The Abduls welcomed me with open arms and sparkling crystal glasses filled with the finest champagne London could offer. The mansion was grand—marble floors that echoed beneath my hesitant steps, chandeliers dripping with crystals like frozen tears, and walls adorned with priceless art. Every corner whispered wealth, but the air held an invisible chill.
At first, I believed I was safe here.
The dinners were long, the conversations polite, their smiles warm but practiced. I was the princess who inherited oil mines worth fortunes beyond dreams, a symbol of the kingdom's wealth, yet here I was reduced to a visitor in a gilded cage. I smiled, I nodded, I learned the art of quiet endurance.
But the true nature of the Abduls unfurled like slow poison.
They were not cruel in bursts. No—cruelty was woven into their silence, their carefully lowered eyes, the subtle ways they reminded me I was an outsider. The Abdul mothers—the true rulers of this house—lived in shadows and whispers. Tradition chained them to these walls, and so it bound me too.
When my son was born, the house did not celebrate.
No gifts came from their hands. No lullabies sung in my name.
Only cold eyes, measuring and waiting.
They told me the mothers of Abdul never leave the house. Their realm is here, behind these walls, and I had no place beyond these bars.
At first, they watched me closely, speaking in quiet tones behind doors I could not open. They smiled politely but the smiles did not reach their eyes. I still dared to teach my son the gentle words of Jesus, the faith that had wrapped me in peace since the convent, the only love I had ever truly known.
But my faith was a flame too bright and foreign for them.
One morning, before dawn, they came for my son.
The Abdul mothers moved like shadows in the darkened hallways. Their silks whispered secrets I would never hear. I was told my child would live with them now — not with his mother.
I begged. I pleaded. My hands reached for him but they were iron gates, cold and unyielding.
"You teach him forbidden things," they said. "Christian doctrines have no place here."
I screamed once.
A broken, desperate sound swallowed by the vast emptiness of the mansion.
Left alone with the echo of his absence, I sat in the vast nursery, a cradle rocking silently as my heart shattered.
The wealth of the oil mines, the riches I inherited, the power my grandfather left behind—it all felt meaningless now. I was a princess in name only, a mother in chains, a soul exiled within a palace.
Yet, in the quiet moments before dawn, when the city's roar faded and the sky whispered prayers, I found solace.
In the faith I held since childhood.
In the love I gave freely to a God who never abandoned me.
And though my hands were bound, my spirit remained free.