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| Filipe seeks answers from Alice |
The autumn wind blew through the village pushing the leaves to every corner of town. Their yellow and brown colors clustered together making up a patchwork of autumn tones that brightened up the small little sea island village. Villagers walked along the small, wet cobble-stone streets feeling the fresh air that nibbled at their nose with a crispness that so comforted their hearts after the long hot summer.
One of these villagers rushed down the street, dodging and darting between other pedestrians and he finally made his way up to the front porch of a small village walk-up that had various potted plants and a fresh garden just outside the entrance.
He rang the bell. Alice Winterborn opened her door to see the hung-over face of Filipe Braga.
He was exhausted after the long bizarre night meandering in the woods drunk and depressed where he saw a shapeshifting Alice shoo away a circling pack of hungry wolves that lead him to a heartbreaking moment with Celeste on Tirymôr's back veranda where she told him of her intention to marry Jacob, the father of her unborn child.
In the open door the shapeshifting mysterious woman stood before him from the woods. His eyes stared at her in disbelief as the memories, cloudy from the hangover, creeped into his mind.
"Yes? What is it?" Alice said, knowing Filipe must have many questions about what he saw her do the night before.
She held her breath.
"Last night...what in hell was that? How did you know I was out in the woods? How did you scare off those wolves?" He asked, his breath heavy and wheezing.
She exhaled.
"Come upstairs." Alice said, grabbing on to his wrist and leading him up to the apartment she shared with her brother Matthew.
Inside, Filipe was welcomed into a warm small apartment that smelled of lavender and rose. She sat him down on a small sofa that had a view of the busy street below. She poured him a glass of water and he stared at the kaleidoscope shapes that became fragments of color from her long blue and black dress that covered her from her neck to her wrists.
"Last night was something I have never experienced before. I needed help and there you were. How did you know?' He asked as he sipped from his water.
"It's too long and complicated of a story for me to explain to you but, if you must know the short version is that I have a particular gift that has been given to me from many many generations of my family that is tied to this land. I know things. I sense things. I see things. I am things." Alice said.
"You had wings." Filipe recalled.
"Did I?" Alice replied with a bit of trepidation to reveal everything as fact in fear it might be too much for him. "Sometimes we see what we want to see." She added.
"I saw what I saw, it's not something my mind invented. But feathers or wings is neither here nor that at this point. What I know is that you came to my rescue with those wolves and somehow frightened off the away. They listened to you. They heard your call and backed off of me. Without you there I would have died." Filipe said.
"Animals are creatures who hunt for life, they would have only hurt you out of necessity, not out of spite or cruelty. That is usually the case.” Alice explained, emphasizing it the world “usually”.
“Usually.” Filipe replied catching her hint.
“Filipe, those wolves are different. They have the taste of blood in them at all times. Something made them that way. I've been watching them for weeks and weeks telepathically, I’ve sensed their vicious drive for killing. They're controlled by something sinister, and thankfully I was able to be there when I was." Alice explained further.
"Alice tell me, what else do you know and what else do you see? My whole world has crumbled around me and if you can see something to help me through this I would appreciate it.” He begged.
“I wish I could but…” he interrupted her.
“It's Celeste...she's, she's gone from me. She’s with Jacob Lord now. All I can think of is how much my life has darkened since she told me what she did." Filipe replied, showing the pain and suffering from the abandonment of Celeste. Even though his true troubles began the night Eliza used his blood to feed the Sebastian for the first time, giving him life.
Alice grimaced. She wasn't a street fortune teller or a con-woman who pretended to use fake abilities to sell a fortune for the price of a pint of ale. She was the real deal. She was a creature of supernatural ability and control that was granted to her by her ancestors to use for good. She didn't read tarot cards or tea leaves. She didn't use cauldrons of potions.
She was authentic and true.
She was also sympathetic to his plea. She could sense his pain without even opening up her third eye, the hurt and suffering was all over his face. He bled pain. He bled sorrow.
"What I will tell you, whatever it is, I cannot change. I can only tell you what is real and what is at hand in her heart and in yours. You have the power to then use the knowledge I give you to correct your path in life. There is no easy fix Filipe. Your destiny is yours alone to follow and adjust." Alice warned. "Do you understand?" She asked.
He nodded he did and she grabbed hold of his hands and closed her eyes.
She felt the energy of pain in his heart even more so that she was touching him. She could see feel how much love he had in his whole body for Celeste but the betrayal too was palpable to his touch. The baby living inside of Celeste was the crux of the pain, but it was not to be, she was now going to have this child and it was not his. His mind sent Alice a message showing her he wanted to know how he could get her back, how he could retain his love now that she was gone and was having another man's baby---but that feeling, that question was eclipsed by the shadow that suddenly came across Alice's mind while she listened to the fates speak to her.
They told her they feared for Filipe. They feared for what was about to happen to him soon. His life and that of someone else's were to cross paths and link forever.
"Who? Who is it?" Filipe wondered out loud.
"A woman." Alice replied.
"Celeste? It must be! It must be her! We will cross paths again, see, it is meant to be!" Filipe said hoping he was right, but Alice yanked her hands back from his and frowned at him.
"It is not Celeste, Filipe. I'm sorry." Alice replied.
"Not Celeste? But she is my destiny, she always has been. Who else could this be?" Filipe begged to know.
Alice got up and went to a small chest of drawers near the entrance to the hallway of the apartment. She opened the top drawer and pulled out a small pouch of herbs tied with a blue sash. She sniffed them, and smiled. She came back to the living room and swished her long dress around the furniture and sat back down and put the pouch of herbs in Filipe's large and and closed it around the bag.
"Put these in water and drink from it at night. It will help you sleep." Alice instructed.
"That's it? A sleeping aide? Alice please, I am begging you for more. I cannot let Celeste marry that monster Jacob. He will be her undoing. I cannot let it happen!!" Filipe shouted.
"Filipe, listen to me: you need to worry about what will be your undoing. There is danger lurking around every corner of this island and I can tell you with certainty that when it comes time for your turn, this woman, whom ever she is, may be what does you in. That is what you need to focus on, her, not Celeste. She has chosen her path in life and now you must choose yours. You have both diverted in journeys and you must accept that. Now go, go home, take these herbs and sleep. Prepare for the future." Alice said.
He looked at the herbs and smelled them.
“This can’t be it.” He said in a sad voice.
“For now, this is what you need to see, live and keep close. Something is coming for you soon. It may be good, it may be bad—but dwelling on Celeste and her new life will on distract you from it. You must not be distracted.”
Her words burned in Filipe's mind. He was frightened. He was worried. But he was undeterred. She knew it too, he left the apartment back into the cool autumn afternoon with the herbs and would do as she asked and would wait to see what was to come with this new mystery woman in his life, but she knew in his heart-of-hearts Celeste would never ever be far from his mind.
Their love, he thought, was stronger than anything in the universe and would return.
****
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| A chained & trapped Eliza Goode |
Further on in town, over at Constable Reigns private residence above the Constable's Office, Eliza Goode awoke on the floor in a ball of her own body and smothered in her long tan dressed that had several layers of petticoats and skirts.
She was locked in a room, chained to the wall by her left arm. It had been several days since her capture and since Reigns tortured of her. He was making up for lost time. All the years in search of the witch that got away from Boston so many years ago, it was so satisfactory to him to finally keep her in this makeshift dungeon inside his home where he could do what he wanted to her without anyone knowing.
Eliza was beaten. And bruised. She could feel a drop of blood slip from out a small cut on her lip. She was angry. Furious. And most of all the feeling of being trapped made her sick to her stomach. She looked around, and saw that Reigns, who was downstairs presumably working, had taken precautions so that she could not use any form of magic by surrounding her with religious onement's and a heavy ring of sea salt that encircled the bed her body was chained to.
She was powerless and lost in a sea of worry for her child Mary who surly by now would have transformed back into her original body and face now that Eliza had been removed from the safe lodging on Goode Island.
Eliza sat up on the bed and moved over some of her skirts so she could step out on to the floor to the small area that her chains allowed her to. The sun beamed in from one of the small far off windows and locked in on her blue eyes. She squinted into the light and wondered how Mary was, she feared her dead. She feared her exposed at Tirymor House and feared the worst should Jacob discover her.
As Eliza stood there, allowing the sun to warm her skin from the distant window of the room, she suddenly saw a bright ball of light come through the ray of light and form just in front of her.
Eliza stared at the orb of light, it spun in front of her floating above the floor. Spinning spinning round and round.
Eliza saw the ball of light spinning. She wondered what it could be and when she lifted her arm to reach for it, the ball came upon her and engulfed her whole body in it's light.
"MOTHER! MOTHER WHERE ARE YOU?"
It was the voice of Mary, Eliza's daughter calling for her within the light.
"Mary!! I'm trapped here. Reigns has trapped me in his home!" Eliza said out loud to the sound of Mary's voice.
"Ive transformed, mother, back to what I was before. I feel like I'm dying. I can't move. I can hardly eat. Something has taken all my energy and power and I feel like I am at death's door." Mary said through the light.
"Its all my fault. Had I gotten rid of Reigns when I had the chance, when he hunted me and all our kind in Boston when you were a baby none of this would have ever happened. Mary, listen to me, the powers that we possess are controlled by where I dwell, I cannot gain them back and save us unless I'm back on our island. You have to help me! You have to muster all the powers you have left in you, where ever you are and find a way to free me from this place. Otherwise, we'll both succumb to death." Eliza explained.
"But how? What do I do?" Mary asked from the orb of light.
As Eliza and Mary spoke, the door of the room of her small prison began to unlock. Eliza telepathically told Mary to vanish so that they'd be safe just in the nick of time before Reigns entered the room with a plate of food for Eliza who was still standing in the area allowed facing the window.
"Get back on your bed. It's meal time." Reigns said laying the plate of food down on her bed carefully.
"You have to let me go." Eliza replied without missing a beat.
"We've been through this, you'll never leave here unless it's in a pine box. The likes of you only deserve death for perverting the will of man in ways that are ungodly. Magic, Eliza, belongs in fables and pretend, not real life that is why you'll never leave." Reigns explained.
"You killed so many like me, don't you feel guilty for that? The families the children, all of us. Don't you grieve for the lives you took? Aren’t you don’t killing?" Eliza asked her captor.
Reigns thought about Boston almost 30 years ago when he raided a wedding where two of Eliza's kind were to be given to their god. He witnessed things that night that frightened him. Animal sacrifice. Idolatry. Blood-letting.
The burning of souls.
He saw things that he could never un-see.
Eliza remembered that night too. It was the night she lost so many friends and the man she loved, Mary's father Caleb Goode. The coven they all belonged to was practically obliterated that night thanks to Reigns and the people he worked with.
But the swift backlash to this attack on a free people came, and Reigns was soon run out of town and he was only given the opportunity to be the Constable of Welshport after a favor from the governor was granted.
"You killed my husband.” Eliza said with a seething tongue. “If it wasn’t for your constant harassment and torture of yhr women in my coven my husband would have never gotten I’ll and lost his battle. He suffered for so long sick, and weak and because of you succumb to his illness without treatment. That should be enough of my suffering for you." Eliza added.
"It's never enough when you're still running free perverting the world with you evil and twisted ways No one is safe if you're alive Eliza Goode. Not a single soul." He answered.
"You can free me Gregory, and let me help my sick daughter and no one needs to know. I would never give you up and you can live a happy life again when no one will ever hold you accountable for what you did. Whomever told you I lived here in Welshport can only be told that I will not bother them ever again. Free me, and I promise you that." Eliza said.
"The person who told me of your existence here in Welshport says she has good reason to hate you and to have exposed you to me. She says you've done terrible things to her and her family."
Eliza perked up. This conversation sounded familiar. She'd heard this exact argument before. How she'd ruined a woman and her family---these were Rebecca's words.
"Rebecca Lord?" Eliza asked. "She was the one who told you of me?"
Gregory smirked confirming it's truth.
Eliza felt sick to her stomach. She knew there was no love lost between them after their two families had had such a tumultuous history but she never in her wildest dreams thought Rebecca would ever tell Constable Reigns about her in this manner, to have her arrested and sentenced to death without even a trial? Even Rebecca couldn't be that cruel. But it was all true.
The truth of this matter infuriated Eliza. She now felt not the pain of a captive but the pain of a person so mortally wounded that all they could do was lash out and hope to wound their opponent in the fight. She closed her deep blue eyes and listened for Mary's faint voice in the orb of light that Eliza could see in her mind. She called on Mary for help, she called her telepathically and through their mind's eyes and begged her to muster all the energy she could to use her powers and free her from her entrapment and set her free in hoped to save them both.
Mary, in the turret at Tirymor heard her mother's telepathic pleas for help and stood up on her bed with her weak body, a body that had been depleted of energy from the transformation back into her original self.
Mary stood up, lifted her arms and sang a song to herself to muster the powers to help her mother on trapped in Reigns dungeon.
She sang the spell in Latin: "RUMPE CATENAS, FRANGE DORSUM. APREI PORTAE LIBERTATIS. SALVUM FAC MATREM, SERVCA NUNC. LIBERA EAM DE TERMINIS EIUS!!"
Mary began to levitate, and glow above the small bed in the turret. Six tiny orbs of light came out of Mary's body and began to spin around her, slowly at first then faster and faster and faster until they shot out of the turret and out into the sky.
Mary collapsed on the bed. Her heart slowing. Her breathing slowing.
She was unconscious and at the gates of death. No more energy. No more powers. No more life.
The six balls of light blasted into the window where Eliza was trapped. Three of them flew into Reigns lifting him off the ground where he stood and launching him into the wall across the room causing him to hit his head and rending him unconscious.
The other three swirled around Eliza and melted away the locks around her leg and her waist freeing her.
Eliza fell to the ground crying with glee but sensed her daughter was dying. She could not help her now. The powers they had been given had been used to the brink. Exhausted. Used to the point of depletion. She was forced to allow Mary to lay in the turret and wait her fait.
"Don't let this be the end." Eliza said in a silent prayer to the powerful force she praised.
Then she walked over to Reigns who was slumped up against the wall he hit. She knelt down and lifted with her finger by his chin so that their eyes would meet then she spit in his face three times.
Free from the circle of salt that held her back from using her powers she hoped that she could muster some kind of energy to help her now. She called upon the forces of her coven, of those who were killed, the dead sister witches and brother warlocks to help her and enter Gregory Reigns' body and remove the memory of what he had done and what he wanted to do with Eliza and Mary. The memory, the idea, the threat of her flew into his mind in a powerful blast of energy erasing it all so that when he came to, he would not recall why he wanted her dead so badly.
Another way of freedom for her. He would forget all things of witchcraft in the village. For good. He would be a skeptic.
Eliza then got up, turned and began her walk out of Reigns home. She opened the door and looked back at him. She spit once again on the floor, but this time not to open another magic spell but out of pure disgust for his actions and cruelty. She wiped her mouth of the mixture of saliva and blood and left the home to get back to Goode Island in hopes it was not too late for Mary.
As for Rebecca--- Eliza would deal with her betrayal when the time was right, and this time she would now be so kind to her old friend now enemy.
****
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| Sabrina’s ghost pushes Celeste down the stairs |
As the first truly cold night of autumn came, Celeste De Viana sat in the cozy upstairs private parlor reading a book. She curled up near the fire on a blue sofa that had tiny silver studs across it's seams sealing the blue velvet lining to it's oak frame.
The fire in the heart burned and warmed her caramel skin. She flipped through her book unable to keep focus on the chapter she read constantly going back to two nights before when Filipe came to visit her in the middle of night.
She felt a pain in her heart for him and how crushed he looked when she told him she was to marry Jacob. It had to be, this marriage. She knew it, he knew it. There was no way around the fact that Jacob was the father of the child she was carrying and now that Jacob knew the child was his she knew he stop at nothing to make sure he raised it himself --with or without her involvement.
Celeste did not want to be another Mary. She imagined how much suffering Mary went though with Jacob took Charlotte away from her when the girl was a mere baby. Celeste knew the only way to keep the baby she was carrying safe and herself safe, was to marry Jacob and keep him happy.
But the pain in Celeste's heart for breaking Filipe was an aching she could not refute.
Then, as Celeste sat in a warm ball on the sofa, she heard a sound in the hall. A thumping. A rumbling.
She placed the now closed book on the coffee table and walked over to the open parlor door.
She peeked out into the hall and saw nothing.
"Hello?" Celeste asked.
There was no response. The hour was not late, and she expected still to be stirring in the manor, servants perhaps, maybe even Charlotte rustling up to the turret to see her mother Mary who was hiding there.
But nothing. There was no one.
Celeste walked out into the hall, it's red carpet looking like a deep blood stain that went from wall to wall. Edge to Edge.
She looked around, "Charlotte?" She asked again in a whisper. "Is that you?"
Celeste walked further into the hallway and stood at the top of the long staircase that had matching red carpet. Behind Charlotte over a large marble table was a painting of Rebecca Lord.
The eyes moved. But there was no human behind the wall moving the eyes as so many of the painting in the mansion had false walls behind them.
These eyes were the eyes of Sabrina Lord watching Celeste as her ghostly spirit inhabited the painting of Rebecca.
Celeste looked down over the banister trying to find where the continuing rumbling was coming from. Then, Celeste stepped down on to the first stair on the staircase.
Sabrina in the painting, watched Celeste standing there, she thought about what the child in her belly meant to Jacob, she knew that this baby would come in just a few week and what it meant to Jacob to have this child, a new child, as his heir. She thought about how diabolical he was and how he destroyed her life by killing her, framing her husband David for her murder and making David leave the island and go into hiding and feared dead. She thought about what Jacob did to her own son, how he tried to have Mary kill him. She thought about how unfair it was that he, Jacob, could continue on his with his life and make a family with the woman on the top stair of the large staircase of Tirymor.
Sabrina began to cry through the painting forcing wet real tears come out of Rebecca's painted eyes.
Then, the blue glow of Sabrina's ghost came out of the painting and floated just over the table under the painting. She stood there, in a blue glowing haze like a cloud of emotion and pain and a beautiful face. her white dress swayed in an breeze that was no there, her hair flowed as if it suspended in the water. She floated closer and closer to Celeste, who carefully went down one more step.
Jacob came out of his bedroom down the hall. He turned a corner into the main hallway and then, to his shock, he saw Sabrina's ghost, the ghost of the woman he killed so long ago standing with her arms stretched out behind Celeste on the staircase.
Celeste, innocent in her ways then saw the glow of Sabrina's spirit reflect in a banister and she turned to see the ghost floating only inches from her crying. The ghost whispered to Celeste "I'm sorry but I have to" and then, to Jacob's shock and horror, to Celeste's shock as well, Sabrina pushed her down the stairs.
Celeste's bare toes tried to grip the edge of the stair she was one but it was no use, her body went tumbling down the staircase.
"CELESTE!!!!!!!!!!!!" Jacob screamed from his vantage point.
Sabrina turned and saw him, she then vanished back into the painting.
Jacob became furious. He rushed down the hall gabbed the painting off the wall and smashed into pieces. His mother's face was ripped and torn all over the floor of the hallway.
Then, Jacob, still limping from his own injuries from the shooting, rushed down the many stairs of the staircase and found Celeste slumped over at the bottom of the staircase bleeding from her stomach.
Her water had broke.
He picked her up, her head flopped over his arm.
"Oh my god, Celeste, CELESTE Wake up!! WAKE UP!!!" he shouted.
Then, Celeste, opened her eyes and saw Jacob's face in a panic. She looked down when she realized she had fallen down the staircase and saw that her water had broken and she was bleeding.
"The baby." She said in a whisper.
"Are you ok? Is anything broken?" Jacob asked.
She shook her head no, she was lucky, nothing had been broken in a the dangerous fall, nothing of bones that is. Her water, however, did break and then, within a few minutes, her labor began.
The tightening of her wombs was painful, but she could manager. She could feel the baby moving around her stomach as if it knew it was time to leave.
"It's too soon! I'm not ready." She said.
"But the baby is coming, we have to get it out! We have to!" Jacob shouted as Celeste suddenly felt her first painful labor pain.
"What's happened!?!??" Evie asked from the top of the staircase hearing Celeste's scream. "Jacob what have you done?"
"Celeste fell down the stairs! I've done nothing!" Jacob said. "She's gone into labor!!" He added.
Evie gasped and rushed down the stairs to her friend's aide. She helped secure Celeste's legs and looked to see the baby.
"Celeste, is that true??" Evie asked, still unsure if Jacob was telling the truth. Celeste nodded yes as she screamed in labor pains. "The baby is coming for sure." Evie added accepting Celeste's response.
"I'll grab towels." Jacob said as he kissed Celeste on the cheek and rushed off.
Evie lifted Celeste's legs upward, and carefully placed the hem of her skirt over her knees. She was bleeding and she could see that the baby was coming. It was a strange thing to witness something so beautiful and yet something so horrific at the same time because of the amount of blood.
Celeste began to scream again in pain just as Jacob returned. Rebecca then appeared at the top of the stairs and gasped.
"Is she ok?? The baby is coming?" She asked, kneeling at Celeste's head lifting it into her lap. "It's too early, isn't it?" She asked.
"She fell down the stairs, the fall stirred her inside to the point it broke her water. This baby is coming, ready or not!" Evie said as Jacob arrived with the towels.
"Oh my god!" Evie said stunned. "Honey I think you're going to have to push!"
Celeste, her face swelled with sweat and tears began to push there on the floor at the foot to the stairs. She pushed and she pushed, the pain was something she had never felt before. It was as if someone was pulling out everything she had in her body, every organ, every vein, every artery, pulling it all out of her wombs with her baby. Celeste was now feeling queasy and faint. She couldn't hold on. She was weak and now feeling the pain of the fall along with the pain of childbirth.
"Darling, you must push again. Stay with us!" Rebecca said dabbing a towel on Celeste's sweaty forehead.
"Is she close?" Jacob asked.
"Push! PUSH!" Evie instructed.
And then, like a signal from god, like the lighting of a match, like the burst of a damn, the baby was born.
The sound of the baby's cry sailed up high into the vaulted ceilings of Tirymor and sang like a banshee in the night. The child was chubby despite being a month premature, but healthy to the naked eye. Celeste cried. Rebecca cried, even Jacob cried.
Evie cleaned and wrapped the baby up in a towel and handed it to Celeste who was a mess yet glowing with the beauty of a new mother as she held her child in her arms for the first time.
"It's a boy." Evie said softly.
"A boy? I HAVE A BOY!? MY BOY!! MY BOY!!" Jacob said reaching for the baby from Celeste but Rebecca stopped him cold.
"Leave him. Go and call the village for Dr. Ward. Go!" Rebecca instructed him.
Jacob froze … he wanted his child, but then looked down at Celeste, a woman he had fallen in love with and whom he was going to marry and decided he would not treat her as he treated Mary when Charlotte was born, which is what Rebecca was trying to avoid.
Rebecca remembered how Jacob tore Charlotte from Mary's arms when the girl was born, she did not want that to happen again.
Jacob listened to his mother and rushed off to call Dr. Ward.
"He's going to be fine, everything is going to be fine." Rebecca whispered.
Celeste was crying and holding her boy close.
"What's he going to be called?" Evie asked as tears came to her own eyes as she thought about her own child growing inside of her.
"Fabian. I want to call him Fabian." Celeste replied.
"Fabian is beautiful." Rebecca said of her new grandchild.
"Fabian DeViana." Celeste said then.
Rebecca lifted a brow. "Fabian De Viana-LORD." The grandmother corrected her adding a hyphenate.
"We'll get that all straightened out soon, won't we?" Evie added, cooling the naming convention of women.
The baby, Jacob's heir was born.
A new era was to begin for them all.
And Sabrina, glowing again and hiding around the corner of the hall way watching all of this go on... cried again. This time, she felt relief that the baby lived. Had she killed the child as she intended, she could never have forgiven herself. "thank god." She whispered to herself. Then, she realized, her plot to end Jacob's line.... failed at the bottom of the stairs.
****
The autumn cold night continued it's chill of Tirymor. In her room, Evie watched as a helpful maid added more wood to the fire in the hearth letting the heat from the flames warm the room mimicking a spring day. Evie smiled with feeling the comfort of that warmth on her skin as she closed her robe around her chilled body then turned and closed an open window blocking the cool air from entering.
As the two women finished warming up Evie's room, they exited and partied ways at the bedroom door, the maid down the hall to the staircase to continue her nighttime chores before her own bedtime and Evie down the opposite end of the hall to Celeste's room to peek in on the new mother.
From Celeste's door Evie watched as the called upon Dr. Ward checked over the new mom who was laying comfortably in her bed carefully handing the baby over to little Charlotte who had woken up in the middle of the night to see her new baby brother.
"He's so small." Charlotte whispered as the baby cooed in her arms.
"We've named him Fabian." Celeste said, causing Charlotte to grin from ear to ear, her first true happy moment since being released from the possession of her aunt Sabrina's ghost.
"What do you think Charlotte?" Evie said from the door. "We're both big sisters now."
Charlotte smiled, delighted to be a big sister finally.
"Be sure to rest. You'll need it, and I've prescribed some medication should you have any aches and pains, which of course is natural considering you also fell down a very long flight of steps." Dr. Ward said,.
"Any signs of trauma on the child?" a voice asked from the back of the room. It was new grandmother Rebecca sitting in her black sequin dress with her hair neatly tied up in a beautiful chignon.
"None what-so-ever. This new Master Lord certinly has a big story to share of the night he was born." Dr. Ward said.
"He's very brave, he'll need that bravery in this family." Evie joked as the entire family turned to her with stone faced expressions.
Evie's smile turned off at their gazes, her joke falling flat.
After, Jacob, who was standing off to the side of Celeste's room holding tightly to a cane that was helping him stand, shifted his eyes to Celeste. She looked beautiful and serene so shortly after giving birth. He seemed to fall in love with her all over again.
Rebecca too, seated like a queen on a thrown, was glowing in pride the newest little Lord baby born in the home.
"You must be more careful." Dr. Ward added to Celeste who had only told him she tripped at the top of the stairs, everyone else keeping mum about the truth of her fall.
"We'll be watching her for sure, doctor, you can be assured of that." Jacob said wondering if Sabrina was listening.
"Come in, come in!" Celeste whispered to Evie who was still standing at the door.
"Oh, no, I'll leave you all to the baby. I'm a bit tired myself. Tomorrow, tomorrow, that baby is mine!" Evie joked remembering her own baby inside of her growing every day.
Celeste smiled as Evie looked over and Jacob and Rebecca and bid them a good night and walked back to her room that she was hoping was much warmer now with the fire burning.
“I should be getting back down to the village myself.” Dr. Ward added.
“Thank you for coming Peter, if it weren’t for Evie’s quick thinking I don’t know what would of happened.” Rebecca said.
“Goodnight.” The doctor relied smiling to the happy family.
“I can’t seem to find my maid Georgina anywhere, so please let me see you out.” Rebecca said to Dr. Ward using his first name hinting at Georgina’s disappearance.
Charlotte and Celeste shot each other quick looks at the mention of the maid that no one knew the two had hidden her away in the turret room after she transformed back into Mary Goode.
As Rebecca walked Dr. Ward out, Jacob, Celeste and Charlotte were alone with the baby. They had created a story that presented Celeste as someone of a klutz, the truth of a vengeful ghost being to bizarre to explain to Dr. Ward.
“Tell me, is she here?” Jacob asked his daughter of the ghost that once inhabited her body now that they were alone.
Charlotte shook her head No and looked down.
“Tell me the truth girl. Is she here?!” Jacob badgered.
“NO DADDY!” Charlotte replied.
“Jacob calm down, just calm down. If Charlotte knows anything she’ll tell us. Won’t you, Charlotte.” Celeste said trying to cool the family. “She knows how important the safety of our new baby is.” She added hoping to encourage Charlotte’s honesty.
“I do, I really do.” Charlotte said with tears in her eyes.
“If she lays even the slightest finger on your baby brother, Charlotte, I swear to..” Jacob began before Celeste shushed him.
“That’s Enough.” Celeste whispered. Jacob stayed quiet at her request then turned to smile at his sleeping son.
The new child was a ray of light in a dark and shadowy Tirymôr House… he was Jacob’s hope for his own salvation, and Celeste’s hope for her own redemption.
**
 |
| Someone watches Evie from the shadows |
Evie reentered her room grinning from ear to ear thinking of the adorable baby. She wondered as she thought of Fabian about her own future child that was growing inside her and when she should tell the family. It would be bitter sweet now that Sebastian was dead but hopefully the pain would pass as the baby grew, then she noticed the window she had closed was open and gasped.
She stared at the sheer curtains as they lifted up into the air like the sails of a ship filling with wind. They were floating and lifting with every push of a breeze that entered in through the window Evie was sure she closed.
She walked over and closed the window again and the fire in the hearth suddenly went completely out.
A chill ran up Evie's spine. She walked slowly over to the fire and grabbed a candle from the mantle that was still lit. She placed the candle under the half scorched wood and relit the fire and watched it burn hotter and hotter as it ate up the oak logs.
Then, sitting on a soft chair across from the fire she pictured the family in Celeste's room and how happy everyone seemed. It was such a direct contrast to the people Nik, Alice and Matthew had described to her. The greedy monsters who had come to Welshport Island generations ago and taken so much from the native people that lived. It was true, she knew it was, but she thought about perhaps how time had changed them and the families desires. No longer were the Lords land grabbers, they were in the business of publishing.
"It's all just nonsense, really." Evie said to herself, trying to put all of the terrible things her friends and brother had said about the family she was now apart of.
But then, she clearly remembered all of the terrible things that had happened since her arrival:
Rebecca's attempt at hypnotizing her when she first came to the family, her disastrous wedding where Sebastian was shot and presumed dead, Jacob attempting to make her go mad and locking her in a mental institution to keep her from her right as part of the family, Sebastian's shocking return from the grave as a creature of the night, her attempt to love him none the less and his evil side creeping out to kill her own brother.
She thought of Sabrina's murder too, and Jacob's constant power grabs within the family and what really happened to Albert Lord so many years ago, his decent into madness. Those true burdens, be them part of a curse or not, were real and she could not deny them no matter how happy the family seemed in the room with the new baby.
The happiness, Evie thought, would not last. It was momentary and would only last as long the sun was dipped below the sea. When the sun came up, Evie was sure the war of the Lords would continue in one form or another.
As Evie continued to stare into the fire in deep thought, she felt a cold breeze on her bare arms. She turned to the window and gasped. It was open again.
The curtains were once again floating it in the air like sails. She slowly made her way to the window and closed it, and as she did, a shadowy figure came up from behind her, but their hand around Evie's mouth muffling her surprised scream. They held her tightly as she struggled to get out of the strong grasp around her body. But there was no use, the person, in dark clothing, concealing their face, and stronger than any one Evie had ever encountered has her locked in her arms.
The person held her so tight that she could no longer scream. The oxygen was being cut off on purpose so that she would black out. But Evie kept fighting, She struggled and struggled even falling to the floor with the person on top of her. The heat in the hearth warming her face. She tried to reach for the fire-poker but the person reached over with their free hand and slammed down on her arm holding it down.
Evie, was feeling herself fade. She could not breath. She could not escape no matter how hard she fought the intruder. She reached up with her last bit of strength and tried to gouge the person's eyes but the person grabbed her hand again and pushed it down to her side.
Then, it was too much for Evie, the continued lack of oxygen made her faint. Then the person, a man, flipped Evie over his shoulder and opened walked over to French doors that lead to a large terrace to the outside garden and took Evie into the shadows of the night.
"EVIE!" Alice said waking herself up in bed.
Alice got up from a night's sleep, her hair tired in a long dark braid. She reached for a robe that was tossed over a side chair near her bed and she fell to the floor on her knees. She began to hum a sound, something that was like a deep purr. It rumbled and rumbled in her chest as her eyes turned white and the small wisps of hairs that framed her face began to sway in a wind that came out of no where.
Alice was attempting to enter Evie's mind. She could sense she was in danger. She could feel there was something happening to her that was beyond her control and when Alice entered in the Evie's subconscious to see what had happened, there, standing in the same darkness of Evie's mind was a dark figure who lunged at Alice grabbing her by the throat and cutting of her air.
In her bedroom, Alice writhed on the floor chocking, gasping for air making noises like an animal trapped in a vice.
Matthew, her brother who heard this noise, rushed into the room and fell to the floor trying to wake Alice from this bizarre tarns.
"ALICE! ALICE WAKE UP! WAKE UP!!" He screamed.
Alice was shaking in his arms, her eyes were crying and then, the whites of her eyes returned to normal and her irises, deep and brown were visible again.
"What's happened????" Matthew asked helping his mystical sister sit up on the floor of her bedroom.
"It's Evie. Something's happened to Evie!" Alice said. Then, as the words fall from her tongue she fainted in her brother's arms completely drained of all her energy.
And in through the woods in the darkness of the midnight hour, an unknown figure of shadows carried the unconscious Evie Jordan-Lord to parts unknown.
