Chapter 4: Settling In (Athena)

After Seth left, Ashley and Brittany ran to me crying.

"Mother!" They cried and the other younger sisters also started crying.

"What's wrong?" I asked worriedly.

I was shocked when they started crying but then I realized how powerless they must have felt. After all, I was a whole lot younger than them when I lost my parents, the feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness, I knew it all too well.

I gathered all of my crying children and gave them a hug. I may not be their real mother but since I am now using her body then I will be their mother from now on. I know I don't really have any experience in being a mother but I'm willing to learn. I won't let them grow up the way I did. I don't want them to grow up as fast as they could because they have no one to depend on but themselves.

"It's alright. Mother is alright." I coaxed them.

It took a few minutes for them to calm down and get back to eating. I went to check the boiling chicken and add some vegetables. Once done, I've prepared my nourishing medicine soup.

I gave the children some chicken soup because that boiled vegetable was not enough to give nutrients to their body. I sighed thinking of how I would achieve the 2nd quest when all the food came from the main house. It's only now that they can ignore it as Seth was the one who brought the food back here. I bet once my postpartum confinement is over, we would receive the same food we have been eating before. My daughters are so thin and my sons are too fat for their own good.

We ate our lunch and after that my daughters told me to rest as they would take care of the cleaning up.

I want to tell them that I will do it but I really am tired so I went to sleep beside the twins. When I woke up again, I heard the babies crying while Seth was trying to coax them to stop.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"It's 3 pm. I'm sorry for waking you up." He replied.

"It's alright. Here, give Kelly to me. They must be hungry." I said in a small voice.

It's so hard to always remind yourself that you need to pretend to be meek. I would like to reason out that after almost dying, I don't want to live the same way as before but Seth's stepmother might accuse me of being possessed which was not exactly wrong so I decided to act meek until I can gather enough force.

"Umm… can you check the kids… umm… outside?" I asked shyly.

He nodded and left. I took Kelly and breastfed her. I don't care if he and Athena already have rolled on the bed enough to produce 12 children, you know what, I wouldn't even care if they did somersaults, backflips, or whatever together. He is not allowed to see my body, I know it's Athena's body, but it's mine now. My body, my rules.

After feeding Kelly, I took Lisa who was waiting obediently for her turn and fed her too. I remember the first day in the hospital when the nurse brought the twins into my room to breastfeed them. I remember the apprehension I felt. I haven't even dated anyone in my past life yet here I am breastfeeding my children.

Once done feeding those two, I went out to check on the children and saw Seth outside quietly reading a book while the other children were nowhere to be found.

"Where are the children?" I asked quietly.

He seemed to be surprised to hear my voice but he immediately got his act together and approached me.

"Are you done feeding? Let me help you burp them." He said as he went to the bed and carried Kelly to burp her.

Oh right, I forgot. You need to burp them after feeding. I wish the system would offer me a motherhood manual.

"The children were called out by their grandmother." He informed me.

I sighed. Stepmother must have called them to do the laundry. I mean we have a washing machine. Why does she need to call my daughters to wash their clothes by hand?

"Don't worry about the children. Mother's taking care of them." Seth said nonchalantly.

That is exactly why I'm worried but for now, there's nothing I could do to alleviate their suffering. I sighed sadly.

The days passed by quickly, it's been two weeks since I transmigrated here. I learned a lot about the situation inside the house. First of all, Seth's grandfather did not live in this compound but in a villa outside the city. Their family owns a small textile factory, they produce cotton fabrics. They have about 100 employees working for them. Seth's family is not considered very rich but an above average household.

Seth's father, stepmother, and William work in the administration of the factory. His grandfather still handles all the big decisions but he's starting to pass the responsibility to Seth's father while Arthur, Seth's youngest brother is in another city studying in a university.

This means that no one is really home most days. The kids, Ashley (10 years old), Brittany (9 years old), Chirstine (8 years old), David (8 years old), Eric (6 years old), Faith (5 years old), Garret (4 years old), and Henry (4 years old) are all going to school, their grandfather insisted on sending all his grandchild to school, so the only ones who are left at home were me, Irene (2 years old), Justin (1 years old), Kelly(14 days), Lisa (14 days), and their father, Seth together with the nanny that stepmother hired.

Sadly, that nanny has more power in this house than I do. So what have I been doing the past 2 weeks, first, I rested. I had never thought how hard it would be to take care of two infants, especially when I don't know what I'm doing. Most of the time, I panic and I can't believe I'm saying this but I am grateful to Seth because he at least has some idea on how to take care of them.

Seth, already informed us that he got kicked out of the military, much to my suprise. I would never have thought that he was working as a soldier, his superiors probably felt the same as he got kicked out.

Anyway, he doesn't look too sad about it but his father was furious. He was told not to leave the house for a month. I can't believe that a 27 year old man can still get grounded. I guess, thanks to that, I can move a little at ease in the house as the nanny won't bully us if he's here.

For the past 2 weeks, he had been cooking our food. He said he learned it in the army. All hail the army. He's a good cook, way better than I could dream of.

I, the modern world Athena, can cook, if by cooking you mean mixing whatever vegetable is available in a chicken, fish, pork, or beef base soup. My cooking motto is boil meat and vegetables equals food. There's also frying but that's too basic.

I also started studying how to read and write. I pretended to check Garret and Henry's homework. I let them teach me what they learned in school for the day to check whether they understand their lessons or not.

Those two egotistic children were all too proud to teach their uneducated mother the words they learned in school. I swear one of the things that needs to be corrected in this family is the attitude of these sons of mine. I need to get them out of stepmother's hands.

Seth also seemed to realize that I am interested in learning how to read and write so when we have nothing to do in the house, he started teaching me words though some words he taught me are really dubious.

Anyway, I at least have made some progress with my learning. I am actually particularly good at learning languages. Even back in the modern world, I can speak 5 languages. I'm very proud of it, after all, I believe it has helped me become an executive assistant.

Since I already know how to speak and understand them. I only now need to match the words to the written character which was a whole lot easier than learning from scratch.

In these two weeks I already learned everything I can learn from Garret and Henry's books, I even corrected some of their mistakes. I can remember the displeased look on those chubby 4 year olds' faces.

I also took nourishing medicine for 10 days straight and now, I don't feel weak anymore but I still pretend to be weak. After all, how can I explain how I suddenly became strong?

"Wife, I think something's wrong with you." Seth suddenly asked as I was staring at Faith's book.