A Butterfly Through the Mist - Chapter 71

“Miss, do you need assistance?”

It was only at the station attendant’s words—spoken as if he had been watching her for some time—that Tilia finally tore herself away from the train window.

She wiped her face, forcing herself to appear composed, but the attendant, his suspicion evident, maintained a polite facade as he asked, “If you show me your ticket, I will guide you to your seat. Ah, first class.”

Only after confirming the crumpled train ticket in her pale hand did he drop any doubts about fare evasion and instead flashed a bright smile.

“Your reserved special seat is in this carriage. Your luggage, let me—”

“No. It’s fine. I can carry it.”

Rejecting the attendant’s kindness, Tilia staggered into the carriage.

But she was still not fully composed.

“Ouch! Be careful!”

She struck someone’s leg hard with her heavy luggage.

“Miss? I think you’ve mistaken my seat. This is mine.”

She had foolishly misread the numbers and sat in the wrong place, only to be driven out.

After hastily rising, regaining her focus, and finding her correct seat, she encountered yet another problem—

The woman beside her, cradling a child, recoiled as if confronted by someone with the plague.

It was understandable. Tilia fully grasped the mother’s instinct to hold her child protectively against her.

Sweat-dampened hair, arms clutching a worn-out suitcase as if it were her lifeline, and above all, eyes that trembled ceaselessly, unable to find calm.

To anyone, she must have looked like a dangerous person.

The woman likely mistook her for a maid fleeing with her mistress’s necklace or a patient who had escaped a hospital without paying.

It wasn’t entirely wrong. She was, after all, the daughter of a criminal running away with someone else’s money.

Swallowing self-mockery, Tilia cautiously unfolded her sweat-drenched hand.

There, trapped in her palm all this time, was a butterfly glimmering with amethyst light.

At the last moment, the ring he had placed in her hand was an exquisite piece, its butterfly wings delicately inlaid with amethysts so precisely set that not a single gap remained.

As if to prove his words about not selling it cheaply, the precious gemstone sparkled brilliantly even in the dim interior.

Tilia, who had been staring at it blankly, lifted her frostbitten fingers and carefully traced the butterfly.

Beneath her lightly trembling fingertips, the smooth gems felt uneven. Absorbing the warmth from her prolonged grip, the ring was warm, as though it had a heartbeat of its own.

She fiddled with the ring endlessly before, as if by mistake, bringing it near the tip of her left ring finger.

But before the band could even slide onto her fingertip, she flinched as if she had touched fire and quickly withdrew her hand.

A feverish heat rose to her already pale face. Her eyes wavered, unable to focus.

Biting down on her lips so hard that they nearly bled, she ultimately shoved the ring deep into her pocket, as if trying to hide it from herself.

She could feel the woman beside her watching with wary eyes as she fidgeted nervously with the valuable piece that did not match her attire.

Ignoring her, Tilia turned toward the window.

On clear days, the train’s windows must have offered a stunning view, but now, they were nothing but a hazy blur.

She stared at the window for a long time before realizing that the opaque layer obscuring her vision was the residue of sleet—not quite snow, not quite rain.

The window, like a fog-blanketed forest, reflected nothing.

Gazing into the gray curtain drawn over the world, Tilia thought of the late Baroness Ambrose.

Not every moment with her mother had been hellish.

Though she frequently lost consciousness and at times hurled curses like convulsions, there had still been moments between them when warmth flowed, as if flowers might bloom in the space they shared.

“My daughter, my sweet Tilia.”

In truth, it was in those moments that her mother had truly lost her mind.

“Tilia, come here.”

Whenever she wanted to deny the horrible reality, her mother, Evelyn, would call her young daughter over, sit her on her lap, and read her letters.

They were love letters from her father, sent when she had been the young lady of the House of Palmer.

“Do you know how much he loved me? Do you know how passionately he supported my dreams, how he praised my determination as something noble?”

Her mother read the letters aloud in a voice as soft as a dream. Some parts were a bit too embarrassing to share with a child not even ten years old, but Evelyn, intoxicated by emotion, paid it no mind.

No, perhaps she had never intended to in the first place.

She simply needed someone to listen—someone to witness how deeply she had once been loved.

“How could he have sent so many? I wouldn’t be able to finish reading them even if I stayed up all night.”

Tilia remembered how her mother’s face had glowed with excitement as she stroked the elegant handwriting on the letters.

Her face had been as radiant as a newly bloomed peach blossom, as fresh as a budding sprout in spring. In those moments, even the sallow skin caused by her reckless lifestyle and the dark shadows beneath her eyes could not diminish her beauty.

“Look, Tilia. Doesn’t he seem like a man who knows nothing but how to say ‘I love you’?”

Listening to her mother’s vibrant laughter, Tilia read the part she was pointing to over and over again.

I love you, Evelyn.

Reading that phrase repeated multiple times, she vaguely realized something.

That, in truth, the one experiencing such passionate love wasn’t her father but her mother.

That even though she cursed him and called him a terrible man when drunk, deep down, her mother loved her father more than anyone else.

And that because of that very love, she had no choice but to throw herself into the pit of despair.

She had thought so, yet deep inside, there was still a part of her that wanted to believe in those letters her mother treasured like gold.

Even if her father couldn’t stand the sight of her mother. Even if, on the rare occasions they crossed paths, he treated her like filth on the street. Still.

Still, once upon a time, hadn’t he loved her this fiercely?

So, on that early morning when her drunken mother missed a step on the stairs and tumbled down in a battered heap, when Tilia found her mother lying there, bleeding from the head—

She had run straight to her father’s room without hesitation.

“Father! Father!”

With desperate little hands, she pounded on the closed door. The urgency of needing to save her mother gave her an unprecedented surge of courage.

When the door suddenly swung open, revealing her furious father’s face, that courage nearly shrank away.

“M-Mother fell down the stairs.”

Thinking of her mother, lying alone, and the letters she had read aloud, the child stammered yet kept her gaze filled with conviction.

“She’s bleeding right now! Please, call a doctor—”

“Shut up, you wretched girl.”

But that was a hope she should never have clung to. It was a courage she should never have mustered.

A resounding noise filled her ears as her body was sent sprawling. A scorching heat spread across her head, as if she had been burned.

“What does your damned mother’s drunken fall have to do with me?”

It was only after hearing that voice, dripping with contempt, that Tilia realized her father had struck her. And that, like her mother, he was also steeped in alcohol.

“A doctor? What nonsense!”

Somewhere, a door creaked open and quickly shut. Amid the indifferent silence of the maids who feigned ignorance, merciless violence rained down upon her.

“Useless girl. Just as worthless as your mother!”

Her gut twisted from the kick to her stomach. The pain from having her hair yanked made it feel as if her scalp was being torn away.

But worse than any physical pain was the shame of having dared to hope.

She had believed that her father would save her mother. That even if he had forgotten his love for her, he would still help someone he had once cared for.

How foolish.

She hadn’t even realized that the one who most desperately wanted her mother dead was none other than her father.

It felt like a ball of agony with a thousand needles was rolling around inside her chest, suffocating her.

Thinking of her mother, who at that very moment was growing cold, made that ball swell even larger, crushing her lungs.

“She should have just died sooner! Always causing me trouble—!”

Yes. She should have died sooner.

Curled up, shielding herself from her father’s curses, Tilia thought.

I should have died sooner. Why am I alive, suffering through this? Why was I born, only to endure such torment? Why did I arrogantly hope and expect anything, only to be met with such pain…?

After the relentless violence, she lost consciousness. And when she woke again, her mother’s funeral was already underway.