Hearing Allen try to soothe her, Helena, who had been worried about her mother and about herself being here, felt even more uneasy. Her gaze swept over her father's exhausted, bloodshot eyes, his somewhat disheveled white hair, and the slight furrow of his brow...
"Father, don't lie to me... I feel like you..." Helena's hands, clasped before her, tightened further, and her tone grew a little panicked. "Are you... angry with Mother?"
Allen was somewhat surprised by the sharpness his usually rather dazed, adorable daughter was showing now, but just as he began organizing his words and thinking about how to explain, Helena spoke again, urgent.
"Father, though Mother likes living in her own world... and lives very much for herself, that is her true nature, and she never hides it in front of you... She even treats me like a child and fools me, but she has never treated me like that..." As she spoke, the Female Ghost's voice began to turn tearful. "So if Mother did something wrong, please forgive her. I don't want to see conflict arise between you two... Father, Mother waited a thousand years for you... Such a long wait is painful, and now your feelings with Miss Granger and Miss Klivert are all tangled together, but she has never complained..."
"Helena... I'm sorry... I also made you wait a thousand years..." Hearing his daughter say this left Allen aching badly as a father. He explained slowly, "Things aren't the way you imagine... Let me think about how to tell you..." Allen hesitated in silence for another while, organizing his words. "I didn't lie to you... Your mother is indeed eating right now... Helena, you understand why we were forced to turn you into a ghost back then, don't you?"
"Because the Grim Reaper absorbs