Chapter 147: “Ashes”
Chapter 147 “Ashes”
Heidi didn’t notice anything unusual about her father’s tone.
“Yeah,” she nodded matter-of-factly, “I just took a trip to Mr. Duncan’s antique store with Vanna, talked to Mr. Duncan there for a few minutes, then performed a hypnotherapy session on Nina, and then came back with Vanna.”
She hesitated briefly for a split second at the end of her sentence, contemplating whether or not to tell her father about what she’d heard from Nina about the fire and Vanna’s odd reaction to hearing about it, but finally stopped the thought.
Vanna’s unusually serious expression in the car at that time was still fresh in her mind, behind this incident there might be a dangerous hidden power involved, and it might be so serious that just saying it out loud would attract prying eyes – although her father was a Truth Believer serving the God of Wisdom, Rahm, like herself, and could be considered as a half Transcendentalist, but just like Like most Truth Believers, he was more akin to a pure scholar, and was not good at dealing directly with those dangerous things.
Morris still had a gentle and calm expression on his face, and he gently nodded, as if he was not thinking, and said: ”Then you have been over there for quite a short time …… Did you forget the time talking with Mr. Duncan? He is indeed an inquisitive man.”
“Uh …… that’s not true,” Heidi’s face was instantly a little embarrassed, “it’s just that …… there was a bit of a delay in performing the hypnotherapy on Nina. ”
“While hypnotizing Nina?” Morris raised his eyebrows at the sound of his student’s name, “It didn’t go well? Was she in a bad mental state? Was it affected by the previous museum fire?”
Heidi couldn’t help but roll her eyes when she heard her father’s series of questions, “You’re really concerned about that student of yours – don’t worry, she’s in good condition, she was just a little anxious in the first place, and after my relaxation and channeling, she’s completely fine, and it won’t affect her final exams. What I said about the delay …… is because of something else.”
Morris made a curious sound, “Oh?”
“Aha, I may have been a bit too tired for a while,” Heidi laughed dryly with embarrassment, “I fell asleep myself after hypnotizing her, and slept through the evening in one breath ……”
“You fell into a deep sleep yourself during the process of hypnotizing Nina?” Morris’ expression finally changed slightly, but he quickly regained control, “That’s not like you.”
“There are always oversights, not to mention how long it’s been since I’ve been on vacation,” Heidi waved her hand impatiently, “Hey don’t ask, I’m such an adult, and when I’m back a little late you and mother are all tense like this, with question after question… …”
Morris just quietly looked at his daughter for a few seconds, then his face revealed a gentle expression as usual, smiling and shaking his head, “Well, then I won’t ask – there is still food in the kitchen, you can just heat it up, I’m going to go see your mother.”
“Good,” Heidi nodded, saying goodbye to her father before heading towards the kitchen, but then suddenly turned back after just a few steps, “By the way, you’re still planning to pay a visit to that antique store afterward, right?”
“Yes,” Maurice was already standing in the doorway of the bedroom, the sconce on the wall of the adjacent corridor shedding a dim light and casting dappled shadows on his pale face, “Can I help you?”
“I left in such a hurry today that I didn’t have a good talk with Mr. Duncan about Nina’s condition, I’m going to write a letter later that you can take with you when you go over there.”
“No problem,” Morris nodded, then cooed softly as if speaking to himself, “I do have to make another trip ……”
Heidi left, but the old, white-haired historian remained standing quietly in the doorway of his bedroom; he seemed to be in deep thought, and it was nearly a dozen seconds before he finally exhaled softly and pushed open the dark-colored wooden door.
The light in the bedroom was still dim, only a very small wall lamp was lit in the elaborately decorated bedroom, and the dim light spilled down, vaguely illuminating the silhouette on the sleeping bed.
Maurice turned and carefully locked the door and slowly paced to the bed.
“Are you all right, dear?”
He said in a soft voice to the writhing pile of ashes on the bed that maintained a human outline.
A small murmur came from the pile of ashes that possessed the vague outline of a human and kept floating and writhing, as if responding tenderly, and between the ashes, the knotted ribbon that was nearing the end of its weaving made a slight scuffing sound, and the gorgeous silk rope slowly weaved in and out, slowly but surely, as the ashes tugged at it.
“Yes, it’s beautiful, you’ve always been good with your hands,” Maurice heard the reply in that subtle murmur, and a smile broke out on his face as he complimented his wife on her weaving skills, “I still have the one you wove for me hanging in my study.”
Silence fell in the room, and in the dim light time seemed to be frozen in the moment as if by deception, but after half a minute Morris broke the silence, “Heidi went out for the day, and when she came back there was a piece of red onyx missing from her string.” The mass of ashes on the bed suddenly stilled, and a low grunt came out.
“It’s uncertain exactly what happened, if that was one of my Lord Rahm’s Asylums taking effect, it would mean that Heidi encountered a danger today sufficient to penetrate the barriers of her sanity, but Heidi herself doesn’t know anything about it, and I don’t detect any intent with malice in her,” Maurice spoke slowly, “It looks more like she brushed up against ‘something’ in total ignorance and passively galvanized the string’s shelter ……”
Maurice stopped abruptly, listening to the low murmur coming from Ash.
“Well, at my prompting, Heidi saw the missing part of the string, and therein lies the problem – she thought that the onyx wasn’t there in the first place,” Maurice nodded, “a self-protection mechanism that It may have originated from her intuition, or it may have originated from the ‘enlightenment’ of the God of Wisdom, but in any case, this protection is blocking her from continuing to learn something ……
“Me? I want to go and investigate, on my own.”
The pile of ashes on the bed rose and fell slightly.
Maurice shook his head, “It might be a bit risky, so I’ll do my prayers and divination ahead of time, but I’ll have to make the trip – I’ve actually been to that place once before, and it looked like nothing more than a mediocre antique store, inhabited by a hard-working shopkeeper and a studious child. At the time I didn’t perceive any malice or evil forces coiled there ……
“So if the danger factor was in that store only when Heidi went over to visit today, then the owner of that store could be threatened as well – my student lives there, and I’d have to go check it out to see what’s going on.
“After all, I am her teacher and a servant of the God of Wisdom ……”
Maurice spoke softly, then heard a whisper if anything from the pile of ashes on the bed, and he listened with his ear sideways for a long time before slowly shaking his head.
“No, can’t go alarming the Cathedral’s people …… While it may be a bit more effective for them to strike, their overly thunderous style could also put my students in harm’s way – to the church’s guardians, the suppression of Heresy eradicating evil is too high a priority, and ……”
At this point Morris paused as he let out a soft sigh before continuing, “And actually, I don’t really want to draw the attention of the Cathedral, after all …… I’m a heresy hider who’s already faltering.”
His voice was low, and his eyes gazed tenderly at the mass of ashes on the bed, at …… his wife who had died in the fire eleven years ago.
Gazing at the shadow she had left in the earthly realm.
The ashes slowly rose up, and one ash seemed to coalesce into the form of an arm, gently brushing against Maurice’s face.
“I know …… I know ……” Morris bowed his head, as if he were speaking to himself, and as if he were confessing to some invisible being, ” I’m a man of shaky faith and cowardly enough to refuse to fall completely …… The God of Wisdom gave me eyes capable of seeing through falsehood that day, and I was weak enough to close them to make unrealistic wishes I wanted to keep you in this world but couldn’t quite bring myself to deceive myself… …Instead, I stuck myself in this most awkward situation ……”
He lifted his head and gently took hold of the fluttering wisp of ash, but his fingers passed right through the dust.
“How I wish I was as clueless as Heidi, then I could see another picture of you …… I haven’t seen you in eleven years.”
A soft voice came from the ashes, as if sand and dust were rubbing together, and as if a small warm fire were splitting, and Maurice listened to it, his mind calming a little.
“I understand, I understand …… that this will end, the stage will always have to fall, no matter what answered my wish on that day, it will always come to collect the destined price one day, I have actually been prepared, in the time it collects the price, I will let myself cleanly and thoroughly Disappear in this world, even if the shadow of subspace, also never want to through this one ‘wish’ to color the real world, but ……”
Maurice raised his head and gazed at the silhouette of a cloud of ash in the dim light.
“But just stay with me for a while longer before that day …… comes.”
(End of chapter)