To Be a Princess

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"Mother? Father? Did you want to talk to me?"

"Yes, yes we did," her mother replied solemnly.

"We think it's time that you know the truth," her father continued, a pained look on his face.

"What's wrong? Why do you look so worried?"

"Sit down."

"Okay..."

"Darling, do you remember that picture of a small girl that you found when you were younger?" her mother asked.

"You mean the one of my old governess's daughter that she dropped during one of my lessons?"

"Yes, that one."

"Well I do vaguely remember it, but why are you bringing it up?"

Her mother let out a choked sob and leaned onto her father's shoulder, weeping as he comforted her.

She was shocked. She had never seen her mother cry.

"Father, what aren't you telling me?" she asked.

"That girl in the photo. She wasn't the governess's daughter. You see," he looked at her carefully, as if trying to prepare himself for what he was about to tell her, "she was our younger daughter."

"Y-your daughter? You mean I had a sister?" she looked appalled. She had a sister all this time and her parents had hidden it from her?

"Yes."

"Hold on, what do you mean 'was your daughter'? What happened to her?"

"When you were just three, your sister was almost two. You won't remember her. She was a wonderful little girl. But one day, when your mother and I were on a business trip, the nursery maid, she..." his voice trailed off.

"She what?" the girl asked, panicking.

"She took her. She took your sister and ran away, we were never able to find her over the years," her mother finished, before sobbing once again.

"So you mean to say, I had a sister, and you never bothered to tell me?" she questioned accusingly, her voice sounding hurt.

"You don't understand, you were so young, and your mother couldn't handle the pain of losing one child and clung onto you, not daring to let you go. We feared, that if you knew about your sister realized we were so overprotective of you because of her, you'd think we were selfish and would try to do something to break out of our grasp and then something would happen to you too. We couldn't lose another child."

She thought about all the times her mother had not let her leave the house without security guards, and how it took her years to convince them to let her go to a real school.

"No, of course you weren't selfish, I just wish you'd have told me sooner," she sighed.

"We realize that now, we're sorry," her father said.

"Could you at least tell me her name?"

"Just her name?"

"Yes."

"Of course."

━━━━━━༺༻ ━━━━━━

She returned to her room, still thinking about what she had learned. It was shocking yes, but the sadness didn't seem to settle in. She knew she was supposed to feel devastated, thinking about the hole in her soul of the sister she never had, but it never came.

Instead, something else crept to the edge of her mind. This new story of her younger sister made her feel as though she was missing something, it felt so familiar. And then it clicked.

Running over to her bookshelves, she frantically rummaged around, searching for it.

"Where is it, I could've sworn I'd seen it a few weeks ago."

She reached to the bottom when she laid her eyes on an old, dusty book with a brown leather cover.

Picking it out, she walked over to her bed and sat down, examining it carefully.

"The Lost Princess of Divinia," she whispered, reading out the title.

"So I guess it runs in the family, huh?"