B3/Ch8: A BLOODY STAKE IN THE GAME

Rebecca sits accused in Welshport Jail

The evening shadows created a menacing atmosphere inside the small jail house in downtown Welshport as Rebecca Lockwood-Lord sat on the hard wooden bench inside her call. Her stoic and even regal posture, with her hands clasped in her lap, chilled Filipe Braga who was sitting at a desk near by. 

Filipe, who had been hired as a part-time deputy along side Constable Reigns, wrote out the charges that Reigns would be filing later in the morning at court.

"Ma'am?" Filipe said walking over to Rebecca's cell as the gloomy new electrical lights buzzed in the jailhouse. "Do you need anything?" He asked.

Rebecca smiled politely and shook her head now. 

"I have to say Filipe it is very good to see how well you're doing in life after leaving our house. This must feel very good." Rebecca said, reminding Filipe he used to work as Jacob's page as a teenager before an accident in a car that left Filipe's hand mangled. 

Filipe looked down at the hand damaged from the accident where Jacob was drunk driving, rubbed it as the horrible memory floated into his mind of that drunken night. 

"The job has been something to keep my mind at work." He replied softly.

"And Celeste, she must be so proud of you. Jacob's been keeping her busy... I mean Charlotte, Charlotte has been keeping her busy up at the mansion." Rebecca added, giving Filipe pause.

"Has she now?" Filipe said, wondering in his mind why Rebecca would have mixed up Jacob and Charlotte's names. 

"Indeed. You should go there. See what I see every day. You might be surprised by how well they're all getting along. Like...a family really." Rebecca added trying to get rid of Filipe by planting a seed of doubt in his mind about Celeste and Jacob's somewhat working relationship. 

She wanted to make him leave. She wanted to be alone, she wanted to get herself out of the cell with no one's eyes on her. Filipe stood there, at the bars of her cell. He was confused by Rebecca's words. He was concerned too, but just before he could talk more Constable Reigns walked in.

"That's enough from you." He said to Rebecca. 

Filipe snapped out of his concentrated mind set and walked back to his desk and handed Reigns the paperwork on Rebecca. "All set for tomorrow at court." Filipe said.

"Alright, have a good night." Reigns replied releasing Filipe of his duty.

Filipe smiled and headed for the door, and as he did he turned back and saw Rebecca staring straight at him from her perch on the bench in her cell, sitting straight up. No slouching. No movement. She lifted a brow at him, he swallowed hard, almost fearing her. Then he headed for Tirymor to see what exactly Rebecca was talking about regarding Jacob and Celeste's now close relationship. 

"Well, what was that all about. Sewing seeds of doubt in the young man?" Reigns asked seeing straight through Rebecca's mind game.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She replied as she noticed Reigns putting down his things on his desk.

"Shall we go over again what happened the night Jacob and Christian were shot?" He asked her.

"I won't go over that again because you already know, Charlotte and myself were in the chapel at Tirymor praying that evening. I had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with this crime." Rebecca asserted. 

"Then why did Jacob point to you as the culprit? Your own son!" Reigns asked.

"He is mistaken. Very, very mistaken." Rebecca answered as she got up from her bench like a queen getting up from her royal throne and came over to the bars. She gripped the bars and the chimed with the clinking of her golden ring. She smiled at him. "Constable, you know this is all a mistake."

"How do I know that?" He asked.

"Because, I am not a killer. I am not an attempted killer. I'm old enough to be your mother, and you know that your mother couldn't do something like this, so how could I?" She pointed out. "If you let me go, I can financially make it worth your while, no one need know." She said.

"Ma'am you're now attempting to bribe an officer of the law. That's a crime too." He pointed out.

"I am attempting to compensate you for finding the real person who...." She paused mid sentence when she read the spine of one of the books Gregory carried into the jail: THE CAPTURE OF THE BRIDES OF EVIL.

Then like flood gates opening, she noticed other items around his desk that she recognized from her decades of studying the supernatural, the sinister, the shadowy side of humanity. These items and tools were for hunting. A crucifix hidden near some books. A bible, leather-bound with a red ribbon book marking down the middle. A bottle of something dark, a liquid or some kind of elixir perhaps to vanquish a spirit? A ghost? A demon. No, Rebecca remembered. The dark liquid in the container was holy water mixed with the blood of a long dead saint. 

These were all silly items, things of gothic intrigue and seances but to Rebecca she believed. And it was clear it Gregory Reigns believed too, especially so by the most glaring of item of all: a sparkling rosary for protection over his body. 

It became clear to her now, like the sun peeking out from behind dark rain clouds what Reigns’ job, his true passion was all about. Reigns was in Welshport…hunting witches. She couldn't believe her luck, she was sitting in a jail cell for a crime she didn't commit and that she had tried to get Eliza Goode charged with and now, in this very jail cell, she recognized the man keeping her there was a secret witch hunter. 

"Ah…” she said in a whisper. “We are cut from the same stone.” She added. 

He chuckled at her silliness. 

“How so?”

“I can help you find what you're looking for." She said to his confusion.

"I'm looking for the truth." He replied.

"No Reigns, you're looking for someone who has sold their souls for powers. I know something about that. I know a lot about that actually. I've been searching for those people myself, albeit, not in the same way you have. I can give you a name a name that will finally show you the truth that you're searching for." Rebecca said cryptically.

"I don't know what you mean." He said lying. 

"Witches." Rebecca said moving closer to Reigns from behind the bars as best she could. "I can give you a name of one. I can. I know where this witch lives and you can have her. You have her name and do what you want with her. In fact, you'd be doing me a favor too." 

"You know nothing. Do not begin to trick me." Reigns said. "Ive seen and know more than you realize.

Gregory began to think back about his time in Boston before he was transferred to Welshport. Years and years of his life were dedicated to finding these daughters of darkness that had terrorized his own family for generations from Salem, his ancestors original home. His father, and his father before  him and his father before him were men who hunted these creatures who were so feared in the village of early Massachusetts, and their livestock and crops had all been damaged and killed off. The Reigns family had been ruined by what they believed were curses from a witch. 

Reigns had followed one here. One witch who had come from a family of witches. He sought her. He wanted her gone. And in between doing his job as Constable he was also secretly walking the streets in search of the last witch of this coven. It was his life's work, and now Rebecca knew the answer to his question: Where was ELIZA GOODE?

"Release me and you'll find the one woman who I know for a fact is a witch. I know because she too came into my life decades ago and caused me bodily harm. She promised me things and only gave me devastation. She's done thigs to my family, Reigns, that you can only imagine in your worst nightmares. I want her gone just as much as you might. I promise you, she is the real criminal here, she and she alone. I will give you her name and where she lives and you can have her. But release me. I am innocent." Rebecca said dangling the carrot in front of the rabbit. 

"What do I get in return if you are not telling the truth?" He asked, considering her proportion.

"There is no need of that talk because I am promising you truth now. I believe she is the one who shot Jacob because she is the creature that has taken so much from my own life, my ability to have children, my grandson's....." Rebecca paused before revealing the truth about Sebastian to Reigns.

"Sebastian? What did this witch do to Sebastian?" Reigns asked trying to have Rebecca finish her thought.

Rebecca only wanted Reigns to hunt the witch, she could not risk her own grandson being next on his list of capture. She saw the risk of telling about Eliza, but saw an even larger risk of giving Reigns information on what Eliza did to Sebastian, that needed to remain a secret.

Rebecca was a lot of things, but she was not someone who betrayed her family's secrets--not like Jacob. She smiled and turned away from Reigns and clasped her hands together, her arms forming a structured V formation. A sign of holding back information.

"I believe she is behind the kidnapping and ransom of Sebastian, and... also the creation of his look-alike impostor. Only a witch could create something like that... so convincing." Rebecca said lying and keeping to the family's fake story of Sebastian's miraculous return. 

As Rebecca continued to explain her thoughts on the witch in their midst with her back turned away from the bars, she heard Reigns keys jingle and the lock of the cell release.

The bars then swung open. 

Rebecca turned towards the open cell door and smiled. 

"Give me the name of the witch." Reigns demanded.

Rebecca smiled, pleased with her work and walked over just before the threshold of the jail cell. She was prepared now to finally get her revenge on Eliza for all she did. 

"Eliza Goode. Eliza Goode is the witch. Find her on her own little island and her own little cabin and bring her to justice for us all." Rebecca said sinisterly. 

The name...THAT name. It rang in Gregory Reigns mind like a death knell from a church bell-tower. It was her, it was the one he had been searching for, the last witch of the coven from Salem that had destroyed his family. 

“You know her?” He asked eagerly. “She’s been here this whole time?” He added almost salivating. 

“She’s all yours.” Rebecca cooed. 

Gregory knew Eliza had been in the upper East Coast; he knew it all along but had such trouble locating her. Eliza's perfect hiding place was that she was unable to leave her own island. She was a poisoner of her own doing and that is why no one had ever really seen her anywhere else. No one from her past had ever attempted to find her on such a remote island like Goode Island. 

Reigns stepped aside allowing Rebecca to exit the cell. She walked slowly, stoically, and serenely happy with her work. She turned back and saw Reigns getting his things together to go out and find the witch. The shine of a sharp silver knife to kill  Eliza reflected in Rebecca's eyes as Reigns slid it into the leather sheath carved with scenes of witches being burned at the stake. 

"Oh, and tell dear Eliza I said goodbye." Rebecca said as she exited the jailhouse happy with what she had just done. 

Gregory nodded his head that he would, and reached down on his desk and opened THE CAPTURE OF THE BRIDES OF EVIL. She turned to a marked page on what to do next as he was set to make sure this witch was taken care of once and for all. 

1. GATHER YOUR PROTECTIONS.
2. PRAY FOR YOUR SAFTEY.
3. DO NOT LISTEN TO THEIR VOICES, SINGING OR SPEAKING.
4. GATHER THE VILLAGERS, STORM THEIR LAYER.
5. TRAP. BURN WITH FIRE. KILL. 

Gregory closed the book. Took his bible and left the jail house set for the Siren's Call Pub where he'd gather towns-people to go with him to Goode Island. 

On this night--- a witch would finally find her justice at the hands of Constable Gregory Reigns and the people of Welshport Island. 

As Rebecca made her way home with Hamstead who was patiently waiting for her outside the jailhouse as any loyal personal butler would, she warned him to bring her into the mansion under the secret passage entrance at the back of the mansion. There, she'd slither her way into the mansion via the passages inside the body of the house vailed in secrecy.,

She did not want anyone to know that she'd been released especially Jacob, not yet. 

She wanted to rest. Breath. And wait for the moment to show herself to her family a free woman and let Eliza's fate take shape all on it's own now that it was in the hands of witch hunter Gregory Reigns. 

****

Evie makes a deadly choice 

Across the island in deep in the Westernridge Woods of the Tirymor Forest Matthew and Nikolas followed Alice to Lockwood Thicket where they would finally end the terror Alice feared would bring the end of all their lives.

She wanted the vampire, the creature of the night, Sebastian Lord gone from the earth once and for all.

Through the thick wooded area as the fog seeped around trees and bushes like rivers of white smoke the threesome quietly made their way in the darkness. Alice, her telepathy one of her most powerful attributes did not need a compass or any kind of honing device, she knew Lockwood Thicket was Sebastian's hideout away from Tirymor House, she had been there before. She had seen him there, She had even fought him there before. 

For his part, Nikolas was a trembling mess. He did not fear Sebastian out-right, although there was some of that in the shaking of his hands, but he feared how his beloved sister would feel when and if she discovered he was involved in the killing of her husband. He wanted Evie,  above all else, to be safe and away from the monster that Alice said was part of a larger, more robust curse that forced and created all of the dangerous evils that had occurred on the island.

Were it not for Alice and Matthew's Dænian ancestors cursing the settlers of Welshport there would be no insanity of Albert Lord, there would be no witch of Goode Island like Eliza, there would be no murder of Sabrina Spencer-----and there would no Vampire Sebastian. 

Killing Sebastian, so said Alice, was the only way to begin the repair of all of the terror brought on to them, and this, would break Evie's heart knowing Nik was involved, regardless of his good intensions. 

Slowly the three made their way in the dark forest and through the fog. Alice lead the way. They could hear the trees swaying in the light night breeze and the waves crashing on the near by shoreline. Crash after crash of the sea broke the silence of the forest and the wind.

Then Alice stopped in her tracks. They were close to Lockwood, but she could feel something watching them.

"What is it?" Matthew asked in a whisper behind her.

"Listen...." She replied.

Nik looked around. He couldn't hear what she heard.

Matthew began to breath heavily, he heard what his sister heard. He felt what his sister felt. His own powers, long oppressed and pushed to the back his mind, from time to time broke free when he felt stressed and worried. 

"Wolves." Matthew said to group in a hushed tone.

"They're smelling us. They work for the monster." Alice replied disappointed in the animal's choice of loyalty to Sebastian. 

"They're circling us." Matthew added.

Frightened Nik stepped closer to Matthew who smiled at him and patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, they wont hurt us." 

"How do you know that? Nik asked.

"They're only here to scout for Sebastian." Alice replied holding Nik's hand then reaching for her brother's.

She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath and let out a howl that matched any howl any wolf could breath on a night of a full moon. The wolves, ran off and hide in shadows allowing for the three to finally make it to Lockwood Thicket without being detected by Sebastian.

In the cabin Sebastian stared awaited his guests. Although he was not alerted by his scouting wolf pack, he himself could sense the tension coming his way. There would be no ambush, not on him

He got up from a dark red-velvet chair that was in front of a roaring fire and lifted his arms above his head. The cloak he was wearing surrounded his body that began to float in the middle of the front room of Lockwood Thicket. He closed the cloak around him creating a sort of dark cocoon of fabric that in seconds vanished in thin air. 

The room was empty now, just as the three slowly pushed open the door and found only a roaring fire and a half full wine glass filled with the blood of a hare from the woods. 

The three looked around. The four rooms of the Thicket empty. 

Nik felt nervous. He sensed danger, Alice too. 

"He's not here. We should go." Nik said.

"Shhh...." Alice replied. She could sense the wolves outsides still. They would not leave their master. 

Then, in a sudden lunge reappearing out of no where, The vampire attacked Alice knocking her to the floor. Nikolas screamed from fight and fell backwards onto a coffee table breaking it into pieces. Matthew too fell backwards and hit his head on the hard floor knocking hum unconscious. 

Alice and Sebastian began to struggled for power over each other, Sebastian over her hissing with his mouth gaping open in an attempt to bite her fresh neck.

Alice put her hands on his head and tried to push him back. She screamed and kept pushing and his teeth were growing longer and longer, so long that he was able to turn  his head slightly to the right pricking her on the wrist.

Matthew scrambled to his feet. Dizzy. Disoriented. Sebastian laughed at Alice's pain and sinisterly licked the blood dripping down her exposed tan skinned arm.

She released her hand from his forehead and punched him in the face knocking him over.

"You're here to kill me but the death toll will not be one. Not tonight." Sebastian hissed.

Alice stood up, her clothes somewhat torn and she stood strong. Sebastian too stood up, his breathing heavy. His heart pounding and his belly hungry for her blood.

"I killed you once. I can kill you again." She growled as he laughed at her reference of the events two days before. 

"Did you?” Sebastian asked sarcastically. “You tried to drown someone who is immortal you imbecile! I promise you only one thing, lots and lots of pain." Sebastian said as he then rushed Alice in such speed she did not see him coming. He hit her in the midsection knocking back down the the ground. 

She began to shake in his grip, shake violently, he opened his mouth and went down to bite in the throat and as he came to break her skin, she screamed such a scream that it shook the entire Thicket like an earthquake. An old unlit chandelier fell, picture frames and candles were knocked over.

Sebastian jumped off of Alice covering his ears from Alice's banshee like call.

Then Nik got up, Sebastian turned to him and lunged at his brother-in-law grabbing him from behind and pushing his head over. Nik's jugular vain exposed. 

"STOP!" Alice screamed.

Then Nik lifted his arm while Sebastian was distracted and leveled an elbow to his eye.

Sebastian became furious. His anger boiling in his body and he began to tap into the fury of all the dark shadows that surrounded and tempted him in his sleep. The good side of him had slowly become eclipsed with all the attempts on his life and now he was becoming a full-on creature of the night. Sebastian, in his alter-ego giant vampire transformation, jumped into the air; floating, flying. His arms stretched to four times their length and grabbed at Nickolas, gripping him in his arms and squeezed him tightly locking him in place. 

Nikolas screamed, Alice opened her mouth again to scream her banshee like yell but Sebastian's giant arm swung over knocking her over and unconscious just like Matthew was. 

Sebastian, now fully enveloped into his darkest most evil mind set was now set to kill Nikolas. The vampire felt threatened, attacked and was protecting his own layer filled with three intruders. The monster he had become was not the man Nik's sister Loved, he was something else. Something demonic and evil and blood thirsty. This transformation of Sebastian, floating in the air mouth filled with what seemed like thousands of sharp fangs dragged Nik closer and closer to them with this arms now shortening to a normal length. 

Nik tried to release himself but he was trapped. 

"LET HIM GOOOOOOOO!!!!!" A scream came from the front door.

It was Evie Jordan-Lord, Nik's sister and Sebastian's beleaguered wife. She had come to stay the night with her husband and was shocked to find him in this monstrous form attempting to kill her own brother. 

"Evie." Sebastian said in a quiet more normal voice.

"Let Nikolas go, let him go NOW!" She yelled.

Sebastian began to reform into his normal vampire state almost human. His eyes still gray his skin still cold, but he was now back to the face Evie recognized, but he still had Nikolas trapped in  his grips.

"I won't let him hurt me, this is what they wanted. To kill me! Don't you see! They wanted to kill me!" Sebastian told his wife.

"Sebastian you have to stop this. Look around you. You're hurting people left and right and it cannot continue." Evie said begging for her brother's life. "You cannot hurt him. Let him go." 

Matthew came to and slumped over to his sister Alice and shook her to wake her. 

"No. I can't let them win and try and destroy me again. I have to do this Evie. I have to save myself so that we can be together. I'm sorry." Sebastian said opening his mouth, pushing the weak Nikolas's head over ready to bite down and kill him.

Evie screamed and grabbed a broken off piece of the coffee table Nik broke in a fall. She lunged at Sebastian with the sharp broke off table leg in her hand. Sebastian saw his wife coming at him with the sharp object and tossed Nik to the floor, Evie jumped on Sebastian, the two fell to the ground.

Evie was on top and she drove the stake into her own husband's chest. 

Blood poured from his body. He yelled, the wolves out side howled. The wind blew over the Thicket like a hurricane. The wolves scratched at the door and at the walls. 

Sebastian then return to his human form like he looked before Eliza turned him into this monster.

His eyes, good and kind. Amber toned. He looked into Evie's blue eyes, her hair falling down over her face like a cascade of wisteria vines of browns and gold. 

He touched her face and felt her heart beat...then another heart beat. 

He felt two heartbeats. Evie's and the small child she was carrying in her stomach. His child. 

"A baby." he said in a whisper as blood came from his lips. 

Evie cried and held down the stake in his chest, saving her brother, then she turned the stake driving it in deeper in to his chest ending it. 

Then, Sebastian vanished into a pile of ash. 

"Are you ok??????????" Nikolas asked rushing over to his sister who was devastated in tears on the pile of her husband's as that suddenly vanished into nothing. "You saved me." He said hugging her.

"I love you Nikky. I love you." She said hugging him back.

"You saved us all." Alice said as Matthew helped her up.

"You've done something incredible Evie. You've saved us, all of us. The world even." Matthew said as Evie cried in her brother's arms.

A widow---once more. 

 ****

Charlotte & the spirit of Sabrina 

Dawn approached. The sun cracked the dark sky filling it with an orange and purple glow. The seagulls swarmed the shore following the early morning fishing fleets leaving Welshport's docks headed out to the open blue sea for the morning's catch.

In her bed, slowly waking to the bright morning light was Charlotte Lord. She had locked her mind off for three days. Nothing from Sabrina, the spirit of her aunt that dwelled in her.

Sabrina was silent, angry in her silence but silent none the less.

Charlotte yawned in her her bed. Her white sheets. Her perfect white nightgown.

Then, in her perfect long blonde hair, a smear of blood. 

Charlotte then saw blood on her hands. And she began to panic. Where was it coming from? Where was the blood coming from? She quickly jumped out of her white bed and rushed to a long oval shaped mirror on a stand that was tilted towards the window reflecting the sunlight back to the outdoors.

Charlotte yanked the mirror on one side so that if flipped over on it's hinged so that it now faced her 10 year old face.

A huge dark, blood in the center of her chest. 

She searched her body, there was no wound. Nothing. No cuts. Nothing.

Charlotte closed her eyes and opened her mind allowing Sabrina to awaken.

A jolt of energy vibrated within the young woman's body. Sabrina was furious.

"HOW COULD YOU Charlotte!!! We are supposed to work together, you and I. Together!" Sabrina's ghost said appearing in the mirror to Charlotte.

"Look. Look!!" Charlotte said ignoring Sabrina's anger.

Sabrina gasped at the sight blood but from the way the blood had stained the nightgown she could tell there was no wound, that Charlotte was safe and unharmed yet, the blood came from somewhere. Then, suddenly in the reflection, Sabrina too started to see a blood stain on her own white dress. But this time, there was a wound in the center of her body. The wound was not painful, it was just something in the center of her showing her where something, had happened--- to Sebastian.

"Something has happened to him." Sabrina said.

"Who?" Charlotte asked changing into clean clothes.

"My son." Sabrina said, her voice saddened by the feeling of loss coming into her ghostly mind. "He's... he's different. Not the same, something, I don't understand." Sabrina said, her mind racing as if all the information from the past days when Charlotte closed her off came flooding into her ghostly mind.

"Is this his blood?" Charlotte asked now in a fresh dress.

"I think he's gone. Sebastian is gone." Sabrina said. "Charlotte, listen to me. Come here. LISTEN TO ME!" Sabrina shouted from the mirror, Charlotte came over and sat on the floor and started into the mirror at her aunt. "Our family is on the brink, my darling. Something is afoot and I cannot understand it. I feel as thought Sebastian is gone, but I don't truly understand how? He cannot be because he is like me. Something that cannot just be vanquished so easily."

"What do we do? What should I do?" Charlotte asked. 

"I have to think. I have to process. This is why you should never ever take me away like you did for so long! There isn't enough time for me to plan, I can't contemplate all of this all at once." Sabrina said sounding somewhat stressed with all the information streaming from Charlotte's mind into her like a wild stream gushing thousands of gallons of water into the sea. 

"I can ask Evie to bring him to us tonight. Would that help?" Charlotte asked.

"No. Maybe. I don't know. Charlotte, I can't think. Something has happened, and ... I feel it with my sister as well. Eliza is in danger. My god child, the world has gone to hell in the days that you blocked me in your mind. We, we have to rest. I have to rest." The spirit said.

Then, Celeste came into the room. She had come to get Charlotte up for the day. Seeing Sabrina, the ghostly dead-woman in the mirror startled her. 

"You shouldn't be here." Celeste said sternly. 

"There are things happening out of your control, Celeste, I need to take charge and make them right. Its been too many days. I need to take charge." Sabrina said.

"Be nice to Celeste she's having my baby brother or sister." Charlotte said sweetly going over and hugging Celeste.

Sabrina turned her ghostly head back to the governess. Her face showed disdain and anger. 

"You are keeping the child?" Sabrina said, knowing Celeste was giving herbs to help end the pregnancy.

"This is none of your concern. The child will be safe. I promised myself this and I have no worries that Jacob will harm it." Celeste confirmed.

"And what about you? Do you feel safe having Jacob's child?" Sabrina wondered. 

"I don't fear him any more." Celeste added.

"Foolish girl!!! Everything has become out of hand. EVERYTHING!" Sabrina said angrily. "You are too far now, too far along now. You must always make sure whatever happens that Jacob does not corrupt this child. Think of Charlotte, think of what he did to Mary. Think of what he could and would do to you if he feels you will cross him. YOU must, absolutely must, stay on top of Jacob, his treachery knows no bounds." Sabrina warned, knowing full well how Jacob worked after being one of his first victims. 

"Sabrina, you should think about finding your way.... out. Out of this never ending cycle you live in. There is no way out for you and the rest of us here, on this side, have to deal with things ourselves. Please... think about that. Think of what you are doing to poor Charlotte while you live in her. She has to be free of you and in a way we all do. There is truly nothing you can do from where you are that will help us. No more." Celeste said.

Sabrina went silent and after a few seconds vanished from Charlotte's mirror and back into her mind.

"Charlotte, darling, get dressed for the day ok? I'll come back in a moment to brush your hair." Celeste said leaving Charlotte to her own devices. "Thank about closing her off again, ok? Maybe forever." She added.

Charlotte frowned. She loved her aunt Sabrina but at the same time she worried that her presence in their world was creating more friction that helping. It was hard for the young girl to manage everything that was coming at her. The world, as it seemed, was spinning out of control. 

Then, Sabrina appeared again in the mirror when Celeste left. 

"Charlotte, listen to me. Listen to me my sweet girl..... under no circumstances should Celeste have this child. It will ruin us all." Sabrina's ghostly voice said.

"What? Why?" Charlotte replied heartbroken and not understanding. 

"Because this birth will only empower your father further, I want you to do something and I want you to to do it soon. I can help you, but you have to promise me you will do it." Sabrina asked.

"What?" the young girl asked.

Sabrina came out of the mirror in a fog of blue light, she swirled in the air and came up to Charlotte's diamond studded ear and whispered her secret plan, the plan she devised was so heinous, Charlotte burst into tears immediately and screamed she would not help her. 

"I WON'T I WON'T I WON'T!!" The young girl said. "And if you do do this Aunty, I will shut you off, I will! I will do it and I'll do it forever!!" Charlotte threatened. 

Sabrina then knew, that if she too wanted to get her revenge on Jacob, and find out what was happening with her son Sebastian, she would have to take care of Celeste and the baby herself. 

No more little girl games. 

B3/Ch7: ACCUSATIONS OF APPARITIONS

The wolves hunt Sebastian 

Sebastian floated lifelessly in the deep ocean.

His face was pale and had tiny little bubbles around his nostrils and lips. His hair sway with the undercurrent of the sea as tiny little silver fish swirled around his body as if he were a fresh new coral they wanted to explore. 

The greens and blues of the ocean water turned deeper into a darkness the further Sebastian's body sank. His body turned colder and colder. 

On the surface, Alice stepped on to shore. Her boy now back to it's human form. Her clothes heavy with the sea in each stitch of her dress. She felt heavy, so heavy, as she dragged her self slowly up the sandy beach dragging her long dress train behind. 

She smiled as the moon sang it's glorious cool color over her mocha skin. 

He was gone. She had done it, and perhaps saved all who lived on the island from a disastrous end by the vampire the monster, the creature of the night Sebastian Lord. 

Back in the sea, as Alice's powers slowly became weaker over Sebastian, his eyes snapped open

He was ALIVE!

He saw how far he had sank. The cold ocean water was truly beginning to turn his blood to ice. He moved, but felt no movement. He couldn't breath, he felt the string of death coming into his body--tighter and tighter the vice of the reaper latched on to Sebastian's throat. 

He lowered his arms, began to move his legs back and fourth in the water and in seconds began to move up towards the surface, closer and close and closer he got, the light starting to peak towards his cold pale face. 

And then he broke through. 

The relief of air to his lungs was instant. He bobbed up and down in the ocean. He could see the lights of the shore sparkling in the near distance. He floated there breathing. In and out. In and out. In and out. 

He swam to shore towards the tinkle of village lights and followed the sound of the fog horns of the boats docking on shore. Then he got to shore, his strength waning. he made it to the edge of the Westernridge Woods of Tirymôr Forest. He was soaking wet. Cold. And Angry. 

As he walked through the dark forest, guided by the light of the full moon, Sebastian began to feel as if he were watched. He stopped in the center of an open area that was encircled by  large pine trees. He felt safe in open areas even in the dark. The fog, the very thick Welshport fog, rolled over the ground at his knee. He looked to his left as a sound came from the trees.

Then to his right, more sound. 

Was it two people watching?

Then another. 

Three people? 

But then, in the darkness in all three directions, he saw the glowing of three pairs of red eyes and low growls of hungry wolf bellies.

The wolves, howled in the night and revealed themselves to Sebastian. They snarled at him, desperate for his flesh. The began to circle him like shark in the water. He watched them each timing their attack in their mind, each ready to pounce on his young body to eat from. 

Growls, more snarls, each wolf more and more foaming at the mouth than the next.

But this was no ordinary prey that they had found, this was a man, a creature even just like then. Hungry and angry. Anger that seeped from all their pours, and fangs; the wolves and Sebastian alike. He was not what they anticipated and when one of the three wolves finally lunged at Sebastian to rip the flesh from his arms, he grabbed it by the neck, fell to his knees with the wolves biting and snapping at him and in the fog Sebastian opened his mouth revealing his own fangs and hissed and bit down on the wolf piercing its warm skin allowing it's blood to seep into Sebastian's thirsty mouth. 

The wolf yelped in pain and fear---mostly fear--and died in Sebastian's clutches.

The other two wolves stopped in their tracks watching the merciless death of their pack leader, then they walked up to Sebastian, their tails between their legs and licked the blood off his face.

And in those moments, as the sun began to rise, all Sebastian wanted to do was to be back in his safe place of Lockwood Thicket. More wolves began coming out of the shade of the surrounding trees. They all seemed to kowtow to Sebastian, knowing he was the dominant force in the forest now, and the entire pack of wolves accompanied Sebastian back to Lockwood Thicket their  new leader, the human the village would soon fear more than the bite of a wolf. 

****

Constable Reigns interrupts the Lord family dinner

The light from the cool afternoon sun entered the main parlor of Tirymôr House through a slightly pulled drape that hung on either side of a large window that looked out on to a garden that was personally designed by Rebecca Lord herself.

In the parlor Rebecca eager awaited a personal guest she had summoned to the mansion, to the point she had even sent Hamstead down to the village to drive the person up to the house himself.

Rebecca was done playing games, and she was about to set off a string of events that would ultimately lead to what she hoped would be the end of Eliza Goode's meddling in her family once and for all.

As the family, Rebecca, her maid Georgina, Jacob in his chair, Evie reading a book, Celeste and Charlotte all sat in various states of pre-dinner entertainment in the parlor--some reading by gas-lamp, or like Rebecca fiddling with her knitting, the sound of footsteps could be heard coming down the marble hallway towards the parlor. 

Rebecca stood up from her plush sofa and dropped the knitting on the cushion beside her. 

Jacob looked up from his book and furrowed his brow unsure of what was happening.

Then, Hamstead entered with Constable Gregory Reigns and his deputy Filipe Braga. 

"The Constable Madam." Hamstead announced after doing his duty in bringing in the head of the island's law enforcement. 

"Mrs. Lord," Gregory said greeting Rebecca with a head bow. "Mr. Lord," He greeted Jacob. "what was so important that you needed to have me chauffeured all the way up here in such a forceful way? It was as if Mr. Hamstead himself were the constable." 

"Mother? What's going on?" Jacob asked dropping the newspaper in his lap.

"I apologize if there was any inconvenience Constable, but I wanted you to give us a personal update on Christian Evans murder and my son's attempted murder. We haven't heard anything yet." Rebecca said.

"As you know Mrs. Lord, with Mr. Lord's memory being so fragmented of that night and no witnesses, I've had a difficult time pinning the crime on one person. But I am definitely getting there." Gregory said without mentioning Celeste's name, the person who he was most sure did it. 

"That's what I suspected." Rebecca replied.

"Mother why would you call the constable over here for this? He should be able to do his job and I will gladly do what I can to help as soon as I begin remembering what happened. This seems a bit out of the ordinary and, perhaps a bit strange to interfere this way." Jacob said still faking his amnesia. 

Evie, Celeste, Georgina and Charlotte all look at each other feeling out of place. 

Filipe looked over at Celeste and smiled, she smiled back and covered her growing baby stomach to shield it from other people's eyes. 

"The constable may not need your memory because I know who did this you and to Christian." Rebecca said shocking the room/

"What do you mean you know Ma'am?" Reigns questioned as he and Rebecca both took a seat on the luxurious furniture in the Lord family parlor opposite each other. 

"I have it on good authority that the person you're searching for, the person who has done this to my son and to that poor boy Christian Evans is a woman who's had it out for this family for a very long time. This crime was aimed at my son but was meant to hurt me. Christian was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The shooter is Eliza Goode. She's the one who did this. She and her daughter Mary, who if you recall, shot Sebastian, have wanted this family in their graves for decades. Its her that you need to arrest. It's her that needs to rot in a jail cell for the rest of her life. Her daughter may have escaped justice by choosing death, but her mother should not get away so easily. You should arrest her. Today!" Rebecca announced once again shocking the room into a fervor of talk. 

Questions came at Rebecca from left and right, confusion, and shock whirled in noise into the air. Charlotte began to tear up, knowing Eliza was her grandmother. 

"My god! Those women!" Celeste said to Reigns surprise as he had been waiting to trap Celeste as the culprit. 

"Mrs. Lord are you sure?" Evie asked in disbelief. 

"How? ... How???" Jacob wondered in sincere confusion on how his mother could know. 

"What evidence do you have?" Reigns asked attempting to make a solid case, still believing his hunch that Celeste had done the shooting was the true criminal and had been waiting for Filipe to help trap her.

"It's obvious! Mary shot Sebastian, Eliza shot Jacob and Christian. This is a chain of crimes that I believe was to have began and ended at Sebastian and Evie's wedding. I believe this was the ultimate plot to have us all killed one by one." Rebecca said, her lie burning the tip of her tongue, yet the irony was she was actually unknowingly correct. 

"We would need something substantial to make an arrest." Filipe added happy that it Rebecca accused someone that wasn't Celeste as Reigns had suspected. 

Rebecca had no idea who really shot Jacob, her accusation was purely on attempting to use her power to jail Eliza for what she did all those years ago when Rebecca's child died. This was an attempt to pervert the justice system to have an innocent person arrested and accused of a horrible crime.

Yet--- it was actually accurate, but no one knew that, not even Rebecca. 

Georgina's stomach became as tight as a sailors knot. Her mother Eliza was now in danger and all she could do was sit there and pretend to be just as shocked and angry as the others. Rebecca was determined to have the woman captured off her island and brought to justice; even Jacob who had truly no idea what was happening felt confused by his mother's sudden wade into the waters of criminal justice where she had no place being. 

"Mrs. Lord, I assure you, if you had proof I would head over to Goode Island and make sure she was taken in and taken care of but there is no proof of this. We have to have proof." Reigns said.

"Go, go to her house, Go there and I'm sure you'll find something that will convince you that my hunch is correct. Couldn't you at least go there and arrest her for aiding and abetting her daughter Mary's escape? That woman got away with Sebastian's murder!" Rebecca exclaimed.

"But Sebastian wasn't murdered." Reigns replied confused.

"That's correct." Filipe added motioning over to Evie with his eyes.

"What?" Rebecca said losing her own place in the story.

"That right, he wasn't." Evie replied shooting Rebecca a look to remind her of their story about Sebastian's disappearance and return. 

"Your own publication said that someone kidnapped Sebastian and replaced him with some look-alike person in an effort to steal the family fortune, the paper said the look-alike was the one killed not Sebastian." Reigns added.

Jacob, Evie and Rebecca looked at each other and paused. Jacob DID remember Sebastian and his return and the story Rebecca had concocted about his miraculous revival. He knew the truth about his nephew's "affliction", what was most important was that he also knew he was the one behind Sebastian's shooting and attempted murder: HE WAS.

"That's what she means, surly, isn't that right Mrs. Lord. Go on.. explain." Evie said feeling uneasy with the entire situation. 

"This is all just going out of control." Jacob said attempting to cool the room. "Mother, you don't know what you're talking about." 

"No! She doesn't!" Georgina said surprising the room with her outburst. "It wasn't Eliza Goode who did this to Mr. Lord and Mr. Evans. I know who did, I know who did this and I have to finally tell the truth." She added to everyone's shock and gasps. 

"Georgina what are you doing?" Rebecca asked of her personal maid unaware of her knowing anything about the crime.

But Georgina felt trapped, she was actually Mary living in another woman's body. And Mary didn't want her mother Eliza to go to prison. She didn't know what Rebecca thought she knew, she had no clue of that, but what she did know was that Rebecca didn't have the proof Constable Reigns needed and if he did go to Goode island he was sure to find the gun.

Mary, in Georgina's body, had to think fast to protect her mother and thus herself. 

"It was...." Georgina said pausing unable to think for a split second. Then, out of the corner of her eye she saw Celeste. "IT WAS HER!" 

"WHAT?" Celeste shouted standing straight up from her chair. "What are you talking about?" 

Filipe panicked. 

"Georgina, No!" Evie shouted. 

"That's impossible." Filipe added to Reigns annoyance. 

Georgina, her mind racing to protect Eliza finger-pointed the first person she could think of, and although the had no real proof either, she had something else on her side: a better lie that Rebecca's.

"I saw her leaving the mansion the night of the shooting. She was angry. She was upset and she had a reason to shoot Mr. Lord. Ask her! Ask her!" Georgina said, her words swirling together and coming out in fast motions. 

"THAT IS A LIE!" Celeste shouted back.

"Daddy???" Charlotte said running to her father's side.

 "Miss Kent, do you have proof of this yourself?" Reigns asked hoping she did as this helped his case about Celeste. 

"She had a gun." Georgina said lying.

"I have never had a gun in my whole life! This is outrageous. This never happened." Celeste said. 

"Detective Reigns this is all preposterous. Georgina's proof is just as lacking as Mrs. Lord's proof. We're basically at the exact same place as we were at the beginning of all this. No one knows who did it. No one." Evie said, attempting to set everyone straight. 

"You were leaving the mansion that night, late, there was something in your hand. You were angry." Georgina began again, ignoring Evie and just before Reigns slowly pulled out his cuffs. 

"I leave the mansion every night. I go home. I always go home." Celeste said to Reigns' suspicion. 

Constable Reigns had suspected Celeste the whole time. He knew there was something about her and had suspected that her worry that the secrets of her own family would cause trouble for her was the motive. She wanted to keep her half-sibling's paternity a secret and Jacob was blackmailing her with that information. Reigns knew this, he had know this for a long time and was just days away from connecting the dots, but now Georgina's supposed eye-witness to her leaving with a gun that night was perfect for his case.

"Where's the gun now Ms DeViana?" Reigns asked stoically. 

"I have no gun! This woman is lying!" Celeste shouted back.

"Celeste would not hurt daddy." Charlotte said. 

"But I saw it." Georgina said. 

"Are you sure? You're absolutely sure Celeste is who you saw?" Filipe asked. 

Rebecca's eyes were spinning. She had set off a strange set of accusations that she did not anticipate. She felt sick to her stomach watching Celeste suddenly become the one in Reigns cross-hairs. This wasn't what she had planned, she wanted her words to be used against Eliza, Eliza was was the one she wanted to suffer. Not Celeste. 

It had gone off the rails and all Rebecca could do was sit back on her sofa and watch it crumble all around her. 

"Perhaps we should discuss this in the village, shall we?" Reigns said feeding into Georgina's lie who was hoping she didn't have to resort to using her own set of magic to convince the Constable of her tale. 

Jacob knew that Celeste was more than capable of doing it, and God knows he had plenty of motive but it didn't matter to Jacob, he didn't want her to go to jail regardless. 

Then, as Constable Reigns lifted the handcuffs up that he was about to lock Celeste's hands in Jacob began to panic. He didn't know who shot him, but he also didn't want the mother of his unborn child to go to jail for something she perhaps didn't do. 

"I... I...............I'm unwell." Jacob said in his chair.

Jacob's eyes rolled to the back of his head. He began to shake. His whole body, shook into tremors from head to feet. He began to sweat and spit from his mouth. His slumped over and fell onto the floor as Rebecca and Georgina screamed and went to down to the floor to help him up.

"Jacob? Jacob!!!" Rebecca screamed slapping is face.

Reigns quickly turned back to Jacob on the floor and helped roll him over. They poured cold water from a pitcher on a side table on his face and the tremors stopped. 

"Mr. Lord??" Reigns said attempting to gain Jacob's attention away from the seizure. 

"Turn him over, turn him over." Filipe said helping. 

Jacob opened his eyes. His hands were cold and sweaty. The helped him back up to the chair he was in and he looked around the room. Once side his mother and her maid Georgina (who he didn't know was actually his ex Mary in a new body), on the other his daughter Charlotte clinging to her Governess Celeste, DeViana, a woman he was so madly in love with and who was carrying his child. Reigns was in the center of the room staring at him.

"Mr Lord?" Reigns asked again as the light of the gas-lamps flickered on all their faces.

"Should I call Dr. Ward?" Hamstead asked stepping back into the room after hearing all the commotion.

"I remember!!!" Jacob said suddenly to a hushed room. "I know who shot Christian and I. I know!" Jacob said. 

"WHO! WHO DID IT!" Reigns asked eager to finally get to the truth. "Was it Celeste?" 

"Was it Eliza?" Rebecca asking, hoping her lie would come true. 

Then Jacob, fresh off his seizer that he faked just like he had faked his amnesia looked at his mother and snarled at her. 

Rebecca tilted her head to the side, her body became tight feeling strange receiving that look from Jacob. 

"What is it Jacob?" Reigns asked noting the strange look in Jacob's eye to his mother.

"It was her. IT WAS MY MOTHER REBECCA!!" 

The room again gasped. 

"JACOB!" Evie gasped. “You’re mistaken!”

"Are you sure?" Reigns asked, just as shocked as everyone else.

"Jacob, what are you doing? What are you saying???" Rebecca asked in panic. 

"I remember it like it was yesterday and I have no doubt in my mind that it was her. I saw her face in the shadows and I know it was her." Jacob said lying, lying to protect Celeste who he was beginning to believe was the culprit. 

"LIAR!" Rebecca shouted just before she leaned over, whipped her arm back across her chest and whipping her arm back slapping Jacob across the face with the back of her hand. Her wedding ring scratching the side of his face in the process.

"Gamma! GAMMA!!" Charlotte screamed as Celeste held her back. 

"Come with me Mrs. Lord." Reigns said grabbing Rebecca by the arm. 

"Let go! LET ME GO! This is all a lie. He's lying!" Rebecca said finally telling the truth, her own plan of blaming someone else for the crime blowing up in her face.

Filipe pulled Rebecca out of the room and out of sight leaving the others in shock.

"You can all say nothing. Nothing at all. Let us investigate and interrogate her and make sure everything lines up. No word will come from my office until then. Agreed?" Reigns ordered as everyone nodded in agreement before he left to follow Filipe out of the room with their suspect. 

"I don't know what to say." Celeste said as they all took a breath. 

"You're innocent. That's all that matters." Jacob replied. "Now justice will be settled."

"Will it?" Evie asked. "Jacob, you are SURE your mother did this?" She asked.

"Why would I lie, she's my mother." Jacob replied.

Evie squinted not believing him. She looked over at Celeste who felt strangely thankfully for Jacob's sudden return of memory, thankful that she was no longer implicated, but thankful for Jacob for saving her. She almost felt grateful to him.

"Georgina, come. We'll have to get things for Mrs. Lord while she's in the village. We cannot allow her to be treated like some common criminals." Evie said, brushing off Jacob's assertion that he did the right thing.

"But she is Evie, she shot me in cold blood and killed your lover Christian. Thank god my memory came back. I remember everything now. Even that bit of Christian being your dirty lover." Jacob snarled. 

Evie lunged at Jacob and she too slapped him across the face, this time opened handed and wide on the opposite cheek Rebecca had landed on. 

"Who ever did this to you, and I don't believe for one second it was your mother, should have finished the job and left you in a grave yourself. Come Georgina!" Evie said angrily as she and the maid quickly left to gather belongings for Rebecca. 

Jacob then, slowly got up from his chair, aching from his healing gunshot wound, aching from his two laps to the face, and waddled over to the other sofa where Celeste and Charlotte were huddled together. 

"You're safe." He said to Celeste. "You'll both always be safe." He added placing his hand on her baby bump. 

****

Sebastian visits Evie 

The following evening, the fire place in Evie's private room flickered in the darkness of the room. The curtains were pulled making the room darker than it actually was outside where the moon was hidden by the thick overcast of the sky that looked like giant mounds of gray cotton floating over the island.

Evie, in a dark dress with gold trim with large dark purple birds in the fabric, picked up a brass candle stick holder and looped one of her lace gloved fingers into the circular grip and lit the thick white candle so that it brightened her way to the window where she peeped out onto the yard 3 floors below.

Then, the wall on the other side of her room that was painted like a forest of trees slid open. She turned, allowing the light of her candle to flow over to where the wall had separated and there, in the shadows of the open passage was Sebastian Lord freshly alive from his two near death experiences: One by Alice Winterborn, a second by the wolves of the forest.

"Hello my love." Sebastian said slowly walking over to his bride and kissed her deeply and passionately on the lips. She blushed and kissed him again. His amber colored eyes so heavenly to her to own gaze. She had missed him in the day when the sun was up. A half lived relationship was such a struggle for her. But she was trying to make their relationship work. God knows she was trying, especially now that she suspected she was, like Celeste, pregnant with Sebastian's child, a new heir to the Lord family fortune. 

Evie, although happy Sebastian was with her again, had terrible news for him.

"What is it?" He asked her noticing her quick change in mood.

"I'm afraid dinner has to be cancelled tonight. Something has happened." She replied mentioning their dinner date at Tirymôr before sitting herself down on a sofa near the window and the fire place. 

Sebastian followed her to the sofa thinking she perhaps knew about his violet confrontation with her friend Alice Winterborn the night before.

"What is it? What's happened?" He asked, pretending still not to know.

"It's Jacob." She replied to his surprise. "He's remembered the night he was shot, at least that's what he says. He's named the person that shot him Sebastian, he's named your grandmother." Evie explained.

"My grandmother? She would never! Where is she??" Sebastian replied leaping to his feet furious with the news.

"Sebastian calm down, please. She's  not here. Reigns took her to the village earlier and I suppose he's been questioning her." Evie replied.

"There is no way Rebecca did what Jacob says she did. No Way! How can we believe him after all he's done? How?" Sebastian replied, his tone of voice becoming stained and angry.

"Well he did, and now we have to wait until Reigns is done questioning her to clear her. I don't believe him either, but the authorities have to go with what the only witness who's living has to say. If he says she did it, they have to believe him." Evie said now standing with Sebastian who's fists were balled up and shaking.

"If all I do for the rest of my god forsaken life is destroy that man then it will be a life well lived. I will crush his body in my bare hands and beat him to a pulp for his lies, for his deceit for all he's done. FOR ALL HE's DONE!!!" Sebastian said throwing one of his fists into a large framed painting and blasting through the wall of Evie's room.

"SEBASTIAN!" She shouted. "You can't behave this way." She added.

He turned to her, his face had changed again, it was no longer the loving face that stepped through the secret passage just moments ago. It was cold, sullen and frightening in the shadows that were cast by the candle light. 

"I want his blood, I want his blood!!!" Sebastian growled.

"No! Stop this! Listen to me, stop this right now! We have to have cooler heads. Jacob is a liar and I don't believe him for one second but you cannot go around showing this side of you, this..." She paused before saying something that would anger him.

"This what Evie? What were you going to say? This 'monster'? This is what I am now, this is what I am forever. You said you understood and would stand by me and now I can sense your doubts...its so clear. Your heart rate is up. Your hands shake when you see me, they do not hold me the way they used to. Even when we make love, I can tell you hold back." Sebastian said, his mouth sharp with teeth searching got flesh to pierce. 

"I love you Sebastian, I do, but the way things change you so quickly, the way you flip from the kind man I feel in love with to the cold person you are now, it is an adjustment." She said stepping back, and when she did she stepped on the back hem of her long dark dress. She fell backwards and Sebastian, with lightening speed caught her in he fall.

She was now laying backwards in his arms, his face still cold, his eyes had gone from warm amber to pale gray. She could feel the coldness of his arms locked around her warm body. She winced and pushed at his shoulders signaling she wanted him to leg go.

"You cannot even bare for touch." he said lifting her up from the falling position.

"Sebastian we need to focus on your grandmother and making sure this crime is not pinned on her. Jacob cannot be allowed to continue to do the things he's done in the past. We now know his tricks and what he's capable of, we can make sure---" Evie said before Sebastian loudly roared over her voice.

"ENOUUUUUGH!!!" 

She froze in fear.

"I don't want to talk about him any more. I don't want anything anymore but YOU! To hell with this family and their treachery. I only want you!!" Sebastian said, throwing his arm across the fireplace mantle ejecting all of the knickknacks, photos, un unlit candle and a vase with fresh red roses all to the floor of the room.

Evie watched as the water from the flower vase soaked into the carpet. She took a deep breath and carefully walked over to the mess Sebastian had made. 

Her back was to him. He was breathing hard, the light of the fireplace in front of him warmed his cold body. His mouth still showing his fangs.

"Where are you going? DO NOT turn your back on me Evangeline?" he snarled, the darkness that Alice had so warned her about showing up in spades. 

Evie turned back and she was crying. She was shaking. His anger, his dark nature was becoming more and more overpowering. She could see there was something out of control about Sebastian, something she could not heal, something she could not fix, something she could not love away. It was everything Alice, he friend had told her would happen. 

Alice, so deep in her powers was right, and Evie was seeing Sebastian's shadowy vampire side coming out more and more.

Her tears fell over her peach toned cheeks. She only shook her head and opened the door to her private room and made her way out running down the red carpeted hallway passed Georgina who was coming to see her.

"Evie!" Georgina shouted trying to stop her in the hall with no success. Georgina then entered the room and found Sebastian leaning over the fire place surrounded by the mess his anger had made.

"What have you done?" She asked her cousin Sebastian. 

"Leave me alone Mary." He said using her real name.

"Did you hurt Evie?" She asked stepping over the roses in her pink dress who's fabric was ironically covered in pink roses.

"Perhaps her feelings." Sebastian said under his breath. "What's this of my grandmother shooting Jacob? You... you're powers aren't as strong as your mother's but you can still see the truth of what happened can't you? Is it true, did she try to kill him and kill Christian?" He added.

"I don't see those types of things. But... it could be true that she did it." Georgina said lying, as she knew her own mother had sent her spirit to kill Jacob. 

"Are you sure?" Sebastian said squinting at her suspiciously, his own truth detector working over time.

"We don't have time to discuss this, you need to leave Tirymôr, and I would suggest not returning until this matter is sorted out." She warned.

"Why?" 

"It's Jacob. I fear with his memory returned we have a lot more to fear than just accusations of murder. You could be on the chopping block next. He's tried before, he could try again." She said.

"As everyone keeps reminding me Mary, but I am not the same person I was when Jacob convinced you to shoot me." He said as she lifted a brow somewhat embarrassed of that memory. "Jacob cannot hurt me." He added.

"Never the less, your own temper will clearly be your down fall. Look at this room! Look at the mess you've made! You'll only create more of a problem and lose Evangeline forever. Is that what you want Sebastian? Is that what my mother gave up so much for so that you could come back to life? Is this the type of man your mother would be proud of?" Georgina said, her words hitting Sebastian over and over again one after the other and one more painful than the next.

No other word hurt him more than when she mentioned his dead mother Sabrina. It stabbed him, this use, it went into his heart like a flaming hot knife and he felt Georgina's disappointment in his twist that so called knife deeper and deeper into him with her words.

This again infuriated him. He turned, mouth open, fangs out. He lunged at her screaming at her to never speak of his mother.

She gasped and lifted her arm in the hair with her had open, fingers spread far apart and there in Evie's dark room she used her powers for the first time freezing Sebastian in mid air with his mouth open showing her the monster her mother made.

Georgina, who at first had her face turned so she would not see what was to come then realized she was unharmed. She opened her eyes and turned back to where Sebastian was standing. He was like  a statue floating in the center of the room with only his eyes given the ability to move. She circled him looking at his body in wonder and surprise that she had accomplished it.

"Cousin, you need to reign this anger in." She said sincerely concerned for him. "If you don't, you'll only find the darkness will take over you completely. I pray that it'll happen, because you need it to happen. You and I are still a team, I will not let that up, but you have to help me too. Keep your calm. Stay away from Tirymôr and Jacob. It's the only way we can keep you safe for now." She said.

His body, while frozen in this state began to calm. His teeth vanished. His eyes turned back to amber and his skin warmed to the touch. Georgina saw all of this happen with her own eyes and then, she snapped her fingers releasing him from her magical grip.

"I don't know how." He said softly, almost childlike. 

"You must try, my sweet boy, you must try." She said caressing her cousin's cheek. 

He took a breath, feeling exhausted from this mot recent emotional up-and-down. 

"Leave me. Please. Just leave me with my thoughts, I have to piece together what I will do about Evie, I've hurt her, I've frightened her. Please, just go, let me figure this all out." He said, slumping down to the floor and attempting to clean up the mess he had made. 

She nodded that she would leave and just before she did, she turned back around the door and watched him cry while he put the tossed down flowers back into their waterless vase. She felt pity on him. He was a man trapped between his lost life of a normal person and this creature her mother created to bring him back from beyond the grave. She could see the torment he was under as the constant battle between the good of his heart and the evil of his mind were at war deep inside of him. Evie was seeing it too, it was so powerful and seeping out into his relationships. All Georgina could do was allow him to literally and figuratively pick up the pieces of his damaged world. 

Georgina walked away from the room Sebastian was left in and quietly made her way back down the hall towards her own apartments and as she did so Nikolas Jordan, Evie's brother, was sneaking around the shadows passed the open door where Sebastian was. He saw his brother-in-law there, on his knees cleaning up the mess and then Nik made his way towards the mouth of the top of the stairs that lead down three floors to the marble foyer below.

Nik too had things to do that night. He was sneaking out with Albert's journal and headed to see the Winterborn siblings with news of what he had found. 

****

Alice & Matthew in their apartment 

At his small apartment in the village Matthew Winterborn struggled to keep his nerves in check. He was thinking about Evie Jordan-Lord. He couldn't get his mind off of the beautiful woman and how much his instincts wanted to protect her, and not just from Sebastian but also from his own sister's strange obsession in ridding the world of Sebastian.

One thing was sure for Matthew, Evie was the victim in all of the swelling darkness on the island, and he would do anything to keep her innocent life safe--even if it meant helping his sister do the unthinkable and take someone's life: Sebastian's. 

Matthew exited his bedroom and found Alice quietly sitting in the front room on a chair reading from her favorite book. She looked like a painting in that chair, cloaked in the reflections of the dim candles all around her, 8 of them in all. The various plants potted around the apartment created an ambiance of freshness that added to Alice's painting-like atmosphere.

"Can we talk?" he asked his sister.

"What is it?" She asked sensing the concern in his voice. 

"I wanted to know your plan. I want to help, I think with my help, you'll be successful and I can also make sure that you're safe. I wouldn't want you to get hurt in the aftermath of all this." Matthew said sitting across from her.

"Help me?" She asked confused forgetting she had told Matthew what she wanted to do about Sebastian.

"Yes! About Evie and Sebastian. If I can help, I will! I don't want anyone else to get hurt, not by him and...it's important that I we need to work on this together." He said.

"Oh, sweet Matthew. I know how pure your heart is. But you don't need to worry about Sebastian any more, Evie either. She's free, we're all free, and now that Sebastian is out of the way all of the evil that has surrounded this island and it's people will slowly lighten." She answered patting his knee.

Matthew looked at Alice confused. He had no idea what she mean, how could Sebastian now not be threat to them, but before he could get her clarification, the night air brought a long an unexpected visitor who was knocking on their apartment door. 

Matthew and Alice looked at each other unsure of who it could be. Matthew's first thought was Filipe, perhaps he had some news on the Jacob/Christian case that Matthew had been helping with. 

Matthew got up from his chair and went to the door and it was not Filipe, it was Nikolas fresh from his quick rush out of Tirymôr House. He was out of breath. He had run from the taxi that brought him to the apartment. He pushed his way in, frightened he was followed. His nervous energy frightened Alice and Matthew to the point they also felt as if someone was following him.

"Jesus man!" Matthew shouted as Nik rushed to the center of the room. "What is it?" 

"This!!! Look at this!! I found what this island has been hiding. I finally found it an it's horrible. I had to show you. This could be the beginning of ending all of the horrible evil here." 

"What is it?" Matthew said as Nik handed him the journal.

"Albert Lord's journal. Actually, it's a journal Albert and several of his ancestors have been keeping for generations. It documents the horrible things he and the other key families did when they first settled here from England and Wales." Nik explained before turning to Alice "It details what happened to your people." he added sadly. 

Matthew flipped through the pages reading sporadically. It burned his soft heart to see the terrible notes from the Lord men about the murders of the Winterborn's people, the tribe of natives that lived on Welshport first. Deaths. Stolen land. Murders. All of it. Right there in their own handwriting.

"This is disgusting." Matthew said. "It's as if they were happy with what they did." 

"It's the first and possible key piece to this puzzle." Nik said. 

"We already knew." Alice said shocking Nik, as he turned to Matthew who nodded his head.

"You both knew these people were responsible for such atrocities to your people even before you both were born?" Nik asked confused.

"Of course!! These are our stories, these are our people. We know every last horrible detail of how these settlers came, killed and took from us." Alice noted. "Their evil is the source of the curse. The curse placed on all who dwelled here.--- especially the remaining Lords." She added. 

"Here," Matthew said, showing Nik the last entry by Albert about the family he burned alive. "this is our family. The two children Albert writes about that he could not find after the fire went out, that is Alice and myself. We escaped. I was very little and Alice was just a baby. I took her. I escaped with her and watched from a hillside as our home and family burned in the darkest red flames I had ever seen and ever seen since." Matthew explained.

"I'm so sorry." Nik said grabbing Alice's hand and squeezing it. He pulled her in and hugged her tight. His love for her only grew stronger in that moment. 

While in their tight embrace Alice dropped a bomb "But we don't have to worry so much anymore. The apex of this curse has been destroyed. It's dead." 

Matthew and Nik looked at each other confused. "What are you saying?" Matthew asked.

"Dead?" Nik asked too. "Who's dead?"

"It's gone. Neutralized. I did it. I killed Sebastian last night and we'll all be safe. As soon as the universe sense that monster, the creature of the night is no more than our ancestors will begin the healing process for all of us. He is the final male heir of the Lord and now that he's dead and Jacob has no male children, we'll finally see justice for all us. Jacob will not live forever and we can finally be free of these Lord men." Alice explained. 

"Alice!! How could you do this on your own? You could have been killed!!" Matthew shouted taking his place as her concerned older brother. 

She shrugged, proud that she had done it.

"What are you talking about? Sebastian isn't dead." Nik replied.

Matthew turned, his brow furrowed.

"He's dead. I drowned him I watched him drown in the sea." Alice said assuredly. "He's gone." Alice repeated.

"No, no he's not. I just saw him when I left Tirymôr. He came to see Evie for dinner. He's alive Alice. He's Alive!" Nik confirmed shocking her.

"It didn't work? How, how did he escape? I did everything to make sure he stayed below the sea and I watched him drown!!" Alice shouted, her heart dropping into her stomach with the truth of her failure.

"I don't know," Nik said, "but we still have time, if you really want to do this, if you really want to take back the world your ancestors were killed over, I will help. I will do anything to help right this wrong." He added.

"Sebastian must die." Matthew said. 

Alice nodded her head, once little tear fell from her brown eyes upset that she had not saved everyone like she had thought she did. "He has to be destroyed to finally set the universe on course for the right, if not we could all be killed. His darkness and evil will only get stronger overshadowing who he once was. We have to kill him once and for all." Alice added. 

"Then we're agreed, the three of us will do it. We will end him." Matthew said out loud. The other two nodded their heads in agreement. "then lets plan this right." 

As the three began to plot their murder of the monster, Nik began to feel a pain in his heart. He was feeling guilt, guilt for doing this against his own sister. He loved Evie so much and plotting to kill her husband felt like a betrayal that he may not be able to come back from.

But he had to. He had to do it with Alice and with Matthew

To save them all. 

****

Eliza reads her tea leaves 

On Goode island, the sun began to rise peaking a bit of much welcomed warmth into the closed shutters of Eliza Goode's small cabin. She sat on a rocking chair alone in the front room as the fireplace smoldered in the hearth into a heap of smoke.

She had not slept. Not a wink.

She only sat in the rocking chair with thoughts of what was to come. She could feel danger on the horizon. She could feel the grips of something truly terrifying coming. 

Was it coming towards her? Was it towards her daughter? 

Would she finally have to saddle herself into the truth of what she was and finally use her powers unapologetically. She had yet to truly use her gifts to their full capacity. She feared doing so.

She feared the outcome and the reproductions of using her powers.

"What you give in power comes back in pain." She told  herself in her mind. 

"What you give in power comes back in pain." 

This is what she feared. Should she unleash her full powers, she'd receive in pain right back to her. Magic, in her case, was a give and take. 

Eliza, drowsy yet restless, walked into her kitchen at the sound of the tea-kettle steaming its whistled siren. She grabbed the hot kettle round it's round base and not by the safer handle option, the burning sensation on the palms of her hands sizzling while she then tipped the kettle over into a small cup and saucer. 

Her burns then blistering and pealing, suddenly healed. 

She looked into the swirling hot water and removed a pouch from inside the pocket of her white dress. The pouch was brown, made of burlap, and had a tight red thread that when synched closed the pouch up tightly. 

She unleased the red thread and poured the small flakes of red leaves that fell into her boiling water. 

The leaves soon began to evaporate into a red thick liquid. 

Blood. 

The Blood from the leaves swirled around and became darker and darker red as the water became absorbed into the herbs. 

Eliza placed a spoon in the tea and stirred, the tea, thick and dark red, then turned into a golden color, gold like tea should be. 

The steam swam up into the air around the rim of the cup and saucer. With her hands, Eliza began to lift the steam higher and higher into the air. She swirled in the steam with  her hands; shapes began to form, shapes that soon she would see as the future she sought. 

The steam showed faces. Many many faces. Angry. Hostile. Bloodthirsty. 

They were in a large group. They were filled with fire in their eyes. They wanted to end someone's life.

They wanted to capture someone. She saw a noose. And pyre ready to burn. 

Their faces were fraught with the pain of generations of suffering from an unknown source of what they assumed was bad luck, but was truly a curse. 

A curse so rooted in darkness that it clouded all their minds from common sense.

The faces in the steam were ready to end this curse and then the steam changed from many faces to just one.

Her face.

Eliza gasped and swatted into the steam vanquishing the terrible image of her face. 

Then she realized --- her days may be numbered. 

B3/Ch6: THE DÆNEIANS OF ENAKAYA

Nik searches Tirymôr’s library 

On a late afternoon weekday, Tirymôr House was quiet and sedated. The family was out, Sebastian was off in his own world keeping himself at Lockwood Thicket safe from the disappointing eyes of his family. 

Nikolas Jordan was alone, in a giant mansions and he was on a mission. 

As the several maids in their black uniform dresses with white aprons and matching white lace hats busily worked, Nik made his way back to the offices where he and Evie had discussed the strangeness of the whole island. 

He had it in him that there were secrets to be uncovered and he felt the nexus of all the shadows and darkness lied inside the papers, files and books inside the late Albert Lord’s office and library. He thought of Alice and their own conversation about the same topic. He was falling in love with her and thought if he found something that proved her right, perhaps he’d get even more close to her. 

As Nik covertly skirted around the halls of the mansion making his way to Albert’s library he couldn’t help but wonder what he would find. Secrets uncovered. Lies revealed. Hidden scandals broken wide open. And hopefully relief from the darkness that seemed to swallow up the whole island. 

The red carpets of the halls, crimson like the lips of women in a painting in the house’s main hall, finally led Nik back to the office and library door. It’s cool golden knob was decorated with a wreath of Ivy and garland. He turned it and entered allowing the smell of stale papers and old leather just like all the libraries of the world smelled.

Nik closed the door behind him and carefully walked around the various shelves of old books. Stories centuries old, some stood on their old oak shelves like tiny tombstones bound in leather. 

Shakespeare. 

Voltaire. 

Austen. 

Poe. 

As Nik slowly made his way through the several shelves of books on history and art and world events he passed the painting that had the vanishing eyes. They remained still. No one was watching. 

Then he came to the desk. Thick of Oak and cherry wood. Carved in it’s sides were stories from the Bible like Noah and the arc, Moses parting the Red Sea. Lazarus awakening from death. 

After looking over the unique’s carvings, Nik went behind the desk allowing the sun from the windows behind him shine down a patterned over him from behind. He opened the top drawer. 

Empty.

Top middle drawer, empty too. 

Everything seemed to have been removed, perhaps after Albert died. There was nothing to find. No secrets and scandals. There were no files. 

Frustrated, Nik thought that perhaps he was wrong, perhaps he let Alice lead him into this fantastic world of suspicion and conspiracy and none of it was real. Everything in the office was typical and normal of any office Nik had ever seen. Was Alice just as disturbed as Evie said she might be? 

Then it dawned on Nik, he had forgotten to look at the bottoms drawers of Albert’s old desk. 

He leaped over and pulled the first one open. 

Empty. 

Then, expecting to find the very last drawer as empty as all the rest he opened it and found a small hand sized globe on a gold stand mounted in a heavy golden vase, standing in the otherwise empty finally drawer.

It was peculiar, strange that it was just standing there on its own. 

Nik reached for globe and when it lifted the bottom panel of the drawer popped up revealing a hidden compartment that the globe was holding down to conceal its existence.

Nik reached into the secret compartment and removed a small journal, a book, handwritten by Albert Lord himself. Nik stared at the journal with Albert’s initials personally carved into leather by Albert’s own hand. 

The leather strap was tied tightly in a neat knot. He thought about removing the tie, but not for long. Nik unwrapped the journal and began to read from it every single sorted detail.

In a surprising revelation, the pages of the journal had entries not just by one person as Nik suspected  but several. They were written by Albert Lord, by Albert’s father Johan, by Johan’s father Francis, by Francis’ father Calgary.

The entries by each of the Lord men were confessions, confessions and receipts of lands taken by the the five first families who settled on the island from England.

Calgary Lord and his family came over from London in 1704 and with his alliance with Sirian Lockwood planned to rule the island as their own. This alliance was in direct contrast with the alliance with the other Welsh families, The Churchills, Morgans, and the Garlynds, who settled on Welshport island in October of that year.  The Lords however soon betrayed even the Lockwoods and over powered the other families by pushing the out over the years with shady business deals and schemes. 

The last remaining descendant of those family on Welshport was Rebecca, who was the great-great-granddaughter of Sirian Lockwood. 

The island were taken by these British and Welsh settlers that included the Lords and the others were from the Dænian people, the tribe that first lived on the island of Welshport, or by the island’s native name: 

An Island Past & An Island Present

The Lord men wrote about their plots to take over the island from the other families--- detail after detail. But what was most disturbing to Nik, were the details of the initial take over of every patch of stolen land from the Dænian tribe complete with the names of the people that were killed in order to take this land and inhabitant it. 

Name after name. 

Acre after tiny acre. 

Death after death. 

The final entry was by Albert Lord himself, the last patch of land the Lords had helped take over from the Dænian people was complete in 1882, the last family of the Dænian people had been burned alive. 

“Their home, as rustic as it was, has a view of the small island off the coast of our beautiful Welshport.” Albert said in his final entry. “Tirymôr House is almost done and I’ll be happy to see them gone. The 5 adults went quickly, but the small boy and the even smaller girl somehow vanished in the smoke and ash as we burned it down. They may have perished. May they rest in whatever peace they find. Theirs is ours now.”

Nik could almost hear the screams of the native people coming from the past. He could almost feel the flames of the burning villages. The heat on his face. The fire in his eyes. The powerful images in his mind of all the terror the indigenousness people had suffered felt real to him as he read through the various entries in the journal. He could smell the death of the tribes and he felt a sadness inside of his heart for the loss of all they had; acre after acre, person after person, tiny village after tiny village. 

The sick cruelty of Albert’s words made Nik feel his stomach tighten with disgust. The other entries by Albert and the other men were no better. To think these men and the other first settlers had killed and entire people for this small island. 

“Wait…” Nik said licking his fingers and going back to Albert’s last entry. “Young boy and girl? Last ones?” 

He was putting two and two together. Matthew Winterborn had told him of his family. That he and Alice were the last of their people but Nik took that as meaning they had no family, not in the literal sense that were truly the last of their culture.

“Could …could it be? Could Matthew & Alice be these little children Albert thought he killed when he burned and the other's burned down the home of that family?” 

The idea was shocking, sickening. But it seemed plausible. There were parallels all through the book and the stories Matthew and Alice had told Nik in brief moments of honestly on the siblings' part.

Nik closed the journal. It’s pages slapped together like the locking of a pair of lying lips and he sat there gobsmacked at it's revelations. 

“They’re god damn monsters.” Nik said to himself. “Every last one of them, living off of the blood of … of … other humans!!” 

As the truth of the settlement of Welshport on the backs and murders of it's native people sank in, it made Nik even more furious. He had to tell Matthew and Alice. He quickly replaced the Globe in the drawer and made his way out of the library. 

The truth was in his hands and in the pages of the evil journal kept by Albert Lord and his murderous ancestors was all too damning not to expose. 

****

Evie, Rebecca & Georgina in The Village 

The busy center of town became even more busy when the locals got a special visit from the Lords who were making their way through the shops in town gathering items for Jacob's inevitable return to the mansion. New bedding for him, fresh towels, and even new drapes for his room. Rebecca, who was still very weary of her own son, was still the type of blue-blooded New Englander who knew the best and freshest of linens and clothing was always a helper in the healing of a sick person. At least in the mental capacity.

While Rebecca her personal maid Georgina and Evie shopped in town, the Winterborn siblings Matthew and Alice walked along the village sidewalks discussing her continued fears of what was to come.

"You have to try and suppress all of these fears of yours." Matthew said in his dark suit as he walked with Alice's arm safely locked under his. "Its the only way you'll ever find some kind of peace of mind." He added.

"How can I do that when I know what I know and I've seen what I've seen? There is an imminent danger lurking in the shadows of this town and if we don't rid Welshport of this evil, it will only fester and get worse. It's been a long time coming and now the innocent people who live here have to be kept safe. They didn't ask to be born and raised her and now they have to be kept safe." Alice warned. 

Matthew stopped their walk in the middle of the walk way in front of a linen store and turned his sister so that they were now facing each other. "What does that mean? Long time coming?" He asked, his face shadowed by the bowler hat on his  head and covered in worry. "Have you been planning something for a long time? Alice... this is the type of behavior that got you locked up in Windcliff...this! This type of paranoia. I need you to stop. The people of Welshport ARE safe!"  

Alice's smiled politely and squeezed his hands. She could see that he was only trying to protect her, as any big brother would, but over the years he had let go of the past of their people. He had forgotten how much was taken from them by cruel means, by violence and by betrayal. He had forgotten that they were the last of their kind and that they were the only two who held the keys to the truth of how the island was inhabited and how the spirits of their people haunted every corner of this wooded place. Those ghosts were real, they held in them the terror or death and sadness and were the source of a curse so powerful that it remained even now---in them, in the people of Welshport, and in the Lords and all their descendants. 

"I know you want to believe that, but you haven't seen and felt and experienced all that I have in my dreams and visions. You know, a long time ago you used to be able to channel those experiences too. I wish you remembered more." She said to him.

"I remembered fine, and that was a lifetime ago." he argued back.

"If that were true, then you'd understand why I'm so persistent about righting the great wrong our people suffered centuries ago. It's this original sin that has brought us to this point, that curse has now metastasized in the form of a creature so vicious that it may eventually kill us all if we don't kill it first." Alice warned. 

"You really believe that? Do yo really believe that Sebastian is this … this thing you saw and that you keep seeing in visions?" Matthew asked. 

"I do. There is no doubt in my mind. If we want peace on the island our people called home once more, he must be destroyed....first." Alice replied darkly. 

"First?" Matthew asked confused. 

But before Alice could explain further, Evie Jordan-Lord exited the store Matthew and Alice were standing in front of as she, Rebecca, and Georgina were inside shopping.

"Alice!! My goodness, how are you? I'm so happy to see you again after all these months." Evie said glowing in happiness to see her old friend from Windcliff, even though in the back of her mind she somewhat wanted to keep a distance from her.

"Evie!!" Alice said reaching over to her and hugging her tightly. Their two dresses mashing together in a contrast of Evie's plumb colored and Alice's dark blue. "This is my brother Matthew." Alice added.

Matthew's eyes sparkled. He had not seen Evie up close before, only from a far and not for very long. It was in passing that he had seen her a week before as she and Nikolas had been in town together. She was a vision to him, almost glowing. Her eyes sparkled and her smile was like a ray of sun beaming from the heavens. He suddenly felt his heart skip a beat---this beautiful woman that had been the source of so much struggle within the periphery of his life had suddenly become real, touchable. Her voice entered his mind and stayed there like a song he loved playing over and over so perfectly. 

"Afternoon." Matthew said, removing and tipping his hat to her almost shyly and somewhat smitten with just this first introduction. 

Evie smirked and curtsied in return equally as shy---she had not noticed how handsome Alice's brother was in their brief interaction either. 

"Good to see you." Evie said to Matthew. "How have things been, Alice, now that you've been home for a good long time. I hope you've finally gotten back into regular life--whatever that means." Evie giggled. 

"Regular life." Alice smiled. "I don't really know how exactly I would do that knowing what I know." 

"Knowing what you know?" Evie repeated.

"Alice..." Matthew began before his sister continued.

"I've been worried about you Evie. Ever since we both connected at Windcliff, I've had such a deep concern for you and your return here to this island. I've felt so strongly inside of me that you've been in terrible danger but then again, I feel as if you know this too." Alice said to her old friend.

"Danger? Whatever do you mean!?" Evie asked feeling a bit ambushed because she too knew what Alice was referring to. 

Through the glass of the window shop, Rebecca and Georgina watched the conversation but stayed far away. 

"I do not wish to say his name out loud on the street, but I think you know who---and what--I am talking about. He can't be trusted. He is no longer the man you believed him to be the day you married him. If you let me I can help you rid your life of----" Again, Alice was interrupted.

"Alice, you're speaking of my husband, the man who was taken from me the day we were married and has miraculously come back to me. We're trying to make things work under terrible terrible circumstances and luck. I will hope you can respect that. I will not tolerate and talk of 'ridding' myself of him." Evie replied her tone now cold and angry. 

"You should reconsider." Alice replied now just as cold to her friend.

"Alice, please don't get into this here." Matthew interjected. "Evie, I apologize but my sister has these feelings sometimes and visions too. She's only tryin to help." 

Evie turned to Matthew. His face was kind, his skin tan and beautiful. She could see how deep his eyes were in their brown chestnut color and he meant well trying to keep the calm between her and Alice but the truth was Evie was in denial. She didn't want to hear any of it. She believed Sebastian was who she was meant to be with, why else, Evie thought, would he have come back to her. Even if he was the stranger creature that he was.

The point Evie wanted to make to the Winterborns was that he was back, for her. And only her. 

To Evie, Sebastian was a sort of dark angel. 

"Perhaps you should tell your sister that I don't need help." Evie said to Matthew.

"Evie..." Alice began before Evie interrupted her.

"Stop, just stop." The heiress said. "I came out here happy to see you. Happy to see you both. My brother is so very smitten with you Alice, I was excited for him to meet someone so interesting and now I just have concerns about your relationship with him." Evie said to Alice's surprise.

"This has nothing to do with Nik and my fondness of him." Alice said.

"Alice, please..." Matthew interjected again seeing Alice's anger returning. 

"He's mentioned your concerns to me. And I'm not so diluted by love that I don't see the things you see. But I know Sebastian. I know him with all my heart and I know the dangers that lurk around the corner and I've seen them up-close and personal. The one we should all be worried about is NOT Sebastian but a man who is recuperating in the hospital from a gunshot wound. He's the true dark figure that we should all watch out for, and for now it seems we're safe. He has no memory of his cruelty and for that I am grateful. It's not Sebastian, do you understand me? It's not Sebastian." 

Matthew nodded his head showing confirmation that Evie had made her case clear as a bell. He wanted no more talk about Evie's relationship or what Alice was seeing in her sleep, in her nightmare, in her visions. It was done.

"We completely understand, don't we Alice." He said. 

Alice did not respond. She only stared at Evie with sadness. She was completely blinded by love and the shadow that was cast over the island all those centuries ago by her people had covered her too. To Alice, Evie was a lost cause. If anyone was going to help her, it would be Nik. He had yet to be tricked by the curse they all suffered from. 

Evie lifted a brow at Alice who just stared at her intently. "Well, it was nice seeing." She said clearly upset at Alice's entire conversation.

"Please, Evie, don't be angry with Alice. She really does care about you." Matthew replied.

Alice still remained silent.

"I did too. But I think those days are behind us. Take care Alice." Evie just before she stormed off and rejoined Rebecca and Georgina inside the shop but in her mind, she knew, deep down she knew, that Alice wasn't all wrong. 

Evie was educated. Smart. Very smart. She knew what the warning signs were, she saw them herself not long ago with a strange and violent outburst of Sebastian's. She knew his dark side very well. So well that she feared for her life at times just as Alice suspected. 

But as smart as Evie was, she was equally as determined to prove them all wrong and make Sebastian just as kind and loving as he was once before. She believed she could show him the way and perhaps, by the amount of her love, she could save him.

For her part, Alice saw that Evie and for that matter Matthew would not help her. It was now incredibly clear to her that she would have to take matters into her own hands for the sake of all who lived on the island. 

Back the shop, Rebecca, Georgina and a shop-girl carefully folded some of the new linens for Jacob's room into a large basket. The fresh scented sheets and towels could be smelled from the door, it calmed Evie just as she walked in from her very contentious argument outside.

"And what was that all about?" Rebecca asked not lifting her eyes from her task as the other 2 pairs of eyes looked at Evie with a sort of gossipy curiosity.

"Nothing." Evie said lying as she helped fold.

"My darling, we may have had a wall and window in between us but body language through glass does not lie. What did the Winterborns have to say?" Rebecca asked again.

"Alice and I know each other from Windcliff, she was just asking about the family now that she's involved with my brother." Evie said glazing over the truth.

"Involved with?" Rebecca questioned.

"They've gotten close."

Rebecca finally lifted her eyes to stare into Evie's. The young heiress could see Rebecca's clear annoyance with Evie's brother already experiencing issues with some of the townies, not to mention a townie like Alice fresh out of an insane asylum. 

"This is concerning. I don't like anyone attempting to know anyone around my family that gives off the kind of energy I saw through those windows. In fact I've made sure I've insulated anyone who has a negative energy like hers for years. It's toxic Evangeline. It will creep up into your own soul and eat it a live. Ask any soothsayer. They'll tell you. Get rid of her." Rebecca said.

"Get rid of her? Alice is not some sort of article of clothing I no longer have use for Rebecca, she's someone I thought was my friend and now my brother seems to be fond of her. Besides I don't just discard people like that." Evie said as she handed over the edges of a sheet she was helping Georgina fold.

"Perhaps that is your issue, my dear. Sometimes, cutting someone loose is not only the best thing for them but you as well. It'll only get worse." Rebecca advised.

"I think I can handle Alice Winterborn." Evie replied.

"Very well, handle her. But heed my words here and now, you've only just reinstated yourself at Tirymôr; all eyes are on you. I have enough to worry about when I think of the condition Jacob will be in when her returns from the hospital, not to mention..." Rebecca paused.

"Not to mention what?" Evie asked.

"Sebastian." Rebecca said as if a lightbulb had lit above her head. "Was all that just now about Sebastian? Alice, was she upset about Sebastian for some reason? Does she know about him??" Rebecca asked in a hushed voice clarifying.

Evie didn't know what to say, but she surly couldn't tell her the truth, that Alice and Matthew did know the truth about Sebastian and that they had some sort of dire warning out to Evie about how dangerous he was. Evie knew Rebecca wanted his return to continue to be played out as if he had never died, and that a strange secretive kidnapping and ransom had occurred and that the pretend Sebastian was killed and the real one returned unharmed. 

The local media, owned an operated by the Lord's powerful publishing company had already set that lie out to all their papers, but Alice's bizarre out burst out front that Rebecca only saw as a silent pantomime through glass made it seem that perhaps she knew more than she should. 

Which was a problem. 

"No. I assure you Alice doesn't know a thing." Evie said, lying again.

Georgina seemed to absorb the whole sorted argument like a sponge hoping no one would see through her own disguise. She too continued to feel like she was on the edge of her seat -- or volcano. 

Rebecca lifted a brow but said nothing. Her light colored eyes reflected the whites of the now perfectly folded laundry they had just purchased for Jacob's return. She tilted her head and reached into her purse for the payment to the shop-girl who kept quiet the entire time while standing there and other customers orbited around them.

"Evangeline you're a Lord now." Rebecca said. "Make sure you remember that. Whatever happens. We always stick together." Rebecca warned leaving Evie feeling as if she now had made the right decision defending Sebastian to Alice even though the tightening vice her stomach was twisting into was telling her Alice was the one who was right about Sebastian. 

****

Jacob comes home from the hospital 

The light shined through five large windows built in a half circle in a room at Tirymôr House that the family named The Yellow Room after the creamy yellow painted walls. The pattern of various squares from the window's grill fell over the room like a giant ticktacktoe table as Hamstead wheeled in the recuperating Jacob Lord in a silver and gold wheel chair fresh out of the hospital.

"Where would you like to sit sir?" Hamstead asked as Jacob pointed to the windows.

Hamstead situated Jacob and the rest of the family entered the room through a side entrance ready to welcome him home, albeit reluctantly. 

"Welcome back." Celeste said as she held Charlotte's hand who repeated what her governess said.

Jacob smiled at the lovely Celeste. 

"You'll find that we have fresh linens and all the best comforts in your room. I hope that your recovery is speedy and easy." Rebecca said as she sat on a sofa in front of her son.

"Thank you mother." Jacob replied.

"Ma'am, cook needs for to go over the menu for tonight's dinner." Georgina said at the door as Rebecca excused herself leaving Celeste and Charlotte alone with Jacob.

"I'm very happy to see you." Jacob said to Celeste. "You've been so good to Charlotte and I don't think we could have asked for a better governess." He added.

"Well she makes it easy. Such a good pupil." Celeste smiled at Charlotte. 

In her little mind, Charlotte and Sabrina went back and fourth about Jacob's sudden change in demeanor.  

"I don't trust him. His eyes are the same. Cold. Calculating." Sabrina's voice said in an echo in Charlotte's mind.

"He's so happy. So happy." Charlotte's voice replied.

"Keep an eye on him, do no let him out of your sight." Sabrina replied skeptically. 

"Charlotte go on and wash up for dinner." Celeste ordered.

Charlotte stood up unsure what to do as the tug-of-war of voices giving her orders conflicted. Sabrina wanted her to stay near her conyving father, Celeste wanted her to prepare for their dinner.

After a few seconds of strange stares the young girl relented and listened to her earthly governess and rushed out of the room and down into the main hall of the mansion. She shook her head as if to shake out Sabrina from her mind "Stop please! Stop! I wish for you to stop!" 

She looked out of a side French door that reflected her face -- that suddenly changed to Sabrina.

"I need you to help me!!" Sabrina's ghost inside of Charlotte said through the reflection.

"I'm too tired Aunt Sabrina. You're making me tired. Tonight I quite you." Charlotte said out loud to the ghostly reflection of her dead aunt that dwelled in her mind. 

By quieting Sabrina, Charlotte was literally closing her connection to the spirit so that she would no longer have her voice in her mind. 

For now. Sabrina reached through the glass to grab on to Charlotte in hopes she wouldn't quiet her voice but it was too late, Charlotte squeezed her little eyes closed and Sabrina's ghost went silent. 

Charlotte smiled, happily with her own childlike thoughts and rushed up to the washroom to prepare for dinner with her family. 

Back in the Yellow Room, Celeste was making Jacob a drink -- a dark brandy.

"You're not having any? He asked.

"No." She replied quickly. 

"I can tell you know, I don't want to beat around the bush. I can tell." Jacob whispered.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lord, tell what?" Celeste asked, feigning ignorance. but deep down she knew as she put her hands over her growing tummy. 

"You're with child, Celeste, it's a wonderful occasion. I'm thrilled!" Jacob said reaching for the drink being handed to him and grabbing hold of Celeste's hand.

"Yes--- Filipe and I are very happy." Celeste said lying.

"Filipe? Oh come now, we both know the truth. We both know when and where this child was conceived. You don't have to lie to me." Jacob said still squeezing her hand.

"I don't know what you mean, Filipe and I are this child's very proud parents. I don't understand why would think otherwise." Celeste said pulling her hand back.

"Celeste, I have holes in my body and parts of my memory of the night that I was shot, but I remember the night I made love to you. I remember how afraid you were and  how I...shamefully...coherenced you into doing my bed. I do feel horrible about that, I sincerely do." Jacob said, lying to her, he did not feel shame but he needed to keep up the appearance. 

"Shame? You feel ashamed?" Celeste replied in disbelief.

"Of course! I've had a very strange thing happen to me my dear, life as I know it has become just a moment in time where I finally realized that I am not immortal and that all the things I wanted for myself are just that, they are THINGS. They are unimportant. But this child is a fresh new start and I intend on making sure he or she is treated well. I promise you that." Jacob said wheeling his silver and gold wheelchair over to her as she backed away.

"You are not going to be apart of this child's life Jacob, you and I both know that is impossible." Celeste replied as she continued to step away from that man who at one point was steps away of opening up a world of scandal about her mother and his father's love child that would ruin all their lives. 

"How can you say that?" Jacob said, pretending to be hurt by her words.

"Because of my relationship with Filipe! I love him! This child will be raised as his, not yours. No one can ever know that this baby is your child, no one." Celeste said whispering so no one could hear.

"That disappoints me, but … in a way, I understand. It seems as though your attempt to protect your mother's secret has now created a new secret, hasn't it Celeste. Now you have two secrets and in a strange twist, they're parallel. Aren't they? How very ironic." Jacob said pointing out the mistake her mother Christina had made with Albert Lord all those years ago was similar to hers with Jacob. 

"Are you promising me you won't say a word? Just as your father said nothing about my brother; his son?" Celeste wondered.

"I don't keep secrets Celeste. But... I also don't expose them, it wouldn't look good for me either if the mother of my child were to say I blackmailed her into my bed. For now, the secret is safe. But I want to see the child whenever I want." Jacob ordered showing is cruelty once more. 

Celeste paused and nodded her head in agreement then, feeling like she was locked in a hell she could not escape rushed out of the yellow room in tears and ran into Evie who was walking down the hall to see Jacob. 

"Celeste? What is it? What is it??" Evie asked as Celeste pulled Evie out of the main hallway's French doors and on to a large terrace that faced a garden maze that had yellowed in with the dawn of the Autumn season. 

"Jacob, he remembers something, something about me!" Celeste said through tears. 

"What do you mean, something about you?" Evie said holding Celeste's trembling hands. 

"Evie I have to tell you something but you must promise me you will never ever tell a single soul. This is the most important thing I will ever tell you and I hate to put you in this position  but I need you to know the truth." Celeste said in a shaking voice to match her shaking body.

"Oh my god, Celeste, you're trembling! Here take this!" Evie said removing her shawl and placing it over Celeste's shoulders. "What is it? What did Jacob remember?"

"A few months ago, he summoned me here to Tirymôr and showed me some papers that proved something about my mother that if revealed would not only tarnish her reputation but also put my position here in this house and in this family in danger. I'd lose everything and I can't afford it. He wanted something from me for my silence, and I gave it to him." Celeste confessed.

"What did he ask for?" Evie wondered.

"Me. He wanted me. In his bed. And I agreed, and now, I'm with child. His child. And he knows." Celeste added.

"Oh my!" Evie said as she pulled Celeste in for a giant hug. 

The two friends knew the dangers of having something Jacob wanted. He wanted things from Evie, like the inheritance she was entitled to due to being Sebastian's wife, and now Celeste was carrying his child, something so much more important than just money--- the baby for Jacob represented immortal life. His life would go on through his children and that is what Jacob wanted more than anyone else, power and ever-lasting life through the passing of his genes through children. 

"Listen to me, Celeste, listen to me," Evie said lifting Celeste's face up by the chin so that their eyes met. "I will do everything in my power to protect you and this baby. He will not get his hands on this baby, I don't care how much he's supposed changed for the good. I don't believe any of that." Evie said as Celeste smiled.

"You don't believe he's changed?" Celeste wondered. 

"He'll have to prove it to me." Evie said affirming she wasn't buying this new and improved act of Jacob's.

As the two hugged in solidarity, Evie suddenly felt ill. She began to sweat and sat down on a stone seat in the garden just off the terrace.

"How long have you been feeling like this?" Celeste said surprised that the illness came on to Evie so quickly and out of no where.

"It happens off and on, and it started just yesterday morning." Evie replied.

"Evie.... sick in the morning?" Celeste asked, suspicious of the familiar illness.

"Yes, and sometimes, I get ill from just the smell of things, types of foods, or ... even just getting dizzy for no reason." Evie said standing up again after this quick wave of sickness seemed to suddenly pass just as it mysteriously appeared. 

"Well, well, well..." Celeste sad smiling realizing what this mysterious illness was.

"What? Why are you smiling?' Evie asked, dabbing the sweat at her temple with a pink handkerchief.

"These symptoms of yours are identical to what I felt when I realized I was having a baby, Evie. It looks like, but I could be wrong, that you too are going to be expecting something very soon. Say... nine glorious months." Celeste said grinning from ear to ear. 

The thought of Evie being pregnant too was in a strange way the most terrible and beautiful news she had ever received. She had always wanted to be mother. She had always wanted to teach her child all she knew about culture and art and music all the things she loved. 

But then, the sickness returned when she realized who the father was: Sebastian.

Her husband, the man who lived in the dark shadows of all the world.

Evie turned an vomited over the stone banister into the bushes below as Celeste held her hair back.

How could she bring a child into the world with a father like Sebastian? How could she keep this child safe, if she truly was pregnant, from the creature that was Sebastian. She loved him, she truly did, but the love she had for the man she married was tainted by the creature he had become. She had never ever thought in her wildest dreams that they would become parents under these circumstances.

How would she raise this baby knowing it's father was ---a monster? And would she tell Sebastian?

Now the two women, Celeste and Evie, stared at each other realizing they were in a very delicate and dangerous position. 

Life and death an everything in between was in the balance with the possibilities of the two new children on the horizon. 

****

The moon was high in the newly night sky. Clouds floated over the Westernridge Woods of Tirymôr Forest like small ships at sea. Below the glow of the moon, Lockwood Thicket, the small cottage where Sebastian Lord, the vampire felt safe. 

This was his sanctuary away from all at the mansion and all the in the village. 

In the distance of the forest, in the rustling leaves of the trees, a wolf bayed at the moon. It's howl echoing through the forest and bouncing off the trees reaching Cottage where Sebastian was buttoning up his thick coat and placing a top hat on his head as he was heading for Tirymôr to see the family for dinner. 

As Sebastian stepped down the four front wooden steps of the cottage, he heard a strange rustling of leaves just behind a threshold of bushes beyond the front of the house. Sebastian turned to the sound, his eyes like burning through the darkness of the night seeking the heat of a body. 

He could feel something there. He could sense it's pulse. The heart beating slowing, and patiently as if the creature in the shadows was waiting for Sebastian to pounce first.

Sebastian kept still and stared into the dark. 

He waited.

He watched. His own heart beat even slower than the one he felt.

Then, the wolf howled again into the night at the moon distracting Sebastian who turned towards where the wolf's howl was coming. It confused the vampire who was expecting the wolf jump out at him from the shadows where he was sensing something watching him.

And when Sebastian turned back towards the thumping heart stranding in front of him now revealing themselves was not a wolf ready to maul the vampire it was Alice Winterborn dressed in a long black dress with red leather gloves in the forest to take matters into her own hands about Sebastian just as she promised herself, her hair flowing in a wind that came off the fresh ocean.

"Witch." Sebastian said of her.

"I have nothing of witchcraft in me, you demon. I am of the earth and of this sky. I am of the sea and of all the places the sun touches and where you can no longer touch, I'm here to rid the darkness and night of you too. I'm here to save us all of your terror." Alice said stepping slowing closer and closer to the vampire Sebastian Lord.

Sebastian smirked. He thought it was adorable how this young woman, who believed herself to be something from another place could take him on. 

He walked slowly towards Alice, removed his top hat and tipped it to her. 

"Well then I guess we should have a meeting of the minds to discuss just what you're about to do to me." Sebastian said patronizing her. 

"I think you should be careful with your words, demon. I have no patience for it." Alice answered.

"I wish you all the happiness in the world Alice Winterborn and our short meetings in your dreams are particularly humorous for me. I have to find entertainment where I can. So, tell me, what is it that you want to do with me?" Sebastian said replacing his hat on his head.

"You will die. I will see to it." Alice warned.

"Will I? With garlic? A silver bullet? Holy water perhaps? Those are the things of fantasies and stories my dear. Not reality. Your passion for my undoing seems as strong as my passion to survive all things to be close to my Evie. The one difference is," Sebastian began now standing directly in front of Alice "I am much strong!" 

Once the words left his lips he attacked Alice. His mouth open with this teeth baring down on her heck. She screamed and fell backwards now with  his body on top of her. She slapped him across the face but it was no use. He was too strong. He opened his mouth wider and wider. It almost was as if he's jaw had come unhinged. 

He went to her neck, so perfect in color like a caramel candy and went down to bite. But then, like the magic she had inherited from her ancestors -- the Dænian people -- she summoned a cold gush of air with her hands the lifted Sebastian off of her and suspending him in the air. 

"DEMON!!!" She screamed at him from below.

Sebastian only laughed at her with his teeth still pointed for her skin. He forced himself down back to the ground as a wolf once again howled in the dark of the night. 

It was howling for Sebastian and of the coldness of the night that seemed to get colder and colder almost like winter despite the autumn leaves not yet falling to the ground in full. 

"Very impressive." Sebastian joked. "Why do you hate me so? Why? What would I ever do to you? We could be friends! After all, you're in love with the brother of the woman who I am in love with. Why, that's it!" Sebastian said, his mind spinning into devilish whirl "we're family Alice. We are family. Why would you want to hurt family?" 

"You are nothing of mine. Nothing. Evie would do much better without you. You will only bring her pain, suffering, and perhaps death, THAT is what I want to avoid. She deserves to be safe and happy, not lost in the shadows you will provide for her." Alice explained.

"And how does young Nikolas feel?" Sebastian said, again grinning his vampire smile.

"Do not speak of him!" Alice warned as she lifted her arm and extended all 5 fingers of her red gloved hand to hold back Sebastian where he stood. 

But it was no use, Sebastian wanted to end her life. He was done speaking to her. 

He lunged again. Ripped at her dress tearing it's shoulder open. She slapped him again. And he bit her arm, cutting it open. He licked the blood from her wound and she slapped his face once more, so hard it actually stung this time. 

He only laughed at her fighting back. She was able to push him off in the scuffle and as she got u from the ground he put his foot on the back of her dress locking her in place. The pressure of his foot on the dress made her trip and fall on her chest. Her arm bleeding. The smell of blood in his nose, on his lips, on his tongue only made him want it more from her.

He jumped on her back, pulled her hair off her neck and went to bite her.

But then, she lifted her hand again, shut her eyes and screamed a sound so loud it woke all the wolves in the forest that howled an incredible terror filled howl that shook Welshport.

An electrical blue light spun out of her hands and around Sebastian's body lifting back into the air.

Then he was gone. 

She looked down at her dress now that she was alone, breathing hard and saw that she was soaking wet with sea water as if she had been in the ocean herself.

But she hadn't been. What she had done was transported Sebastian into the sea. 

He was now below the waves, drowning, pulling himself from the deep deep blue ocean. It was so dark in the sea all he saw was blackness. Just like the bog in their nightmare where Alice and Sebastian had fought before.

The blackness was cutting off his air. He could not breath. He could not move. He could only fight for his own life that was slowly fading. 

And then, in the blackness a strange creature with a glittering tale and sparkling green fins circled him. Around and around the creature went watching him drown. Watching him gasp for breath where he could not find air.

Sebastian was going unconscious and as he slowly drifted into the darkness of death and sank deeper into the dark depths of the sea he was placed in. The creature in the water with him then came up to his face that glistened in the sparkling fractals of moonlight from the surface. The greens of her scales sparkled like sequence, the gray of her eyes seemed to glow and pierce through the gloomy water.

The creature was Alice in her sea-creature form. She smiled at him sinisterly and kissed him on the lips and then her voice, through a telepathic wave of power from her mind to his said the final words he would hear just before swimming off: 

"You're dead, demon. You're dead."