New world
1961 Words
CELIA
And then comes the pain on my left cheek.
So, sharp and sore it aches.
I jolt upright with a small yelp, clutching my face, just for the maid to shield me with her body.
“My lady, please don't rub it.” She whispers, placing her palm gently on my hand.
Then, her head turns just to have her spring to her feet, shielding me with her body.
“Lady Laureline, please don't do this.” She begs shakily. “Please.”
Laureline?
Who the hell is Laureline?
And why does my cheek hurt like hell as if I've been slapped by an iron fist?
Before I can ask, a voice cuts through the air. A familiar one. And I feel the hairs at the back of my neck rising, anger and dread surging through me.
I stagger to ny feet and shove the maid away just to come face to face with Lauren.
Except… she looks younger. Like she was fifteen years ago or so. And she's dressed in this strange con artist dress with her hair tied in a ponytail, a mean smirk on her face as she stalks towards me.
“You dare take what’s mine again?” she spits as she grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks my head back. Her other hand rises like she’s posing dramatically for a slow-motion slap.
“Lady Laureline, please don't do this.” The maid begs from the sideline, tears in her voice.
And I just stand there like… wowwww, eyes fixed on her hand that's approaching my hurting cheeks.
Is this murderous b***h about to really slap me?
Is she the reason my cheek is hurting?
And just… what the actual f*****g f**k?!
Nah.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
I catch her wrist midair, yank her head back instead, and slap her. Hard. The sound echoes down the corridor.
She gasps, eyes widening in surprise.
I slap her again. Louder.
She squeaks, the surprise morphing to horror.
I slap her a third time for symmetry, because I’m petty like that.
Then she lets out this dramatic wail like I just ripped off her entire face as she staggers back.
I follow her.
I’m fully prepared to beat her into a decorative rug when my stupid gown wraps around my feet, trips me, and sends me kissing the floor. Face first.
“Owwww,” I groan into the marble as Lauren's wails pierced the air.
The maid skids to my side, horror all over her face.
“My lady!”
I push myself up, spitting hair out of my mouth. My eyes dart around and I realize we’re in some kind of ridiculously long corridor with golden sconces and carved walls. The kind of hallway in these historical movies where princesses cry and villains monologue.
“How do we get out of here?” I snap, staggering to my feet and packing the ridiculously large gown, my eyes darting to the b***h Lauren who's turned and is walking fast up the corridor, away from me.
Good for her.
The maid grabs my arm like she’s been waiting for the chance to escape. She steadies me, half-drags me down the hallway, turns a corner, and opens a door that leads into a ridiculously spacious room with curtained bed, silk sheets, and this wide window that has a half-sofa, half-bed looking thing, all carved wood and padded cushion.
A Victorian fainting couch?
She shuts the door behind us and my eyes snap to her.
“Please sit on the chaise, my lady.” The maid hurriedly says, gently pushing me to the not-so-chair thing.
Chaise?
When I settle in, that's when she finally breaks.
“What did you just do?” she whispers, sounding like she expects lightning to strike me on the spot.
I rub my palm together, sinking deeper into the soft half sofa thing.
“First of all,” I say, “go get me a mirror.”
The maid practically sprints to the next room the moment I tell her to get the mirror.
Good. I need a second to breathe. Or panic. Or scream into a pillow.
Preferably all three.
My cheek still burns and my heart is thundering in my chest. My gown weighs more than my GPA did in university.
“What the hell is happening…” I mutter as I sink deeper into half sofa. “Is it the hell is on recycle mode thing?”
Before I can fully settle, the door bursts open and the maid skids back in like someone chasing her.
She holds up a hand mirror with both hands like she’s carrying a holy relic.
“For… for you, my lady.”
I take it.
And freeze.
The mirror nearly slips out of my fingers because staring back at me is…
Me. But not me.
Not today-me.
Not adult-me.
Not tired-of-everyone’s-bullshit and filled with so much anger me.
No.
This is seventeen-year-old me.
Baby-faced me.
Chubby-cheeked me.
Cute me.
The me that had braces because everyone was getting it but there's no sign of braces now.
“What… what the—no, no, no.”
I tilt my head.
Seventeen-year-old me tilts her head.
“What happened to me?” I whisper. “Why am I like this?”
The maid gasps softly. “Did you… hit your head too hard when you fell, my lady?”
I ignore her because I’m too busy lifting the mirror to my forehead like maybe the glass is lying.
It isn’t.
“Why do I look like this?” I whisper.
“Like what?” the maid asks carefully, like I might explode.
“Like my high school graduation photo,” I snap.
The maid blinks. “I… I do not know that kingdom, my lady.”
Holy s**t Batman.
I lean closer to the mirror.
Yep. That’s my face.
“My name,” I say suddenly. “What’s my name?”
The maid looks like I just asked her to recite the full Bible from memory.
“…My lady?”
“I’m serious,” I say. “What’s my name? What do people call me?”
She steps forward cautiously. “You… you are Lady Celia. Daughter of the Archlord of Selene's oath. Heir to Valmorra Estate.”
I stare at her.
Then at the mirror.
Then at her again.
“Yeah, Celia. But what’s with the weird names at the end?”
The maid is silent.
“My name is Celia sterling…” I whisper under my breath while my mind wander to the train and the voice.
Did I actually get… what do I call it?... reborn into this world with the condition that I can go back if I… do well?
What's going on?
The maid’s head tilts. “My lady… do you perhaps not remember? Did the fall affect your memory? Should I fetch the physician? Should I—”
“No, no physician!” I cut in quickly because I’ve seen enough time-travel movies to know doctors = needles = questions = disaster.
I run my fingers over my now-young cheek.
Smooth.
Soft.
Not a single adult stress wrinkle from me innovating and spending nights after nights at the company or me wasting my life on a man.
“My lady?” The maid calls again.
I sigh, rubbing my forehead.
“Okay, let's start with your name.”
“Huh?”
“What's your name?”
She looks genuinely puzzled but she answers anyway. “Annabel.”
“Okay, Annabel. I… I don't know what happened but maybe it was because Lauren—Laureline hit me but I don't seem to remember some things. Can you by any chance tell me what I need to know about me and… here? Umm… we can start with why Lauren… I mean Laureline, said I took what's hers.”
Annabel gulps and begins.
“That was because you told Master—”
“Master?”
“Your father. Master Valmorra.” She wrings her hands. “You told him you wished to marry Master Keiran… Lady Laureline’s only close friend.”
“Me?” I point to myself. “I want to marry Master Keiran?”
Annabel nods.
What the f**k? I look 17. What is me thinking? Before all this bullshit, I was busy trying to pass college entrance exams.
But wait.
Laureline.
Keiran.
I push down the dread clawing up my stomach.
“Describe Master Keiran.”
“My lady, are you sure you—”
I shoot her a stare.
She immediately stops speaking and begins describing with her hands.
“He is… this tall,” she says, lifting her palm high. “With golden hair. You said that is why you fell for him—”
But I stop listening.
Golden hair.
Tall.
The name.
Keiran.
Kieran.
Kevin.
Oh.
Oh no.
Oh HELL no.
Please don't tell me this Keiran guy is Kevin.
I grip the arm of the chaise so hard the wood creaks. My mind is running at full speed.
I'm not much of a reader. I left all my hobbies after clocking twenty three. They were the sacrifices I had to make as father's first and only blood, the heiress to the Sterling empire.
And now?
Death?
Marriage in a medieval-fantasy-whatever world. Where girls get married off for alliances. Where you can’t just say “I’m not ready.” Where consent is basically… optional. And where I apparently told my “father” I wanted this.
Me?
I nearly gag.
“This is not real,” I mutter. “This is one of those short movies Tik.Tok promotes… The weird ones where the girl wakes up in another world to wrong decision made by ‘herself’ right? Where’s the voice? Where’s that train bastard that dumped me here?”
I look up at the ceiling.
“You motherfucker, are you there?!”
Annabel gasps so loud it echoes.
Before I can breathe, she slaps her palm over my mouth again like a panicked babysitter smothering a toddler’s curse word.
“My lady! Please!” she whispers, horrified. “You cannot say such… such… profanity! What if someone heard, especially your governess? You’d be punished!”
I yank her hand off my mouth.
She wobbles but doesn’t fall.
She’s acting like she's too familiar with me.
“Annabel,” I hiss, “I need to know everything. And I mean everything about this man I'm to marry.”
Annabel’s cheeks glow pink at the word “marry.”
She looks like she’s about to giggle.
“Master Keiran has always admired you, my lady,” she says shyly. “Everyone knows. He visits often. You always get flustered when he does.”
I glare at her, silently urging her to continue.
Her smile widens. “He’s coming for dinner.”
“When?”
“Tonight, my lady.”
“TONIGHT tonight?” I squeak.
Annabel nods earnestly.
My heart plummets.
I’m not ready.
I don’t even know how to walk in this oversized bed-sheet of a gown.
I look seventeen.
I’m in a world with titles and nobles and arranged marriages.
And I’m supposed to eat dinner with Kevin 2.0?
I spring up and grab Annabel’s shoulders.
“Annabel. Listen. I don’t know s**t about this world. Not a single damn thing. So before dinner, you are going to tell me EVERYTHING about… me. My father. This manor. Keiran. Laureline. All of it. Every drop.”
Annabel stiffens, eyes round as saucers.
“My lady… did you really hit your head that badly?”
I inhale deep.
“Apparently I hit my entire LIFE.”
She gulps naively.
But she nods.
“I… I will tell you everything I know."
- Writer
