To His Hell and Back-Chapter 200: The One Sealed Away-I

A monster. That was the only correct way to describe someone like her who had came back from death.

She couldn’t blame the disgust that her grandmother and father had showed all this time, finally understanding the reason for their odd hatred that had always felt one sided to her. But now she finally understood that to her grandmother not only was she a misfortune she was also an odd creature that could easily come back from death.

But was that a reason to excuse what her grandmother had done to her? Or to forgive her father because his reason for selling her was fear of what she could be?

No. The answer was simple: No.

To find out that something in her was inhuman also make her body chill, her heart awry. No one would ever wish to be born a monster or to find out that there was a power in them that they couldn’t control.

Fear and disgust fill her body.

Though she couldn’t forgive her grandmother and father, somewhere she could understand their fear and disgust toward her as she felt similar mixed emotions about herself.

"No one asked to be born a monster," Cassius’s words suddenly brought her from the chill that had turned her face pale.

She turned to see his face, shocked coloring her mien as she heard his words.

Despite finding out that she could be something inhuman, perhaps something even weirder or more dangerous than that, Cassius remained indifferent.

But why?

Shouldn’t he doubt her now?

She doesn’t know what she is and what she was capable of doing and neither does he. Besides how could he really trust that she doesn’t know anything about herself? What if she was lying all this time toward him?

He should be doubting her at least a little yet here he was... still on her side.

"There is no proof what was put into your food was a love potion," said Cassius toward her father with his eyes condescending into a mockery, "And even if Arabella’s mother was really capable of bringing someone from death to life, why wouldn’t she does the same to herself?"

Both Mrs Rath and Charles looked at each other in silence.

They didn’t answer but their expression seemed to have twisted right the moment Cassius reasoned their words. At this both him and Arabella could sense something was off. That they were lying.

"Did you saw your mother’s dead body?" Cassius asked with his eyes turned to Bella who shook her head.

"I only saw her running away," she answered and Cassius narrowed his eyes.

"How do you know that she ran away? Right, you told me that you saw your mother running away with another man and that you saw it with your own eyes."

Arabella felt as if something was fished out from her memory, something important that her child self hadn’t understand but now forced to be answered by Cassius’s questions, those fragments of questions finally registered in her head.

"My mother... she had packed light that day with a brown suitcase. She then left that night from the door with a man holding her hands..." Arabella placed one hand on her head as something piercing ache in her head. "No. Was that man dragging her away?"

"How many men did you see?" Cassius asked as her eyes that slowly turned red snapped in startle.

Now that question was asked by him, a clearer memory of what happened became more distinct in her head. Right. Her mother seemed like she was in a hurry holding that suitcase which was why she had thought her mother had ran away.

There was a man who had held her by her elbow and she thought that man had ran away with her, holding her hand so they wouldn’t fall as they ran.

But that wasn’t a single man. No.

It was dark and she could barely make out the face of her mother or the man who had held her by the elbow but there was another man. One. Two. Three. They went into the woods and disappeared.

But why was it that she didn’t remember this clearly?

It was as if some part of her memories had been rewritten.

She muttered, "How do you... there was more than one man now that you mention it to me..."

"I understand what happened now," Cassius turned toward Charles who had looked away as if from fear or shame. But Cassius doubted such a man would ever have shame in a single bone in his body. "She didn’t run away did she? She stayed for so long for Arabella and her sister’s sake yet oddly she left one day? She even tried to use love potion to tie you down with her so why would she run away all of a sudden?"

Mrs Rath as if trying to help her son hide a twisted truth yelled out, "No! That could happen- you don’t know what that witch had in her mind! Maybe she had moved target after being done with Charles."

"No," Cassius remarked as he raised his hand to shushed the old woman, "I have lived my life in battlefield. I can almost tell by a glance the gaze of someone guilty or someone trying to hide their crime. You two smell."

Arabella who could see her grandmother and father trying to hide the truth had enough. She turned to the only man who could give her the answer, placing her hand on Cassius’s arms as she asked, "What do you mean? I don’t understand. You’re saying that- they’re hiding a crime? That they... killed my mother?"

Cassius turned to her, his expression far too still that sent coldness down her spine.

His lips opened, "You must have guessed it and yes you’re right. Your mother didn’t run away, she was trying to run away from your father I suppose. Seeing how much hatred he had against you and your sister, why wouldn’t he have has the same hatred toward your mother? If I was someone like him, the first I would try to get rid aren’t you or your sister. It would be your mother."

Arabella shivered and she turned to her grandmother whose face now guilt ridden, "You... you murdered her?"

"We didn’t murdered her!" Mrs Rath yelled as if she had finally had enough of being quiet. Even though things were done by her, she refuses to saddle the one sided Blame, not wanting to be the only one who was guilty here and believing what she had done was "right".

"Your mother was acting strangely. The week before that she had been writing in odd ancient language into a paper and while you two were sleeping, she pasted those writings into your skin! Charles caught her in the act! Tell them what you saw Charles!" Demanded Mrs Rath and in answer Charles nodded his head.

He trembled as he said, "It wasn’t our language, it didn’t look like any language we could understand and when I found her, she was writing them down on your arms and face, with some unknown ink that turned red!"

Desperate, Mrs Rath continued her words, "Exactly! Since we knew she was a witch and we were afraid she had somehow started a curse, we went to meet the only person who could answer our questions and he told us that your mother was about to put a curse on the entire family! So to protect us we have to seal her!"