Chapter 2: CH 1

“Margaret, there you are. Don’t push yourself too hard, your injuries haven’t healed yet.”

A voice called out to me as I picked up a basket in a sizable well-kept vegetable garden, moving slowly to harvest vegetables for two people. I responded with a smile and a nod to her voice, which oozed compassion and kindness, telling me that I shouldn’t go out alone yet.

Approaching me was Buddy, a large Afghan hound-like dog, and its owner, Lady Adelaide. The strange woman who protected, treated, and took care of my food, clothing, and shelter for me, a suspicious unidentified person who was lying on the ground badly injured… Yes, I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t, but unbelievably, I had come to a different world.

That day, I was supposed to have lost consciousness on the ground, but I woke up on a soft bed… with intense pain over my whole body. Looking down at me were two elders… A Roman gray grandfather in a white lab coat and a grandmother in a classic one-piece dress. When I saw the woman, I forgot about the pain for a moment and the memory of my favorite book came to my mind.

“Eh, Tasha? This is really heaven! Or is this the world of Anne of Green Gables?”

That was right. The innocent lady with an atmosphere similar to that of Ms. Tudor was the mistress of this place, Lady Adelaide. My thoughts were so overwhelmed by the pain that I couldn’t even speak, but my brain was in turmoil.

The elder man in the white coat was wriggling something (I was too much in pain to look at it), and the pain slowly subsided after the treatment was over, but for a couple of days I was so tormented by a dull pain and fever that I could not move from the bed, let alone sit up.

During that time, Lady Adelaide nursed me with devotion, brought food, fed me, and cleaned my body.

After I could get up, I learned that although Lady Adelaide was a retired noblewoman, she had no servants in this large house and basically did everything herself.

Two days a week, there were menial jobs and errands, but that was about it. She was a true goddess, taking care of an unidentified injured person who was younger than herself, that was of no use to her.

As the pain receded, I could afford to be more curious about my current situation, but I had a problem.

I couldn’t speak.

When Lady Adelaide gently asked my name, all that came out of my mouth as an answer was soundless air. She gently stopped me, who was turning pale and trying again and again, and made me a cup of warm tea. I took a sip of tea and… It was then that I cried for the first time. There was no voice, no sound. I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.

Suddenly I thought I was dead, but I was also alive, but also badly injured in an unknown place.

I couldn’t keep up with this thought process.

I suddenly felt scared, like I wouldn’t even recognize myself… Finally, I realized.

I knew that this was a different world and that I couldn’t go back. In the original world, I had died in that accident. I didn’t know why, but my heart knew it was true.

Not even a sob was audible. I had lost my voice instead of my life, and I had come here.

There was one more thing I had lost; my eye. I had very normal Japanese dark brown eyes, but now one of my eyes was a light brown, almost a golden color, making me heterochromia. So far, I didn’t know why or how to make use of it.

Unfortunately, my eyesight, which was not very good, was still the same, and I had no glasses or contacts, so there was some inconvenience. However, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t see enough to go about my daily life. A face would be blurry at a distance of one meter, but I could handle it. I would not watch TV here, or drive my car, so it was okay.

For some reason, I understood the language. My hearing and reading were fine. So, communication would be through written words. The culture and standard of living in this world was a bit like the old West, and there were many things similar to the original world. It could be a cup of tea, or a dog. However, books seemed to be more expensive, and this inevitably wasted paper, so I used the palm of my hand or the ground for writing.

My name seemed to be inexplicably difficult to pronounce, so I asked her to give me a name in this world, and after pondering for a while, she named me “Margaret”, which means “Pearl”… because I was wearing pearl earrings.

These were not the round pearls used for formal occasions, but rather teardrop-shaped, smaller poppy pearls, like those in Vermeer’s paintings. The metal fittings were ingeniously designed, so that they would not come off when caught in the slightest.

Basically, jewelry was not allowed in the hospitality industry, but I always secretly wore my mother’s pearls as a good luck charm. The medium bob of my hair hid it well, and on the rare occasions when I was spotted, I was overlooked because of my pearls.

I came to this world empty-handed, with only my tattered clothes, one pair of shoes, a broken watch, and these earrings. She had given me the name of one of the few remaining signs of the previous world.

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Lady Adelaide realized that I came from another world before I did. They called people like me “Spirit Orisons”.

There were only one or two people per hundred years on the entire continent, so it was not a lot, but there were actual records. It was never a forbidden thing or secret. Some were surrounded by nobility, including the royal court, while others lived on the streets. There were no rules on how to treat them, but it depended on the situation. There were two characteristics of those who said to be Spirit Orisons, including myself.

One was the lack of magic.

The other was the ability to interact with spirits and fairies.

What a fantasy to hear this! ‘It’s not so bad, yeah’, I thought. I loved reading and watching fairy tales, comic books, and movies about magic and spirits. A fantasy world was a great way to forget about the real world for a while.

If you asked others, they said that all living things have magic power, whether a lot or a little, and that no magic power was the same as being dead. Wah, I was being treated like a zombie.

In my case, the old man in the white coat that treated my injury… Dr. Daniel, the doctor, could tell that I had no magic power. In addition, he used magic to treat that injury. That was why he knew I had no magic.

The bones in my arms, legs, and other parts of my body were all gone, but I was able to recover to the point where I could move in a few days. Too bad I couldn’t use magic.

And the other one was Buddy, who looked like an Afghan hound and brought me here. As I was nuzzling Buddy, who was getting very attached to me, a handful of little ones with transparent feathers on their backs peeked out from between his long fur.

Wow, a fairy? It was really fantasy! When I gently put out my hand, the little ones got on it and acted so cute that I let them be. When I poke one, she tickled me, and when I stroke her gently, she swooned with pleasure.

I was surrounded by shiny gold particles as I tinkered with the little ones one after another.

These glowing sparkles, like fireflies on earth, were called fairy eggs in this country. It was said that they usually lived deep in the forest, hiding when people come to visit, and were rarely seen. They came to me frequently…That was what it was.

The “Spirit Orisons” was exactly what it sounded like, a person who was invited to come to this world by the spirits of this world. Later, that was what Dr. Daniel wrote in the book I borrowed from him.

Apparently, spirits were responsible for stabilizing the world with their presence, and Orisons were like assistants to them. Therefore, once an Orison was found, they would not be treated with neglect. Their wishes would be first and foremost in deciding what to do. It would be impossible if there was a war or something going on in the country, but I heard that the king was a great man and there was peace now. I was thankful.

This mansion was on the outskirts of a small country town, but close to the royal capital. They said that they would be happy to take me into custody at the royal palace or temple if I so desired. ‘You can stay here until your injuries are healed, and then I’ll put your wishes first’, Lady Adelaide said gently, and I felt nothing but goodwill toward her.

So, what did I end up doing? I made a request to Lady Adelaide. I asked her to let me pay her back for her kindness. ‘If it doesn’t bother you’, I said, ‘you can leave me here and use me as a maid’.

I had fallen completely in love with the gentle Lady Adelaide, who reminded me of my beloved grandmother, who had passed away when I was a child. I didn’t want to leave.

I could cook, do laundry, and clean the house in one way, though it would take a lot of work since I didn’t have any appliances. After all, I had 15 years of experience in housekeeping and 10 years of experience living alone. I wasn’t like this right now, but once my injuries were healed, I’m pretty strong and could help a bit with house repairs and stuff.

Besides, it must have been a month or so after I came here that we talked about this… There was no sign of any relatives or family members having been here, including letters. I also knew that Lady Adelaide often looked at the family photos lined up on the fireplace in the living room.

I couldn’t believe she was alone in this big house with only Buddy to talk to.

But if that was what she liked to do, then my offer was just an afterthought. So, I told her that along with the proposal. I’d grown to love her, and I wanted to be with her. But I didn’t want to cause any trouble. In fact, it was one more mouth to feed.

Dr. Daniel was the one who encouraged me to make such an offer. After all, he had been worried about Lady Adelaide living alone for a long time. He had suggested several times that she get a companion to live with her, but he had always been turned down softly.

With Dr. Daniel’s intervention and my ‘I love you. I want to be with you, please!’ Lady Adelaide lowered her eyelashes and accepted my passionate proposal, which I thought was already a marriage proposal, with the condition of ‘You can leave any time you want’. When I replied that I would only leave if Lady Adelaide wanted me to, she laughed with tears in her eyes and said that it would not be until her death then.

So we laughed together, saying that we had another fifty years to go.

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