Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Anabeth

“Duchess Julia Raventós, for your crimes against the Vildimir Empire and the Divine Lady herself, you will be executed by beheading,” Prince Laurence shouted, his voice boomed within the halls of the palace, his hands tightly clutched the sword at his side.

The woman at whom he was shouting had her head down, a deafening silence had taken over the room. Until a small giggle was heard from the woman. “Hahaha, HAHAHAHAHA!!” Everyone took a step back in fear. “You think I am the only one to blame here Laurence! You were the one to cause all of this! You had taken all I loved away from me! My brother, my maids, my friends, and my dignity as a duchess, it were all stolen by you!!” She screamed.

In anger, Laurence ran up to her, forcefully grabbing her face with all his strength. “If I am not mistaken here, you were the one to bring about a holy war to damn all of us here!”

“And you have done everything to deserve it Laurence!” Julia spits on his face.

Laurence slaps her across the face, bringing her to her knees. “I place a curse on you and your good for nothing name you vile snake!”

Serafina steps down from her chair and rushes to Laurence, “Darling, please have some mercy on her. She has suffered enough, please.”

Julia slowly manages to stand up, “I don’t want your sympathy you bitch! You have done nothing but ruin my life the moment you arrived!!” She lunged forward, “JUST DIE!”

Julia lunged at Serafina with the intent to kill. But she quickly stopped in her tracks with the sound of a sword swinging. In an instant, Julia had met her end with a sword in her heart, just like her brother. She fell to the floor in pain, tears streaming down her face. “I curse all of you, like how you had done to me…….” Were the final words to escape her mouth…

Then a knock at the door interrupted the novel's final words, “Hey Beth, oh you’re readin that book again?” A nurse walks into the small hospital room.

Beth closes the book and places it on her lap, “Good evening Dee, you are working the night shift today?” She asks innocently.

“Yep, I thought I’d take care of you before the surgery,” Dee smiles.

“Thank you, and yes I am rereading this book. I love it too much, and if the surgery goes wrong I’d rather had read the same book I love than a new novel I don’t like. Besides, it was only the last few pages.”

“You mean the part where Laurence kills poor Julia?”

Beth’s eyes light up, “You finally read it!” The heart monitor connected to her began to beep rapidly.

Dee giggles a little bit as Beth slinks back down into her bed. “Hey, hey calm down darling; we don’t need you having a heart attack before your surgery,” Dee looked at Beth’s chart one more time before she pulled a nearby stool to sit on. “Now then, yes I did read, but I did have a hard time finding my own copy. That book is really hard to come by, I couldn’t find it anywhere online. Luck for me, my dad had another copy in his basement, same place where I found yours and the fan books.” 

“Weird, I never gave it much thought since I never thought to look it up on the internet.”

“I think you were too wrapped in the novel’s plot to care,” Dee teased.

“Or, the novel didn’t do well and had a very limited run and somehow got in the hands of your family.”

That is a mystery for another time, back to our book club. I agree with you. I feel so bad for Julia. Serafina wanted to help her, but she was too far gone to accept it.

“I think that was the point, her death still makes me sad. But at least it was swift and not a painful death which Laurence had in mind, I think.”

“I've read novels in my life with a horrible villainess, and they all died in the most painful ways. I do feel sorry for the poor girl, but at least she died in a quicker way. It wasn't ideal but neither was her state of mind,” Dee sighs. “I will say, I hate how the prince dealt with everything. He always kept Serafina close to him at all times; it felt weird.”

Beth giggled a bit, “Yes I know, I’ve only read this book about a million times, but at least the wedding was cute.”

“Yeah, it was, but now I need to get to my duties as a nurse. How have you been feeling? Any pain?” Dee got up to look at her IV stand next to Beth and begins switching out the liquids.

“No pain at all, just nervous about the surgery in a few hours. It’s so new and experimental, but if it worked, I could be normal.”

“Yeah I know hun, I’m worried for you too, chances of survival are low, too many complications. I've seen too many good people go like that and I am not sure what I would do if I lost my favorite patient,” Dee joked.

“If I do die I guess I’ll leave behind my collection of books to you,” Beth joked as she grabbed Dee’s hand.

“Well, lets not get too far ahead shall we,” Dee squeezed her hand. “Well now I'm all finished with your prep work I’ll be back soon to pick you up and we’ll head into surgery,” she kissed Beth's hand as she went to leave the room.

Beth only nodded and smiled at Dee as she left Beth alone in her room. She could only think about is the incoming surgery. She knows it will kill her, but there’s no point in not trying. She had been slowly dying of cancer for over four years. Just recently she’s been diagnosed with terminal stage four cancer and has been confined to her small hospital. Not even her family would comfort her. She never had any siblings, though she did have parents. Her parents were more worried about who was going to inherit the family business to care about their dying daughter.

Beth’s family only cared about appearances and being successful. The only times they would take notice of her is when she got good grades and even then she would only get a simple “good job” from her mother and her father asking why she didn’t score hundreds as he did. The last time she heard her parents punily proud of her is when she was picked to go to the Olympics for the USA team of fencing. Of course that didn’t happen because of her cancer, which devastated her.

The only comfort Beth had gotten was from her nurse, Deirdre. She had been her nurse since day one, and they have been friends ever since. She had shown Beth kindness and compassion, not because she was the one in the hospital but because the two genuinely enjoyed each other's company. On Christmas Dee had gotten Beth a box of new books that came out because she knew that Beth liked to read. “The Divine Lady” was one of them.

Beth reach for the pen next to her and opened her book again. It was a well-loved one, with tabs and annotations everywhere. Each tab has its own meaning and the annotations have small bits of Beth’s commentary on each scene. She turned to the first page of the book and begin writing out a message.

To my dearest Deirdre,

I hope you have loved this book as I have. I have loved it since you gave it to me. I know you only read the back of the book, and it took so much time convincing you to read it. I know that when you read this, I will be gone, so I hope this can be a good memory.

You had made my life meaningful in the time we had together and I will always love you, Deirdre, from now and forever,

~ Anabeth

Beth looked out her window as she felt the a small tear stream down her face, at this point this might be the last time Beth will ever see Dee or the nights sky again. With only those thoughts in her head Beth drifted off to sleep.

***

But something felt off…

Beth woke to the sounds of hurried voices and loud beeping. She felt a stabbing pain just about everywhere in her body, her heart was racing and her eyesight couldn’t adjust at all. Suddenly she could hear one clear phrase…

“Hurry up we’re losing her!” Panicked voices shouted all across Beth. 

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There was no more panic in her heart anymore, Beth knew what was happening. She expected this to happen but yet she felt disappointed. The shouts grew even louder as the final beep from the machine appeared.

This was the end, I didn’t even get to say goodbye… that was the last thing Beth thought as she closed her eyes one last time in the operating room.

In a blink of an eye, Beth found herself awake, but with the sight of the recovery room. Instead, she found herself standing in a dark void with a floor that resembled water with its ebbing and flowing every time she took a step. The room was only illuminated by the faint specs of light that closely reminded her of stars. 

“Am I in judgment right now, either that or this is hell…” Beth mumbled to herself.

After standing around for a while, Beth saw that she wasn’t alone. She could see a figure walking toward her. Its shadow took the form of a slender woman; her presence was regal. Once she approached Beth, she knew right away who it was. Her long brown hair and eyes were average traits, but the snake tattoo wrapped around her neck gave it away. It was Julia Raventós.

The expression on Julia’s face was only one of pain, experiencing it repeatedly. 

“How strange to see you here, Julia, I thought you were only a character in a book?” Beth could only muster a dead expression to add to her blunt comment.

“How strange to see another human in this space,” Julia responds.

“I don’t think so, I mean after all we are both dead,” Beth smiled.

“If only I could stay that way.”

“What do you mean by that Julia?”

“It’s my fate, no matter what I do I always become what I am. This snake around my neck is only proof of it, my foolishness. Acting as a dog collar, binding me to my fate. I am bound to always feel like something is missing, only to feel like half of me is there, I am always in pain. I only wish to die,” Julia starts to sob, her words only filled her with pain. “I lost the only people I loved, it started with my mother and her ‘accident’ and ended with Tobias and my father!All because of him I was all alone, no one to comfort me and tell me it was going to be alright,” she collapsed on the floor weeping.

Beth rushed down to comfort her, pulling her into a comforting embrace. Like how Dee had done for her.

“All I want is to just die. I want to move on from this life, I don’t care where I go. If I become another person or be tossed into an eternal void for all my sins, I don’t care! I just want to die!” Julia screamed as she buried her weeping head into Beth’s calming embrace.

Beth thought of her reasons for being here carefully. She knew that Julia’s family had loved her and her brother very much, but Julia was selfish and was terrible to her family when she got engaged. Even though Julia was evil, she still had people who loved her, while Beth had no one. Not even her family cared for her. She had no life. The only thing she took pleasure in was ripped away from her because of cancer. Beth never even felt whole, even things that made her happy always had one tiny piece missing. She was never fully happy in her old life. The one person Beth had a connection with was her nurse she met at the end of her life; her one friend and companion in life was Deirdre. 

With one final thought, Beth knew what she wanted, what would save both parties and give peace to both.

“I want to live, Julia,” Beth whispered.

Julia looked up at her in awe.

“I want to live, I had nothing, I only had one person. Now I cannot even see her anymore. So, Julia, I want to set you free and I will live as you,” Beth wiped the tears from Julia’s face..

“What?” Julia said behind tears, “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Beth wiped Julia’s tears, “Yes, and this time, I will give you a happy ending. You deserve it,” Beth stood up and reached her arm out to Julia

“My final death is my happy ending, I think us being here was the conclusion to my story and the beginning of yours. So please, live for yourself, Anabeth.” Julia took Beth’s hand and pulled her into a tight hug.

“Thank you Julia,” Beth said.

“No, thank you,” Julia responded as their surroundings began to change.

The void that surged them shifted into a golden field of stars and they both began to fade away into a cloud of golden dust made of pure light. Julia’s dust faded into the sky, joining a collection of stars in the heavens.

Only feeling an overwhelming sense of peace, Beth fell down into the ground as she became dust, she felt new, alive, and most important whole.

***

Beth opened her eyes to see entirely different surroundings. She sat herself up just in awe of what just happened, all she could think was,” Did that really happen? Did I really meet Julia?”

But that question was only answered itself as she looked around the rather large room she was in. The walls were made of beautiful marble, and there were large portraits hung about. The windows spanned from floor to ceiling, and the sun was just peeking into the room through the velvet red curtains. The bed was soft to the touch and very comfortable to add. The sheets were made of gorgeous silk. Everything about this room screamed nobility and money.

Even though Beth didn’t want to leave her new comfy bed, she did end up getting out of it and made her way to the mirror. Sure enough, instead of the reflection she was so used to, she saw Julias instead. But she was much younger than the Julia Beth had met only moments ago. Her hair was much shorter, and the scars of her future were there. Most important was that were was no mark around her neck. 

“This can only be this past,” Beth thought to herself.

All she could see was the reflection of someone she knew well. She knew the entire family line of the Raventós line. She knew that she was the distant cousin of the imperial family and that at this point in time, she was engaged to Prince Laurence as her engagement ring was proudly worn on her finger even when she slept. Beth could only think of the possible ages she could be in this very moment, she had to have been freshly engaged to Laurence because the ring looked so new. The diamond was still shiner than the morning sun.

An idea popped into Beth's mind, Julia kept a diary near her desk to record all of her daily life. No one knew about it until after her death, obviously, Laurence was disgusted, but Serafina felt remorse for her. As towards the end of her life, there was nothing but scribbles of her haterade for the whole world and herself. But when she opened the book there wasn’t anything like that, it was all calm and peaceful. Just Julia talking about her father, how much she doesn’t care for her brother, and her sick mother. Wait her sick mother?!

In the novel, Julia’s mother dies when she was 16, and the diary is dated so recently. So she hasn’t died yet? This could only mean that Beth was now in the body of a 16-year-old Julia. Meaning she still has time to prepare for the events of the novel!

Beth walked back over to the mirror. Hoping there would be some tiny bit go her old self in that reflection. But it had not changed since last she looked. There was no trace of Anabeth. There was only Julia, a healthy young girl with a bright new future ahead of her. With the knowledge, Beth has of the novel and her skills from her previous life she can forge a new path to victory. For herself and the line of the Raventós.

Beth opened her mouth to utter to herself, “I am not Anabeth anymore, I am Julia Raventós, heir to the Raventós Duchy. I will not be weak, and I will have my happy ending.”

Then a knock came from the door, “Good morning my lady! It is Time to wake up and get dressed!”

 

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