Disclaimer (all chapters within this story!) : I don't own Twilight or the Secret Garden, characters and plot are properties of their respective copyrights and owners.
The Secret Garden- Twilight Style
Chapter 1
The palace stood on the property flaunting every accent it proudly displayed. The city was a few miles away, yet far enough to give the palace it's deserved privacy. Prim and proper lawns guided people to the front entrance where guests were proudly invited in. Of course, it was expected for highly regarded guests to be welcomed into any home without complaint. Young Bella Swan had been trained by her mother, Renee, to be a proper young lady; inviting guests in warmly and keeping her nose out of masculine matters, not asking questions that were not suppose to be answered. Their family was invited to America, her father a distinguished nobleman from England, to help with the king's efforts of colonization. He accepted humbly and moved the family to the new world, and effectively cutting off every tie that he previously had in his immediately family, mostly thought because of a fight stemming from jealousy.
"Bella!" a sharp female voice yelled up the stairs to me. It sounded like the prim and proper Renee Swan. Her marriage to my father was over long ago, but religious law forbids divorce except through death, so my mother cheats on her husband, and he knows about it but not bothering to do anything about it. It's cheaper and easier to keep her. I overheard the conversation they had about her getting pregnant with another man's baby; he threatened to drown the bastard child.
I walked gracefully down the stairs, making sure I looked presentable before I appeared in front of the apparent but unexpected visitors. My mother glared coldly at me, I just ignored her and kept my head held high. When my father introduced me to the guest, I curtsied politely and kept my gaze on the floor like my mother told me.
"Go now, Isabella." My father said almost as coolly as my mother. I knew that neither of them liked me, but I just kept telling myself that in another year I could marry a man I didn't love and get out from under the hateful eyes of my parents. I turned around, swinging my skirt around me as I did, and walked back up the stairs with my head high. I entered my room and threw myself on my little bed. I felt the tears and the sadness overflow as I started sobbing. My mother always told me that women were to be seen and not heard, and crying is not acceptable because it just annoys the men. I didn't care at this point, and let the tears overflow. I hate my life, and I hate what I am, and hate who I will become because of our little close-minded society. Through my tears, I heard a distinct gun shot ring through the house, I know that sound well because every time my parents got in a fight my dad would storm out of the house with his rifle and shoot random things on the property in anger.
I slowly wiped the tears away and got up off of the bed. I knew I didn't look presentable with my tear stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes, but I had a bad feeling that something was wrong. I broke out of my trance with my mother's scream shattering through the house. Never in my life had I heard her scream like that, and she screamed a lot in her frustration and anger.
"Not Isabella!" my mother screamed again. Something was quite wrong now, I was sure. I went to my top drawer with my undergarments and rooted until I found the cold, hard metallic item I was searching for. When I was young, I followed my father outside after one of my parents' fights, and watched him shoot the gun. Later, I followed him, when he put the gun back in its place, and took it after he left. I escaped onto a far corner of the property to try shooting like my father did. A groundskeeper found me and scolded me, but instructed me on how to properly use a gun. He showed me, for three years, before he deemed me safe to use a gun. He secretly gave me a hand pistol to keep myself safe, fearing for my safety with the instability of my parent's marriage.
I pulled the gun out of the drawer and checked the rounds, finding the chamber full. I slowly walked down the stairs and looked around for the intruder or the reason for my mother's screams.
What I saw, in the salon, was my father's dead body lying in a pool of dark blood, and blood pouring from a head wound. I ran over to him and checked for a pulse on his wrist, but alas it had already disappeared. My father had been killed, and my mother did nothing to protect him. My blood boiled as I turned around, looking for my treacherous mother. Perchance, one of my mother's lovers came and murdered my father, and my mother ran away with him?
I stormed into the kitchen, looking for the kitchen staff to ask questions about the murder of my father. Nobody was alive, and bodies were strewn around the kitchen, with blood-spatter up the walls and on the ceiling. Bodies floated in the river of blood from the kitchen staff. I turned my head and closed my eyes, the overwhelming scent of blood finally making me nauseous and making me unable to think properly. I ran, wobbly, from the kitchen and out the front door to get some air. I found my mother's body on the front lawn, shot in the forehead, and collapsed ladylike in her blood and on the now red grass. The guest that my father had introduced me to stood staring at me beside his car, not meters away from me. I looked up into his eyes fearfully, seeing nothing but cold hate.
"Too wasteful, such innocence and beauty." He whispered in my face, turned around and entered the car, speeding off down our long trail to the main road leading into the city. I stared off into the distance, and my knees collapsed, sending me to the gravel where I stood.
Of course I wanted to get away from my parent's influence, but I never meant for it to be in this manner. The death of everyone I knew would do nothing good for me. Now what was I to do? Girls from England that I knew, whose parents were killed on accident, were sent to other noblemen's houses and worked as a servant, no matter the purity of their blood or heritage. I didn't want to end up cleaning up other people's messes, and I wasn't taught how. I was taught to be a lady and a wife, but never to do the petty things that the hired people did. What was I going to do now?