B9/Ch12: NOTHING GOOD COMES FROM NOTHING GOOD

 

Lear gives Rebecca a jailhouse visit 

It was late evening; the sun had set deep over the hills beyond the mainland of Maine and Rebecca Lockwood-Lord-Casador sat in a small wooden chair staring up at a clock from behind the bars of her small Welshport jail cell. 

She watched as the second hand of the clock ticked away minute by minute. She felt like Marie Antoinette awaiting the executioner leading her over to a guillotine. As the door to the jail opened the executioner never came -- only Rebecca's lawyer nephew Lear Lockwood with papers for her to look over and sign.

Rebecca smirked, quietly waiting for him to say something first.

"Aunt Rebecca, how are you doing? Has everything been ok?" 

"Are you asking me how my accommodations have been? Look around. It's the Waldorf-Astoria!" Rebecca joked. "This isn't my first time in a jail cell, Lear, and I'm fine." She added, recalling when Jacob accused Rebecca of being his mysterious shooter in Village Park that left him in a coma years back. 

"I just want to be sure you're going to be ok. What ever happened in the past -- this is different.” Lear then reached for the papers and help them up. “I have your confession for you to sign. Constable Ryan had it officially documented — it's now ready for your signature." 

Rebecca stood up from her chair and came over to Lear at the bars. She extended her hand and he passed her the papers. She looked them over, slowly, meticulously, making sure every word on those papers were hers, and only hers. 

"Well, it's very different to read it all back in your own words." She said, her smirk quickly vanishing into the creases of her face as it all set it.

"Is it really all true?" Lear asked.

She nodded. "Your aunt Rebecca has truly fallen into a very dark place, wouldn't you say?" She said to Lear as she reached for his pen.

He handed it to her but did not let go before a he warned her. 

"I want you to be sure that you understand, Aunt Rebecca, that when you sign this, you're agreeing that there will be no trial and you're allowing a judge to make the decision on your punishment. You killed a person and several people became ill, this could give you a very long time in prison." 

"Lear, listen to me very carefully. I don't care what happens now. My horrible mistake took a woman's life and for what? For Caspian? A man who has already signed divorce papers and is leaving me and has nothing left to give me? No. I need to take what has happened for what it's worth and deal with what I have done. Asha Hoffman's family deserves at least that." 

Lear smiled, he felt it was the first time he was truly seeing the aunt he cared for and the aunt he knew as a child the person who was strong and good-willed and never took anything from anyone. Somewhere, she lost her way. Perhaps, Lear wondered, if it all went away when Albert died. The click of hope turning to despair at the end of someone's life had to change one mentally, he thought. But he would never truly know.

Rebecca signed the confession and handed Lear back both pen and papers. 

"On a bit of good news, we finally know exactly who Cora is." Lear said. "She is my sister Maggie. It turns out, the person responsible for her illegal adoption with my father was someone close to us all. This person admitted to helping my father in exchange for money that he needed to pay off debts." 

Rebecca's smirk returned, she raised her brow and returned to her wooden chair. "You must be very happy, I wish her all the best. Give her my love." 

"I am, yes. Although she's decided to stick to using her Coraline as her name, but other than that I hope that we can all get something back after all these years of thinking she was gone." 

"Yes, I'm sure it is a very comforting thought to have you sister back." Rebecca replied solemnly. 

"I was hoping that would cheer you up under the circumstances, but I guess nothing can really do that, not even the news of your niece's returning home, can it? I'm sorry." Lear replied.

"Not at all, I'm very happy for Maggie -- Coraline, I mean. So many people with different names I sometimes forget who goes by what." She joked, noting Welshport citizens often using names. "But I am happy for her. I just feel I should just stay out of any family celebrations after what I've done. I'd be just a sad reminder of the tragedy I caused." 

Before Lear could reply, a voice sounded from behind them both. "What have you done!?" 

Lear turned, Rebecca too, it was Charlotte. Her face seemed warn from crying. Her eyes swollen and her mouth trembling with the truth of her grandmother's guilt. She rushed over to the cell; Rebecca's lips trembled with emotion as her one true love Charlotte had grown so much over the months. She was now a young lady standing before her.

"Charlotte, darling, oh my darling, girl! What are you doing here?" Rebecca shouted, rushing to the bars, reaching through them and hugging her granddaughter. 

"I heard what happened. Everyone is talking about it but I had to come see you, I had to come ask you if it was true. How can it be? You wouldn't do that to Dr. Hoffman, would you? Why? Why would you do such a thing?" 

"Charlotte, I never meant for anyone to die, I swear that on my own soul, that part was an accident." 

Lear gulped, hearing the truth again still shocked him.

"But you did mean to poison her and those other patients?" Charlotte asked. "Why???" 

"Selfish reasons." The grandmother admitted but gave no more insight. 

Charlotte let go of Rebecca's hands as they had still held each other through the iron bars. She turned to Lear who was placing the signed confession into his briefcase. 

"You're going to help her, right? She can't stay in here." Charlotte said.

"She's confessed Charlotte, she requested no trial. I have to do what she asks." 

"Lear you can't be serious! My grandmother isn't thinking clearly, look what she's done! We can't just let her go to prison." Charlotte begged not realizing a confession was as good as a conviction.

"Darling..." Rebecca began before being interrupted by Lear.

"She absolutely is in her right state of mind now and has taken responsibility for this. I think you should listen to what she wants and understand that this is actually better, not just for her, but for Asha's family, your family and the company. Aunt Rebecca's actions have cast a very dark shadow over Lord Publishing, and I commend her doing this quicky, you should too." Lear suggested.

"Is that true?" Charlotte asked turning to her grandmother. "You're just going to take the what punishment the judge hands you?" 

"Charlotte, she has to." Lear replied

It slowly sunk in to the young woman. It was over.

Rebecca stood there, almost like her own ghost. The conversation about her slowly took her out of her own body and she could only stand and not speak. She became pale. Vacant. She stared off into the distance between Lear and Charlotte thinking about her future when suddenly she could see a shapely shadow forming. It walked into a dim light just outside the corner of the room. She could see the face forming into the face of her dead husband Albert. 

He smiled at her coldly. His face had withered into something she wished she had never seen. Something sickly and wrong and from her own nightmares. He shook his head in a patronizing manner shaming her for her crime. 

Rebecca stepped back from the bars as Lear and Charlotte's voices seemed to disappear into the vision of Albert. His neck, she could see, had a noose around it. He loosened the rope and lifted the loop over his head and threw it into the jail cell. The ghostly ligature floated over and through Lear's body and into the jail cell and fell at Rebecca's feet.

Rebecca backed away from it and fell into the small wooden chair in her cell. 

"Grandmother? Grandmother, are you alright?" Charlotte's voice begged. 

Rebecca made no connection to the young woman's cries. 

"She seeks you still." Albert said of Charlotte. "Hoping something good will come of this. But nothing good comes from nothing good. Rotten. Spoiled and tainted for all the world to see. Nothing good comes from nothing good Rebecca. You're nothing good." 

"STOP IT!" Rebecca shouted at him. "STOP IT NOW!" 

Lear and Charlotte looked at each other, they didn't understand what Rebecca was talking about, they could tell that the stress, the anxiety and guilt was taking over her. They needed to leave her to rest. She was exhausted. Broken. The world crashing at her feet and never to return the way it was before.

"Take this." Lear said, tossing a small packet into the room. A sleep sedative wrapped in a paper bundle tired with twine. "It'll help you sleep." 

Rebecca did not move or pick up the pack she only stared out of her cell at Albert's ghost. 

"What's wrong with her?" Charlotte asked, her tone soft and childlike, finally sounding her age. 

"She'll be alright." Lear answered, unsure of his own words. "We just have to get her through to the judge's decision." 

"Decision? I thought there was no trial?" 

"Judge Banning will still decide her punishment." Lear whispered. "We should go." 

Charlotte nodded but grabbed the bars with her hands and looked in at her frightened grandmother one last time. Rebecca looked back seeing her only granddaughter standing next to the taunting spirt of her dead husband who moved his index finger to his lips shushing his wife.

"Sleep now." Charlotte said. "I love you." 

As Charlotte finally let down her guard, her mind opened up. She then sensed a presence. Something strange in the room that she hadn't felt when she was trying to get through to Rebecca. She turned to the side and in her mind she could see something, a light but glowing in a way that felt inside-out. Not bright, but burning within a dark orb of some sort. She reached for it and Rebecca screamed for her to stop seeing that Charlotte was reaching for Albert's ghost.

Charlotte reached and felt it, she saw the face of a creature, not Albert taunting Rebecca from the other side of the bars. 

Charlotte gasped and lifted her hand up pushing the creature, became visible to all and began gyrating and laughing all the way back; back, back into the shadows. 

"AWAY!!!!!!!!!" Charlotte shouted. 

The thing obeyed and left in a taunting wind of laughter. 

"What in hell was that!?" Lear shouted seeing something incredible before his very eyes. 

"Albert! It wasn't Albert!!" Rebecca shouted.

Charlotte looked back at her grandmother; tears were in her eyes. "No, no, it wasn't. Pick up the packet, Grandmother, take what's in there and sleep. You need to sleep."

Rebecca, shocked at what she just saw, listened this time and did as she was told.

Charlotte grabbed Lear, looped her arm through his and began their exit. 

"Charlotte, what just happened?" He asked.

She held him close and whispered, "You don't want to know." 

****

Cora & Aaron’s wedding 

The next morning seemed to come in a wash of spotty sunny skies with the occasional white fluffy cotton clouds clustering in bunches. There was no ominous storm coming, just an early spring day that felt cool like fall but sunny enough to keep the chill off the Atlantic at bay. 

It was the day of Aaron Hamstead and Coraline Taylor Murphy's wedding, and the guests were already arriving at St. Catherine's church, dressed in the best attire. The men in their top hats and tales, the women in large hats and paste taffeta dresses. The happy occasion, however, was not immune to the cold truth of what had happened just weeks ago with the death of Asha Hoffman. 

Nothing made that clearer, that Nik and Danielle's arrival - together. 

Outside the church under a guard of large beech trees, Danielle replaced her lace gloves slowly after she and Nik exited the cab. People entering the church whispered at the couple who were making their first appearance together since the tragedy. Even though news had swiftly come that Nik and Danielle had nothing to do with Asha's death yet gossip and disapproving eyes made things awkward.

"We shouldn't have come." Danielle said. "No, I shouldn't have come." 

"Stop that, Coraline invited me and a guest. She's been almost like an aunt to Gabriel, I couldn't just not come and celebrate with her. If she felt it would have been inappropriate she would have said so. She knows, just like everyone else by now, that Rebecca did all of this. Not you or I." 

"Such a beautiful day for a wedding." Christopher said, walking up with Genevieve and Morgan. 

They all greeted each other, the men shaking hands, the ladies double kissing. They were a group of town outsiders in a sense. One couple the spitting image of a tragic romance that they all believed died on Bellmore Beach, the other more recent paramours connected to shocking poisonings at the hospital. Seeing them all together made the entering guests salivate with intrigue.

"Looks like we're not the favorite couple to whisper about anymore." Geneveive said. "I don't wish it on you, but it does feel better to have eyes look elsewhere." She admitted.

"It's awful, I can't imagine how you both lived through it." Danielle answered

"We're still living with it." Chris said. "I wanted to also apologize for what happened, my mother's involvement in Asha's death and how she tried to see it that you two were held responsible. I-- I don't even know what to say." 

"Something in her snapped." Nik replied. "It wouldn't be the first time. I'm just glad Justin was able to convince her to admit what she'd did before it got any worse." 

"Rebecca hasn't been herself since -- well -- since Caspian's you know." Genevieve replied. 

Danielle's body twitched with discomfort, her mind quickly rushing to the story of her father Viktor, known as Caspian, had his history of darkness. The literal demons of his past almost destroying so many lives. Rebecca, as they all saw it, was his first victim as she had never been the same since the demon brainwashed her. 

"I wish I could have been here before all of this happened." Danielle said, the shade of the tree branches splattering a pattern of shadows over her light green dress. “Maybe I could have stopped him all those years ago.”

"Honestly, there may have not been anything you could have done." Nik replied. "None of us knew what was going to happen at any point in this tragedy, from beginning to end and we all have to understand that. I think about this too; what Rebecca did but also what Asha did, what she hid, and the truth we'll never know." 

"What truth?" Chris asked.

Nik gave Danielle a look who took a deep breath in, finally more secrets revealed.

"It wasn't that Danielle and I didn't want to make our relationship known. We did, but Asha was hiding something from us all that I needed to get from her. She lied about the child my mother and Caspian conceived. She told us all a boy died at birth, but in truth, a girl was born and she and Gregory took that child and gave it away to another couple somewhere. We don't know who, we don't know where. We just know they both lied. Gregory died with that secret, and now, so has Asha. That was the whole purpose of me trying to keep Asha close to me without revealing that I'd fallen in love with someone else. Asha lied, she did something awful and lied to all of us about it. She certainly didn't deserve the fate she got, but I can't say that she didn't put herself in a terrible place because she continued to keep those lies. I feel horrible saying that out loud, but it's true." 

As the story settled into Chris and Genevive's minds, an uncomfortable shill went up Chris' spine. He felt he strong choke hold of shame about his mother's involvement in the entire situation but there was nothing he could do. 

As the of the reality set in of what had happened, the church bells tolled signaling the wedding would soon start.

"Shall we?" Chris asked.

Genevieve grabbed her son Morgan's hand who had stood there listening to all of the grown-up drama without saying a word and moved up the front steps of the white church long side the foursome. 

Inside the church, Lear and Lucas were sitting behind a few pews of Coraline's friends, a steady group of ladies she knew from school. Jane Donnelly among them. Jane quickly swished around her pew to the one behind had and sat next to Lucas. Her eyes glowing with the gossip she had just heard from the other ladies.

"Did you hear?" She whispered to the men.

Lucas shook his head "Hear what?" He whispered.

"Baxter isn't coming. He wasn't invited." She whispered back.

Lear rolled his eyes "That's not true, Coraline invited him."

"She did? Where is he then? He's the brother she grew up with, and he's not here. But you are: the brother she never knew of." Jane whispered, full emersed in the news that Coraline was a Lockwood not Murphy.

"Jane, Cora invited him, Baxter chose not to come. He's still healing from his attack. He wanted to be sure to let Cora have her day without the physical reminder of something awful that happened just a few blocks away." Lear said.

"I think that was nice of him." Lucas added, Lear smiled and squeezed his partner's hand.

"Did you hear the other news?" Jane whispered.

"I think we've heard everything you've heard." Lucas smiled hoping to keep the Tirymor House maid from sending them into more village tales. 

"About Rebecca?" She asked.

Lear turned his head, like the snap of a catapult towards her. His eyes met Jane's and she quickly saw his stern reaction, she forgot his familial connection to Rebecca and his employment as the family's personal lawyer.

"Of course you have." She answered. "I was the one who tipped off Jacob. I thought I'd help him know that the police were readying an arrest. He took care of it on his own."

"What do you mean by tipping off the police?" Lucas asked.

"I heard them talking about their evidence, so I told Jacob. He turned her in. That house of cards fell on itself in days." Jane replied proudy.

"Why would you do that?" Lear shouted, his voice echoing in the church, bouncing between status of the Madonna and child and St. Joseph. 

Jane sat back, shocked at his response, but there was no time for her to answers as her attention quickly turned to the group walking in: Nik arm in arm with Danielle, Chris arm in arm with Genevieve and young Morgan.

Jane let out a small disappointing "humph" at Lear and quickly turned her nose up as the group that entered that came and set behind Lear and Lucas.

"What was that about?" Morgan asked about Jane's reaction as the groom and his best man entered with Father Donavon from the front of the church.

Genevieve shushed her son as the ceremony was about to begin. 

The music swelled at the front of the church amongst several large brightly lit candles. The sunlight beamed in from the four skylights in the ceiling onto the white flowers that adorned the ends of the 12 pews that made up the interior aisle of Saint Catherine's church.

Aaron, a man of over six-feet tall, held his hands clasped at his waist. He looked proud, happy and slightly nervous as the ceremony began to build while they awaited the bride. 

As the music made it's way through an opening pomp and circumstance before the actual wedding march began, Lear turned back to Chris with a very concerned look and leaned over the pew.

"It was Jacob." He whispered.

"What?" 

"Jacob, he's the one that turned in Aunt Rebecca." Lear whispered.

Chris's eyes widened. 

"Why would he do that?" Genevieve asked, also whispering under the music.

Chris sighed, the only reason was one that built up over time, a perfect storm of the Lord family breaking down in front of the world's eyes in Jacob's favor and Rebecca's breaking point seemed to be the perfect and final nail in the coffin of anyone standing in Jacob's way of complete control over the entire Lord family empire. Sebastian's supposed death, Christopher renouncing his Lord family name and choosing to allow his alter ego to remain legally dead, Rebecca's one-woman crime spree and her marriage falling apart. 

It all finally fell into place, and Jacob was the beneficiary. 

As all of this landing in Chris' mind, the Church doors opened and a veiled Coraline, dressed in the whitest dress anyone had ever seen began her decent down the short white flowered aisle to be married. 

Cora's eyes glowed bright under her perfect white veil. But she felt a hint of sadness as she had no father to walk her down the aisle. As she put her first foot forward, a man's hand grabbed her arm and looped it under his arm.

It was Baxter, the adopted brother she had grown up with. He was dressed perfectly. Top hat under his free arm. A white tie perfectly matching his white button shirt with black pearled buttons. A tiny sprig of baby's breath poking out of his jacket pocket. A simple gesture to her being his baby sister.  His face still bruised and scarred from Caspian's attack. 

"What are you doing here???" Cora asked, happy to see him.

"I couldn't let the world watch my baby sister get married and not be here to give her away. No matter what anyone tells you -- you're my baby sister too. I want to be here for you." Baxter said.

She reached over and grabbed him into a big hug. She had never been happier. 

Cora and Baxter began their steps forward from the foyer of the church towards the nave. She was going to marry a man that loved her unconditionally. Aaron would protect her and care for her like she had always dreamed of. Her happiness brightly shining like the sun through the skylights above

As they continued, she turned to the right and saw her brother Lear, her true blood brother, sitting there holding hands with his partner Lucas. As she passed him, she smiled her bouquet of white hydrangeas were overflowing in her hands. Lear winked at her as she continued to walk down the aisle with Baxter tightly wound in her arms. Her family finally together. 

The music swelled to an abrupt stop as Baxter handed his baby sister over to Aaron who happily took the beauty in his hands.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here in the name of love. The love of a couple, the love of two families coming together as one, the love of a community celebrating two people who have found their way through a world of darkness and pain and realize that beyond those realms there is happiness, love and true companionship. We celebrate that today but should celebrate it everyday because everyday we can find this same thing around us. In our types of relationships -- not just the beautiful one we are witnessing here today of Aaron ad Coraline." Father Ryan spoke just as Jacob snuck into the church with Celeste. 

Jane, ever the observer, turned when the church door opened and saw her boss and his wife enter. 

Geneveive noticed Jane and turned back, Chris noticed Genevieve and turned back too. It was the first time both brother, Jacob and Chris, had come into contact with each other so soon after Jacob's heart-attack at seeing Chris alive. 

"Don't do anything." Geneveive whispered to Chris.

"Don't do anything." Celeste whispered too to Jacob. 

Jacob bowed his head to Chris who turned away with no emotion. 

Then, Father Donavon Ryan began to read the vows and allowed the happy couple turn to each other to look into each other's eyes. 

Love was in the air, but only restricted to the small church. Elsewhere in the village darkness reigned supreme. 

****

Eden comes to the beach house 

Later that evening, Barrister Eden Sydney made his way to Bellmore Beach house with important documents for Caspian. The divorce from Rebecca had been finalized and Eden had final documents in his hands for Caspian, not only that, but Lear had given the Barrister Rebecca's signed confession, that Judge Banning had also looked over, accepted, and signed. 

The news of Caspian's now ex-wife was heavy, Eden felt it necessary to bring the news to Caspian in person rather than send it with a currier from his office at Village Hall, it was an orthodox way thing for someone in his stature to do, but Eden had seen enough pain in the village over the year he'd been there. He felt it necessary to heal some of man to man.

As Eden stepped up the steps of the front porch of the he could see into the front parlor window. There was one lamp on leaving the rest of the house incredible dark. He stepped back down one step of the porch believe that the house was empty but then heard a stirring. Footsteps rushing somewhere in the house, large heavy footsteps.

Eden furrowed his brow, confused, and went up the porch and knocked on the door. No one answered, but more footsteps could be heard, almost manic in their pattern. Eden knocked again, and this time called out to see if anyone was one. 

No one answered. Eden then went to a side window and looked in, a shadow, a large-framed person clearly Caspian, poked out from a side wall then darted back again to be unseen.

"What the devil?" Eden said, the waves over to his side on the beach crashing over his thoughts like thunder rolling around in turbulent sky. 

Eden knocked again.

"Caspian? It's Barrister Sydney. I sent you a note earlier today so my visit wouldn’t be unannounced and I wanted to...." Eden's voice trailed off when he saw the note. It was on the floor of the wooden porch away from the door. 

"...Oh." Eden said to himself. "Looks like the wind blew the note off your door, Caspian, you in there? Aurora?"

Eden reached for the doorknob; it turned and Eden walked into the front foyer of the Beach House. He looked around, there was a sound coming from the back rooms. It sounded almost like a window being lifted up, heavy in its aged wood. The front parlor, to Eden's left was lit still with the one lamp. Quiet. Just the ticking of a small clock on the hearth.

Eden's heart felt like it was racing. "Aurora?" He whispered. "Caspian?"

Caspian stood just away from view. His mind clouded with madness of his split identities. Viktor, his true self, had control fully taking over. The heavy wood Eden heard was not a window opening, but a door from a back area being ripped apart. The heavy shards of the door in Viktor's cold hand ready to bludgeon Eden in the head. 

Viktor watched Eden survey the foyer, he noticed things strewn across the floor. A picture frame broken. A table lopsided with a runner pulled all the way to the end, a vase with flowers over turned. 

"Aurora???" Eden called, his voice sounding much more urgent. 

Eden turned back towards the dimly lit front parlor. Just before entering he dropped his briefcase down and stepped in. He moved towards the sofa and there she was, just her legs sticking out from the back. Aurora's unconscious body.

"OH MY GOD AURORA!! Are you alright? Aurora? Aurora? Open your eyes. Aurora??"  Eden shouted as he fell to his knees to try and wake her.

She had been attacked, strangled and left for dead for almost a full day. She'd waken occasionally but the pain and her exhaustion from the fight with Caspian/Viktor had taken too much out of her.

She started to stir, now that Eden was shaking her awake, but then a blow to the back of the head.

Eden went down, crumbled to the floor like a house of cards collapsing next to Aurora. Aurora, awake now but still on the floor, opened her eyes to come face to face with the cold state on Viktor Holten face salivating at his newest victim.

"Almost got me." Viktor growled low, as a long drop of spittle fell from his lips and on to Aurora's bodice. 

****

Chris visits Rebecca 

As the night wore on, and the wedding in the village went from ceremony to celebration, Christopher snuck off ...he needed to see someone and left his own soon to be wife and her son on their own.

Genevieve and Morgan headed home. Her worry was that Chris was regretting having passed on the opportunity to return to his life as David Lord. She watched him walk down the street from St. Catherine's as she and Morgan drove off in a cab. 

"Do you think he'll be alright?" Morgan asked.

Genevieve seemed to not notice her son speaking, distracted with what would Chris truly wanted for himself and if she’d still fit in once it came. 

He tapped her hand. "Mother?"

"Huh? Oh. Sorry darling, yes. Yes. He'll be ok. He's got a lot on his mind." Genevieve replied.

"About Mrs. Casador? She was always so nice to me, I can't believe what she did." Morgan answered, recalling his somewhat friendly relationship with Rebecca while he lived under her roof at Tirymor House.

"Sometimes people go through things in their life and those things change us. For the better and for the worse. This is --- this may have been Rebecca's worse." 

As their cab turned a corner and puttered down one of the increasingly foggy streets, Chris entered the police station. He asked to see his mother, and one of the deputies refused, saying it was too late in the evening for prisoners to have visitors.

"You don't understand, I just found out she was here and I have to see her. Please." Christ said.

Before the deputy could answer, Constable Justin Ryan exited his office to see David standing at the front desk.

"It's alright Bill. I'll take him down." Just replied. 

The deputy handed over the keys to Justin, and the two men made their way towards the hallway that had a triple lock on it that led to the cells.

"You're her other son, yes? Younger than Jacob?" Just asked.

Chris nodded. "David --- well, I don't go by that anymore."

"I've heard the situation." Justin replied with a grin. "Feels like everyone in town has a bit of a second side. Wonder what mine will be now that I live here." he joked.

"Uh.. right." Chris replied awkwardly.

"She hasn't been talking much since her lawyer came to see her." Justin added. 

"Did he tell her not to speak?" Chris asked.

Justin didn't know. "He came in had some legal things with him for her to look over then her granddaughter came by and that was it. She never spoke another word." 

"Charlotte was here?" 

Justin nodded as the two made their way passed a drunk man in his cell, sleepily tossing and turning and covering his head with a pillow to block out the conversation. 

"She's just down here, we kept her in a private spot downstairs." Justin said pointing towards the locked doors. "I'll let you in, but you can't stay long. I'll be back in about 10 minutes." 

"Thank you." 

Justin walked over and unlocked the gate that led into the stairwell that went down to a more private set of jail cells that had all been freshly repainted and fixed after the police station had burned down. Although not damaged in the fire, the basement cells were still scorched and held debris, now it was clean, the fresh paint smell still wafting through the small corridors and down the stairs that led Christopher to his mother who was reading a book in her cell.

"Mother." He whispered. 

A guard sitting next to a lamp also readying a book lifted his head.

"Constable Ryan let me in." Chris said to him. The officer closed his book and nodded then went back up the stairs allowing Chris and Rebecca some privacy.

"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes, David." Rebecca said of her once thought dead son Christopher, a name she refused to use. She only called him by his birth name David.

"Mother -- I heard about everything. How -- how did -- why..." Chris began before she interrupted.

"It's better I don't fill your mind with the details, son, just know that I'm ready for whatever Judge Banning has set for me. I think its time I paid." 

"I want you to listen to me, ok, I want you to really listen to me when I say this: Are you covering for Jacob? Was it Jacob that really did all these things? Because if it was you --" Chris began before his mother once again interrupted.

"David enough! Your brother is a lot of things and to be honest I can't fault you for assuming that I would be covering for his disgusting behavior as I had done so many times, including what he did to you. And for that, perhaps, this is my punishment because no one can or should cover for any one whose done something like I have. It was all me, no one else. I was selfish, and stupid -- a woman who's had everything she could ever want and for some reason I wanted more. I wanted it all, and losing Caspian was the catalyst for me trying to destroy what stood in the way of that want." She explained.

"But, you killed someone." Chris said.

Rebecca's eyes began to water. The truth once again setting into her mind of what she did to poor Asha Hoffman, a woman she'd manipulated into going along with her scheme to destroy Danielle Holten, their mutual rival. 

It was never meant to go the way it went, Rebecca, continued to say but, Christopher couldn't shake the feeling that Jacob could have helped their mother instead of turn her in.

"He did it for the good of the family." Rebecca said.

"The good of what family? There's no one left. He destroyed any hope of Sebastian being the head of this family some day, he's alienated Sebatian's wife and child, he killed my wife, banished his daughter, exiled me... and on and on. Now this, now he's turned you in instead of helping with a defense that would protect you from any heavy sentencing. He just threw you to the wolves." Chris replied angrily. 

"I have to be punished." She admitted.

Chris knew she was right but the thought of Jacob knowing that every family member was now either missing, dead or incarcerated meant he could now control the entire empire his family controlled without any say from anyone else on the family tree. 

"We were supposed to all look out for each other; Father would have wanted it that way and Jacob could have found someone to help you navigate a guilty plea and still get you a sentence worthy of his mother. Now, now there's nothing." Chris explained rightfully. 

"Perhaps, but at this point, what's left for me on this earth? I eagerly await a rest." She said turning back to her chair and sitting down.

"What are you saying?" He asked. 

Rebecca did not reply, she only looked passed him into the corner once again where the shadows began to form into the creature forming and posing as her dead husband Albert.

This time, the creature only stood there, His eyes, Albert's eyes, daring her to speak his name. But she refused this time and only stared back. Her stoic look was a game to the creature. Who'd blink first? Rebecca knew that an insanity plea was out of the question. She'd done it all under perfect frame of mind, calculating it all to the last second. Except for the one mistake -- the overdose. 

The creature looked at and mouthed to her "Say goodbye" and moved his finger, Albert's finger, across his neck. 

"Darling," Rebecca said softy "I think you should go no. Go and be happy with the rest of your life. It's the best thing you can do now. For me and your father."

The creature in Albert's face grinned crudley, his teeth sharp and jagged. He pretended to sniff Christopher, searching for the scent of his soul. Licking his hand to taste him, the salts of the skin acted like little bits of bread marking the way to the sweet kind soul that stood there.

Rebecca stood up, the creature laughed and backed away from Chrsitopher. 

"Go." She said to her son.

"I can't watch this happen to you." he told her.

"I've watched happen to myself, already, before it's even happened. Its what has to be, David. It's what has to be." She said.

Chris began to cry. She hadn't seen him cry in decades. Her son, her sweet middle child whom she remembered as sensitive and kind. The one who was always first to reach for her hand to hold when he was little. She’d missed out on his life for over 20 years when they feared he'd jumped off the lighthouse to his death. He'd left his family, aided by Aaron, and hid in London and never looked back. When that truth was revealed that Chris, or David as he was known to her, was alive, Rebecca never faulted him for his deception. Chris knew this. 

She knew too that he had to stay away, that Jacob's evil plots and his destructive schemes were the reason for Chris’ disappearance and now distance. 

And for that, she had wished she'd done more to protect Chris and not Jacob. 

It was all too late. 

Chris reached through the bars and held his mother close. The creature pretending to be Albert vanished into the shadows of the wall again. The darkness faded. 

Then Chris left the jail and his lost mother and walked home. The cold night air seemed to bring him back to life. Cooling his hot cheeks and drying his tears. He felt like he'd just spoken to a dead woman walking, Rebecca was a shell of herself after all she had been through. 

He recalled making a truce with Jacob, telling him he wanted no more death, no more battles, no more war between the brothers. 

But now -- his mother gone into the recesses of prison -- Chris thought again. 

"This is all his." He whispered to himself. "I'll destroy him." 

B9/CH11: FALL OF THE MAITRIARCHY

Verity, posing as Mary, makes love to Filipe

On a windy morning, branches from a beech tree scratched the glass of a bedroom window of the Braga home in the village. A couple kissed passionately in the second-floor bedroom in the dim light of the early day.

The wind's unyielding soft howl kept in time with the heavy breathing of the couple, Filipe and Verity, as they slowly began to seep into each other, making love. Filipe believed the woman beneath him was the woman he truly loved: Mary. 

But Verity's switch with her identical twin to take over her life had already taken shape and gone further than she had ever realized. It had become the perfect plan.

She was now making love for the first time. Her emotions and hormones swirled together like a hurricane. She felt like a fire growing hotter and hotter the more she took in Filipe and breathed in his breath. She scratched her nails down his back as the pressure of their lovemaking deepened inside of her. She could feel his body's weight on her, it felt like nothing she had ever felt before. Safe. Warm. Protected. It was erotic, and passionate and she wanted more and more of it and didn't want to stop.

She moaned, hoping to keep him in rhythm with her body's lust, he reciprocated. 

Verity, clearly enjoying her first experience as a real person making love, then slipped out from under him, they rolled over and she startled his body. There was something about her, Filipe noted, something different. Wilder. More insatiable. It was sexy and he liked it but different.

He reached up to her chest; she grabbed his hands and sucked one of his fingers. Verity, masking as her twin Mary, felt every thrust from Filipe's body devouring every second in ecstasy until they finally exploded in unison. Her tired, slick body fell to his side as she quickly cuddled in his nook. 

Filipe kissed her on the neck right below her ear. His stubble tickled her.

"Don't ever shave." She said.

"You usually like me clean shaven." He said with a grin.

She reached up and wiped a sparkle of sweat from his forehead. "But I like you like this now." 

"Ok." he smiled. "That'll be so much easier for me on the ship. No need to take a shaving kit." 

"Ship?" She asked.

He cocked his head to the side. "Yes, at work. When I set out to sea on the fleet." 

"OH! Yes. That ship." Verity said, quickly recalling Filipe's fisherman occupation. 

"Are you alright?" 

She nodded that she was and kissed him. "Let's go again." She said.

"Again? I have to get up! I'll be out to sea again later this evening. You know that." He said.

"Can't you say you're ill and can't go out with them today? What good would a sick fisherman be all the way out there on the sea?" Verity asked, her voice soft and whispery like a schoolgirl's.

"I can't do that." He said, with a grin. "As much as I could stay in bed all day with you, I have to make us some money and you have Caleb to look after." 

Filipe got up out of bed. She watched as his caramel nude body still dripping in areas with the sweat of their love making as he got his clothes and began to dress to go down to have a meal before leaving out to sea. Verity, grabbed the sheets from the bed and wrapped herself in them. Her tussled hair a flurry of blonde curled and scrunched like a nest. 

"Aren't you going to get out of bed?" He asked her, his voice surprised at her lack of movement.

"Can't your mother watch over Caleb? Or Charlotte?" Verity asked.

Filipe turned back around to Verity from the dresser he was pulling a pair of socks from. His brow furrowed. She noted his expression the realized she'd said something wrong. Something Mary would never say. 

"I mean for a minute as I get up." Verity replied trying to cover.

"What's going on with you?" He asked, his question pregnant with wonder as slowly he began to add up the slight differences in his wife of two years. "You've been a little off since right after the trials. Is there something you're not telling me?"

"I'm fine! Really! I know, I know, I've been a bit out on the moon and not myself, but I'm trying to get back to that. That's what this was for." She said hinting at their very fun morning love session. 

Filipe flashed in his mind to just a few minutes before of their bodies tangled up in nude sweaty love making. It was more passionate than ever, it was more erotic and adventurous. 

"All that was just to -- to what? Make up for something? What are you making up for?" He asked sitting on the edge of the bed.

"For being so off. I know it can't be easy to deal with someone who's had so much going on in her life. I'd do it like that every night if you wanted." She said.

"Mary, I want you to be you. That's why I fell in love with you. You were the most natural, the most real, the most compassionate person I had ever met and that's all you need to be with me. Whatever happens to you happens to me. You don't have to make up for anything." Filipe said as he reached for her face and cupped her chin with his hand.

She allowed her face to fall into his large palm, he touched her lips with his thumb, she kissed it. 

"That's why I love you." She said in reply. "I'll always love you." She said.

"I love you too." He replied. "Now, I got to get downstairs for a quick bite before I had to head off. Come on, miss lazy, lets get dressed, let's go!"

He reached over and started to tickle her sides. She didn't feel it. She looked at him strange, and he then looked at her strange. "What happened? No longer ticklish?" He asked.

"OH! I am, yes, Sorry. You see? I'm off." Verity admitted, as she got out of bed. "I’m still getting back to normal after everything — you understand.” She said trying to cover.

“Mary the trial was quite a while ago. I know that what you, Evie and Matthew went through hell all to help me in my condition, but you seemed to be getting back to you. Now … well now you seem lost again. What can I do to help?” Filipe asked noting his cure for lycanthropy was the source of the witch trials. 

“I’m fine. Truly. I am. I’ll get back to myself again. I promise. Now let me get dressed for breakfast."

She quickly went into the adjoining bathroom. She closed the door and stood in front of the long body length mirror in the corner. Her naked body a perfect expression of the female form. She was breathing heavy, her nerves torn to shreds as Filipe questioned her. 

She looked at herself, she saw Mary. She saw herself. Then she took another deep breath. She was faltering, her mistakes now mounting. She needed to keep this new life she was so in love with tight in her hands like a treasured pearl. 

Verity needed to do much, much better to keep it all together — exposure would mean death.

Filipe went back to the dresser and switched the socks for warmer ones. As one pair went in and the other pair came out, he noticed how much they looked alike, yet he knew they were different. Mary looked like Mary, but she too felt so different. He stared at the bathroom door and wondered what in the world could have made her change this way. She was slightly meeker when she spoke, but in bed she was much more adventurous. Perhaps, he wondered, if she needed to speak with the new psychiatrist in town, Dr. Pascal. Maybe something had switched in her mind while she was in jail, while she was suffering under all that stress during the witch trials.

Maybe he needed to talk to Dr. Pascal first -- and alone.

****

Mary pleads with Jacqueline for help 

Over on Goode Island, still trapped in the pit below the cottage, Mary tossed and turned on her dirty mattress. She was sweating, yet her body felt chills. She had been imprisoned here for weeks now, her mind still hoping to be saved -- somehow, some way. Illness had moved faster than a rescue and Mary was now fighting on two fronts, to stay alive in the pit, and the fever that was overtaking her. 

In her mind, as the rush of blood pushed through her veins and into her brain, images of her twin Verity posing as Mary haunted her. It was as if she were watching herself with her husband and children but she knew better.

She saw Verity sitting at her place at the table, sleeping in her bed, holding her husband and kissing her baby good-night. The entire feverish nightmare overtaking Mary's frail and ill body manifested into a blood curdling scream that blasted from her body like a banshee in the night.

Upstairs, Jacqueline Gray was preparing for yet another shift at Churchill Green where she was shapeshifting into a disguise, a nurse named Isabel. 

As Jacqueline fastened a small silver Rod of Asclepius pin to her apron strap, the scream from below echoed into the house.

Jacqueline stared at her yet un-shapeshifted face in the mirror. Mary's scream bore into Jacqueline like a knife. It was feral, dark and deeply painful yell. The witch, posing as a nurse, could not resist any more and went back down to the pit where her coven sister Mary was held prisoner. She followed the dark steps down into the basement and saw Mary's lantern on. Jacqueline peeked over the edge, her hands touching the crusted over salt Verity had encircled the pit with to deter Mary's own powers and saw Mary now off her mattress and in the corner of the hole with her knees up to her chest. 

 

"Mary..." Jacqueline whispered over the edge. "You're unwell."

Mary looked up, her face stained with dirt and soil from attempts at climbing out. Her hair wet with sweat and her eyes glistening with tears and red with sorrow. 

"Jacqueline, please,” Mary began taking in slow breaths, “please help me out of here." 

The voice was weak, tainted with exhaustion. 

"You know I can't do that. I've already told you if I interfere with this the council will destroy me. That was my punishment for what I did during the trials, I have to stay out of this." Jacqueline reminded Mary.

"LOOK AT ME JACQUELINE!!" Mary roared, in a burst of her last bits of human energy. "I'm ill, very ill. I need to get out of here and get help, and only you can do that." 

A sudden wave of empathy washed over Jacqueline. She knew had she never used her powers against Mary, had she never betrayed the coven with lies and exposure, Verity would have never been created by the council. It all stemmed from Jacqueline’s anger, her thirst for revenge of years of loneliness and abandonment and the death of her unborn child. 

“What made you sick? I could bring you medicine.” Jacqueline offered.

Mary shook her head, “I don’t know. Maybe the food, the water might be tainted or unclean? I haven’t washed in days.” 

“Some kind of infection?” Jacqueline wondered.

“I don’t want to die here Jacqueline.” 

Jacqueline looked away and towards the staircase that led back up to the house. 

"I’ll bring you medicine, I work at the hospital now, I have access to — " Jacqueline said again but was interrupted by Mary.

“Isn't that just as intrusive into the plan as helping me out? Don't you see, whatever you think you can do verses what you should do is all the same. Please just get me out of here and then we can get me medicine." Mary said.

Jacqueline said nothing. Mary stood up, her body managing to hold itself up with the help of the dirt walls. She walked slowly closer to the side where Jacqueline was looking down into. Mary fell to her knees, coughed out a spray of blood. She looked up at Jacqueline with her mouth red. She extended her hands that had caught the blood drenched cough and showed them to her coven sister.

"This is going to be the end of me. You can stop it. You -- Jacqueline -- you can save my life." 

“Medicine. That’s all I can do.” The punished witch said then vanished back up into the house.

"No... NO DON’T GO! Jacqueline! PLEASE! COME BACK!!! No!! JACQUELINE!!!" 

Mary's screams did not go unnoticed. Jacqueline heard every shrieked word. It surprisingly tore into her that her hands had been tied by the council in such a way. There was no love lost between Jacqueline and Mary; their differences went bone deep, painfully so. But it felt different now to see Mary suffering in a way that felt crueler than anything Jacqueline could have cooked up in her own twisted mind. Mostly because Verity had left Mary unable to defend herself. 

That cursed ring of salt blocking Mary from using her powers and saving herself. To Jacqueline that was a sin against witch. Unfair warfare between sorcerers. 

It was one thing to stab an enemy in self defense, it was another to blindfold them then stab them in the dark and they could not fight you back. 

Jacqueline's body began to swirl like a whirlpool of light and dark colors turning into the woman named Isabel that she had created as a disguise to allow her to walk freely in the village. Her skin, still a beautiful mocha color, her jaw squarer, her eyes wider, her lips slightly thinner. Her mind the same. 

As Mary continued to feel the new illness consume her body, Jacqueline (as Isabel) left the cottage. The gulls above her floated up from the dockside and into the air in big heaps of glowing white feathers. Crows from the edge of the shore of Goode Island called to their avian siblings from atop their beech tree vantage points announcing Jacqueline's departure to Welshport Island.

She shapeshifting witch was not directly going to Churchill Green to be with Johnathon as she had been doing for weeks now in her magical disguise. She had one more stop before that -- she was going to see Verity Spencer and find a way to make her end her torment of her twin sister Mary once and for all. 

 ****

Rebecca faces the truth 

While Jacqueline made her way to Welshport Island from Goode Island, over at Tirymor, Jane stood in a large window in the east wing drawing room that faced the long pebble encrusted path that led from the front gates. 

Her face was frozen in worry as she saw an automobile from the village puttering up the path. She held on to a silver kettle of tea, hot to the touch, in one hand and an empty saucer and cup in the other.

Rebecca entered the intended person to receive the tea, with her dog BeeBee in arms. She walked slowly towards the preoccupied Jane and turned to the window just as the automobile vanished behind hedges off to the side. 

"Who was that?" Rebecca asked, cuddling BeeBee. 

"Oh, Ma'am, I'm sorry, I didn't see you come in. I don't know. I couldn't distinguish who was driving." Jane said, lying. She saw.

Rebecca furrowed her brow and then went to the table and sat for her tea.

"How are you feeling today, ma'am?" Jane asked, hoping to calm Rebecca as she knew what was coming shortly. 

Rebecca did not answer audibly. She nodded. 

"Perhaps you'd like to take BeeBee out for a wal---" Jane said just as she was interrupted by the mansion's butler  

"Ma'am." A butler said from the door of the drawing room.

Jane gulped.

"Visitors." He said. 

Rebecca sighed "I wasn't expecting company. Is it Ms. Braga? I don't think I had an appointment with her." 

"No ma'am." The butler replied, his face white as a sheet.

Rebecca noticed and felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She let BeeBee go, the dog ran over to the butler and peeked it's little fluffy head out to see who the visitors were. He barked, yapped at the strangers, just as the butler shifted to the side and allowed the visitors to enter.

It was Constable Justin Ryan and two of his deputies. 

"Mrs. Lord-Casador, I apologize for entering at this time, I know you weren't expecting company." Justin said.

"What is this?" Rebecca asked, as Jane quickly made her way out of the room to find Jacob. 

"We're here because we have some official and unfortunate news and business to handle with you." Justin answered. 

"I'm sorry -- with me? How so? She asked.

"I think you know." Justin replied. "We have some important questions to ask you about the day of the accidental poisonings at the hospital that led to Dr. Hoffman's death."

Rebecca took a deep breath that felt trapped inside her bodice. She grabbed at her chest, the feeling deep in her chest. She went over to two large sofas that were over to the side and offered the police officers seats. She sat down, stoic, regal almost otherworldly to the eyes of the three men who had never seen the famous matriarch of the Lord family up-close and personal. 

"Will you tell us where you were that day? The day of the poisoning and death?" Justin asked.

"Well, I was... I was here." She said.

"Here? The whole day?" Justin pressed.

She could tell he knew more. "No." She replied but gave no more.

"Where else?" One of the deputies asked. 

"I did go out, I went to the hospital." She said.

"You were there -- that day?" Justin asked.

She nodded affirming but again not going into detail.

"Constable, I would truly like to know what this all about? If you have something to ask me, point blank, please do so because I'm not a woman who likes a man who beats around the bush." She said.

"Yes, of course, you like things direct. I've heard that about you." Justin replied.

"Then you'll indulge my reputation and tell me what you want to know." She said, the bitterness seeping out into her words like acid. 

"Were you involved at all, with what happened with the poisoned patients and the untimely death of Dr. Asha Hoffman?" Justin asked. The two other deputies quickly removed note pads to record her answer. 

Rebecca's jaw clenched like a steel bear trap around an unfortunate hunter's leg. As her chest heaved up with air, she opened to reply with yet another misguided lie, but her son Jacob entered the room with Jane who seemed out of breath.

"Careful how you answer." Jacob replied.

"Mr. Lord, we were just discussing what Mrs. Casador was doing at the hospital that day." Justin explained.

"I've been informed." Jacob said, his eyes flashing over to Jane.

"Your mother was just about to tell us." a deputy said.

"Is that so? Mother, what's your answer?" Jacob moving over to his mother to see if she'd be honest with the police as she was with him when she confessed.

Rebecca didn't know what to do, she hadn't thought about this happening, she didn't look into Fatima's cards and see this happening in her own home. She couldn't say anything, she couldn't tell what they wanted to hear. She hoped a lie, she wanted to tell them a lie, but there was something in Jacob's face that raised the hair on the back of her neck.

She could tell, just in the eyes of her eldest son that he was responsible for the police sitting in her drawing room asking her questions about Asha's death.

"Mrs. Casador?" Justin said, pulling her out of her thoughts and back into their conversation. "Can you answer the question?"

"Answer it mother." Jacob added. 

Rebecca stood up. BeeBee rushed back into the room and dashed up to the sofa and sat in the spot Rebecca was in. She looked into her son's eyes and just behind she could see a painting of his father, her late husband Albert Lord. The comparisons of their faces in her eyes -- the two of them shared the same brow bone, eye shape and ears. She began to feel something in her stomach again. She began to hear herself begging for breath. 

She turned white and turned back to Justin as he and the two deputies stood up watching her begin to hyperventilate. 

"Tell them." Jacob said, his tone cold and unfeeling. 

"What have you done?" She whispered to Jacob.

"Tell them!" Jacob said. Celeste then entered the room. 

"What is this?" Celeste asked.

Jacob turned to his wife, a small half smile skimmed the top of his lips. 

"My mother was about to tell the police, who came all the way into the Tirymor Forest from the village to ask her what she knows about the very tragic death of Asha Hoffman, and she was about to answer, TRUTHFULLY. Because she knows what she told me." Jacob said.

"Jacob --- what have..." Celeste began but Rebecca's next action finished Celeste's sentence. 

Rebecca's had went clear across Jacob's face. The smack cracked the silence in the room. Her arm was so far off to the side Justin was able to grab it and hold it so Rebecca could not slap Jacob a second time -- and she tried.

"Please, Please Mrs. Casador, please calm down. Please." Justin said. 

Rebecca began to sob and in seconds she fell to her knees and let it all out as if all finally came crashing down on the realization of what Jacob had done. 

Her mind flashed to her crime. Her broken heart. Her hope to help Asha with her own broken heart, now that Nik had moved on behind her back with Danielle. Yes, Danielle, the common denominator between the two women. How Danielle's presence in Caspian's life was tearing Rebecca's relationship apart. The young nurse represented Viktor, the man Caspian once was and how detrimental that former identity seemed to be to Rebecca and her relationship to Caspian. Danielle, the new love in Nik's life was just as threatening to Asha who adored Nik to no end. 

It was all out now; Celeste's cried as she watched one of the strongest women she had ever known get her arms tied together in front of her and walked out of the very mansion, she ruled like a queen in her palace be taken off.

BeeBee barked uncontrollably as his mistress vanished down the front marble floored corridor. Jane grabbed hold of the white fluffy dog and held him tight. All the staff came out of their work spots to watch it all happen, shocked, horrified and unable to make sense of it. 

Rebecca had confessed. Finally -- a member of the unbreakable Lord family had finally cracked into rubble. 

"I cannot believe you actually went through with this." Celeste said to her husband.

Jacob turned to her and arched a brow "It was a long time coming, and now dear wife, the rest is ours to lose."

"The rest?" She asked in a whisper as she and Jacob walked out onto the terrace to watch the police car drive off.

"The empire." He grinned. "Its ours for the taking." 

As Celeste let it sink in, the Jacob turned in his mother as leverage to finally and truly take over the family fortune, she realized Jacob's blood was colder than she had ever thought. He may have warmed when Fabian was born, he might have softened and let things go for a short time, but the cruel Machiavellian plotter, schemer and vicious businessman she believed had disappeared was still inside him. 

And he just showed her not even the woman who gave birth to him was safe from his ambitious treachery. 

The iron front door to Tirymor House closed and Rebecca watched from the car as the mansion, the place, her safe place got smaller and smaller and smaller and fell behind the growing trees of the forest that surrounded it and hid it away. 

She'd return there -- no more.  

**** 

Danielle & Nikolas at her home  

Later that evening, at her home in the village, Danielle sat at her vanity with two large candles lit. The sun hadn't yet set but her room felt dark enough that she needed light. She stared into the mirror as she looped drop pearl earrings into her ear. So many questions flooded her mind as Nik Jordan entered the room.

He looked handsome, dressed in a tuxedo. His face glowing with perfection. She turned to him and smiled the saddest smile he'd ever seen.

"Oh, don't do that." He said. "This is a happy occasion. We're going to a wedding." 

"I know its supposed to be happy but I can't help but feel all of this is my fault. Had I never come back to settle my mother's estate when she died I would have never come across my father. I would have never pursued the idea that he truly was my father Viktor and Rebecca would have -- " She paused still unsure of their theory on Rebecca's guilt was right.

"You can't do that to yourself." Nik said lifting her up out of the vanity's chair. "If Rebecca really did all of this and tried to frame me for it, that's something she has to live with and the law will have to decide whether or not she should be punished. You cannot punish yourself. All of this is a tragedy from the very beginning with Asha and my mother's child -- all of it happened before you came back. Somehow, this is where it led and we have to all live with the final outcome." 

"I hope Cora and Aaron aren't too upset that I won't be the picture of happiness at their wedding." Danielle said.

"I'm sure they'll understand. To be honest, I'm surprised they invited us. I don't know Aaron too well and Cora and I had only minor conversations, but she's been so close to Evie and my mother through her time with Gabriel, so I guess we're all sort of connected." 

"Have you heard from your sister?" 

Nik sighed and shook his head. "Yet another mystery for us to chew on, no. When Matthew left, we all figured he'd go after her and even he's gone off the radar. No letters. No messages. Nothing." 

"I don't know, Nik, maybe we should just stay here. You just got finished being questioned by the authorities -- it just feels strange going out to celebrate." Danielle confessed.

"No, no, no -- we did nothing wrong. Hiding out just feels like we're admitting to something. We shouldn't vanish from the world just because people think we did something that you and I, our friends and family, know we didn't do." Nik replied, but Danielle couldn't be convinced.

He reached over as she turned from him and looked into the mirror again. He hugged her from behind as they stared into the mirror at each other. Nik kissed her cheek and she snuggled to his arms.

"I've fallen very much in love with you, Danielle." He whispered. "Nothing, and I mean nothing will ever come between us." 

She turned back to face him. His eyes were so soft and she could tell that he was in love -- she was too. His sincerity felt almost too good to be true but there was nothing stopping her from really believing him. No matter what happened next she knew he'd be by her side and she'd be by his.

She held his face and kissed him there in her room in her gown and drop pearl earrings. He pulled her close and held her in his arms as a ring rang on the telephone in the hallway.

The paused, not expecting any caller at that time of the evening. Danielle went over to the hallway and picked up the candlestick phone and put the receiver to her ear. 

"Yes?"

The voice on the other line wasn't clear at first but then repeated after Danielle gave no answer. 

"Is this the home of Danielle Holten?" The female voice asked.

"It is." 

"Please hold. Patching through Constable Justin Ryan." The operator announced.

Three clicks and Justin came on the phone.

"Danielle, Its Justin.?"

"Yes, Justin, hello. What is it?" She said as Nik slowly made his way into the hall. 

"I have good news. Mrs. Casador has confessed to Asha's death and the other poisonings." Justin confirmed.

"WHAT! That's... I... I don't know what to say!" She replied.

"Dani?" Nik said.

"I hope you and Dr. Jordan understand I was only doing my best while the investigation was on-going. Please let him know that the constable's office has cleared him now that we have confirmation on the actual perpetrator. I've already spoken with Dr. Ward. Your suspensions will likely be lifted soon. But I'm sure Dr. Ward will confirm that once he gets the go-ahead." 

Danielle let out giant sigh of relief and thanked Justin then leaped into Nik's arms dropping the phone to the ground.

"What is it? What's happened?" 

Danielle kissed Nik again and began to explain the call. "It's over." She said. "It's really over!" 

****

Aurora is not home ... alone 

Aurora arrived back home to the Beach House in a flurry of worry for Caspian and anger at Rebecca. She tossed her coat over the sofa and fell into its deep white cushions allowing its cozy folds to hold her in place as the worry continued to overtake her. 

Suddenly she felt eyes on her. It was like someone was in the corner of the room watching her. This weight on Aurora made her jump quickly and stare at the blackness… she slowly made her way to that area of the parlor where the heaviness emanated from holding her breath the whole time. She reached for the lamp, shaking as she  pulled its beaded switch illuminating that darkened corner.

There was nothing there, only the pale wallpaper and photos framed of her grandson. There was only the light now and the sound of Aurora’s thumping heart.

Aurora took a breath of relief and returned back to the sofa and her thoughts on Caspian's manic disappearance and wondered where he could have gone. 

As she sat there, a figure in silhouette fluttered in the background from yet another of the house. Aurora, this time, heard the clumsy footsteps. She jumped up again and backed away from the sofa staring directly into the darkness that was the other room she believed empty but clearly was not. 

"Who's there? Come out. Come out now." She said forcibly. 

Aurora took two paces to the left near a hearth and grabbed a fire-poker. She lifted it up into the air and demanded the person show themselves to her.

Then, slowly creeping out from the darkened area of the room, entering into the light of the parlor came Caspian Casador.

Aurora gasped.

Caspian was disheveled. Unshaven. His face was emotionless and empty. He stared at Aurora like he did a long time ago -- when he was something else. Something much more sinister and not of this living world.

"Caspian...?" She whispered, the poker still raised. "Caspian?" she repeated.

He did nothing at first, he just stared at her and walked closer. Aurora's breath became shallower as something in her told her this man, the man she felt she was finally reconnecting with after tragedy took their child had returned to the creature that had raped her and conceived that child. No more was he the kind Caspian who had turned a new leaf since the demonic possession left him, no more was the man she thought would help her finally reconnect her fractured family. 

"Who are you?" She asked, believing that he was truly possessed again.

"Who I always was. Who I've always been. This is me, Aurora. This is who I am." He said in a growl.

Aurora's expression showed confusion.

"My name is Viktor." He replied in a cold tone of voice as he slowly moved around the white sofa coming closer to her.

"Viktor?” She asked but soon her mind began to connect the dots “The man you were before --- before you took the name Caspian.”

“At your service.” He answered, bowing slightly.

“I don’t understand, this is who you were before the possession?” She asked, he nodded. "How did this happen?"

"The how really doesn't matter, does it? I'm here now. And I’m not leaving. Nor ever again.” 

“What do you want?” She asked, her hand shaking with the poker still tightly gripped. "To be as you were?"

“As I was?” He thought. “I can be honest with you. We've been through so many things. You see Aurora, I was never a good man. Never a man who watched out for his family like he should. My wife Lina suffered with my awfulness. Dani too -- the poor girl all but abandoned her mother for nursing school away from here to free herself of the wretched life I gave them." Viktor admitted.

"Then you want to make amends?" Aurora hoped, she slightly lowered the poker.

"Amends!?" He laughed. "Its too late for that. I fell prey to the darkness that all humans are prey to and when the darkness overcame me and created Caspian and was summoned through a force, I never felt more alive.” He asked rhetorically.

"I -- I don't understand. A force?" 

"You can thank the late mistress of shadows...Eliza Goode." Viktor confessed revealing the late Eliza's hand in forming the evil entity that eventually took hold of Viktor's human body and inhabited it as Caspian.

"You're frightening me." She replied. 

"Ohhhhh am I frightening? Poor you!" he mocked with a chuckle. "Have I sent you to a place you feel threatened? By the look of it, I have. No one holds an iron poker above their head like that if they're not threatened." 

"Caspian, you're not well, something is very, very wrong." Aurora said.

"On the contrary, Aurora I have never felt more right! And that name -- THAT NAME! Caspian! I chose it for him but I can't stand to hear it. Viktor, Aurora, this is the name I want to live by. It's the name I was born with." Caspian said as he got closer and closer to Aurora. 

Then in a split second he lunged at her. She lifted the poker up higher ready to swing but he blocked it with his hand and yanked it from her. The force of the pull threw Aurora to the ground. She screamed and began to crawl, a futile attempt at an escape. Caspian grabbed her heels that were peeking out from under her dress and pulled her back. He got on top of her and held her down. 

"Viktor is the name of the man you see now, and it's the name of the man who'll take your life." 

Aurora's eyes were as wide as saucers as his hands went down around her neck and began to squeeze. She felt the heft of his body on her, she could not move she could not breath. She began to see spots and a darkness floating above her like a smoke, the lack of oxygen pulling her into it faster and faster.

Then Caspian literally leaped off of her. She choked, the air flooding back into her lungs. She turned to see him rolling around on the ground as if he was on file. 

He got up, his body contorted in a strange position as if he was physically pulling himself in two directions. 

"Caspian!!! Please, please stop!" Aurora shouted from the floor as she continued to catch her breath.

Caspian lurched to the left, the right. He fought his inner self tearing at his clothes screaming in anger towards the two men in one body. 

He fell back into a wall, a mirror tilted to the side and Caspian faced it. The mirror reflected something awful, his face but cold and menacing not the face looking in. 

"This is no longer yours." The reflection said.

"GET OUT!!!" Caspian shouted to the mirror.

"THIS IS NO LONGER YOURS!!!" The reflection said again, screaming it this time splitting Caspian's mind into two again. 

Caspian fell to the ground, pulling the mirror down with him. It shattered into pieces. Aurora got up from the floor, she lunged for the door but Caspian grabbed her by the forearm and yanked her back.

It was the Viktor's face she saw again.

"Going somewhere?" He grinned evilly. 

She screamed and he grabbed her by the neck and began choking her. She gasped, ripping at his hands with hers hoping something, some kind of force inside of her would stop him from killing her. She reached over, grabbed a vase and crashed it over his head to no avail. He was unstoppable.

She continued to choke and walk backwards as he held her. She saw the blackness come again, slowly seeping into her eyes as she blinked with lack of air. In a last ditch effort she grabbed a picture from a wall they bumped into. She pulled it off the wall and placed it in front of Viktor so he could see his reflection. Caspian's face. 

Caspian in the glass of the picture lunged forward which made Viktor's head lunge forward into the glass, the reflection and body being as one. The glass shattered all over Viktor's face cutting, slashing him. He screamed and fell to the floor letting go of Aurora who fell to the floor as well. She was unconscious but alive. 

Caspian finally came about, shocked, horrified of what his alter ego Viktor had done to Aurora; what he did to Aurora. It was his hands, even if his mind was doing the devil's work. He crawled over to her, his face bloody slashed. Then Viktor took over again.

The man's body jumped up, almost as if he had not felt a thing. He took the fire poker that he found on the floor and made his way to Aurora. His homicidal instincts now in overdrive and just before he drove it down over the unconscious woman's head, Caspian yanked back control over the body they shared and threw the poker across the room, then pulled his body forward so far so that he fell over the sofa and crashed into the glass top of the coffee table slashing his body even more and knocking him out cold.

Both minds now unconscious in a heap of broken glass and blood.

Aurora in the corner slowly seeping into the blackness of death as her breathing slowed. She, along with the twisted double mind of Viktor and Caspian. 

B9/CH10: THE STRANGE CASE OF CASPIAN CASADOR

Victor/Caspian, Caspian/Victor

The dark sky over the small island of Welshport felt like it was muffled by deep purple clouds that came from the east. Their cold plumes of cotton candy air drizzled with a night rain onto the wet pebble drive of Tirymor House. 

Caspian, his mind still in it's split, walked up barefoot to his old home. He stared at the glowing lights of one of the back studies wondering who in that room he would find and wrap his large hands around their neck. Jacob? Perhaps Celeste or even his recent ex-wife Rebecca.

As the crazed man continued through the back area of the mansion through the lush gardens, he could feel his heart pounding erratically in his chest. The good side of him fighting to come out couldn't restrain itself any longer. There was no way out for Caspian's goodness, it was trapped now, eclipsed by a manic and unpredictable face that wouldn't stop before killing again. 

And again.
And again.

He stood there in the garden near a trio of large back French door; tall, brawny and dark and watched as Jane, the maid, scurried about doing her last duties of the evening. Perhaps her neck was ripe for cracking in his hands. He almost salivated at the thought.

The pitter-patter of the large fountain near him broke his concentration. Caspian stepped over to it and looked into the deep basin. The water rippled in the glow of the moon's obscured light as Caspian looked into the water. 

The reflection he saw broke into different versions of himself with every shimmer of light that cut through the gloomy water. One second smiling evilly the other furrowed and concerned -- and then back again to evil. It was the break inside of his mind literally showing itself in the ease of the fountain's water flow.  

Caspian knelt down, his bare feet slipping in the wet grass as he steadied himself. He looked into the pooled water of the fountain in the basin and watched his reflection shifted in expression before his very eyes. 

"No.... NO!!!" He shouted at the water.

He lifted his fist, high above his head, and slammed it into his face in the reflection breaking it in a large deep splash. He continued to beat the water as if he were beating himself, killing the thing inside of him that was breaking him and turning him back into the darkest thing that had ever walked this earth.

When it was all over, he was soaking wet. His white undershirt was stuck to his skin like a second skin. His hair slick and dripping with rain and fountain water. He crawled over to the other side of the fountain hiding himself from himself. He cried there, hoping the evil inside him would leave. But as he buried his face into his knees sitting there in the dark, wet gardens of Tirymor House, a gnawing truth came to his mind again in his own devilish voice.

"Try again Viktor." 

Caspian got up, his face cold and wet from the light drizzle. He pounded the sides of his head with his fists trying to force the laughing in his mind to stop. He ran towards the house, his body suddenly jerked and he fell to the ground. He pulled himself by his fingernails carving deep gashes into the dirt and grass and he pulled himself up by the large stone flower-pots at the edge of the steps that led up to the mansion's French Doors.

The laughing, deeper and more maniacal that before, continued as Caspian continued to tell it to shut up. The crazed man ripped the flowers out of their pots throwing the soil everywhere. He rushed back down the garden path and fell back to the floor hiding once again behind the fountain that initially started this torment. 

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!" He screamed as a loud thunder rolled out over the sky above him. 

The voice once again laughed at Caspian as his face quickly switched to the darker evil man inside of him. The torment enflamed the poor man's heart and mind with his real name Viktor, whispering across his cracked lips.

 All Caspian could do that night was sit there and cry and laugh and go back and forth between those two emotions and personalities fighting for dominance and control --- and prayed -- for death. 

****

Jane reveals island gossip to Jacob 

The next morning, Tirymor House felt like a busy train station. Flowers were being brought in by the crate from the village to refill the large stone pots someone had dug up and thrown across the gardens.

Jane stood in half circle shaped breakfast room, with floor to ceiling latticed windows, and shook her head.

"Tsk tsk." She said sucking her teeth with a hand on her hip.

As she watched the gardeners feverishly replant all the flowers before her mistress Rebecca, who was in her room upstairs awaiting the arrival of an appointment, could see it. That wasn't all Jane had on her mind, she was eager to see Jacob, her other boss. 

News, she had for him, about Rebecca being a target of a peculiar investigation by the new village Constable. The titillating story was burning the tip of her tongue, and she knew it would benefit her to show her loyalty to the younger Lord, the man who'd eventually become king of the manor if Rebecca truly ended up vanishing into the maw of the justice system for whatever crime she'd committed. 

"Who mowed Holland?" Jacob sent entering the breakfast room hand-in-hand with his young son Fabian who jumped into the chair at the table with it's wooden booster.

"Sorry?" Jane asked.

"The flowers. What's with this giant delivery of flowers?" He asked reaching for the glittering silver coffee carafe. 

"Oh! Yes, some animal dug up all of the pots outside in the garden, I called in a favor in the village and they've come to replace them before Mrs. Casador sees them. I wouldn't want her to be upset -- any further." Jane said.

Jacob's eyes narrowed. 

"Any further?" He asked sitting down next to his son for breakfast.

"Yes sir, you see I've heard some distressing news last night and I fear it might come to pass today at sometime. Perhaps, you'd like to know of it first, before Mrs. Casador hears?" 

Jacob smirked; the young maid had always been a bit of an enigma to him. They'd had the benign conversations in the past about flower bills or the fust in the library, or an off color joke here and there but never anything that seemed to regard the family in this way, that was always Rebecca and Celeste's department. 

This interested him.

"What, pray, could you have to tell me about Mrs. Casador?" Jacob asked as he poured Fabian a glass of juice. 

"Well, sir, it seems the new constable may have some distressing and hopefully alleged information about Mrs. Casador's strange involvement in the death of the woman doctor, that, Asha Hoffman. You know who she is, don't you? The woman who has been in that coma and then came out of it and now suddenly has no memory. Well, I overheard a conversation at the police station, and it was quite alarming to say the least. I thought you should know." 

"I know." He replied.

"You --- you know? Already?" 

He nodded. 

"Miss Donnelly, nothing, and I truly mean this, NOTHING, happens in this town, in my business and most especially in my family -- and their staff -- that I don't know about. I always know first." he said.

"Of course, yes, I don't know what I was thinking." Jane said as she blushed.

"Know what first?" Celeste asked entering the room in a beautiful pale dress. She looked at both Jane and Jacob as she walked over and kissing her son on the cheek patiently waiting for their reply.

Jane said nothing. She curtsied and scurried out of the breakfast room allowing the Lords to discuss family matters in private.

Now alone with his wife and son, Jacob sighed, "Miss Donnelly thought she was Baxter Murphy and was pleased to hand me the latest gossip on the family. She clearly forgot whom she was speaking to." 

"Oh? What gossip?" 

"DEATH!" Little Fabian shouted with a giggle and a face full of butter and toast.

Celeste furrowed her brow and wiped his face clean "Darling!" She said to her son. "Jacob what is he talking about?" 

"Jane overheard at the police station that they believed my mother had something to do with that awful event at the hospital that led to Asha's death. And, well, they're right unfortunately." 

Celeste sat back in her chair, her face frozen in shock but still not fully understanding just how bad things were for Rebecca. 

"She -- she's involved?" Celeste asked.

Jacob nodded. "Deeply." 

"Fabian, meu amor, I want you to go upstairs and brush your teeth. Go now, then get your books ready for your lessons, alright?" Celeste ordered, the littlest Lord complied happily and ran off into the next room and traced his fingers along the walls of the corridors that emptied into the foyer and the grand staircase that took him upstairs.

"I guess it's good Rebecca is upstairs waiting for her guest. What did she do exactly?" Celeste asked in a hushed voice.

"Yes, that card reader is coming." Jacob said mentioning Fatima Braga. "Not sure how such a stand up man like Filipe can allow his mother to run around telling fortunes for money." 

Celeste's face froze hearing her former partner Filipe's name. It felt like a stab to the heart remembering just how good he was to her, and how she betrayed his trust with Jacob.

"Never mind that." She said, quickly switching topics. "What do the police know?"

"She poisoned Asha. And those patients. She confessed it to me just last night. She's in quite over her head with all this and frankly, I saw this coming. Mother hasn't been herself since she married Caspian. Now that that's over, she's gone off the deep end." 

Celeste let it sink in. She sipped her coffee and stared at all the food on the table then looked at the empty plate to the side of her that was meant for Rebecca. 

"Alright, so what is your plan? How are you going to get her out of this?" She asked her husband.

Jacob looked up over his newspaper and furrowed his brow unsure of what she was talking about. But of course, Celeste would quickly worry and want to help Rebecca out of it, this was her mother-in-law, no matter how difficult Rebecca made Celeste's life at Tirymor she was still her son's grandmother. It was an honest and obvious place for her mind to go.

But Jacob, who was born the eldest son in a world where money, power and legacy were all that mattered, had no intention of doing anything to help his mother. It wasn't as if this were the first time.

"This is Rebecca's doing. Rebecca is going to get herself out of this. I'm not going to do a damn thing." He replied simply.

"Jacob, you're not serious?"

"Of course I am." He replied, not telling her he had already called the Constable Ryan the very second of Rebecca's confession and told him. "We have our own family to think of. The business. Having Rebecca haunting these halls as an accused murderess, especially of someone like Asha, would destroy everything my father built. It'll be like gas on fire. We're battling quite the blaze thanks to Sebastian's shenanigans and Evie's witch trial, and David being Christopher or Christopher being David -- whatever that is. One more scandal and this house of cards will fall. We can't afford that." 

"How can you say that?!? You yourself have been just as liable for a large part of this so-called family fire, Jacob. You'll just throw Rebecca to the wolves?" Celeste asked.

"I've paid my price." He replied shortly.

"YOU HAVE!?!" Celeste laughed sarcastically. "How? How, for example, have you paid for Sabrina?" 

The name shot out of Celeste's mouth like a bullet to his brain. Sabrina Spencer-Lord his late sister-in-law. The woman he was infatuated with and killed in a crime of passion on the wet sands of Bellemore Beach. His brother's wife who at one time haunted the entire house of Tirymor through the eyes and body of his daughter Charlotte. 

Those days were gone, Sabrina and her spirit were gone, but the lies and secrets surrounding her death and Jacob's twisting of the truth by convincing a drunk David that he had killed his own wife in a rage had never left the anyone's memories.

"How dare you bring that up!" Jacob shouted, quickly standing up and throwing down the newspaper. "I've paid dearly for my mistakes. Look around, do you see a man who's living out the best of this life? No. I'm constantly bombarded with the sins of my family members as if they were mine. I have no will to do anymore protecting, not after what happened with Christopher. He's here, he can handle things with mother." 

"You have never answered for what you did to Sabrina, or Mary or Sebastian and even Me. You've been able to skate by in this world constantly free of consequences with your money and your power, Jacob. You know it's true." She said.

Jacob scoffed at her.

Celeste continued "By not helping Rebecca its just one more notch your belt and one more family member out of the way of this little empire you're so sick with. Fine, let it be how you want, let them do what they will with Rebecca but I will not support it." 

"Support it? I haven't asked you to. There's nothing you need to do but continue to mother our son and be my wife. That's all you need to do. That's what your job is." 

Celeste felt sick to her stomach. He had reduced her to some kind of empty vessel of a person to only be a mother and wife. She had never felt so discarded so unseen by him before. They had always had a volatile relationship. One born from scorn and hurt and blackmail. Their mutual adoration of their son Fabian cooled this for a time and even brought them together as team at one point, but this union seemed fractured. Celeste needed more, and Jacob only wanted to give just a piece of what she needed. And it was usually the piece she least liked of him. 

"I'm the mother of your child -- not a nanny or a governess. That should count for much more than just what you think I should do. I have an opinion and I won't be silenced because you disagree." She said.

"Your opinion is for me to cover up for my mother again; she killed someone Celeste!" He shot back.

She rolled her eyes, clearly, he wasn't seeing how hypocritical it was for him to now take the moral high road when he'd done the same. Multiple times. 

"I'm going to this one last thing, and then I'm going upstairs to sit with our son in his lessons. This is your mother we are talking about, Jacob. Your son and daughter's grandmother. The woman who helped your father build this family up to where it is today. If you don't help her in whatever crisis she is going through mentally and emotionally she may be undergoing at this moment I truly don't know what to say to your character. I have always, always kept my hope that the man who did those horrible things in the past was more like the man who is gentle and kind and so loving to Fabian. Try to be more like that man than the man who'll turn in his own mother to the police without offering her some kind of help."

Celeste wiped her hands with the perfect L monogramed linen napkin and dabbed the corners of her moth with it. Then tossed it to the table. She turned and left the room leaving Jacob to stew in her final words. 

Jacob had been cruel to many of his family members in the past. His greed outshined the good in him, but what Celeste was not seeing was that he was now just paving the way for more of that good to shine on him -- and her. He could not protect Rebecca now without staining himself and yes, her and Fabian. He was in a predicament now, one that made him convinced that what he did was the best thing to do for his young family and better -- for himself professionally. 

It looked bad, doing this to Rebecca who had yet come down for breakfast. But he knew the future of his family and their business - their empire was for him to take. 

And so -- he took it by leading Constable Justin Ryan to his front door to arrest his mother for murder. 

**

Celeste receives a phone call 

As Celeste passed into the foyer and on her way to the large staircase to find her son, Jane peeked out of the larger drawing room the family called The Gold room thanks to all of its glittering chandeliers and electric light fixtures on the wall near the equally as gold frames of various long dead family members.

"Ma'am." She said in a low voice yet still catching Celeste's attention. "There's been a call on the telephone for you." 

Celeste showed a confused look. The family rarely got calls on the new telephone, and when they did it usually wasn't good news.

Celeste entered The Gold Room and walked over to the candlestick telephone that was set up by a desk near the far corner. She put the receiver to hear and the lifted the mouthpiece up but before she spoke she turned to see Jane slowly making her way out.

Once alone, Celeste took her call.

"Mrs. Lord, this is Dr. Pascal at Churchill Green, I hope I'm not bothering you this morning."

"Doctor, good morning, no not at all. Is it Johnathon? Is he ok?" She asked of her brother whom Dr. Pascal was treating. 

"Yes, but I don't want you to worry. He's fine. I just wanted to ask if by chance you could come see me." He asked.

She quickly blushed the idea of seeing the handsome doctor again was enticing even if it were steeped in the tragedy of her mentally ill brother. 

"Yes, I'd love to come see you -- Uh... because I'm sure you have something to tell me about Johnny, of course." She replied; the corner of her mouth slightly tugging with embarrassment. 

Dr. Pascal chuckled, "Well that's wonderful, but yes, it is about Johnathon. I've finally come up with a good enough treatment for him that I'm hoping to start soon. His medication helps him but the therapy I have written for him I hope will do much more work. But I don't want to go anywhere into his psyche without seeing you -- uuh -- I mean speaking with you first." Julian replied.

"I see. I will be happy to go down, yes. Thank you, Doctor." She said.

"Julian, please. Call me Julian." 

She blushed again as Jacob entered the gold room hoping to finish his paper. She turned to her husband as he walked in, their cold stares freezing any warmth of given to her by the voice on the line. 

"Yes. Of course." She said, agreeing to call him by his first name without Jacob knowing the nature of her conversation, and her slight crush.

"Can we set an appointment, say after lunch? 2pm?" He asked.

"2pm. Yes." She said. 

"Wonderful. See you then."

"Yes, ...." She said but then turned back away from Jacob and finished her sentence "see you then Julian." 

"Who was that?" Jacob asked sitting on the sofa across from her at the desk.

"Johnny's doctor. He's made an appointment for me." She said.

Jacob laughed. "Now you're seeing his psychiatrist? Perhaps that's a good idea. Madness seems to be as contagious as the common cold around here. 

Celeste rolled her eyes and quickly left the room in a huff and set off to help her little boy with his schoolwork, again leaving Jacob to stew is in schemes. 

****

Rebecca meets with the sage Fatima 

Later that afternoon, Rebecca meticulously arranged a bouquet of white hydrangeas in a large sphere-shaped vase in the center of a round table she had set up in her large bedroom. The table had two chairs that faced each other with a long dark tablecloth that hit the floor. She had been preparing for this personal visit all day, and wanted to be sure everything was perfect. 

She dusted the room herself. She made sure each and every single mirror had a thick black sheet over it; a custom she knew had to be done to keep the spirits in their place. She asked two nervous house maids to help her draw the large draped to shade the room and light candles. They whispered to each other how strange their mistress' behavior was, never witnessing Rebecca's rituals this closely. 

Rebecca saged the room. The perfumed smoke swirled around the bed, the doorframe, the covered paintings and glass of the mirrors. The maids waved the smoke from their faces as they showed they'd finished the part of the job.

Rebecca inspected the lit candles as if they'd been lit for a funeral. 

Then, a knock on her bedroom door broke her concentration as she checked over her very carefully curated room. She shooed away the two maids in the room who opened the door allowing the head maid, Jane, to enter. 

"Your guest has arrived ma'am." Jane said.

"Thank you, Jane, you can show her in." 

"Before I do, you didn't come down for breakfast and I wondered if you wanted me to bring you anything to eat. Cook says you weren't down for dinner either." Jane noted like a mother to a child.

"Miss Donnelly, if I were hungry I'd make it to dinner luncheon or breakfast, but I have too much on my mind at the moment to worry about food." Rebecca replied curtly as she ran her boney yet elegant hands over her corseted empty stomach. 

"Yes, ma'am. I'll show your guest in."

"Thank you." 

Jane, knowing all too well why Rebecca's appetite was off, left the room and in her place entered Fatima Braga, the fortune teller of Welshport. 

Fatima entered dressed in her finest dress. It was black with lace trim. The sleeves went all the way do her wrists and she wore lace gloves that mirrored the same lace pattern that was on her dress. Her thick white hair cascaded down her back like the whitest waterfall, and she curtsied to Rebecca as if she were meeting a queen. 

Rebecca smiled curiously, the two women had met before many times in the past few years in secret while Rebecca searched for a new spiritual guide, to no avail allowing for Fatima to take up that role as de facto. But it had been quite a long time since they'd had an appointment.

Fatima could sense right off with the energy in Rebecca's movements that things were heavy.

"The flowers are lovely Mrs. Casador, thank you for the invitation, my own household is quite upset with so many of my family staying there. This is most accommodating to me, and I thank you." Fatima began.

"It's my pleasure. I am in desperate need of your council and, here in my private apartments at Tirymor is as good as it gets." Rebecca said, motioning for Fatima to sit at the table across from her. 

Fatima too to the table and removed the ancient deck of tarot cards from inside the coat pocket she had over her arm. It was a black box, the deck inside gnarled and withered with decades of use. The two women sat in the dim light of the room that glowed with candles as Rebecca removed a rosary from her dress pocket and began fiddling with it. 

"Are you well enough for me to here?" Fatima asked, noting Rebecca's gaunt nervous look.

"Well enough." Rebecca answered removing the flowers from the center of table and off to the side. 

"As I place the cards on the table, please delve deep into your mind and tell them what you need to know, only speak this in silence. Let the cards hear you from beyond your psyche. Only they will hear the precious cause you need answered for. I begin to place the cards, four of them, face down in front of you on the table." 

She lay them as she said, one - two - three - four. All face down. Rebecca kept her eyes closed and continued to fiddle with her silver and gold rosary. She pushed the thoughts she needed to be clarified by the tarot to her mind. Her heart suffering from the loss of her marriage, the death and illness she caused. Where would her life lead now? What or who could save her now?"

"Ready?" Fatima asked.

Rebecca opened her eyes and nodded; the green of her irises seemed to glow bright in the dimly lit room. She placed her hands flat on the table while the rosary wrapped around one like ivy around a tree.

Fatima turned the first card 

"The 5 of Cups. This tells us that there is much question surrounding your place in the world. You, as a matriarch, are at crossroads. A thin bridge of time that tells you that the time of your life has ended. One that has been built up over decades and decades and now the job is done. Where should you go? Whom should you turn to. These are the questions the universe asks us all. yet how should one go about this? That is the mystery of the 5 cups. Each one does not give a definitive answer but only the notion that there is still more to come, more cups of life to fill. Only you can do this. Only you can find those clues."

"Fill my life. Yes." Rebecca whispered. "Go on."

Fatima turned the second card "The Hermit."

Rebecca froze. 

"A ghostly card that bring us all to the edge of our seats. Why? Because this is a card that represents a person, a real person in our lives, that only brings us news of things to come or things that are not yet real. They hide away, at least seemingly so, from our regular lives and when they appear they have nothing but danger in their voice. They wish to inform you, to give you the things you need to perhaps cross the new bridge of life the 5 of Cups is pointing you towards yet -- we caution ourselves in their presence but perhaps we must learn to trust the hermit when times say so." 

"I must learn to trust." Rebecca replied.

"Its one of the most difficult lessons we must learn." 

Rebecca sighed and pointed to the third card.

"The inverted Queen of Swords." Fatima said, her face clearly showing concern.

"It's me." Rebecca said, knowing the cards quite well. "Inverted." 

"The swords point downward, signaling a self-inflicted wound, Rebecca. The path you've chosen or will chose, which is connected to the 5 of Cups, will at some point damage you. Nothing is clear to me aside from that. The Queen of Swords represents strength and fragility at the same time. Upright, she is crowned in her glory, inverted her crown falls, the swords she holds close once weapons to protect her, now signaling they've been used to destroy her regency. Rebecca..." Fatima paused the reading and put her hands over the card. "Are you alright?" 

But before Rebecca could answer someone knocked on her bedroom door. It cracked open and Jane put her face in. "I'm sorry to bother you ma'am, but someone else has come to see you."

 "I'm rather busy, Jane, can you tell them to come back?" 

"I -- tired but she...." Jane began before the door pushed open and Aurora Jordan stepped in.

"I don't have time for your regal protocol Rebecca, this is urgent." Aurora said, clutching her handbag close to her body as if it were a protective shield. 

Rebecca slowly stood up from the table. Fatima's heart felt as if it were about to leap out of her chest. The tension was heavy, oppressive even. The obvious reasons for their icy body language had just sent divorce papers to Rebecca and had been staying with Aurora at Bellmore Beach since then.

"You've interrupted my appointment, I think you should leave." Rebecca said coldly. 

"I can come back." Fatima inserted herself as she stood.

"SIT!" Rebecca ordered, Fatima remained standing but said nothing. 

"This is urgent." Aurora replied, as Jane quickly scurried away. "Caspian is unwell. And he's missing." 

"What do you mean unwell?" Rebecca wondered, half concerned, half happy in his unwellness. 

"Its his headaches, they've come back, with much more force. He's ... unhinged. Dangerous even. I'm worried about him Rebecca and I'm hoping you can help me understand what's happened to him since the events at the coves where the headaches began." Aurora asked.

"I don't know anything about headaches. I know he had some an injury when he hit his head and Dr. Ward was helping him with some of that but I don't know anything about increased headaches." Rebecca replied honestly. 

"Where would he go?" Fatima asked out loud. 

Rebecca walked over to Aurora, her arms tightly wound around her body holding herself close. Her face was a frozen look of disdain towards Aurora whom Rebecca saw as the winner in the love triangle, when Aurora had no intentions of portraying the other woman in the drama in Rebecca's mind-play.

"He needs help, its very urgent that if there is any information you may know about where he might be, it would benefit everyone in our lives if you helped." Aurora replied.

"Benefit?! ME? Oh please, this would only benefit you, you're the one who's going to gain from us finding him. Why not let him come back whenever he wants to come back. Why should I have anything to do with it." Rebecca scolded.

"Because he's your husband." Aurora recalled.

"Ex-husband, Aurora. You know that."

"Rebecca she's trying to find Caspian to help him." Fatima added.

"Oh, she's done enough of helping him in more ways than one, yes, she knows all about helping Caspian in ways that perhaps I was too old, to grandmotherly to do for him. Isn't that right Aurora? You know how to help men in those ways. With your legs wide open, that's the way you help men, isn't it?"

Aurora turned red. Her heart felt as if it were to explode and she slapped Rebecca across the face with the back of her hand. Rebecca yelped loudly, the sound of the slap paralleled a thunderclap in the middle of the night as Rebecca raised her own hand to the stinging burn on her skin.

Fatima audibly gasped and stepped between the two waring women who'd never come to this type of behavior before. 

 Jacob, rushed int the room seeing a scene that seemed locked in time.

"What the devil was that?" He asked of the Rebecca's screamed.

Aurora turned back to him and arched her brow "If Caspian comes here, be careful. Call the police." She said and left the room and the mansion saying nothing more. 

"Jacob, I think your mother needs to rest." Fatima replied.

"I don't need to rest. I DON'T NEED TO REST!!" Rebecca scared as she reached for one of the chair at the round table. 

"She's fine. Everything is fine." Jacob replied. "Perhaps you should leave Fatima. Come back another time."

Fatima nodded, agreeing and went to grab the cards on the table, one of them turned face down. When the fortune teller went to grab the cards, the one face down fell to the hardwood floors -- face up.

The Hanged man card straight up met Fatima's eyes.

She swallowed hard realizing it's signific in Rebecca's overall reading. Death and tragedy. 

"Rebecca, please take care of yourself, alright? Rest." Fatima said feeling uneasy as she left.

"What am I do now? If feels like the vultures are circling. What I did was -- was an accident and now I feel the walls closing in." Rebecca said, her face blush with the mark of Aurora's hand.

Jacob sighed, knowing the truth, knowing that indeed there were vultures circling her, and he was one of them but that needed to be kept on the side. He could not lead on to her that her life was about to change for the worse. 

"You need to relax and figure things out for yourself. There's nothing in Fatima Braga's tarot that can make it happen for you. What will happen, will happen and we need to deal with it when it does. Nothing can be told in truth without knowing all the details. Those cards don't know all the details." Her son said.

Rebecca narrowed her eyes, she thought he spoke like the hermit in her cards. The cold honest truth flowing from his lips like a ice cold bath.

"Those cards should not be mocked. They point me in the direction I need to go." She replied simply. 

Jacob reached down, grabbed her rosary that had fallen on the ground when Aurora slapped her. She looked at the glittering silver and gold beads in his large hand and squeezed them into his fist. He knew what he did, he called the authorities on his own mother to finally put an end to her crime but at the same time to take control of the family he's been trying to lead for decades. The divorce was one cut, the coming arrest would be the death wound to Rebecca's rule.

He could see her spinning in thought, wondering what she needed to do next to protect herself. There was a slight hope in her face that perhaps Jacob, ever the illusive escape artist when it came to crimes one did, said nothing of the sort.

"There, there." Jacob he finally replied, standing over his mother seated in the chair. "Pray." He added handing her the rosary. "The end to this is coming sooner than we think, we'll be ok." 

She took the beads, her sons words seemed kind, washed in a spiritual hope that she needed. Unfortunately for her his words were as laced with poison as Asha's medication was.

Just outside the mansion Aurora got back into her taxicab that was ordered to take her home to Bellmore Beach. Hidden in the trees, obscured by the greenery and beauty that was the grounds of Tirymor House, was Caspian Casador, cold - hard - hungry to kill. He knew where he needed to be. He knew who he needed to take away from this place, this earth, this world.

Aurora's life was now in the crosshairs of a maniac.