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| Victor/Caspian, Caspian/Victor |
The dark sky over the small island of Welshport felt like it was muffled by deep purple clouds that came from the east. Their cold plumes of cotton candy air drizzled with a night rain onto the wet pebble drive of Tirymor House.
Caspian, his mind still in it's split, walked up barefoot to his old home. He stared at the glowing lights of one of the back studies wondering who in that room he would find and wrap his large hands around their neck. Jacob? Perhaps Celeste or even his recent ex-wife Rebecca.
As the crazed man continued through the back area of the mansion through the lush gardens, he could feel his heart pounding erratically in his chest. The good side of him fighting to come out couldn't restrain itself any longer. There was no way out for Caspian's goodness, it was trapped now, eclipsed by a manic and unpredictable face that wouldn't stop before killing again.
And again.
And again.
He stood there in the garden near a trio of large back French door; tall, brawny and dark and watched as Jane, the maid, scurried about doing her last duties of the evening. Perhaps her neck was ripe for cracking in his hands. He almost salivated at the thought.
The pitter-patter of the large fountain near him broke his concentration. Caspian stepped over to it and looked into the deep basin. The water rippled in the glow of the moon's obscured light as Caspian looked into the water.
The reflection he saw broke into different versions of himself with every shimmer of light that cut through the gloomy water. One second smiling evilly the other furrowed and concerned -- and then back again to evil. It was the break inside of his mind literally showing itself in the ease of the fountain's water flow.
Caspian knelt down, his bare feet slipping in the wet grass as he steadied himself. He looked into the pooled water of the fountain in the basin and watched his reflection shifted in expression before his very eyes.
"No.... NO!!!" He shouted at the water.
He lifted his fist, high above his head, and slammed it into his face in the reflection breaking it in a large deep splash. He continued to beat the water as if he were beating himself, killing the thing inside of him that was breaking him and turning him back into the darkest thing that had ever walked this earth.
When it was all over, he was soaking wet. His white undershirt was stuck to his skin like a second skin. His hair slick and dripping with rain and fountain water. He crawled over to the other side of the fountain hiding himself from himself. He cried there, hoping the evil inside him would leave. But as he buried his face into his knees sitting there in the dark, wet gardens of Tirymor House, a gnawing truth came to his mind again in his own devilish voice.
"Try again Viktor."
Caspian got up, his face cold and wet from the light drizzle. He pounded the sides of his head with his fists trying to force the laughing in his mind to stop. He ran towards the house, his body suddenly jerked and he fell to the ground. He pulled himself by his fingernails carving deep gashes into the dirt and grass and he pulled himself up by the large stone flower-pots at the edge of the steps that led up to the mansion's French Doors.
The laughing, deeper and more maniacal that before, continued as Caspian continued to tell it to shut up. The crazed man ripped the flowers out of their pots throwing the soil everywhere. He rushed back down the garden path and fell back to the floor hiding once again behind the fountain that initially started this torment.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!" He screamed as a loud thunder rolled out over the sky above him.
The voice once again laughed at Caspian as his face quickly switched to the darker evil man inside of him. The torment enflamed the poor man's heart and mind with his real name Viktor, whispering across his cracked lips.
All Caspian could do that night was sit there and cry and laugh and go back and forth between those to personalities fighting for dominance and control --- and prayed -- for death.
****
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| Jane reveals island gossip to Jacob |
The next morning, Tirymor House felt like a busy train station. Flowers were being brought in by the crate from the village to refill the large stone pots someone had dug up and thrown across the gardens.
Jane stood in half circle shaped breakfast room, with floor to ceiling latticed windows, and shook her head.
"Tsk tsk." She said sucking her teeth with a hand on her hip.
As she watched the gardeners feverishly replant all the flowers before her mistress Rebecca, who was in her room upstairs awaiting the arrival of an appointment, could see it. That wasn't all Jane had on her mind, she was eager to see Jacob, her other boss.
News, she had for him, about Rebecca being a target of a peculiar investigation by the new village Constable. The titillating story was burning the tip of her tongue, and she knew it would benefit her to show her loyalty to the younger Lord, the man who'd eventually become king of the manor if Rebecca truly ended up vanishing into the maw of the justice system for whatever crime she'd committed.
"Who mowed Holland?" Jacob sent entering the breakfast room hand-in-hand with his young son Fabian who jumped into the chair at the table with it's wooden booster.
"Sorry?" Jane asked.
"The flowers. What's with this giant delivery of flowers?" He asked reaching for the glittering silver coffee carafe.
"Oh! Yes, some animal dug up all of the pots outside in the garden, I called in a favor in the village and they've come to replace them before Mrs. Casador sees them. I wouldn't want her to be upset -- any further." Jane said.
Jacob's eyes narrowed.
"Any further?" He asked sitting down next to his son for breakfast.
"Yes sir, you see I've heard some distressing news last night and I fear it might come to pass today at sometime. Perhaps, you'd like to know of it first, before Mrs. Casador hears?"
Jacob smirked; the young maid had always been a bit of an enigma to him. They'd had the benign conversations in the past about flower bills or the fust in the library, or an off color joke here and there but never anything that seemed to regard the family in this way, that was always Rebecca and Celeste's department.
This interested him.
"What, pray, could you have to tell me about Mrs. Casador?" Jacob asked as he poured Fabian a glass of juice.
"Well, sir, it seems the new constable may have some distressing and hopefully alleged information about Mrs. Casador's strange involvement in the death of the woman doctor, that, Asha Hoffman. You know who she is, don't you? The woman who has been in that coma and then came out of it and now suddenly has no memory. Well, I overheard a conversation at the police station, and it was quite alarming to say the least. I thought you should know."
"I know." He replied.
"You --- you know? Already?"
He nodded.
"Miss Donnelly, nothing, and I truly mean this, NOTHING, happens in this town, in my business and most especially in my family -- and their staff -- that I don't know about. I always know first." he said.
"Of course, yes, I don't know what I was thinking." Jane said as she blushed.
"Know what first?" Celeste asked entering the room in a beautiful pale dress. She looked at both Jane and Jacob as she walked over and kissing her son on the cheek patiently waiting for their reply.
Jane said nothing. She curtsied and scurried out of the breakfast room allowing the Lords to discuss family matters in private.
Now alone with his wife and son, Jacob sighed, "Miss Donnelly thought she was Baxter Murphy and was pleased to hand me the latest gossip on the family. She clearly forgot whom she was speaking to."
"Oh? What gossip?"
"DEATH!" Little Fabian shouted with a giggle and a face full of butter and toast.
Celeste furrowed her brow and wiped his face clean "Darling!" She said to her son. "Jacob what is he talking about?"
"Jane overheard at the police station that they believed my mother had something to do with that awful event at the hospital that led to Asha's death. And, well, they're right unfortunately."
Celeste sat back in her chair, her face frozen in shock but still not fully understanding just how bad things were for Rebecca.
"She -- she's involved?" Celeste asked.
Jacob nodded. "Deeply."
"Fabian, meu amor, I want you to go upstairs and get brush teeth. Go now, and do that then get your books ready for your lessons, alright?" Celeste ordered, the littlest Lord complied happily and ran off into the next room and traced his fingers along the walls of the corridors that emptied into the foyer and the grand staircase that took him upstairs.
"I guess it's good Rebecca is upstairs waiting for her guest later. What did she do exactly?" Celeste asked in a hushed voice.
"Yes, that card reader is coming." Jacob said mentioning Fatima Braga.
"So? What is it? What do the police know?"
"She poisoned Asha. And those patients. She confessed it to me just last night. She's in quite over her head with all this and frankly, I saw this coming. Mother hasn't been herself since she married Caspian. Now that that's over, she's gone off the deep end."
Celeste let it sink in. Her sipped her coffee and stared at all the food on the table then looked at the empty plate to the side of her that was meant for Rebecca.
"Alright, so what is your plan? How are you going to get her out of this?" She asked her husband.
Jacob looked up over his newspaper and furrowed his brow unsure of what she was talking about. But of course, Celeste would quickly worry and want to help Rebecca out of it, this was her mother-in-law, no matter how difficult Rebecca made Celeste's life at Tirymor she was still her son's grandmother. It was an honest and obvious place for her mind to go.
But Jacob, who was born the eldest son in a world where money, power and legacy were all that mattered, had no intention of doing anything to help his mother. It wasn't as if this were the first time.
"This is Rebecca's doing. Rebecca is going to get herself out of this. I'm not going to do a damn thing." He replied simply.
"Jacob, you're not serious?"
"Of course I am." He replied, not telling her he had already called the Constable Ryan the very second of Rebecca's confession and told him. "We have our own family to think of. The business. Having Rebecca haunting these halls as an accused murderess, especially of someone like Asha, would destroy everything my father built. It'll be like gas on fire. We're battling quite the blaze thanks to Sebastian's shenanigans and Evie's witch trial, and David being Christopher or Christopher being David -- whatever that is. One more scandal and this house of cards will fall. We can't afford that."
"How can you say that?!? You yourself have been just as liable for a large part of this so-called family fire, Jacob. You'll just throw Rebecca to the wolves?" Celeste asked.
"I've paid my price." He replied shortly.
"YOU HAVE!?!" Celeste laughed sarcastically. "How? How, for example, have you paid for Sabrina?"
The name shot out of Celeste's mouth like a bullet to his brain. Sabrina Spencer-Lord his late sister-in-law. The woman he was infatuated with and killed in a crime of passion on the wet sands of Bellemore Beach. His brother's wife who at one time haunted the entire house of Tirymor through the eyes and body of his daughter Charlotte.
Those days were gone, Sabrina and her spirit were gone, but the lies and secrets surrounding her death and Jacob's twisting of the truth by convincing a drunk David that he had killed his own wife in a rage had never left the anyone's memories.
"How dare you bring that up!" Jacob shouted, quickly standing up and throwing down the newspaper. "I've paid dearly for my mistakes. Look around, do you see a man who's living out the best of this life? No. I'm constantly bombarded with the sins of my family members as if they were mine. I have no will to do anymore protecting, not after what happened with Christopher. He's here, he can handle things with mother."
"You have never answered for what you did to Sabrina, or Mary or Sebastian and even Me. You've been able to skate by in this world constantly free of consequences with your money and your power, Jacob. You know it's true." She said.
Jacob scoffed at her.
Celeste continued "By not helping Rebecca its just one more notch your belt and one more family member out of the way of this little empire you're so sick with. Fine, let it be how you want, let them do what they will with Rebecca but I will not support it."
"Support it? I haven't asked you to. There's nothing you need to do but continue to mother our son and be my wife. That's all you need to do. That's what your job is."
Celeste felt sick to her stomach. He had reduced her to some kind of empty vessel of a person to only be a mother and wife. She had never felt so discarded so unseen by him before. They had always had a volatile relationship. One born from scorn and hurt and blackmail. Their mutual adoration of their son Fabian cooled this for a time and even brought them together as team at one point, but this union seemed fractured. Celeste needed more, and Jacob only wanted to give just a piece of what she needed. And it was usually the piece she least liked of him.
"I'm the mother of your child -- not a nanny or a governess. That should count for much more than just what you think I should do. I have an opinion and I won't be silenced because you disagree." She said.
"Your opinion is for me to cover up for my mother again; she killed someone Celeste!" He shot back.
She rolled her eyes, clearly, he wasn't seeing how hypocritical it was for him to now take the moral high road when he'd done the same. Multiple times.
"I'm going to this one last thing, and then I'm going upstairs to sit with our son in his lessons. This is your mother we are talking about, Jacob. Your son and daughter's grandmother. The woman who helped your father build this family up to where it is today. If you don't help her in whatever crisis she is going through mentally and emotionally she may be undergoing at this moment I truly don't know what to say to your character. I have always, always kept my hope that the man who did those horrible things in the past was more like the man who is gentle and kind and so loving to Fabian. Try to be more like that man than the man who'll turn in his own mother to the police without offering her some kind of help."
Celeste wiped her hands with the perfect L monogramed linen napkin and dabbed the corners of her moth with it. Then tossed it to the table. She turned and left the room leaving Jacob to stew in her final words.
Jacob had been cruel to many of his family members in the past. His greed outshined the good in him, but what Celeste was not seeing was that he was now just paving the way for more of that good to shine on him -- and her. He could not protect Rebecca now without staining himself and yes, her and Fabian. He was in a predicament now, one that made him convinced that what he did was the best thing to do for his young family and better -- for himself professionally.
It looked bad, doing this to Rebecca who had yet come down for breakfast. But he knew the future of his family and their business - their empire was for him to take.
And so -- he took it by leading Constable Justin Ryan to his front door to arrest his mother for murder.
**
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| Celeste receives a phone call |
As Celeste passed into the foyer and on her way to the large staircase to find her son, Jane peeked out of the larger drawing room the family called The Gold room thanks to all of its glittering chandeliers and electric light fixtures on the wall near the equally as gold frames of various long dead family members.
"Ma'am." She said in a low voice yet still catching Celeste's attention. "There's been a call on the telephone for you."
Celeste showed a confused look. The family rarely got calls on the new telephone, and when they did it usually wasn't good news.
Celeste entered The Gold Room and walked over to the candlestick telephone that was set up by a desk near the far corner. She put the receiver to hear and the lifted the mouthpiece up but before she spoke she turned to see Jane slowly making her way out.
Once alone, Celeste took her call.
"Mrs. Lord, this is Dr. Pascal at Churchill Green, I hope I'm not bothering you this morning."
"Doctor, good morning, no not at all. Is it Johnathon? Is he ok?" She asked of her brother whom Dr. Pascal was treating.
"Yes, but I don't want you to worry. He's fine. I just wanted to ask if by chance you could come see me." He asked.
She quickly blushed the idea of seeing the handsome doctor again was enticing even if it were steeped in the tragedy of her mentally ill brother.
"Yes, I'd love to come see you -- Uh... because I'm sure you have something to tell me about Johnny, of course." She replied; the corner of her mouth slightly tugging with embarrassment.
Dr. Pascal chuckled, "Well that's wonderful, but yes, it is about Johnathon. I've finally come up with a good enough treatment for him that I'm hoping to start soon. His medication helps him but the therapy I have written for him I hope will do much more work. But I don't want to go anywhere into his psyche without seeing you -- uuh -- I mean speaking with you first." Julian replied.
"I see. I will be happy to go down, yes. Thank you, Doctor." She said.
"Julia, please. Call me Julian."
She blushed again as Jacob entered the gold room hoping to finish his paper. She turned to her husband as he walked in, their cold stares freezing any warmth of given to her by the voice on the line.
"Yes. Of course." She said, agreeing to call him by his first name without Jacob knowing the nature of her conversation, and her slight crush.
"Can we set an appointment, say after lunch? 2pm?" He asked.
"2pm. Yes." She said.
"Wonderful. See you then."
"Yes, ...." She said but then turned back away from Jacob and finished her sentence "see you then Julian."
"Who was that?" Jacob asked sitting on the sofa across from her at the desk.
"Johnny's doctor. He's made an appointment for me." She said.
Jacob laughed. "Now you're seeing his psychiatrist? Perhaps that's a good idea. Madness seems to be as contagious as the common cold around here.
Celeste rolled her eyes and quickly left the room in a huff and set off to help her little boy with his schoolwork, again leaving Jacob to stew is in schemes.
****
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| Rebecca meets with the sage Fatima |
Later that afternoon, Rebecca meticulously arranged a bouquet of white hydrangeas in a large sphere-shaped vase in the center of a round table she had set up in her large bedroom. The table had two chairs that faced each other with a long dark tablecloth that hit the floor. She had been preparing for this personal visit all day, and wanted to be sure everything was perfect.
She dusted the room herself. She made sure each and every single mirror had a thick black sheet over it; a custom she knew had to be done to keep the spirits in their place. She asked two nervous house maids to help her draw the large draped to shade the room and light candles. They whispered to each other how strange their mistress' behavior was, never witnessing Rebecca's rituals this closely.
Rebecca saged the room. The perfumed smoke swirled around the bed, the doorframe, the covered paintings and glass of the mirrors. The maids waved the smoke from their faces as they showed they'd finished the part of the job.
Rebecca inspected the lit candles as if they'd been lit for a funeral.
Then, a knock on her bedroom door broke her concentration as she checked over her very carefully curated room. She shooed away the two maids in the room who opened the door allowing the head maid, Jane, to enter.
"Your guest has arrived ma'am." Jane said.
"Thank you, Jane, you can show her in."
"Before I do, you didn't come down for breakfast and I wondered if you wanted me to bring you anything to eat. Cook says you weren't down for dinner either." Jane noted like a mother to a child.
"Miss Donnelly, if I were hungry I'd make it to dinner luncheon or breakfast, but I have too much on my mind at the moment to worry about food." Rebecca replied curtly as she ran her boney yet elegant hands over her corseted empty stomach.
"Yes, ma'am. I'll show your guest in."
"Thank you."
Jane, knowing all too well why Rebecca's appetite was off, left the room and in her place entered Fatima Braga, the fortune teller of Welshport.
Fatima entered dressed in her finest dress. It was black with lace trim. The sleeves went all the way do her wrists and she wore lace gloves that mirrored the same lace pattern that was on her dress. Her thick white hair cascaded down her back like the whitest waterfall, and she curtsied to Rebecca as if she were meeting a queen.
Rebecca smiled curiously, the two women had met before many times in the past few years in secret while Rebecca searched for a new spiritual guide, to no avail allowing for Fatima to take up that role as de facto. But it had been quite a long time since they'd had an appointment.
Fatima could sense right off with the energy in Rebecca's movements that things were heavy.
"The flowers are lovely Mrs. Casador, thank you for the invitation, my own household is quite upset with so many of my family staying there. This is most accommodating to me, and I thank you." Fatima began.
"It's my pleasure. I am in desperate need of your council and, here in my private apartments at Tirymor is as good as it gets." Rebecca said, motioning for Fatima to sit at the table across from her.
Fatima too to the table and removed the ancient deck of tarot cards from inside the coat pocket she had over her arm. It was a black box, the deck inside gnarled and withered with decades of use. The two women sat in the dim light of the room that glowed with candles as Rebecca removed a rosary from her dress pocket and began fiddling with it.
"Are you well enough for me to here?" Fatima asked, noting Rebecca's gaunt nervous look.
"Well enough." Rebecca answered removing the flowers from the center of table and off to the side.
"As I place the cards on the table, please delve deep into your mind and tell them what you need to know, only speak this in silence. Let the cards hear you from beyond your psyche. Only they will hear the precious cause you need answered for. I begin to place the cards, four of them, face down in front of you on the table."
She lay them as she said, one - two - three - four. All face down. Rebecca kept her eyes closed and continued to fiddle with her silver and gold rosary. She pushed the thoughts she needed to be clarified by the tarot to her mind. Her heart suffering from the loss of her marriage, the death and illness she caused. Where would her life lead now? What or who could save her now?"
"Ready?" Fatima asked.
Rebecca opened her eyes and nodded; the green of her irises seemed to glow bright in the dimly lit room. She placed her hands flat on the table while the rosary wrapped around one like ivy around a tree.
Fatima turned the first card
"The 5 of Cups. This tells us that there is much question surrounding your place in the world. You, as a matriarch, are at crossroads. A thin bridge of time that tells you that the time of your life has ended. One that has been built up over decades and decades and now the job is done. Where should you go? Whom should you turn to. These are the questions the universe asks us all. yet how should one go about this? That is the mystery of the 5 cups. Each one does not give a definitive answer but only the notion that there is still more to come, more cups of life to fill. Only you can do this. Only you can find those clues."
"Fill my life. Yes." Rebecca whispered. "Go on."
Fatima turned the second card "The Hermit."
Rebecca froze.
"A ghostly card that bring us all to the edge of our seats. Why? Because this is a card that represents a person, a real person in our lives, that only brings us news of things to come or things that are not yet real. They hide away, at least seemingly so, from our regular lives and when they appear they have nothing but danger in their voice. They wish to inform you, to give you the things you need to perhaps cross the new bridge of life the 5 of Cups is pointing you towards yet -- we caution ourselves in their presence but perhaps we must learn to trust the hermit when times say so."
"I must learn to trust." Rebecca replied.
"Its one of the most difficult lessons we must learn."
Rebecca sighed and pointed to the third card.
"The inverted Queen of Swords." Fatima said, her face clearly showing concern.
"It's me." Rebecca said, knowing the cards quite well. "Inverted."
"The swords point downward, signaling a self-inflicted wound, Rebecca. The path you've chosen or will chose, which is connected to the 5 of Cups, will at some point damage you. Nothing is clear to me aside from that. The Queen of Swords represents strength and fragility at the same time. Upright, she is crowned in her glory, inverted her crown falls, the swords she holds close once weapons to protect her, now signaling they've been used to destroy her regency. Rebecca..." Fatima paused the reading and put her hands over the card. "Are you alright?"
But before Rebecca could answer someone knocked on her bedroom door. It cracked open and Jane put her face in. "I'm sorry to bother you ma'am, but someone else has come to see you."
"I'm rather busy, Jane, can you tell them to come back?"
"I -- tired but she...." Jane began before the door pushed open and Aurora Jordan stepped in.
"I don't have time for your regal protocol Rebecca, this is urgent." Aurora said, clutching her handbag close to her body as if it were a protective shield.
Rebecca slowly stood up from the table. Fatima's heart felt as if it were about to leap out of her chest. The tension was heavy, oppressive even. The obvious reasons for their icy body language had just sent divorce papers to Rebecca and had been staying with Aurora at Bellmore Beach since then.
"You've interrupted my appointment, I think you should leave." Rebecca said coldly.
"I can come back." Fatima inserted herself as she stood.
"SIT!" Rebecca ordered, Fatima remained standing but said nothing.
"This is urgent." Aurora replied, as Jane quickly scurried away. "Caspian is unwell. And he's missing."
"What do you mean unwell?" Rebecca wondered, half concerned, half happy in his unwellness.
"Its his headaches, they've come back, with much more force. He's ... unhinged. Dangerous even. I'm worried about him Rebecca and I'm hoping you can help me understand what's happened to him since the events at the coves where the headaches began." Aurora asked.
"I don't know anything about headaches. I know he had some an injury when he hit his head and Dr. Ward was helping him with some of that but I don't know anything about increased headaches." Rebecca replied honestly.
"Where would he go?" Fatima asked out loud.
Rebecca walked over to Aurora, her arms tightly wound around her body holding herself close. Her face was a frozen look of disdain towards Aurora whom Rebecca saw as the winner in the love triangle, when Aurora had no intentions of portraying the other woman in the drama in Rebecca's mind-play.
"He needs help, its very urgent that if there is any information you may know about where he might be, it would benefit everyone in our lives if you helped." Aurora replied.
"Benefit?! ME? Oh please, this would only benefit you, you're the one who's going to gain from us finding him. Why not let him come back whenever he wants to come back. Why should I have anything to do with it." Rebecca scolded.
"Because he's your husband." Aurora recalled.
"Ex-husband, Aurora. You know that."
"Rebecca she's trying to find Caspian to help him." Fatima added.
"Oh, she's done enough of helping him in more ways than one, yes, she knows all about helping Caspian in ways that perhaps I was too old, to grandmotherly to do for him. Isn't that right Aurora? You know how to help men in those ways. With your legs wide open, that's the way you help men, isn't it?"
Aurora turned red. Her heart felt as if it were to explode and she slapped Rebecca across the face with the back of her hand. Rebecca yelped loudly, the sound of the slap paralleled a thunderclap in the middle of the night as Rebecca raised her own hand to the stinging burn on her skin.
Fatima audibly gasped and stepped between the two waring women who'd never come to this type of behavior before.
Jacob, rushed int the room seeing a scene that seemed locked in time.
"What the devil was that?" He asked of the Rebecca's screamed.
Aurora turned back to him and arched her brow "If Caspian comes here, be careful. Call the police." She said and left the room and the mansion saying nothing more.
"Jacob, I think your mother needs to rest." Fatima replied.
"I don't need to rest. I DON'T NEED TO REST!!" Rebecca scared as she reached for one of the chair at the round table.
"She's fine. Everything is fine." Jacob replied. "Perhaps you should leave Fatima. Come back another time."
Fatima nodded, agreeing and went to grab the cards on the table, one of them turned face down. When the fortune teller went to grab the cards, the one face down fell to the hardwood floors -- face up.
The Hanged man card straight up met Fatima's eyes.
She swallowed hard realizing it's signific in Rebecca's overall reading. Death and tragedy.
"Rebecca, please take care of yourself, alright? Rest." Fatima said feeling uneasy as she left.
"What am I do now? If feels like the vultures are circling. What I did was -- was an accident and now I feel the walls closing in." Rebecca said, her face blush with the mark of Aurora's hand.
Jacob sighed, knowing the truth, knowing that indeed there were vultures circling her, and he was one of them but that needed to be kept on the side. He could not lead on to her that her life was about to change for the worse.
"You need to relax and figure things out for yourself. There's nothing in Fatima Braga's tarot that can make it happen for you. What will happen, will happen and we need to deal with it when it does. Nothing can be told in truth without knowing all the details. Those cards don't know all the details." Her son said.
Rebecca narrowed her eyes, she thought he spoke like the hermit in her cards. The cold honest truth flowing from his lips like a ice cold bath.
"Those cards should not be mocked. They point me in the direction I need to go." She replied simply.
Jacob reached down, grabbed her rosary that had fallen on the ground when Aurora slapped her. She looked at the glittering silver and gold beads in his large hand and squeezed them into his fist. He knew what he did, he called the authorities on his own mother to finally put an end to her crime but at the same time to take control of the family he's been trying to lead for decades. The divorce was one cut, the coming arrest would be the death wound to Rebecca's rule.
He could see her spinning in thought, wondering what she needed to do next to protect herself. There was a slight hope in her face that perhaps Jacob, ever the illusive escape artist when it came to crimes one did, said nothing of the sort.
"There, there." Jacob he finally replied, standing over his mother seated in the chair. "Pray." He added handing her the rosary. "The end to this is coming sooner than we think, we'll be ok."
She took the beads, her sons words seemed kind, washed in a spiritual hope that she needed. Unfortunately for her his words were as laced with poison as Asha's medication was.
Just outside the mansion Aurora got back into her taxicab that was ordered to take her home to Bellmore Beach. Hidden in the trees, obscured by the greenery and beauty that was the grounds of Tirymor House, was Caspian Casador, cold - hard - hungry to kill. He knew where he needed to be. He knew who he needed to take away from this place, this earth, this world.
Aurora's life was now in the crosshairs of a maniac.
