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| Evie confronts her former captor Andrew Kim |
On a frigid afternoon, as the waves of the Atlantic in the Frenchman Bay crashed on the rocky coastline of Welshport Island, a small black taxi from the village puttered along the gravely road that lead up to Tirymôr House.
In the car was Dr. Andrew Kim.
Kim was dropped off at the front marble steps of the mansion in the half circle drive way with a bouquet blood red roses and snow white hydrangeas. The floral scent wafted up with the breeze from the flowers to Andrew's nose soothing his nerves. He was there to give his regrets on the death of Jacob Lord--- hiding the fact he was the one who brain-washed Christian to murder him.
The unfortunate part was the Andrew didn't keep up on the village news; Jacob had not died as Andrew had hoped, he survived.
Christian's brainwashing didn't work and he failed to kill Jacob for Andrew ...and HE was the dead one.
Inside the mansion, the housemaid, Jane ushered Andrew along the marble floors. Their footsteps echoed all the way up into the Cathedral like ceilings of Tirymôr like the chattering of hooves on cobble stone streets. Andrew had been in the house before, but never in the daytime. He marveled at how the light shined into the main hallway through a group of stained-glass windows reflecting a jigsaw puzzle pattern down on the marble floor just before he was lead into a parlor where he was seated alone with this giant bouquet of flowers.
Only the painted, empty, eyes of Albert Lord's portrait to keep Andrew company. And like many things in Welshport, things were not as they seemed at Tirymor House.
Andrew Kim was not alone.
The portrait across from Albert's was of a distant relative, Albert's great-grandmother Cora Halstrom. In the painting, Cora was in her youth. A young woman in her 20's with eyes that seemed to search the room for a friend, a kind face. Cora had never actually been to Welshport. She was a wealthy Boston socialite on Albert's mother's side.
Yet her painted eyes were strange. But not strange by Tirymor' s standards. The two eyes were not still. They moved to the side from behind the wall and real eyes popped into view of someone watching Kim... waiting to see what he'd do.
Kim sat there. Patient. Adjusted his tie. Fixed his vest. Fluffed the flowers. Smelled them again. Jane re-entered bringing in a silver tray-tea-set for two.
Kim smiled politely at the maid as he checked his pocket-watch.
"Mrs. Lord will be in shortly." Jane said as she curtsied.
Kim smiled again just as the maid exited and the eyes of Cora's painting returned to those created by the artist and moments later, just as Kim's nerve was about to leave him to meet with Rebecca Lord, the parlor door opened and in walked "Mrs. Lord" as Jane had promised.
But it was not the Mrs. Lord Kim expected.
It was the woman wrongly kept committed to the insane asylum on the mainland, by Dr. Andrew Kim per his black-mail by Jacob Lord.
It was Evie.
"Oh!!!" Andrew said, his heart sinking into his stomach. "I was expecting Mrs. Lord." Kim said standing up to great her.
"I am Mrs. Lord. Mrs. Evangeline Jordan-Lord." Evie said smirking delightfully.
"Yes, indeed you are." Kim replied nervously. "But I meant to bring these to Rebecca on the occasion of the death of her son." Kim added.
Evie smiled and invited Andrew Kim to sit down with her for some tea.
"She's not here. She's at Hope Hospital with Jacob." Evie replied shocking Kim.
"I don't understand. Jacob … he's dead, isn't he?" he asked, his face pale and ashen.
"It seems my uncle-in-law has made it through that horrible event in the park. And whatever it was that Christian had against him, meant nothing to the person who shot them both. You see Dr. Kim, Jacob and Christian Evans were both shot the other night, Jacob lived, Christian did not." Evie informed him as she passed him a cup of tea in a the most perfectly painted white porcelain cup and saucer.
Andrew was shocked. He swallowed hard as if Evie's news was a unchewed piece of steak. His plan, to use an brainwashed Christian to kill Jacob once and for all had failed. The wrong man died that night in the fog of the park.
"Shot?" Kim said confused of the manner of the crime that he did not authorize. "I did not know this, so please excuse my surprised expression." Kim replied as he sipped his tea.
"It seems this would be the best time for me to tell you to keep up with your subscription of any of the news papers this family publishes." Evie joked. "It's the biggest story of the week, to have the heir to this family on his death bed and all."
"It would make sense to keep up, yes." Kim said again, still uncomfortable with who he was talking to.
"Now that all that is out of the way, doctor, we should chat about our own history. You like to talk things out, if I am remembering our strange sessions at Windcliff correctly." Evie said with a small twinge of snark.
Kim smiled, he expected this from her.
"Very well. What would you like to talk about?"
"For one, why was Christian Evans out of your care? How was he able to just leave Windcliff and come back to the island and meet up with Jacob?" She wondered.
"I assure you Mrs. Lord, I was assured Mr. Evans was fine and asleep last night before I too went for my own rest. I had no idea he had left. Had anyone told me, we would have done everything we could to bring him back safely." Kim replied, lying, knowing he was the one who sent Christian to the island to kill Jacob.
"Like you did with me." Evie snarked knowing she was wrongly committed there.
"That was an entirely different situation Evie." He said, the discomfort in his voice noticeable.
"Christian deserved better care. A better doctor. A better facility during his mental breakdown. You know this. I know this. He was sick. He was going mad and instead of helping him heal you were negligent and allowed him to escape and now he's dead. I think you should be ashamed of yourself. Deeply ashamed."
Andrew thought for a second about the word Evie used: "Shame."
"That is perhaps the most honest thing I can say about this whole debacle and truly the source of it all. Deep Shame. Shame, Mrs. Lord, is what lead us here today." Kim said cryptically.
"I would say it's more than just that. Something else must be the cause of your negligence. You wouldn't have become a doctor, a person meant to help people in their time of need, only to allow someone like Jacob to come along and convince you on my own false madness then completely ignore Christian's. It doesn't make sense, doctor, to throw away your good name like that." Evie said.
"Jacob. The root of my own downfall." Kim replied.
"Why? Why did you allow Jacob to control you this way? You said shame? How many of your patients, under your care, actually belong at Windcliff? You knew well that I didn't belong at the Hospital and yet you allowed Jacob to lock me there. You knew that Jacob was the one planting all these falsehoods to convince me I was mad but.... yet... you did nothing? You allowed it all to happen and kept me there for months. What was it that shamed you? Your love of his money?" Evie demanded.
"I don't know what to tell you." Andrew said, darting the question.
"Tell me the truth. That's all I am asking for."
Kim paused and turned to look into the fire. His eyes filled with the golden light from the hearth and welled with tears. He could no longer hold on to everything. He could no longer keep the power Jacob had over him a secret. It had to be told, if to no one else another person who had been harmed by Jacob himself. He had nothing left to lose now.
"Evangeline, what I am about to tell you is going to change how you see me and I am afraid of that, but you are correct, you deserve the truth. All of it. No matter how devastating it is."
Andrew turned back around, and Evie saw his tears. She got up from her chair and sat next to him on the sofa seeing how frightened he was. She grabbed his hand and squeezed.
"Andrew, What could be so terrible that you feel compelled to cry?"
"Jacob knew something about me that should the general public know it would ruin me and my practice. I met Jacob years and years ago when his own father was admitted to Windcliff for issues of the mind, I was just an attending psychiatrist at the time working with child patients. Albert Lord, the poor man, was a deranged person who had a very dark breakdown where he attempted to take his life and eventually, while in the care of Windcliff, did so. Albert was haunted... terribly so, and Jacob would come to see him and attempt to bring him back into himself. But it never worked, as the chief of staff at the time had promised. And Jacob took issue with the former chief of staff and his so called negligence of Albert." Andrew explained.
"But it wasn't his fault."
"No... but Jacob was none the less furious with that former chief because he didn't believe he was doing enough for Albert's medical care. You see the former chief had been a fisherman in town and was offered a job at Lord Publishing as a young man to put himself through medical school, he and Jacob knew each other... they were friends. Jacob trusted him and things... were not progressing with Albert as fast as Jacob wanted." Andrew explained further in the gaze of Albert's painting.
"If Jacob was so angry with your predecessor, why did he feel the need to come after you later?" Evie asked as she sipped her tea.
"Because of what he saw. He saw something. And that is where the shame comes in." Kim said.
"What? What did he see?'
Kim paused as sipped his tea again warming his mouth. "This is the part," Kim said "that will show you who I really am?"
Evie squinted "Who you really are? I don't understand."
"Jacob came to the hospital one night furious with a bill that was sent over from us for Albert's care. This was a few months before his father took his own life. The bill, was quite expensive, and Jacob didn't feel it was right for him to pay it all since Albert had, in Jacob's opinion, regressed deeper into his madness. Jacob barged into Dr. Michael Daphne and his partner in a very passionate embrace. Evie... the person chief of staff Daphne was kissing was me. He and I, were... in love."
Evie dropped her cup to the floor. Her eyes were wide in shock. She felt as if her coreset had tightened to the point where she could not breathe. She gulped and licked her lips that had dried.
"In love?... Oh." She said, as her eyes were clearly as wide as the tea cup saucers. "Well, I did not know this." Evie added as she cleaned up the spilled tea on her skirt.
"Please, here, let me help you." Kim said he passed Evie a handkerchief.
"So, you and Michael Daphne, had romantic feelings for each other? You were together?" Evie asked attempting to make sense of their connection and after taking a breath to dissipate the clouds in her mind.
"We were. We were in love, just as you and Sebastian were. Dr. Daphne, Michael, he passed away three years ago but that didn't stop Jacob from using what he knew about me and my past to make sure I did everything he wanted. The two of us, Michael and I, were trapped. Jacob's bills stopped going for Albert's care. We did everything we could to keep Jacob and the Lord family up-to-date with everything and we were at their beck and call at all times. So when Michael died and I was promoted all of the pressure went on to me, and just me. Jacob used that to his advantage again when it came to having you locked away."
"I see." Evie said, taking it all in. "Well. No one should ever, EVER, be shamed for who they love. I believe that whole heartedly."
"That's very kind of you. I wish more people looked at it the way you do." He answered.
She grabbed his hand and squeezed.
"For what its worth, Evie, I am very sorry for everything. But I was cornered. I had to do it." Kim replied.
Evie looked into Andrew's pained deep brown eyes. She saw his sincerely and knew that even though Kim and Daphne were the first couple of their kind she had ever, sort of, known of she knew that love came in many many many forms. How could it not be true love, if they both felt this way about each other. She thought of her own relationship with how Sebastian is now. Many, if they knew what Sebastian was, would wonder how could she even think of loving such a man; a man who is sometimes more monster than human. But she did. She did love Sebastian no matter what any one said and no matter what anyone's questions.
"You know, my mother once told me that the things we hide about ourselves is to our own detriment. Allowing people to know who we really are, no matter what we think of ourselves or what we think others will say about us will never be good for our soul. Andrew, I'm sorry you've had to hide this way. It's awful. And... well, I wish that one day, someday, people who love the way you love won't have to." Evie said as Kim's eyes welled up with tears again.
"Well that is very kind of you after all I did to keep you away from Tirymôr. You are a breath a fresh air to this house built on a shadowy family tree. I sincerely hope you will be happy again in love soon," Andrew said with tears in his eyes. "its not every day we all get a second chance at love like you and Sebastian have." he added reminder Evie he was aware of Sebastian's "miraculous" return from the grave.
Evie smiled and realized it wasn't only Dr. Kim who had his secret love hidden away, Sebastian, was sleeping away the daylight upstairs hiding the fact his sudden return to live was only due to the spell of a witch giving him that power and with it, the thirst for blood.
"I hope so too." She said reluctantly with Sebastian's name on her lips.
"Where is Mr. Lord? I'd like to welcome him back too." Andrew asked as Evie stammered for a response.
"Indisposed at the moment. He's been through a lot. You may not know but he was taken from us by kidnappers and replaced with a usurper in hopes they'd gain some money. He escaped and the imposter was the one who died at our wedding." Evie replied, using the lie Rebecca and Sebastian came up with to explain his return.
"My!! How very dramatic!" Kim replied. "On that note, these are for you I suppose." Andrew said passing her the bouquet that was still bundled on the table in front of them. "And with that I shall bid you a good afternoon."
"You're leaving so soon?" She asked smelling the flowers.
"Indeed." he affirmed. "There is a boat in the bay that will be taking me away from here for a while so that I can get some affairs straightened out, outside of Maine."
Evie nodded "And when will return?" She asked.
Kim kissed the back of Evie's hand bidding her farewell "I may never, miss." He said to her surprise. "I may never return."
****
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| Alice & Nikolas in The Village |
In the village, two young lovers walked arm in arm around the small avenues filled with quaint shops and markets that made up the main area of the village commerce district. It was Nik Jordan and Alice Winterborn, both glowing in the gloomy over-cast day in their affection for each other.
Nik, who had only arrived to Welshport 4 months before, had fallen head-over-heels for Alice who felt the same about her friend Evie's brother. They were around the same age, early 20s and had much more in common than met the eye.
"It's so funny." Nik said while he tightened his grip around Alice's arm that was interlocked with his.
"What is?" She asked, the grayed out sunlight giving her tan skin a glow of caramel.
"I was so frantic when I got to this place in search of Evie that I never really noticed how small the town was. Everyone pretty much knows everyone else. I don't think we've passed a single person who hasn't stopped in their tracks to look at us." He remarked.
"Small villages are like that. Besides, you're new here, and I've been gone a long time... its all apart of the charm living here I guess." Alice replied brushing off the gawking.
"Do you really think so? It really doesn't bother you being gawked at like we're some kind of carnival side show?" He asked.
She shrugged and grinned.
"They look at us like we're some kind of mystery or a puzzle they can't figure out." He added.
"Aren't we though?" She asked as they stopped in front of a flower shop.
"I don't know." he shrugged as he pulled her close to him while he snipped a small white daisy from the outside canister of flowers and put it over Alice's ear.
"That's 10 cents sir." The flower shop owner barked as Nik flipped him the coin for payment.
"Everything is a mystery Nikolas. From how we're able to breath without trying to, how this flower you picked out grew out from the ground into this little sun burst of white and green. It's all apart of a larger plan; some miraculous secret we're left out of. The whole life of the planet is part of a puzzle and we're just tiny pieces of it." Alice replied removing the daisy from over her ear and sniffed it's sweet scent.
"I would agree with that." He replied as he leaned in and kissed her softly.
She smiled and replaced the flower back over her ear then re-linked her arm in his and they carried on with their walk through town. "How is your sister?" She asked.
Nik shrugged again. "Good, from what I can tell. She's doing much better now that she's back in her own home with her husband. They've gone through so much."
"Her husband... is he ...well?" She wondered.
Nik paused unsure how to even begin to explain Sebastian and his affliction.
"From what I can see, yes."
She paused in the middle of a small plaza just off the corner of the street across from the park where Christian and Jacob were shot. She stared at the space that had been roped off by the police and had been cleaned up. She could sense the darkness around that place. She could feel the sinister evil that had come there and done so much damage in the middle of the night and took a man's life. She shivered as the images flooded her mind of a shadowy figure coming up to Jacob and Christian and shooting them in cold blood and leaving them on the pavement of the park to die. Her hands, even though covered by black leather gloves to protect from the cool weather, began to sweat.
The sound of the gun went off in her mind.
One shot.
Two shots.
Three shots.
Four shots.
"Alice? ALICE!" Nik's voice said, breaking her trans.
"I'm sorry. I was just... I don't know." She said as she held on to Nik's arm tightly.
"You went off somewhere, what were you thinking of?" He asked.
"I... was seeing something. From the night Jacob and Christian were shot." She said briefly.
"Seeing?"
"It's hard to explain but sometimes I can see things in my mind as if I were there. Sometimes it's a blessing and sometimes its a curse. There are things I see that sometimes I don't want to see." She explained.
"It's this island. It has so many people on edge. Look around, everyone who's been watching and staring at us... it's because they're suspicious of these two 'new comers'. Everyone is spooked." Nik said referring to them both as the newcomers.
"I think its not just the island, but those that live here... and those who have died here. And those who have done both." Alice said cryptically.
"Both? Lived and have lived?" Nik asked then he remembered his brother-in-law. A man who had been alive and dead all at the same time. "Sebastian." He said, seeing through Alice's veiled sentence, Alice nodded confirming that is who she meant. "Are you concerned about him, and what he's become?"
"I don't know what exactly it is about him that I feel Nikolas. What I do know is that I think about him often. He just continues to flood my mind. I don't really know what it all means. Every since I met Evie at Windcliff, I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to something within this world that should not be here and --I'll be honest, something Sebastian's face appears in one of my visions. Like when we went into the Westernridge Woods in search for Evie and found that cabin. There was evil there, Nikolas. There was pure evil there and I know it wasn't Evie. She's not what I sensed." Alice said.
"You think.... no you can't," Nik began in disbelief. "You think Sebastian is the person who attacked you telepathically that night Lockwood Thicket? But why? Why would he do that?" Nik wondered.
Alice explained that she didn't know why he would want to her her in that moment and she didn't explain to him that she had an awful dream just the night before of Sebastian and herself floating in a dangerous dark bog. There was evil, and darkness between her two worlds and she could sense it's source throbbing like a beating heart deep inside the center of Tirymôr House.
"I'm telling you, it's this island, its this spooky, fog covered, no sky island. There's something about it. I've felt it every since I came off that boat and on to the docks." Nik replied hoping he's quell her fears and suspicions of his new brother-in-law. "I've even thought about researching this place and finding out just what about it's history makes it this way. There has to be reason. It doesn't take someone so in-tune with their mind like yourself to tell that Welshport is an island like no other."
"You're going to research the island's history?" She asked, somewhat worried about what he'd find.
"I'd like to, yes." He replied.
She grabbed his hand, squeezed it tightly and looked deep into his eyes. She could tell this was something he said just off the top of his head but from what she already knew about young Nikolas Jordan there was no way he'd just let the feelings go. If he had it in his mind to find out the history of the island and expose it's hidden secrets and berried skeletons, he would.
"Just be careful with what you find. You never know what kind of information you'll uncover that may effect the very people you're closest to. Not every one's past is spotless." She said still in cyrptic speak.
"Is there something you're not telling me?" He asked thinking that perhaps her own past was in the crosshairs of his research.
She shook her head no, unconvincingly, and said "Just be careful Niky. Especially around the Lords and most especially Sebastian." She said still squeezing his hand.
"You really are afraid of him aren't you?" He asked.
Alice's face got serious. She could not answer him in a simple way in hopes he'd just let the subject go even though she felt it was probably better he did. Her honestly peeked through "Deathly afraid." She replied. "Deathly."
Nik pulled her in for a hug to comfort her but wondered if she herself was hiding more than she was telling him about her feelings about Sebastian.
****
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| Rebecca confronts Eliza once more |
As the fog continued to engulf Welshport Island, Goode Island did not fare any better. The smaller island off Welshport's eastern coast looked as gray as the sky above, nothing on its small surface moved, no wind, no cool breeze off the Atlantic sea. Only stillness in the late afternoon.
Rebecca, determined to get answers from the witch Eliza who turned Sebastian into the shadow dwelling created that he was, marched herself from the docks to the Goode family cabin in an angry bluster.
She knocked on the cabin door, her gloved hand pounding on the wood like a sledgehammer, but there was no answer. She angrily banged again hard enough that the glass of a side window shook with the fury of her fist. Then, almost as if she hadn't heard the knocking from the beginning Eliza opened the door looking half asleep, weathered and tired.
"You look how I feel." Rebecca said of her old friend's appearance.
"What is it you want?" The witch growled concealing the fact her tired appearance was due to the powerful spells she had cast only weeks before to pull her own soul from her body and sending it to Welshport to shoot Jacob. It would take weeks for her to regain her strength.
"Its time for you to repay me for all you've done. Today, I collect your debt to me." Rebecca said pushing passed Eliza and entering into the cabin.
"My debt?" Eliza asked meeting Rebecca who was dressed in the most glorious of velvets and furs now in Eliza's living room.
"What you did when my daughter Victoria was born, the lack of care you had for me and my family. Everything I was promised was taken away from me, especially my chance of ever having another baby. You did that. You Eliza. I trusted you to help me bring Vivi back I put all my heart and all my soul into believing in your powers and what came of it? Only death and despair. You owe me, and I want you to finally do something good in repayment of that day," Rebecca said.
"Rebecca there is nothing I can do for you now to help you have a child. Not even my own powers can help you bring back Vivi or … give you the ability to bare another child after all these years." Eliza replied.
"Ugh! Don't be daft, Eliza! Really! You know I'm not asking you to help me have another child. It's Sebastian I'm talking about! Not only did you ruin my life you’ve ruined Sebastian’s! It was You who is responsible for what he's become, you and only you! Reverse what you have done today and now and I will forever forgive you for causing me to lose my ability to have children. The debt will be repaid." Rebecca explained.
Eliza took a deep breath. She could understand Rebecca’s heartache. She suffered when Vivi died. She suffered when the promise of Eliza’s powers failed to bring her back. She suffered when her husband Albert went mad and took his own life and when her middle child David vanished to parts unknown when his wife Sabrina was murdered. All Rebecca knew was suffering.
"I can't do that, Rebecca. I can’t bring him back to what he was. You know he is my nephew too. I did all I could to save and bring my sister’s son home to his loved ones. What u did for him was the only way." Eliza noted.
Rebecca's eyes seethed with anger. Rebecca saw it that the witch had done all of these things to her family, she was the cause of so much heartache all of these years and yet, she would not repay the debt and return Sebastian to his former self. This rebuff infuriated Rebecca.
"How dare you!?! How dare you talk of Sebastian as if you even know him. Sabrina never brought you around. Sabrina never cared to bring her family into ours!” Rebecca shouted.
“That doesn’t make Sebastian mess apart of me as he is to you, just like our mutual granddaughter Charlotte. We’re family Rebecca. Two mothers who will do everything in our power, supernatural of otherwise, to help our kin. That’s what I did.” The witch replied calmly.
“You walk around this island in your own solitude and do the things you have one and have no repercussions? Do you even know the hell you have placed Sebastian in? Do you? Do you even understand the horrors you have placed over his life for all eternity? Not to mention the hell that will wash over that poor girl Evangeline when reality sets in that she will never ever have a normal life with him. She's seriously going to carry on with this marriage of theirs despite what he is, its insane. And you are responsible for it." Rebecca answered, her lips tight with anger.
Eliza rolled her eyes but said nothing else on the matter. She could not. She could not tell Rebecca that bringing back Sebastian was in truth, also to save her own child Mary. She could not tell her that Mary's freedom was at stake should Sebastian be turned back into a normal mortal human. Their lives, the two cousins: Mary and Sebastian were tied together forever, not to mention Eliza's own life of solitude—as Rebecca put it—now belonged to The Hunter and all powerful pull.
The witch was not in peace or free of life's unruly trouble on the island alone, as Rebecca assumed. On the contrary, she was a prisoner of her own powers and of The Hunter that now owned her for shooting Jacob for her.
Eliza could not tell Rebecca this. She could not make an angry, wounded woman understand.
Seeing Eliza's seemingly feigned indifference, Rebecca became flustered and grabbed a large candle that flickered in with a bright lit wick.
"I should take this flame to your sweet cottage and burn it to the ground and leave you in the ashes like the witch you are. Nothing will remain, all of it gone in the flames of hell that you have put me in with all your godless spells and witchcraft." Rebecca said as the light from the candle brightened her cheek.
Rebecca’s hand was shaking. Her eyes filling with water angered by her inability to control this situation which was unlike anything in her life.
"No, Rebecca, you don't want to do that. Nothing you can do, not hurting me with words or taking to me physically, or burning down my home will ever make me suffer more than I make myself suffer every single day. The powers I posses, aren't at all what you think they are. In fact they're like my own little curse. Something I wish I could give back so that I too could live a normal life. But its impossible. So if by burning me alive means to give yourself the sense of power and revenge go on. DO IT THEN! Burn the witch Rebecca!! BURB THE WITCH!!!”
Rebecca still shook. Her eyes steady with the candle ready to igniter the nearest curtain ablaze to end Eliza once and for all, but nothing came.
“I’ve prayed. I’ve read tarot cards. I’ve asked psychics and soothsayers everything they know and I still live in this suffering. Why? Why won’t I find peace?” Rebecca asked crying.
“Rebecca prayer is a form of light. Keep it in you. Because the darkness that is here on these islands can only find you when the light is out. Keep your light of sprayer. Nothing will ever hurt more more than I hurt myself every day, let that at least give you some sort of calm." Eliza replied.
“You should have left Sebastian be. He should have stayed in the ground once that bullet from Mary’s gun stopped his heart. This unnatural life — I don’t know…I don’t know.” Rebecca said putting down the candle.
"Mary ..." Eliza said, repeating her daughter's name softly. "she did not hurt Sebastian because she wanted to. The source of all this grief, all this pain you speak of, is truly more than just me and my spells. Its Jacob. Your son. He coerced her and lied to her and manipulated her into doing that to poor Sebastian, and now he has reaped what he has sewed."
Rebecca took a deep breath. Deep in her stomach she knew that part was true.
"He has done some terrible things. I know." Rebecca said softly.
"Terrible is underrated. Rebecca listen to me," Eliza began as she passed Rebecca a cup of tea still steaming from the kettle. "all you can do now is to be aware of Sebastian and care for him as he continues to move through this life as what he has become. The worst thing you can do is fight him, push him away, ignore him. He cannot be ignored. He continue to be in the fabric of your lives. If he is exiled there is no way to bring him back from the darkness that will fill his mind. He will go wild. He will want to hurt people and then, at a certain point, there will be no stopping him. Your family's love is the only thing that will keep his soul in the light."
"Are you warning me of something to come?" Rebecca asked.
Eliza didn't know how to reply to Rebecca's question. She did not say what she said to send out a warning or to somehow make Rebecca feel as if she knew more than she was telling her. All she wanted was for her old foe to understand that pretending Sebastian was still as he was before Mary shot him, would be a mistake.
"Sebastian has undergone a transformation in his mind and in his body and in his soul that cannot be explained in any language or science the world knows of. He is now a member of an elite group of supernatural phenomena that for us here in the mortal world must respect. Rebecca it would be in your best interest along with your family's that you keep Sebastian close where you can see him. That's all I will say." Eliza said, unable to deflect from truly sending out a warning.
"What happens to him if he, as you say, is left to his own devices away from our gaze?" Rebecca asked her heart rate beginning to speed up as with the anxiety of what Eliza's answer might be.
Eliza put down her cup of tea and walked over to Rebecca. Eliza picked up the candle Rebecca has used to threaten to burn her Alice with and blew out the burning flame and replied to Rebecca saying only one word as the light went out.
"Darkness. Pure darkness."
Rebecca took a deep breath again and her anger returned after the few moments of mother to mother talk with Eliza. She realized that whatever Eliza had done to Sebastian it was forever. Rebecca had to now deal with the reality no matter what it was. No more spells.
"For your sake I hope whoever shot my son doesn't come for you next, because God knows you deserve it for all you've done." Rebecca said turning away from the witch and storming out of the cabin in angry and frustrated blaze.
Eliza, of course, knew that the person who shot Jacob and killed Christian would not come for her because she was that person. She was the one who sent The Hunter. Eliza smiled slightly and walked over to a kitchen drawer and opened it. Inside, the gun that did the shooting.
Eliza picked it up and looked it as it reflected the glow of the other candles that lit the kitchen in the cabin. She smiled again and wondered how long it would be before Jacob too died from his wounds.
Eliza Goode, took the gun and pointed it at the window of her kitchen as if she were about to shoot and said: "Every day you breath freely is a day I hope the bullet made lasting damage in you. In time, Jacob Lord, in time you'll meet your maker. And then, finally, we may all rest in peace."
At the docks, Hamstead saw Rebecca returning from the cabin in a fury. She made no head-way into the mind of the witch of Goode Island to return Sebastian back to his true self.
"Ma'am?" Hamstead said as he helped her into the boat he would row back to Welshport. "Is everything ok? Did you get what you needed?"
Rebecca covered the lower part of her face with the shall from the cold wind blowing off the sea and over the two of them on the boat. She shook her head no, that she did not get what she wanted, but said not a word to her trusted Paige.
"Aaron," Rebecca said using Hamstead's first name. "when we return, I want you to make an appointment for Constable Reigns to come see me. I have something to tell him." Rebecca said as her voice carried on the ocean breeze.
"Yes ma'am." Hamstead confirmed.
As the two made their way back to the southern shore of Welshport Island, Rebecca looked back at Eliza's cabin and wished she had burned it down when she had the chance. And perhaps she still would...in a different way without actual fire but destroy it and Eliza just the same.
One thing was for sure, she would heed Eliza's warning about Sebastian, to watch over him and keep him close. It wouldn't be the last time the two women would come face to face, Rebecca and Eliza.
They'd meet again soon, just in time for one of them to see the other's demise.
****
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| Filipe & Celeste at Tirymôr |
As evening approached and day became night Filipe Braga made his way over to the Lord family mansion deep in the Tirymôr forest to see his partner Celeste who was still on duty as Charlotte Lord's governess.
He hadn't seen her since she left early the morning of her she left the morning she had the nightmare of her dead father warning her of lies and how they'd come back to haunt them. Filipe, for his part, thought he'd meet Celeste at Tirymôr House and bring her home so that they could discuss what was really bothering her.
As he made his way to the parlor where Celeste was straightening up after putting Charlotte to bed, she turned to the doorway when she heard his footsteps approach.
"What are you doing here?" She asked in the dimly lit room as she carefully folded Charlotte's favorite blanket before taking it upstairs to the young heiress.
"I wanted to bring you home after you out Charlotte to bed. I wanted to talk to you." Filipe said getting close to his partner and attempting to kiss her on the lips but she moved and he landed on her cheek. "Celeste? What's happening?" He asked.
"I don't know what you mean." She said pulling away from the man she loved as the guilt of being pregnant with another man's child ate her up.
"You seem like you're upset with me for some reason. I noticed the other night when you had your nightmare. I'm worried about you Celeste. Please talk to me, this is very unlike you." Filipe relied.
"Filipe, listen, just go home. Please. Just go back down into the village and I'll follow just as soon as Charlotte is good and asleep. I have a few more things to take care of here." Celeste ordered.
"Wait, no, I won't just go!" Filipe shouted as Georgina hid behind the large pillar beyond entrance to the front door and listened.
"Filipe, please." Celeste said, her face warn with stress over her situation.
"You're obviously not telling me something. You're upset, I can see it all over your face. Is it me? Have I done something that's upset you?" The poor man asked still unsure of what the matter was.
"No! No! You've done nothing wrong I promise you. I've just been a bit tired lately and I need to get things done here before I can go home. Ok? Please. Just go now. I will meet you at home." Celeste said as she came over to Filipe and kissed him on the cheek.
He looked at her as she caressed her stomach. Then it dawned on him. She was with child. That was what she was not telling him She was with CHILD!
"Is... are.. you pregnant?" He asked grinning from ear to ear.
She paused, she felt cornered but her stomach was showing. She could not hide it any more from him She had to be least somewhat honest. She smiled and shrugged.
"Surprise." She said softly, not telling him the baby wasn't his.
"THAT'S why you've been so tired. That's what you must have been writing to your brother. Oh My love, why didn't you tell me?" He asked grabbing her and kissing her happily.
"I just needed to be sure, and... I haven't told the Lords yet. Can we just keep it to ourselves for now. I need sometime before I let them know. They'll have to find someone to fill in for me eventually." Celeste said
Filipe looked Celeste in the eye and she smiled sweetly. She smiled back at Filipe and hoped he would just listen to her and do what she asked. He kissed her on the lips again and told her he would keep it their secret for now... just before the parted ways.
As he left the room, Georgina hid herself, and then as Celeste came out Georgina saw Celeste's growing stomach too. Georgina knew it when she saw it as she too had once been pregnant and used all the same tricks to cover it up with heavy skirts and petticoats before Eliza discovered the truth. Georgina gasped and jumped out from where she was hiding and grabbed Celeste by the arm from behind and turned her around shocking Celeste in the process.
"My god Georgina!! What are you doing!?!?" Celeste shouted.
"Who's child is it??? Tell me! WHO'S CHILD IS IT!?" Georgina asked as Celeste's heart dropped.
"What? What are you talking about... you're saying none-sense!" Celeste shouted back at Rebecca's handmaid Georgina.
"Tell me the truth, it is his? Is it Jacobs? I know it's not Filipe's because based on the conversation I just overheard you two weren't exactly happy new parents." Georgina replied.
"How dare you listen to my conversation. I should tell Mrs. Lord that you've invaded my privacy. And what business is this of yours? Hmm? You should watch yourself Georgina Kent." Celeste said angrily.
Georgina knew with how defensive Celeste was being that she had hit the nail on the head. The child growing inside Celeste was not Filipe's and was Jacob's thus making Charlotte and the new baby half siblings.
This made Georgina furious... she was after all truly Mary Goode, Charlotte's mother, hiding inside Georgina's body, and woman who was put into a terrible position years ago by Jacob when he took their mutual child from her denying her any contact whatsoever. All of these terrible memories of Charlotte infancy and how she had to conceal herself inside another woman's body so that she could be close to her child flooded Georgina's mind and thus clouded her judgement infuriating her even more now that Celeste was pregnant.
Celeste huffed off and turned to walk away but not before Georgina grabbed her arm again and turned her back around.
"DON'T TOUCH----" Celeste said before she stopped mid-sentence in shock of what she was seeing happen.
Georgina, who had been given small bits of powers by Eliza began to shed the skin of her body showing her true self in front of Celeste. The skin of Georgina began to crack and fall away like the pieces of a clay pot shattering all over the floor.
"Is it his?" Mary said in her own voice and in her own body that was glowing. Georgina's face and body had suddenly vanished in Mary's fury.
"What? What is this???" Celeste asked looking at the strange vision of Mary in front of her where Georgina once stood. "Mary? Mary is that you?" Celeste said in shock.
Mary nodded her head but just as she did her body reverted back to the more powerful spell cast on her to be Georgina and her form was returned to the body of her disguise.
"How? How is this happening?" Celeste asked.
"Now you know my secret. Now tell me yours.... are our children going to be siblings or not?" Georgina demanded to know.
Celeste thought for a minute and realized her secret was getting out no matter what as the baby would grow. Soon more and more people would know and she would need allies, even Mary staging herself magically as Georgina, so she nodded yes, confirming the baby's father's identity as Jacob.
Georgina took a deep breath and with a serious tone of voice said "He must never ever know."
**
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| Felipe encounters his living nightmare in the forest |
While leaving Tirymôr House by the light of the moon, Filipe secured the buttons on his coat to keep himself warm. The fog continued to swirl around the grounds of the mansion as noises in the far off distance chilled Filipe to his core.
He could hear animals rustling in the shadows. Cracking branches. Crunching. Squealing. Watching.
And something was feeding on something else.
Filipe felt sick at the idea of the animal eating another so horribly and violently just off in the bushes away from him. He again adjusted his coat to keep out the cold air and made his way down the gravel path from the mansion to the village
But then he began to hear footsteps behind him. He turned...the fog was too thick for him to see.
"Who's there? I hear you! I HEAR YOU!!!" Filipe warned. "GO! GO AWAY!!" He yelled again thinking whatever animal he heard eating away at the smaller one would be frightened by his loud voice. "GO!! GO ON!!" He shouted again.
The fog was too thick he could only see the lights of the mansion through the fog in the far off distance and the moon encircled by a ring of light above his head.
And the footsteps still came.
Filipe began to walk faster and faster hoping the animal would vanish or give up on him but then he heard a swoop of air flow above him, the fog moved in a strange way as if something had flown through it marking a path within the mist and then something landed from behind him over his head and down again right in front of his path.
"GO! GO ON!!" Filipe said as the fog began to dissipate and reveal his follower to be :Sebastian Lord.
Sebastian was standing in front of him, his lips stained with the blood of some animal he had just fed on. "My god!" Filipe whispered.
"Hello old friend." Sebastian said coldly reminding Filipe of their once close relationship.
"What--- what do you want Sebastian?" Filipe asked his voice shaking in the cold.
"I never thought I'd see you again. I never thanked you for what you did for me." Sebastian answered.
"What I did for you? What was that?" Filipe asked pretending not to remember.
"You gave of yourself to save me, albeit Eliza forced it on you. But you were a true friend you could have figured out a way to kill me or have me killed knowing what I was, knowing what I have become and you were true to me. You never gave me up no matter how much you knew." Sebastian explained.
"I didn't have a choice. Neither Eliza nor you gave me a choice about keeping what you've become a secret. I had to, how could I ever begin to explain it to people that my own blood was used to create you in a the den of a witch?" Filipe replied. "I'd be cast aside just like you would be." He added.
"It's true. Now that I only dwell in the night I see things differently -- especially mortals. We're all lacking so much faith and love and understanding. I could never survive in this world if everyone knew the truth. But thanks to you and to Evie's love I did. I'm here, and she and I have come back together." Sebastian smiled.
"And you're both happy?" Filipe wondered.
"Of course." Sebastian said confidently.
"Sebastian I wish I could change what happened to you. I tried! I truly did, but those women, they...the witches! They made sure I could not. Now you are as you are and I can't do anything about it. I just want to keep everyone safe from what ...." Filipe paused.
"From what I've become?" Sebastian asked, Filipe silently nodded. "Well I understand the fear of me. There mystery of what I am capable of can truly turn your blood cold." Sebastian said with a stained grin on his face. "We've all read those stories of the monster that comes in the night and eats you alive. But I have a different way of thinking. I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want peace and to be with the woman I love." He added unconvincingly.
"Love....speaking of love, how does Evie feel of your... condition?" Filipe said choosing a strange word for what Sebastian was.
"She treats is as if I had a cold. She wants to keep me safe, protect me from the elements. She's given me a room at Tirymôr even though I'm much more comfortable at Lockwood Thicket, the place she and I fell back in love." Sebastian said sounding oddly happy with his new life even though his existence was incredibly restricted.
"And she is ok with.... how you feed?" Filipe asked.
"She never questions, how could she? It's apart of me now and I think she understands that...like you understood it, isn't that right? The day I became what I am you were there and you were apart of it." Sebastian reminded as me moved closer to Filipe who's heart beat Sebastian could feel in his whole body. It was a rhythm that was now matching his own heart beat. First slow, relaxed but as Sebastian came closer Filipe's heart beat faster and harder...fear was setting in.
"I was forced, I said so." Filipe replied stepping back.
"You were." Sebastian said too his voice sounding just as cold as the night they were standing in.
"Sebastian, I should go." Filipe said feeling Sebastian come closer as the fog rolled around them both.
"Filipe, I will let you go..." The vampire said. "but before that will you help me again?"
"Help you? How?" Filipe wondered keeping his distance.
"You see, the blood of a wild hare can only sustain me for so long. I have to have more than one at times. Sometimes I find sleeping swans in the pond. Sometimes I grab a random deer who doesn't see me coming and that helps. But.. human blood, its power is unmatched. Its stronger in my system because I was once fully human too. And since we are connected now because Eliza used your blood to bring me back to life... could you give me...more?" Sebastian said as is eyes turned dark.
"Sebastian. Please ...." Filipe said, his voice trembling.
"I won't kill you. I wont. I learned a way to take from my donor and they live normal lives. I promise -- you will not die." Sebastian said as his voice got deeper and more hypnotic as Filipe fell into a trans.
As Filipe stood in the fog of the night eyes open frozen by the voice of Sebastian Lord, the vampire latched on to Filipe's wrist and bit drooling over the man's hand lapping up all the liquid pouring from the tiny two puncture wounds on Filipe's wrist made by Sebastian's teeth.
He drank, the blood spilling over his lips feeding him, bringing him back to life like he had just woken up from a long long long sleep. His skin became more human like, his hair thicker, his heart pumped harder.
Once he let go, Filipe fainted to the ground and the tiny wounds on his wrist healed almost instantly thanks to the new trick Sebastian learned.
"Thank you old friend." Sebastian said as he scratched his arms over Filipe's fainted body and snapped his fingers. The snap echoed in the trees and around the forest and Filipe's body vanished into thin air.
"You've saved me again." Sebastian said to himself.
Filipe suddenly awoke in his own home; in his own bed not knowing how he got there and only vaguely remembering running into Sebastian.
As the fog continued the flow over the island from the sea, Filipe looked down at his wrist that was itching, and two tiny little light scares that had healed over where Sebastian latched on.
These Marks of the beast as Filipe called them-- left him to wonder what had truly happened in his meeting with Sebastian in the light of the moon and in the mist of the deepening fog, more importantly he feared: would it happened again?
