𝒯𝒽ℯ ℛ𝒾𝓈ℯ 𝒪𝒻 𝒜 𝒬𝓊ℯℯ𝓃

Chapter |4| The Mother Of Surprises

A R A B E L L A ' S  P.O.V

Mother. Mother. Mother. The word just kept repeating itself in my mind, or maybe I was mumbling it aloud, maybe I was screaming it but either way the woman before me was claiming to be my mother.

The woman who birthed me, the one who carried me for nine months, the woman who first held me.

Then it suddenly dawned on me.

A memory came flooding to the fore front of my mind, and I was suddenly transported back to the competition. To that fateful day I decided to spend some time in the library, only to be cornered and ambushed by my fellow competitors.

Ivy was an entire collection of horrible traumatising memories that dredged up feelings I fought hard to bury.

One of the worst though was that day, the day she revealed some disturbing secrets about my sordid past.

"According to this your mother seduced one of the guards watching her. She had a full blown affair with him and used him to try and escape. Quite a scandal. She got caught, of course, and they found out she was pregnant with the guard's baby. She wasn't exactly stable either, she tried to kill you multiple times as well. She overdosed, starved herself and she even tried to beat you out her. Much to all our disappointments though, she was never successful. Then she had you and they killed her. Little baby Arabella, born out of a love affair, guess you're both whores."

If this really was my mother then...she was an evident psychopath. A woman who tried to kill me as a small helpless baby, and herself in the process. She was unstable, crazy and supposed to be dead so...either ghosts were real or that was all a lie.

Perhaps, it wasn't all a lie? Maybe she did try to kill me, and failed so she left anyways? Maybe she knew my father? Maybe he was with her too?

Or maybe she was liar, a crazy person with no blood ties to me at all? That did seem to be the most logical reason, the most sensible.

But there was a chance, a small chance that this was real.

"Arabella, baby hey can you hear me? Arabella, Arabella...." And just like that I brought back to the present.

There were lots of eyes on me, everyone staring as if I had gone crazy or something. The woman was still detained, two guards holding her back as she struggled to get closer to me.

I found myself looking at her, my eyes fixed on her wild appearance. She had dirt caked everywhere, leaves stuck in her bushy and wild hair and her clock was now untied, revealing her torn and ragged dress.

Yet, she looked just like me.

Our eyes a shimmering ocean blue that I had only ever seen on myself, small ears, and our lips were similarly shaped with the same rosy tone.

However, I couldn't help but point out the differences. Her nose was more angular than mine, her skin slightly paler, eyes narrower and she had this strange aura almost surrounding her.

"Arabella, baby," I turned to my left, my husband had his hands on my face, palms gently caressing my cheeks.

I don't know what I was expecting to see in his eyes but pity...sympathy was certainly not it.

As if his touch scalded me, I flinched and moved back. His hands immediately dropped to his side and concern now washed over him.

I knew what he was thinking. My poor naive wife who probably thinks that this fucking stranger is her real mother.