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| 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.
****
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| 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.
****
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| 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.
****
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| 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.
