Shadows of a Dark Past

In Shadows of a Dark Past, Jessica, James, and Liz step beyond the pale and into the realm of the supernatural on an isle in the mouth of New Hampshire’s Piscataqua River. While James is temporarily out of the picture on research, Jessica and Elizabeth join the rest of the Wellstone Mystery Hour crew at Carlyle House on Birdsong Island during a gorgeous October. In an effort to raise the radio show’s ratings, producer/directer Scott Zimkeiwicz and writer Bev McDuff have brought a selected number of cast and crew to the island for a remote broadcast at the reputedly haunted Carlyle Mansion, with the affable cooperation of owner Philip Carlyle. Here, Felicia Blasko, a family friend living on the island with her scientist husband and daughter, disappeared the night before Halloween some twenty years before. All anyone knows is that she and a younger Carlyle brother disappeared that night after an altercation between this brother and her neglectful husband. Now, she is reported to walk the halls of the mansion, searching for  . . . peace? justice? One broadcast positing possibilities behind her disappearance and another of a séance calling her spirit to answer these questions have been planned by Scott and his writer. The séance will go horribly wrong. Beyond that tragedy, Jessica and Liz find themselves enveloped in the shadows of a troubled romance between Felicia’s embittered daughter and actor Gerry Davis; a friendly housekeeper who also seems to hold back troubling knowledge; the fascination of both Philip Carlyle and Vitus Blasko with Jessica;  an unsettling connection Jessica discovers between herself and Felicia that threatens her stability; and Felicia’s presence brooding over everyone’s minds and hearts - all while the wildfires of Maine rage across the border. Even Liz’s attempts to help by bringing James to the island go awry, for the ambiance raises wraiths from James’s tragic family past that he has tried so long to suppress.Shadows still entertains with the witty badinage of Jessica, James, and Liz. Yet it also haunts with the eerie tendrils of supernatural suspense ensnaring Jess, her husband, and her sister.