shadows and stones - an original fiction series of gothic, horror, dark fantasy

“Go, Deadmarsh, GO, GO, GO!!!!” I scream. Like poetry in motion, the puck slides between the goalie’s legs and the crowd erupts in exultation. So do I.

“YEEEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!! Eat that, Detroit!” Only five minutes left in the game, and the Avs are ahead by two goals now. Detroit might manage a tie in that time, but I doubt it.

“Eva, if you must cause destruction during these games, could you please ruin things of less value? That pillow was hand embroidered in the 1500s, I can’t replace it easily.”

Rath’s sarcasm breaks my concentration. I glance down and realize, for the first time, that I’ve been pounding and clutching a rather old throw pillow. One side seam appears to have come open: the stuffing within, a tangled mass of threads and rags, pokes out. On the front, serene ladies sit in a garden setting, looking at me with disapproval in their needlework eyes. I don't think I’ve ever seen anything uglier: Rath ought to thank me for ruining it.

“Sakic wins the face-off…” Without giving it another thought, I chuck the pillow at Rath’s head, sinking my fingers into Roybear, instead, as I glue my eyes back on the TV screen. Off to the side I hear a thud as the pillow connects with something; hopefully, its target. Another offside call halts play in the game almost immediately, so I smooth down Roybear’s jersey, smiling as I remember the look on Mama’s face when she gave him to me. ‘Something to destroy during the tense moments, instead of my cushions,’ she’d said. Like I would ever destroy the big brown bear while he wears a Patrick Roy jersey! I hug him, and the memory, as play resumes.

Thirty minutes later the game is over. Another exquisite play by Forsberg ends it with a final score of 3-0: a total slaughter, my favorite kind. Shutting off the TV, I lay back on the rather uncomfortable couch and look over at Rath.

Somehow he has managed to sit through an entire hockey game without once looking up from the book he is reading. If I hadn’t already known he isn’t fully human, that would have confirmed it. An evil thought enters my mind.

I take Rath completely by surprise, throwing my arms around him and catching him in a sudden embrace. He doesn’t tense up quite as much as he has in the past when I’ve done this. Bummer, I’ll have to find some other way to disconcert him.

“Thank you so much Rath,” I say in my sweetest tones.

“For what?” Suspicion tinges his voice. Good, it means I’m bothering him.

“For getting me my hockey games, of course!”

“Don’t thank me, Eva, it was purely self defense.” None too gently, he shoves me off and picks up the book my embrace made him drop. “If I hadn’t gotten you a way to watch those games I would have had to listen to you whining every time you missed one. It might have driven me to violence.”

“Give me a break, a bad hair day can push you to violence.” Rath glares at me over the edge of the book, which he is pretending to read once more.

“Go away, little child, I’d like at least a few moments of silence before the noises of the day begin.”

“Yes, oh great and wise Master.” I bow formally before sprinting past him on my way out of the room. I’m fairly certain that if I don’t depart, Rath will throw something more painful than a pillow at me. I shouldn’t tease him so much, it really was wonderful of him to get the TV and the games for me.

Ice cold air slaps me like a wet towel just as my foot catches on something lying on the floor. Stumbling, I lose my balance, falling hard. In front of me Roybear goes sliding, flying from my grip as I try to stop myself. My head connects with the hardwood floor before I even think to change shape. Stunned by the impact, I don’t move. Just as well that I stay put, since my first action would probably be to kill Rath. Does he ask if I’m all right? Does he come to give me a hand up? Hell no, the bastard is sitting there clapping.

“Bravo, Eva. Have you ever considered a career in dance? With such natural grace it should be a snap.”

“Fuck you!”

“Not in this or any other lifetime, Eva love.” Rath is laughing at me, I can hear it in his voice although I refuse to look. As I continue to contemplate means of injuring him, I sense, more than hear, his approach behind me. To my surprise he smacks me across the head with something soft and lumpy.

Looking, finally, I see the embroidered pillow held firmly in his hand.

“That will teach you to toss around valuable antiques.”

Obviously he thinks I tripped on the pillow, but there is something else, a small, slightly curved object lying by my feet. Rolling into a sitting position, I reach to pick it up.

Ice water pours through my body, starting at a point on the base of my neck and flooding down and forward through my torso until it reaches the very tip of my outstretched hand. Motion becomes impossible, not even my lips can move to make a sound. Only my eyes seem capable of activity. Frantically, I roll them trying to see what holds me rigid when I notice a hand, smaller than my own yet overlaying it perfectly, reaching for the object. As if a string has suddenly snapped, I can move again and the object is in my firm grasp.

“NO! Oh, please, no!” A tiny cry of fright seems to be inside my head, yet also directly behind me. I turn and see a little girl, no more than maybe seven years old, pressing one hand to her mouth as if in fear, while the other clutches her wrinkled dress in a fist. Eyes wide and filled with tears, she backs away, then runs, little slippers stepping silently on the wooden floor.

“Come back!” I call out, but she is gone. How did she get into the house without us knowing? Why is she so afraid?

“Give it up, Eva. You didn’t fall that hard.”

I turn on Rath: how dare he be so sarcastic about that child’s fear.

“Dammit, Rath, you probably scared the crap out of that poor kid!”

“What kid?”

“The little girl who just ran off, the one who cried out! Don’t tell me you didn’t see or hear her!” I shouldn’t shout, it doesn’t help, but I hate it when Rath pretends like this.

Rath doesn’t answer me, instead he looks off in the direction I am pointing. As I watch he breathes in deeply, testing the air for scents. His eyes change, pupils enlarging then shrinking, color and size altering moment after moment until they resume their normal form again while he continues to stare at the darkness past me. Finally, he looks back at me with concern, kneeling down to place his hand onto my forehead.

“You’ve hit your head harder than I thought, Eva.” Gently Rath feels my skull to see if I’ve broken anything. I’m too stunned at his behavior to stop him. “There is no one in the house but you and I, Brigid and Hannah. Scent for yourself, Eva, smell cannot be deceived as the eye can.”

Rising, he helps me to my feet. I’m still too amazed to protest. “Go rest for a while, Eva.”

“You didn’t see her?” I can’t believe it could be true.

“There was no one here.”

I let Rath walk me to my room, thanking him automatically as he sets me on the bed and puts Roybear in my arms. He is wrong, he has to be wrong. I know I saw the girl, heard her cry. I saw the old style dress and small satin slippers. Remembering the object suddenly, I open my hand. Its shape has become imprinted on my palm, so firmly had I been clutching it. I get a sudden chill.

A doll’s hand made of porcelain, broken off about an inch above the wrist, echoes with eerie precision the exact pose of my own hand. This isn’t something new, something bought at a department store in town. My best friend, Liz, collects old dolls, so I know more about them than I should. The one this hand belonged to must have been a fine one, a very old and fine one.

There are no dolls in the house, or at least no dolls I have ever seen in the open. Rath hardly seems the sort to buy them. Not even Hannah has any in her rooms, only a few stuffed toys and fresh flowers. Yet, despite its obvious age, the hand could not have lain in the hallway long. Melanie, the housekeeper, is meticulous when it comes to cleaning. She would never have left something like this broken hand out in plain view. So where did it come from? The pillow?

The wait for Rath to leave the sitting room seems endless to me: when he finally does rise and head for the kitchen, I know he’ll be back soon, he’s left his book lying open on the table. Fine with me, I only need a few seconds. Shaping from mouse form into an eagle, I grasp the embroidered pillow firmly in my claws, then shoot back up to my room.

Examining the tear, I realize it had nothing to do with my manhandling. The seam had been pulled out years ago, the broken threads are completely gone. I finish picking open the seam on the entire side, careful not to harm the embroidered top. Upending the pillow, I dump the contents onto my bed. At first it looks like a mass of tangled rags and threads, then I see the lacy edge of a dress. Gently I separate the mess.

When I’m done most of the doll lies before me, wrinkled and broken, yet still hauntingly lovely with its pale skin and china blue eyes. A crack mars the perfection of the face and one of the two feet has been snapped in half, otherwise only a little straightening out and gluing of the hand is needed to make her perfect again. But why on earth would Rath have a pillow stuffed with a porcelain doll? Or does he even know? On reflection, I think he must be ignorant of this. Not even a hint of his scent comes from the doll or her parts – though after who knows how many years, that isn’t surprising.

Retrieving the hand from my nightstand and a tube of glue from my craft box I settle down to make the repairs. A few drops of super glue are all it takes to put the hand back onto its delicate wrist. I wipe the residue away quickly, before it can dry into little bumps. She is beautiful, the doll, gazing up from where I have set her on the desk to dry. I wonder if it belonged to the little girl I saw?

“It’s not whole yet.”

The same tentative voice, soft as a wisp of smoke drifts towards me. I turn from the desk to see the child, vaguely transparent in the dim light of my room, standing by the closed door. Cold permeates the air this time, instead of my body, yet I’m frozen in place, absorbed by the vision of what must surely be a ghost. I’m afraid to speak or breathe in the event either might drive her away into the night, yet I want badly to talk to her.

“It has to be whole!” There is so much distress in her tones, so much anxiety in her eyes. Were she living, I’m sure tears would streak her face.

“Do you know where the foot is? If you tell me, I’ll fix it for you.” I speak as gently as I can – terrified I might drive her away. Can she even hear me?

“I don’t know!”

It’s a heartbreaking wail. I move without thinking to comfort a child in need. My arms reach to encircle her in an embrace, but they hold only cold air for a split second before everything dissolves. Once more I am overcome by the sensation of ice water freezing my body, then I seem to slip outside of myself and see through another’s eyes.

It isn’t my bedroom anymore, but another part of the house. Proportions seem distorted until I realize I am looking up at everything, rather than being at eye level. A small boy runs into my field of vision and he is carrying the doll. His clothing is strange, though vaguely familiar, like something from a film based on Jane Austin. Running just ahead of my outstretched hands he is being terribly reckless in his handling of the fragile porcelain doll. Swinging it back and forth and around above his head, I know it can be only moments away from inevitable trouble.

My own hands – or perhaps those of the little girl – come into my line of sight. I’m trying to take the doll back, rescue it from its abductor. He is taller than I, able to dangle the prize well beyond my grasp. Again and again I’m trying to take it back, a sense of desperation filling my actions. Finally, an edge of the doll’s dress is caught between my fingers, and I pull at the doll in a child’s tug of war. Being a boy, he does the obvious – gleefully releasing his hold at the moment I am pulling strongly away from him.

I fall backwards, the doll flying from my grasp as momentum sends me sprawling. Up until now I have heard no sounds, but the shattering of the porcelain doll is clearly audible. I look to the boy and see he has blanched at the enormity of what has happened. Fear is etched into every part of his being, and I know it is in mine as well.

Suddenly, I’m released from my paralysis, once more in my bedroom, in the here and now. My hands fall to the carpet, clenching the thick pile. I remain kneeling, trying to understand what I have seen, what has happened. The girl is no longer with me, yet I swear I hear her voice echoing in my head. One mournful word – please.

The night is a long one, but for once I don’t have to struggle to remain awake. By the time dawn arrives, I have the beginnings of a plan. Hiding the doll in a desk drawer, I hasten out of my room and down the stairs.

Approaching the kitchen, I can hear the sounds of industry echoing down the hall. Ursula is busy preparing one of her wonderfully fattening and tasty breakfasts.

Food isn’t why I’m here this morning, though. Besides being the most incredible cook I’ve ever known, Ursula is also a fount of knowledge regarding the history of this house and the area. If anyone can tell me about children who may have lived here, it will be she.

While pouring myself a glass of orange juice, I innocently make my inquiry. Ursula looks thoughtful for a moment before coming up with her answer.

“As a matter of fact, I do believe there were a few children living here once.”

I park myself on a nearby stool, encouraging her to continue while she kneads the dough for rolls.

“It was one of those times, not too long after the mansion was remodeled, when Master Rath decided to spend some time journeying out of the country, or maybe it was when he was out looking for little Hannah.” She pauses for a moment to fetch the rolling pin. I want to beg her to stop cooking and just talk, but that would be unfair of me, so I try to be patient.

“Well, either way, he was gone for a good while, and the house was let for the summer to a couple from somewhere up north. That sort of thing was fairly common in those times, kept the house in operation and prevented unscrupulous individuals from taking advantage of it while the Master was away.

“If I recall correctly, the husband was an older gentleman who had two children from a previous marriage. His new wife was quite young, and they hadn’t been married very long when they came to live here.”

Two children! It was exactly what I saw in the vision. “What happened to them? Did they just move out when Rath came back?” I try not to sound too eager. The last thing I need is Ursula wondering why I’m so curious.

“Hmmmmm, let me think.” Ursula stops cutting rolls to focus on remembering the tale. “No, as a matter of fact, it ended badly. The children disappeared one day – lost out in the woods was what most locals thought. The wife went mad with grief, rather touching since they weren’t even her flesh and blood. She was sent off to an asylum and the husband left the area. Don’t know what happened to him after that.

“My grandmother – who told me all this – said that when Master Rath returned, he thought it might have been vampires who stole the little ones. He went after them with a vengeance, but their leader, I think his name was Thomas, somehow managed to convince the Master they were innocent on this occasion. Still, no bodies were ever found, nor even a scrap of clothes, so who knows?”

I might, though I don’t tell Ursula. Thanking her, I snag some toast and head for the part of the house I saw in the vision. As I walk, I wonder why I could see the girl, yet Rath couldn’t sense a thing. Is it because I’m female? Or is this some sort of weird ability I have – like the way Rath can sense others of our kind over long distances. Seeing ghosts is certainly more interesting.

I’m still chomping down toast when I reach the part of the house I’m looking for. Not surprisingly, my vision places the breaking of the doll in almost the exact place I tripped last night. Sitting on the hardwood floor so I can recapture the child’s perspective, I try to imagine where the doll would have fallen when the girl fell backwards. It probably didn’t go too far behind her.

Closing my eyes, I look for details in my memory. The frame of a painting lingers in the corner of my left eye. Looking, I see there is still a painting in that place, a different one, though. Scooting myself until I am at exactly the right angle, I flop backwards, arm extended overhead, reasoning that it may represent how far the doll fell.

Naturally Rath walks up on me right at that moment. He’d approached from behind, and focused as I was, I failed to hear him. Now he is standing over me, looking down with a bemused expression on his face.

“I don’t know whether to be worried about you, or ignore you.”

“Ignore me.”

Amazingly, he does, stepping carefully around my body and sauntering off in the direction of the kitchen. Tantalizing breakfast smells are drifting to where I am, but I put food out of my mind as I go back to the scenario I am laying out.

Now that I have my approximate area, I try to think where the piece of doll’s foot might have fallen. The children must have looked for it, so if it remained undiscovered, it must have gotten hidden somehow. But where? And will it still be there after more than a century? Again I close my eyes to better remember what I saw in the vision.

The girl and boy were chasing down this hall, towards the sitting room. When I was experiencing the event, I focused on the boy and the doll: now I try to shift my inner eye to catch the surroundings. Once more I see the painting to the left: near it is a short end table. Then I have it. The children ran past a large cabinet of some kind, one that was raised only an inch from the ground by its pedestal legs. If the doll’s foot fell beneath there, they would have been unable to retrieve it alone.

The cabinet is long gone, however, and where it stood is bare floor. My search is over then – after all, once the cabinet was moved the piece would have been found and thrown away – when I notice that along that side of the wall some of the siding has been badly joined. There is a crack, not big enough for anything as large as mouse, but enough for the piece of foot to fall through.

I haven’t tried shaping an insect yet, but I’ll have to in order to check out the crack. After some deliberation, I decide to be a spider: a black widow. Might as well go in style if you are going to turn into something that can be squished. I concentrate hard on the species, which I am familiar with from my days visiting Aunt Marcia in Texas.

Everything around me distorts as I change shape.

From the perspective of this small size, what had been a crack is now a gaping chasm. I race towards it, letting the spider instinct take over in attaching a drop line to the edge. Slowly I spin more cable as I go in, trying desperately not to think too much about the fact that I’m shooting web out of my butt. If I let the oddities of my form break my concentration, I could lose my grip on the shape. Becoming human again in this enclosed space would be very painful.

God, luck, karma, whatever you want to call it is with me. There is no drop off inside the opening, only more flooring. The walls themselves have a hollow gap in the framework and there, about five inches away from me is the enormous piece of foot. Size, of course, is relative: as a human the foot would be nothing, but as a spider I’m looking at a piece of porcelain big enough to build a house in! Still, I need to get it out and glued to the doll.

Making some estimates I figure the space inside the wall is big enough for a small mouse, so I get behind the piece of foot and shape again, this time to rodent form. Now the foot is more manageable and I use my paws and nose to push it to and through the gap. Once it’s on the outside, I shape a spider again to make my own exit. As soon as I am far enough away, I shift back into myself, relieved to be out.

I pick up the piece of foot and instantly feel the cold presence of the girl behind me.

“You found it. Oh, please bring it back. We can’t get out until you bring it back.”

“Get out?”

She doesn’t answer me, having faded away like drifting bits of dust passing a sunbeam. Meanwhile I smell breakfast, even stronger now then before. With the foot discovered, the sense of immediacy has lessened, and I’m now extremely hungry. The doll will wait until I finish eating; after all, it has already waited more than a hundred years.

Later, alone in my room, I glue the final piece to the doll. Now it sits peaceful and complete on the desk – but where is my little ghost? I wait for her to appear again, to show me what to do, but after an hour nothing has happened. I wonder, do I need to be holding the doll?

Carefully, I pick it up. Nothing. I must be insane to think this will do anything. Flopping backwards onto the bed I set the doll on my stomach, wondering what could be so important about it. The workmanship is delicate and obviously was done by a highly skilled artist. The dress is not machine sewn, yet each stitch is absolutely perfect in length, no snags or uneven lines. Even so, at the time it was broken, the doll would not have been that remarkable.

Inch by inch I examine the clothing, to see if there might be something hidden on it, a note or jewel or something, but I find nothing. Frustrated, I push the doll off of my stomach onto the bed. It clinks a little, the porcelain legs knocking one another as it falls. Perhaps it is the sound, or the familiar motion which finally causes my ghost to return.

Tears well in my eyes as I watch her try frantically to grasp the doll in her insubstantial hands. Unable to take it, she shakes with sobs, though I can see no tears on her face. Trying to help her, I pick the doll up, reaching over to see if somehow I can place it in her hands, and again, as my skin comes in contact with the ghost, I become frozen and witness more.

We could not find the final piece of the doll. In fear, the boy pulls the body and hand out of my grasp. I can’t tell what he is saying, but I think he plans to hide it – he must, or I wouldn’t have found it over a century later. Keeping watch, I am frantic, my eyes darting here and there, still hoping to catch a glimpse of the missing piece. It’s too late, however. I’m whirled around and I see a woman, obviously young, yet ugly with anger, pulling on my arm.

She is screaming. I can make out nothing articulate as I try to read her lips, but I sense it is the doll she is demanding. All along I believed it was the girl’s; instead, it appears to belong to this woman. The step-mother? She must be. Without releasing my arm, she moves in the direction of the boy, still screaming – probably his name. He is pale, shaking, and without the doll when he appears.

Interrogated, he doesn’t give in, denying, I believe, any knowledge of the doll’s whereabouts. I’m no longer being held, I can see both of the woman’s hands gesturing frantically. But the child, whose body I’m sharing, is too frightened to move. Suddenly, the woman has the boy in both hands, slapping him violently before throwing him down against a nearby wooden chair. He falls, too limply, to the floor. I think she has killed him.

The woman knows it too. She shakes him and his head rolls unnaturally on his neck. Abruptly, she drops him, turning on me. I must be screaming, for the woman’s hand closes quickly over my mouth and nose. This time when she speaks I see the word’s clearly: be quiet or I will hurt you even more.

Quickly, she lifts the boy’s body in one arm, grabbing me with her other hand. The house seems to fly by as I’m dragged down endless corridors and up flights of stairs until we reach one of the attics. Crates are stacked all over, but here and there a clear space of wall shows, and on one of these is a door. Dropping the boy as though he were no more than a sack of clothes, the woman opens the door. Inside is a closet, mostly empty save for a few small wooden boxes. In mere moments the boy has been stuffed on top of them. Then she turns to me.

I wish I could stop her, wish I could do something to prevent what I know to be inevitable. Both of her hands ring my throat. My small hands struggle, trying to pull the adult arms away. Images are chaotic as my head shakes with the effort to free myself. Then my angle of vision slips sideways, motion ceases, and I know I, the girl, have died.

Horrifyingly, however, my eyes are still seeing. I see the closet coming closer, and then the rush of the boy’s face as my body is dropped on top of the girl’s brother. The last thing I see is the small patch of light on the box below growing narrower and narrower as the door is closed.

My ghost is gone: I can move again. All I do, however, is weep at such a pointless, inhuman crime. It’s only after I have cried myself dry that I realize there is a pounding on my bedroom door – I had locked it when I repaired the doll. Opening it, I see Rath there, obviously frantic.

“What’s happened to you?” he implores, while at the same time scouring my room with his eyes, as though seeking an intruder.

“Nothing, Rath. I’m fine.”

“To hell you are. I could feel it all the way downstairs, and I wasn’t even trying. I thought someone was trying to kill you.”

His concern, after witnessing the callousness of the woman in my vision, pushes me over the edge and I dissolve once more into tears. As much as I hate Rath sometimes, I must admit, he is always there when I really need him. He holds me until I’m finished with crying, then guides me to the bed where, in between sobs, I tell him about my ghost and the doll.

“So they are trapped here somehow, until the doll is returned?”

“I guess. It sounds like what she means. But Rath, what if they are still in the attic?”

“They probably are. I haven’t been in parts of it for decades. Describe what you saw to me again.”

I do as he asks, and he nods thoughtfully.

“Yes, I know which attic that is.” When he makes a decision, Rath doesn’t waste time. Immediately he leaves my room, leading the way. I haven’t explored the upper regions, but I’m finding things eerily familiar as we head towards a final staircase. Opening the door, Rath gestures for me to precede him, but I can’t go up there first. Finally he goes ahead instead. There is no door at the top, the stairs simply go straight up through the floor above. I look around and realize nothing has changed at all in this attic since the children were killed. Or I should say, almost nothing. Where the door should be there is a stack of crates, blocking it from view. Their step-mother must have moved the crates there, hiding the children’s tomb from view forever.

I point the crates out and Rath quickly shifts them out of the way.

“Do you want to open it, Eva, or should I?”

“I will.”

My hand is shaking as I reach for the handle. It turns easily and the door swings open. I’d hoped I might be wrong, but there they are, two skeletons intertwined atop the crates in the closet. Fabric held up better than flesh, and I can still make out which bones are which child’s from their clothes. Looking back at Rath, I find that he too is horrified by what we have found.

“Rath?” It’s an appeal. He holds me again, and this time we are both crying.

Tomorrow the children will be laid to rest. Rath arranged for them to be buried together at the small church cemetery. Since it’s likely they were Protestant, the Vicar will provide services. I expect most of the villagers will attend: Ursula told me the story has spread quickly among them, and it seems many had heard the tale of the lost children from their grandparents. Despite the age of the mystery, resolution has brought a sense of relief to them all.

Before the funeral can take place, however, Rath and I have one other task to accomplish. Driving without a break, we eventually reach the town of York. After some wrong turns and searching we find the place our research has led us to: On a simple marble stone her name is engraved: Catherine Anne Midvale. Beloved Wife.

Was she really beloved? Did her husband know the truth of his children’s fate? Probably not, or I’m certain he would have found them and given them decent burial. Still, he may have wondered after his young wife went so completely insane. Thirty-five years she spent in an asylum. Was that punishment enough for what she did, or is she still tormented, even in death?

While Rath watches, I remove the doll from the bag I carry. Gently I set it down on top of the grave, leaning on the headstone. Here in this disused old cemetery it will probably never be found or stolen. If it is, however, I don’t care. I’ve returned the doll, let her soul assume the charge of protecting it now.

“Was it really worth it?” I whisper to the headstone. That’s the only question I have left to me, but if she is a ghost, she hides herself from my vision. I suppose I will never know why the doll led to the murder of those children.

“Shall we go?” Rath asks, after I’ve stood lost in thought for what feels like an hour.

“Yes.”

Back home we go to our rooms to rest before tomorrow’s funeral. I curl on my bed embracing Roybear. Though I treasure the toy as a gift from my mother, I can’t imagine I would ever be so angry at his loss to be willing to kill. He is, after all, only a toy, insignificant compared to a human life.

I feel a draft of cold and immediately look up. My little ghost has returned, but I shouldn’t call her that any longer. My research told me more than just where her step-mother was buried, it gave me the little girl’s name.

“Emily?”

She smiles at me then reaches out with her transparent arms. For a split second I feel the warm embrace of a grateful child. Then she is gone, and this time I’m certain she will never return.

�

episode i: journey into darkness - episode ii: tea party - episode iii: awakening
episode iv: the book of grief - episode v: paterfamilias - episode vi: breaking points
episode vii: the dark of the mind - episode viii: decisions
episode ix: momentary distractions - episode x: exorcising demons i
episode xi: porcelain visions - episode xii: the nature of jackals
episode xiii: exorcising demons ii - episode xiv: the invitation
episode xv: body & soul - episode xvi: mothering sunday
episode xvii: imbalance of power - episode xviii: interlude
episode xix: between life and death

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