***CYFRINACH CASTLE - GOODWICK, SCOTLAND***
At the top of a towering hill overlooking the mirroring bay of Goodwick, Scotland, the stone walls of Cyfrinach Castle kept the noise and onlookers away along with its iron gates and gaunt looking guards. Inside the shadowy castle lived a court of mysterious people who never came out in the day.
When asked by outsiders who lived in the castle, the villagers eyes went blank. Their stares cold and vacant of answers except for saying they believed them to be a religious order shrouded in secrecy who prayed during sunlight hours. These were lies to protect the outsiders, few as they came, from knowing the truth about those they called The Saints of Goodwick.
The villagers knew that behind their so called saintly nocturnal ways held deadly secrets that would run the good man's blood cold should he ever know the full extent of what truly happened behind the ancient walls of Cyfrinach.
Village servants were sworn to secrecy — or risk death.
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| Inside the Count’s room |
A young man of 28 years named Roman, with slick dark hair, skin so tan and sun kissed he looked as if he shined in a golden glow, quickly made his way up a back spiral stone staircase that led into a private apartment within the castle walls that belong to the leader of this mock religious order by the name of Count Alexandre Doshall.
Alexandre's illness had progressed, but a silver lining of hope had arrived in the castle that made his existence, and those that followed his rule, keep faith that the dark face of luck was on their side.
Roman slowly pushed open the side entrance to the private room Count Doshall lay ill in. It was dark, the count was covered in dark maroon sheets a black shawl that covered his legs. Doshall was a sick man, dying. His face practically caving in with age, pale and blotchy with signs of malnutrition.
Roman stood at the left of the bed and bowed his head at Count Doshall hoping his entrance did not wake the dying man.
“He can’t hear you now.” A whispery voice said from the right of the bed, a woman covered in black veils and lace gloves motioned for Roman to come to her.
“Has he spoken? Does he know of the new arrivals? The others are fascinated by them.” Roman said to the woman, Doshall’s daughter Dominique.
“He’s been sleeping since the turn for the worst. I haven’t had the courage to wake him to give him the good news of the arrivals. And what of them? How are they feeling in their apartments here?” Dominique wondered.
“Mr. Lord is very enthusiastic about his stay. He’s the nephew of an old friend of mine, someone I met years ago as a boy and stayed close to. My friend is the one who wrote me about Mr. Lord and his child. I'm just happy they made it safely.” Roman explained.
Dominique’s eyes could be seen though the dark vails that covered her face and head. They were a hazel that seemed to jump from behind the lace and could freeze the fire in the hearth like the iciest Scottish winter. Yet her voice was calm and steady, like a mother telling a child fairy tail to smooth them into a slumber to dream.
She motioned again for Roman, the Doshall’s trusted protector, to sit next to her in the red velvet upholstered loveseat by patting the soft cushion.
“This Sebastian Lord, what of him? He’s new to this way of life of ours, how can we be sure the child is truly what your friend said it was — a mixling.”
Roman took a breath, his eyes quickly glancing at the Count in his bed taking in a hearty breath of his own.
“My friend promised me it’s true. The child is a mixling, son of a vampire and a mortal. He would never send them here to us with a lie. In his letter he said the father needed safe harbor and this place was the only place on earth his kind could find it. When my friend, Johnathon, realized the truth of his nephew he remembered me. He knows we'll keep them safe.” Roman said.
“This child could save my father, Roman, it could save us all if it is a true mixling, we cannot make a mistake.” Dominique said, her whispery voice lighting up with a twinge is dark hope.
Roman nodded, his warm skin again glowing in the firelight as she poured a thick red liquid from a glass kettle with golden feet. The liquid was thick and ruby red — fresh. She lifted the vails over her face revealing a beautiful woman with a tight jaw and a nose slender at the bridge. She drank from the glass and dabbed the corners of her lips with a white linen cloth that stained the color of her drink and her lipstick.
“Tell me of the mother, Evangeline.” She said.
“She is….” Roman begun but then quickly paused mid-thought. “I’m sorry what did you call her?”
The vails fell again, the beautiful face once again shrouded behind layers of thing black lace. Dominique raised a brow at his sudden pause “Evangeline. Mrs. Lord.” She repeated. "Is there a problem?"
Roman’s face dropped. His heart sank at the name. It couldn’t be. This has to be a strange, bizarre coincidence. "Uh no, no problem at all." He answered.
When Roman met with Sebastian when they arrived he had not seen the wife and Sebastian had not mentioned her by name. He never in his wildest dreams would expect the name to be that name. A name very familiar to him, a name he had kept in the back of his mind--in his past--decades ago
“Then what is it?” Dominique pressed, noting Roman’s still very obvious meandering.
But before he could answer the old Count begin to cough in his bed uncontrollably. The coughing ripped through his windpipe, tore through his chest and entered the air in a spray of microscopic droplets of blood.
Both Dominque and Roman jumped up from the velvet loveseat and rushed to his side.
“Father, please you must drink. You must drink!” Dominique said, reaching for a glass of the red liquid that sat at the Count's bedside. “Help me lift him.” She added.
Roman and Dominique lifted the dying Count, tipped his weak head back and tried to give him the drink of the same red liquid his daughter sipped.
No use. His age was slowly creeping into reality. His veins were hardening. His insides rotting. His eyes graying. The Count of over 300 years of age was reaching the end of his dark dynasty, a curse that had traveled down over the years from the man that made him, and the man that made that man, and so on.
“The child." Dominique said. "We need to know if he is viable as prophecy has said, and quickly.”
Roman nodded and helped lay the count back down. He bowed his head once to each of the Doshalls and made his way out of the room this time though the main entrance and down the glittering hall of candle light that led to another larger staircase where many of the people living in the castle had gathered at the bottom of the stairs in a large foyer with black and white checkered floor and a 535 year old chandelier crowning the entire room.
“Is it true Roman?” A woman asked, wrapped in red silk robes and her hair tied up tightly in the back. Her skin pale like the others.
“Tell us.” A man demanded, looking much the same.
Roman, his mind still on the name Evangeline, couldn't speak.
"We have hoped for this for a very long time and now you hesitate to reply?" A third man, his hair dark at one time, now white as snow to match his white face, teal eyes and frosted over lashes.
"Roman?" The woman said, her eyes narrowing at his uncharacteristic silence. She reached for his wrist. She pressed her fingernail into the veins as if to pinch him awake.
“It’s true," Roman replied finally, "the child that has been foretold of for all these centuries has finally arrived."
A rush of murmuring came from the assembled "Saints".
“Then the count will live!” the first man shouted.
The crowd gathered continued to hum with happy words of life ever after for not only their leader, the Count Doshall, but for them as well. The clock on their possible demise slowly coming back to life.
“We’ll see.” Roman said under a hushed voice as he quickly made his way through the corridors up another flight of stairs and into the private, smaller in size apartments of the west wing where Sebastian and his family were kept.
The whole brisk walk to see Sebastian the voice of Dominique echoed the name Evangeline in Roman's mind. It simply could not be possible. It could not be the same Evangeline.
Roman opened a vestibule door that entered into the rooms with matching dark wallpaper of black dahlias and dark birds in flight. He crept about quietly to finally get a glance at Mrs. Lord. Roman turned to his left and saw Sebastian out on the newly opened balcony that had been shuttered. He stood out in the cool night air observing Goodwick’s harbor as small fishing boats set off to sea for an early morning catch. The Scottish night cooled his already icy skin.
Roman then slithered into the back rooms and then he saw Evie through an open door as she attempted to get Gabriel to sleep on their second or third night locked away in the caste.
Evie had lost count.
As she turned around slowly, humming a lullaby, Roman saw a clear view of her fair face from his vantage point of the hall. The name was not a coincidence.
This Evangeline was the same one in his memory. It was an ironic twist in his short life's history to see her again after so many years, since he was a small child of only 8 years old.
Roman quietly gasped to himself when he recognized her, it was her. The same sea blue eyes. same perfect bow-shaped lips, same small, tiny mole in the corner of her left eye --it was truly her: his maternal cousin Mrs. Evangeline Lord…. known to him all his life as simply Evie. There was no doubt.
**
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| Evie & Sebastian argue |
Back in the room, Evie finally was able to get Gabriel to sleep. But for her, sleep was no where to be found. The days she'd been trapped in the strange new place, even more strange that Tirymor, had all run together. She had no sense of time. The glass of windows was frosted over; sunlight could barely seep in through the opaque glass. So faint was the brightness she could never tell if it was dawn, midday, or dusk. Her whole mind felt a scramble, and she was becoming more and more agitated with Sebastian's lack of information and her inability to step out onto the balcony too.
Sebastian reentered the apartment from the balcony as Evie entered. She snuck a peek of the night sky just as Sebastian closed the windowless balcony doors. A quick scene of glittery lights of the lanterns from the village touching the horizon and real sky gave Evie reassurance that wasn't dead. There was life out there, somewhere, wherever she was.
She rushed to the balcony doors where Sebastian had just entered but was stopped by her former husband's steel-like arms.
"You can't go out there alone." he ordered.
"I need air, Sebastian." She snarled.
He sighed "I'll go with you."
She huffed and removed his arms forcibly from her body and together the former couple went back out onto the balcony.
The night air touched Evie's warm skin, she closed her eyes and took in the fresh sea air, that seemed saltier than Welshport's. She did not recognize where she was. There was faint resemblance to somewhere she had been as a child, but she could not place it. The village itself did not have any defining landmarks that she could quickly note to help her know where Sebastian had taken her and their child, but the strong walls below and above and to the side of her were signs that the fortress they were in would not be easily escaped.
She then reached for the wound on her neck and turned to Sebastian who smiled at her.
"Don't worry." He said. "I did not drink from you. You're safe. You’re not like me."
Her brow furrowed "Then why did you bite me?"
"I had to be sure you wouldn't protest coming. It was the only way to do it."
“I think you’ve gone insane.” She said her eyes wide with shock at the extremes he had gone to.
“Evie, …” he began before she cut him off.
"Sebastian, stop. I don’t want to hear any lies so I’m going to stop you before you say anything else. Don’t you see what you've done? You've taken us against our will! This is not a place to raise a child. And even more so, where is this place? What is this place? Tell me!!"
"Evie, listen to me," he said, grabbing her hands that had now cooled to the outside air. "There is no way you and I and our son could live together as a family in Welshport without persecution." He said.
"You and I were not living together, Sebastian. I had made that very clear that I wanted to focus on being a mother -- alone." She reminded.
He tolled his eyes as he rememebred.
"Never the less, the persecution by the town, by my family, would be endess because of who Gabriel's father was. It would be an impossible life for him-- for you. Here, we can be together. Here we can live and be happy. There’s no judgement of me or what we are or our family here. This is what we’ve always wanted."
She shook her head and yanked her hands out of his. "No, no…that’s not true! You don't understand. This is not how you do this. We are a family but a different kind of family. You cannot just take us because you want us for yourself. Welshport was a lot of things but it was our home, Gabriel's home. And you've taken us from our family and friends for your own selfish wish to have us for yourself."
"The Count will make it a better for us." He said.
"The Count? What are you talking about?" She asked.
"Count Alexandre Doshall and his daughter. Johnathon told me of them and their home. I learned of the Doshalls and what they've done for the world. This is a place for ...." he took a second to prepare for her reaction when she discovered what exactly Cyfrinach Castle was. "It's a place for people like me to live. Freely. Now we can all live here safely together."
Evie's head tilted to one as she processed what he had just said. People like me.
"I...I can't believe what I've just heard." She replied. "Are you telling me this place is full of…vampires? We are in some kind of vampire compound? You brought YOUR CHILD to a vampire compound??? No we cannot stay here, I cannot allow this." She said, rushing back into the main rooms off the balcony and headed for Gabriel's little room.
Sebastian snapped his fingers and evaporated from the balcony and suddenly appeared in front of Evie blocking her path. She gasped and fell backwards onto the floor. She had never seen him use such powers before right in front of her. There was always an idea that he could do things like this, like how he appeared to her in jail almost invisibly but Evie had never witnessed it first hand.
He approached her and reached out his hand to help her up. She scooted back, slowly on her backside, towards the balcony. She didn't want him to touch her, she didn't want him to even look in her eyes but he did. His intense stare was as cold as the Scottish wind blowing into the apartment and Evie noted the difference in him. This version of Sebastian reminded her of when he attacked Alice Winterborn and killed her at Lockwood Thicket 3 years ago. The darkness in him had returned like a solar eclipse blocking the soft light of a milky moon.
"You don't have a choice." Sebastian said with a deep tone in his voice. "We will be a family again."
"You certainly have thought of every way to remove my choice, haven't you. Everyone at home will know I would never just leave like this. And Matthew -- Matthew will find us, Sebastian, he will stop at nothing until he finds us."
Sebastian's face dropped at the mention of Matthew, a name he hoped she'd soon forget or at least have the better sense not to speak.
"You have never stopped loving him, have you?" He said with a darkness in his voice tainted with the paint of envy. "There is nothing I could do to win you fully back, is there?"
"I told you just as I told him, my life right now, after those horrid unjust trials, is devoted to my son not a man to share my life with. I chose neither of you." Evie reminded him.
"Yet you will always love him, I can tell. But here, here you will see how we are meant to be together. In time. In time." Sebastian replied cryptically.
"Matthew won't let you keep us against our will, Sebastian. He will know that you took us!"
"Evie-- he will never find you. Do you understand? He will never find you. And if by the grace of whatever god he prays to, he DOES find you, there is no way, absolutely no way, he would ever survive entering the front gates. I want you to think about what I am saying I want to think about what you are hoping for. If he comes here he dies." Sebastian said, throat full of jealous anger.
Evie stood up on her own from the floor. She clinched her fists and faced the man she once loved who had so desperately stolen them in the night away from their home, their family, the lives they had made and had suffered to finally be free and live on her own terms with no one ordering her around or telling her how she manage her life as the mother of a Lord heir. He had taken her power from her, the power of free will. She was angry and hurt and she wanted nothing more than to slap him across the face.
So she did it.
His cheek stung for a brief second. Sebastian sighed, he expected something like that to happen as Evie settled with the idea that they'd never see Welshport again. But then she lunged for Gabriel's room again. Sebastian grabbed her arm and yanked her back into his grasp. He locked her in his arms and tried to calm her as she squirmed to release herself.
"No, no..." he said.
"SEBASTIAN LET ME GO!" She shouted.
Sebastian refused and began to drag her to an adjoining room through a small hallway from the apartment Gabriel was in. This room was slightly larger, private and off to one corner of the tower they were in.
Evie tried to stop him by anchoring her feet on furniture, knocking over a large plant that sat on a golden cradle, pulling down another table that had glass animals decorating it's top like a glass miniature circus -- then pushed her into the room.
Then he locked her in from the outside.
"SEBASTIAN!!!!" Evie shouted in the dark room as she pounded on the door. "Let me out! LET ME OUT!!!"
"You'll find table to your right with candles and matches. When I have The Count's approval for a gas lantern I'll bring it to you." He said to the door. "Evie, I love you. I truly do. But this is how its going to be from now on. You must accept it." He said.
Evie stumbled to the table and grabbed a match -- she struck it allowing the flame to spark and flicker on to give her a low glow. She scanned the dark room with it's lavish decorations and a small private bathroom towards the back. She grabbed a candle and lit it.
"Sebastian, let me out! Please! PLEASE! Let me out! Don't do this!" She shouted through the heavy door.
But Sebastian was got. He'd left her there alone, for now, as he went into his sleeping son's room and watched him sleep like a little cherub in his soft cushy bed. The distant candle shined on Gabriel's golden brown hair and his pink cheeks. Sebastian proudly watched his little chest lift up and down with breath.
The beauty of this little child felt surreal to him, his baby boy, now almost 3. He picked him up and took him to a different part of the castle, in a place where he would safe from Evie’s hope of escape.
Upstairs, further towards the east of the Castle, Dominique sat stoically, unveiled, now that she was alone with her father. Her eyes were closed; one hand gripped the arm of the love seat that was shaped like a lion's pay. Her mind drifted down into the corridors, passing ancient paintings and tapestries that lined the walls. She led herself deep into the belly of Cyfrinach and into the apartments given to the Lords where she saw Sebastian gazing at his beautiful boy.
In her mind Dominque could see the child too, stunning to look at as he slept. She wanted a closer look.
She sent her energy from her father’s bedside to the new room where Sebastian was standing over to beautiful boy. She was invisible to the naked and she stood right behind Sebastian. She could smell Sebastian’s skin. It was like warm milk, laced with sugar. He was handsome, strong. She felt his powerful energy the second her transference entered the room. He would make a perfect fit for her. They’d be everything to the court.
The child was exquisite. Perfect and could not wait to get her hands on him.
He'd finally come -- the mixling her father's father and his father before him promised would save them from the curse that she hoped to avoid.
Sebastian turned feeling the coldness of her heart behind him. There was nothing there. Not a single soul. But Sebastian knew he was being watched. Some how.
In candlelight, Evie slid down the door to the floor of her room crying silently as Roman spied her door from a shadowy corner wondering what he could do for his cousin to help her. His worry now gaining more strength than his devotion to the Doshalls.
WELSHPORT ISLAND, MAINE**
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| Matthew receives a visitor |
Matthew felt an unease in his chest. He shivered and saw that all of the sheets had been pulled from his body exposing his naked torso to a cold room. A sickness in his stomach. He reached for a shirt that was thrown over the back of a chair and walked over to the window as the sun rose over the sea he loved so much and wondered what he'd find when he finally got to Scottland.
He believed Charlotte's vision, he believed Evie was taken there. And he would stop at nothing to get to her.
Then a sudden morning knock at the door. Matthew walked over barefoot and in his sleeping clothes and opened it to find Fatima Braga standing there with a basket of bread and fruit.
"Bom dia." She said, greeting good morning in her native Portuguese.
"Bom dia." Matthew replied in perfect pronunciation after living in Portuguese island for months when he was lost at sea. "What can I do for you Senhora Braga?" He asked taking the basket and allowing her to step inside his home.
She looked around, it was clearer than she realized, for a man living alone. She glanced down ats his bare feet. Clean. Strong. He stood on good ground she thought.
"I didn't realize I'd be waking you, Mateus." She said using his Portuguese name. "As a fisherman, I thought you'd be up with the seagulls welcoming the sun."
"I've had a difficult time sleeping." he said. "What brings you?" He added glancing down at the basket.
"Fresh. I made it myself." She said of the bread. "I know that Charlotte has given you some information about Evangeline and her child Gabriel. I know that this information is important to you and I want to be sure you do nothing foolish with that information. Charlotte is young, she knows not what she sees." Fatima said.
Matthew's brow raised. He had not told anyone about the vision, his plan to leave for Scottland was kept secret and now he felt exposed. He stammered a reply but Fatima swatted his words away as if they were bees circling their honey dripping hive.
"You must keep a good distance from Charlotte's vision, she is but a novice, her powers are new and it would be a dangerous step for you to follow in what she has to say." Fatima replied.
As the two spoke, the woman Matthew saw the day before, a woman he knew well peeked her head out of the bedroom door down the hall in the apartment she had stayed the night in. Her long black hair spread over her shoulders like a shawl of thick black silk.
She listened carefully to the elder Braga's advice but furrowed her brow at it, unsure Matthew would heed Fatima's possible sage advice.
"Are you saying her vision of Evie and Gabriel being in Scottland is wrong?" He wondered.
Fatima's brow lifted "I didn't say that."
Matthew was confused. If Charlotte didn't know what she saw, according to Fatima, how could it not be wrong. Fatima continued.
"Her vision may be half seen."
"Half seen?" He asked.
"She sees what she sees, that is real, but the truth of what is in Scottland she has not seen. Neither have I, but I worry, Mateus, Sebastiao would not take Evangelina to a place so easily discoverable and if you appear there to save her from what he is, I can tell you there will be a death. Whose death, that is not for me to say, but it is inevitable." She warned.
"If you trying to convince me to leave Evie and Gabriel with Sebastian that is not going to happen Fatima. He's a killer... He killed my sister! He's killed others. I cannot just abandon them to his whim. Sebastian needs to be stopped, and I will finally stop him." Matthew said.
"Finality in the world of those like Sebastian is just a world, Mateus. They know nothing of finality, they only see infinity. It is a drug to them. It is a craving that they cannot reach and constantly chase. To go there is to put your own life in danger."
"I won't leave her." He said.
Fatima sighed and repeated her worry "It's too dangerous."
"Thank you for coming, and for your worry, but for now, my decision is final. I will get to Evie and give her a chance to tell me to my face she truly meant to go with Sebastian and to leave Welshport like her letter said, but as of now, I will not rest until she tells me herself; on Scottish land if need be." He replied.
Fatima took a breath, she knew better than to try and convince a man of the to steer his ship back a different direction when the wind was already in the sails. She nodded her head showing she understood and reached for a grape in his basket and ate it.
"They're sweet to the naked eye." She said of the grapes. "But be careful of the rotted ones, sometimes you cannot see the decay until it's too late and you've already tasted the bitter juice."
She patted his cheek with her hand and took her leave from his home leaving him there, barefoot and shirt opened to the wind with her basket of goods.
As she walked out, the woman who came to see Matthew and was staying with him made her way to him in the living room. She has been listening to the conversation but Matthew had filled her in the night before when she first arrived.
"We have to find a way for you to connect to where Evie is. We have to be safe Matthew. That woman's words worry me." She said, as Matthew had filled the mysterious woman on all the events of his life since she had gone away from Welshport all those years ago. She was up-to-speed, and was prepared to be there for Matthew, again, now that she had returned.
Matthew turned to her and shook his head.
"I know where you're going with this and I haven't done that in years. I don't even know if I can --- I --- Alice was the one would held our people's powers the most…she held them so dear to her heart it was almost second nature to her. I was too frightened. I couldn't. I--- had to let those instincts go." Matthew explained.
The woman, her face soft with cheeks so plump and peachy. Her eyes like his soft and brown, the same eyes. She smiled at him finding his worry boyish and cute, just as she remembered him. He was just as caring as she remembered too.
"Connecting to our people’s powers Matthew is the best way to be sure you know what you're getting into before you step off that ship in Scotland. They are yours to use, they are yours to build on and they have never left you." She said.
He took a second and a breath. She reached for him and he grabbed her hands leading her to the sofa across form him.
They were linked. They were family. Seeing the familiar kind face staring back at him, a face he never thought he see again, memories can flooding back to his mind. Of their childhood. Of the games they’d play. Of their tribe and the magic and beauty within their world that the settlers of Welshport took away. He thought about the day she left — the they he thought she died like the rest of his tribe only leaving his late younger sister Alice and himself.
"When you left, when we were kids, I thought they'd killed you. I thought they'd taken you from us and we'd never see you again. I never thought I'd see you again Hope." Matthew said, calling the woman by her first name.
His eldest long lost sister: Hope Winterborn.
She smiled and held his hands, still, tightly in hers recalling the cold history of their tribe. "We were separated. The settlers of this island took our land, our homes. Our history. Over time and generations they made sure our world shrank so theirs could grow." Hope replied reminiscing.
"How did you survive on your own at such a young age?" He asked her, remembering when Hope left their people while the village was becoming more and more gentrified with settlers, she was only 8 and he was only 4, their sister Alice was only 2.
"I found kind people who helped me along the way. One woman, who I'm hoping to one day reconnect with, helped me find a family. They took me in but we moved away. It's taken me this long to finally come back here Matthew and now that I've come back I want to help you with everything and anything I can. For Alice's sake." Hope replied.
Matthew thought for a second. He wasn't sure he could connect to their people's ways, ways the meant going deep into his soul and sending it somewhere over the sea to discover where exactly where Evie was so that then he could take his physical being there to save her.
This was an act of spectral vision quest. Matthew's people, Welshport's native people, had this power and many more that no one truly could define.
"Taking part in the vision quest you will know if it is meant for your true hearted self to be with Evie. Your questions, Matthew will be answered." Hope added.
Matthew swallowed hard at her words but knew his older sister Hope was right. He had to take part in the spiritual vision question. This would be the key to unlock Evie and Gabriel's location for him to then go and find her.
"I'll do this." Matthew said, finally bending himself towards the powers of his people, powers he feared and fought so hard to contain within himself.
Hope smiled and wrapped her arms around her younger brother.
"Today." She said. "We do it today."
