The Fish in the Tank

And so, when she had been cast back through time, she had taken it for a blessing from God.

Surely heaven had granted her a second chance. This time, she would set everything right.

But there was one truth she had failed to grasp: that she was not the heroine of the story, and that the endless loop of regression was no grace at all — it was a curse.

The first few times, she died without ever discovering why her body was failing. Even the physicians could only shake their heads, and by the time she no longer knew which way to turn, sleep had long since fled her. She spent those nights with no one to talk to, only the fish in the tank for company — a creature that swam and swam and never once escaped its walls of glass, for reasons it could never understand. Looking at it felt like looking at herself, trapped inside the aquarium of regression.

"You ought to enjoy a little mischief now and then, don't you think?"

She fished a few finely diced carrots from the soup Madame had brought her and dropped them into the tank. The fish darted toward the food, its lovely fins thrashing through the water.

Chin propped in her hand, her gaze tracked the rapid motion — then stopped, fixed on a single point.

"…What?"

The fins that had been cutting through the water went still. In an instant, the glittering scales dulled to ash-gray, and the little body began to sink, heavy as stone.

"What on earth…"

There was only one possible cause. Delfina looked down at the soup. Tears surged up so fast the world blurred white before her eyes.

No. It can't be.

She did not want to believe it. But death after death, regression after regression, forced the truth upon her with a violence she could no longer refuse — the truth she most desperately wished to deny.

The doctor who claimed he could find no cause for her illness. Her gentle mother. Even the sharp-tongued sister-in-law she had believed, deep down, still worried for her. Stay indoors, they had said — she was too frail to go out. Be careful what you eat. Avoid company; you might pass on some strange disease. She had believed every word of it sprang from love.

Then came the day she slipped from the mansion in secret and saw a physician who did not belong to the household.

"It's antifreeze."

"What is that?"

"A chemical used in automobiles. A young lady like yourself might not be familiar with it."

"And if a person were to drink it…"

"Good heavens! Why would anyone drink that?"

"So one shouldn't?"

"Of course not — it could kill you! You must never, under any circumstances, ingest it."

"Is there antifreeze in everything I brought you today?"

"…Yes. In all of it."

Everything had been an illusion. Her deaths had never been meaningless. She was being murdered — every single time.

The world spun. Cold sweat soaked her through. Splat. She stepped into a mud puddle left by the morning rain and went down hard. As she thrashed in pain, the Madame's final face rose unbidden through everything that had once obscured it. Madame had always been smiling.

"Hic…"

Only then did she read that smile for what it was — not merely pity, but the triumph she had never quite managed to hide.

Knock, knock.

The sound at the door pulled her from her thoughts.

"Are you asleep?"

"Mother?"

She pushed herself up from where she had been leaning against the sofa. Madame entered carrying a tray of soup.

"I brought you a little potato soup."

"My stomach… isn't quite right."

Madame set the tray on the table before the sofa and settled into the seat opposite.

"Even so, I went to the trouble of bringing it. Have a little before you sleep."

A tilt of the chin made clear she expected the spoon to be lifted at once. Delfina took it up against her will. The arm that held it felt impossibly heavy.

"What about the servants?"

"I won't rest easy until I've seen you eat."

The words were kind. The gaze fixed on the spoon was not.

"Then I suppose I ought to manage at least one spoonful."

She dipped into the soup. A strangely sweet scent brushed her nose. Nausea rose in a sudden wave. She filled her mouth, then clamped a hand over it as if she had simply swallowed wrong.

"……Hah."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. I just — went down the wrong way, I think."

The sweet reek of antifreeze made her want to empty everything inside her then and there.

"I'll open a window."

Without waiting for permission, she rose and flung the casement wide. Night air thick with the scent of grass rolled into the room like a tide, and her lungs found a little space again.

"At this hour?"

"It's a bit warm."

"The soup—"

The intention to press again was transparent. She knew she ought to keep pretending ignorance a while longer, but she could not bear another word of it. One more exchange and she feared her true feelings would slip free on their own.

"I was thinking of going to the bank tomorrow."

Deflection was all she had. And she chose a subject Madame would find too interesting to ignore.

"The bank?"

"Yes. I'd like to secure a bit of capital."

She meant to borrow against the will. The tighter the money ran, the sooner death always found her.

"My. What a thought."

"I only want to be of some small help."

"Why not the day after tomorrow instead? Then I could go with you."

As if pleased by the idea, Madame came to stand before the window and laid her hand over the back of Delfina's. The clouds that had veiled the moon drifted apart, and light fell full upon Madame's tender face.

"I'll be fine on my own."

She was the heir, after all. Madame seemed to hear the unspoken half of the sentence; she patted Delfina's shoulder.

"You'll do that for me, then?"

"I will."

"Good. Rest easy, then."

Madame, whose funds had been running thin, was in high enough spirits that she left without offering the soup again.

"…Hah."

Delfina carried the bowl out to the terrace and tipped the whole of it over the railing. The tips of her fingers trembled on the dish; her stomach churned. She glanced for a moment at the heavy clusters of cherry tomatoes ripening along the terrace, then returned to the sofa.

On any other day she would have soothed the queasiness with a tomato. Not tonight. She drew out the handkerchief she had kept hidden in her clothes. Unfolded, it revealed a few slightly crushed wild strawberries.

"Haha……"

Remembering the afternoon's outing, she found the feeling of free fall ease, just a little. The bright tartness spread through her mouth.

I have to keep my head clear.

Distance from Madame Pinatelli's poison was no reason to relax.

She still had another crisis waiting for her.

The marble pillars before the doors blazed in the sunlight.

After a sleepless night she was bone-weary. She pressed carefully at her chest.

Borrowing money was not the only purpose of this visit.

It was the first stone laid so that she would never again be helpless before the people who meant to kill her.

Delfina stopped the coachman who moved, as a matter of course, to follow her inside.

"There's no need for you to come with me."

"But… the Madame ordered me to stay by your side."

He clung until she pressed a few coins into his hand; then he grinned and drifted off, and she was free until he returned.

"I'll come back for you before sunset, then."

"I'd be grateful. I'll remain near the bank, so you needn't worry overmuch."

Muttering that he had never known bank business to take so long, the coachman at last turned away.

In a space so spare of color, Delfina in her white dress was more than enough to draw every eye.

"How may I help you?"

A clerk looked her up and down as she stepped inside. There had been a time when she knew nothing of this world and had been turned out of a bank in humiliation — but she knew better now. The contemptuous manner she had once found so insulting could be flipped like a palm with nothing more than a single cufflink. It was nothing, really.

"This."

She produced, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the cufflink that marked her as one of the bank's principal clients.

"One moment, please."

This was Daclay Bank, the largest in the nation — and so long as it held the fortune the Count had left behind, she was one of its most important patrons. A guard who recognized the cufflink at once returned with someone else in tow.

"You must be the young lady of House Pinatelli. A pleasure. I am Gatwell, branch manager of Daclay Bank, Toulouse."

"How do you do."

The surrounding stares sharpened further. Even so, the manager kept stealing glances at the young lady of House Pinatelli, who somehow still looked perfectly composed.

"This way, if you please."

Wiping the sweat of a hurried arrival with his handkerchief, Gatwell led her into a private room. This was not the first time she had borrowed against the will; the process went smoothly.

"The sum is certainly available to you. Though I must say — with so little time left before the will expires, it is rather a large amount."

"It's a little embarrassing, but as you can see, even keeping a proper retinue is becoming a strain."

"His Lordship's absence must weigh heavily."

Even when she tried to sound practiced in matters of finance, her inexperience showed through in the end.

"Terribly so. That is why I thought it wise to have something on hand, should urgent need arise."

"I see. It is simply such a great sum… I cannot help but be concerned."

He wore the face of worry, but she could see plain as day the way his eyes were already turning over how best to make use of her.