Chapter 101: Can I Have Your Eyes?

So what if he ran? Saul didn’t care about some crazy old man.

He just had a feeling the lunatic was hiding something—maybe something connected to the Grinding Sound Fruit.

He walked back to Ada’s house.

Whenever Ada went out, he always locked Penny inside. Locked her up for an entire day.

She had to eat, drink, and relieve herself in there.

Saul reached the door, and with a click, the lock unlatched itself. The padlock dropped right into Saul’s palm.

As if she’d heard the sound, the cabinet door on the wooden bed was pushed open from the inside.

Saul walked into the house and saw Penny crawling out.

“Brother Saul!” Penny climbed out and plopped down on the edge of the bed, beaming a big smile.

Saul dropped the playful grin he wore outside and sat next to Penny with a blank expression.

“How did you know it was me? Can you really not see?”

There was a kettle and a few green buns on the bed.

None of it had been touched.

The girl’s lips were pale and cracked again, but she was still holding back from eating or drinking.

She didn’t want to relieve herself in the room anymore.

“I really can’t see. I recognized Brother Saul by your footsteps.”

“You seem to know me well,” Saul turned his head to look at her. “You were only three when we were separated, right?”

Penny was absently tugging at the hem of her clothes—it was already all frayed yarn.

“Yeah. But Ada kept dreaming of Brother Saul.”

Dreams? Nightmare Butterfly?

Saul’s expression shifted. He looked more intently at Penny’s silvery eyes.

Those eyes were strikingly beautiful from any angle.

But to a regular person, alongside their beauty, there’d likely be a sense of unease.

“You can see your brother’s dreams? Have you always been able to?”

Now it was Penny’s turn to be surprised. She turned her face toward Saul and stared for a moment before giggling, “Even Ada doesn’t believe me. Brother Saul, you’re so nice.”

“Ada often dreams about the day we fled the village. He’s carrying me, sometimes looking back at you trapped in the flames. Your cries for help are all around.”

“He dreams of it all the time.”

“I cried for help?” Saul blinked slowly, finally understanding why Ada took him in.

“It was your voice, Brother Saul. I recognized it the day you came.” Penny pressed her lips together, clearly proud of herself.

Saul was fourteen now. Probably because of past malnutrition, his voice still hadn’t deepened.

He’d never heard of Nightmare Butterflies before, but hearing Penny talk about seeing others’ dreams instantly piqued his interest. He forgot all about the Grinding Sound Fruit.

“You can see in dreams?”

“Mm-hmm. I can see. In the dream, I am Ada.”

So that’s it. No wonder Penny never called Ada “brother.” Given the age she started dreaming, she probably couldn’t tell whether she was Penny or Ada anymore.

Ada said Penny lost her sight when they fled the village at age three. That meant she’d been sharing dreams with Ada since then.

It was easy to see how that could mess with her sense of identity.

But there was something even more disturbing…

Saul asked, “Penny, besides Ada’s dreams, have you entered anyone else’s dreams? Do you know those experiences are dreams?”

Penny tilted her head. “At first, it was only Ada’s. But later I could go into other people’s nearby dreams too. Like the crazy old man—he always dreams about the village being destroyed by barbarians. Or Uncle Jayce—he keeps dreaming about his daughter being killed, cut into pieces. And Auntie John—she dreams about killing her husband. First beheading, then chopping up the body, and hiding it in baskets of vegetables to throw out bit by bit.”

As for the second question, Penny didn’t answer—she seemed to have forgotten it.

“Do you know they’re dreams?” Saul asked again.

Only then did Penny remember. “At first I didn’t. But after dreaming so much, over and over, I figured it out.”

“Were you scared?”

Penny grinned, showing her teeth. “Nope! Ada says there’s no need to fear dreams. You wake up and it’s over.”

Saul stared silently at the little girl.

Even though Penny could hold a fluent conversation and had the innocence of a child, it was clear her perception of the world had become blurred by the mix of dreams and reality.

She recounted those traumatic dreams—nightmares for their owners—without a flicker of emotion.

As though she was used to life and death.

And maybe she really was used to life and death.

“Penny,” Saul finally said, “You can see others’ nightmares probably because of your eyes. If there were a chance to take those eyes away… would you be willing?”

The room fell silent.

After a moment, Penny covered her eyes with her small hands.

“No!”

Saul stood up. Hearing the movement, Penny lifted her head, still covering her eyes.

“No!” she repeated firmly.

Saul placed his hand over hers, and black tendrils slithered out from behind his neck, slowly coiling around the girl’s arms. At his command, they could tear her hands away and let him do whatever he wanted.

“If you steal from children, you’ll turn into a puppy,” Penny warned.

Saul slowly withdrew his hand, and Little Algae reluctantly pulled back its tendrils.

“Those eyes are dangerous to you. I hope you’ll change your mind one day.”

Penny heard his footsteps heading toward the door, then the sound of him stepping over the threshold.

“Brother Saul, where are you going?” she asked anxiously, as if she’d forgotten he’d just tried to take her eyes.

“Out to find work.”

Then came the sound of the main door closing and locking.

Penny sat frozen, wondering if Brother Saul was angry. His voice was harder to read than Ada’s.

She touched her eyes.

She just thought… if all she had left were two empty holes, wouldn’t she be ugly?

Before long, she started feeling bored again.

If Brother Saul would play with her more often… then even if her eyes turned into black holes, that would be fine.

Her hand brushed the kettle beside her. She was clearly thirsty but didn’t want to drink. She just pouted and pushed the kettle farther away.

She didn’t know how long had passed when someone knocked on the window frame outside.

“Little Penny~” Uncle Jayce’s voice called.

Penny crawled back into the cabinet, pressed her face to the window, and said, “Ada said I’m not allowed to talk to you.”

“Don’t listen to that idiot brother of yours.”

“Mm, Penny also thinks Ada’s an idiot.”

…

Saul wandered around Grind Sail Town once more and basically pieced together the relationships between the “Holy Fruit” and the “nurturing mothers.”

The Grinding Sound Fruit was probably like the companion flower of a Wizard Tower—fond of feeding on the aura of the dead. Except this fruit seemed to prefer the scent of young maidens.

He recalled a senior named Peggy who once, in order to lure an wraith toward Saul, had made a sensory-confusing mask using a piece of her tender thigh.

Did the Grinding Sound Fruit and wraith share the same taste?

While wandering, Saul snuck near the open plot where the Grinding Sound Fruit grew again. It was still heavily guarded by the town’s strongest, but there was no sign of the girls taken that morning.

So the nourishing process didn’t have to happen in the fields?

But then he noticed something—the old three-story tower that had been tightly sealed the night before now had its door cracked open.

The small tower was a wood-stone hybrid structure, looking ancient and ready to collapse, yet somehow also giving off an air of permanence and indestructibility.

There were no guards around it.

The half-open door seemed like an invitation to someone.

Saul instinctively glanced at the diary.

The diary ignored him.

But Little Algae came out and nuzzled his face.

“Are there any spirits in there?”

Little Algae waved its tendrils back and forth.

Saul patted its tip and sent it back.

Little Algae was always more obedient than the diary—vanishing in a flash.

Saul waited until it was nearly dark before returning to Ada’s courtyard.

But the moment he got close, he heard a huge crash from inside, followed by Ada’s furious shouting.

“I told you to stay away from her!!!”

Saul pushed through the gate and found the yard in chaos.

A few clotheslines had fallen, with clothes and shoes scattered all over.

A bunch of random items in the yard had been knocked over.

A woman peeked from behind a window. The moment she met Saul’s gaze, she vanished.

At the center of the mess stood Ada, red-faced and gasping with rage. On the ground lay Jayce, still grinning despite being knocked down.

And the front door of Ada’s house was wide open. The lock that usually hung on it had been bent and broken—half on the ground, half dangling uselessly on the door.

(End of Chapter)

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