𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐞𝐧𝐬

Chapter 55

Stepping into Nonna's room felt like stepping into the past, literally. It was as if time was frozen, as if losing Nonna never happened. I supposed I underestimated just how much my sister loved our grandmother, for her room was still the same way I remembered it, the same as the last day when I was here with Nonna. Her bed was untouched, her pillows arranged according to her unique preference. The painting of my beautiful Nana stood in the corner of the room, devoid of any imperfections or signs of aging. The couch by the window still looked brand new.. and I could vividly remember sitting there, laughing at Nonna's joke about Mother being obnoxious when she was a child. Her desk was on the other side of the room, with the book Nonna was reading still there, no specks of dust were even on it.

As I stood in the middle of the room, I grew scared.. scared of touching a single thing. I knew just how much this room meant to my sister, and whilst Nonna's room was also important to me, I didn't feel as strongly as Weiss who always kept the room as it was. Therefore, to say that I was terrified of moving a single thing was an understatement, I was beyond terrified. I felt that if I moved a single thing, I would be destroying the memory of my grandmother, while also ignoring the love and dedication of my sister... However, if I didn't move anything, I wouldn't find what I was here for.

I felt so utterly conflicted.. what would Nonna want me to do? If she knew about everything that happened to me, she'd want me to seek the truth, right? Even if it meant going to her room and rummaging through her things? Wait, no.. this did not sound like something Nonna would say to me, it sounded more like something Nana would say... Nonna has always been the fun grandmother.. so perhaps she'll tell me to fuck everything and just go with the flow? Yeah, now this sounded more like Nonna.

However, to please my sister, I guessed I'd just have to place everything back to the way it was when I'm done, just to make sure Weiss won't have my head. Perhaps she'll even overlook my actions when I tell her that I've uncovered the truth about the wicked witch.. hold on, this actually sounded possible, which meant I found another reason to finish what I've already started. Though Weiss did not specifically tell me where she found the photograph, judging by the looks of Nonna's room, my guess had to be the desk.

As a teenager, I knew Nonna always kept records of everyone in her castle, and I vaguely remembered her telling me that it was always wise to gather dirt on anyone you knew. Back then, I never really cared as I never had any actual reason to snoop through her desk and find her records, but now I did. Thus, I slowly approached the desk, I didn't know why I moved as if I was in slow-motion, but I did. Perhaps it just felt right that way.

As soon as I reached Nonna's desk, I could only see nothing but the book and an empty photo frame on it, which meant I had to check the drawers. As soon as I opened the first drawer, I was immediately greeted by stacks of papers. I already knew that this would be a tedious task, but I clearly underestimated just how boring it would be.. ah, no matter, I've read plenty of books before, I'm sure I could finish skimming through all of these before Pearl and Sapphire arrive.

Confident with myself, I grabbed the first stack of papers and began reading through each of them. Well, I wasn't actually reading them, I was only looking out for any keywords which were titles of nobility, family surnames of the previous nobles that I was aware of, and most importantly, the first name of that bitch. So far, I have not been seeing any of the keywords since the papers were all about renovations for the castle. I felt that the first stack of papers I grabbed were useless, thus I moved on to the next one.

Unfortunately, the second stack of papers I grabbed were still useless as most of them were about the issues of the kingdom when Mother was still queen. However, I did find that the topics covered in the papers were quite intriguing as it delved deeper into concerning issues such as an unfortunate increase in unemployment and crime rates during Mother's reign. As much as I wanted to continue reading all of these, I had to stop as they weren't essential to my current objective, thus I put both stacks of papers back in the first drawer, the same way I found them.