Silence

Chapter 20

The sound of quiet crying reached Adalina's ears as she was about to return inside.

She went to the gardens searching for the source of the crying. She was surprised to find Finnian sitting in a ball by the roses, his head buried into his arms.

She had never seen the young gardener in such a state before. Well, she had seen him crying before but never like this. Usually when he was upset about something, he was in hysterics and clung onto Sebastian and Adalina wailing unintelligibly.

She slowly approached him making sure he could hear her footsteps. He never looked up at her. She then knelt down before reaching her hand out and touching his shoulder.

His tear-stained face slowly looked up at her. It broke her heart.

"My hat ripped," he stated quietly.

Adalina looked next to him and saw that his straw hat he wore every day and treasured more than anything had been ripped clean in half. Something told her that had happened when Lukas's minions had invaded the manor.

She sat next to him and lightly put her arm around him as he cried.

All of the servants had been given something from Ciel when they were first hired. Mey-Rin had been given her glasses, Baldroy had been given access to any weapon he needed to protect Ciel and the manor, Adalina had been given a few dresses in addition to her uniforms (Ciel thought she deserved it after being forced to wear such provocative clothing for so long), and Finnian had been given his straw hat.

All of them cherished these things more than anything because it had been given to them by their master.

So she knew how upset it made Finnian to have this object destroyed.

"Now how am I supposed to hide this...?"

Adalina looked at the mark on the back of his neck: S-012. As if having his most cherished item gone forever wasn't bad enough, she knew how much he wanted to keep that mark covered so he could forget about his torturous time where he had been considered nothing more than an experiment.

She too would do anything to hide the scars she had received from the lash of the whip.

The young woman motioned for him to stay put. Then she went back inside the manor and headed to the head maid's quarters. Once there, she took out one of her dresses that she only wore when she had days off which was a rare occurrence. It had been a while since she had worn this particular dress. She wouldn't miss it.

She cut off a good portion of the fabric and stretched it out a bit.

Finnian looked up when he felt something touch his neck. Adalina crouched in front of him and tied the fabric around him to make a thin scarf. The sandy color went well with the rest of his uniform and wasn't too hot so he could still wear it outside. Since this had been one of the dresses Ciel had given her, it was almost like he had given this to Finnian as well. And most importantly, it covered the mark.

Adalina smiled a little at him.

Finnian's eyes sparkled, and he quickly stood up. "Did you make this for me?"

She nodded.

The young boy tightly hugged her but not enough to hurt her. "Thank you."

Adalina was tending to the horses in the stables used for the Phantomhive carriages.

She gently rubbed her hand across the head of one of the horses, wishing her life was far less complicated and more like the horse's. He only had to worry about pulling a carriage. She had to worry about working and falling in love with an actual demon who loved her as well but didn't want to be with her because he loved his power more than he loved her.