Spellbound: COMPLETE

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Ariadne

Ariadne's POV

I smiled as Iris giggled while Bell helped her get her mourning dress on, constantly telling her to hold still. 

"If you don't stop moving then you can't come with us," Bell threatened.

"I don't like wearing black," Iris mumbled, pulling at her dress. "It's not happy."

"That's because we aren't happy right now," Bell muttered. "Because of father." 

"Oh," Iris said looking down at the ground. "But I think father would want us to be happy. So that when he comes back, we can be happy together."

When he comes back... Oh Iris. 

"He's not coming back," Bell whispered. 

I slipped out of the room, needing to get away from the tension. I grabbed a simple black dress to slip on and then hurried and fixed my hair, trying to make my haggard face look presentable while they were still helping the others.

It had been a very long couple of days. 

 After I finished, I went to go find to Charities. It wasn't like her to disappear. 

I was surprised when I found her in her room, sitting on her bed, looking exactly as she had earlier that day.

"Charities, are you coming?" I asked, sitting next to her.

She shook her head, and I was surprised how worn out she appeared to be.

"The dancing might help distract you," I offered.

"I don't want to be distracted," She whispered. "I want... I want everything to be okay."

"Oh, Charities." I pulled her close to me as she sobbed.

It hurt my heart to see her like this; to think about everything that had happened the past few days. I found it hard to comfort her when I felt I needed comfort just as badly. 

"Everything will be okay. It will be different now, but we can make it through this."

"I don't know if I can."

"You have to," I whispered, more to myself than to her.

Then the other girls walked into the room. Iris and Bell had tears in their eyes, and the rest of my sisters didn't look much better. 

"Would anyone object if we all stayed in our rooms tonight?" I said.

"Yes, let's stay," Harmonia pleaded.

The others seemed to agree and then all wandered slowly to their rooms, not bothering to get undressed. I walked into my room after I watched all my sisters slowly disappear into theirs. 

My body felt tired, but I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. I climbed into bed anyway and stared up at the ceiling.

As I heard the clock strike midnight, a dizzying feeling came over me. And I felt like the world was spinning, trying to throw me off it. As the feeling grew stronger I wondered where my sisters were. Were they all alright? I wished they were there with me, not only because of the unimaginable loneliness I felt, but I needed to know that they were okay.

I closed my eyes to try and clear my head to focus on the one thing that mattered to me; hoping the spinning would stop, or at least calm down, but instead, it grew faster. I opened my eyes but quickly closed them again for fear of being sick. It was like that night I learned that father died... Only worse.