CHAPTER 09 // Mind your Manor
Marisa went back inside and grabbed her broom, but hesitated. I saw her set the broom by the door, and go back to the desk. "Hold on a sec, ze. Gotta finish this real quick." She had another
piece of paper on her desk. She took a couple minutes to write something on it, then she put the paper in her hat. "Save this for when I really need it, ze."
She met me outside, grabbing her broom on the way out the door. She looked at me. "Ready, ze?" I nodded, and we took off.
// // // // //
We were flying above the forest. I could see my place further back into the forest. To the right was a clearing. That's the magic shop. Wait...there's another house just west of hers...
"Hey, Marisa," I asked. "Who lives in that house?"
"Oh, Alice lives there, ze. She works with a combination of ventriloquism and magic."
"I see."
Further south, I saw what looked like a small store of some sort. The sign read, "Kourindou". It didn't appear to be a magic shop like Marisa's. In fact, it was so small, I don't know if it had
customers often. I'd have to check it out sometime.
// // // // //
We were coming up on the lake that surrounded the mansion. Suddenly, I felt a cold breeze rush past my ear. I looked down. Several more sharp projectiles came towards Marisa and myself. Something
was firing ice at us!
More ice spikes were sent our way. They seemed fairly easy to dodge, though. Whatever was shooting couldn't aim well at long range. Suddenly, an ice spike hit the brush end of Marisa's broom,
sending her flying over the front of it.
"Marisa!!" I quickly swooped down towards her. The ground was coming up fast. Then, I remembered...duh. I facepalmed. I took hold of Marisa's surrounding atoms and stopped her, about three feet
from the ground. I gently placed her on the grass.
"You alright?"
Marisa gave me a grin that said, 'Of course I am!' She held up her hand and caught the broom. That was kinda cool.
// // // // //
We had decided to walk until we found who or whatever was shooting at us. I believed that the ice was coming from the shore of the lake, which wasn't much further.
We walked around for a bit, soon reaching the lake shore. There, before us, stood a fairy, dressed in blue and white. She had blue hair, and crystallized ice wings frozen to her back, that looked
like she fabricated them herself. She gave us an angry look, though I didn't feel very threatened.
"No trespassing!" said the small blue fairy. "This is my lake, and I won't have you taking any of my frogs!"
Marisa must have known the fairy. "Calm down, Cirno...we don't want any of your frogs, ze. We just want to cross the lake."
"And why should eye let you?" She seemed to pronounce 'I' strangely.
"I dunno, ze," Marisa said. "But I have a question." She reached into her apron and pulled out a puzzle cube. All the sides were fixed, except for two. The coloured stickers on a corner block
were swapped. "I've been trying to solve this all day, ze! Can you help?"
Surely, this fairy wasn't that stupid--
"No worries, for eye, Cirno, will solve the puzzle!"
I was surprised that Cirno hadn't noticed the obvious fact that the stickers were switched out. The stickers themselves were even offset, tackily stuck onto the squares.
I looked over to Marisa. "What are you--"
"C'mon, while she's distracted, ze!" she whisper-yelled to me. While Cirno had her back turned, blindly rotating the cube's sides trying to get a better result, we quietly took flight across the
lake. As we flew, I thought to myself, are all fairies that dumb?
"Cirno's pretty stupid, ze," said Marisa. "Easy to trick. Distract her with a puzzle or a riddle, then just walk around her, ze."
// // // // //
We reached the mansion side of the lake. The sleeping girl I saw before, on the way to the Hakurei Shrine, was still at the front gate of the mansion. She wasn't asleep, this time. Marisa must
have wanted to avoid confronting the gatekeeper, because she was aiming to completely avoid the front entrance. Following Marisa's path, we tried to keep out of sight. We headed for the west wing of the
mansion.
"Do you always take the side entrance?" I was beginning to think that she, instead of asking, silently lifts books from this "Patchy" person. She didn't return any answer, only grinned.
We went around the west side of the mansion and stopped at a window in the rear, below the clock tower. The window was locked.
"Think you could open this, ze?"
I was feeling witty. "What's this? The mighty magician Marisa Kirisame, bested by a window lock?"
"Not a chance! Could easily blast the window open, but that'd make too much noise, ze."
"Besides," I replied, "why not take the front door?"
Marisa gave me her trademark grin. "'Cause, we're gonna surprise Patchy!"
"Suuuure."
I manipulated the lock open, and pulled the window open. Marisa and I went inside and touched down in a hallway. The area was lit by sparklamps. I could see the fancy decor--red carpet with golden
trim. The walls were a slightly darker shade of red than the carpet. We were in the hallway of the second floor of the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
Marisa guided me to a stairway. We followed the spiral stairway down to what appeared to be a dining hall. Nobody appeared to be in sight, so we moved through, past all the tables and chairs, past
the foyer, and further on down the following corridor.
We continued walking. Eventually, Marisa stopped me.
"What is it?"
"We're here, ze."
"But there's nothing here." I checked my surroundings. All I saw was...wait, there was a seam in the wall...
"Hidden door, ze." She opened the door. I followed her down the small hallway, that led to a set of fancy-looking double doors. The bronze sign above the doors read, 'Voile'. Marisa pushed the
doors open and entered. I followed.
Books. More books than I have ever seen in my life. More than Marisa had at her place. We stood on a small balcony, with a stairway to our right, going down. As we walked down the stairs, the
shelves on the wall seemed to climb higher. I couldn't possibly fathom how many books were in this library...
A girl was peeking her head around a bookshelf. All I could see was her red hair and an unusual (and presumably useless) pair of wings sprouting from her head. She saw us, then gasped and ducked
back behind the shelf. I could hear her running.
"Marisa, I think we've been spotted," I said.
"Indeed, your presence has been made known," a new voice replied, from beyond the bookshelf.