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| Asha & Andrew at her home |
In nurse Asha Hoffman's home, where she had been holding the revived body of Christian Evans in a vat of liquid that kept him preserved despite the mortal wounds he received by the dark spirt of Eliza Goode the night she sent it to hunt down and kill Jacob Lord, Dr. Andrew Kim read over several charts and paperwork that explained the continued progress of the patient they both planned to continue using in a way to destroy Jacob.
Andrew found it remarkable that Asha, who was only a nurse, had done this. She had revived Christian, kept his tissues alive and functioning. Andrew looked at a sample of the liquid Christian's nude body was laying in, it fascinated him. The yellow color seemed to glow. It was gel-like, thick and kept the man's body protected and safe from any kind of decay that should happen if Asha's miraculous medical revival of him didn't work--- but it did. Andrew could clearly see he was alive and breathing through tubes that came from his nose and mouth from his exposed head from the liquid. Not only did she do something Andrew thought was medically impossible, she also had been continuing the secret cell infusion of Patient X -- Andrew's former patient at Windcliff Sanitarium, the insane monster who was a serial killer and cannibal.
"Remarkable, remarkable, remarkable." Kim remarked with this spectacles flashing in the white light of the lanterns around the body. "He seems to be responding quite well." He added to himself.
"How is he?" Asha asked entering the small side room in her home that was now a makeshift laboratory.
"You've done a very good job here, Nurse Hoffman. I am very impressed." Kim replied removing his perfectly round spectacles to get a better look Asha. "And you did this at quite the risk to you. As I've been looking Christian over, that hasn't escaped me, the fact that you've put your own job and life on the line to help me in what some might see as some sort of ridiculous revenge plot. Why would you do that?" He continued.
She walked over in her long dark dress with the white apron still stained with the various fluids from patients before. She tied it up in a tight not at the base of her back and washed her hands in the white porcelain basin in the corner of the room that was observed by the shadows of a half wall.
"It's simple really," She began still washing her hands. "there are things in my own life that I feel need to be rectified. I've come a long way, just as you've seen and I want to make it right. All of it. It needs to be made right." She said turning back to Dr. Kim now with her hands clean and a syringe in her hand.
"And that?" Kim asked about the syringe.
"For the patient." She said with a smile noticing he seemed nervous, perhaps thinking the needle was for him. "It's time for more cellular transfer."
"Ah. Yes."
The two went over to Christian who was still under the influence of a sleeping aide given to him by Asha that rendering him unconscious until they wanted him to wake. The timing of this needed to be perfect, they wanted the cells to this time acclimate in his body at a higher rate and continue to multiply while in their care so that when they were ready to release him as a weapon, as a loaded weapon of death on Jacob, he would not fail. Not this time.
Kim lifted Christian's muscular arm and saw the healing bruises and wounds from the fight. He noticed the two sealed holes where Eliza's bullets jutted into his body killing him... or so everyone though. The Doctor then took a second to think about what he was doing. It was weighing on him. Did he really want to do this again to this poor man? Did he really want to start this entire process all over creating this monster, flesh eating man using the DNA from a former patient of his that died in a disasterous and horrible death due to his madness and hunger for humans?
"Is there a problem Doctor?" Nurse Hoffman asked, her eyes zeroing in on Andrew's shaking hand.
He dropped Christin's arm into the vat allowing the liquid in it covering Christian's naked body to splash up and wet his white shirt.
"I'm unsure." He said, looking down at the needle.
"This is what you wanted. You said that this was the only way for you to finally get your revenge on Jacob for destroying your life with your husband Dr. Daphne's. This is what we can do, together. It will work. This time I promise. Think of Dr. Daphne think of the pain and suffering he went through knowing that Jacob threatened to expose your relationship that could have ended your careers." Asha Hoffman replied.
Andrew thought for a second. His mind flushing with the memories, good and bad, of his late husband Michael Daphne. A tear came to his eye as he looked over at Christian.
"How can you be so sure it'll work this time? And do we really want to put Christian through all this again?" Kim asked.
"The night of the shooting, this is what you wanted all along and we can start it all again. It was your idea to have Jacob killed wasn't it? Why not do yourself proud and keep it up." Asha said, as she began to think Kim was responsible for the shooting of Jacob and Christian.
"The shooting?" Kim said. "I don't know anything about that. I did not arm Christian with a gun." He added. “You know this.”
Asha wasn't so sure. It only made sense to her that he would not only use Christian to kill Jacob but then try to off Christian to silence him. Asha had already made up her mind on that front. The attempted murders were just one more added notch on Kim's resume to end all of the shame and secrecy Jacob brought down on him.
"This man, this once strong and healthy creature is here in this vat, should we really be doing this?" he asked, his conscious getting the best of him.
Asha put down the charts she had been recording on and walked over to Andrew standing on his side of the vat containing Christian. She looked down at Christian's handsome face and wondered the same thing but didn't utter a word of it to Kim. She couldn't, if she did, then her own plans would be ruined and she could not let that happen.
Her heart wanted her to stop but her mind, the plot she weaved like a spider carefully crafting its web to trap the flutter of a fly, told her to carry on.
"This is what you designed. All of this. I've preserved your records and carefully repaired the cellular bridge between Patient X and Christian Evans like you had planned several months ago before the shooting" She said.
"STOP TALKING ABOUT THE SHOOTING! I had nothing to do with it, I did not send Christian to kill Jacob with a gun that night and I certainly wasn’t there to then shoot them both." Kim replied, again to Asha's disbelief.
"Dr. Kim, we... " she paused "I mean YOU...may have failed the first time but your brilliant mind will not do the same now. This time, this will work. Christian's cells are quickly acclimating to their new host and in time, it'll all play out the way it should have the first time. But we have the mistakes of the first time to use as our guide. Christian will be just as hungry to savagely destroy the body of Jacob Lord, but he'll do it in a way where his mind will be used too." Asha explained.
"His mind?" Kim asked.
"We neglected to continue the process so that he didn't lose his cognitive perceptions. Like we all have. We created a person that only wanted to destroy. Kill. Not methodically plot out his next steps. This time, I've made sure he'll succeed. He will retains the mind of any human man, but one that is deranged and hungry for the flesh of another. It's perfected." Asha answered sinisterly.
Kim thought about Nurse Hoffman's words. They were clear. They were true. And he was intrigued.
"You've been testing this theory out? That he will have more of a mind to control himself and act in a way that will get the job done instead of just runamok and lose his target?" Andrew questioned.
Asha lifted a brow and smirked seeing he was interested again.
"Yes." She replied.
"Very well. Let's continue." Kim turned back to Christian and lifted his arm out of the vat allowing the liquid he was suspending in to run off his smooth skin back into the yellowy liquid bath. He rolled Christian's arm over and found the prefect vein and injected the sleeping Christian with more of the cells of the man, the monster, the dead former patient of Kim's who ate human flesh in an insane rampage of murder that swept New York City 20 years earlier.
Asha watched as Kim gleefully started to feel good about himself again. He started to feel happy that finally he'd get revenge for himself and his husband who had died so long ago, and so tragically. Their love was used against them by Jacob. Used as a weapon to demean them, to embarrass them and to plunge them into scandal just to get back at the two male doctors for what Jacob believed was mal-treatment of his father Albert when he was in their care at Windcliff so many years ago.
Now, Kim thought, Jacob would get what was coming to him.
Asha recorded the patient's reactions onto the charts and she too thought of her motive for this act. She too thought of why she so desperately needed Christian's procedure to work and how badly she needed for all of her hard work behind the scenes to come to fruition. She thought of her passed and how it had been shattered into a million pieces by someone she was so close to, someone who had done something heinous to her and her family. They took her father away from her. Without her father in her life, she and her family crumbled. They became destitute. Alone. Abandoned. Pushed aside by society. This event scarred her for life.
Asha was a woman on a mission to finally get some relief from the disaster that was her entire childhood and Christian's revival was the first step in getting this. Now, Asha thought, she too would finally get her revenge--- and it felt so good.
Asha looked over at Christian, she did feel some remorse using his body in such a way. These scientific experiments were taking their toll on weakening body, but she knew, in her mind, that his suffering would not last long and that there was no other way for the fly to be trapped in her web of lies.
Asha Hoffman was the spider, and Dr. Andrew Kim was her fly she needed to trap.
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| Charlotte discovers Mary in her real body |
The door to a small, violet painted room in Tirymor creaked open. The dim flickering light from gas lanterns in the hallway flowed into the room in a rectangular form that grew larger and larger as the door opened revealing Charlotte Lord.
She had come to her mother Mary's room to visit her. She was the only person the knew Mary was hiding in the body of Georgina Kent. They had grown closer in the months that Mary had been disguised magically as the maid. It was so wonderful, for both of them, to rekindle their close relationship after 8 years of being apart--thanks of course to Jacob's cruelty.
Charlotte looked over towards the bed shadowed by the darkness of the room expecting to see her mother there. She wanted to cuddle with her mom and sleep for a few hours before creeping back to her room before the sun came up and she was discovered missing. It was just one more element to their secret relationship the rest of the household never noticed.
But her mother wasn't there.
Charlotte closed the door, the room became completely dark with the exception of the moon the sent in a glow of cold blue light bright enough for Charlotte to rush over to the bedside and light a candle.
"Mama?" She whispered, sure her mother was in the room. "Where are you?"
As Charlotte came around the bed towards the window where a large mirror on a wooden stand was, she saw her mother, he real mother --body face and all-- laying passed out on the floor covered in sweat.
"MAMA!" Charlotte screamed rushing to her mother's side. "What's happened? How do yo look like this again?"
Mary opened her eyes. She was cold, her heart feeling slow and beating at a strange pace. She lifted her hand to touch her daughter's face from the floor and smiled sweetly. For a second she had forgotten what had happened to her but then, she turned and saw a glimpse of herself in the oval mirror that had been turned slightly downward towards the ground.
"My god." Mary said in a weak voice. "Charlotte, I can't be seen like this. I have to get up. Please help me up. Help me up." Mary begged.
"What happened? Do you know?" Young Charlotte asked, struggling to help her mother up with her little 10 year old arms
Mary wasn't sure. She had no idea what had happened, but the idea that something had gone wrong with her mother's spell was the obvious answer. But what?
Mary, on Charlotte's arm, wobbled over to the bed where she sat down to catch her breath. She was incredibly week. The force of powers that held over her to make her into Georgina had sucked so much energy out of her when she changed back. And in that moment of repose, it dawned on Mary what had happened. Eliza must of left Goode Island breaking the spell.
"Mother." Mary whispered in worry. "Charlotte, I have to get out of here. No one can see me like this. They still have it out for me for what happened at Evie and Sebastian's wedding. Can you help me? Can you help me to the study so that I can escape through the passage there?" Mary asked knowing where all the secret doorways were in the mansion.
Charlotte nodded yes and put her mother's arm over her shoulder.
"Thank you my girl." Mary said, squeezing her daughter tight to her body as they slowly made it to the bedroom door.
As the two slowly tried to make Mary's escape, her body began to feel heavy. There was too much energy taken from her when the transformation had occurred. She couldn't even use her own powers to try and re-energize herself. There was nothing she could do, her whole body started to feel faint again and suddenly, coming close to the stairs, Mary fainted.
"MAMA!" Charlotte shouted then covered her mouth as her voice echoed into the souring ceilings of Tirymor.
As Charlotte feared, someone heard her cry. Another bedroom door down the hall opened. A light from inside that room became covered by the shadow of the person standing at the door listening for what or who had said Charlotte's words at the foot of the stairs. When no one said another word, and Charlotte attempted to drag her mother back to her room, the person made their presence known. It was Celeste, fully pregnant and fully shocked to seeing Mary on the floor.
"What the devil is going on here?" Celeste said to Charlotte who was terrified. "What is Mary doing here and why is she dressed like this?" Celeste added noting Mary was in Georgina's night gown.
"Celeste, please help me." Mary said in a whispering, weak voice.
"Please." Charlotte said softly, her tears now streaming down her face.
"My god!" Celeste said and she reached down and helped Mary up. The two, Celeste and Charlotte, helped the in and out of consciousness Mary down the long hallway back towards the her bedroom, but Celeste did not stop there to Charlotte's surprise. She knew that whatever was going on, was more than anyone in the house would understand and she was sure Mary did not want to be discovered.
Charlotte then noticed where they were going if not back to Mary's room.
The Turret.
Now further down the hall, near a side staircase that lead up to the turret room, Charlette dragged the mother of her soon-to-be stepdaughter Charlotte, up the staircase and pushed the door open and with Charlotte and Mary's feet, they both dragged the resurfacing Mary into the dark turret room.
It was a dark place. There were a few bits of furniture left over from when Jacob locked Charlotte there. Celeste lit a candle and found a gas lantern and lit that as well. The room had stone walls, ancient and cold. She fluffed up a pillow and dusted off a small bed then help Mary up and lay her in the bed.
Charlotte felt a cold tingle go up her spine being back in that room.
"I don't like it here." She said in a low voice.
"She'll be safe here." Celeste answered. "Now will you tell me why she's dressed like this and how she's even here? We were told she died. Is this yet another miraculous return from the dead orchestrated by your grandmother?"
"She never died. Grandmother Eliza made it so she could live with Georgina's body and Georgina could live in mama's. This was the only way we could be safely together." Charlotte answered.
"How long have you known about this?" Celeste asked.
"A long time." Charlotte answered.
"It was the only way." Mary said from the bed. "Celeste, please don't tell anyone. Don't say a word. I promise you I'm not here to hurt anyone. I just wanted to be close to my child again." Mary said.
"But why deceive us?" Celeste asked.
"I was a wanted woman for Sebastian's murder. I had no other way to hide. My mother used her powers to help me and it worked. But now, something has happened and the transformation spell has warn off. I think she may be in trouble. The only way this would happen is if she were gone from her island. She can't go, she can't be off that island!!" Mary shouted, her voice started to grow stronger as her strength slowly came back.
"Keep calm, keep calm. you must of gone through something major for your body to be this weak. You have to stay calm. I'll bring you some water and food. You might be here for a while before we can figure out how to sneak you away." Celeste said.
"There is true danger among us, I can feel it and I fear for my sister Eliza." Charlotte's voice said but oddly calling Eliza her sister.
Celeste and Mary turned to Charlotte, who's eyes had glazed over. Sabrina was speaking once again through the young girl.
"Aunt Sabrina?" Mary asked.
"Your mother, she is in deep deep danger. I can feel it, Mary. Death is near. We need to help her." Sabrina's words said through the young girl.
Sabrina was not wrong. Constable Reigns had brought the witch Eliza he had sought for so long, for so many years, from Boston to Welshport in his own home where she was now sitting tied to a chair. She had had a strange episode of passing out and convulsing. He came over to the passed out woman and lit a match. Then burned the tips of her fingers to wake her.
She flipped open her eyes with the pain and screamed,
In the turret room, Mary felt the burning on her hands and screamed too starling Celeste and Charlotte.
Reigns then grabbed a book, the bible and viscously slapped Eliza across the face with it.
Mary felt the blow to the face too and her body was thrown from one side of the bed to the other.
"What's happened????" Celeste said, terrifying as she watched Mary struggle.
Reigns then tightened the restraints around the witch her thought he lost decades ago in Boston, Mary felt those same tight restraints. Reigns then looked deep into Eliza's weak eyes and smiled.
"I finally have you witch, and this time you won't escape me." He said sizzling with sinister thoughts.
Then he lifted up a book and opened it at the center revealing a drawing of a witch being burned at the stake. "You'll meet your dark maker soon enough, and we'll all be free of your wickedness."
Charlotte went over to her mother to comfort the woman who was breathing heavy and in pain. She tried to help her but then back in the Village Reigns slapped Eliza again with the book in his hand and the jolt forced Mary to swing her arm over and hit Charlotte so hard that she flew backwards on to the stone floor of the Turret.,
The blow was so hard it literally knocked the spirit of Sabrina out of the girls body shocking everyone.
Mary and Celeste looked on as the ghost of Sabrina was glowing in blue light above the young girl who was coming to after the fall.
Then, Sabrina smiled at the woman and vanished into the walls of the house, free from her world inside the 10 year old Charlotte Lord.
Mary looked at Charlotte who seemed to be confused. They all were. Mary looked down at her hands that had marks of restraints that were not there, and burns on her fingers tips from fire she never touched.
"We have to find my mother. They're killing her." She said softly to Celeste and Charlotte who had no idea what to do next.
****
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| Sabrina’s ghost haunts Jacob in his room |
In his bed, swaddled in his luxurious sheets, Jacob Lord slept. His body still felt the pains of the wounds that were healing from the shooting he survived.
As he slept, a bright light began to glow from under the door. It was bright and powerful and began to flow in from under the water as if it were water flowing in from some unknown leak.
The flowing light went across the bedroom floor, growing in size as it entered from under the door and finally coming to a perfect round bright circle at the foot of Jacob's bed. Then, as soon as the bright glowing fluid like light pooled in the circle it began to take the shape of a woman.
The shape swirled and molded within glowing liquid form finally revealing the face and body of the spirit of Sabrina Spencer-Lord, Jacob's late sister-in-law and the woman he strangled on the beach so many years ago.
She floated there, at the foot of his bed, watching him sleep peacefully and felt disgusted by the innocence of his face in sleep. How could someone so vicious, a murder, a thief, a conniver and a monster look so innocent when he wasn't.
As she floated there, she moved over to the sleeping man and stood over him. She breathed in the air he exhaled as he slept. She could smell his skin, sweet and clean. She wanted him to die too. She hated him so much and the hate inside of her had not been this strong in all the time she possessed Charlotte. But now, on her own, free from the girl's body all of the feelings and emotions held back for so long came to the surface of her ghostly body.
She reached down towards Jacob's neck, her hands becoming solid with life. She continued to go towards his neck and when she reached it she slowly began to squeeze around his throat cutting off his air flow.
When he gasped for air, she squeezed even tighter.
Jacob coughed and rolled over, his jolt of motion breaking Sabrina's grip, she floated back as he reached for his aching neck and looked over to the glowing light that was his past murder victim.
"Get out of here." He said coldly and unafraid of the ghost he new haunted his child Charlotte. "You've done enough to my girl to scar her for life, you would not come kill her father and scar her even further?"
"You don't deserve to live this life. You take from others and live, continuing to torture everyone around you. YOU are the one who has scarred Charlotte, not I." Sabrina's echoing voice said from her glowing body.
"Sabrina, leave this place. Leave now. There is nothing for you here. I have changed. I truly have." Jacob said lying. "You can leave here and free yourself from all of the darkness that follows you."
Sabrina laughed a cackle that went straight into Jacob's brain piercing with sound like broken glass and nails on a chalkboard.
"You're more insane that I thought, if you think I'd believe you've changed. I know you too well, Jacob Lord, I know you too well. The day my son rips your throat out will be the day I sing in heaven from the highest cloud. I will be free then!" Sabrina said darkly.
"Sebastian? Killing me? Is that some sort of phantom premonition you're giving me?" Jacob wondered as he got up from his luxurious bed and stood to face the ghost from his literal past.
"Call it a prayer." The ghost echoed.
"That may be your prayer, I have mine too. And they're coming true. My life is changing Sabrina, and there's nothing you from beyond the grave can do about it. I'm having another child, my world is expanding and soon I'll most likely have a wife. It's all over for you, just go... let me be happy with Celeste, Charlotte and our new baby and move on from this place." Jacob said.
"Celeste, leave her be." Sabrina warned.
"Why? Why should I? I love her." Jacob answered sincerely.
"LOVE!?!?" Sabrina balked. "What do you know about love? Did you love you brother when you attempted to frame him for my death? Did you love my son when you tried to have him killed? And what of your mother? Did you love her when you used Gaspar to trick her with years and years of lies and cons or when you accused her falsely of shooting you? Did you love Mary when you took her child from her? Or Charlotte! Did you love her when you locked her in the turret when you discovered me? IS THAT LOVE YOU BASTARD!? IS THAT LOVE!?!? Sabrina asked, her voice and body growing and growing in volume and size with each of Jacob's transgressions listed to finally she was standing 8 feet tall in the room, a tower of glowing ghostly light.
Jacob's eyes grew larger with fear as the giant Sabrina moved slower and closer floating towards him. A wild frightening wind enveloped her, but Jacob could not feel it, but it was there through Sabrina's ghostly clothes and hair.
Sabrina's face suddenly changed. Her anger and rage at Jacob for all he did was centered in her body like a fire that started to grow and grow. She then swooped down and swung her arm at him, Jacob jumped out of the way, his body aching from the wounds he was still healing from.
"YOU KNOW NOTHING OF LOVE!!" Sabrina screamed as she lunged again.
"STOP! SABRINA! STOP!!" Jacob shouted. "Think of what you are doing, think Sabrina! If you hurt me, if you push yourself over the edge. What will that do to Charlotte, what will that do to her? She cannot lose me Sabrina, not now. Not at this age. Think of Sabastian and what he went through when you died and David left."
"Sebastian went through all that pain because of you!!" The ghost roared.
"But is that how you want Charlotte and my new child to live to? Do you want to be responsible for that as you are still in limbo?? You must think of what will happen to you when if you destroy me." Jacob warned.
Sabrina's body began to shrink. Her rage began to cool. She knew the truth, should could not take his life, not his not this way. She had yet to transgress into the other world and if she did do something cruel and evil, perhaps she'd fall to the dark world of flames not the one of light and good. For her own salvation of the afterlife she could not take a life, even Jacob's miserable one.
Sabrina, now at normal stature, sneered at her enemy Jacob. She floated off into the center of the room and turned back to him.
Then, without a word to him she fell back into liquid form and flowed back under the door leaving Jacob in his room breathing heavily thanking his lucky stars he got through to Sabrina in the nick of time. He looked down at his pajama bottoms and realized then, he had wet himself in fear.
For the first time, he felt real true and unbridled fear.
****
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| Alice & Nik in the Tirymôr Gardens |
The following day, the fog lifted over the island to reveal and brilliant day of sun and high clouds that rolled across a sky so blue it almost looked like a perfect reflection of the sea.
Inside the grounds of Tirymôr, in the lush over grown and beautiful gardens and mazes of ivy bushes walked Nik Jordan and his new favorite person on the island, his love Alice Winterborn.
Alice had come to visit Nik as their relationship had now grown closer over the long trials and tribulations over Sebastian, but now that Sebastian was dead, they could focus on themselves and perhaps figure out a way for Alice and Matthew to seek reparations for all of their people who had been wronged centuries ago when their land was stolen and taken from them and their lives vanquished into history.
As the two walked along together over the sweetly landscaped paths of the large gardens and passed the relatively newly built gazebo, Alice stopped.
She turned to the gazebo and stared at it intently.
“What is it?” Nik asked switching from his topic of conversation.
“This… place. Something feels strange here.” Alice said sensing the dead body of Gaspar DuBois that Jacob buried under the gazebo after discovering his mutilated body left by Sebastian.
“Are you ok? You’re looking sickly, should we sit? Come, the gazebo has come benches.” Nik offered reaching for her hand.
“No! No. Not there.” She gasped. “The gazebo is … that is the feeling I’m getting.” She added.
But before the two could investigate more, Evie and Matthew came around the corner from inside the mansion.
“Hello you two!” Evie said smirking lovingly at her brother with the young lady he chose to start a relationship with.
“Evie! It’s so good to see you!” Alice said quickly moving from the gazebo to her friend from Windcliff.
“Matthew just popped up to bring you home but I said you both should stay for dinner. I think it would be nice for all of us to share some time together after everything we’ve been through.” Evie said gushing in her bright yellow and white dress.
Nik looked at Alice who seemed happy about the idea but at the same time there were still some very important issues he needed to talk about especially with Evie’s knowledge of the history of the island and family she was so quickly acclimating to.
“I think we would have a lot to talk about.” Nik mentioned. “I really want to tell you what I found in Albert Lord’s office and in his journal. I think you need to know all of it.” Nik said to his sister.
Evie looked at Alice and then Matthew and the two of them seemed to already know what Nik was talking about.
“Why do I feel like I’m out of the loop here? Do all three of you know more than you’ve already told me?” Evie’s asked shading her eyes from the sun as she spoke.
“There are a lot of intersections between my people and the Lord family. Not just the Lords, other families too, but Alice and I in particular— well—we go very far back with Albert.” Matthew interjected.
“You knew him?” Evie asked.
“In a way, yes.” Alice answered.
“Evie, Sebastian may be gone but the danger all around us seems to still be floating around us just as those clouds linger in the sky. This island is a caldron of spirits and painful memories of stolen land and murder. Evie the entire island is cursed! From the high reaching trees in the forests to the rocks they give this island its shape. Alice tell her!” Nik said.
“Our people were devastated for centuries by the first settlers and later the descendants of those people. They killed many, others left. Others came back. They were killed too. Our people who were native here left a curse on all who dwell here for all time. There is no breaking the curse.” Matthew finally explained.
Alice agreed and added “The curse is forever.”
“And what am I to do with this information? I’ve made my life here. I’m apart of this family now no matter how horrible the past. I can’t change it. I can’t make it better alone.” Evie said.
“But you can leave.” Alice said.
“We’ll wait for mother to arrive, Evie, and once she does we’ll all leave.” Nik said noting Evie and Nik’s mother Aurora was still on route by ship from England after her husband’s death there.
Evie bit her lip not knowing what to say.
“You would be safe. I would make sure or that.” Matthew added.
“We could leave, we could let the curse play out the way it will play out, but we will be gone and safe from it.” Nik said, his voice tightening with worry.
Evie looked at Alice, then to Matthew, then to her brother Nik. They truly wanted her to make a decision on leaving the cursed island and her cursed family. As much as she was frightened by the reality that her whole new life on Welshport was now in limbo due to the curse of the Dænian people—Alice and Matthew’s people.
As much as she considered the option of leaving she knew it was impossible for one reason only: the 4 month old child growing in her womb: a child directly connected to the island they wanted her to flee.
“I can’t.” She said in a whisper. “I just can’t.”
“Why?” Alice asked.
Evie looked at Matthew, he knew why.
“I’m with child Niky. I’m having Sebastian’s child. I can’t leave. This child is apart of this place and no matter how far I go they will fallow they will find us and I don’t know what they’d do if they feel as though I am taking part of Sebastian from them. This is this baby’s home too. I’m willing to fight the curse——and sun.”
Matthew grabbed her hand and squeezed as Nik and Alice remained shocked at the news. But they were there for her. They would be her rock. They would be her guiding light.
Nik kissed his sister on the cheek and hugged her tightly.
“I love you.” He said softly to his sister.
The sun continued to shine over the sky as Alice gave Evie a weak hug, almost disapprovingly of her news but still supportive. Nik and Alice went back inside and Evie and Matthew followed but before they went in, Matthew held onto Evie’s arm so that he could have a word with privately.
“I know how important it is for you to stay here and have this child be apart of his birth-right, but what this baby will be apart of is stolen and truly worn belong to them. But I understand and I’ll be here for you, like I said I will protect you. I truly care for you.” Matthew said.
Evie looked at Matthew who stood over by at least half a foot taller. Her eyes sparkled at his handsome face, his beautiful brown eyes and his kind gaze. She felt safe with him, she felt his sincerity. She believed him.
She smiled and wrapped her lace gloves hand around his arm and said thank you.
“I’m so lucky to have you as a friend, you and your sister.” Evie said.
The two locked eyes again and shyly decided to walk back into the mansion.
For now, Evie felt safe, and in truth, for now on this sunny day, she was. But as Alice Winterborn’ premonitions warned, the danger was not over. Not for Alice, not for The Lords and certainly not for Evie Jordan-Lord.
Not by a long shot.
****
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| Filipe & Celeste on the terrace at Tirymôr |
As the night progressed a lovelorn Filipe, roamed the Tirymôr Forest while the fog floated only inches over the cold wet grassy ground.
He walked and walked, tears welling in his eyes while a cold boozy drink he snuck from The Siren’s Call Pub in the village. He drank and cried and drank and cried wishing for his love Celeste to return to him.
His heart felt like it had shattered into a million pieces.
How could she have done this to him? How could she have gone to bed with Jacob Lord and now carry his child? How could the love of his life do this to them?!
Filipe kept walking for miles it felt roaming the forest alone. He could feel the cold air from the near by rocky shore fill his lungs. He drank. He cried. He drank some more. He begged god to bring back Celeste. Then he cursed for for taking her away from him.
While Filipe walked he neglected to notice the shadows in the bushes watching his every step. Eyes of red glowing beneath the brush. One pair, then another, and then another.
Soon there were 6 pairs of glowing red eyes hunting the drink Filipe as he called for Celeste in the cold night air. His voice echoing deep into the trees.
Soon the howling of Filipe mixed with the howling of the creatures the hunted his flesh.
Filipe turned and saw the six wolves growling wishing for just a taste of Filipe’s warm body.
Filipe dropped the beer from The Siren’s Call and ran, the wolves ran too and snarled and bit at his ankle as he dashed along the leaf and branch covered ground of Tirymôr Forest. He ran and ran and screamed for help, but there was no way for him to find it.
The wolves kept up; jumping, leaping for this meal. Filipe kept up a fast pace, he rushed down a grassy path that lead to an opening trail in the forest and he dashed up the trail and ran up it as fast as his feet could take him leaving a giant plume of dust in the air as he went.
But the wolves were faster.
They encircled him.
Two in front, two to the sides and two behind.
Then they moved in, closer and closer and closer salivating and foaming at the mouth just for a quick taste and bite of Filipe’s warm body. Then just before they could pounce on him, from above a person fell to the earth from tops of trees.
It was Alice Winterborn.
Since her return to the island where her people once lived, Alice’s intuitions and powers had grown stronger and stronger. She felt a connection to the land like no one before her. When the wind blew she could feel it before it touched her skin, when the first autumn leaves fell she could hear them touch the ground, when a storm was coming she could sense it from the moment the tempest turned towards Welshport, and when wolves went on hunt she watched over them to be sure no more demons like Sebastian followed suit.
Filipe, on the floor with dirt and grass all over his body looked up at the woman who came from the sky. She lifter herself from a hunched over position and raised her arms.
He saw feathers. Feathers that suddenly vanished into her sleeves.
“What the devil?” He whispered to himself.
Alice turned to him, her eyes glowing bright blue. She then turned to the wolves and lifted her arms up.
She opened her mouth and howled a deep monstrous howl that sent the wolves scattering in all directions.
“Alice?” Filipe asked recognizing the young mystical woman from of the Dænain people.
“Get out of here.” Alice snarled as she slowly walked over to Filipe and helped him up.
“How did you do that?” He asked, shaken to his core, trembling from fright.
He felt as if all the air had been taken from his lungs. He stood there, slightly less drunk than before, dirty and exhausted from the run through the forest and felt frozen in Alice’s mysterious gaze.
“I SAID GO! Go on!!!” Alice screamed again as the wolves howled in frustration from deep in the shadows of the woods still hungry.
Filipe nodded and ran off, seeing Alice was not in the mood to answer questions.
The wolves howled again into the night disappointed in their lack of dinner while in a small living room in the village, under the light of candles Alice sat in a transfixed state, her eyes glazed over and white with no iris in the center. She had not left her home; only sending out her spirit, like Eliza did when she shot Jacob & Christian, to fight off the wolves.
Alice knew this was no ordinary pack of wolves searching for an easy supper, these were Sebastian’s wolves, the pack that ran by the light of the moon and once did the vampire’s bidding. These were wolves still mysteriously powdered by Sebastian’s supernatural aura that perhaps to them still haunted the forest he once roamed in the night for a bite and fresh blood.
She wondered, just how much of Sebastian’s aura was there, and if, perhaps, there was still power in it to return him again.
Now lost in the forest, Filipe ran and ran so far away from Alice that he was lead into a heavily wooded area that he did not recognize at first. Then, in the distance a faint light glowing.
He made his way through the fog and thick brush pushing way on the grounds of Tirymôr House that was built in the center of a giant patch of Pine and Birch trees. He looked around in somewhat confusion thanks to the beer flowing through his veins.
At the same time Filipe began to realize where he was, Celeste walked onto a lavish terrace with Rebecca’s pet dog BeeBee out for one last stroll before bedtime.
The dog on it’s leash sniffer around the limestone terrace and sensed Filipe in the shadows beyond the steps and barked.
Celeste looked out over the stone banister and tightened the thick flannel shawl around her shoulders protecting her from the cold autumn air.
“What is it BeeBee?” She whispered to the furry white Bichon.
Then, after one more bark from BeeBee, Filipe revealed himself.
“Celeste.” Filipe said, disheveled and a mess from the bottom of the steps.
Filipe was sweaty and cold. He walked up the first few steps of the terrace and felt like it was fate that he and Celeste, the woman he loved most was there waiting— for him it seemed.
“My god, Filipe??! What are you doing here at this time of night? Are you ill? You look a mess!” She said reaching down to pick up BeeBee.
“I… was walking in the forest and… I found you.” He answered giving off a strange vibe to Celeste.
“You were walking in the forest this late?” She asked.
“I’m glad I ran into you. Celeste, please, please come home. I don’t know what to do without you. We can deal with the child when it’s born. I can raise it myself or … whatever you want. But please can you come home?” Filipe asked stepping up the steps closer to Celeste and BeeBee who began to growl smelling the wolf stench all over Filipe.
Celeste looked down from the top of the terrace at Filipe. She could see his heart was just as broken as hers but the deed was done. Jacob has already discovered the baby was his and she was prepared to be his wife so the child could live in a proper home with both it’s parents no matter how cold a life she would lead being Jacob’s wife.
It was the right thing to do, she thought, even if it meant having to leave the man she loved more than life itself.
“Filipe, I can’t.” She answered sadly.
“But why?? Why can’t you come back to me?”
“It’s over, I .. it’s over…” she said before he interrupted.
“BUT WHY??” He begged.
“Because I’m marrying Jacob, Filipe! I have to!” She cried back as BeeBee whimpered in her arms.
Filipe’s heart, whatever was left of it, sank into his stomach and died even more. The words from Celeste’s lips were like arrows of fire piecing his skin and burning it to the touch.
He stepped backwards down the steps, slipping and almost falling down as he began to sober up, but the pain, the pain of her words made the headache of his sobriety come quicker.
He turned from her, walked a few more steps now on the grass and turned back to her to see her beautiful face one last time.
There was no way he could win her back now.
On this night, Filipe’s heart of good and kindness died.
Celeste watched him fade back into the darkness and disappear.
She cuddled BeeBee who licked her face, then returned her to Rebecca inside just as broken hearted and devastated as ever.
Jacob watched from an open glowing window the whole time and smiled from ear to ear pleased with his new future wife and her choice.
