COLLINWOOD PRESENT TIME
He looked across the long garden path and lead to the main mansion. That place had been mentioned to him for years and years by his father. A man that the Collins family knew very well. They had a connection to his father that perhaps they wished never existed.
But the stranger knew of the connection, and came to Collinsport to make sure he finished what his father started many, many years ago.
The stranger began his slow walk up the side of the old house then quietly up the main front steps to the main entrance. The door of the old house, with it's chipped paint and 100 year old door knob shaped like two ancient Greek goddesses holding a scepter in the center of them, was locked. He smiled to himself knowing there wasn't a lock on earth that could keep him out. He grasped on to the scepter knob and closed his eyes.
Soon his hand began to glow brighter and brighter in white light and the door knob too began to turn hot like the sun. The burst of energy from his hands spun around the door knob for just seconds, but was powerful enough to snap the lock open without any damage.
"Success." The handsome stranger smirked wickedly as he pulled the door open and walked into the old house that had been left empty since Barnabas' disappearance into the unknown.
"This seems to be the place I was told to visit first. It's as quiet as they said it would be, and I don't sense Barnabas Collins here at all....this will do fine, this will do just fine for now." The stranger thought to himself as he slowly made his way around the front rooms of the old house.
The stranger continued to survey the now vacant old house, from top to bottom. He saw the lovely rooms that had been renovated year after year to it's original greatness. All the furniture had been hand picked by it's owner to match it's antiquated old style.
He took himself into the last bedroom of the upstairs area and opened the door. In the dark room there stood a beautiful black lacquered coffin with purple lining open, like a fresh grave.
He walked over to the coffin and ran his hand on the purple lining feeling every soft valley of fabric and took a deep breath heeding his father's warning of the one who slept in this coffin. He took a deep breath, a rage began to build inside of him and with that rage the strange screamed an angry vial scream and kicked the coffin over.
"Breathe. Breathe." He said to himself in a husky cold voice.
Finally the stranger came back down to the main drawing room with the large painting of Barnabas still hanging over the fireplace. A painting that had been painted almost 50 years ago. The stranger's eyes burned again with anger as he walked up to the painting and stared at it intently noticing the care and patience the artist took in recreating the image.
The colors were mute and subtle but strong. Then the stranger noticed signature of the artist below in the very far right hand corner.
"Sam Evans." He read out loud. "Grandfather."
****
David sat alone in the library inside the main house with all the drapes drawn. His mind felt clouded and confused with everything that had been happening. All he needed was some time alone to clear his thoughts. It had only been just a few months since he'd returned from his time locked away at Windcliff Sanitarium. It was becoming clear to David that he had not yet recovered from all the trauma Dr. Joanna Grayson had put him through psychologically during his time trapped there.
When David returned and was made aware that Barnabas was still alive it brought back all the terrible memories of his childhood and what Barnabas had done. Not to mention Caleb's supposed death and resurrection and the kidnapping was peeling away at David's calm veneer.
He was afraid that soon he'd crack.
He laid back on the giant overstuffed brown leather couches and closes his eyes, just hoping for a few moments to himself so that he could sort things out, but then Kimberly, his ex-wife, came in.
"Are you ok?" She asked quietly.
"I was just trying to get some kind of rest, it's been such a crazy 24 hours." David replied as he sat up on the sofa.
"I know, but things are going to work out fine, I can feel it. As soon as we get news from Barnabas everything will be Ok. Has he called?" Kimberly asked as she sat down next to David.
"Called? No. Hasn't anyone told you? God, I don't even know where to begin with this one." David said scratching his head. "Barnabas and Vickie aren't here anymore. They some how managed to open up a time portal of some sort and ....well, they're gone. Vanished."
"But how? How did they ..." Kimberly asked in a complete confused state.
"It's better not to try and ask the "how" Kim. This isn't the first time they've done this and honestly trying to piece it together will only drive you mad. Believe me." David said with a grin.
"What do we do now?" She asked.
"We wait." David countered.
"Do you trust Barnabas to bring the baby back safely? I don't know him well enough to judge." Kim asked.
David thought for a second on how to answer. In his mind he has always been trained to reply quickly that anyone in the Collins family would always stand up for another family member in trouble. But he had his reservations about Barnabas. David knew there was good in Barnabas, but he also knew the evil side, the side that could snap at any moment and release terrible things to anyone who tried to cross him. At times, those two sides were difficult to separate. Barnabas was a two face coin that David, for all he his life, tried to figure out.
"I don't know anymore. I want to trust him, I really do, but at the same time I don't know if any of us can. He did some terrible things to members of this family, and our friends. How can I forget that? How can I just pretend it never happened?" David said out loud.
"You've forgiven me haven't you? For all that I did? It would be like that." Kimberly responded.
"I didn't say anything about forgiveness Kimberly, I said forgetting. Nothing in this world will ever let me forget what was done to us at Barnabas' hands. You know, maybe it's better that he's gone. Maybe he should never come back and stay where he is now so that maybe, just maybe...all of us here in this world can try and have a better life! Finally!" David exclaimed.
Kim's face turned to concern. She knew that her sister Joanna had done some very rigorous experiments on David's mind when she had a hold of him and she knew how fragile he was. All she could do was expect him to break at any moment. And when he did, what would she do with him?
"You don't really mean that. If Barnabas doesn't come back, he won't bring back Caleb's baby. We need him to come back." Kimberly responded.
David nodded his head in a somewhat agreeing manor and leaned himself back on the over stuffed sofas taking a deep breath.
Kim noticed his strained reaction to their conversation and got up from the sofa and looked down at David who's eyes were now closed.
"Why don't I let you take a nap or rest or something. I'll come back and check in on you in a while." Kim said leaving David alone in the library with his thoughts.
As Kimberly closed the library door behind her leaving David to rest, she came into the hall and in the reflection of the glass covering a giant portrait of Carolyn directly in front of her was the same vision Kimberly had been haunted with for so many weeks. The vision of her dead sister Dr. Joanna Grayson, this time.
Kimberly was startled to see her sister, who was killed by Barnabas at Windcliff when he discovered Maggie Evans had been hiding there.
"What do you want...." Kimberly whispered to her dead sister's ghost.
"Things are changing sister. David's mind is beginning to collapse. And if you want do take over this family like we had always planned, now is the time to start. Go down to your laboratory. I will meet you there.....and we will begin the next faze of our journey."
Kimberly's terror reached a boiling point. Was she losing her own mind? Was she too beginning crack? Kimberly is a scientist, everything that she was seeing and feeling couldn't be real. She knew it deep inside, but her sister Joanna was always the stronger minded of the two. Even in death. So Kim did what she always did: She followed Joanna's orders and went down to her lab to await the spirit again.
****
COLLINWOOD, 1920
COLLINWOOD, 1920
Claudia had disappeared from the present time shortly after it was discovered that she had poisoned Alexandra in a jealous rage with mystical herbs that changed Alex into a woman in her 90s.
Barnabas turned around to see his adult daughter Claudia Bouchard dressed in a white dress with her hair tied pulled back by a golden hair pin.
"Claudia." Barnabas said in a whisper.
"You've found us father. Seems like just yesterday I saw you last." Claudia said walking over to Barnabas and giving him a soft kiss on each cheek.
"What is this? Why are you here with Victoria?" He questioned as he looked back at Vickie and the baby.
"Vickie and I share a common thread in our lifetime. And when I discovered this thread I sought her out and we connected. I devised this plan to save this child from whatever disastrous future it may have within this family." Claudia explained.
"What common thread is that?" Barnabas questioned.
"We were given away as infants. We were two Collins family cast offs, just given away by their parents, hoping no one would ever notice. Isn't that right? Isn't that why you took me from my own mother and and hid me away in a convent?" Claudia said coldly trying to get under her father Barnabas' skin.
"Claudia, stay calm." Vickie said as she rocked the sleeping baby in her arms.
"That's not true at all Claudia. Victoria's situation had many detailed facets that were never explained to her until today, and with you....I took you from Angelique to save you from her. It was the least I could do...you were a baby, and she would have corrupted you beyond all imagination." Barnabas explained.
Claudia seemed to take it to heart for a split second, it was the first time Barnabas had explained himself to her in such a sincere way. But she was relentless in her pain. All she wanted to do was seek revenge and make sure the pain she felt as an abandoned child was felt throughout the family that she believed abandoned her.
"Claudia, I believe him now. I can't explain it, but I do. For me, this anger and the hate that I've felt all these years not knowing where I came from has eaten away at me. I'm tired. I want to move on with my life now, and whatever time I have left, I want to fix what I have done. I should have never come here with this baby." Vickie said, still holding the baby.
"We have to get back, staying here, in the past and disturbing events could have a terrible effect on the future." Barnabas pleaded.
"Vickie you can't mean that! We've come so far! We can do this! You brought this baby here for me to raise, and I can do it, I can be this baby's mother and make sure the Collins family never hurt him like they hurt us!" Claudia said rushing over to Vickie's side, desperately trying to make her stick to their plan.
"No. It's over. We're here in this time period but ...we shouldn't be. We shouldn't have done this Claudia. This was all a mistake. We need to go back and Caleb and Kat need to have their son back." Vickie said softly.
"How can you just give up like this? This was supposed to be our revenge!" Claudia gasped.
"It's over. We cannot go on like this, doing the things we've done. We just can't." Victoria said regretfully. "We have to go back."
Claudia felt defeated. For years she had plotted some kind of revenge against her father's family for what he did, and she was so sure the plan to take their newest baby away would be a justfinable punishment for her own exhile from teh family when she was just a baby. But without her powers, Claudia could not fight back, she had to give in. She had to let go of it all too.
"Go back." Claudia scoffed. "We can't go back." Claudia answered.
"Well, you have to have a way, I know that I can't use the same method to travel back the way we came, but you have to have some way, don't you? You did't plan this all out before knowing how to fix it if something went wrong right?" Victoria asked fearfully.
"There's no way back. I'm sure of it." Claudia said sternly.
"What do you mean? You came and took me from my time and brought me to 2016, you can do the same for us now!" Barnabas said loudly.
"I was much more powerful then Barnabas. I had all my powers at my disposal, I'm different now. When Carolyn was trapped inside my mother's spell behind the mirror I used the last once of power I had to save her. Since then, I was able to regain some but I've used all again when I traveled to this time. I'm sorry...but there's nothing left in me to get us back to our time period." Claudia replied.
Vickie and Barnabas looked at each other, a panic began to set in deep inside of Vickie's bones. Barnabas too, for all his tough exterior started to feel distant emotions that he had not felt in generations...the feeling that he was no longer in control.
As Barnabas' worries began to creep into his mind and become reality, that he, Victoria, the baby and now even Claudia might be trapped in the year 1920 for good.
Claudia sat Barnabas down to fill him in on who the current batch of Collins family members believed she was.
Claudia explained her plot thoroughly: She was living at Collinwood as the governess to Jamison and Catherine's new baby Elizabeth. Vickie was to come to Collinsport pretending to be Claudia's mother along with Caleb and Kat's baby who would be concealed as Claudia's baby. They would all live at Collinwood with Jamison and Catherine along with Catherine's recently widowed mother Jacqueleen.
As cover, Barnabas would have to pull a trick from one of his old hats and pretend, much like he did in 1966, that he was his own long lost descendant who just happened to come to town around the same time as Claudia's "mother" Victoria until they found a way back home. It was the only way the three future visitors could cohabitate with the 1920's members of the family without the truth being detected and the future being altered.
"Do you think that will work? We'll need to make sure the current family believes every word of this so that we have enough time to figure out how to get back." Victoria asked as Claudia handed her a suitcase of clothes for her and the baby to wear.
"Of course. They've been expecting you for weeks now. However, Barnabas we'll just have to wait to introduce you tomorrow evening. The family has all gone to bed now, so I can sneak you in. Barnabas you can stay in one of the basement rooms until tomorrow night." Claudia explained as she took the baby from Vickie's tired arms.
As the three future visitors quietly made their way into the house following Claudia, Barnabas quickly grabbed Vickie by the arm and took her aside.
"We'll have to keep an extra eye out on my daughter. She often behaves like a corned animal...lashing out at anyone who tries to change things around her. It's something I feel I am directly responsible for. There is a lot of fight in her, and we'll have to try and help her find her way." He warned.
"What do you propose?" Vickie asked.
"She may or may not be telling us the whole truth about the amount of power she contains. We'll need her to take us back...there doesn't seem to be another way. In the coming days we'll need to watch her. I have a feeling something just might crack and we'll know her true intentions soon." Barnabas shot back.
"Tell me Barnabas, why does any of this even matter to you? You can live in any time period and live on forever. I know, and you know it. Go on, tell me, what's in it for you." Vickie questioned.
"I never...ever...go back on my word." Barnabas said cryptically.
"Come on you two." Claudia whispered to them as she turned back around to Barnabas and Vickie as they began to follow her inside.
As they entered the main entrance, Barnabas and Vickie were awestruck with how the home looked inside. It had never looked this way at any time they were in the mansion.
1920's Collinwood was beautiful. The crystal chandelier's sparkled like diamonds, the wood paneled walls were freshly varnished. The draperies and carpets were in predestine condition. Everything had an air of opulence and wealth...the room reeked of new money. Barnabas and Vickie had not known, that this era of the Collins family history was marked by a boom in their business. The wealth the family had so enjoyed throughout the late 20th century was due much in part to the family of the 1920s.
Claudia showed Vickie and the baby up to their guest rooms leaving Barnabas to roam around the house alone before going down to hide in the dark basement until the next night.
He was consumed with frustration. All he wanted to do was keep his promise to the family in 2016 and get the baby back, but with Claudia's confession that that may not be reality all he could feel was defeated.
Barnabas lurked around the downstairs hallways that lead to the basement, slowly making his way down to a silent crypt where he could be held from the sun when he suddenly passed the library. Then, like a lightening bolt, Barnabas had an idea. He dashed into the library and picked up a book he knew Carolyn often read. It was one of the oldest books in the entire house's history, a book on the family's history, a favorite too of Elizabeth. He had no idea when Carolyn would read it again but he knew that all he had was time, and hopefully if by chance, she picked up the book and opened it she would find a letter in the book from 1920, and a clue would reach the family in the future.
Barnabas tore out a sheet of stationary paper that lay in a silver tray on the wooden table in the library and frantically searched for something to write with. He opened the drawers to the table and found a fountain pen and pad. He dipped the pin in the ink and test it, creating a massive in blotch on top of the pad, he then wrote his note, and only hope to the future:
"To the family in 2016,
This is Barnabas Collins. The child and I are safe in the year 1920. Things have yet to materialize on how I will return with him, but trust in the fact that I will do all I can.
May this letter find you all safe.
BC."
Barnabas blew on the letter to dry the ink and folded the paper carefully and rushed over to one of the very large shelves filled with books and searched for the book he hoped Carolyn would pick up. It was a bet he knew may not work. There was a chance someone would never ever pick up this book in 2016, but Barnabas knew, he had to try something, anything, to get word back to 2016.
He opened the book and placed the letter directly in the center of its creases. Closed it and went to replace the book back on the shelf. And as he did so, from the corner of the library a shadow grew large and black, curling like smoke from a fire.
The shadow soon began to take human form, first a head, and arms, then hands, then a face. Below the black mist of the shadow was Josette, Barnabas, first true love. She more than anyone knew how much pride and love Barnabas had for this family, she knew just how much it destroyed him when she died, and when Angelique bewitched him forever so that they'd never be together on the other side.
She could see in him all the good in the world, and she decided to help his cause. With one small puff of air, she blew the book directly out of Barnabas hands and it fell to the floor.
Startled by the burst of air, Barnabas quickly picked up the book and looked back to where the the chill came from, but Josette's ghost was gone.
****
Just as the book in the library fell to the ground in 1920, a book on one of the top shelves in the library in 2016 fell to the ground behind one of the over stuffed brown leather sofa's breaking David out of his much needed and restful nap. He got up and looked around the room thinking there was someone there. But the Library was empty, except for him.He looked behind the sofa and saw the book on the floor open at the center, and there it was was; poking up from the center just as Barnabas had placed in 1920 ...the letter from the past.
David jumped around the sofa and quickly picked up the book removing the letter from the center. He carefully pulled at the edges and unfolded the tightly packed paper to read Barnabas' letter to the family.
David was unsure how to feel. He felt happy that his grandchild, who Victoria kidnapped, was safe and alive but a twinge of discouragement washed over him as the letter also revealed that Barnabas too had survived the time travel. For all his good deeds, David still felt Barnabas could not be trusted. There was just too much bad blood between them.
David took the letter and walked over to a candle and lit it. As the candle slowly burned through it's wick David placed the letter above the candle and watched it burn away to small smoldering ashes.
No one would know Barnabas tried to reach out. No would know they made it to 1920, and David wanted it to stay that.
No matter what.
