Arabella Academy: Perfectly Imperfect

20. The Expiravit Of Middlewood

Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that's what.

~Salman Rushdie

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"In the late Victorian era, there was a kingdom called Alba in the lands of Alberia. It was under the rule of a king, Henry Algernon, who administered it with ruthlessness and dictatorship. His wife, Belle, conceived and gave birth to a bouncing baby girl. It is said the young girl grew up to be beautiful, a beauty that contrasted her character, for she was malicious and cunning. She therefore used those abilities to manipulate people, even her parents, and in return she always got what she wanted. Her parents, afraid that the girl would be too much to control, kept her locked in the palace and her identity a secret."

"It reached a time in her late teenage years when people were fed up with his father's dictatorial rule. They were begging for the King adopt the modern way of administration that provided democracy in which people would be allowed to elect their leaders. However, King Henry totally refused their plea for he feared that they would oust him. A resistance to his rule was then birthed, and it grew steadily until it reached a tipping point. There was immense violence that saw King Henry and his wife being brought out to the people and publicly beheaded."

"Amidst all that confusion, the princess' guards were able to let the girl escape, and she ran away from the Kingdom which was now under the rule of its subjects. Determined to survive she continued with her journey where she ended up here, in Middletown. It was at the time when she heard that the young Queen of here had seized her mother's most prized accessory; the Dragon Pearl Necklace. It was a precious necklace which dazzled and made everyone who wore it. The Dragon pendant hanging on the pure pearls making the chain of the necklace was made out of Blue Diamond, the most expensive gemstone in the world."

"The princess was determined to get back her family's possession. Meanwhile, back in Alberia, the locals had found out that King Henry had sired a daughter and they immediately began a hunt for her. However, the princess was able to use her cunning abilities to stay out of sight and come up with a plan to get back what was rightfully hers."

"One day she snuck into the castle and was able to find the youthful King alone, taking a walk. She used her beauty to entice him and get him to fall in love with her. She then began sleeping with him, along the way disguising herself as a servant in the castle. She got information from the other servants on where the queen usually kept her jewels and located exactly where the Dragon Necklace would be."

"It came the night when she had planned to make the retrieval. She snuck past the guards and entered the queen's chambers, and with the keys to the queen's drawers, she was able to finally see the necklace. But the queen had seen her entering and alerted the whole castle. The guards bashed into the queen's chambers and caught the princess red-handed, holding the Dragon Pearl. She tried explaining to them that it was hers but the no one wanted to believe that King Henry had a child. The princess then decided she wouldn't let those men take her and kill her the way they killed her parents. She then ran to the window, and jumped out of the third floor, landing on a bunch of spears that pierced through her body, leaving her dead."

"The queen was able to get back her necklace, and the castle thought that they would return to normal, but a few days later, the castle woke up to find both the king and the queen missing, and the Dragon Pearl too. It was then that the theories popped up, saying that the ghost of the princess was the one which came back to revenge on the king and queen for stealing the necklace. The people then decided that it would be in their best interests to ditch the monarchical type of government and adopt the democratic one, in order to forget what happened. But the stories remained, and the town believed that the princess' spirit is still searching for the Dragon Pearl, and they came up with a name for her..."

"...the Expiravit of Middlewood."