 |
| Gathering at the police station |
On an afternoon that could not contain the shocking news of Dr. Asha Hoffman's death, a crush of local media filled the front of the newly reconstructed police station in the center of Welshport Village. An overcast sky cast a blue glow around everyone's faces as flashbulbs illuminated the new Constable's young handsome face. He did all he could to calm the press, his words seeming to drift into the air and evaporate into the cold air reporters dug for more information. The press in this area of the country was hungry for scandal, and Welshport seemed to be a constant fountain of it pouring into the local ether of what would soon become local mythology.
Inside the jailhouse, Nik had been taken into custody, not yet arrested for the crime, but questioned heavily over his relationships with Danielle and Asha. The tincture vial of empty nightshade extract found in his office did not bode well for the young doctor's innocence.
Welshport's leading prosecutor, Eden Syndey, had come to speak with Nik's family. He wanted to be sure they understood the nature of the charges Nik could be facing if the proof of his possible guilt was found.
In a small freshly painted meeting room Nik's mother Aurora sat close to her accused son and held her breath. She felt responsible for the entire ordeal. The only reason Nik was still involved with Asha was in hopes that her memory would return, and she could tell everyone what she did with Aurora and Caspian's child. Nik had fallen out of love with Asha when he discovered her betrayal of his family months ago.
The pain in Aurora's eyes felt crippling. Caspian stood at the door of the room with numb Danielle. Father and Daughter lost in thought at how all of this was their fault too.
"There is plausible evidence against you Dr. Jordan I can't go into details of what I've been given but if you had anything to do with this I suggest you come clean as soon as possible. It'll make it that much easier for you and your whole family." Eden instructed.
"Mr. Syndey as I've told the Constable and Dr. Ward, I had absolutely nothing to do with those patients becoming ill and certainly nothing at all to do with Asha's poisoning and death. I cared and loved Asha for years, I just wouldn't do something that sick -- not to anyone much less her. It against everything I am and my oath as a doctor." Nik explained.
"The evidence may prove otherwise, doctor. That's what you should be prepared for." Eden replied.
"Eden, my god, you can't actually believe my son would do this. He pledged to heal people, not make them sick and die. This is must have been just a terrible mistake." Aurora replied, ever the mother bear protecting her cub.
"Mrs. Jordan, I'm only telling you what could happen, evidence is evidence -- no matter what. I'll be honest, this isn't going to be an easy case for your lawyer." Eden explained.
"Lawyer?" Danielle whispered realizing Nik was in incredible legal danger and he hadn't retained a lawyer yet.
"But I didn't do it, surly there will be evidence that shows that too? How can there not be?" Nik asked, a naive innocent man attempting to reach for any sliver if hope.
Eden sighed and realized too that it didn't make logical sense for someone so intelligent to do something so foolish.
"Alright -- I'll play devil's advocate. Who would have wanted to do this to you -- frame you as it were?" Eden asked.
No one said a word, a name -- Nik had no enemies. There was silence.
"I... I don't know. I can't imagine who. Or why." Nik replied finally breaking the group's quiet.
"Dr. Ward was very sure that something was going on between you and Nurse Holten," Eden began as Danielle and Nik both moved uncomfortable in their skins with embarrassment of their affair. "Don't want you to fault Dr. Ward, he is the chief of staff at Hope and he has to look out for his hospital. He needed to ask those questions."
"I think we understand." Danielle replied in a meek voice.
"I will say however, that it don't get the notion that he actually believes you could have done this, but as I said, there are touches of evidence that clearly suggesting a motive."
"He accused me right off?" Nik asked.
"Because you both lied." Eden replied bluntly.
"We... we --- " Danielle stammered.
"We care for each other a great deal." Nik said.
"Then why did he lie?" Eden asked, the room stood silent again. "Why did he pretend to still love one woman, Asha, when another woman had his heart? There have been rumors, apparently, of the two of you hiding around the hospital in lover's conversations. Nikolas, this does not look good. So why lie?"
Nik new why. Aurora, Caspian and Danielle too. They all knew Nik had to continue to pretend to love Asha to get her to heal and finally remember who she gave the baby to, but now -- there was no use, it was all over.
"I had to be sure that -- " Nik began.
"Nikolas, I -- " Caspian began, hoping to cut Nik off before it all came out but a sudden sharp pain stung him in his temple. Caspian keeled over in pain and fell to his knees and screeched with pain.
Danielle gasped and knelt down next to her father and caressed his back. "Are you ok? Father, look at me. Please." She said, calling him father felt strange, almost alien. She hadn't called him that in a while. But it slipped out. He grabbed her hand and, in that moment, felt as if he were her father Viktor again, like it was before the malevolent Caspian took over.
"I'll get you some water." Danielle added.
"Is he alright?" Eden wondered.
"He's suffered headaches since his injury at the caves when Mary, Evie and Matthew were arrested. I didn't know they'd come back so severely." Aurora said, quickly rushing to Caspian's side. "Breath, just breath." She continued.
Caspian suddenly pushed her off, shocking the room with his aggression.
There was pause in the air, almost as if time had frozen. Everyone stared at Capsian whose face was red, swollen from his pain. Sweating and unable to make sense of why he shoved Aurora in such a way. His mind began to flash of his hands around someone's neck. A face. Another face on a dark street. Two men, their bodies trapped in Caspian's controlling violent rage. The face of the dead ex-Mayor Churchill, the face of Baxter Murphy beaten to a bloody pulp.
"Take it easy, now, take it easy." Eden said, getting up from his chair facing Nik.
Danielle walked back into the room with water, Caspian, his head throbbing with his violent memories, quickly turned heading for the door and Danielle. The two collided and the glass of water went flying into the wall adjacent from them. Danielle fell back into the wall with a powerful thud as Nik rushed to help her.
"Caspian...." Aurora said, her voice flooding the void of noise in the room with a nervous power.
"I'm sorry. I'm... I'm so sorry. I have to get out of here. I have to get some air. Please... please forgive me all you." Caspian said as he dashed off.
Eden stood there in silence.
"I should go after him." Aurora suddenly answered.
"Go." Nik said.
Aurora's heart broke into two pieces. One would stay with her son, the other she'd carry with her to find the troubled Caspian.
"Come straight home, ok? Come right home after this." She said kissing his cheek, he smiled sweetly and agreed he would.
Eden sat back down and pulled out a third seat for Danielle who was shellshocked over Caspian's reaction and Nik's questioning. She began to feel as if the world around her had fallen into a pit of hell. Lies. Secrets. Betrayal. Death. There was too much of it at every corner. Had she caused it by returning to Welshport to settle her late mother's estate? Should she have just let her father's memory die away and allowed him to live as Caspian instead of push for him to return to his truth self: Viktor. Had her presence not only caused Nik and Asha's relationship to faulter but also Caspian and Rebecca's.
Then it dawned on her.
"Rebecca." She whispered under her breath.
Eden, sitting next to her, heard.
"Rebecca... Lord?" He asked. "What about her?"
"Rebecca!" Nikolas answered quickly. "I saw her, I saw her at the hospital just before all of this happened. She was leaving Asha's floor. We crossed just before she went into the elevator."
"I don't follow, what would Rebecca Lord have to do with any of this?" Eden wondered just before the room fell quiet.
"Casador." Danielle corrected, breaking the beat of silence.
Eden shook his head confused.
"Rebecca Lord-Casador: Caspian's wife. Caspian is the father of Aurora's missing child; the same child Dr. Hoffman took at birth and gave up for adoption without Caspian or Aurora's permission. This child is what binds Caspian and Aurora and is one threat to Rebecca's marriage."
"But how would you know any of this?" Eden asked, his brow furrowed into a deep V.
"She told Danielle herself. She's always made it very clear how she feels not only about Aurora and Caspian's connection but how she feels about Danielle's hopes to get Caspian's memories back. Her iciness towards Danielle blew up in her face when Caspian discovered Rebecca was keeping the truth from him." Nik explained.
"She never wanted me to be involved with Caspian -- who is really my father Viktor. Rebecca has always seen anything that takes away from their relationship as her personal enemy." Danielle added.
Eden took in a big sign and leaned back on his chair, his head swimming with all the connections and twists the story had just taken.
"Still I..." Eden began to say before Nik interrupted.
"Get comfortable Eden, this is a doozy." Nik said, preparing to tell him everything just as Constable Justin Ryan reentered the room.
"And what's going on here?" Justin said, seeing three deep concerned faces.
Another beat of silence.
"Looks like we're about to hear the truth." Eden answered. "All of it."
****
 |
| Secret in the basement |
Over a short boat ride across the tiny water way from Welshport Island to Goode Island, a darkened basement under the Goode family cottage where a salt encircled 9 foot wide, 10 foot deep pit had been dug, glowed the light of two oil lamps. Inside the hole, Mary Goode tried her best to climb the crumbling dirt walls. Her face and hands caked in the dark island soil. Her dress filthy and blackened by the dampness of her confines.
Every inch she climbed in a vertical line only felt more and more complicated when the dirt around her fell apart in her hands dropping her back down to the ground.
She had no idea how to get herself out. Her magic rendered useless thanks to the salty circle around the mouth of the pit she was placed in. A clever old trick of the bewitching world that held off the magic of dark mistresses. What made matters worse, the hole itself had clearly been created with her twin Verity's sorcery.
It was a giant gaping reminder that Verity was not only her flesh and blood sister given a second chance a life by the witch council but also proof of her own growing powers.
As Mary paced the circular form of her subterranean prison, a stirring above her could be heard. Someone was home and walking around the front room of the small cottage on Goode Island. Hearing this, Mary stopped in her tracks and stared high above her out of the mouth of the hole she was trapped in as dust fell from the floorboards the made up the basement's ceilings.
"Verity." Mary whispered to herself. "VERITY!!!" She screamed.
The person above suddenly stopped. Dust fell from the frozen feet above and down on to Mary's face like snow from a winter sky.
"VERITY! PLEASE!!!" Mary screamed up to her twin again.
The person, seen only in shadows from below, turned and began to walk towards where the basement door would be in the first floor of the house. Mary heard every step. Then, she heard the basement door open slowly. It creaked, like seagulls screeching over a wide-open sea.
Footsteps than came from the staircase. Slowly and methodically, the steps came down the bowing wooden steps of the dark basement staircase. Mary, blinded by the walls of the pit she was in, anticipated an angry twin sister's face ready to reprimand her for screaming so loudly for her freedom. But what she saw in the glow of her lanterns up at the top, was a face far from her twin's.
It was Jacqueline Gray.
Jacqueline's eyes widened, shocked to see Mary standing in deep down in the whole. A small bed made of a shabby mattress, a personal bucket, the tiniest card table set up one of the lanterns and a small meal.
"What the devil --- she actually did it????" Jacqueline thought to herself as her hands held tight to the rim of the whole. She could feel the shards of broken salt all around it.
"Jacqueline, oh thank god, you have to get me out of here. You have to help me up and out, it was Verity. Verity has returned and she's placed me here and has gone to Welshport as me!"
Jacqueline signed and sat back on the ground, she pulled her knees to her chest and locked them close to her as her long light-colored dress flowed over and into the hold.
"You know this feels quite ironic, Mary. It really is." Jacqueline said. "I was told to take over a body and allow myself to be burned at the stake -- for you. I did it. I did everything I was asked to do, and now the witch council has decided to shift gears and give Verity her own life -- and the irony is she's decided the hell with her own life, she wants yours!!!"
Jacqueline burst into a cold laughter that iced Mary's blood. The frustration in the trapped woman's body began to overflow and she screamed up at Jacqueline with such anger Jacqueline swore she felt the air around her shift.
"Get me out, Jacqueline, you have to."
"I have to?" Jacqueline questioned with a glimmer of sarcasm. "I have nothing to do with this. Absolutely nothing. This is your sister, this is your mess and this is what the council has laid out for you. I won't get involved."
"You have to, you can't allow another sister in our coven do this to another, can you? She's posing as me, she's taking to my home and trying to be me!" Mary replied.
"Is very in our coven? I hadn't heard." Jacqueline replied flippantly. "Either way, I won't get involved, not now, not ever. Verity, for some reason or another, has the ear of the council. She's been given her own free will and freedom of thought by them for a reason and if I do anything against their wishes, its curtains for me. And I have plenty on my plate do contend with than get involved with two messy twin sisters."
"But the council will punish you too! You knew this was happening and you've let it!" Mary shouted up.
"That's what I think you want to hear, but sweet, dear Mary, that is not the truth." Jacqueline replied as she stood up. "I'm sorry. -- Yes, I really am, but I'm stepping away far, far away from this fire. I've already been symbolically burned alive. I think I've paid my dues to this coven."
Jacqueline then turned and began to make her way over to the staircase. Mary began screaming for Jacqueline to come back, help her, do what she could. The screams did bother Jacqueline. She was cold and calculating but she still had a heart, despite the evil things she'd done before. Her own hurt, her own damage came from decades of loneliness and abandonment. But the cards were stacked against her by the council -- and Jacqueline knew it.
"PLEASE!!!" Mary screamed. "Jacqueline, I beg you; I would owe you; I would be in debt to you. Get me out of here, please!"
Jacqueline turned back and walked slowly towards the of the pit and peered down over into it and looked Mary in the eye as best she could. Her facial expression showed that she had no intention of helping Mary any time soon.
"They've bound me, Mary. Because of what I did during the witch trials and all the other things I've done, the council has bound my powers. I'm limited and this circle of salt is better protection against anything I can do. I think Verity knew this. She expected this. And she's smarter than you or I ever thought she could be. You'll have to do this all on your own." Jacqueline explained.
As Mary stared up into the darkness above her from the bottom of the pit, Jacqueline's face vanished from the surface. The footsteps leading up the staircase and into the house then led out of the house.
Jacqueline left the Goode cottage, and Mary, for good.
Mary fell to her knees and began to cry. With Jacqueline refusing to help, she indeed realized she was now on her own. No magic. No coven sister to come to her rescue.
Alone.
****
 |
| In the park with the Bragas |
That afternoon, as the sun hung behind the gloomy sky, Filipe and Verity (posing as Mary) walked along the wet stone paths of Village Park with Charlotte and little Caleb. To the outsider this was a picture-perfect family, a husband and wife with their two beautiful children, but in reality, a more sinister secret churned within the mother who proudly pushed her baby boy's buggy under the dripping dewy trees.
"Caleb's been a bit fussy this afternoon." Charlotte noted.
"Has he?" Filipe wondered, looking down at the boy who squirmed in his buggy.
Filipe stepped in front of the buggy pulling the boy out and holding him close but there seemed to be no use to calm the child.
"Maybe he's hungry?" Charlotte noted.
"He ate just a bit ago." Filipe answered. "And he doesn't need a changing. Here you go big boy, go to mama, she can always calm the baby beast."
Charotte giggled at Filipe's joke as she watched her stepfather pass the baby over to Verity who grabbed hold of the boy and gulped. She cuddled him close as she thought a mother should but suddenly Filipe and Charlotte saw a difference in her, a difference in the woman they thought was Mary.
There was a strange distance in the way the mother and child interacted with each other that hadn't happened before. The baby almost reacted as if he were being held by a stranger.
"He is very, very upset!" Charlotte said, caressing her baby brother's head.
"I -- I don't know why he's so unhappy." Verity replied in her best Mary voice. "Should we go home? Perhaps he's sleepy."
"Don't you remember? We woke him from a nap to go on this walk. He slept for most of the afternoon. He can't be tired." Filipe replied.
"Maybe he's sick. That could be it, it's been awfully chilly, I'd hate for him to be out here in this cool air feeling sick. Let's go back to the house." Verity replied, again in her best impersonation of the sister she had imprisoned in a home-made pit in the basement of the Goode Family cottage.
Verity then pulled the baby off of her chest as if she were removing a piece of lint that was attached to her tight bodice and held him out for Filipe to take. This took Filipe by surprise, a strange alien behavior that Mary had never shown. It was off putting and made Filipe uncomfortable to see his wife look so unattached to the little boy that just two days ago she was so in love with.
"Mary, what is it? Are you feeling ok yourself?" Filipe wondered.
"You have been a bit quiet mummy." Charlotte added.
"Have I? I'm sorry! I guess you're both right." Verity said quickly trying to cover. "I think the worry over what might happen with Caleb's parents is still really bothering me. I just don't want to lose him and it feels possible."
Filipe took the baby from Verity as he finally stopped his frustrated wiggles and slipped him back into the buggy where the child himself pulled up a pristine white blanket to keep warm. Filipe then grabbed Verity's hand, cold as ice to match the air around them in the park and squeezed it tightly.
"I wish I could take that worry out of your mind, but like I've told you I would never ever allow anyone to take Caleb. There is nothing I wouldn't do to keep our family, as it is, together." He said reaching for his 15-year-old Stepdaughter and hugging her, reminding "Mary" her own daughter with Jacob was like his own child.
The family, a unit, a solid loving family that had battled so many things in their past, was as thick as thieves. Now there seemed to be a crack in the foundation, and "Mary" in her current form, was the crack that needed to be filled.
"We're a real family." Verity said, her voice still in the soft texture of Mary's tone. "A father and mother and our children.
Charlotte furrowed her brow. Something was different about her mother Mary. Something she could not feel with her own powers as Verity knew better than to allow the young woman the ability to link into her subconscious and risk discovery.
"Mummy, I think you need to rest. You do seem a bit exhausted." Charlotte replied, an idea to get "Mary" to sleep popped in her mind.
In sleep, Charlotte could infiltrate the subconscious of the woman she adored to see where all this odd behavior was coming from.
"Sleep?! I think I'm fine, its this little baby boy who needs a good long nap." Verity said, quickly forgetting Filipe had already said Caleb had been asleep.
Filipe and Charlotte shot each other looks. They both could tell something was off about Verity, but it had been a rough time after the witch trials, the idea of coming back to a regular life after almost losing her life by burning might have caught up to her.
"Let's get back." Filipe said, pulling Mary into a big side hug as Charlotte took control of the buggy. "I think we all need a good time away from here."
"Away?" Verity wondered. "From Welshport?"
"Would you like that?" He asked.
"Where would we go?" Charlotte wondered.
"Oh, I don't know, somewhere we can all put Welshport behind us for a while. Somewhere we can pretend we're someone else and just be happy." He said.
"Be someone else." Verity whispered. "I think I'd like that."
"I'd love that!" Charlotte laughed. "School is almost out for the spring, and I'm sure my father wouldn't mind me taking a holiday with this side of my family."
Filipe smiled "We'd be hard pressed not to ask Jacob his permission, but yes, I'm sure he'd be fine with it."
"Jacob?" Verity said, her face clearly confused.
"Jacob." Filipe replied seeing her frozen confused look. He stopped them all in the park path. "Is there something wrong?"
"I -- Jacob -- yes. Charlotte's father, yes. I'm sorry. You know what, you're both right. I probably do need some rest. I haven't slept well, I have been up worrying about Caleb and everything, my brain is on it's last moments. Please, forgive me, both of you." The imposter said, clearly reading the faces of Mary's husband and child were now falling into deep concern over Mary forgetting Jacob.
"Let's get you home." Charlotte said, shooting Filipe another look. "We'll get you to sleep."
Verity smiled and took over for Charlotte by pushing the baby buggy the rest of the way home. She knew now it would a lot harder posing as Mary and she had not done a good job of it on this first full day. If she wanted to continue the lie, the concealment of her true self, it was imperative never to have another day like this.
She had to do better. Or fail.
****
 |
| Aurora meets with Lear |
Meanwhile, at the Bellmore Beach house, Aurora rushed into the house and quickly removed her long coat and hat. She tossed the garments on to the soft woven white sofa's and called out for Caspian who had rushed out of the police station in a fit of his now reoccurring headaches.
Aurora dashed into the parlor -- empty.
She went into the adjoining screened off sunroom, also empty. Empty bedrooms, empty study.
The house was completely void of any signs of the man she conceived a child with. Caspian was nowhere to be found.
Aurora went back into the front room and looked around hoping that maybe he had come home and before her and left again. She scanned for any kind of proof. But there was nothing.
Then, a sudden knock on the door. Aurora rushed over and opened it. The sky had darkened as dusk soon approached to welcome in a new night. Standing at the door was Lear Lockwood, the lawyer who agreed to represent Evie in the witch trials had agreed to do the same for Nik.
"Good evening, Aurora." He said smiling.
"Oh, it's you." She replied in a strange almost disappointed tone.
"I received a call from the police station, I've seen Nik. He said for me to come here too, did I misunderstand?"
"No! No, not at all. I apologize for my reaction, I was —never mind, please come in.” She said.
Sending Aurora’s frantic energy Lear wondered if something else has happened since Nik’s call to him from the station.
“I just am worried about Caspian." She replied as he entered.
“Is he ill?”
Aurora couldn't truthfully answer. She didn't know for sure, but there obviously was something wrong with him. She shook her head and invited him to sit down on the white sofas where the room fell silent except for the bashing waves of the Bellmore Beach outside.
Lear opened his briefcase and began to pore through Nik's case files that had just been delivered. He hadn't been formally arrested or arraigned but there were already files on the case that needed to be addressed before anything else happened. Aurora was clearly distracted, not by the waves, but by her own spiraling thoughts.
"Perhaps this is a bad time, I can go over these with you another time when Nik is back. He left the police station with me and was going to take Danielle home. I'll come back." Lear said gathering his paperwork.
"No, no, I want to hear this too. Its just -- I hate to burden you with more of our family issues -- but Caspian was with me at the station and while we all discussed what was happening with Eden, he changed suddenly. He became, well, he wasn't himself." Aurora said.
Lear's face changed. He knew of Caspian's past traumas of a darkness consuming him. He knew of the evil mind he had at one point when he was possessed by a force no one could understand. Hearing he'd suddenly wasn't himself again, seemed ominous.
"I don't want to assume anything, and obviously you have a lot on your plate now, but you don't think--? Lear began before she quickly interrupted.
"-- NO! I don't think that."
"There would be signs." Lear said, nudging her to see that perhaps whatever happened in the office was a sign of something happening to him again.
"No, no, he's had headaches since the attack at the coves. I believed they'd gotten better but he's having them again. I just don't know how frequently. He's ill, is all. I don't think anything -- else --- is happening."
Aurora was unable to say what both of them were thinking. It was there, on the tip of their tongue yet neither of them could -- or would -- admit that there might be a slight possibility that Caspian's darker, more nefarious and demonic counterpart had returned. How could it? How could it have come back?
"Alright then. Shall we discuss Nikolas' case?" Lear asked.
Aurora still wearing the worry on her face like a mask, nodded calmly. Lear began to talk but Aurora's mind simply drifted off into the sound of the waves outside hoping Caspian would come home himself, and not something born in the fires of hell.
****
 |
| The Ryan brothers reconnect |
"I brought wine." Donavon replied stepping into the small quaint home taking it all in. "This is nice!"
"Not too shabby, eh." Justin grinned popping the cork on the wine. "White? I like white."
"I remembered."
"Sit, sit!" Justin added, pouring two full glasses of wine, the clear spheres of the glass shimmering in the low light of the room. "I'm so sorry we're just now catching up. I've been so busy since I got here. Did you know I'm the youngest constable this village has ever had!?"
"That's good! Idle hands are the devil's ---" Donavon paused, a photo of Caspian Casador peeked out from under a file.
Justin smirked but furrowed his brow "Workshop." Justin finished. "What?"
"What's that?" Donavon pointed to the file on a side table.
"OH! Shit!!" Justin shouted reaching for the file to move it away, then caught himself cursing in front of his priest brother. "Oops. Shit. I mean shoot. Ugh, Von I'll never get used to seeing you dressed like this. And THAT is work. Pretend you didn't see it." Justin answered.
"Why do you have a photo of Caspian?" Donavon wondered.
"Look, I know how important this job is to you, I wouldn't have set you up for that interview with Mayor Cramer, but Caspian is -- well, I have a bit of history with him, and seeing his face in a police file worries me."
"Ok, now it's you who has to tell me what's going on. All I can tell you is that there is a bit of curious information someone gave me about something that Caspian was mixed up in, nothing illegal, just about a relationship he had and a possible child and -- it's all very tangled up and I have to figure it all out." Justin replied.
"Only that it didn't."
The Lie upon lie upon lie, the knot of it all getting larger and larger as the months went by -- all of this revealed by Nikolas to Justin right there under the very exposing lights of the new jail house interrogation room.
Then Donavon blurted out something that felt like someone taking Justin by the throat.
"Caspian was possessed by a demon. I should know, I'm the one who exorcised it from his body."
"He what? YOU WHAT?"
"Jesus Christ." Justin whispered realizing he'd taken the Lord's name in vein. "Oh, sorry, but Jesus Christ."
 |
| Chris, Genevieve & Morgan are stalked |
Back in the village, Genevieve and Christopher walked along the slick cobble stone streets with Genevieve's son Morgan. They had just left Gramercy Cafe where they had dinner. It was a sweet reunion of sorts, as Morgan had finally moved back in with his mother after being with the Braga family for a very long time. The repair of this relationship was paramount for Genevieve whose guilt for leaving Morgan alone for so long as she traveled to England to find Christopher seemed too painful for the young man to let go of.
And for good reason. Loneliness and abandonment can never truly dissipate like morning fog. This was a relationship that would need intensive care to finally get back to normal. Morgan's moving in, was a start.
"It's really wonderful how you've decorated your new bedroom." Genevive said to Morgan as she walked between both Christopher and her son with both of her arms interlocked through both men creating a chain of a new family.
"It's nothing really. Just a few framed of maps I like." He replied. "The routes Filipe takes when his fishing ship goes out into the Atlantic."
"Filipe gave those to you?" Chris asked, Morgan nodded, the nonverbal response hinting at discomfort.
"I know you've grown very close to Filipe and Mary, but as I mentioned at dinner I hope you can give us a chance to reconnect, son. " Genevieve said, her eyes beginning to water. "I have to much to make up for."
The three stopped in their walk.
Genevieve turned her son towards her. Their eyes locked. She could see he still didn't feel right about coming home, the pain of her leaving him stung like salt in a wound.
"Whatever you need, just ask it of me, and I'll do what I can do make it happen so that you can be happy again, with us." She said.
"Us?" Morgan replied.
"Chris and I, yes. You know we live together and, well, there's more to it than just that." Genevieve replied.
Chris stood in silence. Worried what Morgan would say to what Genevieve was about to drop on him. She removed her glove and showed him her ring, a ring he had purchased the day after he proposed.
Morgan didn't respond again, he just stared at the beautiful diamond and then looked over at Christopher.
"I don't know what to say." Morgan finally uttered. "I'm happy for you mama, for both of you, but, I have to think about what this all means for me."
"It means that I'd like to help you and your mother have a family again. Together, the three of us. We're trying to give you what you deserve and what you've missed out on." Chris finally said.
"Do you love her?" Morgan responded quickly.
And just as quickly Chris responded, "I absolutely do."
"Do you love her because she looks like Sabrina?" Morgan asked, once again reminding the new couple of the oddity that Chris, who was once married to Sabrina Spencer, was now engaged to a woman who happened to look exactly like her. A non-related accidental twin that nature somehow created and reconnected with David.
"Sabrina was very special to me and she and I share a son. I will always remember her fondly and for many years I mourned her. But," Chris began as he turned to the stunning Genevieve whose face lit up in the dark night as their eyes met "your mother is one of the most remarkable women I have ever met. The fact she just so happens to look like Sabrina, is something beyond our control. But I love her for her."
Morgan nodded, accepting this. He turned to his mother and pulled her into a hug. "I'm happy for you and... I'm happy to welcome you, Christopher."
Genevieve's tears were now halfway down her face. To her this was now a road to a place she felt happiest, in a family.
"This calls for a celebration." Chris grinned. "You two head on home, I'm going to run over to Gifford's and grab us a bottle of champaign, how would you both like that?"
Genevieve laughed and grabbed hold of her almost 16-year-old son and agreed they all needed a quick happy drink that evening at home. He kissed her and sent them on the short walk home and he bounded across the street and headed down the block in the other direction to the small grocery Gifford's.
The streets were emptying now that the night had closed in over the island. The gas-street lamps flicked on and warmed a hot glow in their glass containers 10 feet above the street. Christ quickly dashed along the slick-sidewalks. He held his hands deep into coat pockets and suddenly he felt a bludgeoning to his head from behind.
Chris fell to the floor, his shoulder breaking his fall before his face could hit the pavement.
The streets, void of witnesses.
Chris, writhed on the ground, one and to the pain on the back of his head, the other propping himself up.
Then a kick to his ribs. Then another. And another, knocking the wind out of Chris' chest.
He fell back onto the ground, his stomach and face now parallel to the wet pavement.
He slowly turned over to see who his assailant was but someone from across the street shouted.
The assailant, clearly a man, was looking down at Chris standing directly in front of a lamp who's light from behind shadowed his face like an lunar eclipse blocking the sun's rays hitting earth.
The man looked up at the person yelling, kicked Christ one more time and in a flash rushed away down the block and into the darkening night.
"Are you alright?" The person from across the street said, finally reaching Christopher.
"I'm fine, fine."
"Did you get a good look at him? I saw you turned to face him just before he rushed off." The man asked.
"No." Chris replied, holding his terribly bruised ribcage. "But I have a good idea who it might have been."
"Do you? WHO?" The man asked.
Chris said nothing and turned and walked back towards his new bungalow with Genevieve. His mind raced into the direction of only one person that would have sent him a message like that via one of his many paid goons: Jacob Lord, Chris' increasingly paranoid older brother whom he had just promised a truce in their life's long battle of sibling rivalry that once cost Chris' wife Sabrina her life.
"HEY!! Get yourself to the police! You hear me! GET YOURSELF TO THE POLICE!!" The man shouted down the block near Gifford's.
Chris, however, had no intention in doing that. It would go against what he had promised, not to go after his brother. But Jacob, in Chris' mind, clearly wanted to send a message of who was still the supreme Lord brother in town.
No, the police would not be involved, Chris would handle this on his own.
Hiding in the shadows of a side alley was the assailant, panting in a heavy way as Chris limped by unable to see the person blocked by several pallets and crates. The person peeked out allowing the light from a nearby back window of a building to shine on his face revealing Caspian Casador.
The headaches had once again caused his rage to spike. His anger to build. His hate to fester in a way that was so volatile the only way he could release it was to beat another man on the shadow cast streets of Welshport Village.
His third victim. First, Churchill whom Caspian strangled in his bed, then Baxter Murphy and now Christopher Wesley.
The list was growing, and Caspian was going down a very, very dark road.
