Maggie Evans had promised to meet this person in the early hours to discuss Detective Kat Banning. For Maggie, hearing Carolyn say that Caleb was engaged to Kat was a bit of a shock. She had hoped that this moment would never happen. Now, it was inevitable. Kat and Maggie's paths would eventually cross and Maggie had no idea how to deal with the outcome.
As Maggie carefully stepped up the frozen front steps of the small cottage a shiver ran up her spine. Of course she shook this off as just are result from the icy conditions outside, but deep down, she knew better. Her instincts had become refined in the years that followed her time with Barnabas Collins. The dangers were real, and she felt them deep in the blood that rain through her veins.
She knocked on the door and waited.
Just a few seconds later the door creaked open and standing there in a warm black dress, a scarf around her head and a necklace made of golden and rubies was the town voodoo priestess and Maggie's former confident Ezrabette Baptiste.
"Come in from the cold, ma chere!" Ezrabette said ushering in her old friend in her creole accent.
"Thank you for seeing me so quickly. I can't tell you how much I needed to see you. I should have called as soon as I left Windcliff, but there were more pressing matters." Maggie explained.
"You don't need to explain. Je comprends tout." Ezrabette replied half in French, understanding Maggie's often peculiar predicament.
"I know that Kat is involved with the Collins boy. And her brother? Sebastian? Where is he?" Maggie asked of Kat's in a concerned voice for Kat's brother.
"Sit down Margaret." Ezrabette instructed.
Maggie rolled her eyes in frustration. The suspense and stress were taking it's toll on her, but all she could do was breath and wait for Ezrabette to explain.
The two sat down around Ezrabette's round table with a dark purple table cloth and pulled a deck of tarot cards out from a band around her dress that was hidden by a black ribbon to match. Her heavily adorned fingers, began to shuffle and she then pulled 5 cards and placed then on the round table in the shape of a cross. She flipped the first one over.
"This card, the 4 of cups, tells me there are four distinct entities that are as one complete set. Regard, the center cup is cracked. This cup shows me one of these entities, one of these people, is damaged beyond what we understand. Beyond anything that we've ever seen." Ezrabette explained.
"Who is it?" Maggie questioned with a small tear burrowing its way out of one of her eyes.
"C'est Sebastian." Ezrabette replied in French matter of factly.
"Bette, they must never know I'm alive. When I left, I left to keep them safe from the darkness that followed me and brought me to ...." Maggie said before she was interrupted by Ezrabette flipping another card.
"Him....." Ezrabette said pointing to a card of a satyr. "their father." the mystical woman continued.
"Where is their father?" Maggie asked.
Ezrabette flipped another card, the sun card.
"The sun." Ezrabette whispered softly.
"What does it mean?" Maggie asked as Ezrabette stared down at the card. "Bette?? Tell me...what does it mean?" Maggie asked again impatiently.
"The card reveals him as the dawn. It represent the present. The coming day. The birth of a new morn. Sebastian and Kat's father is coming.....very soon." Ezrabette said to a shocked Maggie.
Maggie's 30 year secret was about to be exposed and could possibly bring a terrible new storm to Collinsport. Maggie was the mother of Sebastian and Kat Banning who believed she dead almost 25 years ago.
Maggie was the ex wife of Thatcher Banning, a cruel man she met in 1989. She married him soon after they met and bore two children, but was never ever happy. Happiness alluded Maggie and everything she touched. When Kat was only 7 and Sebastian was 5, Maggie escaped Thatcher, and left the children with Ezrabette. That is when she institutionalized herself at Windcliff hoping to escape the curse of the living Dead that she felt tainted her life and brought her such a vicious husband.
"What do I do?" Maggie asked Ezrabette in a panic.
"The only thing you can do. Find Thatcher before he finds you, and when you do, destroy him, never allow him to get close to your children, only disaster will come of that." Ezrabette said in a cold voice.
"Destroy?" Maggie questioned.
"He must die." Ezrabette answered back.
"What about Kat? And Sebastian? Should I reveal myself to them?" Maggie asked again.
Ezrabette took a moment, and flipped another card over revealing the hidden moon; a card that was mysterious in nature. The mystic Ezrabette pursed her lips and shook her head.
"Keep your secret. Hide. They must never know you're alive."
****
As the morning melted into a cool and sunny afternoon, Kat and Caleb took themselves to the Collinwood courthouse to mark the birth of their son as official. As they walked through the halls from the clerk's office on their way out with their new baby and the official birth certificate they passed the office of Judge Timothy Hatfield, a close friend of the family.
Caleb's hand was clasped tight inside of Kat's while she held Canan in her other arm. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at the Judge's office door.
"What is it?" Kat asked as he stopped.
"Kat, what do you say?" Caleb asked.
"To what? What are you talking about?" She asked confused.
"I know we're going to get married and you'd probably want some kind of big wedding, but what if we just ask the judge to do this for us right here right now? We can go back down the hall and get the paperwork. So, what do you say?" He asked with a grin on his face.
"Without our friends and family? Just you and me?" Kat asked coyly.
"We've got our baby, that's family enough for me, come on! Let's do it!" Caleb said sincerely.
Kat thought about it for a second and looked around. There were people staring at them and smiling in the hall, their echoing conversation made it everyone's business.
"Ok! Let's do it! Let's get married!" Kat said as she kissed her baby boy on the forehead.
They both dashed into the office of Judge Hatfield who was signing papers. He looked up from his work and smiled, then removed the glasses that dangled off the edge of his nose.
"Well, Mr. Caleb Collins and Detective Banning! Nice of you to stop by. How's your father, son!?" He asked sitting back in his chair.
"He's doing good sir, very good. I hope we're not interrupting." Caleb asked.
"Not really, no. Who's this young man?" The judge asked of Canan.
"Our baby." Kat replied proudly.
"Oh, another Collins boy, eh! Well, that would make your grandmother Laura so proud. Now, what can I do for you kids?" The judge asked.
"This might sound a bit unorthodox but we plan on getting the paper work all straightened out today right after but...you're here...and we're here...." Caleb said stammering.
"Go on Caleb, spit it out!" The judge said joking although he could already tell what was coming next.
"...it just feels right so, will you marry us?" Caleb continued talking in at a nervous pace.
"Well now!! Caleb Collins marrying one of Collsinport's finest detectives! Sounds like a good mix to me. You'll have to go down to the clerk's office and fill out the appropriate paper work right after. So...got any rings?" The judge asked enthusiastically.
"Not with us, but we will. So you'll do it?" Kat asked.
"It'd be my pleasure. Gina, Pauline!" The judge yelled to his secretaries. "Will you come in here please?"
"Sir?" the red-headed, glasses wearing Pauline asked as she peeped her head in from an adjoining door.
"I'll need you two as witnesses; please stand on either side of this lovely couple." Judge Hatfield ordered.
"Oh a wedding!" Gina, an older woman with a small tummy and chubby hips gushed as she went over and took Canan from Kat's hands.
"Can I see the ring?" Pauline asked curiously.
"We don't have one. This was all sort of spur-of-the-moment." Caleb replied bashfully.
"Oh honey, please I can take care of that!" Pauline said as she rushed around the Judge's desk in her orange herringbone suit and grabbed a paperclip from a dish that held what seemed like thousands of little mettle clips.
She took the clip and untraveled it's small delicate curves and twisted it at the top in a sort of sailors not. She sized it on her own hand and gazed at it quickly. She smiled and came back around and took Caleb's hand.
"Here...use this for now. Just to make it official." Pauline said with a wink.
Kat and Caleb giggled then held each other's hands and looked into each other's eyes as the judge went through the typical wedding speech. Kat repeated the vows, as did Caleb.
Caleb took Kat's left hand and placed the paperclip ring on her ring finger then kissed her back of her hand.
"I now pronounce you married." The judge said with a soft, calming voice. "Caleb, you may now kiss your bride."
They looked deep into each other's eyes and everything that had suffered in the past year had gone away. All the saddness, the dark memories of Leopold attacking Kat, Caleb's arrest for attempted murder, the house catching fire, Kat's memory loss, Caleb's airplane accident and the baby's kidnapping. It was all gone. Vanishing in their minds making room for more memories. Hopefully happy ones.
And as they kissed to seal their marriage a fresh powder of white snow fell around the courthouse blessing the wedding.
It was official Kat was now a Collins.
****
Alex ran down the satires to the drawing room where Carolyn was just getting off the phone. Carolyn turned and saw that her daughter Alex had a big grin on her face.
"What are you so happy about?" Carolyn questioned as she replaced the phone's receiver.
"Caleb just called my cell phone from the courthouse....." Alex said in a dramatic pause. "He and Kat just got married!!!" shes quealed.
"Oh My!!! That's wonderful. Why didn't they have us go down there to be with them?" Carolyn questioned.
"I asked the same thing, but they said it was a split second decision and they just went with it. We can have a dinner for them tonight. Who were you on the phone with?" Alex asked remembering her mother too had just gotten off the phone.
"Funniest thing. My old friend Vera Tate's daughter Anna just called me. She's been in Hollywood working in film, and said she was coming to Collinsport to research the town for a role she was up for. She's hoping she could stay here." Carolyn explained.
"Anna? Oh! Anna! Right I remember her. Blonde. Pretty. Your goddaughter right? Why would she need to research here?" Alex questioned.
"I wondered the same thing. She said that the movie takes place in a small New England town and that Collinsport would be perfect, so I said it would be fine for her to visit. It's been so long since I've seen her after all." Carolyn said.
"She was always a little odd, don't you remember? I remember one time when we were girls and she came to visit us in London one summer she would light all of our candles and sit in the room and just stare at the flame from the wick." Alex said snobbishly.
"Be nice. She's a sweet girl." Carolyn scoffed.
"Well it's perfect timing anyway." Alex muttered.
"Is it?" Carolyn replied intrigued by her daughter's assertion.
"Mother, Christopher and I have decided to take some time for ourselves now that things seem to be calming down around here. We're going back to London for a bit. Now before you start complaining that I'll be too far from you, there's a plus side......Kimberly has set up some clients there too, so she'll be tagging along but for the most part. So we wont be totally alone." Alex said to Carolyn's shock.
"London! You're leaving me?" Carolyn said devastated by the news.
"Oh mom, it's not forever, I promise. Just for a while so that Chris and I can get closer. Plus did I mention I'm taking Kim off your hands. You won't have to see her for weeks, months even!" Alex said jokingly.
"Months?" Carolyn asked in an even more devastated tone of voice.
"Don't do this mom. Please. I know it's going to seem so hard but....I need to do this for me. You understand don't you? Anna will be here. You can get reacquainted with your goddaughter.....aaaand again...Kim will be GONE!" Alex said, adding a the joke about Kim again to lighten the mood knowing that Carolyn and Kim had never really liked each other since her divorce from David.
"I can't say that this will be easy for me. I love you so much darling. But I do understand. You know when I was your age I lived in this big house and this little town and felt that there was so much more out there that I was missing. Collinsport and this mansion can get a bit claustrophobic! All I wanted was adventure." Carolyn said.
"What? You were bored here in Collinwood! I can't imagine having a single boring day." Alex responded with a laugh.
"I guess I did have some adventure, but I should have been more specific." Carolyn said joking back.
"So you're ok with us going back to London for a while?" Alex said as she hugged her mother tightly.
"Of course. I love you....and You have my blessing. Christopher is a wonderful young man, he'll protect you. And you'll be taking that dreadful Kimberly." Carolyn said still mocking her eternal distaste for her cousin's ex wife making Alex bust out in laughter.
"I love you too mother. More than you know." Alex said tightening her grip on her mother.
Deep in the forest surrounding Collinwood just beyond the ridge where a path that leads to another path the winds up to Widows Hill was a small clearing surrounded by trees and 3 feet of pure white snow."Is it?" Carolyn replied intrigued by her daughter's assertion.
"Mother, Christopher and I have decided to take some time for ourselves now that things seem to be calming down around here. We're going back to London for a bit. Now before you start complaining that I'll be too far from you, there's a plus side......Kimberly has set up some clients there too, so she'll be tagging along but for the most part. So we wont be totally alone." Alex said to Carolyn's shock.
"London! You're leaving me?" Carolyn said devastated by the news.
"Oh mom, it's not forever, I promise. Just for a while so that Chris and I can get closer. Plus did I mention I'm taking Kim off your hands. You won't have to see her for weeks, months even!" Alex said jokingly.
"Months?" Carolyn asked in an even more devastated tone of voice.
"Don't do this mom. Please. I know it's going to seem so hard but....I need to do this for me. You understand don't you? Anna will be here. You can get reacquainted with your goddaughter.....aaaand again...Kim will be GONE!" Alex said, adding a the joke about Kim again to lighten the mood knowing that Carolyn and Kim had never really liked each other since her divorce from David.
"I can't say that this will be easy for me. I love you so much darling. But I do understand. You know when I was your age I lived in this big house and this little town and felt that there was so much more out there that I was missing. Collinsport and this mansion can get a bit claustrophobic! All I wanted was adventure." Carolyn said.
"What? You were bored here in Collinwood! I can't imagine having a single boring day." Alex responded with a laugh.
"I guess I did have some adventure, but I should have been more specific." Carolyn said joking back.
"So you're ok with us going back to London for a while?" Alex said as she hugged her mother tightly.
"Of course. I love you....and You have my blessing. Christopher is a wonderful young man, he'll protect you. And you'll be taking that dreadful Kimberly." Carolyn said still mocking her eternal distaste for her cousin's ex wife making Alex bust out in laughter.
"I love you too mother. More than you know." Alex said tightening her grip on her mother.
*** COLLINSPORT 1920***
In the darkness and silence of an old mausoleum, Catherine placed a wreath of roses on the grave of Jamison's beloved father Edward. She was dressed in a thick black cloak with a hook over her head guarding her from the icy air that crowded the mausoleum interior. Catherine knelt down and adjusted the ribbon at the base of the wreath then went over to a stone lion on the wall with a ring in it's mouth and pulled the ring down opening a secret door in the wall where an empty iron coffin lay.
As Catherine stared into the room, Jamison came in from outside dragging an unconscious Barnabas in the snow and up the small steps and into the mausoleum.
"What are you going to do with him?" Catherine muttered as she shivered in the cold mausoleum.
"I'm going to put him back where he belongs, locked in a coffin for all eternity." Jamison said dragging Barnabas into the secret room.
"Jamie, How did you know of this room? How did you to tell me about the ring in the lion's mouth?" Catherine asked concerned.
"Many, many years of folklore and secrets, my darling, this family is full of them. And as a boy I'd come here and play and explore. It was inevitable that I'd find it." Jamison explained as he dropped Barnabas' arms.
"This is the most horrific thing I have ever had to deal with, I can't even believe it's happening. Those people coming here, and Claudia dying in the snow. Jamie we can't do this, we cannot put Barnabas in this crypt!" Catherine said starting to feel the strain of the situation in her mind.
"But he already is." Jamison said cryptically.
"What? What are you taking about?" Catherine said looking at her husband strangely.
Jamison's eyes seemed to change, in his mind he understood the perils of traveling through time and knew that there could not be a Barnabas from the future without the one who had been sleeping peacefully in a coffin since 1795. They were a divide in the parallel time warp that was created when Vickie opened the vortex and jumped through...the vampires were like mirror images of each stuck in a this loop that needed to be set straight, and Jamison knew how.
"Jamie, talk to me, what is going on?" Catherine said, clutching the cloak around her throat to keep warm.
Jamison slowly broke the locks around the old coffin. He carefully slid the lid open and just as he suspected there was the other Barnabas still sleeping awaiting his release by Willie Loomis in 1967.
Jamison reached over into a bag that he was caring around his shoulder and pulled out a 12 in wooden stake. He lifted it high into the air just above Barnabas' heart.
"Jamison No!!!" Catherine screamed and ran out of the secret room in the mausoleum just as he drove it into the chest of the Barnabas who slept.
And with perfect timing and precision both vampires, the one in the coffin that had been there since 1795 and the one on the floor unconscious who traveled from 2016 gasped for air and reached for their chest. .
The Barnabas who was on the floor writhed with pain, he gasped for air and coughed and wiggled like a worm on a hook. The Barnabs in the coffin choked and began to turn the color of ash. He lifted one hand up in the air reaching for Jamison, but Jamison backed away and watched as the Barnabas in the coffin slowly turned to ash and disappeared.
Jamison quickly grabbed the Barnabas on the floor who was still gasping for air, that gasping would be short lived. Now that the original vampire had been snuffed out in 1920, Jamison would lock away the Barnabas who traveled back from 2016 in the coffin to await Willie Loomis in 1967, thus repeating the timeline of the vampire's most notorious events.
Barnabas Collins would be cursed to live his life twice.
Jamison walked out of the room and found Catherine sobbing face down on the grave of Naomi Collins. The past few hours had taken it's toll on her emotionally.
She lifted her head and watched her husband Jamison walk out of a secret room.
As Catherine stared into the room, Jamison came in from outside dragging an unconscious Barnabas in the snow and up the small steps and into the mausoleum.
"What are you going to do with him?" Catherine muttered as she shivered in the cold mausoleum.
"I'm going to put him back where he belongs, locked in a coffin for all eternity." Jamison said dragging Barnabas into the secret room.
"Jamie, How did you know of this room? How did you to tell me about the ring in the lion's mouth?" Catherine asked concerned.
"Many, many years of folklore and secrets, my darling, this family is full of them. And as a boy I'd come here and play and explore. It was inevitable that I'd find it." Jamison explained as he dropped Barnabas' arms.
"This is the most horrific thing I have ever had to deal with, I can't even believe it's happening. Those people coming here, and Claudia dying in the snow. Jamie we can't do this, we cannot put Barnabas in this crypt!" Catherine said starting to feel the strain of the situation in her mind.
"But he already is." Jamison said cryptically.
"What? What are you taking about?" Catherine said looking at her husband strangely.
Jamison's eyes seemed to change, in his mind he understood the perils of traveling through time and knew that there could not be a Barnabas from the future without the one who had been sleeping peacefully in a coffin since 1795. They were a divide in the parallel time warp that was created when Vickie opened the vortex and jumped through...the vampires were like mirror images of each stuck in a this loop that needed to be set straight, and Jamison knew how.
"Jamie, talk to me, what is going on?" Catherine said, clutching the cloak around her throat to keep warm.
Jamison slowly broke the locks around the old coffin. He carefully slid the lid open and just as he suspected there was the other Barnabas still sleeping awaiting his release by Willie Loomis in 1967.
Jamison reached over into a bag that he was caring around his shoulder and pulled out a 12 in wooden stake. He lifted it high into the air just above Barnabas' heart.
"Jamison No!!!" Catherine screamed and ran out of the secret room in the mausoleum just as he drove it into the chest of the Barnabas who slept.
And with perfect timing and precision both vampires, the one in the coffin that had been there since 1795 and the one on the floor unconscious who traveled from 2016 gasped for air and reached for their chest. .
The Barnabas who was on the floor writhed with pain, he gasped for air and coughed and wiggled like a worm on a hook. The Barnabs in the coffin choked and began to turn the color of ash. He lifted one hand up in the air reaching for Jamison, but Jamison backed away and watched as the Barnabas in the coffin slowly turned to ash and disappeared.
Jamison quickly grabbed the Barnabas on the floor who was still gasping for air, that gasping would be short lived. Now that the original vampire had been snuffed out in 1920, Jamison would lock away the Barnabas who traveled back from 2016 in the coffin to await Willie Loomis in 1967, thus repeating the timeline of the vampire's most notorious events.
Barnabas Collins would be cursed to live his life twice.
Jamison walked out of the room and found Catherine sobbing face down on the grave of Naomi Collins. The past few hours had taken it's toll on her emotionally.
She lifted her head and watched her husband Jamison walk out of a secret room.
"What have you done?" Catherine asked in a hushed voice with tears streaming down her face.
"I've chained him in there forever. I had to" Jamison replied wiping the sweat from his brow.
"Why? Why did you only destroy one?" Catherine asked.
"For Elizabeth's sake. I had to set the timeline of events back to how it was so that Elizabeth's future would not be effected. Having those two monsters in existence would set events off...I don't know how it would have changed Liz's life in the future." Jamison explained, not knowing that he had just replaced the biggest, most darkest shadow to follow most of his daughter Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard's adult life.
"Why? Why did you only destroy one?" Catherine asked.
"For Elizabeth's sake. I had to set the timeline of events back to how it was so that Elizabeth's future would not be effected. Having those two monsters in existence would set events off...I don't know how it would have changed Liz's life in the future." Jamison explained, not knowing that he had just replaced the biggest, most darkest shadow to follow most of his daughter Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard's adult life.
"I never want to speak of this again. Whatever that creature was took my mother's life, and now, I'll never see her again. Lock this door. Seal it. Never speak of it to anyone again. He can never ever be allowed to roam the earth and haunt this family ever again." Catherine said in sobs.
"It's over now. It's all over." Jamison said grabbing and hugging his wife tightly as the snow began to fall outside the mausoleum.
****COLLINSPORT DECEMBER, 2016****
There was a stillness to the frosty air. A quietness that only broke when the sound of crunching ice and watery snow melting coming from underground. Soon there was shifting happening below the slush. The snow soon dipped inward causing a large oval dip clearly visible at the surface of the snow. Something from below began to make it's way to the top, digging and pulling and scathing it's way up. Once it reached the surfaced, an arm pulled itself up from the icy and snow, and wiped away more snow from the face revealing the very much living Jaqueleen Walsh who had been below the ground, buried alive in 1920.
Barnabas and Vickie had buried her alive almost 100 years ago and now, in the present time she finally felt she was ready to return. Because her destiny was Barnabas Collins. Something inside of her told her to wait all these years before her return. Something animalistic and governed by the laws of the supernatural told her her time would come...and it was now, in 2016.
She scratched, and dug and clawed her way through the frozen ground, pulling at tree roots and the hard earth between herself and the surface. She reached and strained and carried her weight through the whole Barnabas dug for her, like a powerful earth worm burrowing through the ground to find it's way to the sun.
Her body finally pierced the top of the ground after what seemed like hours of digging through solid ice and earth. Jaqueleen's cold and hardened hands pushed down lifting her body out of the grave she had been in for almost 100 years, awaiting Barnabas who never returned
Her body, face and everything about her was perfectly preserved but covered in dirt and muck from the ground.
She sat up from her icy ground after taking large breaths to revive herself. She reached up to her neck and felt the wounds from Barnabas' bite had left a gory scar.
"It felt just like yesterday." she thought.
She touched the wounds from Barnabas' fangs, and bit her lip remembering the taste of Barnabas on hers, it was a sensual, passionate and dangerous obsession she had with him. And time had taken it's course on that obsession. Now, she wanted more. Now she wanted him...and she wouldn't take no for an answer.
She looked around the forest. She knew exactly where she was. Her body may have been trapped in the depths of the earth but her mind was working like a well oiled machine and knew precisely the time line she was in. The future was now...and she had to find the one who did this to her. She had to find the man she was incredible in love with, if not obsessed with.
Jacqueleen shook off the snow from her dress, the ice quickly melted in her hair leaving it damp and cold. She stretched and cracked her neck releasing all the tension that had built up over the past 90 years. It was time she found the man who put her in that grave, it was time she found Barnabas Collins.
But would he be where she expected him to be?
Jacqueleen arrived at Eagle Hill Cemetery at the Collins family crypt where a fancy lock had been placed around the same gate guarding the deceased family members from the icy elements outside.
Jacqueleen, stern in her grip, grabbed the lock and held it tight in her hand. She took deep breaths, and with the strength of 100 men clamped down on the lock so hard that it turned to dust in her hands. She pulled the gate open and slowly walked in.
She slowly made her way to the secret room past the crypts of Jeremiah, Naomi, Elizabeth, Jamison, Roger, and of course, her own daughter Catherine Walsh-Collins. Jacqueleen stopped and knelt down near the grave with the lovely limestone engraving: CATHERINE WALSH COLLINS January 1892-MARCH 1954.
A small tear shortly flooded Jacqueleen's eyes.
She made her way to the lion with the ring in his mouth and instinctively pulled the ring down opening the secret door and there, locked away in a unmarked coffin was the legend, the man, the vampire, the monster that took Jacqueleen's life. The man she was obsessed with.
She walked over, her dress dragging on the limestone ground and put her hands over the sealed coffin. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in. The smell of dust and years and years of mold filled her lungs like an expensive gaudy perfume.
She grabbed the coffin's life in both hands and with all her might flipped it open. Dust and ash filled the air all around her. And when Jacqueleen looked into the soft, black velvet lined coffin her eyes widened with shock and horror.
Barnabas Collin's coffin....
Was empty.
