2.

The coin purse that had vanished without a trace was found the next morning in front of the entrance door.

“Th, the money! Hannah, look, the money Alisa lost……”

Alisa overheard Mary’s shout through the attic window and immediately started making a fuss about being let out.

“You found the money, so let me out now, Hannah!”

“……Careless girl, dropping money like that.”

Hannah released the child with a displeased look. Her suspicious gaze never fully lifted.

Freed by a stroke of luck, Alisa sat in the yard and picked up a stick. She drew a rough map of the estate with a few squares and stared at it hard.

‘There’s no way I dropped the money at the front door.’

Mary and Hannah came and went through the entrance several times a day. If Alisa had really dropped the coin purse there, it would have been found long ago.

‘Then there’s only one conclusion.’

The gentleman found it and brought it back.

Her heart felt heavy over Eden, who had vanished like a dream in the night — but that was out of her hands. The Prince had appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as suddenly, so all she could do was hope to meet him again someday.

‘But the clothes — those I can still get back.’

From her observations out the attic window, the two maids hadn’t left the estate once since Alisa came home. That meant the gift box with her clothes was still somewhere inside the house.

The moment she made up her mind, Alisa moved.

Her destination: the wardrobe where Hannah always hid valuables. But before going there, she had one stop to make first. The stable.

‘A successful adventure requires thorough preparation.’

Alisa watched for the moment the maids were busy tending to her great-aunt. She crept out of the estate on tiptoe and slipped into the stable in the back yard.

“Hello, Shu-shu.”

She untied the horse’s reins and threw the stable doors wide open. Then she pulled a long orange carrot from her pocket.

Ever since she was small, Shu-shu would rear up on her hind legs and perform tricks the moment she saw a carrot. There was no way she could resist one dangled right under her nose.

Shu-shu’s eyes began to follow the carrot.

“That’s it. Time for a walk.”

Alisa grinned and hurled the carrot as hard as she could toward the clothesline.

“Go, Shu-shu!”

Heeigh — Shu-shu stamped her hooves with vigor and bolted out of the stable in one go.

The first casualty was the laundry. The clothesline came down under Shu-shu’s hooves, and the hanging sheets and blankets flew in every direction.

The maids in the kitchen spotted the chaos through the window.

“What on earth!”

“H, Hannah, that horse over there……”

“She was tied up in the stable, how did she……”

The two maids came stumbling out in a panic. They tried to calm Shu-shu without understanding what had happened, got their feet tangled up in each other, and went sprawling.

“Oof!”

“Ugh, Mary…… get off me! You’re too heavy, I can’t get up!”

Taking advantage of the mayhem, Alisa slipped into Hannah’s room. She crept to the wardrobe and opened it — and there was the gift box, crammed in among the clothes.

She snatched it up and ran. She might get slapped across the face if she was caught this time, but it didn’t matter. Alisa was determined to hold on to what was rightfully hers.

‘Start quietly moving things out of this house now, little by little. If your great-aunt’s maids are giving you trouble, pin it on them and get them replaced.’

She couldn’t follow the Prince’s advice to the letter. But at the very least, she didn’t want to give up so easily what had been given to her fair and square.

Because doing that would mean treating lightly the feelings of the people who had given those things to her.

Alisa tiptoed across the hallway carpet and slipped the key into the front door. The maids were still busy picking up the laundry scattered across the yard and hadn’t yet pieced together what had happened. But the moment they spotted the carrot on the ground, they would figure it out.

She had to hide the box somewhere else before that.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Alisa ran straight to the gentleman’s house.

She had never visited before, but she had long known he lived on the second floor of the Madame Marigold clothing shop.

“Sir, are you in? It’s Alisa……”

She ran up the stairs and pressed the doorbell. Ding-dong — the bell rang clearly, but there was no sign of anyone inside.

Alisa hesitated, then pressed it one more time. Still quiet.

‘Maybe this isn’t the right place?’

She had climbed the stairs full of confidence that he would be glad to see her, but the moment she rang the bell, that courage fizzled out in an instant. What now. Should she just go back? But go where?

‘There’s nowhere else I can leave the clothes……’

She stood there uncertainly, staring at the front door. That was when an unfamiliar woman’s voice came from downstairs.

“Hey, you there, what are you doing?”

“Oh…… Mrs. Ashford?”

The owner of Madame Marigold was dressed differently from the day before, in a black dress that followed the lines of her figure. She held a feather fan in one hand, and from the look of it she had been in the middle of getting ready — one earring was in, the other wasn’t.

“That’s right. Are you here to see this place?”

“Yes, but……”

“It’s empty right now, so come downstairs and wait in the shop. He’ll probably be back soon.”

Come downstairs? Alisa was about to ask if that was really all right. But before she could open her mouth, Mrs. Ashford was already halfway down.

She dithered for a moment, then followed. Having come this far, she couldn’t go back to the estate before seeing the gentleman. She had to find somewhere to hide the clothes, no matter what.

Jingle — she pushed the door open and stepped into Madame Marigold, which was as busy as ever.

Alisa sat awkwardly on the sofa and pressed her fists against her knees. Sitting there alone, she felt like an uninvited guest.

The lavish fabrics hanging on the walls, the shop assistants in their neat uniforms, the expensive accessories and shoes in the display cases. She glanced around and hunched her shoulders. The beautiful things that always caught her eye now felt like they were bearing down on her.

Even the brisk footsteps of the assistants moving about sounded like a warning — telling her she didn’t belong here and should leave at once.

Alisa sat there feeling small, hugging the gift box, wondering whether she should just get up and walk out.

A faint jingle came from near her feet. Something white and fluffy was pushing through the door and into the shop.

“Oh?”

Alisa’s eyes went wide. A cat padded over with a leisurely stretch and stopped right in front of her. The well-groomed white ball of fluff swished its tail, a pretty little bell around its neck.

She looked around. The bell meant it had an owner, but the only people nearby were the shop assistants.

‘Is it all right to pet it?’

Alisa watched carefully, then cautiously reached out toward the cat. She was just about to stroke its back with an awkward hand when the cat whipped its tail straight up and spun around.

Yikes — Alisa let out a small yelp and pulled her hand back. The white cat turned its nose up primly, then flopped right back down at Alisa’s feet. Its fluffy head came to rest on top of the child’s foot.

‘So — don’t touch, but use my foot as a pillow?’

Her jaw dropped. But what could she do. Annoying as it was, she had no choice but to let it win.

Reading the haughty creature’s intentions, Alisa quietly stretched her leg out a little. Once it was more comfortable to lean against, the cat let out a small mew and curled up completely on top of both her feet.

Her feet grew warm. Alisa tilted her head slightly and whispered:

“Hey, who’s your owner?”

Mrow.

“One of the shop assistants? Or Mrs. Ashford?”

Mrooow.

“Could I maybe just touch you once?”

The cat had been ignoring everything Alisa said, but the moment those last words were out, it sprang to its feet. Before she could even reach out, it darted under the sofa.

It blinked its blue eyes up at her and mewed, looking for all the world like it was teasing her.

“……Ugh……”

Alisa clenched both fists and checked whether anyone was watching. The spot where she was sitting was screened by a partition and a display case, so it wasn’t easy to see from outside.

She set the box carefully on the sofa and crouched down. Peering under the sofa, she found the white cat’s blue eyes staring back at her. They glittered exactly like sapphires.

“Kitty, I won’t touch you anymore. Come out. All right?”

……

“Come out, kitty.”

She was slowly reaching out her hand and making little cat sounds when something familiar caught her eye.

“Oh?”

Alisa reached under the sofa right away and pulled it out. It was the very same handkerchief the gentleman in the black top hat had spread on the ground for her beside the tree.

‘Did he drop it when he came to buy clothes yesterday?’