Chapter 9

I stopped walking after realizing that I forgot where I was supposed to go. Even though Emily had told me the direction to the forest in question, I had never walked too far from the house. There are no cars or motorbikes around here, I only saw a bicycle with very big tires.

"Oh my, really?" I'm not sure if I can ride a bike like this with the dress I'm wearing.

I feel like I'm really sick of wearing clothes like this and hope I can immediately change into more comfortable clothes.

Suddenly, my eyes fell on clothes that were being dried in front of a very simple house. I saw a white shirt and black trousers that seemed to belong to a man.

I decided to look around me to check whether things were safe enough because I was going to do something forbidden.

"I'm sorry! I have to borrow your clothes for a moment!" I muttered as I took the shirt and trousers from the clothesline.

I snuck around again looking for a safe place to change my clothes and once everything was done, I felt much better in a shirt and pants than in that very long frilly dress.

"Good, now it's better!" I said. My eyes returned to the bicycle with big wheels parked on the side of the road. For some reason the atmosphere in this place is quite quiet so it is very easy for me to steal other people's things.

With my skills as a former shoplifter in my teens, I managed to take this antique bicycle away before deciding to ride it.

"Thief...!"

Someone shouted while I was trying hard to maintain my balance. I looked back and saw a middle-aged man running behind me while shouting at me thief.

"Tsk damn it, I was discovered!" I tried to pedal this bicycle to run faster. However, when the road I was on was no longer a flat road, but a downhill road, I didn't have time to stop the speed of the bicycle, causing the bicycle to accelerate very quickly along the downhill road.

"Aaagh..." I screamed hysterically every time I almost hit a livestock passing in the middle of the road or a woman walking on the side of the road.

People were shouting at me to stop before I hit something. But I can't, this bike's brakes don't work at all, it seems I have to surrender that I will fall or hit something.

"Aaagh..."

This bicycle slid freely into the lake along with my screams. I fell into the lake with the bicycle and I quickly swam to save myself.

"Ugh...damn," I groaned in pain, it felt like my back was sprained from trying to swim away from where I was because I was sure people had come to this place to catch me.

It's cold, my body is cold. My clothes are wet and I can't go back to that house now. All around me there were only forests and lush trees. All the angles look the same so I can't differentiate one tree from another.

I decided to walk in when I saw smoke rising high from the forest. I'm a little curious, but also scared. In the fairy tales I read when I was little, a hut in the forest was usually inhabited by evil witches. I don't know if it's true or not, but the situation I'm facing now is exactly the same as in children's fairy tales.

I swallowed, my body shivering. I got colder when the wind blew quite hard. I left the house around two in the afternoon and it must have been almost afternoon by now.

"Shall I just go home?" I thought. Even though I hated the women in the house except Emily, my room was very comfortable and warm. I also don't have to try hard to do something because there is always a waiter who prepares it for me.

"But if I go home now, maybe those people recognize me and I'll get into trouble, ah damn, how is this? It's so cold here!"

I rubbed my increasingly pale arm and waited for it to warm up. Because I didn't feel ready for the problems that befell me, the only choice I could take was to enter the forest and look for something that could warm my body.

I walked for a few minutes until the shape of a building that I previously thought was a witch's hut came into view and in fact, the building was very far away and too nice to be a hut.

"What is this? No way, could this be Duke Aiden's mansion?"

"You finally came, Ella?"

Hearing a man's voice from behind me made me immediately turn around. I didn't realize at all that someone was behind me.

I was surprised when I saw a young man with dark brown hair with bright amber eyes sitting on the back of a black horse. The man smiled at me and his smile made my body unable to move.

He got off his horse's back and with his tall body, he stepped towards me in a very intimidating manner. That face, that smile and those eyes, I know him so well.

"Keith?"

***