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| Lear & Eden present in Judge Banning’s Court |
On a drizzly afternoon, crowds once again rushed the village courthouse where Judge Coleman Banning would once again preside over the outlandish and headline grabbing trial of the Welshport Witches.
Baxter Murphy, pen and pad in hand, sat front and center behind the defense table ready to take notes on everything from the accused's body language to the judge's facial expressions to the evidence present.
The gallery was packed to the brink: the Lord family, Jacob, Celeste, Charlotte, Morgan sat bunched together in a corner of the room on the same side as Baxter, their eyes burning holes into him as they continued to bristle at how he'd weaponized their very own business to turn Welshport against them.
Behind the Lords, Aurora sat between Lucas and Nikolas who held her hand as Evie was led into the courtroom with Matthew and Mary behind. Lear turned to Lucas, the man he'd fallen in love with and smirked happy to see he was there supporting him. Lucas winked back, encouraging him to keep doing his best. Lucas had become such a light in Lear's life, he only wanted to make him proud.
Matthew then looked back, no family. Just a very kind friend in Lucas who'd been there for him too. Behind him Genevieve Thorne who'd come to be with Morgan as he was on the witness list.
As the bailiff entered the room, the back door of the courtroom squeaked open causing heads to turn back, Jane Donnelly, the head of the household staff at Tirymor entered with her Cora Taylor.
Baxter made eye contact with his estranged adopted sister; Cora's face froze. Her icy expression made him turn away quickly. Even after all that he'd done, he missed Cora, but he knew that was a bridge left burned behind him.
"All rize." the bailiff announced. "Magistrate Colman Banning presiding."
"Thank you, Officer Brady." Banning said, taking the files from the bailiff.
"Judge this is case number 3891WPRT1915. The accused have been taken their oath in their cells, and the parties are now seated."
"Good afternoon, I think we should just get this on straight away." Coleman said to the audience as a woman entered into the courtroom late. Her hair tied up in a dark chignon, her skin a warm tan and her eyes a strange tone of dark amber.
As she passed a glass panel of the back of the courthouse wall to sit on one of the benches, the distorted image in the reflection was of Jacqueline Gray, not of the woman. The real witch of Welshport had shapeshifted again and entered the room.
A strange sensation ran up Mary's spine. She felt suddenly cold. Her heart pounding in her ears. She turned her head back towards the gallery of people, a blur of faces: Jacob, Charlotte, Jane. Then the blur again her eyes welling up with water.
She was clearly distracted while Judge Banning explained the case once more for the record. Then, Mary felt an urge to stand. The chains on her iron cuffs clinking between the Judge's sentences.
Mary could feel Jacqueline but could not see her. Jacqueline, hidden behind the face of a woman unknown to Mary, smirked with delight knowing Mary could sense her presence almost like a ghost in the room, invisible to the skeptic’s eye.
"Mary, what are you doing sit down!" Lear whispered.
"She's here." Mary said out loud. "She's here!"
"Mary, what is it?" Evie asked. "Sit down."
Mary turned her whole body around, her back facing the judge who was beginning to lose patience with the defense.
"Mr. Lockwood, control your client." the judge ordered.
"Yes sir." Lear replied feeling a bit embarrassed. "Mary, you have to sit down."
Baxter gleefully took notes.
"But I can feel her, and she is watching us. She's here!" Mary said out loud of Jacqueline, the woman who put them in this position in the first place.
"Who Mary?" Evie asked.
"It doesn't matter who," Matthew added in frustration. "She has to sit down."
Then Evie realized. "Jacqueline."
Matthew and Evie turned to the audience who were now seeing the three accused witches acting strange. Looking back into the crowd as if they were staring at them, the audience.
"This is bullshit." Jacob whispered to Celeste.
"What are they doing?" Aurora asked in a whisper.
"Lear!" Nik shouted to the lawyer and motioning for him to get control of his clients.
"Show yourself. Why are you hiding?" Mary said out loud to the crowd who began to feel very nervous.
The crowd whispered and recoiled, fearing something was about to happen. A spell. Bewitchment. Something terrible and as a sudden thunderclap shook the windows of the building, Filipe entered the packed courthouse breaking Mary's gaze.
His face suddenly calmed her heart. Her eyes finally released the tears welling up and the powerful pull Jacqueline had over her vanished like smoke in the air.
Filipe could see how terrified and worried Mary was. He mouthed to her "sit down, Mary."
And she did, followed by her co-defendants.
"If you three want to live, I suggest you never ever do that again. Do you understand me?" Lear scolded.
"But Jacqueline is...." Evie began.
"ENOUGH!" The judge shouted back. "Are you clients through with their show Mr. Lockwood? Because I certainly would like to get on with it."
"Yes sir, I apologize, we apologize."
At the prosecution desk, Eden took notes but felt very odd about the entire 2-minute interaction. The mayor leaned over the wooden barricade and tugged on Eden's sleeve "This should be a walk in the fucking park after that."
Eden, who'd felt pressured by the mayor to push the case against the supposed witches, refused to look back at the mayor and acknowledge him. He felt as if it were drowning in a world of old folk tales and superstitions instead of a world where logic and understanding interpreted the law. He hated every minute of this trial against what he saw was lies. Mayor Churchill's only saving grace at making sure Eden remained steady in his prosecution was because of the people who died that night.
That is where Eden knew it could apply the law and where he hoped he could get convictions.
As the judge continued to read off his script describing the case and what the trial would entail murmurs in the gallery continued to float up into the cathedral like ceiling of what had just happened.
"Seeing spirits." One woman whispered.
"Must be." Her friend added.
"Maybe the devil?" A third older woman replied back.
"You think so?" The first woman asked. The other two shrugged. "Glad I brought my rosary."
"They're done for." The second woman whispered to the other two.
Cora and Jane heard this, looked at each other and worried.
"They're done for." Jane mouthed to Cora what she overheard, Cora swallowed hard.
"The nature of this trial is if anything, strange. I caution everyone in this room to understand that at the core of it we have people on trial for not only breaking this very archaic law that that is long past due of repealing, but it’s also the law against man. Remember, people were killed. Those who died deserve justice for their lives. I want to be sure I get to that no matter what most of all." Judge Banning said.
Timothy smirked.
"Let's begin then. Mr. Syndey, please call your first witness."
"Sir, excuse me." Lear interjected.
"Mr. Lockwood, yes?"
"My client Mary Goode has confessed to the crime, as is her prerogative. In that confession She has stated that the others accused, Ms. Jordan-Lord and Mr. Winterborn had nothing to do with what she has confessed to. Could we expect a ruling on if your honor will still pursue charges against them? If one has confessed to a crime only committed by her and that the other three are innocent, surely the court can find that based that and a lack of evidence they should be set free."
The judge took a breath, his eyes switching from Lear to Timothy and back again. "Yes, I understand your point Mr. Lockwood, but as I thought I made myself clear at oral arguments. In a court of law, we deal in evidence; any evidence, and this should still be the basis of whether or not I believe what Ms. Goode’s plea. If she is truly the only guilty party in this entire unfortunate case then the evidence will show that, and I will find the parties guilty or not guilty accordingly. Your argument, sir will be made on the record but I will still hear a case against all three.” The judge explained.
“I Understand sir but we are worried that perhaps, uh…” Lear began to speak, hoping an idea would come to mind getting Evie and Matthew cleared of these crimes, but his mind went blank. Nothing came out of his mouth and everyone was waiting.
His foggy mind was no anomaly. Jacqueline, in her disguise cleverly sent him a distant vibration deep into his psyche that erased any ability for his mind to connect his thoughts.
“Lear? Lear they’re waiting.” Matthew whispered.
“…you’re worried? I see that.” The judge chuckled. “Worried into silence evidently. Listen, Mr. Lockwood if Mary Goode is telling the truth, that the other two defendants are innocent she won’t have to worry about their conviction, evidence is a lawyer's best friend. Let’s hope you have it on your side. Does that clear things up?"
Lear took a breath and replied embarrassingly “Yes....sir."
Jacob sighed unhappy with his cousin's work failure.
"Good. Now, Mr. Sydney please call your first witness."
Eden stood up and adjusted the grey vest under his matching grey suit. He licked his lips and announced:
“I call Charlotte Lord.”
The room filled with whispered and low gasps as Mary and Jacob’s daughter, the 14-year-old headstrong and independent beautiful blond stood up from the gallery bench behind her mother.
Baxter quickly jotted down a description of the young heiress in her daffodil pink dress and matching lace gloves.
Jacob grabbed her hand squeezed and winked, hoping she’d feel more relaxed.
Charlotte stepped out in front of the court, ever the stoic and cool persona of a Lord and put her hand on the Bible handed to her by the bailiff.
“… the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god?” The bailiff asked her.
Charlotte stared at the defense table, a wrinkle between her eyes forming with a slight frown seeing her mother in iron cuffs and in a quiet girlish voice said “I do.”
****
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| The witch council convenes |
As the storm over Welshport clashed in the sky overhead like two titans battling out their most furious frustrations, far off into the mists of a place where no one could reach from the mortal world was the scene of yet another trial.
This one, still in its preliminary stages, was held by a panel of three shrouded figures in dark cloaks seated in the shape of a triangle with their faces obscured by veils. In the center of this triangle a cauldron bubbled and burned heating the mysterious room they sat in as incense and myrrh perfumed the air all around them.
This was the witch council that had predicted, as if by prophecy, what was to come in Welshport for the troubled coven of the Sisters of Highgrove. Finally, they'd come together, the three veiled figures to discuss what could be done with Mary and Jacqueline's shattered sisterhood that had upended ways of sorcery.
One of the shadowy council members stood and spoke in her scratchy voice.
"What say you two of the situations of our sisters. Their infighting has come to a pass and the accusation of witchcraft now plagues them. One showed her cards, the other seems to use it to her advantage. Both a-troubling."
"Both a-troubling." The other repeated.
"Both." Third agreed in a deep female voice. "Call upon the one that is free, the shapeshifter. Have her answer for these exposures. Have her come to face us three and we then impose sanctions of powers."
"Sanctions would cause more of this. No sanctions. As We have seen she has betrayed her oath." The second witch said.
"We as guard have promised to make her pay." The first reminded.
"But bring the shapeshifter forth, yes. Ask her then to prove herself and save her sister. That is the only way." The second witch replied from behind her veil.
"Save her sister? How?" The first witch asked.
The other two slowly turned to each other almost as if choreographed, nodded, and turned back to the first witch still standing before them.
The cauldron burned hotter as the second and third witch of the council stood. They both lifted their hands, and the flames grew hotter and hotter. The first witch then joined in with her hands in the air and suddenly on a stone platform off to the side something began to appear from thin air.
A sleeping person. A body. Void of mind, void of conscious. The eyes closed; the heart frozen.
"Call her forth, this shapeshifting witch." The first one said.
"Call her forth, this shapeshifting witch." The two others repeated.
then together they said "Then this knitch of this time will conclude. Send her a sign. Call her forth, this shapeshifting witch. Then this knitch of this time will conclude. Send her this sign."
****
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| The Casadors |
As two trials raged on two different fronts, a third ravaged the mind of Rebecca Lord-Casador as she stood in a grand drawing room of her mansion as her beloved white Bichon BeeBee yapped and played around the hem of her long black dress.
Rebecca paid no attention to BeeBee only stared out into the storm dripping in pearls with her hair locked in tight red and grey curls crowning her head with elegance as the haunting gloom of the rain poured down over the misplaced gazebo in the garden.
As buttoned up and calm as she looked, inside her mind she only thought of Danielle Holten. She wanted that girl to stay far, far away from Caspian. Her entire marriage seemed to be on the brink of collapse, it was the only thing in her life that kept her happy.
To be married. To be in love. To be with a man she cared for so deeply.
Caspian's true identity had to remain a secret, or else the darkness that lurked inside of Viktor's mind and heart could return and, most importantly to Rebecca, she'd lose him forever. She had fallen so head over heels in love with him — this her last love of her life now that she was in her mid 70 — she could not lose him now.
Caspian's daughter, Danielle, had to be dealt with.
"Penny for your thoughts." Caspian said, handing his slightly older wife a sherry.
"What?" Rebecca said, turning from the storm out of her window and happily taking the drink.
"You were lost in thought." He replied as he sipped.
"It's this trial, every day something even more grotesque appears in the papers, and I keep thinking of ways to cut off Baxter Murphy's head." She replied with a giggle. "Metaphorically, of course."
"Of course." Caspian replied with a grin. "No one in town worth their salt really believes there’ll be conviction, Rebecca. We should be focused on that. The truth."
"We saw what Mary did, Caspian. I can't imagine how Lear will get her out of that."
"True, the supernatural is hard to explain, but there's always a way." He said.
Rebecca turned back to stare out of the large windows in front of her. She thought about the secret she was keeping buried deep inside her mind of who he really was while staring at the gazebo that ironically had its own buried secrets underneath. She felt like that gazebo: beautiful, strong, yet fragile and figurehead for something much more macabre hidden below its serene surface.
"Do you ever..." She began before pausing for a moment.
"Do I ever what?" He asked caressing her shoulder lovingly as he too watched the rain fall in the garden.
"Caspian, do you know how much I love you?" She replied turning to face him, so they were now inches apart. "Since the time we met, I have."
"We were meant to be together. Somehow this is what our fate marked down. I didn't have anything in my life that I could cling to after what happened to me and you've given me a home, a life, a family. I love you too." He said.
"Family, yes." She replied. "And I would do anything for family, and I have done everything for family; to protect them. It's ingrained in me to protect what is mine. It's always been this way with me. The world is cruel, and it takes from us when we least expect it. I don't accept that as a fair way to live. I fight the cruelty of the world by taking and holding on to what belongs to me. The love I have for the people that I love, that’s where I shine."
Caspian tilted his head. He sensed something odd in her words, almost as if she were warning him of something she had done or was planning to do. She turned again to watch the storm as it intensified with showers. He couldn't help the uneasy feeling he was getting from his wife. A strange and unwelcomed tightness in his gut told him there was something in the air beyond the storm itself.
"You don't have to fight Rebecca. Not all the time." He whispered as he kissed her head. "I'm not going anywhere."
She smiled but knew the fragility of what was happening. If he were to discover his real name, his own child, his true past, he’d leave her. At least this is what she feared.
Caspian walked over to the hearth and begin to light a fire inside to warm the room. As the burning light ignited, he began to feel yet another one of his headaches burning his inside just as hot as the flames before him.
He winched in pain but quickly regrouped before his wife could notice.
There were many secrets locked in that room. The reveal of either of them would spell certain disaster for the marriage of Caspian and Rebecca Casador.
Rebecca knew now that she had to make sure her threat on Danielle was not a simple preemptive strike, but a lethal one.
****
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| Christopher and Genevieve |
Elsewhere in town, Christopher Wesley and Genevieve Thorne sat in their room at The Welshport Inn scanning over the afternoon papers in horror of what they were reading. A real-life witch trial was actually taking place right down the street at the Court House.
Frustrated with it all, Genevieve tossed the newspaper into the fireplace and watched the flames engulf it, embers slowly encircling the name of the young 14 year old boy who was involved in the case, named as "the witch's surrogate son, Morgan Thorne.". Genevieve's son.
"I don't know why he wants to stay here." She said of Morgan. "It's like he's addicted to them, to this place. He can't pull away no matter how bad it is for all of us."
"You brought him here. This is his home now." Chris replied.
"It was the biggest mistake of my life." She answered.
"From what I know of this place nothing really lasts forever. Eventually some other scandal will take over and everyone will begin to follow that in the papers. Small remote towns are like that, Gen, we just have to keep on pushing through until we get to that place." Christopher replied to her surprise.
"What do you mean 'from what you know'? Welshport is new to you, isn't it?" She asked, starting to feel as if her original hunch that Chris was David had been true all along.
"I've been to plenty of small towns in my life." He replied.
"No." She said. "I don't think so. You know I'm getting really tired of being kept in the dark about a lot of things around me, I've had just about enough. I think it's time you tell me the truth and nothing but the truth, Christopher."
Chris stood up from his chair, his breathing shallowed. He suddenly felt nervous. Her tone of voice had never been quite this firm before. She crossed her arms across her chest waiting for him to reply to her. She would not budge and would not speak until he finally came clean with her. She knew he was David, she had always known but played along with him in his Christopher facade to please him, and perhaps to alleviate the pressures of doing Sabrina's ghostly bidding too. All Geneveive wanted now was her life back, her life with Morgan her beloved son and she wanted nothing to do with Welshport's past.
"I don't know what to say." He replied.
"Let me help you, say this… 'I am David Lord.'"
Christopher gulped. He hadn't said his own name in years. He had divorced himself from his dark past of lies, secrets and murder and wanted to be free but at the same time he wanted to be there in the town it all began to somehow make things right.
Christopher... David.... David... Christopher.
He couldn't have it both ways. He couldn't live in the shadow of his old self and still fly in the freedom of his assumed name.
Geneveive tilted her head waiting for his answer.
"I am David Lord." He replied.
She took in a deep sigh. Geneveive was released. She had found him. She had done what Sabrina really wanted her to do, bring David home but at the same time she knew how hard it was for Christopher, or David, to admit the truth, and the love she had for him once again washed over her. She walked over to him and looked deep into his warm green eyes. The eyes that she fell in love with him in London. She knew how troubled the man she met was the day she first laid eyes on his and having him finally admit to her what he tried to hide for decade meant a lot.
She put her hand on his bristly cheek. He closed his eyes; a small tear fell down and puddled at her fingertip. He was somewhat relieved that he came clean to her but worried she'd force him to out himself.
"You were David Lord." She admitted.
Seeing that she understood him after finally admitting who he truly was send a warm feeling over him. He reached over and pulled her into a hug, then he kissed her so passionately that finally they could move on together in a new light with the truth finally out in the open.
****
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| Charlotte takes the stand |
Back in court, Charlotte was on the stand and Eden was about to begin his questioning.
The young girl settled in her chair on the witness stand and scanned the packed room. So many eyes on her. If felt like she was a goldfish inside of a pet-shop staring at would-be takers. In the back of the room, Jacqueline too watched from behind the face of an unknown woman she shape-shifted into.
Jacqueline watched carefully waiting or her moment to turn the tables on Mary, and Evie.
"Miss Lord, can you tell me how you are related to the accused?" Eden asked.
"Well sir, the lady in the dark dress is my mother, the lady in the dark dress with darker hair was married to my cousin, and the gentleman on the end is a friend of our family."
"Your mother, are you and she close?" Eden asked.
Charlotte gulped. "Yes."
"Always?"
Charlotte looked at her father Jacob, his face flush with guilt now.
"Mostly." the heiress asked.
"Mostly? So most of your life?"
"Most of my life, yes." Charlotte said.
"Miss Lord, is that really true? Because from what I have discovered is that you only really came back into contact with your mother on a regular basis only about 3 years ago. Isn't that so?"
"Objection your honor." Lear said straight up. "Leading the witness."
"Overruled. Miss Lord can answer."
"That's true." She said.
Eden smirked. "Then how can you have been close to her most of your life if she only came around 3 years ago?"
"It wasn't like that,” Charlotte began. "You see she..."
Eden cut her off "Isn't it true there was a reason for that? For her absence?"
"That's what I was going to say, sir, she and my father were not together as I grew."
"And why is that? Why were they not together?" He asked.
"I... I don't know." She said, her voice lower in tone.
"Are you sure? Are you sure you don't know? Why don’t you try to ‘know’" Eden replied antagonistically.
"Objection your honor, badgering!" Lear replied.
"Your honor, I'm trying to get to a point here, but Miss Lord is being evasive with her answers." Eden replied.
"Overruled. But watch yourself Mr. Sydney. Miss Lord, please be sure when you are answering you are making a clear statement. Do you understand?
"Yes." She said quietly to the judge.
"Please answer." Judge Banning ordered.
"My father told me that my mother lived a different lifestyle apart from how we lived and that when I was very little he had to take me from her and save me from -- that. Whatever that was." Charlotte replied as Celeste shot a look at Jacob.
Everyone in the Lord family circle knew Jacob had lied for years about Mary's supposed behaviors. He'd only started those rumors to use against her in a custody case for Charlotte. It had worked, and the scandalous lies had followed Mary since.
"Can you tell me what happened at your cousin Sebastian's wedding to Evangeline Jordan, that lady who sit's to your mother's right?"
Charlotte took a deep breath before answering. Jacob lifted a brow.
"Sebatsian was shot." Charlotte replied
Evie closed her eyes, her heart pumping faster. The memories of her nightmare wedding flooding back. She could smell the gun smoke. Sebastian’s blood. If she rubbed her hands together she could still feel the stickiness of his blood soaking them.
Mary grabbed Evie's hand and squeezed.
"By whom?"
Charlotte took a beat again to answer seeing how bad her answer was going to look.
"My mother."
The gallery whispered as the judge banged his gavel.
"But it wasn't really my cousin!" Charlotte added quickly jumping into the lie her family had spun to cover Sebastian’s shocking return to life. "You see he'd been kidnapped by people who wanted money from our family, and they sent an imposter and that's the man my mother shot but it was all—it was all a ploy, faked by these charlatans."
"Yes. So the police reports say. But none the less your mother shot a person she believed was her own cousin, yes?"
She took yet another beat to answer. "Yes."
Mary held her breath.
“Does that sound like a person in a good state of mind?”Eden asked.
“I—I don’t know how to answer that.” Charlotte replied as Lear objected.
“Your honor Objection! Conjecture!”
“Sustained. Move on Mr. Sydney, get to your point.”
"Yes sir. Charlotte tell me about your grandmother, Eliza Goode, what did you know of her?" Eden asked.
"Not much, just that she was a very quiet person. Private.”
"And you never met her, is that right?”
"No."
"You'd never heard of anything odd that happened on Goode Island?" Eden wondered.
"No."
“And you never knew of the things that happened on Goode Island before you lived there?”
Charlotte did know. Her whole life she had heard rumors thanks to Rebecca who has always spouted off about Charlotte’s “other grandmother” who’d “sold her soul”, a comment the young heiress struggled to understand as she grew up but eventually the truth came to her.
“Your answer Miss Lord?” Eden pushed.
Charlotte decided to lie with a reply of a quiet “no.”
Eden’s eyes narrowed.
As Charlotte's testimony continued, Lear could tell what Eden was doing. Establishing a pattern of bizarre behavior of Mary and her family that would sew not only doubt in the minds of all who sat in the gallery but also in the judge's mind about how Mary's mind operated. A woman who'd shoot someone in cold blood that everyone assumed was her own cousin couldn't be considered someone of a sane mind, and yet -- no evidence of witchcraft had presented itself.
"Your cousin Evie, by marriage, I should say, at one point you all thought her dead. Yes?"
Charlotte confirmed this.
"And yet -- she returned to your family, very much alive. Yes?"
Charlotte confirmed again.
"How can you explain this?"
Before Charlotte could answer, she began to feel something in the pit of her stomach. A warmth. And it began to get hotter and hotter.
Jacqueline, her fist squeezed tightly had grabbed hold of Charlotte with her powers. She closed her eyes and began to pull into Charlotte's mind. Charlotte felt the strange feeling but had no idea what it was, or how it was happening and suddenly Charlotte began to feel words bubbling out of her throat that she had no control over.
"Stop. Please. Take your hands off me." Charlotte said, as Jacqueline mouthed the words at the same time.
Eden paused his questioning and looked around. The audience in the court too churned in their seats.
"Please. Please. Take your hands off my throat mother!" Charlotte said as Jacqueline mouthed the words like a puppeteer. "STOP!!" She screamed.
Mary didn't know what her daughter was talking about. Evie looked around. Matthew too.
"What's happening?" Matthew asked.
"Charlotte????" Mary whispered to her daughter.
"STOP HURTING ME MOTHER!!!" Charlotte screamed as she shot up from the witness stand, Jacqueline still controlling her.
"Oh my god." Jacob said in a whisper. "What is she doing?"
"SHE'S BEWITCHED!!" A person shouted from the audience.
"STOP HURTING ME!" a woman shouted from the audience standing up from her seat. "EVANGELINE! TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF MY THORAT!"
Everyone turned to stare at Evie who had no idea what was happening.
Jacqueline controlling the other woman too.
"I CAN'T BREATHE. I CAN'T BREATHE!!!" A third woman said, falling to the ground and gasping for air. "She has my throat!!!"
A domino effect of faux acts of bewitched people suddenly spilled into the audience from the witness stand. Six different people were all grabbing at their throats saying Mary and Evie had taken them and were strangling them.
Jacqueline still in the body she shapeshifted into held her head down, mouthing all the words the others were saying and clenching both her fists so hard her nails had dug into the palms of her hands.
"I CAN'T BREATHE!" the fourth woman said, rolling around on the courtroom isle.
"SHE CLUTHES ME THROAT! THE WITCH! THE WITCH!!!"
"WITCHES!!" A man stood up and pointed at the accused.
"ORDER! I CALL ORDER HERE!" Judge Banning exclaimed.
"Its her!" Mary said standing up at the defense table and turning towards the room. "WHERE ARE YOU!? WHERE ARE YOU HIDING?!"
The audience screamed and looked away from Mary fearing she was putting a spell over the room choking out several people including her own daughter.
"Stop!!! Please Stop this!" Evie screamed.
"CLEAR THE COURTROOM!!! CLEAR IT NOW!!" The Judge ordered.
People began to quickly file out of the room. Guards and Bailiffs grabbed the accused and rushed them out of the courtroom and quickly begin to take them back to their cells.
The women were still gasping for air. Jacob rushed to get hold of Charlotte who was also gasping, picked her up and began to carry her out while the rest of the room began to rush out fearing for their lives.
"What just happened???" Nik asked his mother as they made their way down the slick front steps of the courthouse.
Aurora had no answer.
Mayor Churchill snuck back into the judge's chambers where Judge Banning was hanging up his black robe. The judge was sweating and had a confused and panicked look on his face. He couldn't understand what he had just seen, what he had just experienced.
Churchill entered and quietly closed the door behind him. From the exit of the court room Jacob, still carrying Charlotte quickly turned his head back, his eyes darting to Churchill entering the judge's chambers.
He instantly felt his blood boil, and just before guards rushed him out, he knew what was happening. Jacob knew corruption better than anyone one else in town.
Inside the chambers the judge's mind raced.
"Well, that was something, wasn't it?" The mayor said entering the judge's chambers.
Banning turned and shook his head. "I -- I don't know what I just saw."
"You just saw real life witch controlling people. At least that's how I see it. Now you know what to do."
"But-- how? How could that have happened?"
Churchill shrugged, happy with the results of something so odd and terrifying because it fit his narrative, and it fit his hopes to damage the Lord family once and for all.
Grinning from ear to ear, he pulled out a thick envelope from his inside coat pocket and handed it to the Judge.
"This is the final one. I think it's very clear now what you should do at the end of this."
The judge grimaced and stared at the envelope on his desk. It was filled with money.
**
Outside, Jacob tucked his family into the car. He pulled his driver Aaron Hamstead aside before he jumped in the driver seat and took the car keys away.
"Stay here. Get back in there and find out what Churchill is doing in the judge's chambers." Jacob ordered.
"But, sir?" Aaron said, noting the scene all around.
"I'll drive us." Jacob noted. "Just get yourself in there and get me the information that I need."
"Yes sir." Aaron replied.
**
As the money changed hands in the office and Jacob began to suspect dirty deals, Jacqueline slowly exited the courthouse unrecognized by her shape-shifting skills and pleased with the chaos she had unleashed, but she'd quickly learn there was a price to pay for her little game.
She suddenly began to feel her own choking sensation. The body she had shapeshifted into started to faulter and she was quickly changing back and something else--- She was physically vanishing.
Jacqueline looked down at her hands and they were becoming transparent.
Seconds later, the choking stopped. She could breathe easy again and she was standing in front of the three cloaked and veiled figures in black --- the witch council had yanked her from the mortal world.
"Jacqueline Gray, Sister of Highgrove." The center witch spoke from behind the blackness of her veil. "You are accused of betraying your coven and of it's secrecy by inciting hysteria against your own kind. How do you plead?"
Suddenly a new trial was to begin.
****
 |
| A meeting in the forest |
And within seconds the hare fell for a trap.
In a struggled that lasted seconds, the hare's life ended in the mouth of Sebastian Lord, fanged, bleeding and thirsty for the blood of anything that wasn't human; his promise to Evie continuing not to harm a human.
There was a figure standing there in a thick coat, a hat and obscured by the shadows of the forest.
Sebastian's eyes narrowed. "How did you know I was here?"
"You of all people should know I have spies in every corner of this island, son, I've known of your return for a while." Jacob said.
"Aaron?" Sebastian wondered.
Jacob shook his head. "Not this time. He had other duties. You were seen late at night entering the fortune teller's home. This time of night I figured you'd need to feed. This is your favorite place." Jacob explained.
Jacob removed his hat. The darkness of the night shrouded him, his dark blue eyes seemed black, Sebastian felt something sinister in his stance, something in the way he held his body that made him step back, but Jacob was not there to harm him. He needed his help.
"I need you to do something for me -- no the family. Something only you can do. Something that has to be done because of what I've seen today in court." Jacob explained.
"What?"
"He's paying off the judge, I know it. I've already been told, the fix is in." Jacob warned. "He has to die. What he's doing to our family, the mothers of our children, can only end if that man is dead."
Jacob looked around the forest, the darkness in the distance didn't fear him, the animals that hid under the brush almost feared Jacob more than he feared the unseen.
"I won't beg you to do this, and I won't come looking for you again to try and convince you. But think about it and remember, that this is your family too, our legacy is yours and in turn Gabriel's. Don't let that bastard shame us more than he already has. It will get worse, and when it does, I hope that he answers for what he's done, and frankly Sebastian, only you can do that. He deserves to die. I'll let you decide when." Jacob said.
The hare, a small innocent creature. A certain sacrifice, something to keep Sebastian alive. Or was it Sebastian's latest victim?
Was Timothy Churchill next?
