It felt both unfamiliar and strangely familiar.

Ilenia stared blankly at the tiny mitten in her hand. It was so small that it didn’t even fill her palm.

“Why do I…know this?”

She slowly turned the small mitten over in her hands.

The baby was far too early to be born. The day when she would put something this tiny on the baby’s hands and watch them wave it around felt impossibly far away.

And yet, she couldn’t look away from the strange sense of familiarity she felt.

She was certain she hadn’t made it herself.

Since becoming pregnant, Delphius had been unusually strict about her movements — so much so that she hadn’t touched a ball of wool.

It should have felt unfamiliar.

And yet…

Ilenia stopped turning it in her fingers and examined it more closely.

The faint moonlight made it difficult to see, but not impossible.

Her fingers traced over the fabric, counting each stitch and following the lines of the seams.

Suddenly, her hand stilled.

No matter how she looked at it, it felt familiar.

The stitching, the technique used…

It was the same technique that Ilenia had learnt from her mother as a child.

‘Had I ever made something like this?’

She tried to search through the haze of her memories.

But lately, it had always been like this. Whenever she tried to remember something, it was as if a thick fog had settled over her mind, refusing to lift.

It was as if something within her was missing.

Sometimes, inexplicable anxiety would overwhelm her without warning.

She tried to ignore the feeling pounding in her chest, leaving her feeling unsettled.

The tighter she gripped the mitten in her hand, the more violently her heart raced.

She had never made the mitten, yet it felt so familiar.

The fact that it had appeared so suddenly in a childless household only added to her unease.

It made everything about it feel deeply, disturbingly wrong.

“Ah…”

Ilenia was seized by a sudden wave of pain, causing her brows to twist sharply.

These headaches had become frequent lately. Out of habit, she pressed her fingers against her temple, but the pain did not subside.

Then, in the silence, she heard a faint sound.

It was a sound like someone quietly weeping.

“Milady!”

A voice cut through the ringing, snapping her back to herself. When she lifted her gaze, she saw a maid looking at her with clear concern.

“What are you doing here at this hour?”

Perhaps she had been resting—her clothes were slightly loosened, unlike her usual neat appearance.

Ilenia tried to speak, but her head dropped instead. The pain was so intense it felt as though she might vomit at any moment.

“Are you alright? Shall I call the physician?”

“No… I’m fine. It’s not that serious.”

“But—”

The maid’s words stopped short the moment her eyes fell on Ilenia’s hand. Her eyes widened in shock, and she quickly glanced around as if to make sure no one else was watching.

“…That in your hand—where did you get it?”

“What?”

“A-Ah, nothing. Could you… give that to me?”

Ilenia lowered her gaze to the small white mitten in her hand. Looking at it now, it seemed slightly worn—marked by traces of use.

“Is it yours?”

“…Yes? Ah—yes. I’ve been looking for it for quite some time. It suddenly went missing, and I searched everywhere… I never imagined it would be with you, Milady…”

“It was in the corridor.”

“Really? I must have dropped it while passing by.”

“…It was neatly placed on the windowsill.”

“Oh—my. I must have set it down while showing it off and then forgotten… I’ve been so busy lately that even things from this morning slip my mind.”

She was desperate to take back what Ilenia held in her hand, going so far as to force out such flimsy excuses.

Ilenia studied her quietly for a moment before handing over the mitten.

“Try not to lose it again. It’s so small… if it happens again, you might never find it.”

“Of course not, Milady. You found it for me—how could I lose it again? Thank you.”

With an awkward smile, the maid quickly stuffed it into the pocket at the back of her waist.
It was a markedly different attitude from the eagerness she had shown earlier.

“By the way… what brings you to the corridor at this hour? Did you need something?”

“Not really. I just couldn’t find Delphius.”

“The master stepped out briefly after receiving an urgent message. He should return soon.”

The maid obediently lowered her gaze as she spoke.

It was a rehearsed response, something she had been instructed to say whenever Ilenia woke up to find him missing.

Following the maid’s gentle guidance, Ilenia returned to the bedroom without resistance.

The room was silent, the curtains drawn as though waiting for her to lie down.

“Are you sure you don’t need me to call the physician?”

“I’m fine.”

“Then perhaps a warm glass of milk—”

“I said I’m fine.”

The maid only left after checking on Ilenia several times.

She closed the door softly, as if to encourage Ilenia to rest. Yet Ilenia’s gaze lingered on the door, unmoving.

Slowly, she lifted her hand.

It was now empty, and strangely, that emptiness felt wrong.

‘Why does it feel so familiar?
Why does something so small make me feel like I should know it?
Why do I—’

At that moment—

— a sharp, piercing cry rang in her ears.

At first, she thought it might be a cat.

However, the longer she listened, the more certain she became that it was a child crying.

It was the cry of a child.

Ilenia rose to her feet at once.

Her heart, which had only just begun to slow down, started pounding wildly again.

Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around her abdomen and fixed her gaze on the door.

The child’s desperate, sorrowful cries echoed as if searching for its mother.

As if drawn by something unseen, she grasped the doorknob and stepped outside.

Forgetting the maid’s repeated pleas to stay inside, she wandered the corridor once more.

With every step, the sound of the child’s sobbing tore through her, overwhelming her to the point where she forgot that there had never been a child on this estate.

Before long, she stopped in front of a familiar room.

At some point, the door, which had once been tightly locked, had been left slightly ajar.

It was the room that held his childhood memories.

Ilenia squeezed her eyes shut.

The child’s heart-wrenching cries assailed her senses.

Such a small, fragile being — what could have made it cry as though it might lose its breath?

It was unbearable.

She wanted to comfort it.

Ignoring the heavy ache in her chest and the instinctive pull stirred by those cries, she pushed the door open.

The door, which had always been firmly sealed, yielded with an unsettling ease.

The moment she stepped into the dim room, Ilenia forgot how to breathe.

It was unfamiliar—

and yet unmistakably familiar.

Slowly, she moved forward.

One step.

Then another.

With each step, the child’s cries grew louder.

And yet—

There was nothing there.

No furniture.

Not even curtains to soften the darkness; just shuttered windows blocking out every trace of light, leaving the room bleak and suffocating.

Still, she stopped.

It felt familiar.

The way she had entered.

The way her hand reached out, as if trying to grasp something that should have been there.

Ilenia stared blankly at her hand, suspended in empty air.

“…I have to soothe the child.”

Her hand drifted helplessly through the empty space.

There was no bed.

No child.

Nothing that had once responded to her touch remained—no warmth, no child.

A thin stream of tears slipped down her burning cheeks.

She hadn’t even realized that she had started to cry. They simply fell, one after another, without end, before she could think to wipe them away.

“How…?”

“How could I ever forget you?”

“How could I erase you from my mind yet still carry on living?”

Once more, Ilenia reached out into the empty air as though a child were lying there, sleeping.

Her trembling hand moved with fragile care, as though stroking the soft, delicate head of a newborn baby, afraid that it might break beneath her touch.

“You who feel so real. You who are so unbearably beautiful. How could I…?”

A wave of nausea rose within her, but Ilenia forced herself to endure it.

She couldn’t bear the thought —

— that she had been so desperate to keep living that she had erased her own child.

And Delphius, who knew everything yet still played along with his broken wife.

All of it.

Everything around her felt unbearable. Shameful. Suffocating.

She couldn’t remember how she had made it back to the bedroom.

When she finally came to her senses, she found herself lying on the bed.

Only then did she truly see the room. It was a space that had erased all traces of the child, yet still pretended to be a happy place for newlyweds.

“…Ha. Hahaha…”

A hollow laugh escaped her lips.

There was nothing funny at all, yet the laughter kept coming.

And then, unable to contain the storm raging inside her, she clutched the bedsheets and screamed silently.

She couldn’t control her emotions. It felt as though something inside her had shattered beyond repair.

The child’s cries still echoed vividly in her ears.

The fact that she couldn’t calm them down tore her heart apart.

‘My baby… my child…’

She hadn’t even been able to protect them.

Yet just to survive, she had erased them from her memory.

What kind of mother forgets her own child, removes them from her life completely, and carries on smiling as if nothing ever happened?

“Ah—!”

She couldn’t bear it.

She couldn’t bear herself.

The self-disgust and self-loathing were suffocating her.

In a sudden burst of impulse, she grabbed the vase from the bedside table and threw it on the floor.

It was the vase that Delphius had once bought for her after gently mocking her flower arrangement.

Now, it shattered with a dull, brittle crack.

Once she had thrown it, the rest came easily.

One after another—

—everything within reach was sent crashing to the ground.

Jewels.

Glass ornaments.

Gifts of every kind.

Each one shattered the moment it hit the floor.

The fragments were scattered across the floor and over the bed.

Some of them cut her hands and feet lightly, drawing blood.

But Ilenia didn’t care.

She couldn’t feel the pain.

Even as she picked up a mirror. Lifting it high, she was ready to smash it with all her might when a strong hand suddenly seized her wrist and pulled her back.