HANNAH'S POV
This job is turning into a terrible nightmare. There isn't a single day that ends without me getting a remarkable embarrassment.
But today is the worst of them. I am headed out of the palace in wet clothes and a scratched face.
I dash past a group of servants carrying vegetables in baskets and hear them laugh aloud. I feel awful and pathetic but I know I have to keep walking until I make it home.
Kyla told me not to come tomorrow because that's the day Princess Aria is arriving and just like the sick outside the gate, I am one of the bad things of the Kingdom that she should not see.
I should probably never come back. I no longer think the first p*****t is worth all this pain and humiliation.
"Why did they hire a mad girl? Surely there are better people out there." I hear one of the servants say.
"She is Martha's daughter. All her daughters got hired because she is friends with the Queen." Another answers.
"Other daughters are totally sane and beautiful, but that one should stay home." A third one comments.
I keep running until I am can't hear them. If dignity is like a cake, I have lost every piece of mine.
Tears are streaming down my cheeks. I know I look terrible, but I can't become invisible so people can't see me. I have no option but to endure the glares and laughs until I get home. I will then figure out what else I can do with my unwanted existence. I whisper my song of hope even though it feel like I am cheating myself.
Little pains won't wreck my heart. My flaws have got me walking alone, like an outcast, unloved and unneeded. I still take a sure step forward, I don't know, maybe one day I will find where I fit in this world.
I stopped wishing that I am grateful, or beautiful. Because the world keep reminding me that those things were never made for me. I still believe my heart will find it's little heaven where love will heal the scars.
I turn to get one last glance at the huge palace when I get near the gate. I will not be coming back here tomorrow. Probably never again depending on what I will decide after I take time to think. I may even find work somewhere else, which is hard but still an option.
"You fell into the palace well?" I hear one of the two soldiers stationed at the gate ask then laugh.
None of them has ever talked to me before now. They are making fun of me, I don't have to answer their questions.
"She seems to be having a bad day everyday." His fellow answers him. He is right, I don't remember the last time I had a good day.
They don't stop me as I march through the open gate.
People that are sick with the disease lay on either side of the path outside. They wait here with hope that their King can do something to save them.
I notice the man in his fifties leaning on the walls of the palace.
His pale face bears some resemblance with Kyla's. He must be the father she said is sick.
She left him out here to wait with everyone else. He is too sick to be sitting here alone. Especially when he and the others are waiting for help that will not come.
They have no idea their King ordered that they get chased away from his gate.
The only person whose life he cared about was his son's and he had the great Princess called to heal him.
I freaked out as I watched him heal, my hand on his shoulder. It seemed like I had made him heal by simply touching him. Which is ridiculous but what really seemed to have happened.
People say it's the Princess that healed him, which also feels unlikely because she is yet to arrive.
And what a huge coincidence it was for her to heal him at the exact moment I was trying to wake him!
I can find out if what I think I saw happen was real. I will do something many don't dare do. I will touch one of the sick people. If Princess Aria healed the little Prince, them nothing should happen when I touch anyone.
For the moment I forget about my wet clothes and make my way to where the man I think is Kyla's father is seated with his eyes closed.
"Hello." I say. His eyes don't open and his lips don't move. I am too close for him to not hear. He must be very sick.
I reach out and touch his wrist. He has a fever and pale and dotted skin like everyone else around him.
The dots on his skin are the ones that disappear first, then the paleness. My hand shakes as the man looks up, looking as shocked as me.
I let go of his hand and step back, astounded by the transformation that just took place.
He is healed!
My touch took away all the paleness, the fever, the dots. His eyes are now full of life . . . and shock.
"Who are you?" He asks, watching me from head to toe. I imagine he also sees what everyone else does, madness!
Yet that's not the thing that I has got my mouth gaping. Something strange in me is capable of healiy the disease!