Chapter 74 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 74: The Ship of Exile 08
Lucita felt a sharp jolt of unease.
She blinked. Lesley composed her gentle smile again and walked in with respectful politeness: "I'm on duty in the library today. Just now I was cataloguing books on the floor below when I heard something fall upstairs, so I came up to check. Are you alright?"
Lesley was perfectly serene, as though whatever had just passed had been a trick of the light.
Lucita blinked.
Lesley looked entirely normal, yet everything about her was slightly off. If pressed to name the problem, it was simply that her explanation was too thorough, too complete.
Which, paradoxically, made her seem flustered, or rather, as though she were covering something.
Following Lesley's gaze, Lucita's eyes dropped slowly to the notebook in her own hands.
“I’m sorry,” Lesley said. “The books on this shelf are packed too tightly. That’s why this sort of thing happens. Let me tidy it up. Please feel free to look at other books.”
As she spoke, she reached toward the notebook in Lucita's hands.
Lucita smiled and stepped aside, out of reach of Lesley’s outstretched hand: "This doesn’t need to be taken away. I’d like to keep reading it. Besides, how do you know the books were packed too tightly, rather than that I accidentally knocked them over?"
Lesley paused, and laughed awkwardly: "I frequently... that is, I do sometimes tidy this section. I noticed it in passing, but didn’t pay it much mind. It was a lapse on my part. I’m truly very sorry."
"Just a joke." Lucita smiled, took the notebook, and made to leave: "You go ahead. Sorry to have troubled you."
"Not at all, not at all..." Lesley watched Lucita about to walk away, and something came to her suddenly. She called out quickly: "Young Master Lucita, what is the catalogue number for that notebook? If you’re borrowing it, I should log it for you."
"Catalog number?" Lucita paused, turning the notebook over in her hands: "There isn't one."
"I see." Lesley seemed to breathe out slightly. "Then perhaps some young master left it here by accident. Give it to me and I'll put it in the lost and found."
"But I find it quite interesting." Lucita watched Lesley's face go immediately pale, and still smiled apologetically: "Could I take it and look at it for a week before returning it?"
"That... that seems rather improper..." Lesley hesitated.
"Is it really that important?" Lucita put on a deliberately puzzled expression. "Or... could it possibly be yours?"
"Of course not!" Lesley gave two dry laughs.
A pause. Then she said, “In that case, take it. Only please return it before too long. Whoever lost it might be anxious.”
"Thank you." Lucita winked, tucked the notebook into her small bag, and bent down to gather up the books still on the floor: "Let's tidy these up together."
“No, no, you can’t be expected to tidy up yourself...”
A flurry of pages and shuffling followed.
No. 21 Briar Street. The second floor, deep in the night.
Lucita sat at her desk, the sturgeon-eye lamp on the custom-made wooden lamp-stand the carpenter had built, casting a light considerably brighter than an ordinary kerosene lamp.
She carefully opened the crumpled thin notebook.
“22 October, 572 — Sunny
Just as I feared! Just as I feared!
They’ve arrested Franka!
Laughable. When Franka sang hymns, they called her a nightingale born to sing. Now she’s become ‘a heretic corrupted by the devil’!”
...
“Franka's pieces have been completely banned. Every bookshop has pulled her scores from its shelves, and they're now calling on us to bring any scores we've kept at home to the square and burn them together.
I can't bring myself to go out, because the fire in the square hasn't finished burning.
They're cheering... even her own fans are cheering.
Mother, this is the apocalypse. My apocalypse.
Oh, I'm actually calling for my mother. She found the scores I'd been keeping this very morning and gave them to the servants to throw into the square and burn... She finally had the legitimate excuse she needed to dispose of my ‘disreputable nonsense.’
So why am I calling for her?
Will there ever again be a musician like this?”
...
“20 November, 572 — Light Snow
The older sister who takes music lessons with me told me today. Rumor has it Franka has gone mad.
Is it true?
That woman who never admitted defeat, who cried out from the stage that she would sing until her dying day... she’s gone mad?
What could she have suffered in those days of being banned and imprisoned?
I can't bring myself to imagine.
If a woman with a will like iron can be broken, then she must have been subjected to inhuman psychological torment.
Will she be able to come out alive?”
...
“23 November, 572 — Overcast
I saw the announcement today.
Franka has been mad for three years. She was seduced by the devil. Her soul no longer belongs to her, no longer faithful, no longer under divine protection...
Who is this kind of talk supposed to deceive?
Laughable. I actually believed for a moment that she had truly gone mad.
What is this now? Preparing to send her to the asylum by force?”
...
“11 December, 572 — Sunny
Franka has converted to God...
They say Franka was moved, that she is using her life to atone to the creator God Gaia?
Absurd.
Those idiotic friends of mine actually believe this.
They killed her. She is dead!
She is dead! (A very long, very deep stroke of the pen. Several places in the paper show distinct indentations.)
God, if your gaze still rests upon this world, then look at this hopeless world!”
Franka was dead?
Lucita furrowed her brow slightly, recalling that faint singing on the Gloire. A voice that was unmistakably fine, carrying rich, layered emotion even across the distance.
A voice that had even been able to take form on the layer of sound, materializing as a staff of music that rested on her hand for a moment.
So... had the singer on the fool’s ship not been Franka?
Lucita ran her fingertips over the paper.
The diary ran from October to December, five years ago. A narrow slice of time. The handwriting and tone suggested someone young, still living under a mother’s strict authority and supervision.
Lesley perhaps didn't realize: her acting was genuinely poor.
This diary was very likely Lesley’s own, and even if it wasn’t, she was clearly connected to it.
The remaining pages of the notebook were covered in scattered musical scores, all bearing Franka's name as composer. They appeared to be transcribed copies.
Lucita leafed through them, and sure enough found The Overwintering Bird.
Reportedly one of Franka's most widely sung pieces.
Lucita made a copy of the score first, then knocked on Linnea's door and blinked: "For you."
"Wow —" Linnea exclaimed in delight, threw her arms around Lucita's neck and spun around. "It's that piece! It's the one we heard! Thank you, Luci!"
Lucita laughed and patted the top of Linnea’s soft head. "It's a beautiful piece. You'll love it."
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