Sharmaine rolled her back on the old bed and felt her ribs ache, but this time, she felt her breasts and rib area. As she glided her hands on the rough material of her clothes, she soon noticed something hard pointing at her butt. It was neither pointy nor rounded, so she decided to jump out to feel the thing that had been bothering her.
She stopped for a moment to think, and as a solid minute came by, her hands reached for the lock in the door knob. She lifted the bedsheets and saw a tiny corner of a thin rectangular object peaking through the translucent ivory mattress. She looked around, expecting to find a zipper as she did not want to cut through the fabric to get the mysterious object.
She eventually got tired, as a result, she sliced open the mattress using sharp scissors that she grabbed from one of the sewing kits in the cabinets. It was handy, she thought as she pulled out something which seemed to have been an old book.
She sneered. "Only a book?" She examined the book carefully. It was neither slim nor thick; the covers looked old however it still felt sturdy because it was hard bounded; the papers looked yellowish, and surprisingly, when she skimmed it, she gradually noticed that the entire book was hand-written.
Maybe it was an old published book, she thought. However, when she briefly skimmed it with her slender fingers, she noticed that the ink on the pages did not seem printed, rather it was hand-written. She flipped through the first page and tried to read the beautifully cursive lines on the faint yellow pages.
"My Journal," it said on the very front. After that was a page with a self-portrait of a very young and beautiful woman done in reddish ink. She must've been the owner, Sharmaine thought as she continued to dive deeper. The very first entry was dated back June 1990—an entry about how the owner got her very first journal or diary.
Sharmaine sighed and closed the journal. She was simply too uninterested about diaries older than her existence. She slipped the book between other old-looking books and then started to stitch up the massive hole she cut. When that was done, she unlocked the door and decided to take a walk outside to stretch some of her muscles.
Outside, the garden was peaceful yet lively in feeling. She saw numerous blooming flowers and the newly trimmed shrubs. As she stood in peace, a faint memory replayed—a memory when she followed Merry and saw her burn an envelope. She breathed in and out as she fantasized what kind of errands was Merry running for her mother.
In the middle of her silent thinking, the old woman passed by. "Lovely afternoon, Mistress," she said with a very faint smile. Sharmaine smiled back and examined the woman. She was a bit dirty and sweaty—maybe because of the household chores she had to do alone everyday.
"Hi. How come you're working at this time?" she asked.
The old woman's face was surprised. "Dear, I have to work. I am the only helper after all."
"Fair enough," said Sharmaine. She was supposed to let the woman go freely; however, she remembered the old book-like journal she found in her mattress. "W-Wait!"
The woman turned her head.
"Y-You worked for the young mistresses, right? Could you please tell me what kind of journals they liked? Uh... what did it look like?"