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| Matthew & Hope in the Dænian Cave |
The Autum cool air breezed over the small islands off the coast of Maine like a current of ocean water filtering a rocky shoreline. The winds hugged the rugged coast, swishing through islets and rock formations in eel like zigzag formations invisible to the naked eye.
Inside the cave of the Dænian people, the sacred place on the edge of the Northshore Cliffs where Matthew and Hope's ancestors and family were buried over many decades and centuries ago, the two last members of the tribe sat facing each other over a burning fire that lit their faces in an orange and yellow hue.
Their legs crossed, their eyes closed. Matthew's hands sat on his thighs with the palms up, while Hope's arms extended outward swirling forward in the smoke of the fire lifting each white plume into the cool air allowing to form odd shapes as she hummed a distinctive song.
The smoke surrounded Matthew, almost like ghosts coming to circle him with open arms.
She continued to hum the song, then lyrics came to it.
"Breathe in the smoke." She whispered between bars of her song. "Breathe it in slowly and let it seep into your soul Matthew." She added.
Matthew had abandoned his connection to his mystical side decades ago fearing backlash from a community that persecuted his people. He was now finally ready to reach back into that world, that connection and become more like Hope and Alice than ever before.
Then, in their people's tongue, Hope called their ancestors to join them in the circle, in the smoke. She called on them to enter their minds and guide them to the truth of what Charlotte had seen in her own vision. She called on them to give them their strength in the hope they'd show Matthew the way to Evie and Gabriel and to protect them as they reached into this supernaturally dangerous realm.
These waters were not safe for mortals to wade into, but as two members of the close to extinct tribe of mystical natives, Hope and Matthew were special.
Hope began again with the lyrics of the song she was humming, continuing to call on their ancestors who suddenly began form in amorphic, yet humanlike shapes out of the rock walls, the sand below and the moss that covered the many, many burial stones around them. There were 20 specific that surrounded the two living Dænian.
The fire then began to grow taller, but remained within its circular-shaped crucible. It grew higher and higher almost touching the ceiling of the caves. The ancestors in their ghostly form began to lift into the air around Hope and Matthew and joined together entering the flames of the fire causing smoke to billow out and filled the cave to its brim blinding anyone who could see.
But in that smoke, Hope and Matthew breathed and visions began to come to them as their eyes turned a cold white.
A village was seen, smaller than Welshport by many miles that sat at the mouth of a river that opened to a wide cold sea. The sky was dark, the grounds of the area the village sat on damp, frigid and battered by tumultuous weather patterns that beat down on the hard rocks that made up most of the streets.
Matthew, his eyes still taking in the vision the smoke showed him, mouthed "Scotland" finally confirming for him Charlotte's own vision was correct.
The sea was wild, angry even. Bashing up against the protective walls made by those who inhabited this harsh landscape. The candles in the windows of homes flickered with the sense of a breeze where a wind raged outside. Above these small homes a looming castle that held two captive.
The 20 ghost like ancestors of Hope and Matthew surrounded the castle, like a stealth army searching the halls and rooms of the castle telepathically to prove if Charlotte was correct in her thought that the stone fortress of Cyfrinach Castle was Evie and Gabriel's newest prison.
Inside the castle, the inhabitants stirred. The sensed something, like sharks smelling blood in the water. The felt creatures. The felt eyes.
In their finest clothes, the creatures of the castle, that lurked only a night began to hiss searching for the intruders. Their eyes turned black, fangs bare.
Hope gasped out loud.
Matthew, not surprised by the creatures he saw, continued to observe.
Then, Dominique, second in charge of this place in Goodwick, sensed the eyes seeing them from Welshport too.
She too hissed showing her fangs but this time, she saw the faces of those who were watching.
Dominique swatted at the images of those secret eyes, invisible to the everyone else causing a gust if wind, like a hurricane to burst through the caves at the Northshore Cliff extinguishing the fire in front of Hope and Matthew knocking them out of their Vision Quest and back into reality.
Hope, her mind heavy with what she saw, reached over and lit two small lanterns and placed one on each side of her. She felt her neck, it felt like she had been stung by a bee.
"Who—or what— was that?" She asked, her voice almost in a tone that said she already knew but wanted Matthew to tell her.
"It’s them." Matthew replied. "He's taken them to Scotland like Charlotte said but… there’s something else.”
“What?” She asked.
“There in a place, a mansion or… a fortress; somewhere to be with those like him."
"Those like him? This Sebastian, he is like them? Like those creatures we just saw?" Hope asked.
Matthew nodded.
"It's how Alice died. He became so dark, so evil, and she sensed it. She feared for us all and warned us too. They fought over this and he killed her. Fangs. Blood. Just like the things we saw just." Matthew explained in the flickering of the lantern's light.
"What do we do?" Hope wondered.
"I have to get Evie. She and her son cannot remain there, it’s too dangerous. Im afraid they'll be hurt." Matthew added.
"I won't let you go alone, not after what I've just seen. I'm going with you."
"Hope no! I can't ask you to do that, not after what they did to Alice. I can't lose another sister to those monsters."
Hope smiled, but she knew she could not allow Matthew to go alone.
"Alice was very strong. I wish she were here to be with us too but if Evie and Gabriel are to be saved you cannot do it alone, and Alice would want this. We have to finish what she tried to do, Matthew. We have to finish Sebastian Lord, once and for all."
"Are you sure?" Matthew asked.
She nodded confirming.
"Then we leave tonight. There is a fright ship that I know is leaving tonight for Scotland. I can get us on it, but we have to move fast." He said.
She agreed and the two quickly made their way back to town.
****
CYFRINACH CASTLE, GOODWICK, SCOTLAND
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| Dominique & Roman discuss the new arrivals |
Dominique Doshall, the daughter of the dying vampire Count, Alexandre Doshall paced her large apartment inside Cyfrinach castle. She could not shake the feeling of what she had sensed moments ago, it was as if there was a telescope seeing directly into her world from a far off place. The feeling of exposure was like a scratching in the pit of her stomach that would not cease.
And now dawn approached, the fear of sunlight was never one of her worst fears yet — she abided by the rule to day-sleep.
"Madame?" A timid voice said from the other side of her door.
It was Roman the head of household order , he'd come, as he did every dawn, to check if she needed anything before she went down.
Dominique took a breath and adjusted her tightening corset and went to the door.
"Come in." She said, her filled with nervous tension.
He sensed it and worried she'd somehow discovered Evie and Gabriel were his family.
He cleared his throat "Is something the matter?"
Then she too sensed his nerves in his voice. She turned away went over to her mirrorless vanity and sprayed a perfume of lavender and bergamot that filled the air around them. Roman made sure to stay clear from her spray, he remembered many years back how she had used a similar scent to entice one of the many followers, a man named Evan Sheering, living at the Castle into her web.
"You seem uncomfortable, Roman. Is everything alright?" She wondered.
"No, uh, nothing at all. And you ma'am? You also seem a bit distracted."
Dominique turned back to face the Doshall apprentice "Nothing for you to worry about." She said, hiding what she had sensed moments ago, believing that perhaps Roman knew more than he was saying. "Tell me, has Sebastian and his mortal woman gotten acquainted with their apartments?"
Roman nodded. "It seems so. But Evangeline has been locked in a separate room. I watched Sebastian do this. They are not getting along."
"Pity." Dominique replied. "I was hoping that she'd come around to living here and we wouldn't have to dispose of her. Making her one of us would make things so much easier, but if he's already having trouble then, perhaps removing the mother from the equation all together would speed up the process. My father's life is ticking away." She reminded.
"Dispose? I -- I don't know if we should do that." Roman said surprising his mistress.
She narrowed her eyes. "And why not?"
Roman gulped "Well, she's the mother of the child, he's very young and if he should ask for her, if he should cry, we wouldn't want to traumatize him. His energies need to be positive for him to help your father regain his lifeforce. Gabriel's negative energies may hamper that."
"Roman -- " she said, prepared to debate him, but she knew he was right. "She'll live. For now. For the child's sake, but once we are through with the transformation, Evangeline will not be needed. Now, when can I meet Sebastian. Tomorrow is key. Things have got to move fast Roman, do you understand, we cannot continue to wait. I must meet Sebastian and we must see if this child is the one true mixling we have been waiting for."
"Yes ma'am. Tomorrow. I'll rush over to him now before the sun comes up and prepare him for your meeting." He replied.
Dominique sensed something very different in Roman Ashby's demeanor. Something she had never felt before, he was holding back something. His emotions were almost blocked, she could not get through to him the way she used to. They had a very tight bond, a bond only a cult leader of Domnique's vampiric variety could devise.
She was a master of manipulation, a spinner of webs of mind control and seduction that attracted men and the women they loved, into her world. A world her father had designed full of darkness and treachery, malevolence and lust. She was the honey that attacked the bees and yet she was poison the left her victims in her control for her father's sake.
Their existence was not to take over the world and make everyone like them, but Goodwick was as good as theirs. Slowly, they'd come to take the entire village and rule it as their own small kingdom enriching themselves in the blood and Scottish beauty.
Gabriel, however, was the key to keeping this dream of village domination alive. It seemed simple, it seemed frivolous but keeping the village under the Doshall control, by whatever means necessary was the most and simply it meant survival. Only Gabriel's lifeforce could do this, but now, Roman seemed to stand in the way.
"Roman, I want to be sure that you understand how utile you are to this process. We have never reached this threshold before, never have we encountered the mixling in my lifetime. And thanks to your hard work, we've possibly finally found him. Do you understand? You are saving us all, by connecting to your friend in America and discovered Sebastian, this will make us truly immortal. I promise you will be handsomely rewarded for all you've done." Dominique replied, keeping her most trusted confidant in what she believed was a sweet spot.
But his worry now barred her from connecting to the place she had before. This was now a family matter, his own family.
"I -- I truly am gretful for all you and Count Doshall have done for me as I've been with you." He replied, strangely vague as if he were resigning. "I should get to Sebastian before the sun rises." He added before turning to the door.
Dominique knew now she needed to enter his mind to see what his hesitations were. If she could only touch his skin without him realizing it, she could enter his mind and see for herself. But it would only work if he did not feel her, if he knew she was touching him his mind, like anyone's would instantly block her from any entrance into his psyche.
She dared to get closer, she moved towards him as he walked to her bedroom door. She was floating above the hardwood floors so her shoes would not make sound. her long dress fluttered in the air and made shapes like waves lapping up on a sandy beach. She reached out her and to touch the back of his neck. Closer and closer she came as he reached for the door know and then suddenly, he turned.
Dominique instantly flashed backwards to where she was when he faced her.
He did not see a thing.
"Sleep well." he said before he left.
She smiled back at him from across the room. Her skin pale and glowing like the moon. Once the door closed, she narrowed her eyes and worried that perhaps she'd made a mistake with trusting him... and that perhaps Evangline would not be the only mortal who would need to be disposed of after all was said and done.
****
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| Evie, desperate to escape turns to violence |
At the very same time as Roman and Dominique spoke, over in a separate part of the castle, Sebastian quietly unlocked Evie's bedroom door with the key he was given with one hand, while the other held a tray of breakfast he was going to leave for her. He pushed it open slowly revealing her bed.
Evie was not in it and the bed had not been slept in all night.
As Sebastian stepped into the room, Evie came running out of a shadowy corner with a vase in her hands over her head ready to drop it on Sebastian in an ambush hoping to knock him and free herself.
Sebastian's reflexes were too fast for Evie and his powers were too supernatural for her mortal hopes.
He lifted his hands and Evie stopped in her tracks. Her mind locked in his gaze.
He motioned for her to drop the vase and she did. It fell to the floor shattering into large pieces at her bare feet. She snapped out of her trance and instinctually reached for the large shard of the vase to use against Sebastian but the glass sliced a thin cut into her finger. She winced in pain as the cut began to ooze out the darkest red blood.
"Tsk, tsk." He said putting the tray of food down on a desk.
He grabbed Evie's hand and led her to the bed sitting her down and put her finger in his mouth taking the blood from her. Disgusted she pulled away from him.
"You disgust me." She whispered as the morning approached.
He looked at her not understanding her resistance, he thought living at Cyfrinach -- so free and together-- would have made her happy but she had not connected yet with the place.
"Evie, please, don't resist me anymore. Its only bringing us further apart and I don't want that. I brought us here so that we could finally be the family we never got to be. Here you and I can be together and parent Gabriel together. It’s all we’ve ever wanted.”
“Sebastian — you.. you’re delusional. We aren’t going to be a family in a place where we are prisoners. It’s not right.” She replied.
“Being a family was our dream but so far we've become nothing short of enemies. That's not good for Gabriel." He said to her sincerely.
"What’s not good for Gabriel is keeping him in a place like this. Think about what you’ve done: you have locked me in some bedroom somewhere and taken my child from me. How can any of that make me happy or --- make me want to reform our family?" She wondered.
"Our son." He corrected her. "Besides keeping you and Gabriel apart — well it’s only temporary." He added naively.
"I want to see him. I want to see Gabriel." She said forcefully.
Sebastian stood up from Evie who was still sitting on the bed with cut finger tightly gripped in her balled up healthy hand. He went over to the broken vase and looked down.
"No." He answered simply.
"YES!" She shouted and stood up. "NOW! I want to see him now!"
"I said no." He replied again calmly as he reached down and began to pile the broken vase shards together. "Stay away from this area if you don't have on shoes. Ill ask for something to clean it and come back." He said going towards the door.
"Sebastian, I swear to god, I swear on everything on this planet that is good that I will get out of here and I will find my child and I will leave this place with him and you will never, ever see him again. Do you understand me? You have broken every fiber of trust in me by kidnapping us and locking me away. There is no turning back now." Evie said walking towards him as he went to the door to leave.
"Evie, we're in the safest place for a family likes ours to be. This is where we belong, in time you'll see that and understand. The Doshall family is our salvation, and we're here forever."
She couldn't understand why he was being so cold to her, why he wasn't listening, why he was allowing for all of this to happen as if it were a normal decision. Sebastian's mind seemed somewhere else. He almost seemed forced to speak this way.
"Bring me Gabriel." She repeated again hoping her stern request would this time be listened to.
"No." He said from the opened door, this time he was on the other side.
The door was closing.
"Sebastian, don't lock it! SEBASTIAN!" Evie shouted rushing the door just before Sebastian closed it and locked it again.
She pounded on the door. Screaming his name. She pounded and pounded and screamed and screamed. She felt an ironic feeling of being back in the coffin pounding on the lid for Jacqueline to release her. There was no use then, and there was no use now. Sebastian had chosen to take them away from the people that they loved for his own selfish purposes and now she had to fight back before things got worse.
She slid down the door angry -- the tears were dried. She looked over at the pile of broken glass then her eyes gazed up to the window that was covered with bars and frosted glass. She could she the color of glass changing marking the rising sun. Day had come.
Evie had to think, she had to plan her escape and get Gabriel away from all of this but the plan had to be fool proof and leave her to mistake for the sake of her son's life.
She got up, her mind unable to calm. She had not slept. She had not been able to change her clothes or bathe. She went over to the breakfast that Sebastian had brought her and lifted the shiny metal dome revealing a pretty breakfast. She picked up the tray and threw it across the room and watched the food splatter on the wall and slide down plopping to the floor in a messy clump.
Evie then went over and drew the curtains of the room on another set of large widows equally as barred and equally made of frosted glass. She could not see out. She could not tell where she was or how far up she was in the castle. The brightening light of the dawn shined through the frosted glass and showed her the room she'd call her cell.
It was nicer than any coffin and even the jail cell in Welshport. A bed made of the finest linens. The walls had the most beautiful floral wallpaper of red dahlias and thorny vines that curled into perches for black and blue birds with red eyes. The golden oil lamp figures glittered with low light. Evie turned the brass key making the fire burn hotter and brighter and then, she saw it.
The painting above the bed a stunning woman with dark brown hair, fair skin and eyes that seemed to look right into Evie's soul.
It was Dominique Doshall staring back at her like the frosted over queen of Cyfrinach Castle.
Evie's eyes narrowed.
"Now, who the hell are you?" She whispered to herself. The question burned in her mind like the hot flames in the lanterns. And she wondered just how this person had gotten into Sebastian's mind and controlled him so quickly.
****
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| Matthew & Hope are off to Scotland |
Back in Welshport, the misty moonless evening made for a perfect escape for Matthew and his long-lost older sister Hope. Matthew had worked his seafaring connections and gotten passage onto a fright ship that was headed to the British Isles. Money exchanged hands and the two Winterborns were set to join the crew of 10 aboard a ship called Ceres.
Walking along a side pier Fatima Braga walked with a basket of fish she had purchased form an early returning fish trawler, a man she'd known in Portugal who'd always given her first glance at his catch before it hit the market. After paying him and thanking him kindly she watched as the fisherman and his team set sail again while his latest catch was hauled out to the markets. Fatima always enjoyed the hustle and bustle of a fishing village.
As she continued on her way home, she turned slightly and noticed Matthew and Hope slowly walking the long wooden plank that led into the hull of Ceres.
"God keep you in his graces." She whispered to herself of Matthew.
Matthew and Hope made their way through the iron walls of Ceres. She felt a bit nervous, unsure if what they were doing was the right thing, but she knew she had to help her brother. They'd been separated for so many years, and all she wanted to reconnect and hopefully give Matthew back the part of himself that he hid all these years: the connection to their people and their customs.
The two entered the small quarters that their $40 bought them. It had one small cot in the corner, no window and smelled or rusted iron.
"You can take the cot." He said.
She smirked, nervously, and sat on the small bed and hugged herself as the jolt of the ship pulling out to see shook the room.
"I feel a little off." She whispered.
"What do you mean?" He asked kneeling down so that their eyes met.
"Maybe it's the small quarters, I don't know but, I've suddenly gotten very nervous about all this. I feel a bit claustrophobic — my best feels tight." She added.
“Do you need to go up? Get some air?” He worried, but she waved her hand, gesturing in the negative.
“I’ll be fine.” She hoped.
"I know, I feel it too." Matthew replied, with a sigh. "But I don't want you to worry. These ships are very fast and we'll be on land in a few days. We won't even feel like we're on the ocean, aside from when we dock again. You'll feel that tug as the ship docks."
Hope took a deep breath. She was trying to hide the fact that this was not truthfully a feeling of claustrophobia or sea sickness. She felt something much more worrisome, a doom that she could not let go of but that she also could not identify.
"No. I feel something else. Something else is just... not sitting right." Hope replied.
"Come." Matthew answered standing up and giving his hand. "You need air. Let's go up to the deck and get some fresh air. Maybe that'll help."
She agreed, took his hand and the two walked back into the iron halls of the ship. They were dark and damn. The stains of old water leaks marked the foam green walls in rivers of red rust. There were corners of the metal eaten away years of salt water and salty air. A rat scurried in the shadows behind them frightening Hope who heard it's tiny nails scratch the ground as it past her.
"This way I think." Matthew said, still holding his sister's hand as they went up an iron latter that led up to the side deck known as a breezeway. It had wood floors that were corroded and warped by decade of rain and waves. But still walkable.
Matthew and Hope stood there and let the wind flow over them cooling their warm skin. Seagulls followed as the ship let out it's loud horn signaling they'd passed a marker and the rest of the smaller ships in line to leave Welshport Harbor were safe to begin their own voyage.
"It's beautiful." Hope said, having never seen Welshport from this angle.
"Quiet even." Her brother replied as the island got smaller and smaller in the distance.
"Every little light is like a star twinkling in the sky." She added.
"You haven't seen anything yet." Matthew answered. "Once we get out into open see, the sky will be filled with thousands of little bright dots. You'll be amazed."
"Matthew," she said. "I'm afraid." She admitted.
Matthew took a breath and held his sister close. The reality was setting in, he was scared too.
Back on the Island, the world continued to turn:
The very much alive Verity Spencer, now her own person and not possessed by Jacqueline, moved about the village in a dark cloak hiding her face. She watched as the townspeople lived their lives as if nothing had happened just a month ago at the trial and her supposed death. She stood, now, only feet from where they tied her to a pole and burned her alive. Her next move would make her life in town permanent.
At Tirymor House the Lord family sat for dinner, dressed to the nines as was customary. Jacob at the head of the table, Rebecca at the foot. They're eyes almost never meeting despite practically sitting directly in front of each other. Rebecca's estranged husband living outside of the mansion was a conversation unspoken. Charlotte was visiting. Fabian, fiddled with his food while Celeste, ever the doting mother, asked him politely to eat and not play as servants darted in and out of the glittering dinning room with more courses.
Across the village near Village Hall, Nathan entered Mayor Timothy Churchill's home. It was quiet. Silence. Nothing was stirring. He called out to the mayor but there was no answer. In fact the reason he'd come to the home was because the mayor had not been seen in two days. There was an eerie silence. Deathly even. He followed the path of the hallway and pushed the slightly open bedroom door open. Deathly silent indeed.
At The Braga's Fatima returned with the fresh catch. Filipe quickly latched on to the heavy basket and happily tore into some of the fresh fish he'd fry for dinner. Mary quietly played with her adopted son Caleb in a chair in the living room. He giggled innocently, not knowing the mother he knew now was not his mother, but was a different woman across town named Aurora Jordan.
Aurora, for her part, quietly read from a book in Evie's sitting room at Bellmoore Beach. Caspian, Rebecca's estranged husband, happily watched her over his own newspaper. His headaches slowly coming again as the cool air of the sea seeped into the candle lit room. His mind splitting faster and faster with ever winching pain of his headache. Then a flash of memory...a dead man in his hands.
Johnathon stared out of his third story room window at Churchill Green asylum. The quiet night felt a long time coming. He worried for his friend in Europe, Roman. He wondered what his first meeting with Sebastian was like, did they get along? Did Roman accept the new family into the world he protected at Cyfrinach Castle? A knock on the door, Johnathon told the person to enter. It was a nurse, a woman with a familiar, if not bewitching, twinkle in her eye.
Chrsitopher and Geneveive were entangled in each other's arms. Their lips on fire. Her hair cascaded over her naked shoulders like long dark waves. He could feel her tremble with the slight autumn chill in the air as the night gown slipped all the way down to the floor of their bedroom. She kissed his bare chest. He nibbled her earlobe then, they fell back on the bed as he fell into her with a passionate thrust that connected them in every sense of the word.
Cora skimmed through her adoption papers with Aaron while Lear and Lucas' romantic world clashed as hot and heavy as Chris and Geneveive's. They had come to an impasse and Lear had finally given in and decided to help figure out who was the person responsible for the black-market baby sale. Lear knew how much it meant for his returned sister to know every detail of the truth. It would finally happen.
Nikolas Jordan paced the hospital room with Asha who'd been recovering from her coma while Danielle finished her night shift and went home to worry about what would come of her secret relationship with Nik and her father's return. Danielle knew Rebecca blamed her for her sudden separation but there was nothing going to stop her from getting her father back. Nik, for his part, worried Asha would never regain her memory of what she and Reigns did to the child Aurora gave birth to. Asha, her memory intact, continued to keep the truth locked behind her lying eyes to keep Nik near and away from Danielle.
Yes, the world would continue to turn in Welshport while Matthew and Hope went away.
Which meant one thing: An unpredictable future was setting itself up one drama at a time. For now, Welshport and all it's secrets and mystery would be locked away tightly under the gauze of the Atlantic fog giving way for the terrors the awaited in the Scottish village of Goodwick.
The Winterborns saw Welshport disappear now over the horizon of that sea as they would turn to face another world beyond their knowing. For now, Welshport would be in the foreground. For now.
Into the fog covered sea the Ceres went, cutting through ocean waves like a hot knife through butter and in just a few days' time, Scotland would appear.
Matthew wondered about the people he was leaving behind. The friends he'd made. The life he made.
For them Winterborns aboard this rapidly distancing ship, the worry and fear of what they'd find when they got to Scotland was beating like a drum in their minds. Louder and louder the worry came of the treacherous journey that lied ahead but also for what they'd find when they returned to Welshport.
If --- if they'd return to Welshport.
