Thank you all so much for sticking with this story! This may be the last part for a little bit because I'm going back to school and it's going to be incredibly hectic this year. Anyway, please keep reviewing, it's really good to hear what you guys think about the story and the direction that it's going in! This chapter isn't that exciting (I'm brilliant at selling this) but it's pretty important and, again, sets the story in motion.
The Case of the Missing Girl – Part 4
All she could see was white.
Then, a searing pain shot through her. She opened her eyes. The source of the pain became clear: she was awake, for one, and could remember everything that had taken place on the previous day. For two, the sun was shining through her bedroom window directly into her eyes.
Eleanor groaned, burying her face into her pillow, which was stained with make-up and tears. She had fallen asleep at around eleven o'clock after staring at the ceiling since Jasper had left her room at nine. The last time she had fallen asleep that early felt like a lifetime away – her father's lifetime away.
Pushing regrets and thoughts of her father aside, Eleanor climbed out of bed, swearing. She headed into her bathroom.
"Ugh," she said. Her mother, had she been present would have given her a scathing look. Helena had always prided herself and her family at their articulate way of speaking, something that was neglected by a large percentage of the "common" population.
Glaring back at her from the mirror was a thing that Eleanor was quite sure was a raccoon. Although she had never actually seen a raccoon in real life, Eleanor was certain that a raccoon would most likely be insulted if anybody dared to say that the Princess looked like it. (A/N (I digress.))
Sighing, she wiped her eyes with a cotton ball, revealing bruise-like circles underneath them. For a reason unknown to her, she, instead of reaching for her eyeliner, splashed her face with cold water and walked out of her bathroom. Not even bothering to dry her face, she slipped on a pair of black leggings and a plain t-shirt. Her hair, she knew, was a mess, a million miles from what it had been when she was away. She found that she didn't care.
Eleanor sat on her bed, her thoughts surprisingly sharp, each one a needle flying up to her, pricking her on the thumb and then flying away again. She was in pain, but couldn't quite work out where the pain was. The princess took a deep breath and stood up, expecting the blood in her head to rush to her feet. Instead, the blood didn't seem to want to flow anywhere, making her feel numb and cold. She didn't feel entirely in control of her body, her limbs reacting seconds after her brain told them to move, frustrating her. That said, she didn't feel entirely in control of anything anymore.
Her legs took her to breakfast. Or rather her nose and stomach did: a salty smell was in the air, like a trail of breadcrumbs. At the end of the trail, however, was not a gingerbread house. It was bacon.
"Lenny, hi!"
And the King of England.
Eleanor tried to mould her face into a smile.
"Robbie!" she cried, "It's great to see you again!" In truth, she was unsure if her heart really believed that it was in fact "great" to see him again, but, her brain told her to say it so she said it. She wasn't in the mood to think about how she actually felt about seeing her brother again.
"Are you okay, darling?" her mother's voice came from beside Robert. "You look..." she trailed off, as if she hadn't decided on a fitting ending for that sentence. She probably hadn't.
"She looks constipated," said Cyrus, smiling humourlessly at his niece, a smell of beer reaching Eleanor from halfway across the room telling her that he had already been drinking. Eleanor noticed with genuine amusement that he was wearing what appeared to be a penguin onesie, a far cry from his usual stylish outfits. Each to their own, Eleanor thought. It wasn't as if she hadn't done stupid things whilst under the influence of either alcohol or drugs, sometimes both. She shook her head internally.
Externally, she relaxed her face.
Cyrus chuckled. "And there was me thinking that she actually was constipated." He grinned expectantly until hearing a snort from behind Eleanor. His face fell when his gaze found the source of the noise. "My jokes must be worse than I thought," he muttered, staring into his tea cup. He then downed his tea in one gulp, grabbed a hip flask from inside his onesie, poured the contents into the china cup and then downed that too.
Helena watched him, her face a picture of pure horror. At any other time, Eleanor would have laughed at the situation. Instead, she whirled around, finding a blushing Rosie a couple of steps behind her.
"I'm... I'm sorry, Your Highness," she stammered, "I have no idea where that came from. It won't happen again."
But Eleanor's attention was already elsewhere. Of course he's here, she thought. She glared at him before turning away and taking the empty seat beside her uncle.
Her mother regarded her, her face displaying an emotion that Eleanor hadn't seen on her all that often: concern. In fact, Eleanor was surprised that she could even distinguish it from the other feelings in her mother's eyes, having never really been any good at noticing any variation in them aside from anger into disappointment.
"How did you sleep?" she asked, almost gently.
Eleanor thought for a second. "It was nice to be back in my own bed." She grimaced at her own words, imagining her uncles' reply – "not in somebody else's. That makes a change!"
To her amazement, it was not Cyrus but her brother who spoke next.
"I know the feeling," he said sympathetically, passing her a slice of toast topped with, to her utmost delight, bacon.
Helena smiled a tight lipped smile as the room fell silent. It wasn't a very comfortable silence.
"So, Len," Robert began, "It's the question that, until now, that is, we've all been too polite to ask: how come you've come back so early? The last time you called you sounded like you were planning on staying there for as long as possible, perhaps even after the six month trip."
Eleanor could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on her. The staff, the security, and the few members of her family who were present were all looking at her, something that she'd usually be filled with pride at. Today, she wanted to close her eyes and wish herself far away. She swallowed.
"Sebastian and I fell out. It was nothing serious but we thought that having some time away from each other would be good, you know, just to make sure that our friendship didn't break down because of some little thing." She'd always been a better liar than either of her brothers. It had always got her out of trouble, blaming a smashed plate, a broken heart on somebody else. Now, on the other hand, she felt like she was digging herself into a hole filled with more lies that she would have to tell, a hole that nobody would be able to help her out of.
Oblivious to Eleanor's inner worries about her lies, her mother got up, walked around the dining table to her daughter's chair and wrapped her arms around her. Over her mother's shoulder, Eleanor caught Cyrus' eye. He was watching her thoughtfully, as if he was seeing something in her that he hadn't seen before, yet wasn't particularly surprised by its appearance. Her uncle bent his head, only a few degrees to ensure that Eleanor was the only one who saw, but enough to convey a message: he knew about Sarah-Alice.
Her mother released her from the embrace, meeting her eyes while crouching down beside her chair.
"Oh Eleanor," she whispered, a tear running down her cheek. Eleanor wiped the tear away with her thumb, her mind transporting her back to a happier time, when she was painting her room with Jasper.
"Because people like you, Princess." He had said. Indeed they do, thought Eleanor. I've still got no clue why, though.
Eleanor was snapped back to reality by the king's voice, coming from by the door, behind Eleanor.
"...well I must be off, anyway. I'm meeting Willow in an hour." He turned to his bodyguard who was intently staring at the carpet, avoiding the eyes of all off the royal family. "You coming, Jasper?" he said in his slightly mocking American accent. The poor excuse of a joke did nothing to lighten the atmosphere of the room.
"Of course, Your Majesty." He replied, his American accent not even barely audible. He'd obviously been working on his cover during the last three months.
Robert smirked and gave a theatrical bow to the room before exiting, his security detail a pace behind him.
Eleanor decided to be blunt. "I see no-one bothered to remove the stick from his arse while I was away. Not even you, Mum." She stated.
Her mother's cheeks coloured. "It's a long story." Her voice was sad, Helena's thoughts obviously somewhere else.
"Aren't they all," said Cyrus.
"Aren't they all," agreed Eleanor softly.
Cyrus looked her in the eye. "He doesn't approve of how you behaved when he disappeared, you know."
Defensive of her own actions, Eleanor glared back at him. "You can't talk." You drove into my father's memorial, for one, she thought.
"At least I didn't get high at an old people's home and try to steal a puppy," her uncle retorted.
Helena, her eyes flitting from Cyrus to her daughter, sighed and held her head in her hands.
"I wasn't high all the time!" She raised her voice. "In fact, I helped someone at a rehab centre and she's been clean now for, oh, I don't know, nearly a year. Which, by the way, is longer than you've ever been and I helped her more than you've ever helped anyone in your pathetic life!" Eleanor knew that she wasn't making that much sense and that she was probably not in the right in that particular argument but it was a good release of her pent-up anger, so, she figured, it was okay.
"It seems this family has quite a record at that place." Cyrus said in a flat voice, looking up at the priceless chandelier.
"What do you mean?" asked Eleanor, her anger at Cyrus fading, replaced by curiosity. She studied her uncle's face, and finding no answers from him, turned to her mother.
"It's not really a conversation to have at breakfast, darling." Her mother's face revealed nothing, even as she took a bite of her toast.
Eleanor stood up suddenly, her chair rocking back dangerously but not falling.
"I am sick and tired of not knowing what is going on!" her voice dropped to a deadly whisper. "I am sick and tired of thinking that it can't get any worse and then being told, five minutes later, that there's more!"
Neither her mother nor her uncle appeared to have anything to say in response to her outburst, having been forced into a stunned silence.
"I'll meet you by the lake, Mother."
Eleanor spun on her heel and stalked out of the room, her head pounding. She was nearly at the end of the corridor when a suited figure rounded the corner, meaning that she had to stop. Anger rose in her.
"You'd better have some good news or I am going to-" she broke off, Jasper's expression confusing her.
His face was red and he was out of breath, his eyes were wide, making the blue in them look darker, stormier. He opened his mouth to speak, at first letting out no sound. Then his voice rang through the corridor, though he spoke quietly.
"We've found her."