Ep. 9 - Justice Is Served

As time passed by from the scandal of Gail, Wayne remarried and had three sons and two daughters. He felt no real love for his family and could not allow himself to trust anyone, but getting married at least put a distance between himself and Pierre. Although that did not stop the family feud between the Gannette and the Brecklin family that would last forever.

On a warm autumn evening as Wayne was planting a garden for the benefit of those in town looking for a peaceful place to reflect on their lives. He created this park in honour of the memory of his beloved friend, Enid, that he treated so horribly. Somehow he had the feeling something was different in the air.

Wayne was so filled with regret, bitterness and anger over his role in her demise as well as disgust towards the entire Gannette family. Once he divorced Gail and she committed suicide, he tore down the mansion he built for her and eventually erected a stable to breed racing horses. He planned on letting his oldest son follow his dream of raising and racing horses.

With a good portion of his wealth, he created Kenzie University and hired highly qualified professors from out of town to run the school. It was seen as a great asset to the community. As he donated a great gift to the community, they allowed him to select the choice plot of land on behalf of the Kenzie girl he assured them would come back to town.

Morally and legally, all the land that was being used by Ada Johnson, the Gannette family and himself were truly the property of Agatha as her mother did legally obtain the land for her usage. However, she was a woman and gave birth to a girl and there was no written will, therefore any legal or moral claims would be dishonoured by the townspeople without the intervention of Wayne.

As time went on, Wayne was starting to lose hope of ever seeing his daughter again. He started to dole out more and more of Enid's land to others and for his business usage. The Gannettes have done the same with the land they have obtained from her original purchase. Ada was not driven by greed to take more than her share, but she was still occupying land that really did not belong to her, except by paper which Evander bribed an official to obtain the land.

Twenty years have passed since the tragic death of his first wife and it had been eighteen years since he had married his wife, Eileen whom he had met at the funeral of Gail who was one of her closest friends. Pierre was very much against him getting involved with another woman so soon after his daughter's suicide that he made sure life would be hard on him if he continued. Wayne grew tired of Pierre who had more supernatural power over him and could never win if he went up against him. He knew the only way to win was to make him go up against someone with more power than Pierre had.

As he was developing this area of peace for the town, he felt it was time Enid was laid to rest. After the ruins of her home cooled down, he collected her ashes and put her into an urn waiting to properly bury her. While Wayne was pouring the ashes into the pond where he first met her, a cold wind swept through in the darkness of the full moon. Her turned around and saw two figures coming towards him, Hestia and a grown woman he did not recognise. It was Agatha.

All the time she was away in the woods, she observed the people of the town. She was especially careful to watch after her father and extremely disappointed in him. She had no love or trust of the man who cautiously approached her wanting to embrace her in his arms. She was cold and standoffish by the gesture and he backed off.

The land was ready for her to take possession. All it needed was a house. Wayne agreed to build one for her and in the meantime she could stay in his mansion in one of the wings. Wayne asked to speak privately with Hestia.

"I know I am the last person you would want to help, but I am begging for your intervention."

"Let me guess. You want me to take down Pierre Gannette for you."

"Yes, please. He has made my life a living hell. He is doing everything possible to take over the rest of the land that rightfully belongs to Agatha."

"Excuse me if my heart does not bleed for you, but are you not taking away land that belongs to your daughter for your own selfish purpose of easing your own guilty conscience? Should not that land be at the disposal of Agatha and not you?"

"If I did not lay claim to the land and do something with it, Pierre would have taken it over and there would be no more memory of your daughter in this town."

"Quite frankly, I would never lift a finger to help you. You deserve all this punishment you are getting from Pierre. I warned you, but you did not listen. Now you reap what you sowed and you hate the crop. That is all your own doing. You have powers and you could make things right, but you are such a coward that you refuse to use the powers you obtained, the powers which led to the death of my daughter."

"If you will not help me, will you at least help out Agatha? I see that she hates me. I fully understand why, but she is my daughter and I would do anything to protect her."

"What I will do is only going to be on behalf of my granddaughter. You will have to think of an excuse to have Agatha in your home. You did deny in front of the town council that you were her father, so why should you keep her in your home with your family? Eileen is a vain and jealous woman, why would she put up with a grown and beautiful woman under her roof, especially if she is your daughter by another woman?"

"I don't know, but she will have to accept it."

"Like Gail accepted you taking in Agatha? You have powers. You are a man. Start living up to it for the sake of your daughter. You are trying to lay the whole responsibility of your daughter's well-being on me. She is your responsibility. Be a man for at least once in your life. This is your daughter. Take care of her, to hell with what anyone else says."

"I know you are right, but I am afraid. If Pierre discovers that I know who exactly he is and I intend to bring him down, he will use all his force against me and I know where I will end up for all eternity."

"It is true, unlike Pierre, you have a natural lifespan that cannot be reversed by the power you acquired. He can only be killed by fire. What you have not understood, he has corrupted his own nature and violated the laws of the Darkness by being behind the murder of his equal. If I had the power, I would have brought about the fate he will suffer, but the laws of the Universe have beat me to it. He is no longer recognised as a half-immortal, but he still has his powers. Until he is killed by fire, he can be powerful. The tragedy is he is unaware he had a cursed fate ahead. He never knew Enid was a half-immortal nor was he ever aware there were consequences for his evil. His fate is one worse than your own. Use this knowledge and protect your daughter."

Hestia departed with a cold warning, either Wayne would protect his daughter and all of her interests or suffer more misery.

Wayne spoke with his wife and explained about the appearance of Agatha. He told her that Agatha was his daughter by Enid and he was obligated to take care of her, but warned her that this is a topic most of the town will never acknowledge because there was a lot of blood on the hands of many. She would have to go along with having Agatha under their roof until her home is built.

His wife was not enthusiastic about having that woman under her roof and felt threatened by her presence. It was clear this daughter of Wayne's meant more to him than her or their children. She was used to having her own way all the time and to have someone around who could take it away was too much. She told him to do whatever he had to do to make things right, but until she had her own home she would take the kids and leave the country. She made good on the threat.

Wayne saw to the construction of a nice home for his daughter, filled a trust account for her to have all the money she needed and held the deeds to the land he recovered from Enid to turn over to his daughter upon his death.

Pierre did make good on his promise to make life hard for Wayne should he marry another woman so quickly after the death of his first wife. Many of the contracts he had with suppliers had been dropped and taken over by the Gannette family. Workers in his store have been harassed and forced to quit making it so Wayne needed to work long and hard hours on his own then hiring his sons to help out. Pierre strong armed the politicians he controlled into taking away as much of the land Wayne wanted to save for his daughter. Everything Pierre could think of doing to start rumours about his reputation in town was handled by the local Gannette newspaper called Eagle's Post.

Many years of trying to destroy Wayne has not been completely successful. For every few harsh setback placed upon Wayne, he managed to gain at least one win against Pierre. Pierre was starting to realise that the power he has was being challenged in a way he was not ready to handle. It used to be he could get away with being as ruthless as he wanted because no one else had the power and his other family with such powers let it destroy them in fiery suicidal deaths. He did not want to die that way. He wanted a legacy that would be remembered for generations to come.

All of his triumphs were tarnished by the destruction of his family. One daughter was killed accidentally. Another confined to a private nurse. Another committed suicide. An alcoholic wife who died from the drink. One son who loved men more than women and was not always as discreet as he should be. And the one son he trusted enough to take over his legacy had different moral values and was in a loving relationship that was illegal in the town. All Pierre worked for was being dismantled before his eyes and he tried to gain control over the strange elements that threatened his power. And to think back his downfall started with the arrival of Enid and Wayne.

He wasn't exactly sure from where that woman came and how she managed to take over the prized land he wanted, but she came in quietly and kept to herself. She had the legal entitlements to her purchase and he could not understand why the normal channels he had to usurp the law could not help him throw her off the land. He was too busy with other problems to delve into what Enid was doing, but focused more upon Wayne who was threatening the livelihood of his local business.

Pierre did a check on Wayne's background and found there was no way someone from such humble beginnings with a poor start in the community could ever make such a success on his own. More digging at the library produced a paper trail of books Wayne read that gave him the clue - Wayne's powers were from the supernatural. It was then he decided it was time to solve two problems at once. He would use his loose daughter that was not wanted in polite circles to take out his business enemy.

It was a real heartache that his plan would backfire so badly. Although he did not approve of his daughter's ways, he did love her on some level. In blaming himself for the death of his daughter, he started to lose his focus on the dream of an everlasting name. His family was being destroyed and he could not figure out why. He blamed it on Wayne and fought him tooth and nail, but the more he fought it the worse it got for the Gannette family.

Pierre then was clued in about the arrival of young Miss Agatha who arrived to claim her birthright. This made him awfully nervous. All that land he acquired during her absence could have been taken away if his do-gooder son would interfere like he did for Miss Ada. Wanting to thwart any assistance Evander might give to Agatha, he sent him away to France to conduct business on his behalf for about a month. That would give him enough time to make sure there was no way Agatha could take back the land.

Pierre wanted to at least give his grandchildren a plot of land to call their own, so he did not try to overturn the ownership of Ada to have her acre of land. He also arranged to make sure Agatha would have her acre of land. Everything else not taken over by Wayne was quickly claimed by Pierre who went to the President and pulled some strings to make sure this purchase could not be overturned. He was successful. No one, not even Wayne, was aware of what had taken place before it was too late. Wayne had failed his daughter's interest and was more in fear of what Hestia would do to him than what Pierre would do if he fought back.

Wayne sent message to Pierre to meet with him at the town's hotel so they can settle their old score. Reluctantly, Pierre agreed to meet with him, but came with a gun in hand to protect himself from what could be an ugly situation.

In a quiet room on the second floor, Wayne was waiting for him with a stack of books and papers.

"Come in, Mr. Gannette. We have a lot to discuss."

"Don't waste my time, young man. Get to the point."

"Why did you steal the property from my daughter?"

"Is she your daughter now? I thought you claimed in front of the church and the businessmen that Miss Agatha could belong to anyone. You denied it back then, why are you claiming her now? This is a claim that has even sent your wife and children packing. Be reasonable. She is a bastard. She is a woman. She is for all accounts an orphan. There was no will. All her land was waiting to be taken. You even were in a rush to grab what you could. Or is this about your greed by claiming a daughter you did not want so you can get your hands on what you claim is her property?"

"Let's not play coy. You think you know everything about me, but you don't. I know more about you than you think I do. It was your plan to stir up so much trouble against Enid by setting your daughter against her. In the end, you cost both of them their lives."

"That is not something you could ever prove. Besides, as I recall it, you had a lot more directly to do with their deaths. In fact, I blame you for the death of my Gwen. If you had stayed with her and not put her in direct scandal, she would not have found death as a desirable option. As for Enid, if it were not for your testimony, you would not have had a lynch mob after her."

"But it was your doing that prompted Gwen to have me speak out against Enid. You were behind her pressuring me to do the wrong thing."

"Will you ever take responsibility for your life, man? No one held a gun to your head to do it. You went along with it because you loved her and wanted her all those years. You sold out your good friend and mother of what you now claim is your child all to have the heart of someone who despised you. How is that my fault? It was my job to protect my daughter's interests and you worked against it by your bad choices."

"Then why did you encourage her to marry me? She was clearly not interested in having anything to do with me and refused my earlier offer of divorce because she feared you."

"We both know how you came about such a successful business. I know about those books of the supernatural you have been reading around the time of the overnight growth of your business. Pure witchcraft! You should consider yourself lucky I did not turn the town counsel against you."

"This is where you no longer have a moral high road over me. I will admit I had help from a supernatural source. The kind of help that has damned me for eternity. I also know you are the last in line of a half-immortal breed."

"You are lying, sir! That is not true."

"I know it for a fact. I have traced your family tree back a few generations and became suspicious when your great-grandfather who was the successful founder of this town mysteriously disappeared and in your lineage strange things have been happening to your family. I know your days are numbered because of your lifetime of breaking the laws of the Darkness and your actions behind killing Enid. The Darkness no longer recognises you as one of their kind with the same protections and the Lightness refuses you for the suffering you put upon innocent souls."

"I was not behind killing Enid. Even if it were so, why would it matter?"

"Like you, Enid was a half-immortal. You broke one of the major rules of the Darkness by killing your equal. Even if you did not put your hands on her, you were responsible for the mastermind of her destruction. You are the main person responsible for her death by manipulating many people into doing your dirty work for you so you could take her land."

At that instant the earth shook. The ceiling started to crumble and fall on top of the men. As Wayne started to run for the door, Pierre took out his gun and shot him in the back. Wayne moaned as he writhed in pain on the floor, turned his head and witnessed a big chunk of the ceiling come crashing down on Pierre's head. As Pierre was semi-conscious on the floor, Wayne used the situation to his advantage. He crawled over to his body and poured a flask of whiskey on him then lit a fire over his body.

As Wayne was critically injured, he could not get away fast enough as the flames quickly engulfed and killed Pierre. The quake stopped and men came racing upstairs to try and rescue survivors only to find the room in flames and Wayne crawling and moaning on the floor. They tried to beat down the flames to get to him, but by that time his body was almost entirely burned and Pierre was quite dead. They pulled Wayne out of the fire and took him to the nearest doctor for treatment. It was the sad duty of the town's mayor to inform the Gannette family of the passing of Pierre.

Wayne would spend the rest of his days with the pain associated with the massive burn scars left all over his body, limbs which have fallen off, and the looks of disgust from the townsfolk who would turn away when he came by. Even his wife and children avoided being with him as much as possible. If it were not for the forgiveness granted to him by Agatha, he would have died a lonely old man. Agatha was the only one to always stand by his side after he made up for his errors and proudly admitted to being her father.

The town was in shock at hearing the news of Pierre Gannette, but in the same moment a cold chill went down their spines as the evil curse finally settled down amongst the denizens. They had no idea of the living hell it would mean to live in Kensington Falls. Those who tried to leave to make their homes somewhere else were tragically killed. After awhile, people gave up hope and prayed things would get better.

The Gannette men were now the ones in charge of the mess left behind by their father. Everything he did to acquire the money and power they had only alienated them from most of the people in town who feared them. They both knew that if they wished to keep the money and power they would have to adopt some of their father's reprehensible ways.

Evander took in Ada to be the live in maid while her family were allowed to live on her property, free from harassment of the rest of the town. His wife was always aware of her status with him and only stayed in the relationship for the money and power. She really did not care there was another woman in his life and his heart. As long as she had all her needs met and he kept his responsibilities to their sons, she would gladly look the other way as her husband's mistress moved into their home.

Claude was now in a better position to be free to pursue a more active relationship with Jonathan. Although both men were married and had children, they were married to each other in their own minds. Their wives knew exactly what was going on with their husbands and often came together in support of each other while looking the other way at the indiscretions of their husbands. They had money and treated them decently while allowing them to pursue other men on the side.

The Gannette daughter was grief-stricken when she found out about the death of her father which was only a few years after the death of her mother. All the friends she used to have never came to see her. All the education she had was useless. No man would ever have her in that condition. The nurse she had was not exactly friendly and would often neglect her while stealing her precious jewels. She could not stand her life and did the only thing she had the power to do. She turned her head down towards the pillows late at night and suffocated herself to death.

Only the passing of time would obscure the relevance of anything that had happened and why the hard feelings remained unchanged for generations. The one stable thing in the community was the standing of the mansions of the town's two rival powers now in the hands of their grandchildren many generations over and a strange little home that has mostly gone unnoticed with a resident most people barely acknowledge. Agatha lived to see the people born and die in the community. It was her vow to make them all pay for the pain they caused her mother, a mother she would never know.

To be continued...