𝕘𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕟-𝕥𝕒𝕜𝕖𝕟 | ᴇɴ-

𝟏𝟒

Jay

I can do it.

I've been studying the Mistress's schedule and habits. I can get in and not get caught. I need to, if I want to find out what her plan with us is. And what she told the other maids and orphans. I need to do this. For the others.

I tell myself this as I wait around the corner, making sure no one is around to see me. Once I'm sure the hallway is clear, I slip into the Mistress's office after picking the lock quietly, closing the door carefully behind me.

The room isn't extraordinary. There is a bookshelf filled with volumes and archives along the back wall and a slim window to illuminate it all. At the center is a wooden desk, a lamp on its surface. I also notice a small sofa pushed into a corner. Everything is prim and organised.

Perfect. It'll make my mission easier.

I head straight to the desk. There is a notebook and pen propped nicely over it, but no notes. So I move through the drawers. I use only the light from the window and my own heightened senses to guide myself. Even if there isn't anyone outside, I don't want curious eyes to catch the light on in the Mistress's office while she's out.

The first drawer has another notepad. I take it and sit down on the floor as I flip through it. My eyes meet numbers mostly. All of the finances that take up running an orphanage and some scribbles regarding that. I return it to its place and rummage through the other stuff in the drawer. Keys, some mail, more pens, and newspaper. The letters are from electric and water services, and from child services.

I slump. It's an ordinary desk for an ordinary woman in an ordinary institution. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. I put everything back in the order I found them and open the second drawer expecting more boring stuff. And indeed, there are only folders, divided by theme: Admin., Finances, Purchases, Services, Others.

I move mindlessly through the papers until I reach the Others file and am met with Sunoo's face. I gasp. There is a thin folder titled Kim Sunoo that I take out to look at more carefully. Behind it are the files for Sunghoon and Heeseung-hyung, plus a newspaper clipping. I place it all on the desk.

Sunoo's folder holds a brief description of him. Physical traits and behaviours. There are also notes on different days when he did something that had caught the Mistress's attention. That time in the courtyard is narrated with her writing:

Evangeline and I managed to restrain it enough to ask questions, but it didn't tell us much. It has the face and voice of a boy, but there is something under its skin that feeds on humans. I have sent it on lockdown until I figure out more.

I close the folder quickly. The Mistress is already making moves, and I must be faster to find the next steps before she does. I have to connect the dots and understand what is happening to us.

I grab Sunghoon's file next. Again there is a description and notes. This time they're about his condition with food. The annotations explain what the head nurse gave him and how he has been getting skinnier despite it. The Mistress has speculations about what it could mean, like he is infected as well. There's a question next to it: is it feeding on Sunghoon?

Heeseung's folder has the most notes, but they seem like ranting. Our hyung told the lie about where the seven of us had come from, so logically the woman would have questions about the veracity of the story. That is where the newspaper comes in, apparently. She was looking for evidence of a fire that could have left us orphaned, like our hyung told her the night we arrived. Thankfully, the odds were in our favour. The clipping shows catastrophe in a nearby village some days before our arrival. The Mistress's scribblings ask too many questions. Things we cannot come clean about, like our lineage, and things that I've asked myself.

What are they? she writes.

I leave the papers and take another look around the room. After closer inspection, I realise the bookshelf almost doesn't hold books. It's packed with folders. More folders like the ones I just read.

I search frantically for our names. Yang Jungwon, Nishimura Riki, Shim Jake, Park Jay. They look new and recently updated. The Mistress has studied us well. She knows who is closer to who. Niki and Sunghoon are mentioned together. Brothers? she wonders. She knows who leads our group and who does the talking and who is more extroverted and who is more likely to spill the truth about us. She knows everything. And in every file I find the same thing.

The word. The one I read all that time ago in the castle's library: vampire. Right next to our profiles. Bloodsucking creatures of the night. Monsters. Legend. Something that shouldn't be real, but somehow is. Is that what is happening to us?

The Mistress has told the orphans that we are sick. The same lie she told with the other boy that was expelled. No wonder they've been keeping their distance. But if she managed to expel the other boy, I fear what she has planned for us.