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| A mysterious visitor in Gabriel’s nursery |
The fading night sky turned from a deep purple to lavender as the sun slowly began to peek up from the horizon.
Baby Gabriel slept peacefully in his little crip with blankets in the same shade as the lightening sky outside his window.
At his nursey door, a shapely figure in silhouette watched as he slept. The child, who could not hear the person even if they had made a sound, snuggled a small teddy bear that kept watch over him as it squished perfectly under the baby's arm.
The shadowy figure, a woman, moved from the nursery door down into a small private hallway that connected a larger bedroom suite. Evie's room.
The figure in shadows stepped into the room where Evie too slept peacefully before the sun brightened her window.
The figure stood there in silence and watched Evie sleep.
It was Jacqueline Gray.
The witch from Highgrove did nothing but watch Evie for several minutes. She thought about what she had done to the child by accident, but also that she had blamed Mary for it all -- leading Sebastian to believe Mary had done it deliberately.
It was all a devious and cruel plan of Jacqueline's to remove all of the potential obstacles in her way to have Sebastian all to herself. Mary, his closest confidant, came first. Mary was already weary of Jacqueline's relationship with Sebastian, thus Jacqueline made it seem like Mary was to blame for Gabriel's deafness-- and only Mary.
But it was only Mary.
As Jacqueline watched Evie sleep she saw a small photograph in a frame on a side table of Sebastian on a horse. Obviously, in happier times.
She knew Evie still cared for him although she believed him dead, but Jacqueline worried that like many secrets, that too would soon be exposed. Befriending Evie had given Jacqueline insight into everything she feared. She feared Mary would poison Sebastian on being with her, she feared the newly single Evie would discover the father of her son still alive and want to rekindle their relationship.
She feared losing the man she had fallen so in love with so quickly. She had given up her life in Boston to be with him, she had given up everything she knew because she believed so much in the new love she had found when she had never actually expected it.
She feared losing him and being alone forever.
That could not happen, Jacqueline had one more trick up her sleeve to make sure Evie's mind focused on something that was not Sebastain.
Jacqueline closed her eyes; she fell into a black shapeless void in her mind. It was as if she was tunneling, burrowing into the ground. Further and further, she fell in this darkness until finally a peak of light flickered. She was now inside of Evie's mind, inside of a dream Evie was having.
The dream of Evie sitting on the greenest grass Jacqueline had ever seen. She was there on a picknic with Gabriel. They were giggling, laughing together. A man was coming up the small green hill, his face was obscured by the sun light.
Jacqueline tried to make it out, but she could not tell who it was.
Jacqueline snapped her fingers and transported herself inside the dream to where the man was coming from so that she could see his face clearly.
It was Sebastian's face. Proof Evie was still thinking of him, proof she dreamed of them being a family again, dreamed of the three of them being together once more.
This could not be!
Jacqueline took control of Evie's dream and morphed herself into the man coming up the hill, then her powers changed Sebastian into Matthew.
She was going to force Matthew into Evie's mind, HE was the man she wanted Evie to dream about.
As Jacqueline, concealing herself as Matthew approached Evie, Evie in th dream, began to cry.
"Matthew! Is it you? IS IT REALLY YOU?" Evie asked as the little boy cuddled in her arms.
"Hello Evie." Jacqueline replied as Matthew.
"How are you here? Are you really here?" Evie wondered, confused when seeing him in her dream.
"Find me Evie, find me and bring me home."
"Find you? What do you mean? I can't find you!" Evie asked, her heart pounding in her dream and in real life. She was frightened seeing him as alive in her dream, to Evie, she could see him so clearly and usually the people in her dreams were more foggy, less visible. Just images with no real-life signs. But Jacqueline had made herself to be Matthew and a very convincing and lifelike way. Skin, eyes... everything was as if he were standing in front of Evie in real life. Not dead.
It was perfect. She wanted Evie to believe him alive, believe Matthew was out in the world and not dead---to refocus her off of anything that would remind her of Sebastian.
"Find me Evie! I did not drown. I'm alive, please find me so that we can be together. We can be together again, Evie, find me. Leave Welshport, find me please!"
"Matthew, I don't understand how that could be. We were told your ship sank. There was only one survivor. He said no one lived, just him. Where do I go? Where would I search for you?" She stood up, still holding her baby as their picnic suddenly vanished in the dream. Now she was standing barefoot on the green grass.
"Leave this land, and find me, you will know where to look if you think. I am still alive."
"I can't leave! Matthew please, please tell me! TELL me where I can find you!" Evie said, her eyes filling with water ready to burst.
"I love you Evie. Do you love me?" Jacqueline asked as Matthew, testing Evie's heart.
"I ... do, Matthew. I do love you. But I can't leave Gabriel to find you. Where are you?" Evie replied, her heart torn in two.
"Evie I need you to come and look for me. I'm waiting for you to find me so that we can be together. Forever." Jacqueline as Matthew said, pushing for Evie to leave Welshport behind and come and find a man that died months ago in a storm at sea. There was no proof Matthew was alive, there was no evidence anyone except for the one man that was found floating on the surface of the sea survived, but Jacqueline didn't care, she just wanted Evie to leave and never turn back so that she could have Sebastian all to herself.
"Tell me, tell me where! MATTHEW!" Evie screamed in her dream.
Her scream woke her up just before Jacqueline could further manipulate the circumstances of the dream.
Jacqueline, now outside of the dream, quickly hid in the fading morning shadows of Evie's room.
Evie sat up in her bed. Her long honey brown hair messy and in slight curls from tossing and turning. She thought of Matthew. Had he really come to her in a dream to tell her he was alive? She wasn't sure what to believe and how could she even entertain the idea that that was what happened.
"No. He can't be." Evie said to herself outload in a hushed voice but loud enough that the hidden Jacqueline could hear her. "No." Evie said again, thinking herself silly for believing her dream was a true message from Matthew.
Then, from down the small private hall that adjoined Evie's room to Gabriel's nursery she heard him cry. Evie, the doting mother, jumped out of her bed, slipped on a shining silk robe with golden roses embroidered at the bottom hem and quickly made her way to her baby's room.
Jacqueline made herself invisible and followed the new mother down the hall and into the baby's room. Evie was already in the room rocking her baby in a chair while she breastfed him.
Jacqueline watched the beautiful Evie feed her baby as the morning light began to illuminate the nursery in the pink hues of the sky. She got close, so close to Evie while she was invisible, and Gabriel looked right at Jacqueline, dead in her eye while he suckled.
"What are you looking at?" Evie giggled. "What's up there huh?" Evie asked turning her head to see what the baby's gaze was so locked on.
Evie only saw the top corner of the nursery's ceiling.
Gabriel saw the invisible Jacqueline.
Jacqueline gulped; she couldn't believe the child could see her, but he did. Baby's were innocent. They had not been jaded by the darkness and pain of the world. They could see magic. Babies like Garbriel could see how things were meant to be hidden from those who were now consumed by the shadows that life often obscured. He smiled at Jacqueline not realizing who she was. Not realizing what she had done.
And most of all not realizing what she had planned for his mother's future.
Jacqueline smiled back, sinisterly.
"You're silly. There's nothing there." Evie said. Then Evie wondered. Was Matthew there? Was Matthew the one Gabriel was seeing, in spirit form?
Could it truly be some sort of message from Matthew?
But the new mother shook her head, she was embarrassed to have even thought of such a silly thing. She knew better than to dive into those supernatural make-believe things that Rebecca was so in tune with.
"No, no, you're just happy to be with mummy, aren't you, love? Yes. You are. You are so happy to be with mummy." Evie said to her baby who giggled but still kept his little eyes on the invisible Jacqueline who fully planned on continuing to persuade Evie to leave Welshport on a wild goose chase in search of Matthew.
Jacqueline made up her mind: She would infect her new friend Evie's dreams pretending to Matthew over and over again until the fear of losing Sebastian to Evie was dead.
Dead like Matthew.
****
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| Fatima runs into Filipe & Mary in town |
The fresh new winter snow became a cold wet slush in the streets of the village as the day warmed. The small black cars puttered around the cobble stone streets hurriedly as people made their way through the village going about their normal duties and errands.
Filipe Braga and a very pregnant Mary Goode did the same.
They were in Welshport Village gathering items for the cabin back on Goode island.
While they walked back towards the docks where they'd once again get into a small sail boat owned by Filipe that would bring them back to their small home, a familiar face was closing and locking the street level door that lead to her upstairs apartment just above her small little parlor.
It was Fatima Braga, Filipe's estranged aunt.
She had seen her nephew over the years in the village. She had watched him, she had felt pride in the kind man he had grown up to be, she had worried for him when he was in his early 20s and worked for Jacob Lord as his personal Paige, she had mourned his parents when they did, especially her brother Filipe's father.
She had suffered sleepless nights when Filipe became injured decades ago in an automobile accident at the hands of a drunk Jacob Lord.
All these years she watched and the sidelines and never said anything to him.
Their estrangement was this deep.
She smiled again, her face tight with the icy cold touch of the sea wind. He was tall, handsome, his hair a warm chestnut brown, his skin an equally warm olive. A man that she felt so proud of and yet she could not tell him to his face how loved he was.
Mary turned slightly to adjust the one of the bags she had slung over her arm and her pregnant belly became visible to Fatima from under her long black coat.
The Estranged aunt gasped in delight. She had prayed her only nephew would one day have a child, and was sad when he and Celeste broke off their long love affair childless.
But with Mary, a new hope lit inside of Fatima's deep brown eyes.
On their walk in the cold snow, Filipe stopped her and took her bag from her shoulder to ease the heft.
"I can't believe Jacqueline didn't come with us. She can't just sleep all day like she's Sebastian or something." Filipe grumbled about their new houseguest.
"She came last week on her own, Filipe, she does her part I think." Mary defended to Filipe's surprise.
"Does she?" He asked annoyed with the every growing caution in his mind about Jacqueline.
Mary smiled at him, he was so cute to worry. But she knew he was right, Jacqueline was something to worry about, she knew that much. The new witch's penchant for going rogue on their plans was what she worried most about. The pair not knowing she had already implicated Mary as the mastermind behind the terrible thing that happened to Gabriel to remove any blowback from Sebastian on her.
Then, as the two chatted, from across the street Filipe and his aunt Fatima made eye-contact.
Fatima had not seen his full face in so many years after their estrangement. She was caught off guard at first, almost as if she thought she was invisible in the white light that reflected off the snow and into the air all around the street.
The cars buzzed passed and through their quick rush down the street, Filipe recognized her, and stared back at her almost as if he were trying to freeze her face in his brain. His only living relative.
She had seen him over the years, but he had never once seen her. This was the first time in almost 25 years despite the village being so small.
Fatima smiled. She meekly lifted her hand to wave.
He lifted a brow and turned away back to Mary who noticed the woman's hand up.
"Who's that?" Mary asked.
"No one." He replied.
"She waved." Mary pointed out.
"She's no one." He replied again, his voice as cold as the wind.
"Filipe, she's clearly someone. She waved at you. Do you know her?" Mary asked.
"No. Well, yes. But Not anymore."
"Well then who WAS she?" Mary asked quickly learning his word game.
Filipe turned again to Fatima who had replaced her waving hand back under her thick wool shawl. She shivered in place just outside of her own home the snow once again began to fall in small flakes so delicate they practically melted midair even though the air was just as frosty.
"Come, we need to get back to Goode before the snow comes down thicker." Filipe replied.
Mary caressed her big belly as they walked, her load of packages much lighter now that Filipe took more on "So you're not going to tell me?" She asked.
He looked at her and sighed, his warm breath freezing in the air and forming a white cloud that floated off into nothing. "My father's sister. My Tia Fatima." Filipe replied using the Portuguese word for Aunt.
Mary stopped in her tracks deep in the show. "WHAT! Your aunt?" Mary replied excitedly.
"Mary, we should go, please." He said.
Mary had no idea he had family in the village. She believed after his parents both died that he was the last of the Braga family on Welshport Island and that everyone else was either back in Portugal or in Angola where his other family members lived. She never really asked, it was all just speculation on her part because Filipe liked to keep his family past private. But in truth, Filipe didn't have much family to speak of. He was an only child. His father had only one sister, Fatima whose child lived far away, and Filipe's mother was an only child.
Mary turned back to see Fatima still staring at the couple and smiled sweetly at her.
Fatima watched them walk all the way down the street that lead to the docks.
As she did, something strange occurred right in Fatima's eye-line.
A shadow, something dark that no one could see but Fatima began to form from the shadows of the trees on the street from the early morning winter sun.
The shadows crawled along the snowy street following Filipe and Mary.
They were harmless to the living, but Fatima gasped and stepped into the street after Filipe and Mary and was almost hit by a car that honked it's horn at her.
The shadows continued to collect as Filipe and Mary walked further down the streets towards the docks, forming a large black blob behind the couple. Fatima reached the pocket of her coat and grabbed a crystal tied to a silver necklace she carried around her for peace and saftey.
She knew what the shadows were doing and why she was seeing them follow Filipe and Mary.
She knew why they showed themselves to her and only her.
It was a warning from the spirit world.
And Fatima knew that danger for not only Filipe and Mary, but for all on Welshport was immanent.
She knew darkness was to come once again.
"God helps us." She said to herself, her powerful psychic abilities only allowing her to see but do nothing to fix the coming danger.
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| Celeste visits Jacob at the Publishing House |
Rebecca, who was head of the company when her husband Albert died, was in charge of day-to-day business. She would often work from home. But now that Jacob had taken control of everything. He had lawyers smart enough to rule the world render Rebecca insane and her admission to the mental ward at Welshport Hope helped.
Jacob, obviously, took full advantage of his mother's recent mental break-down. Now, the company was his to rule and not much would break the power of the documents he filed in court to retain this.
Jacob signed off on documents and then picked up a stack of manuscripts his literary agents had sent over for his approval, with one wave of a pen marking his initials on the cover of the manuscript, the book would be made under Lord Publishing.
"Any good ones?" Celeste said, walking into Jacob's office in her dark blue dress with her shawl curled around her body holding in her warmth.
"I don't think I've ever seen you read a full novel much one of these." Celeste joked as she picked up one of the unpublished works. "'Land of the Fledgling'." She added reading the title.
"Sounds like someone I know." Jacob said pointing his chin out of his shaded office window into a busy room filled with literary agents sorting through the thousands of manuscripts mailed in hoping to be published.
He was referring to Johnathon, and Celeste's half-brother who was eager to get his stake in the Lord family business.
"You promised him a job, and obviously he's here to take up that promise. What have you found for him?" Celeste wondered.
"What am I supposed to do, just place him in any department? He doesn't have experience in this line of work Celeste. We need someone who's willing to go the extra mile and work hard for this art form. I don't want this company publishing penny-savers and books on how to garden!" Jacob grumbled.
"Well, it doesn't matter really. He doesn't seem to even care about experience or not. Look at him out there, he's getting more and more use to calling himself a Lord. They're ecstatic new fresh face, a new son of Albert. I suppose an ally is an ally is an ally. No matter who he is." Jacob added.
"You sound jealous." Celeste said smiling girlishly at her husband.
Jacob rolled his eyes at her.
"It doesn't matter. As long as you give him something to do, something official, he'll get off your back. And you won't have to worry about any kind of coup. No one wants to replace you Jacob, and no one wants to push the envelope in getting you replaced." Celeste explained.
"Is that so? Not even you?' He wondered of his wife who was showing more and more signs of her cunning ways.
"Of course not! Your success is my success, and our success is the success of our son. Fabian is my main concern. I want you to be successful so that when it's his turn to lead this company, he'll have it all. Because he's your son." She said.
Jacob lifted a brow and rolled his desk chair over to a thick black box made of the darkest wood the Tirymor forest grew. He reached for a golden key inside the tiny pocket of his gray vest and pulled on it's red string. Celeste watched him open the box and remove a paper; he slid it across the table in Celeste's direction.
"And this?" She wondered not wanting to touch anything that could incriminate her, knowing her husband's penchant for blackmail and framing.
"Read it." he said.
She would not.
"What is it?" She asked again, annoyed.
"Not Charlotte. Gabriel."
Gabriel's father Sebastian and Grandfather David were both legally dead. That meant, that Rebecca who was locked away at the hospital was dethroned as head of the company (as Jacob wished) and her sons were in charge. Jacob and David's heirs. Since David was supposedly dead, and Sebastian was subsequently dead... that meant little baby Gabriel was Jacob's co-owner, and since he was only months old, Evie would stand in his place.
"She can't know it." Celeste replied, surprising Jacob. "Well, I mean...she has so much going on."
She thought his was over. She thought she could keep Johnathon in line by dangling a sweet job at the Publishing House, she thought she could just keep aiding Jacob in his attempt to usurp his mother and that things would be fine, but she never realized how any legal obstacles would come and how they'd overcome then.
It was a spider's web of paperwork and wills and forms and laws and it was overwhelming to someone who only wanted what was best for her child.
"How much do you want Johnathon here?" He asked.
"Here where? At the company? In a job?" She asked.
Jacob shrugged.
"I think you do." Jacob replied. "This is the name of the game, and if we want all our dreams to come true then we have to make some smart and at times painful decisions about our family members. This is how it works Celeste. I need to know you're on board." He added.
"On board with what?!?!" She shouted then quickly lowering her voice as Johnathon outside noticed. "On board with what?" She said again in a low voice.
Jacob tilted his head. "Celeste. Its for our future."
"Jacob, listen to me, if you're saying that you and I should do something to.... to Johnathon and Gabriel, something that would hurt them then absolutely not! Do you hear me? Absolutely NOT!" She exclaimed.
"I never said anything that would physically harm them. No, I'm done with that. But, I we do a lot with our power. Look at my mother. She's alive, isn't she? But she's taken care of. I don't have to worry about her. She's as legally sane as a bag of nuts."
Celeste inhaled and exhaled happily, she did not want to plot anyone's murder. "Then what?" She asked.
His greed had not faded with time or with the shocking events of the past: his attempted murder, his temporary memory loss, his involvement in Caspian's exorcism, finding his mother insane at the lighthouse and seeing his nephew Sebastian alive when he thought he was dead. None of that had softened Jacob and in fact it made him even more dangerous as suddenly seemed unstoppable.
"I don't want bloodshed." She said.
He nodded his head. "No."
If things were to go off the rails, as things could often do in Welshport, and someone were to meet an accidental death that would increase the level of ultimate power and control he had already... well, in Jacob's world that was just the risk he was willing to take.
****
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| Genevieve says goodbye to Morgan |
Genevieve stood on the front steps of Tirymor House in the cold winter air. Her hands trembled as she stood there with several suitcases at her feet.
A family car, driven by Aaron Hamstead the Lord family chauffeur, swirled around the circle drive way in the slush of the fresh snow and parked at the bottom of the limestone steps.
He got out of the car and quickly came around to the opposite side and stood by the back door awaiting Geneveive's signal to open it.
Then, the front door squeaked open. Bundled up in his winter jackets and a scarf came her son Morgan.
Genevieve was about to set herself on a long journey in search of David Lord, the man she suddenly fell in love with and knew, in her heart-of-hearts was alive.
These passionate feelings were adopted by her as the spirit of Sabrina Lord, David's late wife, now lived inside of Geneveive herself.
Morgan's eyes were filled with water, swollen with tears he had shed before stepping out side.
"I don't want you to go." He sniffled.
She patted him on the head and lifted his chin up with her now gloved hands so that their eyes met.
"I promised you I'd return, and I will. But mama has to do this." She said.
He nodded showing he understood.
"How will you know for sure that he is in London?" Morgan asked of Genevieve's hunch on David's location.
"I can't really explain why, but I can sense it. David is in London." She said.
Then, like bright blonde angel passing into the light, Charlotte came out of the house to say goodbye too. She and Morgan were only months apart, her being the elder of the 14 year old, looked at Genevieve and smiled. She saw her aunt Sabrina's face, and could tell her aunt was not only the force behind this decision but the most likely the voice speaking.
"Goodbye Charlotte." Genevieve said, patting the young Lord heiress' shoulder.
"London." Charlotte said as she closed her eyes.
The sky suddenly turned grey with clouds. A soft icy breeze shifted through the trees of the Tirymor forest. Aaron gulped not understanding the sudden change in weather. "We should go miss." He said to Geneveive as he tapped on the car.
"London." Charlotte said her eyes still closed, the breeze still freezing everything it touched.
"Charlotte?" Morgan said seeing his new friend seem a bit strange.
"Uncle David." Charlotte whispered. "London." she said.
"Why does she keep saying that?" Morgan asked.
"Miss, we should go." Aaron Hamstead said again beginning to show his frustration for a woman he did not work for but was helping out by giving her a ride.
Geneveive knew what Charlotte was doing, thanks to Sabrina. Sabrina's thought and Genevieve's thoughts were now one, and Sabrina knew Charlotte's psychic abilities were working right in front of then. The young girl was calling on all the powers of nature that surrounded them, she sprits of the wild wind, the cool air of the earth, the ghosts that lived in the other world that knew all. She was calling on them in her mind and asking them to prove to all of them once and for all if David was truly in England, London England.
"Tell me." Geneveive said, focusing on Charlotte. "What did you see?"
Charlotte's eyes snapped open startling Morgan who stepped back in the crunchy snow.
"You'll need to look very deep within the city walls. He's there, he's there but he is not the same. I can't see him the way I saw him when he lived here, but after all these years, Uncle David is in London. But... there is something, I can't ... I don't understand. I don't see him the way he was when he lived here." Charlotte explained repeating herself slightly as if saying it over again might shed light on her confusion.
"What does that mean?" Morgan asked.
"Does he look different?" Genevieve wondered.
"Maybe. He, just seems different too. Uncle David is quieter. He's stranger. He hides. He's always hiding, but not like mixing with the crowd but in a way that is very strange. He only sees the sun when he's allowed to, or when he's given the opportunity. He fights. He's always fighting." Charlotte said confusing everyone.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Morgan asked his mother now that there was some sort of mysterious surrounding David.
"I think he's hiding because of what happened to me... I mean... Sabrina." Geneveive said. "He's hiding because the truth is still in a secret that if I don't find him and bring him back he will always stay this way. He'll hide forever thinking he did something he didn't do." Geneveive explained.
"My father did something very bad." Charlotte said, her voice meek and sweet worried about the truth coming out about how Jacob, her father, was the one who framed David for Sabrina's death. "But it has to be done, it has to be told because Uncle David deserves that."
Charlotte then grabbed Geneviev's hand ands squeezed "Aunt Sabrina deserves that."
Geneveive smiled, but it was Sabrina's love that shined through.
The two: Sabrina and Charlotte, were once one too. They lived this way for many years. Charlotte knew the fear inside of Sabrina and the hopes she always had at finally getting her husband back but possessing Charlotte made that impossible. She is just a girl.
Being inside of Geneveive made her final wish to free David of his guilty conscience much more of a reality as Geneveive was an adult and could do Sabrina's bidding. Not to mention, their similar appearance made it even more justified.
"Thank you." Genevieve replied to her then she turned to Morgan. "I promise, I'll be back. Do you hear me?" She said to him. He nodded. "I love you Morgan." She added.
He lunged at her and held her body to his. He squeezed tightly almost not wanting to let go. He loved his mother so much, they had been through things together that no mother and son should have to face. Saying goodbye to her again after only a few weeks of reunion was gut wrenching. It tore at the young man's heart --- but it equally tore at Geneveive's.
She feared failure, but feared too, that if she did not do this she would be haunted all her life of what could have been.
"Miss." Aaron said from the bottom of the front steps. "Let's go. The ship sets sail from here in an hour and you'll need enough time to register to board." He said.
"Thank you Aaron." Genevieve said.
"Good luck." Charlotte said with a twinkle in her eye.
"I love you." Morgan said to his mother who kissed him on both cheeks.
"I love you." She replied. "Take care of each other. Do you understand? Listen to Johnathon who promised to watch over you for me. He’s been very kind on that aspect.” Genevieve explained.
“I will.” Morgan sniffled.
“When I get back I want to hear how you both watched out for each other and were there for each other and cared for each other. Clear?"
Charlotte and Morgan smiled and looked at each other. They were best friends. And they would do as she asked.
Genevieve got some help with her suitcases and Aaron opened the back door to the car.
He packed her up and the two began their way down the circle driveway slushing along down with the pebbles crunching under the wet wheels of the car.
Genevieve turned back to look out the small back window of the car. It was fogged up from the heat of the two people inside. She reached up and cleaned the condensation from the glass and saw Morgan and Charlotte still on the front steps. He in his dark cloaks and she in her own dark coats and bonnet covering her blond hair. They stood there, the pair of 13-year-olds and waved until she could no longer see them, and they could no longer see the car.
Then, a single tear fell down Genevieve's soft peach-toned skin.
Her heart sank watching her little boy stand there far away from her. Her heart sank and ached.
She suddenly burst into tears alone in the backseat.
"We can turn back." Aaron said from the front.
"Keep driving." Genevieve said through tears. "I have to do this."
"You don't." Aaron replied but he did not stop, he kept driving through her sobs.
"She'll be ok." Charlotte told Morgan.
"Do you really think so? London is so far away. What if she never finds him?" He wondered.
"She'll find him." Charlotte replied confidently.
"How did you do that? How did you know that your uncle was in London? My mother told me he was last night, but you say it too? How do you know?" Morgan asked.
"I can see him, or at least it looks like him. It's like I have these dreams in my mind and a lot of times those dreams are real, or they come true, or I see it before it happens. Something like that. Other times if I concentrate hard enough, sort of like when we read books and we concentrate on the words we can see the story come to life in our head? When I do that, I can see what's happening somewhere else. Like its happening right in front of me." Charlotte explained of her psychic abilities.
"Does your father and stepmother know?" Morgan wondered.
"Sort of. They have an idea of it. But they don't really bother me about it. I don't really know if they believe me to tell you the truth." Charlotte explained somewhat saddened that her father Jacob didn't take an interest in her life.
"I believe you." Morgan said to her surprise. "I really do."
Charlotte smiled and grabbed his hand and squeezed. "Thank you."
As they stood there in the cold day, the snow began to fall again, and the two new best friends reentered Tirymor set to begin their schoolwork.
****
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| Gregory visits Asha with a proposition |
Later that afternoon, in the frozen gardens between Welshport Hope Hospital and the separate building known as Churchill Green, Dr. Asha Hoffman sat and read from a medical book. Her warm skin felt the cool winter air swirling around her as she read. She sniffled and skipped the chapter in the book that she did not need. She, along with Nik Jordan, were both new doctors and were still learning on the job.
She wanted to focus on infections and strange occurrences of the body while Nik was focused on psychology with a small dabble in bodily medicine.
As she read, the door from the hospital opened and a nurse stepped out into the cold and pointed a man towards where Asha was sitting.
It was her old friend Constable Gregory Reigns.
"Doctor, you should be inside, you'll catch a cold out here." He said.
She grinned and stood up from her book and hugged her friend. It had been a few weeks since they'd seen each other. She had missed their chats. After her ordeal with Andrew Kim, and the situation with Alice, they regarded each other more like brother and sister from different parents.
"What are you doing here?" She asked.
"I need to talk you about something and its something I need to keep between us. Something that is very concerning." Reigns said.
"Is it about a case?" She asked thinking it had something to do with the law as he was Constable.
"No, not in the way you're thinking. Actually, in not any way. It's about Aurora." He replied.
"Aurora? Evie's mother? What is it?"
"As you know, I'm sure, she's been coming to the hospital to see Dr. Ward because she's with child, a child that was conceived under very ---" Reigns paused unsure how to describe Aurora's involvement with the evil biological father of her unborn child. "--I think I should choose my words carefully."
"I know part of what happened, you don't have to say anything you don't want to. I know that's all been very traumatic for everyone." Asha said. "What is it that I can do?"
Gregory looked around to see if there were any others outside enjoying the fresh winter air on a break like Asha was. One person was out on the other side of the garden closer to Churchill Green sitting on a bench smoking far from ear shot. Reigns looked nervous. He wringed his cold hands and blew into them to send some warm breath in hopes to melt the cold on his bones.
"I need your help with something that may shock you, but I've thought about this long and hard and there's really no other choice." Reigns said.
"Gregory, what is it? What is it you think I can do?" Asha asked. She folded the medical book she was reading and placed it on her lap. She turned so she was face to face to Gregory and looked him square in the eyes, his face was tired. He had been thinking of what he was going to tell Asha for weeks and he dreaded this moment.
But he had to do it.
"When Aurora goes into labor, I need your help." Gregory said before Asha interrupted.
"OH! If that's it, of course, I'd be happy to be there and help deliver Aurora's child." She smiled.
"And then I need you to take it."
Asha's smiled quickly vanished. "Take it? Take it where? Why?"
"Asha listen to me, the child she's carrying is something born from a horrible event in our lives. It's father is a monster. A true monster. When she gives birth, I don't want her to see it, I don't want her to know it lived. I want Aurora to think that the child suddenly died and by doing this she'll be free of the horrible memory of the baby's conception." Gregory explained in a quick suddenly spill of all his plans.
"You cannot be serious!" Asha replied in shock. "I can't lie to her, Gregory! I took an oath to not hurt a single patient in my care. If I'm there delivering Aurora's child and I lie and say the baby died and take it... what does that even mean? I wouldn't be caring for her, I'd be deceiving her and where would I even take the baby?"
"You have to do this for us. She can never know the truth, and I promise you I'll be in debt to you for the rest of your life, I'd even let go of the debt you owe me, in fact we can say that helping me do this will erase what I did for you." Gregory replied.
Asha lifted a brow. Her eyes went blank when she remembered: Reigns helped her put away Andrew Kim, the doctor Asha worked for in the past. The same doctor that used horrible medical procedures to distort and hurt her father, a maniac man, that was in his care at Windcliff Sanitarium on the mainland. She got Reigns to lie and say that Dr. Andrew was the one who shot Jacob Lord and Christion Evans. She was able to get revenge for her father by getting Reigns to lie for her. Reigns knew she lied, he knew that there had been much more to the story but in the end, Reigns needed the shooting case to end and pretend Asha's story was the truth.
Both got what they wanted, but even then Reigns had the upper hand. He could easily say that Asha was untruthful to him and falsified evidence and pull her into the maw that was this giant lie and he'd be off scot-free. But he chose to help her--- and now he was calling in the favor for himself.
"I don't know what--- "She paused when he grabbed her arm.
"You and I both know the truth about Andrew Kim. Let's not pretend. It's over, that part is over. But I can undo all of that and then your own future may be in jeopardy. Asha, I don't think you deserve that. You deserve the peace you have found and Kim was a grotesque man for what he did to your father and even to Christian, so he's getting what he deserved. But I can still use what I know against you too...but I wont. If you help me. I'll keep the past the past, if you help me with my future with Aurora." Reigns said quietly as a nurse passed them as she was on her way to the man across the garden to meet for a lunch.
"I can't be involved in things like this Gregory. You know how much I've already suffered and how much I have lost. I kept things from Nik not too long ago and I almost lost him! How can I do something else, to his own mother even, and think things will be fine. If Nik were to find out that I took his half sibling away and pretended it died, my god, he'd never trust me again. I'd lose him for sure." Asha explained.
"He'll never know, Asha. I swear it. He will never know and in fact he'll be relieved! Evie too! They don't want this kid in their lives as much as anyone. Knowing the baby is somewhere else, somewhere far away from Aurora, that will be better. I promise, he'll never ever know." Gregory said.
"You're asking me to do something -- This goes against everything I believe in." Asha replied.
"You've lied before. To me. To the law. To Nik. And for what? To protect. You were protecting your father's memory and even though he was a horrible man too, he didn't deserve what Andrew did to him. Now, we need your help. Aurora needs your help. The baby won't be loved. He is only a tragic symbol. Caspian raped Aurora, Asha. How do you think it will feel for her to look at that child every day?" Reigns said.
"We don't know any of that. It's not the baby's fault who it's father is." She said.
"But it will be our fault for how Aurora treats it. Cruely. Coldly. Unloved. You don't want that for the baby do you?" Gregory added.
"Gregory, listen to me, Aurora is a kind wonderful person. She's had two children who are loving and sweet and they're kind too. She would raise this baby just like she raised Evie and Nik, she would never be cruel to it. We have to give her a chance." Asha replied her breath puffing cold clouds into the air.
"Asha... I'm going to only ask you one more time and remind you that I can reopen the case against Andrew, I'll do it. I don't want to do it. But I will." Gregory said. "Please help me."
Asha looked at the hospital in front of her. A beautiful white building with brick walls and large white pillars. It looked like a palace, a place where people came to heal, to feel better to feel safe and cared for. Asha had worked so hard, with Nikolas, to become a doctor in the learn-on-the-job program after years of being a nurse. She wondered what would happen to her career if she agreed to Reigns' plan and got caught. She wondered what Nik would do if he ever found out, how he would leave her once and for all, how she'd not only lose her job, the love of her life and possibly her freedom. But Reigns was holding something very damning over her head. Either way, she would go to prison should be exposed and she had a better chance of working with Reigns than against him.
"I, I don't want her to ever know, do you understand me? If she ever finds out, you have to lie for me and say I had nothing to do with it, you have to say it was all you and that I had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with it." Asha demanded.
"So you'll help me?" Reigns asked.
Asha did not say a word. She only nodded yes.
"Thank you, thank you. I promise this will be our secret and when the child come, we'll deal with where it will go after that. To a better home. To a home where it can be safe and away from it's horrible past. This will be good for the baby too. Trust me, knowing where it came from, it's parentage would only hurt the child as it grew --- being with a family that never knew the circumstances it was born into and giving it a happy loving home, that's true kindness." Reigns said smiling.
Asha didn't smile back. She was adopted too. She was born of a man who was a monster, a killer. A man who ate his victims and had killed man. She was raised with the Hoffman family, a good strong family that gave her all the gifts in the world a child would need to succeed in life: Love, education, support. But she did not escape her dark past. She eventually discovered who her father was. A killer. A monster. A devious human. It haunted her every day after her discovery. She knew that wherever this child, Aurora and Caspian's child ended up that no happy good upbringing could keep the secret of where it came from.
The truth, the real ugly dark truth, always found it's way back to where it was born.
Asha and this child had that in common. She couldn't help feel like perhaps this same situation happened to Asha own birth mother who she never knew and that this was how the Hoffman's were able to adopt her.
Her own past suddenly playing out in front of her and she was now apart of the same conspiracy of secret adoption that her own birth had been shrouded in.
Reigns stood up from the cold bench in the garden on the Hospital grounds and told Asha he had to get back to the Constable's office. He had work to do, and he'd be in touch with her when the time came for Aurora to give birth.
Again Asha did not reply in words, only nodding in agreement. Reigns walked off back into the hospital and kept looking back at Aurora, his hands hidden in the pockets of his thick black wool jack. Asha counted him looking back at her 3 times before he finally re-entered the hospital.
She looked down at the book in her lap and saw 3 drops of water on the brown cover in a triangle form.
It was tears. Asha was crying and hadn't even noticed.
She was terrified. Heartbroken. And worried.
Yet another secret and tragedy pulling at her like an anchor to a ship.
****
 |
| Inside Evie’s nightmare |
As night came to Welshport and Goode Islands, the newly birthed winter frosted over everything the air touched. Ice formed on the edged the village rooftops. Smoke billowed from almost every chimney in town. Every street was a river of perfect white snow and people in their beds used practically every blanket they owned.
In her bed at Tirymor, Evie tossed and turned in her warm large bed. Her eyes tightly shut and her mind lost in a world that in normal circumstances was fantastical and imaginary and mostly pleasing. A dream world of whatever a person would design in their head as they slept.
But those dreams were gone, long gone for Evie Jordan-Lord.
She was having yet another nightmare. In this one, she was being chased through the Tirymor Forest. Lost in the dark woods that surrounded the mansion of the same name. She ran through the thick brush of the woods panicking as she searched in vain for the crying child that she heard.
It was Gabriel that was crying, all mothers knew the cry of their own child. But she could not find him. She could only hear them.
She tired and tired and pushed back bush and tree after bush and tree and all it did was lead her deeper into the dark woods of Tirymor Forest.
Then, as she continued to push on she saw someone standing in the shadows.
"Who's there? What do you want? Where's my child!?" She asked the figure, her voice echoing to the night.
"Find me." The person replied.
This person, this dark figure in the shadows in the forest stepped forward into a foggy bog into a beam of moon light. The face slowly formed into the face of Matthew Winterborn.
Evie gasped, seeing her late fiancé once again.
"MATTHEW!!!" she screamed as she rushed towards him.
But as she got closer, Matthew's body went backwards.
She'd step close and reach for him. His body would float back two more steps.
She reached finally and grabbed hold of his jacket but then he disappeared and the forest around her vanished and turned into the edge of a cliff on the Northshore of Welshport. Evie stood on the edge as the very tips of her bare feet seemed to flex and grab on to the very edge of the cliff as she watched the ground start to break apart under her and fall down into the crashing black waves below.
Evie screamed and turned to see Matthew again behind her.
His face turned smiled as he said to her again oddly "Save me."
Evie's body was then jolted by Matthew when he pushed her off the cliff. She screamed as her body fell downward towards the crashing waves below. Her cold body felt the wild wind on her skin cold from the mist of the sea below. Her body turned downward and the bottom of the cliff got closer and closer.
It all seemed so real.
She could hear Matthew’s voice laughing but in a way…it wasn’t him.
Suddenly Evie felt her body hit the rocks which jolted her awake in her bed horrifying her. She felt out of breath. Sweaty. Terrorized by this latest awful nightmare.
She wondered of in her dream why Matthew had pushed her. She clutched her heart that was pounding in her chest. She got up slowly and walked over to Gabriel's tiny basinet. He was fast asleep, he didn't hear a thing.
More evidence to Evie of the baby's deafness, she was sure he would have woken with her scream.
Far off in her room on Goode Island's single cabin the witch from Highgrove, Jacqueline Gray sat cross legged on the floor with her eyes closed and her hands clasped on her knees inside a large circle of glowing white candles.
She had pushed Evie off the cliff. She had caused that nightmare again to haunt Evie's mind as she slept. It was her laugh Evie heard not Matthew’s.
She wanted to push Evie to the brink of madness in hopes to get her out of the way and out of Sebastian's mind.
But Sebastian's heart was not as innocent and pure as Jacqueline thought. It was true that he loved Evie, but he had let her live her life with Matthew…what’s more she believed him dead after the fire at Lockwood Thicket that killed Alice Winterborn.
Sebastian had moved on too with Jacqueline, but he felt as if their connection was tainted. Who they were— what the they were —made Sebastian feel unnerved.
Then there was what Jacquelin said of his Cousin Mary’s betrayal; the horrible truth about the protection spell gone wrong turned his slowly warming heart to a block of ice. His mind was set fighting reality and feeling guilty of ever even asking Mary for help in the first place, now his son’s silent was on Sebastian’s conscience.
It hurt him most that Mary and Filipe, his only friends in the world, had lied to him and kept Sebastian from knowing the truth about the error in the protection spell on Gabriel all along.
But Jacqueline knew too. She had agreed to the same plan of keeping Sebastian out of the loop, a fact she purposefully neglected to tell Sebastian; Jacqueline lit the match that would blow up the relationship between Sebastian and everyone he loved to further alienate him and push him closer to her.
He looked down at his boots as he stood outside in the snow in the middle of the night and saw the carcasses of 4 rabbits and one dear with it's throat ripped open as it choked on it's own blood. Sebastian was so distraught over his son and everything that was being kept from him made him go into a state where he blacked out when he fed.
He didn't remember anything passed the second rabbit.
He looked at his hands and they were drenched in blood.
He looked at his pants, the same.
He glanced at himself in a frozen puddle and his entire face was stained with the blood of the animals he killed to feed on.
He fell to his knees and buried his blood red face into his blood-stained hands and cried. How could everyone he loved do lie to him? How could he have asked for help in protecting his child and then they do the opposite? To take his hearing from him and then lie about everything—such a cruel way for his child to start his life.
In truth, Mary, Filipe and Jacqueline felt horrible about Gabriel, and were afraid Sebastian would lose his mind should he know the truth, and they were right. His vampirism left him volatile and irrational. Sebastian’s inability to think things through before reacting was his true Achilles’ heel.
But Jacqueline took advantage of this volatility to her own gain and turn Sebastian against Mary and Filipe. She needed to keep herself in a better place and her lie, that she had nothing to do with any of the cover up.
This was a war where lies and secrets were the ammunition.
There would be a death count --- but the number of casualties would be the biggest shock of all.
