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| India (in Vicky's body) and Justin at the Collins Mausoleum |
A late morning chill flowed through the great house atop Widow's Hill. It was like the icy breath of death slowly making it's way around every corner of the mansion. This cold filled every room, it touched every wall, and it caressed every hanging portrait of past family members with eyes that watch the current inhabitants of 1966 Collinwood like gate keepers of secrets long forgotten.
This chill, that caused the hair to stand up on the back of the neck, was not just an environmental anomaly but a sign from the other side. It was warning, and the one that felt this cold the most, was Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard, who stood alone in back private library, a small and cozy room, staring out of the dark draped window that looked out on to a gloomy grassy courtyard.
Elizabeth was worried. She knew that Arabella was probably in town to stick her nose into her private business and that truths about various secrets in her life could be revealed. These were secrets that could destroy so much of her, so much that she had worked so hard to keep hidden. She had to figure out a way to handle Arabella's meddling, something had to do be done before it was too late.
"Penny for your thoughts. Or perhaps 30,000 pennies." Arabella said as she arrogantly walked into Elizabeth's private library dressed to the nines.
"What?" Elizabeth replied with eyes as cold as the house itself.
"Oh nothing, just remarking on the amount you spend on Victoria Winters. 30,000 pennies equals out to $300, that's Vicky's wage a week isn't it?"
"Arabella what are you doing here and what business is it of yours what I pay David's governess?" Elizabeth shot back.
"You said I was welcome, so, I’m here. Make me welcome.” Arabella answered arrogantly as she cased the library running her finger across the bookshelf checking for dust.
Elizabeth snarled. This woman, her late husband’s Younger sister was clearly teasing her. It was as if Elizabeth was a caged tiger pacing and pacing.
“I still don’t know how any of my affairs are your business Arabella.” Elizabeth said trying to swallow her obvious aggravation.
“What business is it of mine what you pay your bastard daughter, you mean? Well it's very much my business when it affects my niece Carolyn." Arabella replied to a suddenly shaken Elizabeth.
"....what?” Elizabeth said with a crack and shock in her voice. “What did you just say to me?”
"Which part didn’t you hear dear? The part about Carolyn or your bastard daughter? Really Elizabeth, I think we're well passed the pretending to not understand stage of what I'm about to divulge to you. I know who Vicky is, I know you know who she is too and I know that you've been paying her to be here because after all, she's your child. There are a lot of things I can do with that information, and you know it." Arabella said.
Within the time it took for Arabella to speak, Elizabeth had already regrouped herself from the shock of the revelation, this was Elizabeth's super power. With every shocking bit of news, it only took her the blink of her heavily lashed eyes to regroup and come back with a counter attack. It was in her Collins blood to fight back, it was in her Collins blood to never let go without a fight, and now. Elizabeth knew now she could show no fear. Liz may have been a mess since her husband left town, abandoning her and her baby daughter years before, but she was no longer a person to confront and believe that it would be an easy win.
Elizabeth was a Collins; she could weather any wind from any storm---and survive.
"So, is that what you've been doing with your time here? Looking into my background to find out what you could to use against me? Is that really what you call creating a relationship with your niece?" Elizabeth asked as she sat down on leathery sofa's.
"I came here because you wont' say a word about where my brother Paul went. You won't tell a soul what made him leave and you won't work with anyone on trying to find him. Discovering your bastard child only adds fuel to my fire. Tell me the truth: Paul discovered you had a baby before he married you and left you, didn't he? It's because of Victoria that my brother is gone. Why? Why would he leave and not tell us?" Arabella demanded.
"You're a fool." Elizabeth replied.
Arabella grinned, she could see Elizabeth wasn't really going to give up all the family secrets right then and there. But she had another option for Liz, something that would up the ante.
"I have in my hands something that will change your life forever. This is proof of that you've been lying about who your new governess is. You've been lying all this time, and now I can see why Paul left you, NOW I can see how treacherous you are Elizabeth." Arabella scolded, her eyes staring deep into Elizabeth's eyes.
Elizabeth lifted an eye brow and turned away from Arabella, holding her breath.
"What exactly are you talking about?" The Collins family matriarch wondered.
"Vicky." Arabella replied with one word.
"Arabella.....I..." Elizabeth said, turning around to Arabella who's arm was now extending with the damning paperwork in her hand.
"Victoria is your child, this is all the proof I need to show Carolyn that you have been hiding not only the truth about her father's disappearance but that she has a half sister, a half sister that you so cleverly disguised as David's governess. All I need do is show this to Carolyn and you'll lose her forever. Hell, you might even lose Victoria. What kind of mother would you be to her anyway, she'd see right through you. She'd learn that she was your daughter and instead of you welcoming her with open arms, you bloody hired her as the help!" Arabella scoffed, neglecting to tell Elizabeth that she already told Carolyn.
"Do you really think they'd believe you? Who are you but some black widow with a penchant for marrying rich old men on the verge of death to make a buck!" Elizabeth shot back uncharacteristically bring up gossip about Arabella's three dead husbands and the circumstances surrounding each death.
Arabella smiled again like the cat that ate the cannery but did not take Liz's bait. She only sat down next to her sister-in-law and put the envelope carrying Victoria's paperwork on Liz's lap.
"I wouldn't test me, Liz. Not when I hold all the cards." Arabella replied and pushed the paper work over to Liz's hand.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes and grabbed the envelope and pulled out the forms. It was all true, Arabella did indeed have all the forms and the truth in her hands. This seemed like a death sentence. Something of a horrible nightmare that Arabella would now use to pervert whatever relationship she had with Carolyn into something dark and twisted and poison her against her own mother. Liz could already see the battle lines being drawn between half-sister and half-sister over Elizabeth's love, something she was always dreading.
Elizabeth calmly folded the forms back into the envelope and stood up. She walked over to a small bureau and pulled out the top drawer, she place enveloped inside and reached over to the right side of the drawer and gripped the handle of a small hand gun.
The gun felt hot in her hand. It was like picking up a embers from a fireplace. She held it, still inside the drawer ready and loaded to pull it on Arabella before Arabella spoke again.
"You can do something about it however. I'm not entirely cold-hearted. I wouldn't want to come between you and Carolyn, not in the slightest. That is, unless you leave me no choice. There could be a conversation about compensation, however." Arabella said to Liz who still had her back turned and her hand on the gun in the drawer.
"Money. I should have guessed." Liz said, releasing her grip on the gun then turning back to her scheming sister-in-law who had already told Carolyn and was plotting to kill Vicky.
"I think it's what my brother would want. He promised to take care of me." Arabella said.
"Did he now?" Liz said disgusted with Arabella. "How much?"
"A million." Arabella said to an aghast Liz.
"You're out of your mind! How can I give you a million dollars? How would that even look!?"
"It's your money Elizabeth, no one has to know how you spend it. It's a million dollars by the end of this month and I will be out of Collinsport before anyone even asks questions to where I've gone. And I'll take your little 'Vicky' secret with me. Forever." Arabella said, attempting to play both Elizabeth and Carolyn for fools...and so far she was succeeding.
"What's all this?" Roger said, coming in with his own stack of paperwork from the Cannery for Elizabeth to look over and sign. "A meeting of the minds?" He joked.
"Roggie, always so good to see you. How are things over in the fish-factory?" Arabella asked breaking eye contact with Liz and relishing in the fresh air Roger brought to the tense conversation.
"Fine." Roger replied looking down his nose at Arabella like she were a lower form of blue-blood than he. "So? What's going on? Why are you two so tense? I can feel it in the air." He added as he walked over to fill a drink at the wet-bar.
"Nothing. Your sister and I were just discussing old family tropes. You know, 'how's aunt so and so', 'what did you get your daughter for Christmas', 'where's my brother'. That kind of stuff. Girl talk." Arabella joked.
"Arabella thinks I have information on where Paul went all those years ago, and I've repeatedly told her I do not." Elizabeth said as she walked over to Roger and grabbed the paperwork from Collins Fishing Co.
"Yes, Liz does deny she knows his whereabouts." Arabella said now feeling a strange Collins sibling 2-on-one attacking coming. "At any rate Liz, think about what I said, will you? We'll talk again soon." Arabella then replied with a wink to Liz as she left Liz to go over her million dollar request and left Roger alone with Liz in the private library.
"She makes every inch of my skin crawl with disgust. What did she really want?" Roger asked as the ice in his drink clinked back into place after his deep sip.
"Never mind her." Elizabeth said shaking her head as she flipped through paper work and signed off on things for the fleet.
"Hmmmm.....she has always rubbed you the wrong way sister dear but never to the point where you would open that top drawer." Roger said noticing Elizabeth left open the drawer with her hand gun in it.
"What?" Liz said as she looked up to see her brother was now closing the drawer where he knew a gun was.
He just looked at her with an expression telling her he was waiting for her to spill what was really happening, but ever the secret keeper, in fact the best one in the family, Liz kept it simple.
"Roger, stay out of it. This is between Arabella Stoddard and myself. I only went to that drawer because I ...." Liz paused.
"Listen. Whatever it is, you know you can tell me. You're my sister. We're a team. What did she want and why didn't you just shoot that free-loading harlot in her smug face?" Roger said to Liz's shock.
"Stop it! Go on. Here take this back to the office tomorrow morning and forget what you just told me. Forget you walked in on our tense conversation. Forget it all Roger. Do you understand? You never saw us talking here." Elizabeth said in a state of panic, for she too knew something would have to change before Arabella got what she wanted. And Roger needed to stay clear of any potential wrong doing, for everybody's sake.
Roger pursed his lips and bowed his head like a servant to his queen. He grabbed the the forms Elizabeth had signed and began to make his way out of the room but just before he left he turned back and looked at his sister, back again looking out of the dark draped window into the unknown. He wondered what she was thinking, he wondered what she was, perhaps, plotting. She was deep in thought, deep in trouble and all the tell tale signs pointed to deep in danger.
Roger walked back into the room towards the drawer with the gun, Elizabeth watched him. He pulled open the drawer as it was before, not noticing the new envelope with Vicky's secret studded inside, and looked at Elizabeth.
"Do what you have to do." he said pointing to the open drawer, and the left his sister in the room alone with her mind on the gun in the drawer.
****
As the sun began to set and the Atlantic breeze continued to flow over the sea into the town of Collinsport in a frosty fog filled swirl, a beautiful blonde walked along a secluded patch of Widow's Hill called Lookout Point. It's rocky cliff side vista was just a 15 minute walk between the mansion on Widow's Hill and a secondary street that lead down to town. This was an area Carolyn, the beautiful blonde, often came to relieve her stress. She'd look out past the dunes below and out into the great wide ocean and feel the wind blow through her hair. She'd close her eyes and pretend the wind would blow all her troubles away. It was refreshing. It was invigorating. But it wasn't working. Not this time. |
| Beau and Carolyn |
She wasn't just up on Lookout Point hoping to rid herself of her problems and the messy world her Aunt Arabella had exposed to her. She was there because she was meeting someone. Someone special. Someone she was falling in love with, but secretly.
As the lighthouse down further out on the point spun around and around and illuminated Carolyn's hair causing a sort of halo after each time the light hit her he appeared. It was Beau Cielvert.
Carolyn's handsome stranger was the same man who was also at the center of Arabella's investigation into the disappearance of her father. As soon as he appeared in the misty and darkening sky, she rushed over to him. They embarrassed and kissed deep and passionately.
"I thought I'd be waiting forever." Carolyn said.
"Sorry I had a couple of things to take care of. Did you talk to Arabella?" Beau asked as the lighthouse in the distance again turned Carolyn's hair into a flashing halo.
"I did. She told me everything. When I suggested to her moths ago that you'd be the perfect person to dig up where my father was I had no idea what you'd find out. Vicky! My sister?" Carolyn finally confessed at being the one that put Arabella up to hiring Beau.
"I'm sorry I couldn't find anything more about your dad. As soon as he left town all those years ago his trail ran cold. The stuff on your mother, well, I didn't expect to find anything like that when I went looking." Beau replied feeling strange knowing such a hidden secrets of Carolyn's life before she did.
"Either way, thank you. For all you've done." Carolyn replied in a smile as bright as the light from the lighthouse below.
"Are you going to be ok?" Beau wondered.
"Of course. My Aunt Bella is really the perfect person to handle all of this. She's already on it. She's got a plan to make sure that truth is told and that..." Carolyn paused, she had forgotten the rest of what Arabella had said, that they should have Vicky killed. It was unsettling to Carolyn. How could she have agreed to that. How could she have even entertained the notion of being involved with something so twisted.
"That what? What else did she say?" Beau asked not realizing the woman he was in love with was plotting a crime.
"Nothing. I mean she's just very much involved and I think she'll handle it all. I just have to take care of a few odds and ends before she makes her next move." Carolyn said, rethinking the entire plot to murder Vicky.
"Carolyn, you don't seem ok." Beau noticed. "I know it's a lot to take in but lots of families have this type of surprise hidden in their family tree. No one is perfect. Maybe your mom just made a huge mistake with Vicky's dad and she's just trying to make up for it by having Vicky around but still not around--as one of the family. My sister Noelle and I have weird problems in our family too...you know that." Beau said attempting to soften the spiny truths in Carolyn's porcupine of secrets family.
"But Vicky is already apart of the family. My mother adores her, David adores her, apparently my Ex Justin adores her....and to tell you the truth, I kind of like her too. Maybe that's where some of my jealousy is coming from." Carolyn admitted as the wind and light filled her hair.
"I just don't want you to think you're family is any different than anyone else." Beau added.
"Like you and your sister. How is Noelle anyway? It's been a a while since I've talked to her." Carolyn said, remembering her once close friendship with Noelle.
"She's good. You know considering everything that happened to her a few years ago." Beau replied, skimming over his sister's past.
Carolyn thought for a split second as something dawned on her. Noelle Cielvert. Beau's sister. Despite their differences in the past perhaps Noelle could help Carolyn with the Vicky issue....before it was too late. Before Arabella did something they would all regret. Noelle had....gifts. Something inside of her helped her see the world much more clearer than the average person. She was clairvoyant and special. She was a psychic with a profound connection to nature and the world around her. Carolyn and Noelle had a falling out a few years back...but perhaps bygones would be bygones.
"I should go see her soon. I really should. We were friends." Carolyn mentioned, shivering as the wind kissed her exposed skin.
"Listen, it's really cold, why don't you rush back home, get warm and I'll call you later. I'd love to take you out. A real date." Beau said grabbing Carolyn close to keep her warm.
"A real date? Really?" She beamed.
"REALLY!" Beau said gushing as the waves below crashed up against the rocks.
"My mother will flip." Carolyn joked, referring to Elizabeth's picky nature when it came to the men she loved.
"Because ....." Beau said, looking down at himself noting their different in skin tone.
"No, no, no, nothing like that. You're just Joe Haskell, that's all." Carolyn said with a sigh.
"Ah...well, maybe I can be better than Mr. Joe Haskell." Beau said again, pulling Carolyn in close for a kiss just a deep and passionate as the first one.
As Beau pulled away from her, she kept her eyes closed. His mouth still stinging her lips like a happy memory. She opened them again and looked deep into his big dark eyes. She smiled, all the wind and sea air could not take away all her trouble this time, but somehow she felt like Beau could.
"You already are better." Carolyn said comparing Beau to Joe.
****
It was 15 passed 10pm. The house seemed quiet with the exception of Roger busily drinking he 4th highball in the drawing room alone while reading the evening paper. The fire in the hearth crackled and popped with a fever that warmed his whole body, even though he was already warm from the alcohol in rushing through his veins.
India slowly made her way down the dark staircase with her shoes off. As she moved slowly down each step, she could not imagine the terrible plots surrounding her at that very moment. Vicky's life was in danger, and in a very real reality, so was India's as the two woman were so intertwined in body and mind.
Carrying Vicky's shoes in her hand, India slipped passed the drawing room door way as Roger continued to boozily grumble over the news in the paper. India pushed open a door around the corner from the foyer that emptied into a second vestibule lit with only one dim lamp. The walls were covered in a dark ruby red wallpaper and lead down a hall to a doorway that opened into a back patio.
Suddenly India's head began to spin. Her mind began to grow foggy. She heard a voice say:
"I can't breath. .... I can't see! What is happening!??!"
It was Vicky, deep inside her own consciousness. India could hear her thoughts. Vicky's inner fears were trying to break free from her own mind and split from India...all futile attempts.
India grabbed the back of her neck with her left and and braced herself up against the patio door with her other. She closed her eyes and fell into the darkness.
When she opened her eyes she was standing in a black room---or what seemed like a back room--in her own body and standing before her was Victoria Winters.
"Who are you.... WHERE AM I?!?" Vicky screamed into the black void that was her own consciousness.
"Vicky....please ....please calm down. You and I have to work together. We have to be one to make sure we can get out of this. Together." India said
"How, can you be me and I be you. I just don't understand. How is this happening?" Vicky asked.
"There's a lot to unpack and I just need you to trust me, ok? I'm going to get us out of this, no matter what. I promise." India said.
"But who are you?" Vicky asked, still unsure of what was happening.
"India. I'm India. I'm a friend, it'll all be explained as soon as I find Barnabas." India explained.
The name came out of India's mouth, it felt like a swift punch in the gut. For some reason that name made Vicky freeze in place. She could sense danger. She could sense darkness, she was feeding off of India's emotions, they minds were so intertwined that Vicky knew that who ever Barnabas was, meant incredible danger was near.
"Please help. Bring me back." Vicky said as her body began to fade back into the dark corners of her mind.
India opened her eyes, Vicky's eyes and she was back on the patio. The dizziness was gone. And Justin was waiting.
India hurried through the patio where Justin was standing just outside standing against a tree lighting a cigarette in the dark, India only saw his illuminated face as the light from the match touched the cigarette in his mouth.
He whistled for her to hurry and she carefully closed the door behind her and rushed out of the patio to Justin.
"You Ok?" Justin asked looking into Vicky's pale face.
"Vicky contacted me....she wants to be free." India replied to Justin's frightened reaction.
"Do you think we can do this?" Justin wondered.
"We have to....we have no choice. Where'd you park?" India asked in a whisper as she replaced her shoes.
"Just off to the side there." Justin said pointing to a hidden thicket of trees with the hand the cigarette was hanging from.
India watched as the smoke from his cigarette encircled his wrist in swirls of gray smoke. She snickered and grabbed the cigarette out of his hand and threw it to the ground.
"These are gross!" She hissed.
Justin looked at her like she had three heads, India quickly realized that in 1966, cigarettes weren't all together seen the same way as they were in 2019. She smiled shyly and mouthed "Sorry."
"Let's just get to this cemetery already... before I change my mind." Justin said flipping the collar of his leather jacket and rushing India to his awaiting car.
The two drove in silence all the way to Eagle Hill cemetery. They didn't know what to say to each other. They didn't know what they were even doing, or what they'd even be looking for. David mentioned the Collins mausoleum, and jewels and treasures the dead family members may have been buried with. India, for sure, had no idea exactly what Barnabas had hidden in the family mausoleum, could it be a clue to where he was, or was he there himself. The fear and uncertainty of it all silenced both Justin and India the whole way to Eagle Hill.
And just as the fog began to settle low on the town below, the arrived to a gated off old cemetery that even in the hottest of summers would chill a person to their very core.
Justin and India again hid Justin's car in a low lying tree and carefully made their way through the blacked out cemetery. As they walked India couldn't help read the names of some of the people buried there and the years they lived, and especially the years they died....all the same years.
RUBY TATE
GONE TOO SOON
BORN 1770
DIED 1795
MAUDE BROWNING
TAKEN FROM US HORRIBLY
BORN 1769
DIED 1795
NATHAN FORBES
LOST TO US BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
1772-1795
CRYSTAL CABOT
BELOVED DAUGHTER
1763-1795
India felt a sinking feeling in the pit of hers stomach. It was like she was going to throw up, she could feel something coming up. Her nerves were on edge. Her heart was pounding. Those names. All those names. And just as she through they'd never arrive, Justin stopped her in her tracks. India took her eyes off of the names from the ground and looked up at a Gothic style gated Mausoleum with the name COLLINS etched in stone above the gate entrance.
The fog surrounded them like two giant arms pulling them in close. The night air was cold and wet, India tightened the belt on her coat and took a gulp of the ice cold Atlantic sea air that tasted like salt.
"You ready?" Justin asked grabbing her by the hand.
"I don't know." India replied.
"It's now or never. The quicker we get in there the quicker we find clues as to what Barnabas' next plan is." Justin answered. India agreed and squeezed his hand before letting it go.
She walked slowly to the gate, her hands gripped the lock and she pulled hard shaking the gate causing the chains to rattle in the wind.
"No key?" Justin asked.
India wasn't giving up. She had to get in that mausoleum ---that night. India then reached into the half up pony tale of her hair and pulled out the bobby-pin that was holding it up releasing Victoria's thick locks of black hair down to her shoulders. India then pulled one arm of the bobby-pin up and the second down creating a two pronged took that she shoved into the lock of the gate. She began to twist and turn and twist and turn the bobby-pin with all she had in her.
"Do you know what you're doing?" Justin wondered in a whisper.
And before India could answer, the lock snapped open.
"I guess I do." she said in a shocked voice.
The two then slowly made their way into the mausoleum both shaking from the cold and from fright. Up the steps they went crunching along each step on the dead leaves that had fallen from the trees that swayed in the wind and fog above.
The door was unlocked. There was no key. There was no one there. No one to keep out. But was there someone to keep in?
"Look." Justin said as they entered, pointing to the three solid stone coffins.
India's eyes watered. She had no idea what she was getting herself into. All she wanted was to find Barnabas and get him to remove her from Vicky's body and send her back to her own time. Everything else was just noise, she had to keep telling herself that. None of it would last. Not the fear. Not the terror. Not the darkness that surrounded this whole situation. She needed to get it over with. She slowly made her way to the headstones on the main wall of the mausoleum but was suddenly disappointed.
"Joshua, Naomi, Sarah." She said to Justin.
"So where do you think all this information, or documents are buried?" He replied rushing over to her to read them as well.
"We have to look inside..." India answered cryptically.
As the two contemplated opening up the three coffins, a loud howl came from just beyond stone structure's stained glass windows. It was loud, and chilling and felt as if it made their blood turn to ice.
"Jesus." Justin said, as the goose-bumps began to cover his arms.
A tickle went up India's spine too. She sat down on Joshua's stone sarcophagus and buried her face in her hands she couldn't believe what she was about to do. She couldn't bring herself to try and open these stone cases up to see if there were any information buried with the deceased. How could things have turned to this?--she wondered, How could she have gotten to this point?
"Listen, we just started this... We just started. I know it seems horrible and sick but we can't give up now. We're going to get you back to normal and back to your own time. Or....maybe...." He said before pausing.
"What?" She asked, looking up at him with a tear-stained face.
"Maybe you can stay here. In this time. I would....you know, I could take care of you. I know who you really are. I believe you're India. I'd help you for as long as you need me." Just replied, the chivalrous 60's young man showing his softer side.
India smiled and put her hand on his face caressing him...she felt a small hint of hope with his words, but she knew that could not be. That was not Barnabas' plan. It could not have been.
"Justin I can't. I stay here. This is all wrong." She said, he smiled and nodded his head and digressed. "I have to believe that David sending us here was for a reason and we have to find it out why. This has to be it. This has to be the place that will tell us how to find Barnabas." India continued as she stood up.
"Alright, so where do we start? Do we open these up?" He wondered.
"Let's look around first, maybe there's something else, a hidden drawer, a smaller private box...something else." India hoped, the idea of grave robbing still unsettling in her mind.
The two began to pore over the interior of the mausoleum, every inch, every corner carefully pulling up on things to see if they lifted, or pushing things over to see if they fell revealing a secret passages they even pushed up against walls to hopefully, discover a false one. Justin finally pushed so hard on the back wall the moved slightly dropping dust on his shoes and to the ground.
"Here.....this one.... this is it! INDIA LOOK!" Justin explained showing her the tiniest movement in the wall.
"Will it budge anymore than that???" She asked in excitement.
The two began pushing and pushing and pushing on the wall but nothing moved. Nothing could get it to move. Then it clicked. It must not be able to move unless something triggered it to move.
"It has to have some sort of lock or...or latch." Justin said as he looked up. And just like that there was the face of lion with a ring in its mouth. Justin pulled the ring.
With the ring still firmly in Justin's hand, the false wall that held up the plaque with Naomi Collins' epitaph moved and revealed a staircase that lead down deep under the cemetery. India gasped and quickly latched herself on to Justin's body as his eyes grew like two giant silver dollars.
"Come on." He whispered.
As the two descended down the dark staircase made of cold hard stone they began to pass torches that were placed on the sides of the secret walls below. With every torch they passed the one in front of them sparked a flame on their own illuminating the way for Justin and India to follow as they pushed away cobwebs and dust that fell from above.
The dark staircase finally led into a dark circular chamber deep below the cemetery. Suddenly, as if commanded to do so, five torches hanging in the room sanctimoniously lit one by one in bursts of fire like the snapping of fingers revealing the chained coffin of Barnabas Collins.
India could feel the ring around her neck become warm. It was so warm it began to burn her skin. She pulled it out of her blouse and it was glowing a very dim light only around the Onyx in it's center.
"This.........this must be....it...." India said staring down at the Coffin. "This must be where Barnabas is."
They looked at each other, searching for the other to say what to do next as the howl again came from outside, this time echoing over and over again inside the buried layer where the Coffin lay.
"Ok...do it. Do it." Justin said, his eyes still wide with fear. "Unlock him."
India was shaking. She had no idea what she was doing. She quickly reached in her pocket and pulled out the warped bobby-pin and twisted the old locks around the Coffin. Each one snapped is if they were made in 1966 and not from the 18th century. It was as if these locks had been waiting for India all this time.
The chains suddenly fell to the ground all and coiled up in three small neat circles just under the coffin all on their own. India screamed and backed away at the sight of the chains moving on their own, and just as she did, the lid of the Coffin lifted up slowly.
The lid, creaked open, like a dark evil clam shell....Inch by inch.
"Jesus!" Justin said again, his heart pounding in his ears.
And just as the moon lifted high in the sky at it's most center place of the night---midnight, Barnabas Collins levitated from his eternal sleep, deep inside his purple velvet lined coffin. He stood up and turned his head to the right and stared India dead in the eyes.
"Thank you, child." He said with a small quiver of a fancy accent.
"Barnabas." She said, finally putting the man to the face in the painting.
Barnabas stepped out of the coffin by levitating again through the air, he bowed his head then walked over to India and snapped the necklace from her neck, removed the ring and placed it firmly on his hand --once again connecting all his forces in one being.
"Please...please send me back now, send me back home now! Please!!!" India begged.
"In due time. You have no idea just how much danger you are in, do you?" Barnabas said.
"This can't be real. I can't be seeing this!" Justin said, his panic becoming more and more intense.
"I am real. I've been real. And I will be real. Forever. What you two have done is set in motion a correction of the past. Something I should have done decades ago. What you two have done, for me, is release me before I was set to be released in real time. Because of you and your hard work getting me out before my original time by a man named Loomis, I can now reverse course ....change the future....do good things. I can set the curse backwards and instead of perpetuating the devil inside our family I can cure it. I will be the cure to our own demise. But all that is because of you India. I chose you. I chose you specifically to do this for me, for us." Barnabas explained now holding Vicky's face in his hands, but speaking to India who was locked inside of her.
"Why me? Why in Vicky's body? Why this time?" She asked, tears in her eyes.
"The family in 1966...I feel as though was where the most damage was done. Elizabeth, David...Carolyn, even Roger and most especially Victoria. The others from my past...." Barnabas said scoffing about thinking of his father, his mother and his devious uncle, "Well let's just say they're too far gone. It's too late for them. I can't turn that clock back. But here, Here I can."
"But why put me in Vicky's body???" India asked again, tears streaming down Vicky's perfect face.
"India, your future and real body does not exist in 1966. Over the years I have learned that moving through time in a body that does not belong in that period causes more trouble than you can imagine. It causes a tear in the time fabric that I've discovered causes the more holes for the future. The many times I have traveled back an forth in time with someone from the future I had no idea of this....it was one reason there was so much more danger and treachery when I returned to the correct time. The body from the future had broken that sacred bond between time and space where foreign bodies do not belong. Putting your future made body in a body like Victoria's that belonged here secured that this tear in time did not occur." Barnabas explained.
"Ok, Fine....that's fine. Now you're done. Right? Now I can go back. Now you can send me back and free Vicky." India replied impatiently.
"Not yet." Barnabas answered as the distant animal again howled it's cruel howl.
"Why Not!???" India exclaimed.
"Your purity and new place among this family is the energy and source of my salvation. I need you. I cannot part from you yet. Until this curse is dead and gone you cannot return, and there is a bounty on your Victoria's head. Destroying this threat and correcting my various mistakes in the time will finally rid this family of one of this many curses healing their future generations, which includes you India. I must and will, eliminate the attempt on Vicky's life first. Then you India may go." Barnabas said referring to Arabella's plot to kill Vicky, that he supernatural overheard through his painting on the foyer wall.
India and Justin were in shock. They had no idea what to do next. Barnabas grabbed his cane from his coffin and smiled at them with a grin that seemed coy, conniving, untrustworthy. But India had no choice. She had to follow him. She knew that one way or another Barnabas would get his way and the only chance she'd get at returning home was to follow his lead.
Justin grabbed India's had as Barnabas began his assent up the dark staircase up to the surface.
"Are you going to be ok with this ....guy??" He questioned.
"I have to. I can't stop him now. Whatever he's planned to right all his wrongs and remove this...this...bounty on me...or Vicky--whatever that means, I have to do it. I have to let him take control now. It's my only way home." India said.
"What about Julia? You said that maybe she would be able to help you too." Justin asked reminding her of her other plan.
"I can't think of her now. I have to ....trust Barnabas.It may be too late." India said, feeling hopeless and having to wait for Barnabas to correct it all himself.
"Trust? I .... how can you..." Justin replied, his heart and mind both refusing to even entertain trusting the man he saw come out of coffin.
"We just have to Justin. Trusting Barnabas is all I have right now." India said in Vicky's voice.
"Trust me. You can trust me, we can figure this out without him. I know that you're scared but your other plan, to meet with Julia..." Justin said holding India's arm before a deep echoed voice came from the dark stairwell.
"Do not straggle behind. We have no time to lose." Barnabas' disembodied voice echoed.
Justin was worried. He didn't know what to do next, but he knew that he would do anything for India. Anything to keep her safe. Anything to show her how much he was beginning to care for her. Even if it meant following Barnabas Collins to the open mouth of an early grave.
