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| Barnabas Vicky(India) and Justin |
A New England storm at the end of winter and beginning of Spring acts as a baptismal washing. Taking away the cold and ice and ushering in the warmth and new birth of nature. The rain acts as nature's holy water covering all it can touch in the fresh cool liquid from the moody gray and purple sky.
In Collinsport, this new life, refreshing touch of a late winter storm released not a renaissance of new beginnings but a dark age of familiar shadows, especially for Barnabas Collins.
Barnabas stood in the drawing room of the Old House staring deep into a red hot fire. It crackled and popped warming his cold skin. His eyes watery and sad, his mouth still feeling Julia's neck in it. His bite, not lethal, but damaging none the less. He had to, she was about to turn everything upside-down again and he could not stop her any other way.
India, still trapped in Vicky's body came down stairs. Her heart in tatters at the acts she saw come from Barnabas, it was a trait she had expected but never dreamed she would see in such vivid violence.
"She's sleeping, Justin is with her." India said of Julia who was upstairs in a bedroom that had been recently remodeled.
"Has she said anything about what happened in the basement?" Barnabas asked never taking his eyes away from the burning flames in the hearth.
"She hasn't woken up Barnabas. She hasn't opened her eyes." India said as she poured herself a drink, exhausted by the events of the night and a bit frustrated about unchanged situation.
Barnabas turned from the fire and walked over to a window that was being pummeled by rain. A flash of thunder lit his face up but as India turned to him, she saw no reflection. She saw a man in front of her seemingly alive and well but deep down in his DNA was something more unearthly. It was a strange sensation. To know he was dead but also alive, a victim of a curse, a creature of two worlds.
"Barnabas I can't stay here forever. The family is going to wonder where Vicky has been and they won't just accept some ridiculous story. If you want me to keep pretending to be Victoria you have to help me figure out a story to explain my absence for the last five days." India said. "What are you going to do next? she added.
"You should never have gone to Julia." Barnabas growled.
"Barnabas I had no choice." India replied.
"WE ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE!" Barnabas shot back in a loud voice.
"I was desperate, you keep saying how much you need to set things right here in this time and that for some reason you needed me to do that but I have yet to see anything come together. What are you doing? What is going to happen next? Where do we go from here?" India exclaimed, her voice angry and stressed.
Barnabas had never heard Vicky's voice in such a tone. All the years that he had known her she had never raised her voice to him. He had to remind himself it was Vicky's face and voice but it was India speaking.
"Watch the tone...." he grumbled. "You still don't understand, do you?" Barnabas asked turning to India.
"Frankly, no Barnabas, I don't. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know what you've ever needed from me and I don't know how I'm ever going to get back to my time. Away from here...away from everything." India said.
"You are a conduit India. A connection between two worlds because you are a Collins through David. And yet you have absolutely no tarnish. You have never seen the dark things of the curse that has plagued us for generations. Just like Victoria." Barnabas said.
India sipped her drink and sat down allowing Barnabas to continue.
"When Victoria came to Collinwood she had no idea just how connected to this family she was. She too had grown up away from it all. In her innocence she was used to...betray us. Betray them. She was pulled away from the sins of this curse but as it usually does---the curse returned and lured her in. Connecting the two of you, binding you in her body because your body could not relatively exist in this time made the perfect sense. Combining your two minds and hearts, I knew would give me the strength to return here to 1966 anew and meet the family as I originally did, but then, do nothing. Hurt no one. I wanted to reverse the course that I had originally taken and thus change events in time forever by keeping those I loved safe; alive. Once it was all done and I saw all my first mistakes reversed, I would set into motion your return to 2019 and Vicky's freedom from you. But I have failed. Things have happened in the mean time that I did not anticipate. Death came again. Over and over again. India, I have failed, I have failed once more." Barnabas said finally explaining his story.
"This can't really be the end though Barnabas. You have to make this work. You cannot just leave me this way inside of Victoria, its not fair to me and it's certainly not fair to her. I'm begging you. Come up with something different, a new way out of this, it's the only way you will make things right --if you set them right still." India said.
"I fear too much has gone wrong, should I continue this attempt, things may continue to fall out of place. We change one bad thing to happen to us in time, another comes to take it's place. It's the lessons and laws of traveling back and forth within time and space. To take one bad thing out you must replace it with another. It all must equal." Barnabas explained.
"Who cares?! The point was never to fix everything forever, right? It was to only fix the mistake you personally had done. Whatever those were, they're done. You have to move on from it. Bad things, Barnabas, will happen no matter what. It's up to you to just take them as fate and move passed it otherwise you'll constatley chase the ghost of what you believe is freedom from this curse. Only you can do it for yourself, not everyone else. We all have our fates...we have to fight them on our own accord, you can't save everyone." India said wisely.
"Then what should I do? How can I move passed it?" He wondered.
"Leave. Take yourself and leave Collinsport forever, never to return. This is the hub of all your pain and suffering and the place where you've done the most destruction. That's how you end things---leave and never come back." India said.
Barnabas thought for a moment as India's words seeped into his head and heart. They made sense. They connected to all the things he wanted to do, fix the family as best he could then be done. He had never thought of leaving the place he loved so much. But now that things were seemingly out of his control, perhaps abandoning his original idea and allowing the wounds of time heal themselves without his was the best idea.
"Tomorrow night will be my final night in Collinsport. I will leave. As soon as I know Julia is alright." Barnabas said.
"Julia....will she be like you now that you've bitten her?" India wondered as her voice shook with fear at the thought of a new vampire roaming the town.
"No. Thankfully. I only pierced her skin, I did not taste her blood or drink from her wounds. She will be woozy for a few days, tired, confused, but she remains herself, a person of this world. Alive." Barnabas explained to India's relief. "Once I am satisfied with Julia's recovery I will let you go. I will release you and Victoria will return to herself never remembering any of this happened by the end of the day tomorrow as the sun begins to set. This, India, I promise, and the family too will be free of me." He further explained.
Upstairs, Julia began to wake up. She tossed and turned and groaned with pain in her neck. She reached for the bandaged wounds and Justin stopped her.
"Shhh...don't touch." Justin said in a soft voice.
"What happened?" Julia replied, her eyes slowly opening from her deep sleep.
"What do you remember?" Justin wondered, as Barnabas hid just outside the room peeking in through an open crack in the door.
He was checking on her, the woman that would have so many times saved his life, but he was changing their fates and leaving, never to allow their paths to cross again. This was his sacrifice, this was his gift to her. He was always a plague on her own existence that perhaps she could over-come. But Barnabas worried, he wanted her to be safe despite the bite to her neck.
"I.....Came here. This is Collinwood, isn't it?" Julia said, her mind still a fog and Barnabas looked on in secret.
"It's the old house on the property, yes." Justin replied, trying to block Barnabas' view.
"I came to follow you, you and Victoria Winters. I came in and.....I don't know. I don't really recall what happened after I came in." Julia said as a thunderclap lit the room in flashes of light.
"You were found in the foyer. It looks like when you were coming in from the woods something attacked you." Justin said, lying about the attack.
"What attacked me? I don't remember." Julia said confused.
"You've lost a lot of blood which is probably why you're not remembering, but you'll be ok. We found you passed out in the foyer." Justin explained again, lying.
"We? Who lives here? Why did you come here?" Julia wondered.
Justin didn't know how to explain. He wasn't sure just how far he could go into what the truth was without triggering Julia's memory.
"Don't worry about that now, just rest. You'll be ok. In the morning we'll have someone take you back to Bangor and Windcliff. Everything is going to be alright." Justin said as the doctor/patient relationship had turned on Julia.
"But I want to know, what attacked me, if its a dangerous animal, shouldn't you tell the person who lives here? And, again, who lives here?" Julia said, pushing for answers.
Justin chuckled to himself as the realization was that the wild animal that attacked her and the owner of the house were the same thing...but Julia couldn't know that. Not now.
"Dr. Hoffman, I need you to rest. Ok?" Justin said as the thunder let out another roar.
Barnabas, feeling satisfied that Julia was going to be ok, took a deep breath and headed down to the basement. Tomorrow would be his last day at Collinwood. His last day in Collinsport.
He was freeing himself and his family from his curse. Once and for all. It was the only choice. Nothing he had done had worked to his satisfaction to help save the future. Leaving, disappearing, vanishing from existence was, for Barnabas, the best chance for everyone's surival.
****
As the new day broke and the storm trailed off into the distant horizon over the Atlantic sea to the east, India finally made her way back to Collinwood after spending the night at the Old House practicing make up tricks to cover her bruises and starches from falling out of a window at Windcliff Sanitarium where she had been held captive by Julia Hoffman for several days.
She looked into a hand mirror from her purse to double check her hand-work and saw Victoria's reflection--then thought about how Barnabas, and the lack of his reflection in the widow the night before. A Chill ran up her spine. She took a deep breath and patted a handwritten letter in her coat pocket to be used for later.
In the drawing room Carolyn had shown signs of being sick, she had been throwing up all morning and was lounging on the sofa drinking tea with Elizabeth, Roger, David and Beau as they sat
discussing their next steps in "Victoria's" disappearance.
As Elizabeth tended to her flu infused daughter, India walked into the drawing room and plastered on a fake happy smile, Elizabeth gasped in shock at the sight of the missing woman.
"VICKY!" Carolyn shouted as she jumped up from the sofa dropping her tea.
"Good god, woman, where have you been?" Roger wondered as he too leaped from his chair.
"What do you mean?" India said in Vicky's calm girlish voice.
"Vicky, you've been gone for almost a three weeks. We hadn't heard from you. There's been so much that's happened....Arabella was killed." Elizabeth explained.
"WHAT? How?!" India said in Vicky's pretend shocked voice.
"We've been trying to figure that out as we've been looking for you Miss Winters. When was the last time you saw her?" Beau asked, his detective tone in full effect.
"I don't know. Before I left I supposed. Why would I have seen her?" India answered continuing to pretend she hadn't heard of Arabella's death.
"Vicky, we found your coat at Arabella's hotel drenched in blood. Darling, we thought something terrible had happened ...to you too." Elizabeth said concerned for her secret daughter's well-being.
"My coat?" India wondered, not knowing Carolyn was the one who planted it there.
Carolyn then had a sudden flash of memory of finding Arabella's body and planting Vicky's coat. She began to shake, she began to feel her knees hitting each other. Beau, knowing the truth about Vicky's link to Elizabeth too, could tell something was wrong and that whatever it was, the mention of the coat sent his love Carolyn into a sudden nervous wreak. Carolyn certainly did not expect Vicky to return, and Beau too knew the truth could be moments away from being exposed. He grabbed Carolyn's hand and squeezed. He would not let her get into trouble.
"That's right, your coat was in her hotel room." Elizabeth replied.
"Didn't you let Arabella borrow your coat Vicky? I think you did." David said, his little voice shooting out of his body.
Everyone turned to David. No one knew where this information had come from. Carolyn knew it was a lie, Beau wasn't sure where the boy was getting it, and India had no idea what anyone was talking about but something told her to listen to David. Listen to him. Listen to the boy who would in the future be her father.
India took the hint.
"Oh! My trench coat? Yes, She borrowed the day she was here for lunch. I think she said she liked the style and that her's wasn't keeping her warm enough. I didn't mind." India said adding to the story.
Roger squinted at the governess Vicky with suspicion. Liz too felt it a bit too coincidental, but wanted to believe that simple excuse.
"But where have you been???" Elizabeth wondered, her voice seemingly absolving Vicky of the coat connection.
"Didn't any of you read my letter?" India said again in a small voice.
"What letter?" Roger wondered.
India walked over to the mahogany desk in the corner that had gargoyle shaped feet at the bottom and it's legs were etched with tiny carvings of animals from all across the globe. With a flick of her wrist and a slight of the hand, India removed the note from inside her jacket and pretended to remove it from the top of a stack of papers on the desk. She turned back around to the family:
"This one." She said.
Everyone looked confused. Roger looked at Liz. Liz back at Roger. Beau to Carolyn. Carolyn to Beau. Roger walked over and yanked the note from Vicky's hand and read it to the group.
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| Vicky's Note |
"Mrs. Stoddard,
I apologize for doing this so suddenly but I have to take a few days off to regroup. I know it's a strange request but it's all been such an overwhelming experience here and I'd like to come back refreshed. The feeling of homesickness has had me melancholy for weeks.
Once I return, I will understated if you'd like me replaced.
Sincerely, Vicky"
Roger looked at Vicky suspiciously and rolled his eyes.
"No one ever saw this Vicky. No one." He scoffed.
"But I left it right here, right on these papers that Mrs. Stoddard often works on from the Cannery." India said, again lying to cover for where she really was.
Elizabeth, for her part, wanted to believe her secret daughter. She only wanted to the best for Vicky. The explanation that she was away and that she wasn't involved in Arabella's death and that it was all just a misunderstanding to Liz made it all an open and shut case, no matter how plausible it was. Inside, Liz could feel her motherly instinct to protect her child and it came out in a roar.
"Oh my god, yes of course, I did read that letter!!!" Liz said.
"What?" Carolyn asked confused at the sudden turn of events.
"I can't believe myself. Everyone, please forgive me; I saw the letter in the mix of my paperwork and I never once remembered it. The shock, the horror about Arabella and everything that had happened ....I feel so foolish, yes, of course. Vicky. My goodness I'm so sorry everyone. I feel very foolish." Elizabeth explained.
"REALLY Liz!" Roger yelled. " I find that very hard to believe."
"I don't care what you believe Roger. It's the truth." Elizabeth said, her voice stern and strong asserting herself as the ruler of all that happened in the home she hadn't left in 18 years. What she said--was law.
Roger got the hint as Elizabeth stepped up to him and stared him down. The room could sense the shift in power almost immediately. Elizabeth was his older sister, she was regent. Roger lifted his brown and cowered.
"Foolish...yes sis, how could you forget something like this." Roger replied, sarcasm strewn throughout his voice. "It's been over a week! Here we were almost ready to consider this girl dead and yet she was off somewhere recuperating from--what did you call it Vicky?--Homesickness?"
"You can imagine how things go, can't you Beau? It's been a madhouse here of course I would forget this. I mean our poor cousin Barnabas has moved in down at the old house and I haven't even formally welcomed him with a dinner. I haven't seen much of him anyway." Elizabeth said.
"He goes off on business a lot during the day." Carolyn said covering for Barnabas.
Everyone looked at Carolyn unsure of how she knew these things.
Beau switched back to the letter.
"But you would think that since we were looking for Vicky, that this search would jog your memory about finding a letter from Vicky about where she was." Beau said.
"I won't be scolded about my terrible memory detective. Now, please, call George Patterson and have him call off the search for Victoria. She's safe and sound." Liz said as she put two hands around Vicky's shoulders and squeezed.
Carolyn rolled her eyes and walked out of the drawing room with Beau into the foyer to use the hallway phone.
"That's right she's safe and sound Sheriff." Beau said to Sheriff Patterson.
"She's fine? No scratches? Nothing?" George said on the other line in his office.
"Not one." Beau replied as Carolyn paced the floor next to him.
"So all that blood in the hallway must belong to the man Arabella was last seen with, the man she took to her room from a small party down in the lobby after drinks. The other two people say they can't find him either."
"Looks like there's your case. Arabella sure does have a lot of questions to answer." Beau said, as Carolyn stopped in her tracks realizing she told everyone Arabella was alive.
"Thanks for the call detective, I'll work with INTERPOL about finding Arabella overseas, but from my experience, whatever she did to that man we'll never know. The Stoddard and Collins families have a way of.....going off the grid when they've done a bad thing." George said as Beau looked at Carolyn who happened to be of both families.
"Yeah....I'll have to remember that." Beau said to George as his eyes met Carolyn's as Roger's voice could be heard from the drawing room continuing to ridicule his sister over forgetting the letter.
****
That afternoon in a small house in town, Noelle Cielvert, Beau's psychic and mystical sister, was recovering from fainting at the Inn's cafe the night before. She poured a large pot of boiling hot water into an aluminum vat in her kitchen. She dropped in a ingredients that suddenly turned the water a bright orange color. She stirred and stirred then from a clear vial around her wrist that contained a translucent type of dust that she also sprinkled in cased the vat of hot water to make a popping sound, exploding and causing a light to flash from the water, just enough for Noelle to know her experiment had worked.
The water was boiling, it was almost like a lava, color and texture. The vat was red hot and stood on a wooden table that was beginning to feel the pains of the hot water it was holding up.
Noelle, concerned with the events that were happening all around her in town, took a deep breath, she rolled up the sleeves of her black sweater that had small butterflies all over it and slowly dipped her bare hands and arms into the molten hot liquid.
The skin on her arms began to burn, the pain was excruciating. She looked down and through the steam she could see the bones and veins and tendons of her arms and hands exposed. It was as if her whole body would explode with the pain she was feeling ---but then it happened.
Her pain was so powerful that it unlocked the part of her brain that allowed her to see into the future, that allowed her to tap into the world that told her what was to come, what was to be and what was perhaps, the next and best path to take.
Her eyes suddenly turned red hot like embers in the fire. She opened her mouth and bright red light burned inside of her body like a lighthouse shining its light to sailors out to sea.
The future was telling her of a child. A child was to come. A new beginning was to form. A connection to the old and to the new. Noelle saw herself with this child, but it was not hers. She saw this child as a bridge between times the she needed to protect and to save from something, something dark within it's own veins.
The future was telling Noelle to find this child as soon as it was born, to find the baby to take care of it protect in anyway she saw fit and to allow it to flourish in the future---whenever that may be.
And as the vision of herself hold the baby in her arms dissipated in her mind, she saw something else. A second coming. Something...something growing, something coming from deep within the earth, so cold...it was, so dangerous and so horrible, it was crawling, a creature of some sort, clawing out of the ground and on to the surface of the earth on all fours, panting and breathing heavily and clawing at the ground as it walked on.
At the site of this terrible demon like thing, Noelle quickly removed her own hands from the fiery liquid and all the flesh suddenly began to regenerate back on her arms and hands. Her eyes became normal and the light radiating from inside her body quieted to a glow then disappeared.
As the smoke and steam from the liquid cooled, Noelle, exhausted by what she saw in her premonition, sat on her own kitchen floor and sobbed tears so heavy that she felt she was going to faint. It was too much. But she had to do it, something in her body, in her soul told her she needed to finally come to terms with the powers she often and for many years ignored because they would protect her, and her brother and now---this mystery baby.
****
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| Its Alive |
Deep in a forest outside of town, miles away from any human ear, a small patch of earth that was encircled by a grove of giant oak trees began to move. Something was growing just underneath it. The sun light was now slowly falling behind the large trees that cast shadows of themselves on to the forest floor and made giants out of the trees. The earth continued to lift in small patches, then larger patches then larger patches, then suddenly, without a single sound, a hand popped up out of the ground reaching for the sky.
A human hand, buried in the forest, clawing its way up just like in Noelle's vision.
This hand and the person it was attached to...was left for no one to find, but it wanted to be found.
