Bad Blood

Chapter 28: CJ

After breakfast, Felicity brought Amelia back to her room.

Felicity helped Amelia back in bed, urging her to rest some more despite Amelia telling her she was fine. Felicity still wanted Amelia to rest.

"Will you be back soon?"

Felicity was running around the room. She was changing out of her clothes and looking for the formal attire she'd always wear for important occasions. Today, Felicity was set to visit a district on the outer side of her kingdom. That district is struggling because of poverty.

"I don't know, love," Felicity got into her shirt, but was looking around for her pants now. "But I'll hurry to be back soon."

Amelia let out a deep sigh. "Why do you have to go there anyway?" She paused before adding: "I mean, I know they're struggling with poverty but what is your visit going to change about that?"

Felicity chuckled before walking towards Amelia. "A visit of a royal member does a lot to the spirit of people, love."

"The spirit?"

Felicity nodded. "They'll get their hopes up."

"For nothing?"

Felicity rolled her eyes as she continued looking for her pants. "We'll help them, obviously," She then found her pants and started pulling them on. "But there's a difference in just helping them from afar or helping them and visiting them. People appreciate that."

Amelia slowly nodded. "I didn't think about it that way yet."

"Well now you know," She walked back to Amelia and kissed her deeply on the lips, then she pulled back. "I'll be back before you know it." She then kissed Amelia's lips once more before retreating and eventually leaving the room.

Amelia sighed, not knowing what she was supposed to do now. She didn't know how long she'd be alone. Maybe it would just be until lunchtime, maybe the whole day...

And what could she do? Over at the other castle, her home, she knew what to do and when to do it. She knew what to do if she had some free time. But here, in Felicity's castle, she was lost. She felt lonely.

That's when her thoughts went back to those portraits. And what she had seen on them. Should she investigate it more? Was it really a good idea to investigate it more?

She sighed as she got up. She needed to find out, despite something inside her telling her she shouldn't. She had to know, she wanted to know.

She got out of Felicity's room and looked left and right before going right again. She slowly, and quietly, walked back to the same room as last time.

Before entering that room, she paused. She collected herself and then knocked three times on the door, waiting for a reply, which never came. She entered the room.

She walked to the same wall with portraits as she did the day before. She looked at the other portraits, would there be other secret portraits behind them?

She picked a portrait off the wall and got it out of the frame. She looked behind the portrait and indeed found more secret portraits. She repeated the same for a few other portraits.

She took the secret portraits with her back to Felicity's room. Once inside, she let out a deep breath which she seemed to have been holding in for some time.

She sat down on Felicity's bed and then put those secret portraits down on it. She laid them apart so she could have a good look at them. She was immediately intrigued. What was this? And why was this secret?

She took one of the portraits. CJ, was written on the back. What did that mean, Amelia wondered.

Another portrait was marked with the text: happy family. Amelia sighed once more.

She went over all the texts on the portraits, and every one of them gave little to no information. It's as if the person, that wrote it on the portraits, purposely stayed vague with their descriptions... But why?

She sighed, not knowing what to do, and collected them all again. She put them underneath the bed, safely hidden but nearby.

She was planning on resting now, letting those secret portraits be for now, but she couldn't find rest. There was wondering within herself, a need to find out the truth. Something was going on here, behind closed doors, and she wanted to know.

She got up again, once again risking her way into the same room. She took all the other portraits, she went looking for more secret portraits. The ones she collected, she stacked into a pile on the side.

She was just about ready to hang the last frame back onto the wall when she heard a door. She looked at her left and spotted Carl.

"Princess?"

Amelia gulped as she looked down, feeling busted. She was in a room she wasn't supposed to be in...

"What are you doing here?" Carl slowly entered the room, looking around as if Amelia had taken something from the room. He then looked at Amelia again, waiting for a response. "Princess?"

Amelia sighed. "I was just watching the portraits." She motioned to the ones on the wall.

"Oh..." Carl then nodded, until he spotted the stack of portraits. His eyes widened as he spotted the portrait on top.

Amelia noticed Carl's expression and, when she followed his gaze, she understood why. She knew now for sure that something was going on. Even Carl knew.

Amelia got a hold of the stack, she was ready to get going but noticed Carl was watching the stack of portraits with hawk-eyes.

"I have to go." Amelia walked past Carl, hurrying back to Felicity's room. When she entered, she got back on the bed and sighed.

She spread the new portraits on the bed and looked at them. Her eyes landed on one. On the portrait was a guy. He was wearing a simple shirt and pants, he had dark hair and looked like he was in his mid-thirties. Amelia turned the portrait around and spotted the text: James. Was that the name of the guy on the picture?

Amelia sighed as she looked at the other portraits as well. Then she saw another one, once again James was on it. And then another one, again with James.

But she stopped when she saw a portrait where she saw James with Carl, both posing happily. Amelia wondered, she had seen a similar picture.

She went back to the portraits underneath her bed. She went through them and then stopped, the portrait with the text: happy family. On this portrait were Carl, Chandler, Queen Louisa, King Alden and James.

Then, with trembling hands, she took the very first portrait she had found. She looked at it again, and was unsure how to feel about it. On the portrait were King Alden, Queen Louisa and her own mother...  

Amelia gulped, what was going on here? Then she took the other portrait she looked at with the text: CJ. On it was her mother and... James. Cassandra and James, Amelia wondered, Would that be CJ? If so, who's James? And where is he?