The Queen's Dirty Secrets

8. Queen Gravier’s ladies-in-waiting

Merucia wanted to cry out for help in that instance. There was no way they were Gravier’s servants. They couldn’t recognize that it wasn’t her. Merucia wanted to cry out so badly, but she knew that she would be under suspicion if the palace found out that she could not recognize her own ladies-in-waiting.

Merucia had known that Gravier’s ladies would be arriving soon, she never really prepared for such instance—but still, she did not expect things to turn out that way. She may had been clueless with regards to the ways of the monarchy but she was aware enough to know that their reaction towards her was off.

“So, you have come to be my ladies in waiting?”

“Yes, my Queen. We had promised to follow you here and to serve you. And to make your stay here as comfortable as possible.” The ladies started letting themselves in, seeing as Merucia was planning on leaving them standing at the door forever. “It would be nice to have familiar faces around you, wouldn’t it, my Queen? We spent weeks prior to your wedding planning how all three of us would move here together.” The ladies finally put their luggage down. “Now, we’re here. Aren’t you just glad to finally be out of his royal highness—your uncle’s—tyranny?”

“My-my tyrannical uncle?” Merucia was still so dumbfounded.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

There stood a guard at the door with a loaded trolly, he was there to deliver the rest of the ladies’ luggage. Merucia did step outside to have a short private conversation with guard. She wanted to know if their identities checked out, and the guard confirmed.

Merucia was still very suspicious. A part of her suspected that they were assassins in disguise. “They are perhaps enemies of Gravier, and they are here to finish her off… So, they’ll un-alive me thinking I’m her. Skies, what have I put myself into?” she whispered to herself while outside her room—standing at the door. “Or… They probably know of Queen Gravier’s demise and hence they are here to seek vengeance on her behalf. I should get an update from Gertrude and Bertha about the body’s whereabout.” She nodded to herself, “And they must hear of the new developments. I cannot deal with this alone.”

Merucia had to go back inside her room and underdress, since she would not be joining breakfast anymore. She decided that she would make her first impression some other day. She pushed her door open and found that the ladies-in-waiting were leaning against the door. “What were you doing?”

“Just standing around, my Queen—”

“You were eavesdropping on me!”

The two ladies could see that she was frustrated. They tried calming her down, “Oh, my Queen—”

“Get out.”

Merucia was now alone at last. “What was that? They’ll be listening in on my conversations?” She was sitting on her bed, her legs were under the covers. Merucia could feel a fever-like ailment crawling up on her. She had never been so terrified in her life. She wondered if the two ladies heard what she said about Gravier. “Surely, I whispered carefully.”

She felt a cold shiver on her naked shoulders. She immediately laid down on her back and covered up to her chin. Her thoughts were still plaguing her. Merucia remembered the very first time she felt such terror in her life.

…………………………………………………………………………..

She came from a very poor family. She had loving parents and a baby brother. As always, her mother would wake up to go work, while her father took care of their family farm and he looked after her and her baby brother. Merucia’s mother worked for a noble family far into the town where the rich lived. She would return in the evening with a fancy meal for supper to eat with the family. One particular evening was however different. She did not keep her time—she returned from work very late. She came back home empty handed. She looked unusually exhausted—almost like her soul was starved off energy.

The mother refused to be touched by her family, she would shrug them off. However, the father was very adamant, he wanted to make her feel better. He always knew she loved the fresh smell of their baby boy after he’d just been bathed and changed to fresh clothes. He placed the boy on the mother’s hands.

The energetic, goofy little boy started to doze off to sleep, instantly. This was strange. As the baby grew tired, the mother was getting energized up until the baby’s soul was completely consumed by the mother. The baby was dead.

The father realized right then that the mother was not herself anymore, she was cursed by the witches. She was turned into one of those soul-thieving soul-sucking monsters. Just by touch, these monsters could take a person’s vitality and leave them dead.

Merucia remembered how the father tried wrestling with the turned-mother out of the house, but the more contact he made with her, the more he died. “Merucia, run! Run, my baby girl!!”

At 14-years old she lost a mother, a father and a brother. She lost her whole family, and was left to wander alone and afraid.