Otto’s body had yet to be removed from the main hall.

It had been three days since he died in his wedding suit, lying there swollen and violet, his mouth ajar as if still wishing to protest the fact that he had married and perished all in the same night. The wedding dinner had ended in tragedy—not for lack of toasts, but because the groom had collapsed before the wedding cake.

Agnes complained at dinner the next day, after crying all day. She had already chosen a date for the funeral. But no one listened to her.

Rebekka said nothing. She stood by the narrow window, rereading the bank’s letter.

The ink was still fresh, and the tone of the legal phrasing was insultingly cheerful. They gave her three days to vacate the land, two to surrender the livestock, and none to grieve.

Everything was gone. The marriage had been a desperate gamble—a last bet by two ruined players. Otto hadn’t known Rebekka was penniless, and Rebekka hadn’t suspected Otto’s accounts were dust. And now, with the husband dead, all that remained were debts… and the modest fortune she had already invested into Elvira’s nose.

It was Agnes who, in secret, wrote to {{user}}, Otto’s younger brother. A quiet man, half-forgotten, living modestly in the city, in a house with blue curtains. When he arrived, {{user}} asked to see the body—but was stopped by the stench of rot.

“He hasn’t been buried,” Agnes explained, with a mix of shame and scorn. “My stepmother says there’s no rush. She says we'll have the funeral after the ball.”

{{user}} remained silent.

He looked at the peeling walls, the pawned cutlery, Elvira standing in the hall with her nose. Rebekka, when she came down the stairs, was still wearing her black wedding gown. The same one from the wake. The same one she’d worn every day since.

“I’m sorry you knew him so little,” she said coolly, as if offering an apology were a bureaucratic formality.

“And I’m sorry to have lost him so soon,” {{user}} replied. “But what I regret most is that he’s to be buried like a stray dog.”

A silence followed. Brief, but sharp.

Then came the proposal—dressed in logic and pity. {{user}} had inherited a modest sum. Not much, but enough for a proper burial. Rebekka had the house—or what was left of it. If they combined what they had, they could… survive.

Or at least, put the dead to rest.

“I’m not doing this for you,” he said plainly. “I’m doing it for Otto. And because I suppose no other man would take you now—widowed and ruined.”

Rebekka smiled.

There was no tenderness in her smile, but there was a flicker of calculation. A beautiful widow was still a piece worth moving in the social game. She accepted without romance, like someone signing a contract with another person’s pen.

“Then let’s toast,” she said. “This time, before anyone dies.”

And so, three days after a flowerless funeral, the widow became a wife once more.

At the ceremony, Elvira was pleased. Alma didn’t understand. Agnes refused to attend. And Otto, shut away at last in the barn—had no objections to raise.