The words, thick and dark hung in the air, silence enveloping the room as everyone processed the information as slowly as possible. Alanna didn't know how to feel about this. The old man wasn't someone she shared affections with and they hadn't completed the marriage so she couldn't call him her husband either. Technically, she wasn't a widow but the society they lived in would deem it utterly different and view it in a whole different limelight. Even so, she couldn't bring herself to feel sad about the man's death. Her eyes scanned the room, seeing the horrified expressions on some people's faces and others who seemed particularly thrilled about this piece of news. The old man had left an empire behind and believe it or not people had been waiting for this man to take his last breath in order to inherit his wealth and Alanna wasn't surprised by the greedy triumph in their eyes; which of course they didn't even try to hide as a sign of respect for the dead man. Pathetic!
"You're lying," the loud scream that pierced through the silence was deafening, drawing everybody's attention. It was Astrid, the man's daughter who seemed to be in denial of what had just been said. She went over to the man who had declared her dad dead and held him by his collar, staring him in the eye and shaking the living breath out of the man if that was even possible. "Tell me you're lying...that...that he's not dead, that you spoke without checking him properly. Answer me," she looked a second away from strangling the man, practically crumpling his crisp shirt and literally shouting in the man's face. Surprisingly, the man didn't look very affected nor offended by Astrid's behavior, if anything he looked at her with sympathy like he understood what exactly she was going through and couldn't exactly blame her for it. Astrid, who seemed to not be getting answers finally let go of the man in a devastating grunt and fell to the floor, crying her eyes out. The paramedics were already making arrangements to transport the body and everybody just stared on including Alanna because she didn't know how to feel about all this.
Somebody had to go with the paramedics to take care of the formalities at the hospital and his eldest son volunteered to go, giving his sister a reassuring pat on the shoulder before dejectedly following them to the ambulance. The murmurings hadn't died down and they now seemed to be more louder than it was minutes ago. They weren't whispering anymore, they were all talking out loud, to the hearing of everyone who was welcome to listen and some of their words were starting to get harsher and harsher by the minute. They had thrown subtlety out of the window.
Now, standing in the middle of it all, Alanna felt out of place. This is not how she had expected the day to go. She wasn't a happy bride but she didn't think that fact was going to be established by making it a mourning day instead of a wedding day. "You killed my father didn't you?" Astrid asked as she got up from the floor, wiping away the remnants of her tears. The question startled her and all of a sudden everybody's eyes were on her as if they had all wanted to ask that but didn't know how to and somebody had willingly spoken their minds."If you didn't want to marry him you could have just said so, you didn't have to go this far," she stalked towards Alanna tauntingly, like a predator who had it's prey exactly where it wanted it. Alanna shook her head at this accusation, trying to deny the false claims Astrid was making. She willed her mouth to speak, to defend herself at least but for some reason she couldn't get the words out of her mouth. "I always warned my father about you but he wouldn't listen. Found you beautiful and I guess your charm did work because you got him into marrying you but it turns out you were after his life all along." You WICKED WITCH!" Before Alanna could process everything at once Astrid was gripping her by her hair, dragging her to the floor and clamping her face to the cold ground. "You're not going to get away with this I promise. I'm going to make your life a living hell, you wish you weren't born," the threat was spoken right in Alanna's ears as she struggled to break free from her captors hold. "You'll pay for the stain you are and for the curse you have brought to my family," her voice was low, menacing, the threat reverabating in the silence that surrounded them as everybody looked on without bothering to help her. Why would they? Just like her uncle said, they were going to find someone to blame and oh how so convenient that it just so happens to be the young woman who's undoubtedly the suspect here. Tears threatened to fall but she refused to give these people what they wanted. They wanted to see her cower, afraid and shaking out of her wits but she wasn't about to give them that satisfaction.
"That's enough," Sienna's voice boomed through the crowd somewhere and from her peripheral vision,she saw her best friend make her way to them in long strides. "She didn't kill that man who already looked like he was a second away from dying for the past ten years even before Alanna came into his life so let my best friend go this instant. You could be sued for assault," her initial statement had the whole room gasping in shock and Alanna could feel the seething rage above her from Astrid who looked like she was about to explode any second from now. She shoved her face away and released her and Alanna took in deep calming breaths as she tried to sit up.
Sienna helped her up and she hugged her best friend, her eyes prickling with the tears she was trying so hard to control. "I didn't know this was going to happen Sia...I don't...I just...shhhh, it's not your fault okay. None of this is your fault and even if nobody believes that I do and if we have to fight to prove your innocence then that's exactly what we're going to do," the words that came out of her best friend's mouth were calming, comforting and it had Alanna nodding her head in appreciation against her shoulder.
"You better not have anything to do with this," she heard her uncle beside her and they broke the hug as she turned to look at the man who was supposed to be on her side because he was her family. Apparently, she wasn't family to them, not that they hadn't made it clear to her more times than she could count already. She smiled bitterly, her emotions going numb as she blankly stared at her uncle. "If you did it just say so before it's too late. Your uncle can even do something about it hm?" Of course her aunt was even the worst person to rely on at this point because the words she was spewing out of her mouth were everything but encouraging. Then again she really didn't know what she was expecting from this family and why her expectations of them were always so high when they had never even done the bare minimum for her sake.
"We're going to conduct an investigation and if I do find out that it was you who killed him...the rest of Astrid's words hung in the air, enveloping the room as it fell in complete silence. To think she was being suspected of murder when she didn't even remember the last time she killed a bug.
The irony!
"Come, let's get you out of this infuriating wedding dress," Sienna said, leading her out of the room with every pair of seeing eyes gawking at her as if she an was alien from space. In this scenario, she pretty much was considering the fact that she was the only suspected murderer in the room. When they reached the dressing room, Sienna sat her down and her mind tried to really process the events that had happened. Who would have thought that in a few hours prior to the wedding, this would happen.
Her life was really not meant for peace was it? First her parents death and now this. She was the wicked witch after all because it seemed death followed her everywhere. She buried her head in her palms, the tremors of her tears wrecking through her entire being as she finally allowed herself to grieve her life. She cried hysterically, for herself, for her parents and for the life she had been thrust into without her consent. Not that life asked for consent anyways but she was hoping life wouldn't be too hard on her considering the fact that her parents had already been taken away from her. Guess the more life saw what it could take away, it just kept taking.
"Allie, stop crying please. This is all going to go away soon and everything will be fine. I'm sure the man was already dead even before your uncle involved you in this whole mess. He just happened to be bad luck and he decided to die and leave that bad luck onto you. It's not your fault and like I said, it's all going to be alright," the reassuring words once again had her crying dying down and she dried her tears, taking in deep breaths to stabilize her breathing.
The situation was messy but it's not like she committed the crime they were accusing her of and so she had nothing to be afraid of. With a newfound resolve she looked at Sienna and gave her a nod. A nod that spoke so many things at once. Courage, resilience, bravery and resolution.
It was time to decide her own fate and fight for herself.