If Only I Could Disappear - Chapter 32

Clang. 

As the heavy wheel of the carriage was caught on a stone, a familiar voice shouted loudly.

“You useless thing!”

Sotis was startled and came to her senses at the sound of a heavy blow.

It was just a shout. But she instantly knew what the situation was based on that. With a loathsome degree of accuracy and vividness.

“You ought to do something for the sake of ‘Marigold’. How is it that you haven’t improved with such excellent teaching? Do you know how many teachers are attached to you and just how much money went into them!”

Today, the Duke of Marigold was still raining a tirade upon his second daughter, Cheryl. On the days when he suffered from contempt at the imperial family’s nobility council, such actions were double the usual intensity, and unfortunately, today seemed to be that sort of day.

The Duke’s insulting words followed by a slap. It was followed by Cheryl bursting into tears. The sound of the vase shattering also resounded. The Duke roared, perhaps further angered at the fact that he had thrown an expensive item.

He slapped her on the face and shouted in an annoyed tone.

“How on earth was something like this born!”

Sortis felt a burning sensation in her heart. Even though it wasn’t directed at her, her heart ached this much, so how much pain was Cheryl in?

She wanted to stand up and stop it. She had never done that before, but she wanted to stand up against her father loudly.

Your words aren’t the least bit appropriate for a young girl, Father. Has she done something wrong enough to be beaten like this?

She murmured internally. Cheryl was only ten years old. She was only ten, who’d never coveted or stolen someone else’s candy. A child that couldn’t even talk back in such a ridiculous situation.

Sotis headed out of the room. She had to stop her father today. She had to stop the beating, abusive language, and harsh behaviour that had continued dozens of times once.

However.

“You can’t do that.”

The Duchess of Marigold blocked the door to Sotis’s bedroom.

“How could you fearlessly step forward when your father is that furious? Just wait here, Sotis.”

“Mother.”

Sotis tightened her hands into fists and spoke. Up till then, Cheryl was still being beaten by her father.

It was a cruel beating that was closer to venting his anger, and couldn’t be called discipline.

“My sister is getting beaten.”

“Yes.”

The Duchess spoke dryly.

“That’s why you should be more careful. Sotis, I’m doing this for your sake.”

Her mother spoke nervously.

“You will become a crown princess in the future. It’ll be troublesome if a scar was left on your body.”

“……”

Sotis felt suffocated.

She looked up at her mother’s pensive face.

Her mother’s face looked rather similar to the faces in the portraits that lined the mansion’s west corridor. The expressionless and frigid faces, like the previous dukes, made her mother seem like an old painting.

However, her mother’s eyes were quite different. Purple eyes sized up Sotis meticulously, almost emotionlessly. Her gaze, which seemed like she was assessing a product’s value, gave her chills.

“I…”

A zeal close to madness was contained within those lusterless eyes. As though whatever happened matters not for the sake of a single goal.

“I want to help Cheryl, Mother…….”

“You’re helping by staying here quietly. You’d only make her seem even more useless by stepping up.”

Why? Sotis wanted to argue.

In that case, what would be the ‘use’ of a child that’s endured that awful time alone?

She clearly felt that the passage of time was brutal. Even as she agonised about it like this, her younger sister was still stifling yells and sobs.

Wouldn’t it have been better if time stopped?

“It would’ve been better without something as useless as you!”

Sotis became choked up at those words and muttered unconsciously.

“Shouldn’t parents love their children?”

At that moment, in that very brief moment, Sotis realised a fact.

So this was a dream.

This was a dream. A dream that had already passed, that happened more than 15 years ago, and remained dormant in Sotis’s head for a long time.

Sotis opened her fist that was clenched the entire time. Clear marks of her nails were imprinted on the small palm, but strangely enough, she didn’t feel any pain.

The reason for that was rather simple. This was a dream because she didn’t wish for this to happen.

“…In that case.”

In that case, there was only one thing that she had to do.

Do as she pleased. Even if it only happened once, to move in accordance to her own will.

“Cheryl!”

She left the room unhesitatingly. She pushed her murky mother away firmly. Never in her life had she ever been so rude, and as such, her heart pounded with fear and anxiety.

Sotis ignored those sensations and hurriedly ran out to hug Cheryl, who sat on the floor.

She embraced her sister like she was trying to cover, and whispered.

“I’m sorry.”

“Heuk…”

“I’m sorry, Cheryl, for never having done this before.”

It was such a cowardly excuse that it won’t be of any consolation, but she had never even mentioned this before.

It was frightening. To Sotis, this mansion was like everything in the world, and she couldn’t bear to break and resist the rules of the mansion. Her weak mind made her cowardly and lesser, and it made her want to flee.

“I hate you, Sister…”

Cheryl pinched Sotis with tears in her eyes. The arm that the powerless child pinched tingled in pain.

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

How Sotis wished that she had protected Cheryl like this from the beginning. Of course, if she’d done so, Cheryl would have received a harsher scolding in Sotis’s absence.

Still, that child would have remembered. The fact that there was at least one person standing on her side in this cold mansion. The fact might have prevented her from falling into endless despair.

“If only I could disappear.”

Sotis heard the small voice that came from her arms. It was such a soft and weak sound that she could barely detect if she’d listened hard.

The voice was strangely familiar. Despite how she didn’t have many opportunities to talk to Cheryl ever since she became the crown princess and moved to the Imperial castle.

The reason for that was simple enough. It was because that wasn’t her sister’s voice.

“If only…”

It belonged to a young Sotis. At the same time, it belonged to Cheryl.

In fact, it was meaningless to distinguish which of the two was crying in the dream. This was just a fragment of the past, and in a certain past that Sotis didn’t bring up, the one crying was often her and not Cheryl.

In the end, the both of them were the same. Obsessed with being useful, they were sisters that felt the sadness of being easily judged or insulted by others for far too long.

“…….”

How long has it been like that? The trembling of the small body in her arms slowly subsided. The shaking also seemed to be akin to a carriage’s rattling.

When all the sounds disappeared, just as a thick silence was about to enshroud her soul completely, someone called out to her.

“Lady Sotis.”

At the friendly call, Sotis opened her eyes slowly.

“Are you alright?”

Actually, she wasn’t alright. Her vision was clouded, her temples throbbed, and she even felt nauseous. Her heart, which was tormented by unpleasant memories, screamed of its exhaustion, and there was also a pricking pain within her stomach.

However, she couldn’t say that she was in pain to Lehman, who was looking at her worriedly. She forced a smile and nodded.

“Have we arrived?”

“Yes, the carriage was just pulled over. I was worried that you couldn’t get proper rest, so I intended to wait for a little longer since you’d fallen asleep.”

It took longer than she’d thought because the carriage had to circle around the outskirts of the capital a little. She was slightly embarrassed that she’d fallen asleep unknowingly.

“It’s okay. I was having nightmares anyway, so I would have been even more exhausted if I’d continued sleeping.”

She took a deep breath.

“So this is the capital’s slums.”

“Yes, Lady Sotis, we have arrived. Are you sure that you don’t mind?”

At Lehman’s question, Sotis spoke determinedly.

“I should be.”

She grabbed Lehman’s hand and stepped out of the carriage. It was the first step to a world that she’d never bore witness to personally.

* * *

Sotis Marigold was deeply realising how carefully selected her life had been for more than 28 years.

It wasn’t a lesson that she could understand through tremendous efforts. It was something that she could only experience when she used her eyes to witness it. It was so evident that even a seven-year-old child was also aware. It was as though she was tossed into a different world.

People would either walk hurriedly without time to rest, or, on the contrary, wandered around slowly like ghosts. They were all filthy and thin, and there weren’t any expressions on their faces. The young children that wandered on the streets were as thin as the ankle of a sick wild dog, while rats and bugs infested the shades.

“We’ll be moving in earnest from tomorrow, Lady Sotis. I looked for an inn…… I’d chosen a relatively clean place, but it may not be enough for Lady Sotis.”

Lehman’s words jolted her straight back into reality. The narrow room only contained a hard-looking bed, a table, and an old set of drawers. The bedding was old and creaks appeared from the mouldy wooden floor with each step.

Dinner was dry, hard bread and stew consisting of a few pieces of meat. It tasted too watery to be bland. However, even that was food that Lehman only managed to obtain after walking for more than an hour.

As Sotis sat in a small room, she recalled the hostile gazes from the young children that she’d encountered. They were particularly wary of two that seemed well-off, and their raw, untempered gaze was frighteningly obvious.

Before entering the room, Lehman repeatedly told her to call for him if she needed anything or lacked anything. However, she didn’t have the confidence to call him even if such a thing happened.

How dared she? Even though she had never experienced all of this, it would have been a luxury that wouldn’t have been taken for granted by those that were wandering on the streets. Sotis was humbled when facing the things that she dared not complain about.

She laid down on the uncomfortable, hard, and even foul-smelling bed. She felt a unique coolness from this unfamiliar place, she curled up and buried her head in the hem of her skirt. She thought that she wouldn’t be able to sleep because it was uncomfortable, but she fell into slumber rather quickly.

It should be okay. Sotis thought so with dim consciousness. It should be alright. There was so much more that she had to do.

Her first outing was a difficult one. At least, She needed to change the world, or change herself.

* * *