The yellow eyed monster, Jason McGuire, the man of the un-dead brought back to life by the manipulated witch Ezrabette, lunged at Barnabas putting both hands over his face and pushing the vampire back up against a wall.
Barnabas' fists banged on Jason's sides creating a pounding sound the echoed in the cold room like an bombs going off. Jason, just laughed and continued to push on Barnabas' face with his ice cold hands.
"You're powerless here Barnabas, can't you see? The time when you reigned over Collinwood is over. It's my turn." Jason said releasing his hands from the vampire's face only to swing his fist and land a massive blow to Barnabas' right cheek.
Barnabas crocheted down holding his face, the heft of the blow causing a split second dizzy spell.
"You've always been one to count your chicks before they've hatched, time and death has never taken that from you." Barnabas said in a deep cold voice, his fangs slowly returning to their sharpened state.
Barnabas slowly walked towards Jason who's eyes continued to glow a deep yellow, they both swung and clawed at each other as they made circles in the center of the room. Who would be the next to strike?
Barnabas had had enough of the game and lunged at Jason with all his might landing on top of him. The two fell to the floor of the bedroom, The blow to Jason somehow knocked the control he had over Carolyn and released her from the possessed state. She rushed over to her bed and jumped on top terrified of what was witnessing.
The two men continued to throw powerful punches to their bodies, each one harder and more stronger than the last. Finally Barnabas saw an opening and bit down on the neck of Jason causing Jason to scream in pain. Barnabas latched on, his jaw clamping down like a bear-trap not releasing it's catch.
Jason, with all his might threw a new punch into Barnabas' jaw causing the vampire to release. Blood, the color of oil, seeped out of Jason's dead neck. It poured all over the his body and down his shirt pooling on the white carpet of Carolyn's room in a black puddle.
"You piece of garbage. Look what you've done to my carpet." Jason said, taking ownership of the bedroom he saw as his now that he was married to Carolyn.
"Get out of here." Barnabas said, his mouth completely covered in black blood.
"You've come back too late vampire. Everything I wanted for myself all those years ago has finally come true. I never needed the mother, all I needed was the daughter. I should have thought this 50 years ago." Jason joked about his attempted at marrying Elizabeth in a similar blackmail scheme in 1967.
Barnabas, furious at Jason's flippant attitude lunged once more, landing a second bite on Jason's forearm ripping a hole into it. More black blood poured out and splashed to the floor and all over the two men fighting. Jason fell to his knees, holding the open wound.
"You'll soon regret that." He said as he got up from the stained carpet.
With the speed and reflexes of a cat, Jason grabbed lit candles that were sitting on one of Carolyn's side tables. The flame flickered quickly with the gust of air that Jason's body made in the lunge. Jason, his evil eyes still a bright yellow, grabbed the candle and breathed air on it allowing the flame grow and begin to burn all of the black oil like blood that fell from Jason's mouth. The fire quickly caught on to the carpet and spread in a straight line at Barnabas who was standing in a puddle of black oil and covered in it himself.
The fire then engulfed him completley.
"NO!!!" Carolyn screamed while Jason laughed at the site of the famed Collins family vampire burning in Jason's own oil like black blood.
Carolyn jumped off her bed and opened a desk drawer pulling out a sharp letter opener that she quickly plunged into Jason's chest. The letter opener went through Jason's body and sliced his dead black heart in two pieces instantly breaking the spell Ezrabette had put on his dead body.
Carolyn backed away from Jason who was now choking on his own black blood. He fell to the floor of the bedroom, his hand in the flames he ignited. He chocked and grabbed the letter opener that was sticking out of his chest, but it was too late. His heart, black as ash, had betrayed him. Within seconds, the body of Jason turned to ash and the fire disappeared as if it never had been lit at all.
Barnabas lay on the floor, smoke rising from his body. Carolyn rushed over to him and rolled him over. The smoke floated into her face from his body and when she fanned it away, she could see that Barnabas was unharmed. Everything Jason had done, was now undone.
Carolyn buried her race in her favorite cousins' chest as he came to.
"You've saved me." She whispered.
Barnabas pat her head and looked around for Jason. but only saw a pile of ashes.
*****
The front door of Collinwood burst open, David, Caleb, Kat and Curtis rushed through looking for any sign that Siobhan had come home, David the most concerned.
"Bring Kat into the drawing room." David said instructing Caleb and Curtis helping Kat into the room as she was recovering from the abuse Kimberly had inflicted on her when Kat caught her at the old house.
As the group walked into the adjoining drawing room, there she was, Siobhan, wrapped in Barnabas' large coat sitting by a roaring fire.
"Oh my god! You're here! You're ok!!" David said rushing over to her and pulling her in for a kiss. "I thought I lost you for good."
"I'm ok, I'm ok!" Siobhan said, a grin as wide as the Atlantic ocean across her beaming face.
"I don't know what I was going to do without you. When Kim handed me this," David said pulling the engagement ring he gave Siobhan from he had kept in his pocket, " I was sure everything we had worked for was gone."
Siobhan smiled and put the ring back on her finger then turned to David, his strong hands on her shoulders, she placed her own hands on his cold bearded face ad kissed him on the lips, long and passionately as the glow of the fire place warmed them.
"How did you escape?" Kat asked when they finished reconnecting.
"Someone saved me, you'll never believe who." She added.
"Who?" David asked as he touched her hair as if to see if she were really sitting in front of him.
"Barnabas. Barnabas saved me, he found me David, he came back." Siobhan explained.
"That can't be possible. He....Barnabas was destroyed when my mother explo---" David began before being interrupted by someone walking into the drawing room.
It was Barnabas with the exhausted Carolyn, arm in arm.
The room stood silent. It was a shock to everyone to see Barnabas standing there alive--in the physical sense of the word--as ever. David wrapped his arm around Siobhan tightly and looked over at his ancient cousin as if they were in a midnight showdown. Their eyes meeting and the years and years of horrible memories of their past flooding back. David shook his head, pushing those thoughts out of mind and smiled.
"I don't know how you did it this time, and maybe I don't need to know but you saved Siobhan and for that I am thankful." David said stoically.
"He saved me too. Jonathon is dead." Carolyn added.
"What do you mean? What happened to Jonathon?" David questioned in shock.
"He wasn't who you thought he was, David, he was a monster and was terrorizing me all these weeks. He was the reason I was having those nightmares and losing my mind." Carolyn said, still wrapped in a blanket and Barnabas' arms.
"I can't believe you married him." David said reaching for his cousin who was more like his sister.
"He forced me, but he's gone now..... and it's over." Carolyn answered.
"Why don't we all just find our way into the dining room. I'll get some tear and coffee ready. It's been a very long night for everyone." Caleb said as everyone agreed and began to make their way to the dining room to relax but not before one more last bit of news was to be discussed.
"Wait, where is Kimberly?" Carolyn asked.
The others looked at each other not knowing how to explain what had happened.
"She's gone. There was an altercation and she fell from Widow's Hill." Caleb said as Carolyn and Barnabas gasped.
"I'm going to call Loomis shortly to report her death. I just want to check on Canan." Kat said sadly as she went upstairs to check on the sleeping baby she still wished was her own.
The rest of the family went into the kitchen leaving Barnabas in the drawing room staring into the fire. His eyes were watering. His mind foggy with confusion. He felt different. He felt strange. He felt like something inside of him was not as it once was. Could it be all of the excitement and drama of the evening or was there really something different about him this time.
He took a deep breath and grabbed his coat that Siobhan had left on the sofa and passed a giant portrait of Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard that was placed in the drawing room and to his shock, in the glass was his reflection. A reflection he had not seen in over 250 years.
Barnabas was now mortal, his soul returned. His life renewed.
"You're free." A voice said from the open door of the drawing room.
Barnabas turned to see his daughter Claudia, the witch who had helped him return this time.
"How? How could you have done this?" He questioned.
"This body that you inhabit was meant to only be a vessel that I would enter and pretend to be you to destroy Jonathon, but with your actual life force entering inside this body you've become rejuvenated. Father, this is your second chance at a real life. The curse you suffer may still have some residual effects but it is true....you're free of the curse my mother placed on you. Once and for all." Claudia explained.
Barnabas felt elated. His heart, his real heart, pounded in his chest like a powerful drum.
"What effects will I still feel?" He questioned.
"Although you see your reflection, you may not walk in the day, and at times, you may still crave the taste of blood. But father, your urges may be curved. You may fight them better. You have a choice now." Claudia answered.
"And you? What does this mean for you?" Barnabas asked, knowing her secret was still locked away deep inside of her.
"We'll see. At this point I know there is so much that I cannot control." Claudia answered, knowing the time ticking on whether or not Curtis would keep the secret of her true identity.
"Curtis." Barnabas said to Claudia nodding.
"He knows only part of his story. Not everything." Claudia confirmed.
"Ive been in your situation before. Holding a secret about what you really are vs. what you want people to believe you are will only eat you up inside. The truth, my child, always finds its way to the surface, I hope that when it does become clear of who you are that you are in a better place than I was when my secret was revealed." Barnabas said to his daughter.
"I hope so too." Claudia said, as Barnabas kissed her cheek. "For now call me Sasha...let no one know my true identity until the time is right." Claudia asked.
Barnabas nodded his head in agreement.
*****
Kat sat on a rocking chair holding the baby she once thought was hers. She rocked back and forth humming a song Maggie used to hum to her when she was a baby. All she wanted was for that baby to truly be her's but she knew in her mind, and in her gut that Curtis was telling the truth. This baby was not hers, Curtis was her son, grown up in the past through a terrible twist of fate.
"He's very beautiful." Curtis said from the doorway of the nursery.
"He's not you though. How could I not know I didn't bring back the right baby from 1920? How could I not know??" Kat said beating herself up.
"I used to wonder the same thing when Victoria told me who I really was. I would sit up at night and curse you...scream at you and my father for not realizing the baby they had was not really the son they thought it was, but then I realized that how could you have known? All you wanted was to bring me back, no matter what. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the pressure of the situation made you do things that clouded your mind of reality. It's something I've had to come to terms with. You will too." Curtis said in a very understanding way.
"We all had to." Claudia said, now entering the nursery.
The two mother's stared at each other for a split second of silence.
The two mother's stared at each other for a split second of silence.
"I’ll leave you two alone to talk." Curtis said leaving the room.
"Claudia?" Kat said as Sasha waked in. Tears began to stream down Kay’s face. Claudia/Sasha nodded a yes, tears coming down her face as well. "How did this happen?" Kat questioned.
"When I left Collinsport, I was pregnant with Christopher's child. Somehow Victoria tracked me down and convinced me to time travel with her to 1920 and she would soon follow with another child she needed to protect, she said that the baby was in danger of being destroyed by the Collins family. She reminded me how a very long time ago my father did the same thing to me to protect me from my mother Angelique. I agreed and when she arrived in 1920 with your son I had already given birth to mine. The rest is history." Claudia explained.
"But when I arrived in 1920 there was only baby Elizabeth and this baby boy, the one I love as Canan. Your son." Kat said confused, unsure of where the third child was when she went back in time.
"Vicky had your son hidden away when you arrived, the little boy you saw in 1920 was always my child. She believed switching them would keep the curse at bay, by changing their time lines. We protected our boys Kat... it was the only and best thing we could do. Curtis doesn’t know the whole story. I think ... Vicky should be the one to tell him." Claudia as Sasha said.
"Claudia?" Kat said as Sasha waked in. Tears began to stream down Kay’s face. Claudia/Sasha nodded a yes, tears coming down her face as well. "How did this happen?" Kat questioned.
"When I left Collinsport, I was pregnant with Christopher's child. Somehow Victoria tracked me down and convinced me to time travel with her to 1920 and she would soon follow with another child she needed to protect, she said that the baby was in danger of being destroyed by the Collins family. She reminded me how a very long time ago my father did the same thing to me to protect me from my mother Angelique. I agreed and when she arrived in 1920 with your son I had already given birth to mine. The rest is history." Claudia explained.
"But when I arrived in 1920 there was only baby Elizabeth and this baby boy, the one I love as Canan. Your son." Kat said confused, unsure of where the third child was when she went back in time.
"Vicky had your son hidden away when you arrived, the little boy you saw in 1920 was always my child. She believed switching them would keep the curse at bay, by changing their time lines. We protected our boys Kat... it was the only and best thing we could do. Curtis doesn’t know the whole story. I think ... Vicky should be the one to tell him." Claudia as Sasha said.
"What do you mean?" Kat asked.
"He thinks all of this was ...planned. The kidnapping, that he was taken, he doesn’t understand yet that Vicky lied to him. Vicky has made sure he believes he was left with your understanding but that the time travel has made you forget. It’s ... complicated. Claudia explained.
"He thinks I wanted this?"
"Yes. Vicky has convinced him of this." Claudia explained. "She raised him well despite that giant lie."
"I would never have allowed her too..." Kat paused to think. "This is all just so confusing, when I went back in time with Barnabas we saw you die, we saw you get shot in the show and die in 1920..." Kat said crying.
"A witch never dies when she controls the time vortex. My body disappeared from the time line but re-appeared at the beginning of that timeline, as if it were starting all over again. In essence when I was shot my body returned to the very moment I had opened the time vortex---everything started over. Because my body had been destroyed in 1920 by the bullet I had to use a new body and name. That's where Sasha came from...I wanted to come here and help you raise my son with you, I couldn't do that as my real self. That body was no longer able to travel back." Claudia explained further.
"Curtis needs to know that I never wanted Vicky to take him. I never wanted any of this!" Kat said.
"I know. But she needs to tell him. It needs to come from her." Claudia replied.
The pieces were still scattered in Kat's brain when it came to the story. The time lines, the time travel, the baby switch. it was all so complicated and horrible. But What she did know, what she did understand was that another mother had only wanted to be close to her baby and Kat could not turn her down. Kat and Claudia both loved baby Canan, no matter what his real name was.
"Everything ok?" Curtis said walking back into the room, still unaware of the true nature of his kidnapping. Left to believe the lie Vicky had instilled him him all those years ago.
"Come in." Kat said whipping her tears and looking down at the baby in her arms. The baby she loved as her own, Claudia’s baby. "What did you name him?" Kat asked.
"His name is Leith."
"Leith Collins Reed. I like that." Kat said, as Curtis smiled.
"There's been enough switching and enough lying. Curtis was forced to live his whole life in a time period that he didn't belong to and a name that wasn't his, all I'm asking is to be here to help you raise Leith as best I can. I don't want to hurt anyone anymore." Claudia said.
"His name is Leith."
"Leith Collins Reed. I like that." Kat said, as Curtis smiled.
"There's been enough switching and enough lying. Curtis was forced to live his whole life in a time period that he didn't belong to and a name that wasn't his, all I'm asking is to be here to help you raise Leith as best I can. I don't want to hurt anyone anymore." Claudia said.
"What do we tell everyone now?" Curtis asked.
"Nothing." Kat answered to Curtis and Claudia's surprise.
"What do you mean?" Curtis asked.
"This will kill Caleb if he finds out, and I just can't be the one to cause any more harm, so we'll leave it as it is. Claudia, we'll continue to call you Sasha, you'll continue to be your baby's governess for as long as you want. Curtis, you'll continue to be the son of Victoria as you were raised. It just has to be the same. Caleb lost his mother tonight, I don't want him to lose his son too. " Kat said paysing before saying one last thing: "For now."
"For now." Claudia said as Kat handed her baby Leith.
"For now." Claudia said as Kat handed her baby Leith.
Kat walked over to Curtis and placed her hand on his face. "My beautiful boy." She said. "My beautiful boy." She repeated.
*****
Ezrabette sat in her cottage waiting for the arrival of her ghostly relative Marie Clotilde. She knew that any moment the ghost would appear to her in anger that the plan she cooked up to destroy the family of Judith Collins-Trask, the woman that burned Marie Clotilde alive over 100 years ago in a jealous rage and started the chain of events that brought them to this very point.
Marie Clotilde was not late. Her ash-like corpse began to appear slowly like a fog in human form. First the legs, then the torso, then the arms, then the head and face. She ash body of a woman furious that her great-great granddaughter failed her.
"I've been expecting you." Ezrabette said as the ghost appeared.
"You've failed." Marie Clotilde said in a cold voice.
"No. I've succeded. I've stopped a terrible wrong from happening to people who did not deserve what you had planned for them. And now it's time for you to go, go on to a different plane of the after life and leave this anger and vengeance behind." Ezrabette said grabbing a candle.
"You could have taken all of their lives, I deserved that! They took my life and took away my child! You could have made these wrongs right again, but you failed. And now ...now...the punishment." Marie Clotilde warned.
"ENOUGH! I've given you enough power over me, but no more. You no longer have power in his house, in my heart and over the people I love. Maggie Evans, my friend, will not be hurt by you or drawn into this. This ends ..NOW!" Ezrabette said as she lit a candle.
"Ezrabette...." Marie Clotilde said, understanding what was about to happen, as Ezrabette looked into the candle's flickering flame and began to chant:
"From the depths of despair,
in the cold night air,
I bind you from all,
Hear my call
Into the light I hold here
Into the light I hold near
From his place you go
Away into the after life glow
I send you
I send you"
As the chant entered, the winds picked up, the sound of howling echoed throughout the forest where the cottage stood. The ghost of Marie Clotilde, made of ash and smoke began to swirl in circles and fill into the fire of the candle Ezrabette was holding. Ezrabette had called the ghost of Marie Clotilde back into the light of the after life and way from the darkness of death she had been placed for all these years where her soul could not escape. Her soul was trapped and festering with anger and madness but now she was free, free to go into the light and finally be at peace.
Once every bit of Marie Clotilde's ash-ridden ghost was now safely in her the light of the candle Ezrabette blew it out, sealing it, and locking the soul of her great-great-grandmother away.
"Rest in peace now, Great-Grand-mother. Rest in peace." Ezrabette whispered as a single plume of tiny smoke curled away from the scorched candle's wick.
She walked back into the den of her cottage to replace the candle in a cupboard. There was a particular smell in the air, it was of sulfur, or ash, soot. Ezrabette shook her head thinking the smell was from the extinguished candled but as she turned back around, there sitting with his feet up on her dining room table was Jason McGuire, smiling with his crooked teeth.
Ezrabette gasped in terror and leaned back on the cherry-wood cupboard cracking the glass in it's doors.
"We need to talk, lassy." Jason said to Ezrabette in his Scottish brogue. The witch in the Collinsport forest was left in utter shock.
*****
In her room, Carolyn looked around. How could she sleep in this room ever again without having the terrible feeling that something terrible was going to happen. In life. In her dreams. How could she ever sleep again?
She sat on a white sofa across from her large white bed and stared at it. Sleep is what she needed but after everything she had gone through she feared to close her eyes. Then a knock on her door.
"Come in." She said softly.
"I was hoping you were still awake." Her trusted driver Jude Powell said as he pushed the door open slowly.
"Powell what are you doing here so late, come in, come in!" Carolyn said ushering him in.
"Ive never left Collinwood since they took you away. When I found out you were back and you were better I had to come see you." Powell said, his grey beard shining in the soft light of her bedroom.
"Well I'm glad you did. I missed a friendly face." Carolyn said, her heart warmed by his visit.
"Carolyn, I want you to know something." Powell said, surprising Carolyn when he used her first name.
"What is it?" She asked standing up next to him.
"For so many years I have loved you. So many. And all I want to do is take care of you, protect you. You've gone through so much and I want you to know that I just want to keep you safe. I will never let anyone do anything to hurt you again. I promise." Powell said resting his hands on her shoulders.
"For so many years I have loved you. So many. And all I want to do is take care of you, protect you. You've gone through so much and I want you to know that I just want to keep you safe. I will never let anyone do anything to hurt you again. I promise." Powell said resting his hands on her shoulders.
Carolyn could see the love in his eyes, it was genuine, it was pure. She hadn't felt that from someone since her husband Jack. It was calming, it was beautiful. It was love.
She looked at Powell, deep into his green eyes and stood up on her tip-toes. Their lips touched. Their eyes closed and she felt safer in his arms then she had ever felt in all her life.
****
The morning sun began to peek mover the hills that surrounded the small fishing village, it was a new day in Collinsport and after long night at Collinwood Barnabas stood on the balcony of the old house and continued to look out on to the sea and dream about what was in his future now that he was, for lack of a better terms--half mortal.
"Is it over?" A voice said from behind as Barnabas looked out into the distance as a salty wave of mist and cold winter air mixed in the sky, he turned around to see Carolyn up and around.
"Carolyn! I'm so glad to see you feeling better." He said, with a sparkle in his eye.
"Is it over?" She asked again, the tone of her voice demanding an answer.
"Is what over?" Barnabas asked stepping back into the room of blush tones and cream carpets from the balcony.
"Everything, all of this. Everything that we've known for all our lives. Is it done? You're mortal now, the curse is over." Carolyn said with a wish in her voice.
"Nothing is ever what it seems, dear cousin, and even thought I am what you say I am, I can feel it in my bones that something is on the horizon. Nothing is ever over. Not even life itself, I'm proof of that." Barnabas answered.
Carolyn looked around the room. This bedroom wasn't the one Barnabas loved the most, Josette's room, it was a more modernized freshly painted room that she had forgotten about over the years. It was the original room of Annabella Collins, the first mistress of Collinwood, her portrait still hung on the wall a beautiful reminder of what once was.
"You look like her." Barnabas said of his great-grandmother to Carolyn.
"Do you think when she and Issac started this family that they would ever dream it would come to this? How do you think she would feel knowing the nightmares we've all faced in these halls, on this land?" Carolyn thought aloud.
"Great-grandmother Annabella dreamed only the best for her small family, and I'm sure for those of us who came after her. Nothing more but the best." Barnabas answered now standing next to Carolyn as they looked up at the portrait of Annabella.
"Barnabas, I'm leaving here for a while. Powell and I have decide to visit Alexandra in London. I want to see my daughter..it's been too long. Will you be here when I return?" She asked as they came face to face.
Barnabas looked at his cousin Carolyn, a woman he grew to love over the years as his own daughter and he was to her like a surrogate father. They'd both been through so much over the course of 50 years and they both knew that anything, literally anything, could happen between now and when Carolyn returned from London. If she returned.
Barnabas was more of a realist than his cousin, her blue eyes still sparkling like the Maine sea even at her 70-some years of age, he could sense that there was darkness afoot even in his moment of bliss on the balcony, there was always going to be--no matter what.
"When will you return?" Barnabas asked avoiding her question.
Carolyn wrapped her arms around herself as the cold air swooped in from the open Balcony french doors, she too looked out on to the sea and thought of that hopefully, now that Jonathon was gone, now that Kimberly was gone, maybe, finally, good things would happen. But she wasn't sure if she would experience those good things in London or Collinwood.
"I don't know. We bought a one way ticket ...." Carolyn said, her sentence trailing off into nothing letting the news sink in.
Barnabas could understand her hesitation of returning to this place. It was her home, but it was also a place where she had so many terrible memories, her whole life, including the last 2 years. He politely smiled and kissed her cheek.
"I'll be here." Barnabas finally answered his sweet smile lingering a bit longer. Carolyn hugged him again and smiled, their hands slowly slipping out of lock with each other as she left his room to meet Powell who was waiting for her in the car to the airport.
Barnabas returned to the chilly balcony overlooking the sea from the old house and watched as Carolyn and Powell's car drove off into the distance.
"I'll be here......" Barnabas said again to himself. "And so will the shadows."
