Chapter 137: Oh, to have a name we could call while we were crying
"I think we should call it a day," Natha said to the elves, but his eyes still looking at me, and he was still kneeling in front of my chair.
I gripped his arms, wholeheartedly agreed with his suggestion. I wanted to go back and lay down and...just...
I don’t know, my mind was such a mess.
Jade was nuzzling against my cheek, whimpering from my distress. I couldn’t even pretend to be fine, since I was visibly shaking. I knew I looked weird right now--they wouldn’t understand why I would have such an intense reaction from recognizing the picture.
And the worst part was...there was really no one who would understand. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.
Everything around me felt like a blur, even after I became significantly calmer. I vaguely registered the elves stepping back, Lesta taking the box and the book, and Natha scooped me into his arms, carrying me back to our place. Apparently, I was shaking so much that I couldn’t stand properly, just clutching Jade with one arm and gripping Natha with another.
But truly, it was hard to think about anything else. The more I recalled the picture, the more my neck grew cold, and shivers would run through my spine.
When I was still in a state of panic earlier, I told myself that I was probably just hallucinating. Perhaps I saw the picture as my grandmother’s because of what I wished to see before--because I wished I could see my grandparents’ faces.
But then, I saw it again once when I got calmer, before Natha took me away, and it was still the same face, which got me shivering again.
Why...was this just a coincidence? I tried to think of a possibility, and thought that maybe, since I have the same face as Valmeier, our grandmother would look the same too. The author definitely never knew my grandmother, but perhaps because she fashioned Valmeier after me, the world automatically conjured up my grandmother’s face in the registry.
Or at least, that was what I thought before I was reminded of her quirkiness.