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| Evie in her room |
Down a long ornately decorated hallway with red carpeting and gold leaf shaped electrical light fixtures, some of the first electrical lines on the island, was a beautifully freshly cleaned bedroom suite set up for the new young woman from England that would soon become the newest Lord family member, Evie Jordan.
Evie sat on an olive green velvet love seat who's legs ended with four lion's paws as feet. Her dress cascaded down to the ground like a waterfall of fabric as she looked around her new bedroom awash in orange light from the hearth in the center of the room.
There was cream colored daffodils carefully painted on the wallpaper and near the large bay window that over looked a stunning lush garden was a baby blue loves seat that had one of her suitcases open showed some of her lovely clothes.
It was just hours into her arrival at Tirymôr house and Evie was still stunned at Charlotte biting her on the hand. She looked down at the wound, it stung as her new lady-in-waiting Celeste DeViana carefully cleaned it with iodine and soft wash clothes of pink terrycloth.
"She's never done this before miss." Celeste said, looking up from the clotted bites.
"She’s never acted out this way?" Evie asked, her voice attempting to piece together what on earth might have been going through Charlotte's mind to make her bite so hard that her tiny little girl canine teeth broke skin.
"No, no...she's a very polite young lady. Mrs. Lord has raised her very well. Only the best edicate classes for that little girl." Celeste said finally wrapping Evie's hand in a bandage.
"I guess it just some sort of baptism into the family, huh??" Evie joked.
"You must be very tired. I could leave you now if you'd like?" Celeste asked.
"No, no. I'm glad you're here. I just feel like so much is happening so fast that to sit and talk with someone about regular things feels good." Evie answered.
"Well, as long as I've lived on this island, and it has been all my life, I can tell you there has been nothing more exciting than what is going to happen with you and Sebastian. Your wedding is a very big deal miss. Especially after all the sadness and—” Celeste stopped herself before revealing too much.
Evie smiled politely hoping Celeste would continued but she changed the subject.
"—You'll be happy to know the weather around here is much like England's. I'm sure you packed accordingly." Celeste said.
Evie could tell Celeste was holding back. She thought about all what had happened in the last two hours, and decided to try and see if Celeste would break; the strangeness of everything coupled with what Catherine told her on the ship became too much for her own head to contain.
As she sat there, just days from getting married in her perfect new bridal bedroom, Evie suddenly let it happen; the words, the questions they all came bubbling up and they spilled out from her mouth.
Evie needed to know the truth about Sebastian's father. Those horrible rumor of the murder I cure beach. Were they true?
"Celeste, there's something else I need to ask you." Evie said, her voice now more serious.
Celeste took a gulp of air as if she knew what was going to come out of Evie's moth next.
Then across the room under the shadows, just as Celeste’s anxiety about what Evie was about to ask boiled over, something happened completely unnoticed.
Near a side door that lead to a private bathroom in Evie’s suite was a large painting of a Lord family ancestor from centuries before. The woman, Sebastian’s great aunt who once inhabited the same room, looked out from her painted frame with a strange and cold gaze. There was something about the painting’s eyes. The seemed vacant and distant from the rest of the painted face. Almost real.
As the two women talked, the eyes of the painting went blank as a painted card from the other side of the wall was removed allowing someone to look through undetected through the eyes of the painting.
Celeste, knowing the house backwards and forwards glanced over at the painting without Evie noticing. She knew they were being watched from the other side of the wall by someone in the family.
"Anything, miss. What is it?" Celeste said to Evie about her query never giving away that she knew they were being watched.
"The woman on the ship that I roomed with, she...well she said something to me that made me have a strange feeling, and I feel foolish even getting to this point because there is always a very good explanations for things, but she told me something about Sebastian's father David...." Evie began before Celeste slowly turned around at the mention of David Lord's name.
"She did, did she? What did she say?" Celeste wondered.
"I don't really want to say it out loud because, well it's rather upsetting to be honest. But it had to do with his disappearance after a terrible event with his mother. She said that everyone in this area was talking about it but it sounds like some sort of folklore. It can't be true, can it?" Evie asked.
Celeste felt her stomach drop. She could see that there was some worry in Evie's eyes; a young woman who had just left her whole life behind. Her family, her world, everything. Celeste had to make a choice, tell her the truth and clean up any of the myths Catherine may have slipped in of the event that shrouded David and Serena Lord's scandalous life or put the young bride-to-be at ease.
She chose the latter, a recited the Lord family script.
"As you can imagine, miss, this part of the world is filled with this type of nonsense especially when it has to do with prominent families like this Lords. The fictional versions are always much more entertaining. The truth is, Mrs. Sabrina Lord died of influenza. It was horrible. She suffered so... and David, well he couldn't deal with her passing when it finally happened. He did indeed vanish but it was after his poor wife died of such a horrible death. It was the most painful thing to watch." Celeste explained pausing to look out of the window as her eyes frosted over.
Just outside of Evie’s window, Celeste stared at a large thick branch from a beautiful bare oak tree. A black crow flew down and landed on the branch and looked into the window and locked eyes with Celeste. Celeste kept eye contact with the crow as to not look into Evie’s eyes fearing detection or her lie.
"Influenza." Evie's voice said, breaking Celeste's trance like gaze with the bird in the window. It seemed like too much or too easy of an explanation. But Evie decided not to rock the boat and accepted it as truth and Catherine's story as fodder, in truth it was just easier for her.
"Influenza." Celeste repeated, knowing it was not the truth. "I should leave you now miss. You've had a very long day of travel and...everything else, tomorrow will be a better day and we can get you better acquainted with your new family. Please, rest well." Celeste said as she curtsied and began to leave.
"Wait, Celeste, please wait. One more thing." Evie asked.
"Yes, Miss?"
"As long as I live here, please call me Evie, none of this Miss or Mrs. I know it's protocol, but it makes me more comfortable if we are more friends than anything else. I'll certainly need a friend here in the land of the Lords." She smirked shyly.
Celeste smiled a large grin. "Evie." She said again with a curtsey.
"OH! One more thing..." Evie exclaimed holding her bandaged bite wound that Celeste helped clean and wrap. NO curtsies." she added to Celeste's second grin of approval.
Celeste left the room and as she did she looked over and saw the painting’s eyes had returned to the artistic glazed state and she breathed a sigh of relief knowing she had kept the lie alive as her employers had always insisted.
Celeste then made her way down the main stair case of the mansion that was shaped like a crescent moon. She held on tightly to the wooden and bronze banister as her long ruffled dressed with it's dark fringe ran across each step making a swishing sound that echoed in the domed chamber of the foyer. As was finally getting to the very last steps, Sebastian turned the corner and met her at the bottom of the staircase.
"Celeste." He said, in a strange surprised voice, he had thought she went home.
"Sebastian!" Celeste said using her boss' first name, then looking around worried Rebecca over heard "I mean Mr. Lord, good evening." Celeste replied correcting herself just in case.
He smirked at her silly correction.
"How is she? She must think we're all a bunch of insane rich people letting a little girl run amuck."
"Actually, there was something she brought up that I think you should know about before you go up to see her." Celeste said, pulling Sebastian over to a quiet corner of the foyer where two large lanterns were glowing a peach tone of light under a large oil painting of David Lord standing on a rock over seeing Welshport Island.
Celeste and Sebastian had grown up together. Celeste's family had moved to the island decades ago, even before she was born. They had been a family of escaped slaves from Portuguese colonies that found refuge in the free north of America and Canada. Celeste's parents were born free, as of course was Celeste and her younger sister Aurora. The Lord family had given Celeste’s family members that came to America work on their land, homes and even at the various newspaper printing factories that made up the Lord family's vast Publishing empire.
Celeste's family had prospered and made their own money and lived happily but always kept their loyalties to the wealthy family that helped their early beginning. The DeVianna family made sure that the generations to come would always had a place to work if they so wanted.
The Lord family became synonymous with helping slaves during those awful years in the 1800s. Even Celeste's partner Filipe, a man she fell in love with only 5 years ago, had roots from the same colonies as Celeste. Together they had grown up around Sebastian, were his best friends and confidants.
Celeste, with all the good in her, knew she had to protect the Lord family secret from Evie. To protect the secret was to protect the marriage and most of all to protect her friend Sebastian.
"What is it? Is she having second thoughts about the wedding?" Sebastian asked in a hushed voice.
"No, not exactly. But there was a bit of gossip spilled to her on the voyage over. She met a woman who told her about your father and she asked me about it." Celeste divulged.
"Jesus." Sebastian said, clutching his neck. "What did you tell her?"
Celeste took a second to gather what she would reply. She knew that Sebastian trusted her, their friendship lasted all their lives and he was of course sure she didn't tell Evie the truth of the murder, but their stories needed to match and Sebastian knew it.
"I said what you all have asked us to say if we were ever asked... that your mother died of influenza and your father's disappearance was due to a broken heart not ….well, guilt." she replied, as the light of the lanterns flushed a beautiful orange glow in her dark brown eyes.
Sebastian thanked her for keeping the secret and gave her a quick hug. Celeste, covered herself in her dark cloak and rushed out the door before the night became too dark for anyone to be out on the village streets.
Back in her room, Evie scoured the enormous bookshelf in her bedroom for any inkling of books on art and history that she so loved as she waited for her own belongings to be unpacked.
She slowly walked along the carpeted floor, her dress bushing up against the shelf making a sweeping sound like a fingers scratching down a window screen. Just as the sound began to annoy her a knock came to her large oak door of the bedroom. Evie turned and took a deep breath knowing this would not be her new friend Celeste who had gone for the night.
She quickly walked over to the warm fireplace where the light would catch her better and called for the person to come in.
The door slowly opened and in stepped a very nervous Sebastian, the person she has been expecting.
"Evangeline, good evening." He said shyly, as Once again the paintings eyes changed to watch the two soon to be newly weds.
"Sebastian! Please come in. And again--you can call me Evie." She replied as she scooted over to a large two seated love seat.
"I wanted to check on you. I am so mortified about what Charlotte did. How are you holding up?" He asked.
"Don't be. I have younger brother Nicholas and when he was small he bit me all the time. Never broke the skin though." Evie joked.
Sebastian chuckled and felt quickly at ease with his bride-to-be. He found her stunning. Her dark hair and eyes were like the most beautiful he had ever laid his own eyes on. He had only small paintings over to see as they were sent over from England as she grew up to keep track of her but none, none at all, did her beauty any justice. He hoped that she too didn't feel slighted in the husband department but her kind smile gave him hope that she was indeed happy with the arrangement too. At least physically.
"You know when we were little and I first met you I had no idea what I was going to get into and I had no idea what it would mean to marry you someday and it's so strange that it's finally here. It's a really archaic custom I guess, for two people to be betrothed and have you come all the way over here like some kind of package for me, but I want you to know that I will care for you and love you with everything I have in me. I want you to be happy here Evie. Welshport, the island the town, this house, it's your home now too." Sebastian said gripping her hand in his.
A small tear came to Evie's eye. She was surprised at how sweet he was and how gentle he was being. She too had no idea what to expect when she first got to the island but his warmth was as hot as the hearth's and she could feel it not only from the vibration his seemingly loving gaze gave her but it was something she felt too coming from her to him.
With all her might she wanted to be strong and to keep her mind clear. Evie wanted to hopefully get to know Sebastian more before her truth feelings came to the surface. She had always ready silly fairytales and never believed them. Perhaps it was homesickness setting in, perhaps it was the shock of the Charlotte biting her but Sebastian's sweetness wore her all of that hard exterior she was attempting to show down and she instantly knew that she was in love; an unexpected quick feeling that happened in a way she thought she'd have to pretend to feel. But it was there. Truthfully.
"I think the idea of an arranged marriage is ridiculous too but here we are. The very idea is so alien that I couldn't imagine doing it to my own child. Not in a million years. And yet here I am happier than I've ever been and wanting nothing more than to be your wife. Its all so silly!" She laughed.
"Its not silly. It...well it is what it is." He said smiling. "Celeste said you asked about my parents." He added.
"I'm sorry I shouldn't have but this woman on the ship with me made this whole thing about me coming here. She told me this story and I just had to find out if it were true. Not that the real story isn't just as tragic." Evie replied.
Sebastian smiled at her. Her eyes were so deep and brown and innocent. He hated to have to lie to her but the truth of his father kidding his mother was just too dark a take to tell just days before their wedding. Lying was awful, so Sebastian decided to add some of the truth in to at least ease his own conscious.
"Before my mother died my grandmother was living in Philadelphia. It was just my parents and myself living here with my Uncle and Charlotte was just a baby here at Tirymôr. Then my grandfather Albert died and grandmother moved in. My father was incredibly depressed about Grand-dad's death. It slowly ate away at him and my grandmother. He began to drink and she began to dream in this world of the supernatural. Always trying to reach him in séances and tarot card readings. My father and his alcohol took control of him. A lot. And Grandma sort of looked away. When my mother died, it was all too much for him I guess. He …just...." Sebastian explained before Evie interjected part of the lie she was told.
"He just left." She said.
Sebastian nodded.
"I'm here for you Sebastian. For anything. Forever." She replied sweetly.
Sebastian's heart skipped a beat. It was as if they had been pared up perfectly. He leaned in and slowly went for her lips. She froze, unsure where to place her head: tilted? Straight forward? He gently placed his hands on her soft pink cheeks and kissed her on the lips. She opened her mouth slightly, they tasted each other and inside their bodies burned hot like fire.
It was a love that came from a magical unexpected place.
As they pulled away from their romantic first kiss, they fire in the hearth cracked and burned warm air all around them. Over on the far wall near a second door that lead to a private bathroom the life-size painting of one of Sebastian Lord’s ancestors again went back to its painted state.
Satisfied with what they were seeing, the pair of real eyes quickly and quietly changed back to the painted eyes; on the other side of the wall was Rebecca Lord, Sebastian’s grandmother who had been watching the whole time. She stepped out of a hidden wall between the room she was in the Evie’s room that had been created using a fake door that lead into the small closet like space with the hole made to look through the painting.
As she stepped back into her room, sitting patiently on soft blue chairs were Rebecca’s personal mystic Gaspar Dubois and her son Jacob.
"Things are off to a good start." Rebecca said, quietly replacing the large door that matched the wallpaper concealing the hidden area of wall where she could step into and watch Evie's room.
"Good. But for how long? How long can we keep everything under wraps? Secrets, mother, always have a way of rising to the surface of even the murkiest of swampy families." Jacob said with a raised brow.
"Celeste did as we have always instructed the servants to swat away rumors of David and Sabrina. What else do you want? It’s not like you’ve done any better at keeping up appearances." Rebecca reminded her son who scowled at her but said nothing more.
"There are ways to make sure our new friend stays away from asking any more questions." Gaspar said, opening up a darkly bound book that came out of a his coat pocket and tucked it under his arm. The book had no words on it's cover explaining it's contents. But Rebecca, familiar with everything Gaspar was about knew exactly what it was.
“You expect her to continue to push for answers?” Rebecca wondered.
“It’s possible. And if she is as curious as she’s been so far, that could be problematic for us all should she discover the truth.” Jacob said.
“Disastrous even.” Gaspar replied.
“So what do you suggest?” Rebecca asked Gaspar, her spiritual adviser.
He then handed her his book of what he called “spiritual remedies and solvings.” — a spell book.
He had often read from the book to her, "ideas and insurance for the future" he called it, never had she asked him to use anything in his mystical book to help her. Rebecca was a lot of things: strong willed, hard headed, a stubborn a battle ax, fearless. But there were things that frightened her. The supernatural.
She worried the ghosts of her husbands would come for her. She worried that her secret affairs would come back to haunt her in ways she could not control via karmatic twists of fait that would put her family in constant peril. And indeed, the death of Sabrina by her own son felt as if that was one of the first major punishments of her own dabbling in the dark ways, in other words, she feared Gaspar's book like the devil feared the psalms.
"Put that away!!" She shouted.
"It could help Madame." Gaspar said in his French accent.
"Nothing good can come of that. Nothing. I want to make sure Evangeline stays on the straight and narrow but in no way do I want to use anything from your book."
"What exactly is in there?" Jacob wondered, as he looked over at Gaspar, the two men seeming to have a secret language of their own of glances and looks of their eyes.
Gaspar, breaking from his glance at Jacob, began to speak before Rebecca rushed over and covered his mouth with black laced glove hand.
"Not a word." She said to him.
"Mother for god's sake. Let the man explain! If there something he can do to keep us all out of harm's way what's the problem? You certainly have trusted him with other matters before, I would safely assume the matter of making sure Evie stays as far away from learning anything of our best would be something you were interested in." Jacob rattled off.
"It is not what you think, Madame. Believe me." Gaspar said.
Rebecca furrowed her brow but pulled her hand off of Gaspar's mouth, still worried he summon daemons or bring on the darkness of all evil to surround the mansion and kill off any good spirits that still lived amongst them. She stepped back, frightening of any bizarre spiritual blow back she imagined spill from her mystic's mouth when suddenly from inside the book he pulled a small crystal tied with a red ribbon on one end.
"What is it?" Jacob asked.
"This crystal, when used correctly can put someone to sleep. We can hypnotize Evangeline and help her forget what she heard on that ship. Using this will protect her from asking any further questions and insuring that no one from outside the family ever know the truth about David and Sabrina." Gaspar said.
"But people already assume it. That's why it was told Evie on the ship, don't you see? The story is out there!" Rebecca reminded them.
"Yes, but it can be squashed once and for all in Evie's mind. Hers is the mine we need to contain, the strain of this virus like story could kill her marriage to Sebastian. Having her continue to wonder what happened and whether or not it was true will only brew more danger Madame, think of the card we pulled just this morning and what they said of this family's future. Evie is the epicenter of the disaster that is to come if we do not take proper precautions. This crystal will protect your family from all of that. We must use it and take action." Gaspar said lifting the crystal in the air allowing tiny fragments of light to break into it causing a geometrical diamonds of light to dance on the wall across from it.
Jacob shot a sly smirk and glance to Gaspar who lifted a brow and smiled too as if they knew more than they were saying to Rebecca. They too were holding a secret. A secret side plot that Rebecca was unaware of.
Rebecca, not noticing the two men's mysterious glances to just each other, clutched the long strand of pearls around her neck that met at the center of her chest and walked over to the sparkling hypnotizing crystal and grabbed hold of it. She looked into it and knew that of course Gaspar was right.
Evie's questioning of the secret surrounding David and Sabrina Lord had to be nipped in the bud as soon as possible, in fact, before the wedding or as Rebecca's tarot cards explained, all hell would break loose.
