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| Victoria, Angelique and Curtis at Collinwood |
The Autumn night seemed more like the middle of a bitter winter. It was icy cold. Foggy. And the wind picked up from the east and blew into Collinsport like a rush of energy that engulfed everyone it touched.
At the Old House, now empty with only remnants of Barnabas' various times living there, five people, Maggie Evans, Siobhan Collins, Serena Bellmoore, Sebastian Banning and paranormal and supernatural scientist Lucas Granger set up various pieces of equipment meant to track and prove the veracity and authenticity of the supernatural -- most notably the man himself: Barnabas Collins. Lucas' cameras, and infrared light readers dotted the corners of the main drawing room parlor of the Old House; all set up to catch a glimpse of the world on the other side.
Sebastian, clapped off the dirt on his hands from the collection of dust that had gathered there from touching the filthy surfaces of the virtually abandoned house. He looked up above the hearth and saw a hanging white cloth covering a large picture frame. He grabbed on to the closest corner and yanked the sheet down with a force that blew dust up into the air blocking everyone's site like a mist of particles encompassing all the air around them.
"Bash!" Maggie yelped, chastising her son.
"Sorry." Sebastian answered.
When the dust cleared, the glaring image of the stone faced Barnabas Collins looked down from his perch in the painting above the fireplace. They all looked up at him with wonder and nerves. Lucas Granger, especially excited of this discovery, slowly walked up to the fire place. His grin was from ear to ear. The man he so wished to meet in person, the man from Dr. Woodard's diaries and notes, the man who was one of the legendary undead and trapped somewhere on the other side of the veil of the living and the dead could just be minutes away from contact. It was the most excited Lucas had felt in ages.
"Incredible. Is the likeness a good one?" Lucas asked Maggie who new Barnabas the best from the group.
"Unfortunately." She grumbled back, to Siobhan rolling her eyes at Maggie's comment on her father.
"He's exquisite. I wish I could meet him before we free him from the purgatory on the other side. You know all of these beings they only want freedom, freedom from this place they're trapped in. It's like a prison. It's a never ending marry-go-round of hell that they cannot escape. Once we open that door and they cross, they'll be free to travel to the next step of their other worldly existence. Into the light of eternity." Lucas explained in his best supernatural and paranormal scientist voice.
"So what you're saying is that once we contact Barnabas on the other side, once we get to him, we can convince him to travel into the light and away from us forever?" Sebastian asked.
"Precisely. The spirit is a vortex of energy and when it cannot cross over into the light it lingers, trapped in the world Barnabas is in now; Barnabas and many others. Without the proper guidance, that hopefully we'll give him, he'll cross." Lucas explained as he continued to set up the equipment.
"There's no way he can escape, right? And come into this world? Again." Maggie asked still unsure of the whole practice.
Lucas, grinned, he knew deep down that what he was doing had the high possibility that not only would they contact Barnabas, but he could be released, that he could, once again walk among them in the world of the living. In fact, that's what he was hoping for. He was hoping, even wishing, that instead of following the light Barnabas' spirit went the opposite way and came back through the portal of two worlds and entered the world of the living. It would boost everything Lucas has believed, and studied, and worked so hard for all his career in the paranormal.
"Well, let's just focus on getting him where he needs to go, Ms. Evans. But ...to meet him would have been a real dream." Lucas offered.
"I don't think you want to meet him. I don't think you want to get to know him. At all." Serena said, her jaw chattering with nerves.
"Why is that?" Lucas questioned.
Serena looked at him as if he were crazy. She couldn't understand how a man who knew everything about Barnabas would even think it was at all safe to be in the same room with him especially after being trapped without his the taste of blood for so long. The truth was, Barnabas was a danger when he hadn't fed, and Lucas was a fool to even entertain the subject of meeting the vampire in the flesh.
Serena rolled her eyes and continued to unpack their supplies and only muttered "Trust me on this one."
Siobhan, who was adopted by Barnabas and Julia when she was only 5 years old when her American birth parents who had become friends with Barnabas and Julia died on vacation in Singapore, where Barnabas and Julia had been living since 1971, scoffed at Serena's cold assessment of her father.
Lucas brushed off both reactions and dusted his hands on his pants.
"I think we're ready." Lucas said.
The group of 5 slowly, and somewhat apprehensively, gathered around the center of the room. They sat on the chairs and sofa still with the white cloths covering them.
Sebastian clicked on the cameras to capture any image that floated in, Serena clicked on the white noise machines who's hissing noise spread around the room like the spray of a waterfall ready to catch any voice from the other side.
"To those who dwell in the beyond, shackled to two worlds, I need you to break free and come forth. I am here to send you home, to send you to the light or to any place you'd prefer to dwell. Break free and come to me, listen to my voice and hear me say that I am your conduit, I am your open door. I can bring you into the next realm of life and space. Barnabas Collins, this message, is for you! Come to this place and hear my voice!" Lucas shouted over the white noise.
Maggie's eyes snapped open from her concentrated place. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Lucas was supposed to usher the spirits, Barnabas included to the light and away from Collinsport, not back in.
"Lucas, stop! What are you doing?" Maggie screamed over the white noise.
"Come to this sound let me hear you speak and say my name! Come to me!" Lucas continued.
"No! No! That's not what you said you'd do!" Sebastian said standing up from the sofa.
"Stop him!" Serena shouted.
"Turn it off, turn it all off!" Maggie ordered as Sebastian and Serena complied turning off the cameras and the white noise machines. "This wasn't what we agreed to."
Lucas raised an eyebrow and said nothing.
"This ... no... this wasn't what was supposed to happen. You can't really be trying to bring Barnabas back, he's a menace." Sebastian added.
"I think I've had just about enough of you all ripping on my father. I know what he's done and I know what he's capable of doing but he can be helped. He's been helped before. He's not a lost cause. I've seen him the way no one else has. I've been there when his humanity was shined through far more times the monster he was created." Siobhan chimed in.
"I know you want to believe that honey, I really do, but we can't be sure anymore. None of us know which Barnabas will show up if he does come back. We can't risk that... our lives. Think of your baby. Think of what would happen if Barnabas came back with the darkness in him like the last time. Who would want him around John-Michael? You would actually feel safe with Barnabas a stones throw away, not knowing what kind of mood he'd be in, what kind of darkness lurked behind his eyes?" Maggie questioned Barnabas' daughter.
"Maggie..." Siobhan began, her eyes filled with the uncertainty of her own beliefs of Barnabas. "He's my father. The only father I've only really known. Dark or light... I love him. We don't know that he would be a danger, he would never hurt me." Siobhan said with tears in her eyes for her father.
"Exactly. We don't. We don't know anything. He's not of this world, Siobhan, and we can't predict what kind of version of him we'd get. Over time and space and his many incarnations, the real true Barnabas is out there somewhere but, it's too hard to connect with the one we want. We can't risk any more lives. I think we should just pack this all up and forget about it." Maggie said.
"No. It's my fault. I was selfish. I have to admit I would be honored to some how meet the man I've been studying for so many years but Ms. Evans is right. The unpredictability of your father, Mrs. Collins, could and perhaps would, put so many lives in danger. Let's put this experiment on hold and perhaps try again once we've all cooled off." Lucas said, his eye brow still lifted.
"Oh REALLY?" Maggie shot back annoyed with Lucas' change of heart. "How can we trust you?"
Lucas thought for a second, he knew that the group had more trust and issues with fear than any other group he had ever worked with, their complete trust in him was paramount to continuing his experiment, even if it didn't go exactly as he planned.
Lucas lifted his hand in the air, "I put my word on it Maggie, once we re-set and start again, I will do what I can to guide all the spirits that dwell in this house....to the light...and no where else."
Satisfied, for now, Maggie and the group began to pack away a few of the belongings and hide them away in the Old House so that no one who came there for any reason would see them and suspect what was going on, simultaneously, Lucas had been alone thinking as they all packed. He realized, that he left out one giant element of his experiment, an element that would have changed everything had he remembered earlier. But he would need help next time...and he knew just the person to help him succeed.
Lucas found Siobhan alone packing one his cases and seized the moment for a private chat. She was his key.
"Mrs. Collins, what I said just now is true. Your father is and could be a danger." Lucas Granger said.
"Ugh!" Siobhan growled. "Thank you Dr. Granger, I've had just about enough of pile on Barnabas night."
"No, please, let me finish. I know why he didn't step forward tonight. I mean, he could have, we just didn't have enough time here for it to happen. When we were at Collinwood we were very close, and yet he did not step through the door when it opened. There was a reason for that." Lucas explained.
"I don't understand." Siobhan answered as she closed the case of Lucas' equipment she was packing.
"You see, the other side has a give and take policy. If we are taking from their side we must give from ours. Everyone is accounted for. A spirit for a spirit, a soul for a soul." Lucas continued as his voice began to lower so no one else could hear. "If you'd like to see your father again, we must give the other side someone in return. It's an ebb and flow and we cannot remove without replacing."
Siobhan felt uncomfortable with how close Lucas was standing to her. She stepped back and felt the hairs raise on the back of her neck, in her eye line the portrait of her father, shadowed in the darkness of the Old House room. She could see the moon light peek in from the window and brighten the old chandelier that reflected over Lucas's cold gray eyes.
She thought for a second how insane it all sounded but then, her mind snapped. If this was a possibility, having her father home again, maybe Lucas could actually do it.
"What do you suggest?" She wondered.
"Well," Lucas began his voice in a soft tone still, allowing no other ears but Siobhan's to hear his plan. "once we make contact with your father there will be a split second moment where a fisher in time and space will physically open. This opening, Mrs. Collins, is where your father will come fourth but only if we send someone from this world into the next."
Lucas's gray eyes sparkled as he looked over at Serena Bellmoore. Siobhan's eyes followed.
"You don't mean...." Siobhan asked appalled by his suggestion.
"I do Mrs. Collins, her."
"Dr. Granger I can't even begin to tell you how sick this all is. What would I ...." Siobhan's disgust quickly switched to curiosity at the thought of having her father back. She took a deep breath mid sentence and wondered what it would be like to have her father back again. The man that had always protected her no matter what. The man who never got to meet her new son. She loved him no matter what. She loved despite what the world saw of him and he was the only thing in the world she was missing now.
"We can make this happen Mrs. Collins. All you need do work with me and we can do it." Granger added.
Siobhan said nothing, but she turned to Lucas and then turned back to the portrait of her father, his statuesque and chiseled face stared down at her from the hearth. She then looked at Serena and her decision was made.
Siobhan looked back at Lucas who's face had seemingly turned into a hungry wolf with the moonlight, waiting, starving for Siobhan's green light. All she did was nod in agreement.
"Well done. We'll try again tomorrow." He said, his voice deep and dark. Lucas looked over at Serena and grinned.
The plan was set...and now the trap to sacrifice Siobhan's new nanny Serena for the sake of her father's return.
****
The following day brought an autumn gloom of overcast clouds and mist from the coastal air that fell to the surface of the earth like dew of an early spring morning. The wind had slowed, but the electric energy of something sinister surrounded Collinsport like a cloak of relentless grayness.
At the Rose cottage on the Collinwood grounds, Julia's desperation to keep her secret hidden from Quinn deepened. She had a syringe in her olive toned cardigan ready to inject into her long-lost granddaughter that would render her in an unconscious state so that Julia could begin a short-term memory erasing method of hypnosis. Everything in Julia's body felt the pain of going to this extreme length at keeping the murder of her first husband under lock and key from Quinn, but she knew she had to do it.
Julia's past was a painful one. Her own mental break in 1949 was embarrassing. It lead her to murder her first husband and Quinn's grandfather, albeit by accident. But that didn't seem to register in Julia, that the truth of the accident would make sense to Quinn, that Julia's mental break back then would be the obvious culprit and that that tragedy was not in cold blood.
All Julia knew was that her past history, a history that she worked so hard for decades to keep buried had become unearthed and the one person she could not, would not, allow into that area of her life was inching her way closer and closer.
Julia stood in the living room, cardigan pocket at the ready, with a mug of coffee staring out the front window of the Rose Cottage that faced a long road that lead up to the main house of Collinwood.
Quinn entered from the back bedroom, dressed in a finely pressed white shirt, her hair slightly curled in auburn trusses and a gray pencil skirt ready for a day at her new job at the D.A's office.
"Have you seen my briefcase? I thought I left it on the living room table?" Quinn asked Julia who slightly turned to face Quinn.
"Behind you."
"Ah!" Quinn said as she reached for the case on a small side table turning her back to Julia who slowly approached Quinn.
Julia placed her free hand in her pocked and gripped the syringe tightly, ready to strike Quinn at any moment. Ready to prick her skin and inject her with the serum. Ready to take back control of Quinn's ever growing meddling in Julia's past.
Quinn then turned around, stopping Julia in her tracks mid-way through.
"Are you ok?" Quinn asked Julia who's face was frozen in thought.
"What? Oh! Yes, I just didn't sleep well last night. Had a lot on my mind." She replied.
Quinn could only imagine, knowing full well that there was something Julia was hiding. With that open door she thought she'd ask.
"Is there anything you want to talk about? You know we've been growing closer and closer and anything you need to tell me I'd be happy to help figure out. I guess that's what I inherited from you. I know that when you worked at Windcliff you listened to your patients when they needed your advice. I could do that for you." Quinn said passing Julia and sitting on the sofa.
Julia followed and thought for a second on what Quinn was attempting to do.
"We have been getting close, haven't we. You know when Victoria brought me to this place from my own time line, I felt very lost. I felt like I was skipping over the whole rest of my life and now I'm here...in the future seeing my family that has grown older without me and it sort of shocks me. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that being in the year 2019 would feel this way. After all I wasn't meant to be in this time. So you can imagine what it feels like to have your whole life rearranged in a way can't you? Having everything come back to haunt you, everything you thought you had placed in a particular part of your mind and forgotten all of a sudden coming back to confront you. It's jarring." Julia explained.
Quinn could see where Julia was going. She could see that having her past come up again truly bothered her, it was something Julia had let go of all those years ago and now it was in her face again, taunting her, baiting her...Quinn pressed on.
"I think that sometimes you have to face what you're most afraid of. Head on. Sometimes those fears don't die and they come back over and over and you have to face them over and over until, one day, they die forever."
"That's wise." Julia replied, but undeterred of her plans for Quinn's memory.
"Why don't you take today to think about what it is that's bothering you and when I get home from work today we can talk about it. I think you'd feel 100% better after we talk. What do you think?" Quinn offered.
Julia smirked, but did not agree and watched Quinn get up from the sofa and go over to a side chair and put on her jacket and scarf. Julia got up slowly and gripped the syringe again in her pocket tightly and like a tiger stalking it's prey she was about to pounce and save herself further turmoil and further humiliation by taking away the one thing that kept pushing for the truth, Quinn's memory.
Closer and closer Julia got as Quinn adjusted her coat with her back towards Julia unknowing of the coming danger, unknowing of the coming twist in her own fate and just as Julia got a foot away from her granddaughter's arm, there was a knock on the Rose Cottage door.
Julia stopped in place.
Quinn, still unknowing this unexpected visitor just saved her, opened the door; standing there was her new boss, the District Attorney Gabriel do Arco. His handsome face shined in a light into the house that came from out of no where in the gloomy morning sky, so handsome, Quinn felt a hint of butterflies in her stomach looking at him.
"District Attorney, what are you doing here?" Quinn questioned, slightly blushing. He noticed.
"Well, I actually had a few things to drop off to Andrew Shaw up at Collinwood, some final paperwork on his father's involvement in Christopher's death and thought I'd give you a ride to the office." He said, blushing back at her obvious attraction.
"Final paperwork? I don't know about any final paperwork. I thought I had taken care of that before Jeffery died. What final paperwork? Just a few odds and ends that needed to be signed. Andrew and his new personal lawyer took care of it all don't worry. Dr. Hoffman, good morning." Gabriel said, peeking his head into the living room to greet Julia.
"District Attorney." Julia said, annoyed of his interruption as she passed the front door and into the small kitchen to pour out the rest of her coffee into the sink, her hand still firmly gripping the syringe in her cardigan pocket.
As Julia passed the door, an energy, an aura seeped from her skin and into Gabriel's eyes. He could see a darkness, he could she a coldness that lived inside of her that for decades and decades lived in her heart and that she kept hidden from the world. Her hurt and her pain, her loss and her distrust of the those who wanted only to give her love. This energy, this power that Gabriel secretly saw gripped his heart and squeezed. He chocked up, his eyes teared up, he began to sniffle and cry. The emotions of hurt and sorry that so filled Julia's whole unseen aura filled Gabriel.
"What...what's happening, Gabriel are you ok?" Quinn asked, seeing the strange sudden change in Gabriel's behavior, his supernatural power of reading the energy of all around him cracking his perfect veneer.
"Sorry, sorry, I seem to have gotten a little ...ug..." He paused unsure of how to explain what he saw coming from Julia's aura."Must be allergies." He said lying, but staring directly at Julia who turned back to the door and saw that something was off about Gabriel's eyes.
"You do look strange." Julia replied as she slowly crept closer to the door, still her free hand in her cardigan pocket. "I could take a look at you." She offered.
Gabriel could feel the intensity of Julia's past pain growing as she grew closer and closer, it was as if somebody was taunting him in his mind, all the pain Julia had felt over the decades of her life was feeding directly into Gabriel's mind and heart. It was like he was having a panic attack, or an anxiety attack all brought on by the energy of Julia's whole being. He could feel what she felt. All her pain. All her sorry. All her worry. All her anger. All her shame. All of it was like a live electrical wire touching Gabriel's skin; a shock to his secret supernatural and emphatic senses.
These powerful emotions frightened Gabriel, and the aura Julia was exuding began to seep onto Quinn, a sign to Gabriel that Quinn was either the cause or the effect of her pain, even if indirectly. Quinn, Gabriel could sense, was in danger, he could see now that the signs were telling him to take her from this place.
"So, need a lift?" Gabriel asked, his voice sounding rushed and urgent attempting to take Quinn from whatever bad energy he was feeling around Julia.
Quinn was confused. She had no idea why his emotions were all over the place. It was making her nervous, but this was her knew boss, someone she needed to impress and gain trust from.
"Uhhh!" Quinn replied, obviously confused. "I guess...why not." Quinn continued, agreeing to the ride to the office. She grabbed her things and stepped outside the Rose Cottage door leaving Gabriel slightly behind to close the front door behind him.
Julia stood in the door way, her eyes zeroing in on the nervous body language Gabriel was showing. Her instincts told her he knew what she was planning or that he for some reason saw her as a threat, but, to Julia, even that made no real sense.
Julia had seen strange things; unexplained phenomena before, but Gabriel was more than she could put her finger on. Her eyes squinted. Her mind wondered: "What does he know? And how?" she thought to herself.
"Have a good day Gabriel." Julia said, suspiciously.
Gabriel looked back into the house as the door was closing from the outside on Julia. The light from the overcast sky basked on the door casting a shadow on Julia's face in the shape of a large rectangle that got smaller and smaller as the door closed.
"You too." Gabriel said gulping air. He was afraid of her. He was terrified actually, but had no idea why.
The district attorney then dashed off to his awaiting car where Quinn was already inside checking her email on her cell phone.
Gabriel jumped in the car and told the driver he was ready. Quinn smiled, shyly, as did Gabriel, then he turned back at the Rose Cottage and saw Julia's silhouette in the window. The emotions and pain she pushed onto Gabriel, unknowingly, began to subside as the car got further and further from the Rose cottage, but it was clear to Gabriel, that he walked in on something evil, that something was a-foot in that house, in Julia's mind and that Quinn was in immanent danger.
He turned and looked at Quinn who was busy on her phone answering messages and emails.
"There's something wrong with Julia, Quinn.... there's something very wrong with Julia." he said as Quinn's face slowly looked up from her phone showing an expression frozen with shock that he too, a stranger, could see that her grandmother has perhaps snapped.
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| Julia peering out of the Rose Cottage door at Suspicious Gabriel |
****
The gloomy day turned into a gloomy night. The clouds that formed over Collinsport continued to hover over the small town keeping any form of autumn warmth from the sun to creep in. This environment made for a perfect cover for Victoria and Dominique at Windcliff Sanitarium as they were put to bed by one of the many large framed night nurses.
The two patients waited for their room door to close behind them as the gauzy moon light lit the room in pale blue. Dominique was first to get out of her bed and go to the window. As she looked out she saw the sky completely covered with the moon above brightly lighting the clouds that covered it like a brightness of a lighthouse.
Each night for the past 5 nights Victoria and Dominique would not swallow their sleeping medication in an effort to wean themselves off of all medications and be strong enough for their escape.
As she looked out of the window Dominique removed the sleeping pill from her mouth the nurse gave her and tossed it to the floor instead of adding it to the collection they had accumulated under the mattress.
"Are you ready?" Dominique asked a still mute Vicky who nodded she was.
Vicky's face was serious. Her mind was razor focused on getting out and getting to Curtis and saving him from Angelique's clutches. She too removed the pill and left it on her pill. The two patients quietly searched the small closet near their beds for something warm to wear. Their old clothes still hung there like old skins of days passed.
"It looks pretty chilly." Dominique said as she helped Vicky with her jacket arms. "Let me peek and see if the coast is clear." She added as Vicky nodded that she understood.
Dominique slowly, and quietly pulled the door open. No hospital door was allowed to be locked shut if the patients were deemed safe enough, a rule that Siobhan had implemented when her tenure as Chief of Staff began.
Dominique slowly poked her head into the hallway. It was brightly lit, the nurses' station had two female nurses working through paper and chatting among themselves. Dominique saw one of them put down their ID badge that allowed for access going into and out of employee locked room, including an employee staircase. Dominique closed the door and looked back at Vicky.
"There are two nurses at the station. We have to create a diversion or something to get them out of there so that we can rush over to the employee staircase. It'll lead us down into main lobby without being seen. We can't take any elevators or the main staircase." Dominique informed Vicky.
Vicky looked at her escape partner with an expression that showed she wasn't sure what to do next. Dominique has been here before, she'd done this at several other mental hospitals before. She knew she had to be in the hospital, she wasn't in denial about her condition or her state-of-mind, but she did like to keep the nurses on her toes and run them ragged every chance she got.
This was different. Victoria had promised Dominique a chance to be with David, even though Vicky believed him dead. It was a chance for Vicky to get to Curtis by using Dominique's savvy and perhaps a dangerous place to put herself not knowing how Dominique would react once she found out David was dead---even though he really wasn't.
The danger was everywhere. Vicky was putting her life on the line under false pretenses that her family was obliterated by Angelique all the while they were completely fine and dealing with much more drama just 45 miles away at Collinwood.
"Here, give me this." Dominique said pulling off Vicky's heavy gold bracelets that was tangled up in her hospital identification bracelet.
Vicky grabbed on to Dominique's hand and tightened showing her a face of disapproval.
"Vicky I need it. I'm sure you have plenty more of these where every your son is, right? I'm sure you can get more once we're out right?"
Vicky shook her head no, she didn't know what Dominique was going to do with it, it was a bracelet that Vicky had been able to keep when she got to the hospital because it meant so much to her, it was precious it was priceless it was....
"'From Liz, to Vicky. Thank you.'" Dominique said reading the inscription.
The bracelet was a Christmas gift. From Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard, given to her in 1968.
"Who's Liz?" Dominique asked.
Vicky mouthed "Mother"
"You call your mom by her first name?" Dominique asked, Vicky smirked at the thought of explaining her relationship with Elizabeth and grabbed her pad and messily scribbled out:
"LONG, LONG STORY"
Dominique shrugged this off, there was so much more to her new friend than met the eye, and continued with her plan. Dominique slowly re-opened the door to their room and looked down the hall again. It was about 8:30 at night, not many people were around. The nurse's station had emptied by one nurse; there was only one nurse they needed to distract. The employee staircase was just almost exactly the same distance from the nurse's station in the opposite direction. Dominique closed the door again.
"I'm going to throw this bracelet down the hall and it's going to make some noise. Hopefully the nurse will get up and go see what made the noise. You'll run to the left to the staircase door and I'm going to run over to the station. I'll grab the key-card and come back to you, you got it?"
Vicky, nervously nodded yes.
Dominique, in the darkness of their room, slowly re-opened the door for the third time, reached far back behind her head and threw the heavy golden bracelet down the hall. It flew so far it landed on the completely opposite side of the hall crashing in a loud and thunderous bang that started the nurse at the station.
"Hey!" The nurse said as she got up and came around to check. The nurse stood there, Vicky and Dominique prayed she'd go down the hall to investigate but she just stood there with her hands on her hips waiting for more noise.
"She won't budge." Dominique whispered.
Suddenly, whatever the bracelet hit, readjusted and more things fell to the floor making more noise. The frustrated nurse shook her head and began to walk down the hall to find out just what it was. Dominique saw the opening and grabbed Vicky's hand yanking her from the room. They were now in the hall, Vicky froze in fear. Dominique pointed to the other end of the all with the employee staircase and Vicky went running, Dominique went to the station and grabbed the ID badge and ran back down the other way to meet Vicky.
It happened in seconds, Dominique swiped the card and the connector box turned red. The door remained locked.
"Shit!" Dominique whispered. Vicky motioned for her to do it again.
Dominique swiped again.
Red.
Vicky motioned for her to do it again. Dominique swiped again.
Red.
Vicky grabbed the ID from Dominique, Dominique looked down the hall and she could see the nurse looking at the bracelet and turning back around to go back to the desk and in almost simultaneous motion, Vicky slowly swiped the ID badge and the connector box flashed green releasing the lock and Vicky and Dominique pushed through the door free to rush down the staircase and into the lobby in the first floor.
The two patients, rushed down 4 flights of stairs and came to the lobby and just as their suspected it was completely empty, they pushed open the door and rushed to the front entrance of Windcliff. It was as if everything was in slow motion, they rushed through door and dashed down the front steps of the outside world that had been lit by the glowing covered moon.
The rushed through the front ground and vanished into the woods that surrounded the area only dressed in the bed-room clothes.
In the woods the two embraced and shook with the chill of the night.
"We did it! We're out of there! WE DID IT!" Dominique said, her breath coming out in puffs of white frosty air. "Now it's your turn to deliver." she said.
Vicky knew what that meant: David.
Vicky took a big gulp of cold air and nodded her head in agreement. She grabbed Dominique's hand and they headed, 5 miles south/east to Collinwood.
****
Over at Collinwood another heart-pounding moment was about to occur. Carolyn had asked Curtis over to talk about his reluctant behavior for the family to see Vicky at Windcliff, she was after all Carolyn's half sister and good friend. Over the phone earlier in the day Curtis agreed to have dinner with Carolyn.
He was late, and Carolyn sat alone in the drawing room starting out of the big windows on to the dark sea. Her mind a drift of just how to get Curtis to see her point of view, to have him understand just where she was coming from.
"Carolyn?" Curtis' voice said from behind her as he walked into the drawing from from the foyer, his hand tightly interlaced with the shape-shifted hand of Angelique.
Carolyn turned, at first smiling at his arrival, but soon the smile dimmed when she saw Cassandra attached to Curtis.
"Oh. Cassandra." Carolyn said, her voice clearly disappointed.
"I'm sorry we're so late." Curtis answered.
"That's alright. Cook was able to keep your food warm if you're still hungry. I'm afraid there's only enough for one though." Carolyn shot back with barb to Cassandra's surprise visit.
"I know you wanted to see just me and that I should have told you Cassie was coming, I hope you don't mind." Curtis answered.
"Not at all." Carolyn said, her eye brow raised in a passive aggressive rebuke of Curtis decision. "I was hoping though that we could talk on our own about your Mother."
"Cassie's one of my mother's nurses and she works very closely with Dr. Wolf, anything you have to say about my mother's care should be heard by Cassie too." Curtis informed.
"I remember." Carolyn recalled from the conversation at Andrew's dinner weeks before. "Well, then, I guess you'd be the one opposed to anyone in the family see my sister. You see. Nurse Capwell...." Carolyn began before being interrupted.
"I assure you Mrs. Thorne, that the proper arrangements for Ms. Winters' care are being closely adhered to by the staff by instructions from her doctor." Angelique said, lying through Cassie's shape-shifted teeth. After all Angelique was Cassie and Dr. Wolf. All of it a lie to keep Victoria locked away.
"I absolutely refuse to accept that. Victoria needs to see her family, Curtis, all of us. Not just you. I know that the doctor thinks this sort of quarantine from us would make her better faster but I can't imagine why he'd think that. We love her and I will do anything I can to make sure I get to see her." Carolyn said forcefully.
Angelique's grip on Curtis was getting weaker. She could feel it. In her mind she could see that whatever hold on him was now just moments away from breaking, as long as Alex was living. She had to find a way to have Alex killed, the powers that Alex absorbed would then be returned and she could strengthen the love curse on Curtis and everything would be fine.
But Angelique's time was running out and Alex's was harder to kill than she had anticipated. But she had to do it.
"Why don't I make us some tea. I'll leave you two alone to chat." Cassie said as she excused herself to find Alex.
"The kitchen is..." Carolyn said as Cassie began to walk in the right direction. "Have you been here before?" Carolyn asked.
Cassie pause. "The other night at dinner. I saw the kitchen." she said lying, Angelique knew Collinwood upside down and sideways.
As Cassie disappeared into the house to find Alex, Curtis and Carolyn delved deeper into their conversation.
"Cassie told me privately the other night she'd talk to the doctor about letting you go see my mother when the time was right. And once that time is agreed to, you'll be able to go. I promise Aunt Carolyn, I promise." Curtis said
"That's all well and good, but until that day comes I won't believe you. We haven't heard or seen Victoria in almost 8 months. I'm starting to worry. How was she the last time you saw her?" Carolyn questioned.
The spell on Curtis had forced him to think things that never happened. For some reason he was about to say that he saw his mother on two days ago, but with the weakening force Angelique had on him he paused and with a confused tone said "I don't know. I think...its been months."
"Curtis!" Carolyn yelped in shock.
"I feel like, I thought I..." Curtis replied his confusion now showing.
"You see? Your mother is all the way at Windcliff without her family without a familiar face. She must be terrified. Mortified, even that none of us have been up there. Curtis, if you don't let me go there tomorrow morning I'm going anyway, there's no one in this whole town that will stop me. I'll get a lawyer if I have to." Carolyn demanded.
"No, you're right." Curtis said, dropping his guard.
As the two chatted, Vicky and Dominique made their exhausted final reach into the woods that surrounded Collinwood. They could see the large mansion in the distance. Lights from the front entrance were guiding them in. Vicky's heart was beating out of her chest. She was finally going to get through to her son and show him what Angelique had done to them.
"David." Dominique said, her eyes large and hoping to find the man she met 20 years ago while the two of them were together at Windcliff; the man she loved, the man Vicky promised, and the man she wanted to be with.
Vicky nervously nodded her sweaty head, unsure of what would happen once they arrived and David wasn't there.
Upstairs in the mansion in the search for Alexandra, Cassandra's face began to flash it's true form of Angelique like a television flipping through channels at a fast pace.
Angelique
Cassandra
Angelique
Cassandra
The once most powerful witch was in her final stages of powerlessness. Her shape-shifting ability was now fading, all of her control over Curtis was breaking, even Vicky could feel her voice returning. Angelique's left hand grabbed on to her right write, she could feel heart pumping blood through her body. A sign of the coming mortality. In the darkness of the second level Collinwood hallway she closed her eyes and held her breath, then Cassandra's face returned with the last bit of Angelique's powers.
She opened her eyes and there staring her back in the face of the portrait of Roger Collins. Roger and Angelique were married the first time she used the name Cassandra and the first time she attempted to be interlinked with another Collins man. A shiver went up her spine. She could feel it now, her time running out.
"I have to find her." Cassandra said, her desperate search for Alex to end her life and retrieve her powers now growing even more urgent.
But there was a battle on yet another front for the witch. Alexandra's location would have wait. Cassandra suddenly felt the presence of Victoria getting closer and closer to Collinwood. It was as if a giant freight train was plowing through a forest, Victoria's energy was that strong.
Cassandra closed her eyes again, deepening the void between the energy she had and the energy she was wasting and transported her vision outside to see Vicky and Dominique charging through the dark wilderness of the woods just outside Collinwood. They were close and they were there for Angelique's head.
Cassandra's big blue eyes opened wide in panic and she dashed back down the hall and made her way towards the main staircase to thwart whatever Vicky was planning.
Vicky was now rushing up the drive way in a speed she had not run in decades. She was sweating, she was dirty, she was crying she was a manic mess and with the power of a thousand horses Victoria Winters burst through the front door of Collinwood with all the fury of a fireball. It startled Carolyn and Curtis who were sitting in the foyer.
"My God!" Carolyn gasped.
"Mother???" Curtis asked in shock.
Vicky was sweating her heart was beating out of her chest. Dominique stepped in behind her and stood quietly as Vicky tried to speak for the first time in almost 8 months.
"What is it? Mother, what's going on?" Curtis asked as he and a terrified Carolyn walked into the foyer meeting the two escaped patients.
Curtis grabbed he grabbed Vicky's hand and she tried to speak in a scratched and painful voice.
"Angjleeek. Angejeeek." Vicky said, her voice unable to speak clearly after months of non-use.
"Leak? What's leaking?" Curtis said confused as Cassandra slowly walked down the stairs feeling trapped like a rat.
Cassandra made her way to the final step of the staircase and Victoria, her breathing heavy, her heart pounding stepped up to the witch and slapped her so hard across the face Cassie was knocked to the floor.
Victoria's slap was so forceful it was as if it blasted every last ounce of her powers, Cassandra Capwell, shape-shifted right before everyone's eyes back into Angelique Bouchard.
Carolyn gasped, Vicky stood tall, her voice now squeaking back to a normal state. The lights of foyer flashing on and off and on and off as as if a wild storm was pulling the power from the building. It was all the draining from the most powerful witch the world had ever seen. Her collapse now eminent and final.
Curtis finally saw the woman he loved now changed into another woman, the face of another. The face of a woman who had come to Collinsport so many years ago and wreaked havoc on so many.
"Angelique." Carolyn said, her hand over her mouth in shock and horror.
Angelique stood up rubbing her face, powerless and mortal. She looked at Vicky, a strange inhuman grown came from the statuesque blond, the lights flashed again on and off and on and off, the rage spewing from Angelique like a powerful wind, as all her powers continued to drain from her once immortal body.
The spells were broken now for good.
The confusion was too much for the group: Angelique's shape-shifting lies, Vicky seeing her supposed family members alive and well after months believing them all dead.
Alex and Andrew came running down the stairs and huddled around a still shocked Carolyn as Vicky fell into Carolyn's arms in a heap of tears and exhaustion.
Angelique, in a panic and fear for her life, rushed passed everyone and out the front door passed a cowering Dominique who had never seen anything like this before in her whole life.
The witch Curtis fell in love with, with a face he had never seen and who plotted the demise of his whole family needed to answer for what she had done. And Vicky was going to be the first to get her to pay for all of her sins.
