Angelique was still bedridden, taking time to rest from her fever. During her recovery, while being spoon-fed medication, and tucked into bed each night, she was trying to grasp her new reality. At night, instead of sleeping, Angelique would write down all the information she had from the past, tucking it all in a secret spec behind her desk.
As for why she did this, it was because she was in danger. It didn't take her long to notice. Since childhood, Angelique had an incredible sense of smell and taste, she could tell every ingredient of everything she ate the mere second it hit her tongue. Luckily for her, her remarkable skill and tongue transferred to this body as well. That was how Angelique knew that everything she ate had poison in it. It was small enough to not be dangerous in a single serving, but after a month of consuming it, it would be dangerous.
Her body felt heavy and weighed down from the day she first got here, now that she realized it, the poison in all of her meals was to blame. According to the memories, Angelique had been here a month after her marriage, most likely being poisoned each day. Angelique had already pieced it together in her mind. The original owner of this body would have survived her little trick, jumping into the lake to catch her husband's attention. But the poison must have weighed down her limbs and drowned her.
Angelique shuddered at the thought, the memory of her slipping beneath the surface. ‘I can only assume the poison was meant to kill her...that means someone will soon try to kill me.’ With this thought, Angelique sat up in her bed and stared blankly, shuddering. “I don't want to die again,” she whispered, her mind racing.
She silently cursed the previous owner of the body for causing so much trouble, and let out a sigh, getting up from the bed. She quietly stepped over to a desk at the corner of the room and pulled out a paper and pen. ‘I need a plan’, she pondered, biting the end of her pen, ‘I need a way to survive...and I need to know who’s poisoning me.’ She wrote in neat letters at the top of the paper, ‘Survival’.
She began to think through all the past memories of Angelique, and wrote, ‘Enemies: All the maids, all the workers, Rebbecca, Dalphine, Sumiatra, Maricra., Alishe Julian,’ letting out a low groan she finally wrote, ‘everyone in the entire kingdom.’
Angelique let her head thump the desk with annoyance. “How do I solve this problem, I’m basically given no option but to die.” she sighed.
Suddenly, she was reminded of a time when she was 5. Her grandfather walked up to her when she was reading a book on the floor and lifted her by the back of her shirt. “Angelique, your tutor told me that you failed your test the other day.”
“My vocabulary assessment?” she replied, very confused.
“Yes, your vocabulary assessment. Why did you fail it? I’m mystified at this since I first hand saw you study for hours before dinner for it.”
Angelique blinked twice at him, then closed her eyes and took a breath, still dangling from his hand. “My studying was in vain grandfather, I merely failed, nothing more, nothing less.”
Her grandfather sighed, and put her back down on the floor. “I know you traded tests with your cousin, he got a perfect score by the way.” her grandfather said, turning away. “You’re too kind for your own good, you’ll end up dead that way.”
Angelique knew her grandfather well, the man who forced her to achieve good grades since she was a child, who made her work hard day and night. ‘I guess he was right’ Angelique smiled, her fortitude reinvigorated. ‘I am too good for my own wellbeing’.
Standing up from her desk she tucked her paper behind it and placed her hands on her sides, turning to her mirror. ‘I know I can both survive, and right the wrongs of this body’s past.’ Turning to the dress neatly folded and hanging on the curtained changing room, she clutched it in her hand with a wide smile. ‘This is going to be exciting!’
....
....
Angelique looked out her bedroom window, her light gown flowing in the early morning wind. “Come on Angelique...you can do it,” she whispered, looking down at the ground 100 feet below. Tied to her waist was her a chain of bed sheets, which she had tied to her bed. She had once seen this done in a movie. It was so much more terrifying than the movie.
From the previous body’s memories, her husband lived two rooms above hers, which she recalls from seeing him look out from his window one night. She had to climb up the large limestone bricks of the building up two floors. “Look, it's just like a plastic rock climbing wall, the bricks are big enough for you to grab and place your foot,” she said, encouraging herself, but her heart was still racing.
Her hand reached up and clutched the first brick, her other hand followed, then her foot, and she pulled herself up. Letting out a heaving breath she began to relax a bit. “That was easy!” she laughed, reaching up and climbing once again. A few times she lost grip in one hand and slipped a bit from the wall, but luckily her foot or another hand would be supporting her to recover.
After 30 minutes, she made it, Alishe Julian’s window. The sill was small, about three inches out from the wall, but the window was open. Angelique couldn't have been more relieved, letting out a happy breath of relief. She swung herself into the open window, the bedsheet coming loose from her waist and she fell upon the floor in a tumble. Her hands flew to her mouth to cover her shout of surprise, and her hip panged with pain.
She stood with a wince, rubbing her backside, and limped over to the bed in the room. 'Did I wake him? I should have just crawled through the window.' She thought. A lump in the shape of a man lay beneath the sheets, and she poked it, whispering, “Wake up, hey, wake up.”
There was a rustle, and she stepped back, grinning with pride. ‘He’s awake! Now I just need to tell him -' A shining blue eye opened from the blackness of the bed, and a hand grabbed her forearm. “What the-” she felt her body become weightless and she was thrown across the room into a wall. A loud band was heard, and the wall crumbled a bit from the impact.
Coughing a bit, Angelique gently patted her body to check for broken ribs, and stood up from the wall, checking for wounds. Then, she turned to the form on the bed, glaring. “What the heck!? What's wrong with you!” She hissed, dusting off her dress. “I could have been killed!”
The eyes glowed from the bed, and a man rose up from the sheets and began walking over to her. It reminded her of a massive statue looming from above. He was about 3 feet over her, and the moonlight from the open window highlighted half of his body, his piercing eyes encircled with dark shadows, his hair thick, black and wavy. Her eyes instinctively looked down to his bare chest and she gasped and quickly looked back up. “Sorry…” she whispered, nervously laughing to herself, a blush creeping on her face.
“Who are you?” the man asked. She could feel the anger in his voice and began to shiver. ‘I didn't expect the Alishe to be this big and this terrifying.’ Angelique, thinking quick on her feet, grabbed a candle from the table beside her, along with a match, and started a small light. Holding the candle up to her face she smiled, “It's me! Aha, Angelique!” she said, glancing at him trying to avoid his very obvious and very muscular chest. She could tell from his face that he was the ice block man from the past memories, with a cold appearance and eyes like a winter storm. ‘Though, I don't recall all ice blocks having such a….murderous aura.’
The man turned and sat in a chair beside a hollow fireplace, his hand to his chin. “How did you get in...did you climb into my window?” He asked, his glare going from the open window and back to her. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Y-yes, I did. But only because I have something important to say!” Julian’s glare softened into curiosity. “What is it?”
“I came to propose a deal with you!” she said, her courage coming back swiftly. “If you are willing, I can undo the past!”
“That's impossible.” he chuckled. “You can't ‘undo’ the past.”
“But I can! I promise to undo every negative event I've caused, including this marriage. All I ask is 3 months, and a clean divorce after that time.” she said, proudly crossing her arms and smiling.
Julian stared at her, his mouth slightly opened. “You...are an absolute...idiot.” he blinked at her, at a loss for words. The woman in front of him, infamous for being a foolish mad-woman, trying to make a deal with him? It was unheard of.
“Wait! I’m not finished! There's a way to prove my honesty here!” she walked over to him and knelt in front of him, crossing on arm over her chest. “I swear upon my life my honesty! If I fail after 3 months you can murder me. I just ask for 3 months where I can prove myself.”
“Murder you? What do you mean? Why would I murder you?” he said calmly, staring down at her confident face.
“I know you've been poisoning my meals every day,” she said, peeking into his eyes. “I just ask you to stop poisoning me for 3 months. If I fail, just give me a heavy dose of poison and say I died of sadness.” she smiled. 'I can guarantee I won't fail.'
Julian looked around the room for a moment before standing and grabbing a paper and pen. He wrote, the sound of the pen scraping paper filled the room. “Here, sign this,” he said, passing her a paper.
Angelique reader and Julian stared at her eyes, which peeked out from beneath the paper. From the moment she entered his room he noticed something different, especially in her eyes. She used to be a madwoman, insane, with blank, dead eyes. Her eyes now had a shine below them, they seemed alive.
Her new eyes made him furious. Deep inside him, a fire was burning. He didn't know what about how she was now made him so emotional. He could feel the itch in his blood to grab her hair and throw her out the window. To him, it was like the devil just got a new breath of life, even though she wasn't deserving of it.
Angelique finished her reading and smiled at him kindly. “Thank you!” she reached out and plucked the pen from his clenched fist, signing the paper. ‘The paper was a simple contract, exactly what I proposed. At least he’s reasonable!’ she hummed to herself happily.
“Now,” he rolled up the paper and placed it in his pocket. “Leave. I don't want to see you again today. You’re a filthy disgusting woman.”
“Yeah, that's true…” she muttered under her breathe, remembering the past Angelique.
“What did you say?” he boomed.
“Nothing, I’ll use your door!” she chuckled, standing up from the floor and leaving the room. ‘That was easy!’ she grinned, passing the guards outside his door, waving to them cheerily. She heard the clamor of the guards as they rushed inside the room, realizing what just happened.
“Step one of my multi-step plan is done! This will be easy!” she skipped down the vast hall, the light of the moon shining upon her through the 10-foot tall windows. “Next step, it's time to help those women!”
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