B7/Ch8: FALLING ON SWORDS

The Village prepares for the 1st day of the trial  

On a usually chilly spring morning, a large crowd gathered at the front of the Welshport Village courthouse. Today was the first day of the trial of what the press was calling THE WELSHPORT WITCHES. 

Barrister Eden Sydney had a very strange job to do on this morning as he sat inside awaiting everyone's arrival.

Because the law in the city charter which Mary, Evie and Matthew were accused of breaking was so old, and so lacking in so much reality, Eden had to twist his prosecutorial knowledge in a way that would make sense for the village magistrate to agree for the trial of witchcraft to go on in the first place. 

If the magistrate refused even the very idea of a trial, he'd set the three supposed witches free.

This is what Lear Lockwood was hoping for as he defended the three. Unfortunately for Lear, there were actual witnesses to Mary using her powers where a man died. This would be the basis for Eden's reasoning for the wolf that killed many in town too -- Under his very cohesive accusation, Mary and her supposed coven of Evie and Matthew came to the caves where many in the village caught them to continuing to summon black magic and where they bewitched a stray wolf in the village to kill and where Mary used her sorceress powers that killed the Mayor's aide, all total fabrications created by Mayor Churchill to nail the three in a conviction.

Outside under the gray spring sky, Baxter Murphy stood on the front steps of the courthouse watching everyone arrive. He salivated at the very idea of this entire trial. Two mothers of Lord Grandchildren sat accused of witchcraft, a local fisherman, formally lauded by his peers as a true man, was tangled up in the mess too like a tuna in one of his nets. A small-town scandal that Baxter helped create with his venomous newspaper columns just got even more scandalous as the trial began.

And the locals wanted justice. 

As Baxter stood at the top of the steps, he watched his adopted sister Cora Taylor arrive with Evie's family Aurora and Nik in a small black taxi with shining chrome mirrors. Baxter's stomach dropped. He hadn't seen her since their tense moment at The Siren's Call pub. Her eyes quickly located him, and she hesitated walking up to the courthouse doors.

Nik turned noticing her lag behind then looked up to where Cora's eyes were targeting to see Baxter standing there nervously awaiting his interaction with Cora. If there'd even be one.

"Are you going to be alright? You don't have to be here, you know. You can easily go back to Tirymor and wait with Gabriel." Nik said.

Cora shook her head. "I'll be fine. I owe it to Evie to show my support, besides I don’t know how comfortable I’ll be at Tirymor before we let Rebecca know." 

Aurora turned to Cora “Know what?” 

Cora sighed “It’s a long story.” 

Aurora and Nik shot each other looks. They knew better than anyone never to keep secrets from a member of the Lord family, especially Rebecca. For her part, Aurora had hoped Cora too would have learned her lesson, but she’d have to let Cora make her own bed this time.

 The truth that Cora was really Maggie Lockwood, Rebecca's niece who’d been sold on the black market as an infant to the Murphy family, would for now stay locked away. 

Aurora took a breath and looped her arm through Cora's "It'll be alright. Whatever it is.”

The three again started up the front steps when a flurry of villagers gasped and began whispering at the newest people to arrive at Court: Jacob and Charlotte. 

Baxter swallowed his anxiety and quickly rushed down the steps pushing through a gaggle of press and clamoring photographers to scoop a quote from Jacob, one of the richest men in New England whose family was at the center of real-life witch trial.

"Mr. Lord!!!! MR. LORD!!" a reporter from a rival newspaper in New York shouted, "What does it feel like to have members of your family accused of something so bizarre!?" 

Jacob did not answer. 

"MR. LORD! Who’s side are you on? Do you believe the accusations?" Another reporter from Boston shouted.

"MR. LORD! OVER HERE! MR. LORD! Are you a witch believer? Does your family openly practice?" third reporter with a photographer shouted with a laugh as Jacob pushed through holding on tightly to the terrified Charlotte who herself hid her supernatural abilities. 

"I can't believe he brought her." Nik said, viewing the scene 12 steps below him.

"They have to show a strong front for Mary." Aurora explained. 

"MR. LORD! WHERE'S YOUR WIFE?" Baxter shouted at Jacob. "Is she jealous you're here supporting your ex, the accused witch Mary Goode!?" 

Jacob quickly turned to Baxter who's voice he recognized as the man on his pay roll and slugged him in the jaw with a right hook.

The crowd began to chatter about such salacious question knowing the volatile history between Jacob and Mary. Cora turned away and buried her face in Aurora's shoulder. 

"I'm here for Charlotte's mother and my nephew's widow." Jacob growled attempting to set the record straight. 

Baxter turned back to Jacob, his jaw sore, his lip plump and smiled "I'll quote you." 

Jacob and Charlotte then quickly moved up the steps where guards began to block the nagging press below. Watching this, Aurora, Nik and Cora who slowed down their pace met Jacob and Charlotte at the courthouse doors. 

"Thank you for coming." Aurora said to Jacob. "I know that Sebastian would be happy to know his family is here supporting Evie and of course Mary. We're all family to that end. And since Matthew is all alone in this, we have to be here for him too." she added.

"Poor Matthew." Cora whispered to herself. 

"My nephew's life ... and death..." Jacob began again regurgitating the lie that Sebastian was dead, "has left a deep wound on my family's heart. This entire situation is just salt in that same unhealed wound." He added, neglecting to recall his involvement in Sebastian's apparent death.

"Is my mother here yet?" Charlotte asked the Jordans. 

"We're not sure honey, but I don't think so." Aurora replied.

"Miss Taylor, interesting to find you here. You've nowhere to be? Perhaps eavesdropping at Tirymor reporting back to the slug of a brother down there?" Jacob said, cutting through the kind family reunions straight to Cora's betrayals.

Aurora and Nik shot each other looks again; someone had told Jacob that Cora was the mole at Tirymor passing info to Baxter.

"I know you must be angry, sir," Cora replied, her stomach tightening when she realized she'd been outed. "but I promise you just as I promised Mrs. Jordan and Dr. Jordan that I -- I regret everything I did to help Baxter. I truly do and that's why I'm here today, so that the judge can see that I'm on Evie's side. I hope that you and Mr. and Mrs. Casador know that. Gabriel, he's just been such a light in my life and my error for my hand in all of this is my biggest regret."

"Yes -- Jane told me as much." Jacob said, revealing his source. "I can't say that I will trust you today or tomorrow or ever again -- but Aurora seems to, at least with little Gabriel, but I'll let that be Aurora's mistake to make, it won't be mine." 

"Jacob, I do trust her." Aurora said. "She made an error, and although it helped get us to this point, I think we can all agree that Coraline is indeed sorry for what she did. I think she deserved a second chance." 

Jacob lifted a brow and pursed his lips mulling over Aurora's kindness to a woman who'd betrayed them all. But quickly digressed back. "Again, that'll be your mistake not mine because Miss Taylor, I hope you know that nothing in this village goes on without my knowledge, I may have somehow looked passed you this time, but now you're on my radar. The minute the trip line snaps, and something tells me you're the one caught in the snare, there'll be no way out. I hope I'm clear." 

"Jacob...please." Nik said irritated with Jacob's cold threat.

"She said she was sorry, Daddy, we have to accept." Charlotte added.

Jacob did not reply to either of them, he only tightened his arm around Charlotte and began to enter with her into the courthouse but not before turning back to Aurora, Cora and Nik.

"Well, are you coming? I thought you wanted us to the family front." Jacob said.

With those words, Cora then realized he'd listened to Charlotte and Aurora. He'd accept her into the small circle for now to show a supportive front for the accused. 

But Cora knew his threats were never empty. She'd never cross him again. Never. 

****

Celeste & Genevieve meet up in the gardens 

Walking along the pebbled path of the Tirymor Gardens, Genevieve Thorne cuddled her almost grown son Morgan as he squirmed in her arms. She'd missed their closeness so much. Her regret for leaving to search for David was so great it felt as if she'd left part of her heart in Welshport while she was in London. 

A true error in her part she'll never forgive herself for.

As they walked under over-cast sky, Genevieve, in her thick fur coat and he in his own camel peacoat, watched as a mother robin dipped her head into a nest and fed her one single baby bird that stretched it's neck high above the nest's rim reaching for it's mother's beak full of worms.

Morgan wrinkled his nose at the little bird's odd shaped head.

"Every baby at that age looks a little funny." Genevieve giggled. 

As they continued to walk through the gardens they noticed Celeste and Fabian sitting on a bench together under a gorgeous willow, equally as chilled by the day.

"Will Charlotte's mama come back?" Fabian asked.

"We don't know yet meu amor." Celeste replied, her adoration of her sweet boy clear in her ancestral Portuguese.

"Oh." the boy replied sadly as another thought formed "What will happen to her if she doesn't come back?"

"Well, we're all hoping she and Evie and Mr. Winterborn will come back, so we should focus on that. A happy return, not something that would make us worry more or be sad." Celeste answered.

Fabian was unsatisfied.  

"But what if she doesn't? Will Charlotte go with her?" He asked of his big half sister.

"No, no, Charlotte won't go anywhere." Celeste reassured him. "She's part of the family and no one can take her away." 

"But Charlotte's mama is her family, and they will take her away!" Fabian answered still trying to connect the dots.

"Fabian, no one will take Charlotte away, not ever. And her mama-- don't worry about her mama right now. Daddy is going to do the best he can to help her." Celeste said.

"I hope so." Fabian said squeezing a hug from his mother who happily reciprocated. "And Evie. Do you still like Evie? You don't talk about her." 

Celeste sighed. She hadn't realized how instinctive her little boy was, especially on the strained relationship Celeste and Evie had since Gabriel's custody squabble that Rebecca was able to quickly squash. 

"Of course I like her, but darling, sometimes friends…” she paused to think “well, they grow distant when they have children. Life changes. But --- yes, I still like Evie." Celeste replied smiling when she realized that wasn't a lie. She actually did like Evie; she missed their friendship too. 

"Looks like we all had the same idea today: fresh air.." Genevieve said, surprising Celeste.

"Genevieve! So wonderful to see you again." Celeste said as the two hugged, in a chilly tone. "Morgan would you be a dear and show Fabian the fountains, they're so very pretty in this time of the day."

Morgan looked at his mother, the two of them knowing in a second that Celeste wanted to be alone with Genevieve. 

As the two boys went off to the fountains, Genevieve sat next to Celeste on the stone bench. The two almost never looked at each other. There was still an icy animosity between then after Genevieve dissolved her relationship with Celeste's brother Johnathon and ran off to London in search of David Lord.

"I'm actually surprised you'd come back to Tirymor considering everything that happened." Celeste said, watching the same mother Robin fly off for more food from her nest.

"My son lives here, of course I'd come to see him. But that won't be for very much longer. I'm going to ask him to come back with me soon, perhaps after this messy trial." Genevieve said.

"To live with you? And this stranger you brought back from London?" Celeste said, the village gossip of Christopher's resemblance to David still hadn't reached the Lords.

Genevieve gulped unsure if Celeste was testing her. 

"Christopher is a father himself, and Morgan is my son. I know that he'll be happy with us. I have lot to prove to him, and I want that chance." Geneieve replied. 

Celeste stood and faced the woman who almost married her brother Johnathon. The sky was getting darker, a clear sign of a coming spring storm. As the wind picked up, Celeste closed her arms around her body for warmth and sighed-- there was more on her mind and she cautiously chose her words.

"Listen, whatever you do with this Christopher person is your business and I won't stop you from reuniting with Morgan. A mother should be with her child. I've made a mistake crossing another mother, and I've lost that friendship forever. But, what I am really still upset over is what you did to my brother. I don't know if you heard but he was married recently and unfortunately something has happened to that marriage that's put my brother in a very dark place. I blame you." Celeste said.

"Me? Why would I be blamed for Johnathon's dark place?" 

"Geneveive, I've never seen him like this before. He came home last night and it was as if he'd been gone for 50 years. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. His face dry and weathered. He'd been in the same clothes he left in days before. Dirty, disheveled. Sick. Something was very wrong with him. He has never been the same since you left him." 

"What could have happened to him?" Geneveive felt horrible.

Celeste shook her head. 

"And where is he now?" Geneveive asked. "We saw him in the Park the other day. He did seem off."

"He must of home here after that." Celeste noted.

"And no one knows what happened to his wife?"

Celeste shrugged. "God only knows. He ran off and we haven't seen him since. I'm very worried about him. I'm worried about Jacqueline, even know I can't stand the sight of her. She never felt good for him, she...something about her ached my bones."

"I wish there were something I could do." Genevieve answered.

"There might be."

Geneveive finally turned to Celeste and scooted closer to her eager to hear of the what Celeste's idea was. "Anything!" She said.

"When we do find him, stay away from him. Don't come around him, don't seek him out. Don't write him. Don't come by. Just -- stay away. He's been through enough with the women in his life and you'll only bring him more pain — what happened between the two of you set him on this course." 

"Celeste, I don't wish to bring Johnathon more pain. I would never -- " Genevieve began before being cut off. 

"Good." Celeste said, getting up quickly from the bench. And glancing over at the boys at the fountain. "I'll let Fabian and Morgan have some time together. They seem like they're having fun." She added then made her way back to the mansion back through the garden.

Genevieve sat there frozen in place. Her fur coat bristling with the cold breeze rushing through the trees. She felt paralyzed with guilt over Johnathon's misfortune since she had left for London. Her heart ached for the hurt she caused not only her son but her ex. 

Over by the fountain, Fabian and Morgan watched as water sprayed from two hidden spigots below the three iron horses of the fountain that were attached to bronze waves below their galloping legs. The fountain's water shot out below the horses making them seem as if they were running through a river of the clearest water. 

 "My mommy says Charlotte's mommy is going to be ok." Fabian said out of nowhere.

"Oh! Well, maybe she's right, we all hope so." Morgan added. 

"Gabriel's mommy too." He added.

"Yes for her and Mr. Winterborn. They're nice, aren't they?" Morgan replied attempting to keep conversation with the little 4 year old.

"Gabriel likes it here at Tirymor. I try and bring him to this fountain alot -- when it's not cold." 

"That's nice of you." 

"He likes it here." Fabian repeated.

"Who wouldn't? It's like a castle where princes and princesses live." 

"He likes it most when his daddy comes." 

Morgan froze. "His daddy?" 

Fabian nodded his head. "His daddy comes to watch him at night. I saw him twice now.

"Fabian, you saw Gabriel's daddy here? At Tirymor?" Morgan asked.

"Mmm hmm. You know, he's my cousin." Fabian confirmed.

Morgan took Fabian's hand, and moved him to a small stone bench just in front of the fountain hoping to get the distracted little boy to focus on what he had just said. 

"Fabian when did you see Gabriel's daddy? Was it recent?" Morgan asked.

"At night. I think not last but before. Twice. At night only." Fabian answered.

Morgan sat back and looked over at his mother who waved the two boys back to where she was sitting. Morgan felt shellshocked. Sebastian had returned, at least according to a 4 year old who could have been imagining or even dreaming seeing him. But if Sebastian did indeed return, had he connected with Filipe? Morgan's heart raced.

He hoped and prayed this was indeed true. Sebastian's return would change everything. He took the little boy's hand and the two went back to Geneveive. 

"Everything alright, darling?" She asked, noticing his stunned face.

"Um... fine. It's fine." he said vaguely. "I just need to get to town, I want to see if I can catch up with Charlotte."

"Alright. I'll take you down." Geneveive answered wondering what on earth little Fabian had said to him to cause such a stunned reaction. 

****

The Defense builds its case 

Across the Tirymor Forest over it's lush green canopy of Beech trees and back into the winding cobble stone streets of the Village, Nikolas arrived from the courthouse to meet Lear Lockwood at Village Hall where in the basement the old town jail was being used to house The Witches of Welshport. 

The two had met to go over the case. Lear, unsure of how his strategy would play out in court, worried he'd fail and all three would be put to death as the law dictated on a guilty verdict. 

Nik and Lear entered Village Hall and walked down it's echoing marble corridor that lead to a large staircase in the center under a large rotunda that lit up with small bits of light coming from several of the rectangular above. The two men slipped into a side door under a large portrait of the very first mayor of Welshport, Holland Lockwood, a long gone ancestor of Lear's and Rebecca’s.

"Lockwood?" Nik noted, reading the name on the golden tag of the frame.

Lear shrugged as he opened the door to enter into a stairwell that led to the basement, "Some great-great-great uncle of mine or something." 

Down in the basement, a new guard was keeping watch over the three accused as Lear and Nik entered. He was tall and handsome with red cheeks that seemed to blush every time Evie looked at him. 

Evie rushed the bars and called out to her brother as they hugged, the pinch of the iron between them never letting them forget where they were.

"We have a new guard." She whispered to Nik, who looked at her confused. "The other one got caught sleeping on the job." She added, her mind trying to keep up with any silly jailhouse news to keep from going stir crazy.

"Evie are you ok?" Nik asked seeing his sister was a bit worn out. 

She didn't answer.

Mary walked over and grabbed Evie's hand. She looked at Nik with concern. "We have to get her out of here. She hasn't been sleeping well."

"Guard, I'd like to meet with my clients, please. In private." Lear said.

"No can do, you'll have to talk with me here. Last night we had a guard fall asleep on the job and they want us front and center." The guard said.

"They have a right to discuss their case without you present." Lear reminded.

The guard walked over to Lear with a sympathetic face. He nodded in agreement but said he had his orders. "Listen, sir, if it was up to me none of this would be happening, alright. You all have free rein to talk, I won't bother you." 

"He's telling the truth." Matthew said, from his lonesome cell in a dark corner. 

"My god, Matthew!" Nik exclaimed, seeing Matthew was slowly but surly growing more and more tired and gaunt from his time in the cell alone too. "have they not been feeding you well?" 

"Off and on." Matthew said. "It’s like they're trying to make us go mad in here. I think it’s Churchill's orders. If they make us go insane and hungry maybe we'll confess." 

"No one is confessing." Lear chimed in. "I have an idea that might get this all sorted out but you'll all have to agree to it."

"What is it?" Evie said, her voice frail.

"We'll have to make it seem as if Mary didn't do what she did, that what they say was some kind of weather pattern that struck the caves and struck Mary. I have researched several instances where a weather pattern could have come in contract with the ground, like a lightening strike. Its happened several times and recorded in this area alone. It would explain what people saw come from Mary." 

"But there wasn't any lightening." Evie said. 

"No, there wasn't but ..." Nik looked back at the guard who pretended to be busy with a book, giving them a sense of freedom "but we have to say there was." 

"What would that do? They could easily say it wasn't true." Matthew said.

"They'd have to prove it. The burden of proof is on their end, and they'd have to prove Mary actually did something like that. Its not a human trait to shoot lightening out of one's hand. They'll have to enter into evidence things that are based in myths. That can't fly in a court of law because myths can’t be proven with tangible evidence. By us using a strange weather phenomenon as the reason Mary did what she did, at least that would counter anything supernatural— it’s more believable, more real world." 

"The judge seems keen on allowing all of this to continue." Matthew replied. "Otherwise, wouldn't he have thrown it out already?" 

"Not necessary." Lear corrected. "We have to have a hearing first so that the judge can see what evidence there is at play to then decided if the three of you can stand trail." 

Evie began to feel sick. She slouched over and vomited into a basin at the foot of her cot. Mary helped her up and washed her face. The two women stared into each other's eyes and Mary knew what she had to do. It had been too many days. Too much pain. Too much worry and stress for not only the three of them but their families too. She couldn't force the issue any longer and make Evie and Matthew suffer in the squalor of these make-shift cells because of what she did. Because of her own actions by exposing her powers, the three of them were being accused. 

"No." Mary whispered.

Nik turned to Mary "No what?" 

"We won't lie." She replied.

"Mary what are you saying?" Evie said, her voice frail, her skin pale and gray.

"I've already decided that I was going to confess and get this all settled. We can't go on like this any more. Look at Evie! Look at Matthew! They deserve to be home with their family. This was all my fault, everything since the day we went to the caves has been my fault. I'm going to confess Lear, no matter what you do or say right now, and the judge will let them go and I'll stand trial." 

"Mary that's a death sentence. This town has already has it's nooses ready to hang the three of you, if you decided to fall on your sword now, what then? They'll execute you. We can't let them continue the hysteria like this and make the rest of this town fear things they don't understand. I've had just about enough of that." Lear said.

"I've made my decision." Mary replied.

"What about your children?" Matthew added from his cell. "Don't they deserve you home too? And Filipe? My god, Filipe has been through so much, and you'll just confess to this stupid crime and leave them?" 

"They won't execute me." She added, feeling sure of herself. "I know they wouldn't go that far." 

"Mary, they went to Tirymor House searching for Sebastian, a man we all know is dead and ransacked the place. They dragged Jacob, Caspian and Rebecca to the caves and held them at gun point forcing them to watch everything. They do not care about anyone. This town has lost it's innocence, and they are out for blood." Nik reminded her.

Evie stood up hearing Sebastian's name. She knew he was not dead. She knew he was somewhere where Jacqueline had taken him -- she said nothing. She only held Mary in a tight hug as Mary continued to say she was going to confess no matter what Lear's plan was. 

"I don't know if that's the right thing to do Mary. I know this is what you've been telling us you wanted but it's certain death. I can't have that happen. We know you're not an evil person. We know that Churchill is just using this to make things worse for the Lords. We can't let him win." Evie said.

"Evie, they want a witch. They're going to find a witch. I have to do it." She said.

"NO!" A voice sounded from the shadowed door near the staircase that led back up to the main hall.

"Whose There!!" The guard shouted, bounding over to where the voice came from.

Stepping out of the shadows of the staircase, was Filipe Braga. 

Mary yelped at the sight of her husband who rushed to the bars. They embraced through the iron too and held each other tightly. His large arms barely able to squeeze through. It had felt like forever since they'd seen each other. Like they hadn't felt their skin touch over centuries. Her hair smelled the same even though she'd been locked away, his skin was still warm and caramel toned just as she'd remembered it. They held on so tight and everything, all the misery and darkness and horror, melted away as if they were the only two people left on the planet.

"Are you ok???" She asked him feeling his body as if in search for new wounds.

"Fine, I’m fine." He smiled.

"The children? Fatima?" 

"All fine." he said. "Charlotte, Morgan and Caleb are staying at Tirymor while we sort all of this out." 

Evie and Mary, knowing the terrors they suffered at the mansion gulped at that idea.

"Its ok, I'll fetch them soon enough." Nik said. 

"Mary, you cannot confess, you must fight this. Churchill wants to ruin the Lords and he's using you and Evie to start it off. He wont stop until that name is erased from this town forever." Filipe said.

"I've made my decision. I won't allow him to take Evie and Matthew down with me. It's the right thing to do." She said with tears in her eyes.

"But what about our family?" He asked. "Don't we get a say in this? We want you to live!" 

"That's why I've tried to sell my plan to her, she won't budge." Lear added.

"Mary, please -- " Filipe began before being interrupted by his wife.

"Listen to me, they will not execute me. I -- I don't know why I feel this way but I do. They would never ever do that. The will put me in jail, I will serve out my time and I will be back to be with our family. I promise you, I can feel it." 

"Charlotte, can Charlotte see that in her dreams? Or ... is this something you've seen already? A premonition?" He wondered.

"I just feel it." Mary replied to the sound of a silent room. 

"Filipe, how are you feeling?" Matthew asked, knowing Filipe was the wolf that killed so many. 

He turned to Matthew and smiled realizing they'd not heard the news, for obvious reasons.

"You'll never guess what happened." He said turning to Evie. "He came back, he saved me. Jacqueline had him hidden away at Lockwood thicket and he saved me. I'm saved!" 

Those in the room that understood who the 'he' was screamed with joy. A giant relief filled the room, especially on Mary's part where she'd be able to be put away in jail knowing Filipe would be with the children. 

Lear, Nik and the Guard looked at each other confused but kept silent. 

"This is why you have to fight this Mary, I can be with you now and we don't have to hide." Filipe said.

"Where is he? Where is he???" Evie asked, as Matthew stepped up to his bars with a worried look on his face.

The two of them had just come back together, their love strong but always weakened with Sebastian reentered the equation. 

"Right now, with me and Fatima. We're watching over him and making sure he stays safe." Filipe told her.

Evie's face lit up as Matthew looked on, his heart sinking like the shipwreck that almost took his life. 

"And Jacqueline?" Mary wondered of her one-time coven sister who turned them all in.

Filipe shook his head. "Dead." 

They all gasped yet did not know there was an error in Filipe's telling of the story. She had only appeared dead to them. Jacqueline was indeed alive. Mary then realized her encounter with Mary in her dream was perhaps Mary contacting her from the other side. A ghostly apparition. 

"It's time." Lear said.

They all turned to him.

"We have to get to the courthouse." he added.

As the guard began to unlock the cages and place handcuffs around the wrists of each of the accused three more guards were called in to start hauling out the group that would head to the courthouse and begin the testimony in front of a magistrate who'd decide, soon enough, if the trail would even take place. 

While on their way, Matthew's mind raced wondering if Sebastian's return would once again swallow up his relationship with Evie, something that was only just reigniting before they'd been arrested. He wondered too, if maybe they were better off together in prison away from Sebastian's cold fanged world. 

What would he do now knowing his rival had returned? Would he allow Mary to be the only one to fall on her sword or would he turn the tables and force them all to withstand trial together that way, Evie would be with him and have no contact with Sebastian. 

Matthew felt as if he was holding his breath the whole way to the courthouse in the car the police had provided for the group.

This trial, Matthew felt, could be the very last of his time with Evie. Squandered behind bars in a stinking, damp cold jail. 

And it killed him inside to watch her love slip away.

Forever.

B7/Ch7: A DAY IN THE VILLAGE

Jacob & Celeste at Gramercy Café

On an oddly balmy spring afternoon, a waiter at Gramercy Cafe brought a silver tray of lemon tarts and tea over to a small white circular table. Sitting at the table were the smartly dressed and very recognizable couple Jacob and Celeste Lord.

Many an onlooker gawked at the two who tried to keep the glaring Welshportonian eyes from ruining their afternoon tea. They had always been a couple of interest in the village, thanks to Jacob's infamy, but things had changed since the mob attack on the night of the Full Moon Celebrations.

People were no longer staring at a handsome rich couple they were intrigued by, they were staring at a couple they were suspicious of. 

Even afraid of.

For her part, Celeste did her best to shrug off the unwanted attention, but it had bothered her the entire time she'd been married to Jacob. She knew that marrying into one of the most famous and richest families on the north east would always come along with a bit of strange celebrity, but feeling hated by those strangers was a completely new sensation. 

Celeste reached for one of the lemon tarts and removed the blueberries. She stirred a spoon of honey in her tea. Her hands shaking the entire time. Jacob noticed and grabbed her hand and stopped her from stirring a hole in her teacup.

"Let them stare. We've done nothing wrong." He said, flipping open his afternoon paper.

Celeste sighed and did her best to ignore the attention by changing the subject.

"Danielle Holten came to see your mother the other day." She said.

Jacob scrunched his face, but his eyes never left the paper "Who's Danielle Holten?"

"A nurse at Welshport Hope." 

Jacob shrugged. "Was mother ill?" 

"No, she came to see Caspian." Celeste replied frustrated with his clear disinterest.

"Was Caspian ill?" he replied just as flippantly. 

"Jacob, put the paper down." She ordered.

He sighed. "Alright, what is it, what is it."

"She had something important she needed to see Caspian about, but Rebecca had Jane lie and say that Caspian wasn't around. Don't you find that odd?" Celeste asked.

"Was he actually there?" Jacob asked, trying to add up Celeste's gossipy equation.

"He was. Rebecca didn't want Caspian and Danielle to connect, and you'll never guess why." She said. 

There was a pause, Celeste waited for Jacob to reply back. 

He lifted his brow and shook his head "Well? Are you going to tell me or do I have to get to Fatima Braga's house and have her tell me through a tarot card reading?"

Celeste rolled her eyes and sipped her tea. "There's clearly some kind of connection between Danielle Holton and Caspian. After Caspian's injury at the caves why would she deny a nurse seeing him? Because Danielle is something more than a nurse to Caspian. And your mother seems threatened."

"Why is your fascinating little brain even going there, huh? What is it that your plotting?" he asked, somewhat proudly.

"Rebecca only married Caspian so that she could fulfill that clause in your father's will to take her place back in the company, Jacob. If there's something Danielle has on Caspian that Rebecca thinks may hurt her marriage, well, that would throw her whole position out the window. We may get a little more control back." 

Jacob smirked "Well, well, well. Look at you reaching for our bottom line. I'm proud of you. We may get a fatter paycheck sooner than we thought huh? I'll leave it to you do smoke out the secret." He answered just as three shadows walked up behind them at their table at Gramercy Cafe.

"Lovely day for tea outdoors, isn't it, Mr. and Mrs. Lord?" A voice said.

Jacob and Celeste turned and standing before them was Mayor Timothy Churchill, Baxter Murphy and Barrister Eden Sydney. 

"Aren't we short one horseman of the apocalypse?" Jacob joked. "Murphy what are you doing with these two?"

"Getting an exclusive on the coming trial, Mr. Lord, I'm sure you'd love for The Globe to be the first to report on it right from the horse's mouth, no pun intended." 

"More exclusives huh? Haven't your exclusives done enough damage to this town?" Jacob asked.

"He's done a very good service to this island, Mr. Lord, and to your paper. From what I understand sales are through the roof. Maybe you should be thanking him or promoting him." Timothy said.

"Baxter can't help it; we're a village hungry for solacious material. He just got lucky his sick imagination finally came through." Celeste said.

"Sick Imagination? If I imagined what we saw at the Park that night, I think we're all suffering from the same illness." Baxter replied.

"Murphy knows I have no creative or editorial control of what goes into the paper. Not even about my own life, which is why our paper is successful." Jacob said. "He's lucky in that regard."  

"I hope you know, sir, I'm carefully reviewing everything I can to be sure the trial of your niece and your daughter's mother goes off without a hitch. I would hate for any kind of evidence to slip and cause a mistrial. Or worse." Eden said.

"Barrister, I've read many good things about you; you seem levelheaded, smart, curious, a good lawyer. What on earth are you doing running around this island searching for clues and evidence on something that does not exist? Witchcraft? Really? You're confident in prosecuting a case on myths and spooks?" Jacob asked in a frustrating tone. 

Eden's jaw tightened. "I just follow the law sir." He said.

"That's what we keep hearing." Celeste interjected. "This law is comically written, and over 200 years old!" She added.

"Nevertheless Mrs. Lord," Churchill said cutting off Eden before he could reply "It's the law." 

"It shouldn't be." She snapped back.

"If Murphy's columns had been written with even the slightest bit of information that came from the real world instead of pouncing on these silly supernatural lies that everyone has told about my family since I can remember, perhaps we wouldn't even be here. But he chose different." Jacob added.

"My stories in your paper have made you a lot of money, Mr. Lord." Baxter replied.

"They're lies." Celeste replied. "Lies have no place in a newspaper." 

"The lies have merit, at least that's what I say." Churchill replied.

"This has become a trial based on public opinion, and these stupid news columns." Jacob said again.

"Which is why we have this placed in a court of law." Eden added.

"It'll never get to opening arguments, that I can tell you." Jacob replied. 

Eden seemed uncomfortable. The entire situation and trial were indeed as Jacob said, focused on a law that everyone in the country would laugh at if they knew what was happening. But Churchill was had his bullseye right on the Lord family and as he promised himself each one would be taken down starting with the two most obscure members: Evie and Mary leaving Matthew as collateral damage.

"The trial starts tomorrow; I think we should get this interview on the books before that." Baxter said, trying to cut the contentious conversation short. "Gentleman, shall we?" he added moving aside to go to their indoor table at the Cafe.

The three men entered the Cafe, Eden third to go in but just before he passed the door he turned to Celeste and Jacob and smiled back at them in a way showing his sincere hope they none of this would go on passed opening arguments as Jacob said. Eden felt sympathy for the Lords, but he had a job to do and with the pressures of his office on his shoulders had to push it to court. 

Jacob did not smile back. 

"They're going to burn her, aren't they?" Jacob said in a whisper to Celeste.

"They'd never -- they couldn't!" 

"I saw what Mary did that night. Everyone there saw. They'll corner her and they'll be no way she can hide what she did that night." He said again.

Celeste could see Jacob truly felt deep in his heart a worry for Mary, the mother of his daughter Charlotte. It had been years since Jacob had any kind of warm feeling to Mary, but when people from outside the family came to take one of their own, Jacob closed ranks.

He'd never let his family name go through the ringer, not unless he could control it.

The trial, this real-life witch-hunt -- fell far, far, far out of his control. 

And it made him livid. 

****

Charlotte, Morgan, Christopher & Genevieve at the park

Despite the recent deadly events & damaged gates at Village Park, the spring day was so inviting that villagers put aside their nervous sensations and carried on under the ancient beech trees and wisteria to enjoy the warmth of the sun on their skin. 

On a stroll along the pebble strewn paths, Christopher and Genevieve tried to keep a low profile. There were a few glares at the couple that oddly looked identically to that of David and Sabrina Lord but many knew that could not be as Sabrina had died over a decade ago, and David of course had been presumed dead.

Geneveive had been used to the curious on lookers, she'd received the same treatment when she arrived, but, Christopher had a to get used to the entire idea. It didn't help that the couple were still locked in a disagreement over what to do about Jacob Lord. Genevieve's plan to turn the tables on him and drive him ad by having Christopher pretend to be David's ghost and torment him went out the window when the two had arrived from England in the middle of town chaos.

Christopher, for his part, still wanted to keep to the original plan, but Geneiveve had now changed her mind. 

As they walked, she in a blowing dark yellow dress that contrasted to her black curls and he in a smart suit, they did try to keep their conversation as happy and bright as the day, but the lingering disagreement haunted their minds.

Every time Chris opened his mouth; he had Jacob's name on his tongue. But he resisted the urge to argue and instead did his best not to ruin the spring afternoon.

"I think this is the brightest day on this island since I came here." Geneveive said, passing the most beautiful set of rose bushes along the park's path.

"It is quite lovely. I'm not sure I ever saw a single day like this the whole time I was in London." He answered.

"Not one?" She asked with a giggle, he shrugged.

His urge to keep conversation light suddenly broke as he from far across the park Jacob and Celeste sitting at Gramercy Cafe, he froze in place. Noticing his sudden stop, Genevieve followed his eyes and saw the couple too, but they had still been undetected as the canopy of trees shaded them inside the park.

"You have to let this idea go, Christopher. I shouldn't have thought it up. It was stupid and it'll only cause more pain and suffering. I thought we had at least come to terms with the plan not going off." She said, stepping in front of him blocking his view of Jacob and Celeste.

"But he's just going to get away with all of that? Everything you told me; he's just going to get away with it!?"

Geneveive sighed "No." 

Chris furrowed his brow confused. 

"There'll come a time when Jacob will pay for his crimes, but it can't come from us. We have more to lose than I realized. If I had just been clearer of mind at the time instead of letting Sabrina's power control me and my actions we would have never gotten to this point. Think about it. It's a stupid idea, Christopher." She confessed.

Hearing Sabrina's name caused Chris to recall his encounter with her at the mausoleum. In the end, Sabrina felt the same as Geneveive had, but it was still a struggle in Chris' mind that Jacob would get away with murder and that David would go on living in Welshport mythology was the one who took her life. 

As the two continued to talk about abandoned plan, a surprised came around the corner of the park. It was Charlotte and Morgan.

"Morgan!!" Geneieve shouted seeing her son over Christopher's shoulder. 

"Mother!" He said, rushing over to her and instantly hugging. 

"You remember Christopher, don't you?" She said.

Charlotte's eyes fixed on the face of her uncle David standing before her, the same as the painting on the wall that Morgan said looked just like that man that came form London with his mother. She could see Christopher squirm when he realized the young woman was Jacob's daughter, David's niece.

"Christopher, would you mind if I had a moment with Morgan, just the two of us?" Genevieve asked.

"No, of course not." He answered, shaking off Charlotte's stares. 

Mother and soon quickly rushed off to the large fountain center in the park leaving Charlotte and Chris alone. 

Christopher nervously looked around "I assume you have a lot of questions." He told her.

Charlotte had only one "Where have you been Uncle David?" 

Chris quickly grabbed hold of Charlotte's hand and walked her over to a side bench away from the eyes of several other park-goers. When they touched, a sudden vibration shot through Charlotte's body.

A flash of light spun around in her mind. Waves crashing in the dark below. Her eyes, looked down into the ocean but they were not hers, they were David's. Far off in the distance was Goode Island, then the light flashed again. It spun around and around. 

Christpher's touch gave Charlotte David's point of view the night he jumped from the lighthouse and into the sea. The night David vanished and the whole world thought him dead. 

The light spun around again, illuminating David's face. The waves continued to crash and David closed his eyes and just as quickly as the vision came to Charlotte, they vanished and she was sitting on a bench to a man calling himself Chrisopher when she knew good and well, he was her uncle.

 Her blue dress, blue as the sky, crunched and folded as she sat. She saw right through his attempt to pass as Christopher and he knew it too.

"I know what you're thinking, but my appearance is just as coincidental as Genevive's is to Sabrina." He said.

"You're lying." She replied. "I can tell you're lying." 

"Miss Charlotte, you shouldn't speak to your elders this way." he joked. "I know how it looks but when Genevieve arrived, I'm sure you all had the same reaction to her. But I can assure you, I am not your uncle."

Charlotte, much more astute to the world around her than he knew, grabbed his hand again and placed it in hers. Suddenly the two were back on the edge of the Lighthouse that same night, the night David jumped in. They both could feel the wind blowing across their face as the salty air whirled around them. Charlotte clutched on to David, terrified at being up so high. He turned to her, knowing she had not always been there, knowing this memory was purposely being shown to him from so many years ago. His point of view had now been usurped by Charlotte proving to him that she knew who he really was not because of his uncanny likeliness but because of her powerful psychic abilities. 

At the edge of the lighthouse walk, clutching the iron rail, he had nowhere to run and suddenly, once again they were back on the bench in Village Park beneath beech trees and pines that swelled the air with their scent. 

Christopher looked at his niece knowing what she was too, knowing he could not lie to her. Knowing her father was the man whose actions put him on the edge of the lighthouse all those years ago. 

"Charlotte, I... I don't know what to say. How can you do that?"

The 14-year-old young lady shrugged with a chuckle "I don't know. I just can. But why haven't you come home? Why have you let everyone believe you're dead? Grandmother would love to see you! She's always lit a candle near your portrait on the anniversary of the night you jumped...or when we thought you jumped...from the lighthouse."

"Charlotte, I need you to really listen to me." He said, purposefully overlooking Rebecca's mournful tradition. "You can't tell anyone I'm here. If my existence comes to light at Tirymor, I need people to believe that I am just someone who looks like David, can you do that? I've moved on from that person, your uncle. David did die that night. They have to continue to believe that." Chrsitopher said.

"But what about …” she paused before saying David son Sebastian’s name, the name of a man who lived in the shadows as one of the shadows. “…Gabriel? You have a grandson now.” She said quickly. “Doesn't he deserve to know who you really are and that his grandfather didn't die?" 

She had a point, and Christopher truly did want to get to know his beautiful son's own son, but that had to come in time. It couldn't be the way Charlotte wanted, a reunion of sorts at Tirymor House with all of the family. David, in Christopher Wesley's mind was dead and at the bottom of the sea and his family had to keep believing that.

He smiled at her and gripped her hand again; this time they stayed put on the bench. "You've grown up to be quite the young lady. Your parents must be very proud of you." He said, again changing the subject of her conversation.

She could tell, even without using her powers, that he would not budge on the matter and squeezed his hand back. "I'll keep your secret, for now Uncle David, but one day you'll have to come home and face the world you left behind. Now that you're in Welshport, there's no where you can hide." 

Christopher felt a strange vailed threat from a 14 year old girl, and if anyone had been listening to their conversation at that very moment, they'd believe it too, but at the same time he knew she was right. 

The truth one day, someday, would come out that he was home. He’d have to one day finally come face to face with his son, his grandson, his brother and his mother. 

But for now, he'd live in the world he'd created for himself under the guise of Christopher Wesley. 

**

Conversations by the fountain 

Over by the fountain, three large fish with gaping mouths allowed a tricking of water to pool below. The large bronze mermaid in the center shaded Genevieve and her son Morgan as the afternoon sun sparkled in their eyes. Their relationship was fractured from her time away in London in search of David Lord, a ghost like person that Genevieve may or may not have found.

But all that was over. She had seen the errors she had made and on her return to Welshport promised to take Morgan away from the dangers of the island.

"As soon as I can get us off this god forsaken island, I will. We can't stay here any longer." She said gripping his hand in hers as they sat on the edge of the marble fountain basin.

"What if I don't want to leave?" He asked.

"What? Why would you not want to leave? You've seen firsthand how dangerous it is here; I can't allow you to continue to live in a place like this. It was my mistake to bring you here and an even worse mistake to leave you with Johnathon. I'll never forgive myself for any of that Morgan." The mother confessed.

"But I have a family here now. I have to stay and be with them I can't just go now." He replied.

"Morgan, I'm your family too, your real family. I'm your mother."

"When you were gone, I saw things differently. I was able to really be with a mother and a father and have a home, I know it wasn't a perfect place, but they loved me, and they wouldn't leave me like you did. Not by choice anyway." The 14-year-old boy explained. 

Geneveive's heart was broken. Her whole world was Morgan up until the moment Sabrina entered her body and altered her memories by adding in the ghostly history of David. She had become consumed by Sabrina's passions that she let her own go -- set them adrift like a little sailboat floating along the sea to a horizon never to be seen again.

She desperately wanted to find herself again, and she needed her son with her. She needed to be with her son no matter what to make everything up to him. 

"If you stay. I stay." She said. "I want to be here with you, and I promise you I won't leave you ever again, Morgan. I will protect you with my life if its the last thing I ever do." 

Morgan smiled "I want you to stay, and I'm glad you decided that." 

"Now will you come home and stay with me? Please?" She asked with her heart on her sleeve.

Morgan nodded quietly but knew there were more things he needed to do before that. He would never leave Charlotte and Caleb now, not even for his mother.

"First I have to be there for Charlotte and Caleb. Filipe and Mary were very kind to me and they need all the help they can get right now. I won't abandon them." Morgan replied. 

Genevieve got the hint when her son emphasized what he wouldn't do. The world abandon rang in her head over and over again. She had done it to her own son and now he was showing her what one does for family -- never abandon.

"You're the best thing this world has ever made, do you know that? Filipe, Mary, Charlotte and that little baby have an angel on their side." Geneveive answered as she yanked her son into a tight hug. 

"Ok! OK!!" He laughed "I forgive you, you can let me go!" 

"NEVER!" She giggled squeezing him tighter as the water in the fountain continued it's quiet burbling sound. 

As the two reconnected, a nervous, sleepless and disheveled Johnathon DeViana arrived in the park and saw his Ex-Fiancée Genevieve for the first time in almost a year. He looked horrible. His eyes glazed over still in shock over everything that had happened at Lockwood Thicket. 

As mother and son continued to embrace a shadow cooled their sun kissed skin. They turned to see Johnathon staring at them looking as if he was about to cry.

"My god! Johnathon!! What's happened to you?" Geneveive asked. 

"Are you alright?" Morgan wondered.

"You're back." Johnathon said in a whispered voice that was barely audible over the fountain. 

"Yes, I came back just last week. Morgan and I are having a bit of a mother/son reunion, no thanks to you. He told me you were barley around. I left him in your care Johnathon." She scolded.

Johnathon said nothing.

"Johnathon, I'm talking to you." Geneveive said.

"You left. And now you're back." He finally replied, still in a somewhat of a daze.

"What's the matter? Are you sick?" Morgan asked.

Charlotte and Christopher soon appeared at the fountain. Johnathon turned to see Christopher and recognized his face from David's painting in the halls of Tirymor. His eyes widened. His heart felt like it was beating in his years faster and faster and faster it beat. 

"You! You left! And now YOU'RE BACK!" Johnathon said again this time to Christopher who had no idea who Johnathon was -- his half brother. 

"What's this?" Chris asked confused.

"This is Grandfather's other son," Charlotte said, looking at Chris directly. "he is David and Jacob's half-brother and once upon a time Mrs. Thorne's finance. Uncle Johnathon, this is Christopher Wesley. A friend of Mrs. Thorne's from her trip to London." 

"Christopher?" Johnathon replied confused.

"Half-brother." Christopher said in low voice in shock.

"Johnathon you should get home; you don't look well. When was the last time you bathed?" Geneveive asked. 

Shaking his head, feeling more and more like he was losing his mind seeing a man that looked like David right in front of him but calling himself Christopher, Johnathon began to shake. He turned to Geneveive to reply to her, but things began to get blurry. His mind fogged in the shock of so many odd things suddenly hitting him all at once. The dizziness began to turn him, he spun and sat down on the base of the fountain and the four faces in front of him began to blur even more into one giant face that seemed to stare at him with one giant eyes. 

Johnathon sank his head between his knees and Genevive tried to console him, but Johnathon's mind had had enough. 

He jumped from his seated position sweating profusely. "I HAVE TO GO!" He shouted, now seeing four people very clearly. 

"You're unwell." Christopher said.

"I, I am sorry for everything I did and didn't do Geneveive. Please, please find it in your heart to forgive me. Morgan, you too. It seems as though the universe, God, the world entirely is punishing me now for what I've done and tried to do. Please... please all of you. Forgive me. FORGIVE ME!!" Johnathon shouted. His hysterics turning into tears that hid behind his sweating face.

In his mental breakdown, Johnathon rushed off through the park leaving the foursome stranded in concern.

"He's lost his mind." Geneiveve said. "He was once one of the most calming people I had ever met and now he's a shell of himself." 

Charlotte felt the darkness her uncle left behind. It was a shadow of evil that he had obtained throughout his connection to Jacqueline. But she dare not speak it out loud fearing Jacquline's ire. 

"I hope he finds peace." Chris said.

But peace would not come easy. 

****

Caspian & Rebecca in their personal parlor 

Later that afternoon, while Caspian and Rebecca sat together inside one of the large parlors near their personal apartments at Tirymor House, a not so surprising headline in the afternoon edition of The Welshport Globe caught Caspian's eye.

BARRISTER FROM AUGUSTA ARRIVES
HISTORICAL TRIAL ON BEWITCHERY TO BEGIN

"Outrageous!" Caspian said, tossing the paper into the burning hearth. "He won't stop until more and more people are dead." 

"Another one of those poison pen written articles in my paper? It's like a plague." Rebecca said, never lifting an eye from her book.

"Why don't you and Jacob sack him?" Caspian wondered.

"We can't do that. How would it look if the very family at the center of all this suddenly decided to censure a writer in their own paper. We'd have to start doing it to all of the other newspapers we own and then we'd have to start blocking all sorts of free press reporting on us in a way that'd ruin not only our reputation but the entire idea of journalism." 

Caspian seemed surprised at Rebecca's democratic response. For a woman who'd live and die by the rules of an untarnished reputation he did not expect her to shrug at the notion of firing Baxter.

"So you'll just allow him to lie like this about Mary, Evie and Matthew?" Caspian asked.

"Darling, we saw what Mary did at the caves. Those powers those…anger. Reminded very much of her mother Eliza. I can't explain that, there is no logical way any of us can. And I can’t shield her, not after that. She'll have to do that in court. As for my granddaughter-in-law Evie and Matthew, I imagine they'll be set free soon enough." Rebecca replied confidently. 

"You seem very sure about that. How?" Her younger husband replied.

She paused before answering. She was sure about it but couldn't explain why. "Women's intuition." She answered.

As Caspian got up to pour himself a small drink at the bar, she stared at her husband for a second. He was so handsome and she had fallen head over heels in love with him from the moment they met. And even though the man inside was hidden behind the shadow of darkness and posession there had always been this kind verison of him. This loving man that she could count on and the one she could love after so many years of being just the Widow of Albert Lord.

She worried too, as she watched him drink, that the double revelations about who he truly was, Danielle's father Viktor, and the fact the child he shared with Aurora was still out there would some how aide in the disingration of their relationship.

How could she compete with the beauty of Aurora and their little family that he might want, how could she ever compare herself to the wife he lost, Danielle's mother. She feared losing him if he realized who he was and through Danielle, and who he could truly be through Aurora. 

Rebecca, ever the cautious matriarch of a family always on the brink of destruction knew that she had to be two steps ahead -- under no circumstances could Caspian come into contact with Danielle or Aurora. 

Ever again.

Just as the two were talking about the coming trial, Jacob and Celeste entered the room fresh from their earlier lunch at Gramercy Cafe. 

"You took look sunny." Rebecca said with a grin.

Celeste looked around for her son Fabian as she removed her gloves.

"Upstairs building a fort out of sheets and pillows." Rebecca laughed.

"We had a very interesting run in at Gramercy this afternoon. Churchill and that Barrister from Augusta." Jacob informed his mother and same aged Step-father.

"Yes, I just read he'd arrived in the paper." Caspian said. "What did they have to say?"

"They're dead set on continuing this trial, this sham, this stupid thing that they all invented to keep us in the papers and for what? All for Churchill to get some kind of political pull out of it no doubt." 

"We can't let it happen." Caspian sighed. "We have to find a way to stop it." 

"Come, let's have a smoke in the other room maybe we can come together on some idea." Jacob said, pulling Caspian into the adjoining smoking room. 

"So how is Caspian doing?" Celeste asked of his head injury from the night at the caves.

"Good as new it seems." 

"So What did Nurse Holten need the other day when she came all the way out here?" Celeste asked, blindsiding Rebecca.

"Nurse Holten?" 

"Yes, She was here the other day and I was told she came to see Caspian. I thought maybe there was something wrong, medically." Celeste replied hoping to see Rebecca's reaction.

"Oh, well, I don't know I didn't speak with her. She left no message. Perhaps we'll cover it on Caspian's next appointment with Peter Ward." 

Celeste smirked knowing it was a lie, that there was obviously something she was hiding.

"You know I feel like perhaps there had to be something about her visit that, maybe, had less to do with Caspian's injury. A nurse wouldn't just show up all the way out here and then leave no reason, it's strange done you think? You didn't ask what she wanted?" 

"Well," Rebecca began "I didn't see her. Jane did." 

"Right, and you told Jane to tell her that Caspian was out, but he wasn't, was he? I'm wondering why you'd do that Rebecca."

Celeste was digging, perhaps too deeply, into Rebecca's personal life. The younger Mrs. Lord knew that if she could break the hold Rebecca had over whatever she was hiding then perhaps she could maneuver away that the marriage be seen as invalid, and then, and only then, could they reverse Rebecca's control over the company that she currently shared with her son Jacob.

The marriage, a clause in her late husband's will, was an archaic rule left by Albert to be sure that a man could somehow keep Rebecca in check, a husband. And if she was married, she could keep her power in the company, if she were not then his male heirs were to hold total control.

Rebecca's shot gun marriage to Caspian a year before was a loophole that not only helped Rebecca regain her power in her family's company but freed Caspian from Churchill Green Asylum.

Celeste was ready to reverse all of that to keep herself and her son in the Lord family fray forever.

"You know my dear, the simplest answer is usually the truth. She's a nurse. She came to check on her patient. That's all. There's no spider in this web. But I would caution you on trying to find one." 

Celeste was about to pry ever further until her brother Johnathon finally returned home looking like he'd been away for days. 

Johnathon entered the room with such velocity and noise it startled both Rebecca and Celeste.

"My god, Johnny, where have you been??? We've been waiting for you to come home for days! What happened???" Celeste said jumping to her brother's side.

"Are you ill?" Rebecca asked, still seated. 

"I wanted to say goodbye. To everyone." He said in a hush tone, sweating from head to toe.

"Johnny, you're ill, something is wrong. Let me call Jane to help you upstairs." Celeste said.

"NO!" he shouted. "Don't touch me, don't ever touch me." 

"What happened? Where's your wife?" Celeste asked.

"Yes! Where's Jacqueline? The two of you vanished after she so conveniently exposed where Sebastian was supposedly hidden!" Rebecca recalled.

Johnathon's face began to droop. His heart was sick realizing his wife and the child she was carrying that he thought was his was dead. Stabbed to death at Lockwood Thicket. He began to sob in his sister's arms who began to cry too. She could never stand to see her little brother cry. She loved him to no end but ever since the day he arrived in Welshport for her wedding he had one mis-step after another. She couldn't protect him forever and she couldn't save him from whatever was hurting him, all she could do was hold him.

"Dear, you must be ill," Rebecca said, finally standing. "Johnathon, I insist you allow Jane or ever your sister to help you up stairs to your room. We can find your wife later." 

"WE'RE NEVER GOING TO FIND MY WIFE! She's GONE!!!" Johnathon shouted at Rebecca.

Caspian and Jacob, hearing the shouting reentered the room in a haze of pipe smoke and brandy.

"What's all this?" Caspian asked.

"John?" Jacob said.

"I came to say goodbye." Johnathon said, this time in a calmer voice. 

"Why do you keep saying that Johnny? What happened? Where is Jacqueline?" 

"I love you." He said to Celeste breaking free of her arms and rushing out of the room. Celeste ran after him but he was gone. 

"I don't know what to do! He's...Jacqueline must of left him." Celeste said.

"But...their child, what of the child?" Caspian asked, knowing the pain of losing a child like the one he had with Aurora.

"I don't know what to say." Rebecca said, feeling sympathy for Johnathon, her one-time co-conspirator. 

Jacob walked over to his wife Celeste a bundle of nerves in a giant chiffon dress. She was shaking, a terrible fear ran up her spine seeing her brother in such a way. He pulled her into his arms and held her. She teared up, her face resting on his left chest.

"I've never seen him this way, never." She repeated.

"He'll bounce back, love is fickle. And Jacqueline, if she left him, probably had other motives to be with him in the first place. We all thought it, didn't we?" Jacob said.

"Jacob's right, a man's broken heart can sometimes feel like the end of the earth. John will be fine, he'll come back and as soon as he sees just how silly all of that is. We'll find Jacqueline too, that child is a Lord and a Lord belongs a Tirymor." Rebecca said.

"STOP! Just STOP!" Celeste shouted, releasing herself from Jacob's arms. "Johnathon is not a Lord like the two of you, he has a heart and feelings and something terrible has clearly happened to make him come and say goodbye. This isn't something you all can just shrug off the way you shrug off everything. Johnathon has feelings, true real ones for Jacqueline no matter what we felt about her. I have to go find him, I have to make sure he's alright, because that was not my brother. I don't know who that way." Celeste scolded.

"No, stay here." Caspian said. "We'll ask Hamstead to go after him." 

Celeste agreed and Caspian quickly went to fetch Aaron Hamstead to find Johnathon. 

Jacob kissed his wife and said he'd fetch her tea. 

Rebecca slowly moved over to Celeste who was sitting on the sofa in a ball of fear for her brother and patted her on the back. 

"You see dear, this what I mean. We should never go searching for the spider in the web, because sometimes we're the fly. Just like Johnathon. Whatever happened to his wife -- clearly -- she was the spider, and he was the fly. Let that be a lesson to you."

Celeste looked up from the luxurious ancient Persian rug of the room with a tear-stained face and heard Rebecca's message loud and clear -- keep away from Caspian and anything involving his past, including Danielle.

But Celeste, Celeste was no fly. She'd learned the best way to survive. Rebecca's message was an obvious warning, but this family had turned Celeste into a spider. 

 

B7/Ch6: A LIFEFORCE RETURNS

Filipe surprises Fatima.

In the village, on a second night of uncertain and turbulent events, Fatima Braga sat in her parlor in front of a large glass bowl of cool water. She stared into the water, her reflection staring back at her like a mirror showing her how age had come and taken away her long dark raven hair many years ago, leaving her as white frozen grass in the dead of winter. Her hair softly curled just under her shoulders looked even whiter in the water's reflection.  

After shaking off who she saw looking back at her, Fatima reached for another much smaller bowl on the table that had a large white egg. She held the egg carefully in her hand and took a breath.

Then, she cracked it being sure that she separated the egg white from the yolk and dropped the translucent and gooey egg part into the water creating the Venus Glass.

The Venus Glass, an old ritualistic way fortune tellers would seek answers from the other side was Fatima's favorite tool. The egg whites would swirl in the water and whatever image appeared in the glass would tell a future. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad. 

But always true.

The egg whites floated in the water slowly taking into a shape that contorted and mixed within itself. Fatima stared anxiously awaiting what the world beyond what we could see would tell her through the Venus Glass. 

And then there it was. 

Like the passing of a cloud revealing its secret world in the sky. 

Fatima gasped and placed her hand in the watery bowl destroying the horrifying image of a fanged mouth.

"O lobo."  She whispered to herself using the Portuguese word for Wolf.

"Tia." A voice said from the hallway. It was Filipe, he had come up from the basement.

"Filipe, son, please come in, come in, I have to tell you what I've seen." Fatima said, neglecting the fact he was still calling her "aunt" instead of mother.

"I have something to tell you too." He said slowly walking into the parlor. 

Fatima could sense in his voice something had happened. She stood up as if she were about to face her biggest enemy in a showdown when Sebastian Lord entered the room directly behind Filipe.

Fatima gasped and covered her mouth. The fangs in the Venus Glass were not of a wolf, but showing her Sebastian had arrived. 

"What have you done?!" She asked her son.

"Sebastian is here to help me. Mary said he was the only one who could. I found him and now he's here to help. He's my only way forward." Filipe reminded her.

"Filipe, I want him out of this house! Take him away!" She ordered.

"I don't mean to harm anyone." Sebastian said in a soft voice. "I just want to help my cousin Mary and the mother of my child Evie, but first we have to change Filipe back. The faster the better, if Filipe changes again before the next full moon, they'll blame the ones on trial for it. We cannot let that happen." 

"Maria told us what you are Sebastião, she told us everything and I have absolutely no intention of getting involved with you in this house. If you want to help my Filipe, than you'll have to do it somewhere else." Fatima said, shocking her son.

"Somewhere else? We have nowhere to go! Sebastian is believed dead and if anyone were to see him, they'd automatically assume he was the thing, the monster that hunted on the full moon. But that was me! If you want to truly help save me, then you'll allow him to stay, and we can all try to understand Eliza's spell book together. Once I'm free, we can then help Mary and Evie and Matthew." Filipe

Sebastian gulped "Matthew?" 

"Yes." Filipe replied. "He and Evie apparently have gotten back together and they've both been accused of this stupid charge." 

"I see." Sebastian replied. "When did he return?"

Filipe's brow lifted sensing a slight bit of jealousy "Somewhere between the time you and Jacqueline got together and when I became a wolf that killed several people." 

Filipe's irritation on having to comment on Evie's love life was clear, he knew there was so much more important things for Sebastian to focus on.

As the two men talked, Fatima studied Sebastian like she was examining a fine painting. Her eyes looked him over, top to bottom. She was transfixed by how human he looked, skin hair eyes...but deep down her heart and mind united -- he was a creature, a thing, a monster of ungodly creation that she needed to snuff out.

Her eyes darted to a small desk, the glow of the lamps reflected back to her from a sharp object like a lighthouse beaming to her a sign. She suddenly reached for the object on the desk, a letter opener, and lunged at Sebastian hoping to plunge it into the man's heart. 

Filipe quickly grabbed hold of her and turned her back around to face him, her white mane of hair splashing over her face, the letter opener tossed to the corner of the room. 

"WHAT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? Filipe shouted at her. That's not the way we're doing this." He added in a calmer voice holding her back.

Fatima, out of breath, pushed her son's arms apart and released herself from his grasp. "If you need his blood, I would have gotten you his blood, by draining it from his cursed body." 

"Killing him?" Filipe asked, flabbergasted. 

"Two birds, one stone." 

Sebastian's eyes narrowed, his body stiffened. 

"Sister Inez, I understand your fear. I truly do." Sebastian said slowly waking towards the woman shocking her by using the name she once used when she was a nun in Lisbon.

"Diabo." She replied, using the Portuguese word for devil. 

"Enough." Filipe said, holding his mother by her left wrist.

"I have not been the best person to anyone. Not to Evie, not to my child nor to any of my family members and certainly not to the people that I have ..." He paused. "Killed." 

"You know so much, like my other name, yet you don't know how you can save us all by dying?" Fatima said coldly.

"I fully admit my wrongs, Ine..." Sebastian paused again. "Fatima. When I became what I am, I couldn't control myself sometimes, sometimes There was a rage in me that would overtake me and..." He paused a third time as if the words he kept trying to muster up would only leave his mouth by force.

"And you'd kill." She said staring him dead in the eye. "That's what I fear of you Sebastião... your deadly side. That's what I see in you, your deadly grin. It is clear to me, that there is still very much danger inside of you. I can smell it. I can feel it in your aura. Why should I trust you with my son's life?"

Sebastian stepped back. "You can't. I don't expect you to. But for now, you have to believe me when I say that I tried, I did try to hold back but sometimes I couldn't. The urge was overwhelming. I've tried to curtail it, and after Evie was taken to that grave and I pulled her out, I saw that there was no way forward for us. She agreed. That's why we decided I'd be buried away in the caves. I wanted to vanish and free us all of what I was. I didn't choose to come back, but I am. And I'm here now to help Filipe whose life was changed By Eliza in order to bring me back to life -- as I am. We're linked forever." Sebatian explained hoping to calm Fatima's rage towards him.

"Eliza used me to revive Sebastian," Filipe interjected "without my knowledge. But Now that we know we can somehow reverse my affliction using the same lifeforce that is in Sebastian, it's worth a try." he added. "We cannot kill him Tia; he needs to be alive." 

Fatima narrowed her eyes and stared at Sebastian the whole time Filipe spoke. She didn't want to give him a second where he could turn away and hurt them. If she stared at him, eyes locked, she felt secure. Safe. And so, Fatima agreed. She'd help them attempt to read Eliza's book and transform Filipe back to himself again using Sebastian as a life force. 

****

Nik & Danielle in Asha’s hospital room

Over at Welshport Hope Hospital, Dr. Nikolas Jordan was on a night shift doing rounds when he decided to stop by Asha Hoffman's room for a quick visit. Asha had been in a coma since the building she had been held captive in caught fire and collapsed on her. Her vitals were always good, but her mind had still slipped into the recesses of darkness as the world around her carried on.

For his part, Nik awaited her revival in hopes she could soon shine light on the whereabouts of his half sibling she and the late Gregory Reigns took from Nik's mother Aurora at birth -- no one knowing the child was growing up as Mary and Filipe's adopted child Caleb Braga. 

Nik pulled over a soft chair and sat next to his girlfriend Asha, the two doctors had come a long way in their relationship over the past years. She had kept secrets from him before but knowing she kept the truth about baby Caleb from his family cut deeper. This secret had upended the way he loved her: the love was there but now it felt almost as if strained, forced. Pity.

And this broke his heart. 

"Oh, Doctor!" A voice said from the hospital room door. It was Nurse Danielle Holten also on her rounds. "I'll come back, I just wanted to check on Dr. Hoffman."

"No, no, please come in." Nik said their eyes locking. 

"How is your favorite patient this evening?" She asked, blushing. 

Nik sighed "From the charts, no real change from this morning but as usual I'm hopeful." He said. "How are you getting along? Getting a feel of the place, then?" 

Danielle shrugged. "Somewhat, yes. It's a smaller hospital than the one I worked at in Boston, but it's wonderful being home again. You know I lived here for a short time before moving to Massachusetts. So this feels like an odd home away from home away from home." She replied.

"I understand. I was born stateside too but we moved to London when I was only 2. My mother is American, British father. America always felt like that to me. I love England, I miss it too but my connection here felt like a tether. I needed to come back some day. Careful what you wish for I guess." He added turning to Asha in her coma.

Danielle could see there was sadness in his handsome face. A hurt that was unspoken. She could feel his warmth towards Asha but at the same time had heard rumors of her inability to keep herself out of trouble. The stories of Asha's own father, a killer who'd been in a mental institution and her adoption into the prominent Hoffman family, the connection to Gregory and the strange case against Dr. Kim that Gregory held over her and now the events of the fire, all of it clearly weighing on Nik and showing on his sad face. Danielle, a natural caregiver, only wanted to make him feel better but she didn't know where to begin with the mess Asha had made. 

"She'll come out of it, doctor. I've seen cases where people lie in decades long comas and come out of it, I can't assume Dr. Hoffman will be this way, but hopefully it will happen soon." 

"Decades, huh." Nik chuckled. "I don't know if I--or we--can wait that long." 

"I'm sorry." Danielle replied putting a hand on his shoulder. He turned to her, their eyes locking again. Her face heartshaped and soft. Her eyes a chestnut brown that seemed to catch the light of the room turning them a deep warm amber. They were about the same age and both had had troubles in love; his past visible to her, hers still hidden beneith the venir of her beauty.

"I should get going." She said, clearing up the materials and setting herself up for the next patient. "Its  along night shift." 

"It is." He smiled. "If you have a break later, would you like to have a quick coffee? Tea? I'm here 'till midnight." He asked to her happy surprise.

"Sure! I'd ...I'd love that. How's eight?" 

"Eight." He confirmed.

Danielle smiled, blushed some more and quickly left Asha's hospital room where Nik returned to his seat in front of Asha. He wondered if she'd heard any of the conversation and if she had was she jealous and angry locked in her mind unable to speak. He felt awful but not as awful as he felt she should feel for helping kidnap and disappear his half-brother. 

"Wake up, Ash. Wake up." He whispered. 

**

Now at the nurse's station, Danielle looked over her schedule.

"How's Dr. Charming?" A fellow nurse giggled 

"Sorry?"

"Honey, we can all tell he's sweet on ya." The other nurse said with a yellow toothed grin. "We can see it! Don't you worry a bit. From all the stories that Hoffman woman has been up to, he's sure to leave her in the lurch as soon as she opens her pretty little eyes, and with good reason too!"

"I just came to see my schedule, not to talk about Dr. Jordan and Dr. Hoffman." Danielle replied.

"Sure, hon." The nurse smirked then handed her more papers with patients for Danielle to see.

As Danielle uncomfortably pushed the nurse's words out of her mind, she saw that down at the bottom of her patient list was her last patient of her shift, an early morning check up with Dr. Ward and.... Caspian Casador: Danielle's father -- Viktor Holten.

Danielle felt her blood turn cold; she'd come face to face with the man she thought dead for 3 years. 

****

Filipe, Sebastian & Fatima in her parlor 

Back at Fatima's home in town, Sebastian, Filipe and Fatima herself sat at round table in her parlor under a circular shaded light that hung from the ceiling directly above the table.

The room, painted blood red, was typically where Fatima held her tarot card readings, crystal ball reviews, aura cleansings but most of all -- séances. 

Mary's absence was felt here, as neither of the three could read the Eliza's book of spells. And on this night, Fatima would attempt to contact Eliza Goode from beyond the grave in hope's she could help them read her book. 

"Hold hands." Fatima instructed as she reached for Sebastian's left hand and Filipe's right, the two men also linked hands.

The book was placed in the center of the table, closed, with three candles surrounding it. Fatima closed her eyes and instructed the two men to do the same. 

She took a breath and began to take in heavy bursts of air and exhale the same. She began to hum a song, a song neither of the men recognized, and continued to breath in deep gulps of air and release it back into the room.

Then in quiet whispers, Fatima began to repeat Eliza's name. 

Over and over she called on the witch from Goode Island. The Mother of Mary. The Sister of Sabrina. A member of the coven known as Highgrove. 

"Sister Eliza show me the way, show me the answers into which I pray.
Come here now, show us this book, show us the page for which we look.
Eliza Goode, enter this realm, see my in yours and take this ship by its helm." 

A light cold air began to swirl around the three, the candles began to flicker and move by the air coming from the unknown source. 

"I feel her." Sebastian whispered. "I can sense her presence."

"Shhh." Fatima bristled. 

Then, the book brightly lit by the candles at it's side flipped violently open and the pages began to turn faster and faster all on their own and suddenly the book clamped closed flipping to one side revealing nothing.

The candles then blew out. One by one.

"What have you done." A cold voice said from the entrance of the parlor.

The three at the table looked up and saw Johnathon DeViana. 

"Johnathon? What are you doing here?" Filipe asked jumping up from the table. 

Johnathon's face was tear-stained. His nose red and swollen from crying. He was horrified by everything that he saw, everything that he had heard at Lockwood Thicket and now, everything he was witnessing in Fatima's Parlor.

"How did you get in here?" Fatima asked, also jumping up from her chair.

"Everyone just calm down." Sebastian added. 

"I know what you all are, and I know what Jacqueline is. I heard everything. I tried to help, I did, I tried to get rid of Sebastian and get him out of this world but like like a cockroach you've returned, havne't you? I'll never be rid of you and I'll never be free of the sick thing you are." Johnathon growled.

"Johnathon, you have no reason to hate me the way you do. Don't you see? Everything you've ever been told about me has been ways to warp my image in your mind. When we met, in my son's bedroom, you already had preconceived plots and webs in your mind and that was not the best way we, two new family members, should have met. But we can come together and fix one big problem." Sebastian said.

Through tormented tears of what he knew and saw, Johnathon asked what that one problem was.

"Jacqueline." Sebastian replied.

Johnathon's eyes narrowed. "You've already handled that. Jacqueline's dead. We left here at the Thicket bleeding to death. My child is dead because of all of you. Even Jacqueline is to blame. Her treachery, her lies. All of it. You're all to blame for it all." Johnathon replied.

"It wasn't your child." Sebatian replied

"Sebastian, stop." Filipe whispered. 

"He has to know." 

Johnathon stepped forward into the parlor, further in so that he could be seen by the shaded lamp hanging from the ceiling. "What did you say?"

"Jacqueline was with child, but it was not yours. It was my child." Sebastian explained. 

Fatima crossed herself and sat down at the table. Her heart skipping a beat. 

"It was! IT WAS MY CHILD! We were in love and married and she was going to have our baby. You're all lying! You're all using mind control and witchcraft to try and do something to me. You're driving me insane. This is what you want, you want me to go mad so that you can be rid of me. Just like Jacob tried to do to you and Evie and David and any obstacle that comes his way. You're all the same!!!" Johnathon shouted.

"He's not well." Filipe said softy to Sebastian. "He's not well at all." 

"Johnathon, please calm down. You have to understand there are many things that we have to explain but we cannot do it now. They have to wait until we fix something much more inportant. Evie is in trouble and so is Mary. We need to help them first." Sebastian said.

Johnathon's rage began to rise. He hated being pushed aside. He had always been pushed aside. His parents always chose Celeste over him. Albert chose his children with Rebecca over him. Jacob chose other's at the Publishing House over him. Jacqueline chose Sebatian over him, the patronizing way Sebastian now was trying to push him aside for other issues, made him angry.

Johnathon's rage boiled over and he reached for the items on Fatima's table and pulled them all off then lifted the table and flipped it over. Eliza's book went flying to the floor. The candles flew to one side splashing hot wax all over Fatima who screamed and jumped out of her seat. 

"YOU KILLED MY CHILD AND NOW I'LL KILL YOU!!!" Johnaton screamed then he lunged for Sebastian who blocked him by grabbing Johnathon's forearms.

Filipe reached for Johnaton from behind and pulled him off. The two men fell to the floor wrestling for power. In their fight knocking over the room's tables and chairs. 

Sebastian reached down and grabbed Johnathon. The vampire's extreme strength lifted the mad Johnathon off of Filipe and he hung in the air by his lapel.

Johnathon reached his arm back and dropped his fist into Sebastian's face forcing Sebastian to release his uncle as his hands nursed the blow.

The room settled. Johnathon's anger was like an electrical wire that had suddenly weakened. The hurt in him was now showing. He lost everything he had gained. The embarrassment of falling in love with Jacqueline who wasn't really in love with him was all over Johnathon's face. It was as if everyone had known a secret but no one had told him about it. 

He felt foolish. Like a child. Used. 

"I will never ever forgive any of you for what you've done to me. None of you, none of you!! You've taken me and made me into a joke. You've all hid things and lied and used me over and over again and left me to find these things out for myself. You should all be ashamed of what you've done. You'll all live to regret all of it. Every single thing." 

Johnathon's mind had been broken. He knew now his wife had lied about her love for him, about the paternity of their child. He knew She wanted to be with Sebastian and she only used him for secrity. He knew that nothing was real. It was all fake, and the joke, was all on him.

Johnathon then spit in the direction of Sebastian and Filipe. The wad of saliva falling in a clump of disgusting slosh on the carpet was Johnathon's final words and he left. 

The room was quiet now, and with that silence, Fatima looked over at Eliza's book and saw that it had been thrown from the table and opened to the exact pages they need to cure Sebatian. She gasped and quickly tried to understand the coded passages of the spell that had magically begun to change into legible sentences.

"I should go after him." Sebastian said.

"I've known Johnathon for years as a kid before he moved away. He's always been in search of acceptance. If you went after him in this state, he wouldn't be receptive. He’s embarrassed. He’s humiliated. And if Jacqueline did die at the cabin, well, I don't know if he'll ever recover. I feel horrible about my part in that." Filipe said.

"It was a horrible mistake. You didn't mean to hurt her." 

Filipe didn't know what else to say.

"But I should go. I'm afraid of what he'll do or who he'll find and what he'll say is happening here." Sebatian reminded them. "He's quite the loose cannon." 

"Leave Johnathon to himself for now." Fatima said, returning to the conversation now with Eliza's open book in hand. "We've been given the answers to saving Filipe."

The two men turned to Fatima, "Look." She said showing them the opened book to the page of The Wolf Moon curse, magically translated for them to understand.

****

Nathan & Baxter meet at the Siren’s Call Pub

Over in the village, At the Siren's Call Pub, Nathan Cramer sat at booth drowning his stress away with a pint of beer fresh off the tab. He had been at work most of the day dealing with Timothy Churchill's obsessive plot to ruin the Lord family once and for all -- beginning with turning the town against them with a bizarre accusation of Witchcraft, using an old law on the town charter from the puritan days that never got repealed.

Nathan helped in this. He was not the most trusted person in the Mayor's cabinet. He found the law. He encouraged the call to Barrister Eden Syndey and he was the one that tilted Syndey's interest in taking the case.

But none of felt good. Nathan, a kind hearted man who never had an enemy to name, saw it all as an opportunistic reach and knew that it would only end in death and disaster. 

Spying Nathan in his booth alone, Baxter Murphy walked over from his own booth and sat down facing the Mayor's aide, plopping his cold glass of white wine square in the table.

Nathan's face scrunched at Baxter's sudden apperence. 

"You're like a vulture, you know that? When someone's in their own world feeling like death warmed over you come over to pick apart the carcus." Nathan said.

"Blue are you? Well, I can help you fix all of that." Baxter said, reaching under the table with his leg entangling it with Nathan's.

Nathan yanked his back.

"No." 

Baxter shrugged "You're no fun." 

The two were no strangers to each other, in fact they had once had a romantic relationship one that lasted many years soon after Baxter's relationship with Lear Lockwood's ended. Baxter had a way of linking himself to people who had jobs in with important connections. He found himself lured to men who'd worked with scandal ridden politicians, Powerful foreign dignitaries, even men with ties to house of Windsor. But none of Baxter's relationships lasted longer than the stories these men supplied from their positions.

Baxter, true to his form, used them all.

"What is it you want Bax? I don't have anything to tell you." Nathan said, watching the foam in his beer bubble at the edge of the mug.

"I think you do." Baxter replied. "I know that you've had meetings with Barrister Sydney. A little birdie told he's arrived and that he was with Churchill today. You're going to really look me in the eye and tell me nothing happened at that meeting? The town's a buzz Nate, everything seems to be on the line here. I'd love a quote."

"A quote?" Nathan asked, with an irritated tone.

"That's right."

"A quote from me?" 

Baxter looked confused. "That's right."

"Here's a quote Bax, go fuck yourself." Nathan replied.

"Jesus! You used to be able to hold your alcohol a lot better than this, Nathan. You know this is my job, it never ends. Things are always happening, and I have to get to the bottom of it." Baxter replied.

"You're the one that started all of this. If you'd left well enough alone none of this would have happened and three people wouldn't be set for a stupid trial on witchcraft." Nathan said.

"A trial! There's to be an actual, God-fearing, real-life witch trial? Right here in little 'ol Welshport!? Well, fuck me dry, this may get me a promotion!" Baxter gleamed. 

"You're sick." Nathan said, his whole body now drowsy with the beer slowly working his way in his blood stream.

Baxter looked at his ex and felt sorry for him. he wanted an exclusive but didn't want to get it this way, not with Nathan struggling to keep his eyes open. 

"How many have you had?" Baxter asked pulling back Nathan's mug.

"Not enough." 

"Seriously, Nathan, are you alright? It's not like you didn't know what Churchill was after. I mean you've been around him long enough to know he's had it out for The Lords since he was a child. It wouldn't take a fortune teller to tell us that he'd try something crazy like this eventually." Baxter replied.

"I just don't like how I'm apart of it. I'm helping the man!" Nathan said. "I'm helping the man destroy lives, innocent lives." 

"Innocent? We don't know if they're innocent." Baxter said.

"What? You really think they're witches?" Nathan asked, his words slurring more and more.

"I didn't say they were guilty of witchcraft, I just said we know they're not innocent. Nathan, you're a big boy now, you should know that no one after the age of 5 is innocent. We all get to be a little bad after that. Some of us more than others." Baxter replied.

"I never liked your cynical side." Nathan replied.

"Neither did I." A voice said, standing over the two men at the table.

Nathan and Baxter looked up to see Cora Taylor standing before them who'd come in for an evening after-work drink with Jane Donnelly, the Lord's head maid.

"I'll grab us, a... uh.. table." Jane said, uncomfortable around Nathan and Baxter.

"Sis, how are you, I haven't seen you in a while." Baxter said standing up and trying for a hug.

"Sis?" Cora replied, recalling how Baxter told her she wasn't really his sister biologically.

Baxter tilted his head and lifted a brow, "Oh, come on." 

"Listen, I only came over here because I just didn't want it to be awkward if you saw me first. I don't want to embarrass you in front of anyone, especially if they all saw that I'd ask you to leave me alone... which is what I'm doing now. Leave me alone if you see me anywhere in town." Cora said.

"Coraline," Baxter said, pulling her aside to speak more privately, "you're my sister no matter what. It really doesn't matter to me who you really are." 

"Baxter -- you've been lying to me for over 20 years. You've been telling me lies all my life and you drop the truth on me in a way that is so, so ... demented, and expect me to just be fine with it, with you! I need to be away from you. I need to be --- I don't want to be anywhere near you anymore. You're an agent of chaos and I've let you drag me along the way for far too long. That's over now." 

Coraline turned to find Jane and as she did, Baxter grabbed her shoulder. 

"Coraline, wait." he said.

She shrugged him off.

"Coraline! I have more to tell you." He said.

She stopped, she didn't turn. 

The noise of bar refilled the smokey room. The music was loud, but she heard him loud and clear. The other shoe about her real life, her life as Maggie Lockwood was about to drop. This is what she was afraid of, she knew that Baxter was the type of manipulator who'd only give part of the story first only to use the rest later, like the slow drip of a melting icicle. His sick take on an insurance policy.

"Of course you do." She said to him, still with her back turned.

The lamp lights on the tables were glowing a rich yellow light just as they were on the bar and in the golden mermaid fixtures on the walls. Cora finally turned and looked at her adopted brother whose face was so sharp in features that the bar's lamp lights cast stark shadows over his face.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked her.

She stepped forward to him. "I just knew there was something else. There always is. So what is, it?" 

"Lear has the adoption papers." He said.

"That's it?" She asked. "That's all you had to tell me? Lear has the adoption papers?" 

He nodded. "In those papers you'll get all of the information on how Henry Lockwood brokered your adoption, but just so you know you may find things in those papers that may hurt other people." Baxter explained. "I've always kept them safe because, well, despite popular belief I don't go after just anyone. I try and protect people that I like too. You'll see what I mean if you get them from Lear." Baxter said. 

"I, I don't understand."

"I'm giving you the keys sis, once you have all of the information on how it all went down, it'll be up to you to handle it if you want. I'm telling you, when you read them over and see who else was involved, you'll see what I mean." 

Cora stood there as Baxter reached over and grabbed the wine from the table with Nathan, he kissed his ex on the cheek and wished him a good night then walked past Cora but said nothing else to her. 

Their relationship destroyed with secrets broken open in truth. Now, it was in her hands to find out what else would come when and if she actually sought out the papers from Lear. 

****

In their Jail cell: Matthew, Mary & Evie

While the raucous sailors and village patrons continued to drink the night away at the Siren's Call pub a much more somber environment at the makeshift jail cells at Villag Hall was taking shape.

Evie lay on her cot staring at the brick wall following the lines of grout as if they were imaginary streets going up the wall and to the blank ceiling. Her mind was on her son Gabriel. She missed him. She hadn't seen in well over three weeks and her mother's news of him adjusting fine without her only sent her into a deeper depression.

He was so young and already they'd been apart so much of his short life. All she wanted was to be with him and love him and care for him. To be best mother she could be for a child that came into the world under tumultuous circumstances, and those circumstances had yet to cease.

Evie felt like her life was a storm that was constantly battering and angering the sea that was little Gabriel. 

From across the jail cell floor, Matthew could see Evie lost in her thoughts. His heart broke for her. All he wanted to do was protect the woman that he loved but they were all trapped there together under such a ridiculous pretense as an accusation of witchcraft. 

"You alright over there?" Matthew said, sliding his arms through the bars. 

Mary, turned to Evie who didn't answer him and didn't lift her eyes from the wall.

"Evie?" Mary said softly. "Are you ok?" 

Evie again did not answer, she only stared at the bricks. 

Mary turned to Matthew, worry plastered over her face. She got up from her chair and walked over to where Evie was laying and sat down next to her. She grabbed her hand and squeezed which seemed to bring Evie out of her daze.

"What? I'm sorry did you say something?" Evie said taking in a deep breath as if she had been holding it the whole time. 

"Matthew and I were just worried about you." Mary said.

"You haven't said much since you're mother left." Matthew added. "Are you ok?" 

"What if we die?" Evie suddenly replied surprising the other two inmates.

"We're not going to die. We're going to get out of this one way or another. There is no way they'll be able to keep us here with such a..." Matthew paused to think of a word "well, a stupid case." 

"Matthew's right, they don't have a case against the two of you for anything. They only saw me use my powers and that's why I've decided to confess to everything and let the trial be only about me. I'll tell everyone that the two of you are innocent and you'll be able to move on with your lives." Mary said.

"Mary! No! They'll kill you!" Evie replied.

"You can't just confess, they wouldn't take a confession now, especially since we've all said we're innocent. And what of Charlotte and the boys? They'd surely come after them being the children of a witch. They're already on this sick witch-hunt to hurt people. They won't stop." 

Mary quickly was reminded of her children, especially Caleb, the son she and Filipe adopted and with recent events now believed was a son taken from Aurora illegally. 

"The kids aren't going to be hurt, you don't really think Churchill would do that, do you? Come after innocent children?" Mary asked.

"I honestly don't want to chance it Mary. And you shouldn't either. We don't know what Timothy Churchill's motivation is for anything of this. None of what he's doing to us will gain him votes or more power in such a small town. It really makes no sense. And if I thought that anything I said or did would put Gabriel into danger, I would definitely think twice. So please, don't do it, don't confess to anything." Evie replied.

"It's not fair for you two to be here considering what I am." Mary said.

"We're in this together now." Matthew said. "We'll get out of this together I promise."

"How can you promise that?" Mary asked.

Evie suddenly realized she was giving into her own fears just as Mary was now. Matthew was right, they had to carry on and fight whatever was coming. None of them could back down from Timothy's accusations that were only meant to hurt people instead of protect people. Evie turned her head and looked at the bricks and again but this time she realized the window grout wasn't just a symbol of the tangled up web of her life but really a symbol of how many roads often crisscross other roads and are blocked by many obstacles but in the end, one finds a way out. 

"We're going to get out of this, for oursleves and for out families. We'll beat this." Evie said, holding on tightly to Mary's hands.

"ALRIGHT!" A voice came from outside the cells. "GET TO SLEEPIN, YOU 'TREE." 

It was a night guard with a thick irish accent. He was a nice face to the three under lock and key.

"You might be sure to get some sleep. I hear there's a hearing comin' up for the lot of ya." The guard said.

Evie and Mary spearated and went to their respective cots but Matthew stay at the edge of his cell with his arms through the bars and look the guard dead in the eyes. There was something about this new guard. Something that made Matthew keep staring at him. 

"What's your name?" Matthew asked.

The guard said nothing and walked over to Matthew. 

"Get to bed." The guard said.

"We haven't seen you before. What's your name?" Matthew repeated. 

"I said, get to BED!" The guard shouted and banged his nightstick on the bars right next to Matthew's right arm.

Matthew's eyes narrowed. His instincts were telling him something was strange about the new guard something he could not put his finger one. As Matthew finally complied and walked back to his lone cot in the smaller cell by himself he never once took his eyes off the new guard.

The guard smiled crudly feeling accomplished and getting Matthew to do what he asked. He then turned and looked into the women's cell. His strange dark green bloodshot eyes stared at Evie with a strange look. It was almost as if he were studying her every move. Evie could feel him staring. She rolled over in her cot to face away from the peering strange guard yet the chill still went up her spine.

The guard, his cartoonish orange beard snagging at the corners of his mouth stepped up to the bars of the women's cell and stared inside. His eyes never leaving Evie, not for a single seacond.

Mary, from her cot, felt just as uncomfortable. 

"Please, sir." She said, hoping he'd leave.

"Leave them alone." Matthew said form his cot.

"See ya in the mornin' ladies." The gross guard said, white spit crusting at the edges of his thin chapped lips. 

The Guard slowly made his way out of the cell room still tapping his nightstick on the bars as he walked out. He pulled the large heavy door open and stepped out, locking the three in for the night.

As he did, another guard was unconscious on the floor and the guard with the deep bloodshot green eyes suddenly transformed into Jacqueline Gray. 

Jacqueline had come to check on her romantic rival Evie Jordan-Lord. Happy, Jacqueline was, to see the woman Sebastian loved so much, still locked away fearing for her life once the new day came. 

"She'll never leave this place alive." Jacqueline said to the unconscious jailer on the floor she was posing as. "Will she, Francis. No she won't." She said to him again using his name.

Then, as a witch would do, she vanished into thin air. 

****

Fatima’s house 

Back at Fatima's house in town another event was about to take place.

Filipe, Sebatian and Fatima had read the now translated book of spells that Eliza's spirt had revealed. 

Sebastian nervously sat at the round table again, his wrist over directly over a glass bowl from Fatima's kitchen. He turned his head as Filipe grabbed Sebastian's wrist and held it up. 

"Now, bring it forward." Fatima said, motioning to the candle that was in the center of the table. 

Sebastian could feel the flame heating up his pale wrist. His veins heating the blood as it flowed through the vampire's body. A smudge of black appeared in a circle on his wrist from the flame below it.

"There." Fatima said. "That is where you bite." 

Filipe gulped as Sebastian took a deep breath. Filipe brought Sebatian's wrist back towards the bowl.

The man who was tortured by the moon, took a breath and knew the time had come.

He bit into Sebastian's wrist just as the clock coincidently struck midnight.

A stream of thick bright red blood began to pour out of Sebatian's wrist and into the bowl. Sebastial growled as he felt the sting of the bite and Filipe's teeth sinking into his hardened flesh. He fought every instinct to pull away and yang himself out of Filipe's tightening jaws. His own fangs came out, his eyes turning quickly dark as if he wanted to feed too, but Sebastian, now much more careful with his affliction pulled back and return to normal hurting no one in the room.

Filipe then took out the wrist from his mouth, a strong a saliva and blood tethered to his plump lips. He turned Sebastian's wrist and the blood filled the bowl. Sebastian then felt almost as if an invisible pressure lifting from his body as the blood came out of him in a perfect stream and then, inside the bowl a perfect round circle of blood pooled.

"Enough filho." Fatima told Filipe, using the Portuguese world for son. "Enough." 

As Sebastian took back his wrist from Filipe and wrapped it, Filipe lifted the glass bowl by both hands and held it up to his lips as if he were about to slurp the broth of a winter's soup.

Fatima began to read from the translated book as instructed:

"Return the blood from where it came. Send the wild back to the tame. A heart so true, a heart so pure, let this blood be the cure." Fatima said, "Now, drink it." 

Filipe did as she instructed and tilted the glass bowl into his mouth allowing some to pour out the corner of his mouth and down his neck.

Fatima felt her stomach turn; she could not hold it anymore and jumped up from the table and ran into another room and vomited into a porcelain basin that sat next to a bed. 

"How do you feel?" Sebastian asked, as the Their hope, that when the next full moon came, Filipe would only see himself in the mirror.

"I don't know. The same, I guess. I won't know until the moon----" Filipe said before suddenly feeling something in his stomach. It was like a cramping feeling. A Cramping feeling that began to grow in his body. He jumped up from his chair, the pain uncontrollable. His eyes began to fill with tears. The veins in his neck bulging. Then all the other veins in his body started to bulge, in his hands, on the temples of his head, in his arms, down his chest. He felt as if he were being chocked.

Filipe fell to the floor gasping for air. Sebastian rushed over and turned him face up and watch as his own blood turn his friend into something --- into a human again.

Not a murderous beast.

"Filipe!!!" Fatima said, reentering the room and joining the two men on the floor. "Is he ok?"

"I think." Filipe said in a crushed voice as they helped him up.

"Now what?" She asked.

"Now we wait." Filipe said wiping his mouth from spit and blood.

"No." Sebatian said to them as they turned to look in his direction. "Now we save Evie and Mary." Sebastian added.