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{29} Beyond Rescuing

31 Days: From Enemy to Heir

Beyond Rescuing: Day 29 of 31 Days

For Day 1, click on the image above

Jewel fell back on her knees and stared at the box before her.  Dust and ashes, ashes and dust.  She could not understand it—she knew there was treasure here before.

“Didn’t find what you were looking for?” a voice said in her ear.

She fell down, terrified, and looked up.  It was the Enchanter, looking calm and collected next to her dirty, frazzled body.

“I don’t understand,” Jewel stammered.  “It was here.  I left it here.  I buried treasure in this box, but when I opened it, well, look!”  She shoved the box at the Enchanter, who clucked his tongue and shook his head.

“He should have told you this would happen.”

“What do you mean?  Who should have told me what?”

“Your prince.  It’s a trick of his, you know.  Once you see his treasure, your treasure is like dust.  You can never come back to it and be satisfied.”

“You mean it just disappeared?”

“I mean, you never had it to begin with.“

Jewel looked at the box in disbelief.  “But I did!  I…I saved it myself.”

“You stole it.  Or at the very least, you did all sorts of things to earn it that would make a good princess blush.  You know it, and I know it.  That is not treasure, Jewel, it’s plunder.  Blood money.  It’s no good in his kingdom.”  He came a little closer to her and whispered, “If your prince knew where you got it, he would turn away from you in disgust.”

“How dare you, you who sold me first!  How dare you accuse me!”

“How dare you pretend I’m not justified in doing so,” the Enchanter laughed.  “Oh, Obscurity!  Do you really think you can erase your past, just because you put on new clothes and a crown?”

“My name is Jewel.”

“Ironic.  You do not look very much like a Jewel now.”

Jewel looked down.  She was covered in filth.  Blood oozed from scrapes and scratches, and she realized that one of her fingernails had been torn off completely.  Worse, her dress was ripped beyond repair.  She had worn her oldest dress, the very first dress the prince had ever given her.

It was her wedding dress. 

“You know,” the Enchanter cooed, “I have more riches than I know what to do with.  If it’s treasure you seek, I can make you rich beyond imagination.”

“I don’t want to be rich,” Jewel said.  “I came because I wanted to do something for him.”

“Of course you do.  He’s done so much for you, after all.”

“Yes.”  The thought of it made her wretched.

“Although, I can’t help but feel he got the better of me when he took you from me.  I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive him for that.”

“Please, if you have anything you can spare, anything at all.  I’ve come all this way, and I have nothing.  How can I go back like this?”

“How indeed,” the Enchanter said, looking her over with slitted eyes.  “I would not want to go in your place.  I can just imagine the look on his face.”

Beyond Rescuing

Beyond Rescuing

Jewel buried her head in her dirty hands and sobbed.  “What can I do?”

“Well,” the Enchanter’s smooth voice curled around her like smoke.  “There is one thing.”

“What?  Anything!”

His beautiful face contorted so quickly, Jewel gasped in surprise.  He grabbed her by the throat and hissed, “Bow down and beg for it.” 

Her eyes were wide and frantic.  He was fierce and ugly, like the dragons that swooped over his land.  Ugly like she had never seen him before.  Jewel clawed at him, expecting any moment for him to release her.  He was a friend!

“You see, Jewel, I have not forgotten your betrayal.  I have not forgotten how you traded me in at the first chance you had to become the bride of the one I hate.”  He spat the words at her like a viper.  “Do you really think we could be friends after that?  Do you really think I will help you?”

He was her friend!  He had said so himself.  But now there was no air!  Was she to die at his hand?

“No, Jewel, I will not help you, but you have certainly helped me!  You have led your people right out the gates and into my kingdom.”

He laughed then and released his grip just enough for Jewel to gasp for breath and feel the weight of his words.  It was true. 

“Do you know, Jewel, there is one thing I love almost as much as having my own kingdom.  Do you know what that is?  It’s having the prince’s people serve me when they think they’re serving him.  They wander farther and farther away from him every day and they don’t even know it.  In fact, they think they are more enlightened than ever before!  It’s almost too easy!

“What kind of pathetic prince can’t keep his people from traipsing over to the enemy just as soon as the gates are open?  Your prince, Jewel, that’s who.  He talks a big talk, but he has no power over the desires of men.  I do.”

The Enchanter looked into her eyes and scoffed.  “And you—you’re the worst offender.  ‘Jewel: bride of the prince.’  You came calling so quickly, I’m almost amazed the prince didn’t recognize you sooner for the harlot you are.”

“Let me go,” she begged, her voice hoarse and raspy.

“Let you go?  Tell me, Jewel, where would you go?  Do you think I am so kind as to take traitors back into my house?  I would sooner destroy you.  And if you think he will take you back when you have betrayed him like this then you do not know his holy fierceness like you ought.  It would be a kindness for me to kill you outright rather than to leave you to his justice.”

He was choking her again, but she was dying with the thought that she might be beyond rescuing by her prince.  Of course the Enchanter was right.  Why would her prince take her back?  She had been so foolish.

“You have been defeated, Jewel.  Admit it, and I might let you live long enough to see the embarrassment on your prince’s face.”

The darkness of that night became even darker.  The whole world spun and she felt her arms go numb.  Jewel could not breathe.  She could only exhale one last breath.  “Help me,” she whispered just before everything went black.

*Join us tomorrow for the exciting Day 30!

31 Days, Faith, From Enemy to Heir 5 Comments

{25} The Lure

31 Days: From Enemy to Heir

My Side: Day 25 of 31 Days

For Day 1, click on the photo above

The Enchanter slipped out the door without making a sound, and Jewel was left alone.  Although, she not alone.  In the corner of the room, ablaze with furry, stood her Advocate.

Jewel saw him and said, “You can put that sword away now.”

“Can I, Jewel?  Or is there still a lie that lurks in this room?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, truly confused.  She thought through the conversation carefully, but it only confirmed in her mind that everything the Enchanter said was good and pleasing to her ears.

“I don’t remember him saying anything that wasn’t true,” Jewel countered.  “In fact, he was a perfect gentleman!  You could learn something from him.  Look at you, drawing weapons on a visitor.”

“He was no visitor, Jewel.  He was an imposter, and you should never have given him an audience.”

Jewel was astounded.  “Weren’t you listening to anything he said?” she cried.  “Are you so suspicious that you could not hear the good and kind things he said to me?”

“That is his way, Jewel.  When you are in his kingdom, he uses evil as his tool.  You were tangled up in it before you were brought here, and you remember how tightly it bound you.

“But the people of this kingdom are best trapped by the good things.  It is the good that keeps you from his presence and mars the face of the prince until soon, you are serving a prince of your own making.  A beautiful lure can be far more effective than a brazen hook, Jewel, and I’m afraid you have fallen for it.”

The Lure

The Lure

“No…no, that can’t be.  He wants to make a truce with us!  He did not come here to trap or fight me.”

“He has no need to fight with those he’s beaten.” 

“Beaten?  I am not beaten!  I have won!  Didn’t you hear?  The Enchanter has seen something in me he never saw before.  He has come to understand the prince because of me, because he knew me once, and he sees how beautiful I am now.  He said it right in front of you.  He called me a friend.”

“Jewel, do you really think that you could affect a change in the Enchanter with your beauty that the prince could not do with truth?  Do you really think you could conquer something he has condemned?”

Jewel rolled her eyes and turned back to the mirror.  “Apparently, I can, because he recognized how far I’ve come.  I don’t think you appreciate the fact that I’m not the girl I once was.  He said more kind things to me in five minutes than you’ve said the entire time you’ve known me.”

“The question is, are those things true?” 

Jewel spun to face him.  “Of course they were true!  Look at me!  I am beautiful now.  I am like him.”

Her Advocate shook his head slowly.  “He told the truth about one thing, Jewel.  The prince will not recognize you when he comes home.” 

She was hurt, and very much frightened, by her Advocate’s response to the Enchanter’s visit.  In one instant, the Enchanter had validated her growth and allowed her to believe, for one second, that she had something to do with it.  What was wrong with that?

After living for so long in debt to the prince and his adviser, she felt relieved to give a little back, to add some goodness of her own to the pile.  Now, the prince’s own enemy had come and acknowledged that she—Jewel!—was the one who had brought about his change of heart.  Wouldn’t the prince be amazed when he heard?

He would rejoice.  She was sure of it.

Then the adviser would know what the Enchanter had already figured out: there were some things she could do very well on her own.

“You should be on my side,” Jewel said hotly when she thought about it.

“No, Jewel.  You should be on his.  I have not moved.”

Angry tears streamed down her cheeks.  She could not see the difference.

“Come,” he said, directing her to a seat by the window where a large scroll blanketed an ornate table.  “Let me show you.”

“Not now,” she said.  “I am tired.”

That was only partly true.  Many times in the past, she had stayed up studying the scrolls with her Advocate while the candles burned down into puddles on the table.  She did not have the heart for it on that particular night when the Enchanter’s footsteps were still hot on the stones in the hall.  She wanted some time to think, alone.  An idea had begun to form in her mind.  It would condense into thoughts that would lead to a plan that would take her somewhere she never intended to go.

 

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{8} The Long Road Back

31 Days: From Enemy to Heir

Day 8 of 31 Days.  For Day 1, please click on the graphic above.

The prince lifted Obscurity out of the mud and placed her on his horse.  He walked ahead, leading the horse safely over the treacherous road.

Later, when Obscurity recalled the story of how she came to live in the prince’s kingdom, she found it hard to explain this part of her journey.  It was all at once the longest and the shortest road she had ever traveled.

All the way, the prince led her, singing softly over her when she was tired, and speaking truth to her when she was awake.

With each word he spoke, he became more and more lovely until she could hardly believe she had once been revolted by his appearance.  It was as if his face was changing right before her eyes.

How unlike the Enchanter he was!  The Enchanter’s beauty faded with truth; the prince’s deepened.  The more she knew of the prince, the more she wanted to know.

The sky lightened, the shadows slunk away, and her eyes began to see with agonizing clarity.

But the more she saw of the prince’s beauty, the more she recognized her own ugliness.  Obscurity felt she was seeing herself for the very first time, and she was stunned by the reflection.  As much as a failure as she was, she had still believed herself to be beautiful, at least in some small ways.

The light revealed a much different picture.  She was filthy all over.  The clothes she wore with haughty pride were nothing but rags.  She was broken, vile, and disgusting.  She was a stranger and enemy of the prince, and when she looked at him, she was so ashamed of the contrast she wanted to retreat back down the road and into the shadows again.

The Long Road Back

And yet he had reached down in the mud for her, knowing how repulsive she was, and carried her in his own arms when she could not even stand long enough to help herself.

Fresh sobs gripped her.

“Why are you crying?” he asked.

“Because I am so ugly,” she cried.

The prince stopped the horse.  “Who has made you feel ugly?”

“Well, you, I guess.”  It seemed the wrong thing to say, but she hadn’t felt this shame until she met him, so who else could it be?

“No, Obscurity.  Not me.  A woman who was dead and now lives is not ugly to me.”

“But I am ugly!  You can’t pretend that you don’t find me repulsive.”

“I find you in need of rescuing.”

“But I am so unworthy.  I want to hide!”

“Then you have fallen for the lie, and he has won.”

Obscurity wiped her eyes and looked at the prince.  She was so tired of lies.  Her entire life was one big lie, and here she was, tangled up in another one just as soon as she had gotten half-way free.

“He is pursuing you, Obscurity, even now.  He always will, because he hates me.”

Obscurity looked behind her quickly.  But the road was empty.

“He will do anything he can to turn you away from me.  If he can keep you hiding in a corner of my kingdom, he will.  And if he can’t get you to serve him, he’ll have you serve yourself.”

Obscurity felt sick with confusion.  She didn’t understand any of it, except for that last bit.  The prince was certainly wrong about that.

“I am not serving him, and I most certainly am not serving myself!” she cried out.  “I hate myself!”

“That is exactly the problem.  You are turning inward, looking for some sort of worth in yourself.  But there isn’t any, is there?  And because you come up lacking you feel ashamed.  You pity yourself.  ‘Poor Obscurity.  She is such a dirty mess.’  You feel worse about it than ever because now, you know what clean is, and you are far from clean.

“But I am telling you, Obscurity, I did not save you because you were clean.  I saved you in spite of your filth.  And if you begin now to look for some reason for your salvation other than my goodness then you are giving something to the Enchanter that only belongs to me.  I rescued you because I am good, not because you are.  You deserve none of that glory.  So do not take it, either by pride or by shame.”

The prince’s words were sharp, as if he was speaking to the Enchanter himself, and Obscurity held her breath because she dared not breathe.

“You can run and hide in your shame but if you do, know that he has won.”

“No,” Obscurity begged, hiding her face in her hands because she could not look at him anymore.  “I don’t want him to win.  I am sorry, please, I am.”  She paused, trying desperately to figure out the words in her head before she spoke.  “Only, I don’t know what to do with all this.” She spread out her hands over her filthy dress and mud-caked feet.  “I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Let your dirt and your filth be the reason you run to me.  Don’t you see?  Being sorry is a very different thing from being ashamed.  Being sorry turns your eyes toward me, and away from him.  Because he can’t do anything with ‘sorry.’  But I can.  Let me.”

Obscurity nodded through her tears and felt the prince’s arms enfold her to himself.

“Remember what I said when I found you?” the prince asked when she had quieted.

“You said, ‘Come.’”

“Yes, and now we have come through the hardest part of the journey.  It has been a long road back.  But we are here.”

Obscurity looked up.  Above her loomed the massive gates to the kingdom, and the prince’s hand was already on the door.

*The story continues tomorrow with Day 9.  Please join us!

From Enemy to Heir 4 Comments

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I believe you can find grace for the mother you are and help to become the mother you long to be—a mom who has the freedom to choose the better things and enjoy her kids right now.

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