 |
| Welshport & the RMS Clydomistra in the background |
A Ship's fog horn echoed in the air above just beyond the horizon where the surface of the sea was a thin line of blue water that met the white light of the sky. A new fresh wind from the east roared into Frenchman Bay cooling the seagulls as they circled the small busy harbor of Welshport Village. It was the first warm day of spring after a tumultuous few weeks of final winter rainstorms, and with the seemingly clearing skies came an ocean liner straight from Liverpool.
The ship named CLYDOMISTRA began its slow easy dock into port. The two large chimneys puffed out cottony plumes of white smoke that filled the surrounding air as curious villagers eager to see who was getting off at their small port, crowded the small rocky landing.
Four people, heavy with suitcases and exhausted travel expressions on their faces, slowly made their way out of the CLYDOMISTRA's matte black hull door with its white tarnished rim. They scurried down an iron plank to the landing where they were met with the happy faces of welcoming Welshportonians.
Three of the four passengers to exit were from a family on Welshport returning to the island after a long visit to England. The fourth was a young man with sandy brown hair and green eyes that matched the rolling hills deep inside Tirymôr forest.
He had never been to the island. He had known of it of course, from the stories his family and close friends would tell over long fireside chats on Welshport myths and legends but the island’s reality was a complete mystery, as was the reason for his young Englishman’s visit.
His suitcase was a large brown trunk that had wheels on it conveniently fastened to the bottom for easy traveling. He had no idea how to get to where he was going, all he had was a slip of paper with instructions; instructions that needed to be followed to the letter if he were to complete his task.
At port, as a light sea breeze lifted the young man’s soft brown hair, he began to make his way down the small landing and onto the Main Street where people were busily shopping and chatting in small cafés. As with many small town-people who knew everyone, their reactions of gossipy giggles soon changed to whispers and hushed questions as the new stranger made his way through the village.
He noticed too.
Chatting stopped as he passed. Whispers replaced the sound of happy conversation. Automobiles in the street zooming passed even seemed to slow down as the stranger crossed their eye's view.
Who was he? Where was he going and who was he looking for?
As he continued on his way, he stopped by the smoky and loud town pub THE SIREN’S CALL where local sailors came in and drank their long lonely days at away one cold beer at a time.
"What can I do ya for, sir?"
The young man turned, looked around at the bar and everyone was starting at him. He felt as if he was in some alien world, or perhaps he was the alien to them. As he gazed all around at the wooden figures of mermaids and ocean creatures carved into the walls he opened his mouth to say "Directions actually, I'm looking for directions."
After the very anticlimactic request the rest of the patrons went on with their drinking and the bartender smirked and brought the new traveler a Brandy "On the house, stranger." The bartender quipped.
The young man smirked and took a sip of the brown liquor.
"Directions you say... where to? The local Inn?"
"Actually, no. Tayrimort or...Tearamore... I'm looking for my sister. She lives there with her in-laws."
"Tirymôr?" The bartender asked with a frozen expression.
"Right! That's it! My sister Evie lives there. I'm looking for her."
"Evie Lord is your sister The Bartender asked.
"Yes! That's right, do you know her?" The young man asked.
"No sir I can't say that I do but you wont find Mrs. Lord at Tirymôr now. Not at all." The bartender said cryptically as he wiped spots off of a crystal tumbler.
"I don't understand. Why wont I find her there." Evie's brother wondered.
"Mr....?"
"Jordan, Nikolas Jordan."
"Mr. Jordan, I think you should ask the Lords just what happened to Mrs. Evie Lord. I wont say a word." The Bartender said as he turned his back to tend the bar.
Nikolas felt the brandy seep into his body warm and heavy. He was confused and unsure of what in the world the Bartender was talking about, but it made him nervous. Evie's mother and father had sent Nikolas to Welshport two weeks ago when they couldn't get a straight word out of Rebecca about where she was. No letters were answered. No telegrams were returned. Nikolas was on a reconnaissance mission from England to find his sister and see if she was ok, but now ok was only a wish. But by the behavior of the Bartender, Nikolas thought the worst…was Evie even alive?
"I can take you up there young man, so you can see all that you’ll be dealing with. "A man said from behind.
Nikolas turned and saw an older gentleman with a white beard. His dark blue knit sweater smelled of fish and sea salt. His face was handsome yet withered with aging from the decades on the sea. He knew the Lords, front to back. He knew them well, just as everyone else in town knew them. He even knew the story and the terrors that occurred not too long ago of the young woman from England who married into the family and became a young widow and soon went mad with grief.
"Do you know Evie." Nikolas asked.
"Not personally. No one really got a chance to get to know her down here in the village. But The family will have more to say about that. Truth is, son, I don’t feel it’s my place to tell you what happened to that young woman, your sister. The family should tell you to your face."
"What do you mean? Please tell me, is she ok? Did something happen to her?" Nikolas asked, his green eyes welling up with tears.
"She's alive, son. Alive. But the rest of it, that'll have to come from them. Come-on. Ill take you up to Tirymôr."
Nikolas took a deep breath and shook his head as if to remove all the dark thoughts in his mind. He quickly searched his vest for some money to give the bartender for the drink, but the bartender put out his hand and refused.
"I said this one was on the house....and for what your about to head into, son, I wouldn't feel right taking your money." The bartender replied to Nikolas who felt even more worried.
****
 |
| The new Tirymôr gazebo |
In a luxurious furnished second story drawing room with six large French door windows draped in thick yellow curtains embroidered in a golden French fleur de lis pattern at Tirymôr House, Rebecca Lord stared out of the glass of a window as if she were a framed painting of herself. She was sadly looking over a large garden with several workers building a small gazebo as her son Jacob supervised from the grass.
Jacob’s cigarette smoke floated up from his plump lips as it burned in a red glow while his mother Rebecca continued to watch from the French doors.
She nervously wringed a lace handkerchief in her pale bony hands and only snapped out of her fog like trans as she watched the workers in the garden when her personal maid Georgina Kent brought in the afternoon tea.
“Ma’am.” Georgian said as she curtsied.
“Thank you Georgie.” Rebecca said as she turned from the window allowing more light to seep into the room. “It’ll be like he wasn’t even here.” She added as Georgina replaced Rebecca at the window.
Georgina slowly moved over the yellow drapes and looked down at Jacob in the smoke of his cigarette still watching the workers building the new gazebo. The maid knew what Rebecca was talking about, or better, who she was talking about: her former Spiritual guide Gaspar DuBois.
“So he is really buried under all that, then?” Georgina asked.
Rebecca didn’t look up from the silver tea kettle as it slowly gurgled out the hot liquid into a perfect white porcelain cup with swirls of blue painted waves on the side.
“It’s ghastly but…we had no choice. After everything we’ve been through: Sabrina, David, Sebastian…having news of Gaspar found murdered in the house would certainly destroy what’s left of our family’s reputation. I just hope...” Rebecca paused after revealing the final resting place of Gaspar in her garden under the new gazebo as if speaking out loud might make it more real that it really was.
“What is it ma’am, what were you going to say?” Georgina asked moving over to where Rebecca was with the tea.
“Georgie do you believe in the spirit world?” Rebecca asked still holding the smoldering cup of tea, un-sipped from.
“I believe we all go somewhere when we die, yes ma’am, if that’s what you mean.” The maid replied.
“Spirits don’t always go somewhere Georgie. Not when they’re taken the way Gaspar was. Jacob’s ideas… well they’re not exactly what I would consider thoughtful. Having him buried here at Tirymôr unsettles me.” Rebecca revealed.
“The way he died too. So brutal. I’ve never seen wounds like that before and my family went to war! I’ve heard of missing limbs and blasts go the head and all of that sort, but what I saw on Gaspar the night Jacob asked me to move his body was something wicked. What could have done that?” Georgina wondered.
“I can’t begin to imagine. Perhaps Gaspar intercepted some sort of intruder, a robber. It had just been announced Evie was now a widow, perhaps someone came to kidnap her for ransom and Gaspar…or… maybe…he… I don’t know. I just don’t know what to say.” Rebecca replied still trying to make sense of Gaspar’s wounds when she too saw them for the first time almost two months ago.
It was Georgina who found Gaspar. His throat ripped open. His body mangled and drained of blood. The red pool around him, blood, had hardened and stained the marble in a strange way. Georgina’s heart felt like it stopped. Evie had just been taken away to Windcliff Sanitarium and as Georgina screamed at the top of her lungs Jacob and Rebecca came running back into the house from watching Evie being carted off to see Georgina on her knees trying to lap up the blood from the floor with the bottom of her skirt in a complete breakdown of tears.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!” Jacob screamed at the site of his con-artist partner dead on the floor.
“SIR I FOUND HIM LIKE THIS, I SWEAR ON MY LIFE SIR!” Georgina screamed back. Her heart pounding, her hands stained with blood.
Rebecca covered Charlottes eyes as she too turned pale and queasy at the site of the brutalized Gaspar.
“MOTHER, TAKE CHARLOTTE UP STAIRS GEORGINA AND I WILL TAKE CARE OF THIS. WHATEVER THIS IS!” Jacob shouted back.
Rebecca complied and rushed up the back staircase. Her mind racing with confusion, Charlotte silent with fear. It was no use covering the little girls eyes. She saw too much. She always saw too much.
“Georgina, damn it, stop crying and help me. We have to move him. Let's take him to the shed. There is a cement trough there we can place him in. We'll think of what to do with him after that. We have to get him out of here, do you understand me? Help me!” Jacob ordered.
 |
| Gaspar’s blood in Georgina’s memory |
That was 3 months ago. After removing Gaspar's partially decayed body from the cement horse trough, they decided to bury him in the garden and raise up a Gazebo over his grave to mask it.
Jacob’s voice ordering Georgina around to move a dead body echoed in her mind every day since the night they found him dead. Rebecca too could still see it when she closes her eyes to sleep. It was such a gruesome scene that it probably would never leave them, never.
“I’ve often thought about telling Constable Evans.” Georgina confessed to her mistress.
Rebecca finally lifted her eyes from the tea and stared coldly into Georgina’s soft brown eyes like a tiger zeroing in in her prey.
“I’ve just finished telling you that the very knowledge of Gaspar’s murder would bring unparalleled attention to this family that has already seen enough scandal for a thousand years and you’re telling me you often think about telling Christian Evans, who I might add has yet to catch that murderess Mary Goode?”
“I wouldn’t. I mean I only thought of it because… suppose Gaspar had a family?” Georgina replied innocently.
“The only family, Georgie, you should be concerned with is the one that pays you. My family. You will never tell anyone about Gaspar’s whereabouts for all you know I fired him or he left or… he’s gone, he left Tirymôr. That’s all anyone needs to know.” Rebecca dictated as she finally sipped her afternoon tea.
“Yes ma’am, of course ma’am.” Georgina replied as she curtsied to Rebecca.
Georgina excused herself and left Rebecca alone in the room. The matriarch of the family stared into the dark corner of the drawing room as the afternoon light slowly sank into a dusk. She went over and over in her mind what on earth could have done that to her old friend, a man she saw as spiritual and other worldly. To die in such a manner was unthinkable. She could only guess something from the darkness came and took him. The shadows came and stated their claim on his soul; payback for all the times he flipped a tarot card, all the séances, all the magic potions and tonics he made for Rebecca over the years of his employment. Rebecca a knew that playing in shadows as she did could potentially bring on a dark karma but it was risk she was willing to take to keep herself in the world she so desperately wanted to be a part of.
But on the other hand, Rebecca Lord was no fool. The spirit world may be more powerful but the world of the living was tangible—real and much more blood thirsty. In the world of the living she could control the narrative of every aspect of her life, something she craved just as much as knowing her fate from the spirit world.
The Lord family matriarch stood from her olive green sofa and walked back to the drawing room window now bathed in a golden light of the approaching dusk. She looked down at the men finishing up the days work on the new gazebo above Gaspar’s hastily made grave and saw her son Jacob standing there in his dark suit still smoking.
“Damn you if you had anything to do with this Jacob.” Rebecca said to herself out loud as your Charlotte listened at the open door.
Hearing this, Charlotte rushed off and down the hall. Her white dress bushing up against the dark mahogany tables of the hallways and oak corridor chairs with red velvet upholstery. She ran into her room and tilted the oval standing mirror so that her whole body was in the reflection and suddenly the face of her aunt Sabrina appeared to her.
“We must not fail this time. Jacob must pay for what he did to Sebastian. It’s Jacob’s fault Sebastian had to become what he is, and for that Gaspar is dead and many others will die too.” Sabrina warned.
“What do I do?” Charlotte asked.
Sabrina signaled to Charlotte to come close to the mirror and listen. Charlotte put her little ear with the small pearl earring up against the glass and Sabrina whispered her plan into her host’s ear.
“That’s the only way.” Sabrina said.
Charlotte nodded in agreement and Sabrina’s reflection vanished.
****
In a quaint flat above a flower shop in the center of town the blue sky above Welshport was slowly turning purple with a cooling dusk. The light sea breeze lifted the sheer curtains in the window where Constable Christian Evans was standing sipping on a dark brandy from his mini-bar.
He wasn’t alone.
Christian’s best friend Filipe Braga was there too sitting at a table in the light of a gas lamp drinking the same drink. Both men wore a blank expression on their faces as the conversation they were having dipped into the darkness and strangeness they experienced in the last few weeks of their lives. There were so many questions and no answers, especially from Christian’s point of view.
For his part, Filipe was too afraid to tell Christian what he saw at Eliza’s cabin. He knew that if he uttered one word of the truth, of Sebastian’s every lasting life thanks to Eliza’s spell of vampirism, there was no telling what his consequences would be.
Christian took a sip of his brandy and turned from the window over looking village from his second story flat to Filipe. “How can you not remember what you saw on Goode Island, you were there for days.”
“I must of been ill… or, I don’t know. I made my way back as soon as I could.” Filipe said lying to protect the horrible and frightening secret of Sebastian back from the dead.
“I just can’t figure out what I’m missing here. You were in Eliza’s house for days and you didn’t see Mary once, and then I’m at Tirymôr with Evie and all hell breaks loose. I’m telling you Filipe,” Christian said pulling the second chair out to sit “the evil in this town is more than I could ever control or… or…even stop.”
Filipe took another sip. It helped with the lying.
“Gaspar. You said he was dead. In a pool of blood. Who could have done that to him?” Filipe asked changing the subject.
“I don’t know. It was incredibly bloody. When I finally got myself together after I met up with you at your house and went back to Tirymôr and Rebecca looked at me like I had heads. She said Gaspar went back to New York City and was headed home to Paris, that she’d dismissed him.”
“But you saw him with your own eyes!” Filipe noted.
“I did. At least I think I did. I don’t know what the hell I saw. I, I was rushing and it was dark and things were going so fast and all I could think about is Evie. I still don’t know what I saw. I shouldn’t have left so quickly. But I can tell you---I cant sleep anymore. I haven't slept well or at all in months. Its all I think about. When I do get to sleep that body comes to my mind and I see the gaping hole in his neck. And I hear Evie screaming over and over and over again in my head as they dragged her off.” Christian replied.
Filipe could see how exhausted his friend was. It shown in his face. In his eyes. On his body. He was a strong man, but his body seemed to have withered slightly, still strong but breaking down.
“There’s no way you can get a hold of Gaspar?” Filipe wondered out loud trying to change the subject a little.
“Rebecca and the Lords won’t budge on how to get a hold of him and as much as my whole job requires me to do what I have to to protect I have to just let the Gaspar thing go. Other things have now come to the forefront and I have to move on them. Leave Gaspar and move for are on getting Evie back. But I can't concentrate. I can't focus. I try! I really try! But its like a nagging bug in my head that wont stop.” Christian added.
“About Evie... you were so briefly together, sort of rush to romance. You’ve really fallen in love with her haven’t you?” Filipe asked.
“We connected like no one I have ever been with. And they took her. I can’t let her stay in that place, everything has changed Filipe I have to get her back no matter what and no matter how much money the Lords try to use to keep her locked up. I’m going to get Evie back before whatever got to Gaspar gets to her.”
Filipe felt a chill gown down his spine. He knew that Sebastian had been to Tirymôr that night. His intuition was telling him Gaspar wasn’t really in Paris and was dead by Sebastian’s hand and somehow the Lords were covering for the mysterious murder in their house. Perhaps, Filipe thought, it was better for them too to not ask questions. What was worse was that Filipe knew his best friend was in love and that even if Christian somehow got Evie out of the Asylum Sebastian now stood in their way of love and being together.
And if what Sebastian did to Gaspar was any indication of his fury and power, Filipe knew they were all in danger.
“Perhaps you should just let things go, Christian. You have so much to be accountable for as the island’s Constable that maybe chasing after Evie might be a bad idea.” Filipe suggested attempting to save his friend from Sebastian's potential bitter bite.
“How could you say that? You know the monster Jacob is, look what he did to you!" The unsettled Christian said mentioning Filipe's hand injury from his time as Jacob's Paige. "He can’t just go around and destroy people’s lives because they’re inconvenient to him. We have to put a stop to it and freeing Evie is at the top of the ways how.” Christian further explained as he poured our more brandy into his glass.
“And Mary? What about fishing Mary out and holding her accountable for what she did to Sebastian?” Filipe asked.
Christian tilted his head. He felt annoyed that Filipe was questioning his ability to do two things at the same time but in reality the stress of then past events and the hot brandy rushing in his veins was finally getting to him.
“You don’t think I can do both? You don’t think that I can do my job? You were at Eliza’s cabin for days and days and you didn’t see her once, so you say… if she isn’t there and she hasn’t been seen in the village I have to assume she’s gone too.” Christian said, his mind now spinning from the drink and buzzing with the terrible memories and sleepless nights.
“You’re over worked, friend. I can tell this has been too much. It couldn’t have been easy watching them take Evie away that way, maybe even it pushed your mind to believe you saw something you didn’t.” Filipe said trying to protect Sebastian’s murder of Gaspar to keep the vampire safe from exposure for all their sakes.
“You’re supposed to be my friend. You said Mary wasn’t where she most likely was and I believed you! Why don’t you believe me?” Christian said loudly his words slurring.
“Christian maybe you need to lie down.”
“WHAT I NEED IS TO GET EVIE BACK AND FIND MARY AND FIND GASPAR!!!! What I need, Filipe, is for my best friend to believe me when I say I saw a dead body when I say that I love Evie and when I say I can take care of my job and still save her! But you don’t! YOU DONT!” Christian shouted, his boozy break down now in full effect.
“Alright, alright take a break. Just breath. Come on, I’ll take you to bed. We can talk tomorrow.” Filipe said, the guilt now washing over his heart for gaslighting his closest friend. But he had to. He has to make sure Sebastian was never discovered. The dangers or what the monster would and could do were too high.
The last thing Filipe wanted was a clever detective like Christian investigating Gaspar’s death only to discover the vampire Sebastian.
Filipe put a sloppy, stressed and devastated Christian to bed and waited until he feel asleep before cleaning up the front room and blew out the gas lamps. He took his coat and at and looked back into Christian’s small living room and took a deep breath.
“Sorry friend, I have to keep you far away from the monster. Far far away.” Filipe said to an empty room now dim with the dusk light from the open window. Then he left.
****
 |
| Evie Meets with Dr. Kim |
“Evie…. Evie I want you to tell me all about it. Tell me every single detail of your time seeing what saw, hearing what you heard.” A disembodied voice said in the darkness.
Evie, laying on a sofa at Windcliff Sanitarium with her doctor did not open her eyes or answer the voice.
Evie’s new home, an asylum she was taken to because of her supposed breakdown and visions of her dead husband Sebastian was mainland Maine, in a secluded area about an hour and a half from the city of Bangor.
The white walled Windcliff was a three story facility that sat deep in a thicket of woods since the early 1900’s and housed some of the East Coasts most peculiar and disturbed & deranged patients with psychological disorders. Some of these people left and lived happy lives but others had a red mark X in their file: lifers. Unable to leave for their own mental state and sanity. The doctor with Evie flipped a page of his notes from Evie’s file as he attempted again to get her to talk revealing a red X; a result of a hearty payment to the doctor from Jacob made sure of it.
The Doctor was Andrew Kim, a man in his late 40’s with perfect slick black hair that was white at the temples. His smile was toothy and large and he walked around in his small bodily frame very dapperly dressed at all times.
He was a confident mental physician that studied at some of the most prestigious school in the nation and even spent time in a England working with doctors there in hardened insane criminals before coming home to America where he’d become Windcliff’s chief of staff.
He was not without his faults, however. Behind the intelligent and caring bedside manor he too had his hands in things that perhaps science and medicine could not fix. Especially with his dealings with the Lord family. It was not wast for him to just take Evie Jordan-Lord into the hospital on Jacob’s request. He had to. Jacob would make sure every dirty secret in Andrew’s life was exposed or he hadn’t taken Evie.
Jacob Lord was not a man Dr. Andrew Kim wanted to cross.
Not again.
On the 10th night of Evie’s admission into Windcliff Evie had a session with Dr. Kim in his office. Their psycho therapy for her alleged visions of Sebastian at Tirymôr we’re always topic at hand. Not to mention her sudden shift into a love affair with another man in Sebastian’s own room so soon after his death. A clear sign of insanity — at least that what the water Evie to believe.
She lay on Dr. Kim’s leather sofa in her white hospital gown with thin blue pin stripes that went the length of the dress. Her hands clasped perfectly over stomach with her fingers fidgeting with the apron pocket she had tied to on.
“You’re nervous. Tell me why.” Dr. Kim said, sitting across from Evie in a cloud of cigarette smoke and orange lamp light.
“I just don’t have much to say Doctor.” Evie replied, her eyes glued to a crack in the office ceiling.
“Let’s pick up where we left off on our last session,” Kim said, leafing through his notes. “You mentioned last time you weren’t sure if someone was watching you when you lived at Tirymôr. Tell me more about that.”
“It’s late. Can’t I just go back to my room?” She asked turning her head on the pillow slightly to meet his gaze.
“You agreed you’d have these sessions with me a few days ago. We need to have them so that we can work out what’s bothering you Evie. Do you think it’s normal for a person to feel as though they are being watched?”
“I’m watched here. Aren’t I?”
“Yes. You are. By the nurses and the orderlies. But they watch you and the other patients to keep you safe. Why would you think someone at Tirymôr was watching you? Can you tell me why you felt like that?” Kim prodded.
“Doctor, have you ever felt like you couldn’t trust anyone? One goes about their life giving and giving and giving and suddenly a slew of terrible things occur and it’s like a slap in the face by the universe. I can’t tell about this anymore. I’m exhausted.” Evie replied as she sat up.
“Are you really tired this late in the evening or are you trying get out of this session?” Kim asked slyly.
“Why did you come to Tirymôr? Why did you let Jacob tell you what to do? Everything I said I saw was true. Someone was playing a horrible trick on me and tried to make look as if I was going mad, and Jacob pounced on that. Then you showed up.” Evie said.
Dr. Kim lifted a brow. Although Evie was telling the truth Dr. Kim didn’t like how she was attempting to flip the conversation to him and not what’s she has agreed to: her experiences at Tirymôr.
“You’re stalling Ms. Jordan.” The Doctor replied in a frustrated tone.
Evie’s eyes narrowed and she replied “Its Mrs. Lord.”
“Fine—Mrs. Lord, you’re stalling. If you don’t want to talk things over with mr tonight then I’ll have you take your medication now and we can do this tomorrow.”
“No please. I don’t want take anything anymore.” She replied as she recoiled back into the leather sofa that stretched and squirmed with the shift of her weight.
“I don’t have time to deal with your rebellion. You either tell me what you imagined or you take the the pill and go to sleep. It’s really up to you. Those are your choices, now choose.” Kim replied.
Evie now felt her blood boil inside of her. She had told him on some of their first meetings when she arrived everything had he refused to believe her. Refused? Or was forced to refuse her version of events by Jacob’s money and influence?—that was the true question.
“How dare you?! Why would I imagine any of that!! I told you everything. I’ve told you several times! Why does Jacob keep me here and why do you allow it!?!?” Evie shouted as she stood up from the sofa.
“I’ve told you once, Mrs. Lord, and I’ll tell you again, Jacob Lord has no control over me or my reasoning for allowing you to stay here with us at Windcliff.” He replied, lying about the Jacob connection.
“I want to go. I’m completely sane. I want to go, now!” She snapped as Dr. Kim was lost by his patience with her.
“This place is to help you. We are here to make you better but you’re resisting. You’ve been resisting the psycho therapy since you’ve come and I think that perhaps we will have to change tactics and make you do better. To make you heal. It’s the only way.”
Evie stepped back slightly, unsure of what he meant. “You can’t keep me here. I want to leave. You have to let me leave if I request it.”
“No. No I don’t. You’ve been deemed a danger to yourself by your family Mrs. Lord and as I attempt to get you to see this for yourself I cannot in good conscience let you go. Not now, and maybe not ever.” Dr. Kim relied as he pulled a small porcelain pill box out of his jacket pocket.
“What? You can’t do that!” She said.
“I absolutely can. And have. You’re mine.” Dr. Kim replied as he walked over to Evie and grabbed her hand forcibly and put the pill in her hand. “Take your medicine. And I’ll see you in the morning.”
Evie looked down at the small white circular pill. She took it twice before. It made her drowsy and in minutes she would pass out asleep. It frightened her Howe powerful the pill was and not only that it made her incredibly groggy the next day, which was why Andrew Kim scheduled night sessions.
She hated the pill. She hated not remembering how she got to bed or who brought her to bed or how long she was asleep. It made her skin crawl. But she took the pill. Drank water. And lifter her tongue to show Dr. Kim that it was gone.
True to form, she passed our asleep minutes later on the sofa. An ordinary was called in to lift Evie up in her white hospital gown with blue stripes and placed down on a wheelchair as she was taken off to her room and laid down on her small twin bed that was packed perfectly center in the room below a square window.
As soon as the door closed, Evie’s eyes popped open and she pulled the pill out of her mouth. She taught herself how to hide it below her tongue towards the back of her mouth.
Evie lay her in bed, her body trembling with a mixture of fear and frustration. But most of all determination to leave this hospital and fight back against Jacob and his obvious schemes.
As the ordinary wheeled back Evie’s empty wheel chair to the empty Rec-room, another patient peeked through the window in her door into the small window of Evie’s door where she watched her sleep. She was beautiful and dark haired with warm toned skin. Her eyes a shining chestnut brown.
She whispered to herself “Evangeline.”
****
 |
| Eliza, Mary and Sebastian at the Cabin |
Goode island had become somewhat of a fortress since Eliza’s use of her powers to revive Sebastian Lord from his death slumber six feet underground. The two Goode women, Eliza & Mary needed to keep his existence a secret for as long as they could or suffer the consequences of everyone knowing the truth if their powers.
Night had fallen and the waves of the Atlantic crashed up against the jagged shoreline of Goode island like black liquid. Mary sat in a rocking chair toiling over a book of spells she borrowed from her mother studying and thinking of the most amazing things she could do now that she and her mother has aligned together in a two-woman coven.
The alliance was more a protection tactic on Eliza’s part. She knew that once Sebastian’s secret was revealed and that they were the ones with the ungodly ability to raise the dead—untold horrors were to come.
Strength in numbers. Two sorceresses is better than one.
As Mary studied, her mother Eliza stirred a large pot of dark liquid warming it in a hot stove above the fire. Her long whitened red hair messily braided going down her back to her hip.
“You’ll learn better if you eat.” Eliza said as she stirred but did not look up from her pot.
Mary closed the book and smiled. It has been ages since she felt the comforts of home, living in Welshport in her own town flat felt like independence but she truly did miss her mother. The horrors of the last few months proved that despite it all, she was meant to be there—on Goode Island with her mother.
She walked over to the warm stove but the liquid in the pot did not look appetizing.
“Maybe I’ll have some later.” Mary said cringing.
“This isn’t for you girl! This is for you cousin Sebastian. It’s night now. He’ll wake and need substance.” Eliza explained.
“You mean it’s more…” Mary paused.
“Blood.” Eliza confirmed.
“My god mother, where do you keep getting all of this? We sent Filipe back to Welshport and you’re still getting blood to keep Sebastian healthy and alive. It’s been weeks.” Mary added.
“Sebastian needs this to live Mary. If he doesn’t have fresh blood once he awakens he’ll wither away and die, and reviving him and turning the clock back against the will of god and life will all be for not. I can’t let that happen.” Eliza replied.
Mary looked pensive and wondered why it mattered so much that Sebastian stay alive. Aside from the obvious that all their work would have all been for nothing if they just let him die, it all seemed to put pressure on Eliza. She was all but meticulous to give Sebastian what he needed now that he was staying with them.
“What if…one day you don’t give him this. What happens to us if we let Sebastian go without blood?” Mary asked.
Eliza stopped stirring. Her eyes welled up with tears telling Mary that the danger of what she asked happening was real and was the true source of Eliza’s constant adherence to Sebastian’s blood drinking.
“You don’t want to know.” Sebastian said at the opening of shot hallway in the Goode cabin that lead to his blacked out room where he slept.
“You’re awake!” Eliza said turning quickly to her undead nephew quickly changing the subject.
“Answer my question mother.” Mary said sternly.
“I said you don’t want to know.” Sebastian replied.
“I want my mother to tell me what she so obviously is holding back Sebastian. If it’s concerning to her and to you then I want to know. What would happen if Sebastian dies?—again.”
Eliza looked over at Sebastian who’s face has turned permanently white as the whitest linen sheet. His dark cobalt blue eyes were now an aqua blue that rivaled the ocean in the light of day. He shrugged at Eliza as if to give her the option to let Mary in on the truth or not, Eliza, sighed deeply and chose to let her in on the secret.
“My darling, the universe is a give and take. Once we take from a natural event we must give back something as well. When I sent your aunt Sabrina’s spirit to live inside of Charlotte I had to give something in return. My own freedom. I can’t leave Goode island... ever. This island, this home is my prison for the reversal of life I gave Sabrina. Nature, the universe, Mary, takes down the score. I cannot break the pact I made for Sabrina's sake." Eliza explained as she paused for Mary to absorb what she had said.
"And Sebastian?" Mary then asked looking off into the dark corner where Sebastian was standing.
Eliza's face hardened. Sebastian's case was much more potent. Much more serious. Sabrina lived as a spirit inside a host body. They were one body two souls. But her powerful pull for Mary's fate in asking to bring Sebastian's entire body and soul back from the grave was much more to ask for from the universe. Eliza's debt became larger then.
"When I brought Sebastian back to us,” Eliza began to explain looking over at her deathly cold nephew “I gave up something all together, something much more precious to me than my own freedom.”
"What did you give up?" Mary asked, as Sebastian lifted a brow waiting for Eliza to speak what he already knew.
"You. I gave up you." Eliza said softly.
“What??” Mary asked confused.
“If I die again breaking the spell, you die. It’s as simple as that, Mary. We are tied together. My soul and yours. Just like Charlotte and my mother, but the powerful play here is that I was given my own body." Sebastian said filling in the blanks.
Mary gasped and stepped back towards her chair. She held tightly to her stomach that felt as if it had tangled itself in a knot. She sat back in the chair and felt as if her whole body was tingling.
“It was the only way Mary. Bringing Sebastian back was to right your wrong that is how spells work. The reason Sabrina is only a spirit is because I didn’t kill her, I could only bring her half way back. A full body return requires me to have taken that life in the first place.” Eliza explained further as Sebastian took the pot with his blood and drank from it.
His lips turned crimson, dark as the blood in the pot that bubbled and felt warm going down his throat. It was like a powerful potion or elixir that seeped into his tissues and brought him energy for the night to come until he returned back to Goode island again before dawn.
“Mmm… raccoon today.” He grimaced.
“I can’t believe you’d do that to me.” Mary said softly.
“Mary, my girl, listen to me: there’s always a way out and I have a plan. I’ve already initiated you into a coven with myself so we have that protection but there’s something else.” Eliza said.
“What is it?” Mary wondered.
“Stop this! You both cannot go on about what you plan to do for each other before you help me. Do you understand? I have to get my wife back and since the two of you are practically responsible for what’s happened to me I will remind you that you still have to get me back to where I was. My uncle Jacob has to be stopped. If not for me, think of Charlotte.” Sebastian added.
“There’s nothing we can do for Evie. I’ve already told you that.” Eliza replied.
“What do you mean? Your powers brought me back from beyond the grave and you can’t help me save Evie from that mental institution and reunite with her?”
“Sebastian listen to yourself!” Mary shouted as she stood up again.
“Mary….” Eliza said softly hoping to calm her daughter.
“You will never be with Evie again! It’s over! That part of your life is over and is guilty as I am for being responsible for it we have to focus on other things. And by that I mean you’re half right— Jacob does need to be dealt with.” Mary added.
“I won’t abandon my wife.” Sebastian growled as Eliza got between her daughter and her nephew.
“I’m afraid you have no choice, cousin. Jacob has won on that end and I won’t go gallivanting around the mainland to help you save a lost cause.” Mary growled back.
Sebastian furrowed his brow and slammed the pot in his hand onto the dinner forcing the remnants of blood to splash upward allowing a rain of red droplets to shower Mary and Eliza’s face.
“Then I’ll just skip the next blood breakfast and die—would that help your situation? If I can’t have Evie I’ll starve myself and wither away cousin Mary, you’d be right along with me. How would that make you feel? What magic spell will save you from that? None at all, isn’t that right aunt Eliza? Her life would pay back the one she took from me and we’d both be gone. It’s really very simple. A debt to the universe is one hell of a debt.” Sebastian said in a threat.
“We can’t give you everything Sebastian. Your life was enough. But Evie won’t have to find her own way out, we have all come too far.” Eliza added changing corse on helping Sebastian.
“Mother I won’t go. I won’t try and get Evie out of Windcliff. I won’t.” Mary said. “It’s too dangerous. Christian is still searching for me and Lords want my head on a platter the minute they find out im snooping around Evie — there’s no telling what they’d do to me.”
“Well it doesn’t have to be you Mary.” Eliza said
“Then who?” Sebastian asked.
“This is exactly what I had been talking about. The only way to get Mary out of the pact with my spell. It would benefit you too Sebastian. Mary cannot go into Welshport and not be detected as she is, that’s now out of the question and I certainly can’t leave Goode Island. What we need to do is find someone else. Someone else for Mary.”
Sebastian looked at Eliza like she had three heads. He looked over at his cousin Mary and she too seemed in the dark to Eliza’s plan.
“Filipe? Filipe knows.” Mary said.
“No.” Eliza replied. “Mary you need a new face. A new body. A new shell to live out the rest of your days undetected and unknown to the rest of the work. Once we find that person, I will switch you both in spirit and in body and forever you’ll leave in her face. That way we can carry one in destroying that monster Jacob and also help Sebastian.” Eliza explained.
“That sounds… so…” Mary was a loss for words. The very idea of switching bodies with someone just to protect herself from all the horrible things she had done seemed diabolical. Sinister. Even evil.
“Jacob will have no way of knowing where or who you are. Even Knowing you’re still alive Mary, means you can’t leave Goode island either. You’re mother is right. We have to have you switch bodies with someone.”
“But who?” Mary wondered.
Sebastian took a minute and then it came to him. A woman he knows - a woman that not only has access to roam free around Welshport undeclared but also access to Tirymôr House and the Lord family that will open up many doors for getting revenge on Jacob.
“Georgina.” Sebastian said. “It should be my grandmother’s maid Georgian Kent.”
“Could that work?” Mary wondered happily.
“It will work, because it has to work.” Sebastian answered.
Mary looked at Eliza. Eliza looked at Sebastian and grinned.
It was the perfect disguise.
“Then Let it all be done.” Eliza said with a cold toned voice.
