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| Jacob reads Baxter’s latest column |
The village of Welshport was once again a buzz with Baxter Murphy's latest column in The Globe. The recent slaughter of the fisherman on the docks of town sent Baxter and the village into a whirlwind of speculation on who exactly was the culprit, and Baxter's finger was sternly pointed at the mysterious circumstances of Sebastian Lord.
For Baxter it was finally clear: The Lords were hiding a monster in their family and finally there seemed to be proof.
Sebastian had become a virtual enigma to the public since his disastrous wedding to Evie when the family said he had been kidnapped and replaced by a look-a-like who was shot and killed. Then when the supposed real Sebastian returned from his kidnapping, he again supposedly died in a terrible fire--all of these excuses concocted by the family to hide Sebastian's vampirism.
Now the rumors swirled! Evie was reported as saying her supposed long dead husband Sebastian was the one who saved her from suffocation in her premature grave.
Either Sebastian was dead like the Lords reported, or he was somehow alive and saved Evie.
Both could not be true --- and yet both were true.
"I heard he's been in Paris all this time in a mental institution and he came back just in time to save the woman he loves!" A woman told a friend in the park after reading Baxter's article.
"He'd been in prison this whole time, is what I heard. They're lying to us all. He's the one who shot his uncle Jacob and poor Christian Evans. That's what I think." A sailor said to his mate on the docks as they tied off ropes holding ships to shore.
"Poor boy lost his mind, I think, ever since his own mother was strangled on Bellmore Beach. He's mad I tell you, Baxter's got it right. He's out for blood and guts. We have to watch ourselves now." Another man was overheard in Gramercy Cafe after reading the article.
Over at Tirymor Jacob furiously slammed the copy of his own company's paper down on his breakfast.
"I'll strangle him!!!" Jacob yelled referring to Baxter.
"This, this is bad." Celeste gulped. "Where would he get an idea like this?"
"I have no idea."
"It's too close to the truth, Jacob. We have to do damage control." She added.
"Murphy has always had it out for this family and I should send him out on his ass…but he's a damn good writer. People buy anything he says in print. He’s wild stories sell out editions of that paper weekly. This may have gone too far." Jacob replied sipping his coffee.
"It can't be true, can it?" Celeste asked. "Those bodies were destroyed. We know how savage Sebastian can be when he's.... well, when he's out of his mind with hunger."
Jacob's eyes narrowed with anger realizing Celeste's questioning meant she was now feeling a slight bit unsure of what she had told Jacob of Sebastian’s fate months ago, a macabre agreement the two of them had to make sure that not only would Evie be out of the way by lying and locking her in an asylum but that Sebastian too would be out of the picture; gone for good— a job Celeste said she bestowed on Johnathon.
"He's dead." Jacob replied quickly. "Johnathon took care of that. That’s what you said would happen, isn’t that Right? Why would you think twice?"
"I, I think so." She said.
“Think? Celeste you told me…” Jacob began.
“I know what I told you!” His wife shouted back.
"Then go find our dear little brother Johnathon and ask him what in hell he did with Sebastian right now! Make sure Sebastian is really gone. I'll take care of Murphy."
****
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| Tensions continue to brew at Tirymor |
Elsewhere at Tirymor House in the brightly lit and glamorous golden chandelier room, Cora paced back and forth with the latest edition of The Welshport Globe tucked under her arm.
Her lavender dress seemed to float along the golden hardwood floors as she paced in the sunlight that beamed down into the room from the large windows. Her heart raced as she wondered how this would all end and if she'd be discovered as the person who had leaked the what Evie had said to Baxter.
"They'll destroy me." She whispered to herself. "Lear." She added wondering why Lear would want to help her brother do this to his own family.
As she continued to worry about her place within the household and fume over what her brother Baxter had done, in walked the ladies of the manor Rebecca and an extra nervous Celeste to find Cora facing away from the doors.
"Lear." She whispered again out loud to a surprised Rebecca and Celeste.
"What about my nephew?" Rebecca asked.
Cora almost jumped out of her skin hearing Rebecca's voice from behind.
"Well?" Rebecca asked, hoping to get the suddenly mute Cora to speak up.
"Uh. He... he was here." Cora said, failing to say anything concrete to Rebecca's liking.
"Today? When?" Celeste asked.
"….the uh….other day." Cora replied with a pregnant pause.
"Yes?" Rebecca chimed in waiting for more information from Cora's strange behavior.
"He was here." Cora said again.
"Miss Taylor what the devil is going on with you?" Celeste asked as she and Rebecca sat side by said on a golden sofa in the sun light.
Cora was petrified and all she could do was remove the paper from under her arm and lift it up.
"Oh! That." Rebecca finally said. "Yes, well, I'm sure our company will have a lot to say about Mr. Murphy's latest attempt at throwing some kind of social scandal down our way. We’ll deal with him the way we've always dealt with him in the past." Rebecca replied doing her best to pretend she didn’t know what Sebastian truly was capable of if pushed to the brink and starved for blood.
"You're not worried about what he wrote?" Cora asked.
Rebecca chuckled. "You mean that fantastic story of a monster in my house? That Sebastian is some kind of killer? My dear I’ve seen the likes of many ghost in the shadows in my day, believe me or not and my grandson is gone. He is not here. Baxter Murphy knows that. It’s a fantasy. Nothing more. The story will feed the villagers' desire to know what happens behind these walls and when the next scandal happens this one will just float off into the distance like rose petals on the sea. The very idea of my grandson being some kind of monster is idiotic to say the least."
"But he knew so much detail, about what was said and who said it. I think Cora's worry might be warranted. If the things we are saying to each other when we think it’s safe, in our own home, down how leak to Baxter it can lead to more of this. " Celeste said.
“What are you saying Celeste?” Rebecca wondered somewhat irritated at Celeste’s show of being lady of the manor. “Should we question the staff like some kind of Spanish inquisition? Some of them have been with this family for decades and you know this! I can’t imagine Baxter got his information from someone here.” Rebecca added doing everything she could to negate her daughter in law.
Cora gulped at Celeste hinting that she was the provider of such details to Baxter, her secret brother.
"Yes. Well, the mole must be smoked out somehow. We can’t go one letting more and more personal stories get into our own paper like this. Think about it Rebecca, what would Baxter do with stories of you and your new husband and how you found love in a mental ward." Celeste replied smartly.
Rebecca cleared her throat, a sign of her frustration with Celeste again showing her up, but the Queen bee met her match in Celeste.
“Perhaps you’re right. I’ll see about questioning the staff, no one else. They’re more comfortable with me.”
"Thank you." Celeste said then looking up at Cora who had the face of a trapped rat.
The young governess had to think quick on her feet "I just hate what he's done. Truly! You have all been so kind of me and Gabriel is such a sweet and innocent boy who has asked for none of this. I'd do anything to make sure Baxter Murphy ended his revenge on you all."
Rebecca slightly unfazed by any of the drama as she was used to it removed a deck of cards from the small box on the table in front of her and began to play solitaire. She knew how to maneuver around these types of attacks in the press towards her family, she wasn't worried.
But Celeste, her nerves frayed from her contentious conversation with Jacob and constant back and forth with Rebecca perked up with Cora's use of the word "revenge".
"Why would you say that?" Celeste asked standing up.
"Say what Mrs. Lord?"
Rebecca then lifted her eyes from her game of solitaire and watched Celeste move over to Cora. “‘Revenge’." Celeste repeated. "Why would Baxter Murphy want revenge on this family?"
Rebecca sat back and crossed her arms over her knees. She had never thought any of Baxter's negative articles in their paper were at all acts of revenge but acts of a zealous journalist looking to get himself in the path of fame and fortune with exposés of the rich and powerful.
But Cora made it seem personal.
Again, Cora felt trapped, she shouldn't have said it "No, I .... well, I meant that," but Celeste interrupted.
"You said revenge. When I think of revenge, I think of someone going after another for something done in the past. To seek retribution. Why would Baxter seek that against this family?"
Cora, in truth, didn't know her brother’s real motives. Was he just a menace; a divisive slug who only wanted to put the rich and power in their place? Or was he very much trying to seek revenge for something they had done to him personally? It was never clear when speaking to Baxter. By now, however, Rebecca caught on.
"Lear." Rebecca said.
Celeste turned back to her mother in-law. "What?"
"When we came in, we heard her say my nephew’s name. And then she said he was here. It’s him, isn't it? You think my nephew is the one seeking revenge and leaking these stories to Murphy."
Celeste turned back to Cora who finally saw a way out of her own pickle. "YES! I do believe that."
Celeste furrowed her brow; she did not buy anything Cora was trying to sell.
"I would watch him very closely." Cora added.
"We will." Celeste replied coldly. “Among others.”
"I should check on Gabriel." Cora said as she zipped passed Celeste and Rebecca and left the golden sitting room.
"Something about her..." Celeste said.
“You suspect her don’t you?" Rebecca wondered.
Celeste sat back down next to her mother-in-law Rebecca. Across from them was large mirror on the wall the reflected the two sitting on the sofa. Both women had on similar style dresses in dark toned gray, a gray that almost looked black but when the light shined in the right spots it shined metallic. This similar dress was an accidental coincidence but now looking in the reflection Celeste was seeing herself turning more and more like Rebecca. The years that she was married to Jacob, all the time the two Mrs. Lords shared together -- good and bad -- was seeping into her DNA like molten lava and oozing into her words, mannerisms and personality.
Celeste, like Rebecca, was now much more cunning. Curious. Her suspicions of everyone were always at a high level.
Jacob's wife trusted no one.
"I suspect a lot of things." Celeste answered.
Rebecca chuckled "My dear, the walls of Tirymor have certainly started to close in on you. Don't worry. It won't hurt a bit." Rebecca said as she stood up leaving her card game unfinished.
“You’re done with the cards?” Celeste asked.
Rebecca turned back and shrugged her shoulders. “I have someone to meet.”
Both women felt a connection, a kinship, and now a sort of rivalry that could lead to rough waters ahead but for now it was clear that there was indeed a mole in the house and Cora dropping Lear's name made a lot of sense to at least one of them: Rebecca.
She knew exactly why her nephew Lear would do this, and soon she'd cut Lear off at the pass. This would be her nephew's first and last attempt destroy his aunt for her past indiscretions.
No one ever said ancient trees couldn't turn a new leaf, they just took longer.
****
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| Filipe awakens in the woods |
As the entire town buzzed over the news in The Globe, far off in the distant Tirymor Forest, a seething pack of wolves circled something in a thicket of thorn bushes as the sun of the new day peeked through the canopy of large birch trees.
The wolves sniffed around and suddenly, there was a stir.
It was a body. It was Filipe, covered in blood and in the fetal position. Naked and shivering in the fresh air.
When he came to, the man who's first turn as a wolf when the quarter-moon came, found himself covered in blood. The wolves that surrounded him scattered into the brush but kept watch as Filipe stood with his knees shaking.
He couldn't comprehend where the blood had come from. He had no wounds. He had nothing on his body that would suggest the blood was his, but then, like a beam of light from a sun a memory flashes.
It was night. There was the sound of the ocean lapping and crashing up against the docks mixed with the chatter of two men. He saw himself partly changed into the wolf that came with the moon slowly approach the men stalking them as if they were two gazelle and he was lion in African brush. The waves crashed harder and harder onto the rocks below.
The men, two fishermen, never saw the sunrise.
Then Filipe lunged. His teeth sank deep into the flesh of the first man as the other screamed in horror and tried to fight the creature attacking his friend. It was futile. Filipe claws ripped at the man's throat, and he fell backwards and watched as his friend was ripped to shreds in front of his own dying gaze.
"No, I couldn't have. I couldn't have done that." Filipe said in whisper to himself.
But the blood all over his naked body didn't lie.
Filipe fell to his knees and cried. The awful truth was that Fatima was right. This transition was just the beginning of the terrible things to come. He hadn't seen anything yet, as the full moon in all its gloomy white glowing glory was coming and there would be much more suffering to come at the jaws of Filipe Braga.
The wolves began to slowly creep out of their hiding spots as they watched the crumbling Filipe on the ground in the forest begging to be killed by them in hopes they'd take pity on him and save him from what was to come. The wolves, seeing Filipe as their pack leader, only circled him and sniffed him. Then, a large gray wolf off in the distance watching, the wolf that made Filipe what he was, howled into the air. The returned the deep howl of the pack.
Filipe got up from the ground. He looked out into the distance at the large gray wolf that almost seemed to glow glowing in the sun light that bathed him. Filipe's breathing began to shallow. He was fearful of the monster that made him what he was but at the same time a wave of calm fell over him. He said nothing. He did nothing, just stood there under the Tirymor Forest canopy, his muscles bulging, his naked body glistening with the blood of his first victims.
And then, his eyes changed. The circle pupil turned to a long black slit floating in a yellow iris.
The gray wolf howled again and Filipe, feeling the strength of his pack howled back in a human voice. But when he was done, his eyes returned to their normal human form. It frightened the man. He could not understand what was happening to him and if he could be saved.
"How many more?" He asked himself of the people he'd kill.
With his mind racing, his heart beating in his ears, the naked Filipe made his way through the forest and tried find a way to make it back to Fatima's house without being detected.
The wolves joined the grey wolf off in the distance and vanished into the mists of the trees returning in the night to watch their pack leader Filipe continue his ravaging when the full moon finally turned him into the complete monster that it Fatima's prophecy promised.
****
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| New Lord in-laws |
Later that afternoon back at Tirymor House, the Lords were still licking their wounds at the vicious report in The Globe about Sebastian's supposed involvement with the two men who died a gruesome death on the docks.
They all knew of course that it was a possibility. The truth of Sebastian's life in the shadows was an unspoken secret that no one in the Lord family dared utter out loud to anyone outside their inner circles. They all saw what he had become. They all whispered prayers for his possible return to some sort of healed life but of course that was not to be.
Inside their own subconscious they allowed the explosion at Lockwood Thicket over a year ago to cover for Sebastian truth and let the world believe that’s how his life ended. It was an unspoken pact that no matter what, the explosion would be how the public believed Sebastian died.
Jacob’s memory would often go back to the night Gabriel was born and how Sebastian seemed so normal, so himself…. so human again. He had tried so hard to vanquish his nephew over the years and now, it seemed like the world was trying to too.
The entire family knew what Sebastian had become all those years ago, so was it so hard to believe the killer Baxter was writing about was Sebastian after all?
The other question was: where was he?
The only person alive who knew this part of the equation was Evie who hid her beloved ex-husband away somewhere, a place no one would find him and where he remained safe from the hungry eyes of villagers.
No one truly knew what to make of the killings and Sebastian’s disappearance. And so, the rumors swirling were just that. Rumors. Spun by Baxter Murphy's wicked envious pen.
Inside the Golden Sitting room Celeste and Jacob watched as their two boys played on the floor. Fabian worked out a puzzle, one his 5 year old little mind could put together in seconds. Cora sat with little Garbriel as he continued to work on ways to communicate using signs. Cora's wonderful knowledge of such a special way to help people who had a hearing emplacement such a blessing for little Gabriel.
As they made small talk, Johnathon entered the room. His skin looked fresh and warm, sparkling even. His eyes glistened in the bright room. He had the biggest smile on his face, it almost flew in the face of Jacob's scowl of his younger half-brother's.
"Well, he shows!" Jacob said closing the book he was reading and placing it on his large knee. "Where the hell have you been? We expected you at the office. My mother was extremely excited, for reasons I'll never know, to have you under her wing now that's she's back at the helm."
"What is it?" Celeste asked also noting Johnathon's strange happiness in a time no one felt happy.
"I have very exciting news." Johnathon replied. "I've married."
Celeste, in shock, scooted to the edge of the sofa. She turned to Jacob who turned to her.
Both speechless.
Fabian giggled, he knew what married meant and ran up to his uncle diving in for a large hug.
"What? What do you mean you've married? To who?" Celeste asked.
"Darling?" Johnathon said turning to the door of the sitting room. "Come in."
Celeste stood, Jacob too, the book falling from his knee as Jacqueline Grey walked into the room in a beautiful dark blue dress. Her thick curls tied to the back of her head and pearl drop earrings danced from hear ears casting oval shadows on her bare shoulders.
"Oh." Celeste said recognizing the earrings as her mother Cristina's. Gifts from Albert Lord while in the throes of their long secret affair.
Jacqueline smiled shyly. "I know it was sudden, but we, we just couldn't wait."
"I... I don't know what to say." Celeste said.
"I do." Jacob replied. "What on earth have you done!?" He added turning to his half-brother.
"I'm in love. We're in love. We decided that we didn't have to wait any more time. This was what we wanted. I wanted." Johnathon replied to a stunned Celeste and Jacob.
"Johnathon I don't know what's gotten into you, but this is certainly not what I thought you were headed in your life. You've only been apart from Genevieve for half a year, you just got a promotion at the publishing house. With all due respect, Miss....." Celeste replied still not knowing Jacqueline's name
"Jacqueline. Jacqueline Gray-- well now DeViana. That sounds quite nice, actually. Jacqueline DeViana. Or is it Lord?" she said with a grin.
Jacob felt sick, another Mrs. Lord to contend with.
"For god's sake." He scoffed.
"She's my wife." Johnathon said, his voice sounding odd and distant. His eyes too, they seemed glazed and cold. There were no feelings in his words. The love of man and wife and yet he was only saying words. No heart. It was Jacqueline's spell holding him in her web of secret.
Celeste sensed it.
"Yes, well you have to understand we're a bit shocked. This is coming quite suddenly. Johnathon you never even told us you were seeing someone serious enough to marry." Celeste noted
"Of course I did." Johnathon said his words again blanketed in a vague distant tone.
"No, you didn't." Celeste counted back forcefully.
Cora got up from the floor where the children were. She carefully absorbed the information she was privy to, hopefully something her brother Baxter could bite on and leave Evie alone. Cora felt Evie had suffered enough.
"Perhaps I should take the boys upstairs." Cora said quickly gathering the little ones as they hugged and kissed Celeste goodbye. Celeste noted again, Johnathon not even acknowledging his nephew Fabian as the little boy tried to hug him.
"This is quite the family circle now, isnt it." Jacob interjected annoyed with everything he was hearing. "And just what do you do Miss... forgive me, Mrs. DeViana? Aside from marrying into dysfunctional well-to-do families that is."
"Jacob please." Celeste scolded.
Jacob continued "You must have come from somewhere? Do something? Family? Friends?" Jacob grilled.
"I'm from here, the east coast. My family is no longer living -- mother and father. No siblings. I can assure you Mr. and Mrs. Lord," Jacqueline began as she turned to her spellbound new husband and gripped his hand "we are in love and very happy."
Celeste sighed uncomfortably and turned to Jacob and rolled her eyes. "I seriously doubt that."
"But we are!" Jacqueline exclaimed.
"I love her. We are married." Johnathon said robotically. "We have come here to give you our happy news."
"Johnathon I need to speak with you alone." Celeste said, charging over and taking her brother from his new wife.
Jacob lifted a brow and grinned evilly at Jacqueline. He could spot a snake in the grass form a mile away. Like recognized like.
"Seems as though you've hit the jackpot, haven't you Jacqueline. Tell me, how long did it take you to bed my half-brother and go the distance? I'm assuming we'll be hearing the pitter-patter of little feet quite soon." Jacob said, assuming Johnathon and Jacqueline's marriage was the result of some tryst that ended with Jacqueline expecting a child.
"I assure you, its not like that." She replied.
"So it's money?" He shot back.
"Not everything is about money Jacob. Love can be in there too. Haven't you felt it before?" She said walking closer to Jacob. Her voice growing deeper and her speech slowing. "You know what I mean don't you? Love. The light of the world, that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when that perfume enters your airways."
She was now only inches from him. Jacob could spot a snake, but Jacqueline could spot the devil. She saw through Jacob and all his cruelty. Her powers were so strong she could enter his mind and know his entire history. She felt all his cruel intentions. She saw all his evil deeds. His loves. His betrayals. His wicked obsessions.
"What do you want?" he whispered to her.
"I just want love. Just like you. That's what you've always wanted. Love from your father and your mother. Love from the world....love from Sabrina. Do you miss her? Do you think about her? I know you do. She's always on your mind. The ghost that won't leave you and find it's way to the light sits on your heart like an embedded bruise. It hurts too much to admit it, I know, but it's there. Always." Jacqueline replied.
"What do you want?" Jacob repeated this time in a colder tone.
Jacqueline's eyes narrowed ready to say all she wanted was Sebastian's whereabouts, her true love, but she held herself back and only replied again the word Love. Which was true, but it was Sebastian's love she wanted, not really Johnathon's.
Jacob shook his head and reached for his drink on the table. He chuckled, assuming she had read about the family history in some magazine or book. Everyone knew about Sabrina and Jacob's rumored affair. It was biggest part of the lie Jacob said was the reason David killed Sabrina in a drunken jealous Rage.
The truth of course was Jacob's dark lust killed her and framed David.
Jacqueline knew that too. She saw it all in her own powerful mind.
"You'll be searching all your life, whether it is long or short, Mrs. Jacqueline. Love is hard to keep. But knowing this world as I do, all they money Johnathon has may have to be a consolation prize." he added.
Then, Jacob paused, and his eyes darted to Jacqueline's stomach, assuming again she was with child "And a very hefty prize it is for you...both, thanks to my mother." Recalling how his mother helped bring Johnthon into the family fold at a much higher position at the company than Jacon had ever wanted
Silent now, Jacqueline reached down to where Jacob's eyes were looking. Even though she was the person with all the powers, she felt he too could see right through her. At the end of the awkward conversation, she found herself also agreeing with Jacob when it came to Love's illusiveness especially when she found it with Sebastian.
As long as she lived, Jacqueline would die trying to find her true love.
"What are you doing?!?!" Celeste aske furiously in a side room with Johnathon. "What's gotten into you?"
"I'm in love. We are married." The bewitched Johnathon repeated.
Celeste scoffed "Yes, you've mentioned that. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you say this was happening with this woman? A woman we've never met!"
"I wanted to do this. No one forced me." Johnathon replied oddly.
"I never said anyone forced you." Celeste answered. "Something isn't right, Johnathon. Who is Jaqueline Gray?"
"We should go, love." Jacqueline said, entering the room.
"Excuse me, my brother and I are having a private conversation." Celeste interjected.
"We're going out to the gardens. I want to show her the gardens." Johnathon replied almost robotically.
"Johnathon we were speaking! We have to discuss what you've done here." Celeste replied.
"We'll be back, you can talk again." Jacqueline interjected.
“Jacqueline please don’t come between my brother and I, we’re trying to have a conversation.”
Jacqueline lifted a brow. “From one Mrs. Lord to another, Celeste, I wouldn’t start throwing any moral weight around. We’re both cut from the same cloth and came into this family to keep ourselves safe and protected. Don’t think I don’t know the real reason you married that stain on humanity you call your husband. So if I were you I’d wish Johnny and me good luck and stop trying to pull your false moral weight around.”
Celeste felt as if she were cold-cocked with Jacqueline’s words—every word the the truth about how she married Jacob for virtually the same reasons Celeste married Johnathon.
Johnathon said nothing in his sister’s defense and only stared at his sister with a glaze look. Jacqueline looped her arm through Johnathon’s and yanked him towards the French doors to gardens.
The witch knew her spell had worked this time, but the more Johnathon stay away from her, the weaker it may become. She knew she had to stay close, otherwise she risked the fade of the spell and Johnathon realizing the truth.
"Johnathon, wait...." Celeste exclaimed. She felt suffocated and unable to control the situation. She watched as her brother and his bride walked off to walk the grounds of Tirymor.
***
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| Evie Arrives at Tirymor House |
Meanwhile, Evie Jordan-Lord was arriving by car with Aaron Hamstead who had come to pick her up in town after she rushed off from her meeting with Matthew at Gramercy Cafe.
The purpose of her visit was to confront anyone in the family who had brazenly spread the rumor of Sebastian that got into the paper, but mostly to see her little boy Gabriel.
The trip up the winding gravel private driveway felt eerily familiar - a déjà vu of her very first trip up the same driveway when she first arrived in Welshport three years earlier. Gazing out of the car window at the sprawling grounds of green grass locked in by ancient trees of the Tirymor Forest that reached up into the foggy Maine sky. Then, as the car turned around its final bend — once again, the golden palace the Lords called home appeared.
Again just as it did that first day, glittering in its sun drenched facade. Evie felt nervous just as she did that first day, but now for a completely different reason.
As she stepped out the car, held open by the towering Aaron Hamstead, she looked up and smiled at him cooling the rage inside of her.
"Thank you for coming so quickly and picking me up." She said as she adjusted her hat.
"Anytime." He winked, his fondness for the young Lord bride still strong as the day he met her.
As Arron stood to one side allowing Evie to make her way up the many steps of Tirymor's front entrance, a shock fell upon her face.
"Miss?" Aaron asked noting her reaction to something off in the distance.
Over passed the house walking in the lush gardens among to green topiaries and rose bushes and just beyond the entrance to the tangled hedge maze walking arm in arm with Johnathon DeViana was Jacqueline Gray, the witch who sent Evie to her grave -- ALIVE.
Evie's blood ran cold; flashbacks flooded Evie's mind of Jacqueline telepathically taunting her while she stood over Evie in her grave, the witch's evil laugh, ripping at the top of the coffin with her bare hands, her nails ripping from her fingers, blood, scratches, the smell of wet dirt from the melting snow seeping into her grave!
"Miss???" Aaron said again seeing Evie's face freeze with shock of Jacqueline so openly at Tirymor House.
"Its her. She's here. She's here!!" Evie said in terrified voice.
"Who Miss?" the driver asked turning to look where Evie's eyes lead him.
Evie braced herself with Aaron's hands.
"The witch. The witch Jaqueline Gray."
