Felicity: The Sixteenth Life

Once upon a time, there lived a little girl in a small cottage. Okay, that sounded cliché, but I don’t know how else I’m going to start this, ya understand? This story isn’t about me anyway; it’s about someone I am very fond of, someone whom I very much wanted to help but can’t due to certain reasons. Now, who am I, you might wonder… I can’t tell you yet so if you’re curious, just read on. Well, where was I? Ahh, yes, the girl in the cottage. She just woke up even though dawn hasn’t even broken yet. That’s quite impressive of her since she just turned eight years old. What’s even more impressive is that she spends each day like this ever since her mother died. That was when she was five so that makes three years. Other children would have had a hard time adjusting, but not this girl. She’s kind of special. VERY special. She herself knows that fact and wonders about why she has this kind of fate. This is her story, her ‘current’ story (take note of the ‘current’, that’s kinda important). FLASHBACK The girl’s name is Felicity. Her deceased mother gave her a name that meant ‘luck’ for it was a lucky coincidence that she had been born at all and because her existence gave her mother a fortunate turn for a new life. Felicity’s mother, Dalia, was a commoner and one of the five daughters of a brothel owner who had already turned the first four daughters as additional merchandise for his shop. Dalia knew that it would soon be her turn, thus she had been wary of an opportunity to seduce a rich man that would visit her father’s shop and latch onto him even if it means losing her dignity and virginity. Dalia had been holding onto her last straw to escape her terrible future thus she wasn’t planning on being selective on her prey. Anyone would do as long as they’re a well-financed nobleman, but when a handsome, well-dressed, heavily-intoxicated young fellow was ushered into the shop’s hall one night, Dalia jumped on the opportunity to have his companions leave him to her care. She ended up sleeping with him but was unable to redeem what she wanted after learning that the young man was no ordinary nobleman. He was Count Herald Aidan Acker, a high-ranking military official and a married man with three kids. Just as Dalia thought that her luck ran out, she was about to move on to another, more reachable target. However, she found out about her pregnancy and thus went to the Acker Countdom to appeal on carrying one of their blood. It was within imperial law that all children, born legitimately or illegitimately, must be accepted into the father’s family registry regardless of the mother’s identity. Thus, the nobility in this kingdom was often scandalous and each family tries their best to uphold their reputation by dealing discreetly with illegitimate pregnancies that had not been exposed to the public yet. Mothers of illegitimate noble children often tried climbing the ladder to high society but Dalia knew that nothing good had happened to those women. They were scorned and treated nastily as homewreckers. As the mother of the child, Dalia planned on asking to be taken in by the family as the child’s nanny and allow her to stay until the child reaches his or her coming-of-age. That sounded like a more reasonable request and the Ackers were known for being upright and benevolent. If they agree, there would be plenty of time to save money for livelihood until she gets kicked out, thus it was the perfect opportunity to change her whole life. After it was proven that the child within Dalia was truly Count Acker’s offspring, the whole household was turned upside down. The Countess who had firm principles on fidelity was broken-hearted by the deed that was done by her husband. Although it was the Count’s friends who made Herald drink over his limit and also them who took the intoxicated Herald to the brothel as part of a joke, the Countess did not accept any of those as a valid excuse. What mattered to her was the fact that her husband touched another woman, and that their family’s dignity and reputation would be scarred forever. Back then, the Countess was on her third pregnancy after birthing a set of fraternal male and female twins as the first-borns and a boy as the second-born throughout her six-year marriage to her husband. To properly console his wife and to not make a bigger mess of the situation, Count Herald acted on the best solution he could think of. The whole household was sworn to secrecy about the existence of Dalia and her baby. Dalia was then given a proper deal to birth and raise the child at one of the fief’s mansions on the condition that their existence would remain a secret from the outside world. She and her child would live under the protection of the Duke and once the child had his or her coming-of-age ceremony, he or she would be introduced to society as an ‘adopted’ son or daughter and only then would he or she be registered as a child of the Acker bloodline. To keep everything secret, all of the servants who worked for the Ackers, current ones and future ones, would then be subjected to a blood pact at which they would lose their life the moment they leak the information about this matter to anyone who was not privy to Dalia and her child’s existence. The contract between Dalia and the Count was sealed in blood and magic as well thus securing Dalia and her child’s safety. Everyone was kept tight-lipped about the issue, keeping the Acker Countdom’s name and the Countess’ dignity as clean as they always were. Dalia had no reason to not accept the deal presented to her since all she wanted was to live a peaceful life with no hardship, hunger and any danger of being sold off. Living in secrecy was of no concern to her. Each person involved with the matter stuck faithfully to their end of the discussion and thus came the birth of little Felicity approximately seven months later. A month later after Felicity’s birth, the Countess successfully delivered twin boys but passed away due to complications a week later. The Count partially blamed Dalia and her child for his wife’s passing and it was clear to everyone in the mansion that he despised them. Although they were never near sight to upset him, he still hated them. Heart-broken, frustrated and full of anger, the Count left his children to the care of his trusted servants and went to war after the youngest twins turned two. Dalia and Felicity lived in Opal Mansion until then, however, all the servants assigned to them left and moved back to the main house as soon as the Count left the fief. Dalia alone was not enough to clean and maintain such a large residence thus, half a year after the Count’s departure, she took Felicity to live in the caretaker’s cabin instead. A few months after this, the monthly allowance that was supposed to be handed to Dalia for child support stopped as well. Dalia used the money she saved from past allowances to make the caretaker’s cabin a comfortable place to live in. She did not go to the main house to complain for she feared that something terrible would be done to her and Felicity in the Count’s absence. Count Herald was too upright to have them killed and the existence of the blood-signed contract would prevent him from harming them. Although the servants were also part of the pact and would be unable to kill them off, they could still make the lives of the mother and daughter very miserable. Thus, it would be safe to assume that there were plenty of people in the mansion willing to make Dalia and Felicity suffer even though the Count left them alone. Ifever one of the servants loyal to the deceased Countess hurt them in any way, the Count would not mourn them at all and no one would know about their suffering. Dalia concluded that the quieter she and Felicity lived at the very corner of the fief, the better chances of survival they would have. Dalia had pooled all of the money she received since she first started living in Opal Mansion and used part of the funds to renovate the cabin and make it look like a homely cottage. She also planted a vegetable and herb garden out front. Since the cottage was located at the very end of the fief, she was free to enter the forest near it which marked the boundary of the Acker’s lands. Across that forest, she would reach the town at which she procured all the necessities for her and her little Felicity. They lived a simple life with a little white puppy that Felicity picked up from the forest while playing. Dalia may not have been the cleanest woman but she was a good mother. She was in the wrong for ruining the Count’s relationship with his wife and she knew it, understood it and never even once denied it. She was determined to tell her daughter everything once Felicity became old enough to understand, however, after Felicity turned four, Dalia got sick. It was an illness that none of the town’s doctors could diagnose. They said that she would have to consult a priest. Doing so would break the blood-contract with the Count because the woman ‘Dalia’, the youngest daughter of the brothel-owner Alberto, was written off as dead publicly after they sealed off the deal. Consulting a priest meant giving out her identity. Thus, she did not consider it an option. “Is this illness contagious?” Dalia asked the doctors. “No, it’s not. But you would die soon if you could not receive holy healing.” Each of the doctors had that same answer. “If it’s not contagious, it’ll be fine,” Dalia told them and since then stopped going for treatment. For a year, Dalia suffered immense pain, coughing blood almost every day, until her body slowly withered away. As she sensed her death nearing, she mustered enough strength to make things easier for her little girl. At the back of the cottage one summer day, Dalia spent almost two days digging out a huge hole. Then as the night fell, she pulled little Felicity towards her, aged five, and told her about what would happen. “Listen carefully Lissy… Mommy is going to die. But you’ll be alright since Kenley is with you,” Dalia said, softly smiling at her daughter and the big white dog wagging its tail excitedly by the side. To her surprise, Dalia found her daughter nodding in response. “Do you know what dying means Lissy?” she asked. “Yes mommy. The rose bush we tried planting out in the garden died and it wilted and went back to the ground afterwards,” Felicity answered. She had always been quite smart and eloquent for her age and that was one of the few facts that kept Dalia relieved. For some reason, she felt that her daughter would fare out fine even after she goes away. “Will you also go back to the ground?” Felicity added, blinking her large sapphire-colored eyes. “Yes. That’s why Mommy had been digging that hole at the back of the house. Once Mommy wilts and you see that I’m no longer breathing, you should put me on Kenley’s back and lead him to the hole. You can put Mommy there and although it would be difficult, you have to cover the hole completely with the soil I dug out. That is very important, do you understand Lissy?” she told the little girl. “Yes mommy…” Felicity answered. “That’s a good girl. Now, do you know where Mommy places money? Do you remember how to shop for supplies and food? How about how to care for the plants in the garden?” Dalia asked continuously. “Money is on a box under the bed cushion, the town shops are across the forest straight ahead, shopping for perishables goes last. The garden needs weeding and daily watering and pesticide sprays monthly, water comes from the brook at the far right from the house,” Felicity answered smartly. “Ah, my daughter is such a good and smart girl,” Dalia said as she caressed her daughter’s long wavy nut-brown hair. “Even after Mommy goes away, you must be strong by yourself. There are notebooks on the top drawer of the dresser and I wrote down everything I could think of that you need to do to run the house properly. I also wrote my recipes on one of them since you love Mommy’s cooking,” Dalia said, almost choking with the tears stuck in her throat. “Now, you must remember one last thing; this is very important. There’s a smaller notebook with a red cover that you must not open until your reach the age of sixteen. Sixteen my dear, do not forget,” she added, bravely gulping down the stubborn tears. “Sixteen,” Felicity repeated with a nod. “I understand Mommy,” she added. Seeing how little and feeble her little girl looked, Dalia was overcome with grief. Why was it that she had to leave such a small child all alone in this cruel world? She had no one to lean on, no one to possibly take care of Lissy in her stead; except for the girl’s father who hated both her and the child. During her trips in town, she had heard rumors about Count Herald. It was the only way Dalia could know about matters regarding the Ackers for she never dared to venture near the area around the main house. Ever since he started going to war, he went home once a year to stay one month with his children before returning to the battlefield again. That had been ongoing for six years. The current rumors circulating around town from people coming from the capital said that the long war between their kingdom with another empire was finally reaching an end. Thus, Count Herald may be returning home for good. However, Dalia could not trust him with little Lissy. She was sure that the child would be neglected under the Count’s care and would face contempt from everyone in the house. It was a good thing that Dalia taught Felicity to care for herself because that would be safer than jumping into a possible lion’s den. Only when she was dying that Dalia started regretting all her past actions. If only she knew that she was to die this early in life, she would have never desired a better future and had a child who would be left motherless. However, what was done had been done and having Lissy was the best thing that happened in her entire life. Thus, even though it’s hard, Dalia had to have faith in her daughter’s capability of surviving on her own. “Come here, my baby,” Dalia said as she opened her arms towards Felicity. The little girl went straight to her mother’s embrace and used her small hands to pat Dalia on the back. “It will be alright Mommy… You should rest now,” Felicity told her, caressing her back as if trying to provide consolation. Hearing that, Dalia could not hold back her tears anymore. She hugged her child tightly and cried and cried until she grew weary and fell asleep. On the next day, Dalia never awoke. Felicity had lost her mother. ~~~ CONTINUATION OF FLASHBACK The whole day passed with the five-year-old Felicity just holding the hand of her mother lying peacefully on the bed. A large white dog went towards her with a whimper whilst putting down a bowl which it had picked up in its mouth. Felicity turned her brown head towards the dog and looked at the bowl blankly. Then she shifted her attention towards the window and only did she realize that it was nearing sunset. “Oh, I’m so sorry Ken. I can take starving for a day but I guess you can’t do the same,” she said and got up on her feet. Carefully placing her mother’s hands together on the top of her belly, Felicity went to get food for the hungry canine. After feeding Kenley, she drank a couple glasses of water and went back to stare at her mother’s dead body. She reached out a hand towards Dalia’s face and felt the coldness of the skin. “I really am a cursed person… After fifteen lives, I only experienced a parent’s love twice and they both died early deaths…” Felicity mumbled, a certain glint surfacing on her eyes that one would never see on the eyes of a normal five-year-old. Dalia did not know but Felicity also kept a secret notebook to herself. She went to the compartment at the far corner of the cottage and unearthed a notebook covered with an old dishcloth under a loose piece of tile. After turning on the mana light stones in the cottage, Felicity proceeded to sit down near the bed and skimmed the pages. She stopped at her record of the names she had used for all her past lives. Noah, Remi, Dylan, Hannah, Michael, Susie, Warren, Amy, Aiden, Paula, Ian, Jenny, Calvin, Emma, Oliver, and finally, Felicity… Fifteen – no, sixteen pitiful little kids… Felicity was not merely five years old. The accumulated years she had lived was a total of a hundred and forty-nine years, a quarter of the Giovanni Kingdom’s entire history of existence. She had to go through babyhood with a conscious mind for fifteen times and was able to recall the entirety of the memories for all her past lives up to the littlest detail. It was only until the third reincarnation that she was able to accept the fact that she was being killed off and reincarnated, and only until the fifth life that she resigned herself to her fate and started paying attention to details. For every life and every identity, she would collect information and if she successfully reincarnates onto the next life, she would jot it down and study it. So far, the reincarnation process stayed on a loop. One thing certain was that her gender swaps out alternately for each reincarnation. Her first life Noah was male and was the son of a farmer. He died at age twelve after being ran over by a noble’s carriage. The second life was Remi, the daughter of a tailor. She died at age eight falling off a ditch while running errands. The third life was Dylan; an orphan whose parents were unknown even after his death at age nine. He died of an epidemic that spread through one part of the Giovanni Kingdom at his time of existence. The next was Hannah, died at ten after being beaten by a drunkard father who made a living as a pickpocket. Male, female, male, female – it had been a constant cycle. The youngest death record was six years old – the fifth life Michael who died of starvation during the famine. There was a total of three lives that lived up to the age of twelve, two lives at eleven, three lives at ten, three lives at nine, two at eight, one at seven and one at six. Felicity is currently five. If the age range of death was between six to twelve as she speculated, the next year would be a turning point in Felicity’s life. If she survived after next year, her priority would be to try and live past the age of twelve. She closed the notebook and gazed again at the face of her deceased mother. “I am so sorry to break your final words Mommy, but I can’t wait until age sixteen to open that red notebook you talked about last night… After all, I might follow after you anytime…” she thought and went towards the dresser cabinet. Upon opening the first drawer, she saw a total of five notebooks. Her mother wrote them whilst bedridden and even lost sleep just to complete writing everything. As she passed away at dawn that day, she finished everything just in the nick of time. Felicity’s father at the thirteenth life was a very good and loving parent but she had never seen someone so fixated on her child the way that Dalia was towards her. Dalia was the best parent that she had after living all those lives. It would be an understatement to say that Felicity was saddened for her death. She was absolutely heart-broken but for some reason, the tears won’t come. She might have watched over so many people’s deaths and experienced death herself so many times that she had become numb to it. Felicity reached for the small red notebook and read the contents with a sober face. It contained the secret of her identity, about the bad things her mother did, who her father was, the circumstances of her birth, about the blood contract between him and Dalia and about being adopted as part of the Acker family upon turning sixteen. At the final page was a note from her mother, a dying wish. “Dear my precious Lissy, first of all, I want to say that Mommy is very, very proud that you grew up to reach your coming-of-age. It must have been hard, all these years surviving alone… But you persevered through it all and I am hurt and proud because of that. Thank you for being born as my daughter and thank you for growing up so strongly. I wish I could’ve been there to give you a hug. Although it was agreed upon by the Count and I for you to be adopted as their daughter after your sixteenth birthday, I wish for you to make a personal choice – one that has not been dictated by me, the Count or the blood contract. If you do not wish to get adopted, you may do so. You may go wherever you want, do whatever you want in life, be the person you want to be. I still left a sizeable amount of money from when I was still receiving child support finances from the Acker Countdom. I left the money at a very trust-worthy source and you may find the details to where it’s hidden at the very back of this notebook. You may use the money as you see fit; I am confident that Lissy would use it carefully and wisely. I wish you all the luck in life, my Felicity. You are and always will be the most beloved person in my life. Remember your Mommy from time to time and live your life to the fullest. Love, Mother.” Felicity was silent after reading the contents of the notebook but even after reading Dalia’s last will, her sapphire eyes remained dry. Why is it that she could not shed a tear for such a wonderful mother? Was the body given for this life possibly defective? Felicity could not understand herself and her emotions. It was clear that she loved her mother as much as her mother loved her. Still, no tears came. Unbelievably, all she had was a thought of how complicated and full of twists her current life had. She’s actually an illegitimate child of a noble… This was by far the highest social status among her sixteen lives. She did sense something fishy because her mana seemed to be higher than any of the other bodies she had before. Commoners contain mana but only enough to activate mana stones and mana-powered devices used for everyday living. Nobles were able to uphold their power because their bloodline carries higher mana. Of course, the royals had the highest mana except for rare instances that a child loved by the gods exists. Those children had immense innate mana regardless of their origin of birth. Anyways, that would probably be useful for her in this life. If she trains at controlling magic, she might have higher chances of living past twelve years old. After tucking the notebooks back to the front drawer, Felicity did as she was told and properly laid her mother’s dead body to rest at the hole that the poor woman dug for herself. She did not want her child to be unable of disposing her body once she passes away. Even until the very end, she thought of Felicity. Covering the hole with dirt took a few hours and the early beams of sunlight was already seeping through the clouds by the time Felicity was done. The girl had not slept for a whole day and night but she was not feeling sleepy at all. After placing stones and flowers on top of the grave, Felicity, a five-year-old with the history of fifteen lives went through the daily routine she had with her mother as if nothing bad ever happened. ~~~ Hi! I’m LCScarlett, a new amateur writer. This is my first book here in Dreame and I hope you like the first chapter. Updates would be either weekly or biweekly, depending on how busy I am with my real-life work. Please note that I only write for leisure and hobby thus there might be grammatical mistakes on my part. I do not have an editor haha See you on the next chap!