Signora Edihna was a ghost as she flitted to and fro in the hallways almost perpetually draped in that same black dress. Her face was always blank of sorrow Sal might have expected from someone with a child who just died. 

The woman could not have been any more strange. She downed a smile and the same trill in her voice whenever she spoke to people, the airy smile on her lips.

 Lea was trying to keep her standing as the guest cleaning lady, insisting to help around the house so as not to burden the hostess but the woman had refused, citing that she has plenty of servants enough. Afterwards, Lea told Sal that Sgra Edihna just does not want her touching anything. 

That day, Sal lay on the floor of the room the Signora gave them. The breeze touched the soles of her feet as she lifted them in the air. The room was scattered with colors, opposite from the room in the Hospicio. Sal could spend the time alone inspecting the painted leaves on the wallpaper and the detail of the carving in the chandelier, but another thing was worth the attention. 

A loud, happy tune from the piano has been playing over and over again. The woman singing the same happy song from the day they came in until today. She’d hear it a few times every day. It must have been the thirtieth time she heard it, she lost count

The title she must have known, but it was irritating to see she cannot name it. 

Sal got on her feet and wandered the place to follow the tune to the parlor where the Missus Edihna payed the piano in the empty parlor. Her hands hopped across the keys as she sand and threw her head slightly like a gentle bird 

Maybe, this is just how people like them are. They do not have tears stored in their eyes. People only cry in stories and folktales. Unlike them, Mercantiles, people of big houses like them should keep an air of grace and refinement. Sal paused. She was a refined woman despite her strangeness it seemed. 

The woman called out. “Who’s there?” Even calling for her servants.

 Sal told herself, she must run, but was it not a waste of time when she was this close to knowing that familiar song? 

The woman’s harsh tone changed upon seeing her. “You are Lea’s friend, am I correct? Anyway, little child, is there anything you need?”

 Sal was mildly entranced at the pretty curves in the woman’s face but was taken out by the mention of her being a child. She shook it off and pointed at the piano, trying to mouth her question. Backtracked, thinking of how to better word her query. 

“Perhaps, you were wondering what this is?” she grazed a few notes and began a long lecture about the instrument. “This will be easy to master, but it is quite a feat for those with short fingers. “ the woman glanced at Sal’s fingers. “I’m not good at playing this. Pardon my mistakes.” 

When the woman apologized for her bad playing, Sal commented, “ The song was slower for the many times I heard it before. It was such a strange playing you do.”

“Well, everyone can play a song anyway she wants. “She waved it off and sang the next stanza anyway. 

Sal stood there, unsure of what to do. What tune was that? She raced the tune in her head, trying to follow the woman’s playing amidst the many acrobatics she does with the song. 

Signora Edihna stopped playing. She leveled up a stare at Sal with a monotone in her voice. “ Not many people know this song.” 

Sal stood quiet. The woman looking at her serious like this. She pursed her fingers together. What should she answer? 

The woman giggled “I am just unused to this, please excuse me you have to bear this old woman.” 

Sal stared at the woman as she continued to sing without abandon. Her hands leapt over the keys as she sang in that trilly voice of hers.

 The woman stopped and turned her whole body to see Sal. With a slight furrow in her brow, she asked. “Is this like a thing you do in your village? An audience member joining the performer? Just curious, you can tell me if it is.” 

“I remember the song supposedly always being sung by two people. I was confused on where should I come in to sing.” 

The woman looked up at her, her droopy eyes turning a bit larger. She smiled a little then quietly closed the piano, slow and somber. She sat with her hand on her mouth for quite a while. 

So, is this what her sadness is like? It was only a song. 

The woman started, “Might you have interest in the garden? I have rare flowers planted and maintained in there. The gardener would be more than happy to assist you.”

Well, flowers are great but there was one thing Sal was missing. “ Do you have a library?” 

“Yes. Go straight across the hallway until you reach the stairway. It is the first room after that.” 

Sal mulled over the instructions as she stood by the door. Signora Edihna came out at the moment and sighed. “Come after me,” she ordered. She walked her into the place. 

The library was a forest, waiting to be explored with trees of bookshelves and canopies of intricate art decorating the ceiling. Sal could easily burrow into the bookshelves and the books and get lost in them. 

Sal turned to the woman, “Can I stay here the whole day?”

“Yes, you go on.” 

“Can I stay here tomorrow?” 

“You heard me right. Do feel free.” 

“Can I stay the next day after that?” 

The woman grabbed a book from the shelf and plopped it on the Sal’s lap. “You can come here whenever you want. I have a lot of books in my collection, as you can see. But it is a pity, they are not plenty enough.” 

“ Do you have ‘Adventures of the One-Inch Man?’ ” 

“No.” 

Sal thumbed through the pages of the book on her lap “I have not yet reached the ending.” 

“That story is unworthy of your time. The characters are horrid fools and the author must have written that hanging upside down by his window, dead drunk.” The woman coughed then smiled, apologizing for her tone. 

“Then, do you have ‘Two sisters and a Skirt?’” 

“Child, there is no need to suffer through books so horrid you cannot even finish them.” 

Sal looked back at the woman as she excused herself away. Sal remembered what the maid told her then. Children who betray their families will be cursed by their children in return and suffer the misery they made for themselves. The woman was not sad, at all. 

Sal followed the woman through her activities for the next few days, nary a sad bone in the woman’s gait. Perhaps, Sal could think that the maid’s statement was a lie. 

Sal spent the rest of the nights in the library, fetching books from the shelves, reading them but stopping halfway for they were all in alignment to the woman’s tastes. Never have she thought she will find a ceiling pattern more invigorating. Sal rose herself up from the pile of books she was almost buried under. Perhaps the best books she does have are hidden somewhere so one can forgot them. She set her sight on the ladder then on the blue tome by the highest shelf. 

As she reached for it, she found herself looking down, the distance between her feet and the floor greater than she thought she could stomach. She lurched as her feet stayed glued on the ladder. 

After what felt like ages, Lea opened the door and tiptoed around before she saw Sal clinging helplessly on the ladder. She immediately beckoned Sal to come down. 

But her legs have fallen asleep, she climbed down without feeling the landing of the wood in her feet. At an impatient call from Lea, Sal slipped on the last stair, falling on the pile of books below.

Lea came to Sal’s side to check for injuries. “If you were in bed already sleeping, you wouldn’t hurt yourself like that. Who cares about that woman’s stupid books?” 

Sal withdrew her arm from the woman and proceeded to plop herself on the floor.

 “Behave yourself! Bloody heavens, Tiya Edihna will kill us.” 

Sal looked up idly from her spot, “She said I can stay here today, tomorrow and the day after.” 

“Hah! That woman was making you slip.” 

Sal sat still. The woman had horrible taste in books but Lea only babbled on about her. 

Lea then began scouring the books on the floor. She whispered conspiratorially, “Is there something interesting here? Odd? Like a promissory note? A record book? A carved-out book?” 

Sal gave her a long stare.” You.You said you can’t read.” 

Lea slapped a book on the floor,” That is where you come in. I have been trying to snoop around and cleaning the house around for nothing. Perhaps if it was not in a case, she might have kept a letter or a record about it somewhere.” 

“Well, I found books. She has a collection of books from different authors. A dictionary and old maps of towns and rivers here in Alimpio and a few of the whole country, a few letters and exchanges from books in the past. One or two books on law and medicine.” 

“That’s not what I’m asking but-” 

“And a book on needlework.” 

Lea sat still on the floor looking out in the distance before hanging her head down. Silence. Her lips were pursed, was very much a wilting flower slowly waiting to be pulled down by gravity. 

Sal had stayed far too long in the place. Moonlight faintly illuminated the fleur-de-lis patterns and the arcs of the chandelier as a tinge of lamplight peeked from the corner of her eyes. She never got tired of the same sight, perhaps basked in it too much. She was forgetting who else would own such a place. 

She repeated what Ren had said before. A different blood, a different blood. Yet, this stranger’s house feels familiar, an old companion, a shackle she was told to take off. 

As Lea excused herself out, Sal beat her sleeping legs and ran to her and reached at the end of her shirt instead. In a rushed voice, Sal spoke, “I am not forgetting the deal. I will read what you need. Please don’t tell anyone about the Signor. Please.” 

Sal stood in anticipation at the words to follow. The goosemouth took too long to speak. 

“Hey! What do you think of Tiya Edihna?” 

Sal stuttered, “She’s a happy woman?” 

“If I turn out to be wrong about my Tiya, would you stay in this house?”