This was Victoria Winter's method of time travel. Her ability to bend the ribbon time just with her mind was something she had learned and used to her benefit decades ago and just two years before this moment, Victoria returned through time travel to Collinwood and kidnapped Kat and Caleb Collins' son Canan and took him to the year 1920 in hopes to save him from the tortured life of a member of this family.
Eventually Kat was able to return her son to the regular time, but the truth was, Vicky switched the baby boy with Claudia Bouchard and Christopher Reed's baby boy, Leith, of the same young age.
In real-time, Kat and Caleb were now traveling the world with a child they thought was theirs with the baby’s real mother Claudia posing as the baby’s nanny, while Vicky remained back in the past raising their real "son" away from the terrors and mosters of the Collins family, a family that was his true his. This boy, Vicky named Curtis.
That secret was what brought her to this point, Barnabas knew the truth as he too went to 1920 to help save Canan. He knew Vicky's twisted kidnapping plot to keep Curtis for herself, he knew that this secret of The kidnapping would be his key to getting what he wanted from Vicky who wanted to stay in a positive light in her adopted son’s eyes: one more time traveling trip to bring back what he truly wanted most, the woman that he loved: Julia Hoffman.
And as Vicky sat in the quiet room in the old house, her eyes tightly reminiscing on the the past encapsulated her body in a light from within that grew and surrounded her; it grew and grew in brightness and in just seconds covered her whole body then, like an implosion of the sun sucked Vicky into a vortex that moved her through worlds, times and experiences at a speed that was beyond anything anyone could explain in any languge of this earth.
Victoria Winters, had once again, lifted the veil between the world and time of today and that of yesterday.
She opened her eyes, and saw that she was standing in the courtyard of a villa in Singapore in 1971.
As fast as she could, she searched for Julia Hoffman to complete her mission for Barnabas, her only way to keep the secret of Curtis' kidnapping. She had raised Curtis, she had loved Curtis and to her he was her only joy and love. Her son. She could not let anything destroy that bond and that love. Julia would have to come with her no matter what.
In 2018, Barnabas said he and Julia had been living in Singapore after they left Collinsport to work with a Doctor that would help cure Barnabas of his vampirism using a synthetic type of blood that he had created. Julia and Barnabas lived in Singapore with their young adopted daughter, Siobhan and had even married. They were happy, in love and doing well until Julia died 10 years later. Barnabas' idea was that if Vicky brought Julia to 2018, they could be together, and modern medicine of the future could save her life.
The challenge was, finding Julia, convincing her to come to the future but not interfere with Barnabas and Siobhan of 1971. That timeline had to be untouched.
Vicky, slithered around the main entrance to the Villa like a cat burglar. She slowly reached for the door knob and noticed that it was unlocked. She carefully turned the knob and walked into a main room that had freshly painted white walls, large potted palms in each corner, three ceiling fans swirling the warm Singapore air to a cool breeze. There wasn't much light in the room, and Vicky felt comfortable walking around without being seen.
She slowly made her way through a library that was attached to the main room, it too seemed as if it had been transported from Collinwood with its older word furniture and books that hung on the walls in shelves that seemed to reach the highest of highs.
She went through the library carefully and quietly and exited into a hallway. With her back against the hallway walls to stay out of the way of a glaring light at the end she searched each room along the way for any sign of Julia Hoffman. Step by step in the quiet Villa she opened doors to rooms that were empty of any of the houses' inhabitants----but then a voice from the glaring light at the end.
"Coffee please."
Vicky recognized it instantly. It was Julia, down the long hallway in another room. As Vicky stood in the hall, a butler came out of the well lit room where Julia's voice came from. Vicky quickly made her way down the hall to the room and peeked into it. There she was, just as she remembered her. Fire red hair, pale pristine skin, flawlessly dressed in a pencil skirt and white flowy blouse crowned with pearls. And even better, no Barnabas in sight.
"Julia." Vicky said in a hushed voice.
Julia looked up startled at first at the sight of the stranger then squinted her eyes, not sure of what she was seeing, or who, but oddly it was a familiar face. Julia took a gulp of air, but said nothing to the familiar stranger.
"Julia...do you know who I am?" Vicky asked.
Julia did not respond, she sat in the chair in the this room silent, her mouth slightly ajar in shock and confusion and the stranger that she somewhat recognized.
"Julia, all I want you to do is believe what I'm going to say next, that's all I ask. I don't want to explain much because we don't have a lot of time, do you understand?" Vicky explained.
"What are you doing here?" Julia asked in a slow and calm voice.
"I'm here to take you to see Barnabas." Vicky answered.
"Barnabas? He's out with our child getting ice-cream, why do you need to take me to him? Your eyes....I know those eyes. How did you get in here?" Julia said, her confused sentences started to make Vicky worry.
"Not the Barnabas you know, the Barnabas of a different time. I need you to come with me because he needs to see you, and we don't have time, we have to go now." Vicky said.
"What are you talking about?"
"Julia please don't make this difficult, I can't explain more than that. We have to go before it's too late." Vicky replied knowing that if the Barnabas and Siobhan of 1971 saw her there it could effect the Barnabas and Siobhan of 2018.
"I'm not doing anything of the sort. Why do I feel like I know who you are?" Julia asked.
"It's me. Vicky. Vicky Winters." Vicky replied.
"Impossible, you're.....you're so much older----" Julia said, before her brain finally caught up with what was happening. "Where did you come from?"
"2018."
Julia's eyes opened wide and she quickly got up from the chair and moved away from Vicky who had stepped closer to her while they were speaking. Her body language was of a nervous nature, her heart started to beat fast and Vicky thought that at any moment Julia was going to call for security.
"This is impossible. We stopped all this years ago, we agreed no one else would do ...." Julia said, her mind racing at the possibility that there was still someone from Collinsport who could travel through time as she and Barnabas had once done and agreed to never do again.
"It's true, I am who I say I am and if you don't leave with me now disastrous things will happen. You have to come with me. Please!" Vicky begged.
"I'm not going anywhere with you. Where would we go? What do you want with me?" Julia questioned.
"My son is in danger and I have to bring you to 2018 otherwise I don't know what will happen." Vicky explained.
"Your son? You have a son?" Julia said, looking confused.
Vicky only nodded yes.
"Wait, wait, wait, how can this be? None of this is making sense. Vicky, disappeared, we don't know where she is, you're telling me that you just made it back to regular time and lived your life and ended up with a son and you're back in Collinsport and you have a child in 2018? How?" Julia asked, her mind still racing with thoughts attempting to connect the dots.
"I can explain everything much later, but the timelines cannot cross. If the Barnabas of this time sees me, it could spell disaster for the future timeline, you know I'm right Julia, you have to come with me." Vicky again begged.
Julia didn't know if she should trust Vicky. She didn't know if this was really Vicky in the first place. Everything had happened so quickly and almost instantaneously that it surly was some sort of joke, a trick. Her practical mind would not allow her to believe the truth, believe something that seemed so strange ...but then again She had lived through some very incredible things in the past. She had seen with her own eyes what it was to see the unbelievable actual believable. She had lived it, she had seen it and she had wished it never to happen again. Not now that she had the happiness with Barnabas and their adopted little girl Siobhan.
"Barnabas needs you." Vicky said sincerely.
Julia felt strange, she wanted to help as best as she could but if Vicky was telling the truth that would mean leaving her own little girl. How could she do that? Siobhan was only 5 years old and she had already lost her birth parents, how could Julia now allow her to lose adopted mother?
"But..." Julia said, her voice suddenly soft and concerned.
"You'll see Siobhan again, I promise you. You won't believe how beautiful and wonderful she has turned out to be. You'll see her again." Vicky said, hinting to Julia that her own child awaited her in 2018.
Julia took a deep breath and nodded her head in agreement. If Barnabas sent for her from the future than he must really need her for something, it was also a sign that she did not survive until 2018, and Julia knew if Vicky came all this way, then she was desperately needed.
Vicky felt an instant relief and pulled a note out of her pocket that she had written just before she had traveled to 1971 and placed it on the desk next to the chair Julia had been sitting in.
"What is that?" Julia asked.
"Its a note, a note saying that you've left Barnabas. The Barnabas of 1971 has to believe that you've gone away, this way it'll keep the timelines as congregant as possible and it'll keep the sense of losing you in Siobhan's heart. The timelines need to stay as close to their original forms as possible." Vicky explained.
"Barnabas would never believe that I left him." Julia said.
"It doesn't matter what he believes, in his own mind's eye he knows what happening. Barnabas is a composite of different times and different lives and of different worlds, as long as Siobhan's timeless stays relatively similar, the feeling that you left, whether it is by choice or by death, things in her own life in the future won't change much." Vicky said to Julia's understanding.
But Julia looked worried. It had been years since she had traveled to different worlds within timelines. She had no idea what she was getting into and what she had agreed to. She still looked at Vicky with a skeptical eye, but something in her own practical scientifically programmed mind told her to listen to her heart and trust, even if trust was something Julia had a hard time embracing.
Vicky had been in 1971 only a short time, and the clock was ticking on the window for her to get Julia back to 2018. The letter was placed, the time was now and they had to leave.
"You'll be fine." Vicky said.
Vicky grabbed Julia's hands and told her to close her eyes and to focus on what she thought was the future. Focus on what she imagined the future would look like, focus on what she wished the future would be, and as the two women held their eyes tightly shut, the bright light within Vicky began to swell and envelop the two woman like the brightest sunrise slowly making its way over a mountain range.
As they began to quickly descend into the time warp, the front door opened and Barnbas and little 5 year old Siobhan burst in running down the hall with her ice-cream cone to show her mother, and just as Siobhan turned the corner into the room where Julia and Vicky were in, Siobhan saw their bodies collapse in a burst of light and quickly vanish into thin air as if they were never there.
"Mama." little Siobhan said out loud.
Barnabas eventually caught up, but when he too reached the door of the room he found it empty.
"Where is Dr. Hoffman?" Barnabas, who was now cured of his vampirism asked the butler who was returning with Julia's coffee.
"She was just here sir. She was just here!" The butler said looking around for Julia.
Barnabas looked confused. He stood in the room that still smelled of Julia's perfume. He walked over to a sliding glass door that looked over a bright blue pool in the courtyard. He then walked back to Siobhan who jumped into his arms.
"Where did your mother go?" Barnabas in a tone of voice that attempted to comfort the confused little girl.
"She went into the light." Siobhan said.
"The light?" Barnabas asked.
"The light." The little girl confirmed.
Barnabas then saw the letter sitting on the table next to the chair Julia was sitting in. He put down the little girl who ran off into another room to play and unfolded the letter to read it over. His eyes became cold and angry. His heart ached and hurt deep inside his chest.
Julia had left him, but not for long. Soon she would arrive in 2018 for a reunion that would turn the Collins family upside down one more time.
****
PRESENT TIME, COLLINSPORT
PRESENT TIME, COLLINSPORT
A wind blew cold over a small 12 room hotel near the sea just across the street from the Blue Whale. it was a smaller hotel than the Collinsport Inn, something less extravagant and less expensive. The hotel was set up as a "go-between" for Dr. Jeffery Shaw and Serena to transfer Sebastian's body.
Dr. Shaw was a man of very little humor and spontaneity since his son's accident, and he was not prepared for what he was about to find inside that small hotel room with Serena Bellmoore.
Serena sat on the bed nervously. Her legs were shaking. She just stared into the glass of the mirror directly in front of her. Who was she? What had she done? What had Shaw's power and control caused her to do? It was all too much for her, and she was hoping that the Chris' DNA would be enough to let her off the hook and move on with her life.
She got up from the bed and began to pace. She worried that if Shaw didn't arrive soon Chris would wake up and she'd have to do put him to sleep again--something that was very dangerous since she only had enough of the tranquilizer for a few hours.
In what seems liked hours and hours she finally heard a car door slam outside. She rushed over to the hotel window and peeked through a crack in the curtain. She looked down from her second story hotel room. Dr. Shaw had arrived and was making his way up the stairs to the room. Serena stepped back from the window, unlocked the hotel door and waited for Shaw to enter.
The door opened.
"It's done." Serena said, as Shaw closed and locked the door behind him.
"He's alive I hope, I can't harvest organs and working DNA from a corpse." Jeffery said coldly.
Serena nodded her head as Jeffery looked over on the bed and saw the tranquilizer gun in full view.
"How much did you use?" He asked picking up the gun to look it over.
"Just two darts. Well, three darts." She answered.
"Which is it, two or three?" He asked angrily.
"Two on .....two on one and one on the other." Serena answered confusing Shaw.
"What the hell are you talking about? There are two bodies in there?" Shaw asked pointing to the bathroom and as he walked in to see what Serena had brought him.
Shaw opened the bathroom door. It was dark. Serena had left Chris in the complete darkness. He flipped open the lights and there he was, tied up, gagged and sleeping in the hotel bathtub. Shaw looked around the small bathroom still confused about who this person was and where the other person was, then came back into the hotel bedroom.
"Explain." He said.
"You don't recognize him? Here check the file. You'll be happy to know that Sebastian is not the only person in this town with DNA that you'd need to help your son. I've brought you Christopher Reed." Serena said.
"Reed?" Shaw asked as he reached over for the file he had on the lycan DNA in Collinsport. "How did you?....It doesn't matter, Christopher's DNA is much purer than Sebastian's is anyway. He's the root of both and creator of Sebastian. He'll do perfectly. You said there was another." Jeffery Shaw Asked.
"He was with someone when I tranquilized him, I had to use a dart on her too to make sure she didn't call for help." Serena explained.
"Well where is she?"
"What do you mean? I left her. You don't need her DNA." Serena explained.
"You're telling me you left a witness!!!?? How could you be so stupid!" Jeffery screamed.
"She didn't see me!!" Serena yelled back.
"How do you know? How do you know she didn't see you! You could have half the Collinsport PD trying to find your car right now! Jesus Chr---....fine fine....look, we have to get Chris out of here and into the labs as soon as possible to get what I need from him and before any of the medication you gave him wares off. How long ago did this happen?" Shaw asked in a panic.
"About an hour ago? Maybe an hour and a half." Serena replied.
"Good, that gives us about 2 hours to get him out of town and into the lab I set up in Bangor. In the mean time get rid of your car, hide it, have it stolen, I don't care but get rid of it. I don't want any trouble on my way out of town." Shaw ordered.
"What do I tell Sebastian? It's his car." Serena asked.
Jeffery took a deep breath. His frustration with Serena started to boil over, he could not believe how careless she had been. She first left a witness to her crime and not only that she had taken her own boyfriend's car to commit that crime. She had definitely not made it easy for them to pull this off. And it was about to get much more complicated.
"What was that?" Shaw said as the two argued over the car situation.
"Oh no, it's Christopher. It's coming from the bathroom." Serena noticed.
Shaw and Serena quickly made their way to the bathroom and flicked on the lights. She was right, Christopher, gagged, tied up, laying in the tub, was awake and struggling in his restraints.
Shaw looked over at Serena with the cold stare of death just as her cell phone began to ring.
"It's Sebastian." She said softly. "I have to get back to him. He's probably worried, I said I'd only be gone for a while."
"Get the hell out of here. And be sure that when you get to Sebastian's you hide that car." Shaw saw in a frustrated tone.
Serena quickly left the hotel room and left Dr. Shaw to deal with Christopher. Shaw knelt down next to Chris in the tub and looked over his body. Chris was young, healthy and in good shape. He would see that Chris' body would be a perfect specimen for harvesting everything that he needed to brink his own son back from the bring of death.
"Do you know why you're here?" Shaw asked Chris.
Chris' eyes were crying, he was terrified, and he shook his head no.
"Oh, well I guess things get lost in the details when you're in a mad rush to harvest body parts from someone like you." Shaw said openly to Chris' shock.
And as Chris began to wriggle and try to remove his restraints Dr. Shaw stood up and pulled out the tranquilizer gun one more time and pointed it at Chris.
"Don't worry, you won't feel a thing."
****
Collinwood was a buzz with activity. There were police stationed outside the entrance protecting the family from the strange sudden kidnapper. There were detectives inside, lead by Loomis McGovern who was Kat's old partner. Loomis had brought with him an obscene amount of machines and equipment to hopefully trap the kidnapper once a ransom call was made.
Little did they know--no such call would be made.
Carolyn, who was still dressed in her widow's black, was consoling Alexandra who was beside herself on the sofa near the fire across from Siobhan and David who were equally as worried for David's adopted son Christopher's safe return.
"There's nothing we won't do to get him back, honey, you have to trust the police." Carolyn whispered to Alex even though Carolyn herself didn't trust much of anything in Collinsport.
"I can feel it in my heart, mother, something isn't right. I don't think this is what we think it is." Alex said through a tear-stained face.
"What do you mean?" Loomis said as he overheard the conversation. "Did you remember something else?
"I can't explain it but something about the whole situation doesn't seem like we were chosen at random." Alex explained to Loomis' deep sigh.
"Alex, you're a member of one of the wealthiest families in New England, of course this wasn't chosen at random. The kidnapper clearly wants to make a quick buck out of the Collins family." Loomis deduced.
"Why would he only take Chris? Why didn't he take me too?" Alex said with a good point.
"She's right, Loo...why wouldn't a kidnapper who wanted Collins money, take Alex too? That certainly would have sweetened the pot, don't you think?" David interjected to Loomis' sudden silence.
"Something doesn't feel right. There's something else going on here." Alex said, her head now in her mother Carolyn's lap.
"Shhhhh." Carolyn said as she combed through Alex's bright blond hair attempting to calm her.
"Honey why don't you go up to your room and rest a little, you really need to take some time to rest." Siobhan said softly to Alex's refusal.
David got up from his chair, his big broad shoulders sauntered over to the desk by the drawing room door where Loomis had set up the call tracing equipment. Siobhan followed.
"I think Alex may be on to something. Why would the kidnapper only take him and not her?" he said in a whisper just to Siobhan so that no one would hear.
"I don't know." Siobhan answered. "Everything about this seems strange. Everything."
"It does." David said, his mind skeptical and his eyes darting right to the large painting of Barnabas Collins above the fire place.
"What?" Siobhan asked, as her eyes followed David's."Don't even go there, I know where you're going with this. My father had nothing to do with this David." Siobhan made clear.
"Every time something has gone wrong with this family, your father has had a hand in it. I can't even begin to tell you how far back that goes. I know that you love him, and in my own way I may love him too, but honey, listen, he's not as innocent as you want to believe. The father you know isn't the same Barnabas Collins I grew up with. Trust me, the truth always has fangs." He explained, then finished up with "Literally."
"What reason would my father have to take Chris, huh? Give me one good reason!" Siobhan said, her voice still in a whisper but still loud enough to sound authoritative.
"I don't know, but I'm going to find out." David said as he quickly left the drawing room for the old house.
"David wait!" Siobhan cried, as Carolyn, Loomis and Alex looked over in confusion.
David was determined to find out what was going on. Alex's perception that there was definitely more to Christopher's kidnapping wasn't far off, but David's constant suspicions over Barnabas said more about David's lack of trust of his centuries old cousin than it did on Barnabas' character itself. It was true that Barnabas' past was littered with darkness and betrayal of the family in various ways, but of this crime, the vampire's hands were clean.
David went to a drawer in his office and opened it. Inside was a wooden stake he had kept for years for safe keeping. He grabbed it and rushed off to the Old House, a pregnant Siobhan hot on his heels constantly pulling at his arms to make him come back and calm down. Siobhan, a physiologist, knew the battles inside David's mind had on Barnabas had yet to vanquish but she couldn't see her way into this psychologically, she had to physically stand between her father and her husband--stake in hand--and hope it wouldn't come to someone's death.
"David, this is preposterous! You can't just go over there and demand anything of my father, you don't have ----" Siobhan said trying to catch up with David on their walk to the old house "---David stop...wait for me!....You don't have proof!" She continued with her original thought.
"Jason Mcguire, Dave Woodward, Ruby Tate, Nathan Forbes, Leopold Divernet, Joanna Grayson...those names are all the proof I need to show you the kind of man your father is." David said naming just a few of Barnabas' known victims.
"WAS!" Siobhan yelled back.
It was too late, they had arrived at the old house and David pushed the front door open like a giant change and gust of wind had pushed it for him.
"David stop!" Siobhan said as she tried to pull him away from the door, the stake still in his hand.
Barnabas came slowly down the stairs, his elegant walk in a fearless stride step by step from the second floor.
"Cousin David. Good evening." Barnabas said, his hand gracefully holding on to the banister as he stepped down from the final stair.
"Where's Christopher!" David demanded.
"Christopher? What are you talking about Christopher isn't here." Barnabas replied.
"Father, please if you have anything to do with Chris' disappearance, please..." Siobhan pleaded.
"I haven't the slightest idea what you both are talking about. I haven't seen Christopher since the day he returned with Carolyn and Alexandra." Barnabas confessed.
"You're lying!" David screamed.
"Ridiculous." Barnabas assured.
"You're a liar, you've always been a liar. What have you done to Christopher!" David demanded.
"David, I have no idea what you're talking about, I have not scene..." Barnabas said before David interrupted with a daring move, stake still in hand.
"The basement." David Said.
"STOP!" Barnabas demanded, as he knew David and Siobhan could not go down to the basement and see Julia's coffin with her body still in mummy form.
"He's in the basement, isn't he, you've hid him there!" David said, his mind now racing to find his son.
Barnabas's eyes began to turn cold and angry. His house, his autonomy was being taken from him, he was being violated and by his one cousin/son-in-law. He could feel his body tense up, and his eyes turning to a dark black, he could feel the fangs slowly break free from their little dental crypts and start to slice through to a point. Barnabas's heart was turning black, it was happening, his coldness, his vampire curse burning through like a blaze eating up a dry country side --all in front of his beloved daughter who had never witnessed it before.
"You must stop!" Barnabas said, grabbing David by the arm and pulling him back with the strength of 50 men.
"You're hiding something, I knew it! Carolyn knew it too! How could we have trusted you all this time, how could we have been so foolish! What's down there Barnabas, what are you hiding? What have you been doing all this time that you're so afraid of us finding out?" David said noting Barnabas was now in full angry vampire mode.
"Get out. GET OUT!"
David lifted his arm to protect himself with the stake and Siobhan screamed for them to stop the argument, Barnabas swatted the wooden stake out of David's hand and it fell down the flight of stairs into the basement through the open door. Both men looked down into the basement and suddenly a bright light lit the room below up like a blue sun.
"What is that? What is that???" David said startled of the strange light anomaly in the basement.
Barnabas hissed and blocked the way for David to enter.
"Get out of my way Barnabas, I swear you will regret this, you will regret what you've done to Christopher." David growled, Siobhan still pulling at the men to stop what they were doing.
"Father, please there must be a good explanation about all of this, you can explain can't you?" Siobhan said, attempting to redeem her father in her husband's eyes.
As Barnabas looked over at the beautiful daughter he loved so dear, David found his change and pushed Barnabas aside and rushed down the stairs. An angry Barnabas followed, he knew what the light was. He knew what made the brightness shine through.
As David, Barnabas and Siobhan made their way down the steps, there in a glowing light was Victoria Winters returning from 1971, she stood there alone, glowing, allowing all the elements of 2018 to finally compose her in her form and generate the true body of hers perfectly as if she had never left this time and space.
"Jesus!" David said in shock.
"Victoria." Siobhan said, her voice unsure of what she was seeing.
Barnabas felt his anger starting to build again, he knew what was next based on Vicky's expression. She had succeeded in returning with Julia, but she had not known she would be exposed in front of David and Siobhan.
"What the hell is going on here, what have you too done?" David said, as Vicky stepped aside and revealed a back lit coffin with a mummified corps in it.
And as Siobhan, David and Barnabas got closer, the dead body of Julia Hoffman, her blackened rotted skin, her empty eyes, her brittle ancient like bones began to shift and rattle. The skin began to swell on her face, her lips formed, her hair began to take shape, her flesh began to fill in where the worms had eaten away, her skin began to go from black to a brown, to a pale color, life was forming again inside that very coffin, and the body went from a rotting humidified monster to someone very recognizable indeed.
Barnabas smiled--Vicky's trip was a success.
"Is ....that?" David uttered as he grabbed on to Siobhan who was trembling with fear at what she saw.
"No. No.....this can't be real. This.....can't be real." Siobhan said over and over again as Vicky slowly stepped to the back of the room away from what was happening.
"She's returned." Barnabas as he got close to the coffin and Julia's eyes opened. "Julia Hoffman is home."
Siobhan's face turned white as a ghost and her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she fell to the floor. Her beloved, adopted mother was back from the dead.
