A twist in time. A villainous lady hated by the ton. A quest to avoid ruin.
When Ria's Grandmother suddenly disappeared, she didn't expect the search would bring them to 19th century England. After possessing a body of a woman hell-bent to profess...
"Ria, wake up! Wake up!" An unfamiliar soft voice spoke near my ear. With a groan, I swatted the hand shaking me and forced my eyelids open. A teenager with dark hair and jewel-like amber eyes looked down at me with an impatient frown.
"You've always been too hard to wake up! We need to go!" She hissed, and with force, I didn't know her skinny body could be capable of, yanked me to a sitting position. Bewildered, I gaped at her and the unfamiliar bedroom I was in. My bed wasn't this soft. The blanket wasn't this thick, and the room wasn't supposed to be this spacious.
"Get up now!" The teenage girl tugged at my hand. She looked to be fifteen years of age and already a beauty with a straight nose, thin lips, and big round eyes. She wore a powder blue nightgown.
"Wait, who are you, and where am I?"
Her dainty hands immediately slapped against my mouth, stopping me from speaking. The force wasn't heavy, but it was enough to wake me up completely.
"Be quiet! If he wakes, you will die!" she hissed.
Flustered, I looked at the other side of the bed and realized we were not alone. A man was lying on the same bed with his back to me. He was shirtless, and the lines of his back were prominent and could only be described as sexy and muscular. Blush colored both my cheeks.
Another question mark was added to all the others hovering in my mind. Who was this man?! Devastated, I almost jumped out of bed in fright. I pointed a trembling finger at the man and soundlessly asked the teenage girl beside me.
"I'll explain later. The most important thing is to get you dressed and out of here." She whispered. Only then did I realize I was wearing almost nothing? The sheer dress, being see-through, almost leave none to the imagination. I hugged myself in a futile attempt to cover my private parts.
The teenage girl rolled her eyes and tossed a red dress into me. "Get dressed." She repeated, and I could only follow, pushing my doubts to the back of my mind.
Wearing the dress was tricky beyond belief. There were a lot of ties and ribbons that the teenage girl could only help me with it. As soon as I had slipped into a pair of shoes, she dragged me toward a wall. I watched dumbfounded as she pulled against a wall lamp, and it slid open. The passageway was narrow, and I could only press my hand against the cold wall to guide me along the path. It felt like an hour before we saw the light. She pushed a circular metal cover, which fell off with a dull, muffled thunk. We crawled through the hole and emerged into an expansive garden.
"Come on!" the girl led me towards a shrubbery obstructing another hole in a wall that could fit a well-grown man. A carriage was waiting on the other side. I stared at it in confusion, then glanced back at the stone wall. Everything looked like it was a set of 19th-century England. Was I being pranked? But all the details seem so authentic.
"Ria, get up here now!"
I scrambled up the carriage. As soon as we were seated, it set off with a lurch. I could hear the rhythmic clip-clop of horse hooves hitting the pavement.
"That was so close!" The teenage girl exclaimed, a hand to her heart.
"Now, can you tell me who you are and where this is?" I asked almost impatiently.
"Silly child. I know you won't recognize me." She grinned, her eyes crinkled at the sides. It was a familiar facial expression but quite odd on her young face.
"I really don't know you."
"Of course you do, although not in this body. I'm your Grandma." I gaped at her for the second time. What was this girl saying? Was she sick in the head? Was I abducted by a young child?
"Are you crazy? You're not my grandmother."
The girl claiming to be my grandmother sighed loudly, unbefitting her age.
"You were born in a full moon. Your father, too scared to accompany your mother, fainted two times. Your mother went into 48 hours of labor. You have a moon-shaped birthmark inside your left thigh and haven't had a boyfriend for twenty-one years."
I could feel my mouth gaping open in shock. How did this beautiful girl know all those private information?
"But...you-"
She took a familiar looking book under the carriage seats and presented it to me. "I can't explain everything right now. But take this and keep it safe."
She shoved it into my arms and grabbed my hands tightly. Only then did I notice my dainty hands and the bright, tacky red nail polish gleaming on my fingernails.
Stunned, I glanced at the carriage window and could faintly see the features of an unfamiliar woman staring back. This is definitely not me.
I looked wide-eyed at my grandmother, and she nodded sympathetically.
"You'll get used to it in time. You're behaving better than I did when I was suddenly thrown into the 20th century. You're a bright child."
Thrown into the 20th century? What does that even mean? I find it hard to agree when my head is about to burst.
The carriage stopped, and I peered in and saw a gated mansion with an overgrown garden. There was a frantic maid whose eyes brightened upon seeing me. I looked back at Grandma with a blank gaze.
"Get inside. We will talk again on the eve of the Regis Ball. And whatever you do, stay away from the Duke of Embershire. "She said this so seriously I could only nod my head. What happened next was a whirlwind of things. The maid snuck me inside the mansion and helped me to bed. When the maid went out, I jumped out of bed. I headed straight to the dresser, staring unblinkingly at the reflection of a young woman. Her thick blonde curls and chocolate-brown eyes were the opposite of what I looked like. I pinched my cheek, the pain bringing tears to the ends of my eyes. This isn't just a silly dream or a nightmare.
Who is this woman, and more importantly, who was the Duke of Embershire that Grandma warned me about?
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
A/N: How is the story so far? Do you like it?
Word Count for this chapter: 1080 Total Word Count: 2250
