Dawn finally reached the shores of Collinsport. The night previous had seen the new branch of the Collins family torn apart within only hours of it's creation thanks to a culmination of a five decades long lie. Victoria Winters had been manipulated and lied to all her life and because of that her decision to take Caleb and Kat's new baby son away to another dimension of time would send ripples through the family for generations to come.
At Collinwood, the family awoke after a terrible night's sleep and all awaited news from Barnabas who had offered himself to get the baby back from Victoria, after all he had the most history with her. If anyone could reason with Vickie once the truth about her birth family was revealed it would be Barnabas.
Caleb was now in his own bed under a medically induced sleep while Kat sat at his bed sight staring at the man she loved. The man she thought had perished in a plane crash and thanked God he had returned. It was all, of course, bitter sweet. Caleb returned but their baby was stolen by a woman out for revenge. It was all too hard to comprehend.
There was an autumn chill in the room. Kat could feel it all through the air and down to her bones. As Caleb rested she stepped over to his side of the bed and carefully pulled the blanket higher, making sure he was snuggled in. She rubbed her exposed arms and looked for a small sweater to keep warm when suddenly there was a knock at the door.
Kat quickly rushed over so that another knock wouldn't wake Caleb. She opened the door and standing there was her partner at the police station, Detective Loomis McGovern.
"We need to talk!" Loomis said in a hushed voice.
Kat shushed him and pushed Loomis back into the hallway away from her sleeping boyfriend. and closed the door behind her.
"What are you in here? Have you heard anything about the baby? Do you have any leads?" Kat said, her own detective skills rushing back to her.
"The housekeeper let me in, and no, not yet, we're still looking. We're doing our best under the circumstances." Loomis stated.
"What do you mean?" Kat responded.
"Kat, I can't help feel that there's something else going on here. If the family wont fully cooperate I can't really help find your son. I need all the information. I need to know everything! You know how these investigations work." Loomis explained.
"Look, I get it, but I can assure you, I don't think anyone really knows more than they're saying." Kat fibbed. "You have to understand, they're a very guarded family and they have lot of trouble trusting people who are on the outside looking in. When something happens to one of their own, they clam up and try to figure everything by themselves. This is my son who's missing, so trust me, if you need to know something I'd make sure you knew it. " Kat added.
"Something like why the man we all thought died in a plane crash is asleep in your bed?" Loomis pointed out. "Whats going on with that? You got some creative explanation for that one too?" he continued sarcastically.
"Actually I do! The person that took my baby is also responsible for faking Caleb's death." Kat explained.
"The person who took your baby? So you know who took the baby? Kat...you need to start being honest with me, or we're going to have some real issues here, and I don't mean you and I, I'm talking about the law." Loomis explained.
Kat took a deep breath and looked around hoping no one in the family had woken up and heard them talking.
"If I tell you what's going on, or at least what I've been told is going on, can you keep it to yourself until I know more?" Kat asked cautiously.
"That all depends, how bad is it?" Loomis questioned.
"To be honest, I don't even know how bad. But I think if you can keep this on the down low, everything will sort itself out. The family has faith in .....well, in it's solution and I'm going to trust them on....for now." Kat said to a confused Loomis.
Loomis, was a good cop, and he knew that Kat was a good cop too even if she had been off the force for some time dealing with her personal issues. He could sense that whatever it was she knew about the kidnapping she felt somewhat confident about and had no choice but to trust her. If her gut said to trust the Collins family then Loomis felt compelled to go along with it.
For now.
"Fine, I wont't feed anything to the investigation but you have to make sure that I'm kept in the loop. No matter what Kat. Hear me?" Loomis answered.
Kat nodded her head in agreement.
"Hey." Loomis said as he made his way back down the hallway to leave "you've only got a few days before I start asking more questions so whatever these mysterious plans are they better be working to an end in three days, otherwise, I'm jumping in." Loomis warned.
"Fine." Kat whispered.
****
A stranger in town looked down at a small cocktail napkin that had been turned into a crude drawing of a small section of Collinsport drawn by the manager of The Blue Whale. The map was to help him find his way to the great house on the cliff. The house all the locals knew very well indeed.
The stranger, bundled up in his thick scarf and blue coat. He felt the kiss of the autumn breeze on his lips and cheeks. He looked out on to the damp streets of Collinwood, the wailing horns of the ships heading out to sea in the background made for a perfect scenery in this seaside village he had heard so much about from his father, a former Collinsport resident himself, who had a very vivid memory after all.
He looked down at the crude napkin map and started off to his final destination. The front door to Collinwood manor to find all the answers he was looking for, but first he had to prepare. What he needed to do would take time, and before he met finally met up with the Collins family, he needed to know what he was in for.
Nothing or no one, here or else where, would get in his way. This was his destiny.
****
Carolyn stood in the downstairs sitting room as she watched the morning sun creep over the lush hills of Collinwood that stretched all the way to jagged seaside cliffs where the ocean bashed it's forceful hand against the black rocks of Collinsport shore. She stood like a mirror image of her Mother Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard who stared out that same window often lost in thought and deep contemplation.
Carolyn walked over from the window and picked up a photograph of her departed mother and caressed the glass edges of the frame. She wondered what her mother would do in this situation. What would she do to help find Kat and Caleb's baby? What would she do to help Victoria see that the family wasn't her enemy? She could almost hear her mother's voice telling her to carry one, to keep moving forward...keep the family together.
But it wasn't only up to Carolyn, it really all hung on whether or not Barnabas could get through to Vickie and stop her from harming the baby in whatever capacity that might entail.
Carolyn's thoughts and daze were soon broken when she heard a knock at the door. At first she thought it was just her imagination, who could be at the house at such an early time, but then there was another knock, this one much more frantic and loud, it startled Carolyn to the point where she froze in the drawing room, terrified of who might be on the other side.
As the knocking subsided, Carolyn carefully walked through the drawing room and into the foyer where she met David who also heard the knocks from the kitchen and was coming to answer them.
"It's 7am, who could that be?" David said to Carolyn who had a worried look on her face.
"I'm almost scared to even think." She responded as she slowly kept back away from the door.
"Barnabas?" David whispered. "But ...there's sun light!" He continued
David then carefully walked to the door when the knocks came more and more frequent and impatient. David quickly unlocked and opened the door to see Father Joseph standing on the other side sweating and out of breath.
"My god! Father Joseph! Come in! Come in!" Elizabeth said rushing over to the elderly priest.
"Carolyn...." the priest panted as he fall into David's arms.
"David take him into the drawing room and lay him down on the sofa. I'll grab something for him to drink."
"What happened?" David asked of the priest who did not answer.
"He looks like he's in shock. He's dripping wet!" Carolyn said bringing Father Joseph a glass of water. "Here, drink slowly." She added assisting the old man.
"Victoria....she had a baby. She took the baby into the light with the dark man." Father Joseph said as he gasped for air.
"A dark man...?" David parroted in a confused tone and still trying to calm the hysterical priest.
Joseph pushed David aside and wiped the sweat that was pouring from his forehead and down his face and puddling around his collar. He looked up at the portrait of Barnabas and then at Carolyn. It was very clear who Joseph meant.
"The dark man from ...that painting!" Father Joseph said as he caught his breath again pointing at the Barnabas' steely look in the painting that surrounded so much of the myth and legend of Collinsport folklore.
"Father Joseph, did you go see Victoria? You saw her?" Carolyn questioned.
"I went to see her to tell her the truth. I could no longer keep this secret in my heart and knowing that she was causing so many problems within her own family based on something I did, a lie... based on a lie!!" Father Joseph explained.
"And what happened? Where is Vickie now?" David asked as he took the now empty glass of water away.
"She's gone. She....they....they've just vanished." Father Joseph answered.
"I don't understand, you saw them leave Collinsport? Did Barnabas go with them?" David probed.
"You don't understand. Victoria has gone off the rails. When I told her the truth, that I was her father and that Elizabeth was her mother I could see it register with her, but she still had other plans. This....this man, this dark man from the depths of ...I don't know where...he interrupted us. They fought and she escaped him." The priest explained.
"Where did she escape to? Can you describe her car?" Carolyn questioned still not knowing the full extent of what the priest actually saw.
"No! NO! Listen, she' vanished into thin air. She's gone! She opened a portal and broke the seal between this time and another time and entered in. She took the baby and Barnabas followed her." The priest finally admitted.
"What? This isn't making any sense." David responded frustrted with the Priest.
"You have to believe me!!" Joseph begged.
"Carolyn... come on, are we really going to..." David, every the skeptic begin before being interrupted.
"What is he talking about!?!" A voice said from the entrance of the drawing room.
David and Carolyn turned around and it was Kat who was still awake from her visit with Loomis earlier that morning. Her eyes still puffy from crying herself to sleep.
"Where's Barnabas?" Kat continued to ask.
The two Collins cousins looked at each other, still conflicted over what Father Joseph had said about Barnabas following Vickie to another dimension with the new baby.
The worst part was, no one knew how to explain it to Kat.
****
It was dark. It was foggy. So foggy the sky was blank and covered, not a single star could be seen. Barnabas lay face down in the wet grass deep in a wooded area. He lifted his face from the ground and looked about his surroundings. These were woods he was oddly familiar with, yet still seemed foreign to him.
He raised himself from the ground and dusted himself off. The wet dew still clung to the skin of his face like droplets on rose petals. He looked around for any sign of Victoria and the baby, but did not see them. Just the grey autumn tress clutching to the night fog.
He slowly crept around the strange wooded area, listening as close as he could to every sound he heard. Those were the sounds of nocturnal creatures such as himself scurrying away as he got close. An owl beckoning an alarm to the rest of the woods from his high perch, Barnabas was an intruder in their world.
Suddenly a different type of rustling came from a far left side of him behind a thicket or brush. Barnabas quickly dashed through fallen branches and dead leaves to follow the scattering sound and try to reach it. He pushed aside the overgrown bushes and wet plant life and saw on the other side of a wide empty and grassy area a shadow qucikly making it's way through to another densely wooded area.
"Victoria." Barnabas whispered to himself as he quickly followed.
Barnabas chased the shadowy figure as fast as he could, dodging and moving about the forest like a wild animal chasing it's prey. At one point he could almost make out an image clearly, but the fog became too thick and left Barnabas dazed and disoriented.
Then the shadowy figure was gone. It simply disappeared within the thicket of trees.
Barnabas stood alone in the woods, listening as close as he could to the sounds of the night to help guide him. He closed his eyes and extended his hands held his breath, the earth below his feet began to break, the leaves above his head attached to the trees began to break and fall all around him. The air became colder, like the very minute an ice storm begins. Barnabas was summoning whatever spirits of this mysterious place he could that would grab hold of his hands and show him the way to where every Victoria was hiding the baby.
Out of the fog and mist of the land humanoid shape appeared dressed in white. The mist flowed from below it as the shape hovered over the wet grass.
The spirit's face was covered by a mask of fog, empty, no eyes, no mouth just blank and gaunt. When Barnabas opened his eyes and saw it directly in front of him he could feel it's energy pulsing through his own body.
"What are you?" Barnabas asked of the spirit, his tone of voice strong and demanding.
The spirit, floating above the ground in a cloak of mist and clouds only pointed to a small path hidden by a patch of thorny bushes.
"Where does that take me? Answer me!" Barnabas again demanded of the spirit without a face.
It did not answer, but only moved closer to the opening of the path still pointing the way.
Barnabas cautiously walked past the smokey spirit still floating above the ground and still pointing the way to the path. He looked into the direction of the path, it was dark, the canopy of dead tree branches above looked like hundreds of skeleton bones pointing in the same direction of the spirit.
When Barnabas looked back, the spirit was gone, only the plumes of fog remained dancing above the wet ground.
He took a breath and turned back and followed the dark path as it carved it's way through the forest's shadows. Barnabas was not in fear, but he was on high alert. He knew that the shadowy figure he was chasing had to be Vickie and the baby, and he also knew that he was not in the same time period as before, knowing which time Vickie's portal took him to was paramount. Not knowing gave Vickie the upper hand, and the path he was following could lead him into a trap.
His hyper awareness was a powerful and natural ability of his. But he soldiered on in the darkness and along the bath the cloud spirit silently pointed to.
Barnabas followed this dirt path for what seemed like hours, and during that time all he heard were the sounds of owls in flight, creatures darting away from his every step and the crunching and cracking sounds of the dirt and branches below his feet, but as he got closer to the end of the path he heard the sea. The sea crashing up against rocks. The sea sloshing its powerful breast upon a rocky shore line, it was a sound Barnabas was one hundred percent familiar with. and when he came to the opening of the path he saw something he had no expectation of seeing:
Collinwood Manor in the year 1920.
