B7/Ch6: A LIFEFORCE RETURNS

Filipe surprises Fatima.

In the village, on a second night of uncertain and turbulent events, Fatima Braga sat in her parlor in front of a large glass bowl of cool water. She stared into the water, her reflection staring back at her like a mirror showing her how age had come and taken away her long dark raven hair many years ago, leaving her as white frozen grass in the dead of winter. Her hair softly curled just under her shoulders looked even whiter in the water's reflection.  

After shaking off who she saw looking back at her, Fatima reached for another much smaller bowl on the table that had a large white egg. She held the egg carefully in her hand and took a breath.

Then, she cracked it being sure that she separated the egg white from the yolk and dropped the translucent and gooey egg part into the water creating the Venus Glass.

The Venus Glass, an old ritualistic way fortune tellers would seek answers from the other side was Fatima's favorite tool. The egg whites would swirl in the water and whatever image appeared in the glass would tell a future. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad. 

But always true.

The egg whites floated in the water slowly taking into a shape that contorted and mixed within itself. Fatima stared anxiously awaiting what the world beyond what we could see would tell her through the Venus Glass. 

And then there it was. 

Like the passing of a cloud revealing its secret world in the sky. 

Fatima gasped and placed her hand in the watery bowl destroying the horrifying image of a fanged mouth.

"O lobo."  She whispered to herself using the Portuguese word for Wolf.

"Tia." A voice said from the hallway. It was Filipe, he had come up from the basement.

"Filipe, son, please come in, come in, I have to tell you what I've seen." Fatima said, neglecting the fact he was still calling her "aunt" instead of mother.

"I have something to tell you too." He said slowly walking into the parlor. 

Fatima could sense in his voice something had happened. She stood up as if she were about to face her biggest enemy in a showdown when Sebastian Lord entered the room directly behind Filipe.

Fatima gasped and covered her mouth. The fangs in the Venus Glass were not of a wolf, but showing her Sebastian had arrived. 

"What have you done?!" She asked her son.

"Sebastian is here to help me. Mary said he was the only one who could. I found him and now he's here to help. He's my only way forward." Filipe reminded her.

"Filipe, I want him out of this house! Take him away!" She ordered.

"I don't mean to harm anyone." Sebastian said in a soft voice. "I just want to help my cousin Mary and the mother of my child Evie, but first we have to change Filipe back. The faster the better, if Filipe changes again before the next full moon, they'll blame the ones on trial for it. We cannot let that happen." 

"Maria told us what you are Sebastião, she told us everything and I have absolutely no intention of getting involved with you in this house. If you want to help my Filipe, than you'll have to do it somewhere else." Fatima said, shocking her son.

"Somewhere else? We have nowhere to go! Sebastian is believed dead and if anyone were to see him, they'd automatically assume he was the thing, the monster that hunted on the full moon. But that was me! If you want to truly help save me, then you'll allow him to stay, and we can all try to understand Eliza's spell book together. Once I'm free, we can then help Mary and Evie and Matthew." Filipe

Sebastian gulped "Matthew?" 

"Yes." Filipe replied. "He and Evie apparently have gotten back together and they've both been accused of this stupid charge." 

"I see." Sebastian replied. "When did he return?"

Filipe's brow lifted sensing a slight bit of jealousy "Somewhere between the time you and Jacqueline got together and when I became a wolf that killed several people." 

Filipe's irritation on having to comment on Evie's love life was clear, he knew there was so much more important things for Sebastian to focus on.

As the two men talked, Fatima studied Sebastian like she was examining a fine painting. Her eyes looked him over, top to bottom. She was transfixed by how human he looked, skin hair eyes...but deep down her heart and mind united -- he was a creature, a thing, a monster of ungodly creation that she needed to snuff out.

Her eyes darted to a small desk, the glow of the lamps reflected back to her from a sharp object like a lighthouse beaming to her a sign. She suddenly reached for the object on the desk, a letter opener, and lunged at Sebastian hoping to plunge it into the man's heart. 

Filipe quickly grabbed hold of her and turned her back around to face him, her white mane of hair splashing over her face, the letter opener tossed to the corner of the room. 

"WHAT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? Filipe shouted at her. That's not the way we're doing this." He added in a calmer voice holding her back.

Fatima, out of breath, pushed her son's arms apart and released herself from his grasp. "If you need his blood, I would have gotten you his blood, by draining it from his cursed body." 

"Killing him?" Filipe asked, flabbergasted. 

"Two birds, one stone." 

Sebastian's eyes narrowed, his body stiffened. 

"Sister Inez, I understand your fear. I truly do." Sebastian said slowly waking towards the woman shocking her by using the name she once used when she was a nun in Lisbon.

"Diabo." She replied, using the Portuguese word for devil. 

"Enough." Filipe said, holding his mother by her left wrist.

"I have not been the best person to anyone. Not to Evie, not to my child nor to any of my family members and certainly not to the people that I have ..." He paused. "Killed." 

"You know so much, like my other name, yet you don't know how you can save us all by dying?" Fatima said coldly.

"I fully admit my wrongs, Ine..." Sebastian paused again. "Fatima. When I became what I am, I couldn't control myself sometimes, sometimes There was a rage in me that would overtake me and..." He paused a third time as if the words he kept trying to muster up would only leave his mouth by force.

"And you'd kill." She said staring him dead in the eye. "That's what I fear of you Sebastião... your deadly side. That's what I see in you, your deadly grin. It is clear to me, that there is still very much danger inside of you. I can smell it. I can feel it in your aura. Why should I trust you with my son's life?"

Sebastian stepped back. "You can't. I don't expect you to. But for now, you have to believe me when I say that I tried, I did try to hold back but sometimes I couldn't. The urge was overwhelming. I've tried to curtail it, and after Evie was taken to that grave and I pulled her out, I saw that there was no way forward for us. She agreed. That's why we decided I'd be buried away in the caves. I wanted to vanish and free us all of what I was. I didn't choose to come back, but I am. And I'm here now to help Filipe whose life was changed By Eliza in order to bring me back to life -- as I am. We're linked forever." Sebatian explained hoping to calm Fatima's rage towards him.

"Eliza used me to revive Sebastian," Filipe interjected "without my knowledge. But Now that we know we can somehow reverse my affliction using the same lifeforce that is in Sebastian, it's worth a try." he added. "We cannot kill him Tia; he needs to be alive." 

Fatima narrowed her eyes and stared at Sebastian the whole time Filipe spoke. She didn't want to give him a second where he could turn away and hurt them. If she stared at him, eyes locked, she felt secure. Safe. And so, Fatima agreed. She'd help them attempt to read Eliza's book and transform Filipe back to himself again using Sebastian as a life force. 

****

Nik & Danielle in Asha’s hospital room

Over at Welshport Hope Hospital, Dr. Nikolas Jordan was on a night shift doing rounds when he decided to stop by Asha Hoffman's room for a quick visit. Asha had been in a coma since the building she had been held captive in caught fire and collapsed on her. Her vitals were always good, but her mind had still slipped into the recesses of darkness as the world around her carried on.

For his part, Nik awaited her revival in hopes she could soon shine light on the whereabouts of his half sibling she and the late Gregory Reigns took from Nik's mother Aurora at birth -- no one knowing the child was growing up as Mary and Filipe's adopted child Caleb Braga. 

Nik pulled over a soft chair and sat next to his girlfriend Asha, the two doctors had come a long way in their relationship over the past years. She had kept secrets from him before but knowing she kept the truth about baby Caleb from his family cut deeper. This secret had upended the way he loved her: the love was there but now it felt almost as if strained, forced. Pity.

And this broke his heart. 

"Oh, Doctor!" A voice said from the hospital room door. It was Nurse Danielle Holten also on her rounds. "I'll come back, I just wanted to check on Dr. Hoffman."

"No, no, please come in." Nik said their eyes locking. 

"How is your favorite patient this evening?" She asked, blushing. 

Nik sighed "From the charts, no real change from this morning but as usual I'm hopeful." He said. "How are you getting along? Getting a feel of the place, then?" 

Danielle shrugged. "Somewhat, yes. It's a smaller hospital than the one I worked at in Boston, but it's wonderful being home again. You know I lived here for a short time before moving to Massachusetts. So this feels like an odd home away from home away from home." She replied.

"I understand. I was born stateside too but we moved to London when I was only 2. My mother is American, British father. America always felt like that to me. I love England, I miss it too but my connection here felt like a tether. I needed to come back some day. Careful what you wish for I guess." He added turning to Asha in her coma.

Danielle could see there was sadness in his handsome face. A hurt that was unspoken. She could feel his warmth towards Asha but at the same time had heard rumors of her inability to keep herself out of trouble. The stories of Asha's own father, a killer who'd been in a mental institution and her adoption into the prominent Hoffman family, the connection to Gregory and the strange case against Dr. Kim that Gregory held over her and now the events of the fire, all of it clearly weighing on Nik and showing on his sad face. Danielle, a natural caregiver, only wanted to make him feel better but she didn't know where to begin with the mess Asha had made. 

"She'll come out of it, doctor. I've seen cases where people lie in decades long comas and come out of it, I can't assume Dr. Hoffman will be this way, but hopefully it will happen soon." 

"Decades, huh." Nik chuckled. "I don't know if I--or we--can wait that long." 

"I'm sorry." Danielle replied putting a hand on his shoulder. He turned to her, their eyes locking again. Her face heartshaped and soft. Her eyes a chestnut brown that seemed to catch the light of the room turning them a deep warm amber. They were about the same age and both had had troubles in love; his past visible to her, hers still hidden beneith the venir of her beauty.

"I should get going." She said, clearing up the materials and setting herself up for the next patient. "Its  along night shift." 

"It is." He smiled. "If you have a break later, would you like to have a quick coffee? Tea? I'm here 'till midnight." He asked to her happy surprise.

"Sure! I'd ...I'd love that. How's eight?" 

"Eight." He confirmed.

Danielle smiled, blushed some more and quickly left Asha's hospital room where Nik returned to his seat in front of Asha. He wondered if she'd heard any of the conversation and if she had was she jealous and angry locked in her mind unable to speak. He felt awful but not as awful as he felt she should feel for helping kidnap and disappear his half-brother. 

"Wake up, Ash. Wake up." He whispered. 

**

Now at the nurse's station, Danielle looked over her schedule.

"How's Dr. Charming?" A fellow nurse giggled 

"Sorry?"

"Honey, we can all tell he's sweet on ya." The other nurse said with a yellow toothed grin. "We can see it! Don't you worry a bit. From all the stories that Hoffman woman has been up to, he's sure to leave her in the lurch as soon as she opens her pretty little eyes, and with good reason too!"

"I just came to see my schedule, not to talk about Dr. Jordan and Dr. Hoffman." Danielle replied.

"Sure, hon." The nurse smirked then handed her more papers with patients for Danielle to see.

As Danielle uncomfortably pushed the nurse's words out of her mind, she saw that down at the bottom of her patient list was her last patient of her shift, an early morning check up with Dr. Ward and.... Caspian Casador: Danielle's father -- Viktor Holten.

Danielle felt her blood turn cold; she'd come face to face with the man she thought dead for 3 years. 

****

Filipe, Sebastian & Fatima in her parlor 

Back at Fatima's home in town, Sebastian, Filipe and Fatima herself sat at round table in her parlor under a circular shaded light that hung from the ceiling directly above the table.

The room, painted blood red, was typically where Fatima held her tarot card readings, crystal ball reviews, aura cleansings but most of all -- séances. 

Mary's absence was felt here, as neither of the three could read the Eliza's book of spells. And on this night, Fatima would attempt to contact Eliza Goode from beyond the grave in hope's she could help them read her book. 

"Hold hands." Fatima instructed as she reached for Sebastian's left hand and Filipe's right, the two men also linked hands.

The book was placed in the center of the table, closed, with three candles surrounding it. Fatima closed her eyes and instructed the two men to do the same. 

She took a breath and began to take in heavy bursts of air and exhale the same. She began to hum a song, a song neither of the men recognized, and continued to breath in deep gulps of air and release it back into the room.

Then in quiet whispers, Fatima began to repeat Eliza's name. 

Over and over she called on the witch from Goode Island. The Mother of Mary. The Sister of Sabrina. A member of the coven known as Highgrove. 

"Sister Eliza show me the way, show me the answers into which I pray.
Come here now, show us this book, show us the page for which we look.
Eliza Goode, enter this realm, see my in yours and take this ship by its helm." 

A light cold air began to swirl around the three, the candles began to flicker and move by the air coming from the unknown source. 

"I feel her." Sebastian whispered. "I can sense her presence."

"Shhh." Fatima bristled. 

Then, the book brightly lit by the candles at it's side flipped violently open and the pages began to turn faster and faster all on their own and suddenly the book clamped closed flipping to one side revealing nothing.

The candles then blew out. One by one.

"What have you done." A cold voice said from the entrance of the parlor.

The three at the table looked up and saw Johnathon DeViana. 

"Johnathon? What are you doing here?" Filipe asked jumping up from the table. 

Johnathon's face was tear-stained. His nose red and swollen from crying. He was horrified by everything that he saw, everything that he had heard at Lockwood Thicket and now, everything he was witnessing in Fatima's Parlor.

"How did you get in here?" Fatima asked, also jumping up from her chair.

"Everyone just calm down." Sebastian added. 

"I know what you all are, and I know what Jacqueline is. I heard everything. I tried to help, I did, I tried to get rid of Sebastian and get him out of this world but like like a cockroach you've returned, havne't you? I'll never be rid of you and I'll never be free of the sick thing you are." Johnathon growled.

"Johnathon, you have no reason to hate me the way you do. Don't you see? Everything you've ever been told about me has been ways to warp my image in your mind. When we met, in my son's bedroom, you already had preconceived plots and webs in your mind and that was not the best way we, two new family members, should have met. But we can come together and fix one big problem." Sebastian said.

Through tormented tears of what he knew and saw, Johnathon asked what that one problem was.

"Jacqueline." Sebastian replied.

Johnathon's eyes narrowed. "You've already handled that. Jacqueline's dead. We left here at the Thicket bleeding to death. My child is dead because of all of you. Even Jacqueline is to blame. Her treachery, her lies. All of it. You're all to blame for it all." Johnathon replied.

"It wasn't your child." Sebatian replied

"Sebastian, stop." Filipe whispered. 

"He has to know." 

Johnathon stepped forward into the parlor, further in so that he could be seen by the shaded lamp hanging from the ceiling. "What did you say?"

"Jacqueline was with child, but it was not yours. It was my child." Sebastian explained. 

Fatima crossed herself and sat down at the table. Her heart skipping a beat. 

"It was! IT WAS MY CHILD! We were in love and married and she was going to have our baby. You're all lying! You're all using mind control and witchcraft to try and do something to me. You're driving me insane. This is what you want, you want me to go mad so that you can be rid of me. Just like Jacob tried to do to you and Evie and David and any obstacle that comes his way. You're all the same!!!" Johnathon shouted.

"He's not well." Filipe said softy to Sebastian. "He's not well at all." 

"Johnathon, please calm down. You have to understand there are many things that we have to explain but we cannot do it now. They have to wait until we fix something much more inportant. Evie is in trouble and so is Mary. We need to help them first." Sebastian said.

Johnathon's rage began to rise. He hated being pushed aside. He had always been pushed aside. His parents always chose Celeste over him. Albert chose his children with Rebecca over him. Jacob chose other's at the Publishing House over him. Jacqueline chose Sebatian over him, the patronizing way Sebastian now was trying to push him aside for other issues, made him angry.

Johnathon's rage boiled over and he reached for the items on Fatima's table and pulled them all off then lifted the table and flipped it over. Eliza's book went flying to the floor. The candles flew to one side splashing hot wax all over Fatima who screamed and jumped out of her seat. 

"YOU KILLED MY CHILD AND NOW I'LL KILL YOU!!!" Johnaton screamed then he lunged for Sebastian who blocked him by grabbing Johnathon's forearms.

Filipe reached for Johnaton from behind and pulled him off. The two men fell to the floor wrestling for power. In their fight knocking over the room's tables and chairs. 

Sebastian reached down and grabbed Johnathon. The vampire's extreme strength lifted the mad Johnathon off of Filipe and he hung in the air by his lapel.

Johnathon reached his arm back and dropped his fist into Sebastian's face forcing Sebastian to release his uncle as his hands nursed the blow.

The room settled. Johnathon's anger was like an electrical wire that had suddenly weakened. The hurt in him was now showing. He lost everything he had gained. The embarrassment of falling in love with Jacqueline who wasn't really in love with him was all over Johnathon's face. It was as if everyone had known a secret but no one had told him about it. 

He felt foolish. Like a child. Used. 

"I will never ever forgive any of you for what you've done to me. None of you, none of you!! You've taken me and made me into a joke. You've all hid things and lied and used me over and over again and left me to find these things out for myself. You should all be ashamed of what you've done. You'll all live to regret all of it. Every single thing." 

Johnathon's mind had been broken. He knew now his wife had lied about her love for him, about the paternity of their child. He knew She wanted to be with Sebastian and she only used him for secrity. He knew that nothing was real. It was all fake, and the joke, was all on him.

Johnathon then spit in the direction of Sebastian and Filipe. The wad of saliva falling in a clump of disgusting slosh on the carpet was Johnathon's final words and he left. 

The room was quiet now, and with that silence, Fatima looked over at Eliza's book and saw that it had been thrown from the table and opened to the exact pages they need to cure Sebatian. She gasped and quickly tried to understand the coded passages of the spell that had magically begun to change into legible sentences.

"I should go after him." Sebastian said.

"I've known Johnathon for years as a kid before he moved away. He's always been in search of acceptance. If you went after him in this state, he wouldn't be receptive. He’s embarrassed. He’s humiliated. And if Jacqueline did die at the cabin, well, I don't know if he'll ever recover. I feel horrible about my part in that." Filipe said.

"It was a horrible mistake. You didn't mean to hurt her." 

Filipe didn't know what else to say.

"But I should go. I'm afraid of what he'll do or who he'll find and what he'll say is happening here." Sebatian reminded them. "He's quite the loose cannon." 

"Leave Johnathon to himself for now." Fatima said, returning to the conversation now with Eliza's open book in hand. "We've been given the answers to saving Filipe."

The two men turned to Fatima, "Look." She said showing them the opened book to the page of The Wolf Moon curse, magically translated for them to understand.

****

Nathan & Baxter meet at the Siren’s Call Pub

Over in the village, At the Siren's Call Pub, Nathan Cramer sat at booth drowning his stress away with a pint of beer fresh off the tab. He had been at work most of the day dealing with Timothy Churchill's obsessive plot to ruin the Lord family once and for all -- beginning with turning the town against them with a bizarre accusation of Witchcraft, using an old law on the town charter from the puritan days that never got repealed.

Nathan helped in this. He was not the most trusted person in the Mayor's cabinet. He found the law. He encouraged the call to Barrister Eden Syndey and he was the one that tilted Syndey's interest in taking the case.

But none of felt good. Nathan, a kind hearted man who never had an enemy to name, saw it all as an opportunistic reach and knew that it would only end in death and disaster. 

Spying Nathan in his booth alone, Baxter Murphy walked over from his own booth and sat down facing the Mayor's aide, plopping his cold glass of white wine square in the table.

Nathan's face scrunched at Baxter's sudden apperence. 

"You're like a vulture, you know that? When someone's in their own world feeling like death warmed over you come over to pick apart the carcus." Nathan said.

"Blue are you? Well, I can help you fix all of that." Baxter said, reaching under the table with his leg entangling it with Nathan's.

Nathan yanked his back.

"No." 

Baxter shrugged "You're no fun." 

The two were no strangers to each other, in fact they had once had a romantic relationship one that lasted many years soon after Baxter's relationship with Lear Lockwood's ended. Baxter had a way of linking himself to people who had jobs in with important connections. He found himself lured to men who'd worked with scandal ridden politicians, Powerful foreign dignitaries, even men with ties to house of Windsor. But none of Baxter's relationships lasted longer than the stories these men supplied from their positions.

Baxter, true to his form, used them all.

"What is it you want Bax? I don't have anything to tell you." Nathan said, watching the foam in his beer bubble at the edge of the mug.

"I think you do." Baxter replied. "I know that you've had meetings with Barrister Sydney. A little birdie told he's arrived and that he was with Churchill today. You're going to really look me in the eye and tell me nothing happened at that meeting? The town's a buzz Nate, everything seems to be on the line here. I'd love a quote."

"A quote?" Nathan asked, with an irritated tone.

"That's right."

"A quote from me?" 

Baxter looked confused. "That's right."

"Here's a quote Bax, go fuck yourself." Nathan replied.

"Jesus! You used to be able to hold your alcohol a lot better than this, Nathan. You know this is my job, it never ends. Things are always happening, and I have to get to the bottom of it." Baxter replied.

"You're the one that started all of this. If you'd left well enough alone none of this would have happened and three people wouldn't be set for a stupid trial on witchcraft." Nathan said.

"A trial! There's to be an actual, God-fearing, real-life witch trial? Right here in little 'ol Welshport!? Well, fuck me dry, this may get me a promotion!" Baxter gleamed. 

"You're sick." Nathan said, his whole body now drowsy with the beer slowly working his way in his blood stream.

Baxter looked at his ex and felt sorry for him. he wanted an exclusive but didn't want to get it this way, not with Nathan struggling to keep his eyes open. 

"How many have you had?" Baxter asked pulling back Nathan's mug.

"Not enough." 

"Seriously, Nathan, are you alright? It's not like you didn't know what Churchill was after. I mean you've been around him long enough to know he's had it out for The Lords since he was a child. It wouldn't take a fortune teller to tell us that he'd try something crazy like this eventually." Baxter replied.

"I just don't like how I'm apart of it. I'm helping the man!" Nathan said. "I'm helping the man destroy lives, innocent lives." 

"Innocent? We don't know if they're innocent." Baxter said.

"What? You really think they're witches?" Nathan asked, his words slurring more and more.

"I didn't say they were guilty of witchcraft, I just said we know they're not innocent. Nathan, you're a big boy now, you should know that no one after the age of 5 is innocent. We all get to be a little bad after that. Some of us more than others." Baxter replied.

"I never liked your cynical side." Nathan replied.

"Neither did I." A voice said, standing over the two men at the table.

Nathan and Baxter looked up to see Cora Taylor standing before them who'd come in for an evening after-work drink with Jane Donnelly, the Lord's head maid.

"I'll grab us, a... uh.. table." Jane said, uncomfortable around Nathan and Baxter.

"Sis, how are you, I haven't seen you in a while." Baxter said standing up and trying for a hug.

"Sis?" Cora replied, recalling how Baxter told her she wasn't really his sister biologically.

Baxter tilted his head and lifted a brow, "Oh, come on." 

"Listen, I only came over here because I just didn't want it to be awkward if you saw me first. I don't want to embarrass you in front of anyone, especially if they all saw that I'd ask you to leave me alone... which is what I'm doing now. Leave me alone if you see me anywhere in town." Cora said.

"Coraline," Baxter said, pulling her aside to speak more privately, "you're my sister no matter what. It really doesn't matter to me who you really are." 

"Baxter -- you've been lying to me for over 20 years. You've been telling me lies all my life and you drop the truth on me in a way that is so, so ... demented, and expect me to just be fine with it, with you! I need to be away from you. I need to be --- I don't want to be anywhere near you anymore. You're an agent of chaos and I've let you drag me along the way for far too long. That's over now." 

Coraline turned to find Jane and as she did, Baxter grabbed her shoulder. 

"Coraline, wait." he said.

She shrugged him off.

"Coraline! I have more to tell you." He said.

She stopped, she didn't turn. 

The noise of bar refilled the smokey room. The music was loud, but she heard him loud and clear. The other shoe about her real life, her life as Maggie Lockwood was about to drop. This is what she was afraid of, she knew that Baxter was the type of manipulator who'd only give part of the story first only to use the rest later, like the slow drip of a melting icicle. His sick take on an insurance policy.

"Of course you do." She said to him, still with her back turned.

The lamp lights on the tables were glowing a rich yellow light just as they were on the bar and in the golden mermaid fixtures on the walls. Cora finally turned and looked at her adopted brother whose face was so sharp in features that the bar's lamp lights cast stark shadows over his face.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked her.

She stepped forward to him. "I just knew there was something else. There always is. So what is, it?" 

"Lear has the adoption papers." He said.

"That's it?" She asked. "That's all you had to tell me? Lear has the adoption papers?" 

He nodded. "In those papers you'll get all of the information on how Henry Lockwood brokered your adoption, but just so you know you may find things in those papers that may hurt other people." Baxter explained. "I've always kept them safe because, well, despite popular belief I don't go after just anyone. I try and protect people that I like too. You'll see what I mean if you get them from Lear." Baxter said. 

"I, I don't understand."

"I'm giving you the keys sis, once you have all of the information on how it all went down, it'll be up to you to handle it if you want. I'm telling you, when you read them over and see who else was involved, you'll see what I mean." 

Cora stood there as Baxter reached over and grabbed the wine from the table with Nathan, he kissed his ex on the cheek and wished him a good night then walked past Cora but said nothing else to her. 

Their relationship destroyed with secrets broken open in truth. Now, it was in her hands to find out what else would come when and if she actually sought out the papers from Lear. 

****

In their Jail cell: Matthew, Mary & Evie

While the raucous sailors and village patrons continued to drink the night away at the Siren's Call pub a much more somber environment at the makeshift jail cells at Villag Hall was taking shape.

Evie lay on her cot staring at the brick wall following the lines of grout as if they were imaginary streets going up the wall and to the blank ceiling. Her mind was on her son Gabriel. She missed him. She hadn't seen in well over three weeks and her mother's news of him adjusting fine without her only sent her into a deeper depression.

He was so young and already they'd been apart so much of his short life. All she wanted was to be with him and love him and care for him. To be best mother she could be for a child that came into the world under tumultuous circumstances, and those circumstances had yet to cease.

Evie felt like her life was a storm that was constantly battering and angering the sea that was little Gabriel. 

From across the jail cell floor, Matthew could see Evie lost in her thoughts. His heart broke for her. All he wanted to do was protect the woman that he loved but they were all trapped there together under such a ridiculous pretense as an accusation of witchcraft. 

"You alright over there?" Matthew said, sliding his arms through the bars. 

Mary, turned to Evie who didn't answer him and didn't lift her eyes from the wall.

"Evie?" Mary said softly. "Are you ok?" 

Evie again did not answer, she only stared at the bricks. 

Mary turned to Matthew, worry plastered over her face. She got up from her chair and walked over to where Evie was laying and sat down next to her. She grabbed her hand and squeezed which seemed to bring Evie out of her daze.

"What? I'm sorry did you say something?" Evie said taking in a deep breath as if she had been holding it the whole time. 

"Matthew and I were just worried about you." Mary said.

"You haven't said much since you're mother left." Matthew added. "Are you ok?" 

"What if we die?" Evie suddenly replied surprising the other two inmates.

"We're not going to die. We're going to get out of this one way or another. There is no way they'll be able to keep us here with such a..." Matthew paused to think of a word "well, a stupid case." 

"Matthew's right, they don't have a case against the two of you for anything. They only saw me use my powers and that's why I've decided to confess to everything and let the trial be only about me. I'll tell everyone that the two of you are innocent and you'll be able to move on with your lives." Mary said.

"Mary! No! They'll kill you!" Evie replied.

"You can't just confess, they wouldn't take a confession now, especially since we've all said we're innocent. And what of Charlotte and the boys? They'd surely come after them being the children of a witch. They're already on this sick witch-hunt to hurt people. They won't stop." 

Mary quickly was reminded of her children, especially Caleb, the son she and Filipe adopted and with recent events now believed was a son taken from Aurora illegally. 

"The kids aren't going to be hurt, you don't really think Churchill would do that, do you? Come after innocent children?" Mary asked.

"I honestly don't want to chance it Mary. And you shouldn't either. We don't know what Timothy Churchill's motivation is for anything of this. None of what he's doing to us will gain him votes or more power in such a small town. It really makes no sense. And if I thought that anything I said or did would put Gabriel into danger, I would definitely think twice. So please, don't do it, don't confess to anything." Evie replied.

"It's not fair for you two to be here considering what I am." Mary said.

"We're in this together now." Matthew said. "We'll get out of this together I promise."

"How can you promise that?" Mary asked.

Evie suddenly realized she was giving into her own fears just as Mary was now. Matthew was right, they had to carry on and fight whatever was coming. None of them could back down from Timothy's accusations that were only meant to hurt people instead of protect people. Evie turned her head and looked at the bricks and again but this time she realized the window grout wasn't just a symbol of the tangled up web of her life but really a symbol of how many roads often crisscross other roads and are blocked by many obstacles but in the end, one finds a way out. 

"We're going to get out of this, for oursleves and for out families. We'll beat this." Evie said, holding on tightly to Mary's hands.

"ALRIGHT!" A voice came from outside the cells. "GET TO SLEEPIN, YOU 'TREE." 

It was a night guard with a thick irish accent. He was a nice face to the three under lock and key.

"You might be sure to get some sleep. I hear there's a hearing comin' up for the lot of ya." The guard said.

Evie and Mary spearated and went to their respective cots but Matthew stay at the edge of his cell with his arms through the bars and look the guard dead in the eyes. There was something about this new guard. Something that made Matthew keep staring at him. 

"What's your name?" Matthew asked.

The guard said nothing and walked over to Matthew. 

"Get to bed." The guard said.

"We haven't seen you before. What's your name?" Matthew repeated. 

"I said, get to BED!" The guard shouted and banged his nightstick on the bars right next to Matthew's right arm.

Matthew's eyes narrowed. His instincts were telling him something was strange about the new guard something he could not put his finger one. As Matthew finally complied and walked back to his lone cot in the smaller cell by himself he never once took his eyes off the new guard.

The guard smiled crudly feeling accomplished and getting Matthew to do what he asked. He then turned and looked into the women's cell. His strange dark green bloodshot eyes stared at Evie with a strange look. It was almost as if he were studying her every move. Evie could feel him staring. She rolled over in her cot to face away from the peering strange guard yet the chill still went up her spine.

The guard, his cartoonish orange beard snagging at the corners of his mouth stepped up to the bars of the women's cell and stared inside. His eyes never leaving Evie, not for a single seacond.

Mary, from her cot, felt just as uncomfortable. 

"Please, sir." She said, hoping he'd leave.

"Leave them alone." Matthew said form his cot.

"See ya in the mornin' ladies." The gross guard said, white spit crusting at the edges of his thin chapped lips. 

The Guard slowly made his way out of the cell room still tapping his nightstick on the bars as he walked out. He pulled the large heavy door open and stepped out, locking the three in for the night.

As he did, another guard was unconscious on the floor and the guard with the deep bloodshot green eyes suddenly transformed into Jacqueline Gray. 

Jacqueline had come to check on her romantic rival Evie Jordan-Lord. Happy, Jacqueline was, to see the woman Sebastian loved so much, still locked away fearing for her life once the new day came. 

"She'll never leave this place alive." Jacqueline said to the unconscious jailer on the floor she was posing as. "Will she, Francis. No she won't." She said to him again using his name.

Then, as a witch would do, she vanished into thin air. 

****

Fatima’s house 

Back at Fatima's house in town another event was about to take place.

Filipe, Sebatian and Fatima had read the now translated book of spells that Eliza's spirt had revealed. 

Sebastian nervously sat at the round table again, his wrist over directly over a glass bowl from Fatima's kitchen. He turned his head as Filipe grabbed Sebastian's wrist and held it up. 

"Now, bring it forward." Fatima said, motioning to the candle that was in the center of the table. 

Sebastian could feel the flame heating up his pale wrist. His veins heating the blood as it flowed through the vampire's body. A smudge of black appeared in a circle on his wrist from the flame below it.

"There." Fatima said. "That is where you bite." 

Filipe gulped as Sebastian took a deep breath. Filipe brought Sebatian's wrist back towards the bowl.

The man who was tortured by the moon, took a breath and knew the time had come.

He bit into Sebastian's wrist just as the clock coincidently struck midnight.

A stream of thick bright red blood began to pour out of Sebatian's wrist and into the bowl. Sebastial growled as he felt the sting of the bite and Filipe's teeth sinking into his hardened flesh. He fought every instinct to pull away and yang himself out of Filipe's tightening jaws. His own fangs came out, his eyes turning quickly dark as if he wanted to feed too, but Sebastian, now much more careful with his affliction pulled back and return to normal hurting no one in the room.

Filipe then took out the wrist from his mouth, a strong a saliva and blood tethered to his plump lips. He turned Sebastian's wrist and the blood filled the bowl. Sebastian then felt almost as if an invisible pressure lifting from his body as the blood came out of him in a perfect stream and then, inside the bowl a perfect round circle of blood pooled.

"Enough filho." Fatima told Filipe, using the Portuguese world for son. "Enough." 

As Sebastian took back his wrist from Filipe and wrapped it, Filipe lifted the glass bowl by both hands and held it up to his lips as if he were about to slurp the broth of a winter's soup.

Fatima began to read from the translated book as instructed:

"Return the blood from where it came. Send the wild back to the tame. A heart so true, a heart so pure, let this blood be the cure." Fatima said, "Now, drink it." 

Filipe did as she instructed and tilted the glass bowl into his mouth allowing some to pour out the corner of his mouth and down his neck.

Fatima felt her stomach turn; she could not hold it anymore and jumped up from the table and ran into another room and vomited into a porcelain basin that sat next to a bed. 

"How do you feel?" Sebastian asked, as the Their hope, that when the next full moon came, Filipe would only see himself in the mirror.

"I don't know. The same, I guess. I won't know until the moon----" Filipe said before suddenly feeling something in his stomach. It was like a cramping feeling. A Cramping feeling that began to grow in his body. He jumped up from his chair, the pain uncontrollable. His eyes began to fill with tears. The veins in his neck bulging. Then all the other veins in his body started to bulge, in his hands, on the temples of his head, in his arms, down his chest. He felt as if he were being chocked.

Filipe fell to the floor gasping for air. Sebastian rushed over and turned him face up and watch as his own blood turn his friend into something --- into a human again.

Not a murderous beast.

"Filipe!!!" Fatima said, reentering the room and joining the two men on the floor. "Is he ok?"

"I think." Filipe said in a crushed voice as they helped him up.

"Now what?" She asked.

"Now we wait." Filipe said wiping his mouth from spit and blood.

"No." Sebatian said to them as they turned to look in his direction. "Now we save Evie and Mary." Sebastian added. 

 

B7/Ch5: REUNIONS OF ALL NATURES

Nik & Lear in Lear’s Office 

In an afternoon glow of sunlight that covered him in a bright yellow warmth, Lear Lockwood sat at his cluttered desk sorting through papers and documents he had locked away in several of his office cabinets. He'd been a lawyer for over ten years, still a novice to most, but he'd worked hard all those years to become quiet the experienced litigator, especially being connected to the Lords through his aunt Rebecca. 

He was their courtroom shark. 

As Lear sorted through his paper, dressed in his dark woolen suit and deep green tie, he finally came across the large tan envelope that housed the forms he was looking for: copies of Cora Taylor's adoption forms. 

The documents that were crafted up many years ago by the person who brokered the deal between his father Henry Lockwood and the Murphy family were legal but the entire affair of the adoption of Maggie Lockwood, Cora's birth name, had been done by a black-market baby dealer who worked with Henry to find the right family who'd pay good money for a baby.

Money Henry desperately needed to pay off loan sharks hungry for their returns. 

This dark history of Lear's family had not been known to Lear until recent years when he went in search for answers and found that Cora Murphy was indeed his missing sister and that their father had done this terrible thing to. Lear's hatred for what he believed Rebecca had done to his father, supposedly cutting him out of the Lockwood fortune, overshadowed the truth in those documents, but the time had come where this anger had to be lifted off his shoulders much like the fog lifts from the sea in the afternoon. 

Lear sorted through those documents, making sure they were all there, and prepared to show them to Cora finally proving to her who she really was, his sister Maggie, not Baxter's sister Cora, although she truly was both. His main objective was to prove to Lucas, the man he was in love with, that he could be the kind of person who rights the many wrongs of the past and turn the other page on all of this. Lucas wanted Lear to be the man he thought he was: Honest. True. Virtuous. 

Giving these papers to Cora was Lear's first steps to reach Lucas' high pedestal. But his sorting of papers quickly came to a halt as Dr. Nikolas Jordan entered his office. 

"Lear?"

"Dr. Jordan! Come in!" Lear replied, shuffling Cora's documents back into the large tan envelope. "What can I do for you?"

“I hope you’re not too busy.” Nik said, his eyes dating to the papers Lear was quickly hiding away. 

“No, no, not at all. Please come in. Is everything alright?”

Nik lifted a brow, his family’s business had been all over the papers, he knew Lear knew.

"I’m sure you’re aware of everything that’s going in town."

Lear sighed "Yes."

"My family really needs your help. I’d even say in desperate need. My sister is in a lot of trouble." Nike said.

Lear replied with a pregnant sigh again "I can’t imagine what she’s going through. What could I do?" 

"I was hoping well... We're hoping you'd represent Evie, Matthew and Mary in this ridiculous trial happening soon." Nik explained.

Lear's eyes widened at the notion. 

"Me? You're asking me to represent them in a literal witch trial? Doctor, I don't know! First of all this seems incredibly farfetched by any legal terms, and I would find it very hard to believe any judge in the country would take it seriously. Your sister and her friends would probably find themselves released as soon as the charges hit the judge's desk." 

"I would hope you're right, but we don't think it'll come to that. We've heard the mayor who been spearheading this hysteria has one of Maine's highest ranking state prosecutor's here on the island reviewing a law that's been on the books since the puritan days. It's never been repealed. So, technically, a judge may have to take this to trial based on that law. He's found loopholes to force it to court. They're in real danger, Lear. We've seen what the punishment is and if they continue to go down this road and all three are found guilty, then, my sister is done for." 

"I see." Lear said, sitting back down at the cluttered desk the sun once again hitting his face with a bright glow behind him causing a shadow to outline him in silhouette. 

"There might be some kind of issue with me being the person who represents them, after all, I was the lawyer responsible for taking Gabriel away from Evie when she went to the asylum. The state might call for me to be removed." 

"You were defending the Lord family. Gabriel is back in Evie's care, and she is a Lord by marriage. I am very certain Jacob and Rebecca would want you to defend her and Mary for that reason alone. Mary is Charlotte's mother, another Lord connection to this stupid trial that is only going to cause a sensation and more scandal. I'd bet everything I have that the Lords want this to end -- and end fast. You're the one who can do it." Nik said.

"Nikolas, this isn't going to be easy. I've read the papers. Not only has the mayor gone off the deep end, but he's feeding Baxter Murphy with more and more fuel to anger this entire town over all this. Ironically, its Baxter's column that's bewitched Welshport into believing all of this hocus pocus. If the town believes these three are responsible for the deaths at the Full Moon Celebrations, I'm going to have the hardest time convincing them otherwise considering what everyone already thinks they know and saw." Lear explained.

"That's why you're a good lawyer. You're already on it without even being asked to be."

"Nik... I don't know." 

Nik took a breath and unbuttoned the top of his coat. The stress of the entire week had been a strangle hold on him, his coat wasn't helping. "Please." He replied to Lear.

Lear stood there for a second and looked down at the documents in the tan envelope of Cora's adoption. He had once held off in helping someone get out of a situation that would have changed their lives. Now was his opportunity to help again ... this time he wasn't going to pass it up. 

"I'm telling you this won't be easy, but I'll do what I can."

Nik suddenly lit up like the sun and reached over and shook Lear's hand thanking him over and over. 

The job would indeed be difficult. But if anyone could untangle this noose around the three accused witches it would be Lear Lockwood. 

****

Aurora & Gabriel arrive at Tirymor House

At Tirymor, the final repairs to the damage done by the mob on the night of the full moon were being done. Walls had been repaired, artwork that had been torn from their perches returned and broken furniture quickly removed and replaced in any room affected. 

Rebecca Lord-Casador, sat in one of the freshly painted rooms under the sparkling light of three chandeliers above her whitening red hair. She read from a prayer book Father Donavon Ryan had given her and her 5-year-old grandson Fabian sat at her feet putting together a large puzzle of Tirymor House itself. 

"Where's my room?" Fabian asked, staring at the half-done puzzle of the mansion he lived in.

Rebecca lifted her eyes from her book and glanced down "Hmm, that's the east side of the house, my darling. Our rooms are all on the west side. See?" She said pointing "This picture is actually showing the windows of this very room, right there on the left."

"Oh! Yes I can see us!" The little boy giggled pretending to see himself in the puzzle with her grandmother.

"Can you now?" She laughed. "Oh yes, there we are. Hello Fabian! Its Granny!" She giggled waving to the puzzle.

Fabian laughed at her silliness and waved too "Hello granny"!

As the two bonded in the room, the head-maid entered. "Young Fabian's play date is here ma'am." 

"Did you hear that honey, little Gabriel is here."

"GABRIEL!!" Fabian shouted, happy to hear his little cousin had come to play.

As Rebecca stood from the sofa she turned towards the room's door expecting to see Gabriel entering with his governess and sign language teacher Cora Tyler, but instead and to her surprise, Aurora Jordan entered with her grandson in her arms.

Gabriel lit up, his face showed so much happiness to see Fabian and Rebecca. He'd grown to love them so much. Aurora smiled at his happiness. In all the terror in the world, the little boy was a beacon of light for all of them. She placed him on the floor and in her best sign language signed to him "have fun." 

Gabriel, in his best sign, signed the letters of Fabian's name. 

Fabian rushed over and signed to Gabriel too in the few signs he knew "Play. Come. Play." 

"Aurora, it's good to see you." Rebecca said as the chicly kissed on either cheek. 

"Likewise, Rebecca. Tirymor is looking wonderful. I'm so happy to see that everything has been put back together."

"For the most part. And Cora? Is it her day off?" Rebecca sked sharply. 

Aurora sensed Rebecca's coldness. The snark had never left Rebecca's tone towards Aurora since the day she found her with Caspian in bed together so long ago. And despite the circumstances of Caspian's possession and controlling Aurora's mind, Rebecca had remained somewhat jealous of Aurora's connection to her now husband all this time. It didn't matter that Aurora had moved on with her life with Gregory. The sting of Rebecca's frosty demeanor lingered on like a winter that would never end. 

"In a way, yes. I gave her the afternoon off because I needed to speak with Caspian. And you." Aurora said

"I see." Rebecca replied sitting back down and closing her book. "If this is about the situation with Evangeline, I can assure you, we will stop at nothing to help her. The entire ordeal is absolutely preposterous, and I won't allow that poor girl to suffer any more than she already has. I gave her my word when I brought her the keys to Bellmore Beach. I intend to always protect her as she is a Lord, married in or not, she is a Lord. Gabriel's mother will always, Aurora, always find sanctuary here and within this family." 

"Thank you, Rebecca. I have no doubts about that, and I am grateful for that. We all are. In fact, we've reached out to your nephew Lear for help."

"Lear. Well, he's a good lawyer. I should have thought about that too. Well done." Rebecca said, reaching for a glass of water with lemon on the side table under a crystal coaster. "Would you like some?"

Aurora declined and sat down next to Rebecca. "That's actually not why I decided to come here instead of sending Cora with Gabriel. I need to speak with you and Caspian about what happened with Asha and Gregory." 

Rebecca gulped. "Go on."

"Caspian, I'd like him to be here when I explain. You see I called him the night of the full moon catastrophe because I needed to see him, I later discovered you'd all been taken hostage and taken to the caves. But the matter is still very much at hand." Aurora said.

"He's unfortunately not here, Aurora. He's off to Augusta."

Aurora tilted her head, confused "Augusta?"

"Yes, he was kind enough to deliver an approved manuscript for the publishing house to one of the printers. I'd expect him home in a day or two."

"He delivered the manuscript himself, not one of the company's pages?" Aurora replied skeptically. 

"Isn't it the strangest thing? He needed to get out of town for a bit. You know, freshen up his senses after everything that happened and decided to give us at the Publishing House a helping hand. It was actually quite sweet of him, to show interest in the family's business." Rebecca said.

"Of course." Aurora replied. "Well, then I should go. I'll send Cora back for Gabriel after dinner time."

"Aurora, you can still tell me what you need to. I am his wife." 

Aurora stood up from the sofa and realized Rebecca's body language had stiffened. Something about the entire story of Caspian leaving on a simple errand that normally someone the company paid as a delivery service could have done seemed odd to her. It was clear to Aurora that Rebecca was lying and that perhaps Caspian was somewhere in the mansion. 

It wasn't worth pushing, for Aurora's sake. She'd have to find Caspian on his own a different time to tell him their son, not daughter, was alive and missing. That Asha and Gregory had conspired to take the child at birth, lie about its death, and give it away. All for Gregory's own selfish gain at keeping Aurora to himself and literally vanquishing any ties Caspian and Aurora had together. 

"It's fine, I can always come back and speak to you both when he's returned, enjoy the boys, Rebecca." Aurora said with a kind smile.

Rebecca stood up and the two women again gave each other double kisses, one on each cheek. 

Jane, who stood at the door the entire time, escorted Aurora out. 

The boys continued to play together on the floor. Rebecca sat back down. She felt a twinge of guilt rush through her body. Something in her told to her to keep Aurora far away from Caspian, as far away as possible. She was sure, whatever the beautiful woman had to tell her husband would be yet another nail in the coffin to the marriage she was struggling to keep together -- fate on the other hand, continued to try and break them apart. 

Rebecca opened her prayer book, and an ironic verse popped out at her "do unto others as you would want done to you." 

Rebecca quickly closed the book and tossed it to the side and sighed. Her lies, she knew, would one day catch up to her. 

****

Eden meets Timothy at his office 

Back in the village at another office in town across from Lear's with just about the same amount of clutter strewn across several desks, Mayor Timothy Churchill stirred the milk into his coffee with a nervous jolt in his wrists. He had sparked such wild accusations and gossip in town setting a plan in motion that had led up to the Governor's office in Augusta -- it felt like a longshot but if he wanted to be the Churchill family member that returned Welshport to the place his ancestors had helped found, the trial against Mary, Matthew and Evie was a good start.

Standing at a makeshift coffee bar within the Mayor's office was state Barrister Eden Sydney. A tall man with a regal Roman nose and chiseled face. His whitening beard scratching and thick surrounded two pouty perfect crossbow shaped lips. 

He was a man whose reputation on law had sent him to the highest of offices within the state and brought him the strange occurrences in Welshport Island to his desk. 

Eden turned to Timothy with a bewildered look on his face and sipped from the white coffee mug letting the steam sweep across his brow. 

"I don't know Tim, I've prosecuted many cases where old laws took precedent, but this one is over 200 years old and not only that it's based on old superstition and not anything tangibly legal." Eden explained.

"Yet it's the law. The three accused are accused of the crime of witchcraft, yes something we all thought was just a part of folklore and silly fairytales, but there are eyewitnesses to Mary Goode's use of it. She killed someone Eden, an assistant of mine. This is real." Churchill explained.

"And the others? What were they seen doing?" 

"There wasn't anything we actually saw them do at the caves," The Mayor's aide Nathan Cramer added. "However, they were there with Mary Goode and we know we can get testimony of equally strange things surrounding Mrs. Jordan-Lord and Mr. Winterborn. Mr. Winterborn's ability to survive months at sea after his fishing trawler went down in the mid-Atlantic. A fellow sailor that survived on a piece of debris said he saw Winterborn drown. Mrs. Jordan-Lord survived being buried alive -- dug herself out even. We can get people to swear to these things on them. The Mayor asserts this as the basis of their own actions of Witcraft -- strange miraculous survival of things no other person could have without the help of magic...thus breaking this 200-year-old law." 

"Nathan," Eden replied astonished with the accusations "you don't actually believe people will come forward to testify that they believe those actions are based in dark magic, do you? Strange -- yes! But witchcraft?” Eden scoffed. “I've always learned that the easiest and most complete answer is always the simplest. There has to be a simple explanation for both of those situations and what’s more it’ll be difficult to convict. Mary on the other hand, well, she's as good as convicted after what people saw." 

"There are three accused, and I want three convictions. They're a coven." Timothy added.

"Covens. Live Burials. Mysterious survivals at sea…Witches! My god, man, I did not spend all that time in law-school to come here and prosecute ghosts and goblins no matter what anyone thinks they saw." Eden replied.

"But it's the law, you're here to uphold the law, I don't think it matters how long ago it was written. Isn't that correct?" The mayor added.

Eden sighed. "I suppose."

"We know we can get testimony Mr. Sydney. That won't be a problem." Nathan added. 

"This is going to be a very strange case to lock down, and testimony is key. Have you vetted any witnesses?" Eden asked.

"No." Timothy replied. "We have their reports here from the police and awaited your arrival to be sure nothing was tainted by outside influences on my office. We want this case asl clean as a white cloud. I want these convictions, Eden." 

"I still don't fully understand your angle here, Tim? Why? Why are you doing this? What about the deaths that occurred throughout this time? Have those murders been solved? Why am I here chases witches when I should be here prosecuting the person who killed those people?" 

"You are! We believe the three accused are directly responsible to what happened the night of the Full Moon Celebrations. Their magic has to be, must be, absolutely is, connected to what happened. The beast we all saw that night was not nature made. They're responsible and I want them taken down. For good." Timothy said, as a red-headed secretary with green eyes and very skin as pale as a winter's day entered with a fresh pot of coffee.

She walked over silently and placed the carafe on the coffee bar and refilled the cream and sugar. Her body facing away from the three men discussing the coming trial, yet her ears fully plugged into the conversation as she fiddled with the coffee accoutrement slowly. 

As the men continued to discuss, she moved a silver tea kettle that had been on the corner of the table over to where the coffee was and in the mirrored reflection of the kettle a reflection showed the face of Jaqueline Gray who'd shapeshifted into Timothy's red-headed secretary. 

Jaqueline's anger had boiled over the night before when she and Sebastian fought, and a knife was accidentally plunged into her by Filipe. Her miscarriage weighing heavily into her soul pushed her potent revenge into over-drive and she wanted to be sure everyone she hated was punished. 

"Again, Mary I can see getting taken down, but the other three---" Eden began before Jacqueline as the secretary interjected. 

"I apologize sir, but I just wanted to say that I know that Evangeline had been into these dark arts too." Jacqueline said, pointing the finger at her direct romantic rival.

"Is that so?" Eden said.

"Do tell Miss Crawly." Timothy said, calling the secretary by her name and Nathan quickly grabbing a pen and paper to take down notes.

"Well, she has spent two stings in two different mental institutions, and she'd often talk of ghosts at Tirymor. When she supposedly died, she put a spell on herself making herself look dead to get her out of the mental hospital, of course she had to be buried and when she was, she found her freedom." Jacqueline said, lying.

"Those are very dangerous extremes to go to just to be free from a mental institution." Eden replied.

"And yet, they're true." Jacqueline replied.

"It did happen Eden." Timothy replied with a brow raised. "How do you know this for sure Miss Crawly?" 

"My sister was the nurse who attended her while she was at the hospital. My sister was tormented by Evie the whole time she was there, to the point where my sister took her own life while being bewitched by her. I can testify to all of this." Jacqueline replied, pushing more lies. 

"You're saying Evie put your sister under a spell? For what?" Eden inquired. 

"It was the only way she could get around the medications being given to her. Evie made my sister give her too much medicine and she fell asleep and then the spell worked. The medicine made it seem like my sister killed -- a real-world excuse to cover for the sleep spell. Evie went to sleep; people thought the drugs killed her and she freed by way of fake death. My sister is the victim here. That's all." Jacqueline added, again lying. 

"There you have it." Timothy replied to Eden. "They're all guilty."

"You're making my life very complicated Tim, very, very difficult."

"Thank you, Miss Crawly." The mayor said, excusing Jacqueline in disguise. 

Outside the office, she smirked evilly knowing that the way to hurt Sebastian most was to hurt the woman he truly loved and hopefully get her convicted and executed. Jaqueline's hunger for revenge now put blood on the hands of Mary and Evie for the miscarriage. A very dangerous twist in fate for them all.

"I still don't know what's in it for you Tim, why go after these three? What's the deal? Some kind of election you need to win?" Eden asked. 

Tim smiled and shook his head. It was much more than an election; it was retribution and the righting of many decades of wrongs. 

"My family name has been all but erased from Welshport history. The Lords are responsible for that, and they need to finally be held accountable for the terrible and monstrous things they've done to my family and this town. This is the beginning of the end for them - the hell that they've unleashed and secrets they've held will die just like the witches. Evie Jordan-Lord and Mary Goode are the first blocks in House of Lord I'm chipping away at. And soon, Mr. Sydney, very soon, that house will fall, and mine will rise again." 

Eden's eyes narrowed. The air in the room felt stale and cold. Something had changed in his mind about Timothy, a man he saw as a good friend, clever. moral. Something was off, something different in his eyes even. The years locked away on Welshport Island away from the mainland where real life was much faster paced and felt a world away from the shadows and fog that clouded not only the air above the island but perhaps the islanders minds too. 

To Eden, Timothy Churchill was just another victim of the superstitious lore that the locals had very much allowed to absorb themselves in. 

"Well, then, looks like we'll be putting on a trial Tim. Don't embarrass me." Eden replied.

Timothy smiled and sat back in his Mayor's chair with a grin that matched a cat that ate the cannery. 

As Jacqueline walked back into the office where the real secretary was she morphed back into her actual body and surprised the woman sitting at her desk filing papers. 

"What? Who are you? What were you doing back there!??" Miss Crawly shouted. 

Jacqueline narrowed her eyes and moved her hand over the woman's face almost touching it. The woman's eyes glazed over and Jacqueline begin to whisper in her ear:

"Say no more, say no less, let your mind fall into regress. Open to the things I show, what you see is now what you know."

And with a snap of her fingers Jacqueline vanished into thin air leaving the lies she told in the room with Eden and Churchill now feeling like real events in the secretary's mind: planted falsehoods that she'd testify to and set Evie and Mary up for a devastating trial ahead. 

****

The Lord Family mausoleum 

As the night sky filled with plumes of clouds off the coast of Welshport Island an orange sun sank into the dark purple sky shadowing everything in it's wake. 

The wind tosses the ocean waves into the Northshore Cliffs pushing sea mist into the air and over into the nearby St. Thomas' Cemetary. 

A cloaked figure walked the stoney path of the cemetery dodging the Gaslamp light that seemed to float in the darkness. The person knew where they were going, undeterred by the eerie darkness and coldness of the night.

Through a patch of graves dedicated to the children of the Garland family, one of the first five families to settle on Welshport, the person could finally see the final destination: The Lord family mausoleum.  

The cloaked figure went on through the Garland family burial plot leaving behind footprints in the wet grass arriving slowly and somewhat apprehensively to the gate of the very large stone mausoleum. The person reached into the gate and lifted the latch surprised that it was not locked and entered. 

The mausoleum resembled a Roman temple with six stone pillars holding up a triangular roof with a large dome that could not be seen from below. Eight beautifully carved Angles were perched in the center of the exterior triangle above the pillars surrounding the carved name of LORD.

 The shiny golden door too had angels carved into it, but it was locked... to the untrained eye that is.

The Lord family ancestors, for reasons unknown to the current family, had created a switch in the golden doorhandle -- this secret latch could be felt from underneath doorhandle and when lifted slightly and to the right, carefully, the door to the mausoleum would unlock. 

The cloaked figure was keen to this, and with a flick of finger was able to enter. 

Inside, the cloaked figure lowered his hood, it was a man. He stood there in the damp main atrium of the large mausoleum and looked over several of the panels below his feet. He read the names of the Lord Family members to himself, they were all buried there in several chambers and crypts just below his feet. There were also two large tombs above, that of the first Lord's to land in Maine, CALGARY LORD and his wife EUGINIA.

The man then slowly passed those two large tombs and entered a secondary chamber where the rest of the family was. A slick marble panel with many names came to his eye, especially the very last name: ALBERT J. LORD.

The cloaked man, turned to his lift and saw another smaller panel with just one name. Under this, in a crypt all alone was Sabrina Spencer-Lord.

In the shadowy reflection on the mausoleum's marble wall was Christopher Wesley. 

Christopher stepped over to Sabrina's crypt and stared down at it. He reached into his pocket and lit one of the small candelabras on the wall with matches he had brought with him. He stared down and said a prayer silently to himself. 

Then, as Chris' head was bowed in prayer, a light began to shine from behind him that was much brighter than the candelabra on the wall. This was no ordinary glow, this seemed like a solar spotlight of white light coming at him.

Chris quickly turned and there she was the spirit of Sabrina standing there floating in an invisible breeze. She looked as if she had never died, had there been no light surrounding her, she would have looked of flesh and blood just like Christopher. 

Chris smiled, oddly unafraid, and walked to Sabrina who was floating just above a stone bench dedicated to Vivi Lord, the youngest daughter of Albert and Rebecca. Sabrina motioned for Chris to come closer to her and sit with her on Vivi's bench. Chris complied. 

"Sabrina." he whispered. "It's really you." 

Sabrina flashed a ghostly smile, happy to see the face she had not in over 10 years. 

"It took you long enough David." She said, revealing Christopher true identity. 

Christopher winced as if that name was a dagger to the heart "I've given that up, I've given up everything associated with --- that person." He answered.

"Is that why it's taken you so long to come home? You don't want to remember who you are?" She asked, her voice echoing in the stone walls around them.

"It's too painful. Everything that I was, everything that happened to you and to me. It was all too much. David is dead. He's dead to me." Chris replied.

Sabrina's sunny smile quickly melted away hearing Christopher's words. He had returned to the place he was born but he, in his heart, was not the same person. The David she adored, loved, married and had a child with was sitting right in front of her and yet they could not touch, and she could not call him by the name she knew. 

"I wish I could make things better, I would. I would do it right now, I'd change everything for you." Sabrina said. "But the truth is, we can't. Not on this side of the vail, and not on yours. We have to deal with the darkness and the light of our lives to move on and heal. No day is done without seeing the sun set, and no day begins without it rising." 

"I know what you're trying to do." Chris ginned. "You were always good to make a person see through their own bullshit." 

She laughed. 

"But this is more than just bullshit." he added. "I've had to give up the life I led because of things I could not confront. Your death was too much for me and I could not go on." 

"You left Sebastian." She replied, the words again stinging him in his heart.

"That is the worst part." He said. "That is the part I'll have to life with all my life no matter what my name is. He's truly one of the reasons I returned. Perhaps the most important." 

"How will you explain yourself? To him, to the family? They'll want to know." Sabrina asked.

"I don't really know yet." Chris said. "I think I'll cross that bridge when I come to it." 

Sabrina lifted a brow, "Deal with it soon, David. Very soon. Too many years have gone by and too much has happened for you to continue to hide in the shadows of your old name or your past and my death. It’s time to restart and get yourself back into the world that you belong to. I am so happy you're home, so happy to see you and to see that you're so well. And..." She paused to think "And I'm so happy that you've found someone else." 

"Geneieve." He whispered.

"I know her. We've met." 

"She's mentioned." He smiled.

"David, you can let go now, of all of the things that happened here and back then. I know that for a long time, there was even vengeance in me, something in my own spirit roaming this place that wanted to seek it, but I've learned, at a very slow pace, that it would hurt more people. I wish I could take back what I did to poor Charlotte, but I can't. One day I hope she'll forgive me. But that is the key: forgiveness. We need to forgive."

"How can I? I was accused of your murder and almost prosecuted for it, had I not vanished, I would have surely been found guilty. It took me years, Sabrina, years of hiding and soul searching and realizing that Jacob had tricked me into thinking I did what HE did. I wasn't brave enough to face him then and for along time, but I am now. I am. For you. For Sebastian. For all of us." Chris explained.

"And what will that serve? More animosity within the family? How will you heal from that? By covering up your anger with... with what? There is nothing on this earth that can cover up the anger you feel, and I can tell you, when the time comes for you to be on this side with me and we reunite, it will weigh on you. It will always weigh on you. I made that mistake when I pressured Charlotte into helping me and I regret that. Don't make the same mistake I did with Geneveive." Sabrina explained.

"But he killed you." Chris reminded her. "How can I allow him to get away with murdering the woman I loved and the mother of my child?" 

"His day will come. I promise you that, but it cannot come at your hand. The universe and time take action when they see fit. They may wait -- but they always come through." 

"Genevieve wants me to forget all of this too." Chris said.

"Good." Sabrina replied without a beat "Listen to her. Keep her. She may be the gateway to your happiness, real happiness now that I can't be here with you and watch our grandchild grow." 

Sabrina, who's face was frozen in time as a young 33 year old had known all about Gabriel's birth, the little boy was the ray of light she needed to let go of the anger of her death. For this little child who she loved so much from beyond the grave, she forgave. And now it was Christopher's turn, by whatever name he called himself.

"I'd love to meet him. I'd love to see him!" He said.

"And you will."

"My god how I've missed you. I know that I can see your face in Genevieve's every time I look into her eyes, but it's not the same. I've missed you all these years. I've missed your kindness and the sweet way you'd sing to yourself when you thought no one was listening. I've missed your perfume and the smell of your hair on your pillow." 

Sabrina's eyes welled with ghostly tears as she could feel again, his love. His true love. 

"David, I've missed you too. Every second I've been gone. But, I don't want you to live this way anymore. Secretly hiding behind lies that were told. You deserve to be seen and known to everyone. I promise you, there is nothing to hide from anymore. take this second change and run with it." 

"You really want me to do that? Even if its with Geneveive?"

"Especially so. She really cares for you."

"She does. And she looks so much like you. It almost hurts to look her in the eyes and not think of you," he admitted slowly reaching for her translucent face.

Then as they stared into each other's eyes, a wind blew out the candelabra and then suddenly the lit again. Sabrina turned to the candles knowing this was a sign to her from the powers that be.

"Listen, it's time for us to part. I must go, but let Genevieve’s reminder of me just be the universe sending you a message that I’m alway in your heart." 

"It’s impossible for me to.” He replied of such a cruel way for The universe to have sent him Sabrina. 

He stepped closer to his late wife’s ghost, he wanted to kiss her, hug her, hold her just one more time, but the chill in the air told him it was time for her to go.

“I want to stay with you a little longer, please." Chris said reaching for her ghostly hands that he could not feel.

"David, its time." She repeated. 

"Will I see you again?" 

She tilted her head unsure of the answer. There was no rhyme or reason to when she would appear or how she would appear. She didn't choose these encountered. Since she was free of the anger she held and finally passed over into the other side, she truly had no control over the times she could appear to her family. It was granted to her by a higher power. This time, in the mausoleum, the higher being knew it was needed. 

"I wish I could tell you soon, but I don't know. But that is a good think, love. Find your happiness back where you belong here in this town near your family and find our son. Meet our grandson and love and protect them at all costs." Sabrina explained.

"I wish I could go with you." he said.

"No, you have a lot of work to do here. You need to reunite with Sebastian, David. You need to find him and be there for him. He is going to need you very soon." Sabrina warned.

"Where is he? Everyone here seems think he's gone." 

"No matter what anyone tells you about him, he's still your son. No matter what has happened to him. Never ever give up on him." Sabrina said.

"I would never do that." he answered. "Not again. Please... tell me where I can find him. At least just so that I can see him again. Face to face."

Sabrina smiled and began to fade. She would not give him all the answers. He would have to find their son and see what he was -- what he had become -- for himself.

"Do not forget about Sebastian." She said, her voice trailing off.

"Sabrina, please... don't go yet. Please Sabrina, I love you! I want you to know that I love you! Please!! Sabrina, SABRINA!!"

Then she was gone but not before cold air brushed across his lips and heard her ghostly voice one last time:

"I love you too.... Christopher." 

B7/Ch4: THROUGH THE JAILER'S BARS

Filipe arrives at Lockwood Thicket

Filipe slowly crept around the brush and trees around Lockwood Thicket dodging in and out of the pattern of shadows the leaves made by the moon light. 

As he stepped into an open area of grass just near a back window of the cottage, the light of the moon suddenly registered in Filipe's mind. He looked up and saw low clouds floating over a cycle shaped moon.

"Not full." he thought to himself, relieved. 

Then Filipe carefully felt around the back window hoping for some sort of opening. There was none. He then slowly pushed on one side and by the flash of luck, the old window cracked open, the lock never latched from the inside and like a thief in the night, Filipe crawled into a dark back room inside Lockwood Thicket hoping to find Sebastian. 

In the Cabin's main room, a mid-sized parlor where Jacqueline had a fire burning inside the hearth, she stood over a boiling pot of herbs and teas. Standing near here in a frozen state were her two lovers.

She carefully walked over to then, a mug of her hot herbal tea in hand and circled them again and again like a shark in deadly water. She knew she had them trapped, their minds awake with thoughts on how much they both wanted to destroy her for their captivity. But with her powers locking them in their own bodies, she had the upper hand.

"Irony, huh?" She said to them, her long black dress whispering around at their feet as she circled. "The three of us together in this little place all because we can't get along. We could get along, you know, but the two of you have to work together... for me." She said. 

Sebastian and Johnathon's eyes stared deep into her as if they could see her dark soul hoping to give her some kind of sign of their hate of her.

Jacqueline could sense it. Their energy was as palpable as a winter wind over the face, and just as bitter. 

"Here," she said to Johnathon "this will help." 

Jacqueline moved her open hand over Johnathon's face in a circle. Her powers slowly opening his jaw as if he were doing it willingly. His eyes showed fear and terror as she slowly poured the tea down his throat, a tea that would soon seep into his body and lock him in the vice of her control even further than he was before. This powerful tea she brewed was like a tether to her powers and the two men she loved and lusted for were now only minutes away from being like toy soldiers in her army.

Filipe, slithering down the hall like a snake in the grass, watched as Jacqueline gave Johnathon the tea. He knew there was no time to lose, but he had to find a way to distract the witch. But this time, luck was not on his side.

"Would you like some tea too Filipe?" Jacqueline said, sensing him easily. "You know you could have just knocked on the door, I would have let you in." She added stepping to the side so that she could see Filipe more easily as he stood at the end of the hall. 

"What have you done to them?" Filipe asked entering into room where the light of the hearth glowed bright.

Sebastian's eyes darted to where he could hear Filipe's voice.

Jaqueline furrowed her brow "None of your business." 

"I -- I need Sebastian's help." Filipe said, taking his time to get closer to her.

"Do you, now? And what would he do for you exactly? You don't actually think Mary's idea of his blood and yours being the same in the world of the supernatural, do you? You know, I do worry about my coven sister. She's truly having a lot of trouble interpreting her mother's spell book. If she and I had remained close, I might have taught her better, but...." 

"Just let me take Sebastian." Filipe said, interrupting Jacqueline. 

Filipe put his hand on Sebastian's frozen harm, Sebastian's eyes locking with Filipe's.

"No." The witch said, quickly. 

"I need him, Jacqueline. I can't stay the way I am." 

"I just told you Sebastian would be no help." She replied.

"I don't believe you."

Jacqueline narrowed her eyes and reached for Filipe's hand to remove it from Sebastian, but he swatted her away, the force of his hand so strong it knocked the mug of tea out of her other hand. 

"Well!" She said, her tone somewhat entertained. "You are a very strong one, I'll give you that. But I'm a bit stronger, you see?" 

Jacqueline lifted both her hands and Filipe's body vaulted towards the other side of the room and stuck to the wall, his feet desperately trying to reach for the ground. The witch walked over, Filipe now trapped in her control. He struggled to release himself from her powerful invisible grip. 

"Like a fly in a web." She said, her face now inches from his chest. "I do wish we'd had more of a conversation with me before you just burst in here trying to take Sebastian. I need him too, and perhaps I need him more than you do." 

"Jacqueline.... please...." Filipe said, struggling to breath while stuck to the wall.

"We barley know each other Filipe, really, do you think I'd just give up someone I love for you? A relative stranger to me?" 

Filipe, however, wasn't just the mortal Jacqueline remembered him to be. His insides were different. His body chemistry had shifted now that he too was consumed by the powers of the supernatural world. He may not have been in his wolf form, but the forces deep inside his body were still a strong as they were when the moon was full.

Filipe was only biding his time until he could strike.

And strike he did.

With a jolt of his body, he leapt off the wall free from her powerful grasp and knocked her to the floor. Her face falling into the tea that was spilled from when Filipe knocked the mug from her hand. She quickly learned Filipe would not go down easy with magic. She had to use a different method. 

Getting up from the floor she regrouped and lunged for him, her hand twisting as if she were holding a knife and then out of thin air a knife from the kitchen suddenly materialized in her hand.

She swung the knife at Filipe. He dodged it. She swung again slashing his shirt and barley skimming the top layer of skin on his forearm; a stain of blood slowly seeped through the fabric of his sleeve. 

Sebastian's eyes watched as the crimson river began to pool on seams of the white shirt sleeve. 

Jacqueline swung her knife wielding hand again, this time leaving her open to Filipe, who swung a closed fist towards her that landed on her face knocking her to the floor. 

Jacqueline collapsed.  

"Oh god!!" Filipe said, realizing he had just punched a woman. 

He quickly went to the floor next to her and rolled her over. He tapped her face to wake her, she was alive but unconscious. The knife from her hand now lodged in her stomach. 

"JACQUELINE!! JACQUELINE!!" Filipe shouted, blood seeping from the wound in her abdomen. "What have I done???"

As Jacqueline lay there bleeding and unconscious, Sebastian and Johnathon slowly came out of their frozen state like two ice sculptures melting in the sun. 

Johnathon's body, weak from being in this state for days and days, fell to his knees. He could barely see out of his foggy eyes. His mind still uncertain of what had happened to him. Sebastian, much clearer minded, rushed over to Filipe.

"We have to go!" The awake vampire said.

"But, what about her? She may die!" Filipe replied.

"We can't worry about her now, Filipe, please come, we have to go!" Sebastian shouted, forgetting she was supposedly carrying his child that was now in danger.

Sebastian helped move the dying Jacqueline out of Filipe's terrified hands and helped him up. The ran towards the door, Sebastian turned back and saw Johnathon slowly betting his sea legs back.

Sebastian ran back to Johnathon and helped him up. 

They looked at each other dead in the eyes and Sebastian grabbed him by the throat but not to hurt him only to force Johnathon's eyes to lock with his.

"YOU WILL GO BACK TO TIRYMOR-- FORGETTING ALL THAT OCCURED HERE. YOU WILL GO BACK TO TIRYMOR-- FORGETTING ALL THAT OCCURED HERE." 

Sebastian's words, his orders to Johnathon, went around and around Johnathon's mind. The hypnosis seeping into every fiber of Johnathon's already mind controlled brain. 

Then, finally, Johnathon spoke for the first time in days.

"I will return to Tirymor, forgetting all that occurred here." He replied hypnotized by Sebastian's voice.

And like a flash, Sebastian and Filipe were gone. 

Johnathon too, slowly but surely, left Lockwood Thicket half awake and half in a daze. He followed his orders of Sebastian to return to Tirymor without his bewitching wife who lie on the floor bleeding from an accidental knife wound to her stomach. 

As Johnathon walked through the dark forest along the path that would lead him back to the family mansion his mind became clearer. The cold sea air filled his lungs and opened his mind to what had happened and what he had seen at the Thicket: Jacqueline with powerful mind control, teas that took hold of his thoughts, he and Sebastian frozen there, Filipe tossed to the wall like a rag doll by his pregnant wife. The Stabbing!

Johnathon then stopped dead in his tracks, the path in front of him forking left to Tirymor, right to the Village.

Without a second thought, Johnathon turned right and followed the path to Welshport Village instead.

He had a lot of questions that needed answers. 

****

Rebecca and Caspian have a conversation 

The next day Rebecca and Caspian stood stoically in one of Tirymor's dimly lit drawing rooms posing for a painting that they'd soon hang in the very same room. After the mob attacked the mansion, many pieces of art were damaged and some even destroyed. It then dawned on the mistress of the house that she wanted a new, fresh painting of herself with her new husband. A record of her happy marriage to hang on the dark yellow walls -- this painting would oddly face a painting of herself with her late husband Albert. 

For Rebecca, the strange placement was symbolic of her two lives: the first as the wife of the Albert Lord: the intense publishing prince who went mad in his mid 50's and died in a mental hospital, and the second as the wife of the man without a past Caspian Casador. 

The painter had already created much of his new piece and after several hours, he allowed Rebecca and Caspian a moment to relax after their many hours of posing. Caspian helped Rebecca over to a sofa where her long maroon gown crumpled at her feet. She adjusted her opera gloves and jewelry as Caspian proudly sat next to her in view of the artist making shade adjustments to the painting.

"We've come along way, haven't we?" Caspian said, his eyes locked on hers.

She nodded. "We have." 

"I'm very proud of the man you've helped me become, Rebecca. I hope you know that." 

She smiled and squeezed his hand but a gnawing truth about him would not vanish from her mind. She knew who he was, she knew his true identity -- the man he was before his demonic possession took away all his memory and his past. She overheard Danielle Holten's revelation that Caspian was her presumed dead father Viktor Holten. This truth seemed to be a death knell to Rebecca's current happy marriage, at least she thought so.

"Have you thought more about digging deeper into who you were before becoming Caspian?" She asked out of the blue. He looked at her surprised, knowing of her discomfort with the idea of him searching for answers.

"I have thought about it more, yes." He replied.

"And?" 

"Well after what happened at the caves and how much I worried about you while I was being treated at the hospital I realized, perhaps this is where I am meant to be and maybe, just maybe, the person I was before all that awfulness was never meant to be found." 

"Do you really feel that way? Caspian, you can be honest with me." She asked, the feeling he wasn't being truthful lingering in the air like a Parisian perfume. 

"I do. Rebecca, I can't keep wondering about my life before. I thought I could, but it seems silly now. No one ever looked for me. Perhaps who I was before wasn't good. Perhaps that's why that vial creature chose to come into me, I was open to it's evil. I don't want to be that person anymore, not if I have you and this family who love me." Caspian replied as he kissed Rebecca's soft powdered cheek. 

His touch made her heart skip a beat. There was something in her whole body that finally felt connected to life again. After Albert's death, Rebecca fell into a world of suspicion and darkness. Her whole existence was made up of wondering about the other side of life -- what happened after we died. She wanted to know, she wanted to lift the vail of that mysterious realm in hopes to connect to Albert again. The man she loved practically her whole life and the father of her 3 children. After meeting Caspian all of her superstitions and controlling manners fell away, most of them anyway. Hearing Caspian say these words finally meant to Rebecca she was right to keep the truth from him.

Viktor Holten would stay dead. 

As the two cuddled on the sofa in the brightly lit yellow walled drawing room, the head maid of the house trotted down the long marble hallway towards the main entrance to Tirymor. Someone had run the mansion bell.

Jane reached for the double door's long iron handle and pulled it open to see the dark-haired Danielle Holten standing there with her arms folded over her body shielding her from the mid-morning chill.

"Yes?" Jane said, unceremoniously and somewhat irritated. 

"I'm sorry to bother you, miss, but I'd like to speak with Mr. ...uh... Mr. Casador." Danielle said clocking Jane's irritation with someone at the door interrupting her work. 

"I'm sorry miss, but he's occupied at the moment with the Mrs." 

"Is there anyway I can tear them away, I really need to speak to them, especially Mr. ..." Danielle paused again finding it hard to call her father by his adopted name "Casador." 

"Whom shall I saw is calling?"

"Nurse Holten." 

Jane stood aside and allowed Danielle to wait in the foyer as she went down the long marble hallway towards the yellow room. Once she entered, she found the couple once again standing as the artist had posed them exactly as they were. 

"My apologies, there's someone here to see you." Jane said.

"Who is it?" Rebecca asked.

"A young woman calling herself Nurse Holten." Jane replied.

Rebecca's stomach dropped.

"Nurse Holten?" Caspian wondered. "Perhaps she's here for Dr. Ward?"

"I'll go check!!" Rebecca shouted breaking from her pose. "I'm sorry Leo, I have to see this young woman." She added apologizing to the artist who rolled his eyes in frustartion. 

"Why don't I go?" Caspian asked.

"No, no, no, daring, you stay here let Leo finish with you and I'll see what Nurse Holten needs."

Rebecca quickly grabbed Jane's hand and together rushed back down the hall but through a side exit leading them into a second room they all called the cloak room where no one could hear them.

"What does she want?" Rebecca asked sternly.

"I don't know Miss. She only said she wanted to see Mr. Casador."

"Get rid of her." Rebecca replied.

"But how?" 

"Jane, you've been here a very long time, you should know by now how to lie. It's what we all do best, we lie. Do it." Rebecca scolded, showing a bit of her Lord family force.

"What if she won't leave?" 

"Absolutely do not let her stay, in no way whatsoever. I want Nurse Holten to leave the premises, tell her we are incredibly busy and when we find time for her, we will call on her."

Jane nodded and went back through the cloak room door, into the hallway and down towards where Danielle was waiting on a small red velvet lined chair facing a long set of rectangular windows facing the lush garden outside, Rebecca watched all the way down the hall, unseen.

"I'm sorry, Miss Holten," Jane said, her voice echoing in the cathedral ceilings. "they just can't see you at the moment." 

"It's so important, I really, really have to see Mr. Casador. Is there anyway you could just tell them all I need is five minutes or..."

"Miss. Holten, I've already asked them, and my job is not to be a messenger. I'm here to make sure this household is kept running. Do you see the size of it? Imagine now the staff that I have to round up every five minutes to keep it going --- running back and fourth for you would take away from that, now, I'm very sorry but I have to ask you to leave." Jane replied rudely. 

"This cannot wait!" Danielle shot back, refusing to get up from the chair.

"IT MUST!" Jane shouted. "Now, please go." 

As the two continued to argue and Rebecca watched from the far off hallway door that lead into the cloak room, Celeste began a hurried decent down the long staircase shocked at Jane's behavior. 

"What is all this!?" Celeste asked as stepping off the final step, her dark dress shuffling towards the two women.

"Miss Holten has been asked to leave Mrs. Lord, and she wont." Jane answered.

"Well, why has she been asked to leave?" Celeste asked.

"Mrs. Casador --- " Jane began before being interrupted.

"I'm actually here to see Mr. Casador, but I've been told he's too busy. Mrs. Lord, if there is anyway you could please speak to them for me, especially him, so that I may talk to him I would very much appreciate it." 

Celeste looked into Danielle's eyes and could tell there was something very serious happening in the young Nurse's mind. She felt awful for her but knew her place in the household and if she'd go against her mother-in-law there would be hell to pay. But on the other hand, Celeste realized too that there must be a reason Rebecca would be so adamite as to not want to see Danielle. Who was Danielle to Rebecca and why would she refuse to even see her for a very short time. There was nothing going on at the mansion that would prevent even the quickest meeting. 

It was obvious to Celeste there was much more to uncover.

"If Mrs. Casador says she cannot see you, or that they cannot see you now, then perhaps you should heed this and come back later or...perhaps a better plan is to wait until they come to the hospital. I'm sure Caspian as a checkup with Dr. Ward soon. If this is about his injuries, well then Dr. Ward can call the house." Celeste said.

"It's not about that." Danielle replied itching to tell Celeste the truth but wanting Caspian to the first to know he was her father Viktor -- alive!

"Again, we should heed Rebecca's wishes. Please go." Celeste said, her eyes narrowing. 

Danielle did not want to leave but felt up against a wall. She couldn't just blurt out what she knew, she wouldn't just tell the world her father was alive and he not be the one she was telling to. So, she listened and gathered herself up from the velvet lined chair and left the foyer broken hearted.

Jane thanked Celeste for pushing Daneille out and went back to her duties, Rebecca too happily went back to her painting pleased with Celeste's action.

Celeste, on the other hand, saw an opening to her mother-in-law's very powerful hold over the house. Danielle was clearly there for a reason outside of her job as a nurse and that made Rebecca fearful. That made Rebecca refuse to her, whatever that reason was Celeste knew it threatened Rebecca to a degree where she literally hid. 

And Celeste wanted to know more. Much, much more.

****

In the Village Hall jail 

In their jail cell at Village Hall, Evie, Matthew and Mary wondered what the day would bring. It had been a full week and a half since their incarceration, and they still awaited their day in court. The process, as they understood it, would be much longer as they awaited state barrister who was coming into town from Augusta. 

Evie sat in a corner on the floor tracing the shape of a thick brick with her finger. The hard stone scraped along her fingertip as she slowly began to write Gabriel's name invisibly over and over in perfect cursive. Mary watched from her end of the cell and her heart broke she knew the longing Evie felt for her child much in the same way as she felt for hers. 

Matthew came over, his hair thick and slick with days without washing, and sat down next to Evie. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close to him. His scent comforted her even though it they'd all be in the cell together for all that time without washing, but it was his and she loved it. 

"We're going to make it, ok?" He whispered to her.

"I don't know," She whispered back "there is so much against us. They want to make sure we don't get out of here. How can we prove ourselves innocent in a way that they'll believe? They want this to be true so they'll make it true." 

"I won't let it happen." Matthew said, attempting to reassure her. "There is no way I will let them do anything to you. Do you hear me?" 

"Matthew -- I'm sorry." She said. 

"For what?" 

"There have been some moments while we've been here where the silence of our thoughts has really made clear to me how unfair I was to you. Going back and forth between you and Sebastian for some time hasn't been kind. After all that Sebastian and I have been through, I still went back to him. Even after what he did to Alice. That was unfair to you." Evie explained.

"You don't have to apologize." He answered, his heart filling with so much love to hear her admit her part in their triangle. 

"But I do!" She answered. "You've been so kind and wonderful to me and to Gabriel-- and then of course there what I did in the caves. Allowing Sebastian to be placed there in such a sacred place to you and your family and your people. I should have been more mindful of that -- and I wasn't."

He smiled at her, the light from the windows shining down through the bars creating shadows that blocked out part of her peach-toned faced. Her bright sea blue eyes piercing through him like rays of light through storm clouds. 

Nothing she could do, could make him angry with her. He loved her. He adored her. All he wanted to do was protect her and her son from all the outside evils and he vowed to do it, regardless of how she felt about Sebastian. He would always be there on her side. A protector. He lover. A friend.

He pulled her into an embrace and lay her head on his chest listening to his heartbeat. Every thumb warming her soul. 

"Alright! Alright! Up, you!!" A guard shouted through the bars. 

Evie and Matthew got up from the ground and dusted themselves off.

"What is it? What's happened?" Mary asked.

"The extra cell's been fixed up for the Mister here, he'll be moving." The guard said.

"Moving?" Evie exclaimed as she grabbed hold of Matthew's arm.

"That's what I said witch!" The guard shouted at her. "Now move over and let him pass." 

"I would much rather stay here." Matthew replied.

"Would you now?" The guard asked mockingly. "And I'd much rather be a hefty 50 pounds lighter, but we don't always get things we'd rather have in life, you see? Now get over here."

"Matthew, no..." Evie whispered.

"It's all right, I'll just be right over there, right across from you." He said exiting the cell with the guard.

Mary grabbed Evie and the two stayed closed. "It's ok." Mary said.

"GO!" The guard shouted shoving Matthew violently to the point he fell to the flour. The two women screeched at this, but Matthew got up calmly and put his hand out to Mary and Evie calming them.

"GO ON MALE WITCH!" The guard barked, every word a joke to him. "Or are you a warlock!?" He asked laughing. An adjacent guard blocking the door on the other side laughed. 

Once he was settled in his own cell far across the room, the door to Village Hall opened and Aurora Jordan entered. She rushed over to the cell where Evie and Mary were where Evie met her at the bars. Their arms quickly tangled through the bars and Aurora reached in for an uncomfortable hug.

"Are you alright? Have you eaten?" Aurora asked as she and Mary also greeted each other.

"I'm fine, we're fine." Evie said.

"I have good news." Aurora said. "Nik is on his way now to speak with Lear, we're hoping he'll take on your case."

"Lear?" Mary asked.

"He's the only one we could think of on such a short notice and is local. We'd have to go all the way to Bangor or Augusta, maybe even Boston or New York to find someone else. Lear is ... well, Lear. But I think he'll help." 

"I don't know if I trust him. He helped take Gabriel from me." Evie reminded her.

"I know darling, but it was either Lear or wait for someone from the mainland and we don't have a lot of time for that. I think Nik is confident he can sway him, after all, the two of you are mother's to Lord grandchildren. Lear would be doing this to help his own cousins." Aurora replied.

Evie felt her stomach drop. She thought about it for what seemed like hours but only seconds passed. She worried that not only would her life now be in the hands of man who once helped forge papers to remove her from her son but also put her in a mental institution. 

"I want to trust him but..." Evie said.

"Evie we don't have a choice." Aurora replied sadly. 

Evie took a breath "Ok...ok."

Aurora reached through the bars, feeling her heart sink unable to make her daughter's worries melt away and give her daughter more confidence. She could see it all over Evie's face: the fear, the anxiety that Lear Lockwood would be the one taking her case but she trusted her mother. 

"Where's Matthew?" Aurora asked suddenly noticing his absence.

"Back here!!" Matthew shouted from his cell across the room.

Aurora gasped. "Oh!! Are you ok?" She added, noting his haggard look from the shove to the floor. 

Matthew nodded. "Just a little lonely is all." He joked 

"3 Minutes Mrs. Jordan, you have 3 minutes." said a guard. 

"How's my son? How's Gabriel?" 

"Fine, fine, he's been watched over right now by Cora. He's in good hands. As soon as I leave here I'll be back with him. I'd bring him to see you but... I just think he'd be confused and frightened of this place. Its very dark down here and so menacing to get to." Aurora said, referencing they were in the old town's jail cells under Village Hall as the police station had been burned down and was under construction. 

"No, of course, I agree, I'd have for him to see me here too. Just tell him I love him, would you? Tell him we're going to get out of here and we're going to come for him and we'll never be separated again." Evie asked.

"I'll tell him." Aurora said with tears in her eyes. "This is all just so--- so-- stupid!" She shouted. Her motherly frustration began to boil over and she turned to the two guards in the room who were still counting her minutes and added "To think these innocent people are being charged with 17th century crimes is the stupidest thing I have ever heard!!" 

"Don't blame us, ma'am! We're just here to watch over them so they don't use their powers." A guard joked.

Mary stood there fully knowing she was the only one guilty of what they were all accused. She felt horrible for allowing herself to have gotten so angry that she showed her powers to all that were at the caves that night, it was her fault they were in this mess and she couldn't help them out of it otherwise there would be more proof that she indeed have powers which would lead to much more danger for them all. She had to think of a clever way out, but Lear would have to help her. 

"Aurora, this is all my fault, I promise as soon as Lear gets here I'll figure a way for us to be free. There is no reason Evie or Matthew should even be here." Mary said.

"I appreciate that." Aurora replied. "After what I heard you did at the caves, however, you and Lear have a lot of work to do, but I'll him anything to find a way around this stupid, stupid trial."

Mary didn't know what to say, she could sense Aurora's anger towards her, it was like heat radiating from the sun and burning her skin. She felt horrible, but assured Aurora once again she'd stop at nothing to be free.

"Tell me," Evie said quickly changing the subject freeing Mary of her mother's ire, "what of Caspian? Have you two spoken since you discovered what Asha and Gregory did your child."

Aurora shook her head. "I tried to get a hold of him but he never showed."

"OH!" Evie recalled "that's right, the mob that came to the caves had Rebecca, Jacob and Caspian with them! They'd all gone to Tirymor and brought them to the caves. He was there!" 

"He never received my message." Aurora realized. 

"Time's up!" The guard shouted.

"But we.... " Evie began before the guard ripped Aurora from her grasp. 

"I said time's up." 

"MOTHER!!" Evie exclaimed as she watched her mother being escorted out of the room of cells. Aurora reached back hoping she could reach her daughter for one last touch before she was removed to no avail. The door slammed in Auror's face leaving the accused alone again in the cell room.

Mary walked over to Evie, they hugged and moved over to a bench in the cell. 

"Poor Caspian." Evie said, her nose slightly runny from crying. 

"What was that about? What did Asha and Gregory do?"

"Something awful. They conspired to take my mother's child away from her, the child she'd conceived with Caspian. They told her the baby died but in reality they'd taken the baby boy and given him away."

Mary's heart felt as if it stopped. Her blood ran cold. 

"A baby....a babyboy?" She said, stammering her words.

Evie nodded. 

It suddenly dawned on her. 

The child was Caleb. Asha had given Filipe a child to adopt, a boy. Aurora and Caspian's child.

Mary said nothing. Sat there, her hands cold as ice. Evie noticed and started to rub them to warm. 

"Mary? Are you alright?"

She did not answer, she only thought about what to say about the boy, Caleb. She looked at Evie, a newfound friend. A cohort in a terrible situation. Should she tell her the truth and make things easy for Aurora and lose this new child she adored so much, or should she keep it a secret.

Mary decided on the latter: Keep it a secret, at least for now.

"Fine." Mary replied. "Just feeling a little cold and hungry."

"Me too."

"Me three!" Matthew shouted from across the room as the women giggled. 

"SHUT UP!" a guard said entering. "SHUT. UP! Food's on it's way." 

Mary sat there, her mind only thinking of the child she'd been raising and loved could soon leave her life all together. Forever. 

****

Jacqueline loses her child 

At Lockwood Thicket, laying in a pool of her own blood, Jacqueline Gray breath had shallowed. Her pulse weakened and her skin began to change color and cool. The fire in the hearth had smoldered and only embers below the blacked wood within the ash sent smoke through the twisted thick branch one beech wood that had burned almost all the way through.

Then a sudden spark in the embers. 

A large burst of fames raged reigniting in the hearth.

The pool of blood began to shrink and reenter Jacqueline's body as if she were a sponge soaking up excess dish water. Her heart rate increased it's pace. Her skin warmed and became once again it's beautiful shade of coco. 

The silence of the room went from the sound of death to a large gasp coming from Jacqueline who sat up like a phoenix rising from the ashes allowing a deep breath of air enter her lungs. 

The witch's eyes showed life again, but something was very different.

Her baby was gone. The knife in her stomach began to retrack from her belly all on its own. It fell to the floor and her wound healed under her corset -- not a scar in sight. 

Jacqueline burst into tears realizing her child with Sebastian was dead and the only person she could blame was herself, but she found it easy to shift it to Filipe who'd hit her so hard she fell to the floor landing on the knife in her own hand. 

Jacqueline sobbed into the floorboards, face down her head facing her collapsed knees. She begged god to return her child, but God did not listen. God was not there for a woman who had done such terrible things in her life. 

She stammered up from the floor, her face stained with tears and blood that had come from the floor that did not go back into her body. As she walked towards a mirror and looked at her stomach, she felt the emptiness of not being a mother to Sebastian's child. 

"PLEASE! PLEASE BRING THIS BABY BACK! PLEASE!!!" She screamed into the mirror as more tears fell down her face. 

It would not happen.

Jacqueline's child was gone. 

Her link to Sebastian was gone.

Her hold over him --- gone.

She thought of the child Mary lost when she and Mary had a physical fight one night on Goode Island. Filipe and Mary had mourned this child greatly, their first child together who's death Jacqueline was responsible for. The irony of her own miscarriage now with Filipe involved -- not lost on her.  

Jacqueline's devastation forced her to her knees, this time in front of the fire. Her mind racing with furious anger. She could barely see the fire through the tears coming down her face but the fire burn and warmed her. She was like a keg of gun powder and the fire was tempting her to explode. 

"DAMN YOU!!!!!!! DAMN YOU ALL!!!!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.

Her voice calling to all the darkest forces in her heart and a murder of crows began to circle Lockwood Thicket. First there were 6 then 8 then 14 then over 20. 

More Crows came at Jacquline's calls. 

40. 50. 100.

All the trees were dotted with more and more crows with red eyes, hundreds of red little dots speckling all the trees around Lockwood Thicket. 

Jacqueline was now even more scored than ever.

And the entire world would pay.

They'd all pay dearly, especially now Filipe and his precious Mary Goode.