Dolores wasn’t that naive either.
She hadn’t completely dismissed the possibility that Washers was truly abusing Adriel.
“…I should bring them a snack.”
Washers had requested that no one enter during the treatment, but Dolores used that as an excuse to convince herself and went up to the attic.
But the problem was the attic’s structure.
—Sssssshhh.
The sound of the door sliding along the rail meant the person inside couldn’t possibly be unaware of a visitor.
By the time Dolores pushed the door to the end of the rail and peeked inside, Washers was already prepared to receive his guest.
“It’s scones. Thank you, Ms. Dolores.”
“It’s nothing.”
Dolores scanned the room with hawk-like eyes.
The room was bright, and Washers was sitting calmly on a low chair.
Adriel was lying on the bed beside him; it seemed this bed was serving as the examination table.
‘…He looks okay.’
She couldn’t find any wounds on Adriel.
His expression was more vacant than usual, but that was it.
He didn’t seem to have any particular problems.
“…Well, I’ll be going now. I’m really sorry for barging in.”
Dolores bowed politely, said goodbye, and left the scene.
Believing Adriel would be fine.
‘Yes, that’s how it was…’
If what Dolores saw was everything, there was no reason for Adriel to be trembling in terror like this.
“What on earth happened?”
Dolores asked anxiously.
The child just sniffled, giving no answer.
Anxiety and unease tightened around her heart.
“Why won’t you answer? Are you stupid?!”
Adriel flinched, startled.
Dolores had never raised her voice or gotten angry like this before.
“Talk! Why are you crying?! What’s the big deal about the clock hand’s shadow disappearing that makes you cry like this?! What happened in there?”
After pressing him several times, Adriel hesitantly muttered a single word.
“…It’s a secret.”
“A secret? What do you mean, a secret?”
“A secret. It’s a secret. I promised Dolores.”
Ah.
Only then did Dolores realize what the child was talking about.
‘The matters with Mr. Washers… I said it was all a secret. I did.’
For Adriel, a rule was a rule.
Not knowing the reason behind the rule, he simply trusted Dolores and followed it.
That’s why the secret remained a secret, even to Dolores, who made the promise.
‘…Then, is that also why he only talks about the clock hand?’
Was it because it was too painful and agonizing, but he couldn’t bring up Mr. Washers?
So he only cried out about the shadow of the clock hand?
“…Adriel.”
“Yeah.”
“What did Mr. Washers say? Can you recite his exact words to me?”
“If I say what Mr. Washers said, then it’s not a secret…”
“No. What we agreed to keep secret was what you did with Mr. Washers. What Mr. Washers said isn’t part of the secret. Understand?”
Adriel nodded with a puzzled expression.
After all, Dolores was the one who made the rules.
“So, what did Mr. Washers say to you?”
The child’s dark green eyes wavered uneasily.
“…Lie down.”
“And then?”
“Don’t move. Stay still.”
Words one might commonly say to a young patient, but…
‘Adriel is an excessively well-behaved child, so why…?’
“Don’t even blink. Unless you want your eyes covered again.”
“…What?”
The monotonous voice continued rapidly.
“Don’t speak. Need to use the bathroom? Hold it. Ah, you ended up wetting yourself after all. You beast. Filthy little devil.”
And then it ended.
After a brief hesitation.
“Lie down.”
The child repeated the first words.
After several exchanges, Dolores managed to piece together the information.
“So, that’s what the treatment was like?”
Under the pretense of treating the child, Washers tied him to a wooden chair.
He put a strange helmet on his head, covering his eyes, and forbade him from moving a muscle.
If he made even the slightest sound or movement, he was scolded as if he were an animal.
He sent electric currents, and if the child screamed, he repeated it.
When the child finally stopped screaming.
Washers tied the child to the bed placed in the center.
There, too, the child couldn’t move.
Every minor muscle twitch became punishable.
The child had to spend hours as a living doll.
‘How is that treatment?’
Dolores felt like she was going to vomit.
But, really? Was she perhaps misunderstanding something?
‘Mr. Washers is a renowned doctor. And he’s Adriel’s father.’
In contrast, she was just an uneducated maid.
What if that really was the treatment method?
Just as there are treatments using leeches, and treatments involving injections, maybe that bizarre method was actually a way to cure Adriel.
Dolores fell into deep contemplation.
“Dolly. Why are you feeling down? Is it because of Adriel?”
Claire, who had returned from work, was worried about Dolores.
Deep in thought, she took out something to lift her dear friend’s spirits.
“Dolly. Look at this. A letter delivered to our lab a few days ago. Guess who sent it?”
Absentmindedly, Dolores uttered the name that had been filling her thoughts.
“Mr. Washers?”
“Oh my god! How did you know? Yes. That man sent me a letter? A very clingy, dripping-with-regret letter.”
Dolores hurriedly took the letter and read its contents.
[Claire. I miss you. I still love you, and you do too, deep down. We can rebuild a perfect family again. We can be a happy couple and parents again.]
Up to that point, Dolores understood.
The problem started from the next paragraph.
[After all, Adriel won’t live that long anyway.]
‘…What?’
[It’s a sad fact, but children with mental illnesses are often like that. They lose their minds, become idiots, or choose to end their own lives. If such a terrible thing happens, my love. I am always ready to comfort you. If you need solace, don’t hesitate to contact me.]
“Isn’t he just the worst? I can’t even tell if this is a love letter or a curse?”
Claire’s voice barely registered.
A high-pitched sound, like a kettle boiling, rang in her ears.
Dolores realized her mistake.
‘What Washers needs isn’t Adriel.’
What he needs is a ‘normal’ child.
The perfect accessory to complete a perfect family.
If he could fix the child, that wouldn’t be bad either.
But if it seems impossible, it’s better to just break it.
By removing the broken piece, he could reunite with his wife, and a new part could be produced anytime.
They were a young couple, after all.
“Urgh!”
“Dolly? What’s wrong all of a sudden? Dolly!”
Dolores vomited violently.
She couldn’t believe what she had done.
‘Washers was trying to harm Adriel.’
That wasn’t treatment or anything—it was torture.
Washers used her to harm the people she loved.
‘Ah, I was the one who pushed that child into that room.’
I opened the door for Washers.
I moved Washers’s examination tools into the room.
I urged the child to keep meeting his father a secret.
I hid all these facts from Claire.
I did. I did. I did.
No. Washers did.
‘…I’ll kill him.’
Vomiting uncontrollably, Dolores made a decision.
‘I’ll kill him. Washers!’
Washers didn’t know.
The uneducated orphan he used so freely.
Just how venomously that orphan had lived.
—
The next morning, Dolores baked a large meat pie.
“Oh my, Dolly! When did you prepare all this?”
Claire asked in surprise.
“You didn’t look well yesterday, wasn’t it difficult?”
“Um, not at all.”
Dolores shook her head nonchalantly.
“I was just trimming the meat without thinking, and I accidentally made way too much ground meat. So I quickly made a meat pie.”
“But this is too much. You didn’t stay up all night cooking, did you?”
Dolores shrugged playfully.
“When else would I use the light bulbs developed by our genius scientist?”
“You’re unbelievable!”
“Alright, time to go to work. We’ll be late. Oh, I’ll pack plenty of pie for you to share with your lab colleagues.”
Dolores passed by Claire, who was rolling her eyes in mock annoyance, and patted the head of Adriel, who was inhaling the pie.
“Adriel. The fish room isn’t that bad, right?”
“Adriel thinks the fish room isn’t that bad.”
“That’s good. Let’s keep using that room at least until today, okay?”
Adriel nodded as if he had no complaints and swallowed another bite of pie.
“By the way, I really think I should learn from you.”
Claire sighed, looking at Dolores with envy.
“How on earth did you break Adriel’s stubbornness? I couldn’t stop Adriel’s crying at all.”
“It wasn’t that hard. I just made one promise.”
“What promise?”
“That’s a secret.”
When Dolores smiled playfully, Claire laughed as if she couldn’t help it.
Adriel looked back and forth between the two and quickly imitated their laughter.
Some might say the child’s laughter was stiff and unnatural.
But to Dolores, it was a perfectly lovely smile.
“I’m off, Dolores.”
“Take care, Claire.”
Dolores watched Claire leave for work for a long time.
She hugged Adriel, who was going up to the second floor, and put a marine encyclopedia, which Adriel loved dearly, into his hands.
So Adriel could stay focused for a long time.
Finally, Dolores tucked the particularly sharp knife she had chosen while trimming meat all night into the back of her apron.
With that, all preparations were complete.
—Knock knock.
An hour and thirty minutes after Claire left for work.
When the usual knock sounded, Dolores got up to greet the guest.
“Welcome, Mr. Washers.”
“Good to see you, Ms. Dolores.”
Washers, as always, strode straight to the child’s room, then showed a puzzled expression.
“Where is Adriel?”
“I put him in the room ahead of time. He was being so noisy.”
“Ahh…”
Washers snorted as if he understood.
“Because of that tantrum about the clock shadow this and that? Don’t worry too much. After today’s treatment, the tantrums should subside a bit.”
“I’ll trust you, Mr. Washers.”
Washers pushed open the room’s door without any particular suspicion.
—Sssssshhh…
Finally, when the door reached the end of the rail and stopped moving.
“Keuh-hack!”
Something sharp plunged into his back.
He screamed and rolled on the floor.
Turning around, he saw Dolores standing with a knife, filled with madness.
“Wh-what are you doing? Are you insane?!”
Dolores didn’t answer and strode toward him.
Washers scrambled backward desperately, pleading.
“Ms. Dolores, come to your senses. You’re not in your right mind. It must be a nervous breakdown. I can treat you! So—”
“Treatment?”
Dolores twisted the corner of her mouth upward.
“I don’t need any treatment. Adriel doesn’t need that either! The one who needs treatment isn’t us, it’s you!!!”
“You crazy bitch!”
As Dolores swung the knife, Washers instinctively twisted her wrist, snatched the knife, and stabbed her back.
—Thud!
The cold, sharp blade deeply pierced her abdomen.
The violence didn’t stop with one blow.
—Thud! Thud! Thud!
Flesh tore and bright blood spurted like a fountain.
It was a fatal wound that would have caused an ordinary person to collapse from shock long ago.
According to what Washers had learned, that was certain.
“Haha! Hahahaha!”
But Dolores didn’t stop.
It was as if she were a monster that didn’t even feel pain.
Dolores let out a beast-like roar and lunged at Washers as if to bite his neck. The more she was stabbed, the stronger her force became.
“Die, Washers! Die!”
Fear clouded Washers’s eyes. Overwhelmed by the momentum of Dolores charging like a demon, he ended up dropping the knife.
—Clang!
Dolores picked up the fallen knife.
“Huff, huff!”
Washers was now completely terrified.
He reflexively checked the situation.
Himself, inside the attic.
Dolores, still standing outside the door.
“Get away! Get away, I said!”
Washers pushed the door frantically.
On the other side, Dolores pushed the door with her blood-soaked hands.
—Screeeech!
Red blood was crushed along the rail, releasing a horrifying metallic screech.
Dolores’s eyes glittered with murderous intent, but it was a contest of brute strength between a severely injured, bleeding woman and a man driven solely by the survival instinct of fear.
The outcome was decided from the start.
“Get awaaay!”
Washers put his full weight into pushing the door.
—Thud!
The secret room’s door slammed shut violently, shaking.
—Crash!
The clock, shaken unstably by the two pushing and pulling, fell and shattered.
“Ah, no…”
The clock couldn’t be gone.
Dolores crawled, picked up the broken clock, and hugged it to her chest.
She wanted to hang the clock back in its original place, but she didn’t have the strength.
As an alternative, Dolores leaned against the now-closed attic door and hugged the clock so it would be clearly visible.
She had to show this clock to Adriel.
Even if unseen, the shadow must have returned to the clock.
Because the door had closed completely, leaving not even a crack.
Because the foolish Washers had closed the door to his own grave with his own hands.
“Haha…, ha…”
Dolores let out a soft, breathy laugh.
She hadn’t planned to swing the knife and kill him from the start.
To repay Adriel’s suffering, that would have been nowhere near enough.
“How do you plan to get out of the room now, Mr. Washers?”
The attic door could only be opened from the outside and only closed from the inside.
Now the door was closed, and there was no one to open it for him.
‘Rot and die trapped in the hell you created.’
Feeling her consciousness gradually fading, Dolores smiled.
—Crash!
“Kyaaaaah!”
Beyond her blurring vision, Claire appeared faintly.
Adriel appeared as if following her.
“Dolores…?”
Adriel smiled with a bewildered expression.
He had been taught to smile back when the other person was smiling.
Right now, she must surely be smiling.
Adriel kept Dolores’s rule until the very end.
The child swallowed all secrets and uttered the words permitted to him.
“The shadow has returned to the clock hand!”
That’s right, Adriel.
I kept my promise to you.
The door is closed. That man is gone now.
All the people who tormented you will disappear now.
All of them.
Dolores ended her life, smiling until the very end.