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| A ghostly apparition in tunnels below Tirymôr |
A slow murmur growled in the bowels of Tirymor house deep under the mansion in secret tunnels that acted as passageways and getaways for long dead family members. The sound Johnathon and Geneveive were hearing was the storm still raging above them outside.
As they shifted around in the tunnels with just the small glow of a lantern Celeste handed them before she locked there. For their own safety she said.
Johnathon believed in part that his sister Celeste was trying to help them from the dangers in the mansion but at the same time, he could see this as a clear way to scare him half to death and in hopes of pushing him out of the eye of the Lord family all together.
"She did this on purpose. She wants me out, she doesn't want me anywhere near her claim on this family's money even though it's my own birth right!!" Johnathon shouted, his voice echoing in tunnels as they walked blindly in the murky light.
Geneveive, who's mind was cohabitated by the spirit of her look-a-like Sabrina Lord, rolled her eyes.
"You don't know that, and you're going the wrong way." She said to his surprise.
"How do you know which way to go?" He asked.
Genevieve didn't know--- but Sabrina did.
"Call it woman's intuition." Genevieve replied.
Sabrina knew all the ins and outs of Tirymor House's secret passages and hidden doors. She knew the hide away walls and underground routes that lead to the inner gardens and the secret paths to the outside and the streets. There was even a passage, deep underground, that lead directly to the village and opened near a small house the Lord's owned. When Sabrina was alive and married to David Lord, Johnathon's missing half-brother, David taught her every single secret of the mansion.
It was now apart of Genevieve's DNA.
Genevieve grabbed the lantern from Johnathon's hand and lifted her dress so that the front of her hem stopped dipping in the random puddles below. She took charge and started down the long corridor underground that would lead them safely to the northern part of the Tirymor estate and to open air below the garden outside.
As the two continued to walk, the came to an open area below ground. There was a smell, a strange smell of sulfur and dust. Something felt off about underground room that was square shaped and had to flanking passages that looked like arms stretched out wide. One leading to the north side of the mansion and the other to the south.
"Which way?" Johnathon asked.
Genevieve knew to take the right "arm" to the north, but something held her in place in the center of the room.
"Gen?" Johnathon asked seeing her staring into the darkness of the center of the room. "Are you ok?"
"Look." Genevieve said as a small ball of light began to glow in the center of the room.
The two walked closer as the ball of light got bigger and brighter and soon began to take shape, the shape of a person.
Genevieve stepped back fearing it was something connecting to the chaos above them in the mansion. She grabbed Johnathon's arm to pull him back too but the light, the shape, intrigued him. He reached for the light; his hand fell into it like it was dipping into a bright liquid forming a person.
"My god!" he said astonished with what he was seeing. "What is this?"
In Genevieve's mind, Sabrina knew exactly what it was--- a spirt. A ghost. The real question was: Who's?
Then, as the light continued to form a person, a face was finally clear. Eyes. Nose. Lips. Ears.
Then clothes. A jacket. A white shirt. A bow tie.
Then hands. With a wedding ring. A signet ring. Pants formed. Shiny shoes. A cane with a silver orb on the end. Genevieve's eyes widened when Sabria recognized the cane. It was ALBERT LORD, Johnathon's biological father and Sabrina's long dead father-in-law.
Johnathon backed away from the glowing spirit. He gasped in shock at seeing the person form.
"Do you see this? Genevieve? Do you see this???" Johnathon exclaimed.
She did see it, but to her spirits and ghosts were no shocking matter, because one lived inside of her, the surprising part was that it was Albert.
"What do you want?" Geneieve said to the spirt.
Albert turned to Johnathon and smiled "Do you know my face?"
Johnathon turned to Genevieve "Is it talking to me?"
Geneveive gulped and did not answer him but spoke again to the spirt of Albert "What do you want??"
"Ive only come here to speak to my son. My dear sweet son. Cristina once showed you to me when you a baby, the week you were born. You were so beautiful." Albert said of Johnathon and Celeste's mother Cristina as his voice echoed in the empty room of the underground tunnels.
"Your son?" Johnathon repeated. "Albert Lord? You're Albert Lord?"
The ghost of Albert did not say anything only smiled and nodded his head.
"ALBERT!!" Geneveive shouted, Sabrina forcing her to speak loudly. "WHAT DO YOU WANT!" She asked him a third time.
Albert turned to Geneieve recognizing the shared face as Sabrina's. He smiled coyly and floated over to her. His glowing spirit circled her and saw that the woman in front of him was two people, the living Genevieve and the ghostly Sabrina.
"Such a clever and ironic twist to your story, isn't it? It's unfortunate we're all not as lucky as you to have someone with the same face to come back to. Good for you dear Sabrina." Albert told her. "I'm not here to hurt anyone. To take anything from anyone. To absorb myself into anyone. I'm only here, and the only thing I want, is to see my youngest son and to tell him he's making the right choice. Stay on as you are, boy. Stay here at this house. It is yours too. Long have you been deprived of your inheritance as my child and that in part is my fault. I hope you can forgive me and also forgive Cristina, your mother." The ghost said.
"Forgive my mother? Why?" Johnathon asked.
"For keeping the secret. She and I loved each other and together we created you. But our affair was something that should have been handled differently. I was married. She was married. Those types of affairs, done in the shadows, in secret, cause too much pain. Please do not hold it against her." Albert wished.
"I can't believe this is happening. Geneveive, am I dreaming??? The air down here, is it too thin? Am I hallucinating??"
Geneveive shook her head. "It's real Johnny. This is real."
"With all the financial gain that comes you way as being one of my children, Johnathon, also comes dangers. I hope you understand this. Please listen: There is more to being a Lord than just money and power and prestige. There is more than the fame and the lore of our family. Mistakes, horrible terrible disastrous mistakes were made that go back generations. My father and his father and his father before him. We each paid a price for the other. And now... my children pay the price for me. This will soon come on you as well. For that I too apologize." Albert explained.
"You should follow the light Albert. Leave these dark traps that you keep yourself and go." Genevieve said. "The curse of your name can be free once you leave into the light."
Albert turned to her; his ghostly eyes seemed to be filled with the night sky. Sparkling with stars and empty like outer space. He smiled at her understanding all she wanted was him to leave and to perhaps keep yet another secret, the secret he saw so clearly: Sabrina's ghost inside of Geneveive.
Albert again floated over to Geneveive and whispered "I see you Sabrina, I see you well deep in that body. You've chosen a perfect cell for the rest of your days, but remember, Genevieve is not immortal. Keep her safe. Keep her whole. And if you want to do that, to live a long life that was taken from you too soon, I say reconnect with the threads that were cut. Reconnect with the man you loved."
"What is he saying? GENEVEIVE! WHAT IS HAPPENING!?!?" Johnathon shouted, his mind beginning to feel like it was collapsing in the presence of the ghost of his dead father.
"Go to the light Albert." Sabrina, in Genevieve's voice whispered back, over and over again.
Albert smiled at her and floated back to Johnathon "Take your place son. This is your home too. Do not let anyone take it from you, not one more day more. Not Jacob. Not Rebecca -- no one." Albert said, then he turned back and said, "And not David."
David's name sparked Geneveive's curiosity. He had been missing since Sabrina's death. Everyone feared him dead, but the spirits of both Albert and Sabrina knew he was alive and in hiding.
"How do I do that? How do I take my place here?" Johnathon asked.
But Albert did not reply. He moved back to the center of the room and began to vanish into the darkness and his voice only repeated back to his son "Take your place. State your claim. Take your place. State your claim. Take your place. State your claim."
As Albert's spirit began to dissipate Johnathon cried. "WAIT! WAIT! Please tell me more! Albert! HELP me!"
"He's gone." Geneieve said.
"What did he tell you?" He asked.
Geneveive did not reply with the truth. "He wants me to help you. I will. But only until Morgan comes, just like I said."
"What does he mean for me to state my claim?" Johnaton wondered as Geneveive began to walk towards the Northern exit of tunnels.
She wasn't sure how to reply. She too had questions, she wondered what he meant by that and also about finding David. Could David still be alive? Was David somewhere near?
There would be time for all of those questions to be answered, but only when they could their way out of the tunnels.
Together, Geneveive and Johnaton continued in the darkness below the mansion and pushed on towards the northern exit where they'd find freedom and as they walked Johnathon's mind raced. He would do what his father wanted, and in doing so, he'd have to expose Celeste and that meant Jabob would soon know his beloved wife betrayed him by telling the family secret of there being yet another heir to the Lord fortune, something Jacob and Celeste wanted to be kept secret.
A rival to Jacob's claim on the money was the true danger Johnathon was about to deal with. Jacob had a way with eliminating his rivals, and sometimes that meant murder, Sabrina Spencer-Lord, Sebastian Lord and David Lord knew all too well the pitfalls of being in Jacob's way.
Now, Johnathon was about to put himself squarely in Jacob's crosshairs.
To his own, deadly, detriment.
****
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| Rebecca kidnaps the baby |
Rebecca's mind was completely devoured by Caspian’s influence and control. She was no longer thinking logically. She was no longer behaving like a sane person.
And she had Evie & Sebastian’s child.
She Scurried down the winding staircase of Tirymor holding the baby tightly to her chest. If anyone was going to keep their part of the deal, of sacrificing the new norm for the return of another gone before it had a chance to live…it was going to be Rebecca herself.
She wanted her reward for sacrificing Evie's child like Caspian promised. She wanted her baby Victoria-Vivan returned to her alive, breathing, in her arms just as Evie's baby was now and just as Caspian promised.
But that could only happen if Rebecca completed Caspian’s original devious plot…no matter if the original idea had changed. In Rebecca’s bewitched mind it didn't matter that Caspian no longer was interested in the new baby and that he had changed his plan to now involve Aurora. Rebecca’s mind control was too far gone; and in her arms her great-grandchild’s life in danger only minutes after it’s birth.
She rushed down into the foyer guided by the light of the flashing lightening outside.
She opened the front door, the storm swirling above her head and took the baby out in the muddy, cruel world it had just been born int.
"You'll seen see the peace of heaven. I wish I didn't have to but...but its all about Vivi. My love Vivi. My dear sweet child that was taken from me 28 years ago. Taken too soon!" Rebecca told the child as she quickly walked down the muddy path into the village.
The baby cooed as Rebecca tightened the swaddle of the baby's blanket.
"Oh, sweet thing, I know it's cold. But it won't last. I promise. You'll soon feel warmth forever more." she said to baby boy cryptically. Then he opened his eyes and looked at his great-grandmother. His eye color was still undefined, but his face was so close to Sebastian's when he was born. A single twinge of reality sprouted while Rebecca continued down the long muddy path from the mansion to the village.
Rebecca smiled at the resemblance. But then, she snapped out of it. Caspian's mind control had taken over her whole brain. She was lost to all reality no matter how many times it peaked into her brain trying to snap her back to who she really was: a rational woman who would never ever think of doing what she was doing.
Kidnap and murder? It was incredibly out of character for Rebecca.
But the devil had infected her. She was on a one woman rampage thirsty for a promise from the demon to bring back her baby if she gave the life of the newborn.
The whole idea of one baby for a baby-- an eye for an eye-- was a cold act of retroactive justice. This was how Rebecca saw it. The child born of Evie and Sebastian on this night would give way for the universe to return her child if she gave it back to the universe. One death for a rebirth.
Caspian promised her. She wanted, and demanded, he keep his word. She would keep her word no matter how vial the situation was.
And as the storm continued to swirl off and on pouring the strange warm rain over her head, She saw a speck of light in the distance passed the thick trees of Tirymor Forest.
The light, far off towards the horizon, swung back and forth in the sky. It was the beam of light from Welshport's Lighthouse.
The lighthouse was such a sore spot-on Rebecca's heart. It was the last known place her son David was seen alive. It was where he jumped to his supposed death into the crashing waves of the Atlantic below.
She looked down at the baby. She looked towards the far-off spinning beam of light and realized it would be there that she sacrificed Evie and Sebastian's child.
She would throw the baby from the lighthouse into the sea just like David when he jumped.
And then, once the deed was done, her demented and corrupted mind told her that her own sweet daughter Vivan-Victoria would return.
"Vivi." Rebecca whispered as she quickly made her way towards the lighthouse.
****
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| The Act of exorcism |
At Tirymor, Caspian's powers began to strengthen.
He was floating in the center of the bedroom. Stitches of electricity zig-zagged around his arms and legs and bare feet. The veins in his neck and hands were like black tree roots splintering all over his body.
His voice was deep and monotone; he laughed at the sight of Father Donavon Ryan attempting to exorcise him from Tirymor forever.
"BY THE POWER OF THE LORD, I SEND YOU BACK TO HELL!" Ryan shouted as the windows burst open again allowing the wild wind of the storm to flow in again.
"You have no power here priest! It's time you see your own future!" Caspian shouted over the wind.
Then, the monster lifted his arm up with his hand in a fist. He opened his hand and Father Ryan began to lift from the ground and in a sudden motion, Ryan's body flew across the room and his neck fell into Caspian's open hand that quickly closed choking the priest as they both floated in the middle of the air in the room as the small sparks of electricity zipped around them.
Jacob began to come to after falling to the floor.
He looked up and saw the frightening sight of Caspian choking Father Ryan. He tried to pull at Ryan's dangling feet, but Caspian slapped him away with another powerful burst of energy from his free hand and Jacob was again knocked out cold on the floor.
Father Ryan was pulling at Caspian's tightening large hand. He felt his eyes begin to close. The air was now thin, he couldn't get out of the tight grasp of the evil creature. Caspian could see the life fading from Donavon's eyes like the dimming of a candle just before the last bit of wick gets consumed by the liquified wax.
Caspian lowered his head so that his cold white face was at Donavon's ear and whispered evilly "Now close your eyes, priest and see where the end of life leads."
Donavon Ryan then passed out in Caspian's choking hold.
In the blackness of his mind, he began to see the flicking of flames. Fire burning all around him. An evil laugh could be heard echoing in the distance corners of his subconscious. Then there was another laugh that seemed to be getting closer and closer to where Donavon was standing.
The heat was immense. He was literally burning in the flames of some kind of sulfuric world where the ceiling was made of dark stone and the ground was molten lava.
Then, the flames formed a body, a man, the face became clear. It was the evil devilish creature sent to Welshport inside th host body that formed as Caspian Casador.
"You are not saved by any means just because of the book you hold so sacred to you heart. There is no God here for you Priest. None. You're here because of the secrets you hold and the lies you've told. You're here because of the lives you did not save and the lives that I was able to snuff out and absorb. You won't save them; you won't save yourself. I'll take it all for me. I'll take them for the prince of darkness, and we'll continue our reign of a world of the soulless. All because you failed your life. You did this. It was all you." Caspian explained.
As the heat and smoke of the flames continued to build in Donavon's face, he knew it was a lie. He knew none of this was his doing and the devil was tricking him to give in.
"I will never give in to you." Donavon Ryan said. "The sins I've committed make me human. They make me real. They make me a child of truth, someone who will never attempt to pass as anything other than flawed."
Flames grew hotter and higher. The heat singed Donavon's face as Caspian's frustrations grew with Donavon's resistance to him.
**
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| The new Sisters of Highgrove unite powers |
In the Inn across town where Mary, Sebastian, Filipe and Jacqueline were hiding the ticking of the clocks stopped. The rain too suddenly stopped around the hotel. But six feet away from the exterior walls the rain continued, it was as if some sort of invisible dome of energy covered the Inn protecting it from the rain.
The distant rain and eerie silence woke Jacqueline who felt uneasy about the strange silence. Mary caught her staring out of the window into the darkness.
"What is it?" Mary asked.
"Look. The rain." Jacqueline said pointing.
"How is it doing that?"
"We're being sent a message Mary. Whatever is happening at the mansion, it's not working. Something is wrong and whomever is attempting to destroy the creature is failing. Our guides have opened up a channel for us to intervene. We have to act." Jacqueline said.
"Act how? Are we ready? I don't know what to do." Mary said, the novice of her craft now obvious to the more experienced Jacqueline.
"We don't have time to ask questions. If you brought me here to help you, we need to do it now. Come." Jacqueline said grabbing Mary's hand.
Jacqueline took Mary outside to stand under the protected area that the rain did not touch. They held hands under that invisible shield protecting them from Caspian's storm and she told Mary to close her eyes as they held hands.
Filipe and Sebastian came out too. They watched intently.
Mary began to feel her hands heat up, but the heat was not from touching another person it was heat as if she had her hands over a fire. The heat began to almost burn her, there was a slight bit of pain; Jacqueline felt it too.
"He's strong." Jacqueline said in a whisper.
With her eyes still closed and the wind slowly moving everything around them but not disturbing their clothes or hair, Mary asked what they needed to do.
"Focus. Focus on the house and the creature. Focus your mind's eye on the monster, Mary, and let our foremothers tell us what to do." Jacqueline said.
And as the two witches held each other's hands and focused on the task of vanquishing Caspian once and for all their eyes suddenly snapped open in unison glowing white with swirls of electric powers inside them like whirlpools of energy.
Then, the two witches Mary and Jacqueline, felt the powers of their coven rise inside their bodies. The gifts of the Sisters of Highgrove entered their bodies by way of the protective shield. Then the two began to recite a spell in Latin, word for word together.
"Ignis egreditur. Nunc incendia linque.
Quae opus sunt tibi inveneris.
Ignis egreditur. Nunc incendia linque.
Tollat te mors de hoc mundo et mittat te ad inferos."
The witches continued to repeat this spell banishing the demon back to hell over and over and over again, louder and louder and louder over the sound of the falling storm.
"What's happening?" Sebastian asked as he noticed the winds suddenly turn the other direction.
"Did you feel that?" Filipe asked, feeling the wind shift too.
Floating in the room, he saw the curtains begin to fly out of the window instead of into the room showing the wind had turned, it was now pulling away from Tirymor, and it wasn't his doing.
He floated there as Donavon's life was slowing being taken and then, like two white sheets themselves the spirts of the witches came in cackling like evil hens. They were laughing in the face of Caspian. His angry became more and more dangerous. He dropped Father Donavon's body to the floor allowing the air to renter his lungs.
His gasping and chocking on the floor awoke Gregory who had been unconscious the whole time from being thrown across the bedroom earlier in the exorcism.
The two men crawled over to Jacob who was still unconscious, and they tried to revive him.
The spirts of Mary and Jacqueline, infused with all the power of the Sisters of Highgrove continued to say their Latin spell over and over laughing the whole time, infuriating Caspian who could not fight back because the powers the witches had were stronger than his.
He became frustrated. No amount of power from his large hands would stop the ghostly apparitions of Mary and Jacqueline's sorceress spirits worked against them.
"STOP!! STOP THIS!!" Caspian shouted.
The witches stopped saying the spell, then Jacqueline spoke: "You were created by one of our sisters, you were made by one of our sisters, you were a mistake by one of our sisters. And now, Casador, the demon, you are banished from here by one of our sisters."
"You are banished from here." Mary repeated.
"You are banished from here." Jacqueline repeated.
Then together as a solid coven "YOU. ARE. BANISHED. FROM. HERE!"
Then, Donavon, Jacob and Gregory both stood up, Donavon lifted his arm showing the large crucifix and repeated what the witches said "YOU ARE BANISHED FROM HERE!"
Caspian looked down at his stomach and it was as if the tunic he was wearing was burning. A hole began to form in a perfect circle of cinder and ash and fire. He began to feel his skin peel back, his eyes began to fade from black to yellow to normal. The black veins in his arms, legs and feet began to go back into the flesh of his body. His face began to reform back to a normal face. The heat of the fire burning away his clothes engulfed him, he came totally covered in fire burning him, taking him away completely ravaging the floating man like a moth who flew too close to a flame.
His screams shook the house and Charlotte and the baby, hiding in the turret room held each other tight.
Johnathon and Geneveive still searching the corridors below the mansion saw dust and danger come from the ceilings and fall on them after the shaking.
"Its collapsing!!!" Johnathon screamed as he pushed Genevieve to one side to shield her from falling debris.
Aurora awoke on the floor of Evie's room and had to hold herself to a table as the shaking continued and then noticed Rebecca and the baby gone.
Caspian's body fell back down onto the bed smoldering and smoking and nude as all the clothes had been burned away. His skin had burned off on his face and limbs. His hair singed. The bottom of his feet looked as if he had been walking on hot coals.
Back in the village the rain completely stopped.
The waves in the ocean calmed.
The night sky became clear, not a single cloud of rain could be seen.
Celeste burst into the room and Jacob rushed to hold her. "Is he... dead?" She asked.
Jacob didn't know, and only Father Ryan was brave enough to touch the smoldering body of Caspian.
"I don't sense it anymore." Ryan said.
"It?" Jacob asked.
"The entity." Donavon answered.
"My god." Celeste said, as she made the sign of the cross over her body.
"But is he dead???" Gregory asked.
Ryan looked up from smoking body that was Caspian's and turned towards Jacob, Celeste and Gregory but did not reply.
Then, the electricity at Tirymor came back on, buzzing away as if nothing had ever happened.
**
Back in the village, Filipe helped Mary and Jacqueline back into their shared room. The two witches were exhausted. They had used up so much of their bodily energy to have sent their spirits over to Tirymor and vanquish the monster Eliza Goode had underestimated.
Sebastian stood of the Inn leaning a pillar of the veranda smoking a cigarette, watching the night fade away and felt happy this part of nightmare was over.
As he watched several people in the village from the pubs that had closed up with patrons inside as the storm passed suddenly began rushing out and running towards their vehicles and driving off in the direction of the south end of the island.
Filipe emerged from the Inn to join in the celebratory cigarette with Sebastian.
"What's this about?" He asked Sebastian as he lit the cigarette.
"I don't know." Sebastian replied as he continued to watch the people running and driving off.
"Maybe they're going home? They've been trapped in these taverns all night while the storm swirled around." Filipe said lighting a match.
"But they're all going that way. Look." Sebatian added pointing to the road that went towards the east end of the island, away from the village.
The Inn manager soon exited the lobby in a rush too.
"Sir! SIR!" Filipe said stopping him. "What's happening here?"
"You didn't hear?" The Inn manager asked.
"Hear what?" Sebastian replied.
"Mrs. Rebecca Lord! She's lost her mind! A ship that was coming into port while the storm was brewing sent a mayday message over wireless saying they saw a person on the edge of the lighthouse. Just dangling there!"
"WHAT?" Sebastian shouted. "How do you know it's Rebecca Lord?"
"When they saw the person just out there in the middle of the storm the boat was close enough to see that the person was a lady, and she was carrying something. It was odd to the sailor at the helm, so he contacted the lighthouse wire to check on the person. Well the shit hit the fan then! Rebecca god-damned answered the wire herself! She said she was ready to go, ready to take a life. SHE HAS A BABY WITH HER! She wired back the ship, some strange words, some strange shit. We're all going out there to stop her, boys, she's gonna jump WITH THE BABY!"
It didn't take a single second for Sebastian to connect the dots. The baby must of been Evie's baby.
HIS baby!
Filipe and Sebastian's hearts both began to race. Could Sebastian's child have been born he wondered? Or was the baby Celeste's?
"IM GOING WITH YOU!" Sebastian shouted to the Inn manager who hurried him to get into the car.
It was clear to Filipe, who stayed behind at the hotel to watch over the resting Mary and Jacqueline, that whatever died at Tirymor that night, did not fully end the evil on the island.
The malevolence strengthened by Caspian's existence that poisoned and warped Rebecca's mind still spun it's evil force around Welshport; just like the spinning light of the lantern of the island’s Lighthouse where Rebecca stood on the iron gallery deck holding the new baby.
They stood there, wind in Rebecca’s long red and white hair, her expression vacant and hollow; the baby wailed in the cold wet air as the waves crashed on the razor sharp rocks below them.
A vision of Caspian’s malevolent mind control metastasizing in real time.
