Lucinda Scott was nervous about the scenes coming up as she paced in her trailer. The scenes had been rescheduled, once at the end of shooting, now they were moved forward to this afternoon, with a twilight shot hopefully finishing it. John Grant would be there of course, playing Hunter Eventyn, but it was the scenes with Judd Tolsen again, in the will-o’-the-wisp gear that frankly frightened her. With all the experiences earlier with him, and the strange sightings she had personally experienced; her inner voice was saying, "cancel this, get sick today…".

There was a knock on her door. She moved forward carefully, her long dress just lightly basted in the seam lines around her shoulders and bodice for the scene. She opened the door, surprised at the face she saw momentarily;

"Marvin?"

"Sorry, Lucinda….didn’t want to interrupt today…I know you have a big scene coming up! But- have you seen Rollie or Angie? I don’t see the van."

His face was all business. He hadn’t come to see her really or put pressure on her, she could see that. His eyes fell on her costume and he smiled slightly, looking up at her.

"No, wait…yeah- they were heading into Eventyn Plantation as we were pulling out. Guess they are picking up the rest of the equipment. They had to close down set there due to the old man’s funeral tonight..."

She frowned slightly, smelling something up…Rollie was up to something with Marvin and Angie!

"I passed the place, didn’t see the van!" he replied, a little hint of anxiousness in his voice.

Lucinda stepped down the stairs from the trailer, gathering the hoop of her dress, turning it sideways as she descended.

"Could be directly behind the house, Marvin. Maybe you just missed it, besides, what’s the big deal?"

He reddened slightly and cleared his throat; "Uh, nothing…I, uh, was clearing up one of Tyler’s connections with Gatti’s files earlier this week and just needed verification on some things."

"So, business continues, even here just to visit me on a whim?" she asked, leaning forward, her hands dropping her hoop as they went to her waist.

"No! I mean, it just came up in my mind….you were on set, didn’t want me to really come, am I right? Just trying to keep busy!" he amended, covering himself, "just catching up on some loose ends until you came back tonight."

"Somehow, Marvin- I just don’t buy that but hey, they're sending Al over here to get me so I have to go!" she said, curtly.

"Oh Luce!"

"We’re ready, Ms. Scott…need you on mark now," Al, the production assistant told her from behind Vanduran.

"I have to go, and shoot! This is such a horrible scene and you’ve just gotten me all messed up!" she told him, in a scolding voice.

"I’m sorry," he said softly, touching her slightly on the shoulder as she passed him. He looked crushed and she sighed deeply and stopped.

"Look, you might as well stay. Rollie will show up soon or Gary Sanderlin will personally send out the whole Confederate and Union troops here to find him, okay? This is a tough scene, baby….just watch and wish me luck, you know…" she said, almost apologetically.

"Good lu-" he began, but she put her fingers to his lips, frowning again.

"Marvin!"

"Oh," he said, shaking his head and thinking himself the biggest dolt; "I mean, break a leg, okay?"

"That’s better," she replied softly, and as he leaned forward to kiss her, she pulled back and waved him off; "makeup, baby- can’t mess up what took a half-hour, now….can we?"

Vanduran stood, mouth gaping as she moved over toward the slope of the hill they all stood on. He could see a mass of actors, and reenactors all dressed in Confederate and Union uniforms. Make-up crews were touching up their ‘wounds’ and dressings. He frowned, looking around for the F/X van, still not there.

"Tyler! Where the hell are you?" he muttered, angrily.

"Where the hell is Rollie Tyler?" Gary Sanderlin shouted out, as crew shrugged and his production assistants all shook their heads.

"Damn it! Give me the second location walkie talkie!" he shouted as one of his assistants scrambled forward with it.

"We’ll start on the close up shots, give me lots of pain and agony!" he shouted to his second location director.

Lucinda Scott prepared herself, looking over the knoll toward the second location filming. She could hear the call for Judd Tolsen, wanted on his mark. Her eyes then rested on John Grant’s. Her co-star was lying on the ground, talking with the make-up girl retouching his face. Wounded in character, he would stay like this as Lucinda and Judd took their marks close by. The scene called for special effects to control Judd’s headpiece. For the time being, they were walking through the scene.

"Rollie, you’d better get your butt here soon…" she said, under her breath as she then saw Marvin’s face behind a flank of extras taking a break behind Sanderlin’s perch on the free arm. Obviously, both Gary and Marvin wanted him on set right away.

"So, mind if I see that?" Vanduran asked an extra with a copy of the script in his hand.

"Hey man, knock yourself out, I get to do a 360 and groan loudly," the young man replied, handing him the rolled up tube that had been a flat script at one time.

Vanduran fingered through, noting the scene number on the clapper not far from him as camera one readjusted track. They were having to go around the special effects sequence to properly lay out pick up point for filming.

Vanduran sat down on a bench next to the catered table of food. He began to read the scene in earnest. His eyebrows raised slightly as he quickly looked over to where Lucinda stood, waiting. From behind him, he could hear an slight disturbance as a troop of people passed, including a rather hideous looking costume, gruesomely outfitted in monstrous detail except for the head. The head was normal, an actor who was minus his monster’s head.

"Judd, just try to keep cool…don’t move around too much. Once Tyler gets here with the headpiece, the internal regulation of the suit will work and cool you down," a man said, following on the actor’s heels.

"So, that would be Mr. Judd Tolsen", Marvin said to himself, perking up and standing. He had read the scene and now knew why Lucinda was nervous and jumpy. The description of the scene was unnerving, to say the least and he slapped the rolled up script back into the extra’s hand, walking closer to the set.

"Rollie!" Vanduran said anxiously, gritting his teeth. What he knew couldn’t wait much longer.

A sharp popping sound from the fireplace, as a log shifted and fell into multiple burning embers, startled them as Angie began to unfold the old and fragile sheets of paper.

"Oh Rol…this letter is stained with what looks to have been blood…" Angie said softly, almost reverently as she stroked the paper lightly.

"Read it, sweetie," he said, almost nervously.

"Yes…it’s addressed to him;" she began and started to read, her voice picking up the intonation of the writer, the woman whose portrait hung over the fireplace, alive with embers of a once, roaring fire.

"My dear Hunter,

I pray this letter finds you somewhere along the fighting lines in Virginia, well in body and triumphant in spirit. If you have bearance, then well you know that myself has gone on to life that promises eternal rest from the woes of earthly confines. And so, in having receipt of my poorly written words, mine own love, I tell you what I have kept silent in mine own heart whilst you were away o’er these passing months.

Mine own start will be the remembrance of our vows as well, you do remember and I entreat you to follow your memories and smile now. What God saw and favored, we took as nourishment to our souls and hearts. Mine love for you will last into that eternal rest, you may have that confidence. Of that wondrous time, before you departed, our together as man and wife was few but I tell you now, not without the planting of our future. Without mine earthly presence, there is still our child and born now, since this letter has found you. I pray you will cherish our love through him. He is a strong babe, and favors the likes of your own nature in body and spirit. I see little of mine own and this will serve well for the Eventyn name can be passed down to son with little reckoning by the Erin land familial tree.

And now, I pause and lamentably, I sigh with the wound in mine heart so profound that I should have to put down in the words what cruel and hideous deed was so inflicted upon mine own…."

Angie looked up at Rollie, her eyes betraying her heart as emotions welled within her;

"Rollie, the ink is smudged! This is so hard…as if she was crying as she wrote it. I feel like I am imposing on her privacy…"

Rollie put his hand over hers; "she wants it read now- Hunter wanted to give it to us, says Charles…it’s okay, sweetie…"

Angie could feel the trepidation in herself, the lump in her throat. She wiped her wet cheek from the tears that had begun to fall and cleared her throat to continue;

"Aye, sent out by your own father, meself at seven months into mine own confinement. His anger at our union and the daily remindance by mine own showing form only ired him further on. He sent us, the indentured, to the battlefields, mine own love. Our orders were to riffle the bodies of the dead, the Yankee boys kilt by our men in a day’s pass'n. In all mine years, I will ne’er forget the sight, the stench and the horror I saw. Without meself, ever firing a weapon, I felt as though I had dishonored that lot of once humankind on the fields by taking their private possessions, by steal’n their clothing and boots. Old Tavish would draw the wagon up and us ten womenfolk would empty our aprons of our spoils and return to more. I grew sickened and found meself down at the river shore, there by our own Chicahominy which ran red and foul now.

I glanced about, hear’n the moan’n of the wounded still, feared me so and then, without a drop of drink, felt meself vaporish and sinking to me own knees. It was then, he came to me. Of horrible proportions and darkness he stood over me, the insects swarming his terrible infestated sores. I cried out for our sweet Lord to protect meself from this will-o’-the-wisp, one that I had stolt from on the bloody field. He replied not. He moaned a powerful anger and pushed mine own swollen body to the muddy shore. Brutal demon of lust and violent temper, he fouled me there before his Devil and mine own God. At this, I cannot be forgiven by him or you, I know this truth. I fear’t I died that day. And more, each day in pass’n since then. He took from me, a stolt necklace, mine own cameo pendant of me mum. He stolt mine honor too and kilt our marriage troth.

The lord of Eventyn, your own father, dislodged mine room’n from the west wing of Eventyn and I was confined to the slavery quarters until birth’n our own son. I was not abl’n to work as before and was regarded as servant once more. The marriage of us was dissolved by the lord as he bade me speak not to a livin’ soul. He damned mine self and swore I would ne’er see yourself again. This, I believed with my soul after the Yankees took our Richmond town from us and burnt the plantations around Eventyn. The lord, he taken the slaves and us that could stand and stood us up against the stone wall around Eventyn with empty, broken pistols and swords. His words shouted to us to protect his home. Meself, in the ninth month of confinement stood firm at the west wall. Pistol in hand, I did as I was bade do. The Yankees past by and ne’er a shot fired. Your own father, my lord, did transact with them in pass’n and forged a truce. He allowed their entrance to the house and gave them victuals and drink. He had music played and aroused their spirits.

Meself, I was told to be wait’n on them that was our enemy. I spent considerable time in the western wing, serving them in given rooms to bed in and saw much disruption and ruin of possessions of your own and others. Your own father was crazed and feverish by midnight. I waited on all there on third floor, pass’n our own room and felt our babe move muchly in mine belly. I felt the pain of motherhood upon meself and took to our own bed, birth’n our own son with only Ginny, my own friend from Erin who passed on ship with meself to the Americas.

Frail of body and spirit, our son came into this world amidst our enemy. The lord would not declare his own grandson and as such, sent meself from our room, fresh from my confinement. In holding our son to mine breast for his own nourishment, it enraged him and he pounced upon meself only to be thrown down the stairs by the Yankee officer he had truced within. In sorrow to yourself, your father, my lord, was kilt with a broke neck. Rest in peace, Braxton Eventyn, your own father! Meself was delivered to another room and locked inside. Thus, began mine own letter to yourself, having paper and ink in a desk found.

Mine letter was born at this time. It became final by approach of mine own debaucher, hav’n been in league for some time and known’t that meself was imprisoned. He offerin’ victuals and water, and mine body had been without for some four days, our own son becomest sickly and unable to get suckle from mine breast. For our own son, I took the Devil’s offering and in as much, paid the price. This Devil, this will-o’-the-wisp by night and enemy by day, he did torture mine own soul with freedom offered and taken back. He carried on his vestment, mine own pendant as a medal of his act and thusly, told meself and his compatriots of mine own whoredom. I lived for our son until able to stow him into safe hands with Ginny some months later.

I have no hope left in this world so known that mine Devil has planned more evil wills of mine spirit and body. And so, mine own love, I write this last piece of words in haste. Know this, that I love yourself true and we will find ourselfs together in peace in the higher glory. I kiss our own son in parting, hopeful that you will hold him in your arms soon.

Please forgive mine indulgence and sin, mine own husband and love,

Siobhan"

Her name was spoken by Angie in a cracked, whisperish tone in ending the letter. She placed her lips together tightly, swallowing hard as Rollie took the trembling worn paper from her hand. His own horror at this poor woman’s last months of life and situation made him sick to his stomach. He wondered why Hunter Eventyn, the fourth, had just not told them in the beginning. The mystery remained so.

The door to the study opened, Charles appearing with a tea service tray and teacakes. Angie jumped slightly, startled as Rollie stared up at the butler, frowning;

"Charles, I know you said not to ask you any questions, but you must know how Siobhan died? And what happened to Hunter Eventyn? He did get this letter, right? How did it get here? He raised his son, right?"

Charles put the tray down on the coffee table, Aidan stirring slightly as he smelled the warm, strong tea and fresh cakes.

"I know only that she disappeared, Mr. Tyler, never to be seen again. I know that the first Hunter Eventyn made it home to Eventyn where he died soon after. From what Mr. Eventyn told me, he was imprisoned in a Federal camp in Maryland for the remainder of the war, and carried the letter in his inside breast pocket. He apparently was wounded in Maryland, taken prisoner there. I believe Hunter, the second, was raised by a young maid at the house and a trusted friend of the family, sir. I believe Mr. Eventyn was still researching the background of the family friend when he died."

"That is a lot of information, Charles…see, you do know more!" Angie added, unabashed, as she wiped her face of more tears.

"I know what little I know….ma’am. I cannot tell you any names or more than that. I have no gravesites to show you, no diaries to help you…nothing but that letter. From what Mr. Eventyn told me, it is stained with the original owner’s blood from that battle as he carried it against him and I am digressing now. I hope that with this information, you can at least, continue with some element of hope in solving Mr. Eventyn’s quest. And I imagine, her continued quest…"

Charles looked up at Siobhan’s portrait as if she were a saint. The reverence in his eyes was unmistakable.

"Have you seen her?" Rollie asked, sipping his tea as Angie gave Aidan a small cake.

Charles smiled, actually the first smile that both of them had ever seen on him.

"No, she only bestows that honor on a few…Mr. Eventyn, some of the past generations and well, you- Mrs. Tyler."

Angie gulped suddenly, slightly aspirating her tea as she coughed. Why would a ghost select her to help her revenge or put right something?

"It’s a shame that the third floor is gutted!" Rollie remarked, shaking his head.

"Oh, not entirely, Mr. Tyler…a few rooms remained untouched for some strange reason."

"Hmmm," Rollie responded, his mind beginning to race with a challenge.

"Will there be family to help restore Eventyn?" Angie asked, hoping against the obvious with Hunter Eventyn’s known financial problems.

"Sadly, at this point, the estate is already embroiled in some legal issues and now with Mr. Eventyn’s death, a distant and lone family member has claimed executor status. I do not know who he is or what is to become of Eventyn. At this moment, I proceed on the last known wishes of Mr. Eventyn.

There was a knock on the door, followed by a maid poking her head in the door; "I’m sorry, Mr. Charles…but there is a phone call for these people."

Rollie looked down at his watch and winced. Angie took the letter from Rollie and gently folded it back as it was found and placed it back in the envelope. She offered it to Charles.

"Mr. Tyler, you may take the phone here, in the study. Mrs. Tyler…I believe Mr. Eventyn would want you to keep this letter, please!" Charles insisted, backing away.

"No, I couldn’t!" she replied, standing and shaking her head.

Charles turned quickly around, ignoring her rebuttal and left them there, alone in the study. Angie took the letter and placed it in her blue book inside her pack to protect it. She was beginning to plan out free time all of the sudden, to visit the local courthouse and records books. It was as if she had a mission now, one that would require all of her skills and endurance. She felt a kinship to Siobhan, one that was sealed with the experience of rape and betrayal, of birth and love to a soul mate. She couldn’t imagine the pain but the love beyond life, she knew, and it was a feeling that she knew had always been there. Rollie was hanging up the phone as her attention was returned to him and Aidan. She had lost track of time for a moment.

"The set is a bit dismayed by our lack of appearance, it seems. Gary is fit to be tied and apparently, Vanduran is looking for us as well. It seems he is there, on the set with news for us."

"Then, let’s go. We don’t want to keep Gary Sanderlin waiting. After all, we have a job to do, a will-o’-the-wisp to activate and, it looks like now, we’ve got Hunter Eventyn’s life long quest to finish!" Angie replied, picking up her pack and taking Aidan’s hand.

"You okay?" Rollie asked, curiously.

"Yeah, I’m okay!" Angie replied, smiling, "yeah, I’m better than okay…let’s go give the Devil his due!"

"Okay, now which Devil would that be?" Rollie replied, grinning as he followed her out of the study.

"Umm, so many to choose from…" Angie exclaimed, smiling. As they passed through the main hallway to take the west wing hallway back to the ballroom, Angie noticed that the portrait of Hunter Eventyn, the first, was being returned to its original wall over the front entrance. Two workmen were removing the tarp covering it and descending the ladders. Charles was standing below, looking up and directing the placement.

"There, returned home, sir," he said, with reverence.