 |
| Beau and Carolyn discuss the truth |
An early evening wind brought in a cold storm that sprinkled a fresh coating of rain along the Collinsport shoreline. This marked a new milky moon that hung over a purple sky as the sun was finally setting, basking its final rays of light on the cycle in the sky.
Over in a small cottage style house on Cromwell Street, Detective Beau Cielvert quickly rushed around finalizing his prepared meal for his in-home date with Carolyn Stoddard. Candles were lit all over the living room where he had prepared a picnic style dinner where the two could snuggled up on a warm black and yellow gingham flannel blanket.
The day before, Carolyn had shown odd behavior under Barnabas' mind control. According to Carolyn, Arabella quickly left town leaving her hotel room covered in blood and with Vicky's coat plopped in the corner--another mystery. Where was Vicky? Why was her coat there? No one understood why.
The answers, were simple yet hidden. Barnabas had killed Arabella to protect Elizabeth's secret connection to Vicky that Arabella discovered. This secret, this thread of timeline events needed to be preserved in his attempt to right the many wrongs he had committed on his first time in 1967. Unfortunately for Barnabas, Carolyn found Arabella's body first and planted Vicky's coat hoping she would be considered a suspect in Arabella's murder; thus fulfilling Arabella's manipulative plot to rid Vicky of potentially becoming Elizabeth's soul heir. It was a gamble Arabella paid with her life and warped the otherwise good-natured Carolyn into a co-conspirator.
Despite all the chaos surrounding her world at the moment, Carolyn kept an evening date with Beay Cielvert. Their relationship was moving at a rapid pace and he was growing more and more in love with her despite his feeling that she was hiding something, something dark something terrible. For Carolyn's part--her world was in turmoil and Beau was her saving and calming grace.
Carolyn walked up to Beau's door and took a deep breath before she knocked on it. Softly at first, but then two more tougher raps altering him inside. He was eager to see her and, hopefully, straighten things out about his client Arabella's sudden departure from Collinsport.
He flung the door open.
"Come in! Come in!" Beau said, ushering the balmy faced Carolyn in from the drizzly evening outside.
"I hope I'm not early." She said, her big blue eyes gazing up at the handsome detective as their two bodies shined in the candle light of the front room.
"No! Perfect timing! Make yourself at home." Beau said as Carolyn removed her coat and Beau placed it on the sofa next to the picnic in the center of the room.
"Oh Beau, this is just adorable. Thank you! You didn't have to go to all this trouble just for me. But thank you." Carolyn said, her mind seemingly back to normal.
"This is just the first round." Beau said in reference to the courses of food he had prepared.
"You've thought of everything!" Carolyn said, her eye lit like two large sapphire blue lagoons.
"Well since it's it's so rainy outside tonight, I thought we could still have some sort of picnic but ---make it indoors." Beau said, adoringly as he pointed over to his small living room floor that had been created into a small carpet picnic with small baskets of finger foods and a blanket and fruits.
"Well aren't you cute." Carolyn whispered, her eyes deeply in love with the man she saw in front of her as the two sat on the floor of his living room.
She tasted each of the small plates he had prepared. An small bowl of French onion soup, then a cheese platter and later, hopefully, desert. Sweet Strawberries and Champagne.
"So can I ask you about something?" He asked as she nodded and sipped her soup while the rain poured down outside. "Yesterday you seemed so off, when we were asking about Arabella you....I don't know. You weren't yourself."
Carolyn paused her meal. She knew it too. She knew she was off. She knew everything.
"Beau, listen, I know what it looked like. I know that things are off the charts weird right now but ..." She paused again.
"But what?"
"It's Barnabas. There's just something about him. Yesterday is all a blur. I know that we spoke, I know what I said that my Aunt Arabella left town and I know about this thing with Vicky missing....but I don't remember it. I know it happened, but I don't remember the actual moments. Does that make sense?"
"That is strange. So you don't remember seeing Arabella in the lobby like you said you did?" Beau wondered.
Carolyn couldn't put-two-and-two together. She knew in her mind it happened, because Barnabas planted that in her mind, he controlled her thoughts and her brain came up with that lie to cover for his, but her instincts, her true womanly instincts were telling her it wasn't all she believed it to be. There was more. But what that was, was unclear.
"I think I do. I remember seeing her but....I don't .....I just can't say that I saw her where I said I saw her. I'm confusing you. I can tell. What I do remember is coming home upset and speaking with Barnabas. He ....was at Collinwood already. You know, ever seen he showed up and asked to live in the Old House things have gotten MUCH weirder around our place. More than normal, I can tell you that." Carolyn confided.
"How so?" He wondered.
"Well, Vicky for instance. She just up and vanishes in the middle of her job!"
"Don't you think that has something to do with Arabella going to Europe so quickly?" Beau questioned as he fed Carolyn a nibble of French cheese on their picnic.
"I don't know. I just don't know." Carolyn confessed as her mind was still in a confused fog from Barnabas controlling powers the day before.
"I don't know much about Barnabas Collins--where he came from? Who he's been in contact with or what he's even doing here, but I can tell you I kind of do feel the same way you do. There is something extra strange or---different about him. He seems mysterious...not in the good way." Beau mentioned.
"There's a good mysterious?" Carolyn wondered.
"Yes. Like you. You're a mysterious woman Carolyn. Beguiling even. Sensual." Beau said as he inched closer to her.
"Tell me more." Carolyn cooed.
"About you or Barnabas?" Beau teased as Carolyn scoffed.
"Forget him...." Carolyn whispered as she sat up on all fours and walked over to Beau's side of the picnic blanket and kissed him deeply and passionately.
They're bodies soon became tangled up in each other. Locked in a lover's knot that twisted and turned on the small make-shift carpet picnic. They're eyes became locked in a titillating gaze that felt as if they were looking right through their physical bodies and into their souls. They began to remove each other's close, garment by garment slowly, revealing their bodies to each other for the first time. They could feel each other's heartbeat....the blood pumping through their veins was like a freight train charging through the night. Each touch felt like fire. Each kiss felt like warm sun heating the other's flesh as if they were sunbathing on a beach. In the middle of a spring storm, this room felt like a tropical rain forest.
As the thunder blasted across the sky lighting it for split seconds at a time exposing the dark clouds above the Collinsport tiny skyline, Beau and Carolyn connected like never before. It was a passion filled moment that seemed to last forever. Their two bodies linked now and always. His and hers, their naked flesh sizzling with each and every touch of wet kisses and passionate love. Carolyn had never felt this way for another man, not Joe, not Buzz. No one.
The rain poured down like a waterfall from the sky and a sudden flash of clarity lit inside of Carolyn's mind. Flashes of her memory of what she saw in the Hotel room came back like quick glimpses of a movie screen.
Arabella's face. Barnabas' face. Blood. The coat. Arabella's face again. Barnabas again. More Blood.
Her brain was telling her she knew more than she was leading on. During their moment of passion, her mind seemed to unlock. It was like a fever had broken and everything became clear to her. She grabbed Beau's head and pushed it down to her lips, passionately kissing him while she interlaced her legs around his body basking in the glow of candle light.
Carolyn suddenly remembered Barnabas did indeed have something to do with Arabella going missing.
Beau's love had unlocked all that was left of Barnabas's control of her brain. The fog had lifted. The terrible night when Arabella was killed, all the blood all of the screams and the body, the wounds on her neck. It was all so clear to Carolyn. She gasped and held her breath.
"Are you ok?" Beau whispered in the middle of their passionate embrace.
Carolyn smiled softly and wiped the sweat from his brow, unsure of how to answer.
Then, as the rain poured down outside causing small little rivers of water to trickle down the glass of Beau's windows and reflect on to their bare skin as they lay on the floor, naked, in love and now in afterglow. Carolyn decided she had to confess. Her relationship too new and too precious to start off in lies.
"You're going to hate me." She said glistening in the candle light as he sparked up a cigarette.
"What?" He asked, as his fingers danced in the smoke waving it away from her porcelain face.
"I think lied to you. To everyone."
Beau turned and looked at her, almost hurt.
"Go on." he said, unsure of what he was about to hear.
"My Aunt had a horrible plan to do something to Vicky. She....she knew something about her, I just...I can't remember what, but she wanted to get Vicky out of the way." Carolyn said, her mind still not all the way as unlocked as she thought.
Beau paused. He knew what Arabella had discovered about Vicky---he knew it because it was he who did the digging. It was he who handed off the proof to Arabella to use against Elizabeth. Because of his snooping, paid for by Arabella, these events were able to happen.
Beau's face turned solemn. Was he the reason Arabella or Vicky or both of them were possibly dead?
He continued: "So Arabella did kill Vicky and take off to Europe? We have to find her!!" Beau said getting half way up from the floor and attempting to put all the blame on Arabella and off of him.
"No! No....she didn't' have time to, you see, whatever she had over Vicky Barnabas discovered and for reasons I can't fully recollect, he made her go missing. I think.....I think maybe the blood was Arabella's. I'm trying to remember but ...its coming back in pieces." Carolyn said neglecting to remember she was the one that was in on the plan with Arabella to off Vicky and she was the one who left the coat as a plant to frame Vicky.
"We have to find that man and get him questioned. Patterson needs to know this right away! You have to tell him everything you remember now, because yesterday he took you at your word that Arabella left Collinsport." Beau said getting up and rushing to the phone.
"WAIT!" Carolyn screamed from the carpet. "Barnabas will kill me."
Beau suddenly saw that Carolyn was deathly afraid of her new cousin, the man that was so mysterious that it made her tremble where she stood. The fear was all over her face. The thought of Barnabas coming after her was too frightening even for Beau, who wasn't afraid of anything. He would do anything to protect Carolyn, but Barnabas, if Carolyn was telling the truth, had to be stopped.
"What should we do then?" Beau wondered. But Carolyn only shook her head without ideas.
"You see it too. You can see there is something dangerous about Barnabas that I can't put my finger on. Something that I don't want to cross...not again." Carolyn said.
"Again?" Beau wondered.
"I think he did something to me to make me forget what I know. I think he's done something to me Beau. I'm scared of him." She confessed.
"That settles it. We have to go to Patterson. He has to step in somehow." Beau said, exhausting all his ideas about what was really happening with Carolyn and Arabella and Vicky.
"What can he do?" Carolyn wondered as she blew out two of the candles next to her and she got dressed.
"He'll arrest Barnabas. He has to, if you're right he's the one that did something to those women."
Carolyn knew that the truth would come out, and she worried, was she remembering everything the way it happened? Was she more involved in these schemes than she had yet to remember, and if so would she lose Beau all together when he found out?
Carolyn was now worried she may lose the man she loved. Perhaps the truth,.the and nothing but the truth should not fully come out after all and remain with Arabella--where ever she was.
****
 |
| Siblings in conflict |
At Collinwood, the storm battered the branches of the large oak tree that shaded the French style windows of the great Drawing room on the first floor. The branches, like gnarled up and twisted fingers of a witch scratched the glass with all the energy of the powerful wet wind.
Dressed in a glamorous dark velvet purple robe, dripping in her trademark droplet pear-earrings Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard stared down deeply into paperwork Arabella had left with her proving she was Victoria Winter's mother. The paperwork that Beau had found, handed off to Arabella and set off the events of the two missing women.
Liz felt awfully responsible for Vicky's life and her vanishing. She was wracked with guilt about where Vicky had gone and why. Perhaps Vicky too discovered the truth and was angry and went back to New York? Perhaps something happened to her that no one would ever find out?
Collinsport was notorious for strange and sudden disappearances, Elizabeth's husband being one of the most famous cases.
Whatever the real reason for Vicky's vanishing, Elizabeth had to be sure no one knew of these documents. The birth certificate. The government records. No one could know.
She stood up from her comfy green sofa and walked over to the roaring fire as a thunderclap startled her in her place. The shock of the sound in the sky caused her to knock of a table with a glass of water shattering it once it hit the hardwood floors her own great-grandfather had laid down centuries before.
As the orange glow from the hearth warmed her whole body Elizabeth threw into the fire those secret documents allowing them to quickly burn up. The bits of paper turned to ash gray and floated up slight above the flames then down again to the red hot embers forever detaching Elizabeth from the truth, and hopefully guarding her secret again.
As she did so, a hidden wall in the corner opened up a slight bit. This wall was created centuries ago by the mansion's designers to create a private entrance for family members who didn't want to walk the many halls to get from room to room. It was a doorway that opened into secret passages all around the house.
David knew of these. It was he watching from the crack in the door. His eyes saw everything.
But he wasn't alone.
A hand fell on his shoulder in the darkness. The sudden touch caused David to jump in his skin. He looked up and saw it was his own father. Roger Collins.
Roger too lurked in the secret passages of the house silently stalking his sister. And now he knew Elizabeth was keeping something so damming to her that she had to burn it. Her secret was now a mystery he needed to solve.
"What are you hiding, dear sister? What are you hiding?" Roger whispered as David looked back into the room watching Elizabeth dab tears from her eyes that reflected the crackling fire in front of her.
****
 |
| Julia and Patterson go after Justin and India |
The storm continued to blow cold wind from the north down onto Maine. It was tearing trees and lifting the levels of the small rivers all around town.
A car carrying Justin and India, trapped in Vicky's body, fresh from the daring escape from Windcliff arrived in the blustery front area of the old house. The sun was now deep on the horizon hidden by the storm clouds. They were there to confront Barnabas and send India back to her time. It was now or never--too much happened, too much was at stake, and Barnabas had to figure his way without India's presence in 1966, no matter how much he needed her fresh energy force in this time period.
As Justin and India quickly rushed into the old house hiding from the rain and ready to state their case to Barnabas, another car pulled up, this one with this front lights out. It was Sheriff George Patterson, Justin's father and Julia Hoffman.
They had followed all the way from Windcliff in Bangor. Julia needed to see where this would lead and what this Victoria Winters was talking about.
"What is this place???" Julia said in the darkened car as a thunder clap lit her face in white light.
"It's what the Collins family calls the old house. The family used to live her before the big house was built in the late 1700's." George explained the family lore.
"Why would they come here?" Julia wondered of India and Justin.
"I don't know. To my knowledge Elizabeth didn't want anyone inside. It's been abandoned for decades. They were planning on demolishing it but Liz had a change of heart 12 years ago and wanted to remodel it and giving it to her brother Roger when he married his wife Laura, but..the marriage broke up. The plans fell through." George explained again.
Suddenly a call came in on the Sheriff's 2-way in his cruiser.
"DISPATCH TO SHERIFF, DISPATCH TO SHERIFF: COME IN."
George rushed over to the opened door of his squad car and leaned his burly body in to pull on the two-way: "This is Patterson--Over."
"SHERIFF, REQUESTING YOUR ADDITIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANCE AT A POSSIBLE BURGLARY DOWNTOWN. OVER."
"I have to get downtown." George said in a disappointed sigh as he turned the ignition to his cruiser.
"I'll be fine." Julia said reaching for the car door.
"What? I'm not leaving you here. We don't know what's going on in there. I don't know the state of my son, it could be dangerous. No, i'll take you to the station and we can come back." George ordered.
"That's unacceptable, Sheriff Patterson, trust me, I'm very much capable of taking care of myself." Julia said, as she tipped her purse to that George could see inside revealing a small hand revolver with a white handle and silver trigger.
"I should ask you if you have a permit for that." George said with strange look to Julia.
"I can take care of myself." Julia said again.
"Dr. Hoffman, we've only known each other on professional terms, especially with what happened to my wife. But please, whatever you do, do not use that gun. Not on Victoria, and ....." George paused "Not on my son."
Julia knew her history with the a weapon. She had lived through a terrible event in her life that involved a similar pistol. She didn't want to use it, she in fact, hated to have it with her. But she knew she needed it. It protected her. It made her feel safe even if she never planned to use it, not like before. Not like the death she caused before many many years ago.
Tonight, she needed it however.
"I'll only use it to scare them, if God forbid something should happen. No one will get hurt. I promise." Julia said as she unlatched the door and headed for the Old House.
George drove off leaving Julia to enter the home alone. She was being truthful, she did not want to use her weapon unless she had to, but the darkness of the very first room of the old house she entered made her reach into her bag and grab it. She pointed it out in front of her and walked slowly.
Each room was darker than the last. It was as if someone had been staying there living among the dusty furniture from another time but she didn't see India and Justin.
She continued on her way upstairs as the torn wall-paper and water-damaged ceilings guided her way.
In the basement Justin and India, still in Vicky's body stood staring down at Barnabas' coffin. The room had been patched together in a hastened fashion as this time Barnabas did not have Willie Loomis to sort out his world for him. Willie had yet to arrive in Collinsport, and Barnabas had to fend for himself killing animals in the forest for blood, living off the land where no one would notice but still haunted by the murder of Arabella.
Justin and India waited for the last hours of the sun to drip below the sea and set when finally, he, the man, the monster, the conflicted killer would rise from his crypt.
As they waited to confront him, Julia made her way down the stairs after searching the second floor and back into the foyer. She turned the corner and saw a door at the end of a small narrow hall that she had not gone into. She went and slowly pulled the heavy door to the basement.
Julia, pointing the gun out in front of her, walked slowly down each step. One foot in front of the other. Her hand was shaking. She could hear people talking. She could see lanterns lit down below, then as she arrived, she saw Justin and India staring down at a coffin that was opening in the dimly lit room. Then a man appeared.
Barnabas.
"India." Barnabas whispered as he lifted himself out of the coffin by levitating his body.
Julia gasped at the frightful nature of the entire thing.
"You have to end this Barnabas. You have to send me back, I can't do this anymore." India begged.
"You have no idea what we've been through the last few days." Justin added.
"India where have you been?? We've been in search for you for days. Arabella ....is dead." Barnabas explained conveniently leaving blank the fact that it was he who killed Arabella.
"WHAT? Arabella is dead? How....Do I want to know how?" India said knowing something was a miss about the way Barnabas was telling the story. It was clear he wasn't giving all of the details he was involved in.
"It's complicated." He said
"Surprise, surprise." Justin said rolling his eyes.
"The family is beginning to think Arabella had something to do with your disappearance, they don't know she's dead, signs are pointing that you were killed, and not Arabella, again its a very complicated story. That's why it is important that you're back. Where have you been??" Barnabas questioned.
"I was trapped at Windcliff Sanitarium Barnabas! This doctor, she...she wanted to keep me there. She thinks I'm insane! I can't take this anymore. You HAVE TO SEND me home!!" India said, as Justin grabbed her to comfort her.
Barnabas took a deep breath and shook his head no.
"My job is not even close from being done, India. I need you here. Your power, the energy I see in your heart is what I need to correct all of the mistakes I have made, but terrible things have happened and again I have to correct them. The family believes Victoria dead. We have to prove that she isn't and allow then to think Arabella has moved to Europe without cause." Barnabas explained.
"What did you do to her?" Justin said, starting to figure out there was more to this than he knew.
Barnabas turned to Justin and said in a very matter of fact voice "Corrected her course."
"I need to feed." Barnabas suddenly said. "I need to feed." He repeated.
"My god!" India said understanding what he meant.
As they spoke in the basement a loud creaking sound came from the staircase. They all turned and stranding there was the woman, in another time, Barnabas would marry and adopt a child with.
Julia Hoffman pointing a gun directly into Barnabas' face.
"Alright, I've heard enough of all this. I don't know what's going on, but I certainly heard you confess to a murder!" Julia said stepping now into the bottom of the basement.
"Julia." Barnabas whispered.
"How do you know me? Who are you? WHO ARE YOU?" Julia shouted with her gun ready to shoot.
"Dr. Hoffman, please you'd don't know what you're doing. Please put the gun down so that we can explain everything. There is a truth to what I told you at the hospital. I was telling you everything. Truthfully." India said.
Barnabas turned to India and fumed at her realizing that included about him.
"Everything?" Barnabas growled.
"Everything." Julia repeated. "I can't for the life of me understand what is happening, or who is telling the truth but as soon as Sheriff Patterson comes back you're all going to jail. Someone is responsible for a death, that much I heard." Julia said.
Justin didn't know what to do, all he could think of India and how the clock was ticking on her to get back to her time safely. As much as he was beginning to feel love for the young woman he met in the middle of the street in the late fog, he did want her to be happy and back in her time.
Justin lunged for Julia and grabbed her by the wrist that was holding the gun. She screamed and shot the gun into the ceiling of the basement. The two began to struggle over the weapon then Julia launched her leg into Justin's groin knocking him to the ground. India screamed in Victoria's pained voice as she rushed over to Justin rolling around the stone cold basement floor in pain.
Julia, her hair mussed and pulled, her clothes jostled by the quick fight with Justin, pointed the gun at Barnabas.
"Julia put the gun down, you don't know what you're doing." Barnabas said with his hands out to the sides slowly walking up to Julia.
"Don't take another step! Do NOT take another step!" She screamed.
Barnabas' eyes darkened to blackness like his onyx ring. He hissed and showed his long sharp fangs that thirsted for blood, blood he needed to survive.
"Perhaps you should take another step Dr. Hoffman, up the stairs and out of this house." Barnabas said.
Julia's eyes were as big as saucers. She screamed at the sight of the vampire's hungry grin as he continued to come closer to her. Her hand was shaking, the gun was shaking, the moment came where the monster was only two feet from her.
She shot three times. India and Justin lowered their heads hiding from shrapnel or ricocheted bullets.
Once the smoke cleared Julia saw the vampire still standing without a wound to count.
Barnabas lunged at Julia, he grabbed her arm and yanked her back close to him. She screamed and tried to pull away, stretching her neck in the process: a disastrous mistake.
Barnabas, thirsty for the nectar in her veins, furious with his exposure, hissed and opened his mouth showing the daggers that were his teeth. He sunk his mouth into her neck and bit into her flesh. She screamed, blood oozed out of her neck and down his lips and onto their clothes. Then, Julia in complete shock of what she had just seen and felt, rolled her eyes back and fainted there on the first step on the staircase to the basement.
****
At a quiet corner booth table at the Collinsport Inn cafe, under an orange light Beau's psychic sister Noelle Cielvert sat with an empty dinner plate and a cup of piping hot coffee. She pulled the quaint curtains back from her booth window and watched as the storm blew across outside in strong gusts of wind and rain. She shivered at the notion of being out in the elements.
She went into her wool jacket pocket and pulled out a deck of her Tarot cards. She hated them. She wished she didn't know how to read them, but something in the air, something in the wind, something in the storm told her she needed to let go of her fears of her powers and read them that night.
She pushed her plate and coffee cup to the other side of her table and shuffled her cards then placed them down in a stack. She cut the stack and removed four cards facing them down in a line.
One by one she flipped the cards:
THE QUEEN OF CUPS | THE VAGABOND CHILD
THE DARK LOVE | THE NEW MOON
"What do they say?" A woman said standing next to the table.
It was Maggie Evans, pouring Noelle a fresh cup of coffee. Maggie was smiling, entertained by the whole idea of the magic, the supernatural and the tarot card.
But Noelle was in no happy mood. The cards she pulled told her everything was about to change. And not for the good. Not in the slightest.
"Well? Noelle? What do they say?" Maggie asked again. Noelle remained silent. "Hon--are you ok??"
Noelle flipped the cards back and cut the other half of the deck then flipped over one card.
THE WOUNDED HEART
Noelle flipped the card back face down. She knew what the combination of those cards meant. It was a horrible sight. A terrible fate. For someone. For everyone.
"I think I need......." Noelle said as she stood up putting one hand on the booth's table and as she got her footing, her eyes rolled back into her head and she fainted.
"OH!! OH MY GOD! Noelle? Honey?? Are you Ok? Honey????" Maggie said gently slapping Noelle's cheek as the other guests gasped of the shocking sight.
Noelle opened her eyes and looked up at Maggie's face and in a faint, labored voice warned:
"run away.....run....far away."
