Evelyn, The Red Moon - Chapter 2

-The Abandoned Baby-

I felt that I was crouching and breathing faintly in a warm place, while being surrounded by water.

I got sucked into the darkness of death and couldn’t tell how much time passed. However, I began to regain my consciousness at some point.

I couldn’t recognize the situation and wondered if this was the afterlife. If that was the case, where am I trapped?

As I began to get more curious of my existence, more time passed.

Finally I got it.

I was in a woman’s womb. I got to re-born with a new life.

I was happy and relieved. What I desperately asked for until my last breath came true.

I’ve got enough nutritioned because of my mother’s good health. I wiggled my hands and feet, changed my posture, and listened to the outside world’s sounds little by little.

I could hear a giggle of laughter, and the sound of shouting in anger.

What kind of wife was the woman who had me?

Is she from a low society?

I closed my eyes and waited patiently for time to pass quickly. And one day, I sensed that the time had come.

The dragon used all its might to go out into the world. The mother was in labor screaming loudly.

With the hasted voices of women helping her give birth, I was born accompanied by the mother’s last scream.

“Oh my, what a pretty girl!”

I was relieved to hear the voice of a woman presumed to be a maid.

Why can’t I see anything even ifI open my eyes?

I can hear something, but I can’t really understand it.

But I’m sure he isn’t born to be a mean person as he was in his previous life.

I guess he’s born into a royal family, a noble, or a rich family.

Oh, it’s warm. I’m feeling good. She’s giving me a bath.

Mmm this fragrant smell. Isn’t this the smell of jasmine?

I’m sleepy. Why am I so sleepy?

I closed my eyes softly. Soon I fell into a sweet and comfortable sleep.

***

How long did I sleep?

I opened my eyes with hunger, but there was still only darkness to see. I was a newborn baby who cannot distinguish between brightness and darkness yet.

After staying under the spell of sleep, I wondered whether the night had ended. And if the morning sun had spread its lights while making the horizons redden.

I felt a strange shake. It’s like floating on a river on a small boat.

The bottom was damp. I didn’t feel good.

It was weird. Why didn’t they give me milk and change my diaper?

I’m sure it’s the maid…Can’t she hear me?

“Uh-ah-uh-ah…”

Tired of crying, I fell asleep again.

I cried to announce my hunger and discomfort, but no avail. After getting tired from crying, I fell asleep again.

A crow circling around the river pushed my wooden crate to the riverside with its long beak.

I woke up again.

I was so hungry that I cried weakly at first, and then I cried with all my strength.

The little mouth mumbled, moving its head from side to side, looking for the nipple. It was Phil’s own survival instinct.

“Huh? Where’s the baby cry coming from?”

“I hear it from over there.”

“Oh my God! There’s a wooden crate in that pile of grass next to the river.”

Two gypsy women who came to wash their face in the river, discovered the baby in a wooden crate, wrapped in silk cloth.

“Oh my, what a pretty baby.”

“Who threw her away?”

“Wrapped in high-quality silk cloth perhaps can be an extramarital or a baby of an unmarried woman? Perhaps a nobles who pretends to be decent but having a filthy private life.”

“They’ll be punished by heaven! How can they abandon a baby?”

“Oh no! The baby must be starving. Poor child.”

The gypsy womens took the baby and left the riverside, talking back and forth.

***

It was the property of the former leader of a pack with thirty gypsies who had an old carriage and a few goats.

Fortunately, there’s a woman who gave birth two months ago and she could breastfeed the picked up baby. The woman took care of the baby as it was her own.

They were a community ranging in age from old to young. Young women used to perform dance and sing songs in the vacant lots of large villages, while the men used to show tricks like playing musical instruments, spinning plates or fire juggling. The old gypsy woman ran tarot card shops.

The baby had been called the ‘Red Moon’ for some time now. Because there was a thumbnail sized red dot on her right shoulder. Then the gypsy leader named her ‘Evelyn’.

Evelyn grew up in a pack of gypsies who wandered around the country instead of staying in one place.

She was faster and smarter than her peers. And she had vivid memories of her past life when she was brutally murdered because of her love towards her noble master.

“You must have been born by a noble woman!”

The words were uttered by the Gypsy woman who had picked up Evelyn from the riverside.

That’s what I thought.

I heard it clearly the moment I was born.

She said “Oh my, you’re a very pretty lady.”

It’s too obvious for a baby to have a noble family if they use the term “lady”.

But what’s the point of that?

I was abandoned and wandered around without a name, I had to learn how to dance and sing, and be despised.

I’m unlucky and filthy.

Who on earth is that cold woman that gave birth to me and then abandoned me?

For what reason?

Reincarnation was meaningless if it was no better than before. But Evelyn thought it was too early to be frustrated.

She was no longer the Decilia who only knew love. It was Evelyn, who had to be strong and had a clear enemy.

***

Evelyn, 19, was dazzlingly beautiful even in her shabby clothes.

Her rich and soft golden-hair that sways by the wind, with a mysterious blue-purple-eyed gaze, a nose that looks like it was trimmed with a delicate touch by the sculptor, breasts as full as their age along with red-colored plumped lips.

The collarbone, which was exceptionally long and slender rests under her neck, that gives off pure and sensual beauty at the same time. Moreover, her outstanding dance and singing skills attracted the former police officers to the gypsies’ concert hall.

Evelyn vowed to herself day after day, shouting out the spell of the law.

I’m going to get out of Gypsy’s meanness!

This life will be as good as it looks!

I will avenge them for killing me in my previous life, and I will find out who my parents are.

A day when gypsies performed in quite a large village. A turning point in Evelyn’s life happened.

The richest merchant in the village is falling in love with her beauty. The merchant offered 300 tar to the gypsy leader Kim James.

“Let that kid wait on me for the night.”

“That’s difficult.”

“You’re in hesitation because of 300 tar? It’s a very generous offer.”

“She’s a treasure.”

Gypsies did whatever they could to make money. Depending on the situation, they even stole food or pick pocketed drunken men on the street.

It was an inevitable struggle for survival because performing alone was far from enough to make a living. We also had to prepare for the winter when we had little income from performing.

“Then I’ll give you 100 more. What’s the big deal?”

“Write a little more while you’re writing. 100 for 300, plus 100 for that.”

The merchant wrinkled his brow and glared at Kim James with an ugly look.

“You’re greedy.”

“I can’t help it, I need to feed these people.”

The bargain was sealed.

Evelyn was sold to the merchant to take care of his needs for a night.

When James told her, she smiled indifferently as if nothing had happened

“I’m sorry, Evelyn. But I can’t help it.”

“It’s okay.”

Far from crying and blowing and making a fuss, I grinned.

“Are you sure…that you’ll be okay?”

“Am I a child? I’m glad I can repay you for all your kindness.”

Evelyn’s attitude made James even more heartbroken.

“I won’t force you. So you can reject it if you really don’t like it.’

“No. Instead, I have a favor to ask you.”

“Tell me.”

“Leave this town as soon as I get into the merchant’s house.”.

James wrinkled his eyebrows. He poked his eyes several times, pushing up the droopy eyelids.

“What does that mean? Leave you behind?”

“I’m telling you to go first. As far as possible. I’ll be following you guys.”

“But why would we?”

“You can’t know whether the merchant will pull an useless trick on you, right?”

Sometimes you’ll find mean people who use violence or threats to get back the money they had paid.

The weak were the gypsies, living in shady places. If the service wasn’t satisfactory and he could keep me in his house, and force me to give back half, if not all the money he had paid.

“I see. I’ll do that. But… are you sure you’re really okay?”

Evelyn nodded emphatically.

She had a plan in her mind. The day has finally come to leave the gypsies that raised her like one of them.

Until now, she had hesitated, thinking only in her mind, but now there was a good excuse to leave.

Evelyn hid a sharp knife in her clothes. Kim James, who took her to the merchant’s house, returned with the money.

The merchant came to the small room where Evelyn was locked up, drooling with a sordid look.

“Come here. You’re so pretty. Give me a good service and I’ll give you plenty of tips.”

“You big pig! Go to hell!”

Evelyn pushed the knife into the heart of the merchant, who was coming at her like a beast.

In a surprise attack, the merchant’s eyes went behind him and he fell on the ground with a low scream! It was over.

Evelyn quickly jumped over the bedroom window.

Growing up running in the mountains and fields, she was as fast as a wild dog.

When the merchant was bleeding and shouting at his servants to catch Evelyn, she was already climbing over the back wall in the darkness.