Professor Layton: Love In All Adversities

19. I Knew You Would Come

Katia gazed out at the garden as she often did, always careful to keep her eyes away from the sky, that torn sky.

A slight movement caught her eye and she turned to look at it.

Movement wasn't unusual. The Gatherer men strolled lazily through the gardens, painfully aware that their job was more of a punishment. No one knew of the prisoners held in this place. No one would come looking here and yet they still had to guard it. They became sloppy and their movements a pattern Katia had become accustomed to when studying the fields and life around her. This lick of movement was not from one of those men.

Her eyes focused as she found where the movement had come from. Just behind the small cluster of trees near the fence. They could easily hide a person and it seemed they were. But it wasn't right.

He couldn't possibly be here! She told herself with a laugh.

And yet there was no mistaking that top hat. That extraordinary top hat. It was just jutting out of the corner of one of the older, oak trees.

She scoffed it off thinking that her mind was playing tricks. She went back to observing the scenery when she caught the movement again and she knew something wasn't right.

It had to be him! But how could it?!

She forced herself off her exquisite chair which she would often sit upon as a girl and took a few steps towards the bannister.

"Can it be...?” She whispered her throat sliding uncomfortably as she had difficulty speaking.

Her eyes focused like a camera getting into focus before a shot and she thought she was sure of herself when the hat was gone.

She kept her eyes fixed on that spot for an entire minute before sighing and throwing herself dejectedly back into her chair.

Just like everything else in this scattered existence, the faces of the past were just illusions in her freckled mind.

"Katia!" A voice said warmly from behind. Anton was making his way carefully out onto the balcony, holding in a sigh as he realised he would soon need a cane to keep walking. "I thought I heard you speak!"

The blank-faced woman with the hollow eyes turned to face her grandfather and then slowly faced the fields once more.

Anton sighed heavily and then struggled his way over onto the chair next to her.

"Katia..." He said once more, placing his hand on top of hers. She seemed to feel the kind gesture, but she kept her gaze to the still surroundings. "Can you please talk? Just for me? Please!"

He tried to sound forceful, but his voice only showed an old man's desperation and then he had to take a deep breath before facing her again.

"I want to show you something. It was something the Professor sent me once." She turned at the mention of the Professor and he knew he was finally getting somewhere. It seemed that Layton had a profound effect on his granddaughter. "I wrote to him, you know. I wanted to know a little about him. Do you want to know one thing that was of particular interest to me?"

Katia looked at her grandfather with eyes less vacant than before and she seemed to recognise him.

"What was it?" She asked softly, her throat crackling as she spoke after so long in silence.

"Come inside. Just this room. It's a good thing I left it here last time I visited."

"Left what?"

"You'll see." He winked as he rose steadily. Reaching his hand out, she took it and he escorted her into her bedroom and sat her down on the bed. "Just wait here while I fetch it."