Happy Birthday, Siberia21! This is for you, my friend.
You were a pretty lady,
but destiny you fucked me,
gave me some stones when I deserved the pearls,
gave me ugly instead of pretty…
Prologue
'Why are you so sad, mama?' Little Elena Gilbert asked her mother as she was being tucked in her bed, beneath the gold satin coverlets.
Isobel Fleming-Gilbert discreetly wiped the moisture from the corner of her eyes, making sure that Elena would see nothing but smile on her face. She didn't want her tearful face to be the last memory Elena would have of her.
'I'm not sad, poppet,' she said easily as she sat on the side of Elena's bed, staring at her daughter's face, trying to remember everything she could.
Did you remember your previous life when you died? Isobel wanted to remember Elena.
Elena was the only thing, the only good thing that had come out of her and John's relationship and marriage.
'Where's daddy, mama?'
That question had been asked every night when Elena went to sleep, and every night Isobel had the same answer.
'Daddy's busy, Elena love.'
That lie left a bad taste in her mouth.
Isobel had met John in college and they'd been attracted towards each other instantly. She'd not known then that John was attracted to anything and everything with a pulse, a pair of boobs and a cunt.
She'd fallen in love with John Gilbert.
Now that she thought about it, she'd been too young to know what love really was. For her, it had been sweet smiles, kisses beneath bleachers and quick secretive shags in the broom cupboard. Now that life had taught her few things, now that she had some experience under her belt, she realized that what she and John had shared had been a case of attraction.
She, the utter fool had given herself over to John thinking that he was the prince of her dreams, when in reality he'd been the start of the whole mess.
Isobel was a proud creature, and John Gilbert had made a fool out of her one too many times.
'Mama?'
She looked at little Elena again. How she wished there was some other way than what she was about to do. She would never see Elena grow up, never see her graduate or fall for a boy. She would not be there to select prom dresses or take a million pictures when her princess came down the stairs in her pretty clothes.
Love made a fool out of you.
Or maybe Isobel had only known the foolish kind of love; love that was selfish and poisonous, that was obsession and possession. Maybe she'd only known the love that existed for shallowest of reasons.
'Mama, I wanna hear about beauty and the beast,' Elena said in her sleepy voice, her hands already curled beneath her chin.
Beauty and the beast.
Elena loved to hear about love, but today Isobel wanted to tell a different story to her daughter, a story that was seldom repeated in the homes of the Mystic Falls.
'What about a different story, Elena love?'
She knew Elena won't refuse. Little Elena saw the world through her naïve, idealistic eyes and so many things that couldn't exist, existed in perfect harmony for her.
'Is it gonna have a prince?' Elena asked seriously, her rosebud lips in a thoughtful pout.
'A king, love. This story has a king, and his palace and his beautiful queens.'
Isobel had never believed in fate, magic, curses and myths, but as the mother of the first Gilbert girl born in almost a thousand years, she'd some responsibilities— so called responsibilities that she had been entrusted with by her mother-in-law before Elena's birth.
In this day and age, it was ludicrous to believe that an ancient king was lying in wait for her daughter to set him free. When her mother-in-law had told her the story, she'd politely listened to the tale and then proceeded to ignore it as an old woman's dying delusion.
But now, her time was running out, and if the story had even a fraction of the truth, then Elena needed to know.
'Once upon a time, there was a king named Elijah…'
The late hours of night were disturbed by two gunshots that woke half of the Mystic Falls, and little Elena Gilbert.
She managed to get down from her bed in the darkness, her rabbit clutched safely in her arms. The creak of her ajar door when she slipped outside startled her, but she pushed the fear down and continued towards her parent's room.
Daddy was seldom home these days. But he'd promised that he would take Elena to Disneyland for her birthday. Her parents' room was undisturbed. The sheets were unlined, the coverlet was still folded.
Where were mum and dad?
The light in the hall was on. Maybe mum and dad were fighting again, and one of them had dropped another vase. Mum and daddy fought all the time these days.
The marble surface of the stairs was cold and Elena scrunched her toes after every step. She wanted to run back to her room and burrow inside her covers to ward off this permeating chill. But she was already halfway down the stairs.
She looked back at the topmost stair longingly.
The bottom of the staircase was nearer, and on the plus side, if daddy was home, he could tuck her in for a change.
Decided, she laboriously continued.
She shouldn't have.
John Gilbert's brain was splattered on the dining room wall of the Gilbert Manor and Isobel lay nearby, her vacant eyes peaceful and devoid of the usual bitterness and self-hatred.
'Mama.'
Were mama and daddy playing? She shook her mother and in doing so the red of the blood that was still warm on the floor stained her hands.
'Colors, mama. Did daddy bring colors for me?'
She ran towards her father, her plushy rabbit forgotten near Isobel's head.
And it was John Gilbert's shattered skull from whence bits of brain peeked that instilled a sense of foreboding in her.
'Daddy?'
She cautiously moved towards her father. Why was daddy lying like that? Didn't his neck hurt?
'Daddy.'
John Gilbert was lying in silence, unmoving.
'Mama.'
Isobel didn't even blink.
'Daddy, I'm scared.' The first of the sobs broke free from her throat.
'Mama, wake up.'
'Daddy…'
The night averted its cruel face from such heartbreaking pleas, for even night couldn't stand the sight of such innocent tears.
As her cries grew sharper, another sound came from the forests surrounding the Mystic Falls.
A sharp laugh—a harsh sound—that somehow was reminiscent of a time of swords and might, and that which made hairs rise on the nape of the neck of whoever heard it that night…