B9/Ch7: A GOODE PRAYER

Dr. Ward questions with Nik & Danielle 

As night continued its rise engulfing a tragic day at Welshport Hope Hospital, Dr. Peter Ward and Dr. Nikolas Jordan took Nurse Holten into a side office. She was a wreck of a woman, her face pale and swollen from crying. Her hands were shaking. Her mind spinning into a dark place of guilt and confusion. What had she done? What had she done to Asha and all those other patients.

"Nurse Holten, we need every single detail of what has happened here. There are seven patients all of whom seem to have received a medication overdose administered by you. What did you give them?" Ward asked.

Danielle couldn't speak. She tried but nothing came out of her mouth. 

"Dani, you have to tell us. What was it that you gave them?" Nik asked, practically begging for some sort of answer. "Asha has died, Dani, please tell us." He added. 

"I...." that was all she could say, and handed them the list of her rounds, a paper attached to a wooden clipboard that she clung to the entire time. 

Ward snatched it from her and read it over noticing nothing out of the ordinary. 

In her mind Danielle flashed to what had happened in Asha's room and began to recount:

*

Danielle recalls her interaction with Asha 

"Good afternoon, Dr. Hoffman," Danielle said, checking off Asha's name on her medication rounds list. "Looks like we have the final brew of medical tea for your stay here. You must be very happy." 

Asha sat up in bed and flung her legs over the side and stood up. "I don't want it."

"Dr. Ward has ordered it, it's just the regular herbal medication with a few drops of vitamins to help keep your strength for your ride home. Nothing you have t taken before." Danielle replied.

Asha walked over to Danielle and took the tea. She stared at her and looked her up and down. The conversation with Rebecca circling her mind of how Rebecca saw Danielle and Nikolas together. Kissing. Hugging. Practically in love right under Asha's very nose. 

"Nikolas and I will be very happy together once I'm home. He's promised we'll go away together. Has he mentioned that to you?" Asha said, again her mind pregnant with Rebecca's description of Nik and Danielle's secret affair.

Danielle blinked slow, sensing a test from Dr. Hoffman. "How wonderful." She played. "He hasn't mentioned anything to me about that, and why would he?" 

"Why would he indeed." Asha said, sipping her tea.

"You must be excited to go home," Danielle added. "Maybe that help trigger your memory — has any of it come back?"

"Not yet, no." Asha replied, lying. She still held on to the truth about Aurora's child, a desperate move for a desperate woman clinging to Nikolas who only wanted that kernel past truth to free his mother Aurora of her grief of losing a child that was really lost. Asha secretly gave the baby away. 

"That's a shame, I can't imagine how difficult it would be to not have memories of such important and life changing events." Danielle replied, sensing Asha might be holding on to the truth for a reason.

"Similar to your father, I suppose." Asha replied, as she drank the rest of the toxic tea. "He's been dealing with his own memory issues for a very long time hasn't he? You know I received a visit from his wife, your stepmother, and she told me a few things." Asha added sitting back down on the bed.

"Did she?" 

"Yes. Very peculiar things about -- well, you." 

Danielle cocked her head to one side, confused. Her dark hair falling onto her shoulder like thick black waterfall bunching in the lushest curls. "What peculiar things did she have to say about me?" 

Asha opened her mouth to speak, she was about to tell Danielle everything, that she knew about the affair, that she knew Rebecca knew that the entire situation was about to blow up in Danielle's face but she couldn't say anything. She seemed frozen. 

"Dr. Hoffman?" Danielle said. "Dr. Hoffman?!" 

Asha lay back on her bed. Her heart rate slowing. Her eyes feeling heavy. She was unable to feel her feet. Blurry. The room went blurry. There was a strange fog that floated above her and seemed to fall on top of her. Her breathing started to slow. Her hands sweating. She tried to speak but her lugs couldn't muster the strength to fight a word out. She gasped for air. Danielle flinched not understand what was happening, the cup in Asha's hand fell and shattered on the hard hospital floor. 

"Dr. Hoffman!! ASHA! ASHA!!" Danielle screamed slapping Asha's face. 

*

Back in the office with Peter and Nik looked at each other unsure of what has happened. For his part, Peter felt the uncomfortable feeling that Danielle had done it on purpose, but it didn't explain the other patients. 

"I need to know something." Dr. Ward said, but he surprised Nik by asking it of Nik.

"What is it?" Nik wondered.

"I need to understand the nature of your relationship, the two of you." He said, darting his eyes to Danielle.

Danielle held her breath. 

"What -- what do you mean?" Nik asked.

"This is the absolute worst time for coyness Dr. Jordan. This isn't a large hospital where things are left in the shadows for no one to see or hear. There is gossip and rumor at every single turn of this place. I've heard about your relationship for week. I've turned a blind eye because it didn't, to me at least, seem to be anyone's business or for that matter true.  However, now, I need to know: are you two in a relationship?" 

"We..." Nik began before Danielle blurted out "Yes."  

Peter turned to Nik who silently nodded. Peter sighed heavily in disappointment. 

"When I discovered you and Dr. Hoffman were an item, I also turned the other cheek, at least in that you two were open, but this? The secrets, she hiding; this is not good." Ward said.

"Dr. Ward, you have to understand, this was not an intentional relationship, and I would never have hidden anything had Asha been healthy. I was waiting for her to be home and healed for it to come out. I always intended for Danielle and myself to be open with what we have, but the right time never came. Asha has been recovering for so long here, telling her about Danielle and myself in her state, I feared would set her back. And she has so much to tell us about what happened to her when she was kidnaped, I needed to allow her to continue to heal and recover." Nik said to Peter.

"And suddenly that right time may never come, will it? You certainly can't announce your relationship now that Asha Hoffman is dead and the reason, she's dead is the nurse whom you're in a new relationship with has given her the tea that killed her. Do you understand what I am saying?" Ward explained. 

"No, no, I didn't do this on purpose! You can't think that!!" Danielle replied. 

Ward only stared at her like a father furious with a child's behavior. His eyes pinned her down and burned through her as if she were a cold-blooded killer. 

"I have to call Constable Ryan. This cannot go unreported." Ward said.

"Doctor Ward, please you can't seriously think Danielle would do something to Asha on purpose! She would never! Obviously, something went wrong with the medication dosages, there were several others who were ill too. I wasn't involved with all those other patients as I was with Asha, so Danielle would have no reason to poison them. You, see, his was an accident; it has to be." Nik tried to explain. 

Dr. Ward furrowed his brow and looked at Nik. The young doctor was right; he had to be some sort of mix up -- but on who's part? 

"We'll clear it up with Constable Ryan." The chief doctor said. "I have to call him." 

Doctor Ward left the room and Danielle fell into Nikolas' arms. She began to cry uncontrollably, her face into his chest. 

"Shhh.. it's ok. We'll figure this out. No one thinks you did anything. It's ok." Nik said, trying to console her.

In his office, Dr. Ward could not ignore the timing of Asha's death and the reaffirmed truth that Nik and Danielle were having an affair. Still, the idea that anyone, especially his protege Nikolas, would have secretly laced his other protege's tea to kill her in a lover's knot felt incredible vial -- yet not totally unheard of. 

These thoughts swirled in Peter's mind as he waited on the phone waiting for the new constable, Justin Ryan, to be brought in by the operator. 

"Constable, yes, hello, this is Dr. Peter Ward at Welshport Hope. Congratulations on joining, yes, yes we're very happy to have you. Unfortunately, this isn't just a welcome call to you. There's been a death here at Hospital. Yes, suspicious. And I think I have the culprit here. Who? Nikolas Jordan. Yes, that's right, Nikolas Jordan -- Ill explain when you get here." 

Rebecca's crime had yet another victim. 

****

Filipe arrives home to a shocking scene 

The Night fog filtered up from the rocky shores around Welshport Island and seeped into the village streets like slow moving white molasses. Fishing trawlers had arrived over the course of the evening releasing their crew back from a hard three days out at sea, including Filipe Braga, who'd taken up a position on one of Matthew Winterborn's ships.

He walked along the slippery streets of the village and to the neighborhood where his mother's home stood. Filipe noticed almost all the lights were off, the windows closed up, which was odd for Filipe's mother Fatima. She especially enjoyed a fresh night sea breeze to come through her window. 

Filipe entered the home, quiet. Peaceful. Untouched. 

"Hello?" He asked, checking the clock on the dark wall across from him confirming the time. It wasn't late, and yet no one was there.

Filipe began lighting some of the front room's lamps, allowing the deep glow of the light to fill the room showing its clear emptiness. The family had vanished, it seemed, without a trance. Without a note. Without a single reminder of them. 

As Filipe was about to go into the backrooms, the front door suddenly opened. Fatima carrying Caleb at her side and Charlotte; All three dressed for the cold night air, entered with very worried expressions.

"What is it?" Filipe asked. But as quickly as the question came to his lips, he noticed a person missing. "Where is Mary?" 

Charlotte's eyes began to water. Fatima sighed deeply, almost a whimper, and passed Caleb to his father. The baby's eyes were swollen from crying, but the little boy mustered a smile as he touched his father's face.

"Where's Mary?" Filipe asked again.

"We don't know." Fatima replied darkly. 

Filipe felt a sudden pull on every one of his internal organs. He held on to the baby tight and shook his head as if the words his mother had spoken were in a different language. 

"What are you talking about? What do you mean you don't know? She didn't tell you where she was going?" He pressed.

"We came home from the market and found Caleb by himself in his crib." Charlotte replied. "We have no idea why she left or where she went and it's been hours." 

"We don't even know how long este pobrezinho was alone. He was just in his little caminha asleep like an angel." Fatima added, reaching for the baby she referred to in Portuguese as the poor baby. 

"No, that's not like her at all, something is wrong." Filipe said handing the baby over to Charlotte.

"We've been all over the village, Filipe, Mary has vanished." Fatima confirmed.

"The village." He replied, his mother nodded. "Then she must be on Goode Island. I need to go there." 

Fatima and Charlotte looked at each other, it clearly didn't dawn on them to check Goode Island. They couldn't think of a reason why Mary would go back at her mother's abandoned home on there; to run off unannounced to all alone. 

****

Verity looks in on her prisoner Mary in the pit

Meanwhile, across the fog cloaked watery strait between Welshport Island, the assumed vacant home of the Goode family on the smaller island named after them stirred with activity. The only house on the tiny island glowed with the warm light of the hearth as Verity Spencer stared at herself in a full-length mirror. She had switched her clothes with her twin sister Mary whom she had abducted to finally give herself the life she felt she deserved, one that she felt was taken from her. 

She posed in the mirror, trying to mimic Mary's subtle characteristics. She tried to speak like Mary, using her phrasing and direct way. The taking over of Mary's life had to be seamless. No one could ever know the truth and it had to be fast — and it had to last. 

Once she felt she had it down, she slipped into Mary's coat and adjusted the belt, tightly around her waist. She gave herself one last look and smirked.

"Done." Verity said, in a Mary's softer tone.

Then she went to the back of the house to a door that led to a cold and dark basement. The basement had been hollowed out, emptied of its contents. The floor had been opened up and a large pit had been made. A ring of salt had been poured out around the pit, a clever trick of magic that Verity had smartly learned from catching up on the documents and old books in the Goode cottage over the weeks she'd been there along. 

Inside the pit, deeply dug into the hard cold ground, was Mary Goode, trapped.

Verity peeked over and saw Mary laying in the fetal position on the tiny mattress that had been flung down there from one of the cottage's beds. She'd been dressed in Verity's dress and also given books, a pail, a lantern, blankets and several wash clothes. There was a ration of food that would last 3 to 4 days that Verity planned to replenish when she could make it back. 

Sensing eyes on her, Mary perked up met her twin's eyes. Eyes that were exactly like her own, despite their color.

"Verity. Verity. Please, please take me out of here. I don't understand why you're doing this. We can figure things out together if you just let me out." 

"No." Verity replied simply. 

Mary slammed her fist into the mattress in frustration, "BUT WHY!?" 

"Because this is how it's going to be, it is how it should have been. I'm going to be the one that lives in the world now, Mary, because I've been give this second chance and I'm not going to waste it." 

"You'd rather trap me here, in this ... in this giant grave... than live together? As sisters???" Mary questioned. "Doesn't that seem counter to what our mother would have wanted?" 

"What mother would have wanted?" Verity questioned. "She didn't have a chance to know what she would have wanted for me. It wasn't for her to decide. Which is the true beauty of this, Mary. I've been given the chance from the witch council to live as a person as a real-life living person the way it could have been and in my eyes, SHOULD have been. That's all that you need to know. You'll see the package of food there, it will last you enough. Don't worry. I won't abandon you, I'm not that kind of person. I was abandoned by time, by the universe, so I know what it feels like. But I'll come back and replenish your food and wash every few days."

"They'll figure it out, Charlotte. Filipe. All of them. You won't be able to do this forever Verity. They'll figure it out! I'm telling you. It's better to come clean, take me out of here and we can do this together." Mary pleaded.

Verity smirked. It was all so simple, Mary thought. But she explained to her trapped twin what she was forgetting; one very important factor: The whole village saw Verity supposedly burn to death in the fire when Jacqueline inhabited Verity's body after the witch trials. The whole village pegged Verity, the magically regenerated twin of Mary Goode, for the true witch of Welshport. They saw her die. They saw her turn to ash and die. Nothing could ever bring her back in the eyes of the mortals in Welshport. Verity knew this, it had to be this way, it had to be this way.

"Then why not kill me?!?!? WHY?? Why keep me alive and suffer in a pit below my mother's home!?" Mary screamed.

"OUR MOTHER!" Verity shot back. "Everything is you, you, you, Mary! Its not about just you anymore. I'm here. I'm alive, and I deserve to live." 

"And that means I should suffer?" Mary asked.

Verity took a breath, she walked away from the mouth of the giant pit she had created. She paced back and forth in the basement, her mind racing -- confused. 

"YES!" Verity screamed out. "This is the way. I can't kill a sister. You know this." 

Mary took a second and realized it was true. The Witch Council would never allow coven sisters to hurt each other, much less true sisters like Mary and Verity. No matter how they were in each other's lives. 

Verity once again peeked over the side of the large opening to the pit Mary was in. Two handfuls of salt rained down on Mary, once again to lock her magic and secure here in the place she'd been put in. 

Mary dusted herself off from the salt and shook her head "You've thought of everything." 

Varity's brow arched and she threw one more handful of salt over Mary who shivered with anger. 

"I have to get back." Varity said. "Take care of yourself, I'll see you soon." 

When Varity was gone, all Mary could do was sit back down on the mattress. She pulled her knees into her chest and held them there -- trapped. Powerless. In fear. 

Mary did the one thing she could do -- she prayed and hoped that someone somewhere somehow would listen to her prayer and find her. 

****

Justin meets with Peter  

Back at Welshport Hope Hospital, the shocking events on Danielle Holten's floor leaked through the corridors like liquid whispers hitting every ear that would hear. The sorrow over Asha's sudden and shocking death was a gut punch to everyone on staff who knew her, worked with her and cared for her in her convalescence from her terrible accident in the fire that destroyed the Police station almost a year before. 

In his office, Dr. Peter Ward, chief of staff, had summoned the newly minted Constable Justin Ryan to gather evidence on what Ward believed was an unfortunate, yet targeted event revolving around a love triangle of Dr. Nikolas Jordan, Nurse Holten and Dr. Asha Hoffman. 

For his part, Constable Ryan was seeing, in rather quick timing, that his new job in his new hometown was not going to be an easy paycheck. In the days since he'd been sworn in, he'd seen already enough dangerous crimes to send a shiver even in the biggest of cities. 

"You'll have to give me more than just that." Justin said to Peter on his theory of what happened to Asha. "A love triangle is a curious piece of the puzzle, but its not a death warrant." 

"No, you're right. I would never bring things up against Dr. Jordan and Nurse Holten just because. And to be honest, I can't imagine them doing anything like this at all. Ever. But there's been so much rumor on their affair and Asha's sudden death, in a manner that seems easily avoidable. It just --- Constable, it just all fits too neatly and too strangely." 

"Doctor." A voice came from the door. It was an orderly. His face cold and frozen as if he'd just witnessed something so awful that it had turned his stomach. 

"Not now, I'm with the constable." Peter told the orderly. 

"He'll want to know this too." The orderly said showing them both an empty vial.

"What is that?" Justin asked.

"Its a vial of Atropa belladonna." The orderly explained.

Justin shrugged and looked at Peter for explanation. "Where did you find it?" Peter asked.

"Where you asked us to look, Dr. Jordan's office." 

"Care to fill me in here?" Justin asked.

"Atropa belladonna is the chemical in nightshade." Dr. Ward explained.

Justin nodded, "The plant." 

"Yes. We use it in a deluded form to help patients who are in incredible amounts of pain or patients who are suffering extreme mental incapacitations to rest. Its cheaper and handier for this rural hospital to get. Morphine is quite pricy and harder to get out on the island. But..." Peter paused his explanation before Justin chimed back in.

"But?"

"But if too much is used, as I am sure you can deduce, it can be deadly." 

"And you found this in Dr. Jordan's office?" Justin asked the orderly who nodded affirmative. "Who asked you to go there?" 

"I did." Peter said. "I just -- I just had a hunch. I hoped nothing would be found." Peter said sincerely. 

"Well, sorry to say doc, but your hunch may have turned up right. Where's Nik Jordan now?" Justin asked.

"He's with -- Asha." The orderly said solemnly.  

Peter, Justin and the orderly and another orderly, a burly man that had come from Churchill Green who was more of a stone-cold security force inside the asylum, went back up to the floor where Asha's room was and where her body was being prepared to be taken to the morgue. Everyone's eyes watched in horror as the foursome went through the winding corridors. Everyone knew what was happening, everyone - nurses, the other few doctors that were on duty, the orderly, patients in the halls, visitors. Everyone. It was a scene out of a frightening place in anyone's mind that could happen in such a place of healing.

As they arrived to Asha's room, her body covered in a white blanket covering her from head to toe, was being wheeled out. Danielle saw the Dr. Ward and his team coming. She quickly grabbed Nik's arms believing she was about to be arrested for murder and attempted murder.

"Tonight, I think is my last day a free woman." She said dramatically. 

Nik turned to her, his face broken and unsure of what could have happened in his life that would lead him to this very moment.  The four men then stood in front of Nik and Danielle. Nik quickly catching up with Danielle's words. He slightly moved his body in front of hers fully expecting them to take her into custody.

"Nikolas Jordan -- you're coming with me." Justin replied shocking both Nik and Danielle as Justin lifted up in his hand the empty vial of nightshade --- the one Rebecca planted in his office in a flurry of panic to free herself of the evidence at the very last second. 

****

Verity poses as Mary & encounters Filipe 

Fog drenched nights in Welshport were a common occurrence. No night, in almost any season, didn't have a least a speck of sea fog that rolled over the wild Atlantic and over the small islands of Frenchman Bay in Maine. 

Combing the streets for Mary, Filipe fears were becoming more and more harrowing as Mary's disappearance felt incredibly out of character for her. The witch trials and his own trials and tribulations with Lycanthropy began to seep into his mind again. How they'd fought so hard to be together during those terrible days and yet again they were back at square one but he was alone.

As Filipe made his way towards the harbor to get on to a small boat he had there at the marina to head over to Goode Island in search for Mary, there was a sudden call to him in the shadows on one of the docks. He turned and saw a figure standing there in silhouette. 

Filipe, who was crouched down untying the boat, slowly got up and watched as the figure moved through the fog slowly, methodically, like a ghost walking through a wall. Then, as the fog lifted over her face, he saw Mary standing there.

"Mary! MARY! MY GOD Where have you been!?!!? We've been looking all over for you all night!" Filipe said, running towards his wife and yanking her small, framed body into a tight hug. He kissed her on her lips, her cheeks, her forehead, man in puppy love thrilled that she was alive and in his arms.

"I'm so sorry." Mary said, only in reality it was Verity posing as her twin sister, her tongue quick with lies. "I -- I'm ashamed of myself. I should never have left Caleb alone and not told anyone where I was going. I just needed sometime alone, but it was selfish. I'm so sorry Filipe."

"Time alone? Why? Did something happen while I was out at sea?" 

Verity, as Mary, shied her face to continue her ruse of innocence mixed with guilt. "How can I go on pretending Caleb isn't the son of two people we know and care about? How I can I continue to pretend, Filipe? Aurora and Caspian should know." 

There was a pause, Verity swallowed hard unsure if her pantomime of what Mary would have said, could pass the mustard. 

Filipe furrowed his brow "We discussed this, Mary." Her sister's name coming from his lips proved to Verity she'd succeeded. 

"We love our son, he's ours. Keeping Caleb away from his birth family is in his best interest. Caspian could always become a danger to himself and others. Everything about that man should give you confidence that what we've done to keep Caleb away from him was right. We're keeping our boy from irreparable harm in the hands of anyone connected to Caspian and the Lords."  He continued. 

"You really think this is the right thing to do?" She asked meekly, again in a voice only to continue her lies.

"Yes, I really do." He answered sincerely. 

"Do you think you can forgive me for this? For just leaving this way, I'm sorry." She sighed.

Filipe pulled her into a tight hug; his body warmed her. The emotional connection she suddenly felt was something Verity had never felt before. She finally understood something of a human connection with a person, a living person. His body felt like a wall between the chaotic world around her and the peace she had always wanted to feel within herself. She clung to him as if it were the last time she'd ever see him but, in a way, it was the first time. She never wanted to lose this connection, now that she had a taste. This, she thought to herself, is what it was all about. To love and be loved. To feel and be felt. To hold and to be held. To connect in all senses of the word. 

"Let's go home." he whispered.

"Home." She whispered. "To a family." She added, feeling a sense that finally she belonged. 

Filipe Chuckled and nodded his head. "Yes, to a family. Our family." 

"Our family." She replied in a blissful tone. "I love that." 

Filipe cocked his head and pulled out of the hug to look at her. Her face, half covered in shadow from the night was soft and pure, the face he expected to see, but there was something about her that he couldn't quite pin point. Her words seemed distant, almost as if she'd been gone for a long time and had just come home. 

"Are you sure you're alright?" He asked, both hands on her shoulders matching her eye to eye.

"Yes, yes! Of course, I'm sorry, it's been a very long night. Please let's go home." Verity as Mary said, as a night wind shivered across both of their faces.

He smiled, still unsure of her, but locked her back into his arms and the two set off home. 

Verity had so far kept things under control, but she would have to do a lot better than this when she first encounters Charlotte, Mary's very telepathic and psychic 15-year-old daughter. 

****

Celeste & Jacob, discussion in the gold room

Sitting in Tirymor House's luxurious living room on a double stuffed sofa upholstered with gold and white fabric of leaves from the garden of Eden, Celeste DeVianna-Lord sorted through the family mail that was brought to her on a silver tray by the household maid Jane O'Donnell.

The fire in front of her warmed her from the cold night just outside the French doors to her left. She skimmed through lines of beautiful handwriting from her cousin just across Frenchmen Bay in Winter  Harbor, Maine who had heard of Johnathon's hospitalization. A strange feeling of exposure suddenly clouded Celeste's mind. She didn't want anyone to know of Johnathon's struggles, but -- there it was, in the most beautiful penmanship she'd ever seen.

Shaking off her embarrassment, Celeste suddenly came across to letters to Evie from Catherine Randall-Ruth, the woman Evie met on the ship Iberia when she first arrived in Welshport. 

"God, do you correspond with that woman?" Jacob said, surprising Celeste by looking over her shoulder from behind. 

Celeste rolled her eyes.

"She's always been a pain in my mother's side. Invitations for dinner in New York, fancy dress balls in Boston, some kind of baptism for her grandchild in Newport. What does she want with you?" He added.

"Jacob, you shouldn't read other people's mail." Celeste replied as her husband across from him on an identical sofa. 

"I didn't. I read the envelope." He replied with a creepy grin.

Celeste sighed "It's not for me. Its mail for Evie. They're friends apparently. I'll send this out for Aurora at Bellmore Beach."  

"Aurora is at Bellmore Beach now? Such a shame to have one of our most beautiful family properties passed off to the Jordans. I guess the good news is it'll someday go to Gabriel, despite his Jordan linage. That's a positive." Jacob scoffed.

"I wonder how Evie is doing. Sometimes I wish we didn't have our falling out. I miss our friendship." Celeste confessed as she moved her hand over Evie's name on Catherine's envelope.

"You did what you had to do for Gabriel. His life needed a steady hand; he was only a baby. God knows Sebastian couldn't handle being a parent -- not the way he is. And we all thought Evie was dead, it was natural for you to take care of him as your own." Jacob replied, recalling when the two of them took guardianship over Gabriel. 

 "It was more than that, Jacob. And I do regret it." Celeste confessed.

"Gabriel is a Lord. We were only protecting his interests at the end of the day." Jacob replied, shrugging off his deceptive true plan at the time.

"By controlling his shares of his family's company. We both know what we had in mind, Jacob, and it was just to keep the boy safe." She said, reminding him of the very convenient monetary perk of controlling Gabriel's shares of the family company.

Jacob grabbed a match book that was on the coffee table in front of him ad removed a thick brown cigar from his inside coat pocket and lit it. The smoke puffed his chest to the air around him as he grinned coyly to Celeste's mia culpa about her part in Garbriel's guardianship. 

"It was what it was." Jacob said. "It worked out for everyone I guess, Evie ended up being alive, she took back her son and he has his shares. No harm no foul." 

"It's always just so easy for you to say that. When things go left you always have an escape plan that actually doesn't help you escape, it usually plunges you deeper into some kind of mess of your own making." Celeste said.

He moved over from his sofa to hers and sat close enough to her that if one were to see them one wouldn't be able to tell who was smoking. Their thighs pressed up against each other. She pushed him slightly over with his elbow and he kissed her neck. 

"You do love it don't you? The mess I make?" He whispered in her ear.

She scoffed and pushed him hard with her hand in the chest. 

"You would love it if I said I did." She said, slightly repulsed but always hid the twinge of excitement he gave her.

He reached over and put his hand around her waist. He could feel the tight corsetry of her dress that bound her into it like a fortress of fabric and whale bone. She pulled her close and they kissed passionately in the living room. The mail in her laps fell to the floor at the same time that the front of the mansion opened and slammed shut with a violent bang that startled the married lovers out of their quiet personal moment.

The two turned to the open living room double doors that led to the mansion's dimly lit marble foyer and a blur of dark fabric and red hair passed in a flash and twisted around the banister of the main staircase and bounded up the staircase in an equally blurry mass. 

The Lord family Paige and Jacob's personal fixer, Aaron Hamstead, entered. 

"Its Mrs. Casador." He whispered.

"What's the matter with her?" Jacob asked of his mother. 

Aaron shrugged. "All I know is that she was at the hospital and called me to pick her up. I came and she was in tears. But spoke not a word." 

"She must of found out, maybe Lear told her." Celeste said.

"Lear?" Jacob asked, of his cousin Lear Lockwood the family lawyer. 

"Caspian sent divorce papers in the mail for her to sign. Their up on her bed. Maybe Lear was alerted and he told her." Celeste explained.

“In the mail!? Quite cold, Isn’t it? Even for Caspian!” Jacob exclaimed. “Those are usually served by an officer of the court.”

Celeste and Jacob then looked back to Aaron for more information, but he shrugged again, having truthfully no idea what was happening.

Upstairs, Rebecca closed and locked her bedroom door behind her, little white Maltese BeeBee quickly scurried in making it in with his mistress in the nick of time. The vast room had already been lit with soft lamps as per customary routine in the evenings at Tirymor. A member of the Lord family never walked into a dark room, even Beebee had never seen a dark room. 

The matriarch paced back and forth alongside her large bed. She stopped and turned towards the wall behind her. A large portrait of herself and her late first husband Albert Lord stared back at her. Tears fell from Rebecca's eyes as her mind drifted off into what had happened to him, his fall into the dark shadows of madness at such a young age that eventually took his life -- and now her own crumbling life seemed to be going down the very same path.

Her plan was never ever to hurt anyone. No one, especially not Asha, was supposed to die. She only wanted Danielle to be dealt with in an administrative way and let go from her post at the hospital. It was just one way for Rebecca to chip away at Danielle's link to Welshport. No one, not a single person, was ever meant to die.

And yet -- death came and took an innocent person, a woman who had helped her in the small plot. 

Rebecca turned away from the painting of herself and Albert. Her face swollen with her crying and saw several folders on her bed perfectly tied with twine. She stepped over to her current husband's side of the bed, one Caspian hadn't slept in in weeks. Her dress, long and dark flowing like a woman in mourning, curled around the banister and clung to the curves of her body like it was made of her own skin.

Rebecca untied the twine string and read through the divorce papers that were couriered to Tirymor House with the mail earlier that day. 

"No." She whispered. "NO! NO! NO!!!!" She screamed as she threw the papers across the room frightening BeeBee over to a corner of the room. The papers fell to the ground like leaves from a tree in fall and were scattered everywhere.

Rebecca fell to the floor in the fetal position. She reached for her rosary in her pocket, the same pocket that she had held the vial of deadly nightshade that she placed in Nik's office and clutched them to her chest. Her whole world was damaged beyond repair. She had no idea what to do next. She had killed a woman, made other's ill, and framed an innocent man for the crime.

Beebee slowly made his four-legged way over to his mistress and whimpered as she cried uncontrollably. She reached for his little furry head and caressed him. 

"What do I do, my sweet thing, what do I do?" Rebecca asked the dog, who licked her. 

She was trapped now in her own misguided web of lies and treachery. All in the hopes of keeping the man she loved in her grasp, in her control, and in her life. Her hurt, her loneliness and her yearning for someone special in her life had led her to do things she had never thought herself capable of. 

Outside her door, Jacob listened to his mother's banshee cries of despair. He instantly knew this was not only about the divorce. Something else, he thought, something else had happened. He grinned and arched a brow as ideas quickly flooded his mind. He realized that perhaps, his mother's devastation could yet again benefit his own future.  

                                

B9/Ch6: POISION SEEPS EVERYWHERE

Rebecca searches the nurses medication room

Everything in life is carefully guided by a watching eye; like the seagull that floats above the sails of a ship sending it slowly back to it's port of call. 

Some say this is the universe's way of keeping order; by placing certain people in certain situations at certain times -- good or bad -- to see how they fair. Others point to a more religious and spiritual lock on all our destinies; a divine light above us that lays out our path with celestial hands beyond our gaze.

In truth, life and the moments that shape them are a series of events that we can sometimes control ourselves. Not by prayer or by positive thinking, but our actions. Rebecca Lockwood-Lord-Casador felt the need to take such action now against Danielle Holten, an innocent nurse caught in Rebecca’s spider web.

Rebecca saw Danielle as symbol of her husband Caspian's past one that Rebecca did not want him to reconnect with. To Rebecca, Caspian loved her and Viktor didn't. Should Danielle's hope to reignite her father Viktor's memories with her presence, the house of cards Rebecca built her marriage in would collapse.

It was this fear, one of erasure, abandonment, disownment that led Rebecca to where she was standing at this very moment: In the nurses medication room mixing doses of sleep aids for patients on Danielle's list of rounds.

The trays were each marked with a tag with a nurse’s name and her round number. Rebecca, slowly laced each of the glass cups meant for patients’ with a few drops of the Nightshade tincture, but suddenly she heard two women speaking in the hallway just outside. Rebecca recognized one voice as Danielle's. In her rush Rebecca dropped two extra drops into one of the cups -- two drops too many, then she hid inside of a broom closet.

Danielle and another nurse entered the room gossiping happily about silly things. One patient who couldn't get his nose to stop running. Another who'd been stung by a bee in the side of the eye. A woman who'd fallen off a horse and broken her leg. And Asha, Danielle's patient.

"She's going home today, but we're giving her one more bit of this herbal tea that is supposed to give her a bit more help with her memory." Danielle said to the other nurse, both too busy to notice any tampering with the small cups of medication. 

"Dr. Hoffman has been hospitalized for such a long time, I can't understand why she still doesn't have her memories back." The other nurse said as the two began mixing their medical tonics.

"She will. Dr. Ward is very positive about it." Danielle replied.

"Has this herbal medication worked on anyone before?" The other nurse asked.

Danielle smirked and shrugged as she poured her sleeping aids in one of the small glasses, and then Asha's herbal medication in the other. 

"To be honest, I don't have the slightest idea, but I hope she gets her memories back very, very soon." 

Once the two nurses were gone, Rebecca exited her hidden place in the closet. Her heart was racing. Her mind filled with the hope that her plan worked, and the few extra drops would render her patients unconscious in an unprescribed way, enough too to show Danielle as incapable of doing her job properly, thus getting her fired.

Then she opened her hand. Her fingers thin and withered with age but still incredibly elegant and strong. The vial that held the nightshade was empty. She gasped realizing what she had done: in her haste, she had used too much in one of Danielle's patient cups.

"Dear god." She whispered as the terror of knowing she may have just poisoned someone to death. 

****

New mayor, new constable 

Meanwhile, at Village Hall, a photographer and reporter for THE WELSHPORT GLOBE set up a quick photo opportunity at the official double swearing in ceremony of the new mayor of the village Nathan Cramer and the new constable Justin Ryan. There were also a few reporters from the mainland who'd come in by ferry to get the scoop on the new pair of men who'd be running the village after so much turmoil over the past year. 

The Globe photographer set up his large black camera with removing the lens cover and pulling out the long black accordion style neck focusing on the three men in front of him as District Attorney Eden Sydney quickly joined to swear both men in, filling in for Judge Banning.

The bulb flash went off lighting the three men in a bright white burst of light every two seconds. Between repeating the oath their offices, purple spots filled their eyes from the constant flashes of the man's camera. 

"Alright, alright you've got enough." Eden said, shooing away the photographer as he walked the two new men over to a large oak desk and sign their names to the ledger officiating their offices. 

"Is this how you saw yourself taking over for Timothy?" Eden asked Nathan, who's previous job was the late Mayor's closest aide. 

"Not in the slightest." Nathan replied. 

"Constable Ryan! CONSTBALE! OVER HERE!" A reporter shouted as the three town officials turned to him. "We hear Baxter Murphy may have given you a clue on who might have attacked him last night?" 

"Baxter was attacked?" Nathan asked. 

"What happened?" Eden added.

Justin rolled his eyes, his first major case on the same day of his official swearing in and already reporters were circling him like a murder of crows gunning for their next prey. "The investigation is ongoing, I have nothing to say about it just yet, other than, Baxter is doing well and is cooperating with us."  

"Thank you all, there will be no questions." the mayor new aide said, as she rushed all the reporters out of the room. 

"Well?" Nathan asked again. "What happened to Baxter?" 

"He was leaving Gramercy Cafe last night and went down a darker street than he should have and was mugged." Justin replied.

"Mugged? He was Robbed?" Eden wondered.

"Just beaten up, I guess mugging isn't exactly the right term. He was strangled, punched and kicked. He's doing ok now but probably won't be back to work annoying all of us anytime soon." 

"Strangled?" Nathan asked, his face pale quickly remembering Timothy's dead body with the marks around his neck like a strangling. 

"That's right."  Justin said. 

"Jesus, it's like we can't catch a break in this town." Eden added. 

Justin's brow arched recalling something he read on his first unofficial day at the police station that had finally been rebuilt after a fire tore through it on the night of the Full Moon Celebration. "Speaking of catching a break, I was wondering about something." 

Eden perked up "What is it?" 

"Mayor Churchill's cause of death was marked as natural, and yet, the medical examiner noted a few strange markings on his body. His neck specifically. Nathan, you're the one who found him, what do you make of that?" 

Nathan gulped. He had indeed found Churchill's body but quickly called Baxter to help him cover up anything that would point to a murder. It was so soon after the witch trials that tore the village into shards of what it used to be. The villagers were paranoid, angry and still hoping to pin-down anyone they could to blame for the village's often very bad luck. They needed a scapegoat, they needed a reason to march through the streets in the dark of night and into Tirymor House and ransack it looking for the monster, any monster, to blame. 

A new murder, especially one of the very divisive Mayor would have caused yet another chaotic scene in town. Nathan made the decision to end it -- getting Baxter to print a false obituary and paying off the medical examiner to say the death was of natural causes.

"Postmortem markings, I guess. Many things happen to us when we die, Constable Ryan, our bodies are after all part of nature at that point." Nathan explained. 

Justin smiled, slightly not sure what to believe, but for now, took it as gospel truth.

"Then all I can say is I'm glad someone he was close to is the one that found him." Justin finally added.

"I agree, I've have seen enough insanity in this place to last me a lifetime. Anyway, men, congratulations to you both. May the two of you take our village into a new place in the coming year and beyond." Eden said slamming the folder with his speech and oath of office shut. "Good luck." He added with a wink.

"Ill follow you out," Justin said turning back to the new mayor "see you soon Mr. Mayor."

Nathan smiled and bowed his head and suddenly found himself alone in Timothy's office, now his office. "I'll need all the luck I can get." the new mayor whispered to himself. 

****

Charlotte speaks with Mary 

At the Braga house, Mary sat in the nursery with little Caleb in a rocking chair reading him a story to lull the blond boy to sleep. As the words came out of his adopted mother's mouth, his little blue eyes slow blinked into a slumber and Mary eased him into his bassinet the was lined with light blue fabric so soft that it could have been made of clouds.

Mary stared down at her little boy, proud and lovingly but worried that the truth of his parentage would somehow escape the confines of the Braga household. Every day she worried about this, since the day she herself discovered the secret accidently while on trial for witchcraft. 

This realization, that Asha had worked with Gregory to take Caleb from Aurora at birth and adopt him out would not fade from Mary's mind. How could it? She knew such a devastating secret that if revealed would change her family in painful ways. 

"Are you alright?" A soft voice asked from Caleb's nursery doorway. Mary turned, recognizing the voice of her soon to be 16-year-old daughter Charlotte and nodded silently. 

"I came to check on you two. Is he sleeping?" Charlotte whispered. 

Mary nodded gain and put her index finger to her lips and motioned for Charlotte to follow her out and into her bedroom where they could speak. She closed Caleb's door and walked down the hall to her bedroom with Charlotte following close behind. 

"You haven't said much since Filipe went out to sea." Charlotte noted, now in the room with her mother. 

"I'm worried." Mary confessed. "I know that not being honest to Caleb's mother and father is cruel, but I also know it’s cruel to take him from the family he's known since he opened his eyes for the very first time. And I fear placing him back with Aurora -- as good a woman as she might be -- wouldn't be in Caleb's best interest." 

"Because of Caspian." Charlotte said straight forward, Mary nodded again.

"I know he's not what he once was, I know that in my heart, but at the same time we're all still very haunted by it. How can I, in good conscience, take him out of the only home and family he's ever known and give him to people-- strangers really - knowing Caspian's very, very dark history. Charlotte, I just don't know what I should do." 

"What you should do, is listen to Filipe." Charlotte answered. "I agree with him. We should keep the secret, keep Caleb safe with us. We have abilities and powers that we inherited that can keep him safe from all harm. Aurora doesn't have that. If, god forbid, Caspian should ever fall back into the control of such evil entities, she wouldn't be able to keep Caleb safe. We can. You and I." 

Charlotte spoke like a woman, not like the girl she was. She had always been such an old soul, everyone knew this of her. She was a protector, more so than any of the other Lords, and Mary saw her young daughter growing up before her eyes into someone she could look to as a friend and counterpart. 

"Your grandmother would be very proud." Mary said grabbing Charlotte's hand as the two sat on her bed. 

"Rebecca?" Charlotte questioned, not seeing the connection to Mary who didn't have the best relationship with Rebecca. 

Mary chuckled and shook her head "No, no," she reframed, "my mother. Eliza. You're a lot like her. She was someone I could always go to and she'd always have such a positive way to spin things for me. She helped me a lot in my worst days." 

"I wish I had known her better." Charlotte said.

"I do too." 

As the mother and daughter spoke in Mary's bedroom, a stealth figure in all black stood in the baby's nursery watching him sleep. She crept over, closer and closer, monitoring his breathing. Such a beautiful boy the person thought, such a gift to have a baby in one's life, the person thought again. 

As Caleb slept like an angel in his cloud-soft bassinet, the person reached in and picked him up. The baby cooed and lifted his hands up touching his own face, still sleeping, dreaming perhaps. The person rocked Caleb in their arms. A feeling came over them like a salty ocean wave of love, powerful, unconditional love the baby in their arms and for just feeling it all together.

The person walked over to a vanity in the room to see themselves holding the baby. What a sight it was! It looked correct and fitting - a mother holding her child.

But this was a warped and a contorted view of reality. This was no mother, this was Verity Spencer standing in the mirror, the literal spitting image of her twin Mary. 

Verity tilted her head slightly gazing at herself in the mirror as a mother to Caleb and smiled. She enjoyed what she saw. She almost glowed with glee at finally finding a fitting place for herself. 

Caleb made a small whimper as he wiggled in arms, slowly coming out of his sleep.

"There, there,' Verity said softly as she kissed his forehead. "mummy's here." 

Down the hall, Fatima Braga interrupted the mother and daughter meeting.

"Com licença," She said, excusing herself for the interruption.

"Come, in Fatima, please." Mary said with a smile.

"I just wanted to see if the menina still wanted to head downtown to the market with me. Filipe's ship comes in soon, and I wondered if she wanted to go with me to pick up things to make for dinner and to walk him home." Fatima asked. 

Charotte shot up from the bed "Sure!" She answered, quickly sounding like the teenager she was.

"Bom, vamos-lá!" Fatima said, taking Charlotte's hand left hand as Mary reached for her right hand, forming a connection between all three women with Charlotte in the center her arms stretched out.

"Thank you for the chat." Mary said, kissing her daughter's cheek.

Charlotte smiled, Mary let go, and the two went off to the village. As they left the house, Fatima looped her arm in Charlotte's and held her close to her.

"I assume that talk was not about what you told Matthew, was it?" Fatima wondered, recalling how Charotte went against the rules Mary had set up about using their powers. 

Charlotte sighed also remembering telling Matthew of the vision she had of Sebastian taking Evie and Gabriel to Scottland.

"No." She answered. "I'm taking your advice on that." 

"Good girl, that's for the best." Fatima said as the two went further into the village.

Charlotte wasn't so sure. 

Back in the Braga house Mary walked back down the hall towards Caleb's room. She suddenly started to feel a dizziness in her head. The hallway floor seemed to begin to bend and weave around her and she grabbed the hallway wall hoping to steady the movement her mind was showing. 

The wall too suddenly began to feel as if they were melting, falling away but in truth they weren't. The dizziness persisted as Mary fought for balance and feared for Caleb who was only feet away in his own room. 

There was a pressure in her head, one that got heavier and heavier as she got closer to Caleb's room and in a split second she pushed his door open and saw Verity standing there holding Caleb like a Madonna and child, the dimming afternoon light backlighting her twin almost in the most life like Da Vincian painting way. 

Then -- the dizziness vanished as quickly as it came. Mary stood there, face to face with her twin sister, the one she thought was burned alive. The one she thought was only a shapeshifted version of Jacqueline created by the witch council as a cover to rid the Sisters of Highgrove of the trial.

"Jacqueline, what -- what are you doing???" Mary said, lunging for Caleb.

Verity lifted a hand and Mary froze in place.

"Jacqueline no longer inhabits the conscious behind these eyes." Verity said, her green eyes suddenly seeming brighter. Mary was unable to speak and move. 

Verity placed the baby back in his bassinet and walked over to Mary and waved her hand over Mary's face unfreezing her mind only allowing them to speak telepathically. Silencing any potential scream that would escape Mary's lips.

"How? How is this happening?" Mary asked, the words only floating in Verity's mind. 

"Fait and luck, that's all I can say." Verity said. "But it must mean something that I was able to return from the ashes as my own living breathing person." 

"Where's Jacqueline?" Mary wondered

Verity shrugged. "Wherever she wants to be."

"Verity tell me what's going on. What are you doing here? What do you want?" Mary questioned.

Verity looked around the room. It was sweetly decorated for the little boy. Clearly, he lived in a happy, loving home unaware of the dangerous world he was born of and born into. Verity felt almost as if she too had been born this way, lost in a world of dangerous magic and ancestorial guilt of things she knew nothing of, mostly Eliza their mother. She wondered how Mary's life had been, as a child - a teen - a young woman - and now, a mother. Verity wanted to know those feelings and emotions. She wanted to go through the pain of motherhood, the ecstasy of romance and the devastation of death. 

She wanted Mary's life - warts and all. To be fully human.

Mary's twin circled her as if inspecting her and was truly astonished that they'd looked so much alike. They were twins in the most identical way, aside from the difference in color of their eyes. Mary's blue, Verity's green.

"What do I want?" Verity said telepathically, asking herself the same question even though she knew the answer. "Look around you sister, this. This is what I want."

Mary's heart skipped a beat when she finally put two-and-two together.

And in that split second, Verity clapped her hands. A loud bang shocked Mary's mind and she fell to the floor and in another quick second, a white light burst in the room and Verity and Mary vanished into it. The force of Verity's power rocked the rocking chair in the corner ever so slightly, leaving it and the baby cooing in his crib alone and with the creaking wood of the Mary's rocking chair.

****

Celeste eavesdropping 

Later that afternoon, Celeste DeViana-Lord and a nanny walked down one of the several corridors of Tirymor House. The two had just come from putting Fabian down for a nap and were chit-chatting about how fast the young Lord heir was growing, when suddenly, their own conversation was broken by voices in the corner of the hallway.

An uncharacteristic light for that time of day peeked out from under the large oak door with caved horses into it, It was Jacob's office.

The strip of yellow light glowed like a beacon to Celeste's eyes begging her to go over and listen. Celeste grabbed the watch that was attached by a small silver chain on the lapel of the nanny's apron and looked at the time. 

"Who would be here at this time of night?" She whispered. 

The nanny shrugged.

Celeste shooed the nanny down the stairs and walked herself over to the door and put her ear up to it.

"They're definitely closer than I realized." A female voice said.

"How close? Solid?" Jacob asked her. 

"Seemingly." She replied.

"What do you mean seemingly? Either they are they aren't Cora?" Jacob replied, revealing his meeting with his spy; his voice sharp and practically penetrating the wooden door to Celeste's ear.

"Well, without going into any private details, they're as close as two people can be. In the middle of the night, if you catch my drift." Cora said.

"You--- you saw them?" A third voice asked, Celeste recognizing it as Aaron's.

Coraline blushed, "I didn't see anything but it was obvious when I broke in they had been -- together." 

Aaron shifted in his chair uncomfortable with the entire idea of the woman he loved, still floating around town spying for Jacob, especially hearing the private things she was encountering, things no one should be subject to while being spied on.

"And? What else?" Jacob demanded, unfazed by the personal information Cora said.

Cora's mind shot back to the other night when she broke into Genevieve and Christopher's bungalow. She had walked in that night to gather information for Jacob, hoping she'd find something that would finally free herself of Jacob's continued use of her in secret spying. She needed the extra money but she was tired of doing it. 

While in the house, and eavesdropping on the lovers in their room, Coraline learned that indeed they had no plans for retribution over Jacob and his evil deeds. 

"Well," Cora said, her voice floating up as if she were surprised on what she was about to say "I haven't seen any evidence that they have any intension on doing anything to attack you, or hit you back on any kind of detail. They're both more concerned with making amends with their sons and getting married." She said.

Jacob, who had lowered his face down to his desk to sign the paycheck for Cora suddenly shot up and looked her in the eyes. "Married?" 

"That's what I heard." Cora replied. 

"Married." Jacob repeated. "My brother is going to marry his dead wife's look-a-like. Its almost something out of a Brontë novel." He said. 

"But that's good news, isn't it? You don't have to worry about Christopher anymore. He's clearly telling you the truth and keeping his promise of a truce." Aaron said, hoping his best friend Chris would finally get a away from Jacob's obsession.

Jacob ripped the check out of large leather bound check book and slid it across the table to Coraline. She arched a brow and took it, folded it nicely and placed it inside a small pouch on the side of her dress that she then looped a button keeping the check safe.

"Is that all?" She asked as she stood up to leave.

Jacob nodded and Aaron and Cora departed together from the side terrace of Jacob's private office.

He sat at his desk, turning his chair slowly to the window behind him and watch the couple leave together into the night through the gardens. It was the fasted way back to the horse stalls where cars were also kept.

In the reflection of the window, his office door opened and he saw his wife Celeste standing there with her hands on her hops.

"Coraline? Coraline is Cee?" She said, finally connecting Cora's spy name.

"I have no real secrets from you, you didn't have to stand there listening." Jacob replied, spinning his chair around.

"Jacob, enough is enough. Christopher told you he wanted things to be better between the two of you and I believe him. Cora's story proves it too. He's finally moving on with his life and I think you should respect that." She said.

"What is it, huh? Why are you so keen on David's innocence, oh pardon me, Christopher's innocence?" He replied, sarcastically correcting himself into using Chris' new name.

"Because I knew him too before he left, not well, but I did. And He was always innocent -- OF EVERYTHING." Celeste stated, harking back to the rumor Chris killed Sabrina, now knowing Jacob did. "So why would I think otherwise? It's you who continues to be suspicious and paranoid. Let it go Jacob." 

Jacob stood up and walked around his desk to sit on the edge of it in front of his wife who was still in the office doorway. She wouldn't budge on her hope of the truce lasting but he knew better, the Lords were never going to be a happy family, not with their history. Jacob knew this for a fact, and he knew too that there may be a truce, a seize fire, but the war would never truly end. Not with their history.

"David and I are what we are." Jacob said, this time refusing to correct the name. "We're brothers with a very sorted history and that will never change Celeste. It's a fact of our relationship and as long as he is here, in this town, I'll keep my eye on him. That's that." Jacob replied.

Celeste rolled her eyes. She couldn't the idea of family fighting this way. She thought of her brother Johnathon and how much she wanted him to be healthy and free of the madness that took over his life. She could never treat him the way Jacob was treating Christopher.

"Then you're prepared for this -- whatever it is -- between you two last forever? Even if it means it spills into the next generation? Because I know for a fact that Sebastian and Fabian and any of Chris and Genevieve's possible children will be affected by their fathers never getting along." 

Jacob shrugged smugly. "Another fact of life." 

She scoffed at him and reached for the doorknob to leave. He lunged for her, standing only a few feet away at his desk and grabbed her by the wrist. He turned, her breathing suddenly growing shallower and shallower as his grip on her wrist became tighter.

"Do you hear what Cora said she walked in on?" He asked his wife.

Celeste furrowed her brow.

"She said she walked in on two people being as close as two people could. They were making love. Did you imagine it in your mind? Those two beautiful people, in their bed, naked. I did. I imagine it as us. Skin to skin, lips to lips. It's been a while Celeste." He said.

She winched as his grip reached a painful peek. She tried to get out of his hold, but he was stronger. He pulled her into the room and closed the door. He would not let go of her wrist. He pulled her forcefully close and kissed her. She fell into the kiss too, needing some kind of touch from a man, even if it were Jacob who at times she was repulsed by.

The light of the afternoon mixed with the low orange tone of the lamp. They seemed to be sitting in a sunset although that hour had not reached. He moved her over to a leather sofa and sat her down. 

She never said a word, her eyes glazed over mentally preparing for her wifely duty. 

He kneeled and lifted her dress up. In minutes she would be in moments of extasy and pleasure, even if it were the last thing she wanted from him. He moved up, his lips slick. She moved the skirts of her dress up over her waste and he unbuttoned his trousers but never lowered them past his own waste, his body lay pressure on her as they connected with the first thrust.

This was a transaction ... one between two people who were in a relationship like a business, power and convenience rather than true passion and affection. This was the connection of two people during a transaction - and this is how they wanted it.

****

Chaos unleashed at the hospital 

Back at the hospital a panicked Rebecca could see through the windows down the corridor that the sun was setting. The golden hour had arrived bathing the hospital in an ominous golden hue. She calmly walked slowly down the hallway with what felt like blinders on, yet her heart beat in her chest like the drum of war. 

Thud. Thud. Thud. It pounded. She reached for her chest, as if her heart were about to leap from behind her ribcage and into her hand. She went into a secret pocket of her dress... and removed the glass vial of empty nightshade extract; a vial she'd take with her. 

Then, as if in slow motion, as if time was literally creeping to a halt: Chaos.

Several of Danielle's patients began to fall into a deep sleep, almost in unison. Nurses slapped their faces, waking them for a second, but only for a groggy few seconds. There were six patients on that floor, all Danielle's who were unable to speak, move and fell into their nightshade laced sleep.

Rebecca could tell they were alive as she passed each of the rooms. A sense of relief washed over her.

Then she walked into Ahsa's room to tell her what she had done. To Rebecca's shock, the room was filled. Two nurses, Doctor Ward and Danielle who'd come back in to check on Asha, her patient and romantic rival. Danielle was up against the wall with her hand covering her mouth. Tears were pouring from her eyes.

Rebecca stood at the hospital room door, white as a ghost as the other nurses and Dr. Ward stepped away from Asha's bed. There she was, Dr. Asha Hoffman, just hours away from being released from the hospital after so many months recuperating from a terrible accident in a fire: Dead.

Asha was given the medication that was laced with too much of the nightshade. 

Rebecca gasped realizing which of Danielle's patients received the accidental overdose. She slowly backed away, but not before she met the gaze of the devastated Dr. Peter Ward.

Rebecca began to cry, she had never intended anyone to die, much less Asha, her coconspirator. Fearing what was coming next, she quickly dashed to the elevators to leave the hospital. The doors opened and still in slow motion, Dr Nikolas Jordan arrived. 

Rebecca and Nik slowly passed each other, their eyes met,  he then dashed to the commotion at Asha's bedside.

The elevator doors slid closed on Rebecca's face leaving her alone in the elevator with her guilt. She pulled the empty vile out of her pocket and looked at it. She knew she had to get rid of it, but not just anywhere.

Then, the elevator doors opened on the second floor. A woman came in and smiled. Rebecca looked out of the elevator's and into the hall in front of her and an idea popped into her mind. She leaped out of the elevator and dashed down the hall out of sight. 

She had just murdered a woman and was now going to make sure no one ever pinned the crime on her.

B9/Ch5: A FLASH IN HER EYE

A frantic moment at Welshport Hope

A night of strange occurrences was not new to the village of Welshport. There had always been a shapely shadow that lurked in a dark alleyway, a gauzy ghost-ship lost at sea that suddenly appeared out in the bay floating into the moon light. Mysterious footsteps and whispers that belonged to no connected body to this earth and yes— violent attacks that shook the village social structure.

This was the story on this very night at Welshport Hope Hospital after a violent attack on the streets of the village. 

Cora Taylor rushed there to find her adopted brother bruised, battered and broken from an assault in the foggy mists of the night. 

Baxter's face was swollen, his bottom lips split like a watermelon crushed by an iron mallet. Dr. Ward noted his cracked ribs and left orbital bone. 

"Why would anyone do this to him?" She asked, not realizing the irony and Baxter's infamous stature in town. 

"Someone quite deranged, I'd say Miss Taylor." Dr. Ward replied, as Lear and Lucas arrived for support.

"What happened?" Lear questioned in a frantic tone, worried about his one-time love.

"I'll let you explain, if that's alright Miss Taylor, I have a few patients to check, but I'll be back in a few." 

Cora smiled and thanked the chief of staff and turned back to her biological brother Lear and grabbed his hand. "Thank you for coming." She whispered as they went over to sit. "Baxter was attacked tonight, and they really hurt him. He's.... he's in rough shape." 

"Did he say who did this?" Lucas asked, Cora shook her head no.

"This is awful. I mean Baxter is pretty popular in town I can't imagine who'd want to hurt him." Lear replied.

"Popular?" Lucas replied with a glint of surprise. "I don't want to sound..." he paused searching for the word in English, "insensível" he said in his native Portuguese. "Insensitive," he continued, "but he might have more enemies that you realize." 

"Well you're not wrong," Cora answered. "but he's still my brother. No one deserves the kind of physical abuse he's suffered." 

As the trio discussed Baxter's attack outside his hospital room, Welshport's new Constable Justin Ryan, questioned Baxter who answered as best he could with a fat lip and a headache that pounded with every beat of his pulse. 

"And you said that the person came from behind you, and when you turned you didn't see their face?" Justin asked.

"It was too fast." Baxter answered. "Just too fast. Too dark." 

"Could you tell what they were wearing?" Justin continued, bur Baxter shook his head no. "Anything distinct about a face? Or a nose? Anything?" 

Baxter shook his head but replied "Taller. Taller than me, slightly." 

Justin nodded as he wrote basically nothing down on his pad as the other's entered the hospital room. Baxter smiled, as best he could with his stitched up face, and Cora rushed to his side. Her flowing dress crumbled up like a ball of paper as she quickly reached for the seat and her adopted brother's hand.

"I'm so sorry, Bax, I wish I could make it all better. You didn't deserve this, no matter what anyone says." She told him. Baxter smiled, again as best he could, and patted her hand.

"I'll see what I can do with what we have, but Mr. Murphy, if you recall anything else, even the slightest bit of information, please let me know." Justin replied.

"Bite." Baxter suddenly recalled, "I bite him. His hand. I bit him." 

"You bit him! Ok! This is good. At least we know that, which hand?" Justin asked, quickly writing it down. 

"Left." 

"Ok. That's a start." 

"Thank you, Constable...???" Lear replied, fishing for his last name. 

"Ryan."

"Like Father Ryan?" Lucas asked connecting the last name to Welshport's parish priest. 

Justin smiled "My big brother, yes. He finally found a way to get me to move to town. An open position and a brother who desperately needed to work -- I'm very lucky. Anyway, please, if there's anything else you recall, give me a call." Justin said, as he excused himself from the room. 

"We should maybe let Baxter rest." Lear said as the Constable left the room.

Cora nodded and kissed Baxter on the side of his check, Baxter winced with pain as even the slightest touch made his battered body ached. 

Outside Lear's expression turned even more serious. His mind saddened by what happened to Baxter but at the same time concerned with another much more pressing issue: Cora's possession of her adoption papers, papers she was not allowed to have.

"Coraline, listen, I know this is probably a terrible time to do this but Lucas has told me about what the two of you did. The matter of your adoption, I know is important because of its illegal nature and I didn't help matters by hiding the truth from you, but those forms, those papers, everything that you took from the office, I need returned. Eden Syndney, the D.A., will have my head if he knew they're gone." 

Lucas looked at his feet, embarrassed about it all, it had been his idea after all to break into Lear's office and take the forms so that Cora could find out what happened in her illegal adoption. Lucky for him, and or Lear, Cora had read through everything and had gotten what she needed.

"Of course, of course, we made a mistake." She said. "I'll bring them over to you tomorrow morning. You won't have to worry." 

"Did you at least find anything that could help?" Lucas asked. "Any answer to a question?" 

Cora nodded. "I did." 

"Oh?" Lucas wondered. 

"Well, I mean not more than the name Ridgway as the person who signed off with Henry Lockwood. That's really as far as I've gotten, and it's actually a very good lead. As soon as Bax is better, I'll do what I can do look this person up." She answered.

"How?" Lear wondered.

Cora smirked, she knew she couldn't give away her own secrets, she'd been working as a liaison for Jacob Lord for a short time, and with everything at his disposal she knew at some point she could pull his resources. Jacob's influence and power stretched far and wide -- for the right price, Jacob would do anything. 

"I have my ways. Ridgeway, will not get away with this." She said.

Dr. Ward walking back to the group suddenly heard his wife Laurel's maiden name, and stopped.

"Ridgeway? Laurel?" He asked them.

They turned to him and did not answer just stared. 

"What did you say?" Lucas asked.

"Ridgeway." Dr. Ward replied. "You said Ridgeway, that's my wife Laurel's maiden name. Did I mishear?" 

Before Lucas could reply No, Coraline chimed in "YES! Yes, Dr. Ward, yes, I said right away, I wanted to get back into Baxter's room right away." 

"Of course, let's see how he's doing." Dr. Ward said, escorting her in, but not before Coraline shot Lucas and Lear a look of disbelief. 

The two men looked at each other with the same look, and wondered, was Dr. Peter Ward's wife behind the black-market baby stealing all those years ago?

****

Celeste meets with Dr. Julian Pascal

The next day, a sunny morning burned off the sea fog allowing seagulls to find their way back to land. They screeched and squawked over large fishing trawlers heading out to the open sea passing Welshport Island as both creature and machine floated off into the distance.

Over the cliffside and across green cattle pastures, Welshport Hope Hospital glowed in the light of day. The garden area between the main hospital and Churchill Green asylum felt bright and busy with patients and their nurses getting fresh air. 

 
One such patient was Johnathon DeViana who'd been walking arm in arm with his estranged with Jacqueline who'd magically shape-shifted into a nurse calling herself Isabela. The two were awaiting the arrival of Johnathon's sister Celeste and her son Fabian for a visit. 

"She's late." He said to Isabela.

"She'll be here, just relax. It's not exactly a hop skip and a jump from Tirymor you know. She said she'd bring your nephew. She's probably had to prepare him for what he'd see when he got here." Isabela said.

"Jacq--" Johnathon before remembering to call Jacqueline by her fake name while she masquerading in her magic shapeshifted body, "I mean Isabela, you know that I'm not insane. My sister knows this too. Why am I still here? In this place? Why can't I just go home. You said. Dr. Pascal was getting these ready for me to leave." 

"I can't answer that, Johnny. We just have to wait for what he tells Celeste today. She's been designated as your conservator until you're released. It's up to her." She replied. 

Inside an office in Churchill Green, Celeste sat stoically in a glamorous dress and hat next to her fidgety five-year-old son Fabian. Dr. Julian Pascal, the new head of psychiatry at Hope Hospital was still setting into his office. Several boxes has yet to be unpacked from their trip across the county from San Francisco. 

He was a man in his late 30s, with a thick head of lush brown hair and a mustache that tickled the bridge of his nose when he said certain words that pushed his lips up. Celeste noticed his boyish side smile when they talked of pleasantries, he was slightly younger than her, but very much attracted her eye. She felt herself constantly worrying about her appearance in front of him, but those silly side effects to the new doctor's beauty quickly faded when the conversation of Johnathon began.

"I appreciate your meeting with me first, Mrs. Lord, and I won't keep you. I know Johnaton is waiting for you in the plaza. But I did want to give you a quick update on him before you had a chance to spend some time with him." Julian said, flipping open Johnathon's file.

"Of course, doctor, I appreciate you too... taking the time I mean, to sit with us." Celeste replied reaching for Fabian to keep himself seated.

"Johnathon is on a medication, as you know, that is helping him manage his emotions more clearly. These medications refocus his mind, in a sense, and by doing that he's able to make better judgements, understand situations better and keep his mind clear of anything that perhaps might cloud that judgement. In my few sessions with him I've noticed how wonderful he's come along."

"That's wonderful! Isn't that wonderful, Fabian, Uncle Johnny is doing really well, you see! I told you so." Celeste said to her son, trying again to keep him relaxed in the very boring office setting.

"Yes, indeed. I think that he'll be ready to be discharged very soon. Will he be staying with you and your husband?"

"That's wonderful news, yes he will be spending time with us at Tirymor. I think it's not a permanent situation, however. I think his nervous breakdown is too rooted there. We may have a better place for him, but we're making sure it'll be suited for his return before that. Its an apartment in the village, an apartment near my husband's office. It's a place Jacob had set up long ago for long nights at the office. He'd stay there instead of coming home." Celeste explained.

"Very good. I'm sure it'll be perfect. Now, the subject of his estranged wife has come up often, has anyone in the family spoken to Jacqueline since she disappeared?" the doctor questioned.

"No, not since she vanished from Tirymor the night the mob arrived. After her miscarriage I think she should have stayed too, maybe she could have found some help here herself. But, Jacqueline, well she's of another world." Celeste replied.

"Oh? What do you mean?" Julian wondered.

Celeste wasn't sure exactly; she didn't know how to explain it herself in a way that wouldn't make her too sound like she needed help from a psychiatrist. The truth was Celeste had never trusted, nor understood Jacqueline's appeal to Johnathon. Nothing had ever made sense regarding their relationship. The truth was, Jacqueline's bewitchment of him with a love curse held, and held tightly to his heart. Nothing had broken it. Not her love for Sebastian, not insanity, not a wild angry mob destroying parts of Tirymor house, not a miscarriage caused by a stabbing. Nothing. 

But Celeste only shrugged it off to Dr. Julian Pascal as a love affair that puzzled her. 

"I guess every family has them. I for one shouldn't judge. My own marriage was a source of shock for many." She confessed. 

Julian smiled politely as his eyes shifted over to the little boy sitting in front of him, the product of the very marriage she spoke up. Celeste cleared her throat realizing the awkward moment and excused herself. 

"Please, Mrs. Lord, I wish you all the best, and to you too young Fabian. I hope you enjoy your visit with Uncle Johnny." 

Julian then came around his desk, his body perfectly formed in his brown suit, the shapes of his arms strong in the sleeves, his legs thick and like tree trunks made Celeste take a second look. His eyes twinkled as he reached for her hand and kissed it softly.

"Good day doctor." She said softly.

As they left the office, Fabian spouted out "FINALLY!" and ran down the corridor. His steps echoing all the way until he reached the door at the end that lead to the courtyard. Celeste removed a handkerchief from a pouch at her side and dabbed her neck. She looked back at the office door and Julian was leaving to make rounds at the hospital. 

He winked and waved. She gulped and waved back at the handsome new doctor. 

**

Hospital Courtyard 

Outside, under a canopy of birch and beech trees, Johnathon happily hugged his growing nephew tightly. The uncle couldn't believe how much taller the young boy had gotten in the few months of his time in the hospital. 

As Celeste caught up, Isabela made her way back towards the hospital. 

The two women crosses each other's paths and made eye contact.

Celeste stopped in her tracks and watched as the nurse, who almost seemed to float back into Churchill Green with such grace and ease. Celeste clinched her jaw. She seemed familiar, about the woman, yet she had never seen her before this day.

"Are you just going to stand there!?" A voice called from the canopy. Celeste turned back, her younger brother waited with open arms for her hug. 

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry I’m late. I've missed you." Celeste said, entering into Johnathon's hug.

"Alright. Go, on, tell me." He said sitting with her on a bench. "When can I leave? I feel much, much more sorted. I really do. I've been here long enough." 

"I think your doctor just wants a bit more time, not too much, and then you'll be discharged. Really Johnny its for your own good." Celeste recalled.

Fabian huffed and chimed in.

"But he wants to come home so we can play in the hedge maze!" 

"The hedge maze?" Celeste laughed, the very specific choice of playground surprised her. "There are many more and better places to take Uncle Johnny, aren't there?" 

"NO!" Fabian shouted playfully.

"NO!" Johnathon shouted back just as playfully. "A big scary monster lives there, doesn't he Fabian? Us two DeViana men need to find him, take him down, and drag him back to where he belongs!" Johnathon continued playfully. 

Celeste smiled, but behind her calmness she realized just how true some of their play was. The dangers that always seemed to find the men in her life, big scary monsters and other shadowy figures that could never stay away for long. 

Those things weren't so hidden at Tirymor and often times wasn't such a far-off fantasies of a boy like Fabian. Sometimes, those pretend monsters escaped their hedge maze prison and became real. And considering Johnathon's many run-ins with them, she worried. She wanted Johnathon far, far away from anything that would trigger his fragile mental health. Her mind suddenly changed on him returning with her for a short time.

"We'll have to save that for another time." Celeste said, surprise both her brother and her son.

"What? What do you mean?" Johnathon asked turning from his play with Fabian. 

"Like I said honey, you'll have to stay a bit longer and when Dr. Pascal sees fit, you'll be released but, perhaps not Tirymor as we planned." 

"Why not? It's my home too. I'm just as much a lord as Jacob is. Just as much as Fabian is." Johnathon recalled, refreshing her memory of his own paternal connection, Albert Lord. 

She grabbed his hand and held it in her lap. "You'll have to trust me on this. Ok? Just trust me on this." 

Johnathon yanked his hand from hers and stood up. He stared down at her still sitting on the bench, she slowly lifted her head, one eye slightly visible from under her tilted hat. 

"You lied to me." He said.

"You've been telling me all this time that once the new psychiatrist came, he'd assess me and release me back to Tirymor. Celeste, I belong there, do you understand me, I BELONG THERE!" He shouted. 

His voice startled a few of the more uneasy patients in the courtyard. Celeste nervously noticed this as two orderlies made notice too. They slowly made their way over. 

Fabian froze.

"YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE LIED TO ME!" Johnathon shouted.

"Johnny keep your voice down." Celeste answered, her voice soft and calming.

"Everything alright?" one of the two orderlies asked.

"Fine." She said.

"NO! Not fine. I want to speak with Dr. Pascal. I want to see him now, take me to him." Johnathon ordered.

"Uh, well, ok." The orderly replied, grabbing patient DeViana by the forearm and leading him back into the hospital.

Fabian whimpered like a hurt puppy; he walked over to his mother and sat on the bench next to her. He grabbed her hand, the same one Johnathon tossed aside in anger at her. "Why did he get so angry?" the child asked.

Celeste took a breath and shook her head. "Uncle Johnny is fighting a big scary monster." She wasn't sure how else to explain Johnathon's mental breakdown. The thing that brought him to this hospital in the first place. The scars of tragedy after tragedy, mind distortion after mind distortion. The monster, she wanted the boy to know was actually a thing, but he questioned her further as only a child could.

"Like the one in the hedge maze?" He asked.

Celeste shook her head, a single tear rolled down her cheek "No, baby." She replied comfortingly "In his mind."

**

Dr. Pascal & the shape-shifted Jacqueline into Isabel

Back inside the hospital, Jacqueline, still posing as nurse Isabel, was summoned to Dr. Pascal's office. She worried, as she held the doorknob, that something she had done while with Johnathon had set off an alarm with the new head of psychiatry. Perhaps she'd stayed too long in Johnathon's room. Perhaps she'd been seen holding his hand out in the garden. Perhaps Jacqueline's Isabela had made a stupid mistake.

"Doctor?" Isabela said, her voice clear and soft. "You asked to see me?"

"Yes, nurse --- what was it?" Julian asked as he stood up to shake her hand.

"Isabela." She said. 

"Your last name Isabela?" He asked, she hadn't thought of one, she searched her mind and in a split second replied "Prince" from her shapeshifted lips. 

"Isabela Prince." Dr. Pascal mentally confirmed. "There's no record of you here. I've gone over every personnel record and haven't found a single leaf of paper that has you on it."

Isabela feigned shock "Is that so? That is very odd, doctor." She replied stepping closer and closer to him standing behind his desk.

When Jacqueline first began sneaking into Churchill Green as Issa, she cleverly bewitched the entire staff to believing they knew her and had been working with her all this time. It was simple, really, a quick flash of her eyes and anyone who looked into them was quickly taken in and never asked a single question again.

No paper trail.

This was, of course, pre-Dr. Pascal's arrival and her smart little spell stared yet one more victim in the face. 

"I've been here. All. Along." She said slowly. Her words floating into the air like slow oozing molasses. "Did. You. Hear me?" She asked again slowly. 

Her eyes flashed a red spark, like a match hitting its red strip igniter. Her fell into her gaze and tilted his head wondering what that feeling in his mind was. He felt as if something was digging into his brain, a psychic mole burrowing deeper and deeper into his mind and suddenly her eyes struck that spark again.

He straightened his head, eyes wide in a flicker of motion that was fast and sharp.

"Of course!!" He said out of nowhere. Here we are! Your employee forms and identification information. Issa Ruis. Right here, in front of me." Dr. Pascal said, holding up a blank sheet of paper.

"There it is." Jacqueline, as Isabela replied, her smile like a Cheshire cat. "I guess I can now go back to my duty?" She asked.

"Please do.' He replied.

As she turned and went for the door, a sudden second surprise reply from the new head of psychiatry 

"And be sure to keep your time with Mr. DeViana is -- let's say -- professional? Yes?" 

She turned back to the doctor, his eyes, still in the haze of her flashing bewitchment but nothing could take away the fact he had indeed thought she'd been spending too much time with Johnathon. Perhaps that is why he looked for her employment paperwork.

She'd been sloppy with her attention to her estranged husband. She'd learned a lesson, Jacqueline had had enough of faulting in her schemes, this would be the last one.

"Yes sir." She said obediently and left.

Out of the office now, Johnathon came in with the orderlies ranting and raving. Their eyes met as he was dragged though the corridors and up a large white marble staircase that would eventually lead to his room. He wanted to see her again, but Jacqueline knew better. She wouldn't see Johnathon as herself or as nurse Isabela for a few days. She needed to keep her distance. 

Their secret rekindling had to wait.  

****

Nik & Danielle in the hospital lobby 

Over at the main hospital, a busy lobby kept nurses and attending doctors on their toes. People were getting back to their normal state of life so quickly after the bewildering times of the witch trials and Mayor Timothy's untimely death. More appointments to see doctors were being made; everything from indigestion and cold and flu to much more troubling illnesses that were difficult to treat in such a rural hospital. 

Dr. Nikolas Jordan stood in one of the corners of the lobby looking over Baxter Murphy's chart. The man had come in overnight battered broken from a sudden attack on the street. It wasn't so strange to hear that a person might have been fed up with Baxter's fixation on the more salacious headlines in town to the point if attacking him, but Nik felt a sinking feeling that it this attack was just the tip of the iceberg.

As he read over the papers, the woman he'd fallen in love with in (what he thought was) secret came over to him. 

She cheekily tapped the top of the folder he was reading with a pencil. His big hazel eyes lifted to see Nurse Danielle Holten standing there with a twinkle in her eye. 

"Hi." She said softly.

"Hi." He replied, just as softly, like a shy schoolboy meeting his crush in the halls. "I've missed you." He added.

Her low lip made a pretend pout and tapped him on the cheek, knowing she had to be as discrete as possible with their physical connection as no one yet knew about their love and he was still attempting to get Asha to tell him what had happened to the child Asha took from Aurora. 

This was only achieved by still pretending he was in love with her, although, the cat was out of the bag. Asha knew he was having an affair with Danielle thanks to Rebecca's meddling. 

"What has you attention today doctor?" Danielle asked.

"Oh!" Nik said, shaking his head as if to drag himself out of a fantasy and back into work. "I was reading over Murphy's chart. He came in last night after some sort of fight or attack. We're not really sure. Well Baxter's sure, he said he was attacked, but you know how he is. Truth sometimes slips away from his reality." 

"You don't think he was really attacked?" Danielle wondered.

Nik shrugged, "Maybe. He's been in fights before, fights he started himself. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, no one else came in with any injuries so it does seem like an ambush." 

He showed Danielle the papers. She looked them over shocked at just how bad his injuries were, the noted the small, printed reference to what he told the new constable about his attacker. 

"Look." Danielle said, standing closer to Nik as she pointed to the words.

"He bit the person." Nik answered with both eyebrows up. "Well, that's definitely a good way to find out how did this." 

As the two stood practically shoulder to shoulder, Rebecca Lord-Casador entered the hospital. Her eyes quickly scanned the lobby spotting the two new lovers. Her heart felt as if it skipped a beat. Seeing Danielle there, happy as a calm, a new love in her life meanwhile her own was in shambles felt like a forest fire in her body that was out of control. 

Danielle was a physical symbol, the actual embodiment - flesh and blood - of who her now estranged husband once was: Viktor Holten. Viktor was a man who was not in love with Rebecca. He wasn't even in Rebecca's orbit before he met her with his possessed identity of Caspian. Even though Celeste was the person who exposed the Caspian to the truth of who he really was, Danielle felt more of a threat to Rebecca and her happiness with Caspian.

If Danielle remained near to him, he would always choose his past over his present. 

Rebecca could not stand this and saw Nik and Danielle as practically flaunting their secret love in her face. 

Rebecca turned her head to the side and quickly made her way in through the busy lobby, zig zagging through patients, visitors and staff and made her way to the golden elevator doors and quickly made her way to Asha Hoffman's hospital room.

Asha Hoffman -- a key player in Rebecca next big plan. 

**

Rebecca & Asha discuss their plan 

Rebecca quickly made her way passed a small nurses' station on the fourth floor of the hospital where Asha's room was. She darted passed a group of orderlies speaking with Dr. Peter Ward, her face turned away from the group hoping not to be noticed. 

It worked. 

Rebecca entered Asha's opened door room in a flurry of black and eggplant satin and closed the door behind her, not noticing Asha was standing at dresser packing a small bag with her things. 

"Mrs. Casador! What are you doing?" Asha said, somewhat startled at Rebecca's chaotic entry into her room.

"I was hoping not to be detected." Rebecca grinned. "Dr. Hoffman, what are you doing? Are you changing rooms?" She added, noting the packing.

"No! Dr. Ward said I could go home. He thinks I could better recuperate in my own surroundings." Asha replied. 

"But that's not what we talked about." Rebecca said, her face suddenly frozen in worry. "We agreed that you'd continue to pretend you had no memory of the night of the fire at the police station and we'd work together to remove our common enemy: Danielle."

Asha's stomach turned hearing the word enemy. "About that." the doctor said. "I'm rethinking our plan. Nikolas and I have a connection, whatever his feelings for Danielle are, are mostly because I've been trapped here for so long. Being in a coma for all that time, well I can see why he’d stray. Once I'm back in his world full time and back at work that'll change." 

Rebecca's hard expressions suddenly softened to pity. She could sense Asha's strong love for Nik Jordan like it was the scent of thick perfume in the air, hugging every inch of the room in its wild linger. But these were feelings that were brought by innocent puppy love, Rebecca thought, a naiveté that would only bring more heartache. And most of all it was not Rebecca's plan to give up.

"Don’t be naive, dear.” Rebecca said with an acidic bite. “Danielle has sunk her hooks into the man you love, and she's behind my issues with my husband. It's true, she wasn't alone in revealing his true identity to him, my daughter-in-law has as much to do with it as Danielle, but at the crux of this entire situation is that nurse. We had a deal. Together we could rid ourselves of the person whose come into our lives and uprooted both our relationships." Rebecca reminded. “Danielle must go.”

"I just think we're being too drastic." Asha replied, her voice softer and weaker in tone.

"Not at all, it needs to be done." 

Asha sat back down on her bed. She wasn't sure what to do next. She loved Nik with all her heart and felt that in part Rebecca might have a point. He was already slipping from Asha's grasp with Danielle. The question was, could she really -- in her heart of hearts -- do something that would make Danielle truly vanish from Nik's heart. 

Rebecca' saw the wheels turning in Asha's mind. She continued to push "The longer we wait, the quicker he moves on from her. It's only a matter of time." 

"Well, what do you have in mind?" Asha suddenly asked, as if to hear Lord matriarch out and then decide. 

Rebecca grinned and sat down on the hospital bed next to Asha. 

"So far all we know about this girl is that she's a nurse. Here at the hospital is where Dr. Jordan is around her the most, here at the hospital is where she encountered my husband when he was injured. So -- we illuminate her from the hospital. Have her removed."  Rebecca explained.

"Removed?" 

"Terminated." Rebecca added.

"How?"

Rebecca thought for a second. Her mind drifted off into memory of things she thought she'd left behind many, many years ago. 

*WINDCLIFF SANITARIUM, COLLINSPORT, MAINE 1870*

A young Rebecca & ill Albert at Windcliff 

A 31-year-old Rebecca sat in the hospital room of her husband Albert Lord. He had been admitted months earlier. His mind slipping faster and deeper into a psychosis no one could explain. Not a doctor, not a priest, not even Rebecca's very first spiritual guide could find the answers to Albert's mental faltering.

Rebecca, stood up from her cozy chair, her face plump and youthful. She walked over and placed Albert's hand in hers as his eyes slowly opened. 

"Becca." He whispered.

"Shh. Just rest. You've been awake for days." She answered.

"Where are the boys?" He asked, of ten-year-old Jacob and 8-year-old David.

"They're home. They're ok." She answered.

"Did I hurt them?" He asked, remembering the awful moment that changed their family forever. 

Rebecca nodded. "Shh." 

"Why did I do that? Why would you let me do that?" He asked, his body tensing again as the thought of his crime slowly slipped back into his mind. 

"Albert, stop, don't think of what happened just focus on rest." She replied.

"I can't! I keep seeing his little face. I keep seeing his eyes, his beautiful eyes opening underwater and .... and my hands around his neck holding him there." Albert confessed.

"Darling, you must not go back into that, you're ill. We all know you're ill. What you did to Jacob was... was illness." Rebecca explained.

The truth of the matter was indeed that Albert was ill. A shocking, terrifying illness of madness that fell over him like a dark ocean wave that swallowed his mind whole. In his psychosis, he attempted to drown his 10-year-old son Jacob in the sea, in a swirling feverish fight. No one could understand where this stemmed from, no one could put into words the horror of Albert's mind frame. But the boy was saved in the nick of time by the screams of Rebecca and little David upon finding the violent scene on the beach.

Back in the hospital room Albert's memory of what he had done, crept back into his mind. The power of the moment forced him into a wild seizure. He was frothing at the mouth, angry, yanking his hand out of Rebecca's. She screamed and fell back into the chair watching her husband writhe in the bed like she had never seen before. 

"NURSE!!! NURSE!!" Rebecca screamed. 

A nurse, in pure white, came quickly and gasped. She called for another nurse to bring the tincture of nightshade to help ease Albert's madness and body.

"QUICKLY! QUICKLY!" The first nurse instructed.

The second nurse, int the exact same uniform, entered in a blaze of pure white. She quickly administered the tincture of liquid into Albert's mouth, wiping away the small river of escaped liquid that dribbled out of his mouth.

"What is that? What are giving him?" Rebecca frantically questioned.

"Nightshade." The second nurse said, half haphazardly. 

"WHAT!!!" 

"No, no, it's not what you think. Its a diluted substance that will help him rest. It's not just the plant. He'll relax and become calm again." the first nurse explained.

"Won't it hurt him? Nightshade is poisious." Rebecca questioned, as the man she loved slipped from her more and more into his psychosis.

"No, the potency is at a low level, not anywhere near the point of poisoning. Its just enough to relax him."

"It's just enough." Rebecca whispered to herself as it to reassure her once more. But Albert, no matter which way she the story was told, was never the same again.

*PRESENT DAY*

"It's just enough." Rebecca said, her face now back to her current age of 77.

"What is?" Ashe asked. 

"The first thing we need to do, the most important, is to take her from this place. Then, everything else will fall into place." 

Asha took a breath and wondered what Rebecca could have meant.

"I just don't know how." 

"You leave that to me, just tell me where I can find the nurses' medication preparation room." Rebecca answered.

Asha thought for another quick second. The temptation of removing her romantic rival was as potent as anything in that medication room. It was real, it was in front of her ready for her to grasp and take control of and Rebecca would be the one to do all the dirty work. It was just one simple set of directions to the end of the hall, turn left, go down that hall and the room where all the nurses on that floor prepped medications, tonics, elixirs and found clean instruments would be found. 

All Asha had to do was send Rebecca there and that was it, the love-troubled doctor though, what Rebecca did was Rebecca's doing not Asha's. 

"Don't hurt anyone." Asha said. 

"No one will be hurt, I promise, just -- a little sleepier than normal." The Lord matriarch explained.

With those very ominous words, Asha gave Rebecca the directions to the room and off she went to take her next step in the plan to rid them both of Danielle's growing influence over the men they loved once and for all.