The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 123

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 123
Bauman knocked carefully on the door when April remained in her bedroom far too late into the day.
“Miss, you’ve been skipping meals. You should at least have dinner.”
Even this gentle prodding went unanswered. More strange still, Sebio—a dog ordinarily devoted to following April everywhere—had chosen to sleep on the first floor instead. He was the sort of animal who picked up on his mistress’s mood with uncanny precision.
After knocking once more, Bauman finally summoned Hannah to get access to the bedroom.
Hannah entered first, checked on April’s condition, then poked her head back out into the hallway and whispered.
“She’s taken out a gun and fallen asleep at the table with her head on her arms. Should I wake her?”
“…What?”
At Hannah’s words, Bauman’s face went rigid.
Seeing the shock register so visibly, Hannah herself went pale—so he forced a smile and turned to her.
“I’ll wake her. You head downstairs.”
“Yes, sir.”
Only after Hannah had nodded briskly and departed did Bauman draw a sharp breath and grasp the door handle.
He opened it with trembling hands to find, exactly as Hannah had said, April slumped over the table with a gun beside her.
“No, miss. Oh, God almighty…”
Bauman approached her with a desperate prayer on his lips. When he reached her side and bent close enough to hear her soft, steady breathing, only then did his shoulders sag with relief and he slowly sank to the floor.
The sound of his collapse woke April. She opened her eyes to find Bauman sitting on the floor beside her and frowned.
“Bauman? Why are you…oh.”
She glanced back at the gun resting on the table, and understanding dawned on what he’d imagined.
For the first time, Bauman—who had always answered her with a smile—spoke to her with something like reproach.
“Why would you leave a gun sitting out like that? Do you have any idea how frightened I was?”
“I’m sorry. I came in at dawn and was so exhausted I just collapsed. The gun is a gift. Someone mentioned it’s good to keep one for self-defense.”
“Ah, I see.”
April felt a pang of sympathy for the elderly man she’d startled and quickly helped him to his feet.
Bauman’s expression lightened noticeably as he spoke.
“You know, thinking about it—Hannah ought to have started learning Marksmanship by now if she’s going to become a police officer. Once she sees you handling a gun regularly, she’ll pick it up in no time. She does follow you around rather devotedly.”
For most children, a gun would be something to keep at a distance. But for one determined to become a police officer, it was different.
After Bauman left to prepare breakfast, April picked up the gun. She checked the cylinder by folding it open between the barrel and grip—the five-round magazine held only two bullets.
She wrapped her fingers around the muzzle and found herself recalling Pejin’s face as he’d handed it to her.
Since her House Confinement ended, he had been her first refuge.
So she told herself she had gained something from all of this. She needed to believe it, and in truth, it was so.
The childhood memories she’d shared with him…
April clamped her eyes shut.
She simply told herself it was all the same.
If she could go back to that time—if she could forget everything the way she had after her parents died, the way she’d let go of all the good memories, then that was all that mattered.
It was a pity that life offered so few moments worth remembering. But that very fact made it easier to focus on what lay ahead.
With only three months left before Departure, every hand in the Lunos Family was needed to help with the preparations.
April put the gun away and found a new task to absorb herself in. If she stopped moving, her thoughts would settle. She would not let them settle.
* * *
Time slipped away in the rush of organizing cargo manifests, and July arrived. During all those weeks, April had thrown herself into her work—inventing tasks when none existed. Bauman worried about her, but he did not interfere.
The Dieusz Grand Duchy enjoyed its warmest days, and April, feeling the heat, decided to do something about her hair.
She opened the Cosmetics Dresser where her ornaments lay stored and searched for a Ribbon, but found nothing suitable except what Pejin had purchased for her. With a sigh, she closed the dresser and instead braided her hair, securing it with a Jeweled Pin.
She tucked her gun and wallet into a Handbag and went looking for Hannah.
“Hannah, I’m going to the Harbor. Will you come along?”
“Can I really? Yes, I want to!”
“Of course. Bauman is already gathering supplies—pack yours too.”
Hannah, delighted, hurried off to prepare.
In mid-August, when autumn began by the Dieusz Grand Duchy’s calendar, there was an entrance ceremony for the children. For it, April had commissioned new clothes for both Hannah and Fred, and had them dressed in them.
Both children were growing so quickly that even though she’d ordered the clothes considerably oversized for the August enrollment, they had already grown enough that merely folding up the sleeves would fit them properly. Hannah emerged in her new outfit, thrilled, and practically flew down the stairs.
As Bauman fussed over her—”Take this, don’t forget that”—Hannah came down with a bag almost as big as herself. April’s eyes widened at the sight, and she turned to tease Bauman.
“For such a short trip, why does she have so much luggage? You pack your own things so minimally.”
Bauman’s travel bags, in truth, amounted to little more than a bundle of cloth tucked away in the corner of his toolbox.
“Well, it’s just that one worries. The sea breeze might be chilly, you know?”
“On a hot day like this, and you’ve packed a coat?”
“Well, perhaps not that far—I may have overdone it.”
At Bauman’s embarrassed expression, April burst out laughing.
Once she began to laugh, she pressed her face into her hands and went on laughing—long, deep, uncontrolled laughter.
The dusty, clouded world within her, like a filthy window, began to clear with this laughter that rose up from her own body.
Bauman simply joined in her laughter, as if witnessing a kind of self-healing.
That day April had returned from the Church very late, Bauman had not asked, but he’d sensed that something had happened.
He’d come to accept far too quickly that April had far more moments in her life she did not wish for than moments she did.
But there was nothing he could do about it. He could only wait—as someone who had seen far more, lived far longer—for the moment she might ask for help, and pray for her wellbeing.
* * *
The journey to the Lunos Family Estate Harbor took a full day by carriage. It was no short journey, and if they came now, the next trip would be for Departure.
When they arrived at the Harbor, the ship undergoing repairs sat up on the dock.
Moore, Bauman’s friend who had been directing the young men working on the ship, greeted him warmly as he appeared.
“My goodness, sir!”
“There you go again, saying I look younger than you.”
“Don’t be silly! I look far younger, and you’d think I was being cheeky if we matched!”
The two men bantered back and forth about who looked younger, then broke into good-natured laughter.
Moore removed his hat and bowed to April, then spoke.
“There’s much to repair, but fundamentally it’s a beautifully built, solid ship. Truly worthy of the Lunos Family.”
“Is that so?”
“Without question. I confess, I thought we’d never launch another ship like this again. The younger men, especially, had only worked on small passenger vessels. Thanks to you, miss, there are craftsmen in the Dieusz Grand Duchy who know how to build and repair ships like these—a tradition that will endure.”
April smiled and nodded.
The sun passed overhead the weathered hull, its paint nearly stripped away. One day, that same sun would hang above the mast she would raise on this ship.
Hannah quietly grasped April’s right hand with her left and asked softly.
“Why don’t you tell me to become a sailor?”
“Do you want to become a sailor?”
“No. I want to become a police officer.”
“Then why ask such a thing?”
“Because I think you want me to become you.”
At Hannah’s words, April narrowed her eyes and asked quietly.
“Do I seem unstable to you?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“It seems like you think you need to do something for me.”
“It’s not that I think I need to. It’s that I want to.”
At this answer, April turned to look at the girl.
She could hardly be called a child anymore. In the time they’d spent at the Lunos Residence, Hannah had grown nearly to April’s own height. April studied the girl with an expression difficult to name, then finally spoke.
“That’s…gratitude, isn’t it?”
She pressed down the sentiment rising in her chest and continued.
“Seven years for House Confinement—I’m glad it wasn’t longer. If it had been, I wouldn’t have met you.”
“Right? I’m glad too!”
“Me too.”
April smiled, watching Hannah’s joy.
And when the word “police” brought Pejin’s face back to mind, she simply left it there.
Just as the ship would sail beyond the horizon, her own sights had now crossed an island. So she needed him.
She needed his heart.
Though he’d said he loved her, she could not trust his words—words that had been lies from beginning to end.
Pejin had not refused when she’d asked him to cross the sea and earn his living debt.
How much could she use him for?
That perceptive man would recognize faster than anyone that he was being used. Yet he would allow it, simply because he loved. As he had done for his own brother.
Perhaps Pejin Dieusz was, contrary to appearances, a man terribly vulnerable to love. This was what April stood thinking at the Harbor.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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