Filed To Story: Returning to Her Not-So-Poor Family
Back in her room, Mirabella took out her own phone and instructed, “I need you to check the black market for a drug. It causes continuous flatulence after initial ingestion, discomfort in the stomach, inability to expel waste, followed by continuous diarrhea and hallucinations, with effects lasting approximately twelve hours.”
“What kind of sicko comes up with this stuff? It’s like they’re out to get someone. That’s just twisted.”
Justin’s voice crackled through the phone, barely masking his concern. “Boss, tell me no one’s trying to pull this number on you!”
“Why so many questions?”
“Someone’s actually got the guts to mess with you? Just give me a name, and 1’ll go chop his head offt”
“We’ll talk about it once I’ve got aname, Mirabella replied coolly. “Gotta go, I need to get some sleep.”
Meanwhile, the servants occasionally heard strange noises coming from Serena’s room. They didn’t dare peek, just kept their distance.
Until the next morning, a little past nine.
Serena opened her eyes and suddenly noticed the ceiling was colorful and even damaged.
She couldn’t believe it. Sitting up, she saw that all the ceiling liqhts were busted, the room was trashed, and she felt like she’d been hit by a truck.What on earth had happened?
Had there been a burglar in her room?
Had she lost her virginity?
The thought made her glance down, noticing her clothes were in disarray.
And then she saw it—a massive bruise on her stomach. What in the world had happened?
Her mind was a mess, but slowly she recalled something about a Snow Queen kicking her in the belly.
A Snow Queen?
Why was her mind throwing her these bizarre flashbacks?
Frantically, she tried to get out of bed, but her body was weak. She collapsed to the floor and struggled to get back up. Finally standing, she staggered to the door and pounded weakly on it.
The servants nearby were terrified, huddling together, fearing Serena might unleash more chaos.
When Serena called out normally for someone to open the door, they hesitantly sent Iria, the bravest among them.
“Iria” Serena said as the door swung open, about to ask what had happened, but Iria looked as if she’d seen a ghost and bolted back.
Serena was baffled. What was going on with them? One scaredy-cat was one thing, but seven or eight huddled together, looking at her like she was a monster.
“Thurn,’ Serena said directly, “come here!”Thurn approached, tears welling up in her eyes, clutching her swollen cheek.
“Ms. Serena”
“What happened to you?”
Serena tried to move Thurn’s hand to see her face, but Thurn started screaming, “Please, Serena, have mercy! I’ve already lost a tooth.”
“What are you talking about?” Serena was confused by Thurn’s wailing and quickly grew impatient.
“Never mind, just go. Get someone else here.”
Eventually, under the servants’ collective urging, a timid maid named Liz stepped forward.
She didn’t want to, but being the newest one, she had to follow the others” lead.
“Ms. Serena.”
“What in the world happened to my room?” Serena asked, her eyes scanning the chaos, “Did we get burgled? Are the other rooms trashed too? Was I attacked in my sleep fast night? Why am I covered in bruises? And why is everyone acting like I’m some sort of monster?”
The maid recounted the previous night’s events in painstaking detail.
Serena was incredulous. “And why is my hand so swollen and painful?”
“That would be because you attempted to karate chop a dining table last night,” the maid explained, a nervous edge to her voice. “Ms. Bella said you might have a slight fracture. Luckily, it didn’t displace, so you don’t need to be realigned. Just a cast for a couple of weeks should do.”
Karate chopping a table? A fracture?
The disbelief on Serena’s face deepened as the maid continued to spill the beans about her antics upon returning home: jogging in place, knocking over vases, tumbling down the stairs, and continuously passing gas.
But karate chopping a table and ending up with a fracture? What on earth were those about?
Only under relentless questioning did the maid finally stammer out the fult account.
Serena felt as if she’d been struck by lightning. She couldn’t believe that she had, in front of Romeo and Martin, embraced a tree and smothered it with kisses, attempted a pole dance, and the table-
chopping.Not to mention the mortifying things she’d blurted out.
And it didn’t end there. She had even tried to take a shit on Mirabella’s balcony in front of several servants!
She was beyond embarrassed.
“Because you were causing such a scene last night without any antidote, Eunice had no choice but to tie you to the bed.”
Saying that, Thurn glanced at the missing tie on Serena’s wrist. Clearly, Serena had snapped it during the night.
“Eunice tied me to the bed? Then how come I’m standing here?” Serena looked down at her wrists, noting the layered marks. It seemed she had been restrained with some cord but had broken free.
Thurn went on to tell Serena how Serena had tried to kiss her grandfather, hurled insults at her grandmother and Eunice as if they were Mirabella, and explained the servants’ fear.
“Last night, you insisted on feeding Zola with a slipper, claiming it was a pastry you’d made. You said not eating it was an insult to you”.
“You tried to pull out Iria’s hair, convinced she was wearing a wig and determined to expose her ‘baldness.”
“You also claimed yourself the farm owner, ordering everyone to crawl on the ground like animals. You said the ‘sheep’ should eat the ‘grass; which turned out to be clothes from your wardrobe, and the ‘cattle’ should drink ‘water”
from your toilet””You even slapped Thurn, saying she was a homewrecker, and knocked out some of her teeth.”
Serena couldn’t believe that last night’s drug was so strong that it caused her to do so many humiliating things!
No wonder the servants looked at her like she was a ghost. Thank goodness, Liz had filled her in, or she’d still be clueless about the extent of her absurd behavior.
“UL didn’t do anything to you last night, did 1?” Serena feigned concern.
“You were relatively kind to me, Serena. You just made me play a horse, carrying you around the room.” the maid hesitated, “though you did whip my back with a leather belt for half an hour. It still hurts a bit”
Serena winced in empathy. She could never have imagined the bizarre things she’d gotten up to the night before.
“I’ll give you all a bonus later, to apologize. I’m really sorry. I got carried away after drinking last night.”
After drinking the lemonade, which she realized had been drugged, she had foolishly tried to cover it up by purposely drinking a shot of whiskey in front of her family.
She planned to blame all her behavior on the classic excuse of having been drunk.
After all, getting a little wild after a few drinks was a common enough tale.
“I’ll go freshen up. Would you mind asking someone to tidy up my room?”
Serena said, feeling the uncomfortable stickiness all over her skin.
Half an hour later.
When she got down the stairs after her shower, she immediately noticed Eunice sitting in the prime spot on the couch, looking at her tablet.
Eunice was browsing the financial news and looked up at the sound. “Feeling better now?”
“Aunt Eunice.” Serena’s voice was timid, afraid that Eunice might be about to settle scores.
Eunice put her tablet aside and with a commanding presence instructed, “Call the doctor over.”
“Yes, Mrs. Griffith” The servant hurried to get Dr. Justin.
“You put on quite the show last night trying to break a table with your bare hands and ended up with a fractured wrist, so I called the doctor to have a look; Serena had a creeping feeling that Eunice was settling scores with her but expressed her gratitude nonetheless, “Thank you, Eunice.”
“Serena, take a seat, and let’s have a look at that hand,” said Justin, a renowned orthopedic surgeon and one of the Griffith family’s trusted doctors.Sitting down on the couch, Serena could feel Eunice’s penetrating gaze and began to explain, “I had too much to drink last night and did a lot of ridiculous things. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if the servant hadn’t told me. I’m so sorry for my behavior, Eunice. I didn’t mean to be so disrespectful”
Eunice, cutting straight to the point, asked, “Have you always had feelings for Romeo? Haven’t you moved on?”
“It’s not like that! Bella and Romeo are the perfect couple. Besides, I’m with Martin now.”
“From what I see, you don’t seem too fond of Martin.”
Eunice’s words made Serena anxious, “Eunice, whatever I said or did last night was beyond my control. If I could have controlled it, why would I let myself be so embarrassed? It was all that whiskey.”
“Was it the lemonade, perhaps?” Eunice’s gaze was challenging.
Serena played dumb, “What about the lemonade? It was the whiskey that did me in last night, I just couldn’t handle it”
“But the doctor found hallucinogens and other toxins in your system. How do you explain that?”