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| Sabrina on the beach |
Night fall. Waves crashed on upon the cliff-side of the edge of Welshport Island like constant explosions bashing into the rocky shore. Above the rocky coastline were the Westridge Woods that had a deep and thick canopy of Oak, Birch and Beech trees that floated on the little island that resembled a shard of green emerald stone in Frenchman Bay.
In the gloom of the moon just beyond the Westridge Woods was Saint Thomas' cemetery. A large plot of land covered in ancient tombstones and graves. Etched on them the names of the island's ancestors; the first settlers from Wales, the native people who also once lived there and of course the modern day citizens who lived and died ok their beloved island village world.
Standing on a dying green patch of grass of the cemetery, the hem of her dress soaked in the wetness from the soupy ocean air and fresh drops of dew stood Mary Goode; shovel in hand. A wheelbarrow at her side staring down at the freshly covered grave of Sebastian Lord.
Through the dark brown dirt and mud, buried under heavy loads of soil in a beautiful casket lined with the finest and softest velvet, Sebastian's body lay in death and darkness.
His face, a perfect pale white. His eyes closed and slumbering. His hands clasped perfectly together over his stomach and his fingers tangled in the string of a golden rosary beads.
Then a finger, his right forefinger, twitched, paused, then twitched again.
****
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| Sabrina appears to Sebastian |
The clouds seemed to float all around. There was no horizon in this place. There was no up . There as no down. There was so structure formed to make a building or any kind of distance to tell where one stood. It was a void filled with brightness and smoke, or clouds, and a bright breeze that chilled the skin but yet the sun that came though quickly made it warm again, yet the sun was beyond, invisible, unseen--yet seen.
Sebastian was in this place. He was breathing but he couldn't feel anything. Not sadness. Not Anger. Not happiness. Not any feeling.
Then, in what seemed like the distance in this two-dimensional world, a shadow of a woman became clear. Her body was walking towards him, her hair flowing in the meandering breeze from no where. Closer and closer she got and Sebastian, still dressed in the suit he was buried in, nervously backed away from the on coming woman.
"Sebastian." Her voice said, he recognized it, and replied in his mind, not out loud: "Mother?"
"Sebastian." the voice said again finally revealing as indeed coming from the beautiful ethereal spirit of Sabrina Lord, Sebastian's dead mother.
"Where am I?" He asked out loud.
"You've come to the end of where life sends you, but the beginning of a world eternal. My Darling this is eternal life. Death. Heaven." She replied as she touched his face. He could feel her touch.
"I died. I was shot and I died,” he recalled “...Ive missed you so much. I can't believe I'm seeing you again. This...this cannot be real. I'm dreaming. I must be back at Tirymôr. I must be there and dreaming or hallucinating. Please tell me that its all a dream." Sebastian begged as he reached to grab his mother's hands, but her hands became transparent and he could not touch her.
"I wish I could tell you that but its not what you think my love. You did die, Mary Goode ...she did kill you on the day of your wedding. I am so very sorry for that to have happened to you. I wish I could have stopped it. I wish a lot of things were different. But I made sure that you'd come back, you'll be back home soon. I promise!" Sabrina said.
"I don't understand. If I did died, how am I going back?" He asked.
"Its the reason you have yet to feel the truth grasp of what it is to be a spirit. Its the reason you cannot feel anything around you, you see you are not of this world and have yet to fully leave the last world. Through Mary, I've asked ..." Sabrina paused before she finished her sentence, carfuly choosing her words..."A friend... to help you. They're doing it now as I speak. Very shortly Sebastian, you'll be back in the world of the living, so I have to explain everything. I don't have a lot of time." She said.
"Explain what?" Sebastian asked.
Sabrina stepped forward and smiled. She knew what she was about to do would change Sebastian forever, and when he returned to the living he would know more than anyone could ever have hoped for when solving the mystery of her own death. As she looked up at her handsome son she touched his face again. He closed his eyes and felt a wave of light come over him.
When he opened his eyes, he and Sabrina were on a blustery beach, he was still dressed in the suit he was buried in and she in a white flowery gown, a similar dress to what he remembered her buried in. The waves were wild and crashing alt their feet. The wind pulled at their clothes and hair like an invisible child teasing.
"What are we doing here?" Sebastian asked, speaking loudly over the waves. Sabrina did not speak, she only pointed.
Sebastian turned and saw two people coming their way. A woman running and a man right after her. It was Jacob Lord chasing his mother Sabrina on the day she was killed.
"SABRINA!!!!!!" Jacob screamed from behind and Sabrina ran as fast as she could to the shore from the sandy dunes just beyond the path that lead up to the Westernridge Woods. As she ran, Jacob trailed, but not by far. The sand flung into the air from both of their feed. Their hearts pounding, her hair waving black and brown strands thick and curly. He could almost smell the perfume that was coming off her hair that stuck to the wind.
Her speed soon slowed as she came closer to the water. She had lost her shoes in the sand for what felt like miles behind her. Her white dress flailed in the wind of her speed like a flag flying in a storm. Then, try as she might, her own escape from Jacob failed her as soon stepped and fell into the sand face first. She got up quickly but realized soon that she trapped herself between him and the wild Atlantic.
Her fall gave Jacob a split second to gain on her. He made a lunge and grabbed at her arm, but she tangled him in her skirt and was able to stay him off.
"You don't understand, you don't understand. I only wanted to love you! What you overheard was a mistake, damn it, STOP right now!” Jacob yelled.
Sabrina kept running on sand. She was disgusted over the confession she had accidentally heard Jacob tell his co-conspirator Gaspar: he was desperately in love with his sister-in-law Sabrina & wanted his brother David & nephew Sebastian dead. In that room, where she overheard this, Sabrina could only vomit then run for her life when she was discovered.
Jacob had always flirted with her. Innocently she thought until the flirtations became more and more frequent and inappropriate. He had become a “pig”, in her words, when he was alone with her. Vial innuendos, unwanted pats on the behind, but the sick plot of murder and then take her like she was some sort of consolation prize was beyond vulgar to Sabrina.
“Sabrina! Stop!” He yelled again. “What you heard back there, you don’t understand!!" Jacob said of the reason for her running from Tirymôr House.
"You're disgusting!! I want nothing to do with you or your lies!!" She shouted over the crashing waves. "
"You're making a mistake, what you heard at the house, you're making a big mistake! I didnt mean what I said about David and Sebastian!" Jacob repeated, lying.
"I heard every word well and clear, you bastard! You will never ever get away with this. I promise you, as soon as you turn your back I will tell your mother you've been plotting to have David and Sebastian killed and marry me to become the sole heir to your mother and father's fortune. As if I would EVER marry you! You repulse me!” She screamed. “David and my son are my whole life; my husband! MY CHILD!!!”
“I can give you so much more. We don’t have to kill them. We can send them away.” Jacob then said admitting to his plot. “I can have them sent to the asylum, or sent to… anywhere! But let me the man for you! Be mine, Sabrina! Be mine!” He shouted over the waves crashing.
“You're a disgusting monster! You and that liar, that Gaspar, YOU'R MURDERERS! You’re lias! I could never love you!” She screamed back at him as she made a jump to run back towards Tirymôr House to tell Rebecca and David everything.
"No! NO!!!" Jacob said as he lunged for Sabrina and tackled her there on the shore. She gasped for air as his heavy body pushed her deep into the wet sand. She slapped him across the face, scratching him under the eye. He's shouted at her and she shook her by the shoulders and begged her to take back everything she was saying.
"You have no idea what you're talking about!"
"My god! STOP THIS STOP THIS!!!" Sebastian shouted as he witnessed a terrible fight between Jacob and Sabrina, but of course, no one heard his screams. He were only there in spirit seeing the truth once and for all.
"It will happen quickly." Sabrina said in spirit of her own death.
"Make him stop!" Sebastian said crying to his mother's ghost.
"Shhh... its over." She said, as a tear came from her eye. Sebastian turned and saw Jacob standing over Sabrina's drowned body. He had suffocated her right there in the sand because she knew too much. The one person he truly loved was gone in a split second. She discovered his plot to have his way with her and then have her family killed all or money and lust.
Her death was a crime of passion and a silencing of what Jacob dealt was… the truth died there on the beach.
“Jacob … he killed you. He was in love with you and he killed you.” Sebastian said, stunned.
“And he wanted to do the same to you and your father.” His mother Sabrina replied patting his shoulder. “You were just a child of 12. How could I let anyone hurt you.”
But that wasn't all. Sabrina then closed her eyes and touched Sebastian where the light once again enveloped them completely then darkening. When Sebastian opened his eyes, he was in the large drawing room of Tirymor House. There David had fallen asleep drunk and smelling of cigar smoke and booze. His clothes were crumpled, his hair a mess after a 3 day drinking spree that lead his whole life to this point. This is where Jacob's plot got even more deranged.
"I tried to convince you to let her go but you didnt. You just kept fighting me and telling me that she needed to die." Jacob told David who was somewhat still in a daze in the gloomy room from his hangover.
"What? That's not true. It didn't happen. No, I can't believe that. Where is she? WHERE IS SABRINA?? David begged his younger brother.
"David she's out on the beach. They'll find her soon and they'll see the you killed your own wife. I was there David, I saw it, I tried to stop it and you just kept going. In a drunkan rage you kept saying she was having an affair with me and then you drowned her. Your own son;'s mother." Jacob said, lying.
"My god, Jacob what do I do? What do I do? Please tell me? I ... I can't remember. The alcohol. Ive been upset, Ive been so unwell and I just drink to stop the pain but Ive never ever been violent or jealous. I cannot understand this. Please it must of been an accident." David said through sobs.
"It was no accident." Jacob said in a sinister voice, pretending to be disgusted by David. In truth he was disgusted with himself.
"What do I do? We have to tell everyone I didn't do it!" David begged.
"But You did do it. And now you have to go. Leave this please and never return David, never come back to this place ever again. Id even say ....you should leave this earth." Jacob said.
"Jacob, they'll find me. They'll go looking for me and they'll find me. How can I look Sebastian, my son, my child in the eyes ever again when they find me knowing that I took his mother's life? There has to be something else." David said.
"Well....there is one thing." Jacob replied as he took a sip from a freshly poured brandy and the winced in pain from the cut under his eye. "The lighthouse. Go to the lighthouse and ..." Jacob paused to wipe his mouth but David understood.
"Jump." David whispered in response.
"Oh my god." Sebastian said of what he was witnessing.
"One more." Sabrina said as she once again took Sebastian to another place, the last place before she sent him back to the living.
They were now on the cliffside on the southern tip of Welshport Island. On the small stretch of land where the lighthouse was, David stared out into the sea. He let the light of the Lighthouse guide his way down as he jumped from the top of the lighthouse and into Frenchman Bay below.
Sebastian screamed at watching his father take his life. He tried to go and help but his mother grabbed his arm and sent him back with her into the place filled with light.
"So he's gone too. Washed away like a lost ship into the sea. Where is he now mother? Why didnt he come with you?" Sebastian asked, looking around hoping to see his father's spirit too.
"Sebastian your father isn't here. He survived that fall. But where he is, I do not know. Perhaps when he can face the truth and the world again he will return but that is not my mission now. I brought you here and found a way for you to go back and force Jacob into the truth --- he must be brought to Justice for what he's done. To you. To me. To your father. His time is up, and you'll be the one to do it." Sabrina said.
"But how? How will I?" Sebastian asked.
Sabrina smiled and walked up to Sebastian and gave him a huge hug just as Mary Goode struck her first thrust of the shovel into the ground of Sebastian's grave.
In their embrace, Sabrina whispered what Sebastian had to do next: "Just hold your breath son."
****
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| Jacob & Gaspar meet at the SIREN’S CALL PUB |
That night, a slick black automobile with chrome bumpers was parked on the curb outside of a small pub called the SIREN’S CALL near the center of the village. Inside local sailors drank their sun burned faces and exhausted bodies into fights and fire of laughter over random stories wild storms over the dark blue waters of the Atlantic.
Cowering in the corner in a smoke filled booth was Gaspar and Jacob, both standing out in their well tailored suits and perfectly combed hair. Gaspar’a facial hair perfectly carved over the bones of his face as he looked down at a small envelope that Jacob pushed over to him on the table.
“I swear I didn’t do that. How could I? How could I jump 3 feet over my chair and 7 feet over to the wall? I’m telling you Jacob, I had nothing to do with what happened at the séance. It.. it wasn’t me.” Gaspar said in his true English accent.
“You’re not fooling me.” Jacob said.
“Damn it! Jacob I swear on all that I know, it wasn’t me.”
“Am I to believe in ghosts and sorcerers now like my mother? In ghouls and goblins that haunt us in our sleep? You can’t fake with me. I pay you too much.” Jacob smirked as he puffed on his cigar.
“Another drink sir?” A busty waitress asked as she smiled at the rich Lord family member, his face well known in town.
“Pay? I’m still waiting.” Gaspar replied.
“Yes. Two please.” Jacob replied pointing to Gaspar’s empty glass. “Now let’s talk about my new niece shall we?” Jacob added speaking of Evie.
“No! Not until you tell me what the hell happened at that séance! I don’t know how much longer I can do all this. It’s been months of tricks of smoke and mirrors but last night, oh that was something else.” Gaspar said.
“Alright alright, I admit it. It was me. When you’re eyes were closed I yanked on you and tosses you across the room.” Jacob said lying.
“You?”
“That’s right! Me! Now you can calm your little brain and we can move on to Evie.” Jacob said.
Jacob’s clear lie did the job of a two sided coin: on one side it Gaspar’s fears of the shock of the séance were quenched as he chose to believe Jacob rather that believe the horror of a spirit grabbing at him and throwing him across a room, and on the other side Jacob too could ignore what he saw and pretend it didn’t happen. It was all too real. Too powerful. Too much for even his mind to wrap around. For Jacob it add better to lie and move on than to dwell on truth—he had bigger fish to fry.
“What about Evie?” Gaspar asked noticing Jacob remove something from him jacket pocket.
“Open the envelope.” Jacob said as the waitress stopped two mugs of beer down on the sticky table.
Gaspar waited for the waitress to leave again and opened the envelope that had been tired with a red string securing it closed. He pulled out the three quartered folded paper and unfolded it, it was Rebecca’s Will.
“Don’t stain it. I have put it where I found it but move your eyes down to the 5th paragraph. That’s where our next move really begins.” Jacob instructed.
Gaspar moved his eyes down the long winded last will and testament of Rebecca that had been updated 6 days before Evie’s arrival to Welshport just in time for the wedding and without Jacob knowing.
“This can’t be right. We were sure that after David was declared dead and Sebastian’s death was in the clear you’d get everything and we could finally take the steps to …” Gaspar paused and looked around the pub before saying his next few words, as they might incriminate him. “making sure your mother never saw another dawn.” He finished feeling comfortable in the lack of eavesdroppers.
“Well my mother is ever the organizer. She made sure that it was all set this way if something should happen to Sebastian after his wedding. She of course was thinking of his possible children but, since we didn’t let this marriage get that far that means it all goes to Evie. And thanks to Mary and her shit shooting we still have that bird in the bush. We can’t let this happen, Evie cannot remain the heiress of half my fortune.” Jacob said coldly.
Gaspar took a deep breath then a gulp of his drink. He knew where Jacob’s polluted mind was going.
“No, I can’t do it. No. I can’t have someone else killed Jacob. Please for God’s sake there’s been to much death already. After that insane séance Ive even thought about leaving your mother out of this too and wait her natural death out. I can’t take it!” Gaspar said, the strain in his voice showing signs of an emotional break.
“No, you’re right. It would look to strange anyway to suddenly lose another family member so close to Sebastian’s untimely demise. But, the will doesn’t talk about Evie’s death for her to be removed from the will. Look, it says death or incapacitation.” Jacob showed.
“What does that mean?” Gaspar wondered. “Paralize her?”
Jacob smiled grimly. His mind was a diabolical machine that was always thinking of himself first and secondly how to ruin the lives of the people he was supposed to love, all for to grab at any kind of money and power he could.
Jacob took another sip of his drink and carefully dabbed his mouth with a linen napkin that had the pub’s name, SIREN’S CALL, embroidered on it along with a golden mermaid entangled in a fishing net.
“Gaspar what would you say Evie would want most after happened to Sebastian?” Jacob asked somewhat rhetorically.
“For it to all go away and for Sebastian to be with her again. Alive.” Gaspar replied, his voice signaling the obvious choice.
“Very good! And would that be possible?” Jacob asked again somewhat rhetorically.
“Obviously not. He’s dead.”
“But what if Evie insisted Sebastian was alive. What if she said she actually saw him running around Tirymôr?” Jacob asked again.
“She’s sound mad, insane, like a lunatic.”
“She’d sound incapacitated.” Jacob replied grinning.
Suddenly Gaspar began to see what Jacob was spelling out for him. Together, inside the smoky, loud, ruckus filled Siren’s Call pub the two money hungry co-conspirators devised a plan to fake Sebastian sightings that only Evie would see, driving her mind into a dark and horrible place. Driving her mind to spin out of control where every where she turned she’d see relics and souvenirs and even shadowy visions of Sebastian himself all in a ploy to drive the girl mad and send her off and out of Rebecca’s will.
“What if she doesn’t take to it?” Gaspar wondered.
“Oh she will, you’ll see to it. Won’t you…. Sebastian.” Jacob said with a chuckle naming Gaspar as the person to playing the fake ghostly Sebastian to drive Evie out of her mind
****
In her bedroom, Charlotte brushed her long blond hair in the mirror just as her grandmother stepped in to check on her. It was the day after the séance and Rebecca was still feeling shaky after the event.
“Darling, it’s time for bed.” Rebecca said.
Charlotte smiled and dropped her brush and ran over to the bed and jumped in. Rebecca walked over and pulled the thick white blankets over Charlotte’s little legs and tucked her in.
“Now, close your eyes and get to sleep. Tomorrow is another day.” Rebecca said sweetly as she blew out a candle next to the girl’s bed. When Rebecca looked up from the cable back at Charlotte the shadow of the night reflected a woman’s face that was now the young girl’s.
It was Sabrina’s face in the bed.
Rebecca recognized it and screamed “Sabrina!!!” Scaring little Charlotte who screamed back at her grandmother but the face in the bed screaming was still Sabrina’s.
Rebecca quickly reached into the pouch of her long maroon dress and pulled out a match and lit it. Rebecca’s eyes were glaring, her heart pounding and she slowly moved the small lit match closer to Charlotte’s face to see it better and when the glow met it’s place Sabrina’s face was gone Charlotte’s returned.
“What is it grandma?? Why did you scream?” Charlotte asked even though she knew.
“I… I saw something. I don’t know what I saw.” Rebecca said blowing out the match and re-tucking in her possessed granddaughter. “I’m sorry if I frightened you my love. Go on. Get to sleep.”
Rebecca made sure Charlotte was cozy in bed and then turned to make her way out of the room. She turned again and looked one last time and in the moonlight saw blonde hair in the bed. She took a sigh of relief but whispered to the someone she thought she saw…“it was you at the séance wasn’t it, Sabrina?… what do you want?”
There was no answer and Rebecca felt silly and thought perhaps she was just tired and did not see Sabrina’s spirit in the bed. As she closed the door to Charlotte’s room Sabrina reappeared in the bed with her dark hair and smiled.
****
As night slithered into dawn, Mary Good dug and dug and dug into the grave of Sebastian Lord not knowing what she would find. The deeper she went the darker the mud was, the deeper she went the more wet the smell of soil lifted from the bowels of Saint Thomas Cemetery and into her nostrils. The strange sensation of breathing in air coming from the ground filled with the dead nauseated Mary. But she kept digging.
Her hair was heavy with sweat. Her arms sore and cramping from the work. She felt like she could no longer go on, she was now deep inside the grave. She looked up into the sky, her blond hair wet and stuck to her forehead. It was now a purple sky, signaling the coming dawn. She could not carry Sebastian in the wheelbarrow in the daylight, it was too risky. She had to continue, she had to get him back to Goode Island before anyone noticed.
Inside the coffin. Sebastian's finger twitched again. Then another finger. This his thumb. Then his whole right hand. It twitched so much the rosary tangled in his fingers fell to the side of his body. His chest then started to lift with breath. His heart once again beating, slow and steady. Eliza's spell of ever lasting life had worked, as was Sabrina's hope when she ordered Mary to go home and tell Eliza what she had done through her possession of Charlotte.
With his breathing now slow but stead Sebastian woke up. His eyes flicked open he gasped for air but what he recieved was a small dose of what was left in the coffin.
"Oh my god. OH MY GOD!!!" he screamed as he realized where he was. "HELP ME! HELP ME!" he screamed as he pounded on the lid of his coffin.
Already close to the lid, Mary heard his muffled screams.
"He's alive!" she said out loud to herself.
The pounding from inside the coffin became more and more urgent as Sebastian began to panic. He used his arms and fists. He used his legs and feet. He rocked back and forth inside his little locked box but nothing could free him. He was becoming hysterical as the panic began to set in deeper into his brain and his screams began to take up all the oxygen left in the coffin chamber.
He was getting dizzy now. Sleepy even. He slapped himself and screamed again for help hoping somebody would hear him, not knowing Mary was on her way from the top digging him out. As she continued to dig as best and as fast she could Sebastian's time and air were running out. He began to see stars and black spots in the dark coffin, he began to hallucinate and see light coming from an open lid, but it was his mind trying to manifest an escape. He reached up with the last bits of energy he has as the oxygen was running out and pulled down on the velvet lining over his face.
A fatal mistake. The lining began to suffocate him as it collapsed all around his body trapping him even more. He was tangled now, writhing and wiggling doing all he could to escape his trap. Then everything went black.
Now deep in the ground Mary's shovel hit the lid. She quickly began to dig around the edge giving her enough space to place her fingers in the groove and pull on the lid of the coffin. She pulled and pulled. The pressure of the soil that had been on top of the lid had caused a suction effect that left the lid clasped on tight. But Mary did not give up, she pulled and pulled, even breaking off three nails from her fingers in a bloody slice and finally the lid gave way.
A large puff popping sound occurred and Mary fell back. She quickly got up, her dress stained with the dark mud from top to bottom. Her face marked with tears stains that made small trails from her eyes down her cheeks through the dirt that had caked on her face. She reached into the coffin and pulled the velvet lining off of Sebastian's face. She stared at him. Beautiful as he was; looking asleep and in peace but his chest, there was breath.
She reached up and slapped his face. His eyes twitched and moved under the skin of his eye lids.
"Wake up damn you, wake up!" She said shaking him from his shoulders.
There was no time to waste. The sun was coming and she needed to get Sebastian back to her mother under the cover of whatever darkness there was left.
With all her might and adrenalin she some how managed to drag his body up from the grave and into an awaiting wheelbarrow and covered his whole body with a cloak.
From there, she left the open cemetery plot and rushed down the hill of Saint Thomas Cemetery towards the docks 2 miles down where her small boat was and where she'd load the unconscious body of Sebastian Lord and hope that he'd survive the small and yet treacherous ride to Goode Island.
