Jessica Orion Vale
The gangplank creaked under my feet as I stepped down from the ship, and my whole body went stiff.
Five years.
I had sworn I would never come back to this place, and yet here I was, standing on the same soil I once promised myself I’d never touch again.
I held my bag tight against my side while I looked around slowly, half afraid of what I would find.
This wasn’t the place I remembered.
The old man who used to sit by the entrance, greeting everyone who passed with a wave and a joke, was gone.
In his spot sat a young girl behind a small desk, eyes fixed on her phone, not even looking up.
I stared at her for a moment before I caught myself and looked away.
Even the children were missing.
I remembered how they used to chase each other around this very spot, screaming and laughing while their mothers shouted after them to slow down.
Now the place was almost empty.
The buildings had changed too.
The small huts with roofs made of dried leaves that I grew up seeing were gone, replaced by tall new buildings, clean and modern, nothing like the town I left behind.
I pulled my nose mask higher and adjusted my head covering so it sat low over my forehead.
I didn’t want anyone to recognize me.
I started walking, and every step felt strange under me, like I was a stranger in my own skin.
I had spent five years trying to bury every memory of this town, and now that I was back, all of it came rushing at me at once.
My sister.
Josephine.
I wondered how she was.
I wondered if she had changed the way everything around me had changed.
Then another thought pushed its way in, one I had tried to keep locked away.
Nobody came for me.
Not my father.
Not my stepmother.
Not even Josephine.
When they finally let me out of that institution, I stood outside with my bag in my hand, waiting.
I waited for hours, watching every car that passed, hoping one of them would slow down and stop for me.
None did.
I had to find my own way out of that town, alone.
I pushed the memory down and forced a small smile onto my face.
“Well,” I whispered to myself, “at least I’m here now.” Thats all that matters i cancelled every negative thoughts from my head
I wasn’t going to let old wounds ruin this trip.
Josephine was my twin.
Whatever had come between us, I didn’t want to make it worse.
I had only come back for one reason to see her, to say I was sorry, and to make things right before I disappeared from this town again.
I knew I had been too hard on her the last time we spoke.
Maybe I had said things I shouldn’t have said.
Maybe I had turned my back on her when she needed me close.
This time I planned to fix it.
I kept my head low and my eyes on the ground as I walked, not staring at anyone while trying to avoid people not, until I bumped straight into someone.
“Oh, sorry,” I said quickly, stepping back and lowering my face even further.
The man in front of me didn’t move.
“Wait,” he said.
My heart jumped.
I kept my face turned away from him.
“Wait, wait,” he said again, stepping closer, trying to catch a look at my face.
I turned my head the other way.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
He didn’t answer me.
Instead he leaned to the side, trying to peek around the scarf covering my cheek.
I shifted again, putting more distance between us.
Please leave don’t put me in trouble please, I pleaded to myself
The girl walking beside him let out a loud sigh.
“Come on, let’s go. Stop wasting your time on this beggar.”
Wait what Beggar?.
My eyes went wide behind my mask.
What the ??
Yes I need an escape but not to be called a beggar, If i wasnt hiding I would have thought her a lesson.
The man turned to her.
“She’s not a beggar.”
The girl frowned at him.
“Then what is she?”
He looked me over again, from my shoes to my covered face.
“Look at her clothes. Look at how she carries herself. She’s clearly not from the streets.”
My heart started pounding harder.
If I leave now they will come after me, and my father will find out that I am back in latifa… what do I do?
I looked around trying to make an escape plan
“You know what the king said,” he went on.
“Anytime we see someone strange in this city, we’re supposed to report it.”
The girl rolled her eyes.
“And what, we’re going to play soldier for the king now?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Leave her alone. She probably just got off a boat or something. Come on.” Luckily She grabbed his arm and pulled him along the road, though he kept glancing back at me over his shoulder until the crowd swallowed them.
I stood frozen until they were completely out of sight, my heart still hammering in my chest thank the moon goddess, but wait did I hear something?.
The king.
Since when did this town have a king?
I started walking again, but the word wouldn’t leave my head.
Five years wasn’t that long.
Things couldn’t have changed so much.
Could they?
Then it hit me ~ a memory of the last real conversation I had with Josephine before I left.
“Don’t let anyone reckless turn your head,” I had told her.
“Don’t let some man talk you into making him king.”
My stomach twisted.
Could she have actually gone and done it?
Could my sister have gotten married?
I shook my head.
“No,” I said under my breath.
“She wouldn’t, theres no way my own twin would have gotten married without me.”
Josephine wasn’t reckless.
She wouldn’t throw her whole life away like that.
Whatever was going on, I would find out soon enough when I saw her with my own eyes.
I kept walking down the road until something caught my eye a little boy standing beside a small wooden table, teddy bears lined up neatly next to bunches of red roses and small baskets of cherries.
I stopped and smiled.
I had almost forgotten.
Today was Josephine’s birthday, and I remembered the last real time we went out together she admired a bear but my father didn’t allow her preaching modesty to us.
With everything on my mind since I got off that ship, I hadn’t even thought about a gift for her.
I walked over to the boy.
“How much for the lilac teddy bear?”
He told me the price, and I paid him, then bought a small pack of cherries her favorite as well.
I balanced everything carefully in my arms and turned to go, but one cherry slipped loose and dropped onto the sand.
I bent down to pick it up.
“Don’t,” a voice said sharply.
I froze and looked up.
An old woman was staring at me, her eyes wide.
“Don’t touch that,” she said.
I glanced at the cherry, then back at her.
“Why not?”
“It fell on the ground.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
She shook her head slowly.
“You don’t understand. When a Cherry falls like that, it’s a warning. Something bad is coming.”
I stared at her.
“I don’t believe in that kind of thing.”
I picked the cherry up anyway and dropped it back into the pack.
The old woman gasped like I had done something terrible.
“Child You shouldn’t have touched it!”
I didn’t answer her.
I just walked away.
I had bigger things on my mind than a fallen cherry and useless superstition i cant believe the people still dwell in stuffs like that.
I had barely gone a few steps when I heard voices from a table nearby, women talking excitedly among themselves.
“Queen Josephine deserves this whole celebration,” one of them said.
I stopped walking.
My whole body went still.
Queen?
I turned my head slowly toward them, pretending to look at something on a nearby stall so I could listen without drawing attention.
“They’re preparing everything in the queen’s chamber right now,” another woman said.
“Of course they are. King Caspian wants her birthday to be perfect.”
My fingers tightened around the teddy bear until I could feel my nails through the fabric.
Caspian.
King Caspian.
That means those people were saying the truth
“I can’t wait for her to finally welcome her child,” the first woman said, clasping her hands together.
“Exactly. Then the bloodline continues.”
“I wish I get the kind treatment he gives her”
“The gods are answering our prayers at last.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
Queen Josephine.
King Caspian.
A child.
The bloodline.
Every piece fell into place at once.
Josephine had married him.
The very man I had warned her about before I left.
I stood there a moment longer, watching the women without letting them notice me, disappointment settling heavy in my chest.
She actually did it.
After everything I told her, she went and married him anyway.