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| Eliza’s Cabin on Goode Island |
In the small cabin that belonged to Eliza Goode on the island the locals named after her, floating just off the coast of the larger Welshport Island, Sebastian's resurrected body lay unconscious but alive in Eliza's bed. He was weak and his heart was beating at a strange but slow pace, but he was indeed alive, just as Sabrina's ghost had hoped.
Sebastian lay on his back, his shirt ripped off, his skin sweaty and his chest lifting up and down up and down in a slow rhythm like a ticking clock waiting and waiting for all his other senses to snap together and make him one human again. But human, in its full form Sebastian would never be again.
Mary stood in the open door watching as he lay there naked under the white sheets with a painful expression splattered across his sleeping face. She held her hands in a tight fist with worry, a terrible worry. She could see the scar of her bullet in his pale chest she could see his strange lifeless yet lifelike face. Her mother, Eliza stepped into the room with more of the rabbit's blood and walked over to Sebastian tilted his head up and poured the blood into the man's mouth allowing it all to drain down his throat and sooth his aching body.
"He'll need more than rabbit's blood to revive him to his full strength." Eliza noted staring down at the sleeping man.
"Rabbit's blood??? Why are you giving him rabbit's blood? What did we do to him?" Mary asked in a quite toned voice as Filipe, still trapped in the cage in the cage in the other room tried to see what was happening through the bars and over Mary's shoulder.
Filipe could see into the room, although it was dimly lit. But his friend was there, alive... strangely alive.
"We brought him back that's what you asked me to do. I did the spell of ever lasting life and he's here. We did what we had to do but he cannot survive on just this alone. Its not enough." Eliza explained.
"What can we do? I don't want him to die, not again. I cannot let him die. Charlotte told me I had to help him and that you were the only one who could, are we helping him? He looks to be in pain? Is this helping him???" Mary said, her mind slowly starting to crack over the pressure and the trauma of what she had done, both shooting and killing Sebastian then digging his body out of his grave and seeing him alive again. It was all becoming to much.
Seeing her daughter start to crack, Eliza quickly rushed over and slapped her in the face. The stunning jolt to her face brought her back to a calmer mood. She turned and apologized and quickly took a seat in a chair near Sebastian's bed rubbing the sting out of her cheek.
"You have to take control of yourself Mary, and realize that Charlotte is not the person who told you to bring Sebastian's case to me so that we could bring him back. Think again about what you saw that night when Charlotte came to you." Eliza said.
"There was a face, I remember a face." Mary remembered, as Filipe again tried to see into the room from his cage.
"The face, do you remember whos it was? You've been through a lot in the last few days, but do you remember?" Eliza asked.
"Sabrina." Mary recalled again.
"That's right. I've helped her too. I've helped her come back and live inside of little Charlotte. Mary.... Sabrina was my sister. Your Aunt. We never told anyone because when she married the Lord family regarded our family to be ....well.... not of their kind. Below. Sabrina loved David so much and I couldn't stand to come between their love. I never told anyone of our connection." Eliza explained.
"Then... Sebastian..." Mary said, connecting the dots.
"Is your cousin." Eliza said stunning Mary out of her chair. She looked over Sebastian's sleeping body again, her heart sinking into the depths of her body with grief over what she had done to him. She knew him all her life, friends, acquittances, and when she became involved secretly with his Paternal uncle and gave birth to Charlotte, she had no idea that Charlotte would be connected to the Lords maternally though Sabrina and Paternally through Jacob.
They were all family and she had been lead to believe so many things about them by Jacob that weren't true. Jacob, Mary began to realize, was the real villain. Not the other's. Jacob. And Jacob alone.
"Come, we have to make sure we get what Sebastian needs for him to be fully revived." Eliza said to Mary who followed her mother into the adjoining room with a confused face.
"What's going on? What have you done to Sebastian?" Filipe said, gripping the small bars of the little cage built in the house by Eliza who was inside her kitchen searching for something.
"Filipe I'm sorry. I don't know what to say." Mary said to him as she truly was unsure what was happening next.
"If you let me out, if you both let me out I can help you and help Sebastian more. Ms Goode, please Sebastian needs a doctor!!" Filipe exclaimed.
"We're going to take care of him, I promise. That's what I brought him here. My mother will do all she can to take care of him without a doctor." Mary said trying to soften the blow to Filipe.
But Eliza turned any comfort from Mary's words inside out when she appeared in the room from the kitchen with a large shape knife in her hand.
Her eyes were glazed over her mind on what she had to do. She looked directly into Filipe's deep brown eyes and he felt a cold chill go up his spine.
"Eliza.... please..." Filipe said to the knife wielding woman.
"Mother..." Mary said, fearing the words as Eliza slowly stepped closer and closer to the man held captive in the cage.
"Put out your arm Filipe." Eliza demanded as he pushed himself to the back of the cage.
"NO! NO! What are you going to do????" He screamed.
"Mother please don't hurt him!" Mary screamed.
Eliza turned to Mary "this is to help Sebastian's live," then turned back to Filipe "if you want your friend to survive Filipe, you will hand me your arm."
Filipe stood in the cage, only feet from Eliza who was not inches from the bars. He slowly walked up to her, unsure of what she was planning on doing, then even before his arm was fully extended, Eliza grabbed hold of it and pulled it through the metals bars of the cage and sliced Filipe's wrist as blood began to pour out like a stream of Mountain water flowing into the form of a river. Eliza caught the blood in a tin cup, filled to the brim then handed it off to Mary who's hands were shaking in shock as she saw her own face reflecting back to her in the red liquid inside the cup.
Eliza tied off Filipe's wound as he screamed in pain and fell to the floor rolling around as the blood soaked up the bandage Eliza tied on it as a tourniquet.
"I'll check on it in an hour, don't worry, you'll heal well." Eliza said to the groaning Filipe.
She then turned and grabbed the tin cup from Mary who was still in shock of what she witnessed her mother do but followed her back into the room where Sebastian was. Eliza then carefully lifted Sebastian's head tilting it upwards so that his jaw would drop. When his airway was clear she poured the human blood into his mouth watching it go down his throat drop by drop. The blood spilled out onto his check and down his neck and pooled in a small little indention in his chest. Mary felt sick. Her body felt weak and before she knew it she fainted on the floor of the bedroom.
While Mary came-to, Sebastian's whole body suddenly began to react to the human blood provided by his best friend's wrist. His color changed from pale to slightly peach toned. His heart beat felt stronger and then, within minutes of having the blood in his body, his big blue eyes popped open as Mary got up from her fainting spell. Filipe, groaning from his fresh wound on his wrist stood up and looked into the bedroom as all three watched what seemed like a miracle of Sebastian fully waking up.
Then, he spoke...."Where am I?"
****
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| Evie & Celeste speak secretly on the veranda |
In the morning, a harsh wind blew over the two islands in the Frenchman Bay. A wind that signaled a coming storm both in the air and down on the ground on Welshport Island itself.
At Tirymôr House, Celeste was busy in Evie's room preparing to help dress her for the day, as was part of her job as her lady-in-waiting. Celeste was exhausted. She hadn't slept. She had been all over the village the night before looking for Filipe who had not returned from Goode island after almost two days.
Her heart was filled with worry, and it showed all over her face.
Evie walked in her dressing gown and almost instantly saw the look on her new friend's face.
"Celeste." Evie said, trying to open up conversation. "I know that there is all this protocol for what your duties are but you really don't have to put out my dress for the day. We're friends." Evie said sitting on a love seat near the a brightly lit window shining with morning light. She patted the empty seat next to her and Celeste smiled and sat next to her. "Are you alright? I can see your distracted." Evie added.
"It's Filipe." Celeste began. "I haven't seen him in almost two days. A day in a half. He....I don't know how to even tell you this, but he went to Goode Island in search of Mary."
"What? Does Christian know?" Evie replied in shock.
"No." Celeste replied her voice filled with anxiety.
"Celeste, Mary could be dangerous. We have to tell Christian! She could have hurt him." Evie said.
"I knew something bad would happen if I let him go but he was so sure that Eliza was hiding Mary on the island that he wanted to find her himself. I should have convinced him not to go. I should have told him to stay home and not go there." Celeste said with tears in her eyes.
"Oh Celeste, we have to tell him right away." Evie got up and rushed over to her dress and faster than Celeste could blink an eye Evie was already dressed and quickly rushing over to her armoire to search for shoes and a coat.
"I thought about telling Christian last night but it was so late and I was so tired and everything just felt like it was out of my hands. If I could have I would have gone to Goode Island myself to find him. And now, now I fear the worst Evie, what if Mary has done to Filipe what she did to Sebastian. I don't know how I could ever live with myself knowing I let him go look for her."
Evie rushed back to her new best friend and grabbed her hands.
"Don't think that way. I know its scary to think of the worst and we've already seen what she's capable of but Christian will find Filipe. I promise. I'm going to try and stay positive for you. Whatever you need I'll be there for you." Evie said reassuringly.
Celeste smiled, she could feel the sincerity coming from her new friend. She saw that she was indeed there to help her and that they would be connected for life now, a true friendship in a town that Celeste never really felt welcome in. But Evie, Evie was true. And this made Celeste feel guilty. She had lied to her, she had lied to her for the sake of keeping the Lord family secret. The secret of who really killed Sabrina Lord--at least the truth that everyone thought was true.
"I have to tell you something else." Celeste said quietly.
"What is it?" Evie asked as Celeste got up and walked over to the large painting she knew lead to Rebecca's room. Celeste put her ear to the wall near the painting, confusing Evie. "What are you listening for?" Evie asked.
"Shhh." Celeste replied. "The walls have ears. Come." Celeste added in a hushed voice as she grabbed Evie by the hand and lead her to the veranda just beyond the large white French doors of the bedroom.
In the cold of the morning, on the veranda of Evie's bedroom that looked over the frosted over yard just below, Celeste pulled Evie over to the far corner of the veranda that was as far away as possible from the window of Rebecca's room. She grabbed Evie's hands and pulled her down so that they were crouched down near the stone banister and in a hushed tone of voice confessed.
"I lied to you about Sabrina. She didn't die of influenza. She was murdered." Celeste said to Evie's gasp.
"Catherine's story was true?" Evie asked of the woman on the ship that first told her of the scandal.
"For the most part yes. From what we know Jacob saw Sebastian's father David. Jacob said David was in a jealous drunken range and strangled Sabrina right on the beach. He was so distraught when he became sober that he vanished. There were rumors that he jumped to his death off of the Welshport Lighthouse, even sightings of his body floating in the sea, but ultimately a body was never found near the island. Jacob later told the family he was found near Bangor...we were told it was David but no one was able to see him. Jacob took control over everything. Even Rebecca was left in the dark." Celeste explained.
Evie inhaled a giant gulp of fresh sea are. She mulled over what Celeste had just told her; a wild story of jealousy, murder and the missing body of David Lord, her presumed dead father-in-law. It all seemed so far-fetched and strange. So much tragedy shrouded in secrets. Evie had been blinded by her wedding and everything she had to do to make sure her family stayed in good standing due to her marriage. She had to shove aside much of her own logic and common sense---but that was about to end.
Evie knew now, something was going on with Jacob. He was the constant common denominator with much of the misfortunes that surrounded the family. He was the one that was most involved, and with a powerful mother like Rebecca in the house who controlled everything it was strange to Evie that she would have no say in David's funeral.
"Don't you think something is off Celeste? I can tell you do, you wouldn't have told me the truth about everything if you didn't feel like something was off in this family. We all see it, don't we... we just haven't been able to make sense of it... why...why does it keep happening?"
"I don't begin to question the things in this house. Not out loud anyway. They've given me a job here since I was a teenage and... Evie, I told you the truth because I needed to be honest with you. We have become best friends and that's why I told you, not for you to go poking around."
Evie grabbed Celeste's hands there were ice cold from the open chill air, she held them and looked into her best friend's eyes and asked "Do you believe Jacob?"
Celeste lifted an eye brow and shook her head no. "I don't to be honest. There are a lot of stories that I have heard around the village that say David is alive. And I know Jacob to be... dark. There is a dark side to him. What it all boils down to is, David is truly better off dead because I fear Jacob may be behind it all. He scares me Evie, he truly scares me."
"I don't know what to say!" Evie replied.
"We should go back in, they'll be waiting for us downstairs for breakfast, please, please don't tell anyone I told you. I just needed to come clean. All the lying over the years has me torn in bits. The family makes us all say the influenza story to strangers but everyone in the village knows some form of the truth." Celeste said as the two got up from their crouched position.
"Thank you for telling me." Evie said, still feeling the awful sting of the truth.
"Evie, please don't tell anyone." Celeste asked again, hoping she didn't lose Evie's confidence.
Evie took a breath and smiled sweetly. "Let's go to breakfast then call Christian."
Celeste smiled back but she could already feel she may have lost her new friend's trust by using the lie the Lord family forced on her...for now.
Later that evening, Evie tried to avoid the rest of the family. She didn't know how to interact with them anymore now knowing the full truth -- at least what Jacob wanted everyone to think was the truth of Sabrina's death. She had trouble, Evie did, with pretending. She hated the fact that she now had some idea of the family secret but to keep Celeste safe from Rebecca's wrath she would remain quiet about it. But she needed time to breathe. Time to process and still time to mourn.
Unfortunately for Evie Gaspar had other plans.
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| The cloaked mystery man |
As Evie walked to her room to settle in for the night, the con-artist, Gaspar DuBois, who Rebecca believed to be a spiritual guru with powers that connected to the dead followed Evie in a black cloak; the same cloak that belonged to Sebastian.
Soon Evie began to hear footsteps behind her. She quickly turned and saw Gaspar, dressed as Sebastian with the cloak's hood over his face obscuring her view.
Then like a flash the shadowy figure Evie saw vanished behind a pillar in the foyer.
"Who's there?" Evie said, her voice echoing in the chamber, as she quickly grabbed a candelabra from a side table to light her view.
Evie, brave as she could be went over to the pillar and saw that there was no one there. Gaspar cleverly escaped view by pushing open a hidden door that Evie was not aware of.
She stepped back...her blood pumping. She knew what she saw. A man. In black. The cloak, very clearly Sebastian's because of the golden tassels that hung from the edges of the hood.
She stepped backwards and turned to go back the way she was going, towards her room and there again in the distance of the hallway was Gaspar still in Sebastian's cloak.
"Sebastian! Sebastian, is that you??" Evie called out to the shadowy figure in the cloak she knew. She knew it could not be him. He was dead. Gone forever. Then Evie's eyes narrowed and she whispered to her self "Jacob."
The man, Gaspar, quickly turned and darted down a side hallway and secretly into another secret passage that lead into the walls of the estate. Evie rushed over and entered the hall and saw nothing, just three doors that lead to a library, and two smaller cloak rooms. She opened the first door to one cloak room, and it was filled with extra chairs for the garden that Rebecca would put out in the spring. She closed the door and opened the second cloak room and there too were just random coats and outerwear the family used to go on walk-abouts. But no person. No cloaked man.
"I saw him, I know I did." Evie whispered to herself. "Is that Jacob? or....?"
She then, turned allowing the glow of the candelabra in her hands to light her way and slowly went to the third door, the side study that Jacob often used as a smoking room. She took a deep breath, if the mysterious man was anywhere, Jacob for that matter she thought, he would be here. He had to be.
She touched the door nob, turned it and entered with her heart beating in her throat.
Jacob was there in a fog of cigarette smoke.
"Evie. Good evening." He said sounding surprised, but knowing this is where Gaspar would have lured her.
"Jacob, I'm sorry I thought that you were someone else just now. I saw something." She said thinking she would have caught Jacob still in the cloak, but the cloak was no where to be found. There would have not been time for him to remove it and hide it once she entered.
"Someone else? What do you mean?" He said feigning ignorance.
"Well you were in the hall and I called out to you. I thought..." She began before he interrupted.
"Called out? I've been in here for a few hours now I wasn't in the hall. Who did you see Evie?" She said pushing her to say Sebastian's name.
"I...I don't know. It was you, it had to have been you." She said.
"No, I'm afraid it wasn't me. You must have seen someone else. But I cant imagine who. I'm the only one home. Rebecca and Charlotte are out in the village and Gaspar with them. Celeste I think went home on your direction." Jacob said lying.
"No. That can't be. I saw a man, you. It had to have been you because if it wasn't then..." she paused to think "he was wearing Sebastian's cloak. I thought...." She began to say in a very confused tone.
"You thought it was Sebastian. Oh dear. Well, that is a strange sight to see knowing that he is dead. Are you feeling alright? You look pale." Jacob said, slowly getting up from the black leather sofa near a roaring fire.
"I don't know what I saw." She said, small drops of sweat now covering the corners of her forehead.
"You saw Sebastian. That's what you said Evie. That's what you just told me. Here, drink this. It will relax you." Jacob said handing Evie a glass of clear liquid that had already been poured and was waiting just for her.
Evie looked at Jacob, his face eagerly awaiting her to take the glass of liquid and drink from it. She wasn't sure what to do but then she remembered Celeste and how they all, the whole family, had forced her to lie for then. The secrecy and strangeness of the whole family caused her to take a second look at the glass of liquid with its bubbles floating to the top and popping at the glass's edge... and she put it down.
"I'm fine, really. I think I just need some rest. Good evening Jacob." Evie replied as she quickly lifted the font hem of her long dress enough to give herself a quick exit from the room.
Now alone in the room, Jacob darted his eyes, he felt like Evie saw right through him. The water he had also had a power powder that would have made Evie hallucinate in her sleep, then Gaspar appeared from a secret passage hidden in the room.
"She didn't drink." Gaspar said, knowing her hallucinations were important for their plot to work.
"That's alright. Did you do what I asked you to do while she was in here?" Jacob asked sitting back down and lighting another cigarette.
"Yes." Gaspar replied as he also lit a cigarette.
The two spoke nothing more and let Evie's screams from her bedroom fill the tall ceilings of Tirymôr House.
Upon entering her room, Evie found Sebastian's cloak with golden tassels laying on her bed. She screamed in horror and fell to her knees. She did see a man in the cloak downstairs. She did she him twice. She did see what she thought she saw but the fact that she had just been speaking with Jacob meant it could not have been him and she believed Gaspar was out of the house.
Evie began to cry. She wasn't sure what was happening to her. Why was she seeing Sebastian? Why was all this happening to her? She couldn't bare to stand up and touch the cloak, a cloak that to her felt like a ghost was sitting there right in front of her. She saw it as an omen, Sebastian was telling her something. Sebastian was reaching out to her. Or was she losing her mind?
All the thoughts and terrors of her mind splitting into insanity was a job well done by Jacob and Gaspar. Their plan was working. Evie was now feeling the fragility of her sanity slowly slipping away.
Her screaming and crying was getting louder and louder. She could barley contain herself. Then her bedroom door swung open, it was Rebecca and Charlotte. They had just come home from their visit in the village dress shop.
Rebecca quickly rushed over to her and helped Evie up from the ground.
"What is it child? What is it?" Rebecca sked, panicking.
Evie could not speak. This was now the second and more vivid moment she thought she saw Sebastian. The first time, it was only an article of clothing, but now she saw him twice haunting the halls and now the actual cloak she believed she saw was on her bed perfectly laid out.
Evie pointed to her bed and Rebecca looked over and saw the cloak too. She recognized it but only pulled Evie in close and held her tight allowing her bury her crying face in her shoulder.
"Sebastian." Charlotte whispered.
"Nonsense. That's enough of this." Rebecca said. But in her heart Rebecca knew that the spirit world was powerful and she could see just how disturbed and upset Evie was.
But worst of it all was that Jacob told Rebecca before she left that Evie had been asking for a few articles of Sebastian's clothing. Strangle was the request but Rebecca allowed Evie to have the cloak and other items, not realizing Jacob was going to use them to begin to terrorize Evie's mind.
His deception was now doing double duty of keeping Rebecca on a small leash and keeping Evie in the fog of fresh insanity.
Rebecca held Evie close and tried to sooth her, but she could see that the stresses of Sabbatians murder were slowly eating away at her young mind.
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| The cloaked man following Evie |
****
On a large half oval patio-like portico on the back of the Tirymôr House facing East where enormous windows were screened off and looked out onto the dark lawn that was now covered in the darkness of the night, Jacob smoked another cigarette and watched as the darkest storm clouds he had ever seen were slowly building off in the distance over the sea.
The red burning end of the cigarette reflected a red glow on his face as three candelabras burned, two in corners and one in the center of the patio. Jacob could feel the cool breeze of the coming storm touch his face and blow through all the potted ferns. He felt like his plan was working, and working perfectly.
Rebecca, exhausted from trying to calm Evie down stepped out for some fresh air and saw her youngest and last son standing at one of the screens watched the clouds. She cleared her throat and he turned around.
“How is she?” He asked.
“Asleep. Jacob I’ve never seen anyone like that before. She was so sure she saw Sebastian. So sure!” Rebecca recalled.
“That’s unsettling.” Jacob only replied.
“You don’t think the séance…” Rebecca began before Jacob jumped in.
“Mother please. The séance wasn’t really what we saw was nothing more than… well I don’t know what we saw.” Jacob said.
“That’s what you’d like to think.” Rebecca replied the window blowing the white ruffles of the upper part of her dress. “But I know what I saw. I wanted Sebastian to come back and perhaps he did. Perhaps that’s what Evie saw.”
“No mother. That’s not at all what she saw. What Evie is going through is a mental breakdown. A woman who is suffering from a traumatic and serious mental issue. She saw her husband die. Right there on their wedding day. In her arms. I’m afraid if we won’t step in, she may suffer even more. More of these supposed visions of Sebastian. Or worse.” Jacob said.
“Worse? What do you mean worse?” Rebecca asked as the thunder rolled in the far off distance.
“Today its Sebastian tomorrow is who knows? Jesus… or the Devil.” Jacob said in a cold voice.
“Stop it! Don’t you dare ever bring Satan into this. He is what I fear most of all. I refuse to allow any negative spirits in.” Rebecca said shocked Jacob would being the Devil into the subject.
“Well how can we be so sure Evie hasn’t already brought him or it or whatever you want to call it into Tirymôr. After all since she’s arrived only horrible things have occurred. We’re lucky she believed Celeste’s lie about Sabrina, otherwise she’d probably be losing her mind much faster.” Jacob said.
“Do you really think she’s losing her mind?” Rebecca wondered.
“I believe so mother. Yes. And unfortunately I think it’s time we nip this in the bud. We saw what happened with David.”
“What?” Rebecca said playing dumb.
“Oh mother come now, we all know the isolation here caused David to lose his mind. He started drinking. He became obsessed with the drink, so much so he began to neglect his wife, his son. It’s all a process and we are now watching Evie go through the same thing, are we to ignore her too?” Jacob explained.
“No.” Rebecca whispered as she turned away from Jacob and looked out onto your grass and the coming storm.
“If we do It will get worse.” He said.
“I could hypnotize her! Yes!! Hypnotize her! I tried and it almost worked but Gaspar can show me more and I can have all of these horrible things in her mind erased! I can!” Rebecca said hoping for acceptance.
“No mother the time for that is gone. It’s time we had her committed. Taken from here for her own safety to the mainland and placed in the sanitarium. It’s really the only choice.” Jacob suggested.
“Windcliff!? I couldn’t! What would everyone in Welshport say? And You know how your father suffered there!” Rebecca revealed.
“Yes. But it’s our only choice.” Jacob replied sinisterly.
Rebecca turned back to her son. His hair was blowing in the soft breeze of the storm and his cigarette smoke surrounded him making him look as if he were in the storm clouds himself, floating there waiting for her to answer. He looked at his mother. So frail in body frame. Small. Her neck so perfectly pale and thin sticking out of the neck of her black dress. He thought how easy it would be to grab it and snap it like a twig. How simple and quick it would be to just end his own mother’s life.
“Jacob?” She said snapping him out of his fantasy.
“What?” He replied confused.
“I said I’d think about it. Tomorrow. I’ll tell you if we should call Windcliff to come and, I can’t even believe I’m staying it but, take Evie to their sanitarium. The same one your father died in.” Rebecca said feeling the irony of the whole moment.
With her words usually set in stone as the matriarch of the family, she turned and left Jacob in the screen room to await the storm but he was my alone. His co-conspirator Gaspar had been watching in the shadows the whole time.
“You never told me your father Albert went insane. Interesting change of events.” Gaspar said stepping into the glow of the candelabras.
Jacob took another gulp of cigarette smoke and lifted his eyebrow.
“Well it’s not something one brings up in casual conversation, the insanity of one’s father.”
“So tell me, why is it that you want this so bad. I’ve gone along with all of this so far and to be quite fair, I still cannot believe a son would do these things to his own family. The truth is I don’t care. The money you’ve promised me to help quenches my thirst but I’m only human, curiosity does come.” Gaspar replied.
“Curiosity killed the cat Gaspar.” Jacob growled with a thinly veiled t threat.
“I just want to go know…what’s it all for?” Gaspar asked.
Jacob turned to his partner in crime and rolled his eyes. He wasn’t proud of the reason he was doing what he was doing but what he was about to say was the truth, no matter how simple and pathetic it sounded even to his own ears.
“Revenge Gaspar. Revenge. My father went insane and left most of our family fortune to my brother David and David’s children. Anything extra I got would be in the occurrence of some kind of family tragedy. I’ve done most of the work with the publishing firm over the years. David never did anything, but he was father’s favorite. The chosen prince. You see I can’t let that happen anymore. Even in his declining mental state my father chose my brother. He asked David, my younger brother, to head our company after he died. He was More handsome. He was More intelligent. More everything according to my father. But I am more ruthless. I am more astute. I always win.” Jacob explained.
Gaspar nodded. He now knew the full ugly and jealous story and in truth he really didn’t care all that much just wanted his cut.
“Don’t you worry. You’ll get your payment. Once Evie is out of the picture we can then take care of my mother and once she’s gone… it’s all mine.” Jacob replied to Gaspar’s snide grin.
The two had a good chuckle together knowing their plot was working and all the while, hiding deep in the dark corners of the oval screen room listening closely was little Charlotte, her face quickly shape-shifted to Sabrina’s —angry, hurt, frustrated and ghostly—then back to little Charlotte who now could see her father Jacob was a monster.
“I’ll help you.” Charlotte whispered to the spirit living inside of her. “Whatever you need aunt Sabrina, I’ll do. I’ll help you.”
Now there was another alliance ready to take on the evils of Jacob and Gaspar.
