Chapter 27 : Chapter 27
Chapter 27 – Etiquette
Innsmouth Village
After a long day in the fields, John returned home.
“I’m back…”
His hand, holding his outer coat, paused midair—as though expecting someone to take it from him. But the house was silent, empty.
“Ah…”
With a hollow smile, he laid the coat on the worm-eaten table and sighed.
This man, who should have been in the prime of his youth, already bore the stoop of age. Seen from behind, he looked like someone in his sixties—worn and weary.
He propped himself against the table and sank into a chair, eyes drifting to the empty bed and the low stool across from him.
He sat there a long while, dazed.
Once, that spot should have been filled by a little figure—his elder brother’s only child, his dearest niece, his closest kin, and the hope that gave meaning to his later years.
She had been so promising too. With her talents, she might have entered the Church—winning a place their impoverished family had never dared dream of. A better life awaited her.
But now…
“Fifteen days already…”
The house, though still home to one man, felt void. His sighs echoed louder, tearing open that emptiness wider still.
Innsmouth Chapel
Pastor Marshall sat alone in his study, the room behind the confessional. It doubled as his office—and the place where he had taught a child her letters.
They had shared a joyful year. She was clever, diligent, and above all, pure. Her innocent words often gave him new inspiration in moments of fatigue.
She had been a blessing from the Lord.
Through her, his faith had grown firmer, and within the Church, his reputation brighter. Word reached him that even bishops had begun to notice his sermons—an honor once unthinkable.
He was deeply grateful to Leticia, and more and more, he had wanted to keep her close.
So he had drawn out her lessons—what should have taken a year and a half in literacy training, he stretched into three, or longer. She would gain stability; he would gain purer faith.
But now…
He crushed a secret letter from Rhodes Chapel in his fist.
“Ah!!”
In rage, he swept everything from his desk.
Breathing heavily, he looked down at the crumpled page, then—hesitating—tore it to pieces.
“Lu?”
No one stood behind him. Yet he spoke:
“Go. Find her.”
At last… at last, the chance had come.
The Forest Hut
“Lit-tle one…”
The hoarse, crow-like voice jolted Leticia from drowsiness.
“H-here! I’m here!”
She scrambled up, only to be tripped by the chain at her ankle, nearly falling flat.
Before she could steady herself, pain lashed across her back. She gasped, body trembling.
“I told you many times…”
The robed woman loomed over her, clutching a crude whip woven from branches. “When you answer, how should you speak, hmm?”
“Not like some fool. With courtesy. With poise.”
“Yes…” Leticia replied meekly, not daring to rub her stinging back. That would only earn her hands new welts.
“And what did you just do?”
Her rasping voice still grated like rusted iron, but the dialogue itself resembled that of a strict etiquette tutor drilling her pupil.
Leticia found it baffling. Why teach her these useless manners—lady’s decorum, upper-class etiquette? None of it fit her world.
Yet under the lash, she had no choice but to comply.
Still… it was better than she had feared. Aside from confinement and occasional beatings, the woman had not forced more upon her. At first, Leticia thought she’d been taken as a slave—but perhaps this woman only had some warped obsession with teaching?
She didn’t understand. And dared not ask.
Neither even knew the other’s name.
Only Stano fumed, like an ant on hot iron.
He had to deliver his uncle’s intelligence! Yet here they were, trapped by a lunatic who had appeared from nowhere.
He had honored Leticia’s demand not to seize her body again, but through her eyes he still studied the surroundings daily, searching for a way out.
Sometimes he wondered—who was really the prisoner here? Leticia seemed to show no intent of escape at all!
It was he who mapped the hut, scrutinized objects, even pored through the family library for references. His mother thought him fever-mad.
But all that mattered little.
In the end, it would fall to him.
Wordless, he watched Leticia forced into bizarre lessons by the deranged woman. In his mind, he wove a plan.
If only their link held through the night…
If only the woman weren’t there at all…
Stano sighed softly.
Still—it was deep in the forest. Whatever happened here… would pass unseen, unheard.