Chapter 8
1075 Words
Yes, let them tremble.
I gave them my best gentle smile laced with divine judgment.
“Don’t let me interrupt your groveling,” I said lightly, brushing an imaginary speck from my embroidered glove. “Please, continue bowing. It suits you.”
One of the maids—a particularly sour one I recognized from the Diary of Past Abuse™—visibly shook.
Mira. The one who used to swap my tea with boiled weeds and call it “detox.”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Lady Abby,” she whispered. “W-we didn’t know—”
“Oh, you did,” I interrupted, voice syrupy with venom. “You just didn’t care. Until now.”
Her mouth opened. Closed.
I kept walking. My train followed like a royal cape of vengeance and quiet thunder.
The halls were exactly as I remembered—gilded, pristine, hollow.
But today? They weren’t echoing with my silence. They were echoing with power.
I was no longer the ghost of this house. I was its storm.
And I'm pretty and I love drama. I made my way up the stairs—slowly. Intentionally. Each step a little thunderclap of memory and revenge.
There it was. My old room.
The place they stuffed me to be forgotten. The wallpaper still faded, the furniture too dainty, like I was a porcelain doll they didn’t want to break—just hide.
I opened the door.
And stopped.
Everything was exactly where I left it. Untouched. But smaller somehow. Like this room had shrunk in fear of who I had become.
There on the desk was a small wooden box. I didn’t need to open it. I already knew what was inside.
A single hair ribbon. A cracked locket. And a sketchbook filled with terrible doodles of lightning and dragons and dream castles I once wished were real.
I picked it up and held it to my chest. Not because I was sentimental. But because I had earned it. The real Abby earned it. And I have all her memories now. The pain, the longing. The broken heart. The disappointment and the thought of dying alone.
Every scribble, every page. Proof that even when I was powerless, I still believed in something more.
Then I turned to the full-length mirror. Looked myself in the eye.
No pain. No weakness. Just fire.
“Welcome back, Abby,” I whispered to myself. “Try not to burn the place down… unless it deserves it.”
Downstairs, they were still waiting. Hoping. Terrified.
As they should be. Because Lady Abby MacMayer—the powerless girl they mocked, ignored, and nearly killed— had returned.
But this time, she came back with thunder in her blood, sass in her stride, and a grudge that could light up the kingdom.
Few minutes later.
The living room of the MacMayer estate was a portrait of luxury. Dark velvet. High archways. Gilded frames. Once upon a time, I would sit in the corner of this very room pretending I was part of the world they lived in.
Today?
I was the main event, honey.
There I stood. Regal. Effortless. Holding my sad little memory box like it was the Crown Jewels of Emotional Damage.
And then—they arrived.
My family.
Breathing hard. Running like the palace gates had opened behind them with royal rage on their heels.
Alana’s usually flawless hair was frizzy from sprinting.
Algebra’s cravat was crooked.
Father’s mustache? Off-centered. Off. Centered. A scandal.
They looked like a bunch of aristocrats caught shoplifting at the noble discount aisle.
“Abigail!” my father wheezed dramatically, stumbling into the room like a theater extra. “Please… wait!”
Alana rushed forward. “Abby, darling, you’re misunderstanding—”
“—we were just worried—” Algebra started.
I held up one hand.
The air crackled. Not even magic. Just raw power of having had enough.
“Please,” I said with a smile so cold it should’ve been served with ice tongs. “You’re embarrassing yourselves. And this rug. Step back.”
They did. Oh, they did.
My father swallowed. “We… we received word from the royal court…”
Ah. There it was.
“The king,” he said shakily, “was most displeased. The Queen too. Apparently, your testimony was… quite detailed.”
I shrugged. “I only spoke the truth. Your mistake was assuming it would never leave these walls.”
He paled. “They’ve suspended my title,” he continued, voice cracking. “I’ve been removed from my seat on the Council. The royal banks froze three of our vaults. Your sister’s engagement to Lord Fenwood was canceled—”
“—they even revoked my knight privileges!” Algebra yelped. “I can’t summon my personal guard or access the noble sauna—”
“And the West Kingdom spa retreat program—” Alana gasped, clutching her pearls, “revoked, Abby! They canceled my seaweed wrap subscription!”
A moment of silence. I blinked. Then blinked again.
“…You came to beg me to stay because they canceled your spa membership?”
My father stepped forward, attempting dignity and failing spectacularly. “Abigail, you are still a MacMayer. You carry our blood, our name, our legacy. You can’t just—”
“Oh no,” I interrupted smoothly. “Let me stop you there.”
I gently placed the memory box on a side table, stepped forward, and dropped the sass bomb like a royal nuke.
“I am not a MacMayer,” I said. “Not anymore.”
“You are—” he started.
“No, darling,” I said sweetly. “I was. Until you let me rot. Until you let your household poison me and treat me like trash because my mana didn’t glow on cue.”
I turned to Alana. “You were more invested in your dress color coordination than your little sister not eating for three days.”
To Algebra: “You once gave me a rock for my birthday and said it was ‘character building.’”
To my father: “And you—” I stepped closer, lowering my voice into a velvet dagger—“You only came to me when the king took your power. Not when I was dying. Not when I was invisible. But when your status started slipping. Typical.”
They were frozen.
- Writer
