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Things calmed down for a while as the two women grew more cumbersome. The servants had tended to Judy while Ella, myself, mom and Priscilla had done everything to make Noelle’s confinement bearable.
And then the time for the birthing came. Noelle had a hard time and I thought for sure that night that I would lose her. But my strong brave girl had pulled through and in the end had given me two healthy sons.
And that’s where the trouble began. It didn’t take long for the whispers to start. The identical boys looked exactly like their father.
I knew it wouldn’t be long before word reached Judy, but shut away as she was, I was able to keep her in the dark.
Until she went into labor a month and a half later and my daughter was born. Once she was able to move around below stairs it wasn’t hard for her to hear the whispers.
It all came to a head one night when she got her first look at the twins. It was obvious to all that they were mine, and all within hearing heard the argument that ensued.
She wanted Noelle out of the house, and this is where I blame myself for everything that came after. My own guilt over the way things had turned out, the way I’d had to treat my one true love, led me to lash out.
Whatever my feelings for Judy, I shouldn’t have said the things I had that night. In my anger I let slip that Noelle was the only woman I loved and ever will.
I refused to cast her and my children out of my home and went so far as to say that now the truth was known I would no longer keep her a secret.
I spewed my resentment against the forced marriage all over her with no care for what the harsh words might unleash.
It was wrong, I know that now. But the damage had already been done. In her anger and hate Judy concocted a scheme that would set us on a collision course with destiny.
It was a few weeks later when Noelle’s mother fell ill of some unknown illness and she went to look after her mother, leaving my sons here to be looked after by the servants.
In the weeks after the argument, the house was like an enemy camp and I’d spent most of my time protecting Noelle from Judy’s wrath.
I didn’t worry about my sons since Ella and mom were their guardians, never letting anyone but the most trusted servants near them.
But Noelle was like a sitting duck for Judy whose anger only seemed to grow worse each day. I promised to protect her always, but that night I was no match for the evil that unfolded.
While we slept, someone set fire to the nursery, and while all were engrossed with putting out the fire here, a fire had broken out at the caretaker’s cottage.
In the end little Isabelle had perished while her brothers, who had been taken by Ella to her quarters that night because they refused to stop crying for their mother, were safe.
Noelle and her family hadn’t been that lucky. It was found that the doors had been barred shut before the blaze started. It was no mystery who had been the one behind it.
Judy in the grip of her madness after learning that it was her own child that had perished, had cursed all involved. And that is how it came to be, that every generation from then to now, we return to relive the same sad fate.
Back then I’d locked her away in a room with only one maid to serve her and never saw her face again. She’d died a year later from consumption, or so the story goes.
I’d gone on to raise my sons into fine men, but my heart had never lived again. I’d spent every day missing my lover, reliving our moments spent together.
From our first reincarnation, things had always gone pretty much the same. Some way or another Judy has always murdered Noelle and Isabelle and though I knew what was to come, I was never able to prevent it from happening. Until now!
Callan
“You said you tempted fate this time, what did you mean?” I gazed up at the ceiling as I got my thoughts together.
This was as much for me as it was her. I didn’t want to endure another lifetime without her growing old by my side.
“You know in the past we always found each other first. More to the point, I always sought you out first. Those first few times it was hell not to once I awakened and realized who I was and why I was here.”
“And as you know, we always share the same fate time and again. It used to be that we were thankful for the time spent together and we even got to the point where we would make the most of it, knowing what was to come.”
