Series 13/Chapter 5: OCTOGENARIAN

Carolyn looking at her mother's portrait 

On a cool autumn late afternoon the wind off the Atlantic sea filled the trees that surrounded the great house on Widow's Hill. The first floor windows were all a glow with subtle burning yellow lights as a black sedan with blacked out windows slowly made it's way up the pebbled drive way that ended in a half circle around a bubbling fountain outside the mansion's front door.

A chauffeur dressed in all black jumped out of the front seat and rushed to the car's rear door removed his cap just before opened it. A dainty and perfect leg slowly swung out as the anchor for the tiny body of Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne fresh from the Bangor Airport off her flight from her home in London.

She was alone, her husband Jack remained at home with their 9 month old daughter Alexandra.

Carolyn sighed as she looked up at the mansion's turret that reflected in her blacked sunglasses. The tower was the center piece of the mansion, the welcoming crown jewel that sat just over the front entrance. Carolyn  removed her dark sun glasses and revealed her ice blue eyes that filled with emotion over her return. She was home. Against all her better judgement she was home. 

But today was her mother Elizabeth's 80th birthday. She had to be here.

As the chauffeur grabbed hold of Carolyn's luggage she  quickly ushered him into the house, which she still had a key to. This was her home after all, a place where she lived most of her life. A place that help not only a family history but a legacy of secrets, terrors and horrors that filled her mind just as she pushed the door open and walked over the threshold and into the foyer with its familiar stonework walls, centuries old tapestries and iconic ebony statues with their freshly dusted marble stands.

It smelled the same. She hadn't been in the mansion in years. Since the 1980s. Since her marriage. Since the birth of her daughter, her second child. It was the smell of her family. Of coffee, and roses, and soot from the giant fireplace in the drawing room.

Carolyn, her bags now tucked away in a corner near the staircase, stood in the drawing room staring up at the painting of her mother that had been placed there by David just to please Carolyn. It was gorgeous. It was a painted Elizabeth in her prime. 

"It's not a Sam Evans." Carolyn joked to herself remembering Collinsport's most famous local artist. 

"But it'll do, won't it?" David said doorway of the drawing room.

"David!!!" Carolyn said, her face lighting up at the sight of her grown up cousin, now a handsome strong man.

They hugged, a hug so tight that she could feel his heartbeat. She missed him. A lot.

"So tell me, how are things? Is mother ready for her party?" Carolyn asked as the much taller David released her from his grasp. 

"Well, you know how Aunt Elizabeth is, really, she's not too keen on celebrating anything but I've made sure she understands just how important her 80th birthday is. Most of our family didn't get to see this age. That's a big deal!" David explained.

"Most of our family....huh....most of our family reached 80 and beyond. And Beyond. And Beyond. And Beyond!" Carolyn joked referring to ever lasting life of some of their family members. 

"We don't need to mention that when we go up there to see your mom in her bedroom. Or at the party. Especially around Mrs. Johnson. You know how she gets.” David warred to Carolyn's bad-girl smirk.

“Oh!!! Mrs. Johnson??“ Carolyn said in hearty laugh. “She’s coming?” She asked  genuinely happy to hear the name of the family’s long time and retired housekeeper.

“She is. Kim had a chauffeur pick her up at the train-station. So.... Ready to go up & see your mom?" Asked David, reaching for her hand to take her up to see Elizabeth.

"As I'll ever be." 

The two cousins who had been through a world of nightmares throughout their lives walked hand in hand through the foyer. Carolyn looked to her right and saw that Barnabas' painting was still placed in the corner by the front door. She took a gulp of air and looked away, as if it pained her to even give it a long glance. David walked her up the stairs and through the long hall. At first Carolyn paused and tried to pull him in a different direction, down another hall way that led to where she remembered Elizabeth's room was.

"No she's over here now." David corrected her.

Carolyn was surprised. Elizabeth's current bed room was down a private hallway that lead to an atrium, a private sitting room that opened up into a large room that in Carolyn's time used to be the home's chapel. 

Just before they entered the chapel, or Elizabeth's room, Carolyn whispered "You put her in the chapel?"

David whispered back an explanation:  "She insisted on the change of rooms years ago. She likes it better in here. We don't use it as a chapel anymore. She said she felt safer in here." 

As David opened the door to Elizabeth's room, Carolyn peeked in from around his broad shoulders. The room was dimly lit, almost purely by candles. It still had many of the Gothic style religious paintings that adorned the walls. It had been designed as a family Chapel centuries ago, a place for the family to go to to find solace, prayer and meditation. Throughout the chaos of their lives, however, it was seldom used with the exception for many visits by Abigail Collins in the 1800s.

As they walked in, Elizabeth was sitting up in bed reading a book. Her eyes slowly turned upwards and saw her beautiful daughter standing before her. The family matriarch slowly turned her head and squinted her eyes as if she did not believe what she was seeing. The child she loved more than anything in the world, a child that was now grown and beautiful and a mother (again) herself had returned to see her.

"What is this?" Elizabeth said softly as she dropped the book down on her lap.

"You're still in bed? Now that's not the mother I knew!" Carolyn said with a sweet grin as she walked over and gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. "How are you mother?"

"What is this?" Elizabeth asked again. Staring deep into Carolyn's eyes.

"Its....a surprise Aunt Elizabeth. Carolyn's come home. She's here to celebrate your birthday with us." David explained.

"...surprise...Carolyn? Carolyn!! OH CAROLYN!" Elizabeth's mind quickly caught up to who was in front of her and reach out and held on to her daughter tightly as if she didn't want to let her go. Like a child who's was presented with their favorite toy. She wanted to never part from Carolyn again. The warmth in her heart spread to all over her body. This was a surprise indeed.

"Are you happy to see me mother?"

"Yes, I am darling so happy. Oh, I've been waiting for you to come home for so long. I have so much to tell you, so much to explain to you, and so much I need for you to hear. Oh Carolyn....I'm so happy to see your face again." Elizabeth said with tears in her eyes.

"Well we'll have plenty of time to catch up." Carolyn replied

"No, I have to tell you something right now. It's as if you knew exactly when to come and see me. See?" Elizabeth said as she reopened the book that she had in her lap.

It wasn't just any book. It was a journal. A journal Elizabeth had been keeping for years. She was carefully reading it over as David and Carolyn entered to see her. 

"I've been writing these. They're my dreams. I've been chronicling my dreams Carolyn, and I need you to read them. Something...something is happening. Look, they're all connected. I've written these out and the scenes in my dreams seem to be coming true....look....read them Carolyn, read them!" Elizabeth said to Carolyn's disappointment. 

"Mother, now, I didn't come home so that you could start with all this again. You know how it bothers me so. It's your birthday, can't we go down into the screen room and enjoy some tea and just have a lovely evening?" Carolyn said, already dreading what nightmares were written in that book.

"Aunt Liz, you never mentioned any dreams you were having." David said.

"I have them here. In this book. Carolyn please read it. You must protect us. I feel ....I feel that icy cold feeling, you know what I mean. Don't you? You remember that feeling. You used to feel it too. You did. You would always tell me it was like the sea, the ice cold breath of the sea. Well, I feel it now. And I've written about it in these pages. Death. It's death Carolyn!" Elizabeth said holding on to Carolyn's hand tightly. 

Carolyn was getting upset. She didn't want to come home and see her mother in this state. A state of fright, terrorized by her own mind and dreams that she could not control. This was exactly the type of situation Carolyn wanted to avoid and was safe from when she was in London. The family curse of madness and darkness. It was clearly still alive and well within the walls of Collinwood. 

Carolyn, sitting on Elizabeth's bed took the book and looked over at David as if to show him she needed help. 

"Alright, Aunt Liz, we'll read over the book and see what we can do about it ok? I'll call in Noelle so that she can get you ready for your evening walk before your birthday dinner." David said.

"Yes. Noelle. Yes. Ok. But please read it." Liz said in a voice that seemed to be fading.

Carolyn and David walked over together to the bedroom door. She grabbed his arm and pulled him around so that they were facing each other.

"Who is Noelle?" Carolyn demanded to know.

"Noelle...." David repeated in a tone of voice sounding like he couldn’t believe she didn’t remember. He then saw Carolyn's eyes filling with panic over the name that meant much more to her than she was leading on. "You remember her don't you? She's Beau's sister." 

Carolyn of course remembered Noelle, and especially Beau. Noelle and Carolyn went to school together. In 1966, Carolyn dated Beau and even became pregnant with his son, which she gave up for adoption in Europe, the same child that Noelle secretly adopted and raised, the same child who lived and grew up at the Old house for years.

"Why did you hire her? Why wasn't I told about that?" Carolyn said angrily.

David didn't know what to tell her. The truth of why he decided to hire Noelle when she came in for an interview years ago for the Caretaker job was not going to come out of his lips.

On the day, in 1985 Noelle came in to interview for the job, she introduced herself, she even mentioned that she and her brother, whom she stated had gone missing years before, were friends with Carolyn. David knew who Beau was. He remembered Beau. He remembered that Beau, investigating the disappearance of Arabella Stoddard in 1966 snuck into the mansion late one night and David, then 10, found him. Shot him. Killed Him. Beau was dead. David knew it. Noelle suspected it.

David's private guilt for murdering Noelle's brother in cold blood when he was just 10 and his father Roger hiding the body somewhere, within the catacombs of Collinwood, ate at him over his lifetime and hiring Noelle seemed like the only way he could make up for it. At least, secretly.

"I just....she needed work. She's very good with your mother. I promise you if I thought anything bad would happen in Noelle's care I wouldn't ever have hired her." David assured.

"You're lying." His cousin muttered. "I can tell when you're lying. I can always tell. What happened? Why is she here?"

David was clearly hiding something. Carolyn felt it in her bones. He began to sweat and squirm in front of her as if the heat of 10,000 suns were baking his skin.

"I....I just...." he began before Noelle walked into the atrium that attached to Elizabeth's bedroom.

The three suddenly all met eyes. Uncomfortable silence followed, but Carolyn was quick to quell the cold feelings.

"Noelle! Honey, it's so good to see you again. David was just explaining to me how wonderful you have been to my mother over the years. How can I ever thank you?" Carolyn said awkwardly.

Noelle smirked, the woman that gave up her nephew at birth was home. She could see Cameron's eyes in his mother's. There was a strange resemblance that she stupidly had not expected. But there it was. Her beloved nephew's eyes looking out from his birth mother's face.

"Welcome home Carolyn." Noelle said coldly. "Im going to get Mrs. Stoddard ready for our walk, is that ok?"

"Of course. Of course." David said allowing Noelle to enter the bedroom.

As the door closed, Carolyn was clearly frustrated with the choices David had made while she was away from Collinsport, but now it was out of her hands. She pulled the book from David's hand, the journal of Elizabeth's dreams. She huffed in annoyance with her cousin whom she could tell was hiding something and rolled her eyes at him. She opened the black leather bound book of dreams and skimmed through the pages. One page, dated the night before struck out to Carolyn. Over and over, in repetitive writing, in the same style of writing, line after line after line for two whole pages read:

DEAD VIC. DEAD VIC. DEAD VIC. DEAD VIC.

Carolyn paused. It was strange. She turned it around and show David.

"VIC?" David read. "Vicky?" He added in a hushed and worried voice.

Carolyn took one more look at the open book. She then quickly shut the it and turned towards the dim lamp sitting in the corner of the atrium. The orange light reflected on her aged and yet perfect face like the light of the setting sun just outside the walls of the great mansion.

This is what she was afraid of. This is what she was worried about when returning home after 15 years away.

"God." Carolyn replied. "What are we in for now?"

Carolyn Arrives at Collinwood

****

The orange light from the sun filtered through a shell of purple clouds above the village came down on the land of Collinwood. Evangeline, the witch and daughter of the legendary Barnabas and Angelique and who had been posing as a Governess to David Collins' 5 year old son Caleb,. and Caleb himself were returning to the mansion from a small walk together through the large ivy hedge garden on the grounds of Collinwood.

The wind was picking up now and as the cold of the autumn breeze kissed and caressed their skin a secret set of eyes lurked in the shadows of the trees just beyond the garden and away from Evangeline's view.

Evangeline, The governess, who was given the name Claudia by nuns Barnabas left her with and raised her back in time, knelt down to adjust a scarf around the little boy's neck that had slipped and unraveled while on their walk.

As she did so, she could feel cold eyes. Deep dark cold eyes. She knew she was being watched. She stood up and looked towards the shadowy forest in the distance. She could feel the eyes staring at her now, it gaze was growing more and more intense. And as a wild animal in the woods howled a bloodcurdling moan she grasped on to Caleb's hand and tightened her grip. The wind picked up and flicked her beautiful golden brown curls, and as she turned to face the wind she saw in the distance The Old House.

The Old House. The symbol of her father. The father she wanted revenge over. The father, Barnabas, who took her from her birth in 1971 and traveled back in time and abandoned her in an orphanage with nuns.

Was it him? Was it his eyes she could feel staring at her from the beyond? Was it his deathly cold gaze finally returning home to reunite with the daughter he abandoned and who's mother he killed after so many years a battling her?

"Can we go home now? I'm cold." Little Caleb said, pulling on her tail of his governess' coat.

"Of course." Evangeline said suddenly snapping out of her own dazed moment from the cold wind and the sense of the eyes.

But they were not yet alone. The pair of cold eyes in the shadows had not left them and were still staring, and suddenly the shadow connected to the eyes leaped out from it's encasement withing the shade of the trees around them and grabbed hold of Evangeline.

It was like the every shadow around them came alive and sprouted arms and a head and had two eyes. It was the power of the vampire. It was the power of Justin Patterson. He knew he could not attack his new enemy the witch Evangeline with his own body, he had to send out his own soul, his darkened shadow and attack her, take her and bring her to his layer in the old house.

Justin's black hearted-shadow separated Evangeline's hand from Caleb's and surrounded her whole body to the point where she felt like she was now inside of a black space, but a black space that was transparent and that she could see out of but not escape. She put her hands up against the black mist like walls that were dragging her away and pounded on it as if she were breaking down a door, but the mist was impenetrable.

Justin made it so.

Evangeline tried to scream but her voice was silence.

As she was taken away, she could see little Caleb standing alone in the middle of the yard. His eyes were like giant white saucers staring out in shock of what had happened to his nanny in front of his very own eyes. And as the wind continued to blow and pull at Caleb's scarf again the blob of shadows that Justin sent to get Evangeline dragged her away into the woods that surrounded the old house.

Caleb stood there. Alone. In the cold. Unsure of what to do next.

Evangeline and Caleb were not the only two out to absorb the fresh sea air before night fall. Noelle and Elizabeth too had been walking the land around the main mansion. 

As Mistress and caretaker made their final lap around a long cement side walk that went the circumference of Collinwood and dipped into an ever-green ivy hedges where they'd meaner among the large limestone statues of various Greek and Roman goddess.

As Noelle slowly chugged along Elizabeth like a tug boat in the bay pulling away a large freight ship, arm-in-arm, the little boy stood dead center of the garden where is governess had left him.

Liz, dressed in a long black dress with long sleeves that went down to the back of her and and looped around her middle finger with a find satin ribbon, blinked hard trying to make sense of what it was she was seeing in front of her. 

"A boy." Liz said softly to her caretaker Noelle who looked up from her mistress who was pointing out into the oncoming fog. 

Noelle tilted her head confused. "Is...it Caleb? CALEB!" She shouted.

The little boy, who had his back turned to the women, quickly turned at hearing his name and b-lined towards his great-aunt Elizabeth; his scarf blew in the wind and then untangled from around his neck and fell to the moist lawn below his feet.

"What are you doing out here alone? It's getting dark." Noelle scolded. "Where's Vangie?" She added using Calbe's nick name of "Vangie' for Evangeline, his missing governess.

"Vangie went with them. She's gone." The shaking boy said.

Elizabeth removed the long, over-sized, black shall that was wrapped around her neck and shoulders and placed it maternally around the little boy's body to warm him then ran her perfectly aged hands up and down his little arms.

"Who did she go with?" Elizabeth asked, as she looked deep into Caleb's eyes, her voice soft and worried. 

Caleb, a boy of 5 couldn't articulate what had seen. All he knew was that he saw eyes. Blackness. And something come from the shadows from the direction of the Old House and take Evangeline. 

"It was coming and it got her and she tried to come back to me but it took her. Aunt Liz, it just took her away and I was scared and just could not move. It took her away. I stayed...to wait for her." the little boy said, his eyes filling with tears.

"A person?" Liz asked.

"A person." The boy said. "I think. I think a person. Yes!" 

"What did the person look like?" Noelle asked. "Which way did they go?" 

Caleb's body stiffened. His facial expression turned cold, as cold as the wind blowing through their hair and the shall and the black skirt of Elizabeth's dress. He slowly made an about-face and lifted his finger in the direction the black mass of shadows that engulfed Evangeline and pointed.

"There." he replied simply with his finger stretched out to the Old House.

Noelle and Elizabeth followed his finger with their eyes and both had a visceral reaction to what they saw. The grand, glaring imagine of the top of the Old House's colonnade peering over the tops of the trees in the distance beyond the hedge garden. 

To Elizabeth, that house, the discrption of shadows and darkness only meant one person. To her the matriach of the family it meant Barnabas. It would always mean Barnabas. It would forever mean Barnabas. She covered her mouth and gasped and thought of all the people that man took, and killed. For good or for bad. For his future and for theirs. It was a scar. A deep wound on her heart and soul. 

"Could it be? Could it be?" She said under her breath as the last kiss of sunlight twinkled in the giant canary diamond ring around her finger. 

But Noelle knew better. She knew that there was something lurking at the old house, something just as dangerous and hungry as Barnabas Collins once was; Elizabeth's fears were not misjudging the situation, just misplaced on who she should really fear. Not the man form  her past...but a man that was in her present and living with her own caretaker.

"Mrs. Stoddard, do you think you can make it inside with Caleb on your own so that I check and see what's out there?" Noelle asked knowing she could handle Justin in whatever form she found him in.

"Absolutely not! You can't go out there on your own, I forbid it! It's too dangerous Noelle." Liz replied, pulling Caleb into her body, holding him tightly for warmth.

"I'll be alright. I promise." Noelle replied handing Liz her cane. "Now please go back inside I'll take care of it. I'll take care of everything." 

Elizabeth looked at her caretaker sideways. It was an odd way of saying things but she pulled on Caleb's hand and began the short walk back into the mansion.

And as the two fell into the thick fog and vanished, Noelle turned to the old house....

"What in hell have you done now Justin.' She said to herself.  "What in hell have done?"

Evangeline is absorbed into Justin's dark mist

****

Elizabeth Turns 80

As the evening progressed an army of caterers and florists filled the mansion's dining room setting up for Elizabeth's birthday party. There were 3 giant golden candelabras in the center of the long table that extended almost from wall to wall filtering a glowing light that reflected off of the golden wall paper of the dining room. Each china plate a family heirloom that had been passed down from generation to generation and would one day be Carolyn's, who was sitting next to the head of the table where her mother would soon be seated.

Kimberly entered the room in a beautiful golden dress with a large white flower at her shoulder arm-in-arm with a special guest. The guests, a small framed woman with white hair and wrinkly skin that she wore with a badge of honor, smiled an engrossing grin that lit up the dining room just as bright as the candelabras. 

"MRS. JOHNSON!!!" Carolyn yelped as she quickly rushed over to the mansions former house keeper.

"Oh my! What a welcome! What a welcome." Mrs. Johnson replied.

"You look sensational!' David said as he too entered the room.

"Still full of tall tales, eh David? Somethings never change.” The old maid winked.  “What is all that?" Mrs. Johnson asked looking over at the table full of food.

"Oh we had it catered. Is there something else you might like?" Kimberly asked.

"I came all the way from Boston, I could eat a horse! Whatever it is, it's better than what I had on that train." Mrs. Johnson said as she swished over to the table to take her seat. 

As Carolyn, David and Kimberly were making small talk with Mrs. Johnson Elizabeth entered with Caleb from their separate but equally strange walks out doors.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" The guest and younger Collins family members exclaimed as Elizabeth and the boy walked in.

Elizabeth, her face concerned about what Caleb had said to her and Noelle outside only gave a slight smile and pointed in the direction of Caleb's seat next to his father. The boy obediently follows her instructions and quickly sat next to David.  

"Uhh...Where's Noelle?" David asked.

"She had to rush off to the old house." Elizabeth replied with a lifted brow.

"And Evangeline?" Kim asked as she helped little Caleb into his booster seat so that his bright little face could see over the large table at the rest of his family.

"Ghosts took her." Caleb said as he reached for a dinner roll.

"Ghosts? What is he talking about?" Carolyn asked.

"Ghosts took her." Caleb repeated. "Took her away."

"Ha!!! You see? Some things never change!" Mrs. Johnson giggled as she nibbled on a corner of bread.

"OH! Mrs. Johnson!!” Elizabeth shouted suddenly noticing her old housekeeper. “My goodness, it's been so long! You came! You actually came. You said you'd never come to Collinsport again after Roger died." Liz said as she turned and noticed a guest she hadn't seen in decades. "You're right, some things never change." Liz added.

"But they should! Roger's death was the last Collins funeral I wanted to see! You all make make a note to that!" Mrs. Johnson said as David looked down at his plate thinking of his late father's death.

"We all miss Uncle Roger." Carolyn said of her Uncle who died in 1988 of a heart attack in his sleep. She then looked over at David and grabbed his hand and squeezed. They were cousins, but at the same time in their older age had become best friends. 

Not to Kim's amusement. 

"I came all the way here from Boston and realized Collinsport hasn't seen the sun in months. Look around, the clouds have covered this place like a blanket in the winter time. It's no wonder ghosts took this new governess. That's what happens here. Governesses just ....seem to vanish." Mrs Johnson said as she raised her wine glass.

"The ghost ate her. Ate her up!" Caleb replied. 

"Mother what is Caleb talking about?" Carolyn asked again.

Elizabeth wasn't sure how to answer. The little boy had mentioned to her the whole way back into the house from outside about the dark blob, the ghostly spirit that came and took Evangeline right in front of his little eyes. The dark spririt that Justin sent. Justin, the vampire secretly living at the Old House that Noelle had been hiding since 1966.

"I don't quite know what happened, but she's gone. She's vanished into thin air. I knew this would happen. I dream these things. I've been dreaming these things for years and years." Liz said as the ghostly candle light reflected in her 80 year old eyes. “I think.... I think he’s returned.” She added. 

Two caterers off to the side looked at each other confused. Worried even. They were locals. They knew the stories. They could only imagine who the HE was.

“Mother.....don’t.” Carolyn warned.

“You can feel him too can’t you Carolyn... you can feel it just like I can. It’s in your blood. It’s how we have always been. When he returns we feel it like the birds feel the winter coming and migrate on. Except...” Elizabeth said just before she paused to stare into the light of a flickering candle.

The light danced in Elizabeth’s grey eyes like two little suns as she thought about the HE in her mind. The HE that brought her so much terror in her dreams for years and years.

Barnabas.

“You’re the only one who left like those birds, Carolyn. Left us all behind.” Elizabeth finished.

“Mother,” Carolyn began trying to get back on track about the missing nanny. “Where did you last see Evangeline?”

“The ghosts took her!!!!” Caleb shouted again. Elizabeth looked over at him and smirked as if to say listen to the boy.

"This is ridiculous!” Kimberly suddenly broken in. “There are no ghosts!!!” 

“Ha!” Mrs. Johnson blurted out as they all looked over at her.

David shook his head and slammed down his glass making a loud bang in the loud oak wood. 

“Enough!” He shouted. “How could Evangeline just up and leave like this without us knowing or her even telling us that she wanted to go. This makes no sense." David said in a dissenting tone. "I mean he's 5 years old what does he know of ghosts?"

"It only took you 5 more years to recognize what you had always seen all your life, David. Perhaps your boy is quicker." Elizabeth shot back reminiscing on David's own childhood experience with the ghosts of Collinwood.

"Aunt Liz!" David said, outside showing shock at her wicked sense of humor but inside actually loving every minute of it.

"I don't want to hear any more of this." Carolyn insisted. Her fury over ghost talk showing all over her face as the soup was being served. "Evangeline maybe decided to take a nap, maybe she's upstairs and no one went to check on her." She added.

"She was outside with Caleb on a walk." Kim added to the conversation. Her heart beating a mile a minute.

"She's not gone." Carolyn insisted. 

"She went away. She went away." Caleb insisted finally getting a hold of the dinner roll and breaking it in half to dunk into the soup. 

"Caleb!" Kim shouted. 

"Let him speak. He's speaking the truth. Noelle and I saw him, alone, in the hedge garden. Evangeline wouldn't have left him alone that way if she wasn't taken." Liz said, sipping her own glob of soup and winking at the boy.

"Then we should call the police. If she's really been taken right off the grounds of our house then we have to call the police." David insisted, unsure why everyone was seeming to be so calm.

"Police have never been able to find anyone who has ever gone missing off the grounds of Collinwood David. You know that better than anyone else here. She's gone. Something took her. Caleb saw. Whatever Caleb saw won't be found by the police." Elizabeth added.

"Alright I don’t want to hear anymore. There is an obvious explanation about why Evangeline is gone and I don't want to hear anymore about this ghost talk. You all probably scared her off. I mean ghosts and....whatever else. This house isn't exactly a place that breeds bright and cheery and with you lot always talking about god knows what I'm sure she had just had enough." Carolyn replied silencing the entire table. 

No one knew what to do. They all knew the truth, the Liz perhaps was correct. They had all seen it before. The vanishings. The disappearances. The quick comings and goings. Sometimes they'd come back. Sometimes they wouldn't but one things was sure, the Collinsport Police could never solve these things. Even though they tried. 

The next course in the birthday dinner was now being served in an awkward silence. Carolyn could tell there was a bit of strain. 

"She's going to come back....." Carolyn suddenly said as everyone looked up from their plates. "If she wants to get paid."

Later that night, after one of the most bizarre dinner's the family has ever experienced, Mrs. Johnson had been taken back home to her sister’s home in Boston by one of the Chauffeurs. She had been offered a room in the mansion for the night, but true to form, she was happy to deny the room. She'd rather drive 3 hours south home, than stay one more night in that house. 

For her part, Carolyn sat in her old bedroom stating at herself in the mirror as she brushed her hair. She thought about what Caleb had said. She brushed her hair. And thought about what her mother had said. Could it be him.... could the monster, the deep dark secret boogeyman of her family really have returned and taken the new governess? 

She stared into the mirror and at her own reflection. Her gaze was tight. Her eyes fixated on her own face. 

Suddenly the mirror cracked and knocked Carolyn out of her trans as tears of terror fell from eyes. She knew her mother was right, there was something afoot. There was a power, an energy---it was there. It was alive, it was awake.

But Barnabas it was not. The family just didn't know it yet. 

Kimberly crept out of Caleb's bedroom after putting him to sleep with no sign of Evangeline. She peeked back into his room and watched the little spinning nightlight lantern shooting a nautical scene on the walls of the boy's room of ships and sea creatures. 

He was fast asleep. It was very typical of a Collins child. He had witnessed a terrible event just hours before but somehow, he felt fine enough to knock out and sleep without any fear. The natural ability of any Collins family member to be able to lock away their fears of things things that went bump-in the night and carry on with their lives was almost like a fragment of DNA that was passed down from generation to generation.

Kimberly, however, did not have this trait. She was scared out of her mind.

David's cheating wife quickly left her son's doorway and rushed down the hall and passed the governess' quarters where Evangeline had been sleeping. It was empty as she passed and turned the corner of the hallway and flew down the main stairwell and scurried over to the phone that was in the foyer on a large cherry-wood table. 

She looked around. The proverbial coast was clear....there was no one in the drawing room, no one in the adjoining study. She quickly picked up the phone and dialed her lover Victor's house. 

"What is it?" Victor said as he quickly answered his phone after just one ring.

"The governess is missing." Kimberly said in a hushed voice. "She's just gone. No one knows where she went. All of her things are still here Victor. She just...vanished! Caleb was out with her and he says ghosts took her. GHOSTS!"

Victor had been waiting for this. He knew at some point something strange would happen that would bring him into the fold and start the process he had been urging Kim to help him with. To Victor, Evangeline was just another victim of this evil family's connection with the darkness of the other side. It was the soul purpose of the OTH.

"So what does this tell you? Huh? I told you. It's time to start this. The Chancellor of our

Organization has had words with me about how we are late to the game and we need to start this process Kimberly. With Carolyn now there, we need to take them out. All of them. Do you hear me? We have to take them out." Victor said.

"But what do I do?" Kim said, her brainwashing securely in place.

"Kill them. Start it. Kill them all. I'll help. I'll help you with all of this. Evangeline's life is gone, I know it. They're responsible. Who else would have summoned things from the depths of hell to take her? WHO?" Victor said continuing his cold brainwashing of the woman who was pregnant with his child.

"Ok...Ok....I'll ....do it. I'll do it with your help." Kimberly said as Victor smiled an evil grin on the other side of the line.

"Good girl. We'll start tomorrow once I tell Chancellor Devlin."

Kimberly did not reply. She hung up the phone and looked around again. No one was in the foyer with her. Just the dark corners of the room and the sleepy eyes of the paintings on the wall.

In the shadows on the landing just above the staircase was Carolyn, freshly startled from her shattered mirror. Unlike little Caleb, Carolyn Couldn’t sleep. And as she stood in a wide-awake silence above the staircase listening to Kim's conversation she learned enough to realize her cousin David’s wife was not exactly who she pretended to be.