While Anastasia hesitated under the chair, unsure of what to do, Ivan’s door opened from inside the church. Stepping out into the chapel, Ivan saw the guest and shouted.
"Count Lauderdale! How did you get here...!"
A Count? Anastasia’s eyes widened in shock at the word Ivan had spat out. Though she was ignorant of the world, she knew that commoners like herself existed, and above them were the nobles, and above them, the royals. And "Count" was clearly a title reserved for nobility.
'They said it was hard to see one even once in a lifetime.'
Even the lord of this region was said to be of very low rank among the nobility. But a Count... he was surely a very high-ranking person. Why would such a person come here? Did he know her father? But that man had called out her mother’s name.
While Anastasia was bewildered by the turn of events, the Count shouted.
"Seize him!"
At the Count’s command, Ivan tried to flee immediately. But the Count’s men were much faster. They dragged the struggling Ivan before the Count and forced him to his knees on the floor. Anastasia found the situation hard to believe.
Even the village head, the most prominent man in the village, would bow his head and kneel before her father inside the church. Her father always said that he was an agent who delivered human prayers to God and conveyed God’s will to the earth. That was why, inside this church, Ivan was practically God himself. Seeing that "god" forced to his knees on the floor was more shocking to Anastasia than anything else.
Just then, the eyes of the prostrate Ivan and Anastasia met. Ivan’s lips moved.
*Shut up.*
Anastasia stared at him blankly.
Anastasia was afraid of her father. Both before her mother left this world and after.
He had always forced painful rules upon Anastasia, beating her daily for not following God’s will—or rather, his own. But she could endure that. She was a bad child, after all. So, her father had no choice but to raise the rod. But...
'...Mother.'
Anastasia thought of her mother’s grave, which she had visited just a short while ago.
She could endure anything else. But... she wanted to go to her mother’s grave, even if her father beat her more for it.
She was the only person who had ever kissed her since she was born. Sometimes her mother would push her small body away as if she were a nuisance, but there were more days when she would carefully hold her hand.
However, her beautiful and fragile mother could not withstand the cold of this frozen land; her mind crumbled, and then her heart followed. And then, she passed away. During the year before she took her last breath, hadn't she spent her time lying down, muttering words that couldn't be understood or reciting only prayers?
Anastasia had thought the foreign language her mother muttered whenever their eyes met was the "Language of Paradise," and she had memorized it in secret, away from her father. Surely, there must be love in the words she whispered whenever she looked at her.
When her mother fell asleep, Anastasia would lie beside her and try to sleep as well. The body heat felt through the rough blankets was the only warmth Anastasia knew. She just wanted to find even a trace of that warmth, but her father had not allowed it even once in five years.
'But...'
Anastasia looked at the Count’s shoes, which were pacing roughly around Ivan. This man was above her father. If so, could the Count... perhaps take her to her mother?
Meanwhile, Count Lauderdale asked again in a harsh voice.
"Ivan, where is Chloe?"
"Do you think I would tell you that?"
Ivan replied with a sneer, chuckling. At that, one of the Count’s men grabbed Ivan by the collar and threw a punch. *Thud!* A dull sound echoed, and blood splattered on the church floor. Just as the man was about to strike again, Anastasia scrambled out from under the chair and blocked his path.
"Don't hit him! I! I will tell you where Mother is!"
"Mother?"
The Count looked at Anastasia, who had suddenly appeared from under the chair. Anastasia looked back at him. She could see the Count’s face, which she hadn't been able to see while hiding. He had brown hair mixed with white and brown eyes. They were the color of warm wood, yet his gaze was colder than the wind outside.
That gaze swept over Anastasia from head to toe. The moment his look grew even sharper,
"Ha... ha..."
The Count began to laugh.
"Hahahaha!"
The slow laughter grew louder and louder, echoing through the church. The Count, who had been laughing like a madman, suddenly stopped, stepped toward Anastasia, and grabbed her shoulders with both hands.
"Chloe’s daughter, indeed. She is definitely Chloe’s daughter. She couldn't look this much like her otherwise!"
Anastasia let out a groan at the strong grip. But the Count did not let go. He kept holding her and asked,
"What is your name?"
Anastasia answered in a trembling voice.
"Anastasia... Ivanovna Domanova..."
"Ivanovna Domanova?"
The Count frowned at her answer.
Was there something wrong with her name? She had been told that her name meant Anastasia, daughter of Ivan of the Domanov family.
The Count turned his body to look at Ivan, who was still being held by his men and glaring at him. For a moment, the two men’s gazes clashed in the air. The victor was the Count. Her father groaned and closed his eyes, while the Count let out a scoff.
"A lowly fisherman who barely earned a name thanks to a priest was using a royal surname here. I suppose you felt invincible playing the role of God’s agent in the countryside? And Ivan’s daughter... Ivan’s daughter..."
The Count thought for a moment before asking another question.
"Anastasia, how old are you this year?"
"T-twelve..."
Unlike before, a smile appeared on the Count’s face at that answer. Conversely, Ivan’s face, pressed against the floor, twisted in agony.
"Twelve. Twelve..."
The Count muttered it over and over, as if it were a very important fact.
"It was thirteen years ago that you met her mother."
While Anastasia, not understanding what that meant, was at a loss, Ivan suddenly twisted his body violently and shouted.
"She is my daughter! Chloe gave birth to my daughter!"
"But your daughter doesn't resemble you in the slightest."
"You don't resemble her either!"
The Count, who had furrowed his brows at Ivan’s words, lifted Anastasia’s face and muttered.
"Interesting. I wonder whose seed she carries."
He scanned Anastasia’s red hair and green eyes, revealing a faint, distant longing. Seeing the look in his eyes, Anastasia realized that the Count was missing her mother through her.
"A child who resembles no one. Only Chloe..."
The Count seemed pleased by that fact, yet also displeased. Anastasia could not understand. Children resemble their parents. So it was only natural that she resembled her mother, but why...
In the midst of not understanding the situation at all, Anastasia clutched her worn-out clothes in anxiety. She just wanted to go to her mother. That was why, following her father’s teaching to never tell lies, she had told the truth to a fine gentleman. But why were they only exchanging these incomprehensible words, and why wouldn't they take her to her mother?
"M-mother..."
"Ah, that’s right. I must see Chloe."
The Count moved to pick Anastasia up, but seeing the dirt and straw on her clothes, he pulled his arms back.
"Yes, where is your mother?"
"Over there."
Anastasia pointed with her finger toward the hill visible through the window.
"Mother is over there."
Anastasia looked down at the ground beneath her feet. Spring was still a long way off, so the hill was covered in white snow. The patches of earth that were visible consisted only of rock mixed with ice. Her mother’s headstone lay among them.
Anastasia watched the Count’s back as he approached the headstone before she could. She wanted to rush over, embrace the stone, and call out to her mother, but the Count’s subordinate held her shoulder firmly, refusing to let her go.
Amidst the desolate, frozen wind, the Count’s muttering reached her ears.
"I finally found you... only for you to run away again, Chloe."
Standing behind him, Anastasia could not see the expression on his face. Yet, she imagined it must be the same look he had worn the moment she pointed toward the headstone.
The Count stood before the grave for a long time before turning around. Contrary to what Anastasia had expected, there was no emotion on his face. He glanced at her once, then commanded the subordinate holding her.
"Once we leave, take her to the church. See that she doesn't wander off."
With that, the Count turned and headed toward the church on the hill. Anastasia watched him go, then pulled away from the man holding her and approached her mother’s headstone. In truth, it was little more than a crudely shaped rock, barely worthy of being called a headstone. Scratched into its surface with an iron nail were letters that Anastasia could not read.
Anastasia hugged the stone and rubbed her face against it. The rough surface scraped mercilessly against the child’s delicate, wind-chilled cheeks.
"Mommy..."
There was no way the headstone, standing in the winter wind, could be warm, yet Anastasia desperately sought the warmth she remembered. As she clung to the stone, she saw the Count and Ivan emerging from the church in the distance.
Ivan stumbled as he walked, eventually collapsing to the ground. The Count’s subordinates standing nearby grabbed his arms and hauled him up. The Count, Ivan, and the subordinates walked over the hill toward the river. Once they disappeared from sight, the subordinate who had been with Anastasia grabbed her arm, dragged her to the church, asked where her room was, and shoved her inside.
*Click.*
The sound of the door being locked from the outside echoed through the room.
Anastasia, still feeling the cold sensation of the headstone on her hands, climbed onto her bed, wrapped herself tightly in her blanket, and closed her eyes.
'I’m going to be in trouble.'
They had said her father went to talk with the Count. No guest stayed forever. Once the Count left, the church would return to being her father’s domain. He would become god once again.
'I’m scared.'
Anastasia curled her body into a ball. She had disobeyed her father’s orders. She had met strangers and spoken to them. She had even gone outside the church.
She could already hear the sound of a switch cutting through the air. How many lashes would she receive this time? She could not even fathom the marks that would be carved into her already battered calves. Trembling with fear, Anastasia prayed in her heart.
*Please, let Father talk to the Count for a very long time. Let him return to the church very late. Very late... very, very late...*
It was the most sincere prayer she had ever uttered. It was a prayer filled with such desperate longing that anyone who heard it would have had no choice but to grant it.
The next day, news reached Anastasia that her father had passed away.
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