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| Sebastian confronts Jacqueline |
"What have you done!?" Sebastian growled from his darkened corner of Lockwood Thicket, staring from behind dark eyes that did not expect to open up in his former home.
His face slowly seeped out from the shadows as if he were floating up from a black bog. He had been asleep for almost a year. He hadn't seen his onetime love Jacqueline since saving Evie from her untimely grave the winter before. Awakening in the back bedroom of his surprisingly remodeled old haunt was jarring.
"I've saved you that's what I've done." Jacqueline replied confidently as she stepped aside showing Sebastian the frozen in place Johnathon still holding the broken table leg mid plunge, inches away from it's intended destination: Sebastian's heart.
"Why am I here?" the vampire asked, allowing the glow of the candle to finally hit his face.
"Something has happened in the village; I had to take you away from where Evie hid you. If I hadn't the world would now know you as you are. I couldn't let that happen." She replied.
"Where's Evie? Is she alright?"
Jacqueline lifted a brow, she hesitated to answer. He could sense she was searching her mind for a lie.
"Jacqueline, what have you done to her?" Sebastian assumed.
"I haven't done anything to her! Of course, you'd see me as the villain in all this, when this time, I haven't laid a hand on your precious Evangeline. The town's gone mad with vigilantism, there was some creature in the night roaming around killing people violently. They somehow got the idea your family was hiding that monster, and it was you. Mary Goode is to blame for all of this. That deadly thing is Filipe Braga, she tried to save him using you --- your blood. Evie took her to find you, but I put a stop to that!"
"Filipe? Filipe is killing people? How would my blood have saved him?"
Jacqueline shrugged, unwilling to answer anymore. She walked over to the man she loved more than life itself and looked him in his now calm and cool blue eyes. His face filled with worry for everyone he loved.
"You don't have to worry. You're safe here." She said.
"Why did Johnathon want to kill me? How did he know I was here?"
Jacqueline sighed "He followed me."
"Why? Why would he follow Jacqueline?" Sebastian asked with a pregnant pause, somehow feeling like he already knew the answer.
She felt uneasy in her stomach. He knew, she could tell he knew. She lifted her hand and showed him the ring.
"We're married."
"You've infiltrated my family by marrying my uncle! My God! What have you done to them? Did you hurt anyone?? Where's Evie? Where's Gabriel!?" Sebastian shouted rushing over to the witch he once loved and grabbed her by the shoulders.
Suddenly, as his hands made contact with her body he felt rush his body. It was like an electrical surge, a powerful burst of energy entering his entire system. He could feel her heartbeat he could sense her body working for two; all her internal systems working to protect something inside of her. And then it was clear, a second heartbeat. A child.
"A baby?" He whispered.
Flashes of the times he and Jacqueline made love came to him. Their passion when he did love her was intense but faltered when he discovered everything she had done to Mary, Evie and little Gabriel.
Sebastian then quickly removed his hands.
She smirked. "It's not what you think."
"Whose child is this?"
"Mine." She replied with a wink.
"Jacqueline, is this child mine or Johnathon's?"
"Who's do you want it to be? I can make miracles happen, my love. I can tell you who I'd like it to be, would that help?"
Sebastian quickly grew frustrated with Jacquelin's coyness. He rushed her grabbed her by the neck. Their bodies quickly levitated and rushed across the room again as he pinned her to the wall. With his grip tightening, his eyes once again turning color, his hiss revealing fangs ready to dig deep into her neck.
Jacqueline's entire body began to heat up, burning Sebastian's hand around her neck as if ten-thousand suns were scolding him. He bounced off of her and she fell to the floor in a smokey heap.
"You still haven't lost your bite, but you should know one more thing before you ever think of doing that to me again." She hissed.
Sebastian's eyes narrowed as he nursed his quickly healing scorched hand. "You'll destroy us all."
Jacqueline stood up and flattened her dress that had crumpled in the tussle "I'm only trying to do what's best for me and my child, don't you see that? Johnathon was my only way to keep myself from death, Sebastian! You were gone, nowhere to be found. Evie selfishly hid you away in a place I'd never find you. I had no one, NO ONE! I had to have protection, and the Lords are the most powerful people here. Their money, their home, their everything would protect me and your child from whatever came for me."
Sebastian stood there stunned.
"My.... my child? I don't believe you. You lie, you're aways lying!"
"It's true!" She replied. "We conceived him Sebastian, just before you abandoned me to save Evie. I had no choice but to find a way to keep myself out of danger and marry Johnathon to save this child. Mary would have exposed me when our coven collapsed, and we all know Evie was hell bent on finding me and destroying me for what I had done to Gabriel and of course what I did to her." She added with a brow lifted, referencing how she buried Evie alive and was partly responsible for Gabriel's deafness.
"Mary tried to help you!" Sebastian reminded her of the time when Jacqueline first came to town and Mary took her in.
Jacqueline shrugged again "It seems fait had other plans."
"Other plans?" Sebastian asked, feeling the danger now more than ever in his veins.
"Mary is the one who was exposed."
"Exposed? What do you mean? TELL ME!" Sebastian pushed.
"Sebastian, Mary needed you to save Filipe. She sought out Evie who knew where you were because she told everyone that YOU saved her. The entire island was shocked because they all believed you've been dead all this time. They went after you, Sebastian, they wanted to find your hidden body and kill you. Mary, Evie and even the good sailor Matthew Winterborn all got caught at the Cove where Evie had hidden you. Lucky for them, the villagers opened the casket, but I had gotten there first and transported you here. I would never ever let them take the father of my child from me. Unfortunately, Evie, Mary and Matthew were trapped -- the villagers saw Mary use her powers and they've been arrested and accused of ... witchcraft. But you're safe. That's what's important, I saved you... no one will ever take you from me again. Ever."
"No, no, this isn't right! I was supposed to finally find peace and Evie was supposed to move on with her life and raise our son. This is all wrong...I have to help them!"
"What about us? What about our child?" She shouted.
"How can I believe a woman like you? This child can't be mine! It must be my uncle Johnathon's."
Jacqueline's blood felt hot as lava; how dare he deny their child "This child is yours." She said, her voice falling into a deeper, darker tone.
Sebastian rolled his eyes. He wouldn't believe the witch who'd done so much harm in the past. He turned and bolted for the door, but Jacquline swung her arms around herself as if to enter into a hug and she vanished in a puff of smoke reappearing out of thin in directly in front of Sebastian blocking his exit.
She then touched his face with her hand and froze Sebastian still.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk." She said, walking slowly towards him. "I saved you now twice from making terrible mistakes."
Sebastian was frozen but his eyes were moving and following Jacquline as she circled his stiff body. She ran her hand over his round shoulders and down his spine and over his backside. She ran her arm up his side and over to his back and then under his jaw until she was again facing him.
"I'm not totally evil, you know." She said with a whispery, sultry voice. "I do see why you're so concerned. After all, Evie is the mother of your child — your first child —and I did try to kill her. But she's moved on with Matthew, you both decided that was best for her: to move on passed you. And now I am carrying your baby, your sweet new baby. Again, I can see you're very concerned...so...in good faith, there could be something I can do to help."
Sebastian's eyes watered, a single tear fell.
"Now, now, my love, don't cry. I can try and fix things." She whispered as she wiped his tear. "For a price."
His eyes looked down from his frozen face as her hands rubbed her pregnant stomach. "You stay with me -- with us, forever. And I'll do what I can to save Evie and Matthew. Mary on the other hand, is a lost cause. They saw her use her powers. I can't fix what they've seen. But if you agree to remain here with me, I will do what I can to help get Evie and Matthew free."
Sebatian tried to speak, but he couldn't.
Jacqueline snapped her fingers, and his mouth was able to talk, she asked him again if he'd agree and Sebastian only said one word: "Agree."
Jacqueline was elated. She snapped again and flames on candles burst on alight on their own. A fire quickly ignited in the hearth across from them also on it's own.
The deal was done.
Jacqueline hugged Sebastian's tightly frozen in place body and kissed his lips. "Forever." She whispered.
Sebastian's eyes then looked towards his uncle, Johnathon DeViana who was still frozen in time with his arms up and the stake still tightly gripped in his hands above his head. The vampire wondered how the two of them would get out of Jacqueline's clutches. One bound to her by law, the other by the laws of the shadow world; a place no one could ever understand but she and Sebastian.
Sebastian was trapped by the witch who once held his heart and now her plan to keep Sebastian as her own would be the only way to save them all from certain destruction.
Standing over the bed the frozen Johnathon had no ability to speak — but he heard every single word.
****
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| The Braga’s receive a visit by Father Donavon |
Later that day, Fatima Braga scurried around her small cottage in in the village in between tarot card appointments and palm readings for her clients. She fiddled with an overboiling kettle on her wood-iron stove and quickly poured the scolding hot water into three teacups and carried the silver tray back into her small sitting room that still had the drapes drawn.
This room, a private one away from the prying eyes of her clients, was just as busy.
Sitting on a fluffy love seat awaiting the tea was Welshport's parish priest Father Donavon Ryan and Fatima's son Filipe.
Filipe's wound was healing nicely from the late Gregory Reigns gunshot. He still had soreness and home-done stitching to contend with, but his estranged mother had kept him healthy-- and alive.
All this would have been such a normal reunion if not for the fact that Filipe was still afflicted by his lyncanism and awaited, terrifyingly so, for another full moon.
Father Ryan took his tea and carefully looked over a small hand calendar he brought with his from the rectory at Saint Catherine's.
"Sister Mary Paula had this in one of her desks. She marks down various important feast days. I counted and from the last full moon there are about 28 days to the next." Father Ryan informed them.
"That's about a month or so to figure all this out." Filipe said. "The longer we wait around here the more danger Mary, and the children are away from me. I have to find Sebastian myself, if Mary is right and he and I are still linked than he can save me and I can save Mary and the others."
"Filipe, there may be no saving Maria." Fatima said to Filipe shock. "The villagers have already decided that she is what they say she is. It's like a disease of the mind --this mob mentality-- they are out for blood filho." She added using the Portuguese word for son.
"Stop that, stop trying to mother me. You had your chance, and you gave it up." Filipe snapped. "And it doesn't matter what either of you say, I've had enough waiting around for help to come. I have to get to Sebastian before it's all over and before the full moon returns. Have you heard from the children? I have to get to Goode Island as soon as possible."
Father Ryan and Fatima shot each other looks. There had been news of Charlotte, Morgan and little Caleb they'd kept from Filipe, those glances did not go unnoticed.
"What? What are you two hiding?" He asked.
Father Ryan opened his mouth to speak but Fatima cut him off. "They're safe, firstly." She answered.
Filipe tilted his head confused "But secondly?"
"They're not at the Cottage on Goode Island." Father Donavon Ryan replied.
"Well, where are they?"
"Filho, just remember this might have been for the best...." Fatima added trailing off.
"Where are my children?!?!" Filipe demanded to know.
"At Tirymor House." Father Ryan revealed. “I heard the head of household, Jane Donnelly speaking to a woman at mass yesterday and she said Jacob came for them on Goode Island to protect them. Mary must of told him where they were."
"No, no! Not with Jacob! He's diabolical! He can't be anywhere near my children. I have to get to them; I have to get them now!" Filipe said slowly getting up and winching with pain as he did.
"Filipe! STOP!" His mother cried. "Charlotte is his daughter, you know this. He has every right to her. And we have to focus on getting to Sebastian. I have faith in Celeste, she's a mother now, she will care for them and protect them from anything Jacob's influences. I don't think he's in that mind set anyway."
"How are you so sure?" Filipe asked.
Donavon and Fatima glared at each other. More news they hand's shared with Filipe since he'd return to his human self.
"The Villagers stormed and ransacked Tirymor House shortly after the attack at the park -- they believed the creature was hidden by the family. Jacob and the rest of the Lords are slowly but surely getting their home back in order and restructuring their security. The children are safest there until we get you healed." Donavon explained.
"How do you know all of this?" Filipe asked.
"This town holds new secrets." Fatima added.
"Everyone is talking about it." Donavon said. "Luckily your mother and I--" Donavon began before being cut off by Filipe
"Aunt, she's, my aunt."
Donavon looked to Fatima for approval, she slightly nodded her head. Filipe had not yet accepted her as his real mother, and not the aunt he always knew her as.
"Yes, luckily for your aunt and I we have positions in the village where people tend to feel most comfortable talking to us or around us with ease. We get the information almost firsthand this way. It'll keep us in the loop and help us navigate our next move."
"Good." Filipe replied. "Then it'll be up to me to get myself back to where I was: in a happy family with my new wife and our children. I'm going to find Sebastian and he'll help me; he owes me this. My blood saved his life, even though it was used to create that ghastly version of himself, he is alive because of it."
"You're still hurt!!" Fatimas said reaching for her son who'd gotten up from the loveseat after downing his tea.
Filipe grabbed his estranged mother's hand that had latched on to his arm as he got up and held it tightly "My wife has been arrested along with two of my friends for crimes this town think they committed...my crimes! I have to help them, and I have to help them now. Do not try and stop me."
Filipe dropped Fatima's hand and walked out of the room to his bedroom, now in the main house, to dress and to do his best to find Sebastian.
"We have to let him, Sister Inez." Father Ryan said, using Fatima's former nun's name.
"I can't help but worry." She replied.
Donavon agreed "This nightmare feels like it's only just beginning."
Fatima looked toward an open doorway into a parlor and followed her instincts and went inside.
In the parlor, at a small round table with a blood red tablecloth with golden fringe dangling over Chinese carpets was Fatima nearly stacked tarot cards face down.
Father Donavon followed Fatima into the parlor.
She flipped the top one over.
“The hanged man.” She said with a gasp. The symbolic tarot of a man hanging by his left ankle on wooden gallows smiling a sinister grin to confuse the reader, but Fatima was not confused. She knew it meant the end of a trial, the search for knowledge gone array, the end of a long inquisition brought on by deceptive means.
“Inez, no.” Donavon said, always the religious skeptic.
She turned back to the priest and crossed herself.
“God help us.”
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| The Lords on the Tirymor Veranda |
Meanwhile, Rebecca Lockwood-Lord-Casador stood out on a Tirymor's north facing veranda towards the front gates through its arched walkways snuggling her beloved white Maltese BeeBee. In the distance she watched several grounds keepers nervously repair the damaged iron gates the village mob had ruthlessly demolished when they stormed the family compound.
BeeBee watched too, a low growl vibrating in his little chest at the strangers in his garden.
Her deep auburn hair slowly seeped with white strands of long stressful events, but the storming of her own home by the villagers she thought she knew, was beyond measure.
She turned back and looked through the French doors behind her, still open from when she walked out. An army of house maids, led by the head of household Jane Donnelly, quickly managed to put the house back together in one form or another.
As she oversaw the rebuilding of sorts, Rebecca's son Jacob walked through the French doors and joined his mother on the veranda.
"Odd, isn't it?" He said, sipping a smooth brandy from the inside bar.
"What is?"
"That we stand here untouched by this when we, of all people, know that maybe just maybe we're somewhat to blame for it all. Perhaps not all of it, but a very healthy portion." Jacob replied, in a rare showing of self-awareness.
Rebecca's eyes narrowed "We?"
Jacob smirked "None of us are innocent, mother. Not even you."
Rebecca's own sins, even ones she'd never dare speak out loud came crawling back into her mind. All of their actions, Jacob's, hers, her son David's, even her dearly departed Albert, had all added to the mythology of the larger-than-life family hidden from view in the Tirymor Forest.
Rebecca scoffed at her son's notion and walked back into the house where maids quickly came to attention and curtsied as their mistress entered. Rebecca, in a long eggplant toned dress that came to a chokehold grip at the base of her neck, smiled and thanked them all for their hard work just before departing into another room where Jacob's wife Celeste was reworking art that had been torn off the walls.
"How are the children?" Rebecca asked Celeste, knowing her granddaughter Charlotte, young Morgan Thorne and the baby Caleb Braga had been brought to Tirymor by Jacob the night after the mob for safety.
"Charlotte and Morgan are obviously getting back into their old Tirymor habits which is nice to see." Celeste said. "Little Caleb, I don't know about. He's skittish. Clearly not use to so many people around him. But he'll get use to us."
"Charlotte's a good big sister." Rebecca replied as she regally sat on the large love seat opposite Celeste. "She'll bring them both into the fold soon. I know her well."
"Have you seen my brother or his wife? I haven’t seen them around the house." Celeste asked.
Rebecca thought for a second "No. As a matter of fact, I haven't seen them either."
Celeste's worries of Johnathon's new wife had yet to ease as their young marriage still shocked her. The idea of her brother jumping into something like marrying a woman he barely knew and taking on the task of raising the child she was carrying without actually knowing if it was his or not felt dangerous to her. Celeste had no real and tangible evidence for doubting Jacqueline's baby was truly her future niece or nephew but the world she lived in now, where the protection of the Lord family fortune only held secure if a child was born, was not at all foreign to her.
Celeste wrote the book on that. It was her own motive for marrying Jacob.
"Oh good, you're both here." Jacob said entering the room.
"Speak of the devil." Celeste thought to herself as her mind filtered out thoughts comparing herself to Jacqueline.
"I'd like tell you both something very important now that the children are here." He said.
"What do you mean?" Celeste asked.
"Well there's more to why I brought them here than what I told you. It's not just that Mary is being held on those ridiculous witchcraft charges." He replied.
"Ridiculous? We saw what she did at the caves Jacob, she's in absolutely no shape to be rearing three children, much less, Charlotte, one of our own. It's good you brought them here. Here they'll be brought up without the lure of any of the ungodly worship."
Celeste rolled her eyes "Really? We're not going to start acting like Tirymor is some sort of saintly sanctuary."
"Alright alright...we're getting off track." Jacob interjected. "Its not just about Mary's incarceration, it's about Filipe."
Celeste's heart almost stopped. She hadn't truly thought about the man she was in love with for over a decade before she cheated on him with Jacob to protect her brother. A sin she too had long hated herself for.
"Filipe?" Celeste asked, with Rebecca's eyes darting to her daughter-in-law as if to catch any twinge of love still left for the one-time Lord family valet.
"Mary came to here early on before all of this happened. She wanted to see you, Celeste. She wanted to deliver a message to you about Filipe. She felt that you needed to know that he was ill and in trouble but that she was doing everything she could to help him." Jacob explained.
"What sort of trouble?" Celeste asked.
"As we all know that creature, we saw the night of the Full Moon festival was not Sebastian. It was Filipe."
The women gasped.
"What? How?" Rebecca asked.
“I don’t believe it!” Celeste said to Jacob and Rebecca’s surprise.
"Mary didn't explain and I honestly didn't want to go any further with it, but knowing all of that I couldn't very well leave my child on Goode Island with Filipe roaming around hunting people. They're safer here."
"Of course." Celeste added. "But he'd never hurt the children, would he? Even in a state of illness. Are you sure Mary didn't explain more? It's just so... I mean, what in the world? How can that monster be Filipe?"
"How can Sebastian be what Sebastian is?" Rebecca replied. "It's what Churchill said, it must be.”
“Mother really? You don’t actually…” Jacob began before his mother interrupted.
“Witchcraft."
"Oh for god's sake. Listen, I won't deny these mutations have happened to Sebastian and Filipe are unbelievably difficult to explain, but witchcraft? Really? It has to be some sort of scientific problem within them. Yes, something inside of them that's causing them to be this way. Something we'll never ever understand and I for one, do not want to understand. I shall just accept what they are and hope to god they never set foot at my door." Jacob replied.
"And what if that happens? What if they do set foot at our door? Wouldn't Filipe try and find his family and come here?" Celeste asked, fearing for them all.
“To look for what Celeste?” Jacob said turning to his wife. “For you? His love.”
Celeste rolled her eyes at his sarcastic tone.
“That’s been long over, you know it.” She replied lifting her left hand with the giant diamond wedding ring that weighed down. “The truth is we just don’t know what to expect if he does come here for the children.” She clarified.
They all stood there in a beat of silence. If Tirymor was truly the safest place on the island, seeing as it only took a mob minutes to tear down the iron front gates and break through the front doors a creature as giant and vicious as whatever Filipe was could do it in a shorter time.
"We'll just have to put more measures in place to barricade the house in a different way." Rebecca said.
"Shall we entomb ourselves Mother? Shall we erect giant walls instead of iron gates?" Jacob replied sarcastically. "No, better, shall we place towers around the mansion with snipers or maybe a moat! Yes! A lovely medieval moat with crocodiles and Amazonian piranha. That'll keep us safe, now won't it?"
Just as the threesome's conversation began to heat up, Rebecca's husband Caspian entered the room dressed as though he was ready to leave.
"Is everything alright?" Caspian asked, hinting at his awareness of the room's tension.
"Yes, we're fine, Jacob's just being his regular obnoxious self." Rebecca replied as she shot up from the love seat and headed for her husband. "Where are you off to?" She asked, noting his coat.
"Hope Hospital." He replied. "Dr. Ward would like to have a checkup with me after I hit my head at the caves."
"I'll go with you." Rebecca replied to Caspian's acceptance. "I think I've had just about enough of this scenery." She added shooting her son a look of annoyance.
Once the Casadors had cleared the room, Celeste took it on herself to wonder where Jacob's head really was. She slowly made her way to him where he now sat, replacing his mother on the love seat. His brandy now sitting on the side table, its amber tone matching Celeste's own gorgeous skin.
"You don't really think Mary is innocent of what they say she is, do you? Rebecca told me what you all saw at the caves. How can she not be what they said she was --- she killed one of the mayor's aides with her powers or whatever you'd call them."
"Celeste, if I say that I believe Mary is what they say she is, then I have to believe what they saw Evie and Matthew are too. No one really knows what we saw that night. Maybe it was lightening? There is a large opening at the top of those caves, perhaps some lightening came at the exact time and did what it did. I don't know." Jacob said, protecting Mary.
"Lightening?" Celeste asked, clearly skeptical of her husband's account.
Jacob decided to change his tactic:
"If I believe Mary, and Matthew and Evie are witches, then I have to believe what Filipe is. I have to believe what Sebastian is. I have to believe in things that have no explanation and no real understanding, and that is not the person I am. I know the day is the day and the night is the night and there is no in between." Jacob replied.
"There's dawn and there is dusk." Celeste shot back. "That is in between."
Jacob smiled, she was playing a very food game of chess, but he was an even better player. He'd never say to anyone what he truly saw. For him, that night, Mary was no witch. It was a very unlucky weather patterned that hit where it hit.
"Dawn is day, dusk is night -- there is NO in between."
He would not budge. And Celeste worried if this sudden hint of protection of Mary was coming from a different place. A place where his mind would go sometimes in the middle of dinner. A place where his heart would wonder in times where they'd have an argument, and he'd remember the happy times with Mary.
The same place where Charlotte was conceived.
Celeste worried that this could be a crack in her security and his devotion to her. Could his devotion suddenly switch back to Mary-- the mother of his first-born child-- in her time of need?
****
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| The three accused arrive at court |
Outside of Village Hall, the sun had dipped casting the evening shadows over town. Villagers began to gather in front of a large stage where Mayor Churchill had promised them all more information about what had happened the night of the Full Moon Celebration and those arrested at the Caves of the Dænian people.
Around the perimeter of the wooden stage, large gas lamps had been set up allowing the entire area to boom in a glow of yellow light as night overwhelmed the sky above.
Inside Village Hall, the accused: Mary, Evie and Matthew, stood together with their hands tied at the wrists behind four guards. Matthew stood close to Evie, his pink finger interlocking with hers; a small gesture of protection even when he could not promise it.
"Tonight I think I die." Mary said.
"No!" Evie replied. "They won't. This is some kind of show, Churchill knows his accusations are groundless. Witchcraft? He can't prove anything like that. He'd have to make everyone believe in ghosts and zombies and--"
"--vampires?" Mary replied cutting Evie off.
Evie did not respond.
"Shh." Matthew said. "They're coming."
"Bring them out." Timothy Churchill ordered as three of the four guards grabbed one of the accused and followed the fourth behind Churchill and his aide Nathan Cramer out to the awaiting crowed.
Under the dusk sky, the crowd began to shout at the accused as each was placed center stage behind the mayor and his microphone. Baxter Murphy, slithered in the crowned with pen and paper, ready to record every word he could as the mayor spoke.
"WITCHES!!!" Shouted men in the crowd.
"HANG'EM! HANG'EM NOW!!" Another man shouted.
"DAUGHTER OF ELIZA FIRST!! THE ORGINAL WITCH!" A woman screamed, noting the long Welshport lore about Eliza Goode, Mary's reclusive mother being a witch.
A truth no one really knew was true.
The Mayor lifted his hands to quiet the crowd and spoke:
"My fellow Welshportonians, I thank you for coming on this evening, later in the day in fact, at my request. It is good to know that word of mouth can still bring us together. I have used this entire day to process what we as a community should do to the accused after what many of us saw at the caves the other night. What we know is that what we saw was unhuman. What we witnessed was supernatural and dangerous. In fact, we know that these three have all displayed acts that are unusual and undeniably strange and must be taken account for." Timonthy shouted to the crowd's pleased yelps.
He continued.
"FACT: Evangeline Jordan-Lord miraculously survived being buried alive, by her own admission HOW?"
"WITCH! WITCH"! Villagers shouted.
"FACT," The mayor went further, "Matthew Winterborn, the last member of the aboriginal Dænian tribe of people who have long held the myth of otherworldly connections and powers, he too survived drowning at sea and returned here -- suddenly -- and reunited with the one buried alive! HOW?!"
"WITCH! WITCH!"
"Last but not least, one Mary Goode, who's whole life and family past has been shrouded by many hisses and whispers thanks to her mother's own past dealings with darkness. I saw her with my own eyes destroy a man with powers from her hands. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?"
"WITCH! WITCH!!"
"I ask your calmness and patience." Churchill shouted over the cries of the crowd. "Every criminal in this nation deserves due process and I have no intention of skipping this for these three. A trail will take place!"
The crown cheered.
"I have called upon our Governor in Augusta and he has promised me quick prosecution on the grounds of witchcraft thanks to a law we still have on our books from when this community was settled by the good Welsh people in 1631. The act of witchcraft is spelled out in this law quiet clearly and no man or woman shall be free of it if they break this law. It does not matter how modern our world becomes in the face of the future and in the times we lead now, they have committed this crime while this law, unrepealed, sits on our charter. Barrister Eden Sydney, a good man I have known most of my own life, is headed to Welshport as I speak to prosecute these three for what they have done to our community with powers unknown to us now!"
The crowed began to shout and clap and cheer the Mayor for his hard work as Mary, Evie and Matthew stood in silence. Mary and Evie trembled with fear. They were all seeing the darkest days ahead of themselves. Mary herself knew there would be no way out of it but death, it didn't matter how optimistic Evie was.
In the crowd, Nik and Aurora who were heading to Hope Hospital but stopped hoping to get a glimpse of Evie, who they were unable to see or speak to because of the nature of her supposed crime.
"This is insane, they cannot truly believe all of this?" Aurora said, tears welling in her eyes.
Nik seemed panicked and helpless seeing his sister on stage shaking like a leaf cuddling herself next to Matthew for warmth.
"She's terrified. She utterly terrified." He said of his sister.
"A trial??? As if this is Salem!? They're all insane." Aurora whispered. "We have to do something."
"What can we do?" Nik asked to Aurora's silence.
"Lear." She suddenly remembered. "Rebecca's nephew is a lawyer, we'll get him to help defend them against this stupid law. He seems like a good lawyer."
"He's the one that got Gabriel taken away! Evie will never want to be defended by him!" Nik recalled.
"He's all we've got, honey, Evie will just have to swallow her pride for now. I don't like him either but what can we do? They need help and if anyone can worm their way out of laws on the books, it's the Lord family lawyer." Aurora replied.
Nik sighed.
"You don't really think the whole town believes in all this hocus pocus, do you?" A voice came from behind.
Aurora and Nik turned to the voice behind them, Baxter Murphy emerged from the several people behind them. Aurora's face tightened.
"Get away from us." She said.
"This is practically all your fault." Nik added.
"I wouldn't go that far." Baxter replied.
"We know what you did, we know you sent your sister to work at Tirymor to leak private family information into the papers. This is your fault! Look around you! You've made this. This is your story come alive!" Aurora shouted back.
"You're right, Cora was my mole, but I had no idea the entire town would lose their minds, Mrs. Jordan. No, in fact I thought people would have run me out of town by the end of the month. This is just beyond my control."
Nik was sick of Baxter's smug face and stepped up to him. They were practically nose to nose now, they could feel each other's breaths.
"I fucking can't wait until you finally get what's coming to you." Nik said with his jaw tight and his hands balled in fists.
Baxter lifted a brow. His eyes turned down to the fists.
*
Inside Village Hall, Mary, Evie and Matthew was locked in the small cell together.
Churchill rushed past them with his aide, Nathan. Together they scurried into his office and locked the door behind them.
"Sir...." Nathan said, his eyes wide with shock. "Eden Sydney?? When did he agree to come here? And what law is this that you've sighted?" the aide asked, knowing Churchill had one again lied to the public.
"Now, now, don't get your knickers in a twist, Nathan. I'll get on it as soon as I can. Eden is good friend of mine from law school. He'd jump at the chance for this case. I'll personally call him in the morning. And you can find the law in any of the city's charters. For some reason over the years, not a single time since the charter was revised and amended was THAT law taken off. It's perfect."
"Sir there is no judge in this land that will even entertain this trial, you know this! And you told everyone Mr. Sydney was on his way!"
"And he will be, son. He will be. You'll see."
*
Back outside, the crowd began to disperse. But Nik and Baxter's contentious conversation was only heating up.
"Relax, relax." Baxter said as Nik was getting very close to punching him square in the nose.
Aurora pulled her son back.
"Come on, Nik, we have to get to Asha." Aurora reminded him of their original task.
"You wanted a story, didn't you?" Nik shouted as he walked away with this mother. "LOOK AROUND BAXTER! YOU HAVE YOUR STORY!"
People around Baxter began to stare now away from the main stage where the accused were finally being rushed off back into Village Hall and into their makeshift cells as the main jail was still burned down. Baxter realized he was being watched. He began to feel strange, and a bit on the spot. Had he truly created this chaos himself just so that he could have something to write about?
He told himself this was not of his making; it couldn't have been all from his stories in the paper. This was inevitable. This outcome would have happened regardless of what he wrote in The Globe.
At least that is what he was telling himself to save himself from any accountability.
But the truth, the truth was in his columns. He wanted chaos. He craved pandemonium.
And he got it -- but at what cost?
