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| Aurora & Danielle at the morgue |
On a warm evening at Welshport Hope Hospital, Aurora Jordan sat in a small room with windows that looked out on to the courtyard between the main hospital and the Churchill Green Asylum. She watched as the leaves in the trees fluttered in the breeze and reflected the dusk of the sky as she awaited the release of Gregory's body to her for his funeral arrangements.
Her heart sunk thinking of what she had learned too.
The man she was mourning had done something heinous to her. He took her child. He lied to her, said it had died. Told her a story of the baby, a girl, not surviving when in fact it was a boy and it did survive.
She went over the night of the birth over and over again in her mind. How could she have allowed Gregory and Asha to drug her, how could she have just let them do what they did and not remembered? It was her fault for trusting him. It was her fault for allowing him to convince her of the story. She was the mother, she should have known. She should have seen through his lies and had her child in her arms.
Aurora felt stupid. She felt like everything she had ever known of Gregory was a lie and he was as just as dastardly as the monster that once lived inside Caspian. To her, evil was as evil did.
"Mrs. Jordan, we're ready for you." Nurse Danielle Holten said to Aurora from the doorway of the small room.
Aurora smirked politely and followed the nurse down a cold hospital corridor that smelled of cleaning materials. She could sense the energy in the hospital wing she was in -- a frigid quiet place where life ended. It was the morgue.
"Are you sure you don't want me to call Dr. Jordan to be here with you? He's up stairs with Dr. Hoffman." Danielle asked.
"No thank you, Nurse Holten, I’m sure he's busy and -- I really should do this alone." Aurora said.
"Alright." The pretty brunette nurse replied. "I'll be right outside the door. When you've said your goodbye come on out and I'll take you back up."
Aurora nodded and Nurse Holten opened the door slowly and Aurora walked in to the room where Gregory's body was laying on a metal table with a white sheet over it.
The door closed behind Aurora, and she turned back almost feeling as if she wanted it open. She turned back to look at Gregory. He seemed asleep. Serene. She almost felt guilty for being so angry at him.
She removed a glove from her hand and caressed his face, it was perfect like a marble statue and cold to the touch.
Aurora began to sob. She saw him as the man that saved her from her own destruction after her confession to helping her late husband Richard end his life -- Richard's death weighed heavy on Aurora as she and Richard were in dyer straights financially. Richard's life insurance saved her, but the guilt stayed. Gregory took that grief and guilt and held it in his hands and made her feel like a normal person.
Gregory loved her, she thought. She loved him back. They were supposed to be a team but now, his betrayal was just as heavy as Aurora's guilt for Richard's death.
"I don't know what to even say to you, Gregory." She whispered to his remains with a clenched fist in a soft lace glove. "I trusted you. I trusted you! Everything I gave to you, the love the companionship. We were ... we were a team. I thought we were a team, but I was foolish, wasn't I? All this time you were the spider, and I was the fly. I got caught in your web and that was it."
Aurora saw a chair in the corner of the cold room. She took it and dragged it's wooden frame over to be table side next to Gregory. She put her gloves on the steel table and grabbed his cold hand.
"Now what?" She asked his body. "Now what? I have to find this child, my child, the one you took from me, and I have to do it before it's too late. We could have been such a wonderful little family Gregory. It didn't matter who this baby's biological father was, it would have been you the whole time because together we would raise him. You decided against that without even thinking of what that would mean for me in the end.” She said, her voices breaking with emotion. She could feel her heart beat racing, there was tiny drops of perspiration on her lip that quivered with anger.
Aurora could feel the cold room’s air and the lack of circulation. She felt suffocated and braced her body up against the metal table Gregory’s body lay on.
Aurora waited a minute to regain her composure for the audience of a dead man.
“My god, and the way you did it! Secretive. Destructive. Cruel. And what you did to Asha! Who were you, Gregory? I don't even know if I ever really knew. I don't know what I can even say to you anymore that would make it all make sense. Maybe I wish I never met you."
A final tear fell down her soft cheek felt like a slow moving dew drop. She had nothing more to give to him. He’d taken away so much with his lies and now she had to be done. Her life had to move forward, without him.
Aurora wiped her tears and let go of Gregory's hand. She patted it and took her gloves back and stood up from the chair and took one more look at his body. She wanted to hate him so much, and in truth he deserved to be hated for what he did, but she couldn't hate him. In a strange way he protected her the best way he knew how even though it was through a deceptive vail.
"I can't forgive you now." She said as she slowly turned to walk out. "But in time I will." She added facing the wall. "Goodbye."
Aurora turned the knob and saw Nurse Holten standing there patiently waiting.
"I'll need to get to a telephone. Would the hospital allow me to use theirs?" Aurora asked dabbing her eyes.
"Of course, but Dr. Jordan is still here. He can lift you home." The nurse said assuming Aurora needed a ride back to Bellmore Beach and to Evie's house.
Aurora did not answer but followed the nurse back down the long cold hallway and into another long hallway where they came to the new more welcoming wing of the hospital. The nurse ushered her into an office that had one of three telephones at the hospital and picked it up.
"If you need me I'll be at the nurses station." The nurse said leaving Aurora to her call.
Aurora waited for the door of the office to close and she picked up the candlestick telephone and placed it to her ear. She moved the base closer to her and heard the operator ask her to whom she needed to be connected.
Aurora took a breath and said "Tirymor House."
"Yes ma'am." the operator said.
Then, in a moment that would change her life forever, Aurora heard the voice of Jane Donnelly, the maid at Tirymor answer the other side. In a scratchy back-and-forth, Aurora asked to speak to Caspian. Jane paused unsure of what to do, but respectfully took the time to find him.
Caspian was in a parlor three doors down away from where the phone was. Jane entered and Caspian looked up from his book, he wasn't alone. Rebecca was there with him knitting.
"Sir, there is a telephone call for you down the hall." Jane said.
"For me?" Caspian asked.
Jane nodded.
"It's almost dinner time, who would call at this time of the evening?" Rebecca asked her knitting needles clicking away the scarf she was attempting to create of dark blue yarn.
"It’s..." Jane paused. "It’s Mrs. Aurora Jordan."
Caspian turned to Rebecca who's face did not hide her uneasiness. Rebecca’s memory flashed of the history between her husband and Aurora. She caught them making love when Aurora was under evil Caspian's spell. The jealously enraged her at the time and thrusted Rebecca into a mad frenzy that almost ended in disaster and death at the notorious lighthouse.
"You should answer it." Rebecca said, her voice hinting that she was testing Caspian.
"I wont be long." He reassured her.
Caspian followed Jane who pushed the door open for Caspian who was dressed in dinner tales early. He adjusted his tie and took a breath, thanked Jane and closed the door behind him.
"Aurora?" He asked.
"Caspian, yes, I'm sorry I had to interrupt you and please extend my apologies to Rebecca, but I had to speak to you." Aurora said.
"Yes, Ok, what is it?" He asked nervously
Rebecca carefully stepped close to the door of the room and listened her husband.
"Can I see you? It's about our child. I want to tell you face to face." She added.
"Our child?” He asked in confusion and surprise. “Oh, well of course, you can come see me here or I can go to the village." Caspian replied.
"Yes. The village, Can you meet met at Gramercy?" Aurora asked. "I'm headed there now."
"The café, yes, of course." Caspian replied.
"Alright, I'll see you soon."
Caspian replaced the receiver of the phone and opened the door. Rebecca was gone. She had heard enough. He went back into the parlor where they were reading, and she sat herself exactly the same way she was before Caspian left. Her expression was calm, she wanted him to believe she had been there the whole time.
"Oh! You're back!" She smiled. "What did our dear Aurora have to say to you?"
Caspian took a breath. "Jane was wrong, it wasn't Aurora. It was someone from the hospital, they need me to go to down and look over some forms that I had requested. Just something about my past. That's all. Very informal."
Rebecca's eyebrow lifted. He was lying to her. She knew he had began the search of his past but nothing concrete came of it, nothing from the hospital or even Village Hall. He had never ever mentioned anything requested about forms, or documents. Nothing.
"Oh." She replied simply. "And you have to go this evening?"
"The sooner the better. But I have no doubt I'll return before coffee." He replied. He walked over and kissed his wife on the cheek. She reached up and snatched his hand and held it. "Be careful." She said, holding his large hand in her petite one. "In all you do, just be careful." She again passive aggressively warned.
Caspian noted this and smiled "Always."
As Caspian left, still in his dinner clothes, Rebecca felt the cold grip of betrayal wrap around her throat. She would wait this one out and see what developed, however. Pouncing too soon could lead to something dangerous like her time at the Lighthouse where she almost took her great-grandchild's life.
"Dinner is served ma'am." Jane said.
"For one, Jane. Remove Mr. Casador's placement. It'll just be me."
Jane curtsied and rushed off to adjust the table placements ready to gossip about it with the other ladies in the kitchen.
**
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| A Mob descends on Tirymor |
As Caspian quietly left the mansion as dusk turned to twilight, he met Aaron Hamstead out front at his awaiting car. He saw a glow off in the distance passed the long pebble front drive and the topiaries and the giant iron front gates.
The glow started growing closer and closer. The orange light filtered through the trees of the Tirymor Forest like light beams from the sun.
"What the devil?" Aaron said, snuffing out his cigarette onto the gravel front drive.
"Shh." Caspian ordered. "Listen. Is that voices?"
"It is!" Aaron said.
Then, the glow that seemed so far away was suddenly in front of both Caspian and Aaron and the shock on their faces would send shockwaves inside the mansion.
Rebecca sat alone having her first course, a simple pea soup under the glittering dining room chandelier. She heard voices yelling. Something loud. She knew that Jacob and Celeste were home but had gone to dinner earlier in town and were not joining her. She knew Caspian was supposedly going off to retrieve records of some sort, she knew Johnathon and his new bride Jacqueline were upstairs in their own newlywed world and were also not joining her.
Suddenly, Jane burst into the dining room. Her face was as white as a sheet her breathing panicked, her hair ripped from the small chignon of warm brown curls, loosened from her dash into the dining room.
"My god, girl, what is it?"
"Mrs. Casador, I implore you -- HIDE!" Jane screamed.
Rebecca shot up from her seat at the table in total confusion.
"What in god's name are you talking about? What is all that commotion?" Rebecca added as the loud voices grew closer and closer to the dining room.
Rebecca threw down her white linen napkin with the monogrammed L in blue thread in the corner on to the table and pushed Jane aside and exited the dining room to see a horrible sight.
Thirty, forty, fifty townspeople had stormed into the mansion with torches and lamps and guns and metal poles and knives screaming and yelling and throwing things off of tables and tearing down priceless paintings from the walls screaming and yelling.
"WHERE IS HE?!"
"TAKE US TO THE MONSTER!"
"WHERE'S THE MURDERER SEBASTIAN!?"
"GIVE UP THE KILLER NOW!"
Caspian and Aaron were in the front row, locked and trapped within the mob trying to get out and free.
"STOP! STOP! What is this madness!?!?!" Rebecca screamed.
Jacob, Celeste and Johnathon all rushed down the stairs and were met with angry mobsters grabbing at Celeste, pulling at Jacob pushing Johnathon around.
"Stop! PLEASE STOP!" Celeste screamed.
"WHAT IS THIS!?" Jacob Shouted. "I SAY UNHAND MY WIFE!"
The mob was relentless. They continued to bash through the mansion breaking everything they could: Glass from French doors that lead to the large gardens. Tables and chairs overturned as the mob. men and women from the village, rocked their way into the various first floor parlors and sitting rooms.
Six of the villagers went into the library and threw book after book after book from the shelves tossing them into a pile in the center of the room as high as their knees. They pulled down shelves to search for secret passages and found one.
The entered the passage and screamed searching for the supposed hidden monster but there was nothing but old dust and old stones.
Back in the foyer near the giant oak staircase where Jacob was holding on tightly to his wife, he caught the eye of Mayor Timothy Churchill.
"DAMN IT CHURCHILL! What is the meaning of this assault?" Jacob shouted.
The Mayor finally stepped out of the crowd, hiding from half embarrassment from what he was a part of and quieted the insane crowd.
"EVERYONE! Quiet, quiet!" Mayor Churchill ordered.
The crowed calmed. They all turned to the Mayor who stepped by to Jacob and Celeste.
"We're here to find your nephew, the thing that came to Village Park yesterday and killed so many of our fellow citizens. We know you're hiding him here. We know this is the only place he'd be, this palace of darkness, this mansion of evil. Hand him over now, and we'll leave, keep him hidden, Jacob, and may god help whatever these people do to your home."
"Sebastian isn't here! What are you talking about? Sebastian is dead!!" Celeste shouted.
"You cannot be serious, Timothy. You don't really believe we're hiding whatever that was out there, that creature. Do you? Why would we?"
"CUZ YOU'RE ALL THE SAME!!!" A man shouted from the mob; the crowd irrupted in cheers.
"No! No, you're all wrong!" Celeste shouted as she reached for her brother Johnathon who was still trapped in the mob.
Rebecca too reached for Caspian who latched on to her as well. Now all the Lords were on the last few steps of the mansion's staircase with Mayor Churchill right in front of them.
"We know you're not telling us the truth. Baxter Murphy's column clearly states that Evie saw him, and said she saved her from death. Baxter says he has it on good authority that this account is true, a very good source." Churchill said.
"No, no, this isn't true!!" Rebecca said, lying to protect the truth.
"Surely Mayor you cannot believe this story! It's outrageous! Saying this would mean Sebastian survived a hellish fire and was some kind of -- whatever that was in the park. He's NOT here! Now, I demand you all leave this place!" Jacon shouted.
"NOT UNTIL WE KILL IT!" A man screamed.
"YES! KILL IT!" A woman shouted.
Then everyone else chimed in "KILL IT! KILL IT! KILL IT!"
Baxter's column had morphed into a bizarre story that no one would believe to something alive and well and in the face of the Lord family. Their ghosts were still haunting them just as before but now something worse -- there was danger in their own home and their secretive world was being cracked open in the worst possible way.
"I, I can't believe this is happening, this is absolutely outrageous!" Rebecca shouted.
"Mayor, please there are children here in this house, please, make these people stop!" Caspian said amid the shouts of KILL IT.
The Mayor turned to his aides who were terrified about what was to come. They knew the situation was out of control and the Mayor, who knew it was all chaos and hysteria over something in the newspaper that may or may not be true.
"SHOW US THE KILLER!" A villager shouted.
"GIVE HIM UP REBECCA LORD!" A woman shouted.
"GO ON NOW! TELL US WHERE HE IS!!!"
Rebecca stood on the step above her son and daughter-in-law and tried to calm the crowd saying she didn't know what they were talking about, that Sebastian had died, that Evie had not seen him, that they were all mistaken and that Baxter's column was a lie, a fabrication, mythology.
As Rebecca spoke, Jacqueline Gray slowly made her way down the long wooden staircase. Her hand slowly slid down the shiny banister as she watched the crowed at the foot of the staircase scream and start to grow more and more unruly.
They wanted Sebastian, they wanted to destroy him.
"HE'S NOT HERE! BUT I KNOW WHERE HE IS!" Jacqueline shouted from behind everyone on the staircase.
They all turned to see the beautiful woman in a white dress.
"Jacqueline, what are you doing?" Johnathon said.
The crowed screamed and begged her to tell them.
"Ms. Grey, go on." The Mayor said.
"Not another word, Jacqueline." Jacob scowled under his breath to her.
"SEBASTIAN LORD IS AT THE CAVES! HE'S BEEN HIDDEN IN THE CAVES BELOW THE NORTH SHORE CLIFFS!!!!" Jacqueline revealed.
"WHAT?" Rebecca shouted.
Then, the crowed ands sea of people grabbed the Mayor, grabbed Rebecca, Grabbed Jacob and yanked them down the hallway and dragged them with them off to the cliffs where Jacqueline said Sebastian was being hidden.
As the mob left the mansion dropping more paintings and shattering flower vases on their way out, Celeste and Johnathon confronted Jacqueline.
"What have you done?" Johnathon asked.
"Why did you say that?" Celeste asked almost at the same time as her brother.
"Don't worry." Jacqueline said with a grin. "It's all taken care of."
Johnathon and Celeste shot each other looks unsure what she was talking about.
Jacquleine Grey had once again, taken matters into her own hands and did something unimaginable to any mortal person on earth.
****
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| Christopher & Genevieve arrive on Welshport |
Meanwhile that evening, as many of the villagers sank into hysteria and anger towards what they believed was a secretive house of Lords hiding and protecting a dangerous and murderous man behind the storied walls of Tirymor House, a ship from England had arrived and docked.
It was a passenger steamer that carried with them Geneveive Thorne and Christopher Wesley.
As the two walked down the long wooden dock and looked out towards the village where people were running and forth talking about the attack of the mob at the mansion shock and confusion set in.
Genevieve could only hear shards of the story by passersby who were spreading the news to their friends in town. Shop owners closed their doors and locked them.
St. Catherine's church neglected to ring in the hour and to mark the novenas.
There was a sense that something calamitous had occurred and neither Christopher nor Genevieve truly understood what was happening.
"This is not good, not good at all." Geneveive said, stumbling on the hem of her dress as she carried her heavy suitcases up the long path from the ship.
The other passengers that got off were just as worried and hurried off to see if their families were ok.
Geneieve's stomach sank. She had virtually abandoned her son Morgan here with the Lords in some futile attempt to find David Lord, returning with his double felt ridiculous now in the grand scheme of things.
"What have I done? What have I done?" She whispered to herself.
"What do you think happened this time?" Christopher asked.
Geneveive stopped in her tracks "This time?" She asked, confused she wondered what other times was he thinking of.
"I mean I can only assume this isn't the first time this place has been like this." Chris said, Geneveive didn't bite.
He grabbed her suitcase helping her up the hill towards the chaotic town, her confusion continued to circle her mind not just on Christopher's strange question but to what was even happening in the village.
"We have to find someone to take us up to Tirymor, I have to find Morgan and see if he's ok." Genevieve said.
"But what about me? We can't let them see me. The whole reason I'm here was because you wanted to make sure Jacob paid for what he did to David and Sabrina, if he sees me, my face, then that that's out the window." Christopher reminded her.
"Look around you!" She shouted. "I don't know where my son is and something awful has happened. People are running scared; my son may be in danger. I have to rethink all of this."
"Genevieve," Christopher began before she interrupted.
"This was a mistake; all of this was a mistake. I've made the biggest mistake of my life. Christopher I'm sorry but I don't think I can carry on with this. Jacob will have to pay for what he's done the way we all will, on the day we die he'll have to answer to a higher power. I can't allow myself to get drawn into any of this anymore." Geneveive replied as her guilt finally sank her to the bottom of an ocean of dread over what Morgan might be suffering.
She began to turn away from Christopher, he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. They were eye to eye; she could feel his breath on her lips. His face was serious, his pulse was racing "You can't abandon this." He growled.
"Let go." She answered him sternly. “I can’t do this anymore, I was all wrong.” She added.
"NO!” He shouted.
She turned back to him standing firmly on the cobblestone street. “Christopher. Don’t you see? We can’t do this now, my son’s life is in jeopardy. I need to put him first for once.
He shook his head. “I've come too far; I've left my safe place, and I've returned........." He said in a strange admission. "With you." He corrected himself. "If we are going to make this happen and make Jacob pay then we're going to do it regardless of what's happening here. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but I can't wait for Jacob to meet his maker for him to finally get what's coming to him."
Again, Genevieve thought his choice of words were odd -- he had been adamant that he wasn't David Lord, but his words were shrouded in the sense that -- he was! And the revenge plot against Jacob, to gaslight him to think David’s ghost was haunting him, has become quite alluring.
"Christopher, what's going on with you? You were so hard to convince of this plan and now, now you're acting like this means more to you than it ever did to me. What am I missing? Jacob was my mark not yours.”
Chrisotpher shook his head realizing perhaps he had said too much. "All I want is for David and Sabrina not to have died in vain. They deserve something dignified, and Sebastian needs to know his father didn't kill his mother."
"SEBASTIAN!??" A man running by screamed. "He's gonna burn tonight!!!"
Christopher and Geneveive looked at each other in shock.
"WAIT! Wait!!!" She called to the man, lifting the hem of her dark blue dress up and running after him a few steps. He turned back. "Sebastian? Sebastian Lord? What's happened with Sebastian's body?" She a asked understanding that he had died over a year ago.
"Body? Oy miss! You've missed a lot since you've been gone haven’t ya!" The man answered seeing their luggage. "He aint dead lady! He's been running around town killing people as some kind of wolf form! It's INSANE! It’s been in the papers all week. Werewolves are REAL! And he's one of 'em! You two best turn right back 'round and get back on that ship! Everything is about to explode in this ol' town!"
Christopher signed deeply taking in all the insanity around him that seemed so familiar and at the same time foreign to him. As the man ran off up the street towards the center of town where people were convening to talk about what was going on, Geneveive began to cry. "My son, I have to find and leave this place. I can't stay here anymore!!"
"I'm not leaving." Christopher said.
"What? Christopher, don't you see? This was a mistake. I MADE A MISTAKE! This place is no good." She shouted.
"This is what we agreed to." He reminded her.
"I don't know what to do." Geneieve said, her heart beating fast as she sank into distraught.
"I said I'm not leaving." Christopher repeated.
Geneveive stood there in the glow of the gas street-laps that flickered realizing that her obsession with finding David Lord and leaving Morgan had become a nightmare come to life. She was now trapped in a hell of her own making and could only think of her son and how scared he might be and angry with her for leaving him in a place that could fall into such chaos and disarray at the drop of a hat and on the word of a liar like Baxter Murphy and his salacious column.
And deep in the back of Christopher's mind, he knew where his place was. He picked up their bags and helped the ever-frightened Geneveive up the hill from the docks to town where they'd find a room at the Inn... and in his mind said to himself "I'm not leaving ever again."
****
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| Evie brings Mary and Matthew to caves |
Twilight turned to night and Matthew's car carrying the owner, Evie and Mary crept over a hill towards the North Shore cliffside. The sand and dust filtered through the air and over them like a fog that covered the rectangle windshield.
The location was brining back memories for Matthew who knew the area well before he lost his memory. Something in his mind told him this was his place, a place of his people something incredibly powerful and sacred was here... he knew it deep in his heart but wasn't sure how to even ask if this is where Evie was truly taking them.
Every few seconds, Evie would look over at Matthew to see if his face would reveal how he was feeling. She knew at any moment whatever memory of this place would flow back and she wasn't sure how he'd react.
Indeed Evie was taking them to where she and Sebastian decided to hide his coffin forever.
The sacred caves of the Dænian people, Matthew's people; the native tribe that inhabited the Island for centuries before the Welsh settlers arrived.
In these caves the bodies of every single member of the tribe lay at rest. It was a sanctuary for his people, of which Matthew was the last.
Finally, the car stopped at a small dirt path that was darkened by the night. The car's lights pointed the way, as Evie too motioned for them to go down the long path towards the caves down the cliffside.
Matthew, in the fog of his breaking amnesia, started to have flashbacks of his childhood where he and his family would come to these cliffs in secret, hiding from the first settlers decenants. It was a place they'd come to mourn, to remember and to be togehter as family and when the decendants finally killed off the final members of the Dænians -- Matthew and his now late sister Alice vowed to keep their people's burial ground secret and safe.
When Alice died, the secret place was revealed to Evie and Nikolas.
The flashes soon turned to real memories and as he and Evie and Mary got to the mouth of the darkened dirt path that lead then down the cliffside, he grabbed Evie's arm.
"Please tell me you didn't." He said his voice carried over the sounds of the crashing waves below.
Evie's heart sank, she grabbed his hand and squeezed and continued to walk down the path not answering him.
Mary went along, not knowing where she was being led.
It took only minutes for the threesome to traverse the dirt path that had been fogged out by the sea. They arrived to the large cavernous cave of the Dænian people. It was wet and cold there. Their coffins made of stone like vaults locking away the people of Matthew's past.
Mary looked up into the ceiling of rock that seemed like a cathedral for Mother Nature. The waves that crashed outside echoed in the caves chambers along side sand and stones and small crabs that crawled along the ridged edges of the cave.
Matthew grabbed a torch that was at the side of the cave and lit it.
"Oh Evie." He said understanding and seeing what she had done---far off in the corner, a large stone blocked a wooden coffin from view save for a small corner. It was Sebastian's coffin.
There were stones on top of the coffin, there were stones to its side, there were stones attempting to hide the thing -- the creature -- the man she once loved -- in there forever.
Matthew felt a pain in his heart. This place was not for Sebastian, this was the home and final resting place of so many people including his sister Alice, whom Sebastian killed.
"How could you?" He asked.
"Matthew, please, please forgive me but it was the safest place on the island we could think of. I know what it looks like I know how awful it seems but, it's truly the only place we could keep him where no one would know and no one would bother him. It was essential that where ever we chose for him to rest — it was safe. Especially safe from Jacqueline." Evie explained.
"I don't know what to say." Matthew said taking it all in.
"What is this place?" Mary asked stepping deeper into the cave.
As she did, the answer to her question came in the form of an overwhelming power that iminating from the ancient rocks of the cave and the people who's remains incased in vaults all along it's sides.
Mary felt the power deep in her chest, it was so intense she could not breathe. She began to see faces, children old people women men. She began to see their lives. Their deaths. She began to see history unfolding in her mind. She could feel their hopes. She could sense everyone that once lived and now lie there in their rocky tombs. She knew them, yet she did not know them. She heard them yet she did not hear their voices. She could speak to them, yet she could not speak a single word to their language.
The Dænian people were speaking to Mary, the witch. They were telling her their story. They felt her powers, they felt her connection to the world around them, nature, and earth. Mary's eyes had turned white and were glowing. Evie gasped in fear but Matthew held Evie's hand and pulled her close to him burring her in her arms as the Dænian's told Mary their story.
Then, as if it never happened, Mary gasped for air and found herself in the center of the cave.
"My god." She said. "How did we never know this was here?" She wondered.
"Are you alright?" Evie asked, seeing Mary shaken to the enormity of the cavern filled to the brim with stone tombs of the Dænain people.
Mary nodded.
"What….What was that?" Evie asked as a sudden powerful vibration filled the air.
Mary felt it too, it was surrounding her like a wind. She felt this energy coming from the ancient stones of the caves and the dark waves crashing at the mouth of the cave beckoning for Mary to notice them. It was as if everything all around them were fighting for attention, Mary’s attention, as soon as she walked in to the dark cold cavern.
"The powers of the earth know each other." Matthew explained calmly. "Mary is one of those powers. Just like my people, we connect through the energies of the world all around us. The air. The sun. The ground. The water." He added, the words seeming to come from someone else, Matthew's old self perhaps, inside the psyche where his locked memories were.
"We have to get to Sebastian." Mary then reminded them of the task.
Then, with holding hands with Evie the two approached the coffin.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!!!" a voice from the mouth of the cave said.
A gun shot went off into the air.
Evie, Matthew and Mary turned back to see half the town lead by Mayor Timothy Churchill.
The crowed and the Mayor approached, their faces hungry for blood.
"We're here for whatever is under those rocks." Timothy said coldly.
"What is this?" Evie asked stepping back with Matthew noticing Jacob, Rebecca and Caspian were there too, the three held hostage with the mob of villagers.
"Evie .... don't..." Jacob began before being told to shut his mouth by the man holding him.
"What is this???" Eive asked again.
"It's time you give up the ghost, Mrs. Lord. Literally." The Mayor said, his aides once again looking as if they were witnessing the death of his career.
"What are you talking about?" Mary asked. "We're here to mourn our friends who lie here."
"Oh come now, we know exactly what's going on here. We've been told the creature Sebastian is hidden here and we're here to kill him and save us all from whatever he transforms into." The Mayor said.
"Kill him?" Evie gasped. "He's already dead sir."
"This is absolutely outrageous. This is the final resting place of MY people! You all must leave, you must all leave NOW!" Matthew shouted as the mob slowly approached.
"BACK! BACK I SAY!!" Matthew said, as Evie and Mary hid behind him.
And like the pack of hyaenas they were, the misguided villagers pounced on the threesome in a scuffle. Mary screamed as she fell to the floor. Evie was grabbed by a man and yanked to his chest where he forcibly turned her around and held her arms down. Matthew reached over and punched the man in his face knocking him out. This caused an already volatile situation to worsen as three men jumped on Matthew. One man punched Matthew out cold.
"Jesus!!!" Jacob shouted as Rebecca and Evie screamed at the sight of Matthew falling to the hard floor hitting his head on the stone ground.
The waves crashed outside; the cold air pushed through the entrance like the wind of energy Mary felt when she walked in. Everyone could feel the iciness of death all around them. Mayor Churchill turned away from the fighting and caught Mary crawling over to Sebastian's coffin. He chased after her and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back up -- face to face.
"You don't know what you're doing! Sebastian is no monster!" She said painfully removing her hair from Timothy Churchill's angry fist.
"He is! We know he is!" Churchill shouted as he grabbed Mary's forearm now that her hair was free.
"What are you talking about?!?!" Mary shouted back, struggling to get out of the Mayor's tight grasp.
Mary squeezed out of his hold and again rushed over to Sebastian's coffin and stood between it and the Mayor and several of his strongmen who all approached her as if she were an cornered tigress.
"Step aside Mary." Churchill said.
"I WON'T!" She shouted back. "I will not allow you to desecrate this place more than you already have. LEAVE! LEAVE NOW!" She screamed.
"Or what?" One man with the mayor asked with a toothless grin.
Mary knew her powers could wipe them all off of the face of the earth but using them would expose herself to community already spooked by whatever they thought Sebastian was. She couldn't show them her true colors, she couldn't show them that she too was one of the supernatural.
She stood in front of the coffin and held her arms forward as they approached, finally, it was too late. The back of her heels hit the coffin and Mary had no where else to go. There were too many in front of her. And only one of her.
Her powers had to remain a secret. She gulped and suddenly they lunged on her and pulled her back. The crowed with the Lords all went silent.
"WE HAVE IT!!!!" The Mayor said standing on a rock so they could all see. "RELEASE IT SO WE CAN KILL IT!!!" He shouted.
The two men by his side nodded and began to remove the stones Evie placed over the coffin to hide it. One by one, it only took seconds but to all standing there waiting to see this creature in the coffin hidden away as Jacqueline said it was, it felt like it took hours and days.
Finally the last rock was removed.
"STOP IT PLEASE!!!" Evie screamed.
"Mayor! NO"! Rebecca shouted. "You do not know what you are doing!!"
"PLEASE! NO!!" Mary shouted too, as she was held back with the others.
The Mayor seeing this as the moment he'd become a legend, seeing this as the moment his name would finally live up to the standards of his ancestors, the Churchill Family, one of the first 5 families of Welshport. He wanted so desperately to regain the prominence and power that his family had lost and the Lords had hoarded. Churchill believed this moment in history would save the community from the creature killing citizens and mount and thrust him and the Churchill name back into the realms of legend.
The lid of the coffin was then lifted on the Mayor's orders and when everyone saw what was inside only the sound of crashing ocean waves beyond the mouth of the cave could be heard.
Evie gasped at what she saw in the coffin and felt faint in the arms of a man that was holding her back. Matthew slowly began to rise up from the ground and reached over for her and pulled her into his arms.
Mary held her breath.
Rebecca, gasped in horror of it all.
Jacob felt as if his heart had stopped.
The silence of the crowed in their shock was deafening and Mayor Timothy Churchill was only able to muster a low grunt from his chest seeing all his hopes wash away like a cold ocean wave over the sand when they all witnessed what was inside Sebastian’s hidden casket.
The coffin …………
was empty.
Timothy turned to Mary, Evie and Matthew as the reveal of the empty coffin began to throw doubts in the crowd's mind of what was really going on and into the Mayor's accusations of Sebastian being the monstrous creature killing villagers.
Their murmurs -- stung Timothy like a thousand bees; his house of cards collapsing in front of his very eyes. His hope of power and glory to shine back down on the Churchill name suddenly began to dim as the seconds ticked off. He had everything riding on this moment, this reveal of a creature that they all knew had to be the monster, the killer, the beast!
But there was nothing.
In one last fleeting to save everything he had built up, Timothy had only one chance and one devious and explosive explanation for all of it.
"Don't be fooled!" He shouted to the confused villagers as he quickly thought on his feet. "We mustn't allow this trickery to pull the wool over our eyes, friends. There is only one explanation for this, one very, very wicked explanation."
The crowd looked around, whispered and waited for it.
"How do we think these three were able to pull all of this off? How was any of this able to pull this off without even the slightest discovery? I can tell you, I can tell you how.... THEY'RE WITCHES!!!"
The crowd gasped. "Witches?"
“That’s right! It’s they who have caused all of this danger in our town. It’s they who have lured the forces of evil to create that beast to come alive and kill in our streets. They and they along have thrust us in this darkness. Just look around you now, they’ve come here to this cold dark cave, to conjure, to convene… AND TO CURSE US ALL!” Churchill accused.
The crowed began to murmur, seeing the strange but believable connection.
"Sir," the mayoral aide Nathan Cramer, began to say, his tone of voice in utter shock. “What are you doing??”
"ARRESTED THEM NOW!" Mayor Timothy Churchill ordered paying no attention to his aide. "ARREST THE WITCHES OF WELSHPORT!"
And suddenly the waves crashed on the rocks outside the cave and the police arrested Mary Goode, Matthew Winterborn, and Evie Jordan-Lord to their horror and to the horror of all who witnessed.
A stunned Jacob turned to his shocked mother Rebecca and whispered “It’s all fucking over.” |
| One last look: Evie views Sebastian’s empty coffin |
