The Pretender: Island of the Haunted Page #4

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Or what's left of it.

-I've never seen it rain and snow at once.

-Well, it is the devil's storm.

NoI No, Daddy, noI

How could a man

destroy his family...

just for his pursuit

of greed and power?

Why don't you ask

your father that?

What is it?

It's a muddy boot print,

just like we saw in the chapel-

and it's fresh.

Hey!

There's nothing for you over there.

It's over here. Follow me.

Wait, wait!

Wait for me!

Miss ParkerI

Are you all right?

What's wrong?

She led me here so I'd

know where I come from!

- What do you mean?

- The crypt keeper's family!

They're who I am!

No, Daddy, noI

Brother Menenicus was right.

This is the devil's storm.

You were lucky

to make it back alive.

It's not just the storm.

We're not alone here.

You're shivering.

Give me those wet clothes to dry.

Then my feeling

was justified.

- Feeling?

- My feeling that the only goodness left on the island...

is the connection between

you and Miss Parker.

- No, thank you.

- It's not for you.

Go to her.

It's not exactly the monks'brandy,but

Ocee says it's good for emotional upheaval.

Can she back a truckload

of it up to my house?

Let the storm rage outside,

Miss Parker...

not inside you.

Easy for you to say,

Jarod.

A graveyard full of Parkers

burned to death by their father...

my great-grandfather...

the same year that my great-grandfather

arrived,alone,and founded the Centre.

Generation

after generation...

that evil...

has been passed down to me.

You know who you are.

I'm a Parker. And with every

new revelation in my life...

my family portrait

becomes...

a more hideous picture.

Do you remember

when we were kids...

that night that I snuck you

into my father's office?

You said if I was

really a genius...

I would be able to figure out

where your father hid the present...

he bought you

on his business trip.

And later you found it exactly

where I said it would be.

Yeah. Only it wasn't.

I just told you that it was

because I was so disappointed.

My father lied

about buying it.

The pathetic part

is that I've been...

searching for that gift

from Daddy ever since.

Your father, the Centre-

manipulation

is what they do.

The only present

they ever left us with was...

emptiness.

All those Parker graves

out there go way beyond empty.

Which brings me back

to wondering-

Who it is you really are?

I don't know now if I

really ever wanna know.

Yes. Yes, you do.

The Centre wants us to believe

that finding the truth is a mistake...

that looking for answers about

who we really are is futile...

and finding

any kind of connection...

outside their control

is wrong.

I know you don't want to hear this,

but you can feel it.

You've been a Centre prisoner

all these years,just like me.

And with every discovery,

you find you-

you're every bit

the outcast.

Just like me.

Why is it that

the one person...

that I've been trained

to distrust, to hate...

to capture...

is always with me...

during the most difficult

moments of my life.

Maybe...

it's supposed to

be that way.

I don't want to interrupt.

Would anyone care

for more tea?

Ocee, please let me help you.

Thank you.

- It's her!

- Who?

-It's the girl that led me to the chapel.

-Cannot be that little girl.

It is her.

And she's holding the doll.

Impossible. This little girl

is the crypt keeper's daughter.

She's been dead

a hundred years.

Syd, I'm worried

about Miss Parker.

Me too. I'm afraid there are no

answers to her whereabouts here.

Her house either.

I invited myself in through

the bathroom window.

But get this.

I wasn't the only one who'd broken

into her house looking for her.

Somebody besides us is damn

interested in finding her too.

I wonder where she is.

Angelo.

What's he trying

to tell us?

"Terribilis est locus iste. "

Terrible things happen here.

Terrible things

happen where?

"19-240-86."

- What's it mean, Angelo?

- All about the Parkers.

Truth about the Parkers.

Terrible things.

This sketch, the self-portrait

of the little Parker girl-

She gave it to

the priest from the chapel...

Father Theo,

on the day she died.

- What a tragedy.

- Oh, yes. Theirs and his.

His?

The night the crypt keeper's family

burned to death,Father Theo also died.

A mysterious accident.

He supposedly fell

from the chapel balcony.

My father was a good friend

of Father Theo's.

He got all

his personal items...

including this sketch

of Angel...

which he was clutching

in his hands when he died.

Did you just

call her Angel?

That's what her father called her.

Does that mean something to you?

Everything means something.

If Father Theo was clutching this when

he died,that means something too.

We need to find out everything

we can about Father Theo.

All his belongings

are in the archive chamber.

Evil scrolls, ghosts...

a little family arson.

All a perfect Parker fit.

Call me crazy, but I'm ready

to believe in curses.

Well, cursed or not,

the scrolls...

have enough value that our mothers are

willing to risk their lives to find them.

Here's Father Theo's chest...

just where Ocee

said it would be.

Meet Father Theo.

Humble belongings

of a humble man.

And a dead end.

- Maybe. And maybe not.

- What?

You see how the binding

is loose in the photo here?

But it's been

re-stitched here.

It's a letter that Father Theo

wrote to his Bishop in Glasgow.

And it's dated the day

Father Theo died.

"Bless me,Your Holiness,for I break

the sanctity of the confessional..

"as I commit these words

to paper.

This eve, the daughter

of the local crypt keeper"-

Spoke words of such terror that

the quill quivers in my hand as I write.

Her father, she claims, discovered and stole

the long sought-after scrolls of Vespa.

The demons have now turned

this once loving man into a tormented soul.

In trying to save him

from eternal damnation...

she took and re-hid the scrolls,

along with three other items-

a leather pouch,

a porcelain doll...

and an eerily

accurate self-portrait.

She said they were

to remember her by...

as if she had realized her time

upon this earth was nearing its end.

Her words regarding the scrolls

terrified me,Your Holiness.

"While she told me the location of the scrolls...

she holds the key to

finding them still. "

It's unfinished.

He must have been interrupted

while he wrote this.

And hid it in this Bible

so it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands.

My great-grandfather

must have discovered...

that his little girl had

confessed to Father Theo...

and killed him

trying to find the scrolls.

She tried to save her father

from his own demons...

knowing it would

cost her her life.

Father Theo writes...

"She holds the key to

finding the scrolls still. "

"She holds the key. "

Not her.

Your great-grandfather must have

brought this to America...

and my mother brought it

back with her for her search.

"She holds the key. "

Father Theo

hid the scrolls...

and put the key to finding them

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