A new day finally rose up and as Hilda woke up after a painfully long night full of drunk men and naval drinking games. As she started looking around to make sure everything was ok, she noticed Kaisa was already up and giving medicine to her mom from across her room.
After getting up and changing to a normal attire, she walked up to Kaisa after she placed the thermometer inside Johanna's mouth and opening the windows again to stave off the miasma.
"Hey, sorry for last night." Hilda apologized with a somewhat inexpressive look at her.
"It's ok mistress." she replied back as she finished doing her tasks ordered by Johanna before picking the medical tray off and left the room.
Hilda also went out of the room and went to the kitchen and grabbed out a pound of raw beef and gave it to Dagger who immediately started chewing on it as Hilda looked around the house to find what to do..
She then went over to the couch, seeing Jared laying over the table beside the couch, drunk, and she just sighed loudly so she took a bottle from the ground that he emptied last night and broke it on the wall, making him immediately wake up gasping for breath.
'What the hell!?" Jared yelled, quickly getting up from the sudden noise of glass breaking in the morning.
"Good morning you fuck-up." Hilda said as she looked down on him with an angered face. "I think you definitely messed up last night, anything to declare?" Hilda said as she threw down the bottle a few meters away from her, scaring Jared again as he heard the bottle shatter from across the room.
"What? C'mon it was just some little fun with friends and all…" Jared excused, trying to make up for what he did. "What I did wasn't my intention, I was drunk, I didn't know what I was doing." Jared kept excusing as Hilda looked at him doubtfully.
"You know, just to make up for what you did," Hilda said as Jared began to tense up, waiting to hear whatever Hilda is going to say, "You should start giving tips to Kaisa." Hilda finished, catching Jared off guard with the sudden suggestion coming from her.
"Huh?" Jared asked, thinking her suggestion was out of nowhere.
"She is doing a lot more than what any maid should, proven by last night," Hilda explained as she pointed out her performance as a maid by using last night as an example, "maybe we should raise her pay, that could help her out." Hilda explained further, suggesting that they should pay her more, considering she still kept her responsibilities as a maid around the house even after what just happened.
"What do you mean, raise her pay?" Jared asked, raising his voice for a while. "Maids aren't paid, they're like…..slaves but more legal." Jared questioned her suggestion further with the notion that maids aren't paid due to the style of their profession.
"Well, if she has a family, then the pay could be necessary for them." Hilda countered his questioning with her explanation that Kaisa might've had a family backing her.
"If. If!" Jared pointed loudly at the one word that Hilda used for her explanation, dragging the argument down the road.
Hilda beckoned back with another counter-argument to that, which made a small suggestion into a full blown argument between Hilda and Jared, which lasted for a few minutes until Kaisa was finished making their breakfast and also decided to tell them about her family.
"Here's your breakfast, Madam Hilda and Sire Jared." Kaisa greeted before placing the tray of their breakfast on the table and it immediately calmed both sides down and both sat down to eat breakfast.
However Hilda wasn't done yet, she was mad, she knew women weren't exactly privileged but she imagined he would think of them in such an objectified way.
Jared finished his breakfast extremely quickly, most likely to avoid any discussions, so as he left the house, Hilda finished her meal and walked up to kaisa who was petting Dagger to calm her nerves.
"Hey Kaisa."
"Yes madam?" Kaisa asked as she turns her head from her seat at the other table.
Hilda reached for her pocket for a couple of coins and placed her hand forward.
"Thanks for taking Jared's shit last night." Hilda said as she groaned over having to remind her that night.
Kaisa just takes the couple of coins from her hand and gives her a body language of saying 'Thank You' to her which made Hilda smile that she appreciates it.
Hilda then started picking up the plates to wash them but while she's washing the dishes, she heard her windowsill right next to the sink getting knocked over.
She sighed at it and looked at the windowsill and it showed Jared knocking on it.
"Hey, we're late! It's been a few minutes." Jared yelled from the outside into the house to tell her that they're late and she immediately went outside with her purse, leaving the faucet running open.
Meanwhile, back at David's house things were somewhat heated, as David woke back up with his dad's screams.
"Okay, son! I had it with your indecisiveness! You couldn't choose to follow a side!" Stephen scolded at him by pointing out last night of what he did, which he isn't remembering yet.
"What? What do you mean?" David asked. "I kind of don't remember that." David said as he rubbed the nape of his neck as he tried to remember what he could.
Stephen now had to deal with a temporarily amnesiac David for a while and since he is trying to tell him about his indecisive action last night, he couldn't take it in that he suddenly didn't remember all of it, he suddenly lashed out into a slap but he felt his collar being dragged back and as he looked back, he turned his body around along with his slap towards Mary.
Mary did indeed receive the slap but she didn't regret it or even feel it as she was fine that David doesn't have to endure another traumatic moment for him.
"Look, Stephen." Mary said as she tried to calm him down. "Maybe you should stop drinking and fix it with your wife." She said as she tells him on how he could improve himself and she's willing to help.
He ignored the comment and instead simply retreated back to the living room, feeling defeated, luckily he didn't see Frida, who was on the opposite side of the house by now.
Talking about her, she was at the moment in David's closet, grabbing out the clothes that they brought over, trying to change herself while under the sheets, mostly due of Britain's climate, and also just in case someone decided to get in without prior warning.
After she was done, she quickly got downstairs and went to the kitchen to eat some breakfast with David, hoping she could get some food into her stomach after that comeuppance last night. But as she ate through the provided eggs and wheat, she looked around to find her cup but in doing so, grabbed Stephen's attention.
"Ah, I see you are awake." he said, approaching Frida with the most intimidating aura he could. "If you don't want to repeat what happened last night, then please clean these floors by midday." Stephen calmly said in a sober but stern voice as he collapsed his head into the table, just regretting what happened.
"Y-yes sir….." Frida nervously said back as she peered into Stephen as he sat there all quiet but was persuaded by Mary to continue eating.
A few hours pass by and Frida was the first to finish her breakfast and started working, to avoid the events that happened, and began sweeping the kitchen first. Then David was next and exited the kitchen towards the upstairs to find a way to console her parents about last night so they could stay. Mary was finished with hers and began making Stephen's breakfast, even though he slapped her out of nowhere, Mary still cared for her husband as she knows where the root of this problem came from.
She finished making his breakfast and calmly woke Stephen up so he can eat, which he obliged and began eating his breakfast while also apologizing to Mary for doing what he just did and he is willing to be counseled by her.
Meanwhile, David was upstairs, explaining how the entire thing happen to them to the best he can remember and as he continued, he noticed that Henrie is always interrupting between him explaining the story.
"I mean, why would he drink at a time like this?" Henrie said as he continued on one of his rants while the story was being explained. "I think the deal is a bad idea, we shouldn't have agreed." Henrie muttered under his breath but David heard that and is slowly getting frustrated over him butting in to his explanations and began to rant on his own.
"Look, Henrie. I know what happened last night might be shitty but if you could help, like what your wife did, then maybe the deal could be worth it!" David just snapped into a scream that if he had helped, then the deal that both sides agreed could reap the benefits mentioned and he continued on a rant on how Henrie couldn't get the bigger picture which is why he always interrupts every time he explains the story away and after that, he just sat right back at the wall and looked down to the floor, expecting a harsh scolding from Henrie.
Instead, Henrie was speechless about it, he couldn't respond back to the rant that David did and decided to stay quiet on the matter to think of something to say. Then a few minutes pass by and he finally was able to make a response out of it and he realized that as he was about to start, David is shaking in fear, so he chose instead to sit right next to him to calm him down while also being able to listen to his response without shaking in fear.
"Look, I'm sorry that I act a little rash back there but," Stephen began by apologizing to him about his actions and he can see David slowly transition from quivering in fear to looking right at him, ready to listen which prompted Henrie to continue, "I'm just as worried for Frida as you and I appreciate that you took the hit for her so I applaud you for being there for her." Henrie continued on by telling him that both of them were worried about Frida and also told him that he appreciates his choice of sparing Frida last night and Henrie is seeing David move from being ready to listen to growing a little smile.
After he's done with his response, David then gave out his own response to his and after he's done, he pulled his hand out to imply that he agreed with his response and Henrie followed along, shaking his hand and agreeing along with him as both have now understood each other on the events of last night.
Then, David slowly made his way downstairs as his father grabbed the newspaper from the table and began reading, so maybe he wouldn't be so mad at him, as reading the news always calmed down his nerves every time.
Well, unhappily, this time would not work for him.
Stephen was keeping tabs on the advancements that the Industrial Revolution was slowly churning out and he is aware that if they keep going with the agriculturally based industry he is focusing on, he might lose out on the industry
And for this to happen, he needs to change his industry needs from a more agricultural one to an industrial one, but the equipment he has now is insufficient to handle the demands for the people in this new era of history.
Stephen slowly clenched his fisrt as his increasingly falling bussiness, he knew he had to get on the ride that was the industry but it was hard to do so from Trolberg since the equipment here was too inefficient and insufficient and the only railroad that goes into Trolberg was from the Western side of the city, far away from where his residence was.
The city wasn't exactly fit for catching up to the Industrial Revolution and has been going slow compared to the Midlands or Southern England.
David just slowly went over to the table and started eating small, trying to not make any eye contact.
Meanwhile, well, Hilda had her own matters to do. School was coming back soon and she honestly hoped it didn't, because that meant less time for her to play with Dagger or torment Frida and David.
She was walking over to Frida's old house, now basically abandoned. She entered the place and started for anything she could steal, furniture, cutlery, etc.
She walked around the house to see if she could steal anything that they left behind and as she wandered around the house, she walked up to the attic and saw the easels that are in the attic that are unused. The easels are all blank but there are some exceptions in it that Hilda thought she could steal.
"One with a few strokes on it, this one has a little painting of a couch but that's it and this one has the flag painted over it but then again, that's it." Hidla walked around the attic, describing the easels that have been painted and tried finding a painting she could bring to school for the art homework that is assigned to them throughout the weekend.
Wandering around the attic for a good painting for a while, she encountered a very pristine painting of the Trolberg Church right next to a window in the attic. Seeing the potential of getting a good grade from this, Hilda proceeded to carry the painting, though it was a little heavy, she managed to carry that over to the road leading to the house, leaving the door open as she walked away.
Meanwhile at David's house, David and Frida were helping each other in packing their bags up with the necessary things for school and as he wrapped up Frida's bag of books and items, Frida looked over and saw that his bag had a ladybug on it, perching on the coat of arms.
"Uhhh, hey David," Frida said, catching David's attention from wrapping her bag, "there's a bug on your bag." Then, Frida pointed out the ladybug that was perching on the coat of arms.
David looked at the bag and there it was, the ladybug. He then gave her a nervous smile and brushed it away, picking it up and dropping it on the floor. Mary was helping them prepare a couple materials. Nothing too fancy since well, school had barely started over after the reforms.
One thing Frida was very enthusiastic about was the art class, as she always had a somewhat passion for painting and now she could show some of her pieces, but she remembered that all of them were at her old house, in the attic, so she went over to David, who was still packing up some pencils and notebooks into his bag.
"Hey, I have to go back home to get a couple things, would you mind going with me?" Frida asked him to come with her back to the house to get the paintings that she forgot to bring when moving.
"U-uh, sure," David replied somewhat nervously but still confident in helping Frida out to raise her spirit after last night.
They both grabbed their bags and went out but before they did, Stephen looked at the two with an unnerving calm stare which drove them out of the house quicker for school.
The way to Frida's place wasn't anything new, no one seemed to stare too much or look too worried about a black and a white man walking together in the street. Well, until they found the door opened, which wasn't all that bad, since there wasn't much inside and it has been empty since yesterday.
"Hey, I gotta go to the attic, that is where I keep my paintings." Frida said as she released her hand off of David's hand and went upstairs to the attic and started getting the paintings, most of them were somewhat small and unfinished, but she knew she had it around, until she noticed her major piece was missing.
"Where is it?" Frida said to herself while trudging through the attic worriedly, "I know it's around here, maybe it got a little cluttered." Frida muttered to herself again while looking for the painting all over the attic which caused so much noise that it prompted David to go and check what was happening up there.
"Where is what?" David asks as he walks inside the attic and sees a frantic Frida running around the attic to find the painting.
"My painting, the church one!" Frida responded to David's questions before continuing her quest on finding it around the attic.
"You painted the church?" David asks back in confusion because in his knowledge, the church was burnt and even today, it still hasn't been fully rebuilt so he was a little confused about it.
"Yeah, after it burned down I thought it would be important to preserve the original architecture for later." Frida explained as to why she painted the thing before giving up on finding it after scouring the attic several times.
"Oh, uh…...ok.." David just said blankly as he looked around the crooked attic.
"Where is it?! It took me months to paint!" Frida frustrates as she sat down on the wall right next to David as she began panicking on what to do and who stole it.
"Hey, relax I am sure it is just… somewhere else…" David tries to calm her down and reassure her about the loss of her painting.
"I really needed it or else my art teacher is gonna suspend me out of her class and the principal is gonna ask my mom about it and I don't want them to see me being a failure and I have to get that painting now!" Frida quickly explained to David why she needs the painting in a hurried and panicked speed, making David worried for his friend, paying back what she did for him in her house.
"Frida calm down! Calm down!" David tries to reassure Frida to calm down by soothing her back with his hand and patting over her shoulder to help it, "you can… paint it again, maybe you can explain to him why it looks so hastily made." David reassured Frida back by telling her to redo the thing all over again.
"No I can't! You dont' understand that this grade is extremely important and the teacher won't listen to me about it and the painting needs to be THAT one! I-... I think I am going to faint…." Frida cried out back to David by explaining to him how redoing it is not gonna work and making up an explanation to the teacher won't help due to the conservatism of the school and now she felt like fainting due to her constant rambling.
She calmed herself down slowly before going back to the wall near David and just sat down with crouched legs while she hugged them and began to silently shed a tear from her eye, feeling hopelessness.
David felt sympathy and empathy for Frida and began repaying what she did for him back when Hilda attacked them at this very house by placing his hand onto her shoulders and slowly soothes her by running his hand up and down her back while he made a smile that he knows could make Frida feel a little happy.
"Maybe we can catch the culprit at school." David said with a reassuring smile that made Frida feel a little warm on the inside and nodded along to his reassurance, hoping it would work.
They both went downstairs and left the house to go to school to see if the culprit had been there and as they walk along the streets that lead to the school, they received some weird looks from everyone, specifically older white men but they dismissed these looks and arrived at campus just a few minutes left before they're declared late.
"That's a really close call, right?" David said while they rushed their way inside to the campus and into the hallways to the classroom.
"It really is, David." Frida replied back while following him to the hallway.
As they rushed to the classroom that is first in the schedule, the teacher wa already there, preparing his materials on the desk before officially starting the class, they then were looked upon by the teacher who saw two of his students rushing into the class.
"Well hello, David and Frida!" The teacher greeted the two with happiness a teacher shouldn't have, "why are you rushing in, are you late?" The teacher asked as he was intrigued to see students rushing in like this.
David and Frida looked up to the clock and realized that they arrived on time and they both silently gave a breath of relief before responding back.
"We got in right on time." Frida responded politely before going ahead to sit down on her seat which David followed along.
After that, the teacher continued on to prepare his desk before starting the lesson. Time passed on for a few hours and the church bell rang loudly, proclaiming the end of the class and prompting many students to prepare their bags so they could leave.
"Well, you heard the bell. You're free to leave, class dismissed." The teacher said as he begins erasing the chalkboard and everyone in the class got up and left, leaving the teacher alone in the room.
As Frida and David followed the crowd, they began to separate their ways as the crowd went to different classes and Frida and David walked with each other to the next class in the schedule, Science. They arrived a few minutes early and the class went as usual as always, learning the same thing over and over again while also learning the sciences of the Enlightenment thanks to their Enlightened teacher but alas, the church bells rang again and the class was again dismissed.
"David, I don't think we're getting any closer to the painting." Frida whispered to him while they were walking among the crowd as she began to doubt that the painting would be here at all.
"Frida, I swear it was, I know it wa-" David tried to reassure Frida that it would be here but was interrupted when he saw the painting on the hands of Hilda, walking along with the crowd to the next class, Art.
"David?" Frida asked, confused that he suddenly went silent and as she peered over into what David saw, she also saw Hilda with the painting and walking away to meet up with the rest of the crowd.
"Hey, what are you doing with that thing?!" Frida immediately ran towards Hilda and battled for the painting because now Frida knows who stole it meanwhile Hilda tried to retain ownership of the painting because she needed it to keep her falling grades high enough to remain in the school.
"I need this, Frida! Besides, why do you need a painting of a thing that is gone?!" Hilda yelled back while clinging on to the painting on her hands, "You clearly never had to worry about your grades did you? You insensitive fuck." Hilda barks back against Frida as she assumes that Frida didn't care about her grades since she's a slave.
"Look who is saying it…" Frida muttered and pulled the painting back towards her as the painting slowly rips.
Seeing that Frida is about to win, Hilda pushes Frida away, pulling the painting back to her grasp, while taking care to not damage the painting, hiding it behind her just to make sure.
She then slowly backed away, always taking care to keep a safe distance between Frida and the painting.
"Hilda, normally I wouldn't bother with your tomfoolery, but I NEED that, I need it a lot, so just… hand me over the painting…" Frida couldn't fight for the painting anymore as she realized that she couldn't overpower her and tried pleading for Hilda to give her the painting.
"Uh, how about…no?." Hilda said as she kept backtracking down the hallway, going away from Frida until she reached a distance where she was safe from her and the painting far away enough to not get grabbed.
"Hilda, please ok? Just give back the painting, we don't need to make a fuss about all of this…" Frida continued pleading as she realized that she wasn't going to retrieve the painting back.
The blue haired girl started to turn around as she distanced herself from Frida, continuing to do so until the church bells toll again, reminding the three that they are late for Art class.
They all begrudgingly walked together to Art class in disgrace since they spent their time in the hallway arguing over a painting and now they're late because of it. They walked inside the classroom with the teacher already writing down the criteria for a good painting on the chalkboard.
The teacher looked at them and just sighed under his breath before allowing them to sit down on their seats before he announces that they can pass their paintings now to finish the assignment.
"Okay, your Memorial assignment is up, whoever is finished with it, please come to the front." The teacher said gently and prepared a spreadsheet for grading the work of his students, diligently grading them one by one.
Hilda quickly and proudly got up her seat with a devilish grin, staring down at frida and David, with her dead eye making her look like a shark with those permanent dead smiles and teeth out.
She presented the painting in front of her as the teacher looked at it, he wasn't expressing any surprise but he seemed happy nonetheless. He was one of those teachers with a disappointing face so it was good to see it change to a slightly less tired expression.
Meanwhile, David and Frida were on the edge of their seats, Frida didn't have a painting anymore because it was lost and David was counting on Frida to credit him with help as he had no painting skills, so they always shared credit on art assignments.
While the teacher silently grading it, she returned to her seat, keeping that grin and a look so incredibly vivid someone could say she was going to faint from emotion.
"Looks like someone is going back to the fields." Hilda pokes at Frida for not bringing anything, slowly bringing Frida to anger as she begins to ball her fists harder and harder.
"And you," Hilda said, looking at David fiercely, "Why is Frida's house empty, huh?" Hilda asked, intriguing David to a mental frenzy, trying to make up a quick lie to cover up what actually happened.
"She...uhh….uhhh…" David struggled in making a lie for Hilda, making her squint her eyes in doubt as she slowly thought otherwise of what he was trying to say.
Frida saw what was happening and could not afford to be exposed like this in public so she butts herself in to protect David from another traumatic incident while also protecting herself from Hilda and the school.
As the class progressed with time, more and more students got up their seats to get their artwork graded. Meanwhile, Frida is forced to think quickly so that she doesn't know that they moved.
"Well….everyone left and I woke up late so I had to eat quickly before going out." Frida lied as she stood there intensely, trying to stand upright to keep her mood up so she didn't show any signs of lying.
Hilda pondered about it for a while until she got another question.
"So, if you do wake up late and ate in a hurry, why are there no dishes in the sink then?" Hilda said, pointing out the empty sink she saw in the house, completely contradicting what Frida said.
Frida then felt a sting of the truth hit her back painfully as she now knows that she was the one who broke in and stole the painting but she couldn't call her out for it because it would be a risky move for her.
"Well how did you know the sink was empty then?" Frida counteracted, hoping she would just stand down and just focus on the painting.
"Frida, I looked into the windows and I….I was very observant around your house and.." Hilda was cornered and Frida felt that she got the upper hand.
"The door was unlocked, and I know you always lock your doors everytime you go out." Hilda said, reminding Frida of what she always does, making her defense fall out of favor.
Meanwhile, David was seeing it all go down and starts feeling panicky because he feels that Hilda is winning the argument and out of panic, he snapped.
"Sir, Frida moved out of her house and we lost her painting along the way so can you give us time to find it?!" David accidentally said out loud in the classroom, bringing everyone's attention towards him, making the situation even worse than ever.
There was an uncomfortable silence after David's sudden screaming in protest and then the teacher just gave out a big sigh before getting up and going over to his seat.
"Ferguson, I don't know why you did that, but all I'm asking is for you to just be normal." The teacher calmly but sternly scold David for that random act he did.
"S-Sorry sir!" David profusely apologized before quickly sitting down.
"Very fucking clever you little scum." Hilda said under her breath and they both exchanged dirty looks.
Frida let out a sigh of relief as she could at least get some extra time to re-paint something, or to get Hilda exposed.
Meanwhile at Hilda's house, Kaisa was busy giving Johanna a little bath to ease her fever a bit, and also the smell of sweat and vomit was too much to bear around the house.
After pouring another bucket of lukewarm water on Johanna, Kaisa quickly left her to get more soap, before she was stopped by Jared on the way to the shelves near the storage room.
"Hey there, my little teacup." Jared suddenly appears around the corner as Kaisa makes a left turn to the hallway.
"Hello… there…" Kaisa nervously replies back with a weak greeting.
"Where you going?" Jared asks as he adjusts his position from the wall, adjusting so he has perfect legroom.
"I...I was going to the storage room to get some….soap." Kaisa responded, gingerly to avoid being a distraction.
"Oh, that's where you're going? Let me help." Jared happily responds back by asking her if he could help her out which she obediently accepts.
As they both walked from the hallway to the storage room, they both saw a room where there are a bunch of boxes placed over a lot of drawers only greenlit by a few open windows on the side where it faces the outside.
As Kaisa walks around the room to find a box full of hygienic materials, Jared stays there near the door, admiring the wide and half-empty room that is only populated by a bunch of boxes. Then as a few minutes go by, Kaisa saw a box that has a few pieces of bar soap inside but it was a few inches high and the nearest ladder was right on the other end of the room.
Kaisa couldn't bother to go to the end of the room to pick it up so she tried to reach it by tiptoeing her toes up to reach it but the box was one shelf high over where she could reach so she struggled.
Jared notices her struggling and sees another opportunity to make an advance on her and so he approaches Kaisa who was still struggling on reaching the box.
"Hey, do you need some help?" Jared asks as Kaisa turns around and sees him right near the drawer's truss.
"Uhhhh sure, I can't reach it." Kaisa accepts his request. "Can you reach it for me?" Kaisa asks him to reach for the box instead of her since his height can reach a higher shelf than her.
"Oh, no need. I'll let you grab the box instead, to see if any of them are a little better to use." Jared said in a rush because he thought Kaisa was going to take a bath and he is really interested in seeing her there rather than helping her.
"Oh, then maybe help me up?" Kaisa was surprised he didn't want to help so she asked if he could just give her a lift.
"Sure, I could help." Jared happily responded and he placed his hands together and placed them down, to give her a lift.
Kaisa followed along by pressing her foot gently on his hands and Jared lifted her up into the higher shelf and she proceeded to look around for the box and she found it, but the box was a few meters away from the edge, so she pulled herself in the drawer a little bit to reach it.
While pushing herself inside to reach the box, Jared begins lifting her up higher and higher and now he can see under the skirt and he begins slapping his tongue around his mouth a few times while looking under it.
Kaisa reached for the box a little deeper into the drawer before reaching the edge and dragging it close to the edge of the drawer.
"Hey, can you bring me down?" Kaisa asked, looking at Jared with a wet mouth, which he quickly rubs it off before she sees it.
"U-Uh… sure… I guess" Jared responds by lowering her down, making a little frowny face while lowering.
"You looked, didn't you?" Kaisa joked at him, making him fluster into denial as he began stuttering into how he didn't look under her skirt while he lifted her.
Kaisa giggled a bit before going upstairs, having to resume her duties with Johanna.
"Where are you going, my teacup?" Jared asks as she was about to leave the storage room.
"I have some undone tasks upstairs." Kaisa said in a hurry before she turned around to rush upstairs.
"You look tense. Maybe a bath will help you? It can't hurt…" Jared interrupts her again by suggesting her that she should get a bath for his own intentions.
"Hehe….. Uh… thank you, but first I need to finish cleaning mistress Johanna..." Kaisa politely declined as she reminded him of what she was gonna do upstairs.
Jared suddenly paused. He didn't expect her to be helping Johanna out and so felt defeated but still persistent on his goals.
"Oh, well, I hope she is getting better." Jared said, going outside the storage room as Kaisa left the room as well, but somehow she feels shaky.
She started to feel insecure around Jared ever since that night, and when she is around him, he just has that weird aura around him.
Well, between all the fuss around the house, no one was paying attention to Dagger, who, at this point, had already left the house looking for her owner.
Meanwhile, Hilda herself was at break. She didn't have any friends, currently, so she was walking down the empty hallways and staring out of the windows, calmly looking into the gentle fields around campus until she decided to go down and "greet" Frida and David again.
They were in question, sitting at a bench, trying to think of a way to revert the damage done by Hilda.
"What are we going to do? Without that painting, none of us is getting a grade, now Hilda takes all the credit and she will just keep doing that!" Frida panicked, inhaling and exhaling air extremely quickly and is already about to tear her hair under pressure.
"Frida, calm down… I think we should start to fight fire with fire." David tried calming her down by giving her a cotton bag and letting her breath in and out for a few minutes before calming herself down to rest her back on the bench.
"But… how?" Frida asked. "How can you even fight her back? She has already beaten us twice." Frida assured him that they couldn't win because of past fights with her.
"We just need to humiliate her, we need to make her feel what we felt!" David planned out how they're going to fight her back through humiliation. "I don't know how it's gonna happen but trust me, it's gonna fuck her up real bad." David reassured Frida that they could win against Hilda even if the chances are low.
While they're talking about how to beat Hilda to a pulp again, Hilda heard them from inside and looked out of one of the windows facing the bench and is able to audibly hear their conversation from afar.
"But how?! She is a joyless, bottomless abyss, she has no passions, no pride, it's like she isn't even human, it's like she's a love child of the devil himself."
"What the fuck?" David irked at Frida's comparison of Hilda.
"I mean she is like the daughter of the devil." Frida went further with her metaphor.
As they kept talking about her, Hilda is now walking down the stairs with her characteristic coat and heavy steps, preparing to "greet" them from their similes and metaphors of her.
"Speaking of the devil…" Frida was about to go about explaining it further until she turned around to see Hilda approaching with her grin and dead eye.
"I have been thinking of leaving it uncovered," she said with a somewhat sadistic tone, "what do you think David?" Hilda said, bowing down onto him mockingly.
With him having to face her again out in the open, David froze almost immediately as he stared into the dead cornea of her burnt eye as she raised herself up again, unable to manifest a single word against it.
"So, I heard you guys still wanted that painting." Hilda said as she crossed her arms, expecting something to be said about it.
"How about you pluck it out at once and swallow it, so you can look within and find all the pain you need to satisfy your sadistic hellhole you call a mind!" Then Frida pulled out a powerful insult at Hilda which surprised her out of nowhere, making Frida feel intimidating to her.
Due to that provocative comment at her, Hilda just charged at Frida without any warning and they're both in a brawl outside the campus. Both sides took punches at each other, dragged their uniforms out and kicked, fighting each others like kids and David is now having to choose a side again.
He grabbed out a wooden ruler and is now slowly walking towards the brawl and is already contemplating on not choosing a side but eventually he chose Frida's side and swung it around Hilda's cheek, bringing a hard slap to Hilda as she continues to fight Frida.
"Oh wow, that actually hurts." Hilda said, holding her cheek as she acted pitiful in front of David, trying to force him to stay out, "that's a first." Hilda then poked at David with that comment.
Then David was now fully on Frida's side by helping her in her fight against Hilda, to the point where both sides are becoming a ruckus around the campus.
"Hey, what the hell is going on?!" A voice said out in the distance, none of them able to give attention to whoever that voice came from but David did look just in case.
It was Trevor.
"Hey, what are you guys fighting about?" Trevor asks the three who finally gave their attention and interrupted their fight for a while to answer his question.
"Well…." David starts but didn't know on how it began until Frida and Hilda came out to give their explanations to him which is butting David out of the conversation.
"Hilda has been… troubling us for a while…" Frida starts first, at the begrudge of Hilda, and she explains it further and as the explanation becomes more intimidating to her, Hilda had her fists balled, ready to whip out a punch right at her face, and her living eye stared into her while her blind eye was still looking forward, making the experience much worse for everyone.
"That's one way to put it,'' Hilda responded with an apathetic voice.
"ONE WAY?!" David yelled at her for treating the situation that she encountered like it was nothing.
"And what are you going to do about it? Ask your little slave right there to slap me?" Hilda responded back, now poking his agreed purchase of Frida on David while also stomping her foot hard on the ground to make her intimidating.
"H-Ho-how did you know?!" David was immediately shocked that Hilda knew that Frida was bought and just collapsed on his knees because of it.
"Really? Are we going to ignore all the foreshadowing?" Hilda responded back like she didn't just break the fourth wall.
"Wait, wait wait wait… w-what the Hell is happening?" Trevor was just confused over all of this revelation and asked what happened.
As the discussion slowly worsens, they were suddenly interrupted by a bunch of screaming and howling in the corridors… Most importantly, the barks that came from inside came from Dagger and as he ran outside the corridors, he ran towards Hilda and jumped out to hug her, basically making everyone distance themselves a little from Hilda.
"Hey boy, how did you get here?" Hilda asked as she patted his head while the other three were getting overwhelmed by how many events were happening all at once.
Dagger barked at her with joy and pointed it's snout towards the school gate, telling her that is where he went and Hilda nodded at him in response.
"...is that a dog?" Trevor asked as he leaned towards Frida.
"It's not. That's a wolf." Frida responded whispering to his ear, carefully making sure she wasn't being seen by Hilda.
As Frida backed away, she could see the horror in his eyes that Hilda was able to adopt a wolf.
"It's a pup, it can't hurt you." David leaned over to Trevor, whispering him a disclaimer about Dagger and he seems to calm down for a while.
"Well…." Hilda looked down as she hugged Dagger and picked him up as she was preparing to send him home. "Well, you made this a lot better, maybe it's time for you to stay a little." Hilda said as she changed her mind.
Hilda sat down on the ground while agger kept trying to lick her face. While that was happening, the other three decided to just leave her alone on campus while they move on to other activities around the school.
Meanwhile back at Hilda's house, Kaisa was just getting done washing Johanna and was about to get her some fresh clothes and some opium to help her feel less pain. As she came back with fresh clothing, she came back to see Johanna coughing up a little on the bathtub.
"H-hey… I brought you some fresh clothes…" Kaisa tried to lighten the situation up by telling her that she has new clothes brought to her now.
Johanna heard her and looked at Kaisa, holding the new clothes before looking at the bathroom mirror with her with messy, wet hair and dry lips, like the shell of who she once was.
Kaisa noticed her gaze and helped her drink some lukewarm water and a spoonful of opium, before drying her up with a towel and getting her into her clothes and later, onto bed.
While Kaisa was helping Johanna go upstairs to her bedroom, she whispered something into Kaisa but due to her sore throat, Kaisa could only make out a few words before she stopped and went forward.
She felt terrible for her mistress, unable to speak due to her sore throat and barely any energy, despite all the treatments and medications given to her. Kaisa felt like she failed her job and was considering asking Johanna if she could just leave the house but she dismissed that.
"Do..you want me to get the leeches…?" Kaisa nervously asks Johanna because even though leeches have been proven several times to be failures, she believes it's the only way.
Johanna looked at her, the opium effects made her mouth stay shut and she could barely move her lips into a "no" but Johanna was able to shake her head in denial.
"Oh…. i-i see….. It's ok…" Kaisa understood her intentions now.
Kaisa slowly left the room, reluctantly of course. As she went downstairs to head to the doctor earlier to find some herbs to use to help Johanna, Kaisa became worried over her life and made Johanna's life a mission to do but also she was becoming ever skeptical about Jared's actions because of previous events and he wasn't paying her the amount they agreed to but she didn't listened to these thoughts.
Meanwhile, back at school, before the final hour is up, Hilda is now inside the women's restroom, taking a leak in a dry toilet before going back to her final class.
Then as she quietly sat down, waiting for it to flow, the quiet was suddenly broken by someone sniffing on the ground before walking towards her stall, which was left open ajar, while panting.
Hilda knew that was Dagger because nobody would sniff on a restroom floor and she knows what he smells like and when Dagger just pushes himself through the ajar opening of her stall door, she just lets him in.
"How are you, boy?" Hilda asked him happily as Dagger kept walking around Hilda's legs like a cat while also purring like one.
Then Dagger just sat down right next to the stall door while she peed, and after she was done, she got up and fixed her skirt and shorts up before walking with Dagger towards the final class.
As she walked in, the class was full but the teacher wasn't there yet, and so she walked up to her seats and unfortunately her seat is right in between David and Frida, keeping the tension at a boiling point even in class.
She sat down and just looked down, being a little worried about Dagger and him being inside a classroom in the first place as she dozed off looking at the chalkboard and at Dagger at the same time.
David and Frida looked down where Hilda was looking and there was Dagger, who followed her to class, looking up at her like a child. They both knew they wanted to call her out for it but they couldn't tell each other who would do it because Hilda was in the way.
Then David thinks of a good idea, he starts ripping off a piece of paper from his notebook before starting to write something down on the paper, Frida turned her head to the left behind Hilda's and sees what he was doing and is intrigued. Then David crumpled it to a small crumple and tossed it over Hilda's head into her desk, where she leaned back to her seat and unfolded the paper.
The paper reads as,
"Hey, maybe I should call her out before you."
Frida turned to David over Hilda's head and gave him a face of concern which he replied with the OK gesture which gave Frida a sigh of relief and began waiting for the teacher to come.
The teacher came 5 minutes late and apologized to the class for being so late, the reason is because he had o come quick to an urgent teacher's assembly about failing students and he had to excuse them about his class 20 minutes in during the assembly talks.
The teacher then just placed his glasses right at the desk before beginning to write down the lesson of the class -Philosophies of Jeremy Bentham and the benefits of Utilitarianism- on the chalkboard before placing his glasses back to read the lesson out loud.
Hilda, having to hear another boring philosophy class about someone else's thoughts and views, rolled her eyes slowly as the lesson goes on and on and suddenly fell asleep in the middle of the lesson.
With Hilda finally sleeping during class, Frida and David prepared to call her out but as they observe the class and Dagger's movements, they slowly realized that they don't need to call her out for the dog, they just wait for it to come towards the teacher and then call out that it was Hilda's.
Dagger walked up to the teacher, looking up like it was expecting something out of him, and as the teacher moved slowly to the right to fill out the necessary lessons for the class, he suddenly bumped into Dagger, who stood still, and almost tripped himself.
The class had a mixed reaction among the seats, some quietly laughed while some tried to scoot or push Dagger away from the teacher but most of the class just gave a shocked or quiet reaction out of what happened.
"Okay, whose dog is that and how the fuck did it got in this school?!" The teacher got up, went to the desk and just threw it overboard towards the class in a fit of rage over Dagger.
"It was Hilda's." David and Frida both said immediately and in sync as well, making the class be very shocked because Hilda lets a dog inside or because they synced together.
"It came from the outside and-" Frida tried to explain how it got in but it was suddenly interrupted by the teacher who slammed his fist over the chalkboard.
"I don't believe it came from the outside."
The teacher sighed and rubbed his forehead in distress while Frida groaned in frustration, having to explain it to him before time's up.
"Well, we have another witne-" Frida tries to tell the teacher that there was another person with them that saw it but was again interrupted by the teacher clicking his tongue loudly.
"Tsk tsk, come on, why would i belive you? I bet you just wanted another excuse for not bringing your painting." The teacher reprimanded Frida back by dismissing it as an excuse. "I've heard from your art teacher that you didn't submit your painting today and now it seems like you wanted a stab back at those who did." Then he quoted saying that he heard it from her art teacher and it got the class murmuring to each other about what happened.
Hilda was suddenly woken up by all the murmurs around her and heard that Frida got reprimanded and couldn't help but smirk and proceeded to snap her fingers, making Dagger come to her seat and hide under it.
"Hilda." Then the teacher focused his attention on Hilda,"Is this… really yours?" He asked, with a loud voice.
Hilda acted like she had just woken up and not knowing what happened but she did a bad act.
"Uh… oh boy, how did you found out?" Hilda tried but she was already found out because again, she's bad at faking it.
"Oh, quit it already, IT'S YOURS AND YOU KNOW IT!" Frida looked at her with a really annoyed look and just slammed her hands down her desk and just yelled at her for faking it.
Hilda then stopped her act and looked over at David in the eye, both eyes, as a threat and an intimidation to spill some beans.
"David, can you please tell your slave to go shut the fuck up before I would mention your secret?" Hilda scolded at David, telling him to silence Frida while also making sure their secret purchase is exposed to the class.
The whole class heard her scolding and looked at Frida with looks ranging from complete surprise, to pure anger, to even pity over Frida.
"Hilda!" David shouted, getting up from his seat to try to look more intimidating. "You really have to ruin everything don't you?" He complained to her, having to expose the secret that he knew would help Frida out.
"Why not? You ruin mine back with that stupid arr-" Hilda barked back by trying to mention their failed arrangement but was immediately stopped by David throwing a punch towards her.
"Oh wow, that didn't hurt at all." Hilda said like it didn't do anything even though she actually felt a pretty good punch from him.
Then Frida gave Hilda a whiplash-like slap in the back which she got hit and curved her back in pain even though she tried to act like it didn't hurt at all.
"Okay, just so you three don't start a fight here, all of you are going to the Dean of this school, immediately!" The teacher then slammed a yardstick to the board to get their attention and then sent them to the Dean to resolve this dispute.
Meanwhile back at home, the doctor from a few weeks ago visited the house to check up on Johanna's condition and as he opened the door, the house was empty. It was weirdly empty for a house as big as a mansion and so the doctor walked inside to find Johanna -who was upstairs in her bedroom- to see if she's doing okay.
He walked around the first floor only to see it remote from human activity and proceeded to move upstairs to see if they were there. They were, actually, and she was with Kaisa, helping her deal with her tuberculosis.
"Ms. Hammarlund?" The doctor asked without knocking at the door which got both Kaisa and Johanna surprised at his presence.
"Sir! Please knock at the door." Kaisa yelled but retreated her voice back to a calm one while telling him that he should knock.
"I'm sorry for that but, how is your master today?" He apologized but continued on by asking Kaisa on how Johanna is feeling today.
"I...can talk for myself...you know?" Johanna said to the doctor with a really hoarse voice, surprising both the doctor and Kaisa because she was quiet for most of the time.
"Oh! Ms. Foulkestone….nice to know you're fine…" The doctor said cautiously to hide his nervousness that the sick can speak, making it an awkward moment in the room.
"Anyways…" The doctor continued as he peered into his cheque, "I have to check on you because somebody paid me to." He said as he placed the cheque down on the nearby lamppost before he begins checking up on Johanna.
"Wait, what cheque?"
Kaisa grabs the cheque at the lamppost and reads it thoroughly for a few minutes.
Johanna was also curious on who paid him to check on her but she decided to stay silent because she thinks it was rude to pester a medical professional with questions while doing a procedure.
The doctor then pulled out his notepad to write down her condition so he knows what to bring next in his next checkup on her and meanwhile, Kaisa went over to Hilda's bedroom where Jared was resting for a while.
"Master, I think someone you know did this."
Kaisa gave the cheque to Jared, who was resting on Hilda's bed for now, and as he was slowly reading it, he immediately got up and ordered her to follow him to Johanna's bedroom and she did.
"Madam, I think he knows who paid the doctor."