in which the widower hallucinates his family to cope with his grief

Territory-wise, Alpherson’s estate was twenty percent of Alph Town, though a sizable portion of this was pine forest. In lieu of a wall, it had a stream with a rose garden at the edges of the property. Beside the woods was a park swarmed by blond, blue-eyed children.

As if this wasn’t enough, the clouds themselves had parted around the estate, bathing it in sunlight while the rest of town endured the endless rain. Pebble was torn between grudging admiration and the urge to commit terrorism again.

“Listen to this,” Topaz said, then began to whistle. A flock of birds emerged from a tree nearby, mimicking this.

“Revolting,” was Pebble’s response.

“You whistle, then. Go on.”

She did not. “Where’s Alpherson?”

Topaz shrugged. “I found his wife, though.”

Find, he said, as though she were an animal…

…or a ghost.

A metaphorical one, of course.

As Topaz guided her across that horrible place, Pebble found herself fidgeting. Servants frolicked around, wearing clothes more expensive than all of her combined. The door at the entrance was made with wood from a tree that’d gone extinct—at least according to the sign next to it.

The inside was just as magnanimous. It made the Hall of Saints seem like a back alley by comparison, arguably since it’d been made by the Saint of Home Decor #1—at least according to the sign next to the other one.

A blond, pudgy thing wearing a maid’s outfit showed up just as Topaz was sliding a decorative blade into his pocket and Pebble was slapping his hand off the wall. “Hi,” the exploited child maid said. “Are you friends?”

Talking to children triggered Pebble’s gag reflex, so she nudged Topaz’s side. “Yes,” he replied. Behind their backs, they were playing tug-of-war with the stolen blade. And why? Because it had dull edges. Then why did Topaz want it? Compulsive crime and irredeemable evil. “Where’s uhh… wait, how old are you?”

“Four.”

“Oh. Where’s papa?”

The girl blinked. “Excuse me? I don’t understand that term. Forgive me.”

So confused was Topaz that Pebble could yank the blade away from him, but it was an empty victory, for he didn’t seem to notice. He said something incomprehensible, so the girl repeated herself verbatim. “Forgot,” he said. “Saint, your tribe shares dialects with theirs, right? Ask her where Alpherson is.”

Pebble swallowed. She covered her nose with her fingers. She looked away. “Where’s your father? F-A-T-H-E-R?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t possess that information,” the girl replied in their common tongue. “However, he told Alphne to show you to your rooms. Alphne is busy painting my pony, so I’ll work in her stead.” The girl bowed, lifting the edges of her skirt just a bit. There was so much nonsense in that string of information that Pebble wasn’t sure how to parse it.

“How about mama?” Topaz asked. “I mean… your mother?”

The girl took eight seconds to respond. Pebble counted. “I’ll show you to your rooms.”

Well then.

Three hallways later, the girl opened the door to what was clearly a walk-in closet. “This is for the lady,” she said. “As for the gentleman…”

“I already have a room. Hey, where’s the treasury?”

“No,” Pebble said.

The girl took another eight seconds to respond. While her brain scrambled for something to stay, she remained frozen, wide-eyed, staring at them. “Are you friends? Yes or no?”

“I am. He’s not. Don’t listen to him.”

“I am. She’s not. Don’t listen to her.”

The girl’s stare was piercing.

Topaz, of all people, was the one to lose the staring contest. “...yeah, no, I can’t do this. I’ll go look for Alpherson. You play with her.”

“No, fu—” Topaz took a finger to his lips before she could finish. “...uu… you’re mean.”

“Calm down, I’ll be back once I find him so we can kill the Demon King and stuff. If I can’t find him, I’ll take a nap in the hammock park (the what). Have fun.”

As soon as he turned around, the girl hid behind Pebble, watching him disappear down the hallway the way a mouse watched a hawk. Upon pinching her nose, Pebble asked, “Is he scary?”

The girl nodded.

“He is, right? Don’t tell him where the treasury is. In fact, tell all the servants to lock all doors and hide all decorations.”

“Servants?” asked the girl.

“Servants,” Pebble replied in their shared dialect.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand that term, either.”

“...eh?”

“What is that?”

Was this little shit teasing her? Was that it?

She must’ve glared without thinking, because the girl shrank under her gaze. “...forgive me. I, um, won’t overstep my boundaries again.”

“No, I wasn’t…” Pebble trailed off. Topaz had confirmed that Alpherson’s family was alive and all, but he’d never said that they were well.

Indeed—something else was going on.

It made sense now.

Alpherson could not be good-looking and polite and kind-hearted and rich and good at fighting. Everyone had flaws. Everyone. “Is your mother dead?” Pebble asked.

“No?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t you tell us where she was earlier?”

Another eight-second pause. “I think I know where father is.”

“And mother?”

“Follow me.” The girl unclung herself from Pebble, then began to walk. Her hair was parted into two braids, but one had triple the amount of hair than the other one. Pebble saw no servants as they made their way through the estate, which was strange. The girl stopped before a giant, magnanimous wooden door; she body-slammed it to no effect. Again. Again.

It was kind of funny, but Pebble opened the door nonetheless. Before them stood a library the size of a small neighborhood, and amidst the sea of books sat Frell, drawing.

The girl broke into a sprint, landing (no other word was as accurate) next to him. “Hi, Mimi,” he greeted. “Did you bring the cray… oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.” Pebble said.

Frell vanished. The girl—Mimi—jumped, startled. “...hello? Demon King? Where are you?”

What was this IDIOT doing?

He re-appeared next to Pebble. “I can explain.”

“I’m sure you can. And if you can’t, you’ll lie.”

Mimi glanced at the spot on the floor where Frell had been drawing, then the entrance of the room where he stood now. “It’s all part of the plan, Peb. All part of the plan. And… well… she found me digging in the forest.”

“Wait, why? Assuming you were digging the stone, wouldn’t you do that at night, and not at daytime where anyone could see you?”

“That’s the thing. It was midnight.”

The girl flipped through Frell’s sketchbook. “And she was…? Frell. Tell me that’s not the one with the spicy drawings.”

“Nah. It’s the one I use for still lifes.”

Even he had the common sense not to bring degenerate trash to a child, she supposed. “...well… so she discovered you. Now what? What did you do so she would keep the secret?”

“I’m teaching her to draw, of course.”

Hence him asking for crayons and doodling on the floor.

Well.

Whatever.

“Then what?” Pebble asked. “You said your plan was ready, so does that mean that we should go now?”

“If you want, sure. Are you done investigating Alpherson?”

Was she?

“...yeah, that’s what I thought. I was curious about him, so I did my own research. Wanna know why he’s loaded? It’s nothing illegal, just so you know, just morally questionable.”

Pebble’s blood ran cold. This was it. “Sure...”

“Self-help books.”

She waited for a punchline that never came.

“Have you seen the one with the rainbow pony on the cover? Cuz if you hadn’t, now you will. It’s everywhere. Peb?”

She ran a hand down his face. “That’s nice. Yeah, sure. Let’s just… yeah. Anyway. What about his wife? And why does his daughter’s name not start with -Alph?”

Frell shook his head. “Tch tch tch. Pebble, dear, be glad that you asked me and not a local or you’d be going to jail for hate crimes right now. Even you know why we don’t nickname wind tribesmen, right?”

“Because of the -Alph thing?”

“To mock their lineage is to wish for death. Does everyone in your tribe have ‘thing’ names? No, right? For every Pebble and Stormy you got, I don’t have, a Tristan. Stereotypes are bad.”

“I get it. I get it. I shouldn’t have asked. Ugh. Just tell me where his wife is so I can accept that perfect people exist.”

He disappeared and re-appeared next to Mimi. At this rate, he’d drain that teleporting stone as quickly as the last one. Why not just walk? Come to think of it, why had Mimi brought her to this place in the first place? What did it have to do with—

Wait.

Mother… library…

There had to be something in there.

“Later,” Frell said. “I have art classes to give.”

“Didn’t you say…” but she lacked the heart to tell him to stop once Frell and Mimi were scribbling on his notebook.

For some time, Pebble watched them, resting against the doorframe. She didn’t know why. The closest thing she’d had to a teacher before growing up was someone who’d taught her how to kill.

Speaking of—a woman loomed above Frell with a knife in hand. Before anything happened, Pebble hurled a hairpin at her, disarming her; the blade stabbed the sketchbook instead.

Mimi cried, scrambling as the woman languidly glanced at her empty hand. Frell barely reacted, too. “Oh, my,” was his opinion on the matter. As Pebble apprehended the woman, he pulled the knife off, then glanced at Mimi, who clung herself to him. “There, there. See? Nothing happened.”

“Don’t tell father,” she begged.

“Don’t tell Alpherson about this? Why?”

“No. Please.”

“But why?”

“Monster,” the woman hissed. She hadn’t once looked at Pebble. The whole while, her pale, gray eyes had burned against Frell instead. “Don’t touch her. Don’t touch her. Don’t touch her…”

Mimi was shaking. “Please don’t tell father.”

“We won’t.” Awkwardly, Frell patted Mimi’s hand. “Peb, can you like…?”

“Yeah.” As Pebble stood, she dragged the woman with her. The woman bit her, drawing blood, but she didn’t retaliate. “You calm her down. I’ll be back later. And no, I won’t tell Alpherson about this.”

For now, anyway.

“You can’t do this,” the woman said as Pebble held her arms behind her back with one hand, pushing her out of the library with the other. “You can’t. There is a killer in the house. It will swallow us. It will swallow us.”

Given Topaz’s cuckoo comment and Mimi’s earlier behavior, Pebble asked, “Are you Alpherson’s wife?”

“Don’t touch her.”

“I won’t. Yes or no?”

“Are you with the killer?”

“I don’t know what that is. I’ll just take this as a yes.” Once they’d crossed the hallway, Pebble let her go. The woman was a frail, quaint thing, so pale and blond that she looked like a marble statue. “Not sure if you can understand me, but just in case: don’t be stupid and don’t attack me again.”

The woman rubbed the arm Pebble had twisted. “There is a killer.”

“Yeah.”

“One eye.”

“Yeah—wait, do you mean Topaz?”

“Why are you with the killer? He killed your family, too. He killed everyone’s family. Why are you with him?”

“I’m… not? Are you talking about the guy with the scars on his face? The one with dark skin? Alpherson’s friend? Hey.” The woman had tried to walk past Pebble and back to the library, so she held out an arm. “Nope. Not going back in there.”

And then, with absolutely no warning, the woman let out such a screech that Pebble reflexively pulled back. Thankfully, the woman didn’t try to run; she sank to her knees, screaming. Pebble was spiraling. Of all the flaws Alpherson could’ve had, this… wasn’t what she’d expected. Or wanted, really.

“Hey. Sorry. I’m sorry. Shhh. Please. Shut up!”

“Alphyn!”

Alpherson took the woman in his arms, hugging her, patting her back. Either he’d been that close or the woman had been screaming for that long. Either way, Pebble’s hands had begun to shake. “No no no no no!” Alphyn said, though she didn’t try to push him away.

Speaking over hair, Alpherson told Pebble, “Forgive her, please. Do know that she means well.”

Pebble nodded.

Not too far away, at the corner leading to the main hall, Topaz stood whilst facing them with his blind eye, hands in his pockets. He looked as awkward as she felt.

“Saint Pebble, if I may…”

“Yeah. Sorry. T-take your time.”

She fled.

Needless to say, Alpherson would not be joining them again.