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| Father Donavon seeks a different kind of spiritual guidance |
The bells of St. Catherine's Church tolled the hour in a late morning sun, blazing a sonic trail for the seagulls over Welshport Village to follow and circle over the white church and it's towering steeple.
A fresh sea breeze swept the cobble stone streets of the village as Father Donavon Ryan made his way through town. His stomach was in knots. He hadn't slept well in 4 months. His mind still consumed with the frightening sights that night--the night he expelled the demon inside the body of Caspian Casador.
Donavon could still feel the heat of hell that burst through the man's body once the evil predator left the host body in the bed, burned, singed and literally smoking as if he had been cooked alive.
And indeed, the person left in that bed in Tirymor was alive--and hopefully free of the malevolent monster that once controlled his body, mind and soul.
On this morning, as the clock ticked away passed the 11 o'clock hour, Donavon was not in the mind space for religious consolation as he often was in times like these when the memories of Caspian's exorcism battered his already fragile mind. No, this morning, before lunch, Donavon sought out a different kind of consolation; one that a man of the cloth wasn't supposed to believe in much less partake in.
Walking passed townspeople who smiled and dipped their heads at Donavon, their parish priest, he finally came to his destination causing whispers and raised eyebrows from those who saw the door he stood at: The home of local fortune teller Madame Fatima.
The wooden door of her home, withered by decades of harsh ocean air swung open.
There she stood, a woman of 70 with hair gray and thick and wildly pulled back to show her powerful boney face. Her eyes were a deep brown that could see through the soul of any man, even the holiest man in Welshport.
"I was expecting you a few weeks ago, Padre." She said with her steely eyes. "What took you?"
He said nothing, just gulped.
"Entre, Entre." She said, standing aside from her door speaking her native Portuguese. "So, why does the good lord of our land send you here hmm?" She asked as she brought him into her small dark sitting room.
"I came because I find myself seeking more than just answers from the heavens. Sometimes there are other powers all around that when properly tapped can help us in our time of need." Donavon said shyly.
"But, Father Ryan I have no powers." Fatima said coyly.
He looked at her with eyes that pleaded her not to make him beg out loud. He knew what she was but she wanted to make it clear, not just for him, but for the spirt world that was listening.
"I know that the world sees me as some sort of sorceress. But, for the record Father Ryan, I am no witch. I can only see things that come to me by ways I do not understand. You know this, do you not?" She asked as she stood up from her chair, her long black dress shuffled across her wooden floor.
"I do." He answered. "The things that I saw, I never believed were real. Well, no, I did believe they were real. Evil is Real Dona Fatima, but I never thought I'd see it the way I did." Ryan said as Fatima returned to her chair across from him with a large wooden box, she pulled from her bookshelf.
"I know what you saw. I sensed it. I felt it in my bones. It must of have been horrible to witness in person." She said.
He nodded.
"You know when I was a nun, they chastised me. Called me a heretic. They said I could never be one of them because of the falsities I spoke. But I was telling the truth, I always have. Never have any of my visions been lies. I don't know why God chose me to see things this way, but he did. It is not a magic power. I know nothing of potions or spells. I just see things." She said as if to add a disclaimer to what she was about to do.
Her past was indeed of once living as a Nun at a convent in Lisbon, decades ago. She was exiled for her strange visions and what her mother superior saw as disruptive behavior. When her expulsion brought her to America to be with family, she was shunned. Forced to live a life of solitude for the shame she brought on them. But she was the real thing: Not a witch, but a woman with great and intense strength of mind that could see things no one else could see or sense.
At least that is what she told people. The truth, was much more salacious and part the mythology that surrounded her aura around the village.
Fatima lifted the lid of the box that was like a hard cubic sleeve that housed the most beautiful crystal ball. It sparkled in what little light entered the room. Donavon's eyes became as round as the orb in front of Madam Fatima who raised her bony hands around the ball.
"I have this." Donavon said, pulling a singed shirt from his satchel.
It was the tattered night shirt Caspian was wearing the night of his exorcism. It was as if it had been pulled from a house fire, singed and cacked with soot.
"Meu deus." Fatima said in Portuguese as she felt the scorched cloth. Her face scowled the idea of the man who lived among them all filled with the spirit of evil was unsettling to her. She had seemed Caspian in the village, often surrounded by some of the ladies that lived with him at Tirymor, but never did she ever get any inclination of the evil that lived in him.
Fatima placed the burned night-shirt in front of the orb. She closed her eyes and asked Donavon to do the same and asked him to meditate on what he wanted to know from the spirit world.
His mind focused on the words: "Is the devil gone for good?"
In silence, they prayed together for something to come to her, his heart pounded. Her eyes shifted back and forth furiously under her eye lids like two boulders twitching behind a white sheet.
Then, the orb lifted, it levitated above it's base into the air. It began to turn slowly as a glowing pink light immitted from it's hard glass exterior.
Fatima opened her eyes "Here." She said. Donavon then opened his to see the pink glowing orb floating above the table.
"The light of the glass is the color of roses. A pink perfect rose. Soft and sweet smelling. This is the sign of new life in this world, a sign that things are to rebalance in the face of what was hardship and pain. But it is not to last, as the winter's from kills the pink rose of spring, so will time." Fatima said.
"Tell me more." Donavon said riveted to the woman, her hands now lifted in the air as if they were holding an invisible string attached to the levitating glowing crystal ball that suddenly began to shift in tone, from pink to an icy blue.
"Blue, in this shade, is the color of war. On two fronts it says. There will be more than suffering here, there will be passion and yet pain. Happiness and yet sadness. Gains of life, yet loss of it too. The spirit world asks that we prepare for a battle of for souls but not in the way we did before." Fatima spoke.
"Is it the devil? Will he return in a new form?" Donavon feared.
The crystal ball began to descend from its perch in the air above the table. The tone of blue went silent, and the glass returned to its milky white shade. Fatima took her seat again and inhaled a large breath.
She felt the strain on her mind from the powerful pull of energy but dabbed a black handkerchief to her temple and licked her dried lips so that they'd regain their rosy texture.
"I do not see that creature, no where. Not here on this island. You did your job that night. But I feel the warning was clearer than that, Father." Fatima said.
"A war? But what war?" He asked.
She shrugged. "I have no way to tell you that. Like I said, I am not a witch. I don't have all the answers. What I am given are warnings and we must continue to be vigilant and prepare for whatever comes. I've done that all my life. And I've survived."
"But how can I prepare for something I ---pray. I Will pray. As you should." He told her.
"I do pray, father. Every day of every week of every month. Perhaps we're praying to the wrong god." She said flippantly.
"No." Father Ryan said, standing up from the ancient sofa inside Fatima's home. "We are praying to the right one, but perhaps you're correct. We need to prepare for things we cannot see just yet." He added.
"Mystery is the way of the world: to not know/is to always be ready -- for anything. I know that better than most." She replied almost reclined on her old chair in front of the crystal ball.
"I'll be in touch, I'm sure we'll have many things to speak on in the future." Father Ryan said before turning towards the door. "Dona Fatima, you know you are and always have been welcome in God's house. I hope that you come back to church sometime."
"I get enough stares from the people on the streets, I don't need them while I pray. I'm fine here." She said with a smirk. "Tem cuidado senhor padre." She added in Portuguese warning him to be careful.
He understood her as he spent much of his youth at a seminary in Lisbon.
Father Ryan then smiled, reached for the burned shirt and replaced it in the bottom of his satchel and quickly left hoping whatever wars were to come anew had not started yet.
She worried, of course, of what her own prophecy meant. She wouldn't know all at once, that was not how her visions worked. They came to her like chapters in a book. Page after page of intrigue and message becoming unlocked in her mind. Her worry carried over day after day after day, especially for those she loved because as her body ached with age, so did her fear for them.
They were in the thick of all of this danger and mystery.
Now alone, Fatima replaced the oak box that housed her crystal ball back on the bookshelf. Just under it, on another shelf was a rectangular wooden box that had etching of birds and flowers on it's lid in the same wood. She brought it back to her table and when she opened it, dozens of old letters popped out as the box was overflowing with them.
Messages from another time she lived through a type of war.
Fatima smiled as she sorted through the old letters to her when she was a young nun. The letters were all addressed to the name she was given when she took her vows Sister Ines Biata and were from her brother Camilo.
As she shifted through the happier ones, then came the sadder ones and angry ones. All corresponding to when the church became angry with her for a scandal that would shock her family. Sister Ines Biata soon became a pariah in her cloister and her brother in America, Camilo, was given notice.
Fatima read through her old letters, but that last one from her brother, the very last one she got just before she returned home to America showed his angry with her for what she had done, still embarrassed by, what she thought, were here silly delusions. But in the that final letter, that even now made Fatima tear up, he begged her to watch over his only son now that he, Camilo, was dying.
Camilo's own wife Helena had died years before leaving him a widower and his son without a mother.
Fatima returned to Welshport an ex-nun and the shame of her family.
Her brother was dead and her nephew was working away from home for a family on the island.
The final letter from Camilo to Fatima read
"...despite our family's humiliation from what you have done in your cloister I still beg of you when you return to this town to watch over your nephew Filipe. He works for a family I do not trust for reasons I shall not get into. From a far, Fatima, protect Filipe in all ways you can. Let that be your penance for our embarrassment of you.
Kindly remembered, your dying brother Camilo Braga."
There, in that small house in Welshport Fatima did so. She watched over her nephew as best she could. She...the former nun called Sister Ines Biata who had made her family so ashamed by her secret scandal was the estranged aunt of Filipe Braga. Now that something was on the horizon, she felt she needed to face her nephew Filipe again
Face him and find out where these supposed wars would take place.
She walked over and touched a photo that was framed in silver. The photo was of her Filipe at the age of six with this late parents Camilo and Helena. Fatima's eyes tears up when she remembered the scandal that tore her away from her small loving family.
She thought of the pain, the secrets her heart held....the secret of her affair as a nun with a priest.
Fatima was forced by the church to denounce her vows, revert back to her birth name and come back to Welshport excommunicated from the church and estranged from her family. The story of her visions being the reason for her ousting came on a whim to cover for the story of the affair.
So much pain in her history. So much estrangement. And for what?
She was sad that all these years were not only lost with the brother Camilo, but also lost with the beloved nephew Filipe she so desperately wanted to reconnect with now more than ever.
For his part, Filipe was raised to never ever speak to her again.
****
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| A wild wolf in The Village |
Meanwhile, as St. Catherine's bells echoed above the Tirymor forest Jacob Lord was settling himself in the back seat of his valeted black car. He sorted through various forms and paperwork as the family driver Aaron Hamstead prepared to drive him to the Lord Publishing office in the village.
"Ready sir?" Aaron asked.
"Just a moment." Jacob replied making sure he wasn't leaving behind any paperwork. "Alright, all set."
As the two drove down the circular pebbled drive of Tirymor House, Jacob continued to rifle through his files in the back seat. Aaron's narrow green eyes peeked out from under his white eye brows that matched his equally as frosty hair at his boss through the review mirror noticing how the leather seats matches the leather of Jacob's briefcase.
"Seems like a big day at the office, sir. Its been a while since I've seen you take so much work down there." Aaron said still watching Jacob in the mirror.
"Well it's not all work, my good man, so much more today than that." Jacob said.
"More?" Aaron asked, confused.
"A new windfall has just emerged, and I have to be ready for what's to come. And I am ready." Jacob said.
Aaron smiled, still unsure of what Jacob was talking about, but he knew it wasn't his job to know the dirty details of everything Lord family related. In truth Aaron preferred it that way, the cloudier the better.
It was in fact a very big day for Jacob, and his growing family. The papers in his briefcase, the ones Jacob had been so carefully looking over and making sure were in order were documents that would change his position not only at Lord Publishing but in his own family's line of succession.
This time in his life was the moment he had been waiting for.
His brother David had been presumed dead now for almost 15 years.
His nephew Sebastian was presumed dead too.
His sister Vivian-Victoria died as a child.
And how his mother Rebecca was locked away at the mental ward of the hospital, completely incapacitated and unable to be the sole controller of the family business. Jacob had paperwork from lawyers and judges that had ruled in favor of Jacob taking over the family business and billions of dollars in fortune with a few minor provisions allowing the now 3 month old Gabriel, child of Evie and Sebastian, a monthly allowance en lieu of a stake in the company as Sebastian would have had, and Jacob's newly discovered half brother Johnathon too would get what he wanted: a place at the company and in the family’s inner circle.
Of course Jacob being Jacob, Johnathon's role was incredible constricted by the legal paperwork Jacob was so feverishly ready to file.
The company, the bulk of the billions in the family fortune was all Jacob's to play with.
It was everything he had ever wanted. He was like a kid in a candy store, and he couldn't wait to get this forms to his company, confirmed by a notary public and filed.
His bank account. His place in line as basically one of the richest men in all the nation was finally reality.
While driving down through the small road that lead from the mansion to town, Jacob watched as the trees passed one by one. Ancient beastly trees that soared high above the moving car sprinkling a leafy shadow pattern down on the reflection of his backseat window.
He saw, in his peripheral vision, a gray slash of color sweeping through the brush. It was quick, flashing and darting in and out of the bushes below almost chasing the car as they drove.
"What the devil?" Jacob said under his breath.
Then, in the most violent of ways, Aaron stepped on the car's breaks lunging Jacob forward toward the front seat.
"JESUS MAN!" Jacob shouted as to Aaron who's eyes were locked on something dead center in front of the car.
For his part, Aaron held his hands tightly around the steering wheel. His eyes never blinked.
Jacob composed himself and lifted his head over the seat to see what Aaron was staring at. There, breathing heavily with its four legs like solid stone pillars & its mouth agape with foaming anger was a wolf. The gray flash Jacob had seen chasing the car.
It growled. It snarled. It sniffed and slowly walked closer to the car.
"Shit." Aaron said. "Its massive."
"Aren't those things only supposed to come out at night?" Jacob asked in a panic.
"Not if they're hungry." Aaron said cryptically in a voice that almost sounded hypnotized and with his eyes not moving from the creature that stared coldly at them.
"Well, go on man, Go around it." Jacob ordered. "Damn it, Hamstead, go on! Go around it!"
Aaron nodded and began to slowly turn the wheels to maneuver around the wild beast.
But the animal had other plans and leapt into the air and landed on the car's hood.
The two men screamed, unsure of what to do. They began to turn the knobs of their open windows closing them quickly, the wolf, withs wet hungry teeth, snarled and stared deeply into the eyes of Jacob Lord with its own dark yellow yes.
As he walked over the hood of the black car, the wolf's claws scratched the black paint. It lifted it's head and howled a howl so frightening both Aaron and Jacob's blood turned cold.
It took one more look at Jacob and then leapt off the hood and back into the thick lush forest leaving Jacob and Aaron in the car sweating and pale.
"Go. GO!" Jacob shouted. "Get us out of here before it comes back."
Aaron snapped out of his trance like state "Of course! Yes sir!"
Jacob sat back in his leather seat. His heart finally started to get back to a regular beat.
"God damn." He said under his breath, as he dabbed a single dribble of sweat that rolled down his left temple.
The wolf was a warning from the world all around him that was not seen by the naked eye. A warning for Jacob to see himself as he was before he did the things he was planning.
But Jacob, again being Jacob, shook off the encounter with the large wolf and went back to his papers.
As the car drove off into the village, the wold stepped back out onto the road and watched as the Jacob and Aaron’s car got smaller and smaller. The world growled low then tilted its head up towards the overcast sky and howled into the winter wind.
Another warning.
****
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| Evie & Gabriel rest in her bedroom |
That same winter wind blew over the trees and into the open window of Evie Jordan-Lord’s cozy bedroom and lifted the sheer drapes like ghosts floating in the light. She lay on her bed, breathing in the cool air as her baby Gabriel napped in a crib next to her; both shivering from the frosty air filtering in.
Evie adapted to motherhood so easily and quickly -- it almost looked as if she had done this before in another life or had other children that prepared her for Gabriel. The way she'd dote on him, help him, teach him, feed him, snuggled with him--it was all so darling and sweet that everyone at Tirymor was in awe of how she managed.
Even Celeste, who had raised her own siblings and of course now her own 19 month-old Fabian, noticed how quick Evie took to motherhood. She was proud of her best friend, proud and happy for her in the sincerest form of the words.
The two new mothers were always comparing notes, sharing ideas and holding each other up when times with the babies got tough, which were few and far between as both Fabien and Gabriel were good babies-- and perhaps that is what made it easy for the first-time moms.
As she napped, Evie's mind drifted. She could see herself in the dream as if she were looking at a refection or standing outside of her own body looking at herself. She walked down a grassy path that lead to a large floating hedge maze under a blazing white sky with no sun or clouds, just bright with light above her head.
The maze of hedges, she recognized soon as the one on the Tirymor grounds, twisted and turned as she followed it. She didn't know what she was looking for yet she could sense her own determination to find it. Her dream-self was almost obsessed with finding whatever it was at the end of the floating hedge maze.
In her dream, Evie kept going through the maze. As she continued and the paths became more and more tangled up and confused, she began to feel lost. Where there was an opening to a new path, suddenly became closed off as a large hedge pushed across and locked her in. Then, another opened up like a gate made of leaves and branches pointing her to a new path.
Evie hesitated to go through but there was no other opening or way out.
She followed the strange moving hedge and led her down a long straight path enclosed by walls of hedge on both sides of her that grew taller and taller above her into the white light above her head then twisting and turning 12 feet above her head and creating a dome, a roof, of the same hedge where she was now covered.
Now shaded by these giant hedge walls and ceilings she walked and walked.
It was as if she were in a cathedral made of the hedge leading her down the nave into the antechamber of the same material that opened up showing an alter where a man was standing with his back turned to her.
"Hello?" Evie said to the man standing under the giant hedge maze dome. "Hello?" she said again slowly walking closer to the man.
Under the hedge dome, the pattern of the leaves and branches fall on both Evie and the mysterious man like a textile of dresses she once had. She slowly walked up to the man who did not turn back to greet her.
"Who are you?" She asked bluntly with clear suspicion.
Then she reached him and grabbed his shoulder and turned him around to face her.
It was Matthew.
Evie gasped. Matthew smiled at her. He dipped his head greeting the woman he once loved.
As Evie's shock turned to delight to see the man she loved once more after his death, she took a breath and went to hug him but then his body became decayed and dead. His face withered like a grape into a raisin. Her bones became visible. His beauty. his warm tan skin, his deep brown eyes, his pink perfect lips all began to turn into a shriveled-up corpse before her eyes.
Evie screamed in her dream and in real life.
She sat up in bed sweating and frightened from her own voice that broke her nap. Matthew's face was so vivid and so twisted in death. But at the same time, she wondered why she saw him so lively. He was there, perfect just as she remembered. Just as he was before he was lost at sea.
Then Evie realized she had screamed --waking her; putting aside her disturbing dream for now, she feared her scream also woke Gabriel, she rushed over to the baby. She peeked into his bassinette, and he was fast asleep.
Evie tilted her head confused, if her loud scream woke her, surly it would have woken him too.
"Gaby. Gaby." She whispered. "Gaby." She said again louder. "Gaby!!" She said once again, this time louder than the others.
But Gabriel did not hear her.
Evie, clearly worried, carefully woke her child. He wined that his mother woke him from a wonderful nap. She snapped her fingers in his right ear. The baby did not react. She then did it to his left ear. No reaction there either.
The new mother's stomach knotted. She kissed her baby's forehead and quickly rushed down the hallway from her bedroom, swished around a corner and down another hallway to her brother's Nikolas' room. His door was open and he was sitting in a chair lacing up his boots.
"Nikky, something's wrong with Gabriel." She said in a panic.
"What is it? What's wrong?" The young doctor asked.
"We were napping, and I ... well, I had a bit of a fright while I slept and woke myself up. I made noise as I did, and I thought that maybe I would have woken him, especially since I woke myself. But he slept through it. I called to him and he didn't stir. He just slept. Soundly. He didn't hear me Nikky. He didn't hear anything." Evie explained.
"Ok, ok, don't worry. Let me see him." Nikolas said grabbing hold of the adorable chubby Gabriel. Nikolas did the same snap/ear test Evie did. Then walked over to a side table where his medical bag was open. With one arm hold the baby, he reached in and grabbed an instrument that would help him examine the baby's inner ear better. He placed the baby in his mother's arms and cheked.
He couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing that would indicate a problem with the child's hearing.
"What is it?" Evie asked.
"There's nothing wrong that can detect by sight, Evie, has he shown this kind of inability to hear before?." Nik replied.
“Well I noticed he didn’t really react to me when I spoke to him but I didn’t think about it —not like this.”
"Let’s take him to the hospital and let Dr. Ward check him out. If Gabriel has any issues, especially something I don't see, Dr. Ward will find and we'll treat him right away. Don't worry." Nik said squeezing his sister's shoulder to comfort her.
Evie smiled nervously hoping her brother was right but deep in her heart she knew -- this would not be the good day she hoped for.
These were the remnants of a spell gone wrong. The curse Jacqueline accidently created on the poor child. But no one new that yet -- and Jacqueline and Mary hoped no one ever would.
****
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| Mary, Jaqueline & Filipe at the Goode family cabin |
As Evie worried about baby Gabriel and his seemingly difficulty hearing, Mary, Filipe and Jacqueline discussed the same issue over on the smaller Goode Island just off the southern corner of Welshport Island.
Mary was still distraught over what had happened only 4 months earlier when she accidentally interrupted Jacqueline in Gabriel's nursery while she performed a spell of protection over him-- this interruption in the Latin words of the spell rendered the child deaf as the spell's was spoken incompletely.
Mary sat in the small cabin's living room, 5 months pregnant with her own child, and searched her late mother Eliza’s spell book for some kind of reversal of the spell as Jacqueline entered.
"I don't think you'll find anything in there to help." Jacqueline said, speaking as the more experienced witch.
"For months I've been trying to find something to help, but page after page seems to only have spells or responses that would probably make things worse." Mary replied.
"The craft is fickle, to say the least. Spells aren't created so that they can be easily undone. Our words become like the gospels. They become engrained in the universe forever. They aren't just fragile things that can be ripped apart by another spell so that then that spell can then be also undone. What would be the point of anything we do if someone could just come around and unravel it." Jacqueline further explained just as Filipe entered.
"I'm to blame for this, I have to find a way to fix it." Mary added.
"You didn't know." Filipe said sitting next to her and bringing her into his strong arms squeezing her tightly.
"We have to tell him sometime." Mary said of Sebastian who still didn't know his request to protect his child was botched by his cousin Mary by mistake. "We can't just keep him out of the loop."
Jacqueline gulped "I don't think we should." She said.
Mary perked up from Filipe's arms "You don't? But you were the one who thought we should before. I thought I was finally agreeing with you."
"I think we both have switched positions." Jacqueline added. "If we tell him, there's no telling how he would react. Sebastian is in a fragile state of mind being the way he is. You said so yourself. His affliction— leaves his mind fragile."
Mary was confused. When the baby was made deaf, Jacqueline thought they should tell Sebastian and Mary thought they shouldn't and all of a sudden when Mary realized Jacqueline was right, the new witch suddenly switched sides leaving Mary feeling sidelined.
"I don't understand, I really don't. I've been mulling over how awful this is to keep it from him and I thought you were right and now you're not feeling the same way? What changed?" Mary wondered just as Filipe interjected.
"We could end it all you know." He said.
The two witches, hearing this both turned their heads to him shocked at his suggestion.
Filipe continued "Why keep him suffering in the state he's in? That room we made for him back there, where he sleeps. All we need to do is walk in there and pull down the wood that blocks out the sun and let the light in. Nature will do the rest. Sunlight is the ultimate way we can save Sebastian from ever knowing what happened to Gabriel. We can then work from there. Once he's gone of course."
"Filipe!" Mary exclaimed. "How could you say such a thing? He's my family. He's one of your best friends!"
"He was." Filipe replied. "Now I don't think I know who he is."
"He's still the same person." Mary replied as Jacqueline stood there unsure of what to say. "Sebastian has no fault in what happened to him. My mother thought she was helping him, and I don't fully know if she realized just how bad it would be. Not to mention he has your blood running through his veins Filipe, she made him using your blood." Mary reminded.
"Is that supposed to change my mind when I think about the various ways he's attacked me, and how he's volatile and how he could kill any of us while we sleep if he decided to? He killed Alice Winterborn and who knows who he's killed that we don't know of. There's no way he's been living only off of wild animals he's caught out in the woods. In fact, when's the last time you saw a rabbit? A deer? Anything! The animals on Goode Island know him---the fear hear. They've left the island somehow. By death or escape. They're gone. Sebastian is a disease." Filipe said confrontationally.
"No." Jacqueline said -- her voice cold and calm. "Evie would be heartbroken if she knew what we did to him. She's happy now, we can't distort that happiness."
Mary again, perked up at Jacqueline's words. "Evie? Evie doesn't know Sebatian is alive, and how would you know about Evie's happiness?"
Jacqueline paused before answering realizing she hadn't told them she had made contact with Evie in the village a while back and had become friendly with her, in fact throughout the months on her visits to town, Jacqueline and Evie had met on several occasions as friends. They spoke of art. They spoke of England. They spoke of all things friends their age loved.
"You haven't met her have you?" Filipe wondered expecting the answer to be No.
"I have met her. Many times."
"JACQUELINE!" Mary shouted. "You are not to make contact with her. After what we've done to her child and ... and... my god! WHY? We can't cause anymore damage to Evie's life as we already have."
"I wouldn't hurt her, I've grown fond of her and, well, I did it for Sebatian. Who better to keep an eye out on Evie than me." Jacqueline replied.
"You did it for Sebastian?" Mary replied unconvinced. "There isn't much you wouldn't do for him, is there?"
"Sebatian and I are friends. We are very good friends. And he cares for Evie still, as a friend too and of course the mother of his child and since he can't be in her life the way he'd like I met her and have befriended her." Jacqueline explained with a flimsy excuse to her breaking their pact of being involved in Evie's life after doing such harm to Gabriel.
"Oh god." Filipe said under his breath seeing right through Jacqueline's words.
"Jacqueline, we all agreed that we had all done enough to damage to Sebastian and Evie and Gabriel. We agreed we'd only go to Welshport for supplies and that we'd remain scarce to everyone there and Evie's name was certainly high on the list of who not to be in contact with. This has nothing to do with Sebatian and your friendship with him. Although maybe it does have something to do with him." Mary replied trying to piece together her coven sister's motives.
"It's not what you are thinking." Jacqueline replied reading Mary's thoughts.
"Yes. Yes, being close to Evie does have to do with Sebastian, but only because you're in love with him and you want to be sure he and she stay away from each other. It's better for you if they are apart." Mary replied.
"This is why we should fill his room with light!" Filipe replied in frustration.
"NO!" Jacqueline shouted at him. "I wouldn't let you."
"That's enough Filipe." Mary replied to her partner as she cupped her growing baby bump with her hands. "Jacqueline, you are playing with fire here. I'm just going to say this now, and you can decide for yourself, but I hope you make the right decision: Sebatian and Evie are connected for life. Nothing will change that. Not me, not Filipe --- and not you. Don't do anything that will put yourself in danger especially with Sebastian. My advice, if you truly have feelings for my cousin is leave Evie alone and focus on helping me fix what we did to Gabriel before he finds out."
"I told you there's nothing we can do." Jacqueline replied.
"There has to be, we have to find a way." Mary said.
"I agree, partly." Filipe said standing up next to Mary and touching her belly that was pregnant with his child. "As much as I don't want Sebatian around, his child is innocent in all of this. He didn't ask to be born of a father like him. Jacqueline, we should try to find some way to help the poor kid."
Jacqueline took a deep breath. She knew that it would be almost impossible to reverse the spell she placed on the baby taking away his hearing without doing other damage. She worried too that doing so would somehow end up bring Sebatian and Evie back together because she knew that the secret would not stay secret for long. Their child, their baby is the connection Mary spoke of and if the two of them were reunited somehow with the baby as a common thread, where would that leave Jacqueline.
Could Jacqueline allow it...should she allow it?
"I'll do what I can." Jacqueline said, then she turned and went back into her own bedroom towards the back of the 3-bedroom cabin.
Mary turned to Filipe with concern all over her face.
"I don't know." Mary whispered.
Filipe pulled her into a hug again and whispered back "We have to watch that one."
Their suspicions were growing on Jacqueline Gray. Could she be trusted after all?
And down the hall, sleeping in the darkest room in a canopy bed shrouded in thick back curtains the would block out even the faintest glimmer of sun light should any peek through the boarded up windows was Sebastian Lord
He slept there in the daytime peacefully, oblivious to the infighting outside his locked door about the curse gone wrong on his child Gabriel. The sleeping vampire begged his cousin Mary for a spell of protection on Gabriel, and what occurred was the opposite; his reaction to the truth sent shivers down everyone's spin. They would never survive his deadly bite should he discover the truth.
****
 |
| Churchill Green Asylum |
On the campus of Welshport Hope Hospital, an old 25 room building was refurbished top to bottom and created into the island's own Mental Ward that was named Churchill Green. Patients here, the few admitted, were kept apart from the main hospital in their convalescence so that they could get the proper attention for their mental health needs.
The ward, Churchill Green, was assigned 4 physiatrists and a medical doctor and several nurses that worked part time at "The Green" (as locals called it) and part time in the main hospital just a short walk down the wooded path.
Over the last three months, Rebecca Lord had been at The Green. She'd been sent there after her awful turn of mind while under the mind control of the evil Caspian Casador. Rebecca's mind had for the most part come recuperated now that Caspian was no longer controlling her but her guilt and embarrassment over what she did to Gabriel haunted her daily. Hourly. Minute by minute as the clocks at The Green ticked away her time there, she wondered how she could have lived with herself had she succeeded in killing her great-grandson.
The awful truth was almost too dark for her admit out loud but in her sessions with the psychiatrist she would open up. Not always. But she tried.
The fact that she was there at all was damaging to Rebecca's psyche, no matter how much she actually needed to be there to right the ship of her mind that was set so adrift by Caspian, but something made it worse. Something awful that she discovered on the very first day she was there.
It wasn't the medication.
It wasn't the hours of solitude.
It wasn't the days and nights of her mulling over what she did, no it was indeed something far worse.
It was Caspian. The man who caused all of this evil was there with at The Green as a patient.
As Rebecca kept to herself in her room, Dr. Asha Hoffman entered; Asha was the newest physiatrist at the facility.
"How are you feeling Mrs. Lord?" Asha asked.
Rebecca inhaled and shrugged. "I don't want to see that man." She said.
"I know. I've asked that the nurses keep you apart." Asha replied noticing Rebecca had not taken her medication. "You still haven't told me how you know him." The doctor added.
"He's the devil. I don't know how many times I have to tell you or to explain to you, he's the reason for all of this." Rebecca said.
"Yes, that you've told me, but Mrs. Lord the devil isn't real. We've discussed this." Asha said.
Rebecca lifted a brow and stood up to look Asha in the face. "My dear I would watch the way you speak out loud. I've seen the devil myself and he's here. He's here and you should be weary of him. That man in the room down the hall, the one burned and scared, those scars were from no house fire. Those were the flames of evil that scorched him. Ask anyone! Ask Father Ryan! Ask.... Ask... ANYONE!"
"Alright. Alright. Let's just all take a breath and relax, ok? Mrs. Lord why don't you take a little breather out in the garden." Asha said. "While I get you some more medication."
Asha then grabbed Rebecca by the elbow and opened a sliding door of Rebecca's room that lead to a beautifully treed area inside the grounds of The Green that was shaded by enormous trees that billowed out from the bottom of Tirymor forest. It smelled of late summer but the chill in the air signaled autumn.
Rebecca, who was now bundled up in her warm furs walked alone glaring at other patients who stared at her. Some smiling strangy, others grimacing and growling like wolves ready to pounce, all of them held on to tightly by their own personal nurse.
Rebecca went and sat on a bench facing a bubbling fountain in the center of the garden when suddenly she heard a voice call her name.
Rebecca lifted her eyes and stared into the water when she realized she knew the voice.
It was Caspian.
"Go. Get away from here." She said to him as he walked to her slowly from behind. "You're the devil." She added.
He sighed and wheeled himself in a wooden wheelchair over to her. His face and exposed hands badly scarred from his body igniting in fire during the exorcism.
"I wish you'd look at me." He said softly.
Rebecca winced as if she were being pinched in the backs of her arms, as if even the sound of his voice gave her physical pain. But she did it, she turned and looked at the man that haunted her.
The skin of his face had bubbled and folded just around his left eye and down his neck. The scar tissue that had formed made a pattern of light red and pink lines that twisted together where the new skin had formed and flowed down his neck into his shirt collar and presumably down his back.
His eyes were the same to her, deep brown, welcoming enticing her to speak to him.
"You destroyed my whole life. I don't want to see you. I want you to be dead." She said.
"I don't think you understand." He told her. "What happened was something that took over this body, it wasn't me, it wasn't who I was. In fact I didn't even know you. I don't know how I got to you, or where you were or anything like that. That person, the Caspian you met and spoke with and who connived you and made you do all those thigs, that man wasn't me." He explained.
Her eyes narrowed unconvinced.
"I wish you'd believe me." He added.
"How can I? You're the same. You're the same!!" She said, her voice raising.
"YOU'RE THE SAME!" A patient down the path yelled out mimicking Rebecca.
Then another called back to that patient "YOU'RE THE SAME!!"
Then both of them saying it together.
"No! NO! I am not. I watched everything happen from my own eyes, but I was ... well I can only explain it as being trapped in my mind by some monster. Some creature came into my whole body one night over a year ago and took me. Took everything I was and made it that creature you thought was me. I, me, this Caspian, the real Caspian, didn't have control over anything." He explained.
Rebecca's eyes began to fill with tears. This was another trick of the devil she thought. He was trying to push her again, trying to make her believe he was good when he wasn't --- he wasn't! Was he?
"Leave me alone, or Ill kill you myself. If a priest couldn't do it with the holy spirit, the lord knows I can with my bare hands." Rebecca scolded.
Inside the Lobby Asha talked over medications with a nurse just as Jacob Lord walked in. He looked around and saw her then sauntered over.
"Doctor." He said greeting her.
"Mr. Lord, welcome! I'm glad to see you.... finally." Asha replied hinting at the fact Jacob hadn't come to see Rebecca in all the months she had been there even after several requests from the hospital.
"I apologize for not coming here to see my mother sooner, I know that you hoped I would but as you can imagine, there are things within the family I needed to take care of. Especially about keeping us all safe from her." Jacob replied.
"Well, had you come earlier I could have explained that your mother is no danger to anyone in your family. She's only a danger to herself if she's left untreated. But she's doing well here, despite the setbacks." Asha explained as she clutched her patients' charts.
"Setbacks?" Jacob asked.
"She's still very disturbed by a patient we have here, a man she continues to say is the devil. I don't really understand it, he's a burn patient. A man that set himself on fire from the village. Regardless of what we tell her she doesn't believe us. Her mental break was that powerful that she latches on to things and doesn't let go. Even when on medication." Asha explained.
"Nik did mention to me a while back that her medication didn't seem to always work but wanted me to confirm with you." Jacob said.
"And you never have." Asha replied, her voice hinting at her frustration with the Lord family's lack of care for Rebecca while she was locked away.
Jacob smiled at her, a patronizing trait of his when he saw someone hoping they'd get through to him, but he always did as he wanted. No matter what.
"I'm here now." Jacob said. "Can I see her?"
Annoyed, Asha agreed and pointed him towards the large white French doors that opened into the garden. Jacob bowed his head and placed a pair of perfectly circular dark glasses over his eyes and headed to see his mother.
Outside Rebecca was alone now, sitting on the marble seat at the fountain. She ran her fingers in the water like a boat going back and fourth in the cool clear water.
"Mother." Jacob said.
Rebecca turned and saw her eldest son standing before her. She hadn't seen him, or anyone in the family since the night at the lighthouse where she almost dropped Gabriel down into the sea below. She felt shame quickly come over her. Her heart sank into that shame, and she couldn't speak. All she could do was cry and bury her head into her son's chest.
"There, there. You're alright now, mother. It's ok." Jacob said, holding his mother to him. "Asha tells me you're still not conforming to what she wants. I wouldn't expect Rebecca Lord to do anything anyone wanted, not even a doctor, but perhaps you should mother. Asha knows best for your health."
Rebecca lifted her face from his chest, her eyes were swollen with tears. "Jacob, you have to get me out of here, you have to take me out of here today. Please! I beg you!" She said frantically.
"You're not well, mother, this is where you'll get better. There's no better place."
"You don't understand, he's here! HE'S HERE!!!" She scaremed.
The other patients listening to the conversation getting louder repeated Rebecca "HE'S HERE! HE'S HERE!"
Jacob turned; he began to feel something odd in his stomach: fear.
"Mother calm down. What are you talking about? Who's here?"
A patient listening replied "HE'S HERE! HE'S HERE!"
"Who else? That man, the man that did this to me. You have to save me from him. He's here and he's pretending to be normal, but I can see through him, Jacob. I can see his eyes, those same eyes. I don't care if they are kind, they're still hungry for my soul! THEY WANT ME!!" She yelled.
A patient yelled too "THEY WANT ME!"
Another patient echoed "THEY WANT ME!!"
Jacob gulped, the entire scene felt chaotic, the moment right before a storm cracked the sky above and dropped rain all over. He felt the energy in the air: fragile and ready to burst into a million pieces like a mind disconnected from reality. Rebecca's mind.
"Mother you need to calm down. Ok? Asha is going to give you something to take that will relax you and take all of these frightening feelings away." Jacob replied.
"Frightening? I'm not frightened. I'm angry! I AM ANGRY!! You've left me here and now what? Do you think I'm Evangeline? Do you think that all the money in the world can keep me in some mental hospital like you did to her? No, not me, I can get out of here and I should be released because I'm not insane. I'm not the one who did it, he did it, and he's here and he's trying to get me again." Rebecca said, her mind suddenly starting to break again.
All Jacob could do was nod his head agreeing with her even though he wasn't sure what in the world she was talking about. He sat her down and told her he was going to get Asha who had her medication. He walked past the other patients out in the garden, the one's that kept repeating after Rebecca. They hummed the same song, both of them, as if the two of them had the same mind. They watched Jacob pass, humming the whole time, like two hungry crows waiting for their moment to strike on the fleeing mouse.
As Jacob entered back into the hospital, there was Nikolas Jordan who had been assigned as the medical doctor at The Green that day.
"Did you see Rebecca?" Nik asked.
Jacob, his face pale with shock at his mother's state nodded. "She's not well." He replied.
"Well surviving what she did, I think she's the best she can. Asha's gotten her on a new regimen of medication that will begin to help her even more. The other pills weren't working." Nik confirmed.
"She said something strange to me." Jacob replied.
"Oh?"
"She said that another patient, Asha confirms he's a real person, is the devil. She says that some man is Caspian." Jacob replied.
Nik's eyes went black, his face suddenly unsure of what to say next. The truth was, it indeed truly was Caspian, just as the man in the wheelchair said. He was the man from the excorsim. He was the man who became engulfed in fire while tied to the bed.
"She's not seeing something or imagining it." Nik confirmed.
"What?"
"Caspian didn't die that night, Jacob. Father Ryan brought him here; he was burned badly. He was still alive and fighting something inside of him. Father Ryan continued to do what he had to do that night even after we took the body from Tirymor House. He's been here, with Rebecca, ever since." Nik said.
"Rebecca is going insane." Jacob said. "And he's here doing it? He's here making her insane? What's happening?" Jacob wondered.
"Father Ryan believes the man that is here, is the real man. He's been saved. He's the man he was before the devil entered him. He has no real memory of how he got here but through some therapy I've been able to get him to remember flashes of what occurred. But it wasn't him." Nik revealed.
"So, she's not relapsing?" Jacob asked.
"She is very well aware of what's happened and what is going on. She's not in any way shape or form losing her mind. But she's fragile. We have to keep her in her own world as best we can, but sometimes she mentally goes back to what happened and we have to start from scratch." Nik explained just as Asha and a nurse were walking Rebecca in from the garden back to her room.
Rebecca and Jacob's eyes locked from across the lobby of The Green. Her face wanted him to take her own, she even attempted to have Asha and the nurse walk her to Jacob, but they pulled her back and took her down the hall to her room.
Jacob, knowing that having his mother here, locked away meant he was now and forever in control of his family's business and money and that Caspian, whoever he was--good, evil, neither-- would keep his mother's mind on the thin edge between sanity and insanity. Jacob lifted a brow and realized he was home free.
"Fine. Let them both stew here together. This is the best place for her." Jacob said.
The corner of Nik's lip curled fighting back the disgust to form on his face for Jacob's clear lack of empathy for his own mother. A nurse handed Jacob paperwork for him to sign to keep her there. He signed them quickly and patted Nik on the back.
"Thank Asha for me."
Nik watched as Jacob made his quick exit from The Green and into the awaiting car outside presumably to return as the newly crowned Emperor of the Lord family Empire, leaving his own mother to rot in the mental ward for the foreseeable future.
****
 |
| Celeste interrupts Genevieve with David’s photo box |
A wooden box that belonged to Sabrina Spencer lay open on the bed in an upstairs bedroom at Tirymor House. Sitting center on the bed, in a billowing cloud like dress was Genevieve Thorne.
The box, held several photos of David Lord and letters from David Lord to Sabrina that she saved when she was alive, and now that Sabrina's spirit was fused with Geneieve's forever, the feelings of love and longing Sabrina once had for David were now Genevieve's.
She felt silly at first for feeling this way. She didn't even know David personally. She only knew him from the tattered photos she was seeing and from his kind beautiful words on his letters to his beloved Sabrina, but there it was in her heart the tingling of love and passion for a man she only knew through her now entangled emotions with David's late wife, the spirit that lived in her.
In fact, Sabrina's memories were as much a part of Genevieve as Genevieve's own.
It was as if Sabrina's ghost became absorbed into every fiber of Genevieve's body.
They were one now in every sense of the word.
In short-- Genevieve was in love with David, and she knew that he was out there somewhere. Sabrina knew it, she knew it was not on the other side with her in the spirit world. He was alive. And he was missed.
"Genevieve?" A voice called from the other side of the bedroom door. It was Celeste checking up on her brother's former fiancée.
"Come in." Genevieve answered.
"Morgan and Charlotte are off to the village for some treats, I hope you don't mind that I let him go with her." Celeste said of their two children. "What do you have here?" She asked.
Genevieve took a breath and scooted off the bed. She scooped up the photos and letters and stacked them carefully back into Sabrina's box.
"Memories." Genevieve said. "Long lost memories."
"Yes, but who's?" Celeste said with a grin as she reached into the box and pulled out a photo of David. "Ahh...Yes. He was handsome, wasn't he?"
"What did you think of him?" Genevieve asked.
"David? He was kind. Handsome. He loved his son. He loved Sabrina. He was hard on himself a lot of times too. He wasn't very good at the business like his father or brother and especially not like Rebecca in that sense, but what he did have was knowledge of the beauties of this world." Celeste said then she giggled "I make him out to be some kind of poet or artist, maybe he was. I don't know. Maybe I've sort of made him into some mythical version of who he was."
"I think I want to find him. I think I want to take my time, and take what I can with me and find him." Genevieve said, surprising Celeste.
"Find him? Oh, darling, he died. He leapt off of the lighthouse years ago. He's gone." Celeste replied.
Genevieve smirked. "I don't think so."
"Geneveive, I don't understand this. We all know he's gone. We've all had our time to mourn him and to remember who he was even if sometimes, like me, we embellish, but he is indeed gone. He died."
Genevieve shook her head. "No. I can feel that he's still out there. He's been hiding. He's been searching or a new way of life and after all this time he's never found it. I can help him back to who he was." Genevieve replied, Sabrian's determination now showing itself in words and actions.
Celeste didn't know what to say. She was looking at the woman who had Sabrina's face and calling her by a different name but all she could assume was that it was the spirit of Sabrina taking over. Was she right? Was David really alive?
"What about Morgan? Are you sure it would be good for him to go with you on this journey? Because none of us are going to stand in your way if this is what you really want to do. I can tell you right now that searching for David is pointless, but if this is what you want, I think you shouldn't drag poor Morgan." Celeste said.
"Search for who?" Johnathon asked stepping into the room.
Celeste lifted a brow, unsure of how to answer.
Johnathon and Genevieve had decided to end their relationship as she wanted to leave Welshport and he was determined to stay but leaving at the time meant to go on their own: She and Morgan, perhaps back to San Francisco where they were from, not searching for a dead man somewhere out there.
Genevieve stammered for a second but admitted to wanting to leave Welshport for the time being to search for David whom everyone believed was dead, in the next coming days.
"This is insane!" Johnathon answered. "You're not only leaving me, but the island to find someone you don't even know and may or may not be alive? Genevieve are you ill? Do we need to put you were Rebecca is?"
"Don't insult me. I know what I'm doing." She replied.
"My brother is coming across harsh, darling but you have to understand where he's coming from. You're talking about finding a ghost. He's gone, darling. He's gone." Celeste interjected.
"I don't want to rehash what I am going to do with the two of you, in fact I really don't have to. I do have one request. Would you, Celeste, watch over my son?" Genevieve asked.
Johnathon turned and scoffed. "For God's sake!!" He shouted. "NO! She won't watch over your son!"
"Johnny!" Celeste shot back.
"No! Why would you?" He asked his sister then turned to his ex "Why would she? Geneveive, this is insanity! You're not doing this, you're not going anywhere, do you understand me? We've come so far and there is so much instore for us here now that I've been taken into the Lord family fold and regardless of our relationship, I've promised to take care of you and support you. I will have money no to do that, I don't ask for anything but for you to stay here and stop this nonsense of David!! YOU ARE NOT SABRINA!!"
Then there was silence.
Genevieve knew how all of this sound. It sounded insane, of course. She was talking about leaving her son with practical strangers and take herself on some ghost hunting expedition on based on memories from the actual ghost that now lived in her mind. But the passion Sabrina had for David was overwhelming and driving her to do it, she could feel it in the pit of her stomach that finding and bring David back to his home to find out that Jacob is the one that killed Sabrina and not him as he was made to believe, was her calling.
Her life had lead her here, to Tirymor, where the woman she shared a face with once lived and died.
"I will not have you speak to me this way." Genevieve replied stoically. "This is what I am going to do, I don't need your help or money or anything now that the Lords have taken you in as one of their own." She replied somewhat mocking him for suddenly becoming this money hungry person she did not recognize.
Celeste stayed silent, she didn't recognize her brother Johnathon either. He used to be quiet, kind and sensitive, this new version of him with all the glitz and power of the Lords floating in his eyes was someone she didn't like and in truth she was keeping an eye one, a very suspicious eye.
Johnathon took a step towards Genevieve and his face calmed, he licked his lips and took one of her hands and cupped it into his. "I think you need a doctor." He said softly.
Geneveive snatched her hand out from his and turned to the box on her bed and put it under her arm.
"Im doing this," Geneveive said to him the turned to Celeste, "I would hate to uproot Morgan again so soon after his travels here from San Francisco, I would be incredibly in debt to you if you allow him to stay here with you until I return. I promise, if I don't find David in a month I will return."
Celeste looked at her brother who lifted a brow and mouthed the word Don't to his sister but Celeste couldn't just let Morgan go off with Genevieve in the state she was in, whatever state it was.
"Of course." Celeste replied.
Genevieve breathed a sign of relief and left the room happy leaving Johnathon and Celeste together.
"You're out of your mind too! He said to his sister.
"That's enough." The elder sibling Celeste said. "Just let her go. She'll be back empty handed. Nobody will come back with her, not David, not anyone. Just calm down."
"She's out of her mind." Johnathon said.
"She may not be the only one! This attitude of yours, what is this? Why are you flouncing around talking about money and whatever else that Lords are affording you. I will have you know, you haven't received a single red cent of whatever inheritance and payments you're due. I suggest you keep that type of childish reactions to yourself." She told Johnathon.
"Jacob filed the paperwork today-- I'll get mine soon, and once Rebecca is officially out as head of the Publishing House, I can start work. It's all going to finally happen, and I have you to thank even though you almost sabotaged me." Johnathon said.
He was right. Celeste played both sides when it came to her brother knowing the truth about his paternity and her husband trying to squash the truth coming out, but in the end it was exposed and nothing horrible happened. She regretted all of it, but was happy that her brother and her husband (who were half-brothers by their mutual father) were getting along.
"Well until that happens, until Rebecca is removed, keep your gloating to yourself. Paperwork, signed or not, can just as easily be undone. If Jacob senses any kind of distaste with how you're acting, believe me, he'll find a way to get rid of you one way or another, and that's what I fear." Celeste replied as she reached over and adjusted her brother's tie.
"Are you warning me?" He asked her.
Celeste was going to say no, that she was only wishing for him to think before he spoke but then she realized her brother was more impulsive than she remembered and that he wouldn't listen to her simple words of watching himself, instead she replied to his question of warning with a firm and cold "Yes."
Then Celeste picked up a photo of David Lord that fell out of Genevieve's box and slapped it onto Johnathon's chest like a stamp on a letter--- a cold reminder of what Jacob did to his other brother that got in his way.
