Series 8/Chapter 6: CHOKE HOLD

The sparkling Atlantic sea crashed against the jagged rocks of Widow's Hill on a brisk fall afternoon. The sun shone through an overcast sky like a light-bulb in a smokey room, each ray of light cutting through the clouds like a knife sculpting a perfect day.

At the Collinwood mansion, things weren't as pristine. Collinsport detectives, Kat and Loomis had a few questions for the mysterious woman living and working in the mansion as Canan's s new governess. Her life before she came to town was a giant question-mark, and the young mother needed answers, and she needed them now.

In a bright, naturally lit nursery Kat and Loomis came upon Sasha Beaufort, the governess in question playing with the baby on the floor. Sasha's back was to the door, her beautiful dark blond curls shimmered in the sunlight like spun gold. Her skin, too, glistened like glitter on a porcelain doll.

Kat held her arm out across the door frame blocking Loomis' entrance. She wanted to watch Sasha with her baby Canan, just for second, to see her in action. With all her suspicions of Sasha, Kat saw only that she was kind and sweet. She and baby Canan got along very well. In her mind, Kat began to feel guilty for feeling so suspicious; was her paranoia just the jitters of a new mother leaving her baby with a complete stranger? Was there a very good explanation for why Sasha's past was shrouded in mystery?  Frustrated with Kat's obvious second thoughts, Loomis cleared his throat to make their presence known to his partner's chagrin.

"Oh! Hi!" Sasha said quickly picking the baby up off the floor.

"Sasha, this is my partner Loomis McGovern, Loomis this is Sasha Beaufort." Kat said introducing them.

"Do you think we can have a minute of your time?" Loomis asked.

"Of course, is something the matter?" Sasha questioned bouncing Canan on  her hip.

"We were just--well--" Kat said struggling to find words before being interrupted by Loomis.

"We have a few questions about you--mainly about your background." Loomis finished.

"My background?" Sasha questioned.

"You don't have one. Like nothing. There's no written document explaining where you cam from or how you came to Collinsport-- at all. As you can imagine, that's a little off-putting for a new mother." Loomis replied referring to Kat.

"I don't understand." Sasha said, the odd feeling of panic setting into her chest.

"Sasha, as you know hiring someone to watch your child is a very sensitive process and I was under the impression that a background check was done before you were hired." Kat began to explain. "But....there wasn't one. I hate to be this 'person', but you can understand where I'm coming from right?" Kat finished sounding slightly embarrassed that she was bringing it up.

"What Detective Collins is saying Miss Beaufort, is that we weren't able to find anything about you at all. Anywhere. Is there a reason for that?" The more pushy Loomis questioned.

Sasha pursed her lips and walked Canan over to his crib and placed him inside. She combed his hair back and winked at him, then turned back around to the officers standing in the doorway.

Her past was a secret for a reason. No one could know where she came from or what she was before she arrived in Collinsport and on the front step of the mansion. For everyone's sake, Sasha needed to it to remain this way, otherwise, there could be dire consequences, and that was a risk she wasn't willing to take. She had to take matters into her own hands.

"I understand. I really do, but you see there is a very good explanation for that. You see...." Sasha answered, and as she began to speak she lifted her hand up in front of Kat and Loomis. Her hand, perfect and feminine began to illuminate a bright light just like the sun. The light burned brighter and brighter and two strands of that light extended from her hand like tiny arms that reached over to Kat and Loomis' face then each little arm of light split in two at the ends and entered into Kat and Loomis' eyes rendering them frozen and in a trans like state, slaves to the intense brightness radiating from Sasha's hand.

When Sasha saw that her powerful energy had frozen them she walked closer, Canan laughed a baby like giggle from his crib as he watched.

Stepping just inches from Kat and Loomis' face Sasha recited:

"From here, from now, you'll turn and go
The truth of all; you'll never know
The way things are you'll keep it so
Without a fight, and without a blow"

The powers deep inside Sasha's body had filtered into Kat and Loomis, slowly. The energy that flowed from her hands, bright and warm, entered their minds and wiped clean and suspicions they may have had of Sasha. It was like her powers rubbed out everything they had been talked about. Her control over the detectives needed to be done so that her past, her truth, and her true identity were kept secret for as long as possible.

"Keep it so." Kat and Loomis both said at the same time repeating Sasha's intoxicating spell.

And with their response, Sasha snapped her fingers, the clicking sounds instantly waking Kat and Loomis from their weird state.

"So that's how it is, I really hope you understand." Sasha said, feigning the end of an explanation she never really began.

Kat and Loomis blinked several times. Their minds seemed a bit foggy a bit lost, they looked over at each other then both at Sasha who was still standing in front of them smiling, waiting to see their reaction and if the spell had worked.

"Uhh...." Kat began and she shook her head. "Right. That does make sense. I hope you're not offended." Kat asked, the answers to her questions never truly being answered.

"Not at all Detective Collins. Not at all." Sasha replied still grinning. "Would you like some time with Canan since you're home?" The mysterious governess asked.

"Oooo! I'd love it, yes!!" Kat replied, now back to her normal state of mind taking up her governess' offer to visit with her baby.

"I'll meet you back at the station after lunch then?" Loomis asked with a smirk to Kat's confirmation.

"I'll walk you out." Sasha said.

Loomis and Sasha made their way down the grand main staircase of the mansion and to the front door. Loomis grabbed his coat and swiftly placed in on his large framed body. He rubbed his eyes that still felt a bit of a strange sting from whatever Sasha did to them without his knowledge.

"Something the matter?" Sasha asked as she opened the large wooden doors for Loomis.

He looked at Sasha, the dim light of the foyer glowing around her almost made her look like someone different. He squinted and looked at her again, this time.

"Detective McGovern?" Sasha asked, worried whatever she had done to him and Kat was having an adverse effect.

He looked around the foyer and everything seemed foggy. The walls were like giant blobs of dark blurs. He kept blinking his eyes hoping they would adjust.

"My eyes feel a bit like I've been staring into the sun." Loomis said.

"It'll pass." She answered.

"What?" He asked confused, when just as Sasha predicted, it did stop.

"I mean I hope you feel better. You know how these early autumn days are, the sun seems to always be the brightest reflecting off of that grey sky." Sasha said trying to cover.

"Right." Loomis answered in confusion and completely clear vision. "Take care of yourself Miss Beaufort, I'll see you around." He continued, and as he closed the door behind him he kept his eye on Sasha, something inside him still felt strange, but what it was, Loomis had no idea.


Once Loomis left, Sasha quickly ran back upstairs and looked in on Kat to see if she was feeling the same way as Loomis. Kat seemed fine, playing with the baby on the floor. Then Sasha dashed to her own room where she closed and locked the door behind her, the anxiety of what had just occurred building up in her like a pressure cooker ready to blow.

There was a rush of energy in her body that she hand't in a very long time. It had been ages since she placed a spell on someone, in fact she thought she didn't have it in her anymore. She thought that over the years her powers had been taken and she had become an immortal powerless sorceress, the kind that only dwell in the shadows.

It was by chance and by sheer luck that this spell, a spell to block any suspicions on her background away from Kat and Loomis actually worked. And Sasha reveled in the idea that her powers were really truly back. Now she was confident in doing what she had intended on doing all along.

The truth about Sasha was that she was a very powerful sorceress who was no stranger to Collinsport or the Collins family. She knew them, she knew their history, in fact, it was her own history. The blood of the Collins family ran through her mystical veins more than anyone really knew, but her true identity was more dangerous if revealed and if she were going to protect the family from what she knew was coming, she had to keep her powers, and her real identity a secret.

Sasha opened a drawer in her bedroom and pulled out what she believed was the source of her returned powers: a cane crowned by a silver wolf handle.

*****

The late afternoon sun still burned warm through the overcast sky and in a quiet section of the a wooded area just outside of Collinsport, in a cottage that was over a hundred  years old, Ezrabette and the exhumed body of Jason McGuire, now known by his alias Jonathon Silva, commiserated over their plot to ruin the Collins family once and for all. Something inside the town mystic, Ezrabette, was telling her that she was making a big mistake.

"I don't want you here. I don't want you anywhere near me, do you understand? What I've done goes against everything I stand for." Ezrabette stated to Jonathon as her black cat Marigold curled and rubbed around her legs.

"Too late for second thoughts now, isn't it witch? What's done is done and you've already committed the greatest offense, buyers remorse does not apply here." Jonathon said with an evil smirk as he sipped from a cup of tea.

"You're a demon." Ezrabette growled.

"I've been called worse. And it's not like you won't get your cut. Your Great-Granny will get her revenge once I've taken over the family, I'll get my money and pay you off...once it's all over you'll never have to see me again. Take your money and run, it's as simple as that." Jonathon added.

"I don't want any of that money!! Don't you understand? I can already tell you this plan will not work, only more pain and more suffering will come of it. Revenge is never the way to seek reparation in any form, it'll all lead to eventual destruction, that I can promise you."

"Are you warning me? Is that something you read in your cards?" Jonathon questioned.

Ezrabette stepped closer to Jonathon, who's eyes were as dead as the body she removed from the ground. His soul was dark and cold, all the evil that Jason had once possessed still bubbled up inside of Jonathon as fresh as the day he died. She could sense his power, his cruel viscous want to make anything attached to the Collins name suffer, it was the same morbid and angry feeling she sensed from the ghost of her great-grandmother Marie Clotilde. They had become a trifecta of supernatural creatures hell bent on doing damage to a family at least two of them harbored towards them.

 "I don't need my cards to tell me that this will all end in disaster Jonathon, and especially for you. The good always wi---" Ezrabette began before Jonathon suddenly began to levitate from his chair.

His eyes were glowing red, Ezrabette stepped backwards, her cat dashing out of the way before she stepped on it. The floating Jonathon was filled with anger, he felt Ezrabette was threatening his plans for the Collins family and no one, not even she, was going to stand in his way.

He reached out, the tips of his shoes dragging across the wooden floor over to the cornered Ezrabette who he grabbed by the throat. His voice deep and menacing.

"Listen to me and listen to me well," Jonathon said, his face suddenly switching from his disguise of Jonathon to the dead decomposed body of Jason McGuire. "If you try and stop me in any way, I swear to you I will make sure you suffer just as much as the Collins family. I will not have you ruin this." The dead body said, tightening his grip on Ezrabette's throat as she gasped for air.

He continued to tighten his fingers, his cold grasp on her neck felt like an iron vice slowly squeezing her throat, he began to smile as she struggled to pull his hands off around her neck. She was gasping, coughing, pulling at his hands, her eyes began to water her mouth open like a fish out of water. Then he dropped to the floor and let go, returning to his disguised handsome face of Jonathon Silva.

Ezrabette collapsed on the floor grasping at her neck taking in air as if she had been underwater for hours. Her eyes glassy and wet from the attempted strangulation.

"I hope my point was clear enough for you. Do not cross me witch." Jonathon said, crossing his legs elegantly as he again took to his tea cup sip.

"What---are---your---plans?" Ezrabette said, crumpled on the floor trying to get her words out from a sore neck.

"Now if I told you that, I'd be a stupid man. I already know what side you're on. You just sit back and watch  how it will all unfold don't you worry." Jonathon answered.

Ezrabette stood up, her cat returning to her side scratching at her leg as she pulled the chair at the other end of the table.

"I can put you back where I found you. I can do it and I wouldn't feel one bit guilty for breaking my great-grandmother's heart." Ezrabette said again, even after Jonathon's warning against intervening.

"You just listen will you?" The disguised dead body of Jason McGuire said. "If what I can do you doesn't scare you what about what your sweet dead granny said, hmm? Remember, one falter of this plan can mean not only disaster for Marie Clotilde and I, but a lifetime of sorrow and pain for those you love, and since you don't have any direct loved ones, it will fall on your sweet friend Maggie Evans. And I know how much you wish to protect her." Jonathon said to Ezrabette's worry.

"After all, she's suffered enough." Jonathon said, his voice suddenly changing from his own to an exact replica of Maggie's voice, as if she was talking out of his mouth.

"Don't hurt  her." Ezrabette growled.

"I'm telling you again, you have only one choice, you will leave the Collins family to me and stay out of it or I will make sure that Maggie Evans and everyone she loves suffers beyond the nightmares she has already undergone, and believe me, it would be my pleasure to unearth them.....oh  yes....Maggie's nightmares are the sort of things that make me tick." Jonathon said in a disgusting tone of pleasure.

Ezrabette was cornered. She could either sit back and watch as Jonathon continued his plan at causing chaos in the Collins family or she could expose him and watch Maggie and her loved ones suffer some unknown fate. She resigned herself and stood up from the table when a sudden knock came at her door.

She looked over at Jonathon who was grinning wickedly, as if he knew who it was; because he did.

 Ezrabette went over to the door and opened it. It was Maggie.

"Hey Bette!" She said in her usual sweet voice.

"Maggie, Hi!" Ezrabette answered nervously but did not invite her in.

"Do you have company? When I got here I heard voices inside. Should I come back?" Maggie questioned.

Ezrabette turned and looked at Jonathon at the dinner table, her waved her in.

"Uhh..." Ezrabette answered nervously, "No,  no, come in."

"Oh Hello!" Maggie said rushing over to Jonathon with an extended hand to shake. "Maggie Evans." She introduced.

"Dr. Jonathon Silva, Ive heard so much about you." Jonathon answered kissing Maggie's hand but staring at Ezrabette who rubbed her sore neck.

"On my drive over, I was on the phone with Sebastian, he says hello." Maggie said, feeling awkward from the formal hand kiss.

"Oh!? How's he doing?" Ezrabette asked to change the subject.

"He's fine, he loves living in Portland. The move was good for him." Maggie answered but still feeling the strange energy between Ezrabette and Jonathon. "I'm sorry I feel like I've interrupted something, should I go? I really hope I'm not interrupting." Maggie continued feeling uncomfortable with the obvious vibe in the room.

"Not at all, I was just leaving, I have to head over to Collinwood to see Carolyn for another session." Jonathon said standing up from the table and sipping the rest of his tea.

"Oh! I was on my way there after my visit, Bette, would you mind if I we caught up later? I could give your friend Jonathon here a ride up the hill." Maggie offered sweetly.

"NO!" Ezrabette screamed oddly startling Maggie.

"Whats the matter?" Maggie questioned surprised at Ezrabette's outburst.

"Jonathon was going to take a cab, I'm sure it's almost here, we wouldn't want the cab driver to have come all this way out of town for nothing." Ezrabette lied.

"Not at all, I haven't called the cab company yet, it would be most kind of you Ms. Evans to take me up to the house. Thank you." Jonathon replied as he gathered his things to Ezrabette's dismay.

"Then it's all sorted out. Bette, I'll see you later hon!" Maggie answered kissing her friend on the cheek as she set out to start her car.

As Jonathon passed her, Ezrabette grabbed him by the arm and pulled him close.

"I swear to you, hurt her and I'll...." Ezrabette whispered.

"Now, now, now, witch, you know the rules. Keep your mouth shut and not a hair on Maggie's head will be touched, break that rule and..." Jonathon said as he slid his finger across his throat indicating something malicious.

He released himself from Ezrabette's arm and rushed over to Maggie in her car. Ezrabette watched as the car drove off and her nerves started to bubble, she alone and terrified. She had to figure a way out of this mess before anyone got hurt, even if it meant breaking her promise to her murdered ancestor Marie Clotilde.

****

Curtis, the man with the bright blue eyes that Sasha met in Founders Park, was late for a meeting at Collins Enterprises. He had come to Collinsport on as a very special envoy from New York City and was supposed to get a job with the company. He entered the large glass building that reflected the sparking sea that below it's perch a top a sloping hill of green grass that met with the Collinsport marina.

The company needed a new person to manage a smaller group of fishing liners.

Curtis rushed into the lobby and bounded up to the receptionist.

"Afternoon, I'm sorry, I just got a call about the meeting I was supposed to have today. I'm here to see Mr. Caleb Collins." Curtis explained.

"You're very late. An hour." The receptionist said with a raised eyebrow.

"I know I got tied up somewhere, is Mr. Collins still available to see me?" Curtis questioned the woman behind the sleep flat screen computer.

"I'll have to check with his Secretary, but I can tell you now mister...he doesn't wait around for anyone. Gimme a second, take a seat." The receptionist stated as she made a few calls and then ushered Curtis back to her desk. "You're in luck, Mr. Collins is actually on his way out and he'll meet with you down here in the lobby, but wouldn't hold your breath honey." She said again in a sarcastic tone.

The shiny elevators that stood at the back of the lobby sparkled in the late afternoon sun that shone through the over-sized glass windows in the front that made the entire room light up like the inside of a crystal vase.

The elevator doors opened and out popped Caleb in his sharp suit and tie and his briefcase ready to end his day.

"Mr. Collins! Hi, we were going to meet today. I'm awfully sorry about how late I am, I really am, I just came to town and got caught up somewhere and lost track of time. I really hope we can still talk about the job." Curtis said referencing his run in with Sasha in the park as an excuse.

"I usually don't take meetings with people who stand me up at all, but you've come with a great reference. So, walk me out and tell me about yourself and why I should bring you into the company?" Caleb said shaking Curtis' hand.

"In the past I've really brought a lot of great leadership to the companies I've been employed with and I'm hoping to that here too...long term of course. I really would appreciate a chance to run the north fleet of fishing ships for Collins Enterprises. There's nothing this position can throw at me that I can't tackle and succeed in, that I can assure you." Curtis said, the afternoon sun sparkling in his bright eyes.

Caleb smiled, and grabbed Curtis' hand and shook it hard. He had been in such a good mood lately, that nothing, not even a meeting that he would normally have past on because of how inconvenient and unprofessional Curtis was by being so late wouldn't stop his good vibes.

"Go back in, get our receptionist to call up my secretary to have some contracts drawn up for you. You've got the job." Caleb said smirking and putting on his sun glasses as he jumped into his car.

"Thank you!!" Curtis said with a big grin.

Caleb rolled down his window as he pulled out of his parking spot and smiled his 1,000 watt smile at Curtis.

"Don't make me regret this, after all we're family." Caleb said as he drove off.

Curtis jumped for joy and ran back into the lobby and once again bounded up to the receptionist desk. She, as per her usual behavior, was already two steps ahead.

"I know, I know, Mr. Collins called from the car.....take the elevators to the 13th floor, turn right and go down the hallway all the way down until you see a blonde lady. That's Mr. Collins secretary. She'll have your paperwork." The unimpressed receptionist directed.

"Thank you!" Curtis replied.

"Oh and Mr. Winters," the receptionist said to Curtis using his last name, "don't be late ever again."

****

The Autumn sun began to set bringing a bright orange sky behind the Collinwood mansion that cast shadows over the giant front lawn. Birds began to head to their nests in the large bitch-maple trees that surrounded the Collinwood land to settle in for the night. It quickly became damp and cool, the fresh ocean air spilling over the cliffs and onto the grounds. The mansion itself, cast in its own silhouette, shared in the gloom over the evening.

 David was in the drawing room pacing back and forth then stopping at the two open French doors that lead to an outside patio when Kimberly walked in, she smiled, and came up behind him hoping he'd turn around and feel the same joy she was, instead as he turned he jumped, startled by how close she was to him without him even noticing her in the room.

"God, Kimberly, you should have said something." he said in a gasp.

"I didn't mean to scare you." She said disappointed in his reaction. "What's the matter with you? Your pacing is going to leave grooves in the floor, I don't think Carolyn will like that." She said jokingly.

"Kim, listen, sit down. We should talk." David said, she being the reason for his pacing.

"Well I don't like the sound of this." Kim responded.

"I know that we agreed you should stay here and Siobhan doesn't seem to mind, but I think I do. I don't know if I'm really comfortable with it myself, after everything that's happened between us I just think it's better if you stayed somewhere else, we can arrange for you to maybe stay in the cottage or the old house." David said, offering a new solution.

"Are you kidding me? You want me to stay at the old house? That drafty place filled with god knows what from it's days as Barnabas' go to murder mansion? Why are you trying to get rid of me?" Kim questioned in a furious tone.

"I'm not getting rid of you, I just think it would be better for both of us if maybe we weren't in each other's faces all the time." He said standing up.

"Grow up David. We're divorced, big deal. I think I've handled the fact that you've on with Barnabas' adopted daughter Siobhan pretty well, don't you? I mean who would have guessed it?" Kim answered.

"This really isn't about what you want or even what Siobhan wants, its about what I think is best for me and actually for Carolyn. She's in a very delicate state right now and I think that with less people around she could probably recuperate better." David explained.

"Don't use Carolyn as an excuse, you want me to leave so that you don't have to have me in your face every single day, you just said it and who am I do take that away from you? Just the mother of your son." Kim said.

"Don't use Caleb against me you lost that right when you abandoned him when he was a kid and ran off with Victor Reed." David said using his own back-handed remark on her past.

"ENOUGH!" A voice said from the entrance of the foyer.

"Siobhan." David said rushing over to her.

"No one is leaving this house. It's big enough for everyone, David there's no reason for any of this." Siobhan answered.

"But..." David said before being interrupted.

"If Kimberly really wants to say here in the face of all this, then she should. Who are we to ask her to leave?" Siobhan continued over David's voice.

Siobhan's kindness felt faint and stale to Kimberly no matter how much of it was real or fake, but it made an impression on Kimberly none the less. Kimberly took a deep breath and breezed past the couple only to turn back around at the drawing room doors to make an announcement.

"Once my work with the University of Maine is done, I'll leave. I don't want to deal with anymore of David's discomforts. And why should I? I hope that makes you happy David." Kimberly said as she turned back around and head to her office down the corridor.

"Are you really sure you're going to be OK with her being here? Really really sure?" David questioned as he grabbed hold of his lovely girlfriend.

"The nicer we are to her the better it will be for us in the long haul, trust me. Kimberly strikes me as a very low self-confidence especially when it comes to you. That could be the reason she keeps running off to places or even as a result of being so tormented by her older sister. From what I can tell, her sister Joanna wasn't the kindest person to anyone." Siobhan said, using her own therpist voice.

"I just don't know if I trust her, you know? I just don't know." David said as the sea crashed against the rocks below widow's hill.

Just behind the doors of the drawing room, listening in, was Kimberly. She shook her head, she took a deep breath and marched down to her office. She felt humiliated hearing them talk about her like she was some kind of mental case because of Joanna, or because of guilt of what she did to David so many years ago. She was angry because she was being treated like a charity case by Siobhan, a woman she barley knew and barley had the right to talk about her. Kimberly was fuming.

In  her office she decided that there was not much more time to waste and she had to begin the experiment with the sedative plants that she was given by the University of Maine to test for cancer patients as a pain reliever. Her plan, if it worked, would sedate Siobhan enough that in her sleep like state, she would look dead. In Siobhan's death, could Kimberly get her spot in the Collins' family hierarchy again, just as she did before.

Kimberly, the scientist with a mind of a madwoman, began mixing her potions and plant extracts over open flames and petri-dishes for what seemed like hours. She worked and worked, and tested and test until she felt confident in the right amount of plant, and the right amount of regular sedative.

"This should be enough." Kimberly said holding up a test vial of her potion.

"Hard at work again!" A voice said from the door.

"Caleb!" Kimberly said noting her son who just arrived from work himself.

"What is that?" He questioned walking up to his mother's work station.

"Just something I've cooked up." Kim said, keeping the vial away from Caleb. "What are you doing down here?" She added.

"I just got home and I wanted to see how you were doing. I thought you were already finished with this University of Maine stuff." Caleb noted.

"I have a few more things I need to do." Kim answered shortly.

"Listen, mom, I know you may feel like the whole dynamic has changed here with Siobhan and everything but it really hasn't. Really. You should really just get to know her more and see that she's not that bad. And Dad really loves her. I would hate for you to just stay in this office all the time and not really try and get things to be better between you and dad and Siobhan." Caleb said,

"I'm fine with it! I really am! I think it's your dad who's not." Kimberly said slyly.

"Did he say something to you?" Caleb questioned.

Kimberly slipped the now corked vial of powerful sedative into the pocket of her white coat. She was going to take out Siobhan, and take her out tonight. There was no time to waste.

"It doesn't matter what he said, honey. What matters is that I'm  here now and I get to see what a wonderful father you are and what a wonderful husband you are too." She said giving her son a kiss on the cheek.

"Come on, cook is just about to get dinner on the table. They say the best way for people to get to know each other is by sharing meals together and since Kat is working late today you can watch me try and feed Canan, its hilarious. He only lets Kat or Sasha feed him." Caleb said optimistically not really knowing how much danger he had just put Siobhan in.

Kim could hardly object as Caleb grabbed her by the hand and led her out of her office and down the long hallway that lead to the large dinning room where David, Siobhan, Sasha, and Canan were all waiting for dinner to be brought out. There was an uncomfortable tone in the room but the topic of the baby was always the regulator.

Kimberly scoped out the table settings and tried to figure out which glass was Siobhans. She tried to make sure she could find a way to drop in the potent liquid she had just mixed into her rival's glass without being noticed by anyone.

Siobhan smiled at Kim and sipped from her white wine placed her glass down. Over in the corner of the room was a small wine bar with three bottles of unopened wine.

"More wine?" David asked Siobhan.

"Yes, thank you. Sauvingnon please." Siobhan said.

"Oh! David, let me, its the least I can do for all the nice things Siobhan has done for me today, besides I was just about to get my own glass too." Kim said quickly jumping up to stop David so she would have access to Siobhan's glass.

"What? I can do it." David insisted.

"David, please, I can pour a glass of wine or two, no big deal." Kimberly also insisted as she took Siobhan's glass from David's hand and walked over to the bar where the wine was.

As the family talked amongst themselves about Carolyn's recovery and became distracted with the baby's antics Kimberly found her moment. She filled the two glasses of wine and reached into her white lab coat and pulled out the vial of sedative mixture she had just mixed from the Brazilian plants that had come to her from the University of Maine for her tests of pain medication for cancer patients.

She opened the vial and let three drops fall into the white wine, which by her calculations, would  be powerful enough to knock out an African elephant. She looked over her shoulder and no one had noticed, she saw how lovingly David looked at Siobhan and re-opened the vial and dropped three more drops into Siobhan's wine the closed the vial and walked back over to the table and handed Siobhan her wine.

Siobhan placed the glass on the table.

"Thanks Kim." She said smiling.

The glass of wine sparkled under the 19th century chandelier in the center of the room above the table. Kim's heart pounded waiting for Siobhan to take her first sip of the tainted wine. The glass of wine just sat at the table right next to her rival, at times, Siobhan would even plat with the wine glass stem while everyone talked. But she never drank from the cup.

Then dinner came and they all began to serve themselves what the cook had created for them. Still no drink from the glass. It was getting later and later and Siobhan had yet to take a sip of freshly poured glass of wine. Kimberly was beginning to feel that she may not get to it before dinner was done and that her plan my fall apart right here right now.

Then, while the family continued to talk about their day over their meal, it happened, Siobhan picked up her glass of wine, looked over at Caleb who was talking about a surprise new worker he had just hired for Collins Enterprises and took a long drink from her glass, she would drink three quarters of what was in her glass.

Kim smiled, a grin of satisfaction and relief because at any minute, Siobhan would fall into the deepest sleep she could ever imagine, so deep that she would be believed dead, so deep that no one would know just how she died.

All Kim could do now was wait for the tainted wine to seep into her blood stream and take over her body, then and only then, could she truly find her way back to David and back into her family's warm embrace.

                             

Series 8/Chapter 5: SOMETHING ABOUT SASHA

The overcast sky covered Collinsport was like a grey blanket that shielded the town below from the rays of a golden sun. The cool breeze from the ocean just blocks away from Founder's Park filled the chilly autumn air with the smell of saltwater.

Sasha and Canan were enjoying a little break from the mansion in the park looking at the ducks in the small man-made lake Annabella, named after Collinsport's founder Issac's wife. As the new governess gave the baby little bits of bread to throw at the ducks, a handsome stranger walked up behind them.

"Your baby is quite handsome." He said squatting down next to Sasha and Canan.

"Oh, he's not mine. I'm his governess." Sasha answered. "But he is handsome, isn't he?" She added squeezing the baby's cheek.

"Governess? That's such an old term." The man answered.

"Yes, well, I work for an old family, The Collins family." Sasha replied.

The man's ears perked up as soon as he heard the name Collins. It was like finding the right key to open a mysterious door.

"Is that so? That's very coincidental. I was just talking about this family not too long ago." The man said to a confused looking Sasha. "See, I'm new to town. Just came in last night and it seems like they're a very popular family here, everything seems to be named after them." He joked.

"Well they practically own everything here and founded the town themselves, it makes sense to me." Sasha said, starting to feel annoyed by the stranger's lingering.

"I'd like to meet them. One of them. Any of them!" The man said.

"Really!?" Sasha said still annoyed. "Why are you so interested in them?" Sasha asked suspiciously.

"Well, you said it yourself, they own practically everything here, it's rare to come into a town these days and still have one family rule it like a monarch." The man said, hiding the fact that there was a more interesting connection to the family than he was leading on.

"What are you doing in Collinsport anyway? You said that you were knew." Sasha said digging deeper.

"Connecting with some old family members. You know how that goes. There are a lot of loose ends that I just discovered and I'd love to finally connect those dots." The handsome man said his blue eyes looking grey reflecting the cloudy sky.

Sasha began to feel strange with the man's non-answers and he continued to make odd small talk that didn't interest her. His vibe was something from an 80s movie, self-centered and craving attention from her, attention she didn't care to give him. As he went on and on at nauseam about what he had come to learn about Collinsport, she started to pack up the baby's things and go towards the awaiting car where the Collins family driver Powell was waiting, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Wait! What's the matter? You're leaving already?" The man questioned.

"Listen mister, I've been around long enough to know that when a man avoids directly answering a question and only talk about themselves that they could be up to no good. What made you come over here and talk to me? How did you know that I was working for the family?" Sasha demanded to know.

"I didn't know. Look, I don't mean to upset you...why don't we start over. My name is Curtis." The man said extending his hand.

"Goodbye Curtis." Sasha replied not believing Curtis had ulterior motives to introducing himself and he began pushing Canan in his stroller across the thick green grass.

"Wait! Miss! Wait! I didn't catch your name!" Curtis said running behind her in a small jog.

"That's because I did't give it to you. Something about you just doesn't sit right with me, now we really have to go." Sasha said flipper her thick curls at Curtis.

"Oh come on! I really didn't do anything wrong, and I was just curious about the town. I really had no idea you were working for this Collins group at all. I promise. Please, can we start fresh? A handshake at least?" Curtis said as they reached the chauffeured car and Powell opened the back door for the baby and Sasha.

"Is there a problem?" Powell said sternly.

Sasha turned to Powell then back at Curtis, his eyes blue and bright, he smiled at her waiting for her answer to both his question and Powell's.

"No, everything is fine Powell." She said to the Collins family driver. "Sasha Beaufort." She then said turning to Curtis and shaking his extended hand.

She jumped in the back seat and tightened Canan in his car seat. She rolled up her window and Powell started the car and began to drive off. She looked back out of her tinted glass window and watched Curtis get smaller and smaller still sanding on the law of Founder's Park with his hands on his hips.

As he stood their his cell phone rang. He stumbled and reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone still grinning at his encounter with the beautiful governess.

"Yeah?" Curtis said answering the phone call. "Great, great I'll be right down, thanks." Curtis to the unnamed caller.

He continued to smile as he watched the tiny black spec of Sasha's kept getting smaller as it drove off into the gloomy day back to Collinwood.

"Sasha Beaufort huh?" Curtis replied softy to himself.

****

The Collinsport Police Department was a buzz with the return of one of their most popular detectives, Kat Collins, since she gave birth to her first child with her husband Caleb. She was returning to a busy office at that. There had been a string of cat burglaries in town that her partner Loomis McGovern had been investigating alone, but now that Kat was back, her eager to have her input and hopefully catch the thief. This wasn't big city crime, but it was something, and the police department was happy to investigate these types of easy crimes rather than the murders and missing person's situation they were dealing with only months earlier.

Kat sat at her desk after a hefty "welcome back" party complete with donuts and coffee. She seemed a bit distracted, staring at a photograph she had framed of Caleb and the baby. She smiled and touched the baby's face through the frame's cool glass.

"You know it's really normal to miss your kid on the first day, it's ok to call home." Loomis said coming back from his second helping of donuts and coffee. "When my kids were young and I was back from paternity leave, I called at least a dozen times. My wife got so annoyed." He added trying to make her feel better.

"Well at least your wife was home, what kind of mom am? I left him with a nanny!" Kat said feeling guilty.

"Oh come on! Moms now at days want to go back to work, its totally natural to be a working mom. Stop beating yourself up. We have a lot to cover about these cases. Check it out!" Loomis said tossing Kat the file over the partition between their facing desks.

Kat opened the file and flicked through the pages. Her mind still on her domestic situation.

"I just... there's something I can put my finger on about Sasha, know what I mean? I'm getting that weird nervous feeling in my stomach about her." Kat added while she read the case file on the burglaries.

"Whos' that? The nanny?" Loomis questioned.

Kat nodded yes. "She's young and pretty and ..."

"Oh if this is going to be some kind of conversation about putting in a Nanny-cam because you think Caleb's going to be all over her...." Loomis began before Kat interrupted.

"No, no, nothing like that. She's just really mysterious about herself. Like, get this, I could never get a straight answer about her background. All I know is that she came up from Boston through a nanny service, or Governess service that Carolyn recommended."  Kat said.

"So she's from a service. That's good, then they've done background checks. None of those types of services hire nannies without doing one." Loomis confirmed.

"But I never saw it." Kat replied.

"We can look it up. That's easy. What's her full name?" Loomis said opening up his laptop to look up Sasha's history.

"Sasha Beaufort. She's from Boston, that's literally all I know. I'd say she's about 25, 26 years old." Kat added.

"Ok, let's see....S-A-S-H-A.......Beaufort......Beau---fort......Ok...." Loomis said while the information processed.

The computer continued to search through records of registered New England domestic help agencies. Loomis narrowed down the services to 3 in Boston and found the one where Sasha was hired through. He clicked on the records that were available to all law enforcement and saw a list of all their registered nannies.

Sasha's name was not on the list.

"I don't understand. How can that be? Caleb has talked to this agency, Carolyn has talked to them...how can her name not be on this register?" Kat questioned.

"Maybe I spelled her name wrong." Loomis said checking the information he typed in.

"No, you got it, look." Kat confirmed pointing to the name at the top of the form of his search. "This doesn't make any sense. We have forms that were sent up from Boston from this place. She's clearly registered. How can she not be online for us to do a check on her?" Kat said, her voice starting to worry.

"This is super easy to fix, let's just call down to Boston to this agency and ask them ourselves. Maybe they have a good explanation as to why her records aren't available for us to read online. Could be a simple mistake." Loomis reassured Kat.

Kat walked back over to her desk and pulled a business card out of her purse. She sat down and dialed the agency in Boston but never left the gaze of Loomis. They kept their eyes on each other, she a worried mother, him secretly suspicious too but never leading on as to not worry Kat further.

"Good morning, this is Detective Kathryn Collins of the Collinsport Police Department in Collinsport, Maine. I was calling you to confirm some information on a Governess that was hired from your agency. Is there a way I could speak to someone in your records department about this young woman?" Kat questioned the person on the phone who placed her on hold for the records people. "Yes, hello, the young woman's name is Sasha Beaufort." Kat added when the records keeper came on the line.

"Well that can't be." Kat said after a few minutes. "She's at my home right now with my child and she came with paperwork that is from your agency, I mean, how else would she have that if she's not employed with you?" Kat questioned, anger and panic now setting in slowly.

"Nothing?" Loomis mouthed, Kat shook her head "No."

"Thank you, yes, thank you. I'll be sure to do that." Kat said hanging up the phone.

"I don't get it." Loomis said, sipping his coffee.

"I have to go home, I got to call Caleb. I have to call my mother!" Kat said grabbing her jacket and dropping paper work all over the floor in her panicked state.

"Calm down, calm down, do one thing at a time. Don't call anyone until we know exactly what's going on. No need to worry anyone, all of this could be very easily explained." Loomis said.

"Really? Nothing with t his family is every 'easily explained.'" Kat joked.

"Why don't you go home and check on Canan. She's not alone with the boy is she?" Loomis questioned.

"No, there should be people home." Kat said.

"Alright, I'll go with you and we'll figure this all out. Come on." Loomis said grabbing his jacket.

The two detectives quickly left the police department to make their way up to Collinwood, Sasha Beaufort had  a lot of explaining to do.

****

The morning sun soon soared to it's midday perch. The rays of autumn light baked the browning grass of Collinwood warming the earth that held each blade down at their roots. Inside the great mansion the man brought back to life by the black magic of Ezrabette Baptiste and was now using the assumed name of Dr. Jonathon Silva instead of his former more familiar Jason McGuire, sat in the corner of Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne's bedroom suite. He was there under the guise of a physiologist to help ease her mind after a tormented night before. 

The truth was Jonathon was there to fulfill an act of revenge on the descendants of Judith Collins-Trask for the murder of her husband's mistress Marie Clotilde by burning her alive in her own home. Jonathon's history with the Collins family as Jason McGuire was an added bonus, not only would he fulfill Marie Clotilde's revenge but his own, as he too was murdered by a Collins, Jonathon's first life met a very violent and bloody end.

"Tell me, why do you think you say Barnabas the other night standing in the rain outside the old house?" Jonathon asked as Carolyn sat at her vanity mirror combing her hair.

"I don't know. I don't know why I saw Barnabas, and I don't think I saw him, I did see him." She replied assertively. 

"You're right. You did see him. By why do you think no one else did?" Jonathon questioned further.

"Jonathon, do you know who Barnabas was? Do you know his story? Because if you don't you probably should. But I should warn you it isnt for the faint of heart or for someone who's not open minded." Carolyn said getting up from her mirror. 

"What does Barnabas' story have to do with why you saw him and no one else did? What's the relevance?" Jonathon questioned.

"So you don't know his story." Carolyn joked noting that Jonathon had no idea what she was talking, even though Barnabas was the cause of Jonathon's death in his first life as Jason.

"Carolyn, I want you to lay down here on your bed, and I want you to think back to the last time you saw Barnabas, before you saw him outside in the rain." Jonathon requested.

"With all do respect, Jonathon, I don't see how any of this is going to help me, I do not need a psychiatrist. What I needed was rest and I got that, now I just want to be out and about with everyone else." Carolyn complained.

"I promised your family I would try and get to the bottom of what you saw. It's not like you just randomly saw someone from your window and let it be, you went out in the middle of a storm and chased after some phantom!" Jonathon said still hiding the fact that he was the person Carolyn saw confusing him with Barnabas. 

Carolyn huffed breath of frustration from her nose and she reluctantly complied with the fake psychiatrist. She lay her head on her pillow and she closed her eyes and began to let Jonathon's voice guide her mind into a place where she felt distant and far away. She kept her eyes closed tight and tried to picture the last time she saw Barnabas, it was the only way she could make sense of the reason why she thought she was seeing him. Was he trying to tell her something? 

"Let my voice be just an echo in your mind....let your mind go blank and follow your thoughts to anyplace it wants to...do not force yourself to go anywhere or see anything, just let yourself go....now what do you see?" Jonathon asked.

Carolyn's eyes began to twitch as her mind began to clear and lead her into a what seemed like a white light. As she continued to follow the sound of Jonathon's voice Jonathon's charm around his neck began to glow a dark purple color. He held in in his hand and got up from his chair and walked over to Carolyn who was laying with her eyes closes. 

He held the charm over her body and the light from the charm began to seep out like a thick fog and swirled into both of Carolyn's closed eyes making the white light in her mind start to change color. It went from white to grey to purple then black, still in her sleep like mode Carolyn gasped at the sight of the darkness in her head.

"Don't open you eyes, continue on this journey and follow it. See where it takes you." Jonathon's voice from outside Carolyn's dream state ordered.

In her mind, Carolyn began to figured, human shapes standing in the distance in the dark emptiness. There were three. The three figures began to float forward and come closer and as they came closer she could start to make out the figures faces. She could see noses, and eyes, she could see the shape of their jaw lines and their hair color but only until they got as close as possible could she see their faces.

Two of the three figures soon materialized into the faces of her deceased husband Jack Thorne and her daughter Alexandra. The center figure stayed in silhouette. 

"Jack.... Alex...." Carolyn whispered as Jonathon continued to watch over her.

"What are they doing?" He asked her to describe.

In her dream like state Carolyn began to reach out to her husband and daughter. They were still far enough away that she could not touch them but she close enough that she could see their faces. They were smiling, but showing no teeth. There was also something strange about their eyes. Carolyn could not get them to focus on her, Jack and Alex would look at Carolyn and smile but then look away and back at the center figure who was still all in black. 

"Come to me." Carolyn said to her family.

Jack and Alex slowly floated over in Carolyn's direction, they got closer and closer and still smiled without showing teeth. But then as soon as they got close Carolyn reached and touched Jack's face, a bright light then lit his face and showed that Jack's eyes were just empty sockets and his lips were sewn shut. Jack tried to speak but his mouth could not open. Carolyn screamed and reached over to her daughter who's eyes were also empty and hollowed and her lips were also sewn shut, and her neck had two tiny circular wounds at her jugular where blood began to pour out and stain the clothes she was wearing. 

Both Jack and Alexandra continued to make mumbling noises that Carolyn, who was screaming in her dream state and in real life, could not make out. Suddenly the black figure pushed through from behind and Jack and Alex fell into the darkness all around them. The the light that had lit Jack and Alex's faces lit the person in black, it was Barnabas Collins, his mouth full of blood, his fangs stained with Alex's blood. Hi hissed at Carolyn and lunged at her causing Carolyn to jolt out of her dream state and sat up in bed.

When she became more alert, she looked around her room and saw that she was alone. Jonathon was no where to be found. She got up and quickly searched her room. She was there, alone. No one else. Carolyn began to feel uneasy, her mind was racing, her blood was pumping. Why was she seeing this terrible sight of her daughter and husband. Why was Barnabas doing what he was doing? She began to feel ill, she began to feel panicked. Where was Jonathon!?

Carolyn quickly opened her bedroom suite door and ran down the hallway towards the staircase. As she passed the library she heard voices. She opened the library and it was dark, she stood at the door, her heart racing, her breathing becoming more and more shallow. 

"Hello?" She asked to the empty room where she heard voices. "Is someone in here?" She questioned the empty library. 

Then she felt a stinging feeling at her neck, it was like a needles pricking her over and over again. Then a warmth flowing down from her throat onto her chest. Carolyn looked down at her shirt and blood was now spreading in a large circle in the center of her chest. She touched her neck then looked at her hand it was full of her own blood. 

She began to feel herself fall to the ground but she was caught. When she opened her eyes to see what caught her from hitting the ground and into a pool of her own blood she saw the hungry jaws of Barnabas Collins returning to her beck for another drink of her blood.

She screamed again ---and again she woke up in her bed. In her room. In her house. Alone. Jonathon was gone. She was not bleeding. She was not in the library.

"Carolyn! Honey! What's that matter!" Siobhan exclaimed bursting through Carolyn's bedroom door. 

"Where's Jonathon. Where is he? Where is he!??" Carolyn screaming at the top of her lungs. 

"He left just before lunch time. He said you were sleeping." Siobhan answered.

"NO. He was just here. He was just here!" Carolyn replied as David walked into the room.

"Calm down, calm down." David grabbing a hold of Carolyn's flailing hands.

Siobhan and David looked at each other with deep concern. Carolyn seemed lost, she seemed confused. She seemed as though she was on t he brink of a nervous breakdown. Whatever was happening to her now much more serious than they had ever expected. 

Series 8/Chapter 4: DR. SILVA AND MR. McGUIRE

It was a gloomy morning after a powerful storm ripped through the Maine fishing village of Collinsport. The sea had yet to calm and crashed along side the jagged shoreline like an angry salt water beast thrashing it's body on the side of the a rocky coastline; hard enough that the sound could be felt deep inside a person's gut. A wind howled like a wolf in mourning that broke through a terrible chill in the air that stabbed like a thousand daggers. To the residents of Collinsport, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

It was a feeling that oppressed the atmosphere just about everywhere in town, including inside small secluded cottage in the outlaying forest.

Ezrabette, the town mystic who relatively kept to herself in this old cottage paced in her living room. Her black cat cuddled on the corner of a sofa eyeing her master; back and forth back and forth, like the pendulum of grandfather clock ticking away the time.

Ezrabette's mind clung to dead man she brought back to life, and the story of the fire that killed her ancestor Marie Clotilde who was burned to death by the mentally unstable and jealous Judith Collins Trask. .

"You worry too much." An echoing voice said as a frosty breeze brushed Ezrabette's cheek.

"Show yourself." Ezrabette demanded as a cloudy and misty substance began to form just in front of her. It churned and swirled like an icy morning fog, grey and blue in color like ash. It continued to form slowly in clouds into the shape of a translucent woman who's eyes were missing but still seemed to have the ability to look deeply into a person's soul.

"Our journey is just beginning, you're the key to it's success." the ghost of Marie Clotilde answered now in full form to a disgruntled Ezrabette.

"I brought a man back to life, that goes beyond the laws of nature and against everything that I stand for in this realm. What I've done has defied everything that I believe in, in the name of something dark and evil! I not sure how I can live with myself after this." Ezrabette said as if confessing and pouring herself a glass of brown liquor that swirled in a small tumbler that clinked with ice.

Ezrabette's gift of speaking to those who have died was something she was always aware of since she was just a small girl. Her family had always know she was special, they called on her often because she was what they called: "open." She believed she was gifted these psychic abilities to offer good in people's lives even if she did make her living off of it.

This gift  from god and nature helped her reach the dead in their family's time of need; by breaking these most powerful laws of nature the way she had by bringing Jason McGuire back from beyond the grave  went directly in contrast to those believes and it was starting to weigh on her.

"Murder is against these laws too. I was killed and my child, your grandfather, taken from me never to know his true identity. This wrong needs to be made right or I can never reach the other side of the veil. You have done the right thing." Marie Clotilde said.

Ezrabette stepped forward, her eyes fixated on the spirit in front of her. She could see the fog that created her body swirl around as if a cloud in the shape of a woman was standing right in front of her. It was a fascinating vision, and she reached for her misty great-grandmother but her hands went through the smoky body as if there was nothing there. She could see her own hand inside Marie Clotilde's translucent chest. She gasped and turned around covering her eyes.

"I am real, this is not a dream." The spirit said, sensing Ezrabette had still yet to believe all this was happening.

"I just want to wake up from this. I just want this all to go away like it never happened!" Ezrabette said. She had always heard the spirits speak but never had she seen them, never had they materialized like this. It was a frightening sight.

"It will end....once my mission is complete." The echoing voice from the spirit replied.

"I can help you go to the other side without any of this, we wouldn't have to deal with any of the Collins family. They don't matter! I can help you!" Ezrabette exclaimed offering up a different way to end Marie Clotilde's ghostly suffering.

Marie Clotilde's empty eyes seemed to grow deeper like two pools of black water, just two black holes showing nothing on the other side.  Her voice spoke again, this time forceful and deep.

"The days where alternatives are over, ma chere. I've spent an eternity waiting for this moment and it's time for it to happen. You'll do as I ask of you, or the consequences will be dire." The spirit replayed.

"What do you mean? What would you do?" Ezrabette said stepping backwards.

"For the rest of your days, no one you love will ever find happiness. No one you love will ever find peace. I will make sure that this curse rings true for all of your loved ones if this deed is not done according to my plans. I promise you this." The spirit warned.

"Instead of fixing things in a decent way, you'll continue with more pain and more suffering then? You're cruel. You'd continue Judith's pain through me." Ezrabette replied cynically.

"Hush!!!" The spirit said, her head tilted to one side as if listening for something. "Someone comes." She said again.

"Who?" Ezrabette said looking out of a side window facing the road.

"Margaret Evans....your friend. Your dearest friend who has found peace just these recent months." Marie Clotilde said snidely as Ezrabette slowly caught on to what the spirit was planning.

"Don't you hurt her, she's done nothing and has nothing to do with the Collins family!" Ezrabette said of her best friend.

"Hasn't she? Margaret's daughter is Collins by marriage, she has everything to do with them. She is your first test." Marie Clotilde said.

Ezrabette heard the sound from Maggie's car slowly pulling up in her rocky driveway. She reached over in side drawer to a table and quickly took a drink of her dark liquor she had hidden there and looked over at the spirit without eyes standing in her living room, she worried that if she didn't do what Marie Clotilde wanted, Maggie would again begin to feel the terrible wrath of the supernatural that had plagued her life for so many years.

Ezrabette remembered how Maggie suffered so much pain from her past that she faked her death hid away at Windcliff Sanitarium for 30 years just to rid herself of it all.

It was a horrible place to be put in, do the right thing and deny Marie Clotilde her revenge and curse your closest friend and all she loved to a lifetime of pain and suffering, or do as Marie Clotilde wished and curse another set of friends to unknown horrors.

But Maggie had suffered enough and was now in a good place; Ezrabette's choice was clear.

"What do you want me to do?" The town mystic asked of her dead great-grandmother.

"The mistress of Collinwood, Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne, is slowly being drawn into madness, she'll need a confidant, so to speak, to help her through these days. Plant the name Dr. Jonathon Silva in Maggie Evans' mind. Jonathon will help this woman through ...to end of her life." The apparition ordered as she quickly disappeared into the walls as if she had never been there at all.

Ezrabette stood in the center of her living room almost in a trans. Her eyes were closed. Her lips parted allowing a small amount of air creep in.

A knock on her door broke this trans.

"Bette? You home, hon? Its Maggie!......Bette?" Maggie said from the outside.

Ezrabette shook her head as if to shake water from her ears and took a deep breath. She flattened the crease in her pants and at the same time wiped her sweaty palms then walked over to the door and opened it with a great big grin.

"Hi love! Come in! Come in!" She said as Maggie smiled back.

"You're in a great mood. That storm didn't take too much out of you did it?" Maggie said noticing Ezrabette looking around the room as if she were looking for someone else. "You ok?" She added.

"Sure! Yes, have a seat." Ezrabette said, her voice sounding strained.

"I just wanted to come and check on you. I wasn't sure how well this old house held up with all that rain. They say more is coming, you know, if you ever need to you can come stay out the cottage." Maggie said offering her family home.

"Oh, it's fine, everything is fine." Ezrabette answered shortly.

Maggie could tell something wasn't quite right about her good friend, but she knew that often times Ezrabette's work seeped into her own life, she'd grow distant and distraught. Managing the lives of the living and the dead was exhausting and a lot of times overwhelming. Ezrabette's physic abilities were a draining experience that Maggie had witnessed first hand, it was something she knew would be brushed off if she worried too much.

"Well you look as tired as I feel, last night was quite distressing for everyone. You should see Carolyn!" Maggie said speaking of her other friend.

"Carolyn?" Ezrabette questioned, the name perking her interest when she realized Carolyn was also the mistress of Collinwood--the person Marie Clotilde had mentioned in her plot.

"I spent the night at the Mansion because it was just too rainy to drive home, you know how these old streets can flood, so as I'm sitting there getting ready for bed all this commotion comes up. Now, let me tell you, I've been around Collinwood practically all my life, I've seen commotion but this time it was really jarring. I haven't seen Carolyn this manic in a very long time." Maggie said.

"What was wrong with her?" Ezrabette carefully inquired.

"You won't believe it---she thought she saw Barnabas standing in the rain outside The Old House. We all know he's gone. We saw him vaporize. We saw him go...it's insane. I feel so bad for her." Maggie said, her voice turning from gossipy tone to concern.

This was her window of opportunity. Ezrabette could feel the blue icy fog of Marie Clotilde creep into her mind reminding her of her task, it was now or never.

"You know, I have a friend that could probably help her, I mean if she really needs it, and I think it sounds like she does." Ezrabette said softy, each word coming out of her mouth a red hot lie.

"A friend?" Maggie asked.

"A psychiatrist. He's fantastic. I'll give him a call and send him over to Collinwood, he'll work wonders for her. I promise." Ezrabette said, her smile tense and forged.

"Bette! You're the best! You really are. The family would be so grateful. But I think Siobhan is going to take care of that, I mean that's what she does." Maggie said reminding Ezrabette that David's new girlfriend was the cheif psychiatrist at Windcliff.

"No!! No...Carolyn has to meet with my friend. Trust me, just one session, on the house." Ezrabette insisted.

Maggie saw Ezrabette's eyes, she was breathing shallow, with a look of panic on her face and instead of continuing the awkward pushy conversation Maggie let it go.

"Ok, ok. No problem. Send him over later today, I'll call David on the way home and let him know." Maggie said with her feelings of concern  now bleeding from Carolyn to also Ezrabette.

Maggie's antennas were up...something was amiss.

****

At the Collinwood estate, the family tried to make sense of everything that happened during the storm. Carolyn's sudden breakdown in the middle of the rain was shocking to them all. She was always the strong one. She was always the member of the family that everyone saw as their rock. And now, something had stirred her emotions, something had caused her to break in a way that very uncharacteristic of her. No one knew what to do.

Felling refreshed after a long trip back from London, David's ex-wife Kimberly found herself in the drawing room alone with his new girlfriend Dr. Siobhan Morgan, a woman who's pedigree was as old as walls of The Old House, that small detail was left out of her introduction to Kim.

"Good morning." Siobhan said as Kim walked into the room.

"Hi." Kim answered shortly, pouring herself a cup of coffee from a small coffee bar the housekeeper had set up.

"David said you'd had a long trip back from Europe and that you'd stayed the night. I don't really know why he felt like he had to let me know. It doesn't bother me that you're here." Siobhan said confidently.

"Well that's very big of you, thank you." Kim said, her lips tight with a snob's bite. "Where is David?" She continued.

"Upstairs checking on Carolyn. Maggie just called and said that a friend of her's is sending over a psychiatrist to check up on her." Siobhan replied.

"From Windcliff?" Kim asked.

"No, he doesn't work for me, I've never heard of him. Someone from out of town I guess." Siobhan said looking down at her news paper slipping into the conversation that she was the new head of Windcliff, the position Kim's late sister Joanna once had.

"I don't understand. Work for you?" Kim questioned.

"Oh, I'm a doctor and the new head of Windcliff." Siobhan answered.

"So, you're a doctor. How did you meet David? You know he used to be a patient there. He's had a lot of mental health issues over the years." Kim said attempting to drop a bomb.

Siobhan noticed Kim's snarkiness. It was obvious she had issues with Siobhan being in the mansion and being with David. This wasn't exactly the Brady Bunch, the jealousy was palpable.

"I know." Siobhan said with a grin. "Listen, Kim, David has been very honest with me about everything. I know why he was at Windcliff, I know that your sister was my predecessor, and I know that she died there violently. I know everything. What David and I have decided is that staying open and honest with each other is how good relationships last. Lord knows he deserves that." Siobhan said, sending back her own snarky remark.

"Well isn't that good. I'm happy for you. I really am, and David too. You know I don't see what the big discomfort is for me being here." Kim replied.

"Oh! There isn't any! I told you that." Siobhan retorted.

"Good. And  besides, I'm not here for David. The University of Maine reached out to me while I was in London and they have some experimental tests they'd like to me handle.

"That's right, David mentioned you were a doctor too." Siobhan said with a kind smile.

"It was so good to get to know you better, really, but if you don't mind I have a thousand things to catch up on." Kim said, smiling back reluctantly as she headed to the rooms that that Julia Hoffman once used as laboratory.


She opened the office door, the smell was the same from the first time she took over Julia's office: old books and old leather. She quickly flicked the desk light on the shined a green light from it's tinted glass shade. Her blood was boiling. Her mind was in a jealous and angry cycle that kept seeing Siobhan's face smirking with delight. She could hear her rival's voice over and over again saying how comfortable she was to have Kim in the house no matter what history she and David had.

"She can't do this to me. He can't do this to me." Kim said as she sat at her desk chair. "I want my family back." She added.

Kim began to feel helpless. She had returned to Collinsport in hopes that she could salvage whatever love, whatever happiness, whatever emotion she could from David and get her family back together. It was her dream. She had atoned for all her past sins from cheating on David years ago with Victor Reed to wrongly imprisoning David at Windcliff for 2 decades, how could she let another woman stand in her way?  She shook the thoughts from her mind and stood up and began to read over the forms she received from the University of Main on her new research project.

The forms listed several different plants that needed to be tested. They were all going to be delivered that day for her to run the tests in part to find out if these newly discovered plants could be used as alternative medications for cancer patients. As she was reading about one of the several plants on their way to her, she saw something very interesting.

It was a plant called the Folha Dormente, or the Sleeping leaf. It came from the far reaches of the amazonian rain forest. As she contained to read it's active ingredients and what it did to people and their pain, she realized how powerful it was.

She read:
"Foilha Dromente, consists of powerful proteins that when extracted and incorporated into the human blood stream in low doses can help the releif of pain in some patients. The amount of the dose is important, if taken too much, the potent protiens could render the patient incapacitated to the point of near death. Breathing shallows and the body falls into a death like coma." 

"...death like coma?" Kim read out loud. "Death like." She repeated. An idea slipped into her creative dark brain.

She quickly ran over to her lap top and opened it up. She clicked into a series of email passwords and scanned. She opened an email that read
TO: DR. KIMBERLY COLLINS
FROM: THE UNIVERSITY OF MAIN, SCIENCE DEPARTMENT

She opened it to read the delivery time of her new project, she looked up at the clock and grinned. Her plants would arrive soon. Just a few hours.

"Well, I've seen that grin before, nothing ever good comes from you when you grin like that." Kim and David's son Caleb joked from the door.

"Oh Caleb!!" Kim said rushing over to her son leaving the papers on her desk.

They made small talk, he welcomed her back and she smiled and kissed his cheek. There was always a warmth between them even though his childhood was mainly memories of her rushing off to different places around the world for work.

"You're always working." Caleb said, his childhood sadness seeping through.

"You know how I am. Can't keep still." She said.

"What's this?" He asked picking up the papers to read.

"Oh just some things I have to take care of for the University. Nothing major." Kim said taking the papers from  his hand. "Listen, let's go up stairs, I wanna see that grandson of mine!" Kim said changing the subject.

She flicked the lights off in her office leaving the papers describing the plant on her desk. It wouldn't be long until she had the real leaf in her hands to begin what she hoped was the first step on getting David and her whole family back and Siobhan out of the way. Forever.

****

Upstairs, Carolyn was recuperating from her night out in the storm running after the phantom she swore was Barnabas Collins. David had spent the morning in her company making sure she had her breakfast and kept warm in her bed. Carolyn's mind had quickly returned to her regular self, she was in bed pouting at the notion from her family not to move an inch.

"This is completely unnecessary, David, really." Carolyn said dusting off the top of her comforter. ''

"Well maybe if you'd been a good girl last night and not had us all out in the storm running after you, I would agree, but here were are." David said, pouring his older cousin a glass of orange juice.

"You still don't believe what I saw last night do you? You don't believe I saw Barnabas outside The Old House. I swear to you, I wouldn't lie about that." Carolyn said frustrated with her situation.

"Don't put words in my mouth, I never said I didn't believe you,. I believe you saw what you saw, but Powell and I didn't see it. Carolyn, in the past two years you've had so many things happen to you. Its only been a few months since Alex left to London and, well, we think that maybe you're under a lot of stress. That's why I think it's a good idea you see the doctor Maggie's friend is setting you up with later." David explained.

"Why can't I see Siobhan?" Carolyn questioned.

"Maggie says Ezrabette really trusts this doctor. What's the worst that could happen?" David said patting his cousin on her head purposely trying to annoy her as a younger cousin would.

What David and Carolyn didn't know was that the doctor that was on his way to see Carolyn was deep in a revenge plot orchestrated by the vengeful spirit Marie Clotilde. Jason McGuire had been risen from the dead, and taunted Carolyn the night before in the storm and now was set to arrive at Collinwood, the scene of some of his most infamous schemes to not only to complete the destruction of the Collins family for Marie Clotilde, but also to get his own set of revenge on everyone who wronged him 50 years ago.

His craving for cruelty had not dulled while he slept in his cold, cement lined grave in the depths of the secret room at the Collins family mausoleum where Barnabas and Willie Loomis buried him. He was truly a vicious monster that only wanted to take from everyone around him no matter what the cost. The Collins family especially.

There was no love lost between Jason and Carolyn when they first knew each other, her hatred for the man the blackmailed her mother into almost marrying him went to the bone. She would never forgive him for the lies he told about the so-told murder of her father that never was. But this Jason, or Jonathon Silva as he would be called, would be disguised thanks to the special charm Ezrabette had bewitched that changed his face and body for all who looked at him.

To Ezrabette and the spirit, this was the dead body of Jason McGuire, to the rest of the world, the new man was the handsome Dr. Jonathon Silva.


The door bell rang, Powell pulled the large wooden door and standing there was the doctor. His smile beamed like two strings of white pearls. His face perfect and chiseled.

"Hello there. I'm here to see Mrs. Throne." Jonathon asked of Powell.

"She's resting." Powell said in a stern voice, unhappy with the whole situation.

"Is she? Well I was asked to come by to see her. No one mentioned she'd be asleep." Jonathon replied trying to peek into the mansion as a frosty breeze from the still damp outdoors blew in. "Usually by this time people welcome in the doctor who's making the house calls." he joked as Powell moved aside.

"Perhaps you should return another time?" Powell suggested.

"Nonsense!" David's voice said from the top of the stairs. "Carolyn is fine, she's expecting the doctor,  Powell."

"I was only concerned with---" Powell began before being interrupted by David.

"I know, old man, don't worry. I'll make sure Carolyn is fine. Doctor, please follow me up stairs." David said patting Powells shoulder.

As they walked down the long corridors toward Carolyn's room, Jonathon remembered his many years in Collinwood. The schemes, the plots everything he almost had when  he lived there as Jason McGuire. This was his second chance, if he could get his hands on everything he wanted this time, he would live out the rest of his un-dead life happy and free. But the key was to work on Carolyn. She had to be the only one to give him what he wanted, and by doing so, he'd also finally fulfill Marie Clotilde's revenge. In the end, Jonathon would have the Collins fortune, and Carolyn would be dead, an easy eye-for-an-eye.

"It smells the same." Jonathon said to himself softly, but loud enough that David heard.

"I'm sorry?" David said stopping in the center of the hall. "What smells the same?" He asked confused.

"Oh, Uhh....the same as my own...uh...old family home. We have a mansion similar in size." Jonathon said stammering to cover his tracks.

David smiled, knowing Jonathon was lying but didn't really have the time or patience to dig further as they were just about to walk into Carolyn's room.

"Hi, Carolyn, Dr. Silva is here. Dr. Silva, this is my cousin Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne.

Jonathon's eyes twinkled at the site of Carolyn. He hadn't seen her since she was a young woman of 20. Her hair was still the color of golden sun, her eyes still blue as a wild Maine sea, her skin still as pale and fresh as it was 50 years ago. He walked over to her and grabbed her hand and lifted it from the bed to kiss it.

"It is my very sincere pleasure Mrs. Thorne." Jonathon said.

"Likewise Dr. Silva." Carolyn said feeling awkward.

"I'll leave you to it." David said as he left the room.

"I hear there was an incident last night. What would you like to tell me about it?" Jonathon said knowing full well what had happened as he was the cause.

"You mean no one has told you?" Carolyn questioned.

"I'd like to hear it from you?" Jonathon said.

Carolyn sighed deep and breathy, frustrated she had to one more time tell this story. She knew people were worried about her mental state, but this, to her, happened and was all true.

"It doesn't make sense to me, but then at the same time it does. I know what I saw, I know who I saw but as soon as I got to the edge of that cliff, he was gone and then all of a sudden I was on the floor right at the edge, I could have fallen off, I almost feel as if I wanted to fall off. Like I was being led to jump." Carolyn explained confused about the last moments on the cliff.

Jonathon grinned. He pulled a note pad from his bag and started to write down everything she said even though he had no intention of really helping her. He was, in fact going to hurt her. Carolyn was a victim of his own scheme to drive her mad enough to fall off the edge of Widow's Hill. His first attempt failed, but his next one may finally prove to be a success. He just had to gain her trust.

"I want you to know that whatever happens here in our meetings, I will make sure that your wishes are understood, and taken into account to all that it will concern. Do you understand that?" Jonathon asked.

Carolyn opened her mouth to speak but stopped herself from answering right away. She thought about what he was saying, and in a way she didn't understand it, but she looked into this handsome face, his kind brown eyes, his sweet grin.

"Yes. I understand." She said.

"Good. We're going to make you better Carolyn. We really are. And when you are, you'll be free as a bird. You'll see." Jonathon said, his grin still plastered across his face with a devilish plan for Carolyn still hidden behind it.

****

Later that cold morning grew into a gloomy and overcast afternoon. Standing in Founder's Square park in front of a giant copper statue of Isaac Collins, the founder of Collinsport that had turned greened with age and the touch of the salty sea air, was the new Collins family governess Sasha Beaufort on a walk with baby Canan Collins.

Her mysterious past had caught the attention of the baby's detective mother Kat. Canan, too, had grown so fond of his new governess. He looked at her like she was someone that he had know since the day he was born, she too quickly knew all his quirks as if she had been around this baby before.

As the two played near the statue, a man, with dark black hair, pale blue eyes watched from across the park as he sat and read the paper on a bench. He folded the paper and stared over at the young governess and smirked.

Like Sasha, who took to Collinsport and her new job like a duck to water, this new mysterious man was no stranger to the things of this town. He had just arrived the night before on the same train as Kimberly, he was ready to connect the dots of his own life, and Sasha would be his foot in the door.

                      

Series 8/Chapter 3: FAMILIAR STRANGERS

A storm churned and twisted over Collinsport. There was something in the air, a crisp freeze that one could feel down to the bone. It was ice cold, bitter and familiar to all who lived in the small fishing village. The rain poured down over the village washing away the day leaving only slick roads and matted ground. It was washing away the old and bringing in the new.

At the estate, Kat and baby Canan's new governess Sasha, prepped him for bed. The thunder roared outside the nursery window and made everyone but the baby nervous.

"He's not unnerved by the storm outside, is he?" Sasha remarked.

"It's Maine, if it's not raining, it's foggy, so he's used to it by now." Kat smiled as she put the baby in his crib. She was dressed for along night at the prescient as she was back to work. "So tell me more about yourself?" Kat asked.

"Oh there's not really that much to tell, really. Small family, just out of college. You know, nothing major." Sasha said as she folded Canan's tiny clothes.

"What are were studying before you cam here?" Kat asked curiously prodding.

Sasha thought for a second which to Kat, seemed to last hours.

"You know, just the regular stuff. I really just tried to dabble in everything. I think it's really important to find yourself and learn about everything you can learn." Sasha said stammering.

"But you had to have been interested in one thing to be in school right? What was your major?" Kat continued to ask, her detective instincts starting to feel there was something more going on than Sasha was telling.

"Literature. I studied literature." Sasha responded with satisfied with a satisfied tone.

Kat smiled politely as she could tell Sasha was starting to feel awkward. The Collinsport detective decide to drop the subject...for now.

"Great." Kat answered equally as awkward. "Aanyway, I should get going. Don't want to be late for my first night back, right? Take good care of my boy." Kat said smiling as she kissed her baby good bye to a relived Sasha.

Sasha crept over to the nursery door and opened it slightly to make sure the coast was clear. The hall way in the easy wing was empty. Nothing but old paintings of Collins family members hanging in the dimmed hall and house plants that cast shadows on the luxurious carpet that lined the hall. She closed the door again behind her and walked over to the cooing baby in his crib.

She smiled at him and tickled his nose with a soft plush toy bunny. The baby laughed. He had just met Sasha and was already incredibly comfortable with him, as if he knew her already, as if Sasha had known the baby already.

"You're just as I remembered, little one. You're just as I remembered."  Sasha said in a whisper.

*****

Kat quickly made her way down stairs and as she got to the bottom she quickly reached for her coat that was carefully hung in the corner of the foyer. Her mind was a nervous bundle of emotions. Leaving her baby for the first time and going back to work was going to be so hard, but even stranger was her curiosity about Sasha. For some reason, Sasha's seemingly secretive exterior was raising Kat's detective flags, and in doing so Kat already knew the first thing she'd do when she got to the police department: re-doing the background check on her new governess.

"On your way out?" David said from inside the drawing the faced the foyer.

"Oh! Yes! First day back, I hope I don't drive everyone crazy showing them photos of the baby." Kat said in her proud mother voice.

"Go on, show off that gorgeous Collins baby. Make them jealous." David, the proud grandfather, told his daughter-in-law as he walked into the foyer.

Kat grinned and opened the front door and to her shock standing in the rain with three suitcases was Dr. Kimberly Collins. David's ex-wife who  had left town earlier that year for London with her son Christopher and Carolyn's daughter Alexandra.

"Kim!" Kat said in total shock.

"What are you doing here?" David asked, his face, stone cold as he walked in from the drawing room.

"Well, that's a surprising welcome; shock and awe!" Kim joked. "I needed to come back. I needed to be here. I missed my home." Kim said rushing through the front door and past Kat.

"This is really a surprise, I mean, welcome back!" Kat said giving a nervous laugh knowing Kim and David's past history and also knowing that David had moved on from her. "I'd love to catch up later, but I gotta get going. Work calls." Kat said after their hug. Her escape was awkward, the reunion between David and Kim would be just as strange.

Once Kat crept away and closed the front door behind her, a lightening flash lit the room. There was silence between the former lovers that felt like it lasted for hours.

"David? Say something." Kim said putting her soggy suitcases down.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to say. You should have told us you were coming back. You should have ....... I'm just surprised, is all." David answered, his words tripping out of his mouth.

"Well, I was hoping you'd be happy. I was in London this whole time and you never once called or wrote. Even in my conversations with Caleb, he seemed to be hiding something when the topic turned to you. I began to worry something was going on, but here you are, handsome as ever." Kim said with a bright grin.

"It's just that, look Kimberly, a lot has happened since you left. A lot." David said.

"You don't have to explain. I've lived in Collinsport for long enough to know that nothing ever stays the same, but at the same time not much ever really changes." she replied as someone came in from the other side of the foyer.

"I was wondering what you wanted for dinner, I asked cook and she.....oh...." Siobhan, David's new fiancee said entering the foyer from the kitchen. "Hello." she continued cordially.

Kimberly looked at David confused, who was this? She had not heard of this new resident at the mansion.

"Kim, this is Siobhan, Siobhan this is Kimberly, Caleb's mother." David answered awkwardly as the two women shook hands never breaking each other's gaze. His past and present colliding like two thunder clouds smashing into each other.

Kimberly, who had left Collinsport with her son Christopher and Carolyn's daughter Alexandra on a trip to London months ago, had hoped her return would spark a romantic twinge in David again. They had parted ways on good terms after years of an unhappy marriage. Kimberly, after all, was the one who had David committed to Windcliff for close to 2 decades under false pretenses. Their marriage suffered long before that even, with her infidelity with the now dead Victor Reed.

Now that David  had moved on with Siobhan, Kimberly was in a peculiar place. Where would she fit in? And would she even be welcome back into the fold of the Collins family.

"I've heard so much about you." Siobhan said.

"I wish I could say the same." Kimberly answered looking directly into David's eyes.

"Would you mind if we had a talk, really quickly." David asked his Siobhan as she nodded politely and moved into a different room leaving the two exes alone.

"So you've moved on." Kim said, her lips pressed tightly together.

"What was I supposed to do? I couldn't just sit here and wait, and what would I be waiting for? You and I have been over for years, or did you forget what you did to me and why we split up all together?" David answered.

"We've moved past that, at least I thought we had. We're in such a different place now, we're both grandparents and ...and....David you should have told me. Maybe I would have never come back at all." Kimberly said angrily.

Kimberly felt humiliated. She calmly patted the side of her hair that had been tussled but the storm outside and grabbed her things and motioned that she was about to leave.

"Now, wait a minute, Kimberly. Come on now." David said grabbing her arm that had grabbed her suitcase.

"No, no listen, I really don't thinks its appropriate now, I mean first of all this is incredibly embarrassing." Kim answered.

"Stop, listen, Caleb will be getting back from the office any minute now and would love to see you.  The house is obviously big enough for everyone. We're all adults here. There's no reason why you can't stay." David replied.

Kimberly's heart felt like it was in a engulfed in flames. She had such high hopes that after all the time that had passed that perhaps, somehow, David would have felt the same she had. Now, things were different and Kim was back on the outside of the Collins circle looking in.

David grabbed Kim's things and helped her into one of the cozy rooms in the east wing hoping that everything would work out. As reality started to set in that she would not be settling into the room she once shared with David again, it was apparent, that these changes were going to be permanent.

Kimberly's mistakes in her life, the betrayals in her past were gone and done. And now she had returned to piece together her family again. Once and for all, but again there were going to be hurdles.

Kim was now alone in her room that David had set her up in. She carefully unpacked her things and memories of her past filled her mind: her wedding to David, their romantic and passionate wedding night, Caleb's birth and first words. This was her family, and no new girlfriend was going to take it away from her, not now, not ever.

Over her dead body.

*****

The storm was blasting a cold and vicious rain down on Collinsport. It was the first of the many that would swirl in from the icy north this autumn and a prelude to the winter to come.

Carolyn sat in her room in a comfy chaise, plush with pillows and a dimmed over head light that brightened the pages of the book she was reading that was interrupted by the tapping of the strong rain on her window. Frustrated with the pesky noise of rain, Carolyn got up from the comfort of her chaise and went to her large window to pull the drapes as to muffle the sound of the rain.

As she did, her view of the large gardens below that separated the main Collinwood mansion from the old house became illuminated with a bright flash from the stormy sky. In that split second of brightness she saw a man dressed in all black standing in the rain.

"What the devil?" Carolyn said to herself as the fire in her fireplace crackled and burned.

There was another thunderous clap, again she saw the man in the rain, his short black woolen jacket must have weighed 100 pounds now with all the water pouring down on him. To Carolyn, in her mind's eye, this could be only one man, he who walked the night. He who prowled in the storms as if nothing bothered him.

"It's him. He's come back again." She to herself, her voice too shaky to speak his name.

Carolyn quickly grabbed a rain coat and tied it's sash around her waste. She tied her hair up in a small tight bun and put on a veil to guard her from the pouring rain then dashed down the stairs to find the cousin she believed was gone forever.

David and Siobhan were in the drawing room, Carolyn's quick rush down the main staircase startled them.

"Carolyn? Are you ok?" Siobhan asked, quickly going to the door of the drawing room to meet Carolyn who was too fast for her.

Siobhan walked over to the front door that was left open and David followed. His face was plastered with concern for his beloved cousin Carolyn. They both peeked out past the doorway to see if they could see where Carolyn had run off to in such a hurry.

"What is she doing?" Siobhan asked warming her arms with her hands as the rain fell down.

"I have no idea." David said cautious to even let his mind go where it would inevitably go.

David began putting on his coat to go after her.

"I'm going after her." David said.

"David, be careful." Siobhan said worried.

Carolyn rushed through the gardens that were now starting to slightly overflow with excess water from the storm. Her mind raced. If it was who she believed it was hiding in the dark and rain, she wanted to be the first to find him.

He had come back, he had survived the terrible attack of the phoenix Laura Collins, and somehow found his way once more to the only home he's ever known. Though Laura's flames vanquished the life of Barnabas' wife Jacqueleen, he had somehow made it through, and Carolyn was not going to let him hide away.

She ran as fast as she could. The wind blowing her small body to the ground time and time again. She ran with a determined fever to find this man, this man she in her heart loved like a father, Carolyn would not give up and nothing a storm as powerful as the one that night would throw at her would stop her.

 She sloshed through the mud and muck of the saturated ground and searched every shadowy corner of the wooded areas around the two Collin's family mansions with David hot on her heels.

Then suddenly, there he was again. The man standing at a distance. His silhouette in a darkened thicket of tress just standing there staring at her.

"Barnabas!!!!!" Carolyn screamed as she rushed over to where she saw him, but then like a millisecond of time clicking away he vanished.

It was as if Barnabas was playing a strange game of now you see me now you don't. One minute she would see him, the next he would be gone. Carolyn's frustration began to burn hot like fire, her mind began to wander and panic and fight itself on the prospect of this actually happening in front of her!

Then again, there he was, black coat silhouette. By a tree, then gone.

And again, same coat, same silhouette by more thickets of Collinwood trees...then gone as soon as the lightening flashed gain.

Why was he hiding from her as if he did not want to be found, or seen? Carolyn was beginning to tire, she couldn't catch up to him, the man she admired so much, the man she had come to see as a father figure in her youth, even as damaged and as dangerous as he was continued to allude her.

"Carolyn! Carolyn!!" David screamed from behind, trying to catch up to his cousin who seemed to be going mad. Carolyn did not hear him over the thunder claps and rain. She continued her search.

Over and over again, she would see the figure of the man she believed to be Barnabas in the wooded areas around the old house and over and over again he was gone. Carolyn stopped suddenly. Her head filling with images and memories. She began to feel dizzy. Her heart began to feel heavy and sad, her mind began to fill with the sounds of the crashing waves of the ocean on the rocks.

In Carolyn's frantic search of the illusive shadow figure, she had neglected to see where she was, and now, as the storm continued to pound the seaside town, she found herself literally on the edge of Widow's Hill.

Carolyn looked down at the water, it seemed to be calling her name. It seemed to be wanting her to touch it, and there laying on the rocks as the water flowed over him was the shadowy man. Was it Barnabas? What was he doing at the bottom of Widow's Hill? Why was he letting the water cover him and pull him into the sea?

"Barnabas!!!!" Carolyn screamed.

She began to take off her coat, and her shoes. She was going to jump.

"Carolyn NO!!" David said, finally reaching her and pulling her back from the edge of the cliff, the rain slapping their faces like tiny little rocks.

"It's Barnabas. He's down there David, we have to help him!!" Carolyn screamed over the sound of the ocean's crashing waves.

Still gripping on to Carolyn tightly, David looked over the edge. There was no one there.

"No, Carolyn, it's not Barnabas, there's no one down there. You didn't see him, he's gone!" David said in a sympathetic voice.

"What? No! I saw him, he was just there, David, he was there. He was here. I saw him early this evening outside the old house and I saw him from my window and I saw him in the woods. Barnabas was down there, I swear it." Carolyn explained wiping the rain water from her face.

"Look," David said holding on to Carolyn as  he showed her the bottom of the ledge. "There's no one there." He finished.

"The waves must of taken him into the sea, we have to get to him, we have to help him!" Carolyn said.

"Carolyn, he's gone! Listen to me, gone. You're burning up, we have to get you back to Collinwood and into bed. Please, just come along with me, please!" David pleaded.

Carolyn, shaking and confused, nodded her head in agreement and put on her coat and shoes. David held on to her and walked her safely back to the mansion where Siobhan and Powell waited for them.


Down at the bottom of Widow's Hill, where the water crashed up against the rocks with remarkable strength, where the sea and land met in a giant thunderous pound there was a body. A person. A man in black. He was on the rocks facing up when Carolyn looked down. He was hiding in the shadows tempting Carolyn to follow him in the rain.

But when David arrived, the shadowy figure jumped up and hid up against the cliff side as to not be seen, and there he stood still, grinning evilly with an amulet that the voodoo mystic Ezrabette gave him to carry around his neck, the amulet, changed his face to protect his identity, the identity of Jason McGuire with a new face.

He was the one tricking Carolyn, he was the one trying to trick her to jump from the cliff. His first attempt failed, but there were more tricks up his sleeve. He and Ezrabette would eventually end the Collins family, once and for all.