Roy went with Vivien to the third floor of the school where the dorms were located. She would stay in her room whenever she needed to stay the night at school. Miss Cardell and the homeless students’ rooms were beside hers, though nobody was there at the moment.
Vivien led him into her room, which was far shabbier than how it’d looked from the outside. The walls were cracked and filled with black mold. There was nothing but a table, a chair, a clock, a full-body mirror, a wooden bed with a blanket on it, and a brown wooden crate near the bed.
After Vivien unlocked the crate, she took out a small stack of wrinkly, yellowed, rough paper and placed it on her desk. “You should understand a bit more about how I feel once you read them.”
Roy nodded and read them in silence. Vivien sat beside him nervously and explained the meaning of the words he didn’t know. The handwriting was slender and beautiful, but since the quill and ink were poor, some of the words stuck together, forming black blobs of ink. It ruined the aesthetic, but didn’t hinder the reading.
‘Twelfth of May, 1256. That drunkard almost tore apart the house today, but there was not one crown to be found. He has no money for liquor, and the innkeeper doesn’t allow him to put it on his tab anymore. He was finally sober for a day, and his rotten conscience seemed to have healed, even if just for a bit. The day felt like a dream. The four of us sat around the table in our dingy house, celebrating my poor mother’s birthday with smoked fish. O wise Prophet Lebioda, grant us your blessing, and may we have such a birthday celebration next year.’
The four of us? Roy rubbed his eyes. He thought he read something wrong. Vivien, her drunkard father, her mentally-ill mother, and…
“Did you have a guest over?” Roy looked at her. “Or is this a wrong entry?”
“If my memory serves me right, we never had any guests over for my mother’s dinner. To be more precise, nobody ever came to our house, aside from the innkeeper who wanted the money the drunkard owed him. Did you say it’s a wrong entry?” Vivien continued calmly. “I’m in charge of Cardell’s math class. Do you think I would make an elementary mistake like that? I can’t mistake three for four. Just keep reading.”
Roy patiently went back to the journal and read another entry. It was shorter.
‘Twentieth of January, 1257. He got into a fight with Miguel, who insulted our father. That man came to the school as drunk as usual, and as always, he came to me for money. Nothing but insults and profanities came from him. He’s worse than the thugs from the Sparrow Triad. I agree with what Miguel had said. That drunkard is nothing but a bastard.’
Roy was curious about who ‘he’ was. From the entry, he could deduce that ‘he’ and Vivien had the same father, which meant ‘he’ might be her brother.
‘Nineteenth of August, 1257. Miss Cardell, the person I respect the most, talked to me today. She first praised me for my contribution to the school and told me to keep up the hard work for the sake of producing great students. My ultimate goal is to get one of the students into Oxenfurt Academy. Not even Miss Cardell managed to do that. And then Miss Cardell told me about __ She suggested I should care more for __ Miss Cardell said I shouldn’t overlook him no matter what, since I am his family. It was then I realized that the drunkard, my poor mother, and I have been overlooking him since a while ago.’
“Did you notice something?” She suddenly pointed at a line on the page. “Something’s missing here.”
“Yes. It’s weird.” Roy looked flummoxed. “Two parts here are missing. Who were you talking about? Who should you care more for?” Obviously someone left this blank. Looks like a name.
Vivien heaved a sigh. “I knew I wasn’t seeing things. It’s obvious the blanks are supposed to be my brother’s name. Keep on reading. There are a few more entries like this.” Vivien pointed out eight other ones that had the same thing. A mysterious character was in all of the entries, but none of them spoke about the character’s name, what he looked like, or his age. But he could see that the mysterious character was close to Vivien and her family, and that he had attended the House of Cardell.
The final entry was written on the fourth of October, 1258. The date was just a little more than a month ago.
‘That drunkard had too much to drink. He started going on a rampage, slapping and throttling me, demanding money. If I’d been even a moment late when I’d pushed him away, I could have died. I ran away in tears, and __ came after me, worried about my safety. We went to the school and chatted for the whole night. There were a lot of leaves that had fallen from the hornbeam that night.’
***
Roy leaned back on the chair, massaging his temples as his eyes closed. When he sorted all the information that was swirling around in his mind, the first realization he had was that one of the entries contradicted Miss Cardell’s testimony from that afternoon. If Miss Cardell didn’t think Vivien had a brother, there was no reason for her to ask Vivien to care for someone who didn’t exist. When Roy thought about it, Miss Cardell didn’t look like she was lying, whereas Vivien was being too paranoid. Suspicious.
Then Roy thought, Miss Cardell, Tross, Hank, and the journal proved that Vivien has a drunk, abusive father and a mentally unstable mother. If I include that broken family into the equation, does that mean that the gorgeous, impeccable Vivien has some sort of mental illness? That’s a logical conclusion.
Roy was more than ready to believe that Vivien was mentally ill, rather than her having a mysterious brother nobody had ever seen. When he looked at her closely, Roy noticed that her chest was heaving. Her breath was shallow, and her gaze was full of yearning.
“Has ‘he’ ever appeared after the fourth of October, 1258?”
“No. ‘He’ has disappeared since.” She shook her head in disappointment. “The earliest entries he was mentioned in date back to 1256 and before, but since it’s too far back, there’s no use in thinking about that.”
Roy tapped the desk. “What’s the newest entry after the fourth?”
“First of November. On Saovine.”
Roy took a deep breath. “So he might have gotten into an accident between the fourth of October and Saovine.”
“I had the same idea.” Vivien’s voice was trembling. “What do you think, Roy? Do you trust me, as a witcher’s disciple? Or do you think I’ve gone mad, just like everyone else? Do you think I just came up with the idea of having a brother who only exists in my imagination?”
Roy wanted to say yes, but he thought he shouldn’t agitate her. “There are many things that can’t be explained in this world, so I believe you, Vivien. I’ll find more on ‘him.’”
Roy had a rough guess, but there was nothing to support his conjecture, since Vivien was his only lead. He needed to find more definite evidence to prove that everything was just Vivien’s imagination.
Vivien tapped her chest and sighed in relief. She looked touched that Roy trusted her, and she held his hand. “I’ve heard about the witchers’ rule. I’ll prepare the bounty.”
“We can talk about that later.” Roy wasn’t someone who’d do everything for free, but he would help someone who did everything they could for the House of Cardell as long as it wasn’t too dangerous. A witcher should never fight an enemy he can’t win against. He needed to go on some reconnaissance.
“Thank you, then. Please help me locate ‘him.’ But be careful, and don’t tell anyone about this.”
“I understand.”
