Frida was used to sleepless nights, but not ones over Hilda.
The Foulkstones were always the town's mystery, but now things suddenly spiked. She felt that same dead-eyed-stare before, and although she was pretty convinced Hilda had maybe moved outside the city or died without anyone's notice, there was never any proof of it.
And now with that weird feeling that was driving her insane, she knows she's out there..
As she got up from her desk to do Stephen's "brainstorming" projects with him, she decided to shelf this one in mind just in case the feeling goes back.
David, meanwhile, was in the backyard, which was enormously enlarged over the years and had multiple activities like a small gymnasium, a scouting camp for redcoats to train aim with their muskets, and a mini-golf course.
They had bought most of the land around them, and if that wasn't enough they moved the house away from the city, to the opposite side of the terrain to stay away from the growing miasma that is flowing over the air.
The issue with trollberg was that most of its coal was under the city itself, meaning the best way to extract it was to buy houses or abandoned settlements and make them into mines, something that was drastically reshaping the city and sometimes that made them contemptuous to the Lords and the Mayor.
Hilda, like most, was unhappy with this method of extraction, as it left most of the land around the house wasted.
David on the other hand was mostly fine, because he's never affected by all of this, in fact he's currently in a pedestrian run as that feeling the undertaker gave was… odd…
What if he needed to be strong?
That man was huge, he didn't look more than 22, meaning they were the same age.
But the undertaker was a little taller than him, around 5 and a quarter foot high, but everything else seems off, the shoulders are too slim for a man and yet it can handle the weight of a coffin, and even under all that clothing he was pretty sure the dude was a little muscular in general.
Hilda…. seemed fine to him.
She did kill, sure, but she didn't seem that affected, she was scared of the law but the thought of killing itself sounded… numb… She worked with so many dead bodies already.
And besides, can a woman commit murder?
Back to Hilda, she was washing her clothes in a bowl full of soap and a ton of grinded flowers, and getting ready for her morning run across the destitute city.
She managed to get the beef, and so Dagger was chewing on some while watching her stare blankly at the water and furiously scrubbing her gloves.
She looked again at her pocket watch… seems like she didn't sleep.
And it was time to get to work.
She sighed to herself and began to get ready, putting on her vest, and a coat, and a hat she had in case she lost the other one.
Hilda made her way to the funerary home, with the shovel already there, laying against the wall, and the funerals hadn't started yet, so she decided to take a break.
She walked over to one of the most isolated parts of the terrain and laid on the grass, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths.
Frida meanwhile was in Stephen's workshop, which was a large empty building with a couple toolboxes and some prototype mechanisms here and there.
The place itself was pretty complete, including a small private portion of rails to test anything that might need them, or just another way to impress some bankers.
"Stephen, look, I'll say this in the best way possible, we can't just do this without-."
Stephen rudely interrupts. "Of course we can!"
"we don't even know how they PROPERLY do regular locomotives! How do you know how this works, there's no book for this!" Frida yelled back, voicing out her concerns for the railroad.
"Silence, slave, and that's why I bought another one!" As he said that, they saw a miniature version of the train being slowly driven inside the workshop.
"WHAT!?"
"Yup, a fully functional locomotive, for the future." Stephen hails, bowing down to it as if it's a God.
" YOU KNOW HOW FUCKING EXPANSIVE THOSE ARE!?"
"Not exactly, let's just say a pal at the industry lobby owed me a favor."
"What kind of favor is worth…." she checked a couple notes, shuffling between the ideas section, " 20.000 pounds FOR SOMETHING NOT WORTH IT!?"
"I borrowed him a horse."
Frida seems dumbfounded by his business decisions. "...how…"
"Just get the locomotive first, ask questions later, as I say, my humble slave."
He starts to walk around and inspect the machinery, despite not understanding much.
"I. Am. NOT YOUR SLAVE, THE DEAL IS ALREADY FINISHED!"
As Frida breathed back and forth over her scream, she decided to get out of the workshop to find some fresh air among the miasma.
While all of this, Kaisa enters the workshop in a hurry, she's dressed a bit odd, for the time at least. She was in jumpers, with a belt of fabric tied around her waist. She also had a blue vest and a black scarf, with her hair still being shoulder length, but due to treatments, her hairline and cut itself was much cleaner and well shaped.
She also was wearing boots with low heels and somewhat baggy shorts over them.
"Kaisa, how do you allow him!?" Frida shouted, horrified at her fashion.
"What? it's my job to manage finances and business, not to babysit him all day." Kaisa responds, although somewhat hurt by the shout.
"but…!" frida walks up to her and says with a forced smile, "it's not going to fucking work if you look like this." she whispers.
"I know, I know, but at least I get paid per hour and I really need a vacation so…" she shrugs, moving her shoulders up, "the more time he spends on dreaming, the sooner I get to travel to my homeland again."
"Wait, where are you from again?" Frida asks like she forgot about it.
"If I recall, I was born around Hanover, but I also spent a time of my childhood in France, doing family business."
Frida just blankly looked at her with nothing to say, just seeing how multicultural she is.
"Just asking, do you have an accent?"
"Ja." she answers in a German accent.
"...Kaisa, I can't understand you."
"no, most of the moi family is from Hanover." she responds with a shrug, "French isn't really my mother tongue."
"eh that's okay," Frida accepts her disclaimer, "I'll see if we can use that accent of yours in any business meetings, I heard the Prussians are quite dazzling with their mechanics."
After fixing her cape, Frida decides to chat around with Kaisa for a while, talking about her family history and as they walk around the yard, they encounter Stephen in his locomotive.
Getting down from the locomotive, Stephen now shakes hands with a banker and a Lord before bidding them farewell, and as he walks back across the yard, he immediately notices Kaisa at a distance.
"Hey Kaisa! how's it going on there?"
"Hallo- I mean, hello sir! The factories 'round here are all fine!"
Stephen immediately leans over to Kaisa with a raised eyebrow.
"Since when the fuck did I allow you to learn German?"
"uh…."
Meanwhile, Hilda was trying to get her job done. trying her best because the rain was making it much, much harder. It had just started raining during the burial, meaning she was alone in the mud.
There's no planned funerals this week, that's good, and now she has to hide something.
She has to hide a person.
As she dug a 5 foot deep pit, she then dragged the body, now moist thanks to the slow process of decomposition, and then proceeds to toss it over to the grave.
Seeing the destitute man contort his body like a mike down below is already a pitiful sight for Hilda, but she knows she can't cry over spilt blood.
She then promptly proceeds to return the mass of earth she dug out of the hole back, while also making herself cry in the rain, for this scene reminds her of her mother and being analogous to murdering her too.
As she's down, she proceeds to stick up a cross right above the now filled up grave to cover it up and then walks back home with a new sense and a feeling of remorse.
As she arrived back home, her grandfather's clock rang like thunder, telling Hilda that it's now 6 PM.
She arrived back home, the mud sticking to her boots and now smudging the wooden floor. Dagger had already slept on the windowsill to the rain tapping against the windows.
Hilda started to question herself… she surely had killed someone, one could say, almost remorselessly. but that will… Hilda never forgot that last will.
That will...why is it still important?
She still had to kill jared…her mother promised that to the death, with that one knife, filled with her mother's infected blood… but how would she? Jared's family didn't fall in wealth, and they were still in a luxurious house with plenty of security.
Also she couldn't just straight up kill him, Trollberg had so many murders that the death of one important person isn't gonna affect much of the populace.
...But she had to do it… willingly or not, that was all what her mother asked, and she couldn't allow herself to disappoint her any longer.
She pondered to herself, sitting against the only stone wall in the house.
"Mother, why is thou last wish this hard to accomplish?"
Back to Kaisa and Frida, the two were watching at Stephen who is hopelessly trying to close off the large gates after his workers walked off to their shelters.
As he attempts to push a gate towards the other gate that is already closed, Kaisa felt sad seeing the man work alone and so stood up and walked over.
"uh… sir, can i help with the-"
"Kaisa, please stay behind, you still have to explain to me how you know German."
"Sir, if you read my application, you would know I'm Hanoverian but I'm also part French."
"...I mean, it sounds…. fair…" he says as he finally closes the giant metal gates, "But I wouldn't suffice your birthplace as the reason you have time for that."
Kaisa stood back with questions raised. "What? Why?"
"Because I wouldn't believe you if you start learning French, that'd be silly for a handmaid like you to know."
Frida became tense, she hated that sexist remark against Kaisa, and so she bawled her fist but couldn't really vent it off,especially not in front of him.
Stephen walks closer, moving the cape aside and fixing his coat. "A woman like you wouldn't understand a language other than English, that would be demeaning."
Then as Kaisa walks a few feet away from him to make some space, Stephen suddenly walked away to his workshop, leaving a stunned Kaisa in her place.
Frida walks over to her with all of that anger from before.
"How can you let him say that to you?!" Frida yelled with a thousand suns, obviously mad at the offensive standard Stephen made on Kaisa.
"Frida...I know, that sounds offensive but…"
"But what? What is stopping you from righteously talking back at him?! Why?!"
"Because…"
Then once again, Stephen walked out of nowhere with a new mechanism in his hands while also calling Frida over.
"Frida!" Stephen screamed from afar to get her attention, "I just had a good idea!"
Frida forced herself to stop arguing with Kaisa and walked over to Stephen, and as she entered the workshop, she took one look at his mechanism and she knew.
"Stephen, what the fuck are you planning with this thing, it's primitive!"
"Never underestimate the mechanics of machines, dear slave."
Frida facepalmed with embarrassment like how a parent tries to fit into modern times. "We agreed you wouldn't call me that, mind you?."
"...sorry…ahem... force of habit." he said, trying to not sound as sorry as he was.
As her blood is slowly boiling to the breaking point, Kaisa went over to Stephen.
"So uh…. a-anything you need to do?"
"yeah book me a "making a mechanism to close the damn gates" kind of thingy."
Frida looks at Kaisa with heavy frustration and she knows what her face is showing off.
"in...those exact words?"
"Yes, now run along." Stephen orders, swaying his hand back and forth.
Kaisa tensed up and turned around as she scribbled something on her agenda.
Later that evening, she was at one of the massive golf courses, with a stolen bottle of wine and a couple balls and a club. She wasn't allowed to play, but it was late, so Stephen was most likely having his every-night drinking.
"You can't learn German, he says " she mockingly says as she took the bottle off from hos chair and taking a sip, "who the fuck is gonna say something like that. how's that demeaning? Is he mad I have something… more than that?"
She says as she hits a ball, overshooting the hole.
She couldn't understand how golf is "fun", just seeing the vast emptiness of the field.
Just stupid.
"a woman like you wouldn't understand… bullshit! I'm the one making every single finance in the house…" Kaisa rants off to the darkness, overshooting another ball.
"At least he isn't an asshole with the Scots, where would I be without golf and beer."
As she sat on the grass while the sun sets in the horizons, she places the wine aside and simply threw the ball with her own hands and it landed right at the hole.
"Stephen saying this game is gonna be popular, total bullshit."
Then as she got up and walked towards the house to check their personal library for a specific book, she encountered David on her way in.
"Oh, uhh I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and also excuse me," Kaisa profusely apologizes.
"oh, no it's fine Kaisa, you don't have to apologize, didn't see you there…." David accepts, telling Kaisa that she meant no harm,
David notices her tired appearance. "Did… dad…"
"yeah…he's being a shit today."
"...i'm sorry for that, he's always a shit when he begins this invention thing..." David shared his sentiments with Kaisa about his father.
"Just know you are welcome here." David welcomes.
"Thanks."
"Well, father has passed out on some crazy crap or whatever again…" David complains, groaning out of frustration just because, "say...wanna play some golf… don't shame me, I know it's stupid… but I somehow love it."
David rested his back at the wall, shivering in chills as to tell Kaisa, out of all people he should tell about it, and looks back at her with timidity to see her reaction.
"I won't… I… somehow also love golf…" Kaisa responds, smiling shyly at him while squirming beneath her cloak.
Seeing her almost accepting reaction, he decides that maybe he should spend the night with her, anything is better than working with that fanatic Stephen with his inventions.
They both decided to walk out of the mansion and into the vast field where they decided to play a few minutes of golf for a while.