B2/Ch7: SUBMERGE AND SET FREE

 

Filipe & Celeste in their cottage

A late night fog haunted the streets of Welshport, heavy and cold obscuring the truths of the village and only showing its quaint small town quirks of little homes with glowing windows; perfect, picturesque and completely misleading. 

Over in a small neighborhood a cottage was quiet and warm. In the hearth a boiling pot of tea tending to by Celeste DeViana who had just come home from her horrible night at Tirymôr House with Jacob where blackmailed her into bed. 

She contemplated what she had done. Over and over in her mind. She wanted him dead now not only for the terrible things he had done to others but now for what he had done to her.

Was her family secret that terrible and destructive that if exposed could truly ruin Celeste’s life? To her the answer was yes. It would not only break the bonds in her own life but that or her entire family. 

Celeste sat on her knees staring into the fire and watched the tea kettle boil over into the fire. She cried her heart out thinking about how horrible she felt for sleeping with Jacob, betraying Filipe, and allowing him to control her this way. She failed so much, herself, her relationship and even Charlotte and Sabrina whom she had made a pact with to kill Jacob once and for all. 

“Celeste?” A sleepy voice said from behind her. “What’s the matter?”

“What? Oh nothing nothing!” Celeste said wiping her eyes. 

“You’ve been crying? What’s happened?” He asked rushing over to her and helping her up from her seated position. 

“I’m just having one of those days, don’t jump to any conclusions. I was just thinking of Evie and how much I missed her.” Celeste replied. 

“Have you been able to contact her?” He asked believing her. 

“No. They won’t let me see her or speak at all. It’s been very hard to pretend that she never even existed. The family doesn’t even speak or her anymore.” Celeste said of the Lords.

“Not even Rebecca? They seemed to be getting close up until and even after Sebastian… uh… died.” Filipe said remembering he knew Sebastian was alive. 

“It’s as if she wasn’t even there.” Celeste replied sitting at a small kitchen table with her tea. 

“And Jacob? How’s it been working with him?” Filipe asked to a suddenly stunned Celeste. 

“Jacob? Uh, well he’s you know, Jacob. Not much you can do with him, if that makes any sense. I tend to try to just focus on Charlotte and keep out of his way.” Celeste mentioned lying to him.

“I would hate for him to be bothering you. You would tell me if he was bothering you right?” Filipe asked. 

She wanted to tell him everything. Celeste looked into his eyes and saw how much he loved her, how much he wanted to protect her no netter what and all she could do was lie to him over and over again. It was too much for her to honest, Filipe could never know. It would not only destroy their relationship but the truth about Celeste’s family would most certainly come out and she would alone. Washed up. Done. 

“Of course. Of course.”  Celeste replied smiling sweetly. 

He smiled back and walked up to her, he lifted her chin gently up so that their eyes met. Two sets of deep brown pools of love and trust. He leaned down and kissed her deeply. The heat from their passionate kiss could have reheated and boiled the tea in her teacup again. She loved him so much, he loved her back and as the night progressed he picked her up in his arms and carried her to their bed where they made love. 

This was true love. True passion and in their moments of ecstasy; skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, sweaty touch to sweaty touch, Celeste knew that she could not let Jacob destroy what she had. 

Her secrets, now accumulating, would be kept. 

Forever, for Filipe, for their love. 

****

Sebastian carries Evie at Windlciff as Georgina watches

Windcliff Sanitarium had windows towards the back of the main building that went from floor to ceiling. They were slender and long. In the center window a double door etched into it's thin glass. In the reflection of the window was Mary Goode's new face, the face of Georgina Kent. 

Mary stared into the hospital with her new eyes and next to her, without a single glow of a reflection in the moon’s light, was Sebastian Lord. Pale and cold like anything without a soul would be.

The two of them had made it around the building and were determined to get Evie no matter what. Mary, now going by the name Georgina to match her new body, looked around to see if the door could be opened. She checked and checked and couldn't see any way in. 

Sebastian put his hand up against the glass and closed his eyes. The glass began to heat up along with is hand and then, out of no where the glass shattered. He pushed his hands through the cracked pieces and they fell to the floor. He reached in and unlatched the lock. 

"Push." Sebastian said in a whisper. 

Georgina took a deep breath and began to realize they were really going into the hospital, she had to complete the pact she made with Sebastian as payment for helping her get the new face she was wearing. 

Georgina walked in and Sebastian followed. They slowly made their way through the dark corridors of the hospital step by step not knowing where they were going. Sebastian closed his eyes and walked as if he could feel Evie's heart pounding in his mind. In fact he could. He could sense her, feel her. Everything about Evie was beguiling to Sebastian. He missed her and needed to be with her again. Its as if the love he had for intensified while he was in the other world, the world of the dead. 

He had become obsessed, and to Georgina it felt as it perhaps he was going a bit mad in the process. 

They passed room after room, each one darker and more awful than the last. The smell of wet clothes and mothballs made Georgina cover her nose as they continued down the hallways and into a larger part of the hospital where orderlies busily cleaned a rec-hall. 

Then they came to a large staircase that they took that lead them into a different wing of the hospital. Sebastian could feel that this was the right direction. Blood boiled in passionate expectation that he'd find the woman he died for. He wanted her, he needed her and all the terror he had suffered in the last few months would finally end as soon as he could see Evie again. He wanted to see her beautiful eyes and smile and he knew in his heart that she would soon come back to him just as they were before Mary shot him. Before she had fallen for Christian Evans. 

"I don't think we're going to find her." Georgina whispered.

"You can't give up yet. Ill find her. Ill find her." Sebastian said, her eyes laser focused peeking into each room they passed.

"Sebastian, listen to me." Georgina said grabbing his arm as they passed room after room. "Maybe we should just stop.  She's here for a reason and not only that, we know that she's moved on from you. Maybe we should go Sebastian. This could be dangerous if anyone saw you." She whispered back.

His eyes quickly turned form hopeful and romantic to dramatic and dark. He pushed Georgina up to the wall of the hallway and hissed in her face. He felt her reluctance and saw it as a threat to what he wanted. She was not attempting to stop him from getting his Evie back.

"You promised me you'd help me. I gave you this body!! YOU PROMISED!" He growled, his anger so strong he was unable to control it. Such was the side effect of his new life as the undead vampire. 

Georgina wasn't one to be pushed on. She had had enough of that with Jacob when she lived as Mary and reached up with her loose hand and slapped Sebastian across the face. His head whipped to one side and he realized how and what he was doing. The angry vampire quickly vanished from his face and the old Sebastian, in love and loss, came back.

"I just need her. You have to understand." he said softly as the orderlies in the other room continued to clean.

"She's moved on Sebastian. She's moved on." Georgina said.

"No, She hasn't. She couldn't have. She only did that with Christian because she thought I was gone. He took advantage of her. He took advantage of the fact I wasn't there. She loves me! She still loves me!" Sebastian shouted as Georgina rushed up to him and put her finger on his lips to hush him.

She knew Sebastian loved Evie. He could see it. This man, this monster that she helped create was something she was beginning to pity. They were cousins and now partners in crime and she couldn't bear to see him suffering even if her heart-of-hearts told her that Evie was a lost cause to him.

"Cousin, I don't know what we are going to find when we find her. Are you parred for anything? You should be. But when and if we do find her, just promise me you'll remember that what happened between Christian and Evie was between the both of them. It wasn't one sided." Georgina said. 

Sebastian took that to heart and nodded. "I know." He said softly. 

"You there!! What are you doing here???" a voice shouted from one of the shadow corners of the hall.

It was an orderly on night duty. 

He walked over quickly to the couple. Georgina gasped in shock that they had been caught. Sebastian's eyes turned black. His teeth extended from his mouth. It was time for him to feed after all.

"I asked you a question!" The orderly said sternly only seeing Sebastian from behind.

Sebastian slowly turned to face the man and when they finally made eye contact the orderly gasped in the face of a man who was not a man, a man who was not a live, a man who had not seen the sun in almost a year. Sebastian, the undead hissed in the face of orderly who gasped and dropped his clipboard to the floor.

"Step back.... STEP BACK!" The orderly screamed.

But Sebastian was hungry and on a mission, no one would stand in his way. The vampire lunged at the orderly and they began to fight. The man punched Sebastian in the gut, Sebastian felt nothing, he wasn't even winded. Sebastian ginned at the orderly, almost as if he was proud of him for trying but there was no use. No blow from a fist would stop his hungry heart. 

Sebastian lunged mouth agape at the man and clamped down on his thick neck. The pain was so much that the orderly could not even vocalize it. The blood came squirting from his neck and down his chest soaking his white hospital uniform. It was so sweet on Sebastian's tongue. 

Sebastian closed his eyes in ecstasy as the sweet blood of the orderly oozed down his throat and quenched his thirst for real human blood. The pleasure was ripe, so ripe the vampire bit down harder on the unlucky orderly's throat killing him.

Georgina turned away covering her face trying to keep the image from being seared into her brain for all time.

Sebastian had seemingly turned into Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide. One minute sensitive and kind searching for the wronged love of his life the next he was a blood thirsty monster searching for his next meal. Georgina feared him yet she cared for him at the same time.

Minutes passed that felt like hours as the orderly died in Sebastian's grip. Sebastian carefully dragged his dead body into a closet in the hallway, cleaned his face of the blood and came back to Georgina who was frozen in shock. 

"It had to be done." Sebastian said softly, back to his kind Dr. Jekyll stance. 

Georgina, when she was Mary, helped created Sebastian the vampire with her Mother Eliza nodded in agreement. She knew it had to be done too, and so much more events like this would most likely continue if Sebastian was to survive. 

The two then gathered themselves up again and calmed their nerves. They continued the search for Evie hoping that was the only orderly on night duty in that ward.

As they continued to search, Sebastian could feel her close. It was as if she were a honing signal to his heart; he could again feel her heartbeat. He could again feel her blood pumping and matching his heart beat. He followed the feeling of her body of her breathing. Evie too, asleep in her bed, confused and knocked out from a terrible night with Dr. Kim tossed and turned in a white padded room where a straight jacket kept her snug on a white linen lined cot.

Evie felt as if she had a fever. Her heart was beating so hard she was beginning to feel dizzy in her sleep. She opened her eyes and fell from the cot, sweating profusely. She could feel something coming too. But she had no idea who. 

Then he appeared. 

Sebastian had traveled back from the dead. Over the sea. Over so much pain and sorrow and into the hospital that his own family had wrongfully kept her trapped in and finally found his lost love, locked away in a room tired to a bed, wrapped in a straight jacket ill and in pain. 

He could sense her pain through the wall. He could sense her illness. Something dark was upon her and she was truly sick and near death without anyone in the hospital even knowing or perhaps even caring. Sebastian put his hand up against the door. His power, by Georgina's eye, was strong and went through the door and the door unlocked as if he had placed a key in the locked and turned it.

The door opened and he found her in a lump on the floor. Her hair, brown and Curley and beautiful, covered her gorgeous face. Georgina gassed at the site of the once especially dressed and always put together Evie and how far she had fallen. 

"They're killing her." Sebastian said as he quickly went to the floor and rolled Evie over. "I'm here my love. I'm here to save you." Sebastian whispered.

Evie turned over, she could see his blurry face through the rogue strands of brown hair. She squinted and thought her fever, of whatever illness was attacking her, was making her feel strange and see strange things.

"Sebastian?" She asked in a weak voice. "Is that you?" she said believing her hallucination. 

"Hurry. Hurry!!" Georgina said from the door. 

Sebastian looked back at Georgina and nodded his head. He then ripped off the ligature around Evie's wrist and scooped her up from the floor. He could feel her body’s heat. It was like a furnace burning her up from the inside out and coming through her skin. 

Then, like three flashes from the brightest sun, they were out of the room into the hallway and quickly made their way back the way they came to freedom and not a single person at the hospital was the wiser.

Or so they thought. 

Alice Winterborn under water

As the clock stuck 2 in the morning, someone had been there the whole time watching and waiting. 

It was Alice Winterborn, Evie's new friend from Windcliff. Alice watched but didn't make a noise. She followed them through the hospital and in the darkened corridors. She kept up pace the way until they wrote out of the hospital and in the fresh cool night air of the mainland. 

Now, free too, she watched as her friend Evie and the two strangers made their way down the long path to the town nearest the hospital where Sebastian and Georgina had set up a boat rental earlier that day before their arrival at Windcliff. This small boat filled up to its rims with its three passengers and needed to get them back to Goode Island where Sebastian could finally have his life with Evie back and no one in his family would ever stop them. All before the sun rose in the sky.

Alice did not make herself know to Sebastian or Georgina as she shadowed them and was left alone in a large thicket of trees until she felt it was safe for her to come out. A few hours passed but then she went along the road and followed it in foot for  miles and miles and finally she got to the edge of the mainland and saw the island of Welshport off in the distance.

She smiled remembering the happy times she had on the island and thought that perhaps now that she too was free she could get some of that back, and maybe even find her friend Evie again.

The waves on the shore crashed on the rocks and Alice slowly made her way down the sloped edge and took off her shoes. The water was ice cold on her feet. She could feel frigid liquid in her bones and the slippery rocks below her, cold from the sea’s touch, was slippery from the moss. She then slowly made her way into the sea. Her skirt began to float up the deeper she got and Alice could feel a rush of cooking blood flood her mine. The water then began to come up. 

From her knees. 

To her thighs.

To her stomach. 

To her chest.

To her chin

To her forehead.

As the water made contact with her skin a striking alchemical reaction occurred. Every inch of her body that absorbed the sea water began to change into a translucent scale like surface. The area between her fingers and toes became webbed, her eyes suddenly had a glass-like orb that came over both of them and their color changed from a chestnut brown to a golden tone that glittered beneath the fractures of light that creased over the surface of the ocean. Finally, three little slits on either side of her head behind her ears opened up as gills. 

Alice could and did live in the sea.

Then, as if she had been waiting for the very moment to return to her watery work, Alice disappeared, below the dark blue water. She was completely submerged in the ocean and she did not surface. She was one with the water. One with the sea. Alice wanted to find her destiny, her connection to the earth away from Windcliff, it was as if all the years she has spent there, Evie had finally unlocked the part of her mind that made Alice who she was. 

Alice was gone now, deep in the dark water or the Frenchman Bay, the waves called to her and so did the light from the lighthouse on Welshport. Calling for Alice to finally come home. 

****

Jacob, Charlotte & Rebecca at Tirymôr 

On a blisteringly sunny morning over Tirymôr House, the breakfast table was busy with the Lord family clicking their orange juice glasses and eating their morning hardboiled eggs sitting on their sterling silver pedestal. 

Rebecca nervously sipped her coffee and kept one hand under the table as Sebastian's signet ring rolled around in it like a scolding hot marble. 

She elegantly looked at the clock wondering when or if she should tell her family about what she found at the Cemetery---or rather, what she didn't find. Their prince's body missing from it's coffin. Charlotte noticed her grandmother's nerves that made her and Sabrina inside of her just as uneasy causing her to anxiously play with the eggs on her plate. 

“Don’t play with your food.” Jacob growled from the opposite side of the table. "its disgusting." 

“Where is Celeste?” Rebecca asked as the clock in the hall chimed 8 in the morning. “She’s late.” 

“Is she? Hmm… indeed she is.” Jacob said as the clock again chimed on the hour. “Unlike her, isn’t it?” He added. 

“Very much unlike her. Charlotte dear, why don’t you drink up your juice if you’re finished and run up to your room and get all your books ready for when Miss DeViana arrives. She will be pleased to see you’re all set for her lesson.” Rebecca ordered. 

Charlotte looked at her grandmother then at her father who didn’t say another word. The tension was growing between the two, and Charlotte who had conspired to kill her father with Celeste just 48 hours before nodded her head and excused herself from the tension filled breakfast table. 

But she didn’t go far. She quickly hid behind the large pillar of stone that stood outside the breakfast room and eavesdropped on her father and grandmother. 

“So tell me, what did you do?” Rebecca asked as Charlotte went out of sight.

“Whatever do you mean?” He asked cutting his eggs with his fork and slopping them up with a loud slurping sound. 

“Don’t play coy. I saw her leave later than she usually does after Charlotte had gone to bed. There was no reason for her to be here that late. And today, she’s uncharacteristically late. I’m very bad a small talk, Jacob, but I am very good at math. I can put two and two together.” Rebecca replied. 

“We chatted for a while that’s all. Can’t I chat with employees? I do when I go into the city and to the office. What is the difference with chatting with Celeste?” Jacob asked. 

“The difference is the agents at our publishing house in the city don't work in close proximity to your bedroom and are not beautiful women that I have seen you staring at her on various occasions. Did you hurt her?” Rebecca asked bluntly. 

“Mother, for god’s sake! I’m 46 years old, dammit!” Jacob yelled back slamming his fist into the table startling Charlotte listening around the door, yet Rebecca did not flinch. “Must you always attempt to turn things around on me like I'm a child?” 

“I know you too well.” Rebecca replied as a servant came in to bring them more coffee and juice in sparkling crystal pitchers from a servants exit on the opposite side of the room. 

“You’re always trying to paint me the villain. Always.” Jacob said grabbing the coffee from the servant and pouring it himself as he felt a twinge of his resentment towards his mother's love bubble up. 

“You do a good job of that yourself Jacob, but I’ll just warn you now: Should you have hurt that girl in anyway the price will be very heft for you.” 

“She’s a woman. She was not hurt.” Jacob replied to his mother’s disgust. 

“Ma’am, sir, there is someone here to see you both. I said you were both at breakfast but he insisted.” The coffee servant said.

Upon Charlotte hearing this. Charlotte quickly hid behind a large potted plant. She needed to hear the rest of the conversation. 

“Who?” Jacob wondered. 

“It is rather early.” Rebecca answered. 

“It’s Constable Evans.” The servant answered. 

“Well bring him in! Lord knows he’s got much to answer for! Missing Mary, missing Georgian, a bloody arsonist in our midst! Bring him in, bring him in!” Jacob shouted to the poor servant. 

“Yes sir. Of course sir.” The servant answered as he quickly scurried through the doorway and off to usher in Christian Evans. 

“Now we’ll see what he has to say.” Jacob said to Rebecca who continued to roll Sebastian’s ring in her hand feeling Christian was about to drop a bomb on Jacob about the return of their dead relative. 

“Constable Evans.” The servant said announcing Christian’s entrance into the breakfast room.

“Jacob. Rebecca.” Christian said looking like he hadn’t slept. 

“Constable, we are both hoping that you’re interrupting our quiet breakfast to give us good news on Mary and Georgina.” Jacob said. 

“Well yes and no, Georgina is still missing but we did receive this.” Christian said sliding an opened envelope across the table to Jacob who looked at Christian with a curled lip because of his disheveled appearance. “It’s from Mary’s mother.” 

“Eliza?” Rebecca replied pulling the letter from Jacob’s hand. It was a name she hadn't said in years.

“It seems as though Mary has done the unthinkable. The reason why we can’t find her is because she’s dead.” Christian replied.

Charlotte gasped under the palms of the potted plant she was hiding under at the news of  her mother Mary.

“DEAD?!?!?! BULL!!” Jacob shouted of his ex Mary's demise. 

“In this note Eliza says she drowned. Why are we just hearing of this now?” Rebecca asked, unsure if she should believe the letter. 

“In the last paragraph you’ll see that Eliza said she wanted to mourn her daughter in peace before she told anyone. She wanted to give some time for herself.” Christian replied. 

“That coward!! That COWARD! She kills Sebastian and does something to Georgina and just takes the easy way out? Well I don’t accept it! She’s a coward and I’ll make sure all of the papers under our publishing firm writes that in her obituary.” Jacob said cruelly.

“She’s your daughter’s mother, you’ll do nothing of the sort.” Rebecca replied. “Constable it’s important we find out Georgina, you’ve waisted enough time on Mary Goode to the point she took her own life. Let’s not have yet another mistake like this happen again. It’s imperative we find Georgina as soon as possible.” Added Rebecca.

“I’m afraid I’ve been doing my best to do that but have also been preoccupied with another matter. Evie.” Christian said to Rebecca and Jacob both scoffing annoyed with his obsession with their married-in family member they so coldly placed in an insane asylum.

“Oh Constable please I’ve told you once I’ve told you before you need to let Evangeline do what she needs to do and take care of her mental health.” Rebecca said. 

“You’ve done enough damage in that department Christian, ol’ chap, I’d listen to my mother if I were you.” Jacob replied.   

“But if I could only be with her, if we could only be together I …I could focus on making sure everything else in my life was put together. I love her, can’t you see? I’d take care of her. You wouldn’t have to anymore. She and I, it would be us and you’d be free of supporting her.” Christian replied in a begging tone of voice. 

“Out of the question! You should talk to that lawyer I saw you with the other day, he’s tell you I was right. Evie is our family. Forever.” Rebecca said. 

“Lawyer?” Jacob asked of the man Rebecca met and was introduced as Evie’s lawyer but was truly Evie’s brother Nikolas. 

“I…I just wish I could be..” Christian said before being interrupted by Dr. Kim who rushed into the breakfast room. 

“WHAT THE DEVIL?!” Jacob shouted. “Kim what are you doing?”

Rebecca stood up, the ring still burning in her hand. 

“I tried to tell him you shouldn’t be interrupted, I’m sorry!” The servant said nervously trying to push Dr. Kim back out of the room.

“It’s Evie!” Kim replied. “I got in the first fairy out here, Evie is gone. She escaped last night with another patient. They’re both gone.” Kim said breathing heavy after running into the room. 

“She must be coming here! She must be looking for me!” Christian replied in strange outburst out of no where. 

Everyone looked over at Christian. The once smart and astute Constable had fallen into a strange madness since the night Evie was taken and he saw Gaspar’s mutilated body. His mind was turning to a confused, sad place for fantasy and childlike naivety that only made his credibility in town shrink further away from his grasp. 

“This is insanity!!!! How could you have allowed this?!” Rebecca screamed at Dr. Kim. 

“Incompetence mother! Incompetence!” Jacob yelled back. 

“I assure you, we… we didn’t, we keep our patients safe and locked in their cells at night but—” Dr. Kim began before Rebecca hushed him. 

“We have to find her.” Rebecca said, her voice l sizzling with anger and worry that Sebastian would find her first that is, if he hadn’t already. 

Cowering behind the plant Charlotte held her breath. Inside her mind, the spirit of Sabrina Lord knew this was a sign that perhaps the cracks in the façade of Lord family were beginning to crack. 

“It’s happening. It’s happening.” Sabrina’s voice said in Charlotte’s mind. “This must of been Sebastian’s doing.” She added. 

In the chaos of Dr. Kim’s entrance Christian rushed out to find Nikolas and tell him Evie had escaped. As he did, he passed the area near the front stares where he had seen the bleeding grotesque body of Gaspar DuBois bleeding profusely from a giant gash in his neck. 

Christian stared at the open area where Gaspar  had been and a chill came over his entire body. 

“The monster….” Gaspar’s voice said in Christian’s memory referring to his murder, Sebastian. 

Christian felt sick and rushed out to find Nikolas. 

Back inside the breakfast room, Jacob continued to berate the man he was paying to make sure Evie stayed locked away. This was part of their deal, he kept her locked away and Kim’s secret would be kept locked up too. It was just another feather in Jacob’s hat of secret keeping and blackmailing, but for Kim, the idea that Evie’s escape could me his secret would spill out scared him to death. 

Rebecca opened her hand and saw Sebastian’s ring once more. This was no simple escape, Rebecca thought. She knew it in her heart, this was Sebastian’s doing. She replaced the ring in her pocket and pulled Jacob off of Dr. Kim and slapped her son in the face to calm him down. 

“Enough! Enough, gather yourself! !!” Rebecca ordered.

“Mother how can I be calm when all these people, the Constable, this doctor… they keep letting us down!!” Jacob shouted.

“I have done all you have asked! Every little thing and yet you continue to push more on top of me. Both of you. I’ve gone against my ethics and I have kept Evangeline Jordan in a place I don’t believe she belongs all because —” Dr. Kim said defending himself just before Jacob stepped in. 

“All because it’s your JOB Andrew!” Jacob shouted.

“We did not let her go. She escaped!” Dr. Kim replied.

“I should have your license and everything you own. And just when you think I’m done I’ll let everyone know they deep dark little secret of yours and ruin your life for this. Evie was in your care and you should have made sure she stayed in your care.” Jacob replied. 

“It wasn’t Andrew.” Rebecca replied softly realizing the truth. 

“What?” Jacob asked surprised as he and Dr. Kim both turned to her for clarification, 

“It’s Sebastian. It’s Sebastian.” Rebecca said clearly as she pulled out Sebastian’s signet ring she found next to Georgina the night she was attacked and finally showed it to Jacob.

Charlotte gasped in her hiding place as Sabrina, the spirit of Sebastian's mother that lived inside the young girl realized her sister Eliza had come through with helping Sebastian come back. 

Jacob too knew that ring was on his nephew when he was buried. He saw it on his finger, He saw the casket close and the ring was on Sebastian’s hand. 

“But? How? His ring! How do yo have it?” Jacob asked, his face white as a sheet. 

“I found it next to Georgina the night she was attacked, Jacob her wounds were like Gaspar’s. This ring, Sebastian had to..”

“That’s impossible!!!!” Jacob screamed. 

“It’s true, I made sure of it.” Rebecca replied in a serious tone.

“How?” Jacob wondered as Kim drank water to calm his nerves. 

“His grave his empty.”

“My god what is this?” Dr. Andrew Kim asked in a low whispery voice at the bizarre accusation of Sebastian being actually alive. 

Jacob’s eyes went blank. His heart skipped at beat. 

“He’s alive??????” Jacob asked terrified the truth of his plot would come out, Rebecca took a deep breath before answering. Kim kept drinking water and calming himself after Jacob’s shoving and pushing and angry tirade. Rebecca then turned to the window of the breakfast room and looked out over the distance and the sea.... there floating in the water was Goode Island. 

“The only person who can tell us for sure, the only person who will give us a true answer…is the witch.” Rebecca said referring to Eliza Goode, the one woman who’s powers knew all. "I will go to her. I will find out what she knows." Rebecca added. 

B2/Ch6: A MOST VIOLENT ACT

Georgina in Mary's body makes her escape

A blanket fog rolled over the sea like a river of clouds carving a path over a rough ocean. The whitecaps rocked a large ship at dock that was raising anchor that morning headed east to Europe where the passengers, most of them Americans traveling from other parts of the country, were setting sail on holiday. 

All except one, a woman who was the only passenger to board from Welshport. 

She wore a thick blue cloak that covered her head and the dark blue dress that was under it. She concealed the lower half of her face with a thick wool scarf only showing her blue eyes as she handed the ship’s boarding attendant her one way ticket. 

“With us ‘till Gibraltar, eh? Welcome aboard.” He grinned. 

The woman said nothing but her eyes showed that below her scarf she smiled. The attendant, knowing she was the only person to board at this port, tried to help her with her one suitcase but she yanked at it herself and quickly made her way to her personal quarters where she was lucky enough to have been able to purchase with the help of her benefactors. 

She placed her items in her room, and carefully made her way to the back of the ship still covered in her cloak and scarf and watched as the island of Welshport and Maine itself got smaller and smaller in the distance until the horizon was just a thin blue line or blue sea. Only then did she feel safe. Only then did she feel comfortable enough to reveal herself to be Georgina Kent in Mary Goode’s body free from the trappings of the Lord family and heading somewhere no one would ever find her. 

Thanks to Eliza and Mary: Georgina’s new body would give her safe passage aboard but she was warned never ever to return to Welshport. 

Georgina was perfectly fine with that one stipulation. 

She never would return.  

****

Evie & Alice's minds become one

Across the small channel of water that split Welshport Island and Goode Island from mainland Maine, the four story compound Psychiatric Hospital where Evie was being held felt more like a prison. The many wings that made up the far end of the Hospital had cells instead of rooms and the actual areas where patients could get help from their doctors was nothing more than small office rooms with cold white painted walls and nothing on the windows to hold back the day's burning sun.

Evie, however, was being held on the north end of the building. The older part. It was darker, the walls were covered in wood panels and the windows were tall and diamond grilled that allowed for dramatic geometric shapes to rain down on the hard tiled floor when the afternoon light came in.

In his office, the beleaguered psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Kim prepared for his latest session with the most important patient in all: Evie Jordan-Lord. His task was to vanquish all of her unhealthy memories that they family saw as haunts that kept her mind ill. Rebecca, in particular, was insistent that any session going forward used electric shock therapy to finally rid her grand-daughter in law of visions of the supposed dead Sebastian. 

Rebecca wanted Evie back---but she wanted Evie clean of the mental ghosts.

Ghosts, of course, that were fabricated and manipulated by Rebecca's wicked son Jacob who only saw Evie as a barrier between him and the massive Lord Publishing inheritance he felt he was soley entitled to. Rivals, like Evie, be damned! 

Dr. Kim rifled through papers and signed off medications for other patients at his desk worried about what to do with Evie when she came in. She was resistant to his therapies. She was much more astute than Rebecca and Jacob gave her credit for and that made it more complicated to get into her head. She held  off his prodding. She held off his questions. In fact, she was at times, a complete waste of time. 

Could he really use the shock therapy as Rebecca requested? He wasn't sure but he knew that something had to be done if he wanted Jacob to keep the secret he was holding over him. He could not allow it to get out. No one could know his truth. If it came out, he would be ruined. Destroyed. It would all go away, his practice, his job--everything. 

As Kim continued to shuffle nervously though his papers, his mind on what to do with Evie when she came I'm, Evie was shuffling down the hall in a long white hospital dress that scraped the hardwood floors of the Hospital hallways as she walked. She could feel the cool air blowing around her from an unknown source. There was no open window. No storm leaking through a cool breeze from outside. But she could feel it. Even the tiny flyaway hairs around her ears blew in the direction the cold air was coming. 

"This way, now. Over here." An escorting orderly said, pulling on her forearm guiding her down another long hall.

"Do you feel that?" She asked him.

"Feel what?" 

"Where is that cool air coming from? Its like being blown from somewhere. You don't feel it?" She asked him again, his facial reaction stoic and uninterested.

"We're late. We're walking fast, you're feeling the air just go around you. Stop making things more than they are, that's probably what got you in here in the first place." The orderly replied.

"No, stop," Evie said stopping them both in the center of the hall as another orderly and patient in a wheelchair passed them. "Feel." Evie said as she raised her arms and out her hands.

The cool river of mysterious air was still flowing. She could feel it. All round her. The hem of her skirt lifted slightly off the ground with every cool swipe of air that flowed by. He felt nothing. She closed her eyes, feeling the air all around her. It was sea air. She could smell it too! He smelled nothing.

"Alright. Alright. You've felt this phantom breeze enough, now. Dr. Kim is waiting." The orderly said grabbing her again by the upper arm and dragging her to her appointment. 

Over in a quieter part of the hospital, Evie's new friend Alice Winterborn was blowing on a paper windmill she made. She blew and blew and watched the various colored blades spun around and around in her cool breath. The source of Evie's mysterious wind.

"Come in! Come in!" Dr. Kim said sitting up quickly from his desk as if he was greeting an old friend.

"Doctor." She said softly as the orderly left the two alone in the office.

Evie sat back down on the leather sofa and crossed her ankles. She flattened the skirt of her dress so it lay perfectly on the sofa without a single wrinkle. Despite being locked away in an insane asylum she was still very aware of how to sit like a lady of the super wealthy. Her back straight. Her hands balled in her lap. Her neck slightly tilted forward ready to listen to her lesson from the supposedly good doctor.

"You seem very alert today. That is good. How are you feeling?" Dr. Kim asked.

She thought for a second, then answered. "Confused." She said.

"Confused. Ok, tell me about that?" He said moving from his desk to a large matching leather chair that was in front of Evie.

"I'm confused about what Im still doing here. You and are not making any headway doctor, and you and I know both know that I am not mentally ill. I never have been. I never was. There are probably, and truly, very ill people here that could better have use of your time, and yet, you make appointments for me every day to sit and talk and we make no forward motion." Evie scolded out right.

"You've been thinking about this, obviously." Dr. Kim said, removing his classes and looking over Evie quite curiously. 

"Of course I have. I have nothing else to do but think. And talk to my friend." She said.

"Friend? You've made a friend. Who?" Dr. Kim wondered, thinking it was an imaginary person.

"Alice. She's a patient here and she's ....well she incredibly interesting." Evie said holding back the amazing things Alice showed her the other day in the gardens.

"Alice. You're friends with Alice Winterborn?" Kim asked, his voice now tainted with concern.

"Yes." Evie replied without a beat.

Alice had come to Windcliff years before. She had practically spent a third of her life there. Her brother Matthew, a fisherman on Welshport and her only living family member, had admitted her because of the delusions that she was having. Matthew saw her have strange broken memories that she would scream out in the middle of the night about the sea, the dark deep sea, the earth, the wilds, the forests and mountains and how everything was alive and how everything was real and breathing and needed their love. 

It was frightening to him. He brought her there and there she stayed only to stop speaking to anyone for years and years. And eventually Dr. Kim would break her silence and then, Evie. Alice found something special in Evie. She showed Evie her secret connection to the earth. And Evie was curious of her.

"I should warn you that Miss Winterborn is somewhat deranged. We've worked on her for a very long time and we cannot seem to break through to her. Which is why she's still here. Alice’s brother had long wished for her mind to heal but alas, she still speaks in riddles and of strange worlds beyond the sea. I would hate for this to happen to you which is why we have so many sessions, you and I." Kim replied.

"I don't find her deranged at all." Evie replied.

"Mrs. Lord, you seem to have some intel on Alice that I don't have. Which to me seems impossible since I've been her doctor for close 12 years. What exactly did she tell you?" Dr. Kim wondered.

"Those are conversations that I think are better left to Alice and myself." Evie said smirking. 

Dr. Kim smiled, seeing that Evie was clearly teasing him. She had come into the session this evening with a very peculiar sense of humor almost as if she wanted to test him and test what he was going to do to her. But Dr. Kim, a man who was being pressure and practically forced to do incredibly painful electro shock sessions on her was about to change the tables. Or so he thought.

"I want to go in depth with you Mrs. Lord. I want to go in depth with you to find out exactly how I can help you and make you better. Does that make sense?" Dr. Kim asked as he slowly pulled out an electro shock therapy machine, complete with paddles and bite guard and moved it closer to Evie on the sofa.

Her eyes darted for the machine and she lifted a brow as she realized what it was.

"The way you can help me is send me home. Release me. Not with what I think that is." She said mentioning the machine as he turned it on. "I don't belong here." She added.

The machine rumbled and grumbled as it's very old style of workings continued to fill the room with a loud humming sound. The lights in the room flickered as the very early type of electricity became absorbed by the electro-shock machine that had been rolled out by Dr. Kim.

"You think that you don't belong here, you say that all the time and I just can't, for the life of me, see why you think that. I have a way to make sure I can rid you of all that haunts you Evangeline. It's in this machine right here." Kim said as he picked up one of the paddles.

"You only do what the Lord's money tells you to do." She said in a hiss of a voice.

"From what the family has said about what you were seeing, I think its's necessary--" Dr. Kim replied ignoring Evie's jab at him being brought off by the Lord and right before being interrupted.

"What the family said? Doctor, I think you're getting information from the wrong source. If anything they're the ones that are making it so I am here. I never made anything up that I saw. They made those things up to make me believe I was seeing something I know for a fact was faked. A farce! All of it, and frankly, I think that perhaps you know that deep inside. Im not a regular patient like you have here. These poor souls truly need your help and you're sitting around playing with Jacob Lord's lies about what I saw or didn't see. Its time you release yourself from their choke hold doctor, and I can help you if you just LET ME GO!" Evie said.

"Evangeline, why don't you just calm down and we can talk this through." Kim replied as Evie seemed to be getting very agitated. 

"NO! I want to get out! I WANT TO GET OUT!!" She screamed, feeling a heat over her face. The blood in her body racing and she shot up from the leather sofa, her hands balled up into two tightly wound fists. 

Alice was in her room and was standing up too. Her fists in balls just like Evie's. Her face red and angry. She was making Evie say these things. She was making Evie fight the doctor because Alice knew too that Evie didn't belong there. She had complete control over the young woman in Dr. Kim's office.

"I WANT ..." Alice screamed.

"OUT!!!" Evie screamed finishing the sentence Alice started.

"Calm down! Just calm down!" Kim shouted.

Evie was out of sorts. She could feel herself angry but had no idea how it just happened in that instant. It was abnormal for her. It wasn't what she was feeling when she came into the room. She could only remember the cool breeze that surrounded her and filled her with fresh sea air and how she wanted to feel that coolness again. She was hot. So hot. Sweating. Her forehead was filled with tiny beads of sweat. She was faint. She could feel her heart rate racing and the pounding in her chest felt as if it was a bomb ready to blow.

"I WANT..." Evie screamed. 

"OUT!!" Alice screamed finishing her sentence.

Dr. Kim got up from his chair and rushed over to his desk and pressed a small button under the top of his desk which pulled a small electric line that rung a bell of alarm for an orderly to race in. He then opened a drawer and pulled out a syringe what was already pre-filled with a sedative. He rushed back to Evie who was angry and breathing hard and when Dr. Kim got close enough she slapped him across the face. His glasses flew to the ground with the swing and his own angry quickly bubbled up.

"Evie." He said softly but clearly bristling with anger. 

"I... I don't know what's happening." Evie said in a true moment of clarity.

For her part, Alice was only trying to help. She wanted to help Evie find herself out of Windcliff but with this strange and outburst Alice had made things worse.

Dr. Kim grabbed Evie's arm, she tried to pull away. Alice could feel the grip on her own arm too. Kim pulled the top of the syringe off with his mouth and lifted his arm and plunged the needle into the soft part of her arm. 

Evie screamed. 

Alice screamed. 

The orderly entered the room just as Evie's eyes rolled to the back of her head. 

Alice too fell to her room floor and passed out. 

"Take her to the holdings." The doctor said, his face still stinking with her slap. 

"Yes Doctor." The big burley orderly replied. 

As Dr. Kim assessed what just happened with Evie, he wondered just how sick she actually was. Could she truly be insane as the Lords believed or was being at Windcliff making her this way. He wasn't sure on the actual cause of her mental break in his office, but what he was sure of was that perhaps Rebecca's suggestion of electro therapy was the correct one.

The Holdings, as Doctor Kim ordered Evie to be taken, was a part of the hospital where patients went when they became unruly and out of control. They were taken and placed in white padded cells in straight-jackets. Kim's first attempt to give Evie shock therapy didn't make it passed the conversation part, but now that she was in The Holdings, she would have a date set aside, just like all the other patients that were held there for shock therapy. It was hospital policy.

Quickly, Kim pulled out Evie's file and scratched out the second shock-therapy session that was scheduled for two weeks from this failed first one. 

He changed it to the very next day. 

****

Jacob & Celeste meet

The flickering of candles in a large east wing bedroom reflected an orange glow on the walls like the setting sun outside. This part of the Tirymôr mansion had yet to have the newest invention of electrical outlets. It was Jacob's bedroom and he was in his private adjoining bathroom getting read for the night's sleep when someone entered his room without his knowledge. 

The person slowly made their way around the room looking at all of Jacob's belongings. There was a desk in the corner of the room in the shadows where no candle light could reach it. It was a desk filled with papers and files from the family publishing business that needed to be looked over and signed by Jacob before they went up to Rebecca for final approval. The person fiddled through the papers but made sure to lay them back down as they were before they touched them.

Then they walked over to a large bookcase filled with some of history's most famous novels. Stories that made up all the world's most beloved love stories and horror stories. The person ran their hand across the edges of the book that were exposed and walked over to another part of the room where Jacob had a large armoire that they opened it and looked at all of his clothes. As the person shifted the shirts and jackets on the hangers a mirror was exposed at the back of the armoire reflecting the face of Celeste DeViana. 

She had come to Jacob's room to hide and to finally do what she, Charlotte and Sabrina had been plotting for weeks now: Jacob's murder. 

It had to be done, they all had decided. He had to be stopped before he could do any more harm. He had already found a way to wrongfully commit Evie to an insane asylum on the mainland to keep her out of the family inheritance. He had had Sebastian killed (so he thought) and framed his own brother for the murder of Sabrina and even mangled the hand of Celeste's beloved Filipe in a terrible drunken car accident years ago.

 The madness and selfishness had to stop and Celeste was convinced that she had to be the one to do it: for Evie and Sebastian. For David and Sabrina. For Charlotte and Mary. For Filipe. 

She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a sharp pair of scissors. She put her fingers in the holes and opened and closed the shining iron tools and took a deep breath as she heard Jacob finishing up in his private bathroom for the night. 

She quickly rushed over and hid behind the thick dark drapes that hung in front of his bedroom windows.

Jacob immerged from his bathroom in his night jacket exposing his the very top of his chest that still glistened from the bath he had. His hair was wet and dripped down his neck forming a small pool on the flat portion area where his neck met his chest. 

He went over to the desk in the corner and lit a large candle allowing the light to brighten his face and he pulled the towel from around his shoulders and dried his hair. When the towel went over his face, Celeste slowly came out from behind the drapes with the scissors in clutched tightly in her hand above her head ready to drive down into Jacob who had his back turned to her drying his hair. 

She slowly walked toward him but her dress brushed up against the large potted palm and made a noise that startled Jacob who quickly turned and grabbed hold of Celeste's wrist. 

"Well, well, well! What do we have here? A sly murderess in my midst?" 

"Remove your hand." Celeste said her eyes seething with anger. 

"Miss DiViana, this attempted murder will truly look poorly on your work evaluation." Jacob said pulling Celeste close to him by the wrist so that their noses were almost touching. "But...I can overlook this incident under one circumstance." He added.

"Let go." She replied again still growling with anger.

Jacob released Celeste from his grasp with such a force that her arm flew back down. He stepped back from Celeste and walked over to his bedroom door and locked it from the inside then turned to Celeste who's whole body had stiffened with fear and anger and frustration. 

"What exactly were you thinking of doing to me with those scissors, huh? Cut my hair? Taylor a jacket of mine? And why? What on earth did I ever do to you?" He asked in a mixture of sincere and sarcastic tone.

"I needed to ... to....I needed to do this for everyone that you've hurt, over all the years that you have done it, I needed to do this." Celeste answered. 

"You must have not been thinking clearly. At least that is what I will say if anyone asks or finds out about this. I wont be the one to tell of course, because you will repay me for this. But...should it ever come out that you attempted to murder me with a pair of scissors I will always protect you. This house has a way of making people do bad things....that I can attest to from my own experience." Jacob replied coming close to Celeste. 

"You killed Sabrina, not David. It was you!" Celeste said, finally and bravely accusing Jacob for the first time ever of Sabrina's murder.

"Why do you say that?" He asked slowly still coming closer to her.

"It doesnt matter how, I just know. And I know more. I know everything that you have done and I think you need to pay for it, even it that means with your life!" Celeste replied.

Jacob smirked. He placed the wet towel from his hair on the desk and looked at Celeste with a dangerous stare. He felt very attracted to her. He could see how beautiful she truly was and how lucky Filipe was to have her. In fact, he wanted her. He had always felt a connection to her, an attraction, but never acted on it. Until the day of Sebastian's wedding when he saw her looking more beautiful than she had ever looked before. That is when he came up with the idea to have her become Charlotte's new governess, but so many other plans had to come up first before he finally asked her. 

Celeste, who felt the nerves in her body shaking and causing her heart rate to begin to race and pump the blood in her body at quicker pace. He came closer and closer to her and finally brushed up against her hand with his hand and pulled the scissors from her hand and through them across the room. 

"You are a very beautiful woman, Celeste." he said with a slithering snake like voice.

Her skin felt cold and she felt like she was about to vomit.

"You know that I know things too, don't you? About you." He whispered. 

"What do you know?" She asked pulling away from him but still trapped in his grasp. 

"Do you really think I would employ anyone in this house that I didn't have dirt on? Don't be silly. Here... look." He said finally giving her personal space and pulling out a file from the pile on his desk and handing it to her.

She opened it and her eyes became wide with horror. It was a file on her. A File that she had no idea anyone had ever made. There were things about her family in that file, things she had never told anyone. Things about her mother and her father. Things that if spoken out loud would shame her, torture her and destroy her reputation all around the Island. If any of the information in the file were to come out to the general public she could never get a job in Welshport or even Maine ever again.

"Why do you have this? Why would you even look for this?" She asked, tears beginning to fill her deep brown eyes.

"Its like I said. I always make sure that I have an insurance policy on anyone that I am interested in. You've been on my interested list for a very long time, of course I had to wait for the right moment to break it to you. But its like I said, you'll pay me back for this. And it will be worth it. For you especially." He answered.

"You keep mentioning payment. You pay my wages. Just keep them. That should be payment." she replied.

"Oh! No, no. I'm not talking about a monetary payment, my dear. I want payment in the form of something that I have lacked for so long. The form of love." He answered. 

"LOVE???" She balked. "Love who? You want me to love you? How can I love a murderer? How can I love man who is a horrible disgusting creature like you? What have you done to deserve anyone's love?" Celeste added to Jacob's surprise. 

"Deserve? Is anyone really truly deserving of love? Probably not. At least I don't think so. But you will give me what I want Celeste, or I'll go to the authorities with that file, and don't you even try to think about ripping up those pages. That file is for you. I have my own. Imagine what this town will think of a woman like you who came from a family like yours with a history as it does? You'd have nothing. Everything would taken from you especially Filipe. He wouldn't be able to look you in the eye ever again but... I can make sure no one ever sees or knows the truth. I can keep your secret safe. Just give me what I want." Jacob said as he undid the knot on his bath jacket revealing his chest. 

Celeste felt that grotesque feeling of wanting to vomit again. She saw Jacob go over to his bed and pull back the large comforter and smile. He wanted her body. He wanted to connect with her how she connected with Filipe. He wanted to feel her like lovers felt each other and all she could do was think about rushing over to where the scissors were and grabbing them and slitting his throat right there and then. 

Then she looked at the file he had on her and thought about her father who had died, her elderly mother whom she supporting and lived on the mainland and her younger sister whom she also supported while she studied in Paris. She could not let the contents of that file be released. Her plan with Charlotte to kill Jacob for the sake of all the people at Tirymôr House and the island itself had failed. 

She could not get the revenge she sought. She could not take his life and save anyone else from his evil now, because Celeste herself was now ensnared in his treacherous grasp. 

He sat down on the bed and winked at her. 

Celeste was shaking. Her hands were clasped in a fist at her stomach. 

She walked over to the bed. Slowly. Her heart rate faster and faster. 

She wanted to die. She wanted him to die. She couldn't believe what was happening to her. She sat on the opposite side of the bed took a deep breath and lay back. Jacob, like a hungry Cheshire cat grinned and rolled over on top of her and began to kiss her neck. Then her chest. Then he began to undress her slowly and kiss her whole body. She stared at the ceiling as he did what he wanted with her body. 

She cried. Silently.

He wiped her tears.   

A half an hour later it was done. He rolled back over after kissing her passionately on the lips and pulled up his pajama bottoms and fell asleep. He felt satisfied; he truly did have an attraction to her but the evil in him had it come out in a terrible "Jacobean" type of way---maliciously and filled with cruelty. 

Celeste got up from the bed and got dressed. She walked over to his mirror and fixed herself up then looked down at the file on her that had been spilled out on the floor and broke down again in tears as the clock struck midnight. 

The clock in his room tolling the midnight hour like the death knell for Celeste's spirt and Charlotte and Sabrina's murder plot. 

Jacob... had won again. 

****

Windcliff Sanitarium 

As the night continued on, a small horse drawn carriage came down a long stone path on the mainland and up to Windcliff Sanitarium. 

It was a taxi carriage from the old town on marina that brought two people from a late night fairy from Welshport. 

The oil lantern on the side or the carriage door flickered and flashed as it lit the face of the exiting Sebastian Lord. He, alone with the new Mary Goode, came to Windcliff ready to find and free Evie just as Mary and Eliza had promised him. 

Mary, now in Georgina's body, paid the fare and dashed up to Sebastian who was already on his way into the hospital like a boot of lightening eager to gain his love back in his arms, it didn’t matter that he was now a shadow lurking member of the race or the undead, Evie was his wife and soulmate. 

 "STOP! What are you doing? You can't just go in there." Mary said in her new voice. 

"Why not?" Sebastian asked as they stood on the front lawn of the hospital. 

"First of all, its passed midnight. We're not supposed to be here. We have to be more covert about it. We have to sneak in." Mary said. 

Sebastian agreed, and the two of them slowly sneaked off into the shadows of the hospital ready to break in and free Evie once and for all.

                                      

B2/Ch5: WHEN MADNESS SETS IN

Nik, Christian & Filipe have a discussion

Filipe Braga’s life seemed to be snowballing day after day since the moment Eliza Goode held him captive at her cottage and tapped his body for fresh blood for almost week. He knew the dangers of letting Sebastian do as he pleasure but at the same time he felt almost bound to protect him, guard him and in truth steer anyone getting close to the truth further away from it. 

As Filipe walked to meet Christian at his office from the café where he ran into his beautiful partner Celeste and Charlotte, he thought about tactics he needed to take to make sure Christian stayed away from Goode island and the two witches who made Sebastian what he was and what they made Filipe what he was becoming: an enabler of evil. 

Inside his office, Constable Christian Evans nervously scribbled on notes. He was panicked and unsure of himself. Acting totally off. His uneasiness was out of character for a man in charge of Welshport Island’s civic duties, and he wasn’t alone.

Evie’s brother Nikolas Jordan had traveled a long journey over the Atlantic from England to find his sister who had not held contact since her wedding day. 

Nikolas was promised by Christian to help release her from Windcliff but Christian had yet to bring anything up with the local courts like he promised. Nikolas could see the strain on the Constable’s face and in his mannerisms—he felt disturbed and just as uneasy as Christian’s actions were showing he was. 

“Do you need something to calm you Constable? I could get someone. Anyone. The hotel said if I ever needed a doctor on my stay that they could call a doctor by the name of Ward. Should I try Dr. Ward?” Nikolas asked as he sat in the chair across from the frazzled Christian. 

“No. No. I’m fine. I’m just running my brain about how to help Evie. She’s all I think about. Sometimes I’m fine and I can focus on work and focus on things I need to do for this community but then I have these bouts of impatient yearning where I can’t grasp on to one single thought and…I don’t know. It’s like I’ve been put under some sort of strange spell.” Christian said. 

He was finally on the right track. 

The day Christian went to Goode Island to find Mary, Eliza has blown a powder in his face that was meant to erase his memory or negative thoughts on Mary’s whereabouts. The powder was to push his eagerness to arrest Mary for murder into a sort of surrender. It worked but an unfortunate side effect was a lingering anxious tone of life. Christian lost his ability to make choices and clear his mind. His brain, thanks to Eliza’s powder, was a mishmash of confusion and stress and anxiety to the point where he could not function. 

“It’s just sometimes you’re fine and sometimes you’re not. I’m rather worried.” Nikolas replied noting Christian’s inconsistency. 

“What? What’s that?” Christian again replied further worrying Nik that putting his trust in the Constable may have been a bad idea. 

At the door, listening carefully was Filipe early for his meeting. 

“I said you…” Nik began before being interrupted. 

“It’s the Lord family. They’ve done something to me. Every since I saw that body, the night they took Evie I’ve never been the same. I can’t sleep some nights and others I sleep too much. I don’t eat some days and others I eat too much. Nik I can’t focus on a single thought. I just can’t focos.” Christian expressed. 

“What should we do? I could call that Dr. Ward.” Nik replied his face plagued with worry. 

“They’ll think I’m crazy. I’ll lose everything.” Christian replied. 

“If I could figure this out for you I would but I can’t. You said you’d help me and at this point you’re the only person I trust. You're no good to me—or Evie—if you can’t help yourself. Please let me help you get yourself together.” Nikolas replied. 

“Listen to him, Chris.” Filipe said entering the office. “I think he’s right.” 

“Filipe.” Christian said, his eyes almost watering from seeing his friend, another sign of his strain showing. 

“Nikolas… uhhh… Evie’s lawyer.” Nik said, still introducing himself as Evie’s fake lawyer, his paranoia on who to trust still on high alert. 

“Evie has a lawyer? Why does she need a lawyer? Chris what is this?” Filipe replied annoyed. 

“He, uhh… Nikolas has…” Christian began to say, stammering for a lie to continue Nikolas’ identity a secret. 

“Because she’s being held against her will at Windcliff Sanitarium by the Lord family’s power and money. I want to help her out of there. There is absolutely no proof she’s mentally I’ll and needs to be there.” Nik relief forcefully.

“And what proof do you have she’s not? From what I heard she was seeing her dead husband all over their house. That doesn’t sound very stable to be.” Filipe said playing devil’s advocate. 

“She’s my…!” Nik began to say she was his sister and he knew her better than anyone else. But stopped before outing himself. “She’s my client and I know her as best as anyone could. And she’s never provider for me any kind of inkling of her being mad.” He finished. 

“She’s not. I know she’s not!” Christian replied. 

“Chris, my friend, you’re exhausted. You look like you haven’t slept in days. You need to go home and rest. Take some time off and let the deputies take care of things until you’re back and better than ever.” Filipe said going to get Christian out of the way for a bit. 

“No! He can’t do that! I don’t have anyone else and I can’t get out of here without the Constable approving that she doesn’t really need to be there.” Nik confessed.

Filipe wasn’t sure he liked Nikolas’ pushing of Christian who seemed to be falling deeper and deeper into his budding nervous break down. It was all he could do not to push the young Jordan man into the hallway force him to leave. But Christian mattered first. He was clearly not well. 

“I don’t know how you found out about Evie and her predicament but I think you should count your blessing and call it a day, sir. The Lords aren’t a perfect family. They have their issues but the one thing that is true is that they love each other and look out for each other.” Filipe said even surprising himself for defending the Lords, but it was all he could to do make sure he kept everyone off Sebastian's scent.

And so far, it seemed no one seemed to be.

“By putting her in a mental institution??” Nikolas countered. 

“She’s not sick, she’s NOT SICK!!” Christian shouted, perhaps confessing his own mental rawness in doing so. 

“Fine! Fine! Do what you want, but if you asked me to come here to help you get Evie out of that place I won’t do it. I won’t try and stop you but I can’t help you go along these lines.” Filipe said, relieved the two men were sure they wanted to put their focus on Evie & off of Mary and Eliza, which was Filipe’s true motive. 

“We need to save her, she’s…” Christian said pausing. 

“She’s what?” Nikolas Asked. 

“What do we need to save her from?” Filipe said adding a second question. 

“The monster.” Christian replied in a whisper, repeating the words Gaspar said in his last blood gurgling breath. 

“Monster? What is he talking about?” Nikolas asked Filipe. 

“The monster.” Christian repeated then standing up and going to his office window. His eyes glazed over and he only stared out beyond the office window glass. The powerful dust Eliza blew in Christian’s face truly doing its deed of putting Christian in a massive confusing and mental mess. 

“He’s not well. Not well at all.” Filipe said softly, realizing perhaps Christian had seen Sebastian somewhere in town lurking in the shadows. It worried him instantly. 

“It’s so strange when we went to Windcliff yesterday he was somewhat fine. He did mention this person called Gaspar and a death? I…I don’t know. I don’t know what this is!” Nikolas told Filipe feeling desperate for some clarity. 

Filipe felt disgusted with himself because of the satisfaction that Christian seemed to be out of sorts, it meant no one would believe a word he said, but the fact he still had Gaspar’s monster on his mind meant he needed to push things further to keep Sebastian’s new life as the un-dead a secret. 

This had to be. To keep everyone safe. 

“Maybe there is one way we can help him?” Filipe said to Nikolas. 

“I love her, I’m in love with her. I love her. I’m in love with her.” Christian muttered looking out the window. 

“He’s talking about Evie, isn’t he. He really does love her. How, how can we help them both?” Nik asked Filipe who was ever so eager to get Christian out of the way for his own good. 

“If he wants to be with Evie this bad and, he himself is clearly out of sorts, we could call the doctor.” Filipe offered. 

“I love her.” Christian repeated. 

“No, no. I offered to do the same but he didn’t want me to call Dr. Ward.” Nikolas replied. 

“Not Ward. Kim. Dr. Kim of Windcliff, we can have Christian committed there too, then you and I could, perhaps, figure out what to do next, but Christian can’t help you like this, not like this.” Filipe said trying to get the Constable out of his way, and thus out of Sebastian's way.

 Feelings of guilt started to fill Filipe's heart of helping Sebastian before helping Christian, but it was the best and most safest way to keep everyone alive. 

Nikolas shook his head unsure of how to answer. He didn’t know how to free Evie much less have Christian take there too, but from his actions Christian was surly in need or psychiatric help. 

As Nik and Filipe contemplated Christian’s fate, he tapped his fingers nervously only the windowsill over and over and over whispering to himself the words MONSTER and SAVE HER. 

It was clear. Nik took a deep breaths and saw no other choice. 

“Whatever. Do what you have to but I’m still going to try and remove my sis—client from the hospital. She doesn’t deserve to be there.” Nikolas said almost revealing his connection to Evie. 

And as Filipe helped the dazed Christian away from the window Nikolas realized he could go and help take Christian and perhaps slip sway from admissions and find and free his sister. 

“I’ll call Kim.” Filipe said. 

“I’ll help you.” Nikolas relied eagerly.  

****

Georgina, Eliza & Mary at the cabin 

On Goode Island the wind rushed intensely over through the thicket of trees that surrounded the small singular cottage in the center of the island. It was nearly dusk, and the lights coming from the cottage windows reflected on the surrounding trees like the coming sunset on the horizon.

Inside, Eliza and Mary Goode carefully prepared their experiment bodily transference with the unconscious Georgina Kent. 

Georgina was on the ground in front of hearth on top of a soft moss stuff mattress. The area around her, various chairs, a large table and shelves, had all been pushed back up against the back wall so that they two sorceress had enough room on the floor to cast their spell. 

It was a big job, according to Eliza,, who had never done this before.

As mother and daughter gathered the intracule parts of their spell, Georgina started to come to. Her eyes flickered open. She looked up ad the cottage's ceiling and didn't recognize it. Her neck was hurting, a side effect from the long travel with Sebastian who was in his slumber room awaiting the coming night

She moaned and stretched and sat up, but said nothing.

Eliza, busily setting up for the switch, didn't notice. Mary did.

"Mother." Mary said, pulling her mother's arm so that her body turned to see the awakened Georgina.

"What... where am I?" Georgina asked, not recognizing Mary at first. But then as her eyes adjusted, gasped at her. "What do you want with me?" She added, jumping up to her feet from the mattress they had laid her on.

Eliza smiled and clutched Mary's shaking hand that was firmly on her upper arm. 

"There is no reason to fear us. In fact we want to help you. That's why we've brought you here." Eliza said, stepping one step closer to Georgina who stepped back one step, feeling the heat from the fireplace on her back. 

"How did I get here? I saw... the other night, I saw...he...attacked me.... how did I see him? How did I get here? Mary Goode,  how did you...do this?" Georgina replied, everything from the last few days starting to flood her mind all at once. It almost became too much. She felt faint. She felt flush. She grabbed her head and was about to fall backwards when Eliza quickly leapt forward and held Georgina up.

"There, there. Come sit down. You've been through a very traumatic situation. I can understand how this must seem. Its all too much. Even I feel like that, so I imagine you are overwhelmed my dear. Mary, fetch her some tea." Eliza said, Mary quickly complied.

"What do you want from me?" Georgina asked, grabbing hold of the hot mug of tea and staring into the warm liquid before sipping as if to check for poison. 

"Don't worry. We don't want to hurt you. We need your help and what we can offer you will no doubt set you free." Mary said in a whisper.

"How can you help me? The whole village is terrified of you. They all know what you did. We all know what you did." Georgina said, sipping the tea for her nerves.

"We understand completely how it must seem. But my daughter Mary was in a way just like you. Used by the Lord family for their own gains. And that is why we need your help. We need you to help us and in doing so, you'll be free of them." Eliza replied.

"Ill lose everything if the family realized I helped you with anything that hurt then! How can you even ask me that?" Georgina asked.

"They'll never know." Eliza added.

"You want me to help you? Without them finding out? This doesn't make sense. Mr. Lord finds everything out. He has his ways. I cannot be the one to cross him." Georgina answered.

"We have a way. But you must trust us." Mary replied as Georgina turned from Eliza when Mary spoke and saw something very familiar in her eyes. The blue color. It was indistinguishable .She had always known those blue eyes but had never put two and two together. They were also Charlotte's eyes.

"Charlotte. This is all about Miss Charlotte isn't it? Are you her mother?" Georgia asked as both Mary and Eliza shot each other a look.

"Yes." Mary answered quickly. "But its not just about her. Its about that whole family and what they have done over the years that have left so many destroyed lives in their wake. I'm sure even in your own life you can relate to something like that. How did you come to being Rebecca's personal maid?" 

Georgina looked down again at her mug of tea. Her own connection to the family was a history she wished she had forgotten. But she never did. How could she? It made her who she was. A trapped maid within the walls of a place that terrified her day in and day out. But she was trapped there. She owed the family. Her whole family was in debt to the Lords, but being that she was the last one living, the debt needed to be paid by her and her alone.

"My mother was a mistress to Albert Lord, Mrs. Lord's husband. I always knew him as Uncle Albert but in fact he was my mother's benefactor. My father when he found this out jumped off the top of the lighthouse. My mother was brokenhearted. She felt so horrible that she had broken her marriage, and pushed my father to his demise and also ruined the Lord's marriage. She later jumped from the lighthouse too. Eventually, I became a ward of the state and when I turned 17, Mrs. Lord took me in as her maid -- a way for my family to pay her back for what she called 'personal pains and suffering'. I had no where to go. No job. No money, No family. So I went." Georgina explained.

"They're evil people, Georgina. Evil. You had nothing to do with all that infidelity." Eliza replied.

"NO! Mrs. Lord has been good to me! She has! She has treated me like her own daughter." Georgina exclaimed as the fire crackled in the hearth.

"Her own? She makes you work there out of a manipulated guilt. You had nothing to do with her husband being with your mother. You were a child. She's wicked, just like her son who keeps me from my child. And I want to make it right. All of if. With your help." Mary answered. 

"How? How in the world could you both get what you want with my help and still keep me safe?" 

Eliza and Mary looked at each other. Eliza got up from her stool and walked over to her pushed back book shelf and pulled out a large thick book. It was her book of spells. The pages were old and stained yellow. They were frayed on the edges like old cloth, slightly torn and withered.

"This book will heal us all. What we can do, Georgina, is give you a new life. With a single spell, a single work of magic arts, we can provide you with a new life that will save you from the Lords and in turn give us what we need. Access. All we need is access. You are the key to that lock." Eliza explained.

"What kind of access?" Georgina wondered.

"I want to be able to enter the mansion and stay there. Watch over my child. Protect her. Be with her. But I cant with t his face, this body. But I can with yours. We can switch, Georgina. I can be you. You can be me, and we can help you escape Welshport forever and start over somewhere else. Somewhere safe where you never have to be another person's maid ever again." Mary explained.

"You're mad! You're both mad! You want to switch bodies??? How is that even .... you're MAD!!" Georgina replied jumping from her chair and spilling the tea over her dark skirt. 

"Calm down! Calm down!" Eliza said grabbing Georgina's wrist. "This is real, this is true and we are not mad. I promise you I can give you freedom. All the freedom you deserve and that you should have had before the nightmare of the Lords entered your life. In Mary's body you can escape this place and start anew. Georgina, I give you my word, your life will be safe and sound if you help us switch. Mary needs this. Her daughter needs this. Think of yourself at Charlotte's age. Your mother was gone. You were alone in the orphanage. Now imagine if Jacob was your father. What do you think Charlotte's future is with a man like that as her guide to life?" 

Georgia took a breath and looked down at the book. She looked at the two women in front of her and their gazes of sincerity and truth.. It was a strange request, switching bodies with Mary Goode, but the temptation of freedom from her servitude to Rebecca and all the nasty things she experienced there was stronger than she realized. Freedom was a tastier dish.

"Will it hurt?" Georgina asked to Eliza and Mary's delight. 

"Not a pinch." Eliza replied taking Georgina's had and leading her back to the mattress on the floor.

"What do I do?" Georgina asked. 

"Lie there still. Keep your eyes closed and focus on living outside of this body in the next. Imagine your life as a free woman. Because in a moments time, it will be real." Eliza said as she and Mary sat down. one on either side of Georgina.

Georgina nodded her head as she was laid out long ways in front of the fire. Her feet feeling the most of the heat coming from the fire. Eliza sat to her left and Mary to her right. There was a large white circle of salt that surrounded all three women and leaves of sage sprinkled over the salt. The room was dark with only the flashing red and yellow flames from the fireplace lighting it and the smell of oils from the lamps filled the room in an aroma that calmed Georgina's heartbeat to a slow and steady normal. 

Eliza and Mary, both seated with their legs tucked under them and their hands touching a their palms closed there eyes and prayed. 

Eliza opened her eyes to get one more look at her Mary who kept hers closed and was mouthing her prayers. Once Eliza’s spell was done, the Mary and Georgina would be switched and Mary would be no more, at least not in the conventional way. It hurt Eliza to know this would be an end of sorts to her daughter. Georgina, inside of Mary, could not live in Welshport. She would have to vanish for her own safety ending her connection to Eliza in the body she gave birth to. It was like a death, death by disappearance. 

“My sweet girl…” Eliza whispered to herself. “Goodbye.”

Then their prayers continued and when each prayer was done, Eliza opened the book to the spell of bodily switches and read aloud: 

"hinc pergitis, in promo, tolle quod scis, in proximo, unum cum his verbis, in promixo, Maria Et Georgina,, ad corpos, unum corpos, unum corpoos."

With the spell read aloud the winds began to blow harder and harder through the tress outside. The branches scartched the windows. The fire in the hearts became hotter and hotter. Georgina winched as the spell began to take hold of her mind and souk. Mary too began to feel the pull of the powers. 

Eliza repeated: "hinc pergitis, in promo, tolle quod scis, in proximo, unum cum his verbis, in promixo, Maria Et Georgina,, ad corpos, unum corpos, unum corpoos."

Mary moaned as a bright light began to lift from her body. Her hands began to shake. Georgina too began to have a light come from deep inside her chest. Their eyes still closed, as the wind burst through the shuttered windows and filled the room rushing over the fire and blowing it out. 

The entire room except for the energy glowing from both woman, now flowing around their body like a swirling yellow fog. 

Eliza repeated: "hinc pergitis, in promo, tolle quod scis, in proximo, unum cum his verbis, in promixo, Maria Et Georgina,, ad corpos, unum corpos, unum corpoos."

Then, in a burst of energy, the two glowing yellow lights from Mary and Georgina quickly switched places in a second burst that blew Mary back to the ground and then everything was dark. 

The sun had set. 

The fire was out.

The winds stopped. 

There was sound, but then Eliza struck a match and lit a candle. She walked over to the fireplace and lit it again. Mary and Georgina opened their eyes and saw the world from two new bodies. 

Georgina and Mary stood up and looked into their old faces. Mary smiled. Georgina cried.

It had worked.

"I can't believe it." Georgina said in Mary's voice from Mary's body.

"We did it, mother. We did it." Mary said in Georgina's voice from Georgina's body.

Eliza smiled at her work. 

Georgina looked at her new body, Her new hands. Her new blond hair. Her new blue eyes.

It was strange and yet exhilarating.

"You're free." Mary said holding her former hands to Georgina who smiled.

"Now we find Evie" A growling voice said from the shadows. 

It was Sebastian, who stepped into the newly lit room to Georgina's shock. She gasped and stepped back behind Mary. 

"Its him!!!" Georgina explained.

Eliza grabbed Georgina tight to her to comfort her. "Its ok. He's a friend." 

"You have what you want, now help me get what I want. That was our deal." he replied.

Eliza and Mary looked at each other and realized they had helped Georgina escape a debt she did not owe only to fall into a debt they did owe, one to Sebastian. The happy feelings of success quickly.

Evie was Sebastian's only want. Only desire. He needed her like the blood he needed to live, and the two witches who had made his this way were going to help him get her back. One way or another.  

Mary & Georgina switch bodies

****

Rebecca arrives at  St. Thomas' Cemetery 

As the darkness in the sky intensified over Welshport, and the seagulls screeched in the distance of the lifting Atlantic Fog, a small car with shining chrome bumpers and a black canvas top rolled through the gates of St. Thomas’ Cemetery that looked over the Northshore Cliffside of the island. 

The car was carrying Rebecca Lord and her driver Hamstead. Rebecca was on a mission to make sure what she knew was true — was true! 

The truth she sought was that her grandson Sebastian was dead and buried in a sleek velvet lined coffin in the family plot in the cemetery, and the groundskeeper was going to prove that Sebastian’s ring somehow appearing at Georgina’s attack was just a coincidence. 

As Rebecca got out of her car with Hamstead’s hand guiding her down the two small steps to the gravel filled front drive outside the groundskeeper’s small on location home; he was already outside shivering in the cold air. 

“Ma’am what’s the meaning of this late visit? When I got your call earlier after dinner I wasn’t expecting you to show up after the sun went down.” The cemetery groundskeeper said, his breath puffing in white plumes from us dry lips. 

“This. I need you to prove to me that this is a fake. Or a copy.” Rebecca said revealing Sebastian’s signet ring in her black gloved hand. 

“I don’t understand Mrs. Lord, I’m not a jeweler.” The groundskeeper snipped. 

Rebecca’s eyes squinted with distance as a far off ship wailed it’s fog horn in the newly thickening fog. 

“Of course you’re not. But you can dig can’t you? I want you to …” Rebecca paused. “exhume  my grandson from his grave. If he isn't missing his ring, well, then I’ll know this one is a fake.” Rebecca replied. 

“Exhume Sebastian? Ma’am you don’t want to do that. Not now. It’s been so long since he died and it just won’t please you to see. I, I can do it later. Yes! When the sun comes up and I will send word to you at Tirymôr of what I find!” The groundskeeper said nervously as he knew the grave was completely empty. 

“No! I have to see for myself. I need you do to this now and whatever is down there won’t give more any more nightmares of his death than I already have, I can assure you. Now, so you have shovels or should I lend you some? Because I’ve come prepared for any excuse as to not do this tonight.” Rebecca relief lifting an eyebrow and cutting the groundkeeper at the knees.

“Ma’am, I have to say,” he began speaking as more puffy white breath came from his mouth in the cold air. “this is unethical. I could lose my job!” 

“You won’t! No one will ever know and if it should get out I’ll protect you. You will not lose your job, I’ll make sure of it.” Rebecca answered as a shiver ran up the back of her corseted back. “Come. It’s too cold to argue with you anymore. We’ll take the car to Sebastian and you’ll use our shovels. Hamstead will help.” 

With that order, clean cut and sturdy, the groundskeeper was cornered. He took a deep breath and followed Rebecca into the back of the Model T car. She shoved the shovels to one side of the back seat and moved herself over to the far left side allowing him enough room to sit next to her. 

He was a tall man of Welsh decent as many people on the island were thanks to its first settlers coming from that area of the UK. He was tan skinned from the many hours in the island sun working in the grounds of St. Thomas’ Cemetery with brown eyes and dark hair. His lips scratchy and chapped became pink and plump when he licked them. Rebecca noticed his handsome face now in the soft light of the back of her car and wondered how on earth such a young man could do the work he did, all the while the car drove the crooked slim pathways around the cemetery all the way up the largest green slope up to the Lord Family plot. 

It didn’t take long. 

As soon as they arrived, Hamstead pulled the shovels out of the car and the groundskeeper went with him over to Sebastian’s grave. Rebecca, hiding from the bitter night cold stayed in the car until the moment they were to open the coffin. 

She sat there, breath puffing white from her nostrils, imagining Sebastian’s body. Hoping it was still as pristine as the time she last saw it right before they closed the coffin’s lid. How she dreamt he’d come home and hug her, kiss Charlotte, give them all a good laugh as he so often did. He used to take away all their pain, and it was quite the challenge with all the drama the family had constantly gone through. 

But he did it. When he was alive. He always did it. He was Rebecca’s ray of light. But now, to find this copy signet ring, all her darkness crept in again. 

She watched as her pocket watch ticked away the hour and the dirt from the grave flew into the air and on to the cold hard surface of the grave yard. She saw the dirt fly in the face of the giant Angel statues that made up her husband’s plot where his body lay next to the small body of her still born daughter Victoria that Rebecca gave birth to after her two sons. 

And next to Victoria an empty plot waiting for Rebecca. 

Every time Rebecca could muster the courage to look out the small cube shaped window or her car Hamstead and the groundskeeper were deeper and deeper into the grave until suddenly their shovels hit the lid. 

“Ma’am!! We’ve hit!” Hamstead called from inside the grave. 

Rebecca sighed deeply. A small part of her was hoping they’d never find it. That all of this would never come to pass and that she wouldn’t have to do what she was about to do. She quickly crossed herself, clutched her rosary right in her left hand and Sebastian’s signet ring in the other and slowly made the short walk over to the open mouth of Sebastian’s grave. 

The groundskeeper was shaking at the bottom. He knew it was empty. He found it empty with the town’s priest who was with him the morning after Mary had taken the newly brought to life Sebastian. 

“Ma’am when I open this coffin please look away, let me glance down at to check what you need me to check and we can be all down with this.” The groundskeeper said. 

“Absolutely not. I need to see for myself. If my poor grandson is wearing his ring, in his deep sleep, then I’ll know. I know this one here in my hand is a fake and a fraud and someone out there is trying to …. Never mind this, just please open it.” Rebecca replied. 

“Ma’am, perhaps he is right. Perhaps you should quickly turn away from the body and I’ll glance for you.” Hamstead added. 

“Both of you forget what you’re talking to. I’ve seen worse things, although the idea of seeing him again is truly painful and something I’d wish we didn’t have to do, I must do it. Now enough of this stalling and so as I saw! Open it quickly and let it be over.” Rebecca ordered as the wind blew an icy breath over the slopes of the cemetery and chilled the three to their bones. 

The groundskeeper paused. He didn’t want to do it. He was afraid of what was about to happen. Hamstead pulled himself out of the grave to him the groundskeeper more room and as his pushed himself up the pressure from his feet cracked the top of the lid of the coffin and the groundskeeper fell through clearly showing that there was nothing inside the coffin. 

“What the devil? How?!” Hamstead shouted noticing the groundskeeper’s feet went straight through the lid without hitting a body. 

Rebecca noticed too. She walked around the open grave staring down with a furrowed brow as the frightening truth was setting in. No body. 

“Open it.” She said. “Open the whole thing. Show me!” 

“Ma’am! I think we should just go This is no sight for a lady and I assure you whatever is in here will stay on your mind all your life long. You don’t want that, do ya?” The groundskeeper said as he removed his feet from the coffin.

“DAMN IT! I said open it now!!” Rebecca screamed as loud as the wind. 

The groundskeeper looked at Rebecca, then at Hamstead, then at Rebecca again. 

Then he finally did it. He opened the lid and revealed the truth: there was no body in the coffin. No Sebastian. No signet ring. Nothing. 

“How? How could this be? The grave was … ma’am I don’t understand!” Hamstead said as Rebecca looked down at the signet ring she found at Georgina’s attack. 

“Then it’s true. This is… and he must of killed Gasp…. And taken Geo…” Rebecca was unable to make her thoughts clear out loud, but in her mind it was a clear as the tiny spec of blue sky peeking through the shadowy gray clouds above their heads. Some way Sebastian — was alive. Not dead, but alive. 

“Ma’am I…” the groundskeeper began before being interrupted.

“I’ll have not one more single word from you. Rebury this coffin cover it and speak not a word of this to a single soul. I’ll make your life a living hell, so hellish you’ll wish it was you in that empty coffin. Do you understand? Not a word.” Rebecca hissed. 

The grounds keeper’s eyes darted, but he could see Rebecca was not playing. He took a deep breath and nodded his head yes. 

“Hamstead take me home— NOW!” Rebecca then ordered as she darted back into the car.   

Hamstead complied and the two quickly made their wait driving down the twisting road of St. Thomas’s cemetery leaving the groundskeeper to his own devices still in Sebastian’s grave and shivering in the bitter cold. 

In the car Rebecca banged the inside of the car with her first screaming in absolute anger. She didn’t understand how he could be alive, or how he could have been taken dead. But she knew in her heart that if he was taken in death that there would have been signs. Someone would have surly tried to ransom his body; conniving charlatans and drunkan thieves, SOMEONE, would find any opportunity to peel an extra penny from the Lord family fortune. 

But there was no ransom for her grandson’s body. Not appeals for money. Nothing. 

Gaspar’s murder. Georgina’s attack and abduction. Sebastian's signet ring, Rebecca thought, ,could all of that be done by a living breathing Sebastian?

Hamstead watched his mistress in the review mirror. Her face, pale and angry, also showed pain and fear. She would find him, she needed to. She needed answers. She needed the darkness to end--whom ever was responsible. Even if it was her beloved grandson. Where ever he was. 

Whatever he was.