Chapter 1: Three Lifetimes, One Awakening

In my first life, I married the governor’s son. Yeah, you read that right. First life.

Looking back, it almost feels like a half-remembered dream—a wedding in the grand, sun-drenched church on Main Street, the kind of place where the whole town turns out just to see who’s wearing what and whose family’s on the rise. The air was thick with perfume and gossip, and my heart beat so loudly I was sure everyone could hear it. I can still smell the lilies.

After helping him win the mayoral race, it was my maid who became the mayor’s wife, while I was locked away in the old guesthouse on the edge of town. Funny how things turn out, huh?

It was the kind of house no one ever visits—creaking floors, dusty windows with the view blocked by wild sumac, the paint peeling off the walls. I watched the Fourth of July fireworks through a crack in the shutters, listening to laughter that used to be mine.

In my second life, I married a decorated Army captain.

I remember the parade down Maple Avenue, the brass band blaring, flags waving, and the whole town turning out for the returning hero. My dress was pressed so crisp it could’ve cut glass. I thought I’d finally found safety.

I never expected that my maid was his childhood sweetheart—the girl he’d been looking for since he was a kid. The child I bore was given to her to raise.

The betrayal stung sharper than any battlefield wound. Worse than any bullet. There was a photograph of the three of us on the mantel—me, him, and her, the perfect American family. Only I wasn’t really in the frame.

In my third life, I married a powerful state senator.

The senator’s world was all sharp suits, cocktail parties, and backroom deals. I learned to smile for the cameras and keep my voice soft. I learned to hate the taste of champagne.

My maid became the apple of his eye, and I was a wife in name only.

I wandered the halls of our grand house, my footsteps echoing on marble, invisible to everyone but the ghosts of my own regrets. Sometimes I wondered if even the ghosts noticed me.

So that’s how it was.

The truth settled over me like a heavy quilt on a summer night—suffocating, inescapable. I couldn’t breathe.

All three lifetimes, I was nothing but a stepping stone for a supernatural being’s trial.

It’s a strange thing, realizing you were never the main character in your own story. Like waking up from a play where you only ever had one line. Go figure.

I still see the day they seized the McAllister estate.

I can still see the sheriff’s car pulling up, the blue lights flashing, my mother’s hands trembling as she clutched her pearls. The neighbors watched from behind their curtains, pretending not to stare.

In my first three lives, every time I started over, I had no memory of what came before.

It was like living inside a snow globe—every shake, a new world, but the same cold at the core. No matter how many times it snowed, I never thawed out.

Until this life.

This time, I woke up with a head full of memories, every heartbreak and betrayal stitched into my bones.

I came back to sixteen—and remembered everything. Everything.

Sixteen in Maple Heights meant sweet tea on the porch, Saturday dances at the rec hall, and the whole world still ahead of you. I should've felt young. Instead, I felt a hundred years old.

Once, I met a wandering preacher at a county fair.

He could tell your fortune with a look. Quote scripture and Shakespeare in the same breath. His eyes were the color of storm clouds over the lake.

He told me my maid, Faith Holloway, was no ordinary person.

He leaned in, voice low, almost drowned out by the gospel choir warming up behind the tent. “She’s a child of the moon, Harper. Here to walk her trial, and you—well, you’re the path she walks.”

The words stuck with me, like a splinter under the skin. I couldn’t tell if it was a blessing or a curse.

At that moment, Lily Ann came running in, breathless. “Miss, someone’s here to ask for your hand!”

Lily Ann was always a whirlwind. Cheeks flushed, hair escaping her braids. Her excitement contagious even when I wanted to shut the world out. She burst through the parlor door, nearly tripping over her own shoes.

Unlike Lily Ann’s flustered rush, Faith, who followed her in, was calm and composed.

Faith moved like the world couldn’t touch her—shoulders straight, steps measured, eyes quietly absorbing everything. Untouchable. She had a way of making even the simplest dress look like it belonged on a magazine cover.

Her looks were plain. But her presence... striking—like a wildflower in a quiet meadow, the more you looked, the harder it was to look away.

She reminded me of the bluebonnets that grew wild behind the church—unassuming, but impossible to forget. People stopped and stared without knowing why.

Mother and I thought the world of her.

Mother always said that. “That girl’s got backbone. She’ll go far.” She let Faith sit at the table with us, a small rebellion against the town’s old ways.

She ate, dressed, and lived better than the daughters of most respectable families in Maple Heights.

We gave her hand-me-downs from the city, let her eat the Sunday roast, even let her read in the library after chores. Not everyone in town approved. Some neighbors whispered, but Mother never cared.

We never mistreated her.

If anything, we tried too hard to make her one of us. Maybe we were the ones hoping to be chosen.

But later, they framed my father.

The accusation came out of nowhere—embezzlement, they said. Our family name was dragged through the mud in the local paper, the headline screaming betrayal.

Mother begged her to put in a good word for us.

Mother, always so proud, fell to her knees in the foyer, clutching Faith’s hands, voice cracking with desperation. “Please, Faith. Just say something. You know Daddy’s a good man.” I’d never seen her beg before.

She kept that same indifferent expression. “The law’s the same for everyone, mayor or janitor. How could I use personal ties to bend the rules?”

Her words sounded rehearsed, almost cold—no tremor, no warmth, none of the kindness she’d shown over the years.

She watched coldly as my mother, with nowhere left to turn, collapsed against the banister in despair.

The banister creaked under Mother’s weight, and I remember the way her tears fell onto the polished wood. Faith didn’t flinch, didn’t reach out. She’d already left us behind.

I forced myself to stop glaring at Faith and did a quick mental calculation.

The math was simple, but the feeling was anything but. I pressed my lips together, fighting the urge to shout.

The one coming to propose today should be Captain Westin Graves. Here we go again.

I remembered the way his boots sounded on the porch, heavy and sure. My second life, all over again.

He arrived with a whole parade of uniformed men, as if he were hopelessly in love with me.

It was like something out of a movie—flags, medals, the whole nine yards. The neighbors came out to watch, whispering behind their hands.

But it was all an act.

The show was for everyone but me. I saw right through it this time.

The mighty captain, just to bring his childhood sweetheart into the house, tried every trick in the book.

He’d charm the aunts, flatter the old men at the VFW hall, do anything to get Faith under his roof, no matter who he hurt.

With so many enemies, he used me as a living target, a shield for Faith.

It was always me in the line of fire—smiling for the cameras, nodding at the right times, taking the blame when things went sideways.

On our wedding night, he showed no mercy. I cried myself hoarse.

The pain was more than physical; it was the shattering of every hope I’d clung to. I pressed my face into the pillow so no one would hear.

I thought he had feelings for me.

I clung to every small kindness, desperate for a sign that I mattered.

Only later did I realize he did it all just to provoke Faith, who had left without a word.

Every harsh word, every cold shoulder, was a message meant for someone else. I was just collateral damage.

He even took out his frustration on me because he pitied Faith.

His anger was a storm, and I was just a tree caught in the wind.

He joined forces with the governor’s son, Ethan Blackwell, and the senator, Julian Price, to crush the McAllister family.

Three men, each more powerful than the last, circling our family like sharks in bloodied water.

I begged him to spare my family. I was willing to die and let Faith take my place.

On my knees in his study, I pleaded with him, offering everything I had left.

But Westin gripped my chin, grinning like a wolf from the edge of the woods.

His grip was bruising, his eyes wild. I could smell the whiskey on his breath.

“Want to die? Not a chance.”

His words hung in the air. Sharp as broken glass.

“You made Faith serve as your maid, humiliated her like that—dying would be too easy for you.”

He spat the words, his voice low and dangerous. The room felt colder with every syllable.

He was bigger than most.

He blocked out the light, casting a shadow over me that seemed to stretch forever.

Day and night, I was tormented, powerless to resist.

I counted the days by the bruises that bloomed on my skin. There was no escape, only endurance.

In the end, one of his political enemies stabbed me through the heart…

It was quick, almost merciful. I remember the taste of iron and the way the world faded to gray.