Chapter 83. Francis, Part IX

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryin

Simone, covering her aching head, ordered Vera to get ready to leave tomorrow.

------

Maribel read the letter, which had no sender, and immediately put it to the candle. Looking at the burning paper, she thought, 'It's time to take care of what I've been putting off', and frowned without realizing it.

The letter said that Julietta would soon come to the capital. The curtain had finally risen on the stage.

Maribel went into the rightmost of the two bedrooms at the heart of her residence, ready to clean up the mess before lifting the curtain. The room where Stella and young Julietta had stayed for a while was just the same as always, decorated for a child.

Phoebe, lying on a light pink sheet, felt Maribel's presence and raised herself.

Maribel never entered her room except when she came with a doctor who had given her painkillers and stopped by to see her condition. When she saw her coming in alone without the doctor, Phoebe pulled her broken leg and stepped out of bed.

"Is it time?"

According to the doctor, her right leg, which had been broken by an abusive guest, was completely disabled.

Phoebe had moved from Lebatum to the largest theater in Austern, and lived in the home of Maribel, the owner of the theater. She didn't know what she would here, or why she was brought here, but on the evening of her arrival, through the words of a cold-faced silver-haired nobleman who visited late that night, she knew that she was someone's substitute.

=======

"Don't they look too different?"

The woman sitting quietly in a chair, like a prostitute waiting for a guest's command, had hair closer to light brown than blonde, and her eyes were green with brown spots. Moreover, she was not a teenager by any stretch of the imagination. However, Maribel smiled confidently as the Duke expressed concern over her appearance.

"She is a child who the Marquise hasn't seen in eleven years. An appearance can change as one grows up. She is barely going to see the body, so how will she know? You don't have to worry."

All she would do for Stella's body was a glance at it with abhorrence. The Marquise, who had grown up as a noble, was hardly aware of such things.

The Duke of Kielini accepted that part. He left Maribel's quarters and walked down the aisle leading to the back door, saying to the following Maribel, "I'll send someone when it's time."

"I can take care of it, but if you're nervous, do it yourself." Maribel told the Duke, since he did not trust her completely.

"Use the post office when you need to contact me. To send it by messenger is dangerous. Send it without a signature."

After climbing the secret stairs to the first floor and seeing the Duke go out to the back door and leave in a carriage, Maribel returned to the room where Phoebe was.

"I'll call a doctor because the painkillers you took during the move seem to have lost their potency. You shouldn't leave this room without my permission. Take a rest."

The next day, the doctor visited to administer the painkiller, and said she would not live long unless she cut off her leg. When Phoebe did not say anything, the doctor explained the new prosthetic leg. The doctor thought she was repelled at the idea of amputating her leg because of her appearance, and eagerly explained, but Phoebe knew why she had been brought here.

Compared to the hell where she had not been able to die and been in pain, this place was heaven. But she couldn't be so greedy as to live.

When she heard that she might be able to live by cutting off her leg, she had hope for a moment. The hostess brought her here, but just in case she would cut off her leg, cure, and hire her, Phoebe looked up at her without knowing herself, but then dropped her eyes.

When Maribel saw Phoebe looking at her with low expectations and then shaking her head in a hurry, she ordered Liam, the theater's manager, to take out the doctor. She opened her mouth in a careful voice when they were left alone.

"Do you want to live? If you want to live, I can save your life, if you can pay back the money and the medical bills I spent to bring you here. This is a place where there are many aristocrats who like beautiful women. Some of them may like a woman who depends on them with unusual blonde hair and green eyes and a strange body. You can pay off your debts over the years if you do it that way. Do you want that?"

Phoebe shook her head at the cruel reality.

'Why do I keep forgetting that the world wasn't such an easy place? Even if I survive by selling myself to pay for treatment and ransom, the rest of my life will be the same as it has been. All that has changed was a broken leg is now a missing leg. What would I do to live the rest of my life?'

Maribel spoke softly to Phoebe, who was gently lowering her eyes. "Just think that this wasn't your life. Instead, I'll pray for you to be reborn in a life that is happier and has more in it than anyone else. I'll bury your body in a sunny place."

If she had died in 'Under The Wings of Angels,' she would have been harassed for days by people who indulged in necrophilia. Such abandoned bodies would not find freedom until they became food for wild beasts and could not be identified. Phoebe decided to thank her for escaping from such a fate.

Over the next month, Phoebe was able to rest her tired body sufficiently in her own space for the first time in her life. Quietly preparing for the end, she realized that the day had finally come at the sight of the hostess who had come to her…

======

Maribel replied calmly to Phoebe, "Not now. I'll have a visitor later tonight. I've come to ask if there's anything you want to do in the hours remaining until the end."

At Maribel's words, Phoebe hesitated for a moment.

She would die anyway, but she was afraid that she would hesitate to give up her life with something new in her eyes. But at the same time, she felt it was unfair to die like this. Maribel waited in silence, as if she understood Phoebe's hesitation.

After much deliberation, Phoebe looked up as she had finally made up her mind.

"I've never been to the theater that I used to listen to so much, so I want to see the stage. I want to make sure it's exactly what I imagined. If it's beautiful and colorful, I think I could die happily. I don't want to die thinking about a miserable place until the end."

At Phoebe's words, Maribel turned and left the room, saying, "I'll send a woman. I can't let you walk around the theater in that outfit."

Moments later, Amelie and Sophie came in with a dress for actresses from the prop room. Sophie blurted out while putting on her dress, "You look like our Julietta. I don't know if she's doing well."

When she saw the light brown hair that looked almost blonde, Amelie criticized her when Sophie thought of Julietta and spoke without being aware of her words.

"Didn't you hear the boss telling you to come out after dressing her, and not to say anything?"

Phoebe looked down at the small woman, who shut her mouth and arranged the dress she had put on her. She didn't know who Julietta was, but it seemed she was to die instead of the woman named Julietta. After a moment of jealousy, Phoebe shook her head and chased away the bad idea.

'Hasn't the girl helped me get out of that hell and have a new experience?'

Phoebe somehow empathized with someone she didn't even know, and wanted the lady named Julietta to be happy on her behalf. If that happened, she thought she would be born with a very precious status in her next life and live happily.

When she finished grooming, Amelie took Phoebe to the mirror on one side of the room. Phoebe smiled slightly at herself in the mirror.

It was a dress that looked quite virtuous, unlike the one she had worn when she had been receiving guests at the brothel.