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| The Jordan siblings meet in baby Gabriel’s room |
A morning winter sun stung through the windows of Gabriel's nursery. The warmth of the morning light felt good on the baby's skin after a very cold winter night that seemed never ending. The baby didn't sleep well. He felt uneasy as he slept and kept feeling a strange presence in his room the whole night until the sun came up over the horizon and waking him with a cranky disposition.
Obviously the 9 month old did not understand the ways of the strange new world he was apart of, the only thing he knew was the kind calm voice of his mother Evie who entered the room from her adjoining bedroom.
She had come to his room several times over the night to check on him catching him awake several of those times and rocked him back to sleep. She worried he was ill, but of course it was something else; something much more abstract to the mortal world and the naked.
When Evie entered for the final time this morning dressed in a long flowing lavender night gown and a tan colored knit sweater that held in her body warmth she too felt an uneasy feeling in the room that came with a chill up her spine.
She chalked it up to her own lack of sleep, dealing with the awful dreams she'd been having and the strange sleepwalking event she had just endured.
But there indeed was an unseen energy in the room affecting both mother and child.
It was ghost like sensation that Evie couldn’t see...but she could smell.
There was a fragrance in the room. A light fresh citrus smell that she had smelled before but she couldn't remember where she had smelled it. She peeked int Gabriel's crib ad the baby, although exhausted from a rough night, looked up at his mother and giggled with glee when he recognized her loving face.
"We need to figure out this sleep pattern of yours." Evie said.
She picked up her baby and a rush of sadness came over her suddenly remembering her mother Aurora's recent tragedy of losing the child she was carrying. Being a new mother herself, Evie now felt an even bigger hole in her heart for her own mother's tragedy. There was nothing more powerful than a mother's love and she felt it being so loved by Aurora and now she could feel it being Aurora's friend.
"We have a lot to be thankful for little boy," she said to her son "but we have a lot to mourn too." She added thinking about the mourners black she and the baby would wear in respect for Aurora's loss.
"Evie?" Nikolas said, peeking through the baby's room. "Good morning."
"Hi, come in, come in." She said to her brother.
"How's my little nephew?" He asked walking over and easily taking the baby into his arms and kissing his plump little cheek.
"Restless. He and I didn't have a very good night's sleep. You know little Gabriel kind of looks like you." She said.
"Really?” Nik asked proudly.
“Especially when he’s grumpy.” The big sister teased.
“Well I didn’t sleep well either, little chap.” Nik said to Gabriel who couldn’t keep his little hands off Nik’s chiseled face. “I couldn't stop thinking about mummy. I wanted to go see her at Gregory's but he said that she's having a hard time seeing anyone." Nik explained.
"Go anyway," Evie said sternly. "She's our mother and you’re a doctor, she should see you."
Nik nodded his head in agreement but before he could respond, Jane entered the room and curtsied.
“And his hearing?” Nik, ever the doctor, asked. “Still having trouble?”
Evie frowned “Dr. Ward has tried everything but nothing had helped. I’m beginning to lose hope.”
“Don’t Evie.” Nik replied turning quite seriously. “You’re the only person on this earth who has gone through what you’ve gone through and always come out the other side still beaming. It’s your hope Evie. It’s our beacon. Our family — mother, me, Gabriel. We need our hopefully beacon now more than ever.”
Evie’s eyes welled up with tears and she touched her younger brother’s face, her heart filled with admiration for him.
"Mrs. Lord,” a voice came from the door braking the touching Jordan family moment. “there's someone here to see you."
"So early in the morning? Who?" Nik asked Jane.
"Miss Jacqueline Gray." Jane replied.
"What in the world?" Evie replied her emotions all over the place but happy her new friend was there.
"Were you expecting her so early?" Nik asked sort of confused by Evie's schoolgirl like happiness at her friend's arrival.
"No, but I'd love company for breakfast. Celeste has been a bit distant lately and you're always at the hospital and well, we know what mummy has been going through. Its good to have someone around." Evie explained.
Nik's brows lifted, he could understand if Evie felt a little lonely, and the only other company she could have is with two fourteen-year-old children, Charlotte and Morgan, and she probably would want a bit more adult conversation.
“You’ve been seeing this Miss. Gray quite often haven’t you? I think I saw her in passing once.” Nik asked.
“Here and there yes. She’s really been a godsend. Sometimes this house can be the most beautiful prison ever made and having someone from outside this world really puts me in a better mind space.” Evie replied.
“Better mind space?”
“It’s not just you and Gabriel who’s been having trouble sleeping. It’s been—I don’t know weeks— of bad dreams and sometimes insomnia. It’s been really horrible.” Evie explained.
“Listen, I know that the baby’s hearing situation has been really stressful and I can imagine it torments you so please never feel like you can’t come to me about anything. Jacquline is a friend but I’m family. You can Lean on me too, not just this is new friend that came out of no where. Nik replied squeezing his sister’s free hand.
Evie smile and even a tear came to her eye. When she first moved from London to Welshport she was even lonelier then —especially after Sebastian first supposed death. But having her brother then her mother follow her on the movie across the pond had been an answered prayer. Nik’s little bit of jealous was cute, their big sister little brother relationship has always been as strong as iron.
“She’s not replacing you.” Evie said with a half smile “She’s just doing what friends do. She’s helping me and we keep each other company.”
“I know but I worry— you’re not just anyone you know. You’re worth millions now. You and this little boy. Jacqueline is a stranger. Just be careful.” Nik said
“Please. I’m fine.” Evie replied stubbornly.
“Fine.” Nik replied with pretend little brother annoyance. “I’m glad your new friend is filling my void so easily.”
“Miss?” Jane again interjected, still waiting for her order from Evie.
“Thank you Jane, my brother is pretending he’s not happy to rid of me now that’s I’ve found a new friend.”
Jane grinned, Evie continued “Please let her into the library, I'm just going to dress and go down." Evie said as Jane scurried off.
“I’ll see if I can see mummy today.” Nik added before Evie left.
Evie took a breath. “Give her my love and I’ll tell her I’ll come to her later too.”
“I will.”
"See you later!" Evie said to Nik as she kissed baby Gabriel on the forehead and took him from Nik's arms.
"See you."
A short time later, Evie walked into the library with Jane and baby Gabriel. Jacqueline was standing near a large bookshelf with books that went up to the ceiling. She flicked through a book on Leonardo Da Vinci. Her eyes scanned the old pages with small prints of Leonardo's work. She passed her hand over the photos as if she could feel the warm colors of the Mona Lisa lift off the page and into her hand.
"It's really gorgeous, isn't it? When I was sixteen my father took our family to Paris, and I got to see her in real life. She was so small in person. Her little smile is almost invisible if you don't look long enough." Evie said of the painting on the page as she handed the baby to Jane.
"I'll bring him to the breakfast room." Jane said.
"He's getting so big." Jacquleine said as she walked over to Evie.
Evie smiled and agreed. Gabriel was very much growing fast and hopefully with this growing little frame he'd also gain some hearing back.
"Do you really think so?" Jacqueline wondered, knowing full well that it was not possible.
"I hope so. Dr. Ward said that sometimes babies have these medical anomalies and they pass as they grow just as quickly and mysteriously as they arrived. Maybe this is one of those things."
Jacqueline took a deep breath and hugged her new friend tightly. "I'll pray that happens." She said.
While in Jacqueline's hug, Evie suddenly smelled the same scent on Jacqueline that she found in Gabriel's room. It was impossible for it to be different, it was just as strong and intense as it was on her skin as it was lingering in Gabriel's room.
"Your perfume. What is it?" Evie asked, pulling out of the hug.
"It's called Narcisse Noir, a perfume I found in a boutique in Boston many years ago. I wear it everyday."
Evie stood there confused and a bit alarmed. Why would such a distinct scent, a perfume she had realized that she had smelled it on Jacqueline before but never questioned it because she hadn't smelled it in her baby's room before. Why was Jacqueline secretly in the baby's room. How long had she been there?
"You wouldn't have been in Gabriel's room before I came down here, were you?" Evie asked point blank.
Jacqueline's eyebrow lifted "Why, no of course not. Why do you ask?"
"It's just that..." Evie paused.
"Just that what?" Jaqueline pushed.
"I smelled your perfume in his room a little bit ago, just as I went in to check on him. I know that it's your perfume because it's not very hard to miss. It's a beautiful scent, but I would have liked you to have asked if you could see Gabriel before just going in there." Evie said.
"No, no, Evie I wasn't in his room." Jacqueline said, lying. She had been there in the night, and throughout the morning. She was the reason the baby could not sleep. Jacqueline watched the baby sleep. She picked him up. She rocked him. She snugged with him. She fantasized that this child, Sebastian's child, was her. That the baby was her baby with the man she loved. She had come so many nights and been there with Gabriel, she had watched him sleep so often, and now she was caught.
"I definitely smelled your perfume there Jacqueline." Evie said, not persuaded by her new friend's words.
The witch was cornered.
"Evie, I read about what's been going on here with you in the paper. That gossip columnist Baxter ...Murphy...that's his name.... he's been somehow briefed on your situation and how you've been sort of slipping back into some kind of, I don't know, mental break down. That's really why I'm here." Jacqueline said, finally telling some form of the truth.
"What do you mean? How does Baxter have information about me? And what was in the paper?" Evie asked quickly crossing her arms over her chest in frustration.
"Well it said that you've been plagued by very disturbing dreams that may be putting you back in some resurgence and that you haven't been yourself. There are rumors that you're mental break is worse than the first one. He mentioned you spent time in an asylum a while back called Windcliff." Jacqueline happily repeated.
"Baxter is paid by the company this family owns, he knows better than to tell lies about us, but I guess he's not afraid. Why would he, the more gossip about any of us he has the more papers sell and the more money the family makes. It's all a very vicious cycle that the Lords hate but love all at once. I'm in the hate column; if I were you Jacqueline, as a friend, I wouldn't believe everything I read." Evie explained, hinting that what was happening in the house was not true, when in actuality it was.
Jacqueline knew full well Evie was having strange dreams that were tearing at her mentally. Jacqueline knew because she was the one causing them. Jacqueline had no idea how the media gained word of Evie's misfortune, but she happily took hold of that information and was happy to rub in in Evie's face to further the push of her mental break even with in Evie's own mind.
She wanted Evie to feel more and more insecure. Clouded. Disjointed. Jacqueline saw her that much a threat and she didn't want Sebastian to come along and take care of her. The two women were in a toxic friendship that was clearly only toxic on one side: Jacqueline's side.
For her part, Evie was quickly seeing that perhaps this new friend of hers who seemed to have so much in common with her that it all felt too good to be true, perhaps was.
Evie was clearly seeing a bit of resentful side of Miss Jacqueline Gray.
"I wont put a single bit more energy into Baxter's column." Jacqueline said. "I believe you." She added with a very unconvincing tone of voice.
Evie took a breath, her body eased in her freshly clean dress of green and soft yellow that almost looked like a lighter shade of green. She pulled on Jacqueline's hand and lead her to the sofa and picked up one of the art books she loved so much and flicked through the pages to show her an image of one of her favorite paintings called THE DREAM by Henri Rousseau.
"Look at this one, it's quite knew. Maybe three years old. I want to go back to Paris some day and see it in person. The colors are so beautiful, the dark greens and of the forest are so perfect to help define the woman in the center. It almost makes me feel like it's me inside of Tirymor. Lost. Vulnerable." Evie said shrugging.
"It's called THE DREAM?" Jacqueline said, noticing the strange coincidence of Evie's life imitating art.
"Ironic, isn't it? I've had a few more of those dreams Baxter so kindly revealed to everyone." Evie said.
"Oh? What else has happened in them?" Jacqueline said, again, already knowing what Evie dreamt as she was the one who forced her to see it.
"Just more and more about Matthew but this time there was someone calling to me. It sounded like..." Evie paused.
"Sounded like what?" Jacqueline asked anticipating her friend to reveal her love for Sebastian, proving what she feared most.
"Nothing. It doesn't matter. It's just a dream." Evie said, shutting down the conversation.
"Evie, tell me, do you think these dreams are really about Matthew calling to you or ... or maybe there's more to it? Do you think you have some unresolved feelings, some unanswered questions about how things ended with Sebastian?" Jacqueline asked, feigning concerned friendship.
Evie closed the art book and folded it on her lap cover side down. She licked her lips and wondered for a second how to answer it as the scent of Jacqueline's citrusy fresh fragrance danced in all around her again reminding her that Jacqueline had been in the room with her baby, she thought about why that would be and why Jacqueline was so interested now in Sebastian. But then those thoughts fluttered away. She wanted to have a good friend, she desperately needed someone that she could confide with now that she was practically on her own. Jacqueline, for all intents and purposes, was that person. Evie was only suspicious of her but perhaps those suspicions were exaggerated and egged on by the fact Evie had been having trouble sleeping.
Evie's gut was weary of Jacqueline, but her mind was stronger and told her to shrug these things off; she wasn't clear headed, thanks to the lack of sleep, and was clearly jumping to conclusions of someone that was innocent.
"I thought of that, yes." Evie said surprising Jacqueline.
Jacqueline's mouth went dry. Her heart skipped a beat when hearing this. Evie was also thinking of Sebastian, now more than ever Jacqueline realized just how much in danger her love affair was getting to possible crumbling if the two were to reunite.
"So would it be strange for me to say, that you still love him?" Jacqueline said, again fake smiling the whole time.
Evie thought for a moment about her love for Sebastian and her love for Matthew. The two were so different in her life, they represented a clear before and after in terms of the person she had become but she did love Sebastian, she did love Matthew and she knew one of them was certainly gone.... the other had returned again.
Could there be something there with him again? Evie wasn't sure.
But Jacqueline was hungry to know-- it was vital for her to use that information for her own gain.
"Evie?" Jacqueline asked again pushing for an answer.
Evie got up and replaced the book of art on the nearest shelf just under a large painting of Rebecca Lord as a young woman. Evie looked up at Rebecca and wondered how she would answer if she were in her position. Evie couldn't be more different from Rebecca, but she did admire her. She admired how strong Rebecca was, she admired the stories she leaned of how Rebecca took control of her family's company when everything seemed to be falling apart after Albert's death.
"She's the one that took your baby." Jacqueline said, noticing her look at Rebecca.
Evie snapped back around to Jacqueline who Evie noticed kept interjecting with small negative asides, seeming to want to aggravate her.
"She wasn't in her right mind. She was being manipulated by a very cruel person." Evie said. "I'm obviously glad she failed at what she wanted to do to, but it wasn't her, not Rebecca. She loves her family." Evie added.
"She loved Sebastian too. No matter what. I'm guessing the answer to my first question is that you do, Evie, you do still love Sebastian." Jacqueline said resolved in her suspicion.
Evie went back to the sofa where Jacqueline had no stood up to face her so called friend, a woman that had much history, a child, and love for the man she herself loved. They looked into each other's eyes and saw each other very differently now. Evie saw Jacqueline as someone who was poking around her private life in a way that she did not see as friendly, and Jacqueline saw her new friend the way she had predicted: a very dangerous threat to her connection to Sebastian.
"I think I should get back to the baby. Maybe we can meet another time." Evie said without answering Jacqueline directly.
Jacqueline smiled, again a fake smile, and opened her arms for Evie to enter and hug.
Evie at first hesitated but went in to hug Jacqueline goodbye anyway.
This was a moment Jacqueline was saying goodbye to Evie, not in words, but in future actions. Evie's non-answer to her about her feelings for Sebastian was enough for Jacqueline to realize she could not let Evie ruin her newfound happiness.
For her part, Evie knew now that she had to watch her back. Evie knew she came off as a naive young mother to many, who was overwhelmed by the power and prestige of the Lord family and the strength they wielded over so much of the Eastern Seaboard. But Evie grew up in the cutthroat world of English Duchesses, Princesses and Ladyships -- young heiress that backstabbed each other at the drop of a hat to push into a new social circle that glittered far more than the one they were in.
Jacqueline was poised to do what she wanted to take Sebastian for herself, but Evie would not go lightly and would keep her eyes on the new friend of hers. Things had certainly changed in Evie's life since Jacqueline's arrival, that was something Evie was also noticing and she was now growing suspicious of the things that were slowly floating to the surface.
As Jacqueline left Tirymor, she could sense the twinge of confrontational tone in Evie's voice towards the end of their confrontation. Jacqueline was caught off guard by the perfume slip of hers, but readied herself for any other conversations like this one. The witch whose life and past wasn't as glittery as Evie's felt in her own right that her new friend was now dead to her -- in the social way. And that social death could very well come true in real terms if Jacqueline had her way. She wanted Sebastian all to herself no matter what she had to do to get her way.
And Jacqueline Gray always got her way.
****
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| Charlotte & Morgan get better acquainted. |
Meanwhile, upstairs, Morgan Thorne, the 13-year-old son of Genevieve Thorne who took off from Welshport earlier in the month to find David Lord, wandered the mansion looking at the paintings as if he were lost in a museum. His hazel eyes searched for clues on the faces of people in the paintings for some kind of answer to who they were.
He was a stranger in the house, and his mother left him with the family she herself barely knew. He felt abandoned and lonely, but Celeste had promised to watch over him until Geneveive's return.
But the abandonment didn't stink any less living with the Lord family.
“Don’t get into any trouble, now.” Johnaton DeViana said as he was entering the hall from his room.
“I’m not.” The boy frowned.
“Listen, I know it must be hard, Morgan, not having your mother here and barely knowing me. But it’ll be ok. I would have really enjoyed being your step father had things worked out between your mother and I, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” Johnathon said reminiscing about his breakup with Morgan’s mother.
The boy said nothing in reply and Johnathon patted Morgan on the shoulder and went on his way down stairs leaving Morgan to continue his hallway roaming.
As he continued on his path down the long, red-carpeted hallway of the western wing of the mansion, he passed an open parlor door and peeked in seeing Charlotte sitting at a card table with a long peach-toned dress with her crossed her feet popping out from below the skirt.
Her bright blond hair seemed to glow in the sunlight as she stared down intensely on the stack of cards she was playing with.
Morgan smiled ear to ear seeing her. Of all the people in the house, she was obviously his favorite being his peer.
"Hi!" He said bounding into the parlor a bundle of energy. "Can I play?" He asked staring down at the card game.
Charlotte smiled, she liked him too. She had been so lonely most of her life without siblings even though Sebastian always treated her like his baby sister. Now she was an older sister to Fabian and a sister-type to Gabriel and perhaps even Morgan.
"It's not that kind of game silly." She said flipping the cards over. Morgan noticed the back of the cards that were a shiny gold colored and had an eye with bright rays of light coming out from behind the eye, and when she flipped the face-down card over, the images were brightly colored medieval looking paintings of kings and queens and all sorts of strange characters holding swords and goblets and knives.
"That's an odd one." Morgan said, taking the card that had a large faced man sitting on a thrown with a sideways crown.
"That's the forgotten king. These are tarot cards, I found them in my grandmother's room." Charlotte said.
"What are tarot cards?" He asked.
"Well from what I remember, they cards that are sort of ---umm... they us things. They send us messages when we read them." Charlotte explained as Morgan sat down next to her.
"Have they said anything to you?" He asked, a bit bewildered.
"No, not really. I didn't ask them anything, I was just sort of fiddling with them."
Morgan's lower lip pouted and he furrowed his brow unsure of what she was saying "Do you believe that?" he said. "How can cards give us answers to our questions?"
"It's not the cards that tell us, its the spirit world that that cards are connected to and somehow when we seek answers the cards, the images on the cards, tell us a story and in that story should be the truth, the truth to what we're wondering about. You just don't understand." Charlotte replied, very astutely and sure of herself. After all, her psychic abilities had grown exponentially in the last few years.
"Ok, ok, ok, maybe I don't. Let's try, let's try and on me and see what they say!" Morgan said.
"Really?" Charlotte asked, grinning at the young man she had grown fond of.
"Yes! Why? Should I be scared?" Morgan joked.
"No. Not unless you're chicken." She replied slipping a strand of golden hair behind her ear.
"Go on. Try!"
Charlotte shrugged and grabbed the deck of tarot cards and staked them first then began to shuffle them in her hands with her eyes closed. Her mind was like a trap and she focused hard on the cards in her hands that she shuffled over and over and over again, like an old pro. To Morgan it seemed like she had done this before, many times before.
After a few minutes, she shifted the card table around so that she and Morgan were now facing each other. She began to pick cards off the top, four in total and asked Morgan to pick four cards himself from the bottom.
The cards were laid out on the table in two rows of four, Charlotte's choices on top, Morgan's on bottom. There were eight golden eyes staring up at them when Charlotte asked Morgan to slowly pick just three cards and flip them over.
"BUT WAIT!" She said holding her arm out blocking him. "Before you flip them, focus on a question or on a situation you need help on or seek answers on. Then flip the cards."
Morgan shook his head, closed his eyes for a few seconds and focused on something in his mind.
"Mother. Will she return?" He thought.
He opened his eyes, nodded showing he was reading and Charlotte removed her arm from blocking him allowing to pick his cards.
He picked the second, the third and the seventh.
"My turn." Charlotte said. "I can pick only one, and I will pick the fifth."
Charlotte looked at the cards and tilted her head. She read them over and over so that the story they were telling would begin to make sense. She signed with frustration when the story wasn't clear, at least to her. But then, something in the fifth card, an inverted image of The Hand Holding the pentagram.
Then she looked at Morgan's cards:
The Second card: The Queen
The Third Card: An inverted Image of a Knight
The Seventh Card: The Magician.
"Well?" he said.
Charlotte lifted her eyes, and her thin light-colored brow: "The queen tells me a woman is in your question, she is in the form of a queen because she rules your heart, I'm assuming your mother. The knight is inverted which represents a man that is connected to the queen yet discounted to the queen. She knows him but does not know him. The Magician, is a card that presents a third part, a person that is connected to both the queen ad the knight and is the one that will bring them together," She replied "but see this card? The one I pulled? This connects to The magician. The magician may not have the queen and the knights best interests."
"Wait--- if the queen is my mother, does this mean someone is out to hurt her? You said her best interests?" Morgan asked in worry.
"No, I... maybe not. It's just cards!" Charlotte said.
"But you said they were cards that told the truth. So do you believe?" Morgan asked. "Because, my question was about my mother. You knew that somehow."
Charlotte sat back, she gulped realizing she was right. She shook her head and scattered the cards on the table mixing them up with the cards from the stack. "Its not real." She said.
"You're lying, you think it's real. What's going to happen to my mother? She's so far away, she's out there somewhere looking for your uncle, something is going to happen! Is your uncle David the knight or the magician??" Morgan wondered.
"Ok, look, let's just pull one card, just one, and see what it says. Refocus again on what you want to know and that card will be the definitive answer." Charlotte said gathering the cards, shuffling them and placing the deck of tarot cards on the table, the stack, face down with the golden eye staring up.
"I don't know." Morgan said, hesitating.
"It's ok." Charlotte said, in a quite whisper.
Morgan took a deep breath, his heart sinking into his chest with worry for his mother Genevieve. There was so much at stake for out there along searching for a man she didn't know but was so drawn to: David Lord, a mysterious figure that may or may not be alive. Charlotte too worried in her own right unsure of what the card would say to Morgan once he pulled it from the top of the deck.
"It may not even be bad, Morgan, it could just be a misunderstanding. It'll be ok." She said.
Morgan took a breath, closed his eyes and thought "Is my mother in danger while she searches for David Lord?"
He pulled the card a card of man standing in a field of reeds holding seven large things, that to Morgan looked like sticks.
"What is it?" Morgan asked, not recognizing it. "Sticks?"
"The Nine Wands." Charlotte said, her voice timid.
"And?"
She slowly looked up from the table of cards, the Nine of Wands staring up at both of them. A seemingly innocent card, nothing on it showing danger, showing fear, showing any inkling of something to cause alarm, but Charlotte was stone faced chilled.
"Charlotte!! TELL ME!" Morgan said.
"It... means... To be weary of the world around you. To be careful. To be watchful; that there are things that are around you. There is something in the air here; controlled by the forces of this card, its watching... waiting... and willing to hurt."
"My mother. Hurt my mother??" Morgan asked.
Charlotte didn't say another word.
"I want to get out of here. I want to leave, I knew she should have never left!!! What do I do? How do I get to her??? I need to find her, I need to help her and leave this stupid house! Charlotte what do I do?" Morgan said, his body leaping up from the sofa where he was seated.
"It's ok, Its ok. Calm down. I know someone that can help, ok? We'll go to her. We'll find her and we'll .... well.... everything is going to be ok. I promise." Charlotte said pulling her new friend close and hugging him.
He tilted his head and laid it on her shoulder and cried.
The fear of whatever was out there, Genevieve's life, all of it, was in danger. Charlotte predicted it in the cards and now Morgan felt the cold stare of danger on him and his mother like never before.
****
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| Johnathon meets Lear Lockwood, the Lord family lawyer |
Later that afternoon, Celeste paced her husband's office at the Lord Publishing house. She was wringing her white gloves in her hand nervously awaiting Jacob's return. She was worried their plan of taking over the company and taking control this way was wrong. Evie was her friend for so many years and their idea, their plot to commit Evie and become Gabriel's gardians so that they could be sure his shares of the comapny fell into their hands, would be exposed before it could even be put into motion.
Jacob's confidence that Evie was truly losing her mind, much like his mother, was what she woried about most. Evie wasn't losing her mind and Celeste knew that. Celeste's real motive was her own financial and social stability in the world where the Lord family ruled supreme, and this would forever solidifty her own son Fabian in the future.
She had taken all of Jacob's traits, hostile, controlling and paranoia, and rolled them up into motherly hold and protection of her son. But the cost would be Evie's freedom and her son Gabriel's removal from her own custody.
The optics were horrible, but Celeste was already in too deep.
Jacob's re-entrance into the office startled Celeste who's mind had drifted off into the plot at hand.
"Well?" She asked. "Where is he?"
Jacob lifted his hands up "Relax, he's on his way."
Jacob had called the family lawyer who was based in Providence. Rhode Island. A young man who had himself inherited the family law firm. The young lawyer wasn't unfamiliar with Welshport and the Lord family in the slightest, aside from being one of his firm's most profitable clients.
He was also related by blood.
As Jacob lit a cigarette and talked Celeste out of cancelling the whole thing, his secretary entered by opening the office door slightly and knocking on the inside of the door as she peeked through.
"Mr. Lockwood is here sir." She said opening the food fully so that Lear Lockwood could enter.
Lear was Rebecca Lord's nephew, son of her late brother Henry Lockwood and his wife Lorna. Lear was a young man, of 35 with sandy blond hair and eyes that were a strange warm green that never lost the sparkle of his youth. His two older siblings had moved from the east coast to expand their law firm in different parts of the country, one in Chicago, the other in San Francico leaving Lear alone to deal with the day-to-day insanity that was their Aunt Rebecca's family.
Jacob jumped from his desk with this cigarette tight in his lips "Cousin Lear! Damn, boy! You've grown up well. When Aunt Lorna told me in her letter that you'd taken over Uncle Henry's business all these years ago I stupidly never expected to see a grown man walk through my door. I guess I still see you as that kid I shoved in the bushes that winter when you all came to visit for Christman! Come in! Come in!"
"Bushes?” Celeste asked.
"They were thorn bushes, I was 5 and Jacob was 14, I still have the scars." Lear joked shaking Jacob's hand.
"Sounds very much like Jacob." Celeste answered knowing her husband's cruel side.
"Celeste, this is my cousin Lear Lockwood Esq. Cousin, this is my beautiful wife Celeste DeViana-Lord."
Celeste and Lear exchanged greetings and Jacob ushered them both over to his large oak desk where Lear began to pull from his satchel a slew of documents for Jacob and Celeste to look over.
"I've filed the paperwork, and it should all be taken care of very shortly with the magistrate here in the village. I don't know how you did it, but we were assigned the judge you specifically requested." Lear explained.
"Perfect." Jacob replied.
"Lear, we need to be sure that Evie's medical care is taken into account and that this is all done under the most legal of ways. Gabriel is a special child and taking him from his mother may be --- well, it's traumatic for any child. I want to be sure we're doing the right thing." Celeste said, hearing herself sound concerned but knowing she was doing this all out from a selfish point of view.
"Well, if Evie is as ill as you say, I don't see how any judge would allow a child to remain in the custody of a parent in that condition. Jacob was able to get her medical records from Windcliff and that is already a point in our favor." Lear said.
"How?" Celeste asked, surprised Jacob had already done his homework.
"I have my ways." He said.
"Jacob, you know as well as I do that she wasn't ill at that time, because --- " Celeste began before being interrupted.
"I know! You don't have to remind me of what happened the first time. But the records don't reflect the real reason she was there, now do they? All they reflect was that she was there and what she was treated for. Which is practically mirroring what is really happening this time -- without me interfering I may add. I haven't done a thing to her this time." Jacob asserted. "Celeste, listen, we're too late for hesitation. This is going to happen. Right Lear?"
"That is correct." Lear said pulling out the already signed custody change forms. "It just needs to be affirmed now by the state."
"Wait, wait. I need a second." Celeste said, quickly standing up from her chair.
"Celeste." Jacob replied to her outburst. "Sit back down, please."
"What -- what if we're wrong? What if she's not really going insane. Maybe we can talk to her about how to run the company and maybe by the shares off of her and Gabriel, maybe we don't need to go this route." Celeste began.
"Again, it's too late." Jacob said.
"Even if you asked her to about the shares they would be in control of and if she'd sell there's no real way to know if she would, and if she is in a frail state of mind, this is perhaps the best way to protect the company from whatever she might do with a mind that's ill." Lear said.
"This is what's best." Jacob added.
"I just---" before Celeste could finish, Johnathon DeViana walked in.
"What's this? Family meeting and I wasn't involved? Maybe my memo got lost in the shuffle of papers the messengers in the office carry."
"Johnathon, this is a private family matter." Jacob said.
"I'm family." Johnathon shot back.
Lear looked confused.
"This is my half-brother, Johnaton DeViana" Jacob said as Johnathon again interrupted.
"Lord, Johnathon DeViana-Lord."
"Uhh... yes." Jacob said rolling his eyes. " Johnathon, this is my maternal cousin Lear Lockwood-- our family lawyer. I called him up from Providence for some important issues for me and Celeste." Jacob replied.
"How do you do?" Lear replied reaching up to shake Johnathon's hand.
"How do you do. I'm also Celeste's half-brother, our family tree is rather tangled I'm afraid, we can fill you in later. So! That makes me family on both sides. What's this about then?" Johnathon said smugly.
Lear again looked confused.
"We're discussing the future of the company and we're making sure our children are taken care of, that's all." Jacob replied.
Celeste gulped.
"I see, and what does that entail exactly? Is this talk about a will? If so, I apologize for entering unannounced."
"No, actually," Lear said, pulling more papers out of his satchel and handing them to Johnathon to the widening eyes of both Celeste and Jacob. "we're discussing Evie's mental state and how much damage it can cause if she's allowed to control her shares of the company that she automatically inherited from Sebastian. From what Jacob and Celeste have testified to in some affidavits Evie is not well. We're working on getting that mitigated for the sake of the company."
Johnathon could see right through all the shabby legal talk. He looked at Jacob and Celeste who were silent, caught with what seemed like quick maneuver in a company take-over.
"Well, well, well. This seems like a perfect storm of a take-over. I wasn't aware of Evie's 'illness'. What is this 'illness'." Johnathn said using air quotes around the word illness.
"You know as well as we do Johnathon, that Evie has been struggling. Just the other day, Jacob found her standing on the ledge of her bedroom balcony. She could have fallen to her death. What if she was holding Gabriel? They would have died! We can't let something worse like that happen. This is ..." Celeste paused, her conscious again hitting her.
"Its what?" Johnathon asked knowing his sister wasn't this craven and seeing her in a new light.
"This is ... what is going to happen." She answered as Jacob smiled with pride.
Johnathon couldn't believe her, he looked at her with disgust and shook his head. Jacob knowing they needed Johnathon on their side if any of it was going to work asked Lear to excuse the Lords so that they could talk privately. Lear, wasn't sure he should at first but Jacob insisted.
As Lear closed the office door, Jacob sat Johnathon down.
"We need you to understand something Johnathon, this isn't just about Evie putting herself and her child in danger. There is something else."
Celeste turned to her husband, unsure of what he was about to say.
"What else could there be? Money seems to be the only thing any of you are worried about." Johnnathon shot back.
"Its not about money, its about the stability of our company within the world of prying eyes. How would it look to our investors, and clients and potential clients who want to work with us if they knew what was going on with the family. Its bad enough we're still dealing with damage control after what my mother did, we don't need more of that with Evie. But like I said, there's more."
Celeste sat back, finally realizing what Jacob was going to say. Her heart sank, it was all coming out now.
"The other night, the intruder that was in Gabriel's room at Tirymor and attacked me then you, that wasn't just any random intruder." Jacob began and Johnnathon leaned in closer eager to find out who it was. "It was my nephew Sebastian."
Johnathon sat back. He smiled thinking Jacob was lying. Sebastian was dead. He knew it. He had heard all about it since the day he arrived on Welshport.
"What do you mean? How can it have been Sebastian?" Johnathon asked.
"Johnny, listen," Celeste began.
"A ghost? Are the two of you trying to tell me that Sebastian's ghost was in that room? Or is he suddenly alive? Maybe it's Evie whose losing her mind many it...." Johnathon said with a patronizing smile.
"He's not alive. He's not dead. He's in the middle. He’s one of those they call vampire." Jacob replied.
Johnathon sat there stone faced then quickly burst into laughter. "You're both insane!!! Utterly insane! Committed! That’s what I should do, I should have you both committed. I knew you had a wild imagination Jacob but this is — this is too much.”
"Johnny...." Celeste said, breaking his histerical outburst. Her face was serious, not smiling. Not breaking. She was dead serious and he knew this look before. It was the look on her face both times she had to inform him of one their parent's death. It was the look she had when there was something awful and heartbreaking came about in their lives.
Her eyes teared up. Her lower lip pulled in under her upper lip that twitched holding back the tears that were about to burst from her eyes. Sebastian was alive and he could tell that it wasn't a miracle as it would be with anyone else.
He was alive, and it wasn't a happy reunion.
“You can’t be serious.” Johnathon said letting his laughter cool.
“Serious like a heart attack.” Jacob replied.
"But... how?" He asked finally letting it all set in.
"We don't know exactly, but now you know the dangers that surround Evie constantly. She's not only lising her mind somehow, but her child too has this --- this --- creature in Sebatian's form always there in shadow. They're not what we need for this company. Not now. Not ever. This is the only we can insure all of our futures. Evie will be taken away, and Gabriel will go under our care." Jacob explained.
"For how long?" Johnathon asked of Gabriel.
Jacob didn't answer, he turned to Celeste and allowed her to reply. He wanted her footprint cemented in the plot, he wanted her voice to be heard so that it wasn't just him this time causing the rift in the family. He waited as she looked to Jacob then looked to Johnathon then looked to Jacob again.
"Forever." She said in a low voice. "This, this is forever."
Johnathon thought for a moment. His hands were sweating, his left leg wouldn't stop shaking. He was worried about what it even meant to having some creature of the night lurking around Tirymor and the island as a whole. He worried, not only for himself, but for Morgan too, the boy he was left in charge of while his mother Genevieve was out in the world searching for David Lord.
The fear, the awful confusion and worry would have eaten him up if he didn't swallow his heart there in his seat and agreed to keep his mouth shut. He thought of the night Sebastian attacked him when he interrupted him with Jacob when he thought he was an intruder. He realized Sebastian was so strong. He overpowered him and threw him across the room like ragdoll. He wasn't just an intruder, clearly now he was indeed some kind of supernatural being.
"Take care of it then, and let's bury this. Bury it and make sure it never hurts us again."
Jacob nodded as Johnathon got up form his seat. Celeste reached out and he grabbed his sister's hand and squeezed it.
Then, after he left Celeste and Jacob in the office alone, Jacob came over to his wife. She stood up and he held her in his arms.
"It's done."
****
 |
| Jacqueline & Sebastian at Lockwood Thicket |
A current of cold winter wind passed over the islands of Welshport and Goode. The moon floated in a dark purple sky with stars that twinkled in the distance only obscured by the clumping clouds coming in over the ocean.
At Sebastian’s safe house, the re-made cabin known as Lockwood Thicket once owned by Rebecca’s family the Lockwood’s, the light of a candle flickered in the front room that Jacqueline's magic had recreated so pristinely for she and Sebatian to have as a home.
Sebastian lay there in the glow uneasy in his mind.
He worried for Evie and the baby, he worried for everything that happened with Mary and her baby. He pained for a future safe of all the darkness that benighted his family since the day he turned into the creature of the night that he was. Nothing was the same since his mortal death that thrust him into this every waking nightmare of an existence— and he was suffering just as everyone else was.
"Penny for your thoughts." Jacqueline said, as she sat in the darkness of the front room.
Sebastian turned quickly and extended his arm with the candle allowing the light to glow and illuminate the room.
"Why are you sitting here in the dark?" He asked her.
"It helps me think. Sometimes light distracts me from things I should be thinking about. Sitting in the dark nothing around me is seen and I can focus myself on meditation. I've been upset." She said.
Sebastian's brow went up.
"About?"
"Mary." She said.
Sebastian took a breath and walked over to another chair, dark in color and facing Jacqueline, he sat down and placed the candle on the table between then so that the light was shared between them.
She continued.
"She lost her baby the other day and I feel terrible about it. We had an argument that got way out of hand and I'm afraid it got physical."
"I know." Sebastian replied coldly.
Jacqueline was surprised he was he had remained so calm knowing that she had a hand in his cousin's horrible miscarriage.
"It's all my fault. I should have been there and maybe it wouldn't have happened. I should have been there to keep the two of you calm and I wasn't. Add it to the list of my sins." Sebastian said.
"Oh! Sebastian, no, it wasn't!" Jaqueline said, rushing over to him and falling to her knees. She placed her head on his lap and hugged his knees tightly with her arms embracing them. "You didn't do this! It was me!"
"Everything falls to me Jacqueline, it's true."
"Listen to me," She began "I never want you to think that. You did nothing wrong, I did. I was the one who told Filipe and Mary that I would keep the secret about Gabriel from you, I was the one who went over there and had that horrible fight with Mary. It was me. Please! Blame me!" She said.
He took a deep breath, and caressed her back. The two of them; souls with no where to go, lost in the fog of a dark world that didn't understand them and perhaps never would. A world where the chaos of their existence was a deep ravine of sadness and regret and most of all loss. Loss that came the very moment they changed from their mortal selves their supernatural incarnations.
The witch and the vampire brought together to help others but now burning the world that loathes them to the ground, whether they’re trying to or not.
"I have to tell you something else." She said.
He lifted her chin with his three main fingers so that she looked up at him and their eyes met. He wanted to see her face, he wanted to sense her emotions as she spoke.
"I've befriended Evie." She said.
Sebastian gulped.
"I want to be there for her, I want to be friends with her and make sure she's safe. For you, for your child with her. And... maybe, someday, we can all be friends together. I think this is the first step." She said, clouding her words with half truths.
"First step to what exactly?" He asked.
"Well, to everything between you two being healed. And when it is, we can all move on." She said.
It was a strange conversation, he hadn't thought about healing with Evie. How could he? Their lives had gone in such drastically different directions and Evie had moved on, with Matthew, and he had with Jacqueline. Their common connection was their son, whom they both loved. Sebastian's antennae went up. He could sense her holding back something from him -- truth. He could tell she was attempting to gloss over the her true feelings for Evie, her jealousy, her contempt for the fact that Evie told her she would always care for Sebastian. Jacqueline wanted to truly like Evie, but the fear of losing Sebastian, the first person she had opened up to in so many years made her want to keep them apart forever.
"I'm happy that you've been so caring towards her, but I think that maybe you should give her time. She's going to have to deal with our son as he grows and learns more about his hearing loss." Sebastian said, using Gabriel as an excuse for Jacqueline to stay away.
"No, no! I wouldn't ever try and take time away from your son and his mother!" Jacqueline said quickly sitting up from the ground. "I want to help her. After all I'm partly responsible for it, Mary of course too." She reminded him.
"Why didn't you tell me you'd become friends with Evie?"
Jacqueline paused. "I wanted to be sure when I did tell you that it came out at the right time. I don't want you to think badly about me and her together. We've bonded." She said.
"Bonded?
"Over art. We both love art so much. And in a way in our love for you. She cares for you, still, very much." Jacqueline replied, seeing a window to open in the conversation to see how he feels about Evie.
Sebatian got up from the chair and went over to the open window. The cold winter wind blew through the canopy of pine trees and other evergreens that made up the Tirymor forest. He wished he could know how Evie truly felt, but in his heart he new it was over. It had to be over. They now lived in two different universes, and he wanted to keep his son safe.
"She's a wonderful person. I want her to be safe. I would be very ... VERY... upset if something would happen to her, Jacqueline." He said masking his warning to her.
"Of course. She's the mother of your child, and... she cares for you... still." Jacqueline repeated. "Do you still care for her? In that way?"
Sebastian turned to Jacqueline.
"She's the mother of my child, I will always care for her, but I've moved on, to you." He replied as he moved closer to Jacqueline and placed some hair behind her ear revealing more of her beautiful face. He lowered his head and tilted her face up and kissed her deeply on the lips. A kiss to show his devotion to her. A kiss to quell her constant questioning about how he felt for someone who wasn't Jacqueline. A kiss in hopes she wouldn't do anything drastic.
The open window let in more of the cold winter air. The small candle on the table faught of the frozen breeze as best it could but soon the flame went out.
Sebastian and Jacqueline continued to kiss, and with a flick of her wrist Jacqueline lit a raging fire in the hearth revealing that Sebastian has taken off her clothes, and she had taken off his.
The two began to make love in the warming from room but the window remained open.
As the two troubled lovers became locked in their love making wolves in the Tirymor Forest howled in the distance alarming Senbastian to the point he pulled away from a deep passionate kiss he was locked in.
"What is it?" Jacqueline asked.
"Wolves."
"What? Wolves?" She lifted her self up slightly from her laid back position on the thick animal skin carpet and strained to hear what he did, but she couldn't hear anything but the wind.
"They're howling like I've never heard before." Sebastian said.
"I don't hear them." She answered.
"Shhhh." He said placing his warm fingers on her lips.
They were indeed howling over the wind that continued to cross the Atlantic and over the small islands in the Frenchman's bay. They called out to their own species in the hidden thickets of the dark forest, and they howled too all sending a message to the creature the lurked in the darkness that their time was coming.
Sebastian lay on the floor, nude in the middle of a passionate moment and suddenly realized that the moment the wolves were howling was not directed to him, but perhaps to someone he needed to pay attention to and to be weary of.
Someone who didn't hear the howls over the wind. Someone who lay just as nude in front the warm magical fire in of the heart of Lockwood Thicket with Sebastian Lord: Jacqueline.
****
 |
| Filipe surprises his estranged Aunt Fatima |
Later that night, as the moon became engulfed in the clouds of the night and the stars became lost to the mist of the sea, Fatima Braga read by the heart of her cottage above her parlor where she'd read tarot cards and palms for wealthy passersby and superstitious locals who had their own mysterious ghosts to chase.
In a thick black robe and her white hair tied up tightly to the back of her head, she sipped a tea that was dark in tone with little drops of a fragrant oil that filled the air in the small room.
Page by page of her book Fatima read as the clock struck 10pm, a knock came to her apartment door.
Not expecting anyone, she lifted a brow and wondered who in the world would visit her so late at night. She never took late night appointments even in the direst of circumstances, which for someone in search for spiritual answers was often times always dire. But Fatima's rules were iron clad.
She quietly closed her book and placed it on a side table that had a smaller Bible bound in black leather already there facing up. She touched the sacred book as if it would protect her on the way to the door.
Fatima placed both hands on the door and pushed her ear up against the cold wood "Who's there?"
"Filipe."
Fatima almost jumped out of her skin. Her nephew Filip hadn't communicated with her in years, and after their row in the street the other day, she thought for sure she'd never see him again. But because of the shadows that she sensed around him, she of course would never keep him at bay, especially if he had come to see her.
She quickly unlatched the locks on her door and swung it open to see her dear nephew standing in a dark coat, his skin a golden tan with a hint of rose in his cheeks. His lips full and pink slightly chapped form the winter frost.
"Filho," She said, using the Portuguese word for son, "Come in, come in!"
He stood there for a beat, thinking to himself all of the terrible things he had always known of his aunt, and feeling foolish for being there in the first place but walked in.
"Is everything ok? I'm very surprised to see you. Please, please sit! Would you like some tea? Something to eat? What can I do?" She asked, doing everything she could to welcome him.
"No, I don't need anything. I won't be here long." He answered coldly.
"What is it?"
"Tia Fatima, I don't know why you've crossed my path again. It's been years since we've both lived on this tiny island and never once saw each other. I can only imagine there's some kind of reason, something from the universe telling me to see you, to speak to you. I don't know, but I want you to know that my family needs you stay away." Filipe instructed.
Fatima took a breath, exhaling all of her anxieties and hopes that he'd come to reconcile, but it was more of the same: exile.
"Well at least it's good to know you still believe in messages from the universe. If that's so, then you must listen to what is being told to you." She answered as she spun her chair around from the fire and sat in it facing him. Standing.
"I don't know what its saying." He confessed. "But it doesn't matter. When I was 15 and my father lay dying in his bed, he told me to never allow you near me or the family I create. I was successful, for years, in keeping that promise and now when I come to town every time I turn my back there you are lurking around some shadowy street corner. Leave me be. Leave Mary be."
"So you choose to ignore the signs, the universe is telling you to see me, to see me standing there in those shadowy cornered streets and you are choosing to ignore, because Filipe, yes you may have not seen me all these years, but I have seen you. I've watched you grow up from a far into the man you are and you never once noticed me." She said.
His eyes narrowed.
"Oh yes!! I was there when you got hurt by Jacob Lord in the car accident and injured your hand. I went to the hospital many times and watched from the hallways as you got better. I saw you and that beautiful young woman Celeste when you were in love with her. I saw that love blossom. I also watched as it withered. I saw you once in the middle of the night come from the Tirymor Mansion drunk, crying. Broken. I've always been by your side, like a ghost, a phantom of your family's past. Because I love you, And I loved your father, my dear brother Camilo despite his anger towards me." Fatima explained.
Filipe couldn't respond. His heart was opening to his aunt, a woman he was told to stay away from because something horrible that had happened decades ago, when she lived in Lisbon as a nun. Camilo, Filipe's father, was so angry at Fatima for her betrayal that he swore her never to see the family again, the shame was so great.
"Why do you persist so much? Why can't you just leave me alone?" Filipe asked, his eyes filling with water torn between wanting to have his family united and also wanting to keep his promise to his father intact.
"Why do you think?" the mystical Fatima wondered.
"This is torture! I've lost so much! First I lost my mother and father to early deaths, then my best friend Sebastian, then Celeste, then the child I was going to have with Mary. I don't want to lose anymore! But here you are, in my world again and I can't accept you." Filipe said, his broken heart pouring out to his aunt, who quickly got up from her chair and reached for him, but he flinched.
Fatima was struck by the news of Mary's baby, the pain of it all showing on his face. Understandably, but she was struck and touched to see how tormented he was as she knew Filipe to be such a strong soul. He was like iron when his mother died when he was child, brave and calm in the face of such pain. When his father died much later in his life, Filipe again showed poise and strength in a world that was taking chards of his identity away from him bit by bit.
But the loss of the baby broke him.
"Filipe... I am here. I have always been here. I will never go. God will have to take my life before I go." She answered.
"But why? WHY DO YOU HAUNT ME!!!!" Filipe screamed and he fell into her arms sobbing.
She held him in her arms, like a mother to a child. He crumbled into a million pieces her heart stolen by his sadness. She loved him like he was her son, she had no children of her own and Filipe's mother died when he was just a baby. She raised him until Camilo and Filipe left Lisbon for America when he was 9 years old and from then on she'd see him every year for 4 months when she'd come by steam ship for the summer.
Until the scandal.
When a nun in Lisbon, Fatima then known as Sister Inez Baeta, broke a sacred vow and fell in love with a local priest. The scandal destroyed her reputation and the priest, embarrassed by it all, took his own life. Leaving Fatima to bare the brunt of the shock to devout catholic world she lived in.
She was removed from her vows and sent to her brother Camilo in America. Who banished her.
Filipe never knew why his aunt who now lived close, could never be spoken to.
"I just want things to be back to normal." Filipe said still sobbing.
"Look at me, come, look at me." She aid lifting his sobbing face from her shoulder. "What is normal? Who is normal? No one is filho, no one is. Your life is where it is because the universe believes it is safe there in your hands. Your child's death was an accident." Fatima answered not knowing the full truth of the situation.
Filipe pulled away in anger when remembering his baby's death and who did it.
He walked over to the hearth and looked into the fire. His eyes, a light brown chestnut reflected the flames as they burned hot under a black smoke cloak.
"We've been given a second chance." Filipes replied now free of his tears.
"Yes. The other child." Fatima replied. "I don't know if that is the best thing for you, filho." She added.
"Why?"
"Maybe the both of you need time, time to take for yourselves and maybe have another baby when the time is right."
"No, no this is what we want. We want to take care of this new born boy and help him. He deserves that, he lost his mother and has no father. We are a lost mother and father who are missing a piece of our puzzle. It's a perfect fit." Filipe replied.
Fatima shook her head "No, no. No. It's not for you. Not this baby. Give him back to Dr. Hoffman." Fatima warned.
Filipe turned from the fire and furrowed his brow. He quickly realized coming to see her was a mistake, he only came all that way to tell her to leave his family alone and now she was pretending they were close and that her opiniosn mattered to him.
"Don't, don't do that. My god, I don't even know why I told you anything. I came here to tell you to leave us alone, and that's where I'll end it. Here and now, do not come near us. Not me, not Mary and not the baby boy we've adopted." Filipe revealed.
"Adopted?"
"Yes, no matter what you think, Mary and I have decided to take in the baby. He's our son now. Is that clear?" He shouted.
"Your son?" Fatima asked, hearing the words but for some reason they sounded so off to her. So wrong. So inappropriate coming from his mouth for some reason. Her senses were telling her all of it was going to end terribly that the baby they were taking about, this sudden orphaned baby boy was not what they thought he was.
"Your son?" She repeated.
When she said the word son again, off in the center of the adjoining living room, a table with a deep blue tablecloth and a clear crystal ball sat.
The ball, a perfect sphere of glass began to glow. The white light from the crystal began to radiate so bright it lit the entire upstairs portion of the fortune teller's apartment above her parlor and began to levitate and come in to the main room where Filipe and Fatima were standing.
The levitating crystal ball was transfixing in its orbital glow. White light with fractals of yellow sparkled around it like a miniature sun spinning in midair.
Fatima crossed herself and fell to her knees. She began to pray at the miraculous vision of the ball spinning in the bright light, a clear sign to her that she was right to worry about the new baby boy becoming a member of her family.
"See the ball! It's telling us, it's telling me I am right!" Fatima said on her knees in prayer mode.
Filipe snickered at her, took a step forward and grabbed the ball of glass in floating to the center of the room and hurled it across to the other side of the where it bashed up against the wall where it shattered into thousands of pieces all over the floor.
"ENOUGH!" Filipe screamed.
Fatima, in shock, stood up. Angry. "How dare you."
"I want nothing to do with your magic, I've had enough sorcery to fill many lifetimes, and its brought me nothing but heartache. I will tell you once last time: I'm here on Welshport tonight to pick up the papers from Hoffman and sign them.... the child will be safe, will be ours, and he will be loved no matter what you think say or do. Are we clear?" Filipe demanded.
Fatima put her arms around her body and squeezed as it to hug herself like a child berated by a parent. He didn't understand her, she knew that, she knew that for some reason he never would understand her. And it wasn't for lack of believe in the supernatural, after all Mary and Eliza Goode had shown him that truth.
But for Filipe, those supernatural powers that he could not understand, that he could not explain had now taken too many things from him. For him, lashing out at Fatima, a woman he was used to giving his ire to even if it were in silence, was easier than to pour it all out on poor Mary.
Fatima was Filipe's figurative punching back, an easy mark to push out all the anger he was bottling up for so many years.
Fatima tried to speak:
"I want you to know that it was --- "
"No. I said enough. Just tell me that we're done. You and I, as family, no more." He said.
"I don't want that." Fatima replied quickly.
"It's not about what you want, it's about what is reality. We are no longer family, my father made me promise. So stay away." Filipe finally as he went to the door to leave.
"Filipe, wait." Fatima said as he turned back to her with the door knob in his hand. "I will love you nephew, for all my life and I will never stop. No matter what you think of me or what your father believed I did, no amount of shame thrown at me will ever, EVER take the love away from my family. I want you to know that, I would hope the same would go for you. People in the world are imperfect, Filho, you cannot want for them to be either, because nature itself is imperfect. To be perfect is to be divine, and no one on his earth is divine." Fatima said.
Filipe stared at her as she spoke. The words seeped into his mind like water to a sponge. He began to tear up again. His warm eyes once more filled with the pain of decades of family turmoil and loneliness. There, standing before him the woman he was supposed to shun, the woman he came to remind she would be shunned but her words took control of his heart and he went to her and hugged her again.
She accepted his hug. She held him back.
Then without saying anything, he dashed out of her small upstairs apartment and vanished into the night back to Goode Island.
Fatima stood in the room, her night slippers crunching on the broken glass all over the floor from her crystal ball.
The shards of glass began to glow, hundreds of little bits of glass all glowing the bright white light she had seen when it was still in orb form.
Then the pieces quickly all came together to form the ball again, shocking Fatima standing still in her apartment.
The universe was telling her again in the form of the ball coming back together: Familial Reconciliation could be immanent after the shattering, but the danger was still there. Lurking. Creeping.
Watching.
