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| 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.
****
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| 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.
**
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| 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.
****
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| 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.
