Series 1/Chapter 5: LIKE LAZARUS

At a busy and potted palm lined pool side bar at the hotel Saint Filipe in Savannah, the beautiful and stunning witch Morgan Isles lay in a pristine white one piece bathing suit and an oversized hat and dark sun glasses protecting her from the deep south sun. She looked like a movie star posing for paparazzi while drinking a mixed cocktail. As the waiter came over and delivered her a fresh drink on a tray she noticed that he had a rolled up newspaper under his arm that another guest had discarded. She kindly asked for the paper and he nodded his head and handed it to her.

She sifted through page after page of The Savannah Sun, the local paper. Her boredom with the city was clear but she did have a hefty mission to complete. She needed to sink her hooks into Nick Falconer, the man she targeted to be the father of her child that she would then pass to Caspian so that he could complete his prophecy -- but first she had to kill the child he already had with Cressida. 

Finding the hidden, now grown Caleb, then killing him without Caspian's knowledge was her biggest obstacle.

Behind her large black sunglasses and the opened Savannah Sun news paper Morgan closed her ice blue eyes and whispered a spell to herself that would set in motion finding Caleb.

"Find the Coin, and find it fast, send him to me for my life to last. Open up these words ands spell, the location of this boy from hell." 

As soon as the last whispered word filtered out of Morgan's perfectly glossed pink lips, the words on the news paper began to swirl around. They mixed and spun on the white paper as if thrown into a tornado. Spinning and Spinning around searching for any clue to where the son of Caspian and Cressida could be hiding.

Then, suddenly and unexpectedly the pages ripped from Morgan's grasp and turned to the town's Obituaries. The spinning words then settled back into place and on the page was the Obituary of Mae Watanabe. The coven leader who escaped Caspian's clutches years ago with the pregnant Cressida and Gabrielle.

"Azira." Morgan whispered to herself using Mae's coven name.

When she looked closer she saw her rival Cressida in the photo too. Morgan's eyes narrowed with distaste and hatred from Cressida. They had very little interaction but any witch who betrayed her vows like Cressida did to Caspian had betrayed all other witches and covens around the globe. The bull's-eye was set, and thanks to the published obituary, she knew exactly where to find Cressida: The Funeral.

As Morgan got up from her shady paradise and wrapped herself with a sheer white blouse that acted as a sort of cover she began to make her trip to her room to prepare for the funeral. As she walked through the lobby of the Saint Filipe she saw Nick standing in the inside bar awaiting Caitlyn who had yet to come down from their room. 

Morgan lifted an eye brow and saw her prey, like a sitting duck. She undid the tie of her sheer bathing suit cover and slowly made her way to the bar where Nick was standing.

"Afternoon." Morgan said, her voice sleek and sexy in tone.

"Oh, Hi! Miss?" Nick replied, forgetting Morgan's name.

"Morgan. Please, no formalities. How's the trip?" She asked slowly squeezing herself between his left leg and the extra bar-stool.

"Uh.. good," he said feeling her leg press against his. "its been good yeah, thanks. How about you?" Nick asked nervously as she was very underdressed and he had no idea where his eyes were looking.

She could sense his nerves.

"The heat. It's not what I expected." Morgan replied.

"Oh I know, too hot?" Nick asked.

"Not hot enough." Morgan replied, her voice like a kitten's purr.

"Oh." Nick said, very uncomfortably. 

"I was thinking that maybe you'd like to show me around, maybe you've seen some places I haven't yet. What do you say?" Morgan asked.

"We really haven't had a lot of time to sight-see. Cait has been busy and I've been in the room, today she and I are planning on maybe getting some in and then we're leaving." He replied.

"WHAT? You can't go yet!" Morgan shouted, surprising Nick with her quick change in tone.

"Why not?"

"Because we haven't all had a chance to get to know each other, I mean we're all from out of town and just so happen to be here at this hotel together, don't you think it would make sense for us all to, I don't know. Go out together?" Morgan asked attempting to salvage her plan, even though she was failing.

"Morgan I'm sure you can find anyone in this hotel who'll love your company. Really. I mean it's a hotel, everyone here is from out of town." Nick said, his tone too now switching to annoyed.

"But I met you first." Morgan replied.

She could feel the situation slipping from her hands. He was the man she chose. He was the mortal she wanted to be the father of the future child. She could not lose him now, not after she had come all this way and knew now where Caleb was. It was as if her plan was all set up and suddenly cracking and breaking apart. It was a house of cards she didn't want to blow over yet. Caleb's location was literally in her hands in the form of a newspaper. She could easily kill him that night and get Nick to impregnate her the same day. 

He could NOT leave yet. 

"Again, I'm sure any number of ..." he paused before finishing the word "men" in fear of implying something "people, would love to go show you around. I think the hotel even sets up tours. I can ask for you?" Nick said politely. 

Morgan didn't want a tour. In her mind, deep in the cervices of her powerful sorceress brain she began to chant a spell that would save her whole plot once and for. 

"Fire and Ice, slip in here, take this man's fear and draw him near. To me. To me. To me."

Morgan repeated the sentence over and over and over again in her mind as Nick went on and on about the types of city tours the hotel Saint Filipe would provide for her. She couldn't understand why the spell wasn't quickly latching on to his subconscious and why didn't instantly succumb to her. 

She continued: "Fire and Ice, slip in here, take this man's fear and draw him near. To me. To me. To me."

What Morgan didn't know but would soon quickly discover was that Nick's mind was like a steel trap. Protected by his own psychic abilities that he so often never used. He could open and close his mind to the supernatural whenever he chose, a trick he learned as a child from his ancestors when the horrors of his gift would keep him up at night with the thousands of voices all around him came into his mind: from the dead and living.

She repeated again, this time, not letting go until he was hers: "Fire and Ice, slip in here, take this man's fear and draw him near. To me. To me. To me." This time she touched his hand. 

It was like the key she needed. She felt herself go into his mind it was like a break in a dam, a burst of sunlight through a rain storm, decoding a the lock on a safe. 

It worked. Morgan's face changed when she realized how gifted his powers were. They seemed unused. He was a novice but he knew what he was, he knew what was inside of him. She latched on, like a suckle-fish to algae. And when the connection of her spell was complete a spark of light lit in his eye. He turned to her and smiled.

"Maybe we can ...go with you." Nick said, almost as if he didn't know what he was saying.

"We?" Morgan replied, indicating she'd rather it be just the two of them.

"We...could...I mean..." Nick was fighting the urge to exclude Caitlyn, he knew it wasn't what he really wanted to say, he knew that his mind was pushing words out of his mouth that he didn't even want to say but he was saying it, it was his voice and he was saying it.

"What? What could we do?" Morgan replied, her body now closer than ever to Nick's. His hand reached her waste to push her back but it lingered. He could feel the sleek white bathing suit on his fingertips. She lifted her head allowing the rim of her large top open up so he could see her face without it's shadow.

"We...." He began to say, his mind pushing back on itself, battling her spell and his will. "We..." he kept saying, his hand still hot on her waist.

"Nick?" Caitlyn said as she stood between the entrance to the bar and lobby.

Nick's hand quickly leaped off of Morgan's waist and she backed away from him and winked.

"Honey, thank you so much for doing this, I won't ever forget it!" Morgan said, as she closed her sheer top around her baiting suit and made her way out of the bar but not before stopping at Caitlyn.

"We're just going to make so much fun together. I promise." Morgan told her.

As Morgan quickly made her way to the staircase to go up stairs, Caitlyn entered the rest of the way into the bar where Nick seemed to be in a fog, still under Morgan's control.

"What was that about?" Caitlyn asked, she was dressed for their own day-date around town, thinking it was her last time in Savannah.

"Honestly. I don't even know." Nick said honestly. "She came in from the pool and asked if she could go sightseeing with us." 

"What? What did you say?" 

"I think I said yes." Nick replied, his mind a blur, but something scared him from the event at the bar that had just happened. He was curious of Morgan. Too curious. And since their talk all he could do was think of her; her smell, her touch, the tight bathing suite. 

Her spell had worked. He was hooked.

"I don't really want to hang out with some stranger on our last days here Nick." Caitlyn replied. She was totally confused on his behavior. 

Nick smiled and put his arm around Cailyn's neck, and squeezed. "It'll be one day. No harm, no foul." He replied.

But he had no idea just how much harm he had just dragged himself and more importantly, Caitlyn. 

Upstairs in her hotel room, Morgan lay in her bath, the bubbles filled to the top. Her dark hair slicked back and her face clean of all makeup. She looked like a porcelain doll, glistening in the water. 

She laughed a wicked laugh and realized that she was that much closer to taking all the powers provided to the woman who bore a child for Caspian. Step 1: Hook Nick. Step 2: Find and Kill Caleb.

As Morgan continued her bubble bath the newspaper open to Mae's obituary would now complete Step 2. Cressida would be there and she would unwittingly lead Morgan to Caleb--and cause his death. 

****

The afternoon of Mae's funeral was filled with an overcast sky that allowed the many crypts and burial plots that were shrouded by the Spanish moss hanging off of the hundreds of ancient oak trees of the cemetery.

A small group of mourners gathered at the plot Mae's burial plot in utter shock at her sudden death. A few neighbors and a couple of outside friends comforted Cressida and Gabriel who the whole town knew Mae looked to as daughters, but in reality the two living witches knew their coven mother had only transitioned to a different plane and this funeral was for them: the mortals of Savannah. 

For her part, Cressida had already seen Mae's return in spirit at home. Mae's lifeforce manifested itself to her and she knew she could call on her when she needed her, only the body was gone. The spirit remained.

John sat next to Cressida in his sleek black suite and tie. He grabbed her hand and squeezed and she turned to him, face swollen from the tears she was crying and smiled. Even though she knew Mae wasn't all the gone, the idea of her body being left in the grave like a mortal still caused her to cry. It was after all a death even if it was just partly so. 

"You ok?" John asked the woman he loved.

Cressida didn't say anything, only nodded her head she was.

A local priest came and gave a beautiful eulogy, he was concerned that Mae's last wishes were not to have anything inside of a church only grave side but he respected none the less. 

"We will remember this woman, a pillar of our community as a kind and loving woman who cared for her son Khai who was unable to fly back from Japan where he is studying on such a short notice. Please keep her dear friends, Dr. Gabrielle Loures and Miss Cressida Craine in your thoughts as this is a trying time for them as well." The priest said just before crossing himself and excusing himself from the ceremony. 

When Mae her two coven daughters came to Savannah over 20 years ago escaping the darkness that they could no longer support as maidens of Caspian's evil, they took identities of people in Savannah that were highly regarded. Mae was a woman everyone in town considered a stoic and strong leader who sheltered those in need in her large house and kept youth out of trouble. She had practically raised Gabrielle herself and welcomed Cressida into her fold as well. All of Mae's good deeds acted as penance for another lifetime of evil and cruelty when she was at the mercy of Caspian's darkness.

The three had promised that when they escaped him they'd do good with their powers. And they did. For almost 30 years. 

John got up from his seat next to Cressida and went over to chat to some of the others who came to say goodbye to Mae leaving Cressida and Gabrielle to chat alone. Gabrielle was incredibly eager to tell Cressida that she truly believed her other child, Caleb's twin was in town as well, an added danger. 

"I have to talk you about Caleb." Gabrielle whispered.

"What is it? Something medical?" Cressida wondered.

"No, no. Nothing like that. From his last test results he's fine, the coma you've placed him in seems to haven't really affected him over the years. It's something else. Something much worse." Gabrielle replied.

Cressida's face turned to concern and grabbed Gabrielle by the hand and took her over to a shadier part of the area near Mae's grave so that they could speak in private. 

"What is it?" 

"Last night when I was at the hospital I overheard a woman asking about an adoption that was kept private. It seems that she came from up north and her adoption parents only gave her limited information about her birth family. She was able to track her birth to Savannah, at the hospital I work at." Gabrielle informed Cressida.

Cressida knew where the story was leading but as the Spanish moss swayed in the light Savannah breeze she couldn't help to let her mind blow away with the possibility that she was wrong.

"What else did you hear?" Cressida asked, swallowing hard. 

"Cressida her birthday was the same as Caleb's. This morning before I came here I checked...there were only three babies born that day in that hospital. Your twins, and another boy." 

It was not clear to Cressida she could not deny the obvious. Her worst fear had come true, the daughter she gave up hoping she would grow up away from the horrors and the terrifying reality from being Caspian's daughter was not in front of her. Facing her like a monster in the dark revealing his hungry blood thirsty grin.

Calmly Cressida asked "What's her name?" 

"Caitlyn." 

Cressida grabbed at her heart hearing the beautiful name given to the child she gave up. It was like hearing an angel sing. Soft and wonderful. Cressida was overcome by emotion.

"I met her." Gabrielle added.

"What? You met her? What did you tell her?" Cressida asked, quickly breaking out of the warm fuzzing feeling.

On the other side of Mae's plot, John noticed Gabrielle and Cressida in a serious conversation. It was odd to him that they'd be in such important conversations in a time like this. He wondered what they could be talking about.

"I only ran into her by chance. She's staying at the Hotel Saint Filipe downtown and I told her I overheard her at work and then pretended that I had a friend that could probably help her only to get her phone number. We have to make sure she leaves, Cress, she cannot be discovered." Gabrielle warned.

Cressida agreed. "What does she look like?" Cressida asked warmly.

Gabrielle smiled and reached for Cessida's hand. As they touched a powerful jolt of energy rushed through Gabrielle and into Cressida, it was a rush of visions that Gabrielle had seen the day she met Caitlyn. It was as if a movie was playing from Gabrielle's mind to Cressida's showing the mother her own daughter, all grown up and beautiful. Cressida, who's eyes were closed, began to cry. 

"She's beautiful." She whispered. Gabrielle smiled, happy should could help.

"Everything ok?" John asked, startling Gabrielle who quickly released her hand from Cressida which quickly removed the image of Caitlyn from Cressida's mind.

"Yes! Of course. Yes. We were just..." Cressida said snapping out of it.

"Khai. We were talking about Khai. We're hoping we can get him back in town so that he can also mourn his mother." Gabrielle quickly said covering for their conversation.

"I see." John said skeptically. 

"Listen, I've got to get back to the hotel but if you need anything, Cress, anything at all please give me a call ok?" John said as he kissed Cressida goodbye and hugged Gabrielle.

"He works at the Saint Filipe." Gabrielle noted.

Cressida and Gabrielle realized John's position in their plight to keep everyone safe from Caspian just became that more clear. 

As the two witches, Cressida and Gabrielle stepped back to finally give their last goodbye's to Mae's mortal body, a shadowy figure stepped out from behind a large 150 year old Crypt. The shadow figure, a woman dressed in a black dress and wearing black hat that obscured her face puffed a thick plume of smoke from under her hat.

Cressida and Gabrielle felt a power. An energy. A pull. A frightening powerful pull that made forced them both to turn around in unison to face the shadow woman smoking near the back of the cemetery watching. 

The feeling the witches got felt like something was pricking the ends of their fingers. Like a thousand needles all poking and prodding their fingers. The sign of another witch.

The woman in the black hat lifted her head and revealed herself: Morgan Isles.

She looked directly at Gabrielle and Cressida and smiled an evil grin making her presence known. 

She then curtsied in the presence of Cressida, the mother of Caspian's COIN but then slowly stepped back into the shadows and disappeared with the light breeze.

"We're going to go ahead and cover up the grave now." the undertaker said as the clouds above their heads got darker and darker, hinting at a coming storm.

Cressida and Gabrielle had no reaction to him. All they could think of was the new witch in town. The new witch who had found them. The new witch who obviously knew who they were. The knew witch who clearly came at Caspian's orders.

"Shit." Gabrielle said as a wisp of strong wind blew past them and chilling every bone in their bodies. 

John noticed too. Who was the shapely shadowy mysterious woman that seemed to make Cressida and Gabrielle's blood run cold? 

****

Later that night after the funeral, Cressida paced back and forth in her living room mulling over the events at the cemetery when Morgan made herself known not to mention the return of her other child, Caitlyn back in Savannah. These were added threats and dangers to Cressida who had been safely hiding Caleb in a deep sleep for over 25 years, it was like her life was a fire being reignited from a pile of smoldering cinders by a small match into a roaring raging fire from a Molotov Cocktail. 

Forced to face multiple crisis on several fronts, Cressida could sense the chaos coming. She could feel the burning breath of Caspian on her neck, he was coming for her and if she was found he'd find Caleb and together he and his son could destroy the globe in ways no human could ever imagine. 

"You haven't decided yet, have you? On what I said about Ashe Evans." a disembodied voice said, echoing in Cressida's gloomy living room of vaulted ceilings and  lit with candles.

Cressida turned to where she thought she could hear the voice, when suddenly Mae's spirit appeared to her, trapped in Cressida's house as if she were the manifestation of her own conscious with Mae's face.

"Mae." Cressida said with tears in her eyes thinking about the funeral they just had for her.

"Stop. Don't cry. You have much to do. Time is of the essence." Mae reminded her. "Morgana is hungry for power. If she finds you, if she finds Caleb, she can usurp us all and take control. We cannot allow that." Mae added, mentioning Morgan Iles by her witch name Morgana.

"She was at the cemetery. I'm afraid she may have already found me." 

Mae nodded, showing that already knew.

"You must awaken Ashe. He's our only hope." Mae said.

"Mae, how can I do that to Gabrielle? She's only now showing signs of finally moving on with her life after his death, we have to chose someone else. If I have to wake someone who Caspian cannot control, it cannot be Ashe. Anyone but Ashe." Cressida said, her heart fully breaking at the idea of waking Gabrielle's dead former lover to help them find Morgan and kill her before she killed them.

Mae sat down, her ghostly body solid as if she were alive. Her dark hair shining in the candle light glistening and reflecting a warm glow almost like a halo. She even seemed to breath. Her chest slowly lifting and dropping taking in every ghostly gulp of oxygen even though she didn't need it.

"It has to be Ashe. There is no one on this side, who was at one time mortal in the human sense, that can do what he can do." Mae replied.

"You? Why can't it be you? Why can't you be the one who comes back and hunts down Morgan?" 

Mae looked at Cressida and knew that deep down Cressida, a knowledgeable, intelligent, and seasons witch for decades and decades knew that this could not be. Mae was not a normal person who had come and gone through the prism of life. She, like all witches, had given themselves up to the world of the supernatural and nature. And the ones who had signed the book of the damned into Caspian's coven like Mae, Cressida and Gabrielle had once done were in an even worse spot if they lost their lives.

They were trapped. In limbo. Lost between worlds and could only cross over until all of their past dark deeds were corrected through good works in the limbo state. Cressida knew this. She knew it deep in her bones and knew that this was exactly what Mae was attempting to do.

Ashe, was completely mortal. And his connection to one of the coven women was the reason he was the only one who could come back and take out Morgan and end Caspian's attempts to find Caleb and wreak havoc on the plant as he takes control with all the forces of evil that he posses. 

"Here." Mae said, extending her arm and opening her hand revealing an old skeleton key

"It's Ashe's." Cressida replied recognizing it.

"Yes. His crypt. You'll need to go now Cressida. Tomorrow's full moon will only bring our plight more misfortune. Ashe is the only one. The only one." Mae said, emphasis the that the time from was getting close.

"Gabrielle. What do I tell Gabrielle. We're doing something so cruel to her. Maybe we should have her be the one to wake him." Cressida asked.

"Impossible. Gabrielle would not be able to complete the Lazarus Spell. Only you." Mae said again, emphasizing the specific spell only Cressida could receipt to lift death from Ashe. 

Cressida nodded her head showing her understanding of her job. She had been so important in the coven, her place within one of strength and leadership along side Mae but over the years her fears of Caspian finding them became heavy, like a giant anchor tied around her waist dragging her down to the depths of the sea---the sea in this case a place in Cressida's own mind where her fears came to feast.

She took the key from Mae's ghostly hand and closed her eyes breathing in all the air around her that smelled of the candles burning in every corner of her living room.

When she opened them again, Mae was gone.

 Before leaving  Cressida went to see her son Caleb. His sleeping body still perfectly in place like nothing was happening. As if all the world was still and calm. But she knew that inside he was raging. He had always been fighting to wake. His sleep, his coma, was only for outsiders to believe. Caleb was fully aware, all his life of what had been done to him. He was fighting like a raging storm over the Atlantic to free himself from his own mother's spell, but it was too strong. So strong that even the sent over perfume or the tone of her voice would send his heart rate off the charts.

As it had in this moment as she stood in his bedroom's doorway. 

He could smell her the soft Gardena sent of her perfume.

He hated her. Even in this state. He hated her and wanted his father to come for him and destroy her. All of his rages was only more proof to Cressida that if Caspian should find his son Caleb and wake him humanity would never be able to see another morning the same way again.

Cressida, now confirming for herself what Mae had already told her closed her eyes and vanished in a plume of bright light suddenly teleporting herself to the dark, shadow shrouded cemetery of Savannah.

 With the crescent moon over her head as her only light, Cressida slowly walked on the dark cobblestone paths of the centuries old cemetery in the center of Old Savannah, Georgia. She walked slowly allowing all that was at stake in this dyer situation keep her steady in the pursuit of Ashe's family's large mausoleum.

She kept thinking of Caitlyn too. Her daughter. The beautiful young woman Gabrielle's vision showed who  had come to Savannah in search of her own truth, how horrible it would be for her to find out she was the daughter of the devil and a witch. How horrible it would be knowing her twin brother as an evil abomination that if woken from his spell-induced coma could destroy so much. 

Cressida's thoughts then turned to Gabrielle as soon as she found herself at the front of the Evans family mausoleum, its tiny chapel like frame with gold and blue stained glass windows on either side of the locked entrance with the letter E in the center of each window.

Cressida slowly slid the key into the lock and turned. The damp musty smell instantly hit the peach like skin of her perfect face. She slowly made her way passed several other burial plots of Evans family members. Ashe's grandfather, a fisherman, his grandmother a teacher, his great-grandfather former slave who had been freed and made a fortune in cattle ranching in later years.

There it was. Like a ship peeking through the foggy night at sea, Ashe's crypt. 

It was time, Ashe would save them. Mae said so. It had to be this way. 

Cressida removed her coat and carefully placed it on one of the tombs.

She put her hands on top of the cement crypt with Ashe's name engraved on it and closed her eyes and began to breath slowly. In and out. In and out. As she did, the wind began to mimic her breathes. 

The trees outside rustled as she inhaled then rustled again as she exhaled. Birds, sleeping peacefully in the oak trees that created a large leafy canopy above the entire cemetery awoke feeling and fled their soft nests the second the energy from the powerful witch hit them.

She breathed in then breathed out. Heavier and heavier the air became. Colder and colder the night became.

Her breath, now crystalized in large puffs filtered in the almost invisible gap of the ceil of Ashe's crypt. Her breath was now his breath. From her lungs to his.

She then opened her eyes to reveal that they were glowing. All white. No iris. No pupil. Just white.

"With my breath you now have air, of it I have to spare. Take my lungs and use what's there. Beat your heart, my life I share. Ashe Evans, I take the sleep of death from you, the consequences I bear."

With her spell complete. The wind blew again through the heavy oaks outside. This time, consistently. Cressida stepped back from the crypt, her eyes continued to glow all the light of the sun and soon there was a rumbling. It was the stones of the crypt shaking. Shaking and moving. 

It was like a tiny earthquake pulling at the ground lifting it and pulling at it in all directions. Cressida began to levitate, her hair swirling in a wind that came from the energy spewing from her body. Then slowly the slab of cement locking Ashe in his grave began to slide open. Inch by inch, then flipping over and falling to the ground in a huge heap of rock bursting into large chunks as it hit the floor.

And then, with a puff of old dust from years of death in the air, Ashe Evans, a handsome man of just 27 when he died stood up as if nothing had ever happened to him.

His eyes were blank. Empty still, as Cressida's Lazarus spell was still filling in his body like a vaccine rushing though the veins.

"You are Ashe Evans of Savannah. You are awake. And I have awakened you from the sleep of death." Cressida said, her voice echoing in the former dead-man's reconnecting brain.

"Ashe Evans." He replied.

Cressida slowly lowered herself from her levitation and her eyes returned to normal as soon as her toes hit the cold cement floor of the mausoleum. She slowly walked up to Ashe who was standing upright in his crypt. His deep brown eyes fixing on his old friend's kind soft face. 

"Ashe." Cressida said softly hoping for a reaction.

Ashe looked down at Cressida and reached for her neck. His jaw in a tight lock. Cressida screamed and backed away. 

"ASHE!!!" She yelped from a few feet away from him. Her voice now snapping him out of his morbid mood. 

"I.. what... Cressida?" Ashe asked, finally coming to.

Cressida sighed in relief and stepped back up to him and put her hands on his cheeks.

"Thank god." 

"What? What's happening? I don't feel right." Ashe said, his body still somewhat weak from the years of death,.

"You're ok. I'll explain later. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad." Cressida replied, her eyes filled with tears. 

But the happy reunion soon turned sour again as Ashe suddenly saw a large portion of stone on the floor from the slab that had covered his tomb:  his name and the dates of his birth and death. Ashe began to hyperventilate as he notice where he was and what had happened. His confusion and terror of the realization took over and he began to sob uncontrollably and fell into Cressida's arms. 

She tried to console  him like a baby, holding his head in her arms wiping his tears. He couldn't understand what had happened, he was seeing things, his own death. His funeral. He was reliving the truth of the matter, that he had been dead and that he was now a product of magic bringing him back to life. 

"Everything is ok. Everything is fine." Cressida whispered.

"Why? Why did this happen? HOW??!?!?" Ashe screamed at her.

"I'll explain everything later, we have to leave now." Cressida replied stepping down from the high step of his tomb and extending her hand for him to follow.

He trusted her in life. He knew her, he had always known her---at least he thought he did.

He hesitated but then looked down at his tomb again, the dates of his life and death and realized he'd rather be anywhere than where he was in that moment.

He quickly grabbed hold of Cressida's hand and together departed in a blast of white light back to Cressida's home. 

The wind continued to blow through the thick branches of the oaks at the cemetery. But this wind was not of Cressida's creation.

A sign of the storm that was coming to all of those who lived in the supernatural realm of Savannah.