By the end of the year, they had covered a lot of sheets, including phonk of different types, and the number of times Evelyn had been asked about the strange languages and phrases she used was enough to annoy even the most patient of monks, but she endured and blamed her dreams all over again, until they got tired and accepted they would never get a real answer.
Eventually, the sheets were completed, and Verity spent most of the time dancing and singing along with her now-completed record player.
It was so fun—so madly fun—that even Marvis himself couldn't resist stiffly moving along with the addictive beats.
Rosanna, despite not being allowed to dance along with Verity's exertive moves, was often led along to slower dance steps, which remained just as fun.
The days were joyful and filled with so much bliss that Evelyn made a terrible mistake: she forgot a major plotline that was fast approaching, and when it arrived, the devastation left her thoroughly crippled.
***
When her parents died, Evelyn spent days unable to believe it. Even after the week passed, her disbelief remained.
It was like she was floating. People praised her strength as she "calmly" took in their deaths, even more so managing their funeral with "calm" precision. And then she saw their bodies in the glass-tinted coffins.
That day, she woke up in the hospital, pale as a sheet, as her relatives approached her with worry.
"They are… dead?" she remembered muttering, shaken by the absurd reality that her parents were truly gone.
"Evelyn…" her cousin had called out to her with a pitiful gaze.
"Oh, I see."
She skipped all stages of grief and fell straight into heavy depression. The tears that had never run down due to her disbelief now freely appeared at the most random of times, and despite being "functional", her smiles were gone, her voice was cold, and her gestures even more inhuman.
After randomly breaking into tears for the nth time during a departmental meeting, the office head gave her a short break to gather herself, as she was clearly in ruins.
She never did. Instead, she spent all week binge-reading, binge-watching shows, binge-scrolling—every binge-related thing except eating.
All this accumulated and eventually led to the pizza incident.
Perhaps the suddenness of their deaths had been a major contributor to her breakdown, but then little Rosanna died, and that theory was shattered.
The child's death was far from sudden. Not only had she long known, but by the end of the third year, Rosanna suddenly couldn't get up from bed as a strong fever gripped her.
This continued for a whole month, with her health oscillating between getting better and turning worse.
And all through it, Verity remained by her side, perhaps with the tiniest of hopes that her presence, which soothed the young Rosa's mind, would be of any help.
She attended to her, read stories to her, fed her medicine, and even performed before her—all of which the young girl, despite her weak responses, really liked.
She did everything. She spent days scouring through her memories for any solution at all, despising herself for never trying earlier.
She read as many books as she could in hopes of finding any clue as to what could be done.
It was so late—she was so, so late—but she never stopped trying. Perhaps due to her relentlessness or the Duke's displeasure at her spending less time with the young Rosa, she was told that not even the top doctors, with their knowledge of sicknesses and magic, could tell what Rosanna's illness was.
It was as elusive as it was deadly. The problem had never been the cure, but the mystery preceding it.
That night, Evelyn laid all sorts of curses on the author for doing something so atrocious to such a kind soul, just for the sake of the damned story.
She was unwilling to give up, but even after all her futile efforts, she could do nothing until the Sun of the Castellan family dimmed.
That day, tears and sorrow rang like an inescapable rhythm throughout the manor at the bleak reality that had descended.
There was no denial, merely anger at the universe, anger at the author, and most especially at herself, for remaining so complacent until the onset of the calamity.
Her anger remained even through the funeral of the young child, and to the very moment she locked herself in and refused to step out, in an effort to starve her wretched self to death.
But then the Duke had people break in, holding her down and force-feeding her, as they both glared at each other with biting resentment.
"Don't push me more than you already do. Had it not been for Rosanna, I would have starved you to death myself!"
After that, all suicide attempts were, hatefully, prevented by that damned bastard.
Then the bargaining came.
Since she couldn't die, she decided to live and study like a maniac. Perhaps it was never possible in her original world, but with magic, anything should be possible.
The Duke didn't stop her delusions. The books did—after she came across the nth abomination created from trying such an impossible thing and, having recognised that a risk of complete body distortion was a must,
It took Evelyn three days to digest the stupidity of her thoughts and two more weeks to really let go of the idea— after the Duke confiscated all such books, perhaps afraid that this crazy child would really go through with her drastic thoughts,
Evelyn was going crazy. She really was going crazy. With her parents' death, the descent of her hopelessness was swift—perhaps due to the finality of death that preceded the modern world.
However, with magic, an element of fiction known for its immense possibilities, her mind simply refused to give up, and it was driving her mad.