To His Hell and Back-Chapter 196: Karma Called Cassius-III

Before the cat could bite Cassius, Arabella scooped it right off the floor, letting it snuggle up her arms as she coaxed it. She looked at the cat’s bright green eyes and turned it around, "It doesn’t look dirty. Did it jump to the carriage following us?"

"Who knows?" Cassius answered but his eyes that were looking at the cat had turned skeptic.

"Anyway," she turned back her attention to the box beside her, pointing toward it, "It’s an odd box right? I thought that now we’re here we could somehow open it and take a look of what could be inside but I guess..."

"We could try it again later," Cassius answered as he pulled the box to his hand and rattled it beside his ears, "Odd, it sounds like something small. Are you sure your mother gave this to you?"

"Yes," she confirmed with a nod as she strolled inside her house, looking at the dusty kitchen without a single soul and then to the creaking staircase followed by Cassius who had now held the box.

She turned slightly toward him, finding it strangely surreal to see Cassius, dressed in fine silk and polished boots, standing in front of the worn-down house. The contrast was sharp and almost laughable. It didn’t fit... and yet, oddly, it did. As if something about the brokenness of the place matched something in him too.

"My mother gave it to Ariel so I didn’t remember anything about the box but I was worried that my father would try to sell it off so I hid it in the fireplace. Besides it’s not as if the fire would destroy it either and even if it did, I could finally open the box so it isn’t exactly such a great loss."

Humming Cassius looked at the box again. He tried to feel the box with his power but nothing seem to react with it. But how could a mere box made out of such fragile looking material could retain its form no matter how much power he had used to break it?

It’s as if the box would only open when the time is "right". But when is it right?

"Your father wouldn’t be able to catch a single penny selling an unopened box that could serve no purpose," he remarked and she chuckled in answer.

"You’ll be surprise. He could sell anything if it’s to fuel his gambling you know. He even managed to sell the vase which should have held my grandfather’s ashes."

"Well that," Cassius scoffed, "Is indeed a talent."

Arabella reached the second floor and paused. Everything was gone. Not even the old mattress she and her sister used to share remained. The room felt hollow, stripped of every trace of life.

What struck her as even stranger was the absence of her grandmother. With her father so deep in debt, having sold off everything for gambling, it was only natural he would’ve run to her for help. And her grandmother, who had always spoiled him, would never have refused. She would’ve come here, taken over the house, maybe even scolded Arabella in his place.

But she wasn’t here.

And that... was odd.

"They’re not here," Arabella remarked, "Maybe he’s still in the gambling house."

"No," Cassius answered and she turned to see that he had been staring at the window for a long time, focusing his eyes on the pair of a man in his forties and an old woman in her sixties. "There they are," then his grin appeared as he looked at her, his eyes glittering, "Say, birdie, do you like acting?"

Meanwhile Mrs Rath walked with her one and only son, Charles Rath with a frown knitted between her gray eyebrows. Her back was hunched and her knitted cardigan was filled with holes that hadn’t been mend as her eyes had grown too bad to work with the needles again. Usually her two useless granddaughters would take care of the mending but ever since they were sold off, mending was a chore that the old woman refuses to do.

Charles Rath pushed open the fence in annoyance and snapped at his old mother, "Why the hell did you drag me out in front of everyone like that?! I could’ve made more gold if you’d just left me in the gambling house!"

Mrs. Rath smacked him hard on the back, angered by his words, "I gave you that money to pay your debts, not throw it back into the pit!"

He spun around, scowling, "Why do you care?! It’s my money!"

"And what about selling the girls?!" she barked, hitting him again. "You traded your own daughters for only a handful of coins!"

"They were useless!" Charles shot back, shrugging as if it was none of his business. Callously, he answered, "No dowries, no prospects. No man would’ve married them anyway."

"Idiot!"

Charles jabbed a finger in her face, snarling. "Don’t pretend you ever cared! You were the one always whining about them, telling me to get rid of them! At least I managed to get rid of them so you should be happier!"

Mrs. Rath’s eyes flashed with contempt, "Fool. I’m not angry because I cared about them. I’m angry because you’re too damn stupid to see their value!"

She stepped closer, voice low and sharp as she schooled her son, "They were young. Virgins. We could’ve sold them to the brothels and kept the income flowing into our hands. If we played it right, maybe even to some filthy old noble with dark tastes. That would’ve brought in real gold, until their dying breaths. Who cares what happened to them- I’m saying that you’ve lost so much considering how you have fed them for two decades!"

Charles who was about to retort to his mother pulled the door to his house, frowning when he realized it was opened, "Did you not lock the door old woman?"

"I did!" Mrs Rath snapped, turning at the door that was opened and turned awkward, "But I did- I did, see? I have the keys with me."

"You must have forgotten about it." Charles opened the door wide when he felt a cold shrill that made him shiver. He looked at the chair in front of him, the only one that hadn’t been sold and felt as if someone was sitting there. He doubted his eyes and rubbed it to make his view clear again.

"Is there someone sitting inside our house?" Charles asked and his mother scoffed behind him.

"There’s no way, you’re seeing things wrong," she snipped.

"You’re seeing things right, father," a voice cut coldly behind them, coming from the chair that Charles had seen empty before leaving the house.

Then a snap echoed and fire appeared all over the candles in the room, including the fireplace.