Keywords: Once Upon A Forever, Prologue, Free Web Novel, Nigerian Story, Reincarnation, Doomed Love, Fated Love, Queen, Slice of Life.
Queen
Queen smiled at Alexis, admiring the way the outside floodlights mimicked the afternoon sun with its light pouring in through the glass windows, sliding across her gold marble floor and illuminating Alexis’s studded evening gown.
Alexis stood in front of the full-length mirror in the living room, one hand on her hip, smoothing her curve, the other patting down her silk hair.
She was indeed beautiful, a pity her son would never spare her a glance.
More gowns were draped across the couch like sleeping women: silk, velvet, sequin, each more sexy than the next.
“This one,” Alexis said. “I like this one.”
“It makes your eyes pop,” Queen said.
“Lisavera! It’s a one-of-a-kind designer.” Alexis turned to watch how the dress accentuated her round butt and made her breasts look perkier, giving her perfect round mounds that slightly popped out but looked firmly fitted.
Queen smiled. After David had left that night without a single word to them, despite standing in plain view, she had tried to distract herself by focusing on Alexis. She called the maids to bring out some dresses which she had requested earlier that day.
Alexis had come around to discuss the family banquet and asked if she could join her as her plus one. She knew it was not to keep an old woman like her company; it was to keep herself around David, so that one day David might finally look at her.
But she was still company and a distraction from her loneliness.
“This looks like the gown that will finally turn that stubborn son’s head.” Queen smirked at the beam that took over Alexis’s face. “But I think my son prefers a more innocent look,” Queen added.
She turned to the couch and pulled up another gown: a pale champagne silk that caught the light and turned it into smoke. The neckline was round and high to fully hide the chest, but dipped into an intense V at the back.
“Try this.”
Alexis hesitated. “Mai Atafo?”
“Custom.”
Queen smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She watched Alexis slip into the gown. The fabric kissed her skin, the silk obeying her body like it had been waiting its whole life to touch her. For a moment, Queen forgot to breathe.
“If this does not capture my son’s attention, nothing will,” she murmured, almost to herself.
Queen clapped her hands once. “Ngozi!”
The maid appeared instantly, head bowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Go to my room. The black drawer. Bring the diamond necklace, the one in the white box.”
“Yes, madam.”
Queen walked toward Alexis, circling her slowly. “Do you know why I like you?” she asked.
Alexis smiled carefully. “Because I remind you of you?”
Queen’s laugh was a low hum. “Clever girl. No. Because you listen.”
The maid returned, carrying the box like it contained her life. Queen took it and flicked it open. The diamonds burned white in the light; perfect, cold, and likely pulled from somebody’s bloodied, dying hands.
She stepped close. “Lift your hair.”
Alexis obeyed. Queen fastened the necklace around her throat, fingers grazing skin longer than necessary. “Beautiful,” she said, her voice honeyed and slow. “You look like a queen.”
Alexis met her eyes in the mirror.
Queen smoothed a strand of Alexis’s hair over her shoulder and whispered, almost tenderly, “Now, my dear, you look exactly like my future daughter-in-law.”
Alexis froze—just a flicker—and Queen saw it: the hope, the longing. She pressed a hand to her shoulder in reassurance. “You are so beautiful.”
The chandelier above shimmered, and for a moment, Queen saw the reflection of herself in the glass; older, lonelier, desperate.
Alexis smiled shyly, lifting a hand to touch the gems. “Do you really think he’ll notice?”
“Oh, he’ll notice,” Queen murmured, stepping back so Alexis could admire her reflection.
“Even if he pretends not to. David is just like my late husband. The more they want you, the colder they act toward you. You just have to keep feeding them without letting them know you’re the one feeding them, and one day, they’ll discover that they cannot live without you.”
The door slammed.
The echo cracked through the quiet.
David strode in with a quiet violence around him. His jaw was set hard, the muscles in his forearm tense like he’d been clenching his fists all the way home.
Alexis turned instantly, smile blooming like a nervous flower. “David,” she said, voice too bright, “look what…”
He walked right past her.
No glance. Not even a flicker.
Queen’s stomach twisted, rage rising and softening at the same time.
“David,” she said, stepping forward, the hem of her gown whispering against the marble floor.
“What happened, my darling? Did someone upset you again?”
He brushed past her, the scent of his cologne sharp enough to cut. “Don’t,” he muttered.
She touched his arm—light, maternal. “At least tell me what it is. Was it the board? That driver? I told you to fire him—”
She saw it, the flash of exhaustion beneath his anger.
She knew he would never confide in her, yet she felt the need to push. “David, I’m only asking because I care…”
He turned sharply, eyes meeting hers for half a second, sharp and empty. Then, for a flicker of a second, as if the light from the diamonds had caught his eyes, he glanced at Alexis before his attention returned to the hand touching him.
He shoved her hand away. Not hard. But enough.
The sting went deeper than the touch.
Alexis gasped softly behind them, clutching the necklace, making David glare at her.
For a moment, Queen couldn’t breathe. Then she gathered herself, spine straight, smile trembling but intact. “It’s fine. I’ll find out myself.”
David said nothing. His silence was a punishment she’d grown too used to. He started toward the hallway and up the stairs, his steps echoing across the marble, each one colder than the last.
Alexis shifted beside her, voice uncertain. “Something bad must have happened. He wasn’t angry when he left.”
Queen inhaled slowly, pulling herself upright again, gathering the shards of her dignity the way she always did.
“That’s right,” she said, voice silk over glass. “I will call someone and find out.”
Alexis nodded. “Did you notice? He looked at me twice!” She turned back toward the mirror. The diamonds still burned bright, too bright, as if mocking her reflection.
“I did,” Queen said softly, almost bitterly. “You should keep the necklace.”
Alexis beamed. “Really?”
Queen sank slowly onto the edge of the chaise, one hand to her chest like she needed to steady her own heart. The diamonds on Alexis’s neck scattered light across the floor.
Alexis hesitated, noticed, and stopped celebrating the gift. She knelt in front of her, gown pooling around her knees. “He doesn’t mean it,” she said softly. “David’s just… stressed. He knows how much he cares about you.”
Queen let out a broken little laugh, half sigh, half performance. “My son hasn’t smiled in years. I think the last time he smiled was when he dated that vixen.”
Alexis’s face darkened. “That married woman who tried to take advantage of him when he was young.”
“Glad she is dead,” Queen said. “Even though I wonder how she miraculously disappeared, I’m still glad she is gone.”
“God is likely watching out for David,” Alexis beamed.
“But I do miss seeing his smile.”
Alexis smiled faintly.
Queen tilted her head, studying the girl. Alexis’s face glowed with her secret, foolish and beautiful. It was almost tender to watch.
“You should take off the gown,” Queen said, her voice gentle. “Let the maids pack it for you.”
Alexis’s eyes softened. She reached behind her, fingers tracing the intense V of the back, and began slipping out of the pale champagne silk. Under the light, the fabric still seeming like smoke as it peeled from her skin. She folded it carefully, reluctant to let it go. Queen made a small gesture, and a maid stepped forward, took the dress, slipped it into a shopping bag, and placed it beside Alexis.
“We used to be such good friends,” Alexis murmured.
Queen almost smiled. True, they used to be friends, but David, from her memories, had always been distant and selective with his affection.
“And I’m sure your relationship can someday return to what it used to be.”
The girl’s shoulders relaxed, a faint flush of hope painting her cheeks. Queen watched it bloom, indulgent. Hope made people obedient. Hope kept them useful.
“You know, I think David needs someone as kind and soft as you around him,” Queen said, leaning closer. “I think you can make him smile again.”
Alexis looked up, eyes full of fragile hope.
A silence settled, warm and brittle.
Queen looked at her again, young and glowing and clueless. She rose, smoothed her gown, and let her smile return. “It’s late,” she said gently, brushing a strand of hair from Alexis’s face. “You should rest. Tomorrow, you need to steal the show.”
Alexis stood reluctantly, still cradling the necklace with her fingers.
“Your parents will get worried if you don’t leave now,” Queen said with a soft smile.
“Yes,” Alexis whispered. “Good night, Mum.”
Queen waved at the girl, then turned toward the window as Alexis’s perfume thinned and drifted from the room.
“Take these back,” she commanded, and the maids who had been standing in wait hurriedly began tidying up the living room, carrying the remaining dresses with the careful precision their price tags demanded.
She stood in the living room long after Alexis’s perfume had faded, the house heavy with the kind of silence that made her skin crawl. The chandeliers threw weak reflections along the marble floor, trembling slightly as if afraid to breathe.
She began walking and stopped before David’s grey walnut door, lifted her hand, and hesitated.
The wood between them felt alive, like it could hear her thoughts, and was loudly screaming at her not to.
She resisted, knocked once. The sound was soft, almost apologetic. “David?” Her voice wavered, more fragile than she intended.
Nothing.
She knocked again, harder this time. “David, it’s me.”
Still no sound.
She pressed her palm to the door, as though warmth could pass through. “My love,” she whispered. “I know you’re angry. I know you think I meddle. I know you can’t stand me. I know you hate me. But everything I’ve ever done, everything I’ve ever wanted to do, has been to protect you.”
A faint hum came from within—maybe the whir of his television, maybe just silence pretending to be sound.
“You carry so much on your shoulders,” she went on softly. “I see it, even if you think I don’t. The world expects too much from you. From our name. Our bloodline.” Her lips tightened. “Most envy you. Most want to see you fall, just like they wanted your father to fall, and your grandfather too.”
Her hand slid down the door, nails grazing it. “But I won’t ever let that happen. Whether you ask me to or not, I’ll protect you.”
Still nothing. Not even a shift in the air.
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. “I know you can’t trust anybody, and you shouldn’t,” she murmured. “But you should trust me, David. I am your mother. I carried you for nine months. I love you.”
She waited.
The silence stretched. She could almost hear her own heart ticking.
Queen exhaled a long, weary breath. The diamonds on her wrist glimmered under the hallway light, and she hated them—hated how their sparkle felt like mockery.
“In every lifetime, I have loved you, Kaitokun, and in every lifetime, I will love you,” she said softly.
She lingered there another moment, her fingers ghosting over the door handle as though she might still push it open. Then she straightened, mask slipping back into place.
As she turned away, she pulled her phone from her clutch. The blue light glowed across her face, carving her features into something colder.
She dialed, waited, and then spoke low into the receiver. “Find out what happened to David this night,” she said. “Everything. I want names, faces, calls—whatever it was that made him come home like that.”
She ended the call before the voice on the other end could respond.
For a long time, Queen stood in the dim corridor, staring at the walls, which were a long, stretched-out luxury mirror. And for a second she saw her reflection as an ancient Japanese queen.
Then she smiled faintly—bitter and beautiful.
“Konohanasakuya-hime (木花咲耶姫), I’ll beat you this time.”