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| The Bragas gather |
In Fatima Braga's home in the village, a long-awaited reunion was finally happening. Mary Goode had returned home, free from the terrible ordeal that had plagued her and her friends Matthew and Evie. The loss of time while they were incarcerated and the devastating trial almost left her broken but the council of witches came to her aide and saved her life just as Sebastian saved Filipe's.
They were both finally free to live their lives with their children happily.
As the table in Fatima's kitchen began to fill with food from her native Portugal, Filipe held on to Mary as if she'd blow away by the wind. He wanted her close, so close that she could smell his skin. How she missed his scent, a warm tone like cinnamon and coffee.
"It is by the grace of God you're all free." Fatima said, placing two more plates down onto the table with Charlotte's help.
"I'll never understand how this sister of yours just suddenly appeared." Filipe said. "It's really a miracle."
Mary knew better, but had to keep up the lie that Verity was indeed a long lost twin.
"My mother was a secretive woman." Mary said. "She kept things even from me."
"But..." Charlotte began as the puzzle was fully forming in her mind "why would your sister take the blame for everything. We know what everyone saw. We know the truth."
"Charlotte minha querida, it's best now to let things go the way they are. Especially with this. My advice is never go deeper into the sea if you don’t know what monsters lurk there." Fatima replied knowing that this surprise twin perhaps had a deeper story that maybe they shouldn't touch.
"I guess,” the young woman replied unsatisfied “I wish I had known her." Charlotte added.
"She saved us." Filipe said, sitting with Mary. "We should do something for her. Maybe have a place somewhere on Goode Island as a memorial. Next to Louise and Eliza's graves." He added mentioning the little baby Mary miscarried who'd been buried next Eliza Goode.
"I think that's a good idea." Fatima said, pouring wine into the glasses. "Vamos-la, we should pray, say thanks for bringing our family back together."
"Oh!" Mary said jumping up form the table hearing the baby in the other room wake up. "We forgot someone."
Seconds flashed by and Mary returned with her little son, Caleb, the boy who'd been born to Aurora and Caspian. The boy who’s birth parents were searching for him.
"We can't forget our little one." Filipe smiled taking his little boy into his arms.
Mary looked around the table. A family had formed. They'd survived so much and were finally together happy and safe. She wondered just how much more would happen and if they'd be happy this way forever. In Welshport, happiness and safety was never guaranteed, but for now, her little family was in the palm of her hand and this little lunch felt as if it were the best thing that had ever happened to her in a very long time.
There was Fatima sitting in her chair making Charlotte's plate of potatoes and her favorite bacalhau recipe with greens that had been boiled on the side with carrots and Portuguese sausage. A plate Charlotte remarked was too much food for her.
Filipe chuckled, his mother-- the woman he'd always believed to be his aunt-- was always this way. She showed love with feeding someone. Mary watched, standing, as their interactions felt real and warm. The baby in his father's arms giggling and sipping on a bottle of milk.
Then, in the glass of the window Mary saw a woman walking down the street. The woman was in gray. Cloaked or veiled -- all in gray. The family continued to giggle and laugh eat and drink, celebrate Mary's homecoming and the woman in Mary's eyeline walked closer and closer to the kitchen window until suddenly she was walking through the wall and standing only feet from the happy family.
No one reacted and it happened with such quick succession. Mary knew no one could see the woman.
Suddenly the veiled person, all in gray, began to remove her veil but before Mary could see who was under, the person turned to ash and fell into a heap onto the kitchen floor.
Mary gasped in shock. The room fell silent, everyone looked up at her.
"What is it?" Filipe asked. "Are you ok?"
Charlotte's eyes darted to where Mary was looking, she saw the mound of ash where the person once stood, then the young sorceress she saw the mound disappear before her eyes. Charlotte said nothing. She got up from her chair and walked over to her mother and grabbed her by the hand.
"It's alright."
Mary's eyes watered, she had no idea what she had just seen but she knew that it was some kind of premonition. Something was telling her about Verity, her twin sister created by the council that was now just ashes after being burned alive as a witch.
Or... was it Jacqueline.
"It's alright." Charlotte repeated.
Mary felt safe again once Charlotte's voice and the baby's giggles cut through the shock of what she saw.
"Sit, let's eat." Filipe said happily.
Mary smiled and went back to her chair next to her husband. Charlotte's stomach was a knot. Mary's too.
Fatima, who had just witnessed the entire situation, said nothing either. But she knew too.
The woman of Ash was the first reminder things were not as they seemed.
****
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| Lucas & Lear visit Matthew |
Back in his small apartment in the Village, Matthew Winterborn stared into a cold mug of beer and watched the islands of foam separate from the center to the edges of the inner glass. His mind felt as if it too was floating away and separating from himself.
He was lonely and lost without Evie by his side and despite respecting her decision to end their romance so she could dedicate herself fully to her child, he was struggling accepting it.
As he sat there, in a fresh white A-shirt there was a knock at his door. Matthew didn't even move; he shouted for the visitor to enter the unlocked apartment.
"Matthew?" A familiar voice said, "It's Lucas!" His friend said entering hand in hand with his equally as handsome young partner Lear Lockwood.
Matthew called to his old friend to come into the back room, there Lucas and Lear entered finding Matthew in a depressed state.
"Are you alright?" Lucas asked as the two good friends embraced. "We came by to check on you."
Lear looked around and could tell Matthew had been home a while. The apartment seemed disheveled and unkept, very unlike Matthew's personality.
"Evie decided to end things." Matthew said in a low sad voice. "She thought that it was better for us to just be friends for now so that she can focus on Gabriel."
"Oh." Lucas said his tone searching for words of comfort. "I'm — I’m so sorry. I know how much you love her, but after all you have been through together I am surprised."
"She's going through a lot too." Lear reminded them. "Maybe it's for the best."
"Of course. I — I can’t be selfish. It is for the best. For Gabriel’s best." Matthew replied. "But I can't help but think that maybe, I don't know, if I had done more to get us out of that whole situation in court we'd be together today. I didn't do enough. I just sat back and let things happened as they did."
"Matthew what would have been able to do? This was an unprecedented situation two centuries in the making. No one knew where this would go." Lear replied. "I had no legal loophole to stand on and if this Verity person hadn't shown up I really think I would have lost this case. None of it is your fault, none of this could have been fixed by you."
"Lear is right, the most important thing is that you stayed by her side and kept her safe as best you could. She didn't break up with you because you didn't do that, she just wants to focus on Gabriel. It's not really an end, I see it more as a pause." Lucas replied ever the optimist.
Matthew's eyes twinkled at his best friend's attempt to cheer him up with some hope, but the truth is where it was, in Evie's words to end their relationship as it was.
"Thank you for that vote of confidence, my friend, but I know where she and I stand. I can't pretend my heart isn't broken, but I'll get up from here and get better. Hopefully." Matthew replied.
Lear sighed "We were just in the neighborhood and thought we'd stop by. Perhaps we should let you have your day, huh? Some time alone?" Lear added.
Matthew nodded and the two visitors decided to let Matthew sulk in his heartbreak by himself. Sometimes people need to be alone with their feelings, they thought, and for now Matthew needed that.
"But just today!" Lucas joked. "I'll be back tomorrow to check on you, amigo." He added using the Portuguese word for friend.
Matthew walked them out to the door and watched them go down the exterior stairs of his apartment. A seagull circled the building as if it were lost in the clouds above. Matthew looked up from his door at the top of the staircase and watched. He felt as lost as the pure white seagull, searching for some kind of beacon to bring him home.
Once alone again, Matthew realized that evie was his beacon. Evie was his home and he didn’t need to be lost in the fog anymore. Even if Evie decided she didn't want to be with him now, he'd prove to her they were better together. Somehow, some way, he'd prove it. And Sebastian Lord had better watch himself. Matthew was determined to make sure Evie and Gabriel were kept safe from Sebastian's treacherous fangs, no matter how reformed he said he was.
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| Laurel runs into Lear & Lucas |
Outside, Lear and Lucas shook off the worry they had for Matthew and hoped that in the coming days he'd being to feel better about his relationship with Evie. Lucas knew his friend Matthew well, this, the young handsome Portuguese man believed was a small set back.
"Matthew will be back on to his old self soon. He's hurting now, but I think with time things will reset." Lucas told Lear.
"You think so? They've been through so much together, I can't imagine going through all of that and then not having you. " The handsome lawyer said squeezing Lucas's had as they bounded down the street.
The notion that Lear felt so strongly for him sent tingles up Lucas' spine.
"Really?" Lucas asked.
Lear shrugged. "Yeah!"
As conversation of Matthew faded, Lucas and Lear walked along the street teasing each other, basking in their own happy glow of love. They'd met and began their tryst, and it all felt so right. It all happened at such a perfect time in both of their lives.
Lucas couldn't believe how lucky he was, Lear too. Lear had a succession of failed relationships that had started in and ended in ways that he'd rather not repeat, in this one with Lucas, he wanted to do all the right things from the start.
They walked along the cobblestone street that snaked alongside a cliff that that overlooked the crashing waves of a deep blue sea. The wind blew though Lear's hair, Lucas pulled him close by the lapel of his coat. Their noses touched and for a brief moment the world stopped. No sounds of seagulls or crashing waves, just their beat of their pulses almost synchronizing and the warm touch of their skin touching. Hands together. Lips. Then a kiss. Soft and warm. A slip of a tongue that felt earth shaking. Lear held Lucas by his face with one hand almost as if to hold him there in the kiss forever.
A connection both needed from another person for so many years.
After this perfect moment, the world swirled again around them and like two schoolboys in their first crush the headed down happily towards Gramercy Cafe. There, they bumped into Dr. Peter Ward's wife Laurel with her granddaughter Samantha. The little girl was growing up fast, and her beauty was on full display, Laurel was a proud grandmother and had been raising the child since her son and daughter-in-law died in an accident when the 5-year-old was only a few months old.
"Well she's really quite beautiful Mrs. Ward." Lear said squeezing the little girls pink cheeks.
"The spitting image of my daughter-in-law." Laurel replied. "Tell me, how are things are going? I'm afraid to trust anything I read in the papers now at days." She added hinting at all the courtroom drama she missed.
"Fine now!" Lear replied. "After Verity Spencer came forward and admitted she’d been posing as Mary at the coves, it ended the way it was supposed to."
Laurel’s face twisted with confusion at how quick Lear accepted the outcome of the trial and wasn’t questioning any of as a good lawyer might.
"Thank god for that." Lucas added, quickly coming to his new partner’s agreement.
"Yes, thank god." Laurel replied with a hint of suspicion. "Though, don't you find it odd that Mary suddenly had a surprise twin sister? Of all the years I knew Eliza, she had never, ever told me that she had two daughters. It was always just Mary. And — Verity is dead now, I don’t find it at all a reason to celebrate."
“Of course, Mrs. Ward, of course! Verity’s life ending is incredibly tragic but Mary was innocent of something Verity did. That’s all I meant.” Lear said attempting to clean up what he said.
“I still can’t believe Eliza never told me of this Verity person.” She said.
Lucas felt a bit worried that there was obviously more to what happened on the last day of court than anyone really knew. "Maybe she didn't know." He said.
"Didn't know?" Laurel asked as a fresh breeze blew across her thick mane of red hair. "How couldn't she have known?"
"I've learned in my short time here that people often don't know a lot about their families. Look at Coraline for example, she didn't know she was really Maggie Lockwood for her whole life. That was kept from her.”
Maggie lifted a brow and glanced at Lear who was expressionless, “Yes I remember the stories of Henry Lockwood.”
“It turns out someone helped her father sell her on the black market." Lucas innocelty revealed.
"Uhhh, Luc, maybe we shouldn't get into all that with Mrs. Ward." Lear interjected finally.
"Oh, I was only..." Lucas began before Laurel interrupted.
"How do you know someone helped her father do this?" Laurel probed unrelentingly.
"We have proof!" Lucas added, again to Lear's slight annoyance.
"Lucas."
"Oh, sorry."
"Proof? How interesting. What kind of proof?" Laurel asked, her left brow lifting with wonder.
This time Lucas remained quiet, Lear sighed and filled her in.
"A name. We found a name deep in this forged adoption paperwork my Cora’s parents received that proves my father didn't act alone, that someone helped him broker the deal and Cora believes if we find this person than maybe more children who were illegally adopted will be discovered."
Laurel gulped. "She wasn't the only one.”
"What's that?" Lear asked
"OH! I ... um I was, I was asking, She believes she wasn't the only child, then?" Laurel said, her words falling over themselves as they escaped her lips.
"Right." Lucas replied. "We need to find this Ridgeway person who's on the papers."
"I see, boys, good luck!" Laurel said, ending their conversation quickly.
"Thanks,….” Lucas said as Laurel quickly rushed off.
“um goodbye Mrs. Ward." Lear said, turning to Lucas "That was an abrupt about-face."
Laurel quickly made her way down the street towards home when she passed a friendly florist who shouted over to her as she passed
"AFTER NOON MRS. RIDGEWAY-WARD! Good to see you!!"
Laurel's stomach sank.
She was the Ridgeway in the papers.
She was the Ridgeway Cora, Lear and Lucas were looking for.
****
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| Aurora & Caspian |
At The Welshport Inn, Aurora had spent the night with Caspian. Their connection a muddle of past secrets and history that still haunted them even in this very moment. But they had so much still to discover, mainly their missing child, a child being secretly raised by Mary and Filipe.
Caspian stood in the bathroom staring at himself in the mirror. His headaches were coming and going like the waves on the shores. Sometimes they felt stronger than those waves, pushing up against his eyes with a powerful pressure that he could not describe.
Aurora stood in the main room of the hotel suite, folding the blanket she had used while sleeping on the small sofa. Her worry grew as Caspian, who fled from Tirymor House because of Rebecca's attempt to suppress the truth about Danielle from him, had been in the bathroom a great amount of time.
He splashed water on his face from a cooled porcelain basin with blue and white swirled paint of waves and a ship set at sea. He looked at himself in the mirror...his head ached. His eyes almost felt as if they were about the pop out of their sockets.
Aurora knocked on the door.
"WHAT!?!" he snapped.
"I…I was just checking on you." She stuttered through the door.
Caspian calmed himself realizing his bark was unwarranted. He opened the door to see the beautiful Aurora with the blanket she was folding now wrapped around her hands in a ball as her nerves took over.
"I'm sorry. I just didn't sleep very well. These headaches are just torturing me." He replied.
"I wish Ward would finally know how to help you." She said.
"They'll go with time as I heal." He answered. "So, where do we start?" He added
"Start?"
"To find our son." He smiled.
"We have to go back to Asha. We have to see her and get answers to all of our questions. She's the only one who tell us what happened that night and finally tell us whom she placed our child with."
But before Caspian could answer there was a knock on the hotel room door.
Caspian worried it was Rebecca. Aurora too.
Caspian straightened out his vest prepared to fight his wife on what she had done, but when he opened the door, there was his daughter, Viktor's daughter, Danielle Holten.
Danielle stood there, her hands at her side standing tall stared in the eyes of her father. The man she believed dead for so long, the man who died and left her mother destitute and alone was now in front of her like a ghost.
They stood there in silence.
Aurora quickly came to the door to break the silence.
"Nurse Holten, what are you doing here?" She asked.
"Mrs. Jordan, hello, I didn't expect to see you here, I... I came to see..." Danielle's eyes turned to her father, "my father."
Caspian stood there in the presence of a woman who had his nose. His dark eyes and dark hair. A connection in flesh and blood to his past.
"Please come in." He said.
"Was I interrupting?" Danielle said, noticing the unmade bed.
"It's not what you think." Aurora smirked. "Caspian and I, well, we've had a long night discussing something that has happened to the two of us. Its a very long story that in truth affects you too, now that we know you and Caspian are related."
"Caspian." Danielle said. "I don't think I'll ever get use to that being your name."
"It's all I've known." He replied.
"Viktor." Danielle said to him. "Your name is Viktor Holten, and you're my father."
Her eyes began to water. His too. He could see himself in her. All this time, almost 3 years now he'd been living a life of a man with no history. A man whose world had only begun after the awful demon left his body, freeing him of a terrible existence plagued by evil intentions to destroy and distort. The two Holtens had so much time to make up and Aurora felt as if she were just a fly on the wall as they reconnected.
His past to his daughter's. Her past to her father's.
"Where do we begin?" She said.
"Anywhere." He said walking her over to the sofa where Aurora had slept.
"Before, though, if you excuse me, I just need to take a minute. Please." Caspian replied.
"Of course." Danielle answered.
Aurora's worry once again was plastered all over her face, she could see Capsian's headaches were back.
In the bathroom, once again with the door closed, Caspian stared intensely at his own reflection. His eyes darkened, his mouth fell, a sleek cruel grin stretched across his face. Something sinister was deep in his veins and he could only express it when the headaches came.
As his fists balled on the bathroom counter, he could feel his headache breaking his mind in two. He could feel something in his telling him to do something that no ordinary person would think. The person in the reflection was not the person staring back. These were two different creatures.
One a man, Viktor Holten, the other a hungry violent monster that had become reborn with the blow to the head from the cave floors. The creature who called himself the Hunter, the creature named Caspian.
The mind was split in one body.
The devil and the man.
****
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| Genevieve & Christopher in the Tirymor Drawing room |
Later that afternoon, Tirymor House seemed quiet by comparison to the last few weeks when several construction workers invaded the house to repair the damage done by the mob. The shredded carpets had been rethreaded, the broken golden frames around the giant family portraits that had been ripped form the walls had been rebound and brought back to their rectangular glory.
Smashed vases were replaced. Potted plants replanted. Holes on the lawn refilled and the several doors rehinged. Someone had even taken a dagger or a sharp object and dragged it across Rebecca's lily white foyer walls marking them for what they hoped would be forever.
Rebecca, who had all the money in the world, had it quickly repainted and patched. It was as if nothing had even happened.
Tirymor remained standing and in almost mint condition. No one who saw what happened would have ever even known what the mob had done.
As Rebecca wrote a quick note, she called Aaron Hamstead in. He was to deliver the note to Fatima Braga's house. In it, an update for Charlotte on her father's condition.
"Are you alright ma'am?" Aaron asked, he sensed her uncharacteristic silence as a sign of her discontent.
She rubbed the ink off her fingers and took a breath. Her marriage was in shambles. She had a plan to remedy that but had to wait for the lure to sink deeper into the ocean that she dunked it in for her fish to bite. And then, before she could answer, Jane entered with two guests.
"I apologize for the interruption," Jane said "but Ms. Genevieve Thorne and ... a guest are here ma'am."
Jane's white face told Rebecca Geneiveve had brought the back-form-the-dead David Lord, going under his new name Christopher.
"Ah. They're probably here to take young Morgan." Rebecca said.
Genevieve and Chris walked in, Aaron gulped at the sight of the spitting images of David and Sabrina as they entered the room. Same faces. Different names. Aaron had not seen them together. It was eerie and strange to see his best friend and the dead ringer of his dead wife in front him again. Rebecca seemed unfazed.
"Aaron." Rebecca said, her voice like a snap of finger waking Aaron from a sleep. "Please fetch Morgan for us."
"OH! Of course! Of course!" Aaron said rushing off with Jane.
In the corner of the halls, Jane begged to know what was going on, Aaron, who knew Chris was David pretended to know nothing.
"Well, I see you're both doing well." Rebecca said, her heart feeling like a ship lost at sea without Caspian.
"We won't bother you Mrs. Casador, as soon as Morgan comes, we'll be off." Genevieve said, also feeling strange that Rebecca's reaction seemed so calm towards her after their physical altercation at the hospital.
Of course, the reason for Rebecca's calm demeanor was because she had so much on her mind. Her skirmish with Genevieve fell short of Rebecca’s attention.
Rebecca had also already had conversation with Chris and accepted his turn away from his life as David. For now at least— she held strong to her hope that David would some day snap out of alias and come home.
While they waited for Morgan, Chris said nothing.
"It's no bother." Rebecca said, standing from her bureau, noting Chris’ awkward silence. "I completely understand how much a mother wants to be close to her child, her son. It's such a powerful connection and I for one would never ever keep a mother from that. Don't you agree Mr. Wesley?"
It was obvious what Rebecca was trying to do, but Chris stayed true to himself.
"I wouldn't say that is the case for all mothers and sons." Chris said. "I'd say that for those who've had good relationships your view makes sense, but not everyone has had the same relationship with their parents as, perhaps, you have Mrs. Casador." he added as Rebecca lifted a brow.
"Mother." Morgan said, entering the room.
"Darling!" Genevieve shouted rushing over kissing both his cheeks. "Are you ready, you're coming with us. We've found a place in the village where we can all be together. A place where I will never ever leave you again."
Morgan nodded, sadly.
"What is it?" Chris asked.
Morgan looked at Rebecca, her jaw set, her frame like stone statue with a glittering black gown.
"I'm going to miss her." He said.
Rebecca narrowed her eyes confused thinking Morgan was talking about her.
"Uh...Who darling?" Geneieve asked, knowing surely he didn't mean the cold dowager Lord matriarch.
"Charlotte."
The room felt as if the walls themselves exhaled in relief, finally understanding where the young man was going with this words. "I don't really know if I want to leave."
"You'll be able to see Charlotte anytime you want. The house we've found is very close to Fatima Braga's and you can see her whenever you'd like." Chris said.
"That's not her permanent place of residence, is it?!" Rebecca shouted.
"For the time being, yes." Genevieve replied.
Rebecca groaned "For god's sake, I thought it was temporary. I used to think that cottage on Goode Island was the worst place she could be raised now she's in a fortune teller's house."
"She's happy with them there. They really treat her kindly." Morgan said.
"That will change once Jacob returns, Morgan, and you're more than welcome to visit any time you'd like." Rebecca said.
"Mrs. Casador?" a voice came from the door. "I'll be off to the village now to deliver your letter."
Everyone turned, it was Aaron who smiled at his best friend Christopher, the man he knew as David.
"Very we--" Rebecca said before Morgan interrupted.
"CAN I GO WITH YOU? Can I mother? I'll only got a bit and say hello then I'll come home to yours." He said.
"Morgan, I really would preferer you to come home with me straight away." Genevieve said.
"Oh, please! I promise, I won't be long, right Aaron?" The boy said.
"Not long, no." Aaron replied.
Genevieve couldn't resist her son. She allowed him to go after all she'd done to him leaving him in Welshport all along while she went to London in the hands of Johnathon who completely ignored rearing him while she was gone. She couldn't back away from giving him what he wanted. Aaron and Morgan rushed off together and Genevieve and Chris were to take their leave but not before Rebecca pulled Chris back by his sleeve.
"Morgan isn't the only one who is welcome to visit here any time he'd like...Mr. Wesley." She said.
Chris smiled and nodded.
Rebecca wanted more than just her husband back at home, she wanted all of her children too. Starting with Christopher. But there was still so much to process before he could ever fully return to the gilded castle he once called home.
****
At Welshport Hope Hospital, Celeste and 5-year-old Fabian walked hand in hand in the large lobby. The littlest Lord heir stared up at the large vaulted ceilings that dangled with the glitter of French chandeliers and reflected the sun light swooping in from skylights across from them. His eyes sparkled with the wonder of this place of healing and recovery but it also held a haunting reminder that his father, Jacob, was there recovering from a heart attack after seeing what he believed was his dead brother in front of the courthouse.
"Remember what I told you. When we see daddy, be careful not to squeeze too tight. He's still recovering." Celeste warned her little boy.
Little Fabian nodded signaling he understood, just as Dr. Nik Jordan encountered them.
"Well, hello you two. How's Jacob doing?" Dr. Jordan asked.
"He's getting better, isn't he Fabie?" Celeste said as the little boy shyly hid behind his mother's large maroon skirt. "He's still trying to piece it all together." Celeste added.
Nik knelt down so that he and the boy were eye to eye.
"You know, when I was your age, my mother got very, very sick too." He said.
"What happened?" Fabian asked meekly.
"She caught a sickness that kept her in bed for a very long time. We were all very scared for her just like you are now."
Celeste never knew this of Nik's mother Aurora.
"Where is your mommy? Is she in heaven?" Fabian asked revealing his worst fear for Jacob.
"Not at all. She's very happy and very healthy. Sometimes healing takes a while. That's why we call people in the hospital patients, because they have to have patience." Nik joked.
Celeste giggled, Fabian's nose crinkled up, his little ears hearing two different words.
"Get it?" Nik asked.
"Yet another thing we'll have to piece together: Dr. Jordan's very silly jokes." Celeste smiled. "See you Nik."
"Bye now."
As Celeste went off to with the adorable boy, Nik went into Asha's room where Asha was sleeping.
He went over and checked her vitals. All good. He worked on her sheet when suddenly she stirred.
Asha had been awake from her coma for days but pretending to not have memory of the events that got her in the hospital and more importantly the events that got her kidnapped by Gregory in the first place. Her motive was to keep Nik as close as possible after finding him kissing Danielle Holten.
"Hi." She said softly.
"Oh, I hope I didn't wake you." He said.
"Not, at all. Did you find out when I can go home?" She asked.
"Yes, we have discharge papers for you ready to go, I just need Dr. Ward to sign off on them." Nik said.
"Thank goodness, I've been really excited for us to get back to where we were." She said.
Nik felt a twinge of discomfort, Asha sensed it too. In the time Asha had been in a coma he had fallen out of love with her, not because of meeting Danielle but because of what he discovered she and Gregory had done. The encounter with Danielle was just a new beginning for him, but until Asha could remember what happened to the child she and Gregory took away from his mother, Nik could not tell Asha it was over between them.
And she knew this.
"I'd like for you to definitely get back to where you were, that's where we should start. I'm hoping you took some time to think about the psychotherapy I mentioned with the new psychiatrist coming in. She's world renowned and could really unlock the memories that your accident is holding back." he said.
"What is it that you think I'm holding back exactly -- I mean that my accident caused me to hold back." Asha replied, correcting her mistake of words.
"I think maybe it's better for you to discover what happened on your own so that your mind isn't influenced by anything from the outside. It's important you tell us everything you know from your own recollection."
Asha's heart felt as if it were beating out of her chest. They all knew. She knew it would come out and in fact she wanted it to come out before the fire and Gregory's kidnapping of her but the addition of Danielle into Nik's heart meant she would confess to her crime and lose everything. It was not what she wanted now that she had this second lease on life and surviving such a horrible accident.
"I was almost killed in a fire, a devastating fire, you were there." Asha said. "I just want to go home and rest and not think of hospitals or doctors or anything of that nature.'
"Asha, I'm a doctor. So are you. We both know you can run from any ailments, we cannot let you go if your body is unready."
"You know what I mean." She said. "I need rest from this place, this town. I’ve decided something.” She announced
“Decided? What do you mean?” Nik asked confused.
“I’ve decided I want to go away for a while, and I'm hoping you'll come with me Nikolas."
"You want to leave?"
Asha nodded.
"How can we do that, we have so much to take care of here. And what about what happened with Gregory? We really should dive into that. And I can't leave Da..." Nik said almost revealing his new love's name.
"You can't leave what?" Asha asked, knowing what it was but wanting to hear it from him. Would he be brave enough to say her name?
"I can't leave Dr. Ward." Nik said, lying. "he'll be only one of a few doctor's here and I can't do that to him. So short staffed and all."
"Nik he'll figure it out. He always does.” Asha replied. "Please, please let's go away, far away this place with so much treachery and danger. I promise where ever we go I'll do what I can to get my memory back. But I can't do that here. It's too hard. There's just too much going on here to really focus." Asha said.
Nik wanted her to tell the truth. He wanted her to find it in the deepest part of her mind and for some reason he believed she wanted it too. He was trusting of her, this new Asha who had just woken up from her coma, who told him she had no memories of what had happened was clean slate, so he thought, and if he did leave with her for a little while, perhaps she'd finally get the truth back and tell them everything.
It was a sacrifice, to leave his new budding relationship with Danielle to get Asha to remember, and so Nik agreed.
"We'll go. But only for a while." Nik said.
Asha squealed with glee. She reached up to him and held him in her arms, she could feel his body loose, no tension, no affection. It hurt her, but at least she'd now have a chance to win him back wherever they'd go.
The deadly nightshade that so inspired her the day before in the hospital garden would now be her last resort, but still a last resort. She her plan to take Nik away from Danielle fail — the deadly nightshade would do it for her.
Soon, he wasn't alone.
Cora lifted a brow, "I think he's on his sixth." She joked.
****
Elsewhere that night, way after the sun went down over the hills of mainland Maine, Evie stood on her veranda bathed in the dim glow of the moon. She wrapped herself in a warm blanket and stared out onto the sea as waves crashed on the nearby beach. Off in the distance, in the dark, she heard the familia sound of whales breaching the surface of the sea pushing out the bursts of air and taking in more.
It was a calming sound to her, something she had heard for the first few nights at Bellmore Beach.
Gabriel was asleep. Aurora was in the village, Nik was at work, Matthew was at his own home.
Sebastian -- somewhere in the shadows.
She was alone thinking about the two men she loved. One an honest hard-working man who adored her and her child, the other said child's father, her former husband, a man whose life was turned upside down for no fault of his own.
She recalled how Sebastian promised he'd changed, he'd found a way to control his cravings and how Matthew, a truehearted soul, was skeptical of him still.
Within that sound of the whales and sea memories started to creep in. She thought about the day she arrived in Welshport. Her excitement. Her hopes. Her dreams. The dangers and tragedies she had faced and how she survived. She wanted to change this dynamic. She wanted to go back to the woman she was before she came to this island, so self-assured, poised to take control of her life before the marriage. Independant from any man, even though her heart still loved two at the same time.
The night was coming, no more sun. A chill ran up her spine.
**
Matthew walked along the Gaslamp lit streets of town. It was early yet, hid body wanted sleep but his mind kept him awake. So much to think about. So much to hope for in the future and it all involved the woman he loved so much.
Evie.
As he walked, he saw a man in silhouette dashing between shadows of buildings rushing down the cobblestone streets. Matthew narrowed his eyes and was certain it was Sebastian floating along going somewhere in a hurry.
Matthew followed.
As Matthew went down a dark alley way through the town following the obscured by light Sebastian, a man was cleaning the area around the town square where Verity was tied to the pyre. The villagers had come by and left flowers for the woman, the guilt of all their consciences finally; the understanding of what they did in accusing the three innocent people of such archaic crimes felt ugly, even if this Verity woman admitted to it.
The town had asked for the area to be cleaned after the mourning and in the middle of the night as to keep prying eyes from seeing any more of the charred body.
The man, a town worker, carried the burned body of Verity Spencer, the twin of Mary created by the witch council for Jacqueline Gray to shapeshift into, in a crate over to a large work shed where later it would be buried in a small grave in Saint Thomas' cemetery in the morning.
Once the door closed, and the light of the street Gaslamps peeked in from the open slits of the shed's slats the burned body stood up in the open crate.
The charred skin, burned hair, ash of bones began to crumble away like sand from an Egyptian artifact. There, standing straight up was the pristine perfect body of Verity Spencer, the spitting image of her twin Mary Goode.
She was alive.
As she stepped out of the crate on to the hard ground of the shed she turned back and looked inside her once wooden coffin: inside just a mound of ash in the shape of what was once there.
Verity smiled and dusted herself off -- then snuck out of the shed into the night.
At the very same moment, Jacqueline Gray awoke screaming inside the now abandoned Goode Family cottage on the small island of the same name. Her mind flashing of flames and the pain of being burned alive, her mouth tasted of soot and fire. And yet not a scratch on her. Not a single burn or flame scorched her body.
She had survived the burning just as the Council had promised but so had Verity.
Now they were two, and Jacqueline sensed it.
"What have they done?" She whispered to herself of the council. "What is to come?"
**
 |
| Matthew follows the shadowy figure |
Matthew followed the shadow.
The dim lights darted in between buildings and alleyways and gates and fences.
Dogs barked at the two people slithering about the night.
Then, Matthew stopped dead in his tracks when the person he was following snuck into the darkened garden of the house where Timothy Churchill lived.
Matthew watched; his eyes intently focused on the person he thought was Sebastian literally walk through the wall.
Inside, the person the darkness walked through the halls of the Mayor's mansion floating off the ground. A heaviness entered the home, something hot and cold at the same time. Flowers wilted as the person passed them, pictures on the wall rattled in their frames.
The door of Churchill's bedroom pushed open slowly revealing the man asleep in his bed, turned to one side. The person draped in the darkness of night reached down with a ghost like hand and grabbed Churchill by the throat.
Choking him.
The man's eyes flipped open, he gasped for air. He could felt the strong hands around his throat. His eyes were blurry with water. He could not see the person choking him. The hands grew tighter around his throat, his feet felt numb. His eyes bugged out from his head and then.
Death.
Churchill was no more. The last of his legacy.
Outside, the neighborhood empty. Matthew was gone, too scared to encounter the person he thought was Sebastian exiting Churchill's home and vanishing into thin air.
Matthew was now back in his own living room pacing back and forth panicking wondering what he should do next. He had assumed Sebastian was lurking around people's homes in the shadows. Matthew couldn't decypher if that is what he saw just now outside Churchill's house.
It had to. But did he now have proof?
Evie had to be warmed; she had to be warned that Sebastian as still shadowy creature he promised her he left behind.
**
 |
| Evie is not alone |
Back on her veranda at Bellmore Beach the night air of the ocean became too cold for her to handle. She reached over for the candle she lit on a small table next to the two white deck chairs and walked over to the screen door and blew it out.
When she looked up, Sebastian was standing at the screen door with Gabriel in his arms.
She screamed! Startled by her son's father's sudden appearance out of thin air.
"Sebastian what are you doing here?" She asked.
He smiled, a kind glow on his face, and looked down at his beautiful sleeping son.
"I'm taking back my family."
Evie tilted her head and furrowed her brow, unsure of what he was talking about and then, the man she loved once upon a time opened his mouth revealing his fangs,
“Sebastian? …NO!” Evie exclaimed with her arm covering her mouth as she slowly backed away from him terrified.
As Sebastian approached, he snatched at the arm she held up and yanked her close. Her head bent back and his fanged mouth went down towards the soft flesh of her neck and then, in a flash, Evie's mind went blank.
Only darkness -- no sound.
Only a half an hour later, the panic-stricken Matthew arrived by Taxi at Bellmore Beach to tell Evie what he had seen at Churchill's home, to warn her, to protect her. He saw all the first-floor lights on in Evie's home. He burst in, hoping to find her to tell her he saw Sebastian still doing what he promised he wouldn't do.
But Evie was not there.
Gabriel was not there.
They were gone. The house was void of any life. Just pictures, a burning hearth, a cold cup of tea and a melted candle on the doorstep of the screen door that led to the veranda. The wax from the wick hadn't even had time to harden. One of the picture frames empty and tossed to the side of the white sofa.
Matthew recalled it being one of Evie and Gabriel that he took himself sitting on the beach.
"They're gone." Matthew whispered to himself.
Sebastian had taken his family back just as he said -- to parts unknown.
