While she was walking home, Marigold hoped she would not meet Etta. She is too indisposed for any conversation at present.

Reality is unforgiving, so Etta notices her just as she was about to enter her room. “You’re back! How did it go?” she asks right off, and soon after she detects Marigold’s sullen mood.

Marigold chooses to explain, albeit in the briefest she can manage. “I got ahead of myself,” she says with a contrived laugh. Dropping the act immediately, she cuts the conversation short. “I’ll tell you as soon as I sort myself out, Etta.”

Etta sensibly leaves her alone.

Marigold bolts the door behind her, unlaces and takes off her boots near the doorway, and seeks refuge in the wicker chair placed by the window. She sits with her knees pulled up, and she stares outside the window where she can see the people entering and leaving the shop. Despite the incident at the park, she still wishes he runs after her, and takes back what he said, perhaps.

She banishes the thought.

“You are taken with the idea of me fancying you…” she repeats to herself. She parses the string of words, scraping every morsel of meaning in them.

Loath as she was to admit, Steven could be right. She herself is surprised that she did not feel as heartbroken as she should. Rather, she is angry at how Steven refused to answer her with either a yes or a no, but instead resorted to asking all sorts of questions like he were a magistrate interrogating a criminal. It made her feel stupid. He belittled her feelings.

But what of her feelings? Were they as true as she believed they were?

“What led you to think so?”

She tries to remember the reasons she gave him then. His general kindness, helpfulness, and how he liked her company. She recalls even the reasons she refrained from telling him. His intellect, occupation, and what she will never tell anyone—his looks. ‘Do I know any of his faults?’ she tests herself. She does not.

‘Were my feelings shallow after all?’

Looking back now, she did not even confess any form of affection to him.

Her frown deepens.

No. She cannot give in yet.

The sun is setting and the shop is closing, and Marigold decides to prepare dinner so she can retire to bed early. Just as she was about to leave her seat, a familiar sight makes her blood run cold.

The men who pursued her before are now standing outside the shop.

‘They could just be looking for clothes,’ she assures herself, but she sees them the way she saw them then—hawk-eyed and menacing. They are standing at a distance from the shop’s entrance, observing their surroundings. One of them looks up to her window.

She yanks the curtains shut. Fortunately, her oil lamp is not lit.

Marigold peeks from the curtains, and sees the men approaching the shop. Etta waves them off—she does not entertain customers beyond business hours, unless they are her wealthy patrons. The men are civil enough to take their leave.

The girl lets go of the breath she has been holding. ‘They will return tomorrow, surely,’ she suspects with dread, still glued to her spot.

She looks around her darkened room, considering her options. If she goes to work tomorrow, they will find her in the shop. Leaving her home right now is too hasty and risky. She might need to wait things out, and make an excuse to hide in her room for a while. In her little kitchen, she spots an ample supply of garlic, onions, and pepper. Marigold purses her lips. ‘This will stink, but it might work.’

The next day, Marigold does not show up at work on her usual time, so Henrietta comes to the girl’s rented home upstairs to check on her. The door is surprisingly unlocked, and the woman opens it.

Marigold is in her bed, her sheets up to her chin. “Good morning, Etta,” she croaks. A sniffle follows. Etta approaches the bed, and puts a hand on the girl’s forehead.

“Goodness, you’re burning up!” Etta exclaims.

“…I might have caught a bad cold,” Marigold says weakly. Her eyes are red and teary, and she covers her face with her hand as she sneezes. “You might catch it, Etta.”

“Don’t mind that. Rest well, Marigold,” Etta replies. She goes to the door. “I’ll go check on you later.” Etta leaves, and closes the door behind her.

At that instant, Marigold gets up from the bed and locks the door. She washes the pepper off her palms. Her eyes sting from the onions she chopped a while ago, and she faintly reeks of garlic. ‘It worked on Etta, at least,’ she thinks. Still in her nightclothes, she walks barefoot along the wooden floor to the wicker chair by the window. She sits, pulls up her knees again, and peeks through the curtains.

As she expected, the men are already standing at a distance from the store.

‘They are here so early,’ Marigold thinks, perturbed. She wonders how long the men will stay just to catch her. One of them enters the shop, leaving the others to stand guard. She is somehow relieved that they are not warmongers that will have no qualms turning the place upside down. They want to take her noiselessly, it seems.

Marigold continues to watch them from her window as they stand around the shop for the whole day. The men keep taking turns to visit the shop, pretending to be buyers. Some of them glance at her window from time to time—she manages to hide, but in her gut she feels they already know she is there and they are simply waiting for the right time to strike. She makes sure that the door is always locked, and that Etta would call her first before she opens it.

Evening comes, and Marigold refrains from lighting up her lamp for fear of being seen outside. Etta, who has brought her lunch a few hours back, comes up to bring her dinner, and she is puzzled by the girl’s insistence to keep her room dark. Marigold reasons that light makes her restless and sleepless. After finishing the food brought to her, she scrubs herself, hoping to get rid of the smell of garlic.

Thus, the same happens for the next few days. The men are still intent on expecting her to appear in the shop, just as she is bent on hiding until her pursuers give up. She is still keeping up her illness in front of Henrietta, and the woman brings her food regularly, conveniently so—but even Etta is starting to have doubts about Marigold’s sickness. For three days, most of her time is spent on spying her pursuers, without devising any proper plans to leave the place.

Steven is now walking around town after days of long hard work at the guild. Many businesses open during this season, and the rush has left the guild with heaps of paperwork in its wake. Since three days ago, Steven has been working from morning till late evening, so the sight of the setting sun today is rather pleasing in his eyes.

Having time in his hands also lets him think of something else other than work, and his mind wanders to someone he would rather not think about yet. He would have sorted things out with her quickly if he could, but then he figured that she would not wish to see him so soon. Also, he did mean everything he said.

‘Should I try visiting her now?’ he asks himself.

Just as he is contemplating over his options, he reaches Henrietta’s storefront. He still feels reluctant to go inside, so he stands awkwardly in the middle of the street, his foot tapping indecisively, his eyes roaming around. He notices a heavy-set man come out of the door. The man joins a group of men standing at a distance from the shop.

Steven observes.

The men talk among themselves in hushed voices while standing in a circle, their backs to Steven. Some of them throw glances at the direction of the store, particularly at the second-story windows of the building. The windows have thick curtains that block the view inside.

Something is not right.

This is the end of Steven’s hesitation.

From the slit of window allowed by the curtain and wall, Marigold finds a different sight outside. Steven is standing in front of the shop, looking around. She would be lying to herself if seeing him does not give her even a bit of hope and a vague feeling that help is coming. Marigold hates having to depend on other people. More than that, she hates the fact that she has to rely on Steven again.

For a moment, Steven looks up to her window. She looks back at him, certain that even he will never notice her peeking from behind the curtains. Steven breaks his stare, and enters the shop.

Steven immediately meets Henrietta in the store.

“A bit late, aren’t you?” she says knowingly.

The young man is not exactly sure of what Henrietta is speaking of, but he replies, “Unfortunately.”

Henrietta motions her head to the direction of the stairs. “Go ahead. You two need to talk.”

Steven finds the door unlocked, but he knocks anyway before opening it. Inside he finds Marigold curled up still in her wicker chair, watching through the window. She does not acknowledge his presence at all.

He closes and latches the door behind him. “You left your door unlocked.”

“I saw you coming,” she says, barely moving from her position.

‘She did welcome me, it seems,’ Steven thinks. He approaches Marigold.

“How long have they been here?” he asks.

The amber-haired girl sighs. “Three days. Today is the fourth one.”

‘During the time I couldn’t visit,’ Steven remarks inwardly. “Does Henrietta know?”

“I pretended to be sick,” Marigold explains, still looking at the window. “But Etta is getting suspicious of me.”

Steven stares at the girl. “You can’t keep this act forever.”

Marigold peels away her violet eyes from the window to shoot a glare at Steven. “I know. And I have been making plans.”

The black-haired young man crosses his arms. “What do you plan on doing?”

“Why should I tell you?” she snaps.

It is now Steven’s turn to let out a sigh, and he paces about the room. He stops to face Marigold again and says, “I’m here to help. You are in danger, so I think we should set our misgivings aside and—“

“No, stop this,” Marigold cries as she quickly stands up from her chair, cutting Steven off. “I don’t need your help and you made it clear—“

“You need help.” Steven cuts her off as well in an even, calm voice.

Marigold scoffs. She knows that she needs help, but it does not have to come from him. “The gall…” she mutters under her breath.

Steven ignores her, inhales and exhales deeply, and says,

“Leave this place and live with me.”

—end of Entry Three—

a/n: No, I did not take a holiday break. If I had one, I would be writing more episodes, because it's one of the things I love doing right now. Things got pretty hectic during the past few days due to Christmas preparations. And Christmas passed me like a storm, lol. 

Now that things have calmed down a bit, I hope I can get back to my usual pace of publishing one chapter a day. I'm sorry my friends. Please keep reading. I love you.