Chapter 36

I wanted, needed to be alone.

“Please, do not do anything drastic, your majesty,” Lady Josephine said. Both women had identical worried lines on their faces. “It will get easier, I promise.”

I wandered with no direction in mind. What to do? I asked myself. Her brother could go to college. Her father could get a state-of-the-art hearing aid. Money made the life so much easier. But at what personal cost? I wished I did not stop and help an old lady to cross the road. As someone said, every good deed was punished. In her world, there were many surrogate mothers.

That was different. Those women were inseminated artificially. There were no beasts. No trick marriages. No golden cages.

I was standing in the middle of an orchard, surrounded with trees bent by the weight of the fruit. There were so many beautiful birds, fluttering and singing. At that moment, it did not feel like a prison.

I picked a fallen apple and sniffed. It smelled like heaven on