A cold blade slammed into the back of my neck. This was a real knife, a knife used to cut and stab people. It was different from the ones carried around by gangsters who caused trouble in the back alleys.
At least it was never pointed at my neck, and it wasn't as fancy as it is now with all the decorations on the sword.
The man growled once more with a murderous expression.
“On whose orders did you have to barge all the way to here?”
As befitting its reputation as the Wolf of the North, its gaze was beastly.
I wanted to tell you my name, my age, and the whole story of my life right then and there. If only my damned lips had opened in time.
But I couldn't move as if my whole body was frozen.
The man's aura was oppressive, and it felt like if I made even the slightest mistake, my body and head would be split in two.
As I could not open my mouth, his gaze became more fierce.
“I ask again. Who brought you here?”
“...”
“You came to my place on your own two feet in the form of the woman I have been searching for. There is no way you would not have an accomplice.”
“...”
“If you don’t answer, I will kill you immediately.”
"I am..."
The man's blade came a little closer to the nape of my neck.
I quickly opened my dry lips. My voice was trembling with tension, almost squeezing out, but the man seemed to understand.
“I, I was on my way up to the capital along the top. I, I have relatives in the capital... I, I, I can’t go out because of the lockdown...”
My chin trembled uncontrollably. The man seemed to think I had a stutter. No matter how much I stuttered and trembled, he never criticized me for it.
I fell flat on the floor as soon as he removed the blade from my neck.
“I, I paid money to get in a carriage, but, uh, a fire broke out and I, I was scared..."
“...”
“I was just about to run away. Then I took a wrong turn...”
He lifted my chin with the edge of the knife. His golden eyes, not trusting me one bit, gleamed dangerously.
“Did you accidentally come to my residence? With the eyes and hair color of a Princess?”
The Princess's eyes and hair color? I was startled by the man's words.
Not only was it a blasphemous statement, but it was also completely different from what was known to the world.
I didn't resemble the Princess's portrait at all. Neither my eye color nor my hair color. In that sense, the man's words were a riddle that had no answer.
He took something out of his bosom and thrust it in front of my eyes.
It was a magnificent piece of craftsmanship, with the candlelight reflecting off it so brilliantly that it took my breath away.
“Do you know this necklace?”
...I know. It was a necklace I had sold. To be exact, it was the Princess’s necklace that Mama Olga had stolen from a noblewoman and given to me.
The spit went down like a thorn. Is it right to say that I know it here? Wouldn't it be better to say that I don't know so that I can get out?
I couldn't figure out which answer was the right one. I bit my lip without thinking.
I was so focused on finding the right answer that I didn't realize that it might have seemed more suspicious if I didn't answer right away.
He nodded.
“Drag her away.”
“I, I mean, don’t know, no, I know...!”
As soon as I tried to fight back with my arms and legs, I was caught and pressed down.
And then the next moment, my eyes were blinded. It was complete darkness.
***
“Do not covet what is not yours, Sasha. That is where all the evils of the world come from.”
Mama Olga would whisper this while combing her hair with a golden comb. When she did, Olga's voice was as sweet as a honey-covered cookie.
I often called Mama Olga “Mom” in my head, even though she wasn’t my real mother.
Mama Olga was the protector of all the back-alley orphans and pickpockets, and the midwife of prostitutes.
There wasn't a kid living in the back alleys who didn't get some chicken soup from Olga.
Countless children came and went from Mama Olga's shabby two-story house, but none of them was more special to her than me. I was the only child who stayed in Mama Olga's two-story bedroom.
I often imagined that Olga might be my real mother. It was one of my favorite fantasies.
Although Mama Olga's skin was too dark to be a real mother, and my skin was too pale, not to mention white.
Mama Olga, who had been cared for by many pickpocket children on the street, never took a penny from me.
Not only that, she even tried to educate me. I learned writing, some kinds of poetry, and thin literary works from a teacher who came to her house once a week.
One time, I skipped class and followed my older brothers to pickpocket. When Mama Olga found out, she got really angry.
She mercilessly slapped my brothers on the cheeks and backs, yelling at them for being useless.
Mama Olga's face turned so red, almost purple, that I thought she might suffocate to death.
As soon as I burst into tears, Mama Olga forgot her anger and hugged me.
“Don’t cry, Sasha. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
When I was held in her warm arms, I smelled of cheap perfume and milk at the same time.
I buried my face in the crook of her neck and sighed in relief because Mama Olga seemed to have calmed down.
She hugged me for a very long time.
Luckily, I don't know my real parents.
I suddenly appeared one day in a back alley. The first person to discover me was Mama Olga.
She said that at that time, I was very gaunt and my bones were swollen as if I had starved for several weeks.
She asked me how old I was and where I came from, but I couldn't answer a single question correctly. Mama Olga said I was so shocked that I had gaps in my memory.
I figured that if Olga's words were true, it wouldn't matter if I never found my real parents. It would mean that I only had memories that were so horrible I wanted to forget.
Mama Olga guessed that I was about five years old based on the condition of my teeth, height, and weight.
And he named me Sasha, which means cute treasure.
So I became Sasha, five years old, in the back alleys of Georges.
Originally, I ate and slept next to Mama Olga's shabby bed, but when I was ten years old, Olga officially adopted me as her daughter.
Those were some of the happiest times in my life. I would go to the market with Mama Olga at dawn and come back to bake bread.
Mama Olga taught me simple recipes: how to make honey-glazed apples, crispy meat pies, and chicken soup.
I was grateful for everything she had given me, and I lived my life on guard against what was not mine, as she advised.
Although Mama Olga was living off of pickpockets and various thieves for her care.
Mama Olga was originally a bit plump. By the time I was twelve, she had gained enough weight to the point where it was difficult for her to bend over.
She had an insatiable love of sweets. Despite the advice given to Mama Olga to stay away from sugar, she would not give up two large spoonfuls of sugar in her tea after meals.
When I hid the jar of sugar, Olga's black eyes filled with boundless sadness.
“This is the last sweetness I will ever feel, Sasha. Without you.”
“But if you do that, you might really lose the use of your knees, Mama Olga.”
“Don’t take my fun away from me. You’re a good girl, so you wouldn’t do that to me.”
When she said this, my heart would get weak and I would take the sugar jar out of the cupboard and give it to her.
Considering her health, it was obvious that I shouldn't have done that. But I was only twelve years old and didn't know a thing about medicine.
Sometimes Mama Olga would draw pictures of her hometown for me.
The pictures she painted were generally very strange. The dark-skinned women were not wearing lace dresses.
She was not holding a parasol, a handkerchief, or a fan in her hand.
I wondered how Mama Olga had managed to leave her home country and come to this cold country, a country inhabited by white-skinned people.
Unlike the others, it was not easy to come up with a plausible story for that one. Maybe Mama Olga, like me, just appeared in a back alley at some point.
When I was fifteen, I was too pretty to be in the back alleys.
My skin was as white as snow, my hair was a bright gold like the winter sun, and my eyes were a light blue with a hint of gray.
People told me I was as slender and thin as a fairy.
Mama Olga took away all the mirrors in the house to prevent me from becoming vain.
But every time I walked down the street and met the eyes of kind people, I could feel that I was pretty.
From that time on, Mama Olga began to feel sick frequently. She could hardly get out of bed and complained of headaches and stomachaches alternately.
Olga's knees creaked like old wooden stairs as she walked to and from the market twice a day.
Every morning I prepared tea without sugar and a thin soup that was easy to swallow for Mama Olga. She often cried, and even more often she called me an angel.
We became poorer and poorer. Olga was now too sick to step out of her old bed.
From then on, pickpockets did not pay proper maintenance fees. We occupied the kitchen and the small room downstairs without permission.
As the care money decreased, I couldn't make chicken soup for them. And with no soup, the care money decreased even more. It was a vicious cycle.
Support Novellate!
Comments
Post a Comment