The circumstances that led to Chloe’s current existence as a “cursed child” and the cruelty she suffered because of it could be traced back to a chain of ill-fated events.
Sixteen years ago, in the frontier town of Shadaf in the Kingdom of Rose, Chloe was born the second daughter to Margrave Clement and Margravine Isabella. Upon her birth, Chloe bore a prominent birthmark on her back, which led Isabella and her midwife to believe one thing.
This child must have been cursed.
Now, it wasn’t exactly rare for a baby to be born with a birthmark, but Chloe’s was unusually deep and dark in coloration. Shadaf was far removed from the royal capital, and its people were given to superstition. As a result, what started as a half-subjective, almost personal prejudice against Chloe ended up being attributed to her as a “curse.” It was only reinforced by the plague and famine that had settled over the town at the time.
“This hideous child sickens me.”
So proclaimed Isabella as she washed her hands of the child, relinquishing her care to one of her handmaidens. By a stroke of luck, the handmaiden charged with raising her was a native of the royal capital. She did not indulge in the townspeople’s superstitions, and paid no mind to the birthmark on her back. The good fortune, however, would not last long.
Half a year after Chloe was born, her father passed away from a bout of plague. To say it aggrieved Isabella would be an understatement. Luckily, their eldest son was already of age, so succession rights were not in dispute, but misfortune would soon come knocking once again.
The next year, and the year after that, plague continued to ravage the land, claiming the lives of many in Shadaf. The Ardennes were spared no grief; Isabella lost her younger sister and her second son to the disease. Isabella herself also fell ill and found herself on death’s door, but somehow managed to cling to her life.
Isabella’s mind began to drift.
This misfortune—all of it. It’s all because of Chloe’s curse.
Faced with overwhelming adversity, the human mind tends to deflect blame and rationalize it in terms it can understand. While logically, the origin of the plague could be traced back to rats from the royal capital, and the deaths in the family could be explained away as nothing more than a series of cruel coincidences, Isabella would not see it that way. It must’ve been Chloe’s fault, the repulsive child. No doubt about it.
Temperamental, dogmatic, and mentally fragile, Isabella could not recover from the loss of her husband and son, and instead chose to use Chloe as an outlet for her anger. The “cursed child” rhetoric gradually spread from Isabella to the townspeople, and eventually they too came to believe in it. Shortly after, Chloe would be confined to the estate and forbidden to leave, on account of it being unbecoming for someone of a cursed nature to wander around freely outside.
Thus began the abuse.
“If it weren’t for you, my husband would still be alive!” Isabella would rage. Following her example, Chloe’s sister Lily and the household servants would join in on her unholy crusade.
To those of us blessed with perspective, this might seem like yet another tragic case of the residents of an isolated backwater succumbing to mass hysteria, but try explaining that to the young Chloe, who had to live through it all. Called a cursed child by her mother, her sister, and her servants, Chloe, too, began to believe she was cursed.
If there were any silver linings to be found in this whole situation, it might be the fact that Chloe was a naturally resilient and optimistic child, along with the fact that she had an unwavering ally in the handmaiden that had raised her.
“Don’t listen to them,” she would say to Chloe. She would prove to be an unconditional source of encouragement and comfort for the young girl.
In fact, if it weren’t for her, Chloe might not have survived.
Once, Isabella contemplated disposing of Chloe. After all, why let a cursed child continue to live? It would’ve been trivial to dispose of a babbling infant and pass it off as the plague’s doing, but thanks to the handmaiden’s intervention, Chloe was spared.
If you kill a child that is cursed, it will only bring forth further disaster...
She has potential, it would be worth your while to keep her alive...
Unfazed by talk of curses and superstitions, the handmaiden brought forth argument after argument against Isabella’s plans of infanticide. In the end, her efforts proved fruitful, and Chloe was spared. In exchange, Chloe would be worked to the bone and subjected to conditions even their servants would find unconscionable, but at least she would live.
Alas, when Chloe reached the age of ten, a death in the family forced her guardian angel to return home, and Chloe lost her sole pillar of support.
And now we arrive at the last misfortune. Normally, birthmarks disappear between the ages of five to six. Chloe’s, however, still remained at age ten, though it had grown slightly lighter. That was the final straw that led to Chloe’s current fate. Abused by her family, worked like a dog all around the estate, Chloe Ardennes was now sixteen years old.
And she was still treated worse than the dirty, worn-out rags she used to clean with.