Monday, October 30, 2017

Series 8/Chapter 2: THE BALLAD OF MARIE CLOTILDE


In a small cottage home just outside Collinsport surrounded by woods bloated with the dark fog of night, a spirit had come to reconnect with her living ancestor; a great-granddaughter who possessed the power to speak and deal with the dead. A 120  year curse had blocked this spirit from ever passing through the veil between the living and dead to contact her to seek her help. Now that curse was broken and the spirit was free to shed this deathly veil and reach out from beyond the grave.

The clouds that surrounded the dark spirit of Marie Clotilde filled Ezrabette's room like the fog from the sea creeping into the village from the salty shore. It was thick and mystical and engulfed Marie Clotilde like a misty cloak dripping with the dew of another time.

Ezrabette sat up in her bed, the smell of soot ash filled the space around her as if her own home had burned down. Her mouth agape with fear and eyes open wide she took in the sight of something forming in front of her. What was she seeing? What was she feeling? What was this translucent figure saying to her in the middle of the night, it was sure to be a dream...or a nightmare! As the smokey fog formed into a crude ash like person it spoke in a voice that came from the depths of an abyss.

"I have traveled over centuries and of time to find you and send you on this mission to avenge your family's most guarded secret." the ghost of Marie Clotilde, Gregory's murdered mistress said in an echoing voice.

"This is a dream." Ezrabette said to herself.

Ezrabette was a mystical woman herself but never had a spirit appeared to her in such a clear form. She had seen then in visions in her mind, she had heard their voices echo in her head with messages to their family members, but never, ever had they appeared to her in this manner.

"I am not a vision or part of your subconscious, believe what you see, believe what I say. Come....touch my hand." Marie Clotilde said extending her ghostly hand that was thin and grey almost alien like.

Ezrabette got out of her bed slowly and inched her way closer to the spirit in the corner of the room still swirling in a cloak of foggy mist. She stood there staring not knowing if she should get any closer, the fear was rushing through her veins like a river of anxiety.

"Touch my hand." The spirit requested again.

Ezrabette slowly lifted her own hand and reached for Marie Clotilde's. Slowly the two generations hands came closer and closer, Ezrabette's hand trembled with nerves at what she was about to touch, and as they came together Marie Clotilde's hand firmed and Ezrabette felt her as if she was there in the flesh, in person alive.

"How can ...how can this be happening??" Ezrabette questioned, still in disbelief of what was happening.

"Ezrabette Baptiste, I am your great-grandmother Marie Clotilde. 120 ago I was burned alive in my own home by a woman who discovered a secret I had shamefully carried." The spirit spoke.

"My god." Ezrabette whispered to herself still in disbelief of what was happening in her room.

"In life I made a terrible mistake, but what that mistake gave me was a child, your grandfather. The night I was killed, the woman who killed me took my child and gave him to the Baptiste family. This family became your family, and you became part of them the day you were born. But you are not part of them by blood. Ezrabette your ancestor was a man by the name of Gregory Trask, a man that I was cursed to have met and fallen in love with. I paid the price for that love, and now I need you to right the wrong of my murder of curse me to an eternity in purgatory." The spirit spoke.

"This can't be happening!" Ezrabette said, her eyes wide like two giant dark pools.

"Your humanity is blocking you from understanding the truth, Ezrabette, tap into the part of your mind that connects you to the dead, listen with that part of your mind and realize that I am REAL!" Marie Clotilde's voice thundered.

Ezrabette closed her eyes, the smell of a fire and smoke filled the air, but there wasn't a fire. In her mind, the ghost of Marie Clotilde took her back 120 years and showed her what happened. There were flames everywhere. Ezrabette gagged on the stench of smoke. There was thick blackness all round and the sound of a baby cry, then the neigh of a horse galloping away.

Ezrabette stood in the middle of a burning room, the walls filled with fire. She looked at the ground and saw a dead body steaming with heat and flames and suddenly from above her head the sound of cracking and cashing...it was a giant beam of fire falling to the ground from the ceiling.

Ezrabette screamed then opened her eyes and she was back in her own bedroom, the smell of the fire and singe still filling her bedroom.

"Who did this to you" Ezrabette asked holding herself close as the icy fog from her dead ancestor continued to chill her room, tears streaming down her face from her vision.

"Gregory's wife discovered our affair after it was already over. I had ended it. I could not raise my son, your grandfather, with a man like him. I discovered his cruelty and could no longer continue the sin I was committing." Marie Clotilde answered. "She was merciless. She was cold. And her anger and rage caused her to do the unthinkable to me.  My death came in form of flames and heat. I burned alive on the floor of my own home. Then...she took my child!!!" Marie Clotilde  added, the pain in her voice echoing in the air of the room and shaking Ezrabette's house so much so the pictures on the walls shook.

"I don't understand what you want me to do? This person, Gregory's wife is long dead, I'm sure! What could I do to help?" Ezrabette asked.

"She is dead. Her soul raising to heaven, and wrongly so. But her decedents live on Ezrabette, and until this wrong is made right, I too, cannot make my way to the other side. I have been trapped in this purgatory for 120 years, I finally found my way to you and I need you now!!" Marie Clotilde answered, her voice again echoing through the bedroom.

"Who are these descendants?" Ezrabette asked.

Marie Clotilde's eyes changed from the milky blue to a dark red in anger knowing she was about to speak the name of the family who's long lost ancestor had destroyed her life and put her in the twisting flames of purgatory until this very moment.

This 120 year old murder could finally be made right by opening the door between the living and the dead and allowing Marie Clotilde to speak her truth but her own salvation would only come to pass if the plot of revenge was successful; as Marie Clotilde's instrument among the living this was Ezrabette's plight.

"The name of the woman who took my life was Judith. Her cold and ill life was spent for many years after mine in a home on Widow's Hill, she belonged to the family Collins." Marie Clotilde explained.

Ezrabette gasped and covered her mouth in shook, her head hung in disbelief that she would have to involve herself with the Collins family again. The story of this damned family was not over and now the voodoo mystic of Collinsport would be again entangled with the Collins family drama.

"There's darkness that resides over them and this town like a storm cloud that never dissipates. I know them well. But they're innocent of what happened to you." Ezrabette asked.

"None of them are innocent. None of them do you understand me?" Marie Clotilde chastised.

"I don't know if I can help you...I don't know if I'm the right person to do ....." Ezrabette said pausing in mid-sentence before she realized that Maire Clotilde as someone in need, even though she was dead she was someone in need and Ezrabette had promised only to use her powers to help those in need. Was this a special circumstance? Possibly, but how could she turn her own family member away after a century of suffering. "What is it that I would have to do?" She finished.

"Go to the grave of a man who was once as close as humanly possible to destroying this family as anyone has ever been. He has contacted me on this side of the veil of the dead and has comforted me by saying if he is raised from his grave he will avenge this wrong and also fulfill his own murder. He too was taken by a member of this family too soon over 50 years ago. Promise me you'll fulfill this task." Marie Clotilde explained.

Ezrabette looked deep in to the ash filled dark eyes of the spirit that was lived in these very same woods and who murdered by the jealous Judith Collins for being the mistress of her husband Gregory. Ezrabette felt the only way to keep her friends safe was to do what this betrayed spirit asked of her and her powers. She closed her eyes and agreed to help.

"Who is this man? Who killed him?" Ezrabette asked confused.

"Find this man in an a centuries old mausoleum where the Collins family lies. He was buried there by one of the darkest figures...killed by one of the undead. He is there, laying in bones, but with your powers you can raise him from this grave." The spirit instructed.

"To call upon the dead I need his name. I cannot raise him, even if I tried, without it." Ezrabette informed her spirit relative.

The spirit of Marie Clotilde swirled around in her cloudy form, floating closer to her great-granddaughter, her smoky cape pulling Ezrabette in close for so that the name of this dead man soon to be raised from the ground from his unmarked grave to help avenge the the fiery death of this woman in ghost form. The woman got close enough for the spirit to whisper the name...

"Jason McGuire."
*****

It was a bright new day. The remnants of a summer green Collinwood lawn was was freshly cut, the aroma of fresh autumn gardenia's and the buzz of busy bees filled the crisp air around the glorious great mansion. A car was slowly making it's way up the long snake like drive way from the village. It was one of the Collins family's many black sedan's with blacked out windows they used to keep their distance from the ogling town's people as they drove along the sea side village's many cobble stone streets.

This car, driven by the family's personal drive Jude Powell, carried a new employee that had just arrived at the train station across town.

"You'll enjoy the family. They're a very gregarious bunch." Jude said, his white hair sparkling in the summer light that poured through the windshield.

The employee, a young woman from Bedford, Massachusetts looked up from her cell phone at Jude who was looking back at her from his review mirror. She smiled politely to the old man's small talk.

"Have you been up this way before miss?" He asked, begging for a reply.

"I have. Maine is sort of like my home away from home...away from home." She said with a grin, her green eyes now locked with this.

"Is that so? When was the last time you were here?" Jude asked again.

She seemed flustered by his many questions. She was nervous and googling ways to impress you new bosses and didn't feel like entertaining the old drive's small talk. She looked out of the blacked-out car window as the gigantic front lawn continued it's rolling cascade upward toward the main house.

"It feels like centuries." She said softly.

"Well, like said miss, you'll love it here. The Collins family will do all they can to make sure you feel welcome and comfortable. I've been working for them off and on for years myself. Mostly with Miss Carolyn. I drive her around almost everywhere." He said continuing his story that trailed off into the new comer's mind as she closed her eyes and hoped everything would work out.

She was worried. Coming to Collinsport for the new job as Canan's nanny was her way out; out of some of the worst experiences of her life that was littered with terrible episodes that a very few select people could understand. This new life of hers, in Collinsport, would hopefully  start her off fresh and free; free of her demons, her past, and all the curses she felt plagued her since the day she was born.

The car began to move around the circle drive way then stopped directly at the front door of the great mansion. The fountain in the center of the circle drive way sprinkled it's water out of a giant copper fish's mouth that had gone green with age.

The front door opened and out poured members of the family she would be working for. They had been anxious to meet their new governess. They all lined up in front of the house smiling and welcoming in the rocky drive way.

"Miss Sasha Bauxfort." Jude said picking up her bags and stepping aside for Sasha to see the family in all family.

"Welcome to Collinwood!" Caleb said extending his hand. "This is my wife, Detective Kathryn Collins, her mother Maggie Evans, my father David Collins and his fiance Dr. Siobhan Morgan and of course, our little baby. This is Canan." Caleb said introducing his relatives.

"It is very good to meet you all." Sasha replied, her light brown curls shining in the autumn sun. She extended her hand to shake Kat's who awkwardly had to juggle Canan in her arms to reach over and shake the new nanny's hand. They giggled and all walked inside.

"Powell, you can take Sasha's things to room 8, thank you." David requested as he placed his hand on the small of Siobhan's back and lead her inside..

Sasha smiled politely and looked up at the west wing. The windows reflected the light of the day but something shadow obscured one of the windows. It was a figure that loomed in the distance in silhouette, staring down at the family and at Sasha. Sasha kept staring, a chill ran up her spine, the house seemed dark and gloomy. And as soon as she blinked the shadowy figure in the west wing window disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it." Maggie said in a whisper to Sasha.

"I'm sorry?" Sasha asked not realizing Maggie had seen what she saw.

Maggie winked and followed the family inside with Sasha. David, and Siobhan went on there way and left Kat, Caleb and Maggie in the foyer with the resident.

"It's a very large house, with a very large household. We also have a staff that comes in and cooks and cleans on a certain schedule, but you wont have to worry about any of that. I'm just glad you're here! I feel so much better knowing I'll have live in help while I go back to work." Kat explained.

"Has it been hard being home on leave?" Sasha asked.

"Yes and no. The department has been a bit quiet lately. You know, Collinsport isn't New York City, the crime ..." Kat said with a pause remembering the bizarre string of crimes that began her career just a few years ago. "...the crime is here different. I'll just say that."

They all looked at each other as if hiding a secret from Sasha, who noticed.

"I hope you find everything you'll need in the house, Sasha. Carolyn has kept up this old mansion quite well. She's made a few renovations over the past few years to this house and the old house and I'm sure you'll love it here." Maggie said from behind.

"Yes! Especially after that fire." Sasha said looking around the room to the family's surprise.

"The fire? How did you know about the fire?" Caleb asked referencing the fire set by Alexandra under one of Claudia's evil spells.

Sasha stammered a bit and shook her head. She felt embarrassed for confusing the family who were so used to being in constant red alert that they questioned everything to the very last detail.

"I'm embarrassed to say but when I got the job, I....well, looked up the family history and information on the history of the house before I got here. I just wanted to know what I was getting into." Sasha answered to the group.

"Well these houses have been here since the 1700's in one form or another honey, there's so much more you'll learn as you go along, trust me." Maggie replied.

"Right, well, whatever I can do to make things easier for all of you, that's what I'm here for. In fact, if you wouldn't mind, why don't I start now. I can take the baby and let you all go on about your day. I would love to get acquainted with this little guy." Sasha said brushing Canan's light brown hair with her hand.

"Oh! Ok! That would be great!" Kat said handing off the baby surprised in the gesture.

Canan was all but 1 year old. He had already gotten used to being held by other people that weren't his family members, but being that this was his first nanny, the family was expecting him to cry and reach back for his parents who had never given him to anyone else.  After Canan's kidnapping last winter they were exceptionally careful who their precious baby boy came in contact with. For Kat herself, it was almost impossible to pry her baby out of her hands. But she did, even if reluctantly.
The baby himself went into Sasha's arms and never made a single noise. He even smiled. He grabbed her golden brown hair and started to pull, he coo'ed and gaga'ed and put his tiny little hands on her porcelain face.

"It's like he knows you!" Laughed Maggie.

Sasha smiled.

"If you need anything just ...." Kat continued as Sasha began to walk up stairs.  "Sasha, Caleb can show you were to go...." Kat added, noting Sasha would spend hours searching for the nursery in the giant house if she just went off alone.

"Oh, right." Sasha said stopping on the staircase.

Caleb looked over at Kat and furrowed his brow as if to signal a mutual confusion of Sasha's eagerness to start watching the baby so soon. But he shook it off and dashed up the stairs after her.

"Right this way!" He said with a friendly smile as the three went together.

"She was just going to walk around until she found Canan's room?" Kat said in a hushed voice to her mother Maggie.

"She's just nervous. I'm sure it's nothing. What did the agency say about her?" Maggie asked.

"I don't know. Carolyn handled all of that." Kat answered.

"She does seem a little...too eager," Maggie continued, "Just give her some time to get acquainted with how everything works around here. If the bumps in the night don't scare here off, you in mama-bear-mode will." Maggie joked.

"I guess, but you thought that was odd too right? How she knew about the fire Claudia set and then just going up the staircase like that?" Kat questioned.

"I can see the detective in you sure hasn't relaxed with maternity leave. Darling, go into the drawing room, drink some tea and relax. Your nanny is here and it's time for you to refresh yourself. You start work again tomorrow!" Maggie said to her daughter.

Kat agreed and went into the drawing room arm in arm with her mother Maggie. 
  

*****

In the evening of this autumn day, Carolyn was sitting in a green garden just outside of the main house. The garden stoop overlooked a long patch of lawn and trees and in the foreground stood the old house in it's newest renovated form. Carolyn sipped on a small minty drink and stared at the old house thinking of everything that had happened there, past and present. Her mind drifted into the chill of the air and fell into that dark space of her memory that lead her to the terrors from the past.

Murder. Lies. Mayhem.

All of family secrets she held inside of her for decades had eaten away at her. She and David were the last two alive from her immediate family, but Carolyn seemed to be the one with the lasting memories, David was lucky. He was younger than she, and in all the years he was trapped in Windcliff, he had somehow repressed most of his childhood nightmares and somehow survived unscathed.

Her eyes continued to be closed. The darkness around her now brightened like a candle in a dark hallway illuminating a red haze. In the blackness of her mind, with just the glowing of the red light around her and the room she was in that she recognized as being from The Old House.  There in the red haze was a coffin engraved with the initials B.C. She could hear foots steps coming towards her, faster and faster they walked, harder and harder the sound came. Carolyn looked all around her but there was no one there, no one around her. Just her and the coffin.

Her mind pushed her towards the coffin like a magnet dragging her across the darkness. She could feel her throat tighten she could feel a pinch that burned and a heat that felt like scolding water. She grabbed her throat with one  hand and when she pulled the had away, two wounds appeared perfectly spaced just below her jaw line linking to her jugular vein with two rivers of blood pouring out.

The wounds continued to bleed down her neck and onto her chest dampening her white shirt. Her breathing shortened. Her mind foggy with this twisted memory, she opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out. Then out of the coffin a bubbling sound. She carefully walked over and opened the coffin's lid only to be slashed in the face with a fountain of red blood. it poured and poured like an over flowing pot, the crimson liquid flowed over her. The sound was like a rushing river but suddenly a voice from the outside came.

"Carolyn?" the man's voice said softly.

Carolyn's eyes flipped open  and she was still sitting on her porch outside in the garden, her day dream had become so real she thought she had literally transported to the old house.

The voice belonged to her trusted driver Jude Powell.

"Are you alright?" He asked as he sat down next to her.

"Yes, fine, I must of nodded off for a second..." Carolyn answered looking around for the blood she could still smell, clearly still suffering from the decades of real life nightmares suffered at the hands of the supernatural.

"Not enough sleep?" Powell asked cordially.

"I guess." Carolyn answered keeping her secret nightmare to herself. "How are things inside? I was told the new nanny for Canan has arrived from Bedford." Carolyn said looking out past the law at the old house.

"That's right, the young Miss Beaufort. She seems to have already take up with the boy. They're getting along quite well." Powell said.

Carolyn smiled politely.

"Are you sure that is all that's bothering you? Is there something I can do to help?" Powell asked still noticing Carolyn's mind wondering.

Powell and Carolyn had known each other for decades before she moved off to London and became married to her late husband Jack. He was her mother's driver while in his 20s; a small town Collinsport boy who then moved to Boston in the late 70's when Elizabeth died and Carolyn moved to London.

When he returned to his hometown in 1987, she was long gone, and married with an infant daughter. His fondness for her, however,  never wavered all these years no matter how distant they were in proximity, or who they were married to. Powell was always thinking of her even during his own marriage of which he had been widowed for 20 years.

When Carolyn came back to Collinsport in the fall of 2015 in search of her missing husband, Powell had heard. Eventually, the following spring he was re-hired as her driver and has never left her side since. He loves her with the sense of a man who would do anything for someone no matter what they've done in the past. Carolyn, too, could feel this from him, and for a woman who had been through the things she had, it felt good.

Carolyn looked out onto the great thicket of trees that separated Collinwood and The Old house. Her mind was not at ease, her day dream of blood and neck wound still lingered it didn't matter who was talking to her.

Powell grabbed her hand and squeezed.

"Maybe you should go inside and lay down, you seem a little tired." Her kind driver said.
She looked at him and patted him on the hand and agreed. She stood up and they both walked back into Collinwood leaving the lush garden and Carolyn's awful daydream behind. Carolyn had been around long enough to know that just that nightmares had a very interesting way of becoming reality. She knew that they were a way to tell the future; they were omens.

Carolyn's daydream, of shadowy figures coffins and bleeding throats was telling her something was coming, something dark, something evil and something, perhaps familiar.

*****

Later on that evening Maggie Evans took  a drive out to see her friend Ezrabette Baptiste. Earlier that spring the two old friends had re-connected over old secrets and painful memories of Maggie's now decease former husband Thatcher Banning. It was a painful secret that Maggie had been holding for over 30 years, Ezrabette, who discovered the truth about Maggie faking her death in 1987 and the terrible abuse by Thatcher through her psychic abilities, had grown even closer to Maggie after the truth was revealed. Their friendship and bond was stronger than ever.

However, this evening Ezrabette's conscious was still recovering from the ghostly visits by her ancestor Marie Clotilde.  The lack of sleep and stress was throwing Ezrabette off but she still remembered her promise to Marie Clotilde. The promise to find Jason McGuire's body and bring him back to life to ruin the Collins family and keep Maggie and her family safe from harm.

Maggie happily bounded up the wooden porch and knocked on the door. The screen door creaked open. Ezrabette let Maggie in and instantly noticed a change in demanor of her usually optimistic friend.

They sat down in the quaint living room. A black cat lay licking it's paws on the sofa like a lounging queen.

"Ssssss, Marigold." Ezrabette said to her cat, shooing her off the sofa so that she could sit with Maggie.

"You look tired, whats the matter?" Maggie asked taking a sip of tea Ezrabette had made.

"Long night. I didn't sleep much. So tell me, how are things going with Sebastian and Kat? You seem so much lighter. There's a glow about you." Ezrabette noticed of her old friend.

"Things couldn't be better. I never thought I'd be a mother again, much less a grandmother. It's wonderful being around my children, Bette, you just wouldn't believe how wonderful it is Kat is back to work, and Sebastian is doing great in Bangor. He decided to go back to his old place there." Maggie beamed.

"When are Caleb and Kat moving out of Collinwood?" Ezrabette asked.

"Moving out? They're not. Not that I know. Why do you ask?" Maggie questioned.

"They're staying in that house? How could they stay there after everything that's happened over the years. Maggie, you have to convince them to leave. Its not safe there." Ezrabette said, knowing full she herself had a plan to rid the town of the cursed Collins family. Her hopes were to at least keep Maggie's daughter and grandson out of the way of whatever was to come.

"It's their home, honey! I can't insist on them leaving where they want to live. Besides, what's this about anyway? You've never mentioned any concerns about being at Collinwood before." Maggie noted.

"Are you saying you're not worried that something else could happen? I don't think it's out of the question to worry." Ezrabette said.

Maggie paused before she responded. She had been best friends with Ezrabette for years and knew her every move, this was a sign that Ezrabette, the all knowing medium had possibly seen something, or knew something she wasn't telling Maggie. That secret, of course was, the pact Ezrabette entered with her murdered ancestor Marie Clotilde.

Maggie was cautious with her words.

"Is there something you're worried about specifically? Something in your cards?" Maggie asked nervously.

Ezrabette knew she had to play it safe, but it was hard to especially to her best friend who's own family was now so entangled with the family in her mystical cross-hairs.

"No, never mind, forget I said anything. I have't read my cards in a really long time so, don't worry about it. You know what I did read though, in the paper the other day. This summer marked the 50th anniversary of the disappearance of someone that used to live at that estate." Ezrabette said half lying.

Maggie giggled through her sip of tea.

"Bette, that could literally have been one of so many people; which I guess is sort of your point to why Caleb and Kat are still there...but anyway, who did you read about?" Maggie said with her classic sarcastic Evans wit.

"Jason McGuire." Ezrabette said clearly to a shocked Maggie.

"Oh my god!" Maggie hissed. "That monster. He was horrible. The things he did to Carolyn's mother, the lies---god---all those lies. You know he made Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard believe she was responsible for her own husbands death, and then made her believe she had buried him in their basement. He almost blackmailed her into marrying him. It was a whole thing, trust me no one missed him when he went missing." Maggie explained.

"What do you think happened to him?" Ezrabette asked.

"With Jason?" Maggie said pausing again to think of an answer. "There's not telling. Jason was involved with a really bad bunch of people. There's really no way of knowing where or what happened to him." She said sipping her tea.

But Ezrabette knew. Ezrebette knew he was killed by Barnabas Collin in 1967.  She knew the man was a horrible human being, she knew the hell he placed on the Collins family especially the woman, Elizabeth and her daughter Carolyn. It was all explained to her by Marie Clotilde. But Ezarebette needed confirmation. She needed to hear it from someone she trusted.

The man that would play a huge part in Ezarabette's plot had been long buried and forgotten, but not for long.

*****

Night had finally come to Collinsport. It was a regular autumn night, chilly air with the hint of the misty freshness of the see. Ezrabette had been left to herself after Maggie's visit for a few hours now, and the sun had set, but Ezrabette's night was just about to begin.

The town mystic was no stranger to bridging the gab between the living and the dead. In her practice she had often conjured spirits of patrons' dearly departed as to help them ease into the reality of their passing. It helped the living move on and it helped the dead go into the light. But her job this time was not just to conjure Jason's spirit, her task was to bring him back from the dead.

As the fog rolled into town, and the city's light sparkled in the distance a small grey car rolled around the snake like side streets that twisted around Eagle Hill Cemetary. Ezrabette could still hear Marie Clotilde's haunting voice in her mind say "Find the man you seek in the family's mausoleum."

Ezrabette got out of her car and clicked on her flashlight and carefully walked across the damp grass to the Collins Family mausoleum. Her light lit her way casually passing grave stones as she went. 
The old graves looks like moss covered river-rocks that were perfectly carved into the scenic old oblong stones ancient grave yards are known for. Her long coat easily passed over the long uncut grass dampening the hem. She felt a chill cross her cheek and touch the exposed skin of her neck.

A storm brewed in the sky, lightening and thunder crashed int he clouds above striking bright light across the cemetery like flash bulbs snapping photographs every 10 seconds.

She tightened the sash around her long coat and pushed open the rusty iron gates of the old mausoleum.

From deep in her coat pocket Ezrabette pulled out wire-cutters and carefully squeezed around the lock of the mausoleum door. She squeezed and squeezed and just as the sweat beads began to crown her forehead the lock broke. She pushed open the now broken locked door and took a deep breath. 
"One foot in front of the other." She said to herself as lightening flashed behind her.

Inside the mausoleum it was as peaceful as she had expected. The tombs had not been disturbed in years, and they had not been visited either.

"Where do I begin?" She wondered to herself as she flashed the flashlight around to look.
As she continued to inspect the inside of the mausoleum something kept telling her to look at the center panel on the walls. There were three lion's heads each on their own wall panel, but only the center one had a ring in it's mouth.

She walked over to it, slowly, the lightening striking in the sky illuminating the room within eclipsing her flashlight for a few seconds at a time. Ezrabette got to the center panel and grabbed hold of the ring inside the moth of lion and pulled.

Nothing happened.

She pulled again, this time harder, something in her mind kept telling her, the answer was behind this wall. Something in her body was making her believe that this ring in the lion's mouth was the key to discovering what this was all about and why she was told to come here. Something instinctively made her do this and as she struggled with the ring, it finally clicked; a sound that echoed in the chamber.
The center panel opened to complete darkness.

Ezrabette grabbed her prayer beads and flashlight and walked in slowly. 
She was careful as not to disturb the dead that were not of her concern. Naomi. Joshua. Sarah. Elizabeth. Roger.

As the light from her small flashlight made it's way into the hidden chamber, she saw what was there. Her gasp echoed too inside at the site of a singular coffin sealed shut in the center of the chamber.
Was this the coffin of Jason McGuire?

With a hand over  her mouth in shock, she Ezrabette carefully walked over to the coffin and looked down, it was carved with the letters BC. She shook her head confused, she did not understand what was going on. She was sent there to retrieve Jason McGuire but the coffin she found didn't seem to belong to him. 

She grabbed her beads and closed her eyes.

 It was time.

"I come for you, from where ever you lay, in the depths of the darkness, or in the light of day. Come out from the deep or from where ever you reside, Jason McGuire, a command you to reveal where you hide!!" Ezrabette said to a thunderous lightening strike.

And as she stood there, the ground began to shake. The walls began to crack and move, the thunder outside got louder the wind got stronger and up from the ground, as the cement cracked and broke apart, a body slowly lifted up from the ground.

Ezrabette screamed and fell backwards on to the floor in total fear.

The body, green, molded, rotting from 5 decades of laying in a shallow cemented over grave was facing away from Ezrabette. It slowly turned in her direction, Ezrabette inched her way back on her backside until she was how sitting up against the chamber wall. The body's eyes were gone. It's skin was mostly gone just hanging on by the grace of time and strands of whatever ligaments and tendons  remained.

"Who are you!! Speak your name!!" Ezrabette said in horror of what she say her face have obscured by her hand.

The decayed body tilted it's head. It lifted it's hand over its face and moved it down. As his hand began to pass his face, the flesh began to return. First the muscles and tendons. Then the cartilage and missing bone fragments, then the eyes, hair and cartilage of the nose finally creating the face of the man Ezrabette had come for.

The face of Jason McGuire.

"I'm the one you've been looking for lass. I've been waiting for you for 50 years, and 50 years has been a long, long time!" Jason said with his trademark Scottish accent.

Ezrabette got up from the floor, still unsure of what had just happened. She had spoken to spirits before but never brought one back from the dead. It was something she had no idea she could do, her powers were indeed stronger than she had ever believed them to be.

"What have I done?" Ezrabette said, the thunder clapping in the background.

"You? You've only opened the door, lovie, it was your sweet great-gran that set this all up, you were just the living conduit that we needed. It took a long time for us to get to you, you know. But don't you worry, when I get what's mine, and she get's what's hers, you'll be rewarded too. Everything your own sweet family has suffered will finally be set right. You'll be very grateful to be apart of it, I can assure you." Jason explained.

"No, no.... I have to reverse this! This goes beyond the rights of nature!" Ezrabette said starting to make her way out of the secret room hoping it would just all go away.

Jason, who's body was solid to the touch but his spirit was as supernatural as they came, jumped to the exit and blocked her like a flash of light passing over her in just mere seconds.

"Now, now, don't you go getting cold feet. This is a team effort, and I've been waiting 50 years to get my hands on what I'm owed by this Collins family." Jason hissed as his new lips slowly formed over this scull.  "Don't go getting your knickers in a twist. You know what we have to do." Jason said moving Ezrabette's hair out of her face.

"And what's that?" She asked.

"Let's get out of here, huh? I'll explain over a good cup of coffee....I've been waiting 50 years for a good cup of coffee." Jason said putting his arm around Ezrabette as they left the darkened mausoleum.

As they left a coffin, that Ezrabette hadn't even noticed, was left  again to a lonely slumber in it's murky secret room. Just as Ezrabette's car drove off from Eagle Hill Cemetery, the coffin inside the secret room began to shake and rattle and move around. Then suddenly it stopped.

There was silence again in the darkness of the secret tomb.

Perhaps Jason McGuire wasn't the only one awakened by Ezrabette's spell.











Friday, October 13, 2017

Series 8/Chapter 1: NO REST FOR THE WICKED

COLLINWOOD
COLLINSPORT, MAINE
-1897-

"Just a little of this.....mix it well. Mix it all." A woman said to herself standing in a large 19th century kitchen pouring a strange bright liquid into a tumbler of brandy. 

She mixed it and put it on a silver tray and  brought it to her husband who sat smoking his pipe in the drawing room of the Collinwood mansion. This was her home, no matter what he tried, no matter the scheme or the plot to take it from her, no matter how many times he tried to destroy her life by locking here away in insane asylums and driving her out of her mind. 

She stepped into the drawing room surrounded by plumes of smoke from his pipe, the noise of her her puffy purple dress brushing up against the door frame got his attention and he turned from the paper he was reading and looked up. His wife, Judith Collins-Trask stood there with her silver tray and his late night brandy. She smiled at him and extended her harm with the tray perfectly centered in the palm of her hand. 

He took a sip. The cool refreshing liquid slid down his throat coating it like honey from a bee hive. It didn't take long after that. As he looked back down at the paper, the letters began to lift from the pages, they began to swap places on the page and move in a dizzing dance. He shook his head as if to stop them from moving but it was too late. The liquid had entered his blood stream, then within seconds of a single taste of brandy his eyes closed into a blurry darkness.

The sound again of her purple dress shuffling across the drawing room floor was the last thing Gregory Trask heard in that moment. .

****

"What is this? Where am I?" Gregory thought as he lay face down in blood red carpet in a room he did not recognize at first. 

He was on the floor unconscious for hours. The room he was in was dark and had been prepared for his stay, a stay that would last for eternity, except he didn't know that yet. As he came to on the floor, he stretched his strained neck. His shirt collar felt like a noose, tight too from being dragged across Collinwood's many hallways and staircases to his resting place in the west wing.

He slowly got to his feet, still dizzy from the tainted drink that knocked him out in the first place. He looked around in a blurry fog and there was nothing he could make sense of. Just a sparsely decorated small bedroom with bricked up windows. Then the fogginess in his mind started to dissipate and reality of what was going on seeped in; slowly the panic set in.

"Judith. ...Judith?? JUDITH!" He screamed as he ran to the door, clumsy and awkward the drugs in his system from a spiked cocktail still wearing off. 

He tried to pull the door open but it was locked. He remembered this room, he remembered there had to be another key. He moved about the room tearing books from book cases, drawers from dressers and finally found the second key. He twisted the key into it's lock then pulled the door ope.

On the other side, not an opening to a hallway but a brick wall with  two layers already built and just one small opening in the center ...for the final two bricks. He went to the window--another fresh layer of crimson bricks. He could still smell the cement that bound them. 

"JUDITH!!!" he again screamed at the top of his lungs to his wife.

"Let that be the last time you scream at me Gregory." A strikingly beautiful raven  haired woman in a dark purple dress said from the other side of the wall. The free side.

"What have you done? Get me out of here at once!" Gregory screamed at his wife.

Judith stepped back from the wall. She looked down at the mounds and mounds of bricks she was about to lay over the already build wall. A second and maybe third layer of bricks to block his screams. She picked up a mettle tool and slathered the cold grey sealant on the long side of the brick and began the second layer of Gregory's tomb. 

This abused, mistreated wife had had enough, her mind was mad, her heart was cold and her intentions were vengeful. He was to suffer. Suffer more than she had when he locked her away in a mental hospital to further his plot to take all her money and her power of the Collins family empire.

Gregory's greed and vicious treatment of his second wife was just the tip of the iceberg. His betrayals ran deeper than the monetary, they ran of the flesh. There was another woman, someone who kept his bed warm when he locked Judith away in a sanitarium, forcing her to believe she had lost her mind. He made a fool of her once, but now, as the last brick was placed, he would be the fool. 

"There was a time I thought we could have been happy here. I did all I could to make sure my family accepted you, but....it was never enough. Nothing I ever did was ever enough." Judith said out loud as she continued to build the second layer of bricks.

"Woman, I demand you stop this at once! Get me out of here!" Gregory said, his head still spinning from the medicine in the drink he was given just hours before at dinner she had so lovingly prepared.

"You'll start to feel sleepy again soon. It's not the kind of medicine that wares off, you see. I wouldn't allow that,  no, I wanted you to wake up where you were and realize what was happening to you just before you fell back in a final sleep...I can thank you for that knowledge. All those months trapped in that hospital with the mentally infirm helped me understand the uses and perfect mixes of sedatives. Yours was a special blend. Tasteless and masked by the gorgeous smooth feeling of your nightly brandy." Judith said coldly explaining her process for added cruelty.

"You're mad!" The entombed husband yelled, his eyes going blurring.

"Mad." she whispered to herself as she pulled a folded paper from the slits in her skirt that formed large pockets on the front.

"JUDITH!! JUDITH!!!" Gregory continued to scream from behind the thick layers of brick. But no one could hear him. "People will come looking for me, you'll never ever get away with this." He added.

She stepped backwards from her work of cruel karmic brick art; a small tear fell from her eye. She slowly turned and unfolded the letter, one Gregory had written to her.

"No, they've already forgotten you. You see, once they all see this letter they'll discover your infidelity. They'll assume you've ran off with ...." Judith explained before she began to get choked up.

"You're wrong. They will come for me and when they discover what you've done, they'll bury you right next to me. Is that what you want? Eternity next to the man you hate so much?" Gregory threatened.

"No one will ever look for you. There aren't enough people in this town much less this family that care enough about you to go looking for you after you leave." Judith said cryptically.

"Leave?" Gregory questioned, the heat from the sedative beginning to swell up again in his veins.

"You're going away Gregory, at least that's what everyone will think after they discover what you've done." Judith bristled.

"I swear to you, if you don't release me..." Gregory said, the fogginess returning slowly into his brain. "I'll....if you don't.... I'll..." he continued, the words just not spewing from his mouth. The drug rushing around in his bloodstream clouding his motor skills.

"Sleep Gregory. Sleep. It's all your good for." Judith said, filling in the final brick in her wall.

She dusted off her hands and opened the letter again. Her devastation manifested like a pricking feeling all over her hands. She opened the letter, and like read it again to make sure remember what why she had to do what was coming next. 

...find her, his lover....Marie Clotilde. 

****

There was the crack of a whip! A gate flew open and down a dark grassy knoll in the middle of the night Judith rode on horseback, clutched tightly in her hand at her chest, her philandering husband's letter to his lover, who was not a stranger to her. In fact, Gregory's lover Marie Clotilde had once been a house servant at Collinwood many years ago, but left as soon as Judith returned from the insane asylum. 

The horse rode through the thickets and down the slopes of Collinwood at such a speed that the tight pearl pins holding in Judith's hair in it's bun fell out and onto the grass. Her dress flowing behind her like a maroon cape flapping in the wind. She wanted to confront her husband's lover. She wanted to show this woman the kind of pain that Gregory had inflicted on her for so long. She wanted to show Marie Clotilde the face of the woman who's husband she had stolen. 

As the continued to ride through the village, the towns people gasped at the speed the woman was riding. Her face blurring in the misty night as she passed them only leaving the sound of echoing clomps on the cobble stone streets.

Judith was getting closer now, so close she could taste the revenge on her tongue like acid burning it's way into her body. She would not be made a fool ever again by anyone. 

The fog slowly melted away in a small cottage across town. The warm night air slurred it's way into the cracks and crevices of the cottage , the house Marie Clotilde lived in. Marie Clotilde quietly made her away around to the front room and lit some candles, then the silence of the night was broken with the neigh of a horse from outside.

"What the devil? Who comes at such an hour?" Marie Clotilde said to herself as she looked at the tall grandfather clock near the door. 

Before she could go to the door to check, it burst open. There, standing in her thick purple dress, her hair fallen and disheveled from the brutal ride was Judith Collins-Trask, the letter from Gregory to Marie Clotilde still clutched at her chest. 

Marie Clotilde gasped and stepped back from the vision of Judith's angry face in her door way. The candles beat down an orange glow on Judith's face reflecting a woman who was on the verge of self-destruction, her expression cold and evil, like something Marie Clotilde had never seen. 

"What do you want?" Marie Clotilde asked needing no introduction. As much as she hated to admit it, she had been waiting for this face-off for a long time. 

"Perhaps the question should be what did I want? I wanted love. I wanted trust. I wanted so much, but none of that came to me. Maybe I'm unlucky. What say you? Is love a matter of luck or fate?" Judith asked as she made her way into the house slowly one step at a time. 

"Judith, I don't---" Marie Clotilde began before being interrupted.

"You will not speak, no, not until you read this letter. I'm here to hand deliver it to you. He would have wanted you to get it as soon as possible after all." Judith said releasing the clutched letter in her hot hand.

Marie Clotilde, shaking in her stance, stepped forward and grabbed the unsent letter addressed to her from Gregory. She knew all along that Gregory would never leave Judith for her, and after all, she knew he was a bastard too, but for what it was worth, he gave her protection, he gave her security and he gave her one special gift she had been wanting for years and years. A gift she had kept secret from everyone, even Gregory himself.

Marie Clotilde crumpled the letter in her hand.

"You must think me ill, or vial. The things you must think of me Judith, but I assure you, I...I wished this not on any of us." Marie Clotilde said as tears welled up in her eyes.

"No? What did you wish for then? For him to whisk you away like some fairy-tale princess to some far off place where you'd live happily ever after....with my money! That's what you wanted, wasn't it? Money, lord know that's what he wanted." Judith scolded, circling Marie Clotilde. 

"I never asked for any money, ma'am. None." Marie Clotilde insisted. "What he gave me, what I wanted from anyone that somehow Gregory was able to provide was something so much more personal, something priceless." She added.

"Spare me the details of your love affair with my husband, none of it really matters now. He's locked away forever. He'll die alone in dark room with only his thoughts and the rats as his company. And what should I do with you?  Hmm? Should I lock you away too? Should I put you on the next ship to some God forsaken land so that I never see your face? What should I do! Tell me! I'll allow you to pick your punishment." Judith screamed. .

No words came from Marie Clotilde, only sobs.

"Speak Adulteress!" Judith again screamed pointing at Marie Clotilde. 

Marie Clotilde knew she was in the wrong, but the truth was Judith had no power over her. She thought she did, after all being a Collins gave her authority in name only, but that was it. No one in this town would allow Judith, a woman who's mind was so obviously ill, to seek revenge as a means of justice. 

"You can't hurt me." Marie Clotilde said, eyeing a door that was on her right side, to which Judith noticed.

"What's in there? Did Gregory give you things of mine that you are hiding in that room that you're so interested in? Are you a thief as well!??!" Judith said grabbing hold of Marie Clotilde's arms.

They began to struggle. Pulling and pushing each other. Marie Clotilde's arm became free and she reached back and landed a large slap to Judith's face, the shock of the blow shaking Judith out of her decent into madness. Judith grabbed Marie Clotilde's cheek, her eyes wide like saucers then the madness grabbed returned and Judith  began screaming in her rival's face.

They continued to struggle in the living room, their large dresses dragging and pulling on the floor. Judith's bustle knocking over knickknacks and books..

"Please stop this!!" Marie Clotilde screamed as she broke free from Judith's grasp.

Judith's face changed, her heart blackened and she lunged for Marie Clotilde one last time, the two women fell to the floor knocking over another table with lit candles. The candles quickly lighting the a near by table cloth on fire. Judith jumped up to her feet from the ground. She stomped on the bottom seam of her dress to put out two attaching flames. 

She looked down and Marie Clotilde had been knocked unconscious in the fall.

The fire gained mass quickly and was already crawling up the wall and creating a canape of flames on the ceiling. Judith had to get out before she too was swallowed up by the fire.

She quickly made her way around in the burning living room but then remembered the door that Marie Cotilde was looking at while they spoke, surly whatever was in that room was stolen goods from Collinwood. 

Without thinking twice, Judith pushed open the door of that room and found not items taken from her or given to her by Gregory, but a small baby boy crying in a crib. 

The boy, who's eyes were clearly his father's blue sparkled like two tiny lakes was Gregory's son with Marie Clotilde. Judith realized this child was her husband's, a child no one knew of, a child kept secret. This was the gift Marie Clotilde talked about that no one else had been able to give her.

Judith snarled and began to close the door on the boy as the smoke began to fill the room. Her mind told her to leave him, leave him to burn like his adulteress mother. But then she realized, her was just as innocent in the events of their affair was she was. The boy did not wish to be born from this illicit romance, the boy did not wish to have been the son of that monstrous man Gregory Trask. Judith rushed over and picked up the baby and went back into the living room that was now engulfed in flames. 

Marie Clotilde's body now a mound of fire just across the room.

Judith hid the baby's face from the fire and dashed out of the burning house. Her horse was wild with fear as the fire burned in it's sight. She wrapped the baby up in a make shift bundle from the blanked under the horses saddle and wrapped it around her body. Then she jumped on the horse and looked back at the fire she started. The house was crumbling, the fire had eaten the house and now just the skeleton frame remained.  

 Judith called to the horse and pulled it's reigns up tight around it's mouth, a signal to quickly dash out of the way of the burning house. The horse lifted his front legs up, neighed a neigh that echoed through the woods around the area and they rode off into the darkness.

****

Judith and the baby rode through the darkened Collinsport woods until they came about a large rushing stream that's banks snaked into the blackened distance in the shape of an S where she carefully jumped off her horse. Tears were streaming down her face the child cooed and reached up for her, his little hand trembled in the chilly air. 

She was desperate. What would she do with the baby she saved? The desperation turned to frantic panic, once she was discovered with the baby that belonged to the woman she had just burned alive it would be curtains for her. Judith took a deep breath and pulled the shall off of her shoulders and wrapped the child and the other blanket in it tightly and then twisted the slack around her fist. 

The water from the stream swished over the black rocks quickly rushing the dark liquid past the panicked woman on it's banks. Judith lifted the bundled baby over the forceful river and turned her head away, she could not bare to see the child fall out of her shall and into the ice cold river. She would drop this child into the river and let him wash away into an abyss never to be seen again. 

Judith closed her eyes and she turned her face away from the sin she was about to commit; even in her anger and vengeful state she could not bare to see a baby fall into the water from loosely twisted shall. As the child dangled there moving back and forth like a pendulum, Judith open her eyes, and in the distance behind her,  another small cottage with it's lights on. Judith had never seen this home before, in fact she had no idea anyone else lived so far into the woods. 

She pulled the baby back close to her body and away from the river's edge. She quickly wrapped the shall and walked across the grassy paths that lead to this small house, her horse following slowly behind.

As she approached the house, she could see inside, a small family sat at a table. A mother. A father. A sister. Judith, carried the child carefully over to the front door. She set him down, he was now sleeping peacefully cuddled in her shall and blanket. As she walked slowly from the tiny porch leaving the baby on the door step she picked up a large rock from the ground then jumped back on her horse. As the horse quickly turned toward it's retreat back to Collinwood, Judith pulled her arm back and through the large rock up against the wall near the child.

The loud noise shook the little house and startled the family inside.
.
"What was that?" The little girl inside said as her parents quickly stood up at the table.

"It came from the front porch." The mother replied to the fast moving father. 

The father grabbed a fireplace poker and looked back into the small dining room where his wife was now standing holding her curious daughter back in protection mode. 

He put out his hand in a silent gesture as if to say "stay where you are." 

The woods were a dark and mysterious place, and this family, known as the Baptistes had come this far north from heavily crayfished banks of the Mississippi in search of a better life. Their daughter, the first born out of slavery, had never known a different home.

The father, a strong prideful man name Jean, crept through their tiny living room, never keeping his eye off his wife Antoinette and 10 year old daughter Pauline. He slowly turned the door knob to the front door, and quickly pulled it open, fire poker in hand. 

Nothing there but the fog. 

He stepped out side onto the porch, to his left the large rock that had battered the side of the house, to his right, a small baby wrapped in a silky, black and embroidered shall. 

"Nette! Come here!" He said loudly as he picked up the baby in shock.

"Que es-que c'est?" She asked in her creole French. 

"A child." Jean answered in confusion.

Antoinette grabbed the child and saw his warm golden brown skin and pink lips. He smiled up at her as if he had not just lost his birth mother only moments ago in a deadly fire set by a mad woman.

"It's a baby boy!" Jean said with a sparkle in his eye.

"The good lord has brought us a son." Antoinette answered as she looked around in disbelief.


The fog in the forest that surrounded their home soon thickened. The cold air swirled around their small little cottage like storm clouds, and from out of those clouds stepped the spirit of the child's birth mother, freshly burned to death only 5 miles from this family's home.

The spirit of Marie Clotilde, now in death and only shaped by mist, wept for her child, wept for her life, wept for the things taken from her. 

The Baptiste family cuddled the new baby and took him inside leaving the spirit of Marie Clotilde to wallow in the shadows. She lifted her hands and covered her eyes, the smokey clouds covered her and she disappeared to the same night, in the same spot, in the same forest 120 years ago.

**** 

 EZRABETTE BAPTISTE'S COTTAGE
COLLINSPORT, MAINE
-2017-

Collinsport's resident psychic medium and voodoo enthusiast Ezrabette Baptiste slept peacefully in her room on a balmy summer night. Her windows were open allowing a fresh sea breeze to seep in through the screens and saturate Ezrabette's pillows and sheets with soft coolness that relaxed her whole body. The moon was full and bright.

With this breeze and plume of fog that followed, curling and turning like a sea snake slashing through the underwater sand pulling and churning it's way through the tiny wire grates of Ezrabette's window screen. The fog mystic and centuries old, floated not only up from the ocean's currents bur from another time, it carried the spirit of a woman long forgotten, long dead, and long left behind in the ashes of another cottage not far from where Ezrabette lived herself, on this very night 120 years ago. 

This was the spirit of Marie Clotilde, the murdered mistress of Judith Collins' philandering husband Gregory Trask. The woman who's baby was taken from her and left on a stranger's doorstep by her own murderess just as she breathed in the flames that would carry her into the other dimension. She had finally risen from the ashes in spirit form to reclaim what was  hers taken from her. The moon and stars had aligned in the exact way 120 years ago releasing her soul to reach out to the living, and Ezrabette's gift of connecting to those behind the veil of the dead was a perfect way for Marie Clotilde to do so.

It took Marie Clotilde's spirit 120 years to finally reach Ezrabette, and as she was the destined choice of the living to retrieve this message from beyond. 

The plumes of mist clumped together and began to form the shape of a woman. The shape molded and twisted and turned until all the elements of a person stood out, gray and white shapes of clouds and fog. Then the spirit began to break free from it's foggy hold and in a translucent state stood on it's own. There she was: Marie Clotilde starring down at the sleeping Ezrabette.

The cold and icy touch of the dead started to creep over Ezrabette's exposed skin as she slept. She turned over in her sleep to pull the blankets back over her but Marie Clotilde lifted her transparent  hand and the blankets flew off Ezrabette's body. The pulling sensation from the covers startled her awake. Ezrabette jolted up, her breath visible in the ice cold room.

"There's a presence here." She said to her self, puffs of white breath coming from her mouth. "What do you want!" She questioned, at first not seeing Marie Clotilde's ghostly figure. 

Then from the corner of the room a grey being pushed forward showing itself. The spirit, the cold angry soul of Marie Clotilde.

Ezrabette gasped in shock. In front of her was an ash like creation of a person staring down at her with eyes made of white and black. Marie Clotilde smiled a wicked smile and bowed her head.

"There's not rest for the weary, my sweet great-Granddaughter, waken. There is much I need from you." Marie Clotilde said in a voice that echoed through Ezrabette's chest like the blast of a cannon ball leaving the mystical woman stunned and terrified of what was in front of her. 

Ezrabette was frozen in fear. Her eyes locked on the creature made of ash and fog. Her mind unable to break the gaze from the dead woman looking back at her from beyond the grave.

Marie Clotilde's murder by a member of the Collins family was a story that would soon shake loose the dead leaves of this family tree; secrets that would unravel before a family that perhaps was unprepared for yet another storm, a storm that would most certainly wake the dead.