Arabelle

Chapter 44 - A Fool's Wish

Bella’s POV

 I had been going crazy with worry, I had spent all the time mum was gone calling Ian like crazy, he told me that the man he had sent to tail her had not reported weird, he had said that she had gone for her meeting and then she had gone to have breakfast with the president of King’s Enterprise and that was it, Ian had assured me she was okay and that I was simply overthinking things, mum was not in any kind of danger and she was okay,

Perhaps Ian hadn’t believed me when I had told him I was a lot calmer now, but then again, he had no reason to believe me when I said it, after all I had said it no less than 20 times that morning, not long after our last phone call, I received pictures showing my mother entering King’s Enterprise and another one of her leaving the building alongside a woman, then there was another one of her eating breakfast with the same woman in a café, then the last picture was of mum getting into her car, each picture had a time at the bottom showing the time she got to the building and the time she left,  the last picture showed that she left the café not more than 10 minutes ago,

Relief flooded through me, she was safe and there had been no sign of Richard in any of the pictures, maybe I had been over reacting indeed, it was just a simple promotion after all,  

I looked at the pictures one more time and something caught my eye and I froze, I felt my head spinning as I looked more closely at the woman with my mother in the picture,

Looking back at me was a face I knew only too well, a woman I never thought I will see again, before my eyes was Lady Samantha Blackwood, Richard’s mother, I hadn’t known she had also come back,

Then I froze again, suddenly I was piecing things together, the last spell I had cast was bound to all those who were directly responsible for my death, Richard had come back and now his mother was back as well, Richard will only protect two people, me and his mother and the spell had also affected his mother, Ruth had told me that my enemy was a woman and she was powerful and to also protect Richard from her as well,

This was crazy, it was making sense, the only woman in Richard’s life other than me was his mother and Richard kept telling me he will take the blame, a lot of things still weren’t clear and once again, the only person with the answers I sought was Richard but he has stubbornly refused to tell me the truth,

I may not be sure about a lot of things lately but one thing I was sure of was that the meeting between my mum and Richard’s mother was no bloody coincidence, I had to get my mum away from that blasted family as soon as possible.

*****************

Derrick’s POV

I woke up and heard from the maids that my mother gone out very early in the morning, I found that a little weird since it was a weekend and mum hardly went out on weekends but I didn’t  bother myself too much about it, I had breakfast in my room and then I did some exercise in the indoor gym, then I took my bath and stayed in my room all day,

I had completed most of the urgent work that needed my attention, so I had the weekend to myself, I wasn’t sure how to spend my free time, it had been a while since I had a free weekend like this, normally there was either a party or some social event that required my attention but this weekend was unnaturally free, not that I was complaining or anything, it just seemed a bit alien,

Not having anything better to do, I took out an empty book and just randomly decided on having a diary, since I had no one to share my mad thoughts with, it was better to have them on paper instead of having them make me go completely crazy,

I opened the book, the blank pages called to me and dared me to write the madness in my head on them, my hand hovered over the page and taking a deep breath, I wrote:

“Time has proven to me that no matter how long it takes, the wrong doer will always be punished, and that betrayal is a sin that deserves no forgiveness,

I am a man cursed to live a life that is filled with guilt and undefined misery, I am a man living only to seek atonement for the sins I have committed and despite my intentions to atone, I still end up being a sinner,

I am still plagued with the sickness of being a good son and I end protecting the woman who not only ruined my life and that of the woman I loved but she had killed my father and an innocent bystander in this story of ours and still I cannot bring myself to leave her,

I may tell myself that I stay by her side because that is the only way to protect the woman I love but I know that is only half of the truth, I stay with her because as sad as it may sound, she was all I had left and I was all she had left”

I stopped and took a deep breath, writing all this down really made me feel a little lighter in my chest, I knew I was a fool for still feeling duty bound to my mother after all the things she had done but I guess that was my weakness, I was loyal to a fault, I couldn’t say I loved my mother but I knew I had a duty to her and I was bound by honour to fulfil that duty,

I took a deep breath again and continued writing,

“I see no how this ordeal will end peacefully on both sides, Arabelle is hell bent on revenge and mother is hell bent on killing Arabelle, and if Arabelle succeeded in completing her revenge then mother will lose it completely and it was not above her to unleash her powers in the worst possible way,

From what I have seen of her powers they were not something to take lightly and since she wasn’t in a stable state of mind, that makes her all the more volatile,

This was a situation that had to end in blood, and I stand to lose on both side, if Arabelle won, I may end of losing my life which I had no problem with and if by some miracle I ended up alive, then I might lose my mother and if mother won, then I will lose Arabelle again,

I wish that things didn’t have to end this way, I wish that somehow we weren’t in this situation, but this was the wish of a fool, wishing won’t solve this problem and I was at a loss for what to do”

I stopped writing and put my pen down, I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration, I closed the book and put it in the drawer of my desk,

I sighed and said “What a pathetic life”

I heard footsteps approaching, shortly after a knock followed on my door and then it opened, my mother peeked into the room, a smile on her pretty face, I felt for some reason that the smile on her face looked genuine,

When her eyes fell on me, her smile only grew brighter, I realized I had never seen my mother smile so brightly in both my lives, I felt a warmth in my heart, it was something I had never felt before, 

She walked into the room and came towards me, the smile still illuminating her face, she suddenly looked much younger than I had ever seen her,

“I am making lunch today, I am planning on cooking all your favourites” She said,

I thought I must have heard wrongly, my mother just said she was going to cook, I had idea she could even cook, I had never seen my mother set foot in the kitchen,

“I am sorry, did you say you will cook lunch?” I said, even I could hear the shock and awe in my voice,

She laughed, it wasn’t the usual practiced laugh I was used to, this was a genuine laugh and I felt that I must have been transported to an alternate universe or something like that, because nothing  made sense right now,

“You can just stay up here in your room and I will go downstairs and make lunch, when it is ready, I will ask someone to come and get you” she said with a smile,

I was too dumbstruck to say a single word, the only thing I found myself capable of doing at that moment was nodding,

She gave me a smile and walked out of my room with enough grace to make a queen jealous,

Long after the door closed, I was still in a daze, my mother had never cooked for me and for some reason I couldn’t understand, I felt a kind of happiness and excitement deep in my heart,

It was possible that she was up to something but today, I wanted to be a little selfish, I didn’t want to care if she had any ulterior motives, I just wanted to eat the food made by mother and at least, I could say my mother had cooked for me at least once in my life,

Taking a deep breath, I relaxed into the chair and sought to block out any warning thoughts that were very logical when it came to my mother, I was 99% sure she might have a reason for all this but like I had told myself before, today I will just be selfish,

*************

Derrick’s POV

After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, I decided I couldn’t wait for my mother to call me, I stood up from my chair and walked to the door and opened it and walked out, I rushed to the kitchen,

When I got close to the door, I could perceive the pleasing scent of the food coming from the kitchen, it brought many different sensations to my mind, I suddenly a homey feeling that I had never felt before,

I stood by the door and looked inside, there she was, her hair was tied in a loose bun on top of her head and she was dressed in a free gown that had an apron wrapped around it, she was busy moving up and down, tending to pots and slicing vegetables,

I watched her like that for a while and she never noticed I was there, she was too wrapped up in what she was doing, as I watched her, I found myself wishing once again that this were different, that we were different people with different lives,

I turned away from the woman that I wished had been like she was right now from the start, then I was sure we wouldn’t be living the life we were living right now,

I walked to my room feeling sadness that I had never felt in my whole life, with a deep breath and heavy heart, I climbed the stairs and the aroma of the food mocking and taunting me, making me wish that my life had been like this from the beginning,

Today was really a day for making foolish wishes, I had been wishing for impossible things through out today, things that I shouldn’t be bothered about because they were useless wishes to me and thinking about will only bring me more misery and sadness,

I got to my room and shut the door behind me once I got in, locking out the aroma that had followed me all the way to my room,

Taking a deep breath, I sank into the chair I had been sitting on when my mother had come in, I suddenly felt tired and weak, I was mentally tired and I wanted it all to end,

I wanted to feel normal and not at all bothered by the burdens of the past, not living a life under the shadow of guilt and mothers that will be death of me,

A rueful smile crossed my face as I once again found myself making foolish wishes,

“You truly are a fool Richard Blackwood, a fool indeed”