Chapter 8 Time To Collect

• After days of turning the library upside down they all came up empty handed. They finally came to terms with the fact that there was no solution to their curse. King Jerald had never been this depressed and tired. He looked at his wife and almost cried.
• “If we do not get intimate, I won't be pregnant and she will have no six sons to collect,” Rachel broke the silence.
• King Jerald looked up at her in shock.
• “We can try, you can sleep with the servants to quench your thirst.”
• “That's absurd!” King Jerald yelled out.
• Rachel walked to where he was seated and knelt down, “my King, if we can not find a supernatural way to deal with this curse then let's try physically.
• “No!” King Jerald Yelled out.
• “I will not cheat on you with other women.”
• “I was just making a suggestion, if we stay away from each other, she will not get her way,” Rachel pointed out.
• “What of Mark, Messan and Maximus? She will come and get them, she will come and get our son's,”
• “Maybe the sorceres we've sent to Meilland will come with something, I have no idea??” Rachel replied. The couple just stared at each other with no hope in their eyes…...
• Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and they still came up with no solutions. The sorceres that had gone to the land of Witches came back empty handed. No witch wanted to talk about Clarris. In Fact they were all scared of her and did not want to be connected to her name or king Jerald.
• The queen and king were left hopeless, even though they had planned never to be intimate and decided to sleep in different bedrooms. Every night around midnight they would wake up in one bed naked with no recollection of whether they had been intimate or not.
• The sorceres had tried locking spells on them, but to no avail, soon Rachel was pregnant again. She hid the news from King Jerald because she was scared of what he would do. He was now just a reflection of the gallant king he once was. He usually spent his days in the Deadman's Forest talking to the burning armies and elder Lee. He rarely spent time with his sons. He couldn't look them in the eye, he blamed himself for everything.
• After getting confirmation of her pregnancy, Rachel began panicking. She ordered the senior midwive to her Chambers and ordered her to fetch the most potent abortion medicine. At the mention of that the midwife froze, everyone was aware about the curse and the consequences that befall anyone that interfered. The midwife began shivering, “Your highness… I have….. a…. lot of….. orphans that I'm looking after.”
• Even though refusing a Queen's request was punishable by death, Rachel understood and realized how selfish it was for her to even request such. She allowed the midwife to go and went in the library in search of the most potent abortion roots which within minutes she got her answers.
• Under the veil of darkness, she got her horse and went to the Market in search of it. It wasn't easy because few traders traded at night but she finally found the roots. Without waiting for instructions she began chewing on the all bunch. “Ma'am, you need to boil in hot water,” the trader warned her.
• But Rachel did not want to give time to the curse, she chewed all the roots, got on the horse and went back to her castle like nothing happened. Upon reaching her chambers she felt a sharp pain and blood began dropping down her leg. Rachel smiled at the sight of the blood. “Screw you witch!” she yelled out but then was hit with a Burning sharp pain and she screamed out in pain. Her sons rushed into the room and called on her, “Go get your father?” she cried out.
• The eldest ran out and soon returned with king Jerald. He found Rachel screaming in a pool of blood. He ordered his servants to take the little boys while he lifted Rachel off the floor and placed her on the bed. Blood was coming out like a water tap, the midwife came in and explained the abortion to King Jerald who got up and held his head as he watched his wife in pain.
• “I'm burning I'm burning, there is fire in here,” Rachel cried.
• The king and the servant just stood in the room and watched as she screamed, blood kept coming until the entire bed and room was filled with blood. “Do something?” king Jerald finally spoke up.
• “This is not normal sir, it's the curse,” one of the servants yelled out.
• Rachel got up in a sitting position and screamed with all her might, then the blood started reversing back into her body in a swift and the pain disappeared.
• Everyone present in the room, held their hands on their mouths in shock. Except for king Jerald they all ran out of the room in fear.
• Rachel held her tummy in shock, she quickly got up and run in king Jerald's hands, “she reversed the abortion, she reversed the abortion, we are dommed for enternity” Rachel cried out. King Jerald had no words he just held her.
• It was now sealed that there was nothing they could do about the curse. Kingdom Ergad was now just a shadow of the mighty kingdom it once used to be. Most of the subjects fled to Arthora under King Seth who was now the emperor of the six kingdoms. He capitalized on the opportunity like he was ordered; He left Ergard and king Jerald to his sister.
• Months passed and Rachel gave birth to another son. Another year passed she gave birth to the fifth son and again another year passed and she gave birth to the sixth son. Unlike King Jerald, Rachel spent all her time with her sons showering them with love. Even though it was difficult knowing that a witch would come and get them one by one, she made sure that they felt Loved.
• Eleven years passed and in three days it was going to be Mark's eighteenth birthday, their first born son. He was very excited because he was going to be considered a man and would begin training for the dark Knight squad. King Jerald and Rachel never told their sons about their fate even though the older sons had heard the rumors. King Jerald banned them from ever talking about witches and he put strict rules that forbid his sons from ever going outside the castle. They had a lot of questions but kept them to themselves.
• A day before his birthday Rachel walked into Mark's room very emotional and she began crying. Mark was surprised and tried to get to the root cause but to no avail. Rachel only hugged him and kept crying.
• On the day of his birthday, king Jerald stood outside and waited but nothing happened and nightfall came. “Maybe she has forgotten, it's been eleven years ever since we saw her,” Rachel said from behind him.
• “She is coming,” Jerald stated and they ordered their knights to keep guard.
• Even though birthday parties were not allowed in the castle, Maximus the third born secretly made a surprise party for his elder brother. They always secretly did this every year at midnight whilst their parents were asleep. Being eighteen they had managed to steal wine for him. After they had partied and Mark was almost drunk. They decided to call it a night especially that the younger one was just nine.
• Mark was about to fall on his bed when he heard the sweetest Melody. He got up and went to his window, opened it , and standing in the garden was a beautiful Blond girl in a white flawless dress singing. She was so beautiful that he swallowed hard. He tried to rub his eyes just to be sure that he was not hallucinating. But when he opened them she waved at him. Because of his father's strict rules, he never socialized with girls and he saw this as an opportunity. Especially that he was a teenager, his hormones got the hold of him and he decided to satisfy his curiosity. But as soon as he opened the door, he found his father, “Father, what are you doing up?”
• “Just came to check up on you?” king Jerald replied.
• “Father I'm eighteen, go and check on Basen, who is nine,” King Jerald ignored him and entered the room. This pissed off Mark who was in a hurry to meet the girl in a white dress.
• He needed to think fast, he could see that his father was not leaving soon, “if you can excuse me, I need to use the loo,” Mark lied
• King Jerald hesitated but allowed him, Mark quickly ran down the castle and only stopped in his truck when he found the blond girl inside the castle. In a shocked voice he asked “How did you get past the guards?”
• The girl smiled and held out her hand to him to which he grabbed and the two began walking away.
• Back in his room, king Jerald noticed the opened window and decided to close it but was caught numb at the sight of Clarris in a white dress holding Mark's hand.
• “Mark! Mark!, no stop! Let go of my son you stupid witch,” he yelled out.
• Clarris turned and smiled at him and the two disappeared. “Noo!” king Jerald screamed on top of his voice. Without thinking that he was about thirty three meters up the castle he jumped to save his son but plunged all the way to the ground and shattered all the bones in his body. The guards who had heard the scream came running.
• Rachel heard the fall and she rushed outside, she was dumbfounded at the sight of her husband's bones relocating in place. King Jerald screamed in anguish as he felt every fractured bone move back into position. After the ordeal, King Jerald felt like nothing had just happened and he got up. “she took him, she took Mark,” he cried to his wife.
• “How!” Rachel asked.
• Without answering, he ran to his horse, got on it and rode to Deadman's forest. Rachel got on her horse too and went after him.
• They both passed the burning army and ignored elder Lee who warned them not to go in. Upon reaching Clarrris's castle, king Jerald began yelling, “Come out you filthy witch, bring my son back.”
• “Stop pretending like she did not lay out the details of the curse,” Darrell stated from behind them.
• “How can you just seat back and watch her take my innocent son, what is she going to do to him, kill him?”
• “She is probably torturing him,” Darrell replied.
• “Oooh my God!” Rachel cried out.
• King Jerald tried to enter the dark castle but was pushed back by a force that he landed some feet away.
• “Go home to your other sons, you are just wasting your time here,” Darrell advised them and disappeared.
• King Jerald dropped to his knees and wept, he thought he had prepared himself for this day especially that he had put a distance between himself and his sons so that it could hurt less when the day came. But now he was regretting it. He wished he had known Mark better.
• “What was his favorite toy?” he asked his wife
• “What,” Rachel asked confused
• “What was Mark's favorite toy?”
• “A dragon toy,” Rachel replied between sobs.
• After king Jerald got tired of calling out Clarris without response. He finally gave up and they both went back to the castle with swollen eyes. In the morning King Jerald got the dragon toy and buried it in the garden with a Mark's name graved on a Tombstone.
• They lied to the other sons that their elder brother had gone for Dark knight training. They still couldn't gather the guts to tell their sons about the curse. Soon their second son turned eighteen and again at midnight Clarris found a way to separate him from the family and took him too. Both Jerald and Rachel were left devastated.
• Again the third one turned eighteen and she came and took him, the fourth, the fifth and finally the sixth. She came at each son's eighteenth birthday and took her debt.
• Rachel couldn't take the pain anymore, she had tried Killing herself but to no avail. There was no way she was going to allow the process again but there was nothing she could do.
• A month after her last son was taken, she became pregnant again and in eight years, she again had six sons. And again on each of their sons birthday Clarris came and took them one by one until she took the last. Even when they tied themselves together, she could come, make everyone fall asleep and using her voice she could lure the teenager out. Never did she ever use force on them.
• A century passed and the curse went as prophesied, king Jerald and Rachel never got old, sick or died. They watched other people get old and die while they went through the curse over and over again…...