Chapter 43

Heonui, tired and dirty after a long walk to Wang Tae's grave and back, sat on the sofa in the living room and, having said good night to Tan Tan, approached the fireplace to drink wine and warm herself.

"Heonui! Heonui!" she heard, and the Princess froze.

The trees rustled outside the window, knocking on the glass with their clumsy branches. The leaves fluttered, scratching and rustling. Heonui felt a strange chill in her body.

"Wang Tae, is that you?…" she whispered. "Why weren't you with me at the grave?"

And she turned abruptly and scanned the room. But there was no one.

"Forgive me, Wang Tae!" she exclaimed, grasping her glass. "I cannot forget grief, so I'll drown myself in wine!"

And it seemed to her as if she had heard the distant call of Wang Han, but she decided that this was also a vision.

As soon as she had time to raise a glass, The Prince burst into the hall with a cry of "No, Heonui!", but the young lady had already taken a sip of wine.

In the same second, right in her hands, the wine glass shattered into thousands of fragments, cutting her hands and face and flooding her with streams of blood. A howl rose in the hall and as if an unknown smoke enveloped the whole room.

The walls began to be covered with hoarfrost at an unimaginable speed, and the windows, despite for it to be a summer night, were instantly sketched with snow decorations. Frost smelled from Wang Han's mouth. All the furniture was frozen over, and the fire in the fireplace disappeared, covered with ice climbing over the firewood.

In pain and frenzy, Heonui screamed and collapsed to the floor. Wang Han rushed to her.

"Leave her! Death was meant for her, not for Wang Tae. I am sorry that only now I was able to fix it."

On the threshold of the hall stood Mimi, pale as death, frightened and trembling all over.

"Look around — these are all signs! They haunt me, these signs, these howls and groans!"

Heonui wheezed in Wang Han's arms.

"Wang Tae... Wang Tae..."

"Yes, it is my fault that Wang Tae is gone," Mimi muttered, believing that Heonui was asking her for an explanation, going to the window and touching the frosted glass. At her touch, the circle around her finger melted, and a thin stream of water flowed down. "And therefore, all these signs. I see them and understand them — I should have told you, but I did not dare. On the night of the wedding, I wanted Heonui to finally die and disappear from your heart! Oh, how firmly she was in there!" Mimi wept silently, shuddering at every word she spoke. "But Wang Tae drank the poison intended for her! It hurt so much, but I couldn't help it! I just tried everything, tried to kill her for his repose, and so that these madmen would reunite in heaven and leave you, Wang Han, dear, alone! How many times have I tried to kill her! Heonui, you seem to be a bloodsucker! You do not give peace to anyone in the world!"

Wang Han, turning purple, tried to lower Heonui to the floor in order to pounce on Mimi again, but Heonui, not seeing anything in front of her from the blood from the fragments that had stuck to her eyes, grabbed his hand and shouted:

"Now I hear you, Wang Tae!"

At the same second, all the glass windows of the hall flew out with a deafening sound, breaking and crashing into fragments into everything around. Wang Han covered Heonui with his body and closed his eyes, but when he opened his eyes, a terrible sight, amazing imagination, and chilling consciousness appeared before him — Wang Tae, not himself, with bloodshot eyes and not at all woven from the haze, as he appeared in Wang Han's dream and as Heonui described him, hovered in the very center of the hall. A blue flame with white clips burned at his feet, and from the place where his hands should have been, vines curled — long, crooked, moving, as if alive. The ghost opened his mouth and let out an inhuman roar — both angry and pleased one at the same time — and immediately, hundreds of dark purple grapes on each vine burst, flooding everything — the walls, the ceiling, Wang Han, Heonui, and Mimi present in the hall — with grape juice. Wang Han pressed Heonui, who seemed to stop all movement and seemed to stop even breathing.

Wang Tae, looking with his cruel eyes at Mimi, paralyzed with fear, all this time whispering, "Get lost, get lost!", pulled the empty branches and wrapped them around the neck and torso of the young lady, who immediately screamed:

"Wang Han, help me! I love you!"

Wang Han couldn't move — neither of his own accord, because he was holding Heonui, whom he thought he had lost — nor against his will, because an invisible force bound his body, and his mouth was glued with some kind of sticky, disgusting cobweb. Wang Han was paralyzed, and all he could do was keep the motionless Heonui on her knees.

"Prince Wang Han!" Mimi shouted for the last time, stretching out her arms to the Prince, because in the next second, the vine squeezed her mouth, and Wang Tae, who completely tied the unfortunate one, looked at Wang Han and rushed down with Mimi from the window.

Immediately, as soon as the ghost and the maid disappeared, her piercing cry was heard, then a slap from falling into the water and fading moans. Immediately, Wang Han regained his ability to move, and the stretching web that had deprived him of his ability to speak a moment ago disappeared from his lips.

Heonui stirred. Seeing that she was alive and wiping the flowing blood from her face, he shouted:

"Help! Help!"

But from Mimi's cries, the servants already jumped up and flocked to the hall from all parts of the palace, armed with candles, lanterns and torches, with guns at the ready. Some were expecting a thief, some wild animals.

Heonui groaned, spitting scarlet blood.

"Wang Tae, Wang Tae!" she wheezed again.

Gently lowering her head to the floor, Wang Han rushed to the window.

Sticking his head out of the window, he looked down.

There, in the old swampy pond, in the wan light of the moon, he examined Mimi's head.

Her eyes searched for him, but they were insane. She sank into a quagmire, unable to move or utter a word. A translucent mara flew up to her and began to circle above her, already losing consciousness in horror. She sobbed for the last time and, with Marena singing an absurd guttural voice on her shoulders, she completely sank into the quagmire.