Strange Tree

As a family that worshipped the Evernight Goddess, Sifa's backyard was planted with Moon Flowers, so he was no stranger to the scent. Yet after searching the entire cottage, he had not found a single Moon Flower.

Helibel, meanwhile, noticed another problem.

"Look here." The girl pointed at a round wooden table, one of whose legs was on the verge of collapsing.

Two cups sat on the table, and a small plate beside them held three muffins. One of the muffins had only been bitten once and had been casually left at the edge of the plate.

Sifa narrowed his eyes slightly. "Two cups means a guest had visited. The muffins weren't finished, yet they weren't put away. That means Aria's mother left with the guest in a hurry."

"I checked the house. There were no signs of a struggle, and the windows hadn't been damaged. Combined with the current situation, Aria's mother wasn't forcibly abducted. She left with someone of her own accord."

"The question now is, who was this guest?"

Helibel gathered her hair and tucked it beneath her cap as she walked toward the wall. "Her neighbors should know."

The two passed through that hazy, deep-blue door again and entered the corridor. Helibel, ever decisive, promptly knocked on the neighbor's door.

The door opened to reveal a sallow-skinned woman. Her hands were covered in droplets of water, and the hem of her skirt was damp. She appeared to be washing clothes.

Helibel cleared her throat. "Hello, may I ask if you know Mrs. Gness?"

Mrs. Gness was Aria's mother.

The sallow-skinned woman replied coldly, "No."

Then she slammed the door shut.

Helibel said indignantly, "How could she be like that!"

Sifa smiled. "Let me handle it. Communication requires skill."

He took out his wallet, pulled out a one-pound note, and knocked on the door again.

The woman opened it impatiently. "I'm working. Please don't disturb me, or I'll have no choice but to call the police!"

Sifa slipped the banknote into her hand and tipped his top hat. "We won't take much of your time, ma'am."

The woman glanced at the money in her hand, froze for a moment, then said, "What do you want to know?"

Just as Sifa was about to speak, Helibel shoved him aside. Pointing at the neighboring house, she asked, "Did Mrs. Gness have any visitors?"

The woman leaned out from the doorway and glanced in the direction Helibel pointed. "Gness hardly had any friends. She was always alone at home. Only her daughter came to visit for a day or two every month."

"Still, someone did visit her some time ago. An old woman. I don't know her name, but I know she often gives speeches at Memorial Square."

An old woman who gave speeches at Memorial Square? The image of old Paris's gloomy face immediately surfaced in Sifa's mind. That woman had visited Aria's mother?

"Come on, let's go take a look at Memorial Square."

At Memorial Square, they indeed saw the old woman named Paris again. She was still giving a speech today, surrounded by a packed crowd, mostly workers and vagrants.

Sifa had no idea what Paris was saying, but the onlookers chimed in from time to time and burst into applause, drawing strange looks from passersby.

Sifa removed his top hat and coat, handing them along with his cane to Helibel. That way, standing among the workers, he would not stand out too much.

"Wait here."

He approached the crowd alone, lowered his head, and squeezed inside, appearing behind Paris.

His nose twitched. Sifa smelled Moon Flowers again. The scent came from Paris, and it was rather strong.

There's something wrong with this old woman.

Seeing that Paris did not appear likely to finish her speech anytime soon, Sifa led his sister to a corner of the square and told her what he had discovered.

Afterward, Sifa suggested, "I think we should take a look at her house."

Helibel agreed readily. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go."

Sifa coughed dryly. "But I don't know where she lives."

The girl froze as well. Clearly, she had not considered that problem, but she quickly came up with an idea. "We can ask old Cook. He knows everything that happens in this town!"

When the time on the pocket watch reached 11:23, Sifa and his sister stood before a house surrounded by a low wall of broken stones, enclosing a yard filled with Moon Flowers.

Old Paris lived alone in the house behind the flowers. It was a dilapidated, gloomy building. Behind it stood a towering Summer Oak, its canopy blotting out the sky and covering the house, hiding it in shadow.

Sifa closed his pocket watch. "If we move quickly, we should make it back to town in time for lunch."

Helibel rolled her eyes. "I can go in by myself."

"I'm not leaving you here alone." As her older brother, Sifa had at least that much awareness. He followed the wall toward the back of the house.

Helibel spread her hands behind him. "Aren't we going inside?"

"No one infiltrates someone else's house from the front, my dear sister," Sifa said as he walked. "Strange. Didn't old Cook say Paris kept many cats and dogs? Where did they all go?"

Helibel followed behind him. "Maybe they're sleeping."

They reached the back of the house and stood beneath the shade of the massive Summer Oak. After a short run-up, Sifa easily leaped over the wall, then helped his sister across.

Just then, a gust of wind rustled the leaves. Suddenly, something fell from the tree and struck the ground beside the siblings with a slap.

Helibel abruptly covered her mouth, forcibly trapping a cry of alarm behind her palm.

Sifa sucked in a breath as well. It was a corpse—a cat's corpse. The cat's body was grotesquely swollen, with dark brown branches protruding from its belly and anus.

Sifa circled to the other side of the cat's corpse and found a section of branch extending from its mouth. It looked as if the cat had been pierced through by the branch.

And the branch was still "growing" inside the corpse?

"Sifa, look up there." Helibel raised her head and looked up at the Summer Oak, her face pale.

Sifa looked toward the canopy and saw thick branches growing wildly in every direction. Cats' and dogs' corpses were skewered upon those branches, and his sharp vision allowed him to see that tender shoots and leaves had sprouted from every body.

When the wind blew and the branches swayed, the cats' and dogs' corpses gently rocked in the breeze like "fruit" borne by the Summer Oak.

Now he knew where Paris's cats and dogs had gone.

"How can she live in a place like this? There's something wrong with her, something wrong with her!" Helibel cried softly.

Sifa's smile vanished. He turned back and said solemnly, "Belle, stay here. If anything unexpected happens, don't worry about me. Go back to town and seek help."

Helibel nodded slightly. She knew very well what she should and should not do.

Sifa drew the Snake-Scale Pistol from its shoulder holster, keeping its muzzle pointed at the ground to prevent an accidental discharge. He passed beneath the canopy of that strange Summer Oak and reached the back of Paris's house.

He did not rush inside. He tilted his head to listen with hearing far superior to that of an ordinary person, then sniffed the air. Only after finding nothing unusual did Sifa gently open a window and climb inside.