David and Kaisa were playing golf for a while at night, and were now taking a rest while laying on the grass, looking at the stars… they had a certain air of hope when together.
On the other side of the pond, there was Hilda, laying down on the yard full of weeds, her coat covered in mud as she looked at the sky with Dagger laying on her chest, peacefully licking her face, trying to cheer his owner up.
...it was futile.
"what the fuck am i gonna explain … if they find out?"
She got up and dusted her coat off of its dust and went inside to take a bath before eating dinner.
Hilda had the habit of regularly drinking a shot glass worth of liquor while bathing and today was no exception, as she took a sip.
"what if they already found out… and.. are just collecting further evidence on me?"
She started to tense up in the water, huddling herself to her knees, as she clearly recalled the blood splattering on the planks, soaking the clothes and carpet… it wouldn't go unnoticed.
...but what if they did….
That thought alone made her shiver in fear, she got out of the tub and wore a robe and looked out the window. Despite the wooden fence, she could still see some of the wilderness remaining, as her house wasn't very quality-high and was built near the slums, meaning just outside their backyard was a 10 meter slope into the town's river.
It seems like the wilderness is just a hop away from her backyards, just there when she needed a break from urban life.
She uttered to herself, "What do I do? I just…. Give up? Accept fate? LET HIM LIVE?"
She kept looking at the downwards steep slope to the river from her spot in the bathroom window.
Hilda let out a sigh before going to her bedroom to change into her usual attire before going back into the kitchen/living room, as she grabbed a knife and sliced dagger some beef and got some salami for herself, simply putting it between two slices of bread.
As she took a bite out of the sandwich, she thought to herself about what to do with the last clause in her mother's will.
'Can she fulfill what she wanted?'
'Is she able to?'
Thinking about all of this, somehow… this… was
Torture.
Seeing how Jared… David… Frida… Kaisa, they're all fine and she's still stuck in a rut.
Meanwhile, she was there, counting her coins, having to kill someone for a couple pounds.
She needs to do something with this, otherwise she might end up in the gutter or even in the same soil she digs for a living.
Hilda took another deep breath and looked at an old lamp she had, still filled with oil… she then remembered something she was really good at: arson.
As she put on her backup hat and coat, together with her boots, she grabbed her lantern and started to go up the hills, for the sole reason of burning away the coal.
Stephen had the somewhat unusual method to transport the coal on the weekends in massive loads, and just so happens that today was Friday.
She arrived at the mine at around 4 am, the sun was starting to shine at a twilight's pace and as she looked at the massive pile of coal that was ready to be transported in the minecarts.
She then lit the lamp with lantern fuel and threw it over as hard as she could, just landing near the minecarts, the flames quickly sparked and started to consume it in a blaze pretty quickly.
Watching the flames in awe, she then heard footsteps from behind… but she already suspected that Stephen wouldn't leave his mine unsupervised, so she turned around to see a constable.
"Miss, what're you doing here?"
She freaked out and immediately gave the constable a sucker punch in the face before quickly subduing him with a big rock on his face before fleeing away into the darkness.
She then calmed herself down, the adrenaline was still rushing through, to check if the constable was actually subdued.
She went back and saw the constable who laid unconscious on the ground. As she went closer and examined the body, she saw a trail of blood that went towards the mine.
He is dead.
Panicking, Hilda rushed herself to grab the body and then dragged it all the way down the heights and pushed it with the burning coal and spirited away, in a fast but somewhat unsuspecting manner.
As the fire is big enough to be seen by the entire town, she couldn't wait to see the reactions.
Come next morning, Hilda woke up with the smell of ashes all over town, and quickly noticed why, as walked outside to her backyard… the fire had grown and she could see it still burning and caused a nearby small forest to get caught on fire.
It was… relatively small, but the air was visibly filled with cinders but the one in the mine itself is just as big as the sun itself.
Stephen had more… dreadful reaction, he was woke up in the middle of the night with a hurried knock by Kaisa, breaking the news, and so the businessman had multiple reasons to be mad and worried.
That wasn't his ONLY mine in business, neither the most productive but losing any production was never good to any businessman.
"I hired a fucking guard out there, how did this happen?! I should have known, trust no one," Stephen grumbled in his mouth, followed by a scream of all profanities at the mirror.
"Wait, let me get the records and ask the guardsmen."
As she walked off from his room towards the records room, she encountered Frida who was suddenly awoken by his screaming.
"What's happening?" Frida asks, covering her ears as she can still hear him.
Kaisa pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "A big fire broke out at the mine, that's all I know."
Then Kaisa moved out of the way while Frida stood there with a shocked face from the news. Who did it and most of all, why?
Kaisa went over to the records room and immediately checked the guard ledger that Stephen wrote down for his guardsmen and checked their routine charts.
As she flipped the crusty pages, she found the charts and made a thorough look into it and checked the time of each guard.
Nothing much.
She placed the book back and called the guards over to ask them if they had seen something amiss yesterday.
As she made the announcement, the guards lined up to her like soldiers ready for war, and as she counted each other for every step she took, she found one guard that didn't arrive.
Kaisa squinted at this problem with suspicion. "Guards, have you seen where Maj. John Splattery went?"
None of the guards responded because none of them knew what was happening and also didn't know about the fire.
Kaisa sighs in agony, having to report this missing guard to Stephen, knowing how he is going to react and going back to the house to tell him.
She walked upstairs and as she walked back to his office room, he encountered Stephen interrogating Frida very closely.
She knocked on the door twice, bringing their attention over.
"The guard is nowhere to be found, by the way." said kaisa as she walked up to them in a black shirt, a chess-patterned jacket and baggy pants with some adapted hiking boots.
"Where are you getting those?" said Frida, pointing at her clothes.
"My salary...from my business."
"...Fair enough."
After the scuffle with each other, Stephen decides to stop his interrogation to focus back on Kaisa who just told him about the missing guard.
"What did you just say?" Stephen said with a bad breath on his mouth and with wide open eyes staring down at her.
Kaisa answers back, shaking. "We...have a missing guard on the loose."
Then as Kaisa backs off to expect something physical, Stephen stands there with labored breath while rubbing through his stressed forehead as he orders both Kaisa and Frida to leave the room.
While walking down the hallway towards the outside, Frida leaned over to Kaisa to ask a question.
"About the missing guard, how did you know that someone's missing?"
Kaisa almost paused a step. "I ordered an attendance meeting at the gate and counted the guards."
Frida nodded to that statement, understanding the method she uses.
As they got out of the house to try and get some fresh air, they saw more men were trying to extinguish the fire; they eventually pulled out a burning corpse that still has its uniform on.
"Lady, I think we found him!"
She approached the body cautiously along with Frida to the still burning body, and as the guards keep pouring barrel upong barrel of water on it, the fire finally subsided to expose the charred remains of the guard.
"Oh shit… so…. we… they… found the guard!" Kaisa announced awkwardly and in a stuttered fashion.
Stephen suddenly rushed out from his office down to the outside at an unexpectedly fantastical speed when he heard her.
"What kind of sick act is this! I don't understand! Crime rates were so low after I bribed the constabulary! This isn't supposed to happen."
"S-Stephen,... you did WHAT?"
"...You do realise the rates are only down because less crimes are actually being reported… right?"
"I… should have… thought of that... "
Frida angrily sighs at him. "We have bigger problems here, whoever it is clearly has trouble with you, otherwise they wouldn't come out… so far from the city to do this…"
Stephen pinched the temple of his nose. "Who could have anything against me that would do such a thing?'
"Oh I don't know, maybe HALF of the town, which makes everything harder." Frida yells, mocking naivety and showing clear disregard.
Stephen sent a stare out to the body and then the progressively burning pile of coal. He then grabbed a bucket and filled it with some water from a barrel and started to help on stopping the fires before it reached the trees again.
Seeing this carnage just happen with Stephen doing nothing in its wake, Frida and David went back home shortly after, they weren't exactly up for suffocating in the ashes today.
"Uh…. you think…. is it too coincidental?"
"Huh?"
"I think Hilda is suspicious… we just met her and then the fire…" David explained, showing a correlation between the series of events.
"Well… from what I know, arson isn't exactly her strong suit….so…"
"Still...remember that one time with the church? It could've been her."
"...It does, but we can't just jump to conclusions this quickly."
David breathed in. "Look, it may sound ridiculous to point the finger early but I think Hilda might be responsible, just you wait."
"I hope not."
Meanwhile, Hilda was in her backyard observing the tower of smoke towering over the sky and moving in the same path as the sun. she had… actually done it. She, alone, caused that and nobody knew.
She started over at a small water puddle in the ground, seeing the burnt scar into her face, now less visibly seen. and despite that, she was still just as capable as before… if not even more.
She now had outsmarted the employer, their boss, and now a fully trained guard and got away with it, all of that while staying calm. Hilda also looked at herself in general and kept herself in a trotting pace. She had come a long way since her last time, and slowly, she gained enough strength that can handle an entire army and win.
Hilda walked back inside to her house and looked over to a small glass jar with two silver coins in it… all her remaining savings for this month.
"Shit." she muttered, "I swear there's usually more around here!"
The girl calmed down before drinking another shot, there's still something she can do… the funerary had a small money jar that was mostly used to pay for small additions, employee parties and repairs, but it could also be used freely, locked behind a single key.
She waited… thought about this… and ultimately went there to steal said jar. During the whole process, no one even suspected, they all knew the undertaker in some way, and so, it wasn't suspicious to them.
With all of their purses lightened, Hilda now had a bit of spare cash for this money.
...and somehow, she liked that.
The feeling of having enough.
Enough money….
Back to the Ferguson estates, Kaisa was at her office, which was somewhat luxurious, with smoothly sewn carpets made of American cotton and multiple picturesque paintings commissioned by talented artists Stephen can pay.
She thought of herself as… upper middle class in some way. She had nice pay, a nice house to reside, and a nice and comfortable job.
Sure, Stephen was somewhat strict on what she should wear, but he never bothered to constantly check, and also she keeps meeting this woman at the mine that keeps coming over and her style influenced her attire, with a more neutral set of clothing, like longshorts and thick jackets.
With a half smile, she picked up a pen and started to answer all the letters Stephen gets all the time from all of his business trips across Britain.
As she signed each letter bit by bit, she encountered a specially dyed blue letter among the mail and there's no signature on it.
Intrigued, she decided to break a law and read the letter inside, which states:
"We have taken a particular interest in your activities around the wilderness. Please keep an eye out for your mines, stuff muffins."
The note ended with a smiley face and a signature too formal for Kaisa to read.
Kaisa couldn't help herself but to let out a loud chuckle, since she had gotten the same message a couple times, though it usually was signed from a group who call themselves "The Mares".
"Seems like they took a more anonymous approach, good try bitches…." Kaisa taunted by herself in the room before dissipating her chuckles to begin signing the rest of the letters.
As she signed each and every letter she finds, she then suddenly pondered a question in her mind.
What if the fire was because of them?
What if her neglect of these letters led to the fire? A
And the murder of that guard?
This thought made her force to try Stephen's crappy typewriter thingy and began to write a pretty solid response, negotiating a peace agreement as per say.. only to realise the letter had no set address.
Seeing this, she felt cornered, tense… so… so tense. she could feel her veins about to burst and her heart come to a stop, until she instinctively just threw away the typewriter down to the ground and to the next letter, paralysed, unable to do anything… she elected to ignore.
But seeing that they never left any addresses made her worry about their whereabouts.
What would she even say to them anyway?
Would Stephen blame it on her?
The Mares was highly associated with feminism anyways so why should she care?
And she's not keen on being a feminist yet, their goal for 'equality' isn't really in her best interests yet so maybe not now.
As she placed a signed letter at the side, she stressed herself out too much by that damn letter and decided that she could take 5 more letters before stopping.
As the morning rose up from the sky, Hilda meanwhile was going on a small walk around town, mainly around upper class streets of her neighborhood, which were little considering the density of the city, her area was partially known for its poverty, however a couple of rich men resided in the area too.
As she walked past a public hanging with all of its lavish festivities, she could just start pickpocketing them left and right, and that idea crossed her mind as she was sitting right beside a man in his lavishly decorated clothing.
But she knew she had enough money for herself, and if she stacked up that with the murder, she would easily be a good suspect, considering how stupid local law enforcement could be, to connect fairly unrelated crimes to each other nowadays.
The girl got up, sighing deeply at herself and made her way to the old park, which is now surrounded by upper class mansions, seeing them made her feel… nostalgic. She was once just like them. Rich, almighty, with power.
Then as she walked around the park to find a place to sit under the shade, she recognized something from a distance… an old collar she sold a while ago on the neck of a young girl of some rich family next door.
Seeing her collar in the hands of others, it's something she wouldn't allow and so she ignored the shade and went over, immediately making a scene by being poor before she begged the young girl for the necklace.
Being the modest girl that she is, despite objections from her upper class family members, she politely gave the necklace to Hilda. She quickly hid it in her pocket and walked away, apologizing immediately on her way out while hearing their scorns.
As she walked away from the party, trying not to be seen, she encountered another party right across the street, a few blocks away from the party she went to.
She ignored it, of course why would I? Then as the party cheered, a well-dressed man walked right up to the stage with someone in his hands while he hushed.
"My fellow gentlemen, today's been splendid, and I would like to give a speech as thanks for the guests."
She turns around. She looks back at the man.
That voice sounds familiar, yet she couldn't put her finger on it. Maybe I forgot about it for a little longer than a few years.
"As the host of this dear party, I am Sir Jared Haustad of the Haustad House and today, I will also announce the wedding of my bride!"
'Wait, the fuck? That 's him?' Her mind swirled, gurgling in memory and shock.
She stood there, taken aback by what she saw. The man had moved on from her just as quickly as his crimes being erased. She paid attention to his speech as an outsider.
"This bride that I have here, is going to be wed by a few months after this party, so I thank you all for this glamorous celebration!" He said out loud, ending his speech on a happy note.
Hilda observed the woman he is currently pulling closer to, she looks like a blonde, another one of his fellow Hanoverians. I knew he was into Germans more than the English. And as she observes her face closely, she saw that she's actually in distress, not wanting to be wed but can't do anything because she's a woman.
Seeing her emotions splattered in her face along with Jared's reappearance, that made Hilda sick, seeing the one that her mother willed to kill being out here being a degenerate, she finally realized why her mother wanted him dead.
She can't take this all in. She turns herself back and went back to her home abode, where she places the necklace on a desk before she lounges into a couch of which Dagger immediately jumps up and joins in with her.
"That fucker out there," Hilda muttered to herself, feeling utterly disgusted from the sight she saw. "Fucking his fellow brethren left and right and thinking he could get away with it. Mother, I finally see why."
Looking at the box on the table where she remembered she placed the infected knife in, she saw the gleaming glow of its jewels as the sun struck its jade ornaments.
"Mother, it's finally time."