Respawned as The Count of Glow-Up-Chapter 261: Tragic Fall: II

Villefort forced himself forward. His wife’s corpse lay stretched across the doorway to the sitting room where Edward must be. Those glaring dead eyes seemed to guard the threshold. Her lips bore a terrible, mysterious smile.

Through the open door, he could see part of the sitting room, an upright piano, a blue couch.

He took two more steps and saw his child lying on the sofa. Asleep, surely just asleep.

Joy exploded through him, a single ray of light piercing his darkness. All he had to do was step over the body, scoop up his son, and run. Run far away.

He wasn’t a civilized man anymore. He was a wounded tiger, teeth bared against the pain. He’d stopped fearing reality, now only phantoms haunted him.

He leaped over his wife’s corpse like it was burning coals. He grabbed the child, hugged him, shook him, called his name.

Edward didn’t respond.

Villefort pressed his lips to the boy’s cheeks. Ice cold. Pale. He felt the rigid limbs. He pressed his hand over the small heart.

No beat.

His son was dead.

A folded paper slipped from Edward’s chest. Villefort dropped to his knees, thunderstruck. The child fell from his arms and rolled across the floor beside his mother. Villefort snatched up the paper. His wife’s handwriting. He read:

"You know I was a good mother, I became a criminal for my son’s sake. A good mother cannot leave without her son."

Villefort couldn’t process what he was seeing. He crawled to his child’s body and examined it like a lioness studying her dead cub. Then a piercing scream tore from his chest, "Still the hand of God!"

The sight of two corpses terrified him. He couldn’t bear this solitude shared only with the dead. Until now, rage and despair had sustained him, the kind of defiant agony that made titans storm heaven itself. But now he stood, head bowed under grief’s weight, hair damp and disheveled. He who had never shown compassion to anyone now desperately needed his father, someone to talk to, someone beside whom he could weep.

He descended the small staircase and entered his father’s room.

The old man sat listening attentively, as much as his disabilities allowed, to Abbé Busoni, who looked cold and calm as always. Seeing the priest, Villefort passed a hand across his forehead, remembering. The abbé had come to dinner once, then visited again on the day Villefort’s daughter Valentine had died.

"You here?" Villefort said. "Do you only appear to escort death?"

Busoni turned, seeing the wild expression on the magistrate’s face, the savage gleam in his eyes. He understood that the truth had come out during the trial, though he didn’t know what had happened since.

"I came to pray over your daughter’s body."

"And why are you here now?"

"To tell you that you’ve repaid your debt sufficiently. From this moment, I’ll pray for God to forgive you, as I forgive you."

"Good God!" Villefort stepped back, horrified. "That’s not the voice of Abbé Busoni!"

"No, it isn’t."

The abbé tore off his wig and shook his head. Long black hair tumbled around his face.

"The Count of Monte Cristo!" Villefort gasped, his expression haggard.

"Not quite right. You need to go further back."

"That voice... where did I first hear it?"

"You heard it twenty-three years ago in Marseilles, on your wedding day. Search your memory."

"You’re not Busoni? Not Monte Cristo? Then you’re some secret, relentless enemy! I must have wronged you in Marseilles. God help me!"

"Yes, now you’re on the right track." The count crossed his arms over his chest. "Keep searching."

"What did I do to you?" Villefort’s mind teetered between sanity and madness, lost in that fog between dream and reality. "Tell me! Speak!"

"You condemned me to a horrible, endless death. You killed my father. You stole my freedom, my love, my happiness."

"Who are you?"

"I’m the ghost of a man you buried in the dungeons of the Château d’If. God gave that ghost the form of the Count of Monte Cristo when he finally emerged from his tomb. He enriched him with gold and diamonds and led him to you."

"I recognize you now! You’re-"

"I am Edmond Dantès!"

"Edmond Dantès!" Villefort seized the count by the wrist. "Then come with me!"

He dragged Monte Cristo up the stairs. The count, having no idea what had happened, followed in bewilderment, sensing another catastrophe.

"There, Edmond Dantès!" Villefort pointed to the bodies. "Look! Are you satisfied with your revenge?"

Monte Cristo went pale at the horrible sight. He realized he’d gone too far, crossed the boundaries of acceptable vengeance. He could no longer claim God was on his side.

With an expression of unbearable anguish, he threw himself down beside the child, checking his eyes, feeling for a pulse. Then he rushed with the boy’s body into Valentine’s room and locked the door.

"My child!" Villefort screamed. "He’s taking my child’s body! Curse you! Death to you!"

He tried to follow, but seemed frozen in place, trapped in a nightmare. His eyes bulged from their sockets. He clawed at his chest until his nails drew blood. The veins in his temples swelled and throbbed, as if they’d burst and flood his brain with fire.

This lasted several minutes, until reason finally shattered completely. He let out a wild cry followed by manic laughter, then rushed down the stairs.

Fifteen minutes later, Valentine’s room opened and Monte Cristo emerged. Pale, dead-eyed, heavy-hearted. All the noble features of his usually calm face were clouded with grief. In his arms he held the child, no medical skill could bring him back.

Kneeling, he placed the boy reverently beside his mother, the child’s head resting on her breast. Then he stood and left. Meeting a servant on the stairs, he asked, "Where is Monsieur de Villefort?"

Instead of answering, the servant pointed toward the garden.

Monte Cristo ran down the steps. In the garden, he found Villefort surrounded by servants, holding a shovel, frantically digging.

"It’s not here!" Villefort cried. "Not here!"

He moved to another spot and began digging again.

Monte Cristo approached, speaking quietly, almost humbly. "Sir, you’ve lost a son, but-"

Villefort interrupted without hearing him. "I’ll find it! You can pretend it’s not here, but I’ll find it even if I have to dig forever!"

Monte Cristo recoiled in horror.

"He’s insane," he whispered.

Fearing the cursed house would collapse around him, he fled into the street, doubting himself for the first time. Had he had the right to do what he’d done?

"Enough," he said. "Enough of this. Let me save the last one."

Entering his own house, he found his friend Morrel wandering like a ghost waiting for heaven’s call.

"Prepare yourself, Maximilian," Monte Cristo said with a smile. "We’re leaving Paris tomorrow."

"You have nothing more to do here?" Morrel asked.

"No," Monte Cristo replied quietly. "God grant that I haven’t already done too much."

The next day they left, accompanied only by Monte Cristo’s servant Baptistin. His companion Haydée had taken Ali with her, and Bertuccio stayed behind to care for the old man, Noirtier.