The story of a cursed love

”Why do you keep calling me mister?”

I rose my eyes and looked at the man speaking. I was startled to see black eyes, beautiful black eyes that made my heart pause. I hadn’t noticed him. I had been too nervous to notice anyone at all. I had barely started working there and everyone seemed to know what to do except me. And he was higher ranked than I was.

„I’m not that old you know. You can just call my name. It’s Edward. „

„Then I’ll call you Edward. „ I mumbled somehow frightened and eager to escape his scrutiny.

That was it . The first moment I noticed him. Such a silly thing. And since then I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I couldn’t stop thinking about him . But don’t get confused. This is no fairy tale. This is the story of a cursed love.

***

Do you believe in magic? I’m not sure I do. But looking back and even then I believed and I feared that thinking about him so obsesivelly will draw his attention, it will bring him to me. But that came later, when I realised my desire for him was something forbidden.

After that first moment, I started watching him. I was eager to know more about this man who had sparked my interest. I found out his full name, Edward Nicholas Hasting. And I kept repeating it, playing with it on my tongue. I heard him talking with a nobleman about another woman and I wondered about any lady he was friendly with. It was especially painful when he helped a lady I really hated.

Then, one day while I was serving tea to one of the guests he was speaking with, the man asked Edward, if he thought my name, Anna, was beautiful. He said it was beautiful and so was I, the fairest of them all. I was very, very happy, but also very, very confused. So far, I had watched him in silence, discarding any possibility of him being interested in me.

You see I have never garnered any attention from men. Granted, in this mansion things were begining to change. Still, I had always been a little bookworm, reading and studying, living in my own world. Even then, while working as a servant in Duke Heigh’s mansion, I also attended University and planned to open an University of my own. In short, I was very ambitious.

These feelings for Edward were in my way. I considered they were distracting me from my goal and they were making me lose control of myself. Still, after he said I’m the fairest of them all , I couldn’t stop smiling like an idiot every time he said hello. Every time our eyes met I wondered if he watched me too. Every time he was near me I started shaking, my heart started racing, my knees got weak, and my stomach was stormed by butterflies.

Even then, I kept telling myself that I was imagining that he felt anything for me. After all it was me. And I was nothing special. Then he started smiling to me, waving, silently asking how I was. It seemed to me that it was a game, a dare. I thought he was showing me he cares and waiting for me to take the next step. I had decided I would speak to him, I would ask him what he likes to do. Just a little something to show I care too. I was still struggling to define these emotions he woke in me. There was a maelstrom of confusion inside of me and it drove me insane. I needed to do something to move forward, to see what happens next.

I didn’t get the chance to talk to him right away because I had to go on a trip. But I was resolved to do it when I came back. I left early in the morning. As I watched the world get drenched in sunlight I felt peace and joy. I felt that everything was right in the world. And I realised that feeling was what I had been trying to define. It was love. I was in love with Edward, I realised with wonder. The entire trip I imagined him being there, holding my hand , looking at me as if I was precious, the most precious being of all, as if I was what gave sense to his world. And I felt so happy, so peaceful, just by imagining it.

Then I came back from the trip and I was so eager to see him and talk to him. But before I could do that, one of the servant girls told me he was married. Then she asked me if I still liked him. I said no, but I lied. I was the kind of fool who once she gives her heart it’s so very hard to take it back. I cried all night, hoping she was lying or that she had misunderstood. Everything I had pictured in my mind seemed shattered to pieces. My old grandma used to say that each person has its own turn when it comes to love. Now it seemed to me as if someone had tricked me that I was at the head of the line, then shoved me all the way to the end.

I still refused to believe he was married, but then I saw a picture of the two of them together and I had no choice but to accept the truth. I thought that would be enough to tear him out of my heart. But it wasn’t. Instead, my mind concocted wild scenarios about becoming his mistress, then him divorcing and marrying me. And it all made me feel so sick. Because I knew what I wanted was plain wrong. It was a horrible wrong doing. One I would pay for tenfold. And still I thought about him all the time. I called him in my dreams and in my wake hours. I felt like screaming, like suffocating.

There was another boy that liked me. He asked me out and although I didn’t feel attracted to him I decided to go out with him. I thought it was a chance to distract myself, to stop thinking about Edward. Instead we talked about someting that ringed a bit too close to home. He told me about his father, who cheated on his mother. He called that woman a whore. What I would be if I became Edward’s mistress. I tried to stop thinking about him and I ended up thinking about him anyway.

Then it started all over again. And I fear it was my fault. That through some unknown magic I called him to me and I brought him to me. By then I feared my own desires because I knew only pain and sorrow would follow if they ever came true. My friend told me to forget him. I wish I had knew how because I felt I was going mad.

I was talking and laughing with another servant and he stopped rooted to the place. He just froze for a second watching me laugh. Then, another day, he came to ask me for a handkerchief. Why me when he could have asked anyone else. I was afraid, I was terrified. I couldn’t find peace anymore. I watched as other servant boys got near me, joked with me and tried to get my attention. I enjoyed it, but it also pained me that I couldn’t bring myself to care about them.

Then that fateful trip to the mountain came. They needed someone to guide, someone who knew the mountain. By some weird coincidence, or not, he was there. He was the guide. I felt weak to the knees. I feared the worst, but I told myself it could not happen. He wouldn’t risk losing the one he chose to spend his life with for a childish little girl. Not for a plain, dull little girl like me. I was assigned in the same team as him. I worked with him but otherwise tried to stay as far away from him as possible. By the end of the day my muscles were painfully sore. I had been tense all day, too aware of his presence.

In the evening, we all stayed up until late, talking and drinking. One of the girls asked him to walk her to her room. He did and never came back. I felt like crying but I didn’t want anyone to see me, so I went to bed too. He was sitting at the entrance of the halway. I was relieved that he hadn’t gone with that girl. But at the same time I was afraid. I tried to walk past him, pretending he wasn’t there. But he caught my hand and pulled me down next to him. He touched my lips with his fingers and stared at me with those black eyes that always made me feel as if I was getting swalowed whole.

„Where’s your room?” he asked. A thousand nos and a thousand reasons not to do this raced through my mind. Instead, I just silently pointed to my door. He took my keys and we went in. I could have blamed his actions on alcohol, except I couldn’t smell even a hint of it on his lips. „Just once”, I kept repeating to myself. „Just this once. „ I kissed him with all the hunger that had been growing inside of me. It felt as if we were two beasts who had been leashed and now had broken their chains. There was no shyness, no fear. It was as if we were both afraid something will shatter the spell and we’ll realise this was just another fantasy. He kissed me, bit my lips. His hands got rid of my clothes and and his arms locked my body in a tight embrace. All the sorrow I felt knowing this was wrong got pushed back. That night, I was his and he was mine.

In the morning we parted with a promise to see each other again. Still, I thought I would never hear from him again. I thought it was a rule, that if you gave in easily, like I had, men thought you were easy and never came back. That would be best, I told myself while my heart was breaking only thinking about it.

But he did came back. I probably shouldn’t have went to him. He picked me up and we went somewhere outside the city. No one would have known who we are there. We walked holding hands, without fearing we’ll be recognised. We talked and we laughed as if it was the most natural thing. Except there was nothing natural about it. It was just a pretense. „It’s wrong” my mind was shouting.We were hurting someone. I felt selfish and cruel, but I couldn’t let go of his hand. I didn’t want to.

I read somewhere that men think women are weak immoral beings. Therefore, it’s the duty of men to prevent them from behaving immoraly. Women think that in reality men protect themselves from their own weakness, the temptation women represent. I don’t really know whose fault this was. We are both weak, me and Edward. Others may justify it as being in love. But I don’t believe, I have never believed love justifies hurting others. I knew a punishment will be dealt. I just waited for the blade to fall upon our heads. I didn’t have any complaints. The punishment would be justified.

I thought the most likely punishment would be the day when Edward would get tired of me and get back to his wife. The pain I would feel and my broken heart would be a fitting punishment. Other times I imagined being discovered, being called a whore and having rocks thrown at me in the market.

Despite my fears, no one discovered our affair. The attention of the young men in the mansion drove Edward insane with jealousy. Perhaps it was pety of me, but I enjoyed their attention. It dulled just a bit the sting of knowing that when he wasn’t with me Edward was with his wife.

In time, we became more and more reckless, seaking each other even during the day, even in the city itself. One night, he came looking for me. He looked completely haggard. He told me he didn’t want to hide anymore. He wanted to be with me all the time, to tell the world I was his. He wanted to divorce his wife and marry me. I thought about the story of another Anna. I told him the story. It was an Anna who wanted to become queen. She taunted the king until he divorced his wife and married her just as she wished. But than he started hating her and eventually he executed her. I wodered if that will be my fate too. I warned Edward that he might regret his decision. I told him our feelings might fade away once our love would no longer be forbidden. He said he would rather regret being with me than not being with me.

Soon after, he got divorced and I became his wife. Our world seemed made of magic. Our feelings hadn’t vanished. It was just like I had imagined before I ever knew he was married. But I still couldn’t shake the guilt of how we had betrayed his wife. I still waited for some kind of punishment. Later, our son, Edward, was born. His presence started erasing the constant fear of the hatchet hanging over our heads. I was happy with my two Edward’s and my dreams were fulfilled. I had opened the school I wanted. I couldn’t wait to see my son enrolled in that school.

There were still men and women roaming around us, but neither one of us had eyes for them. Still, as I had learned long ago, just because a feeling is not answered it doesn’t become less obsessive. Marian was just like that. I watched her as she became more and more desperate to grab Edward’s attention. I could see in her the girl I used to be. Except, I had always been to proud to beg.

One day, Marian asked to meet me. Again, I would have never dared to meet Edward’s wife. Marian demanded that I leave Edward be free. She was convinced he loved her and the only reasons he had for not leaving me himself were because he pitied me and because I had made him a child to tie him down with. I told her I had no intention of leaving Edward and went for the door. Just as I reached the doorknob, Marian stabbed me with a knife.

„You chose this.” She said as she left letting me die in a puddle of my own blood.

„Yes, I had .”I thought as I watched her leave. I chose this, I chose this love. I knew I would be punished for it. It’s no one’s fault but mine. I made this choice and I would probably make it a hundred times over. But this is enough. Please let my punishment be enough. Don’t punish the ones I love most in the world. I will always love you, Edward...

 

 

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 20.09.2015

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