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| Windcliff Sanitarium, mainland--MAINE |
Windcliff Asylum was awash in the light of the mid-afternoon sun, covered by a glaze of gray overcast clouds that shifted from the east over the hills that made up the small rural land of the hospital compound.
In the lush garden, covered in a gray shawl and in white slippers that barley blocked the stones from pushing up against her feet, Evie Jordan looked at a patch work of flowers with a dazed look in her eyes.
She was exhausted. She had been keeping herself up at night, too scared to fall asleep, too scared to know what dreams or nightmares would come if she did finally hit the sweet-spot slumber that she so craved but feared. The screams from other patients in her ward too didn't help matters--or perhaps they did. Perhaps they helped her keep her mind awake and not drift off into a sleep that no doubt would bring in the haunting memories of how she go to Windcliff in the first place.
The hospital was no vacation spot. Evie was not there getting herself back into a better mental state to then return to Welshport a better woman rehabilitated from her supposed mental break that Jacob tried so hard to force on her.
She knew the family had done this to her to get her out of the way and to keep from adding to their scandalous past, but just how long could they do this without anyone in her other world, England, from asking questions was the true test.
Evie couldn't let go of the idea that she would some how get herself out of this predicament. Somehow. Someway, she would escape Dr. Kim and everything he was being paid to do to her.
As Evie fiddled with a small yellow grass daisy by plucking peddle after peddle off, she was joined by the young woman from her ward. The young woman had dark long hair that went down passed her waist. She was dressed in a light pink hospital gown and tied off with a thin yellow ribbon marking her waistline. The woman's caramel colored skin seemed to come from a confectionary, so clear and warm.
"Penny for your thoughts." She said to Evie who looked up at her from the grass and shaded her eyes from the sun to get a better look at who was talking too her.
The woman sat down on the grass next to Evie and grabbed herself her own yellow grass daisy to pick apart.
"Oh, hello." Evie said apprehensively.
"Alice. I'm Alice. We're in the same ward. Same floor too." Alice said.
"Alice...yes, yes, I think I can remember seeing you. Evie."
"They never let us out like this. I mean not this long. Its been an hour or so. Someone must be coming that is important." Alice noted.
"Oh?" Evie replied in wonder.
"When they keep us in the garden longer than usual, that means an important guest is on the way and they need to straighten up for then. Sort of ---hide the skeletons, if you will." Alice added to Evie's chilled expression.
"How long have you been here?" Evie asked since her friend seemed to know hospital intel.
"A long while. Years probably. Its been hard to count after the first three go by. And you--Why are you here then? I can tell the likes of you … blue-blooded. Worldly. It shines in your eyes." Alice replied.
Evie smiled shyly and almost felt embarrassed that someone she didn't know could tell she was someone of what they would consider high-society. Was it that obvious? she wondered.
"Its a long story. For the most part I shouldn't be here. My husband..." Evie began before Alice interrupted .
"Did you kill him?"
"NO!" Evie exclaimed. "He did die. But, someone else. Someone else did it. On our wedding day. Its all been a very horrible thing to even discuss, I wouldn't want to trouble you with it." Evie added.
"There's no trouble at all! We all have similar stories. For me, you see, I come from a long line of people … special people. People from another place that have a connection to earth and nature. We're, I'd say gifted. Chosen. When I tell people that they don't believe me. They don't understand me." Alice explained then she leaned in and whispered "They think I'm crazy."
"Dr. Kim says we shouldn't use words like crazy or insane." Evie replied with a silly grin making fun of Dr. Kim.
"He says a lot of things, doesn't he." Alice smirked. "I don't really listen to him much. He's full of a lot of mumbo-jumbo if you ask me. So Miss Evie, I told you about me, now you tell me about you." Alice said.
"There isn't much to tell to be honest. I came to America a few months ago and got married. My husband Sebastian was killed at our wedding and after that his uncle started to fake all of these incidents attempting to make believe my husband had come back to life or...I don't know, maybe to try and make believe he never died in the first place." She explained.
"Hmmm...is that so? So you never saw him? Your husband I mean." Alice wondered.
"No! He...he died. I know he died. Like I said its quite the complicated story.'
Alice smiled, she could see that her new friend wasn't really supposed to be where she had been placed. But who was Alice to try and figure out what was real and what wasn't real. She had a hard time doing that in her own life to begin with. Alice was known in the hospital to be someone of a great spiritual power. She would often times council other patients in the hospital after sessions with Dr. Kim to help them feel calmer. Dr. Kim hated that about Alice, he felt that she was counter productive to his work and a lot of times wanted to get rid of her as a patient. But with Alice in the hospital also meant that the hospital got a lot of money from her mysterious family to keep her there.
"We should be friends." Alice said giving Evie a new flower from the grass.
"I need friends. Its been so lonely here. You said you were one with nature, that sounds very calming. Is that something I could be too? One with nature? I look out on to this garden thinking about how I can get out of here and get back to my life and it so torments my mind. Maybe you can teach me how to be more calm so that I can at least keep my sanity within an insane situation." Evie said, hoping her rambling made some sense. "Where are you from?" Evie added.
"From?" Alice said thinking of where she came from. A world so distant so far away that to explain it to Evie could possibly blow any kind of legitimate friendship they were forging.
"Yes, your home. I came from England and lived on Welshport. What about you?" Evie clarified.
"A wonderful wonderful place. Surrounded by the most beautiful people and the deepest oceans you'd ever seen. I'll tell you about it soon." Alice said looking to her right through a thicket of trees and a horizon that showed a spec of sea in the distance.
"You miss it, like I miss my home. I can tell." Evie replied.
She was right.
This connection felt like kismet. For Alice, having someone so quickly believe that she was connected to the world outside meant so much to her. No one ever did they. They always made her feel childish and stupid for the things she said, but Evie, her warmth and kindness, made Alice feel like she could really have a real friend there at Windcliff. A connection she so longed for.
"I can teach you a lot of things Evie. I truly can. But you'll have to listen to me. You'll have to believe in me and most importantly believe in the power of our mother earth." Alice said in a sudden cryptic voice.
"In mother earth?" Evie asked confused.
"She gives and she takes. To be free of all the suffering we have in us we must come to terms with her power and only then can we truly live as one with her. Open your hand." Alice said.
Evie, unsure of what was happening, opened her hand and extended her arm to Alice who grabbed Evie's wrist with one hand then dropped a small clump of dirt into it. She forced Evie's hand to close around the clump of dirt and told her to close her eyes as she did too.
Then she whispered a strange prayer in a language Evie did not understand or recognize. Then she asked her to open her hand and when Evie did the clump of dirt had sprouted one of the yellow daisies the two had been plucking from the grass on the grounds of Windlcliff.
Evie gasped in surprise and wonder at the magic trick and asked how Alice could have performed it.
"Its not magic." Alice said looking too the sky. "It was her. Our mother. And with her power... we can set you free from here." She added.
Evie looked at Alice strangely. She knew that there were peculiar people all around here there at the asylum but something was different about Alice. She was special. She seemed magical. And perhaps could truly help Evie get out of Windlcliff safely.
"I think I'm ready to go inside, what about you?" Alice said with a twinkle in her eye.
"I umm..." Evie began, but before she could fully answer, Alice clapped her hands and the clouds seemed to close in over the Hospital. Gray and dark, filled to the brim with a storm that no one expected.
And in seconds a full spring storm drew in and washed over everyone on the grounds. The nurses began to blow their whistles calling in all the patients who were out in the gardens. Alice giggled and grabbed hold of Evie's hand and the two ran back up the large green lawn holding up the hems of their long dresses dashing over puddles and up the back steps back into the hospital.
And watching all of this was Dr. Andrew Kim from a window in his office, seething with anger that Alice had befriended his newest patient Evie Jordan-Lord. To Kim, Alice meant trouble.
****
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| Rebecca visits Windcliff with a warning |
As Andrew Kim watched his newest patient and his most mysterious one run back into the Hospital from the rain, the front area of Windcliff was a buzz with two visitors dressed in all black and shrouded in mystery.
But the mystery was only to the nurses and patients of Windcliff, under the slick black umbrella in a large black dress that covered almost every inch of her body was Rebeca Lord freshly off a small fairly boat ride from Welshport to the mainland of Maine with her personally valet Hamstead.
"Can you stay outside Ham, I'd prefer to speak with Dr. Kim on my own." Rebecca said handing Hamstead the wet umbrella and pointing to a small waiting area where he'd no doubt sit in while Rebecca spoke with Kim.
"Of course Ma'am." He said following her finger to the waiting area.
Rebecca made her slow walk down the long dim hallway that smelled of old clothes and wet dirt. The potted plants, large ferns that seemed to be over grown and over watered, stood tall in the hall in their respective double wide white painted terracotta pots. The floor, hardwood and aged, creaked and cracked as Rebecca walked over it, her feet invisible to the eye made her look like a ghostly vision gliding over the wood floors smoothly and effortlessly.
A shy nurse curtsied when she saw the ever regal Rebecca enter and then showed Rebecca to Dr. Kim's office that kept the continuing rain pouring down over the Hospital on the mainland. Rebecca felt an extra chill in the air from the damp hospital vents and she tightened her mink stole around her neck as a patient in hall stared her down with a ghostly gaze.
Before entering a more luxuriously furnished and more personally cared for part of the hospital where Kim's office was, Rebecca turned backwards and saw several more pajama-clad patients that had crowded the doorway watching the rich woman walk through the hospital halls. Rebecca smiled at them coldly and they scattered like roaches to light afraid of her icy stare.
"Dr. Kim will be right with you." The Shy nurse said, curtsying again then exiting.
As she waiting Rebecca sat on a hard chair staring out of a huge checkered window that faced the grassy area Evie and Alice met on just before the cool spring storm began to fall. Rebecca's eyes squinted as the bright light from the sun pushed through the gray clouds illuminating her whole face with such brightness that it seemed to remove ten years off her age.
"So sorry to keep you waiting Mrs. Lord, how are you?" Kim said rushing back into his office after quick check on an unruly patient down the hall.
He reached over his desk to shake Rebecca's hand to read her extended arm as she did not move closer to reach his grasp. People moved for Rebecca, Rebecca didn't move for people.
"I hope I'm not too late. The fairy from the island was late due to this sudden storm coming in. Then my valet and I had a hard time getting here the port." Rebecca explained.
"Not at all. I'm very glad you made it. So, in your letter Mrs. Lord, you mentioned you wanted a progress report on Evie. Your son did not mention I had to keep the family abreast on Evie's condition in such a formal way. I don't do that for any of my patients." Dr. Kim sad as he pulled the letter he received three days earlier from Rebecca out of a desk drawer to discuss it.
"With all due respect doctor, my son Jacob doesn't control me or what I want done in my family in many aspects; Our business, our household. So if I want a progress report its not for my son to say whether or not I should get one. I want one on Evie." Rebecca replied coldly.
"I just thought that since he singed her into Windcliff that he would be the one to get any report or...even be the one to ask for one." Dr. Kim replied back.
"I think you keep misunderstanding me doctor. What Jacob wants and what I want are two different things and that is also true of Evie's wellbeing. He could be satisfied with washing his hands of her here and just pay you to keep our mentally troubled new family member but I want a more hands on approach. I want to know how she is. I'm concerned." Rebecca clarified.
"Concerned. Yes." Dr. Kim replied almost as if he didn't believe her. "Well, Evangeline has a very strong will in her. She's more than ever certain of what she saw and what she didn't see when she lived at Tirymôr and I've had a very difficult time breaking her free from what your family has called delusions or...fantastical ideas that have come to her mind since the death of her husband. To me, she truly believes the things that she saw were planted there to scare her and were not in deed real. Which is promising but at the same time, she did see these things that suddenly vanish when someone else in the household appeared. That is what is concerning me." Kim explained.
"And have you medicated her?" Rebecca asked.
"We medicate for help of sleep, not to break a delusionary mind. To do that we must focus on what could be the reason for her to be seeing these things. What amount of stress in her mind is causing her to manifest these visions so much so that she not only sees them but then believes they are some sort of attempt to make her go insane. You see Mrs. Lord her delusions and paranoia are acting in concert in a way that can be very detrimental to her psyche. I have to find a way to break that without the help of medication. The mind must be clear to crack it." Kim explained further.
"If no medication, how can we heal her in a way that she can come home?" Rebecca asked.
"I don't know if we can heal her. She will have to eventually live with the trauma of Sebastian's murder in a healthy way." Kim said.
"That will most likely be impossible doctor. Every inch of our home is covered in memories of Sebastian and also their wedding. I don't see how she could ever just live with the idea of his death." Rebecca answered as Dr. Kim nodded understanding the predicament of Evie going back to live in that environment.
"Well she isn't ready to leave yet. I'm sure when the time comes we can figure out what to do with all the static memories at Tirymôr then."
Rebecca smiled at this uncomfortably but then shot back with "And her ..." She paused "Sexual apatite."
"I'm sorry???" Dr. Kim asked shocked Rebecca would speak of sexuality..
"Oh doctor, its not something I want to bring up with you either. Trust me. The topic makes me feel just as dirty, but what she did with Constable Evans in my home just weeks after Sebastian's death proves to me that some kind of perversion is a foot in that girl's mind. I want that snuffed out as well before she ever sets foot in my home again." Rebecca informed Dr. Kim
"You caught her making love to Constable Evans Mrs. Lord, I wouldn't consider what you saw perverted, perhaps somewhat uncouth or ill thought out in timing but not perverted."
"Well if that isn't a perversion doctor, what is?" Rebecca snarked.
"Well Evie wasn't the one watching people make love was she?" Kim shot back at Rebecca.
Rebecca's eyes darted at his one-up. She took a breath and quickly changed the subjected as the water continued to flow down from the sky. She reached into a small handback tied to her wrist that matched her leather black gloves. She tugged on the small brass latch and opened the handbag plucking out a carefully folded paper. She handed Dr. Kim the paper and asked him to look it over.
He did, and was surprised at her interest.
"Electric shock?" He said with both eyebrows raised.
"Are you familiar with the practice?" She asked...
"Of course I am." He replied as a bought of lighting rolled.
"I want you to do it on Evangeline. I want you to do it on her so that all of what happened to her in the passed is erased and she can come home a clean soul. A clean spirit. Rejuvenated. Rehabilitated."
"Mrs. Lord, I don't know, I haven't had enough time with Evie to really make the decision on whether electro shock therapy would benefit her. It can be rather painful and we would have to be sure it would help her." Dr. Kim said.
"Doctor--- who is paying your fee?" Rebecca asked as she got up from the hard chair in front of Kim's desk.
"Mrs. Lord please..." he said standing up to meet her eye to eye from across his desk.
"Doctor, who? Who is paying your fee and Evie's?" Rebecca repeated adjusting her big feathery hat.
"Your family." Kim replied.
"No, not my family. Me. I am. I am paying for Evie to be here and your own personal wage. Which, I will remind you, is not a requirement to have someone in this hospital. So when I aske for something I damn well want it. I want Evangeline to undergo shock therapy so that she can return back to Tirymôr within the month. Is that understood?" Rebecca asked sternly.
Dr. Kim knew he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The type of therapy Rebecca wanted for Evie was painful and perhaps useless in her case. But it was true that there was a lot of money on the line thanks to the payments he received from the Lords and also the secret Jacob was keeping from the world about Dr. Andrew Kim himself.
He had to agree. Ha had no choice, the alternative, crossing the powerful Lord family, would be social and career suicide.
"Understood, ma'am." Kim said as Rebecca smirked coldly and thanked him for his service to her. She lifted the font hem of her dress slightly to help her turn her way out of his office and then like a puff of smoke vanished.
Kim sat back down in his chair and turned it around to face the cold wet window. The rain continued to pour down, not as strong as before but still a cold sprinkle fell. He wondered what mess he had gotten himself into and wondered too how in the world he would get himself out and rid himself of the treacherous mother/son Lord family duo.
****
As the sprinkling storm continued to fall outside of Windcliff, a small automobile with a murmuring engine and shiny chrome bumpers fluttered up the sickle shaped driveway of the hospital just as Rebecca Lord was getting into her own automobile to head to the fairy docks and back home to Welshport Island.
She stood on the last of the front steps of the hospital entrance and peeked out from under her slick black umbrella that Hamstead was holding up for her to see Nikolas Jordan and Constable Christian Evans getting out of automobile fresh from their own fairy from Welshport.
Rebecca fumed. To her, Christian the island constable, violated her trust when he seemingly fell in love with her grand-daughter-in-law Evie and went to bed with her so shortly after Sebastian's death and just as seemingly let the investigation into Mary's whereabouts crumble in his very hands.
As the two men stepped up to go into the Hospital to free Evie, Rebecca stepped in their path.
"What is the meaning of this Constable." The Lord family matriarch questioned in a stern voice.
"Mrs. Lord we are here to make sure Evie is freed from this place. I don't want to anger you in the least but you and I both know she isn't meant to be here. This is not the place for her." Christian replied, his voice nervously shaking in spots.
"Absolutely out of the question! Evangeline is under the best care here and she needs to work on the things that made her behave the way she did...with you." She replied coldly. "And who is this?" She asked for Nikolas.
"This is Evie's..." Christian began to reply just before Nikolas interrupted.
"Evangeline's attorney. I came with the Constable because Evie has the right to her own autonomy. Your family did not have the right to place her here against her will." Nikolas said in a fake American accent and without Christian correcting him.
"Attorney? Ridiculous! She doesn't have an attorney." Rebecca scoffed. "She's safe here and being treated for her mental incapacity."
"She does have an attorney. And its me. I will have her removed from here at once." Evie's brother said attempting to intimidate the one person who wasn't afraid of anything.
Rebecca stepped out from under the umbrella Hamstead was still holding up for her to protect her from the rain. She looked at Nikolas dead in his eyes. There was something familiar about him. Something about the shape of his nose, the curve of his jaw line. It was the Jordan family nose; the Jordan family jaw line. Evie had it too. They were siblings that indeed looked alike, but Rebecca couldn't pin it down. She hadn't seen Nikolas since he was a small boy and here he was now a grown 20 year old man; essentially a complete stranger that she actually knew.
It was Nikolas' plan all along. He knew Rebecca would not know his face and he hoped that his little rouse to confuse her about being Evie's legal representative would pay off and she would agree to let her free from the mental hospital. But Rebecca was flesh and bone a business woman in a world filled with businessmen and she knew every corner of the law within her power.
Nikolas had no legal standing.
"What you need to do young attorney--is to get back in this automobile and get back to where ever Constable Evans here found you. You see he is on thin ice himself and if I were you would untangle myself from his inept grasp as fast as you can and check your alliances." Rebecca shot back, still angry at catching Christian and Evie in bed and more so Christian's inability to catch Mary Goode, Sebastian's killer.
"My client," Nik said trying to sound American. "Is is no need of her mental health being watched over, surly not in the form of a Sanitarium. She needs to be..." He continued before being interrupted.
"Evangeline is fine and is being watched over by Dr. Andrew Kim, a very reputable doctor here at Windcliff and I have the upmost respect for him to care for Evie's mental needs. You have no need to worry." Rebecca replied, hiding the fact that they most definitely needed to worry.
Christian swallowed hard, his heart flittering in his stomach. Something inside of him wanted to run away. Something was making him uneasy and squeamish. So much nervous energy starter to filter up. These feeling were completely out of his normal behavior—in truth these new strange sensations were scaring Christian.
Rebecca smartly noted this reaction to use to her advantage.
"Mrs. Lord I understand how angry you are with me and how inappropriate it may have seemed for Evie and I to be together. Trust me, I feel very embarrassed about that night. But there is no need to punish here this way. Perhaps the timing was...well...bad." Christian said. "I wish I could take it all back but I can't" he said.
"Inappropriate is an understatement Constable. You have yet to find and arrest Mary Goode. The one person that you should be focusing on and yet you're here. Harassing me and attempting too thwart my good intentions for my granddaughter, meanwhile that maniac is out there killing people." She said.
"She's not your granddaughter." Niko replied with a hiss in his voice.
"She is. She's married to my dead grandson sir, and no bond is stronger than a bond with the Lord family." Rebecca replied then she looked at Christian "not with anyone." She added.
"I assure you Mrs. Lord I plan on makin sure Mary is arrested and prosecuted for murdering Sebastian and Gaspar." Christian said shocking Rebecca.
"Gaspar?" She said.
"I know that I've been lacks on my duties but I did see Gaspar's body the night Evie was taken from her home and brought here. I have a hunch he too was taken by Mary." Christian guessed.
"You are out of your mind Sir!" Rebecca laughed. "Perhaps Evie wasn't the only one who was seeing things and making things up in her own infirm mind. Gaspar is fine, alive and well. He's back in Europe and living his own life. He's not dead." Rebecca said lying through her teeth.
"But I saw him, he was dead." Christian replied.
"Poppycock!" Rebecca scoffed. "Young man," She said again to Nik, "I would get away from this Constable as soon as possible. As you can see he's not in his best mind frame as well. Before you continue on this whole push for Evangeline's freedom, check the company you keep." Rebecca added gaslighting the two men about Gaspar's true fate.
Rebecca snickered at the two men who's faces felt cold with the icy wind that blew in with the rain. She quickly turned and got into her black automobile as Hamstead lifted an eyebrow at the men still standing on the Hospital steps and watched as Rebecca and Hamstead drove off into the rainy distance headed for the fairy terminal to get back to Welshport.
"Her lawyer?" Christian said to Nikolas..
"She can't know I'm here. As soon as the Lords know Im in town they'll do everything else to get rid of me." Nikolas said. "What's this about your relationship with my sister and this Gaspar person?" He added.
"Its a long story...I.... can explain about Evie later. But what I saw the night Evie was taken to Windcliff was a man dying on the floor of the Tirymôr. At least I thought I did. No, I did. I did see him. She can't be right about Gaspar leaving the country back to France." Christian said.
"She seemed sure that this Gaspar person was alive and well." Nikolas said starting to feel Christian was a big loose on his details and perhaps fragile in his mind after the turmoil the night he was caught with Evie.
"Perhaps." Christian replied, his confusion starting to make him feel inept at his job and in truth he felt humiliated and stupid. The idea of Sebastian's murder still unsolved and now the Gaspar issue heaping more pressure on him made Christian second guess himself and he quickly realized that allowing Rebecca's explanation about Gaspar rushing off back to Europe was to his benefit too.
"I guess you can deal with that later...Shall we go in?" Nikolas asked looking up at the large hospital in front of him.
"No."
"What?!!" Nikolas exclaimed. "We came all this way!"
"Rebecca is right. We don't have the legal right to come in and take up Evie's case. We have to go to a court to proclaim an injunction to free her. The Lords have plenty of money and power to keep this going but my job is already on the line with the Mary situation. This would make matters worse for Evie and for me. As soon as I get a judge to sign off we'll be back." Christian replied.
"But Evie...is she going to be ok in there?"
Christian could only assume she would. But he had no idea to be sure. The truth was, Christian knew his own job was at stake if he continued to do things outside the book like he had been. His relationship with Evie was already something he could be fired for not to mention the fact that Rebecca was right, he had let Mary escape arrest and still had no idea where she was. For now Christian would take Rebecca at her word and believe that Gaspar because it eased the pressure off of him too.
Feeling embarrassed and defeated for now, Christian grabbed Nikolas' arm and lead him back to the car that they'd take back to fairy terminal where they'd no doubt run into Rebecca once more on the same fairy to the island.
For now, Evie would remain locked away at Windcliff where Andrew Kim would soon begin a terrible session of electroshock therapy.
****
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| Dr. Ward, Georgina and Sebastian |
Darkness fell over Welshport. The clouds from the storm earlier that day had vanished and what remained were swirls of purple feathers floating in they atmosphere creating what looked like a giant bird’s wing made of air and mist and storm.
Rebecca, exhausted from her day of travel to the mainland and Windcliff, put herself to bed now that her maid Georgina was reeling from a mysterious animal attack earlier that week.
Dr. Jonathon Ward had come up from the village to stay with Georgina and watch over her as she healed. He kept her comfortable in a large bedroom on the second floor with dark blue walls painter with thin brass toned striped going down the length of the wall. Rebecca had ordered the house maid cleaned and given this room for Georgina’s recuperation— a servants quarters, Rebecca noted, was not suitable for a rehabilitation like this one.
Dr. Ward kept Georgina medicated and sleepy. Her body so fragile and small was fighting something heinous. She tossed and turned with tormented dreams of her attach, an attack that the Lords calmed on a violent animal but, of course they wondered had it been something else.
For her part, Rebecca has kept the discovery of Sebastian’s ring in Georgina’s had a secret. It was something she had yet to understand and wrap her mind around. How could a piece of jewelry she knew to be legitimate come to Georgian when she saw it buried with Sebastian six feet under?
As Dr. Ward carefully checked Georgina’s heart rate after her latest night terror, Jacob walked in eager to find out what Dr Ward thought of the maid’s situation. He believes whom ever killer Gaspar tried to kill Georgina and most likely has Jacob next in the chopping block.
“It’s a shame you’ve kept her sleep so long. She could rightly tell us what kind of an animal did this to her.” Jacob said sauntering in and sitting in a fluffy love-seat nearest the large window in the center of the east wall.
“What makes you think this was an animal?” Dr. Ward wondered.
“What? You don’t think so?” Jacob said probing to see if Ward was on to what Jacob already suspected, even though they family said it was indeed an animal attack.
“The wounds are strange. Wounds like this I’ve never seen given by any kind of animal. Welshport doesn’t have bears or large cats. A wild bore running from Tirymôr Forest could tear open skin causing strangely shaped lacerations I suppose but when then why or how would a bore reach her neck in such a way?” Dr. Ward pointed out.
“It’s a bite of some sort, perhaps it was some kind of wild cat we don’t know is lurking out in these woods. People come in on the fairy from the mainland all the time and bring things with them that are not native to this island. A lynx or mountain Lion of some kind could have been just the thing.” Jacob replied hoping it was true too
He wanted it so badly to be true. He couldn’t imagine anything else coming for the people around him that wasn’t an animal. It didn’t even matter what Gaspar died inside the mansion with no sign of an animal entering — Jacob just wanted to his hunch to be true. To be the only truth so that he could go on about his schemes and only fear a wild bore or a giant cat haunting him. A animal he could handle, something else? A maniac? A cunning and smart murderer out for revenge for one of Jacob’s many misdeeds was too overwhelming scenario for his evil mind to comprehend. The paranoia on the truth would kill him too.
“Mr. Lord I can’t tell you exactly. Could it have been something like that—yes! But the likelihood of it not being an animal is just as strong. We could always all in an anthropologist from Boston. Or maybe even Augusta. They would know know more than myself.” Dr. Ward suggested.
“No! No! That is out of the question. My mother wouldn’t feel comfortable having more strangers trample through her home, I’m even surprised she let you in.” Jacob said only half joking. “When Georgina awakes we will ask her. It’ll be that simple and… and then we’ll know. We’ll know everything.”
Dr. Ward, slightly annoyed by Jacob’s clear paranoia felt that Georgina was indeed attacked by a human. And Jacob’s odd behavior felt as if he were the actual culprit.
But he wasn’t.
In the corner of the dark room near the edge of the large eastern facing window between the pane of glass and a thick blue drape with golden tassels going along it’s edge was the true attempted killer—more truly the would be abductor: Sebastian Lord.
Sebastian watched patiently, waiting for the right moment to strike from behind the curtain. He could smell Jacob, Dr. Ward, and Georgian’s blood individuals as if three different types of dinners sat in front of him on their own plates.
The beat of their hearts thumped in a sort of beating musical in his brain. It was almost too much. He sniffed the air and could taste the oils from the floating skin off their warm bodies.
He wanted to drink. He wanted to kill them all and take their blood for his own life-force but seated in a circle around a giant pentagram holding hands on the floor of their cabin was Eliza and Mary.
Their eyes close. Their minds locked on Sebastian’s body keeping him hidden behind Georgina’s drapes breathing air into his lungs, all in effort to tame the wild beast they had created.
The witches whispered their spell over seven candles: “hold him back and keep in wait, hold him back and keep in wait, hold him back and keep in wait, hold him back and keep in wait.”
And Sebastian did just that. He waited and waited and He watched and watched until it was just the right moment to grab Georgina when she was alone and take her away to Goode Island to switch bodies with Mary.
“Hold him back and keep in wait.” Eliza whispered.
“Will this work?” Mary asked unsure of the plan.
“If Sebastian wants our help to return Evie to him, he will do this for us. Trust in the powers I’ve given you Mary. Soon you’ll have a new face and body free to roam around Welshport undetected and free to live in Tirymôr with Charlotte, your child.” Eliza replied.
Mary smiled. If her mother was right—they’d all be free, and soon.
But first Sebastian had to be successful in his abduction of Georgina.
Mary took a gulp of air and recited: “hold him back and keep in wait.”
The words echoed in Sebastian’s mind and just like that, Jacob and Dr. Ward left the room — Sebastian and Georgian were now alone. Sebastian stepped out from behind the curtain and stared down at his victim.
He walked closer to her, her breathing shallowing. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead. She began to grab at her neck, the wounds bled just slightly after somewhat clotting as of Sebastian’s presence made them open again.
Georgina began to moan in discomfort just as Sebastian got to the foot of her large maroon and gold duvet.
Then she opened her eyes and saw him. She gasped then screamed bloody murder.
