PROLOGUE
Author's Note:
"Ultima Esperanza" means "last hope" in Spanish, and is also the title of a song by The Dresden Dolls :)
This chapter is written in a different POV to that of the rest of the story – that of our MC-to-be's mother. Of course, you'll have to keep reading to find out more about the MC herself ;)
Review, review, review! (I love reading what you guys have to say!) And enjoy, everyone!
- Rosabella xxx
Every motion is jarred and out of sync; every breath scrapes itself harshly from my lungs; I am dragging myself up the staircase, forcing my body to cooperate with my childish wishes against the raging ache within me. I know what is happening, and why, but I can't let it be true; I just can't. It can't be happening, not really – and yet, in a stark contradiction, here I stand: pressed against a wall, clutching at my own frame, desperately trying to deny a truth I have known in my heart for the past nine months.
Had I told Alphard directly, it may never have come to this. I could have found some way to charm him – to disorient him; to play with fact. I am, after all, a witch, if a rather untrained one – my mother had me leave school before I sat my OWLs to marry Alphard, but not before I learnt a thing or two. There would have been no need for him to sense any falsehood to my story; now, however, there was no way in which he would not. Why on earth would a married woman keep her entire pregnancy from her husband, after all, if the child was truly his?
I have been lucky this year - so very lucky. Had I fallen into this circumstance at any other time, he could very well have noticed my growing condition - but this year Alphard has been busy, perpetually away on some business or another with no time to examine an ailing wife. It was partly due to his absence that this circumstance arose, anyway: had Alphard been around, I would not have been lonely, and had I not been lonely…
I wince, suppressing a shriek, and tear open the nearest door with my trembling hand, throwing myself inside.
Had I not been lonely, I would not have sought the acquaintance of Sir Molloy.
These long months later, I still recall his name. It still rings prettily in my mind; it still trips with willing glee from my tongue.
"Oh, God!"
Oh, that bastard. How could he have done this to me? How in Merlin's name could I have let him? The shame of it. The shame of this whole thing. Sweet Jesus, the shame!
I am lying on my bed, panting hard; my body shakes and trembles as heaves, dreading and submitting to the horrifying jolts of pain that thrash through every part of me.
Oh God, oh God!
I wore my robes long and heavy and my dresses loose; I would not let the house elves assist with my grooming or my dressing. I have kept to myself almost entirely these past four months, spurning the few friends I have for fear of their discovering what I've done.
What the hell have I done?
Harder and faster it comes now, tearing me into oblivion from the inside out. I am crying – I can feel tears, hot and acidic, burning against the heat of my cheeks – and surely I must be screaming fit to burst, but it's all too blurred to register with my mind. The room has become me; I have become the shame; the shame has become the pain; the pain has become the Thing, this awful Thing that I can feel, I can feel.
I don't want you. I don't deserve this!
It's stronger than I am; I know it must be small, but it feels twice my size – no, a hundred times my shaking form. I only want rid of it, but not like this; I only want an end, but not like this; this is wrong, wrong –
I am screaming, screaming so loudly that every other sound is masked.
Oh, God, please forgive me. Please, God, forgive me!
That bastard; those bastards; those men who've said they love me; where are they, either of them?
Please, God, please!
Either it is moving faster or I am losing track if time entirely –
God, no, not like this!
– or is time itself changing, accommodating all but me; ending my misery before I can feel what is being taken so viciously from me?
No!
One word.
No!
One word, shrieked over all else: my own denial, my own desire, my own fate, God, what about me?
No!
It's ending, so why is it mounting?
No!
I am submitting –
No!
– I am relinquishing -
No!
This is it. This is it. This is it.
No! No! No!
The house elf in the doorway gasped; she reeled backwards from the scene, not wanting to enter the room - for fear, for childishness, for pure denial of fact: the more she ignored it, the less real it might be...
"P-p-please - please for someone to be calling the master!" Finally, her words broke free in a terrified squeak; she turned away, running for the staircase. "Call for him! The mistress is dead – and there is a baby!