An early morning cup of coffee sat glistening in beams of sunlight that cast bar like shadows from the Venetian blinds over an oak desk. This was Dr. Siobhan Morgan-Collins' office at Windcliff. She had taken over as chief of staff two years ago, and was in the office this morning preparing for her maternity leave that was just a few weeks away.
As she came back into her office from an adjoining lobby her assistant dropped off a manila envelope addressed to her but with no return address.
"What's this?" Siobhan asked sitting down at her desk, her large pregnant belly buoying her down into the green leather of the desk chair.
"I don't know doctor," her assistant Brett said. "it was at the door when I came in this morning. No one seems to know who dropped it off."
Siobhan looked at him strange, and shook her head. She felt the large envelope with her fingers trying to figure out what was inside, it was clearly paper work of some kind. She opened a drawer and pulled out a sterling silver envelope opener and sliced through the end ripping straight the the paper and narrowly missing the flesh on her other hand. She grimaced at the thought of almost cutting herself and reached down into the envelope. She pulled out the papers and began to sort and read through them.
"It's one of our applications for a new admittance of a patient." She told Brett. "A woman who's gone through some sort of traumatic brain injury and is having trouble remembering..." she read on "It looks like she doesn't remember anything about anything. The family is asking if I'd take her on as a patient."
"But you're not accepting new patients." Brett reminded her.
Siobhan again furrowed her brow, uncertain of what she needed to do. Inside she could feel the sadness the family must be going through at the thought of their loved one not remembering anything, and for them to reach out to a mental hospital knowing that this place could be their last resort, meant something very big in Siobhan's mind. They, in fact, were specifically asked for her to treat the patient based on her medical biography.
"Well, if I went on maternity leave, I could take on just one patient up until the baby comes. David wouldn't mind, especially knowing how much this family seems to really need me. They say in the request that they've exhausted all other options and found that my reports on memory and the mind were the closest thing they could see as some sort of help for their loved one." Siobhan explained.
"Is this a local family?" Brett asked taking notes.
"Their paper work only says that they've come from overseas."
"Ok." Brett scribbling down the info. "So are you sure you want to take this on? It seems like a lot of work, Doctor, especially since you really don't know what could this patient's needs really are." Brett informed.
"You're right. Well, they have a phone number listed here. Why don't you give them a call and have them come in for a consultation and then maybe I can decide if I can help." Siobhan digressed.
Brett smiled and took the paper work from Sioban and on his way began to glance over it in search of the phone number finding it as soon as he returned to his desk. He picked up his phone and dialed the number. It rang only once and went to voice mail, a voice mail that did not have an outgoing message.
"Hello, this is Dr. Siobhan Morgan-Collins' office calling in response to a new patient application that was left at the office door by someone at this phone number. A lot of the forms were left blank, we don't have too much information to go on, but Dr. Morgan would be very happy to meet with you and the patient as soon as possible to asses the patient's needs and to see if Dr. Morgan can actually be of service. The Doctor's earliest date for consultation is Friday at 6pm, if you would like to be considered please come by at that time and we can go from there. Thank you."
The phone number was not attached to a direct phone, only a crude old school answering machine that sat in a gloomy corridor with hard wooden floors and next to a large red door that lead to a basement.
The answering machine was purposely set up by the person that lived in this house to get this specific call from Siobhan's office. This house was the Old House, and the paperwork was filled out by Barnabas Collis himself, the mystery patient was the person he had in his coffin, the only way he could get this woman back, was with the help of Siobhan and one other person yet to arrive.
****
In the drawing room of Collinwood, Carolyn was going over old family photos from an album she found in her mother's belongings that was moved into the library a few years ago. The photos were of her mother Elizabeth and her father Paul, they were of Uncle Roger's wedding to Laura, and of David when he was little, and of Carolyn's first short lived marriage to Jeb Hawks.
She was remanicing all of the days of her life that were beginning to fade away as the years went back. From a side door that lead the drawing room into the kitchen, Alex and Christopher walked in fresh from the breakfast table. Alex had a fresh cup of tea for Carolyn who had yet to eat anything since they returned from London.
"Walk down memory lane?" Alex said grinning and placing the mug on the old cherry wood coffee table.
"It's amazing how much I left behind when I went to London the first time in 1982. I can't believe that I had forgotten all of these things." Carolyn said.
"I'm so sorry you have to go through this Carolyn, but please remember you're not alone. We're here with you to go through this with you." Chris comforted to Carolyn's half smile in response.
Carolyn stood up and walked over to the large window that look out onto the browning side lawn that was sprayed all day by the sea below it. She tied her arms around herself protecting herself from the morning chill and began to think back at her life some more.
"Mother?" Alex questioned from the sofa.
"You know, a long time ago, in this very room we did something extraordinary. Something that I don't think anyone believed would actually ....well we never knew it would happen, but it happened, and I saw it with my own eyes." Carolyn said turning back from the window to Alex and Chris who were confused at Carolyn's convention.
"What do you mean?" Alex calmly asked.
Carolyn smiled and meandered gracefully back to the sofa to sit next to her daughter.
"What if we did a seance?" Carolyn said to Alex's scoff. "No, listen to me. I've done it before when I was younger. You did one too, right here a few years back. Don't you remember? We could do one again and see if we could get to hear from Jude. It worked in those other times, why wouldn't work this time with Jude?"
"Yes, of course I remember, mother, but don't you remember the dangers that happen when we do seances here in this house? The amount of power this house has with spirit is beyond our control, conjuring them up again---I just can't help you with that. We all know the dangers mother and that's why we shouldn't do one. There's got to be a better way for you to come to terms with Jude's death." Alex said concerned.
"Alexandra, I'm surprised, for all the trials and tribulations you have been through I have done everything I could to help you no matter what, and..." Carolyn began before Alex tried to interrupt.
"I...."
"I can't believe you would just ... refuse to help me." Carolyn interjected before Alex could even say a work, her voice upset and frustrated.
"I just think maybe that just isn't the best thing for you to do right now. Mother we're all very worried about you and how you're taking Jude's death, a seance isn't really giving me any kind of comfort. I don't know where that's even coming from." Alex said, her eyes welling up with tears at her mother's obvious distorted view of reality.
"You're the only one I have left, Alex, and you're denying me trying to reach out to the man I loved. Think about that... think about how you're just closing me off to at least trying to find Jude so that I can say goodbye." Carolyn said.
"Carolyn, no one is trying to hurt you, we just want to help you get better and a seance would only rub salt in the wound." Chris interjected.
"Oh! And you'd know about salt in wounds, wouldn't you. You killed your own father on my front lawn! I saw the wounds you placed on him too... so yes, I guess you would know about wounds." Carolyn snapped uncharacteristically.
"Mother!!" Alex exclaimed.
"It's ok." Chris said to Alex understanding Carolyn was only lashing out due to her pain.
Carolyn huffed and grabbed her tea and sipped slowly, her anger as hot as the tea she was drinking.
"Why would you want to talk to Jude right now anyway Carolyn? We need to leave him and let him rest in peace. Seances only interrupt those on the other side from being at peace. You wouldn't want to do that would you?" Chris asked.
Carolyn seemed annoyed. She got up from her seat next to her daughter and returned to the window to listen to the sea slap against the sharp black rocks at the bottom Widow's Hill.
"Carolyn, I didn't mean to upset you." Chris said softly to Carolyn ignoring him.
"Mother, say something." Alex asked but Carolyn refused to speak.
Carolyn remained silent and stared out of the window with her back turned to Alex and Chris. The anger oozing out of her body like radiation from 3 Mile Island. Eventually Alex and Chris got the hint and decided to leave the drawing room and let Carolyn stew in her grief and anger.
"She's going to be fine. She just needs time." Chris said softly to a worried Alex as he helped her put on her coat in the foyer.
When Carolyn heard the giant front doors close from the drawing room she finally turned back from the window and ran back over to her mother Elizabeth's old photo album that was still on the coffee table. She flicked through the pages of old photos quickly, clearly looking for something specific and as she turned a page in a very quick motion a photo of her mother as a teenager flew out of the book and on to the floor. Carolyn reached down to pick up the photo and behind the photo was a piece of paper carefully taped to the back.
It was a piece of paper Carolyn had taped there years and years ago for safe keeping. Carolyn had taped this paper there for safe keeping so that no one would find and so that she could get to it if she ever needed it again.
It was instructions for a seance she had placed there in 1967, hidden away from anyone who might misuse it. Hidden there so no one could ever convene the dead like they did that one night in 1967 to disastrous effects.
"If they wont help me, I'll help my self. I don't need anyone to contact Jude. He'll come to me, and only me." Carolyn said to her self as she unfolded the decades old instructions and began to read them over to prepare for a seance she would do all on her own.
****
As she was finishing up the table settings for lunch the front door opened and in walk her strapping & handsome son, his smile seemed to light up the room entirely, Maggie could see him from her standing point in the dining room.
"Oh, Sebastian!!!" Maggie said rushing over from the kitchen table to the living room.
"Mom!!!" Sebastian said, his mother Maggie fully engulfed in his arms.
Once Maggie was back down off of cloud nine she noticed one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen standing in the doorway of the living room dropping her suitcase down. She was back-lit by the Collinsport sun, her hair was a chocolate brown, her skin was the color of cafe-au-lait, and her eyes were the color of sea-foam green.
"You must be Serena." Maggie said extending her hand.
"Serena Bellmore, hi." Serena said bashfully extending her hand.
"Oh come here, I'm a hugger!" Maggie said giggling and hugging a nervous Serena.
After a quick tour of the tiny 2 bedroom cottage, and a quick review of Maggie's father Sam's old paintings that were all over the house the three sat town for a small lunch that Maggie prepared.
Serena and Maggie were getting along, much to Sebastian's content. They were almost like old friends gossiping about the ins and outs of Collinsport than a woman meeting her son's new girlfriend. The nerves of the matter, so it seems, were slowly burning away like the morning fog.
As the three sat finishing their crisp wine over small leftovers on their plates over convestation that brought Sebastian up to speed on every that had happened since he was in Boston, Serena's cell phone rang.
"Oh my.. I'm sorry, you wont mind if I take is will you? It's ...it's work!" Serena said embarrassingly excusing herself from the table.
"Sure! Of course! Of course! There's a small little patio right out side that door there, you can take your call there for some privacy." Maggie reassured her as she pointed the way for Serena to have a private call.
"So what do you think?" Sebastian asked her mother as soon as the coast was clear.
"Bash, she's literally the most gorgeous lady I've ever seen and she's so polite and smart and funny and everything! I'm.... I'M IN LOVE!" Maggie said over-joyed.
"Get in line!" Sebastian said laughing at his mom's excited behavior.
"Have you told her anything about....well, you know." Maggie asked wondering if Sebastian had let Serena in on the his secret past as a werewolf that tormented the town of Collinsprot just two years before when Laura Collins bewitched him into falling in love with her and forcing him to kill people all over the city for her.
"Uhh. No." Sebastian said quickly. "Why would ever I ever tell her that?"
"Well, I can't imagine how it would ever come up, but I think that maybe if you tell her some form of that truth, you can still start out on an honest relationship honey. I wouldn't get into any of the sorted details." Maggie warned as she poured another glass of wine for Sebastian.
"I just think that I would rather leave old ghosts alone. I don't want to ever go there in my mind--not now, not ever again. What happened to me was so insane, it was so incredibly beyond imagination I just feel that she wouldn't understand and for that matter she'd for sure think I was ....god I don't know what she'd think of me. I have enough trouble trying to tell her that I worked for a Vampire chasing company before there whole lycan situation."
Maggie paused her next thought. She had forgotten that Sebastian worked with Victoria Winter's and The Organization of the True Hearted, a vampire hunting firm that Vicky used to infiltrate the Collins family to decimate them all only 3 years earlier.
"Mom?" Sebastian said noticing his mother was in another place.
In fact she was. All her life was surrounded by bizarre, and supernatural hardships that no one would ever understand if they had never lived through them themselves. It was a part of her, and so it was a part of her children's lives. How could she ever expect Sebastian to tell this new woman in his life the darkest secrets he possessed when she didn't understand them herself. She didn't understand why they happened, or how they happened, all she knew was that they did happen..from witch craft and mind control to blood thirsty creatures that 50 years ago locked her away in a secret room--where she almost died, birthing a trauma that she could never shake. Its why she stayed in Collinsport all this time, where else could she go? Where else would people understand.
The secret she hoped Sebastian could some how reveal--as easy as he could--to Serena were secrets Maggie too held close to her battered heart. She was wrong to expect him to tell her anything so easily.
"Listen, honey, I think that you have a really good opportunity right now to make things great in your life and Serena is this new wave of happiness that you deserve. You do whatever you think is best for you, and I'll support it. If you decide to tell her anything, or not--I'm here for you." Maggie explained.
Sebastian smiled and grabbed his mother's hand and squeezed it.
Outside on her phone call Serena could see Maggie and Sebastian talking through the sheer curtains. She smiled. It was a touching thing to see, a mother and a son who were so close.
"Are you there?" a voice said from over the phone.
"I'm sorry, yes Doctor. I'm here." Serena answered.
"I've arrived in Collinsport, when can I expect to meet up with you and when will you bring me my subject? I'm beginning to be impatient. I don't have a lot of time." Dr. Shaw demanded to know.
"Doctor, I'm doing everything I can to expedite what you need but I have to be sure not to arouse suspicion. If Sebastian begins to think something strange is going on with me or that I'm hiding something that could compromise everything I---" she paused "you, have worked for." She explained.
Dr. Shaw took a deep breath. He was sitting in an all white one bedroom suit in the Collinsport Hotel. The white chair matched the white carpet that matched the white wall paper with thin gray stripes that matched the white bedspread with thin gray stripes. He stood up from his chair and looked out of the window out on to the beautiful Atlantic sea from the 6th floor. He took another deep breath and digressed then began to play with the leaf of a potted palm that sat just by the window.
"Ill give you three days but after those three days, if you do not bring me the body--dead or alive--of that lycan creature Sebastian to harvest his organs so my experiments on patient X can begin, I will take matters into my own hands, do you understand me Miss Bellmore? You know what I am capable of, don't you?" Dr. Shaw explained.
"Of course. I understand." Serena said, as she hung up the call.
She stood out on the patio just for a few more seconds to compose herself and process what Dr. Shaw had told her. She did know exactly what he was capable of: cruelty, dishonesty, violence, manipulation, and murder.
After all it was how she got tied up in his web in the first place.
"Everything ok?" Maggie said, as Serena stepped back in from the small patio on the side of the cottage.
"Yes! All good." Serena said, her mind still on trying to figure out how to get Sebastian over to Dr. Jeffrey Shaw for his experiments.
"Sebastian hasn't told me what do you do?" Maggie asked.
"I work in the medical field." Serena said shortly.
"Medical field? You said you worked at an office." Sebastian said confused.
"Office? Right, in a doctor's office. That's what I meant." Serena said, quickly back tracking which seemed to satisfy Sebastian.
Maggie suddenly felt her stomach clench. The tone in Serena's voice was odd. Something all of a sudden was different about her. Her stammering speech, her nervous behavior, and her seemingly dishonest answer about where she worked. Could this be a red flag that Maggie suddenly was seeing? Her motherly intuition was ringing an alarm loud and clear. Perhaps, there was something about Serena that she too was hiding.
Serena seemed like a nice girl, she seemed like she enjoyed being with Sebastian; she was very attentive to him and looked at him like a woman who really cared, but the moment she walked back into the dining room from the patio, her voice, her disposition was different and Maggie instantly knew something wasn't right.
It was a feeling in the pit of Maggie's stomach, the feeling that she never, ever ignored, and this time was no different.
****
As the shortened days began to turn into dusk, and the clouds above began to lower themselves onto the small sea-side town of Collinsport, Maine, a woman in a black trench-coat and black boots made here way up a small broken path of stones. Every foot step in the freshly foggy evening clacked and echoed through the misty air as she slowly made her way up the path that lead to The Old House.
She was wearing black leather gloves that matched her coat and boots, slick and shiny, her tiny waist cinched in by a black sash across it as she carefully looked around her surroundings. Her hair was a light shade of brown, her face clean and fresh like a winter peach. This was a path, and a place that she was not a stranger too, far from it. She had been to to this place and down this path many times over the decades. And the only reason she was here now was because the man in that house called her personally to come. He said he needed her. He said she was the only one that could help him. He said that she was the one that could do what he needed--her and only her.
She knocked on the doors and waited for Barnabas to answer, a chilly breeze blew over the exposed skin of her face as a some kind of wild animal howled in the distance just as the clouds passed over the moon.
She shuttered in her skin just thinking of what might be out there watching her.
She shuttered in her skin just thinking of what might be out there watching her.
All the old feelings started to come back to her, all the old feelings she thought she had escaped when she vanished from this place years ago, all the feelings she wanted to be rid of when she attempted to destroy this family years ago, but failed came back. Her stomach was in knots, her hands trembling, but she shook it off and composed herself just as the door knob began to turn.
"Don't show him fear. He can smell it on you." She whispered to herself.
The door opened and there, standing as she always knew him, dressed in fine suite, hair combed perfectly, his skin pristine and pale, his eyes large, wide and dark, was Barnabas Collins.
"Welcome home Miss Winters. I'm go glad you're back." Barnabas said to the beautiful face of Victoria Winters, the woman who's first arrival in Collinsport over 50 years ago changed the face of the Collins family forever.
