The Uninvited Guest Of The Haunted Mansion (36)

Serenity couldn’t speak for a while.

‘What just happened?’

It was a situation she couldn’t understand at all, but there was no time to press the man. Pushing the questions rising to her chin aside, she hurried her steps. Getting out of this space was the top priority for now.

The corridor was longer than she had expected.

There wasn’t even a clock, so she couldn’t tell how much time had passed. After what felt like well over thirty minutes, she reached the exit at the other end. Beyond the corridor stretched a vast plain without a single tree, and near the horizon she could see a small cottage.

Roughly piled stones and an old roof covered them. Its appearance was very similar to the painter’s cottage at the Count’s residence, only without a fence. The only difference was that it looked much smaller and more dilapidated than the cottage at the Count’s residence.

“I think it’s that way, right?”

“I see.”

Without any need to decide who would go first, the two walked toward the cottage. After ten or so minutes, Serenity, standing at the door, knocked lightly. There was no response from inside. This time she couldn’t even feel any sign of life.

After waiting a moment, Serenity, instead of knocking again, carefully opened the door.

Inside, the musty smell of dust, the scent of old rotten wood, and the tangy odor of paint mixed together into a horrible stench. It was similar to the smell she’d noticed in the painter’s cottage at the Count’s residence. She was certain this cottage was a place formed by the painter’s consciousness.

But the interior was slightly different from what Serenity remembered. Unlike the painter’s cottage, which had dozens of canvases densely arranged, this place had only a single canvas standing alone in the center.

Pitch-black darkness.

The painting she’d seen in the storeroom, though dark, at least had the silhouette of trees, but this painting had not even that. It was darkness itself.

Serenity reached out and felt along the painting. Rather than passing through, she felt only the firm texture of canvas.

“Could this not be the passage?”

Her face twisted slightly as she studied the canvas.

‘No matter how I look at it, this seems like the right canvas.’

Since the entry passage had also been a painting, Serenity was convinced that the exit passage would be a painting as well. It made sense: if a building identical to the painter’s cottage contained only this single painting, the answer seemed obvious. Usually, such strange phenomena tended to preserve pointless symmetry.

“It might require fulfilling certain conditions. Escape keys usually work like that.”

“That could be.”

“If your instinct is right, there should be a clue somewhere in this cottage. Let’s search.”

Blake spoke and strode ahead, beginning to scour the area. Watching his back, Serenity moved to the opposite side and checked every corner.

‘There ought to be at least a cupboard, but it’s really empty.’

Places like this usually have hidden spaces.

As if her guess had hit the mark, something bumped against Serenity’s hand as she felt along the walls.

“Hm?”

She pushed slightly, and with a clack a gap opened. It was a door without a handle.

“Duke, there’s a door here.”

At Serenity’s words, Blake, who had been stamping his foot on the floor, approached swiftly. He looked down at her with a face mixing surprise and admiration.

“You managed to find this.”

“Twenty years living in a manor isn’t exactly easy to stump.”

Serenity shrugged as she made a joking-not-joking remark.

“Yes, impressive.”

Blake snorted a laugh and pushed the door open. The old wood made an unpleasant grinding sound as it opened. Beyond it was a small room, and like the living room, it was empty except for a single desk standing alone.

A sheet of paper, a candlestick, and matches.

Unlike the desk, which looked as if it might rot and collapse at any moment, the items on it were clean. For that reason they looked more like traces someone had left behind than things that had always been here.

Carefully entering the room, Serenity picked up the paper. A short line was written in a flowing hand.

「Light the darkness and a path will appear.」

She stared at it for a while. Serenity furrowed her brow.

’…Isn’t this handwriting a bit like mine?’

She couldn’t be sure; it was hastily scrawled, but it added to the déjà vu she’d been feeling since falling into the painting’s strange phenomenon and gave her an odd sense.

Had she come here during the last ten instances of return after death (time loop)?

No matter how many ordeals she’d gone through, she couldn’t have forgotten an incident like this.

“Milady, are you all right?”

“…Ah, yes. It’s nothing.“

Serenity put the paper back in place and picked up the candlestick. There was no harm in thinking about it after escaping this place.

“If we light this, I think a path will appear in the painting. That’s what the paper said.”

“Do it.”

“All right.”

Serenity struck a match and lit the candle, then brought it toward the painting. Holding it close enough not to burn the canvas and waving it around, something began to be drawn over the blank darkness of the painting.

No, at first she thought it was being drawn over.

From the very spot where Serenity put the flame, the black curtain seemed to catch fire and slowly burn away. Beyond it, the obscured painting began to be revealed.

What finally appeared was…

“…the storeroom?“

Incredibly, it was the scene of the storeroom where the two of them had been. Serenity stared blankly at it and then something suddenly occurred to her.

‘Could it be that this blackness wasn’t a painting but a cloth draped over the painting?’

The way it burned like a curtain and the storeroom revealed beyond made that a plausible guess.

She reached out her hand again.

This time her fingertips slipped right through the canvas.

“It works…!”

Serenity smiled broadly and looked back at Blake.

“I think we can get out!”

“It seems so.”

“Right now, ah… wait.”

Serenity, flushed with excitement and about to pull Blake in, paused. She snuffed the candle and neatly placed it back on the desk.

‘I shouldn’t have to come back here, but just in case.’

There’s no harm in being prepared.

It didn’t look like candles would be easy to find in this space.

“All right, let’s go now.”

Serenity turned back and gripped Blake’s hand firmly. The man’s gaze dropped. He looked down at their clasped hands and let out a low laugh. Serenity, already focused on the painting beyond, didn’t notice the brief laugh.

“All right, go.”

Taking a deep breath, Serenity stepped into the painting.

With a nauseous lurch she felt her body being sucked in. For an instant her vision went dark and an overwhelming dizziness swept over her.

She struggled with the unpleasant sensation until, suddenly, the feeling of firm ground beneath her made Serenity come to her senses.

The smell of old canvases and the flickering light above her head confirmed it.

It was the storeroom.

“…Wow.“

Serenity let out a soft exclamation and sank down. Her legs gave out and she had no strength. Though she had been trapped for at most a few hours, an enormous fatigue washed over her as if she’d wandered for months.

“We’re out…”

She murmured the words like a sigh, then collapsed unconscious.

A pause.

How many times is she going to faint?

Wavering between consciousness and unconsciousness, Serenity opened bleary eyes.

The first thing she saw was a room bathed in warm light.

After blinking a few times, she realized this was not her bedroom but someone else’s. It was Blake’s residence, the detached annex.

“You’re awake?”

A voice came from across the room.

She turned her head with messy hair and saw Blake’s figure leaning in an armchair. He wore glasses and was looking over a bundle of papers that looked like documents.

“…How long have I been lying here?“

“It’s almost dawn now, so it’s been about half a day.”

“My goodness.”

Serenity sprang up and groaned, rubbing the nape of her neck. Her head throbbed as blood rushed. Blake, who had finally looked up, tilted his head slightly.

“Don’t do that, lie down a bit more. I’ll wake you in time for breakfast.”

“No, I’m fine. More importantly…”

Serenity’s gaze shifted to Blake’s arm.

“Don’t we have something to talk about?”