“Al already told me that I'm not allowed to go out anymore!”
Charlotte stood in the living room with her arms crossed, her tone carrying an uncompromising firmness.
She directly invoked the rule her brother had established before leaving.
“Besides, Vicky.”
She turned her head and glanced out the window.
Even though today was the Spark Festival and the main roads were filled with parade floats and boisterous crowds, this was still Hope County.
In the shadows of prosperity, there was always filth that couldn't bear the light.
“It's not safe outside,” Charlotte stated as an objective fact.
“And is your brother safe, then?”
Victoria stood in the middle of the living room, blinking her beautiful large eyes.
She threw out a counter-question that struck right at the heart of the matter.
“If it's truly dangerous outside, it wouldn't be safe for him to be out there alone in the middle of the night either, would it?”
Victoria took a step forward, looking into Charlotte’s eyes.
“Aren't you worried about him?”
“Uh...”
Hearing this, Charlotte’s originally firm resolve instantly deflated.
She hesitated, her brow furrowing slightly.
To be honest, before today, every time she urged Elias to come home early, she was mainly worried that he would pick up bad habits from other young men.
In this era, the things in greatest supply were drunks and gangs roaming the streets and alleys.
A boy of sixteen or seventeen was at an age where energy had no outlet.
Without supervision, what would they usually become obsessed with?
Smoking cheap, low-quality cigarettes.
Drinking bitter, watered-down ale.
And, of course, acting tough and getting into brawls in muddy alleys.
If one wasn't careful during this rebellious phase, they might muddle-headedly join some gang.
From there, they would embark on a path of no return, ruining their future.
That was what Charlotte had always been most worried about.
She didn't want to see Arthur waving a nightstick and blowing a whistle to arrest Elias.
Though the thought was somewhat comical, it was best avoided.
Now, reminded by Victoria, the facts remained: he wasn't home in the middle of the night, and the Great Blackout was in effect.
When those two points were combined, the probability of something happening skyrocketed.
Put that way, she really did start to worry.
Victoria keenly captured the wavering in Charlotte’s eyes and struck while the iron was hot.
“Oh, it's fine.”
Victoria stepped forward and affectionately took Charlotte’s arm, giving it a shake.
“When the time comes, you can just say you were accompanying me, okay?”
A perfect excuse. It allowed them to go out and find him while shifting all the responsibility away.
“Fine... fine.”
In the end, Charlotte couldn't withstand her worry for her brother and her friend's persistent nagging.
She sighed and compromised.
...
When the Great Blackout arrived, the Rockland home on Ash Street had already lit a candle.
It flickered lonely on the coffee table in the center of the living room.
Viewed from the street outside, among the row of darkened buildings, only that one glass window emitted a dim halo of light.
“Shall we begin, then?”
In the living room, Charlotte, who had suggested the game, had now become a disinterested spectator.
Victoria, however, had glowing eyes and was thoroughly excited.
“Alright...”
Charlotte yawned. She propped her head up with one hand, leaning somewhat bored against the edge of the coffee table illuminated by the candle.
Her gaze fell on the center of the table.
She watched Victoria’s fair fingers skillfully fiddling with the props.
A red string, with a shilling coin tied to the bottom to serve as a weight.
The coin was suspended over the paper they had prepared earlier.
On the paper, ancient Velen letters were written in ink in a crooked, irregular circle.
Although this was Charlotte’s first time playing, she knew exactly what was going on.
A divination game like this was really just for fun at most—a bit of psychological suggestion to pass the boring time before sleep.
Compared to the transcendent spell she had seen Ms. Cecil use to save Blaine, this didn't even qualify as playing house.
It was leagues apart.
When playing this kind of game, because the hand is suspended for so long, muscle fatigue and imperceptible tremors are inevitable.
Sometimes, you don't even know if it's your companion's hand secretly applying force or if some legendary “Ghosts in the Spark” are actually manipulating the red string.
The whole thing was based on self-deception.
“Hurry up!”
Victoria’s urgent prompting interrupted Charlotte’s wandering thoughts.
“Oh.”
Charlotte straightened up and reached out.
She gently placed her hand over the back of Victoria’s hand, which was pinching the top of the red string.
The two girls closed their eyes, their expressions deliberately assuming a solemn air.
Under the dancing candlelight, they began to recite the so-called ancient “incantation”:
“Ljos falla, eldr sofa.”
(Light falls, fire sleeps.)
“Andi vakna, stjarna hvísa.”
(Spirit awakens, star whispers.)
The two of them struggled to pronounce the awkward syllables.
“Hver liggr í myrkr?”
(Who lies in the dark?)
“Hver gengr á veg?”
(Who walks the path?)
Their voices overlapped in the dim living room.
“Vís mér, vís mér——”
(Show me, show me—)
“Stjörnuhjól, tala!”
(Star-wheel, speak!)
The incantation was composed of obscure Old Norse.
It felt clunky even to read normally.
However, the moment the last syllable left their mouths and the recitation was complete, Charlotte suddenly felt a faint pulling force from the red string beneath her hand.
She snapped her eyes open.
She saw the red string hanging over the paper, carrying the shilling coin, actually begin to swing.
The amplitude was gradually increasing.
“Did you move?”
Charlotte spoke instinctively, her gaze suspicious as she looked at her friend across from her.
This girl must be playing tricks.
“I thought you moved.”
Victoria also opened her eyes, countering with a look of confusion.
As the words fell, the two girls’ gazes met in the air.
Both saw an unfeigned expression of surprise in the other's eyes.
Neither of them moved it?
An inexplicable chill crawled up their backs.
Just then, something even more absurd happened.
The red string tied to the shilling coin, after swinging a few times, suddenly stopped.
It hung steadily over a Velen letter.
Eerily, it wasn't hanging vertically.
The red string was completely tilted!
It was as if an invisible hand was grabbing it and pulling it toward that letter.
Without any visible external physical force, it completely defied the laws of gravity.
The air seemed to freeze at that moment.
The candlelight jumped uneasily twice.
“What does this mean?”
Victoria stared at the letter the coin was pointing to, her brow furrowing tightly.
“Lily?” Charlotte began to speculate.
“Or, Liberty Department Store?”
These were the names of some of the most famous commercial establishments in Hope County.
“That's not right, is it?”
Victoria looked up, watching Charlotte with an extremely strange expression.
“The question I was silently asking in my heart just now was: Where is Elias?”
Victoria’s expression was hard to describe. “Does your brother have a habit of shopping at the department store in the middle of the night?”
What grown man would go to Liberty Department Store to buy things in the middle of the night?
Hearing this explanation, Charlotte raised her eyelids and looked at Victoria silently.
That look seemed to say everything, yet nothing at all.
“Don't look at me like that!”
Being stared at by Charlotte’s ‘are you an idiot’ gaze, Victoria felt a bit embarrassed.
“Just kidding!” she hurriedly waved her hand to explain.
“Then where else could it be?”
Victoria turned her gaze back to the parchment, continuing to brainstorm along the spelling of the letters.
“Landon?” she blurted out a place name.
“If you keep talking nonsense, I'm going straight to bed!”
Charlotte couldn't help it anymore and rolled her eyes hard.
Landon? That was the capital!
Even if Elias had a steam engine attached to his legs, it was impossible for him to run off to Landon in the middle of the night.
If this divination result were accurate, her brother would no longer be human.
“Alright!”
Seeing that her friend was truly getting angry, Victoria quickly spoke to soothe her.
“Then where else?”
She stared at the letter, thinking hard, quickly filtering through place names in Hope County with that sound.
“Lily?”
Victoria’s voice suddenly faltered.
She looked up and exchanged a glance with Charlotte.
“Lily of the Valley Convent?!”
Rate on N.U.
