B3/Ch4: A MONSTER SLEEPS; A MONSTER AWAKES

Matthew & Filipe in Gregory’s office 

Early morning sunshine glistened on the sea reflecting into the sky like diamonds gathering in clusters on the white caps of the ocean’s surface. The sky was clear blue in tone and had clusters of rouge autumn rain clouds floating above the village of Welshport village that was bustling. 

In town, Constable Gregory Reigns went over the Lord/Evans case with his new deputy Filipe Braga who came into the office looking tired and warn out. 

“Long night?” Reigns asked pouring him a cup of coffee. 

Filipe shook his head and took the coffee into his thick hand gripping it as if it held a rejuvenating elixir that would bring him back to life. “Too long.” Filipe said still uncertain of what happened between Sebastian and himself. 

“I’ve looked at the files and I’ve come to two possible suspects that may have taken it upon themselves to take out Jacob Lord.” Reigns said plopping a file on the desk in front of Filipe. 

“Down to two so soon?” Filipe asked. 

“I work fast, Deputy Braga, I don’t have time for a murderess to roam free on this island.” Reigns said. 

As Filipe reached for the file Mathew Winterborn entered the office. 

“Constable?” 

“Mr. Winterborn good morning, what can I do for you?” Reigns asked. 

“I have this slip for you to sign off on. Hope Hospital and the coroner’s office requested my fleet’s assistance in transporting a coffin to Philadelphia but they won’t let me go unless you’re ok with it but…” Matthew explained before finishing his sentence when being interrupted by a surprised Filipe.

“Coffin?” 

Matthew looked over to Gregory Reigns to answer.

“It’s Evans, he was killed last night in the park. The same person who shot Jacob shot Evans."

"My god!" Filipe exclaimed. 

"We’ve released the body to his family in Philadelphia and It’s to be accompanied by a nurse to meet them at the docks for a proper burial.” Reigns replied. 

“That’s what I was getting at.” Matthew began again. “This nurse that was to accompany my fleet; never showed. We were told she took the body herself to the family and the hospital let her. So I wont be needing your signature.” Matthew explained. 

“She just took Christian? Just like that?” Filipe wondered. 

“The coroner said she was qualified, I don’t know. I didn’t ask questions.” Matthew replied. 

“Well it doesn’t matter now as long as he's in the right hands and that he gets to is family." Reigns answered negligently. "Im pretty sure I have enough evidence to at least whittle it down to just those two people in the file as the killers. I wont need Christian’s body any longer.” Reigns said. 

“You’re already that close?” Matthew asked as Reigns nodded his head yes. 

Filipe turned his focus back to the file and opened it. The words on the page made his stomach drop and his heart seemed to stop for a second when he reread the second name on the page CELESTE DeVIANA. 

“This is wrong. You can’t really believe Celeste is responsible for this? Why? Why would she?” Filipe asked. 

“My First instinct was Rebecca. From what I've heard they've had a contentious history even if they are mother and son, she has seemed quite frustrated with his antics for years. Other witnesses say they saw a woman matching Celeste’s leaving Tirymôr around 11pm soon after Jacob’s outburst and attack on Evie. She also had motive.” Reigns said. 

“Witnesses? What witnesses? And what motive?” Filipe wondered. 

“Mr. Winterborn, thank you for letting me know about the transport but we’ll be discussing this case and its all quite classified, Ill have to ask you to leave.” Reigns said even though one of his suspects had already been divulged. 

Matthew nodded and smiled then looked over at Filipe who’s face had fear all over it. 

“For what its worth, Filipe, I think she was trying do us all a favor with Jacob.” Matthew said before leaving.

Filipe waited for Matthew to leave then threw the file at his new boss Reigns.

“I took this job as your deputy Gregory because I thought I could help you get to know the town and have people begin go trust this department again, but now you’re just going after red herrings.” Filipe scolded. 

“There's more to Celeste than you know! I told you she had motive.” Reigns said.

“What motive could she possible have? She was with me last night." Filipe replied. 

"All night?" Reigns asked.

Filipe knew there was the window of time before she came home from Tirymor but said nothing.

"Well, what about the second person? Rebecca. Why have you decided she isnt the real culprit?” Filipe asked angrily. 

“Because when I compiled the list of suspects I got all their alibis and they were all accounted for including Rebecca.” Reigns said.

"This just doesn't seem real." Filipe said putting his hand to his forehead. 

“Rebecca spent the better part of the night with Charlotte in Tirymôr’s chapel praying, you know as well as anyone hoe devout she is. Practically a nun. And if you think Charlotte could have done it you’re crazier that Christian ended up.” He added. 

“This makes no sense. Why! Why would Celeste do this? Filipe wondered. “What possible motive could she have? He gave her a job and Christian was her friend from childhood.”

“Again son, there's a lot to your love Celeste and her family’s ties to the Lords that you should ask her before we arrest her.” Reigns said.

“Arrest???” Filipe exclaimed. Gregory only lifter a brow unemotionally. 

Filipe felt like someone had gut punched him. The woman he loved more than anything was now in the crosshairs of the village law department and it wasn’t a simple crime: a murder and an attempted murder would put Celeste in prison for life. 

“She would never hurt anyone. Definitely not Christian and not even Jacob. She just wouldn’t. This is wrong Gregory, all wrong. I would put my own life on it that this is a mistake.” Filipe said.

“There were witnesses who saw her leave the mansion at 11. Timed out she would have had plenty of time to find Jacob in the park, shoot him, then shoot Christian for witnessing. Witnesses saw a figure they believe was a woman in dark clothes leaving the scene. She could have easily committed the crime and made it back to your house right after being that Village Park is on the way to your home. She had a lot riding on Jacob not surviving. He knew something about her family that he was most likely holding over her head. We have records that show this. Records that Jacob has taken from the hall of justice just weeks before that I assume he showed her to give her an idea of what he knew and how much he knew.” Reigns explained.

“What could he know that was so horrible that would make her do it this?” Filipe asked.

“Her mother’s past with Albert Lord may be something to look into.” Reigns hinted. 

Reigns patted Filipe on the back to comfort him and excused himself to a different room where a secretary had called him into to discuss something a citizen had come in to complain about in town. 

It could not be true. Filipe did not want to believe the woman he loved so much was capable of killing anyone much less her friend Christian; and the attempted murder or her boss Jacob was just even more out of the question. But her behavior had been strange since the killings happened. He noticed how off she seemed especially when he found her writing to her brother John in the middle of the night.

 He thought of the baby inside of her. He thought perhaps she was somehow protecting the coming baby some how, if indeed she did this crime. 

Filipe sat in the office alone and poured over the evidence file again and again. The mysterious circumstance of Albert Lord & Celeste’s mother Cristina had been redacted in the tike. Gregory, for his part, had already investigated the missing part of the redactions. But still most of the so called proof was circumstantial, in Filipe’s opinion, with vague witness accounts and no hard locked in pieces to pin the crime on Celeste. 

Never the less Gregory Reigns was out to arrest her and put this crime behind him to show the community he was harder that his predecessor on crime.  

And what of the child? She could not go to jail, Filipe thought, while pregnant, and no one even knew she was having a child--from what Filipe thought. 

Celeste's loving partner then got up from the desk and left the file open on the table and snuck out of the constable’s office without being seen. If anyone was going to confront Celeste as the criminal Filipe knew her not to be, it was going to br him. 

He was going to be the one to get to the truth.

When Reigns came back in he saw Filipe gone. He smiled to himself seeing his little trap had worker. He grabbed his keys and shackles and headed out to follow Filipe— the trap was to hand Celeste confess to the man she loved and trusted and who she’d thought would protect him only for Reigns to suddenly appear and take her away after the confession.

Reigns had tricked Filipe to get to Celeste, a wolf in sleep’s clothing.

****

Aurora Ashby-Jordan

A large passenger cruiser on route from Liverpool, England had docked in the middle of the Atlantic for a cargo pick up in the Azores Islands. There, they not only pick up extra passengers but also exchange precious cargo that would be going from the island to mainland US. 

One specific passenger on board who came from England stood on the bow of the ship. She listened to the other smaller ships whale their foghorns in the distance as they embarked on their own journeys into the great blue mysterious sea. She watched as the busy port of the small Portuguese island bustled with activity as her ship's crew moved large crates on and off the ship.

 She removed her soft hat and let her long light brown hair flow in the salty air. She could taste the salt on her lips, she could feel the cool breeze kiss her skin. She felt free. She felt, finally, a sense of relief that she had made it this far. 

A few hours later, as the large English carrier finally raised anchor and set off for the rest of the journey to America, the woman once again made it to the edge of the bow and stood there with her hair flowing in the wild wind over the Atlantic. She smiled and smelled the wet air as it once again whistled breathy sea-shanties into her ears.

The sun was beginning to set over the horizon. The orange and pink sky glowed in her green eyes. She reached down into a small brown satchel that she had brought with her to the bow from her cabin and removed a silver and gold urn. On the urn were the initials R.C.J. for Robert Calvin Jordan, Evie and Nikolas' father. 

The woman was their mother Aurora Mason-Jordan, freshly widowed and headed to meet  up with her two children. 

Aurora took a deep breath, the wild wind still spinning all around her getting more and more powerful as the ship got further and further away from their last stop. 

Once she felt safe enough, Aurora opened the lid of the urn and tipped it over, emptying all of Robert's ashes into the sea. 

"There my sweet. You're free too." Aurora said. As she watched the ashes fly into the wind and land scattered on the ocean's surface. "And one day," Aurora added "you can forgive me for what I did."

Aurora was headed to Welshport to reunite with her children alone in hopes that all her secrets and skeletons would say in London forever. 

****

Sebastian & Evie at Lockwood Thicket

The crows circled a large patch of birch trees mixed with thick giant noble fir trees in the Westernridge Woods within the Tirymôr Forest. Lockwood thicket, the former cabin owned by Rebecca's family the Lockwoods, was a warm cozy place where Sebastian and Evie could be alone away from the prying eyes of the Lord family.

The cabin soon became a place for Sebastian’s solitude and safety; he wanted to be nowhere else but in the small secluded cabin where he and Evie finally reconnected after he freed her from Windcliff Sanitarium. 

On this night, the two were together again, locked arm in arm embracing on the small bed by a roaring fire just after they had shared dinner. They were so much in love. Their souls tied together at their wedding despite the tragedy that had unfolded when Mary shot Sebastian and despite Evie having a brief relationship with Christian while Sebastian was presumed dead.

All of that history finally had seemed like a long terrible dream they had woken up from. But in truth it was just a precursor to dramas and nightmares to come. 

"Dr. Kim came to the mansion the other day. He was on his way out of town, off the island and off to places he wouldn't come back from." Evie said as her head lay on Sebastian's bare chest. 

"Kim? He came to see you?" Sebastian asked somewhat surprised.

"Well, not to see me specifically, to see your grandmother. But she wasn't home so I took his call. He came to give her flowers. He thought Jacob had been killed." Evie explained.

Sebastian seemed annoyed. 

"He was only there for a moment, really." Evie continued. "He's a very tortured individual. He told me about his past and all of the things that made him who he was. It was quite sad." 

"Tortured? How can a torturer be tortured? His callousness was what kept you locked away in that hospital!" Sebastian reminded her. 

"But he didn't want to keep me there." Evie replied.

Sebastian turned his head downward to look at Evie. Something inside of him suddenly began to burn just as hot as the fire in the fireplace. It was as if he was hearing Evie's voice for the first time, and what she was saying was shocking to him. 

"You're not saying that you don't blame Andrew Kim for what he did to you, do you?" Sebastian asked, his voice clearly expressing irritation with her quick way of forgiveness. 

She lifted her head from his chest and looked him in the eyes "I'm saying that I see now why he did what he did. He didn't have a choice." Evie explained to Sebastian as his face became frozen with frustration and visible anger. 

"BUT HE DID!" Sebastian replied in a loud voice. "He did have a choice, Evie, and that choice was to help Jacob keep us apart!" 

"Sebastian--" Evie began to say just as Sebastian interrupted her and lifted her off of him and he got up from the bed to look at her directly in the eyes.

"Evie, he's a cruel person. He only wanted to keep you there so that he could continue to get paid by uncle Jacob! Jacob was paying him to keep you there, I though you understood this!" Sebastian shouted.

"I did Sebastian, and I do, but that doesn't mean that his story and his life should have been used against him the way Jacob did. Andrew was just as much a victim of Jacob's as you and I were! He was a pawn in the whole scheme and what's worse is Andrew felt he had no choice but to do what he did." Evie said, revealing in words that she had basically forgiven the doctor for his twisted deeds. 

"He should have been destroyed. I should have ripped his throat out just like I did that orderly." Sebastian said in a growl. 

"Orderly??" Evie asked not knowing Sebastian had killed a man in the hospital who had caught him entering the night he saved her 

Sebastian didn't say a word.

"Did you hurt someone at Windcliff?" 

He said nothing again.

"Answer me!!" She shouted. 

"I had to. He saw me and Georgina in the halls and was about to call security. I had to make sure he didn't ruin my plan to get you back." Sebastian replied. 

"So you killed him? There was no other way? You just decided that ending his life was the best action to take??" Evie replied outraged. 

"You don't understand..." Sebastian began as Evie got off the bed and grabbed her clothes.

"Oh! I don't understand why you would kill a man instead of just, I don't know, locking him in a closet perhaps, but YOU don't understand how I can forgive a person for their misgivings. Tell me Sebastian, should the same rule of thought be granted to you? Should I not forgive you for killing someone just as I shouldn't forgive Andrew Kim for being forced to keep me in that same hospital? Its hypocrisy!" She replied as she put on her coat and began to make her way to the door just as Sebastian grabbed her arm and pulled her back. 

"Evie!" Sebastian shouted, she screamed with pain as her arm was locked in his grip.

When she turned back around, his fangs were out, his eyes were black, his mouth was watering. His anger towards her, this argument they were having caused him to switch to his dark side holding her in his super-human grip.

She gasped at his appearance. "You're.. you're hurting me." she said softly. 

"You are NOT leaving!" She growled.

"Let go of me Sebastian!" She scolded. 

Her voice, angry and strong pierced his mind. He suddenly saw what he was doing with the eyes and mind of his non-monster side. He quickly released her from his tight grasp. She began to rub her arm hoping the pain would subside. 

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" He said falling back on to the bed sitting and facing her, his glistening bare torso sweaty with anxiety sparkled in the fire. 

"I don't know what that was, but I never want to see it again. You have to promise me you will never be like that again." She said sitting on a chair directly across from where sat on the bed. 

"I don't know how it happens. Sometimes when I feel angry or when I'm scared my mind goes black and all I can think of is hurting someone or ... I don't know, I don't know where it comes from." He said.

She thought about his words. They stung. They felt like he was not able to control himself even with her in the room. He frightened her to her core. She took a deep breath and slowly got up from the chair and came closer to him one step and at time almost as if she were afraid he'd lunge at her. 

She knelt down next to him, she put her hands on his knees and looked at him with an innocence that made him begin to weep. He started to run his fingers through her long light brown hair that went all the way down her back. He was shaking. The fire still burned and brightened the sweat droplets on his body. 

"Even with me, you can get that way? Even with me, someone who loves you so much unconditionally, you can become like that? How? What can we do to fix it?" She asked as she rested her head on his knees.

"I don't know." He said through sniffles. 

"We have to find out because I don't see how I can make it through with you if .... if you try and hurt me." She replied.

He moved her head from his knees and knelt own on the floor with her. He enter-clasped his hands with hers and pulled her close and kissed her passionately on the lips after gazing into her sweet eyes for a split second. "I would never hurt, I swear to god almighty, that I Sebastian Lord would never ever hurt you." He said with true sincerity. 

"But you already did. You grabbed my arm and hurt me. Had I fought you back, what would have happened? Would you have killed me?" She asked worried about the answer.

"NO! Never! I wouldn't even think of that." He replied. 

Evie smiled but she wasn't sure if that was true. On a small conversation about a person he did not like, Sebastian exploded and let his darkness overtake him. He became a creature that she did not recognize as the man she love. Inside her heart she knew what he was, she understood all the dangers that could come along taking him in as her husband again no matter what he really was, but at the same time she always thought there would be never a chance he would do something to her, the woman he loved just as much, the woman he found trapped in a mental hospital and saved her---she believed with all her heart he would not do it.

Before he actually did. 

Her arm was still throbbing from Sebastian's powerful grab. His eyes, even though they had returned to their typical look of two pools of ocean blue, still had a streak of sadness and darkness that were abnormal for a person his age. A person who had nothing to hide a person who lived in both day and night. 

Sebastian was not that person. Although young in looks, his heart had aged to match the centuries of history he was now apart of, his face although handsome yet, had also twinges a man who lived a life no one could ever imagine. 

"I want you to think about tonight." Evie said. "Think about what could have happened had you not come out of that trans and released me. Think about that." She added.

"I know, I know what it seemed like and how awful that must of felt, but I promise you my love, I will never ever do it again." Sebastian said placing his hands around her beautiful head.

In that moment, although her stomach was still in knots and her arm was still sore, she believed him. Not because love was blind, not because she was naïve, not because she wanted to think the best of him just as she thought the best of Andrew Kim--- but because she felt it in her heart that had he wanted to hurt her, he would have done so weeks ago.

She looked at him and smiled, this time a real smile. She leaned in and they kissed and let the fire in the fireplace warm their two bodies as they began to make love again. 

As they lay there, at the foot of the bed, naked after making love once more and the fur blankets kept their skin warm from the cold night air, Evie stared at the ceiling while Sebastian slept.

She thought about what had happened. She ran it over and over in her mind: Sebastian's monstrous face that looked as if he were about to kill her, his large hand wrapped around her upper arm so tight it left a red mark for a second. She thought about how he was two people now, this beautiful kind person who adored her and would protect her forever, and the monster that lived inside of him thanks to Eliza's spell. 

Then she thought about what her brother Nikolas said to her just a few days before, how something on this island of Welshport just wasn't right. Something, made Nik think there was some kind of strange evil living on the island and that it felt as if to Nik that it was growing out of control.

Then Evie turned to the sleeping Sebastian and wondered, Was he the evil Nik was feeling growing out of control? He had certainly showed it. 

And it scared her to her core. 

****

Welshport Hope Hospital

As the evening went on, Welshport Hope Hospital had quieted after another day of healing and helping those from the village in need. Holding vigil next to Jacob Lord's ailing body that had been pierced by two red hot bullets from an assailant's gun was his mother Rebecca, daughter Charlotte, and Rebecca's personal maid Georgina. 

Rebecca skillfully knitted a thick black scarf as Jacob's sleeping body lay in the bed. Charlotte quietly read from a little prayer book that she was given at her first communion, and Georgina sat in her chair nervously fidgeting with her fingers. 

After all, Georgina was really Jacob's ex Mary Goode hiding in Georgina's body that kept her safe from prosecution for the shooting of Sebastian Lord.

Mary's clever disguise, thanks to a spell by her Eliz's spell, had kept her safe from the law and Jacob's continued wrath but he still made her nervous. 

Georgina's stomach was in knots being so close to Jacob this way. If he awoke, would he know who she really was after all this time. So far she felt that he didn't know she was really Mary--but stranger things had happened. 

"You're all still here?" Dr. Peter Ward said entering Jacob's room to check on him.

"I wouldn't leave him." Rebecca said, her material words not matching her cold tone. "Why hasn't he woken up yet Peter, it's been almost a week?"

Dr. Ward shrugged, "He lost a lot of blood Rebecca. The body needs to recoup and regenerate a lot of the blood that he lost. I am confident that in a few more days as the medicine we've given him wears off and the wounds we worked on in the operating room continue to heal he'll be alert and back to his regular self." 

Rebecca & Dr. Ward

His regular self was what the three women worried about. 

They all flashed back to his drunk outburst the night he attacked Evie with a knife and attempted to leave with her when Sebastian arrived shocking everyone and they all remembered how he jumped through the French doors of the drawing room; bursting through glass and wood, all to get away from the truths that were being told about his evil ways. That "regular self" was what they feared, worried about and why all their stomachs now were all twisting and turning with anxiety.

"Is there something that we can give him, medicine of some sort, that will keep him relaxed even after he leaves the hospital?" Rebecca wondered.

"You want to sedate him?" Dr. Ward asked in surprise. 

"I don't know the exact word, but I think we all know how unruly Jacob can be and if he needs something to take to keep him calm while he heals at home, I think it would be a good idea." Rebecca added as Georgina and Charlotte looked on.

"That's sedation." Dr. Ward shot back slightly irritated by her request. "I can't imagine you want to keep him drugged do you? I wouldn't recommend that. Its not a natural way for the body to hear. I can give him something for the pain in moderation but that's as far as I think we should go." 

"I don't know if that would suffice." Rebecca replied with an eye brow lift realizing Jacob was better off asleep than awake, at least until they could figure out what other deeds of his were yet to uncover.

"Why would you want to keep him in this state?" Ward wondered. "You know we found glass and shards of wood in his wounds. There was no glass in the park where he was shot, Constable Reigns told me that much, so I wonder, did something happen at him at home before he got to the park?" 

"A family matter that got out of hand." Rebecca replied as she replaced her knitting materials into a small leather back next to her then handed it over to her maid Georgina. 

"Rebecca, whatever happened at Tirymôr isn't actually my business--" Ward began before being interrupted by Rebecca who agreed, it wasn't his business "but, if we should be worried about anyone's safety at the mansion, now is the time we should know."

"We? Who is we?" Rebecca asked.

"Me, as chief medical here at the hospital and in the village I have an obligation to make sure all our patients and all their needs are taken care of. That goes for their physical well being... and their mental well being." Ward said, hinting that perhaps Jacob's mental state should also be looked at. 

"Peter, thank you but right now all I want to know is if there is something you can give him to keep him...." Rebecca said before Jacob suddenly started to stir. 

"Daddy?" Charlotte said out loud causing Rebecca and Peter to notice him awakening too.

"Jacob? Jacob... this is Dr. Ward....can you hear me?" Ward asked checking the man's vitals. "Jacob, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand." 

Charlotte got up from her chair dropped her book and rushed over to her father's bedside. Inside of her Sabrina Lord's spirt hoped Jacob, the man who killed her, would not wake up --- ever. It was a true battle inside of Charlotte who wanted her father to pay for his sins but also was a little 10 year old girl who just wanted a father -- period. 

"Daddy, wake up! Wake up daddy!" Charlotte said softly petting the back of Jacob's hand.

"Charlotte, honey, come away from there. Let Dr. Ward check him over." Georgina said pulling her daughter back from Jacob's bed side.

Peter Ward continued to check over Jacob, listening to his heart beat that felt strong. Listening to his breathing that also felt strong. None of those vitals had changed. He lifted the lid of his right eye then his life eye and the pupils were working correctly contracting and expanding with the entrance of the dim light of the hospital bed. 

Then, he started to mumble and opened his eyes on his own.

"Jacob...." Rebecca said softy.

He mumbled a word that resembled mother as Ward called for a nurse to telephone over to the Constable's home and call him up to Hope Hospital. 

"Jacob, you were shot. You've been in the hospital for a while now, try to stir too much because your wounds are healing." Ward explained to Jacob. 

Jacob continued to attempt to speak.

"Save that now," Ward said as he looked over to the three women who seemed nervous and uncomfortable with Jacob's sudden revival. "Save what you have to say for Constable Reigns." 

"Do you think he wants to tell us who shot him?" Georgina asked.

"I want him to save whatever he wants to tell us for Reigns." Ward repeated sternly as it was clearly evidence for the crime of Jacob's attempted murder and the murder of Christian Evans. 

"I think we should see what he knows." Rebecca said surprising Peter Ward.

"Rebecca!" Peter exclaimed. " We have to wait for Reigns. Jacob is a witness to his own crime, we have to preserve that knowledge." 

Then Jacob, rebuffing everything that was happening around him opened his mouth.

"W h a a t..... happ.... ened? What Happened?" He asked to everyone's shock.

"Jacob--- stop." Ward replied.

"You don't remember????" Rebecca asked in shock.

Jacob shook his head no. 

"I don't know." Jacob replied. "What ... happ----ened?" He asked again.

"You were shot. You were shot Jacob, do you remember who did it?" Georgina asked to Peter and now Rebecca's furious facial expressions.

"Shot?" Jacob murmured. "I --shot?" 

"That's right. You were shot. If you remember anything Jacob, please wait for Constable Reigns to come so you can tell him what you know and they can arrest the person that did this to you and Christian." Ward replied.

"I.... don.... I don't remember. Anything." Jacob said stunning everyone in the room.

The memory of that night, the shooter's identity--- was gone. 

Frustrated with the women for pushing Jacob into that mind space so soon after waking from his brief coma, Dr. Peter Ward cleared the hospital room so that he could examine Jacob in private. The three women were ushered into a small waiting room painted light green with plenty of plants setting a calming mood for families. The two large windows overlooked the village below the hill that the hospital stood on. 

Rebecca stared out of the window into the dark village of Welshport with her arms crossed wondering what was going to happen next and if Jacob's lack of memory would be temporary or perhaps better for everyone permanent. 

Sitting alone while Georgina went for coffee, Charlotte's mind was a buzz with Sabrina's ghostly thoughts.

"This could be a blessing, my sweet Charlotte. This could change everything." Sabrina's voice said echoing in Charlotte's mind.

"How?" Charlotte replied in her mind back to the ghost living inside of her. 

"If your father is truly lacking the memory of what happened to him, perhaps he's forgotten much more. Perhaps, now, we can retrain his evil mind to good.... we wouldn't have to hurt him. We could actually save him!" Sabrina said enthusiastically. 

"And maybe even he will be a better daddy!! To me and to the baby Celeste will have!" Charlotte said noting she was aware of Celeste's so far secret baby. 

"That's right! This is a window of opportunity that we should not miss--- we can make him a better person, much better now that he's a clean slate." Sabrina said again.

Charlotte smiled at the idea that her father was finally going to be a good man, or at least that was her hope. It was the silver lining she had always wished would come from such a dark part of her life. 

Dr. Ward finished his examination and went off into another room where he'd gather a few things to finish up cleaning Jacob's healing bullet wounds.

As he lay there, staring out of the window of his hospital room into the dark night, Georgina walked in.

She looked him, seemingly in a peaceful quiet mindset. It was as if Jacob had been saved from all the evil he had done. But inside of her, her mind being Mary's, she did not believe it. He had caused so much pain in her life, had forced her to find a way to live in another person's body to hide from him and the crime she committed for him. 

She wanted him dead. 

Georgina walked over to him and he turned to her and smiled.

"Thank you for being here." He said kindly.

She did not say a word.

"Thank you for watching over my child. I only wish I could be there for her instead being in this bed. I'm sure she was scared." He added.

She just stared at him. He had no idea she was really his Ex Mary. He had no idea of what he had done to her. To his daughter. To Sabrina. To Evie. To Sebastian. He had no idea. None.

He was truly a clean slate. 

Georgina then forced a smile at him and un-balled her fists and said "Of course sir." 

He smiled at her and reached for her hand and squeezed it. 

"Everything is going to be ok, I really hope so." He said to her feeling happy that he could speak again.

Georgina felt the warmth of his hand and she felt a twinge of sadness pop up in her. Why couldn't this handsome man, a man she fell in love with when she was in her own body, a man she had a child with, why did he have to go, why did he have to turn so cruel. 

Was this truly a new page for Jacob? Was he now going to live his life out the best way possible?

Georgina excused herself as she had yet to bring back the coffee for Rebecca leaving Jacob in his bed alone. He stared out the window again --- 

and smiled at his own reflection. Evilly. 

B3/Ch3: DEEPER INTO THE FOG

Evie confronts her former captor Andrew Kim 

On a frigid afternoon, as the waves of the Atlantic in the Frenchman Bay crashed on the rocky coastline of Welshport Island, a small black taxi from the village puttered along the gravely road that lead up to Tirymôr House. 

In the car was Dr. Andrew Kim. 

Kim was dropped off at the front marble steps of the mansion in the half circle drive way with a bouquet blood red roses and snow white hydrangeas. The floral scent wafted up with the breeze from the flowers to Andrew's nose soothing his nerves. He was there to give his regrets on the death of Jacob Lord--- hiding the fact he was the one who brain-washed Christian to murder him.

The unfortunate part was the Andrew didn't keep up on the village news; Jacob had not died as Andrew had hoped, he survived. 

Christian's brainwashing didn't work and he failed to kill Jacob for Andrew ...and HE was the dead one. 

Inside the mansion, the housemaid, Jane ushered Andrew along the marble floors. Their footsteps echoed all the way up into the Cathedral like ceilings of Tirymôr like the chattering of hooves on cobble stone streets. Andrew had been in the house before, but never in the daytime. He marveled at how the light shined into the main hallway through a group of stained-glass windows reflecting a jigsaw puzzle pattern down on the marble floor just before he was lead into a parlor where he was seated alone with this giant bouquet of flowers. 

Only the painted, empty, eyes of Albert Lord's portrait to keep Andrew company. And like many things in Welshport, things were not as they seemed at Tirymor House.

Andrew Kim was not alone.

The portrait across from Albert's was of a distant relative, Albert's great-grandmother Cora Halstrom. In the painting, Cora was in her youth. A young woman in her 20's with eyes that seemed to search the room for a friend, a kind face. Cora had never actually been to Welshport. She was a wealthy Boston socialite on Albert's mother's side. 

Yet her painted eyes were strange. But not strange by Tirymor' s standards. The two eyes were not still. They moved to the side from behind the wall and real eyes popped into view of someone  watching Kim... waiting to see what he'd do.

Kim sat there. Patient. Adjusted his tie. Fixed his vest. Fluffed the flowers. Smelled them again. Jane re-entered bringing in a silver tray-tea-set for two. 

Kim smiled politely at the maid as he checked his pocket-watch. 

"Mrs. Lord will be in shortly." Jane said as she curtsied. 

Kim smiled again just as the maid exited and the eyes of Cora's painting returned to those created by the artist and moments later, just as Kim's nerve was about to leave him to meet with Rebecca Lord, the parlor door opened and in walked "Mrs. Lord" as Jane had promised. 

But it was not the Mrs. Lord Kim expected.

It was the woman wrongly kept committed to the insane asylum on the mainland, by Dr. Andrew Kim per his black-mail by Jacob Lord. 

It was Evie. 

"Oh!!!" Andrew said, his heart sinking into his stomach. "I was expecting Mrs. Lord." Kim said standing up to great her. 

"I am Mrs. Lord. Mrs. Evangeline Jordan-Lord." Evie said smirking delightfully. 

"Yes, indeed you are." Kim replied nervously. "But I meant to bring these to Rebecca on the occasion of the death of her son." Kim added. 

Evie smiled and invited Andrew Kim to sit down with her for some tea. 

"She's not here. She's at Hope Hospital with Jacob." Evie replied shocking Kim. 

"I don't understand. Jacob … he's dead, isn't he?" he asked, his face pale and ashen. 

"It seems my uncle-in-law has made it through that horrible event in the park. And whatever it was that Christian had against him, meant nothing to the person who shot them both. You see Dr. Kim, Jacob and Christian Evans were both shot the other night, Jacob lived, Christian did not." Evie informed him as she passed him a cup of tea in a the most perfectly painted white porcelain cup and saucer. 

Andrew was shocked. He swallowed hard as if Evie's news was a unchewed piece of steak. His plan, to use an brainwashed Christian to kill Jacob once and for all had failed. The wrong man died that night in the fog of the park.

"Shot?" Kim said confused of the manner of the crime that he did not authorize. "I did not know this, so please excuse my surprised expression." Kim replied as he sipped his tea.

"It seems this would be the best time for me to tell you to keep up with your subscription of any of the news papers this family publishes." Evie joked. "It's the biggest story of the week, to have the heir to this family on his death bed and all." 

"It would make sense to keep up, yes." Kim said again, still uncomfortable with who he was talking to.

"Now that all that is out of the way, doctor, we should chat about our own history. You like to talk things out, if I am remembering our strange sessions at Windcliff correctly." Evie said with a small twinge of snark.

Kim smiled, he expected this from her.

"Very well. What would you like to talk about?" 

"For one, why was Christian Evans out of your care? How was he able to just leave Windcliff and come back to the island and meet up with Jacob?" She wondered.

"I assure you Mrs. Lord, I was assured Mr. Evans was fine and asleep last night before I too went for my own rest. I had no idea he had left. Had anyone told me, we would have done everything we could to bring him back safely." Kim replied, lying, knowing he was the one who sent Christian to the island to kill Jacob.

"Like you did with me." Evie snarked knowing she was wrongly committed there.

"That was an entirely different situation Evie." He said, the discomfort in his voice noticeable. 

"Christian deserved better care. A better doctor. A better facility during his mental breakdown. You know this. I know this. He was sick. He was going mad and instead of helping him heal you were negligent and allowed him to escape and now he's dead. I think you should be ashamed of yourself. Deeply ashamed." 

Andrew thought for a second about the word Evie used: "Shame."

"That is perhaps the most honest thing I can say about this whole debacle and truly the source of it all. Deep Shame. Shame, Mrs. Lord, is what lead  us here today." Kim said cryptically. 

"I would say it's more than just that. Something else must be the cause of your negligence. You wouldn't have become a doctor, a person meant to help people in their time of need, only to allow someone like Jacob to come along and convince you on my own false madness then completely ignore Christian's. It doesn't make sense, doctor, to throw away your good name like that." Evie said.

"Jacob. The root of my own downfall." Kim replied.

"Why? Why did you allow Jacob to control you this way? You said shame? How many of your patients, under your care, actually belong at Windcliff? You knew well that I didn't belong at the Hospital and yet you allowed Jacob to lock me there. You knew that Jacob was the one planting all these falsehoods to convince me I was mad but.... yet... you did nothing? You allowed it all to happen and kept me there for months. What was it that shamed you?  Your love of his money?" Evie demanded. 

"I don't know what to tell you." Andrew said, darting the question.

"Tell me the truth. That's all I am asking for." 

Kim paused and turned to look into the fire. His eyes filled with the golden light from the hearth and welled with tears. He could no longer hold on to everything. He could no longer keep the power Jacob had over him a secret. It had to be told, if to no one else another person who had been  harmed by Jacob himself. He had nothing left to lose now.

"Evangeline, what I am about to tell you is going to change how you see me and I am afraid of that, but you are correct, you deserve the truth. All of it. No matter how devastating it is." 

Andrew turned back around, and Evie saw his tears. She got up from her chair and sat next to him on the sofa seeing how frightened he was. She grabbed his hand and squeezed.

"Andrew, What could be so terrible that you feel compelled to cry?" 

"Jacob knew something about me that should the general public know it would ruin me and my practice. I met Jacob years and years ago when his own father was admitted to Windcliff for issues of the mind, I was just an attending psychiatrist at the time working with child patients. Albert Lord, the poor man, was a deranged person who had a very dark breakdown where he attempted to take his life and eventually, while in the care of Windcliff, did so. Albert was haunted... terribly so, and Jacob would come to see him and attempt to bring him back into himself. But it never worked, as the chief of staff at the time had promised. And Jacob took issue with the former chief of staff and his so called negligence of Albert." Andrew explained. 

"But it wasn't his fault." 

"No... but Jacob was none the less furious with that former chief because he didn't believe he was doing enough for Albert's medical care. You see the former chief had been a fisherman in town and was offered a job at Lord Publishing as a young man to put himself through medical school, he and Jacob knew each other... they were friends. Jacob trusted him and things... were not progressing with Albert as fast as Jacob wanted." Andrew explained further in the gaze of Albert's painting. 

"If Jacob was so angry with your predecessor, why did he feel the need to come after you later?" Evie asked as she sipped her tea.

"Because of what he saw. He saw something. And that is where the shame comes in." Kim said. 

"What? What did he see?' 

Kim paused as sipped his tea again warming his mouth. "This is the part," Kim said "that will show you who I really am?" 

Evie squinted "Who you really are? I don't understand." 

"Jacob came to the hospital one night furious with a bill that was sent over from us for Albert's care. This was a few months before his father took his own life. The bill, was quite expensive, and Jacob didn't feel it was right for him to pay it all since Albert had, in Jacob's opinion, regressed deeper into his madness. Jacob barged into Dr. Michael Daphne and his partner in a very passionate embrace. Evie... the person chief of staff Daphne was kissing was me. He and I, were... in love." 

Evie dropped her cup to the floor. Her eyes were wide in shock. She felt as if her coreset had tightened to the point where she could not breathe. She gulped and licked her lips that had dried.

"In love?... Oh." She said, as her eyes were clearly as wide as the tea cup saucers. "Well, I did not know this." Evie added as she cleaned up the spilled tea on her skirt.

"Please, here, let me help you." Kim said he passed Evie a handkerchief. 

"So, you and Michael Daphne, had romantic feelings for each other? You were together?" Evie asked attempting to make sense of their connection and after taking a breath to dissipate the clouds in her mind. 

"We were. We were in love, just as you and Sebastian were. Dr. Daphne, Michael, he passed away three years ago but that didn't stop Jacob from using what he knew about me and my past to make sure I did everything he wanted. The two of us, Michael and I, were trapped. Jacob's bills stopped going for Albert's care. We did everything we could to keep Jacob and the Lord family up-to-date with everything and we were at their beck and call at all times. So when Michael died and I was promoted all of the pressure went on to me, and just me. Jacob used that to his advantage again when it came to having you locked away."

"I see." Evie said, taking it all in. "Well. No one should ever, EVER, be shamed for who they love. I believe that whole heartedly." 

"That's very kind of you. I wish more people looked at it the way you do." He answered.

She grabbed his hand and squeezed.

"For what its worth, Evie, I am very sorry for everything. But I was cornered. I had to do it." Kim replied.

Evie looked into Andrew's pained deep brown eyes. She saw his sincerely and knew that even though Kim and Daphne were the first couple of their kind she had ever, sort of, known of she knew that love came in many many many forms. How could it not be true love, if they both felt this way about each other. She thought of her own relationship with how Sebastian is now. Many, if they knew what Sebastian was, would wonder how could she even think of loving such a man; a man who is sometimes more monster than human. But she did. She did love Sebastian no matter what any one said and no matter what anyone's questions. 

"You know, my mother once told me that the things we hide about ourselves is to our own detriment. Allowing people to know who we really are, no matter what we think of ourselves or what we think others will say about us will never be good for our soul. Andrew, I'm sorry you've had to hide this way. It's awful. And... well, I wish that one day, someday, people who love the way you love won't have to." Evie said as Kim's eyes welled up with tears again.

"Well that is very kind of you after all I did to keep you away from Tirymôr. You are a breath a fresh air to this house built on a shadowy family tree. I sincerely hope you will be happy again in love soon," Andrew said with tears in his eyes. "its not every day we all get a second chance at love like you and Sebastian have."  he added reminder Evie he was aware of Sebastian's "miraculous" return from the grave.

Evie smiled and realized it wasn't only Dr. Kim who had his secret love hidden away, Sebastian, was sleeping away the daylight upstairs hiding the fact his sudden return to live was only due to the spell of a witch giving him that power and with it, the thirst for blood. 

"I hope so too." She said reluctantly with Sebastian's name on her lips.

"Where is Mr. Lord? I'd like to welcome him back too." Andrew asked as Evie stammered for a response. 

"Indisposed at the moment. He's been through a lot. You may not know but he was taken from us by kidnappers and replaced with a usurper in hopes they'd gain some money. He escaped and the imposter was the one who died at our wedding." Evie replied, using the lie Rebecca and Sebastian came up with to explain his return. 

"My!! How very dramatic!" Kim replied. "On that note, these are for you I suppose." Andrew said passing her the bouquet that was still bundled on the table in front of them. "And with that I shall bid you a good afternoon." 

"You're leaving so soon?" She asked smelling the flowers.

"Indeed." he affirmed. "There is a boat in the bay that will be taking me away from here for a while so that I can get some affairs straightened out, outside of Maine." 

Evie nodded "And when will return?" She asked.

Kim kissed the back of Evie's hand bidding her farewell "I may never, miss." He said to her surprise. "I may never return."  

****

Alice & Nikolas in The Village

In the village, two young lovers walked arm in arm around the small avenues filled with quaint shops and markets that made up the main area of the village commerce district. It was Nik Jordan and Alice Winterborn, both glowing in the gloomy over-cast day in their affection for each other. 

Nik, who had only arrived to Welshport 4 months before, had fallen head-over-heels for Alice who felt the same about her friend Evie's brother. They were around the same age, early 20s and had much more in common than met the eye. 

"It's so funny." Nik said while he tightened his grip around Alice's arm that was interlocked with his.

"What is?" She asked, the grayed out sunlight giving her tan skin a glow of caramel.

"I was so frantic when I got to this place in search of Evie that I never really noticed how small the town was. Everyone pretty much knows everyone else. I don't think we've passed a single person who hasn't stopped in their tracks to look at us." He remarked.

"Small villages are like that. Besides, you're new here, and I've been gone a long time... its all apart of the charm living here I guess." Alice replied brushing off the gawking. 

"Do you really think so? It really doesn't bother you being gawked at like we're some kind of carnival side show?" He asked.

She shrugged and grinned. 

"They look at us like we're some kind of mystery or a puzzle they can't figure out." He added.

"Aren't we though?" She asked as they stopped in front of a flower shop.

"I don't know." he shrugged as he pulled her close to him while he snipped a small white daisy from the outside canister of flowers and put it over Alice's ear.

"That's 10 cents sir." The flower shop owner barked as Nik flipped him the coin for payment.

"Everything is a mystery Nikolas. From how we're able to breath without trying to, how this flower you picked out grew out from the ground into this little sun burst of white and green. It's all apart of a larger plan; some miraculous secret we're left out of. The whole life of the planet is part of a puzzle and we're just tiny pieces of it." Alice replied removing the daisy from over her ear and sniffed it's sweet scent. 

"I would agree with that." He replied as he leaned in and kissed her softly. 

She smiled and replaced the flower back over her ear then re-linked her arm in his and they carried on with their walk through town. "How is your sister?" She asked.

Nik shrugged again. "Good, from what I can tell. She's doing much better now that she's back in her own home with her husband. They've gone through so much." 

"Her husband... is he ...well?" She wondered.

Nik paused unsure how to even begin to explain Sebastian and his affliction. 

"From what I can see, yes." 

She paused in the middle of a small plaza just off the corner of the street across from the park where Christian and Jacob were shot. She stared at the space that had been roped off by the police and had been cleaned up. She could sense the darkness around that place. She could feel the sinister evil that had come there and done so much damage in the middle of the night and took a man's life. She shivered as the images flooded her mind of a shadowy figure coming up to Jacob and Christian and shooting them in cold blood and leaving them on the pavement of the park to die. Her hands, even though covered by black leather gloves to protect from the cool weather, began to sweat. 

The sound of the gun went off in her mind. 

One shot. 

Two shots.

Three shots. 

Four shots.

"Alice? ALICE!" Nik's voice said, breaking her trans.

"I'm sorry. I was just... I don't know." She said as she held on to Nik's arm tightly. 

"You went off somewhere, what were you thinking of?" He asked.

"I... was seeing something. From the night Jacob and Christian were shot." She said briefly.

"Seeing?" 

"It's hard to explain but sometimes I can see things in my mind as if I were there. Sometimes it's a blessing and sometimes its a curse. There are things I see that sometimes I don't want to see." She explained.

"It's this island. It has so many people on edge. Look around, everyone who's been watching and staring at us... it's because they're suspicious of these two 'new comers'. Everyone is spooked." Nik said referring to them both as the newcomers. 

 "I think its not just the island, but those that live here... and those who have died here. And those who have done both." Alice said cryptically. 

"Both? Lived and have lived?" Nik asked then he remembered his brother-in-law. A man who had been alive and dead all at the same time. "Sebastian." He said, seeing through Alice's veiled sentence, Alice nodded confirming that is who she meant. "Are you concerned about him, and what he's become?"

"I don't know what exactly it is about him that I feel Nikolas. What I do know is that I think about him often. He just continues to flood my mind. I don't really know what it all means. Every since I met Evie at Windcliff, I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to something within this world that should not be here and --I'll be honest, something Sebastian's face appears in one of my visions. Like when we went into the Westernridge Woods in search for Evie and found that cabin. There was evil there, Nikolas. There was pure evil there and I know it wasn't Evie. She's not what I sensed." Alice said.

"You think.... no you can't," Nik began in disbelief. "You think Sebastian is the person who attacked you telepathically that night Lockwood Thicket? But why? Why would he do that?" Nik wondered. 

Alice explained that she didn't know why he would want to her her in that moment and she didn't explain to him that she had an awful dream just the night before of Sebastian and herself floating in a dangerous dark bog. There was evil, and darkness between her two worlds and she could sense it's source throbbing like a beating heart deep inside the center of Tirymôr House. 

"I'm telling you, it's this island, its this spooky, fog covered, no sky island. There's something about it. I've felt it every since I came off that boat and on to the docks." Nik replied hoping he's quell her fears and suspicions of his new brother-in-law. "I've even thought about researching this place and finding out just what about it's history makes it this way. There has to be reason. It doesn't take someone so in-tune with their mind like yourself to tell that Welshport is an island like no other." 

"You're going to research the island's history?" She asked, somewhat worried about what he'd find.

"I'd like to, yes." He replied.

She grabbed his hand, squeezed it tightly and looked deep into his eyes. She could tell this was something he said just off the top of his head but from what she already knew about young Nikolas Jordan there was no way he'd just let the feelings go. If he had it in his mind to find out the history of the island and expose it's hidden secrets and berried skeletons, he would. 

"Just be careful with what you find. You never know what kind of information you'll uncover that may effect the very people you're closest to. Not every one's past is spotless." She said still in cyrptic speak.

"Is there something you're not telling me?" He asked thinking that perhaps her own past was in the crosshairs of his research. 

She shook her head no, unconvincingly, and said "Just be careful Niky. Especially around the Lords and most especially Sebastian." She said still squeezing his hand.

"You really are afraid of him aren't you?" He asked.

Alice's face got serious. She could not answer him in a simple way in hopes he'd just let the subject go even though she felt it was probably better he did. Her honestly peeked through "Deathly afraid." She replied. "Deathly."  

Nik pulled her in for a hug to comfort her but wondered if she herself was hiding more than she was telling him about her feelings about Sebastian. 

****

Rebecca confronts Eliza once more 

As the fog continued to engulf Welshport Island, Goode Island did not fare any better. The smaller island off Welshport's eastern coast looked as gray as the sky above, nothing on its small surface moved, no wind, no cool breeze off the Atlantic sea. Only stillness in the late afternoon.

Rebecca, determined to get answers from the witch Eliza who turned Sebastian into the shadow dwelling created that he was, marched herself from the docks to the Goode family cabin in an angry bluster.

She knocked on the cabin door, her gloved hand pounding on the wood like a sledgehammer, but there was no answer. She angrily banged again hard enough that the glass of a side window shook with the fury of her fist. Then, almost as if she hadn't heard the knocking from the beginning Eliza opened the door looking half asleep, weathered and tired. 

"You look how I feel." Rebecca said of her old friend's appearance. 

"What is it you want?" The witch growled concealing the fact her tired appearance was due to the powerful spells she had cast only weeks before to pull her own soul from her body and sending it to Welshport to shoot Jacob. It would take weeks for her to regain her strength. 

"Its time for you to repay me for all you've done. Today, I collect your debt to me." Rebecca said pushing passed Eliza and entering into the cabin.

"My debt?" Eliza asked meeting Rebecca who was dressed in the most glorious of velvets and furs now in Eliza's living room.

"What you did when my daughter Victoria was born, the lack of care you had for me and my family. Everything I was promised was taken away from me, especially my chance of ever having another baby. You did that. You Eliza. I trusted you to help me bring Vivi back I put all my heart and all my soul into believing in your powers and what came of it? Only death and despair. You owe me, and I want you to finally do something good in repayment of that day," Rebecca said.

"Rebecca there is nothing I can do for you now to help you have a child. Not even my own powers can help you bring back Vivi or … give you the ability to bare another child after all these years." Eliza replied.

"Ugh! Don't be daft, Eliza! Really! You know I'm not asking you to help me have another child. It's Sebastian I'm talking about! Not only did you ruin my life you’ve ruined Sebastian’s! It was You who is responsible for what he's become, you and only you! Reverse what you have done today and now and I will forever forgive you for causing me to lose my ability to have children. The debt will be repaid." Rebecca explained.

Eliza took a deep breath. She could understand Rebecca’s heartache. She suffered when Vivi died. She suffered when the promise of Eliza’s powers failed to bring her back. She suffered when her husband Albert went mad and took his own life and when her middle child David vanished to parts unknown when his wife Sabrina was murdered. All Rebecca knew was suffering. 

"I can't do that, Rebecca. I can’t bring him back to what he was. You know he is my nephew too. I did all I could to save and bring my sister’s son home to his loved ones. What u did for him was the only way." Eliza noted. 

Rebecca's eyes seethed with anger. Rebecca saw it that the witch had done all of these things to her family, she was the cause of so much heartache all of these years and yet, she would not repay the debt and return Sebastian to his former self. This rebuff infuriated Rebecca. 

"How dare you!?! How dare you talk of Sebastian as if you even know him. Sabrina never brought you around. Sabrina never cared to bring her family into ours!” Rebecca shouted.

“That doesn’t make Sebastian mess apart of me as he is to you, just like our mutual granddaughter Charlotte. We’re family Rebecca. Two mothers who will do everything in our power, supernatural of otherwise, to help our kin. That’s what I did.” The witch replied calmly. 

“You walk around this island in your own solitude and do the things you have one and have no repercussions? Do you even know the hell you have placed Sebastian in? Do you? Do you even understand the horrors you have placed over his life for all eternity? Not to mention the hell that will wash over that poor girl Evangeline when reality sets in that she will never ever have a normal life with him. She's seriously going to carry on with this marriage of theirs despite what he is, its insane. And you are responsible for it." Rebecca answered, her lips tight with anger. 

Eliza rolled her eyes but said nothing else on the matter. She could not. She could not tell Rebecca that bringing back Sebastian was in truth, also to save her own child Mary. She could not tell her that Mary's freedom was at stake should Sebastian be turned back into a normal mortal human. Their lives, the two cousins: Mary and Sebastian were tied together forever, not to mention Eliza's own life of solitude—as Rebecca put it—now belonged to The Hunter and all powerful pull. 

The witch was not in peace or free of life's unruly trouble on the island alone, as Rebecca assumed. On the contrary, she was  a prisoner of her own powers and of The Hunter that now owned her for shooting Jacob for her. 

 Eliza could not tell Rebecca this. She could not make an angry, wounded woman understand. 

Seeing Eliza's seemingly feigned indifference, Rebecca became flustered and grabbed a large candle that flickered in with a bright lit wick. 

"I should take this flame to your sweet cottage and burn it to the ground and leave you in the ashes like the witch you are. Nothing will remain, all of it gone in the flames of hell that you have put me in with all your godless spells and witchcraft." Rebecca said as the light from the candle brightened her cheek. 

Rebecca’s hand was shaking. Her eyes filling with water angered by her inability to control this situation which was unlike anything in her life.  

"No, Rebecca, you don't want to do that. Nothing you can do, not hurting me with words or taking to me physically, or burning down my home will ever make me suffer more than I make myself suffer every single day. The powers I posses,  aren't at all what you think they are. In fact they're like my own little curse. Something I wish I could give back so that I too could live a normal life. But its impossible. So if by burning me alive means to give yourself the sense of power and revenge go on. DO IT THEN! Burn the witch Rebecca!! BURB THE WITCH!!!” 

Rebecca still shook. Her eyes steady with the candle ready to igniter the nearest curtain ablaze to end Eliza once and for all, but nothing came. 

“I’ve prayed. I’ve read tarot cards. I’ve asked psychics and soothsayers everything they know and I still live in this suffering. Why? Why won’t I find peace?” Rebecca asked crying. 

“Rebecca prayer is a form of light. Keep it in you. Because the darkness that is here on these islands can only find you when the light is out. Keep your light of sprayer. Nothing will ever hurt more more than I hurt myself every day, let that at least give you some sort of calm." Eliza replied. 

“You should have left Sebastian be. He should have stayed in the ground once that bullet from Mary’s gun stopped his heart. This unnatural life — I don’t know…I don’t know.” Rebecca said putting down the candle.

"Mary ..." Eliza said, repeating her daughter's name softly. "she did not hurt Sebastian because she wanted to. The source of all this grief, all this pain you speak of, is truly more than just me and my spells. Its Jacob. Your son. He coerced her and lied to her and manipulated her into doing that to poor Sebastian, and now he has reaped what he has sewed." 

Rebecca took a deep breath. Deep in her stomach she knew that part was true.

"He has done some terrible things. I know." Rebecca said softly.

"Terrible is underrated. Rebecca listen to me," Eliza began as she passed Rebecca a cup of tea still steaming from the kettle. "all you can do now is to be aware of Sebastian and care for him as he continues to move through this life as what he has become. The worst thing you can do is fight him, push him away, ignore him. He cannot be ignored. He continue to be in the fabric of your lives. If he is exiled there is no way to bring him back from the darkness that will fill his mind. He will go wild. He will want to hurt people and then, at a certain point, there will be no stopping him. Your family's love is the only thing that will keep his soul in the light."

"Are you warning me of something to come?" Rebecca asked.

Eliza didn't know how to reply to Rebecca's question. She did not say what she said to send out a warning or to somehow make Rebecca feel as if she knew more than she was telling her. All she wanted was for her old foe to understand that pretending Sebastian was still as he was before Mary shot him, would be a mistake. 

"Sebastian has undergone a transformation in his mind and in his body and in his soul that cannot be explained in any language or science the world knows of. He is now a member of an elite group of supernatural phenomena that for us here in the mortal world must respect. Rebecca it would be in your best interest along with your family's that you keep Sebastian close where you can see him. That's all I will say." Eliza said, unable to deflect from truly sending out a warning. 

"What happens to him if he, as you say, is left to his own devices away from our gaze?" Rebecca asked her heart rate beginning to speed up as with the anxiety of what Eliza's answer might be. 

Eliza put down her cup of tea and walked over to Rebecca. Eliza picked up the candle Rebecca has used to threaten to burn her Alice with and blew out the burning flame and replied to Rebecca saying only one word as the light went out. 

"Darkness. Pure darkness."

Rebecca took a deep breath again and her anger returned after the few moments of mother to mother talk with Eliza. She realized that whatever Eliza had done to Sebastian it was  forever. Rebecca had to now deal with the reality no matter what it was. No more spells. 

"For your sake I hope whoever shot my son doesn't come for you next, because God knows you deserve it for all you've done." Rebecca said turning away from the witch and storming out of the cabin in angry and frustrated blaze.

Eliza, of course, knew that the person who shot Jacob and killed Christian would not come for her because she was that person. She was the one who sent The Hunter. Eliza smiled slightly and walked over to a kitchen drawer and opened it. Inside, the gun that did the shooting. 

Eliza picked it up and looked it as it reflected the glow of the other candles that lit the kitchen in the cabin. She smiled again and wondered how long it would be before Jacob too died from his wounds. 

Eliza Goode, took the gun and pointed it at the window of her kitchen as if she were about to shoot and said: "Every day you breath freely is a day I hope the bullet made lasting damage in you. In time, Jacob Lord, in time you'll meet your maker. And then, finally, we may all rest in peace." 

At the docks, Hamstead saw Rebecca returning from the cabin in a fury. She made no head-way into the mind of the witch of Goode Island to return Sebastian back to his true self. 

"Ma'am?" Hamstead said as he helped her into the boat he would row back to Welshport. "Is everything ok? Did you get what you needed?"

Rebecca covered the lower part of her face with the shall from the cold wind blowing off the sea and over the two of them on the boat. She shook her head no, that she did not get what she wanted, but said not a word to her trusted Paige. 

"Aaron," Rebecca said using Hamstead's first name. "when we return, I want you to make an appointment for Constable Reigns to come see me. I have something to tell him." Rebecca said as her voice carried on the ocean breeze.

"Yes ma'am." Hamstead confirmed.

As the two made their way back to the southern shore of Welshport Island, Rebecca looked back at Eliza's cabin and wished she had burned it down when she had the chance. And perhaps she still would...in a different way without actual fire but destroy it and Eliza just the same. 

One thing was for sure, she would heed Eliza's warning about Sebastian, to watch over him and keep him close. It wouldn't be the last time the two women would come face to face, Rebecca and Eliza. 

They'd meet again soon, just in time for one of them to see the other's demise. 

****

Filipe & Celeste at Tirymôr

As evening approached and day became night Filipe Braga made his way over to the Lord family mansion deep in the Tirymôr forest to see his partner Celeste who was still on duty as Charlotte Lord's governess. 

He hadn't seen her since she left early the morning of her she left the morning she had the nightmare of her dead father warning her of lies and how they'd come back to haunt them. Filipe, for his part, thought he'd meet Celeste at Tirymôr House and bring her home so that they could discuss what was really bothering her.

As he made his way to the parlor where Celeste was straightening up after putting Charlotte to bed, she turned to the doorway when she heard his footsteps approach. 

"What are you doing here?" She asked in the dimly lit room as she carefully folded Charlotte's favorite blanket before taking it upstairs to the young heiress. 

"I wanted to bring you home after you out Charlotte to bed. I wanted to talk to you." Filipe said getting close to his partner and attempting to kiss her on the lips but she moved and he landed on her cheek. "Celeste? What's happening?" He asked. 

"I don't know what you mean." She said pulling away from the man she loved as the guilt of being pregnant with another man's child ate her up. 

"You seem like you're upset with me for some reason. I noticed the other night when you had your nightmare. I'm worried about you Celeste. Please talk to me, this is very unlike you." Filipe relied.

"Filipe, listen, just go home. Please. Just go back down into the village and I'll follow just as soon as Charlotte is good and asleep. I have a few more things to take care of here." Celeste ordered. 

"Wait, no, I won't just go!" Filipe shouted as Georgina hid behind the large pillar beyond entrance to the front door and listened.

"Filipe, please." Celeste said, her face warn with stress over her situation.

"You're obviously not telling me something. You're upset, I can see it all over your face. Is it me? Have I done something that's upset you?" The poor man asked still unsure of what the matter was.

"No! No! You've done nothing wrong I promise you. I've just been a bit tired lately and I need to get things done here before I can go home. Ok? Please. Just go now. I will meet you at home." Celeste said as she came over to Filipe and kissed him on the cheek. 

He looked at her as she caressed her stomach. Then it dawned on him. She was with child. That was what she was not telling him She was with CHILD!

"Is... are.. you pregnant?" He asked grinning from ear to ear.

She paused, she felt cornered but her stomach was showing. She could not hide it any more from him She had to be least somewhat honest. She smiled and shrugged. 

"Surprise." She said softly, not telling him the baby wasn't his.

"THAT'S why you've been so tired. That's what you must have been writing to your brother. Oh My love, why didn't you tell me?" He asked grabbing her and kissing her happily. 

"I just needed to be sure, and... I haven't told the Lords yet. Can we just keep it to ourselves for now. I need sometime before I let them know. They'll have to find someone to fill in for me eventually." Celeste said 

Filipe looked Celeste in the eye and she smiled sweetly. She smiled back at Filipe and hoped he would just listen to her and do what she asked. He kissed her on the lips again and told her he would keep it their secret for now... just before the parted ways.

As he left the room, Georgina hid herself, and then as Celeste came out Georgina saw Celeste's growing stomach too. Georgina knew it when she saw it as she too had once been pregnant and used all the same tricks to cover it up with heavy skirts and petticoats before Eliza discovered the truth. Georgina gasped and jumped out from where she was hiding and grabbed Celeste by the arm from behind and turned her around shocking Celeste in the process.

"My god Georgina!! What are you doing!?!?" Celeste shouted. 

"Who's child is it??? Tell me! WHO'S CHILD IS IT!?" Georgina asked as Celeste's heart dropped. 

"What? What are you talking about... you're saying none-sense!" Celeste shouted back at Rebecca's handmaid Georgina.

"Tell me the truth, it is his? Is it Jacobs? I know it's not Filipe's because based on the conversation I just overheard you two weren't exactly happy new parents." Georgina replied.

"How dare you listen to my conversation. I should tell Mrs. Lord that you've invaded my privacy. And what business is this of yours? Hmm? You should watch yourself Georgina Kent." Celeste said angrily. 

Georgina knew with how defensive Celeste was being that she had hit the nail on the head. The child growing inside Celeste was not Filipe's and was Jacob's thus making Charlotte and the new baby half siblings. 

This made Georgina furious... she was after all truly Mary Goode, Charlotte's mother, hiding inside Georgina's body, and woman who was put into a terrible position years ago by Jacob when he took their mutual child  from her denying her any contact whatsoever. All of these terrible memories of Charlotte infancy and how she had to conceal herself inside another woman's body so that she could be close to her child flooded Georgina's mind and thus clouded her judgement infuriating her even more now that Celeste was pregnant.

Celeste huffed off and turned to walk away but not before Georgina grabbed her arm again and turned her back around.

"DON'T TOUCH----" Celeste said before she stopped mid-sentence in shock of what she was seeing happen.

Georgina, who had been given small bits of powers by Eliza began to shed the skin of her body showing her true self in front of Celeste. The skin of Georgina began to crack and fall away like the pieces of a clay pot shattering all over the floor. 

"Is it his?" Mary said in her own voice and in her own body that was glowing. Georgina's face and body had suddenly vanished in Mary's fury. 

"What? What is this???" Celeste asked looking at the strange vision of Mary in front of her where Georgina once stood. "Mary? Mary is that you?" Celeste said in shock.

Mary nodded her head but just as she did her body reverted back to the more powerful spell cast on her to be Georgina and her form was returned to the body of her disguise. 

"How? How is this happening?" Celeste asked.

"Now you know my secret. Now tell me yours.... are our children going to be siblings or not?" Georgina demanded to know. 

Celeste thought for a minute and realized her secret was getting out no matter what as the baby would grow. Soon more and more people would know and she would need allies, even Mary staging herself magically as Georgina, so she nodded yes, confirming the baby's father's identity as Jacob. 

Georgina took a deep breath and with a serious tone of voice said  "He must never ever know." 

**

Felipe encounters his living nightmare in the forest 

While leaving Tirymôr House by the light of the moon, Filipe secured the buttons on his coat to keep himself warm. The fog continued to swirl around the grounds of the mansion as noises in the far off distance chilled Filipe to his core.

He could hear animals rustling in the shadows. Cracking branches. Crunching. Squealing. Watching.

And something was feeding on something else. 

Filipe felt sick at the idea of the animal eating another so horribly and violently just off in the bushes away from him. He again adjusted his coat to keep out the cold air and made his way down the gravel path from the mansion to the village

But then he began to hear footsteps behind him. He turned...the fog was too thick for him to see.

"Who's there? I hear you! I HEAR YOU!!!" Filipe warned. "GO! GO AWAY!!" He yelled again thinking whatever animal he heard eating away at the smaller one would be frightened by his loud voice. "GO!! GO ON!!" He shouted again.

The fog was too thick he could only see the lights of the mansion through the fog in the far off distance and the moon encircled by a ring of light above his head. 

And the footsteps still came.

Filipe began to walk faster and faster hoping the animal would vanish or give up on him but then he heard a swoop of air flow above him, the fog moved in a strange way as if something had flown through it marking a path within the mist and then something landed from behind him over his head and down again right in front of his path.

"GO! GO ON!!" Filipe said as the fog began to dissipate and reveal his follower to be :Sebastian Lord.

Sebastian was standing in front of him, his lips stained with the blood of some animal he had just fed on. "My god!" Filipe whispered.

"Hello old friend." Sebastian said coldly reminding Filipe of their once close relationship. 

"What--- what do you want Sebastian?" Filipe asked his voice shaking in the cold.

"I never thought I'd see you again. I never thanked you for what you did for me." Sebastian answered. 

"What I did for you? What was that?" Filipe asked pretending not to remember.

"You gave of yourself to save me, albeit Eliza forced it on you. But you were a true friend you could have figured out a way to kill me or have me killed knowing what I was, knowing what I have become and you were true to me. You never gave me up no matter how much you knew." Sebastian explained.

"I didn't have a choice. Neither Eliza nor you gave me a choice about keeping what you've become a secret. I had to, how could I ever begin to explain it to people that my own blood was used to create you in a the den of a witch?" Filipe replied. "I'd be cast aside just like you would be." He added.

"It's true. Now that I only dwell in the night I see things differently -- especially mortals. We're all lacking so much faith and love and understanding. I could never survive in this world if everyone knew the truth. But thanks to you and to Evie's love I did. I'm here, and she and I have come back together." Sebastian smiled. 

"And you're both happy?" Filipe wondered.

"Of course." Sebastian said confidently. 

"Sebastian I wish I could change what happened to you. I tried! I truly did, but those women, they...the witches! They made sure I could not. Now you are as you are and I can't do anything about it. I just want to keep everyone safe from what ...." Filipe paused.

"From what I've become?" Sebastian asked, Filipe silently nodded. "Well I understand the fear of me. There mystery of what I am capable of can truly turn your blood cold." Sebastian said with a stained grin on his face.  "We've all read those stories of the monster that comes in the night and eats you alive. But I have a different way of thinking. I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want peace and to be with the woman I love." He added unconvincingly. 

"Love....speaking of love, how does Evie feel of your... condition?" Filipe said choosing a strange word for what Sebastian was.

"She treats is as if I had a cold. She wants to keep me safe, protect me from the elements. She's given me a room at Tirymôr even though I'm much more comfortable at Lockwood Thicket, the place she and I fell back in love." Sebastian said sounding oddly happy with his new life even though his existence was incredibly restricted. 

"And she is ok with.... how you feed?" Filipe asked.

"She never questions, how could she? It's apart of me now and I think she understands that...like you understood it, isn't that right? The day I became what I am you were there and you were apart of it." Sebastian reminded as me moved closer to Filipe who's heart beat Sebastian could feel in his whole body. It was a rhythm that was now matching his own heart beat. First slow, relaxed but as Sebastian came closer Filipe's heart beat faster and harder...fear was setting in.

"I was forced, I said so." Filipe replied stepping back.

"You were." Sebastian said too his voice sounding just as cold as the night they were standing in. 

"Sebastian, I should go." Filipe said feeling Sebastian come closer as the fog rolled around them both.

"Filipe, I will let you go..." The vampire said. "but before that will you help me again?" 

"Help you? How?" Filipe wondered keeping his distance. 

"You see, the blood of a wild hare can only sustain me for so long. I have to have more than one at times. Sometimes I find sleeping swans in the pond. Sometimes I grab a random deer who doesn't see me coming and that helps. But.. human blood, its power is unmatched. Its stronger in my system because I was once fully human too. And since we are connected now because Eliza used your blood to bring me back to life... could you give me...more?" Sebastian said as is eyes turned dark.

"Sebastian. Please ...." Filipe said, his voice trembling. 

"I won't kill you. I wont. I learned a way to take from my donor and they live normal lives. I promise -- you will not die." Sebastian said as his voice got deeper and more hypnotic as Filipe fell into a trans.

As Filipe stood in the fog of the night eyes open frozen by the voice of Sebastian Lord, the vampire latched on to Filipe's wrist and bit drooling over the man's hand lapping up all the liquid pouring from the tiny two puncture wounds on Filipe's wrist made by Sebastian's teeth.

He drank, the blood spilling over his lips feeding him, bringing him back to life like he had just woken up from a long long long sleep. His skin became more human like, his hair thicker, his heart pumped harder. 

Once he let go, Filipe fainted to the ground and the tiny wounds on his wrist healed almost instantly thanks to the new trick Sebastian learned. 

"Thank you old friend." Sebastian said as he scratched his arms over Filipe's fainted body and snapped  his fingers. The snap echoed in the trees and around the forest and Filipe's body vanished into thin air. 

"You've saved me again." Sebastian said to himself. 

Filipe suddenly awoke in his own home; in his own bed not knowing how he got there and only vaguely remembering running into Sebastian.

As the fog continued the flow over the island from the sea, Filipe looked down at his wrist that was itching, and two tiny little light scares that had healed over where Sebastian latched on.

These Marks of the beast as Filipe called them-- left him to wonder what had truly happened in his meeting with Sebastian in the light of the moon and in the mist of the deepening fog, more importantly he feared: would it happened again?