# 62
62. The Maid Who Remained Alone (6)
The floor rattled and shook. It seemed we were heading into the mountains, for the road was rough. Along with the jolting carriage, the women inside also swayed helplessly. I too was busy trying to keep my tilting body centered.
Every woman in the carriage had a pretty face. Beauties with long hair reaching their chests and slender figures gathered together—it was dazzling to behold. Among them were some with ordinary looks, but there was no one as ugly as me.
I needlessly fiddled with my bangs before turning to look at Alicia beside me. At first, she kept examining the inside of the carriage with an excited face, then occasionally threw displeased glances, and now she had closed her eyes and was dozing off. I admired her courage to fall asleep even in this situation. She hadn't already decided to die, had she? I wanted to ask, but knowing the reaction wouldn't be good, I held back.
'Give me time to think.'
In the end, I couldn't break Alicia's stubbornness that day. Alicia was resolute, and while conversing with her, I was reminded once again of my own wretchedness.
I didn't agree with everything Alicia said. I did think my life was miserable, but that didn't mean I had a desperate need to escape this situation. Perhaps in the past I would have, but now I was rather satisfied with this comfort.
However, that didn't mean change was unnecessary.
Five years had passed since I left that place. It wasn't a short time. A period long enough to forget about a runaway maid, or perhaps think she was already dead.
At least while living in the slums, there were no signs of anyone chasing or watching me. It might just be my premonition, but I had a vague certainty that things wouldn't become more dangerous. If so, there was even less reason to live like this.
The choice was easy. Perhaps it was already decided. To let Alicia go and live my own life like this. Even if I were to enumerate every detail of Alicia's and my relationship, in the end, no hopeful future would be visible. We would continue to criticize and hurt each other, and such a relationship would never change. If that was the case, it might be better to each live our own lives.
But......
After that, it was an endless series of worries.
The days when I couldn't sleep through the night increased. Perhaps it was because I was going to work as a servant at a Count's household in a new place—the memories of the past weighed me down once more. My heart pounded with tension, and my head was filled with anxiety and worry. Dozens of times a day, I agonized over whether to go or not.
Then I had a nightmare. As always, my younger siblings came to see me. They fell into my embrace. Their bodies were so emaciated, and I couldn't feel anything. No warmth, no scent, no texture—nothing at all.
The second-born whispered softly in my ear.
'Sister, you can't run away alone.'
At that moment, I woke up screaming from my dream. Panting heavily, I rose from my spot. I couldn't bear it. So much that I didn't even know what I couldn't bear—my chest felt completely blocked.
Leaning my hand against the wall, I shuffled outside when suddenly my fingertips touched something hard. Turning my head, a woman reflected in the mirror caught my eye.
It was the only mirror Alicia had insisted on bringing into the house. There, a woman hiding her face behind thick bangs was trembling, her exposed lips the only visible part.
When I struggled to pull up the corners of my mouth, the woman in the mirror also pulled her lips up and smiled. It was an incredibly awkward smile. She looked unfamiliar, like someone who had never properly smiled before. Chapped lips exhaled tense, ragged breaths. The upturned corners of the mouth soon lost strength and drooped downward. The smiling face instantly turned into a crying one.
Hesitantly, I flipped my bangs back. An ugly face was revealed before my eyes. Thanks to this face I had survived, but because of this face I had lived a lifetime of discrimination and condemnation. I hadn't wanted this, but just because I was born this way, I had to live such a life. So I had hated my face and found it ugly.
The newspaper article I had seen before came to mind. That man was living well. Everyone must be living well. Then shouldn't I also live well now?
The devil bastard who had bound my life was dead, and the hateful third sibling was leaving too. Now I had the qualification to choose my own life. No, it had been in my hands from the start. But my life was still bound to the past.
I was still remaining in that hell.
Before I knew it, tears that had welled up streamed down my cheeks. I covered my face with both hands. I couldn't let out even a single sob. Because I knew I didn't have the right.
'My poor siblings.'
I whispered thus while holding the youngest, whose neck had been snapped while still a newborn, in my arms. On the last night, stroking the second-born's face stained with tears, I repeated only those words. Holding the fourth who had closed their eyes alone from starvation, I merely lamented that pitiful life on their behalf.
That was all.
That was all I could do.
Now it was the third. But I couldn't turn away from even the third. Because they were the only one remaining—my sibling.
'I'll go too.'
'Really?'
I nodded firmly toward Alicia, who asked back as if she couldn't believe it.
'But if you sense any sign of danger, we run away immediately.'
'O-okay. I will.'
'I'll run away at the slightest thing. Because I don't want to die.'
'I said I understand.'
After repeatedly urging Alicia several times, I decided to go together. When she said we were going to a Count's household, I wondered if it might be somewhere I had worked before, but fortunately, that wasn't the case.
'Did she say the Stella Count's household?'
It was a family I'd never heard of. Was there such a Count's household? Well, what would I know just from hearing about it. What mattered was that it wasn't a place I knew.
Preparing to leave, I packed simply. Actually, there wasn't much to pack. One bag each was all we had. Alicia had some clothes she hadn't sold but kept wearing, so she filled her bag to some extent, but mine was even more sparse.
And on the day of departure, I stood before the mirror one last time. With a firm resolve, I raised the scissors in my hand. The snipping sound of the scissors sent chills down my spine.
When I went outside, Alicia, who had been rubbing her sleepy eyes, was horrified to see my state. Her large eyes blinked in disbelief. It was an expected reaction, but that didn't mean it wasn't embarrassing. As I urged her to hurry and stepped forward, Alicia grabbed me and stopped me.
'Y-you, you're not planning to walk around like that, are you?'
She even stuttered, which was rare for her.
'Yeah. I'm going to walk around like this.'
'You're crazy!'
Alicia yelled. I smiled awkwardly at her repulsed reaction. Was it really that strange? I touched my bare face. The bangs brushing against my fingertips had been shortened to the point of reaching my eyebrows.
I had cut off the long bangs I had clung to so desperately to hide my face.
'I already cut them. I can't grow them back.'
'Don't you even know shame?'
'I'm trying to pretend not to know anymore.'
'It's embarrassing!'
I ignored Alicia as she repeatedly shouted that it was embarrassing. I made a big decision too, you know. It wasn't like I could reattach them just because it was embarrassing.
We were going to a new Count's household, but that didn't mean I had no worries. I wondered if someone there might know me. Of course, I might be worrying too much, but jobs go round and round, don't they? Besides, there was no guarantee that "what if" wouldn't come looking for me.
In the past, I had walked around hiding my face with long bangs, and that was the case when I was employed at the Bellunita household too. Of course, I couldn't say I had hidden it perfectly, but at least no one had seen my face properly. Walking around like this, they wouldn't be able to tell that I was that runaway maid. It would stand out, but appearance descriptions can look completely different if you change just a few distinctive features.
In short, it was also a precaution.
'Don't tell other people that I'm your sister.'
'That works out well. Don't call me by my real name from now on either.'
'What? Why the name too?'
'Just because.'
That was also a precaution.
From the day I left that mansion, I had created and used an alias. If someone was chasing me, revealing my name would be dangerous. Fortunately, no one cared about the name of a lower-class person like me. Since they were hiring people without even clear identities anyway, I just needed to work well. So I hadn't needed to worry about names, but since the place I'd be working at would be different, I requested it just in case.
'I have another name, right? Keep calling me that. Understand?'
'Why should I do that?'
'Because I like that name.'
'Did you eat something wrong?'
Alicia made a weird face. I didn't care even at the look that seemed to say she was looking at a crazy bitch. After confirming several times that she had understood what I'd said, I headed to the meeting place.
There were about a dozen or so people gathered there. Not only women but also men were visible. Most were pretty and handsome, but among them were a few with ordinary looks. They had said bringing companions was allowed, and while they made offers based on appearance, it seemed appearance wasn't an absolute condition.
But I didn't let my guard down.
The gathered people paired up to talk or just scanned their surroundings with nothing to do. When we joined the group, two carriages soon approached.
The black men in question got out of the carriages and greeted us. They scanned the gathered people before dividing them into women and men, having each group board their respective carriage.
The carriages didn't even have the common windows. Unable to look outside, people passed the time by dozing or reading books.
It was a long, tedious time. The brightly shining sun had probably dropped below the horizon by then. Until that point, the carriage had moved without stopping even once.
Like the rattling carriage, my heart was also shaken. It didn't seem like we were going on a proper road. Where on earth were we going? Was it okay to just follow along quietly like this? What if we were being sold off somewhere? Thinking that, I looked around at the people nearby, but they all had calm faces that seemed worry-free, which only made me more confused.
But the more the carriage shook violently, the bigger my anxiety grew. Should I just open the door and run away? Such thoughts kept popping up repeatedly.
Then suddenly, the carriage stopped.
It seemed we had arrived at our destination.
When the carriage stopped, the dozing people woke up one by one. I shook Alicia's shoulder to wake her.
Right on cue, the carriage door opened and a man gestured for us to get out. Like they had been waiting, people poured out, and Alicia, who had been stretching, got off, and I followed behind her.
The first thing that caught my eye was the trees densely surrounding the area. It seemed like we had been traveling for a long time and had come deep into the forest. I never expected a mansion to be inside a forest like this.
In the middle of the forest sat a large, magnificent mansion. The moment I saw the enormous mansion, my attention was completely captivated at first sight.
"Wow, it's beautiful."
Alicia rarely exclaimed as she tilted her head back fully. The people around also couldn't take their eyes off the mansion's grandeur and beauty. Admiration naturally slipped out.
"Now, ladies to the right, gentlemen to the left, please gather."
Two men stood on either side waving their hands. Following their call, we split again into two groups—women and men. Standing there were an older woman and an older man respectively. From my past experience, I recognized that those two were the supervisors in charge of managing the male and female servants.
Alicia and I stood at the back of the group. My heart pounded. The hand holding the bag handle grew sweaty. I swallowed dry saliva several times, but the tension wouldn't ease. Anxious and restless, yet also excited on the other hand, I found it difficult to compose my emotions. Even in this situation, I was looking forward to a new life.
It was a good thing it was dark around us. If Alicia saw my excited face, she might pester me about how glad she was that I came along.