"So-ra!" Aria kept the letters aside and went to the door of the attic, calling out to the older woman waiting below, "Can you please ask someone to help me? I need to carry a chest downstairs to my room but its too heavy for me to be attempting it by myself."
"Yes. Wait for just a few minutes! I am sending help." So-ra replied.
Aria turned away and went to the chest and silently bent down to pick all the letters she had read, to bundle them back and keep them inside.
Her mind was buzzing with all her thoughts.
Her grandfather had married the love of his life who had loved someone else. A boy named Taehyung who had loved her back with his every fiber of his being.
The ending of the story Aria was reading was her present. The past, the beginning, the deepening of her grandma's love to Taehyung in their youth already had an outcome which she knew.
Their bond, could not be woven together. They had lost each other.
Aria paused when she realized that her task was done, all the envelopes were inside. She closed the chest and stood up, lost in the implications.
Only the journey was left to be discovered. The journey, undoubtedly catalogued and preserved between the pink and white sheets of paper.
Her grandmother had married in the year 1963 and died at 1964. She had been 18 at the time of death. The letters she was reading had started in 1957 when her grandmother had been 12, till the point of her inviting Taehyung by the stream to finally confess her love to him when she was 16.
Which meant, in just a year, she would be marrying Aria's grandfather and die the year later.
The time period in between was lodged in the history of their life, shared in the present by the black ink of a pen translating their emotions into frail papers.
Papers, that Aria was hesitant to read now.
Why had her grandfather made this request to her? To know and understand a past between someone who she never knew?
"Ms. Aria? Which chest do you want to bring down?" the voices of the butler with other staff broke her inner musings.
Gratefully smiling at the assistance, she directed them towards the one she wanted to bring to her room.
They carried out her wishes and bid her to come with them which she agreed to. Casting a fleeting glance at the room she had discovered tonight, she moved aside the chairs in front of the door and closed it gently, sealing the room shut.
As her footsteps faded away, going down the stairs, a soft breeze in the attic with closed windows, blew the discarded golden ribbon on the floor, in the air. The ribbon floated in the air for a few seconds before it landed on the top of the now empty recliner, coiled around itself carefully and perfectly.
🍂 🍂 🍂 🍂 🍂 🍂 🍂 🍂 🍂 🍂
Dinner had been cozy. She had been introduced to the rest of the staff. The whole household was run by So-ra with 6 girls and 4 men, 3 gardeners and 1 handyman who stayed. The Manor was huge, and the maintenance it required both manually and financially to keep it in the pristine, elegant and charmingly vintage state was substantial.
Aria's own profession as a writer along with the vast financial holdings she had, made her never worry about the cost took. She loved the beautiful house.
After everyone dispersed for their usual duties, Aria requested a mug of hot chocolate with a little cinnamon on top. Taking the delicious treat with her, she made her way to her room.
The chest had already been delivered and was positioned beside her bed. She drew the curtains on the windows close, placed her hot choco and water on the bedside table, then she switched on the lapshades in the room, giving it a beautiful soft glow.
Aria collected the drapes of the canopy around her four poster bed and tied it to the posts. After changing her clothes and finishing her night routine, she climbed up the soft bed, arranging the piles of pillow before sitting and leaning on the them at the back.
Bending down from the side, she collected 4 stacks and kept it around her.
Keeping up with the chronological manner the letters were arranged in, she opened the bundle after the girl had called Taehyung to the stream.
It felt like an epic history that she would be reading, a tale untold to the world, because having read through the times they had slowly grown, the love the boy held for the girl was unquestionable.
Aria hesitated before continuing her endeavor. Somehow, she felt she was not ready to see the friends acknowledging their feelings and then consciously making their bond grow deeper.
Then a through struck her.
Why were there two sets of letters in it? If this chest belonged to her grandma, then should it not have only white envelops? The letters from the boy?
Why did it have a complete set? Where did she get Taehyung's side of the letters she had written, from?
A knock came from the door. At her bidding the person to come in, So-ra opened it.
"I knew you would neglect your drink until it would go cold and then gulp it down." She chided her as she came in the room.
Aria laughed and picked up the hot chocolate, dutifully sipping it and then letting out a sound of relish. She sipped it again as she saw So-ra look around her bed, and noticing the open chest, her gaze only mildly curious.
"So-ra? How was she? What was she like?" she asked the question softly.
So-ra never pretended not to know who she was speaking about. The older woman sat down on the bed, her eyes both wistful and guarded.
"My mother served her. Mum came from her family's side to the house with your grandmother. I remember mum telling me tales about her." She waited for Aria to take another sip, which she dutifully did.
"Your grandmother was a beautiful lady. Kind, sympathetic, with a huge heart filled with love for everyone. But she was also stubborn and fierce, strong in her beliefs. No one could make her change her mind if she believed it to be the truth. And loyal. My mother used to always stress that about her."
Aria blew on her mug as she agreed with everything So-ra said. All the letters pretty much proved it.
"Why did she marry grandpa?"
So-ra laughed at that, "Did you never ask your grandfather about it? That man loved to tell the story to anyone who would be willing to spare some time to him."
Smiling, Aria spoke, "I know. He said he loved her from his childhood. Grandma was not aware of it but when he did propose to her, she became ecstatic. She was so excited that she promptly ran to tell her parents of her wish to marry him, even before she accepted the ring. In just a month, their marriage was arranged where she looked like a breathtaking beautiful Goddess in her white dress. She was radiant in her happiness. Grandpa said they danced the entire night under the starlight and then when they went home, they could not keep their hands off each other."
"So you know." So-ra nodded and smiled.
Aria looked at the bundles of letter so lovingly preserved in time.
Looking back at the older woman, she asked, "How much of it is the truth?"
Like a shutter coming down, So-ra's expression became blank, "Why would you even think to ask that question?"
Aria studied her for a few seconds, then asked, "Okay, so answer this. Was she happy? For the year she lived here, was she happy?"
So-ra's face still did not change, but she hesitated a little.
That silent hesitation was the loud answer Aria had suspected it to be.
"Everything that my grandfather said, is not all there is to the past, is there? I suspect the past, in reality is completely different." Aria spoke in a low voice.
So-ra stood up, "They are the secrets that died along with the people who bore it Aria. In the time when they were alive, they struggled with what life dealt them with just as we do. But with their deaths, all of it turned to dust, prevalent only in the pages of their life book." Turning to Aria,
"And that is not for us to read."
"Then why has she not found rest even after her death?"
"I told you, it might just be a coincidence! There is no definite truth to it." So-ra said.
Aria paused for a while before asking, "Then why are you so adamant about hiding it? If their past no longer matters to the living, why do you still guard the secrets?"
So-ra took a deep breath, her eyes glistening a bit, "Because sometimes, the pain from the past long gone can spill over to the lives of the present we are living in."
She turned around before Aria could say anything. Reaching the door, she quietly bid her goodnight and then went out, softly shutting the door.
Aria just sat on the bed, breathing it all in. Understanding, that reading the letters came with a huge consequence.
The letters, would uncover a secret which was guarded still now.
The exchanges between two people would potentially twist her present, her reality.
Because, the girl in the letters was true to her lover, but still was happy when her grandfather proposed?
One of them had to be lying and she suspected, the lies that would be uncovered, would be on the side of her grandfather.
She waited but a beat.
Reaching out, she picked up the letter from Taehyung, starting the saga of stepping back in the past, to find the truth.
A/N : Starting of the main story from here. As you probably know from the name, the story of the past will be told in forms of letters.....
Do you want to uncover their tale?
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