PRESENT DAY - BELLMORE BEACH
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| Bellmore Beach house today |
Evie sat in her living room on the pristine white sofa, holding her breath as her mother Aurora recounted the events of the last several months. Matthew held a fussy Gabriel in his strong arms and moved over to where Evie was sitting. The shock of Aurora's story burrowed holes in their minds. Gabriel reached for his mama and signed “mama sad” the rubbed his eyes.
“No, no, mama not sad.” Evie replied in sign language.
"He's sleepy." Aurora said of her grandson, Evie nodded, still unable to shake her mother’s story from her being. "Maybe we should take a minute and lay him down upstairs."
"I can do it." Roman offered.
Evie shot her cousin a look, surprised that he would volunteer. "Are you sure?" She asked.
"I’m sure you still have a lot to go over, and Gabby wouldn't be the first little guy I've rocked to sleep. Before I lived at Cyfrinach, I worked at an orphanage in Leeds."
Evie looked at Gabriel and began to sign to him "Cousin Roman take you to sleep."
Gabriel frowned "No Sleep." He signed.
"Nap time, yes." Evie signed to the child.
"Want play in garden with M." Gabriel signed back, the single letter M referring to Matthew.
"After nap." Matthew said, as Evie signed back to him the same.
Evie then handed Gabriel who decided he liked that idea, to Roman and the two went upstairs.
Once they had disappeared into the second floor, Evie sipped on her cooling tea. "I just can't believe Rebecca would do something like that." She said of what she knew of Asha's death so far.
"Can't you?" Aurora replied. "We’ve always known she’s capable of anything when she felt cornered. Like a caged tiger."
"Poor Asha." Matthew said.
“Nik must be heartbroken.” Evie added remembering her brother’s romantic connection to Asha.
“Everyone was. They didn’t even have a funeral for her. Her family requested her body sent back to Philadelphia. There’s been no closure.” Aurora added.
"And -- Timothy and Baxter's attacks were --- by the same attacker?" Evie asked, still piecing things together.
"There's more." Aurora answered with a deep sigh.
"Wait Eden? Why was he here?" Matthew wondered, going back to whom they encountered when they first got home coming down the stairs.
"Yes, Eden," Aurora replied, blushing, "I'll get to that too."
Aurora then grabbed her own cup and saucer of now cold tea, her throat now lubricated enough to continue. She swallowed hard and picked up where she left off.
BACK 10 MONTHS
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| Caspian confronts a nightmare |
On a warm night, one of the first Welshport had had after a cold snap broke over the region, the air seeped in through a cracked window in one of the frothily colored bedrooms in Evie's Bellmore Beach house. In bed, Caspian tossed and turned like a large stone forcibly pulling over the the bottom of the sea by the current.
His mind was unable to rationalize what he had done. A vision of his own hands around someone's neck. Tightening and tightening until the person could not breath. He could hear them chocking. He could see the outline of the person's head and their arms reach up from the bed and try to fight for their lives.
Then the chocking became less and less, and the person jolted slightly to the left where a beam of moon light from the slightly drawn drapes fell on their face. It was Timothy Churchill -- who died right there in his bed. Caspian got up from Timothy’s bed where he had knelt over him and he saw himself or someone like him in the mirror sweaty, grotesque, cold-eyed and monstrous.
A killer who smiled at himself, pleased with the murder.
In the dream, Timothy’s room suddenly flipped upside down, and Caspian was now dropped in the middle of a dark street. Fog floated all around his legs and body that were once again on top of another man. Caspian was choking this man too. Punching him and then going back to this throat and holding it tighter and tighter until he had to make a quick exit as someone in the distance approached. The street too open a place to finish the job.
As Caspian passed the window of a closed shop, he once again saw a happy disheveled version of himself bleeding from his lip, a souvenir of his attempted murder of the man lying in the fog. Caspian ran off, turned back and watched the fog slip away revealing the victim as Baxter Murphy.
Faster and Faster Capsian ran in his dream until he was suddenly running down a vacant, dark alley somewhere in town. He stood in the shadows and saw another man. This time, no choking, he jumped on the man and began to pummel him with his first, kick him in the side. The sound of cracking bones ricocheted into the night air and an orange beam of light from the gas street lamp beamed down on to the face Christopher Wesley groaning and hold his battered body in the fetal position.
Still trapped in this dream, Caspian again began to run away from his third victim, he ran into the night. He ran until the village vanished and became darkness. He now lost in his own conscious of shadows and fog. Suddenly a large blur of black, a figure, stood in front of him holding it out a gray withered hand.
Caspian saw the thing, the person, the creature, grow larger and larger in front of him. Wind ravaged around them blowing the giants black robes all around Caspian. He tries to scream but the wind choked him. A giant scythe appeared before the creature now clearly showing itself as the Grim Reaper. The Reaper swung his scythe towards Caspian who screamed like a coward in the dark bog that was his psyche only to finally wake himself and Aurora in his bed at Bellmore Beach.
Aurora reached for him, feeling his sweaty body. He pushed her off.
"What is it? You were screaming." She asked as he jumped from the bed as if his whole body was on fire.
He was shaking. He was sweating. Aurora got out of bed grabbed her sleek robe and wrapped herself in it like it was armor to protect her from whatever man she was looking at.
It wasn't Caspian, not the Caspian she knew. This was another man, another person all together.
He paced in the small area between the bed and the door; his white sleeveless undershirt soaked to the skin with sweat and his strong legs, like tree trunks, peeked out from bedroom shorts holding him solidly in place.
"Caspian, what is it? Please tell me." Aurora asked.
He turned and shushed her. "I can't hear your voice. I don't want to hear your voice damn it!!" He shouted.
Aurora stunned, held her breath and watched as Caspian began to wince in pain.
"These headaches, these cursed headaches!!! They're unrelenting. They keep coming, even in my sleep. They come!"
"You have to speak to Dr. Ward, Caspian, you have to talk to him!" Aurora exclaimed. She had no idea how bad things had gotten. But she could see it now as she saw it at the police station. His mind was fracturing. Even Caspian's face, the handsome stoic man she was starting to fall in love with despite of the darkness that made up their relationship was slipping away back into something she wanted to run from.
"I don't need doctors. They can't give me what I need, what my body wants to keep itself alive!" Caspian shouted.
"I don't understand!" Aurora said back, holding herself tightly. "I want to help you Capsian but I can't understand what you need from me and if you don't want to seek help from the doctors, what can I do?" She begged.
"STOP CALLING ME THAT!!! THAT'S NOT MY NAME!" He shouted back.
Aurora froze. "Calling -- you? What? You don't want me to call you by your name?"
"It's not my bloody name and you know that." He repeated. "That name comes from nothing. It comes from a place where I can't get back." Caspian replied.
He began to walk towards Aurora. She gulped, slowly backed away but bumped into a chair that was near her. They were now staring at each other. He stood there, his face dark, the sliver of man she tried to forget. She tried to put in her past. The demonic thing that took her and tricked her and pretended to be someone else who slept with her and made their child now known as Caleb.
As he walked towards her, his arms began to lift, his fists opening ready to reach for her throat but then he saw his reflection. The face was his yet not his. His eyes were his yet not his. The shadow of something so much darker was finally setting foot in his body and he could not escape it.
The face in the mirror turned and smiled at him, but the reflection did not match the man staring back. Aurora saw this, she gasped and screamed. She fell to her knees frightened of what she had just seen, the reflection not matching the face of the man staring into the glass.
Caspian lunged at the glass breaking it with his fists. He turned, bleeding from his knuckles and reached for the bedroom door and quickly vanished down the hallway.
Aurora made chase, she quickly followed him. She could hear him breaking anything on the walls the reflected his face, a face of the creature that was slowly returning into his body.
When Aurora finally made her way to the bottom level of the house, glass from picture frames, mirrors and even a side window had been broken into pieces. The front door left open.
Aurora went to the door. Her robe blowing in the window that came from the cashing sea outside the house.
Caspian was gone. He'd escaped into the night in only his undershirt and dark bedroom pants. No shoes. No coat.
Aurora did not call for him. She could not speak. She could not scream.
She just stood there in the cold shivering in fear.
****
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| Coraline finally faces her past |
The next day in a small quiet neighborhood on the north side of the village where the houses were covered in wisteria and willow, Coraline, Lear and Lucas stood together in front of a red door that belonged to a very prominent Welshportonian.
Coraline stepped forward and reached for the golden door knocker and clacked it three times. The small round knob on the underside of the knocker had worn away a groove in the red paint on the door, a scar to show it's age.
"Maybe Cora should have come alone." Lear said, looking around the quiet seaside neighborhood.
Cora and Lucas said nothing. They were there to finally put an end to a long, long part of her story.
The door began to open. Standing behind it in a flowery dark dress with an apron on and wash rag in her hand was Laurel Ridgeway-Ward, the woman the threesome believed had been behind Cora's black-market adoption thanks to Dr. Ward accidently connecting the name on the documents of the person who brokered the baby adoption being his wife's maiden name.
Laurel smiled nervously, seeing her visitors, she instantly knew what this was about. In the back of her mind she had expected this long ago but had hoped the day would never come.
"Mrs. Ward, how are you?" Cora asked cautiously.
"Coraline, boys, hello. What can I do for you?" The Doctor's wife asked.
"We wanted to see you about something, something we think you may have an answer to. It would help me understand some peculiar things we found in my adoption forms." Cora stated.
Laurel froze.
"It's quite the story, Mrs. Ward," Lear interjected "and we thought we'd come and ask you about it in person, and in private."
"Oh? Your adoption? What would I know about any of that?" Laurel replied, again playing along.
Lucas arched a brow "You really don't know?" He asked.
"I don't, no. What is it you think I would know." Laurel replied.
Coraline sighed, "Show her." She said to Lear.
"This is incredibly unethical, and I'm only doing this because you're my sister." Lear said under his breath as he reached for something in a briefcase.
Lucas watched as Laurel had no reaction to Lear saying he and Cora were siblings, when the world had only known her as Baxter Murphy's sister. This, to Lucas, proved she knew exactly what they were there for.
"Wait---" Lucas interjected, reaching his arm out to block Lear who had papers in his hand -- the adoption papers. "Did you hear what Lear said?" he asked Laurel.
"I did." She replied.
"You are not shocked then, to learning Lear and Cora are siblings?" Lucas asked again.
Laurel sighed and stepped aside from her door, she reached an arm out and told them to come in.
"We should talk about this inside, please." She said, stepping aside from the doorway.
Laurel untied her apron and led the group into a brightly lit parlor on the other end of the front of the house. There were photographs of her late son, late daughter-in-law and granddaughter Samantha who ran into the room and grabbed Laurel by the waist.
Samantha was like a ray of light from the sun in person form. Her hair was blond and bright, her eyes blue like the sea that surrounded the island. Her little white dress was perfectly fit and shifted in crunching chiffon as her black patten shoes tapped along the hardwood floors.
"I'm hungry nana." the almost 5-year-old Samantha said, then quickly becoming shy when the visitor's eyes became glued to her pretty face.
"I know honey, we'll have lunch shortly, just go on back into your playroom and when nana and her friends have finished, I'll come fetch you for lunch, alright?"
"But my tummy grumbled and grumbled." Samatha said in a shy voice, her face lowered into her chest.
"Did it now!?" Laurel giggled. "Well, I don't see why you can't help that ol' grumbling tummy to a bit of fruit nana has set out on the table in the kitchen. There are slices of apple on a plate, you can have one or two of those. But not too much, I don't want you to spoil lunch."
"OK!" Samantha shouted as she rushed off to find her apple slices.
"Please sit." Laurel told her guests.
"She's quite beautiful." Coraline said of Samantha.
"She is, yes. She reminds me a lot of her mother, my daughter-in-law. My son, too, usually when we argue. My son was a lawyer like you Lear, he loved to argue. So does Samantha."
"Maybe one day she can step into her father's shoes." Lear said.
"Did you know him?" Lucas asked.
Lear nodded his head "Briefly."
"I assume you're all here for a very detailed explanation." Laurel began. "And I really don't have one that will make you feel better; the details might be painful to hear."
"You'll tell us why you were involved in such things? Your maiden name listed in the forms. Why you helped my father sell me? Coraline asked.
Laurel sighed, blushed with shame "It's despicable. Don't think I don't know what I did was despicable. It didn't start that way -- about money. It started with me seeing women trying to have children or losing their children and not being able to have their own. I worked at an orphanage, one in Bangor, and then one in Winter Port. The children there usually came quite young and lived there for years and years. When we had visiting days where potential parents came to see if a child would fit with them, the older ones were always left out. Couples wanted babies. When I started getting involved it was so that I could get children who needed homes adopted sooner, before they would ever set foot in an orphanage. But, I couldn't do both. I couldn't work at that place and help babies find homes on the side. So I left the orphanage." Laurel explained.
"When did it begin to be about money?" Lucas asked.
"It didn't take long." Laurel replied. "In between working at Tirymor as Rebecca Lord's lady in waiting, a job that didn't pay my bills but still gave me time to help children find homes, a man came to me and asked if I could help him and his wife. He already had a check signed to me for $100. I took it and I found a child for him. We forged a bit of paperwork so that the child would go to them that same day and it was done. Word of mouth is a powerful tool."
"So people started to come to you? In secret?" Lear asked.
"Always in secret. I lived two lives. I worked for Rebecca Lord, I met Peter, we married, I had a son. It was all just my real life. All along I was this the face behind a hand full of adoptions for people who needed children -- they were desperate even." Laurel explained.
"How did it go from you being paid to find children to you being paid to sell children?" Cora asked, knowing she was sold by her father Henry Lockwood.
Lear, Henry's other child, braced to hear another truth about his destitute father and the sin he never wanted to believe.
"I don't know how much of this you want to hear." Laurel said.
"I want to hear every word." Cora said, her tone unflinching.
Laurel sighed -- "Henry was broke. He had no money. Nothing. He gambled it away. Even the payments from the Lockwood Estate Rebecca was giving him. She loved her brother and continued to help him financially with their family's money, but he continued to squander it. By the time you were born Coraline, as Maggie, your mother was ill. She was dying. Your father couldn't pay for her medical bills and his gambling debts. He brought you to me and begged me to find you a home. I knew what he meant. He needed you to not only have a good home where you could be cared for but where he could get money. I agreed. We forged a death certificate, your mother -- god bless her soul -- turned a blind eye and allowed it. Knowing she was too ill to care for the two of you. I kept you here for a few weeks and then I met the Baxter's who were trying to have another child. It all worked out." Laurel explained.
"How did Dr. Ward not question it?" Coraline asked.
"Peter did question me. All the time. I lied to him. I've lied to him for decades, don't you see? This is why I stopped. Coraline, you were my last baby. I -- I wanted nothing more to do with it after what Henry and I did. I worked hard to help parents who needed children find them, but once it went the other way in selling them, I just couldn't look my husband in the face anymore. I stopped. It was done." Laurel said.
"Thank you for telling me the truth." Coraline said.
Laurel said nothing, just half smiled. She felt shame in her heart but knew what was done was done. She could not control what the world saw of her now.
"I suppose you'll tell Peter now." The doctor's wife wondered.
Lear and Lucas looked to Cora to see her reaction. She was tone faced, like a porcelain doll. Her skin fresh and soft cheeks blushed and plump. Then she furrowed her brow in thought.
"No." She replied, Laurel's eyes widened with surprise.
"No?" Lucas asked, equally surprised.
"No. I think what's done is done. Henry and Lorna Lockwood are gone I can never reconnect with them in this world. My adopted parents are gone too. They loved me. The raised me well. Nothing changes that. Baxter and Lear both know who I am now. I think it's over." Cora said. "I can live with knowing who helped Henry and why. Telling Dr. Ward what you did Laurel will only extend the grief of this whole mess even more and I think I want to put it to bed."
"Do you really mean that?" Laurel asked, tears of relief filling up in her pale blue eyes.
Coraline nodded and reached for Laurel's hand. "It has to be over now."
The two women got up from Laurel's plush parlor sofas and hugged. Lucas, who wanted a bit more bite out of Coraline's confrontation, shrugged and got up from his sofa too. He buttoned his jacket. He turned to his partner Lear and smirked "Alls well that ends well." Lucas whispered.
Lear gulped in relief knowing finally it was all over. He walked over to his sister Cora and hugged her tightly.
"I'm sorry for everything, Coraline. I really truly am." Laurel said, tears welling up in her eyes.
Cora smiled and reached for the older woman's hand and squeezed. A small symbol of finally letting it all go.
"Let's go, I think there's a little girl in the other room waiting for her lunch." Lear said.
The three saw themselves out and Laurel went and found Samantha playing with a doll in her playroom. The grandmother knelt down next Samantha and caressed the young girl's head.
"Who's ready for some lunch?" Laurel asked.
"I AM!!" Samantha shouted. "Who were those people?"
"Friends of mine."
"What did they want?" Samantha asked.
"Just to talk."
"About what?"
Laurel smiled and began to braid the girl's hair as they sat there on the playroom floor together.
"About -- something called the truth." Laurel answered. "Do you know what truth means Samantha?"
The little girl dropped her doll, it's head bumping the side of a play table. Samantha looked up at the ceiling as if the answer would be there and then blurted out "NOT A LIE!"
"Right!" Laurel laughed. "The truth is not a lie. And we don't lie do we?" Samantha shook her head hard. "No we don't. We do not lie." Laurel confirmed. "Now go wash up so we can have a bit to eat."
Samantha bounced up from the floor and ran into the adjacent bathroom to wash her hands. Laurel got up and put the doll into a bin that had several other of Samantha's toys. She thought about what she said to her granddaughter. That they don't lie, yet she had lied. She told Coraline that she was her last baby.
But that was a lie.
There was one more baby Laurel had helped find a home for. One baby who was now all grown up. One baby who's name was locked in Laurel's mind and that she would never reveal.
****
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| Justin pores over the poisoning case |
Across town at the newly rebuilt police station, Constable Justin Ryan and a deputy sat in the Constable's office that had a fresh coat of white paint on the walls. A photograph President Woodrow Wilson hung on the wall in a thick black frame.
The new door, oak and heavy, remained opened as the usually quiet police station buzzed with activity due to the odd and strange attacks in the village over three different nights. The new constable, Justin Ryan, wanted answers and it was unclear if the secretive lifestyle of Welshport would give him what he needed.
Looking over papers with timelines and history of who was who and what happened, Justin looked out into the open area of the police station. He worried he'd gotten in over his head. Not only was he and his deputy investigating the attacks in the village, but also sudden death of Dr. Asha Hoffman and other patients poisoned at Hope Hospital.
Could all the crimes be connected and if they were connected, could Nik Jordan and Danielle Holten's theory that Rebecca Lord-Casador was somehow at the center of it all.
Nothing seemed clear, not in regard to the attacks in the village, but the poisoning of Hoffman and the other patients at the hospital was incredibly plausible.
"I can see the motive here." The deputy said, reading over Nik's statement. "But was there opportunity? Did anyone see Mrs. Lord-Casador at the hospital that day?"
"Dr. Jordan did." Justin replied. "Which puts us in another pickle, can the accused person be a good witness? Would he say anything to get himself off the hook? Anyone would."
"But why her? Why choose Rebecca to pin this on?" The deputy wondered
As the two chatted, a woman walked into the front area of the police station just feet away from the open door. She had come to register the license of an automobile for her employer who had just purchased the car. It was an usual arrand to run for her, but the usual person had to be somewhere else that day, so she took up the task.
She had heard of the new constable, gossip around her circles was that he was incredibly handsome and the brother of the parish priest, whom the woman had already knew to be a very handsome man. She wondered, could the brother be just as beautiful? She didn't think it would hurt to peek.
As she looked in through the crack of the opened door between the doorframe, she saw him and was not disappointed.
"Nikolas and Danielle said Rebecca has some sort of issue with Danielle being Caspian's daughter. He allegedly suffers from some sort of memory loss and Danielle, according to the couple, represents a time of Caspian's life that Rebecca was not apart of. His real name is Viktor. It's all very tangled up but the gist is they believe Rebecca's possessiveness over Caspian, keeping him Caspian for herself is what drove her to do this."
The deputy gnawed on the edge of a pencil absorbing it all. "That's .... that's fucking a lot." He said.
"A lot!" Justin confirmed. "But could this woman, this Rebecca Casador really have it that bad for Caspian? To the point where she tries to off a bunch of people to frame it on this couple?" Justin wondered.
"Where does Hoffman fit in?" The deputy asked.
"Nik and Danille think Rebecca somehow wormed her way into getting Asha to tell her where the medication was, and who was administering it, and they think this was Rebecca's way to get rid of Danielle for both Asha and herself. See its a love triangle with a bit of serrated edge. Rebecca was doing double duty."
"That's quite the crazy feat." The deputy said allowing the bizarre story to sink in.
"But it could have happened—right?” Justin asked.
"What do you think?” The deputy replied shooting back the question.
Justin stood up. His mouth twisted to one side in thought as he gazed out the window of his new office that looked out into the town. Off in the distance he saw Village Park, the crown jewel of downtown Welshport bustling with people. Everyone in town knew this place had secrets and strange ones at that, and yet chose to live here still, could it be possible someone as high in stature as Rebecca Lord-Casador could do such a thing and people in the village would trust him, the district attorney and still judge the case in a jury? Justin wasn't a naïve to know he had to have good hard evidence for a jury of Rebecca's fellow Welshportonians to convict her.
"I do." Justin said. "I think she did it. But we have to find more evidence to prove it."
Standing outside the door still listening and now in utter shock was Jane O'Donnell. Rebecca's closest maid.
Jane put her hand over her mouth to muffle the gasp she wanted to exhale. She was white as a sheet. She quickly dropped the paperwork into a box to register Jacob's new car and ran into the street and hailed a Taxi. She had no intention of keeping this information to herself.
She needed to tell someone, someone who with enough power and prestige to quickly do damage control before the story got out. Jane chose the one man she could think of: Jacob Lord.
****
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| Aaron and Coraline |
Later that evening, Coraline came home to a quiet house. There were lights on in the front room. She turned to the hallway as she hung her coat on the wall towards the back bedroom where a light was on.
"Aaron?!? Are you home?" She asked as the large framed bearded man emerged from the room. He was dressed in a clean fresh suit, his beard nicely trimmed. He looked as if he was going to some gala or business dinner with his employer Jacob Lord.
"Well you look nice. What's the occasion?" She asked as he greeted her with a kiss. "Is Jacob taking you out on a date?" She added in jest.
"I just thought I needed to look nice for you. Today is a big day. How did it go with Laurel?" He asked as he held Cora in his arms.
She sighed "It went well. Laurel finally came clean about everything, and I accepted her apology and it's over. Its all finally over."
"Do you really think so?"
"I do. She explained what she did, how she helped Henry Lockwood and why he came to her. I don't think she meant to cause harm, although much harm occurred, but in the end the Murphy's raised me very well. They loved me, they cared for me, they gave me a family even if I already had one. The Lockwoods raised Lear well too, so I don't dare say I missed out on a good family. I had my own. Just the wrong one." Cora explained rather diplomatically.
"Speaking of the Lockwoods -- what will you go by? Are you now officially back to being Margaret Lockwood?" Aaron asked.
Cora's head went back slightly as the idea never came to her. She had legal right to that name, she had proof as much proof as she needed to take back the name and family standing that was rightfully hers but then she wondered about what it would mean to be a full-fledged Lockwood again, a member, through Rebecca her paternal aunt, of the Lord family. It would mean so much to her financially and socially but at the same time, there was much to worry about stepping back into that role.
"No." She replied simply surprising him.
"No?"
"No, I think I'm good. My mother gave me the name Coraline Mary Taylor Murphy, that's who I've always been. That's who I'll always be no matter who my real family relations are. Lear is my brother and so is Bax. I have two brothers. I have two families. That's just my reality now."
"Well I can tell you Lear and Rebecca may feel a little differently. They'd probably want you to go by your real name." Aaron said.
"It's my choice, and I think Lear will understand. Rebecca -- well, I don't have anything to prove to her. She can take me or leave me." Cora said proudly.
"Well what if you went with a different name all together?"
Cora tilted her head "A different name? What do you mean?"
“There’s some official business to take care of, you and I. Did you forget about an agreement we made a few week ago?” Aaron asked coyly.
She did remember. But happily played dumb.
Seeing her pretend to forget and not wanting to spend a second longer without her with his ring he reached into the pocket of his jacket and went down to one knee.
He pulled out a small box, opened it showed her a beautiful gold band diamond engagement ring he had chosen for their engagement.
"Coraline Mary Taylor Murphy, will you —officially—do me the honor of being my wife?"
Cora gasped, not expecting ring such an extravagant ring. She covered her mouth in shock and pulled him back up. His tall frame towered over her and she cried with happiness as reached for his lips on her tip-toes and kissed him. She put the ring on and could not believe how beautiful it sparkled.
"You have to say yes or no!" Aaron laughed. "You can't just take the ring!"
"OH!!! YES, YES! OF COURSE! YES!"
He then kissed her again and lifted her up in his arms as if he was already taking her over the threshold of their little house in the village. He carried her all the way down the hall and into the back bedroom where he laid her down on the bed. They began to remove each other's closes. One garment at a time and made love for the first time as an engaged couple.
She was never happier.
****
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| Rebecca and Albert’s ghost |
The night came quickly, and in a room at the top of the third story of Tirymor House, was a less happier woman tossing and turning in her large wood-framed bed. The guilt of what she had done had eaten away at her mind like a monstrous worn consuming all it can see.
Rebecca Lord-Casador was the guilty woman, she had done the unthinkable and taken a life.
In her mind, a dark cloud took hold. She saw herself floating in a place she could not recognize with her eyes but she smelled something familiar. Cigar smoke and cologne. Albert's cologne. It was a scent of fresh flowers but mixed with cedar that reminded her of him and she turned all around in this black lonely place in her mind as she slept but could not see him.
Then she heard him.
He called to her, her name echoing in this blackness. She called back but he did not appear. He called again to her and she reached forward into the dark blackness and suddenly a hand grabbed her by the wrists and yanked her into a further black hole in her mind. She felt herself falling and falling and she could not see where she was falling and then, just as fast as she fell she stopped and her feet hit the a suddenly appearing floor.
"You have hit rock bottom, haven't you?" Albert said appearing finally into a light that came from no where.
"Albert, my love, my dear love! Is it really you??” She begged to know.
He smiled in his ghostly hue and bowed as if to take his place center stage. “You’ve been a bad girl.” He said.
“WHAT HAVE I DONE!? Help me figure this out. I have to make it right." She told the face of her dead husband.
"Help you? You've done a fine job all one your own, isn't this what you wanted?" Albert replied.
"Wanted?"
"Yes! Of course, this is what you designed, Rebecca, this is what the whole plan was for, isn't it? Killing an innocent to somehow place the blame on that girl Danielle. Well you've certainly succeeded in something along those lines." Albert replied.
"I never wanted someone to die, how can you say that to me?"
"Oh, come now! You've done this for your own gain and now you have to live with it, woman! Live with what you've done and be happy for it. That's all you can do now. I see you, I've seen you plan this and you with your own hands and mind dropped those drops of belladonna into those patients medications and allowed it all to happen. Never once did you have second thoughts." Albert accused.
"You're saying something so horrible to me! The mother of your children!!"
"MOTHER!!!!" He laughed. "You were never a mother. Nannies raised the boys and you let our daughter fall in then die, then bringing that witch Eliza around as if she could do anything. Our whole family has suffered in darkness and shadows because of you Rebecca! YOU are the one who has brought these curses -- these maladies of madness-- these horrific sins or murder and greed and lies. The grandson you adore lost to the world, the granddaughter you practically raised abandoned you. You deserve all the weight of the globe to crush you now -- for all you've done and all you should have done to correct coarse. May god help you now."
"Albert, how dare you, how... how can you speak to me this way!" Rebecca screamed.
Albert did not reply. He only laughed at her from beyond the grave. His face was winching with pain as he laughed. His eyes began to bleed as the laughing would not subside. His skin began to crack, melt and his eyes fell out of their sockets. Rebecca watched as the man she knew as her husband Albert Lord began to literally rot in front of her as if she had opened his buried coffin and saw him decompose right in front of her eyes. Albert's voice echoed over and over again "MOTHER! MOTHER!!"
"MOTHER!" A voice shouted waking Rebecca up from the nightmare.
It was Jacob. He had heard her screaming in her sleep from down the stairs into the second floor and into his room which was quite a distance away.
"What the devil is the matter with you? You've been screaming for practically 15 minutes. I finally had enough of it and came to see what the matters was. Are you unwell?" Jacob asked.
She did not respond at first. She sat up in bed, sweating, and reached for a glass of water on the side of the bed that was dry. She stared at it, confused, she had put it there full and hadn't had any.
She looked at the glass for a strange amount of time, never replying to Jacob. He could see that she seemed to be in a daze. Finally, the frustration boiling over, he yanked the empty glass from her hand and knelt down so that he was in her eye-line.
"What's happening to you???" He asked.
"Jacob, I have to tell you something and I need you to help me. I need to know what I can do to fix something that I've done and I need do fix it fast. But I don't know how to fix it, so you need to help me fix it because you know how to do these things, you've done it before. You're good at this, yes -- it has to be you. You'll help me, you'll help me." Rebecca rambled as she got up from her bed and reached for a silk red wine colored robe that was draped over a chair in the corner of her room.
"You're not well." Jacob replied quietly from the shadowy side of her bed. He stepped forward into the glow of the light and Rebecca could see his face was as white as sheet. She was actually frightening her unfrightenable son.
"Of course I'm not! I've had a grotesque nightmare and I have to confess -- I have to confess to you!" She said panicking.
"Alright, sit down, sit there and tell me what is going on." Jacob said.
She listened and sat down in the soft chair at the other end of her room. Her small Maltese BeeBee that had been sleeping with her on her bed jumped into her lap and folded himself into a white puff ball.
She didn't know where to begin.
"Is this about the divorce papers? Have you done something with them?" Jacob fished.
"No." She said, she pointed to her desk where the divorce papers, signed, were.
"Then?"
"Asha Hoffman is dead." She said suddenly. "I'm responsible.
"YOU?" Jacob replied shocked. "The papers said the suspects were that girl Danielle and may even Nik Jordan. Constable Ryan was still investigating. How does any of that have to do with you?"
"Because it was me. It was ME, Jacob! I did it all and planted evidence on Nikolas. I've done this. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean for her to die, Jacob, it was an accident." She explained.
"Did you tell anyone?" He asked.
"NO!" She shot back.
"How did you do this?" He asked.
"I used an extract the hospital uses as a sleeping aide that calms the body into a good sleep. At the last minute I put too much into one od the medication cups and -- and it ended up in Asha Hoffman's room. She took it and died."
"Where did you get this idea? And -- WHY? Mother WHY?"
"Asha herself gave me the idea. I had no idea she was one of the patients going to be administered the medication. She was set to be discharged. She and I had a deal, I was going to get rid of Danielle for the two of us. Nik had gone behind Asha's back and had begun a secret relationship with Danielle, and Danielle stood in the way of Caspian and my marriage. She was getting closer and closer to Caspian and bringing more and more of his life as Viktor to the forefront. I just -- I wanted only to make her look inept at her job, not kill people!"
"All of this because of one nurse." Jacob replied, condensing Rebecca's motives to rid Nurse Danielle Holten as frivolous. "Now look where we are. Had you been honest with Caspian about his life as Viktor when you learned it none of this would have happened." He added in a scold.
"He would have left me!!!" She shouted back.
"Oh please mother! PLEASE! You have no idea what he would have done. But -- that's the way this has all come to ahead and now we have to come to a decision, don't we?" He said.
"YES! Yes, please, Jacob, I'm your mother you have to help me figure a way out of this. I have to make sure no one ever knows what really happened. I have to, I can't go back to that asylum and I can't go--" the lord matriarch paused when she thought about other places the law would put her if she was convicted of murder "I can't go anywhere, just here. Just here, I need to stay here with you and the rest of my family!"
Rebecca began to pace the room. Beebee in her arms whimpering as she squeezed her tiny little white fluffy body.
"Alright, alright, just relax, now. We'll think of something." Jacob said.
"Will you? Will you think of something?" She begged as he walked her back to bed.
"Try to sleep. I think I can handle this, but I need you to sleep. If people come sniffing here, I can't have you look like you have two giant sea bags under your eyes. You have to play it normal." Jacob instructed.
Beebee jumped out of Rebecca's arms and sniggled up into the little bed he had made out of a pillow next to where Rebecca was laying. She crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over her. A cold wind blew into the room from the open French doors of the terrace. Jacob walked over and latched them closed.
"So, you'll help?" She asked again.
"I'll do something." He said. "Go to sleep mother."
"Sleep. Yes. I have to try." She said.
Jacob waited for a second in the room to be sure she closed her eyes and tried to sleep. She did her best but still sleep never reached her for another half hour. By then Jacob had already been downstairs in his study. He picked up a glittering glass of brandy and watched as the clock struck 11pm. He had a powerful piece of information, something that if revealed could tear the family apart. But Jacob knew even more was at stake should Rebecca's secret involvement in Asha Hoffman's death come to light too late.
Holding on to the secret, hiding it away to protect Rebecca was what Jacob should have done. Any ordinary son would, even if the mother was truly guilty, as Rebecca was.
The stakes were too high.
The truth was too dangerous to hold on to and, he knew Rebecca's divorce was coming. She'd become weak, she'd become detached and she had become too dangerous in her own world to keep around.
Rebecca's downfall was Jacob's rise.
He reached for the telephone that had been installed in his study only a few months earlier. He spoke to the operator that was on the line and asked to be linked to the Constable Justin Ryna as soon as possible.
The operator confirmed and Justin's phone rang.
Justin's office was empty. The phone kept ringing. It was loud. The sound echoed into newly rebuilt hallways of the station.
Then the phone in Jacob's ear clicked.
Someone answered.
"Yes, hello? Yes --- Jacob Lord here. Good to hear you too. Yes, yes, thank you. I'm sorry for calling at this hour, but I have some information you'll need in regard to the death of Dr. Asha Hoffman at Welshport Hope Hospital.... that's right. My mother, Rebecca has confessed to it. Rebecca Lord-Casador killed Asha Hoffman.
