It was like a living picture from the four gospels in the New Testament. The room still remained the miraculous air, smelled like vanilla.

“Praise the Lord! You are an angel!” Fraulein Helen made a wild comment. For religiously correctly speaking, angels only appeared on the pages bound by a thick black leather cover.

Without any worry of his appearance, Hubert hopped onto the General, his second father to him, giving him the ever warming hug as the first one the General gave him during their first Christmas night spent together. Though Hubert had now grown much more, the power of his hug is built on love, not muscle. And as time passed, it only grew greater and mightier.

“My boy!” The General returned the gift with ten times passion than his.

“I thought I’d lost you, forever, like him.” The already sealed tears threatened to erupt again under that line of words.

“Silly, if God forbade miracle, I would live in your heart,” He grinned, pointing at Hubert’s heart. By now, memories started to construct themselves in his mind, allowing him to have basic knowledge of the unfortunate event.

Why did the General become so poetic? I guess poems are indeed the language of love which is also possessed by a man like him. A coward one, who was afraid to stand against the Power and defend for the truth. But time had washed past the remains of righteousness in his heart, all became numb at the killings and fightings and nightmares filled with horrid ghastly screams.

“Aurora, why did you hide it, the gift?” Hubert finally came to his senses and realised how peculiar her act was.

“I…...I can’t. I wouldn’t want to risk my life,” she stammered.

“For what? You thought I’d kill you for such a miracle?” He laughed, without concerning her blushing face.

“Fraulein Aurora, my fair maiden, you save my life?” The General asked, with his expression proved that he remembered nothing.

“Let me tell you all about it.” Fraulein Helen and Hubert collided in their voices, filled with excitement.

With their hours-long talk started, Aurora took the opportunity to sneak out for a walk. Instead of the garden, she went to the library, where the words always had the ability to comfort her from the madness of this world.

***

The library was free from the chaos of the night. It was cosy with floral printed wallpaper and forty antique bookshelves standing straightly against the wall, forming a large square of a rigid shield with three soft fabric sofas scattered in the middle. It was a shelter from the corruption.

Aurora picked a book from the small stand where she placed every book she was tempted to read before finishing the one she was reading, in which she built as a habit.

There, she picked Pride and Prejudice by Miss Jane Austen. The book that was recommended by Armond.

He was being a gentleman that day, in fact, he was a gentleman with quite a character every day, at least she thought he was until tonight.

“I can’t judge anyone before receiving any evidence of his wicked act,” she commented uneasily while choosing a perfect seat for her new read. But one could never find a perfect seat or posture for reading in long hours. Yes, you there, who are reading now, is not alone, I have this difficulty too.

“Why, it can’t be. Why would Fraulein Helen say Herr Armond was with her during the gunshot when I could so evidently see him holding a weapon with blood smeared at his face?” She thought while deciding whether to sit at the sofa next to some lilies or the sofa next to some yellow roses.

“Yellow roses it is. But how could he possibly jump from one spot to another and dancing and killing all at the same moment?”

She finally sat down and opened the book, it was hardcover in a dark green colour, quite a dear match with the yellow roses.

“Chapter one. Yes, how peculiar! I shouldn’t believe it! How uncivilised it is to think such a lovely gentle woman who loves her husband so dearly to be a culprit with the potential murderer! How could one be so depressed to a dead corpse if one was a doer of the murder?”

A loud thunder scared her thought into pieces but she immediately gathered them back into a pile and created a new theory, “But one could pretend. In Mysteries of Harburg, Dr Adam makes a terrible decision to trust the tears of his wife. Shall Fraulein Helen do the same and…….No, no, Princess Aurora of the Fantastical Realm, you shall not put those silly ideas from those novels you’ve read!”

All the noise in her mind slowly died out as she allowed herself to be occupied in the story on her hand. The mess moved from her mind to the weather. It was thunder and lightning and howling of rains hitting against the tightly closed windows.

It was two different worlds.

However, peace was disturbed when she reached chapter 23. Without knocking, an unwelcome presence joined her company.

“Fraulein Aurora, how delightful to meet you here,” Armond, standing next to a bookshelf, attempted to pretend nothing had changed.

“Armond, tell me, did you do this?” She asked in a serious manner.

“What do you mean?” He asked in the same manner.

“I saw you, in the crowd holding a black weapon. I believe you saw me too.” She stared at him, determinedly, hoping to find fear in his eyes.

“Why, how lovely it is that you saw me, a constant shadow in your mind. How possibly great is my being in you that caused such hallucination?” He drifted his direction from the books to her face.

“With blood smeared at your face!” She ignored his teasing and continued her testimony.

“I was dancing with Fraulein Helen,” he walked toward her slowly and without any fear, he continued, “sometimes, one should separate fantasy from reality.”

“I know very clear it's not a fantasy. In fact, I, myself, am a living fantasy. You saw what I did to Herr Friedrich, to undo your wretched deed.” She didn't know where the boldness came from.

He simply smiled, civilised, without any further reply.

“Would it be possible to hear the truth from you if I, let suppose, share my testimony with Herr Friedrich?” She asked in a tone that was difficult to distinguish between wittiness and urgency.

“My dear, if I were you I would have three reasons to reconsider such a proposal. First, you would cause Fraulein Helen unnecessary anger toward you. She has already mentioned being with me when the gunshot resounded. By sharing your testimony, you would display her in a very awkward situation in which it was either she was to be a culprit with me in murdering her husband or you painting dark spots over her account. This, which leads me to the second point, you would replace the gratitude Herr Friedrich has for your rescue to a fury of your wronging toward his beloved wife or of your humiliating him by implying his loving wife would do such thing as murdering the husband with her secret lover. Third, by combining all these points, you would break the heart of Hubert. Above all, you broke the heart of his family which then leads to his. Apart from it, I am more like half his family as well. By putting me on the table and forcing him to realise his only best friend would murder his father, you, my dear, have unintentionally torn his heart into million pieces.”

It was a monologue marked with a victorious smirk at the end and it gave Aurora no way to defend herself. She doubted whether he had eavesdropped her thoughts or why would his wild guess be so similar to hers. Somehow, she became the one to blame all of a sudden.

The rain pattering against the glass windows, from the shelter, it sounded as if billions and billions of money coins poured and scattered down to the land. The picture was silly and she really wanted to give a great laugh when she was conscious again at the serious conversation.

She cast away that silly thought as if it was a worn-out toy and stood up, with her back erected in a bolder posture and walked toward him.

Ignored the awkward distance created by the difference between their height, she didn't stand back at her physical shortcoming and proclaimed, “I will not take in your lies! You are bending right and wrong! You are twisting the truth!”

“Then, tell me, What is the truth?”

His words were broken by a sudden scream of thunder and it shook her soul at such abrupt violent sound.

This was a new trait about her that he had learnt. So far, Armond had learnt that this mysterious maiden was beautiful but it was not the adjective that gave her presence a shimmering glow. He learnt that she was elegant, polite, kind, loving, so determined at right and wrong, possessed a special gift, and, she was afraid of thunder.

He grinned at her subtle shiver of fright, not in a teasing manner this time, he said, “You know, sometimes, one is hard to judge perfectly. There is no fine black and white line. The world is complicated. What may seem lawful is completely immoral and what may seem illegal is completely confined with Godly instructions, especially during these days.”

The moisture shell of her eyes shimmered with dabs of glint reflected by the library lamps, but more, they reflected questions and doubts. He looked at her eyes as the way she looked at him, for that short silence, neither of them would shy their sight away to something else. She wanted to search an answer and he wanted to search flaws from flawless, and neither of them was successful.

“What is it that wrong can be right?” She asked, finally broke the silence.

He wanted to answer but failed to. How could he possibly give her the one he intended to when he was clouded with confusions himself?

“Was it right to kill a person because he was different? And was it possible to be right to revenge for that person by killing the killer? Or was it wrong?” He wanted to ask.

Another second passed away silently, she added, “I see the pain in your heart. I can feel it. What are you hiding?” Aurora couldn’t ignore the voice she heard from his heart any longer. She heard the pain ever since the first day they met and it only got worse.

But the answer to that question was long sealed along with his wounds and he didn't plan to answer.