Swan Grave - Chapter 49

Fourth Year, May 3

The rose seedlings we had transplanted last year were about to bloom. Every day we walked through the garden, waiting for the crimson rosebuds, like Roth’s eyes, to open.

Roth said that once the roses were in full bloom, he would make me a bouquet as a gift. But I refused. A cut flower will inevitably wither. I didn’t want flowers that resembled Roth’s eyes to wilt.

But I was too embarrassed to say it outright, so I simply begged him never to cut these roses. Though the words came out abruptly, Roth nodded as if he understood.

Roth was a truly good man, and my husband. Though we had bickered when we first met, after our marriage, he had always been faithful to me. It was impossible not to give him my heart. I grew to love him more and more. Today more than yesterday, tomorrow more than today.

Fourth Year, October 31

Could I be infertile? What if I never go back? What about my mom?

Fifth Year, January 30

For the past few days, my mom has appeared in my dreams. She looked gaunt and desperately searched for me.

When I woke up, my face was soaked with tears. Roth, in a panic, held me in his arms. I forced a smile and said it was nothing, but Roth didn’t look convinced.

How long can I keep deceiving him?

How long can I endure?

Fifth Year, February 24

I am pregnant.

Finally.

Fifth Year, February 27

The due date is in early October.

Roth was overjoyed when he heard the news. I never thought he would be this happy… Perhaps he had secretly wanted an heir all along?

He said that whether the child was a girl or a boy, the name Svanhild would be nice. I didn’t know much about names, so I just nodded.

Only later did I learn that the name was taken from the swan. The name Svanhild was a vow that he would love our child as much as he cherished me.

He said that once the child grew a little, we should go traveling together. He added that it had only just occurred to him that I had spent all my time in this mansion since arriving in this world.

Apparently, Roth believed I had abandoned the idea of returning to my original world… Well, since I had always given vague answers, it wasn’t strange for him to think that.

Seeing Roth rejoice filled me with guilt, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. The thing I had wished for over the years had finally come true… Yet I felt depressed.

Fifth Year, June 29

What if, after I leave, Roth falls in love with another woman? Summons another swan?

…Roth bleeding for another woman? The very thought is unbearable. And yet…

Fifth Year, July 2

I don’t want Svanhild to be a child abandoned by his mother… But my mom has only me left.

Fifth Year, July 22

Even without me, Svanhild will grow up healthy. Surely.

Fifth Year, August 1

Will I really never be able to return?

If I get the chance, I should ask Marquess Albert.

If only, if only it were possible.

Fifth Year, August 6

Of course, it wasn’t so simple. He said it was impossible to summon a specific person back. That I, too, had only been the result of coincidence.

I hadn’t expected much, but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. If I leave, then that will truly be the end…

Fifth Year, October 26

I gave birth to Svanhild. A healthy baby with a strong cry. Had I been even a little later, I would have had to spend another year here, but I was able to give birth before the day of the Red Moon. What a relief.

I used recovery as an excuse not to look at Svanhild’s face. If I saw my baby’s face, I might not be able to leave. I had to cut it off coldly… Still, Svan’s cries echoed endlessly in my ears.

Fifth Year, October 28

I had been anxious, but thankfully Marquess Albert kept his promise. The school uniform I had worn five years ago felt very strange. On the night of the 31st, if I put on these clothes and leap into the moonlit lake in the forest, everything will end.

Marquess Albert asked if I really intended to return. Of course. He strictly warned me never to reveal this to Roth. Naturally. If Roth found out… he would never let me go.

Too much time has passed. I pray Mother is still alive, but she may already be gone. She was not a strong woman.

Even so, I had to go back. Even if only to find her grave, I must. I had to let her know, somehow, that her daughter is alive.

Even if, in doing so, I leave Roth and Svan wounded…

Fifth Year, October 30

Finally, tomorrow.

This will likely be my last diary entry.

I prepared separate letters to leave for Roth and Svan. I thought about entrusting them to someone else, but Marquess Albert would never deliver them, and Madame Dova would hand them to Roth right away, so I couldn’t trust her. In the end, I hid them deep inside the drawer. When will Roth discover these letters, I wonder.

Or perhaps, living in hatred without ever knowing why I left might not be so bad.

Still, if there is anyone who might read this diary… Please tell them that I truly loved Roth and Svan.

I will always miss you, and grieve for you.

May that be your comfort.

From your sinner who loves you, Ianna.

***

With each line she read, memories long asleep awoke one by one. The seeds of déjà vu that had always been hazy blossomed vividly, filling her mind.

A beautiful yet stifling, long-forgotten garden greeted her.

Ianna, who had once been the Marchioness, returned safely to her original world. Fortunately, the time she returned to was just before her disappearance at nineteen, before the college entrance exam. Naturally, her mother was still alive, and no one knew that Anna had vanished for five years.

Not even Anna herself.

Anna, who had lost all her memories of the five years she spent in another dimension, lived each day as though nothing had happened. She forgot the child she had left behind, the husband, the guilt, and the love.

So five years passed, and when she turned twenty-four, Anna fell into this world once more…

Rothbart, whom she thought a demon, was a cursed prince. She was Odette, and he was Siegfried.

“I want a mother, Anna.”

Svanhild, that poor child.

Only then did she understand all of Svanhild’s blind devotion. The child, sneaking into the forbidden room, longing for her mother, must have recognized her in the portrait right away.

Anna’s throat burned. Soon, the taste of iron filled her mouth. The dagger she had hidden all this time finally pierced her heart and revealed itself.

“The only one who can be my mother is you.”

“Svanhild…”

No sooner had Anna muttered blankly than Rothbart laughed and said, “Yes. Your son. The son you abandoned without ever seeing his face, yours and mine.”

His laugh was jarringly out of place in the moment, sending chills down her spine. The falling moon shifted the direction of the shadow cast across his face.

In Ianna’s last memory, Rothbart had laughed just like that. Rejoicing at Svanhild’s birth, certain that Ianna would remain in this world…

That once youthful face now bore the marks of time, and the deepened shadows under his eyes glistened with madness. It was a face she knew well, one she had seen countless times, yet it felt utterly foreign. Familiarity and strangeness overlapped, casting afterimages across his features.

Roth at twenty-seven, Rothbart at thirty-eight…

“How is it? Do you feel your memories returning now?”

Noticing the confusion spreading across Anna’s face, Rothbart approached her with a smile still on his lips.

“Good. I was worried that if you read the diary and remembered nothing, it would be as though all the marks I carved into your body had vanished.”

Just as the body that had borne a child had reverted to that of a maiden, Rothbart had feared that all memory of the five years she had spent with him might have disappeared as well.