asking to confirm something. And unfortunately, she hadn’t heard wrong.

“Really?”

Like someone who had discovered something, David’s gaze, which had been looking around, turned toward the stairs. And… he spoke like there really was someone there. Really, is it really mother?

Like discovering someone welcome, his careful voice gradually brightened. Catherine grabbed the back of her neck at the chilling sensation that rose instantly.

She unconsciously stepped back hesitantly. Then she stopped when her back hit the wall. The place where young David’s gaze reached was empty. No one else’s shadow was visible either. 

Catherine looked at David’s bright expression standing in front of her and thought.

Who was David talking to right now…?

“Me?”

At the following voice, Catherine snapped to attention. She couldn’t tell what he was talking about… but David was hesitating about something. Catherine had a premonition. It wasn’t a good premonition. It couldn’t be a good premonition.

Since the memory the evil thing had promised to show was clear, that was natural.

Catherine unconsciously reached her hand toward where young David was, then remembered she couldn’t catch him and clenched her fist.

Watching a predetermined ending wasn’t as easy as she had thought… She wasn’t unaware that it was irreversible, just a past memory that she could only helplessly watch.

However, seeing young David moving before her eyes, it felt like she could catch him if she just reached out her hand. If she suggested he return to his room, it seemed like he would nod readily.

Even knowing that young David couldn’t see Catherine and that they couldn’t have a conversation, she felt this way.

Even though she had chosen to know the truth, actually seeing him moving before her eyes made her conflicted with the desire to pull him away from the predetermined tragedy.

But unfortunately… there was nothing Catherine could do except watch. Because of this, Catherine did what she could do. She walked silently.

Like a play, she followed behind young David who was going down the stairs with slow steps like following a predetermined script.

Following David’s steps ahead, a faintly rising white light left traces. It was an undeniably clear signal. Catherine willingly followed the evil thing’s advice to follow the light.

In the excessively quiet surroundings, only Catherine’s footsteps following the light seemed audible. She pressed down her dizzyingly agitated chest.

Perhaps due to tension, the movement of her pounding heart felt like it was resonating through her whole body. Perhaps because she intuitively realized she stood at the starting point of a predetermined tragedy.

“Please go a little slower, it’s too dark…”

Young David’s voice was heard muttering like there was someone ahead of him. However, still nothing was visible and no one’s voice was heard. But young David’s attitude of speaking to empty air was so natural that even knowing nothing existed there, Catherine felt chilled like there was something unavoidable in that place.

However, Catherine didn’t stop walking. She followed behind young David who had come down to the lower floor and immediately went down the stairs again.

Then, carelessly watching the white light sparkle where he stepped, Catherine’s gaze turned toward the corridor beyond the landing.

In her gradually lowering gaze following the steps going down the stairs, the silhouette of something sitting alone in the pitch-black corridor suddenly appeared.