- Miss, do you need help?
Only after hearing the words of the attendant, spoken as if he had been watching her for a long time, Tilia finally looked away from the train window.
She wiped her face, forcing herself to appear calm. The conductor, whose suspicion was obvious, maintained a polite tone as he asked:
- If you show me your ticket, I will show you to your seat. Ah, first class.
It was only after he saw the crumpled train ticket in her pale hand that he cast aside all doubts about traveling without a ticket and instead gave her a bright smile.
- Your reserved special seat in this carriage. Your luggage, let me...
- No. Everything is fine. I can carry it.
Rejecting the conductor's courtesy, Tilia staggered into the carriage.
But she still wasn't completely calm.
- Oh! Be careful!
She hit someone hard on the leg with her heavy luggage.
- Miss? I think you're in the wrong place. This is mine.
Stupidly, she misunderstood the numbers and sat in the wrong place, for which she was kicked out.
As she hurriedly stood up, concentrated, and found the right spot, she was faced with another problem:
The woman next to her, holding a child, recoiled as if she had encountered someone with the plague.
This was understandable. Tilia fully grasped the maternal instinct - to hold the child close to her, protecting him.
Hair wet with sweat, hands clutching a battered suitcase as if it were her lifeline, and above all, eyes that were constantly trembling, unable to find peace.
To some, she probably looked like a dangerous person.
The woman probably mistook her for a maid who ran off with her mistress's necklace, or for a patient who ran away from the hospital without paying.
It wasn't entirely wrong. After all, she was the daughter of a criminal who ran off with someone else's money.
Swallowing the mockery of herself, Tilia carefully unclenched her hand, wet with sweat.
All this time, a butterfly was locked in her palm, flickering with amethyst light.
At the last moment, he placed a ring in her hand, which turned out to be an exquisite piece of jewelry: the wings of a butterfly were delicately inlaid with amethysts with such precision that there was not a single gap left.
As if to confirm his words that it could not be sold cheaply, the gem sparkled brightly even in the dimness of the salon.
Tilia, who had been staring blankly at the butterfly, raised her frozen fingers and gently ran over it.
Under her slightly trembling fingertips, the smooth stones seemed uneven. Having absorbed the warmth from her long grip, the ring was warm, as if it were beating its own heart.
She fiddled with the ring endlessly before, as if by mistake, she brought it to the tip of the ring finger of her left hand.
But before the ring could slip onto her finger, she shuddered, as if she had touched fire, and quickly pulled her hand away.
A feverish heat rose to her already pale face. The eyes trembled, unable to focus.
Biting her lips so hard that they almost began to bleed, she finally slipped the ring deep into her pocket, as if trying to hide it from herself.
She felt the woman next to her warily watching her nervously fiddle with a valuable item that didn't match her outfit.
Ignoring her, Tilia turned to the window.
On clear days the view from the train windows must have been stunning, but now it was just a blur.
She looked out the window for a long time before realizing that the opaque layer obscuring the view was the remnants of wet snow - either snow or rain.
The window, like a forest shrouded in fog, reflected nothing.
Looking at the gray curtain that shrouded the world, Tilia thought about the late Baroness Ambrose.
Not every moment with my mother was hell.
Although she often lost consciousness and at times spat out curses like convulsions, there were moments when warmth flowed between them, as if flowers might bloom in the space they shared.
"My daughter, my sweet Tilia."
In truth, it was at these moments that her mother truly lost her mind.
"Tilia, come here."
Whenever she wanted to deny the terrible reality, her mother, Evelyn, would call her little daughter, sit her on her lap and read her letters.
They were love letters from her father, sent to her when she was a young lady of House Palmer.
“Do you know how much he loved me? Do you know how ardently he supported my dreams, how he praised my determination as something noble?
Her mother read the letters aloud in a voice as soft as sleep. Some parts were too awkward to share with a child who was not yet ten years old, but Evelin, drunk with emotion, didn't care.
No, perhaps she did not originally intend to do this.
She just needed someone to listen to her, someone to witness how much she had once been loved.
“How could he send so many? I wouldn’t be able to finish reading them even if I didn’t sleep all night.”
Tilia remembered how her mother's face shone with delight when she stroked the elegant handwriting of the letter.
Her face was as radiant as a newly blossoming peach flower, as fresh as a sprout blooming in spring. In those moments, even the sallow skin caused by her reckless lifestyle and the dark shadows under her eyes could not detract from her beauty.
“Look, Tilia. Doesn’t he look like a man who doesn’t know anything other than how to say “I love you”?”
Listening to her mother's ringing laughter, Tilia re-read the passage she pointed to over and over again.
[I love you, Evelyn.]
After reading this phrase repeated several times, she vaguely understood something.
That in fact it was not her father who experienced such passionate love, but her mother.
That even though she cursed him and called him a terrible person when she was drunk, deep down her mother loved her father more than anyone else.
And it was because of this love that she had no choice but to throw herself into the abyss of despair.
She thought so, but deep down there was still a part of her that wanted to believe in those letters that her mother valued like gold.
Even if the father could not stand the sight of the mother. Even if on the rare occasions they crossed paths, he treated her like dirt on the street. Doesn't matter.
But didn't he love her just as passionately a long time ago?
And so that early morning, when the drunken mother tripped on the stairs and fell down, breaking into pieces, when Tilia found her mother lying there, bleeding from her head...
Without hesitation, she ran straight to her father's room.
"Father! Father!"
With desperate little hands she pounded on the closed door. The urgent need to save her mother gave her an unprecedented surge of courage.
When the door suddenly swung open, revealing her father's furious face, her courage almost evaporated.
“M-mom fell down the stairs.”
Thinking of her mother lying alone and the letters she read aloud, the girl faltered, but her gaze was full of conviction.
“She's bleeding! Please call a doctor..."
“Shut up, you pathetic girl.”
But it was a hope she should never have clung to. It was courage she should never have had.
There was a booming sound as her body flew away. A burning heat spread across my head, as if it had been burned.
“What does your damn mother’s drunken fall have to do with me?”
Only after hearing this voice full of contempt did Tilia realize that her father had hit her. And that he, like his mother, was also drunk.
"Doctor? What nonsense!
Somewhere a door creaked and quickly slammed shut. In the midst of the indifferent silence of the maids, feigning ignorance, merciless cruelty fell upon her.
"Useless girl. Just as worthless as your mother!"
The blow to her stomach twisted her guts. The pain of her hair being pulled was as if her scalp was being torn off.
But worse than any physical pain was the shame that she had dared to hope.
She believed that her father would save her mother. That even if he forgot his love for her, he would still help the one he once cared about.
How stupid.
She didn't even realize that the one who wanted her mother dead more than anything was none other than her father.
It seemed as if a ball of agony with thousands of needles was rolling in her chest, suffocating her.
The thought of the mother, who at that very moment was growing cold, made this ball swell even more, squeezing the lungs.
"She should have died sooner! Always giving me trouble!"
Yes. She should have died earlier.
Curled up against her father's curses, Tilia thought.
I should have died earlier. Why am I alive and suffering from this? Why was I born only to endure such torment? Why did I arrogantly hope and expect something, only to be faced with such pain...?
After merciless violence, she lost consciousness. And when she woke up, her mother’s funeral was already in full swing.