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| Celeste seeks Eliza |
On a wind swept afternoon, the water from the sea seemed to want to leap out of its cold home between the shores of land and high up over sea walls and shorelines across the rocky coast line of upper Maine and the small islands that surrounded it in the Frenchmen Bay.
On a little boat carrying two people, Celeste DeViana and a man she had hired to take her to Goode Island, carefully docked on the small boat-slip. The sailor helped her out of the boat and on to the dock. She thanked him and asked him to wait for her as she quickly made her way through the thicket of woods that surrounded Eliza Goode's secluded cottage on the island she called home.
Upon arriving at the cottage, Celeste could smell the chimney burning as the smoke rose up through the trees marking where the tiny house was helping her follow the stone path way all the way through until she made it to the door. Celeste took a breath and lifted her gloved hand to knock, but as her hand came down to make contact with the door, Eliza opened it.
"Celeste." Eliza said, surprising the young Governess.
"Hello. I ... I ..." Celeste replied stammering in front of the witch of Goode Island.
Eliza looked deep into Celeste's eyes. She had seen the same expression of fear and torment once before on a woman 10 years before this. It was the same look Eliza's daughter Mary had when she told her mother she was pregnant with Jacob's baby.
"What is it child?" Eliza asked cautiously knowing the only way Celeste could enter her home was for Celeste to ask for help on her own.
"I need your help." Celeste finally said.
Eliza lifted a brow "Come in."
Goode Island’s sorceress quickly brought Celeste over to her large kitchen table that seemed to have come from the middle ages. It was huge; dark was the type of wood and in the legs tiny carved animals from all sorts of enchanted jungles and forests: elephants and jackals, lions and bears. Celeste covered her shoulders with the shall she was wearing to warm her body after feeling a chill in the room even though a fire was raging in the hearth.
Eliza sat Celeste down and brought her over a cup of tea who's steam rose up like a chimney's smoke rising up through the trees.
Eliza sat next to Celeste with her own tea and stirred it loudly as Celeste's face began to show a sour look on the whole idea of being in the house of the witch.
"What am I doing, I can't do this!" Celeste said as she quickly got up from the table and began to rush to the door but not before Eliza grabbed a hold of Celeste’s wrist.
"Sit down girl." Eliza growled. "There is no reason to fear me. I have no qualms with you or your people I never have. But I do wonder why you came to me. Your own blood line should be able to help you on whatever it is your seeking, rather than I." Eliza said, her words shrouded in mystery. "So what is it?"
Celeste closed her eyes in a long blink and turned back and sat back down next to Eliza and took a deep breath and readjusted her shall over her shoulders shielding her from the chill in the room.
"Something has happened and I truly do not know what to do. Something that I allowed to happen because someone threatened to give away a secret from my family." Celeste said.
"Hmm...very cryptic. Why are you having me read between the lines?" Eliza wondered.
"Because I can’t bring myself to speak the truth out loud. I don't know how to even explain any of this." Celeste said, her mind still unable to wrap around the fact she was most likely pregnant with Jacob Lord's baby.
“Family secrets are very damaging to one’s life in general. How bad can yours be?” Eliza asked.
“If the truth came out it would put my place at Tirymôr in jeopardy. Rebecca Lord would never understand and never forgive if she knew it.” Celeste explained.
Eliza’s eyes widened. She too had something up her sleeve that could rock her old Friend Rebecca’ life but Celeste’s hidden secret peeked Eliza’s interest.
"We’ll young lady, I have always been a fervent supporter of just telling the truth. I would suggest starting with that. Would you perhaps tell me what it is?" Eliza said sipping her tea and hoping to pry the secret out hoping to use it to her own advantage.
"I can tell you everything but it mostly surrounds Jacob Lord," Celeste began as Eliza's eye brow lifted once more showing an unsurprised expression that he was behind this new set of torment. "he and I ... oh god, he has a file on my family that holds something against my mother. He threatened to expose her which would distort my life! Then he told me if I did not go to bed with him…oh god, Eliza you know I cannot have anyone know about my family. You of all people understand the stigma that would attach to me and even to Filipe who is innocent in any of it. People around here wouldn't understand and we would be ostracized. We'd become destitute and lose everything. They are already those on the island that look down on he and I, how could I allow them to have a weapon like what Jacob has on my mother? I had to do what he wanted. To protect her." Celeste explained.
"I see." Eliza offered as she stirred her tea once more. "Your mother Cristina was a good woman…I often met with her when she needed guidance. I do believe I know what secret Jacob holds.” Eliza revealed.
“Then you know?”
“I know.” Eliza finally confirmed. “After Jacob showed you what he knew, you did, you went to bed with him?"
Celeste's eyes filled with water as she nodded yes, that she did.
"He took advantage of you my dear. Pig men like him usually do. For him to use your mother and his father have a secret child isn't at all something I am surprised by. Rebecca would surly ruin you if she knew Albert and Cristina were once lovers. He used the same tactic with my Mary. But I cannot change the fact that he has this file. I can make him forget but ---" Eliza began before Celeste interrupted.
"My mother and Albert Lord were what they were…I cannot change that. And their child has no idea of their linage. I have to protect my mother’s memory, and Rebecca and even my half sibling from this truth.” Celeste confirmed. “Eliza, Im not here to seek your help in a spell to make Jacob forget what he knows however. He will keep my secret now that I've went to bed with him. Its something else." Celeste said.
"Something else? What?" Eliza wondered expecting a request to erase Jacob's memory of her family's past.
"I'm....” Celeste paused trembling to reveal what was growing inside of her. … “I’m with child." Celeste gulped.
Eliza's eyes widened feigning surprise. She nodded as Celeste continued to speak but her heart felt like it was skipping a beat, it was indeed the same look of terror when Mary came to her when she was pregnant with Charlotte.
"I need to know if Jacob is the father. That same night I came home and ... I'm embarrassed to say but I also went to bed with Filipe. I shouldn't have but I love him and I felt so guilty of what I had done that had I pushed him away it would have been out of the ordinary. I didn't want him to suspect. And now... now I don't know... Eliza, can you tell me who the father is?"
Eliza's lips pursed in a way that showed Celeste she felt very concerned about Jacob having another child. The witch got up from her long kitchen table and went over to the stove and brought back the kettle for more tea. She poured Celeste a fresh cup and then herself. Then Eliza reached over the table where in the center were four closed pouches tied off with straw cords. She picked the smallest one and opened it revealing large tea leaves. Eliza plucked out one large tea leaf and crumbled it into her cup and watched them swirl around in the light colored tea until they sank.
"What do they say?" Celeste asked recognizing Eliza was reading them.
Eliza looked up from her tea at Celeste and she hushed her then looked back own at the leaves swirling and swirling inside the clear liquid without ever placing a spoon inside, they just moved on their own as the witch's powers went into the water and moved them telepathically.
Then, after a few minutes and silent prayer to get the answer clear and secure, the leaves suddenly stopped and sank to the bottom of the cup.
"Celeste," Eliza began, her voice serious in tone. "It is Jacob." She finished in a monotone voice unsatisfied with the result.
"Oh, no.. no no... please tell me you're wrong! PLEASE! I cannot have his child! What have a I done?? WHAT HAVE I DONE!??!" Celeste screamed in panicked voice as she knocked over Eliza's tea all over the table.
"Calm yourself child, calm yourself! There is a way I can help. I will only give you the tools and you may choose what to do with them. I can only supply you what you need." Eliza answered as Celeste's rapid breathing slowed.
"What do you mean?" The young governess asked.
Eliza got up from the table and went over to her apothecary table and began to fill a small pouch with various herbs as she explained:
"When my daughter became pregnant under similar circumstances as you, she too felt afraid of what would happen when the baby came. At the time she believed she loved Jacob but it was only one sided as he used me as a leverage to ruin her life if she did not sleep with him. My poor Mary had the same hesitation you have about giving birth to Jacob's so I offered her this." Eliza said handing Celeste the pouch.
"What is it?"
"If you should decide that the child should not reach the point of birth, take this pounder that I have made in tea, or water. Whatever you want. Twice a day for 5 days. The pregnancy will be no more on the 6th day." Eliza explained of the mystical powder.
"No more." Celeste repeated as she noticed the scars on the palms of Eliza's hands she suffered from the burns.
"No more." Eliza repeated hiding her scarred hands.
"Mary didn't take the powder." Celeste said, remembering Charlotte was the baby Mary had with Jacob.
"No, she chose to have little Charlotte. It was her choice, and now we have this beautiful girl in our lives although I have no contact with my granddaughter. I do know she is precious. And I love her. But... the choice is yours and only yours, as it was Mary's." Eliza noted.
Celeste took the small pouch and tucked away into a small handbag she came with. She got up and took Eliza's hand and turned it over and saw the the scars again. "Those look painful."
Eliza took her hands back and smiled. "Many things in life are painful but I try and find an equilibrium between the painful and the blissful. That is life my dear. Darkness and light. Horror and peace. You know this well."
Celeste smiled and thanked Eliza for her pouch. "I will think on this tonight. Thank you."
As Celeste made her way to the cottage and pulled it open she turned back to Eliza who was still visible at the table looking down at her own scarred hands. The light from the fading afternoon cast a glow around Celeste that made her look angelic. She was glowing in and beautiful, but her face showed worry still.
"Charlotte is a wonderful child. Kind. Giving. You would be very proud of her." Celeste said.
Eliza looked up from her hands and at Celeste at her door and smiled. "I know."
Celeste took that as her goodbye and quickly made her way back to the awaiting boat and the sailor that she had hired to bring her to Goode Island. She held on to the pouch of powerful powder and thought deeply about what to do next.
She had the tools but now she would have to decide to use them or keep the baby no matter what.
****
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| Andrew Kim & Christian at Windcliff |
Evening quickly approached. The Sun was low on the horizon sending a flash of purple sky over all of New England. On the mainland, Dr. Andrew Kim carefully surveyed his patient Christian Evans who lay again on a metal table with his eyes wide open but a blank look on his face. He was, in a way, unconscious yet completely aware of what was happening to him.
Andrew had used a cocktail of injectable drugs to render Christian in the state he was in to allow for further brainwashing while his nurse nervously stayed near the corner of the room still writing down her notes of everything Dr. Kim did.
There were photos and lists of things about Jacob that Kim would repeat over and over again into Christian's ear. Then Kim would again inject the harvested cells from the dead patient who once roamed the halls of Windcliff---the man who came to the hospital with a penchant for eating his murder victims.
These cells had slowly merged with Christian who was getting more and more aggravated. More and more hostile... and more and more hungry. Kim's plan was to finally rid himself of Jacob, finally rid himself of the man who had so far been using such a personal and private thing on his life against him as if love, any kind of love even between Dr. Kim and his late husband, was something to be used against someone.
Kim was in truth desperate to feel safe again but Jacob was still the his biggest threat in a world that didn't want to see people like Kim and his late husband normal.
"You will do as I saw, Evans, I will send you back to the island from which you came. Find Jacob Lord and have at him as you will." Kim said, injecting Christian with more of the harvested cells from the mad man.
"Jacob Lord." Christian said in a strange voice that did not seem like it was coming from him.
"What will you do to Jacob?" Kim asked as the nurse wrote her notes.
"Devour him." Christian replied staring up at the ceiling from the metal table he lay on.
"That's correct. Find him, this man," Kim began again showing his patient another black and white photo of Jacob, "and destroy him; do as you will with his body. Be sure nothing is left behind. Every bone. Every once of flesh. Leave nothing of this monster behind."
Nurse Hoffman, who was standing in the dark corner of the room noting the whole interaction for Kim, was terrified of what she was hearing. She knew that Dr .Kim had a secret and his truth didn't bother in the slightest, but the idea he was brains washing a patient to commit a murder for him was to her crossing a line that she didn't even see coming.
And yet--she did nothing.
Kim then pulled a cloak out from a chair and sat Christian up and wrapped him in the cloak.
He, once again, infected him with a serum, this time something that would keep him in this type of trans for another 24 hours so that Christian could go off to Welshport from Windcliff and commit his crime and return without ever having second thoughts of reverse course.
Christian, his eyes glassy and empty, flipped the hood of his cloak over his head and slowly made his walk out of the exam room on the arm of the nurse who would take him to an awaiting taxi outside. She shivered in his shoes at the thought of being next to Christian, a man who was literally off to Welshport Island to commit murder for her boss. She was an accomplice, her notes telling the truth of what had happed to Christian before and what was the plan for him after. Detail by detail.
As the nurse placed the mute Christian in the cab the puttered off into the distance away from Windcliff to an awaiting dock with a small fairy that would take him to the island the nurse hugged her own body as a cold wind blew over her as she stood on the steps of the hospital unsure of the monster they had created.
"God help us." Hoffman whispered to herself.
Back inside the hospital, and now in his own office, Kim again looked again at the photo of his long dead partner kissing his fingers and placing them on the lips of the man who had died so long ago.
"We'll be safe after this is all done. No one will ever use our love against again. Never." Kim said and replaced the photo back in his drawer and looked out the window of his office as the sun slowly dipped below the hills around the hospital.
****
As the darkness of the night quickly enveloped the small island of Welshport, Nikolas, Filipe, Matthew and Alice arrived the the far reaches of Tirymôr Forest in the area named The Western Ridge. It was a thick cluster of the forest that almost no one went into because of how wild and over-grown it was. But in that area of the forest there was a small abandoned cottage that once belonged to Rebecca Lord's family, the Lockwoods.
It was there that the group hoped to find Evie Jordan-Lord and her captor, Sebastian.
Filipe hoped they'd find them both--alive, but he knew what Sebastian was. He knew what lurked in his once best-friend's heart, what once was a healthy happy human man was now a shadow of that person. In his place lurked the undead Sebastian, a vampire running night to day in search of blood and his wife Evie to live.
With Alice's vision of Sebastian, however, that secret would soon be revealed to all once the real Sebastian came face to face with all who once knew him as his mortal self.
As the group got closer and closer to Lockwood Cottage, they could see a small glimmer of light coming from one of the windows towards the back of the cottage. It was too dark and too far away for them to notice if anyone was moving around inside.
They walked carefully through the brush of the forest allowing owls and evening crows to guide them on their path with their distant songs and caws. Alice, who was second in the group behind Nikolas, could fell a powerful supernatural force all around her. She wondered if it was what was in the cottage, the image of the fanged man that came at her, or was it her own connection to nature and all the world around her. Her new found freedom has given made her senses much more hyperactive than she had ever imagined.
It was almost too much for Alice to take, in fact and she began to feel faint.
"I...I... I don't feel well." she said as the powerful pull of life and death all around her weight heavy on her body.
"Alice?" Matthew said from behind rushing around Filipe who quickly grabbed Alice as she fell to the grassy ground.
"Is she ok?" Nik asked in a whisper as they were quickly approaching the cottage.
Matthew changed places with Filipe and held his sister close in his lap and gently patted her cheeks to wake her. She moaned a little and moved her head back and forth as if she were in a dream.
And indeed she was, her fainting spell was so powerful she fell into a sleep-like trans that sent her into a world that she did not understand.
In this dream, she was floating above Matthew, Nik and Filipe. She could see herself laying in her brother's lap as she tried to wake her. She could see the cottage too, tiny and painted yellow. She could feel it pull her floating body towards it. It was as if it were sucking her into a vortex. She tried to pull her self back into her body but the force was too great. She could not hold on, it was too powerful this force.
Then she realized she was being pulled faster and faster into the cottage towards the small burning yellow light -- a candle in the window. It seemed like only seconds passed and she found herself inside the cottage floating in yellow light just like the candle in the window, it was the only light lit in the whole place.
She carefully looked around as Matthew kept tapping her cheek frantically trying to wake her.
"Alice! ALICE! Wake up please! Wake up!!" Matthew shouted.
"We should take her back. We can take her to a doctor." Filipe said, hoping he could get them out of the area before Sebastian saw them and attacked them for what he feared he needed, their blood.
"We can't move her!" Nik said noting the mystery of her injury could worsen if she were moved.
"We can't just stay here. We have to get her to a doctor!" Filipe added to Matthew's agreement.
Inside the cottage however, Alice carefully walked around in her ghostlike body. She saw a woman's dress, a hospital gown, flung over an burnt orange upholstered chair with brass rivets all around it.
Alice recognized it as Evie's.
But Lockwood Cottage was empty. Sebastian and Evie were no where to be found.
Alice too a deep breath, her body and mind finally satisfied with what she had seen and suddenly she was transported back into her own body as it lay on the wet grass of Tirymôr Forest.
Her big brown eyes opened and Matthew screeched with glee that she woke up.
"Alice! Oh thank god!!" He said, sitting her up. "Are you ok?"
"They're not there." She said rubbing her sore neck.
"What? Who?" Filipe asked.
"Evie and ..." Alice paused unsure of what to call Sebastian. "They're gone." She repeated instead.
"How do you know?" Nik asked kneeling down in the grass to meet her gaze.
She looked at him, his face so perfect so precocious. Alice could tell how kind his nature was and how much he loved his sister. She could also sense just how scared he was and how much he needed to find her. His worry was so great for Evie that she felt it in her own body and it made her tear up.
"I could feel it. I could see it. She is no longer there Nik. She's gone." She said softly as she reached for his hand.
"Do you know where she's gone?" Matthew asked.
Alice shook her head no.
"I do." Filipe said, knowing Sebastian inside and out over so many years.
"Where?" Nik asked jumping up from the grass.
A distant owl gasped into the night air his nocturnal "whoooo". A wind blew over the group as cold as an Atlantic wave and wolf, even further than the owl was, howled in the dark clearly marking his pack's entrance into the forest.
"Tirymôr House." Filipe said. "They've gone back to confront Jacob."
Nikolas covered his mouth in shock knowing that if this were true things would not end well for someone at the mansion and Evie was now in even more danger than he thought.
"We should go, Alice can you walk?" Matthew asked. She nodded her head yes, and the group quickly made their way out of the dark forest as it's trees began to shutter in the night with the wind picking up a chilling speed.
****
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| Night fall a Tirymôr House |
A dark moon hovered over Tirymôr house that dwelled in the forest of the same name. In her room Rebecca Lord sat at her vanity looking at a silver framed black and white photo of her deceased husband Albert.
“I wish you’d give me a sign on what to do. I’m reaching the end of my rope. David has been missing for so long. Mary is dead Sabrina too. Jacob seems to be behind it all. Oh Albert I can’t even get into what has happened to our dear Sebastian. I almost don’t believe it myself.”
As she dabbed away tears in her eyes the fire in her room’s hearth roared from behind her and a familiar smell of Albert’s cologne swirled around Rebecca.
Rebecca turner towards the fire where the scent of cologne came from and standing there, in a haze of glowing light was the shape of her husband Albert.
He was transported, glowing, but his sweet face with slick black hair and a thin mustache above his plump lips proved he was there.
Rebecca gasped at what she was seeing. The vision of her husband who has died so long ago, his face now younger than hers but he was there smiling at her from beyond the grave.
“My God, Albert is it you! Tell me it’s you!! Please tell me what I need to do to save our family. Save our business from all the scandals that I feel are coming! Albert! Albert! Please talk to me!” Rebecca begged as she got up from her seat and walked towards her husband’s ghost trembling as she moved.
But Albert did not answer her. He only looked at her in s strange haunting gaze that told her nothing, gave her no relief from her grief and worry.
“Albert… Albert please!” She begged again raising her hand in hopes he’d reach back.
Then he smiled at her again. Coldly. Almost sinisterly. The room became cold. She could see her breath. She pulled her arm back from reaching out to Albert and the fire in the hearth went out. The candles blew out too.
“Albert?” Rebecca said, the cold breath from her mouth flowing out in plumes of white smoke.
“Madame. Excuse me. Dinner is served.” A servant said from the other side of Rebecca’s closed door.
Rebecca turned to the voice then turned back to where Albert’s ghost was standing and he was gone, but the room was warm again in his absence… the fire and candles hand returned.
Rebecca took a deep breath and composed herself and followed the set and to dinner.
*
Downstairs, a shaken Rebecca and the rest of The Lord family dressed in their most glamorous dinner attire, accompanied by their closest servants Hamstead, Celeste & Georgina who were more like family members, all sat at a large dinner table in the ornate dining room with three glittering chandeliers hanging above them as dinner was being served in the evening light.
Charlotte sipped her apple cider as her eyes gazed back and forth between Celeste and her father knowing that Celeste was carrying his child thanks to the keen powers of her aunt Sabrina's spirit that dwelled inside of her. When Jacob caught her eye, the young girl would look away to the wall behind him that was one of the 4 enormous frescos painted in the dining room of lush green forests and jungles that made the diners in the room feel as if they were eating in the outdoors.
Rebecca too noticed the strange interaction between Charlotte and her father but did her best to keep the family and their friends in a happy place for dinner and made small talk with Georgina and Celeste.
The two men at the table too made small talk on things of the business and politics. Despite his evil mind, Jacob was a good businessman and had helped push his family's publishing empire to new heights with offices in New York City, Chicago and San Francisco. As the third course of the meal was being served, and the jewels on Rebecca's neck and ears glittered in the dim lights of the very new technology of electric lights a lower ranking maid came into the dining room and told the family there were people coming up the long path of the estate and up to the house.
Jacob, who was now feeling all the alcohol in his system from the various vodka tonics during dinner growled displeasure at more guests coming.
"People?" Rebecca said, hushing her son.
"It's too dark, madam, to see who they are but it's two people. Shall I intercept at the door and let them know the family is at dinner?" The maid asked.
Celeste looked at Charlotte hoping Sabrina inside of her knew what was to come. Charlotte did not know, Sabrina had gone quiet.
"No, I think we'll be fine, we're almost done here aren't we?" Rebecca asked the table.
Everyone seemed to agree.
"I don't really feel like eating anymore but I don't think I want more company." Jacob repeated his anti-social feeling of the night with another gulp of his vodka-tonic.
"Who ever it is, I'm sure they won't stay long." Rebecca added as she got up from the table signaling to the others to do the same. "Let's all go into the drawing room and when receive our guests." She added hoping to change the mood of the group.
As the family went off into the drawing room that was attached to the dinning room through a small corridor, the maid went to the front door and opened it as the two people made their way up the pebble covered path of the entrance. The maid could make out a woman and a man, but the evening shadows obscured their faces but as the two guests slowly made their way closer and closer to the front of door that had the lighting of two large lanterns of gas on either side it was finally clear to the maid who the guests were.
The orange light shined down from the gas lanterns at the front door and the maid gasped in shock at who she saw standing before her.
Inside, the family again made small talk over night-caps of brandy and more vodka tonics for Jacob. Hamstead, the family's personal driver who had quickly become a member of the Lord family inner circle, smoked at the fireplace while Jacob talked his ear off about the New York office in a slurred mess of words. Hamstead, being a good employee, smiled and nodded.
Celeste and Charlotte sat on a sofa and played a game of cat's cradle with a fluffy string of red yarn that became tangled in the little girl's fingers. She laughed out loud as Rebecca grinned with glee to see her granddaughter so happy even after her father Jacob locked her in the turret.
"She's so lovely." Georgina said of her daughter Charlotte, of course in reality she was Mary Goode in the body of Georgina.
"She's been through so much." Rebecca said, her diamonds still glittering in the new light of the drawing room. "Her mother is a criminal. A vagrant of sorts. Before she vanished from the island and died she'd roam the village at odd jobs and apartments. It was a blessing Jacob got full custody. Who knows how this beautiful child would have turned out had Mary Goode and her hermit mother raised her on their own." The grandmother added not knowing she was talking to Mary herself.
Georgina lifted a brow and took a breath not expecting to hear such vitriol and lies about her former-self.
"I did hear that Mary was, for the most part, at Mr. Lord's beck and call. Their separation before marriage was supposedly on her terms after he treated her so poorly." Georgina said speaking the truth.
Rebecca tilted her head at Georgina and she narrowed her eyes in suspicion. No one knew that was the truth, no one. Not even the judge who Rebecca paid off to insure Charlotte was taken from her mother permanently. Rebecca wondered how Georgian would have ever known that.
"You ‘heard that’ from whom?” Rebecca asked coldly.
Georgina noticed her mistress’ iciness and quickly regrouped.
“Just gossip, nothing more.”
“My son treated her poorly, you said. Well my dear that just goes to show you can't always believe what you hear." Rebecca said lying and covering for her awful son as the two women took the quick awkward moment to sip from their tiny glasses of brandy.
Then a knock came to the double doors of the drawing room, and they slid open.
The maid came in with a gray look on her face.
"What is it?" Rebecca asked.
"May I present to you, Mrs. Sebastian Lord." The maid announced as Evie walked into the drawing room in a dark green taffeta dress and petty-coat that shined in the lights of the room. Her hair beautifully tied up in an up-do with a small hat that crowned her head. Her entrance was triumphant and regal and she curtsied as the family looked on in shock.
"I'm home." Evie announced confidentiality.
"EVIE!!!" Charlotte said jumping up from the sofa with Charlotte and rushing over to her cousin's widow and smashing into the green dress' skirt.
"Hello you!" Evie said squeezing Charlotte back as Celeste approached and also gave her a kiss on each cheek and a tight hug.
"Evie! My god! How did you get here?" Celeste wondered happily hugging Evie again as if she wanted to make sure it was as really her, all five foot four of her.
Evie lifted a brow and looked over at the shocked faces of Jacob and Rebecca who shot glances at each other wondering what Evie was about to say.
"Dr. Kim decided that I was doing much better. His treatments have done so much to help me realize that I was ..." Evie paused unable to go along with the idea she had in her mind to pretend that the Lords were right and she was insane "That I wasn't at all what everyone assumed I was. I'm fine. Healthy. Well. And I'm home." She announced.
Rebecca slowly got up from her perch on the sofa with Georgina who pretended to be shocked to see Evie. Rebecca slowly walked over to Evie who stood stoic and strong center in the room as Jacob's alcohol swirled in his veins. Hamstead stepped aside and went over to sit with Georgina to see the fireworks that were sure to come.
Rebecca looked into Evie's eyes, now face to face after months of the young woman being wrongfully locked away at Windcliff sanitarium. She could see that indeed Evie was not sick in her mind. Perhaps never was but Rebecca would never admit that, she would rather die than admit being wrong.
"Well, you certainly look well my dear. Welcome home." Rebecca said kissing Evie on each cheek as Celeste did.
"MOTHER!" Jacob shouted, alarmed at his mother's quick acceptance of Evie coming home.
"She's family Jacob. And Ive decided that Enough is enough. We have all suffered to long." Rebecca added.
"I won't stand here and watch this insolence by my own mother! We know what kind diseased mind this woman has. How can we accept her back so easily?" Jacob asked in his drunken breath spewing around the room.
"Mr. Lord, I assure you, Dr. Kim has agreed that I am well. I need nothing from his services any longer. I promise you this." Evie said lying and omitting the fact she was taken by the hospital by Sebastian.
"He would have told us this!" Jacob screamed angry that the heiress to the family fortune was now back in the house and again in his way to all the money he saw he deserved.
"Dr. Kim knows that I am well, he knows this because the things everyone said I was seeing were true. They perhaps were really happening to me here. Things that I cannot explain or understand, but he knows now that what I saw was real whether it was planted by someone or not." Evie said stepping to the side to look Jacob in the face for attempting to make her go inside.
"SO THERE! There you have it! She admits she saw Sebastian's ghost or whatever it was that was happening while she lived here. How can we trust this insane person in our midst after she's clearly admitting to having seen our beloved Sebastian's alive!" Jacob shouted.
"Because Sebastian isn't dead." Evie said to a gasp in the room as the maid quickly left.
"Evie, please. You know he is." Celeste said softly seeing her friend slowly go backwards into what they saw was an act of an insane woman thinking her dead husband was alive.
"You know I didn't think Sebastian was alive. I saw him dead. I held his body in my arms. His blood is still soaked in the dress I wore on our wedding day. But someone wanted me to believe I was seeing him around the Tirymôr house. Whether I imagined these things or they were made for me to believe they were imagined, they were there. I saw them. But that's besides the point now." Evie said turning back to Rebecca who was now standing next to Charlotte and Celeste.
"Why is that?" Rebecca asked.
Mary in Georgina’s body, knew what was coming.
"Because, Mrs. Lord, Sebastian is alive. I keep telling you." Evie answered.
"My dear..." Rebecca began before Jacob interrupted.
"Come with me!! We are taking you back to Windcliff right this minute!!" Jacob shouted as he lunged for Evie and grabbed her by the wrist.
"Let go!!!" She shouted.
"JACOB!" Rebecca yelled.
"I said let go of me!! You're hurting me!!" Evie said again, her hand now turning a dark color from the squeeze in the wrist by Jacob's large heavy hands.
"No one in this state of mind deserves to be in this house and around my child. You are NOT WELL! NOT WELL!!!" Jacob screamed again yanking at Evie attempting to drag her out of the drawing room.
"DADDY!" Charlotte screamed in tears as she buried her face into Celeste's skirt.
The room was upside down. People yelling, Hamstead stepping into try and calm Jacob who wouldn't hear any of it. The commotion was too much for Charlotte who was crying at all the yelling and the psychical pushing of Evie. Then, a striking moment happened when a voice, clear, conscience, and powerful came from the open double doors of the drawing room.
"Release my wife." Sebastian said.
A hush fell over the room with only a light gasp from Celeste breaking the quiet shock.
Everyone's heart dropped. Sebastian was home and the truth was out. He was indeed alive---in one aspect.
Georgina was for the most part the only one silent the whole time. She knew what was coming the whole time. Sebastian shot her a look and she looked down into the glass of her brandy just as Rebecca noticed Georgina rub the scars on her neck from her attack, the attack outside that very drawing room by Sebastian just before Mary and Georgina switched bodies.
"My god!!It’s true! I … wondered but I didn’t want to believe it! " Rebecca said in shock. She had suspected this was the truth so long ago but seeing him in the flesh was jarring to her mind.
There were pale faces in the room, frightened at seeing a ghost, some sort of trick of the eye. Was it really truly Sebastian in front of them? They had mourned his death. They had witnessed his burial. But he was there right in front of their vary eyes in flesh and bone...and cold blood.
"This is ...this is a fantasy. I must be asleep. I must be dreaming." Rebecca continued as she slowly walked over to her grandson almost afraid of what she was staring at.
Sebastian smiled at his carefully approaching grandmother Rebecca as the other's watched in awe, she then touched his cold face to feel if it was real.
It was no dream. Jacob's heart pounded in his chest as Georgina delighted in her ex's obvious deepening fury that his rival was alive and well.
"I thought all of this could have been some sort of mistake, that you were really alive. I thought every piece of evidence I had found was planted. Fake. But then I saw your empty coffin. And I knew it was true, you were alive. All this time." Rebecca explained our loud with tears in her eyes as if she were talking to convince herself.
"Its a long story." Sebastian said to his grandmother as Evie's eyes welled up with tears from the tight clutches of the panicking Jacon.
"I wanted it to be a lie." Rebecca added, still in disbelief at Sebastian and also still shaken from her vision of Albert earlier that night.
"No. No... this isnt right." Jacob murmured in disgust as Evie wiggled in his tight hold.
"Its not a lie. Its some sort of miracle and true. You really are here in front of me, perhaps this is what Albert wanted to tell me. Rebecca said.
Jacob turned to his mother alarmed at hearing his father’s name.
“Father?” Jacob said but was quickly overshadowed by Sebastian’s reply.
"I am back, grandmother and you should know what Uncle Jacob has done. Not just to me, but to so many. So many!" Sebastian said.
Rebecca turned from Sebastian to Jacob. "What he has done?" She questioned even though she could probably list the crimes her son had committed on her own.
"Mother please! Have you lost your mind as well???" Jacob yelled still holding Evie's wrist. "This isn't Sebastian! This can't be Sebastian!! SEBASTIAN IS DEAD!!! This --- man!--must be an imposter." Jacob yelled releasing Evie who massaged the ache in her wrist.
"You would love that wouldn't you Uncle?" Sebastian growled forcing himself to keep his fangs in his mouth and not plant them on his murderous monstrous uncle.
"This is an imposter!" Jacob repeated.
"Jacob, perhaps its time you tell us everything." Rebecca said as Celeste moved Charlotte to the sofa with Georgina as a safety precaution as the others sorted out how Sebastian could be alive.
"This man has used our family's most horrible moments against us and is at the core of all our troubles, Grandmother, he always has been. He is responsible for my mother's death, not my father. He is responsible for Gaspar and all his cons and lies over the years to you, he is responsible for what happened to me and he tried to make it look like Evie was the one who was losing her mind, when in fact he's been the one who was mad all this time. A wolf in sheep's clothing. He set me up and I lived to tell the story. But I am back, and he will no longer rule over this family in the next generation, I promise you this." Sebastian said, finally exposing his uncle for all his evils.
"And just what did happen to you, Sebastian. How are you even here? WE BURIED YOU" Jacob said wondering out-loud what everyone else was thinking.
"You made a mistake." Evie answered vaguely.
"Jacob? Is what Sebastian saying true???" Rebecca asked, but in her heart she knew the truth. He was the monster all along. Not David, her missing son. Not Sabrina. Not Mary. Not Evie.
Jacob felt cornered. He could see everyone staring at him, angry, confused. Lost. He lunged at Evie, grabbed her by the wrist again. She screamed and he pulled her over to a desk in the corner of the drawing room and grabbed a letter opener and placed the sharp weapon to her throat.
"Ill Kill her. I swear Ill kill her!" The drunk Jacob said to The screams of the women in the room.
Hamstead and Sebastian squared up and began to move in on Jacob who had Evie with one harm pulled behind her back. He slowly walked backwards and brought Evie along with him.
"I Swear I will slit this bitch's throat! Don't come any closer!!!" Jacob screamed at the two men coming at him.
Rebecca gasped in horror.
"Let her go Uncle! You've hurt her long enough!" Sebastian shouted, the light of the room illuminating his pale white skin.
"You little putrid mongrel, you should have stayed dead in your grave for all time. I should have killed her too. I should have had her head blown off but Mary is a poor shot!" Jacob said clearly admitting to his crime and shocking the room.
Georgina again, Mary in another life, felt stick to her stomach hearing her name in Jacob's mouth. Charlotte squeezed her mother's hand.
Just before Sebastian and Hamstead could reach the drunk Jacob, he pushed Evie forward, the letter opener grazing her neck and slicing it open but causing only a superficial cut. Evie fell forward with her neck slightly bleeding and Jacob jumped through the closed French doors of the drawing room creating a loud crashing sound like thunder and lightening in the sky glass flying everywhere.
Debris was all over the drawing room; Jacob ran out onto the terrace that lead to the lush green yard of the estate where he vanished into the dark night leaving only the shards of glass and wood stained with his blood all over the floor broken and destroyed like his ego and plot.
Sebastian picked up a shard and with his finger tasted his uncle’s blood increasing the his appetite for the crimson fluid, then he rushed over to Evie and put his hand over her neck wound.
"Its not hurt, I’m not hurt." She said, as he licked the blood from his hand.
The women quickly rushed to aid Evie as Hamstead wondered if he and Sebastian should go after Jacob.
"Let him go. Vermin always hide in the day but once the night comes again he'll appear and Ill be waiting." Sebastian said as the fire in the hearth grew hotter and Rebecca's heartbeat began to beat faster and faster in her chest as she had noticed him lick the blood from his hand & the glass. She couldn’t help but wonder just what in the world had become of her grandson and how they’d explain his return to life to the outside world.
Rebecca held tight to the rosary beads in her dress pocket and wondered if he was the same young man before his supposed death? Or had Eliza’s spell changed him for good.
With all the commotion no one had noticed the house maid had left. She rushed out of the room as someone else had pulled on the long rope outside the front door that rang the house bell to notify the household when there were more visitors.
As the family recouped from the shocking moment of Jacob's attack, Filipe and Nikolas rushed into the drawing room on word of what was happening from the maid.
"EVIE!!!" shouted a familiar voice.
 |
| Evie and her brother Nik reunite |
Evie turned now holding a white handkerchief to the cut on her neck to see her brother Nikolas standing at the drawing room fresh from searching for her at Lockwood Cabin.
Tears instantly filled her eyes. when she recognized the young Nikolas who was now grown into a strapping 23 year old man. A face she never thought she'd see again.
He felt the same.
"Niky?? Oh my god Niky is if really you?!?” She asked still trying to make sense of the face she was seeing as Filipe quickly rushed over to Celeste who was huddled with Charlotte.
As it quickly registered to Evie that it was indeed her younger brother standing in front of her, she rushed over to him and hugged him tight and whispered a sweet "Oh, Niky thank god you're here."
Filipe then embraced his beautiful Celeste too as she quietly brought him up to speed on what happened but still hid the fact she was pregnant and was still unsure of what to do about it.
Sebastian smiled at how happy Evie was to see Nik. All he wanted, his new purpose in what this new existence in life was, was to make Evie Jordan-Lord as happy as she was right in that moment with her green eyes sparkling, her cheeks pink with warmth.
A warmth of body Sebastian could never give or feel again.
He wondered how long it could last, their love, this elation. He knew the road ahead of would be incredibly strenuous, especially for her. His life was now in the shadows and she was still apart of the world of light. Evie turned from her brother and brought Nik over to meet Sebastian. They exchanged pleasantries and Sebastian again thought about the next chapter in their lives just as Rebecca took pause when she recognized Nik as the man who said he was Evie's lawyer when she ran into him and Christian at Windcliff.
Rebecca sat back down stoically on the sofa and let her mind drift off to a world of suspicion and worry over everything that had transpired: Her son’s multiple betrayals, her grandson’s miraculous return from the grave, Evie’s incredible fortitude to push through all that has happened to her… and yes even Rebecca’s own survival through it all.
How would they move passed it all?, Rebecca thought. Sebastian’s return would be almost impossible to explain to outsiders….and as often happens, secrets are exposed once they touch the light.
****
 |
| Jacob is stalked in the park |
Jacob was on the run.
He made it down through Tirymôr Forest where the family estate was, deep inside thickets and thickets of tress. He felt the cold breath of fait breathing down his neck now that practically all his evil deeds were exposed to his family. He felt defeated. He felt lost. He felt drunk.
As he walked through the village in the salty night air through the darkness that now was the 11pm hour. He found himself in the center of the village park under the large Burch trees that created a pitch black canopy of leaves and branches above his head covering his view of the night sky.
He reached into his fest and pulled out a silver flask and flipped open the top and downed more vodka that had been made warm from this heat from his chest.
He spit some of it out and meandered down the center path of the park. He tripped his foot on a piece of lifted concreate and fell to the floor. His hair was tussled, he had leaves stuck to his vest and his pocket watch broke on the fall.
In his drunken rage at his fall he through the half empty flask at a tree and watch it burst open and splatter vodka all over a bush.
"DAMN IT!" Jacob screamed into the night air.
Then he heard a rusting in the bushes just beyond the tree. He squinted to make his eyes focus better in the area but it was too dark. He couldn't make anything out in the shadows.
"Whos there?" He asked in a slur of a voice.
No one answered.
Jacob tried to get up, but he was too drunk, too broken and too worried about the fall out from his expose at Tirymôr to worry about what was watching him in a bust. Perhaps it was a dog, he thought. Some mangey dog that ran away from his home down the street and found himself in the park with a drunk Jacob.
What Jacob didn't know was that he was half right. An animal was watching him from the darkness of the bushes just beyond the tree where he through his vodka flask.
The animal was Christian Evans dressed in a dark cloak hungry for human flesh thanks to Dr. Kim's cellular modification and medicines induced by a barrage of brain washing, he was now a hungry animal for human flesh. Not just any human flesh. Jacob Lord's human flesh.
Christian had arrived on Welshport Island hours ago. He had watched the whole spectacle at the mansion from yet another shadowy blind that kept him out of site from the Lord family all throughout dinner and even when Sebastian and Evie arrived, in fact it was almost caught by Sebastian and Evie as they arrived all three at the same time.
Christian, however, drugged mentally incapacitated and brainwashed, hid quickly and watched from a hiding place.
He watched. He listened. He waited, and when Jacob burst through the French doors of the drawing room and made his stammering exit towards the village Christian followed.
Jacob was banged up from his flight through the French doors. His hands were slightly cut and his arms had burses all over them. He sit on the floor still, reeling from his embarrassing fall in the park, and rolled up his sleeves to see his injuries.
Christian watched this too. Very carefully. Each time Jacob looked down at something on his body, he slowly made his way closer and closer to Jacob has he slobbered over himself and cursed his family for what he saw as a betrayal.
Then Jacob, who hadn't been paying attention, looked up and in front of him was a frozen eyed, cold hearted, blank staring Christian Evans who dropped the hood of his cloak and looked down at Jacob.
"You!" Jacob said. "What the hell do you want? Were you watching me this whole time?" Jacob added from the ground.
Christian didn't say a word and stepped closer.
"Get out of here!" Jacob said, but before he could guess what Christian wanted, the monster that was the old constable of Welshport jumped on Jacob and began to bite at his neck taking a chunk of Jacob’s flesh into his mouth..
Jacob screamed bloody murder, a scream that echoed through the trees of the town park and bounced off all the small buildings in town. He punched at Christian's face. He punched the mad man in this ribs. Blood was now pouring out of Jacob's neck, the small pieces of flesh that were bitten off were swallowed whole by the now cannible Christian.
Then Jacob, with all the might he had, punched again at Christian's face knocking him off of him. Christian groaned and rolled over in the pavement and held his eye that was stinging with pain.
"You ... you bit me! YOU BIT ME!" Jacob yelled at the creature as he too scrambled to is feet and held the neck wound that was leaking blood all down his white shirt like a river of red water streaming from the mountain tops.
Christian got up, his eye swollen and in pain and growled again. Jacob could see something was different in the man. Something bizarre and animalistic. Christian's mouth was completely stained with Jacob's blood. His teeth were no longer white pearls of bone but blood soaked pomegranate seeds ripe for the picking.
"What the hell has happened to you?" Jacob said in a hushed voice as the monster came at him again.
This time Jacob was prepared and they fought. Punch after punch. Slap after slap, until one was on top of the other and they were rolling around the lawn of the park like bloody children fighting in a school playground.
Meanwhile, as Tirymôr House, Evie and Sebastian cuddled on a sofa in front of a roaring fire as they talked to Nikolas about his arrival at the Island and how hard it was to find her. He told them both of the struggles to get inside the hospital and how het met Alice, and Matthew and how they were all hoping to get to Evie before something bad happened.
"Then Alice saw something strange in some vision and when we got to the cottage she saw you, there was no one there. It was really odd we were expecting some kind of monster but there was no one there. I truly believed you were in danger Evie, I was terrified" Nik explained not realizing he was looking at that very monster dead in the eye: Sebastian, the vampire that haunted Alice's visions.
Evie & Sebastian looked at each other uncomfortably knowing he was what Alice saw.
As they spoke, upstairs, Georgina came into Charlotte's room and saw that her bed was empty. She checked the closets and under the bed thinking she was playing a game. But Charlotte was gone.
Across the hall and down four doors, Rebecca's serine bed with its flowing sheets shaded by the thick golden drapes that hung over the darkened bay windows that looked out loud not the grand Atlantic was still untouched and empty too.
Over in the village in their little cottage, Filipe rolled over in bed, his skin still moist from making love to Celeste that night. He awoke, and as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the room, he noticed Celeste’s side of the bed had the sheets pulled back — she was missing from his side.
Back at the park, Jacob and Christian continued to fight just as a shadowy person arrived. They watched as the two one a human monster and the other a medically modified monster, gave it their all to kill one another. Then, the shadowy person lifted their arm. In their black gloved hand was a gun.
It was the same gun Jacob gave Mary to shoot and kill Sebastian months and months before.
Christian and Jacob got up from the ground to regroup.
The person holding the gun dressed the black cloak, with a black glove pulled the trigger and shot Christian four times in the chest.
Jacob watched as Christian gasped for air, blood spewed from the wounds at a rapid pace. He was frozen in shock and watched as Christian rapidly took his last breaths and died right in front of his eyes.
Then Jacob turned around to see who the shooter was and he gasped in shock—it was someone familiar, someone he knew but hadn’t seen in years. Then the gun went off again twice from his own gun.
Two bullets into Jacob's chest.
Jacob fell to the ground blood pouring from his chest onto the cobble stone path. He gasped for air. Chocking, his eyes opened reflecting the moon in both like a giant saucer of milk in the center of both eyes. The murder came over and stood over him. Jacob mouthed the word “How?” in a whisper but the shooter knelt down and put their hand over his mouth and their index finger over their own lips shushing him until his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he went out cold.
Then the shooter all in black vanished just as quick as they appeared into the misty fog of Welshport leaving both men on the ground bleeding from various places to die in the cold night air.
