The Gate of Heaven
Perhaps even she thought it looked like a child’s game. At Mikhail’s greeting, Anastasia let out a short laugh despite herself. Mikhail glanced at the chapel door where she had been standing, then cast his eyes over the surroundings.
“We won’t be able to enter through here, so we’ll have to use another entrance.”
At his words, Anastasia looked up at him with startled eyes.
“How did you know this door doesn’t open?”
“Because this is the Gate of Heaven.”
“The Gate of Heaven?”
Mikhail took Anastasia’s hand and drew her to the door. He tore away the vines and weeds that had climbed its surface, then showed her the faint carving still remaining on the rough wooden panels.
“Judging by the walls and the shape of the door, this chapel is probably from about two hundred years ago. It’s in the style they call Luzia. A hallmark of Luzia architecture is that they deliberately place a door on the entrance side that does not open at all.”
“Why would they make a door that doesn’t open?”
“Because it’s a symbolic door. They say the Gate of Heaven opens only for those God permits… so people would have entered through another door on the side of the chapel, waiting for the day this one might open.”
“Wow…”
The look in Anastasia’s eyes as she gazed at him was full of awe.
“There’s no need to look at me like that. It’s knowledge you pick up naturally if you wander the chapels still standing in the capital.”
“Are there many chapels like this in the capital?”
“Well, they’re far larger than this one, but…”
Having said that much, Mikhail brushed Anastasia’s hair back as he went on.
“…Would you like to go see them together someday?”
“Really?”
Her already large eyes grew even rounder, filling her green irises completely with him. He had always thought they sparkled, but in moments like this they seemed truly lit from within, so vivid with life that Mikhail made the promise lightly, as if it were nothing.
“Of course. If you wish, I’ll show you every chapel in the capital.”
What was so remarkable about going to look at chapels? Once they reached the capital, there would be far more splendid and beautiful places than that.
“More importantly—shouldn’t we be looking for those shoes?”
“That’s right!”
At Mikhail’s reminder, Anastasia remembered what she had forgotten. She took his hand and led him around to the side of the chapel. Rubble from a collapsed wall lay piled there.
So that’s why it was a ruined chapel.
At first he had thought only a portion of the ceiling had given way from long disuse—but going around to the side, he saw that while the front of the chapel looked relatively intact, the rear half was as good as gone.
“This way.”
Anastasia carefully stepped over the piled stones. Mikhail followed close behind, steadying her as they crossed the rubble.
She hurried inside at once. Then she dropped to the floor and stretched her arm under the stone chair set deepest in the space. Every time she moved, the thickly piled fallen leaves scattered outward.
Mikhail touched the chapel floor. The nearby river had overflowed, and even across the Edenhurst estate there were still vast puddles that had not fully dried. There was no way the shoes would be unharmed…
“I found them!”
Anastasia cried out as she pulled the shoe box free from among the leaves and old cloth bundles. But her face soon clouded over.
In truth she had been anxious from the moment she began digging through the leaves. The leaves heaped under the chair were soggy and wet, as if water had once filled the place. Still, not everything was soaked, so she had not lost hope as she drew the box out—yet it was already wet, marked by a large stain.
“……”
Seeing that stain, Anastasia hesitated, unable to open the box. One side was wet and warped out of shape. No matter how she looked at it, whatever lay inside did not seem likely to have survived.
“I shouldn’t have left them here…”
Touching the wet, crumpled box, Anastasia regretted it. She could have come to the forest anytime. The season was warm, and she no longer needed to hide from people’s eyes. And yet she had not set foot in the forest even once in all that time.
Because the manor was better than the forest.
It had been more than ten years since she came to Edenhurst, and only now could Anastasia finally look around the estate for the first time. Every time she opened a book, a new world unfurled before her eyes, and she had been so blinded by it that she had forgotten the forest that had long held her close.
When she still could not bring herself to open the box, Mikhail stepped to her side and held out his hand.
“May I open it for you?”
If he left her like this, she would surely end up crying. Without waiting for an answer, Mikhail took the box from Anastasia’s hands. Before the startled girl could stop him, he had claimed it and opened the lid without the slightest hesitation.
“……!”
Unable to bear looking inside, Anastasia squeezed her eyes shut. She knew well what happened when leather shoes got wet. They never dried properly, and even after drying the color changed and the shape warped. If it stopped there they might still be wearable—but they would begin to rot with a foul smell. That was why even Catherine discarded shoes without regret whenever they happened to get wet.
I never even got to wear them once…
If she had known it would come to this, she should have just worn them instead of saving them. Anastasia recalled the shape of the shoes she had been given. The first red shoes she had ever received. The daisy ornaments of leather fixed upon them. She had never seen such things even on Catherine’s shoes, which had made them seem all the more beautiful…
“…Are they completely soaked?”
Even after opening the box, Mikhail said nothing, and her worry only grew. Just how dreadful must they look for him to be struck speechless like that? Then came a soft thud, like thick cloth falling—and a moment later Mikhail’s arm slipped suddenly under the armpits of the seated Anastasia.
“Ah!”
When the startled Anastasia opened her eyes, her vision lifted into the air. He had picked her up.
She was smaller than Mikhail, but even so she was startled by how lightly she had been lifted. While she was still flustered, he set her down on the stone chair.
She had expected to feel cold, mossy stone—but Anastasia realized something soft and plush was laid beneath her. Looking down, she saw Mikhail’s jacket already spread across the seat; when had he taken it off? The sound of something falling a moment ago had been him laying his coat upon the chair.
“What are you trying to—”
“Stay still.”
When Anastasia tried to rise, Mikhail stopped her. Then he knelt on one knee before her.
His hand closed around her foot. With a soft rustle, the shoes Natasha had firmly fastened that morning came off easily at a single touch. When her small foot in white stockings was revealed under the sunlight, Anastasia—who had been watching to see what he meant to do—started and struggled.
“W-what are you doing!”
“As you can see. I’m taking off your shoes.”
“But why!”
“You can’t put on other shoes while still wearing these.”
Mikhail spoke gently, as if asking why she would question something so obvious—but Anastasia could barely hear him. It was startling enough that her entire foot fit in his hand; that he was kneeling on one knee as if attending her was just as flustering.
“I’ll! I’ll put them on myself!”
But Mikhail cleanly ignored her cry. He gripped her heel and lifted it slightly. When his long fingers closed around the hollow beneath her anklebone, Anastasia flinched as if burned, her body twitching.
She had never thought of that place as sensitive—yet the moment his hand touched it, a tingling sensation spread through her, and she was too embarrassed to lift her head.
Then, with a soft slide, something settled onto her foot, and Anastasia raised her head.
“These are…”
The shoes she had treasured so carefully inside the box were now on her feet. There was no wet stain to be seen anywhere on them.
“Aside from the ornaments being a little damp, there doesn’t seem to be any damage.”
“How…”
Anastasia stared at the shoes on her feet. Just as he said, except for the tips of the white daisy ornaments being a little wet, the shoes were remarkably intact. While she gazed at them in astonishment, Mikhail removed her other shoe as well and put the remaining one on for her.
“Is there any discomfort?”
At Mikhail’s question, Anastasia shook her head. The shoes he had bought for her fit her feet with remarkable perfection.
What was she to do.
Looking down at the shoes she wore, Anastasia sighed.
In truth, she had hoped Mikhail’s shoes would not fit. Then she could have used that as an excuse not to wear them and leave them be. But these shoes… fit her feet perfectly. So perfectly that she had no desire to wear anything else.
“What’s wrong?”
He had thought she would be glad—that the shoes she had searched for so desperately were unharmed and even fit her feet perfectly. Contrary to his expectations, Anastasia showed no joy.
“Because they fit so well.”
“Then isn’t that something to be glad about?”
“Because they fit too well.”
Anastasia took a step and murmured,
“…So well that I want to wear only these until I die.”
The moment he heard her soft words, Mikhail felt a chill run down his spine. When he looked at her again, only delight showed on her face.
What was that?
He could not understand why he had suddenly felt that strange sensation.
Anastasia already seemed accustomed to the new shoes, walking here and there around the chapel in the pair he had put on her. Then she came back to his side, took his hand, and said with a smile,
“Thank you for the gift.”
Looking at Anastasia smiling so brightly, he lowered his head. The feeling from a moment ago had already vanished without a trace. He did what he had wanted to do ever since entering the forest.
Anastasia’s small lips were swallowed by him in an instant. Enjoying the sweetness inside to his heart’s content—as he always found them—Mikhail thought:
She has no fear.
Smiling like that in a place with no one around, as if she has any idea what I might do.