Series 13/Chapter 3: DAGGERS TO THE HEART

Kimberly and Elizabeth

What we have seen and what we have overcome in our pasts linger in our minds for years and years. Our history is what makes us, the obstacles we have personally overcome also become part of our DNA and create us just as the color of our eyes and the color of our hair. 

These trials and tribulations also act as a protection force against allowing the same evils and horror to happen over and over again, but none of this matters if we do not acknowledge our pasts and pay heed to the red flags that fly in our faces. 

Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard, now approaching her 80's was such a person. She saw it all. She saw the darkness and the shadows from every angle of her life. She recognized when things seemed to be ...off. And she, even in her old age, saw something "off" with the new governess for David's 5 year old son Caleb: Evangeline. 

In a small play room who's walls were built in a half circle and made up of 9 foot tall windows that allowed in the glowing gloom of the late afternoon light, Evangeline played on the floor with the child Caleb. They built small block castles and ran around the room, he as a dragon she as a damsel in distress and when then dragon got angry enough, he'd knock down the block castle and the damsel, Evangeline, would pretend to pass out on the floor in fear bringing Caleb to fits of little boy laughter at her silly feigned fear. 

On the wall of this play room, several large paintings of former Collins family members stared down at the scene of the dragon and the damsel. One such parting was of Naomi Collins, the original mistress of Collinwood. The portrait was a close up of the woman sitting in a white gown with large white rose corsage attached to her dress near the center of the painting. He hair was a dark brown in delicate curls painted with ease, every brush stroke evident and perfect. Her face soft and round, a calm smile peeking in the corners of her pink lips. 

But there were strange things about her eyes. Her eyes seemed alive. Her eyes seemed to look down with real movement. They'd follow Evangeline as she'd get up from the floor after her pretend fainting. Naomi's eyes would follow little Caleb as he climbed on the furniture and changed from dragon to knight and continue his mock pillaging of medieval village ad Evangeline changed from damsel to royal queen.

Namoi's eyes looked real. They looked real because they were real.

On the other side of the painting, behind a small passage way secret to those in the play room, stood the old Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard watching her great-nephew Caleb like a mother hawk protecting her chick from the stranger Evangeline. Elizabeth did not trust the woman. She did not like the woman. And she saw her as some sort of usurper for her own favorite Governess, and daughter Victoria. 

It was true, that in fact, Elizabeth resented Evangeline in many ways and saw her as some sort of creature that had come from god knows where ready to eat little Caleb alive. Liz had seen it all before. And she would rather die protecting Caleb than allow whom ever this woman was take over her family. 

As Elizabeth stared through the paintings eyes she watched and watched until she felt safe enough to leave the secret wall passage and go back into her own room that was just adjoining, then came the moment. Kimberly, Caleb's mother and David's wife entered calling for the little boy to run off and have his dinner.

"I'll take it from here honey, thank you." the 7 month pregnant Kimberly said to the governess releasing her from duty. 

"Yes ma'am. Caleb, wash up for dinner and I'll see you for story time." Evangeline told the boy with a wink. 

Kimberly smiled and looked up at Naomi's painting and noticed the eyes switch from gray to nothing to then painted Green. Someone was watching. Seeing the paintings eyes switch like this shocked her at first but then realized who it was. Elizabeth. 

Kimberly rolled her eyes and grabbed the little boy's hand and marched herself into the other room that shared the wall with the painting where she found Elizabeth casually sitting on an over-stuffed sofa reading a book. She was dressed for dinner. A lacy and silk black gown dripping in pearls and diamonds. Ever the grand-dame of Collinwood.

"Elizabeth, really!?" Kimberly shouted as she shooed little Caleb off to the dinner table down stairs. 

"Pardon?" the old matriarch replied, playing dumb.

"Spying on us? Is that really where this has come to?" Kim scoffed.

"I don't have the foggiest idea of what you're talking about Kimberly." Elizabeth answered with a snobbish lift of her nose. 

"We've talked about this before. I know you have some sort of weird on going vendettas about our governess but she is who we chose, I don't see why we would have had to go through you to choose her. Caleb is our son, not yours." Kimberly reflected.

"But this is my house." Elizabeth reminded. "You had no right bringing in a person I did not know into my house. This house, these walls, everything in it, is mine. Not yours." She continued. 

"You forget, David is a Collins too. He's lived here all his life. You can't just pretend he has no claim to anything here and has no right to do what is best for his child while he lives here. Caleb is Roger's grandson and I think that you holding this over Evangeline is wrong. She's a good girl, she's doing great with the boy." Kimberly said trying to soften the blow that Liz was no longer truly the ruler of the manor. 

Elizabeth took the book from her lap and carefully placed it next to her on the sofa and grabbed hold of her cane in her left hand and the sofa's arm with her right and slowly lifted her tired 80 year old body up so that she as now standing face to face with Kimberly. 

Liz had always been a tiny framed woman, but now at her age she seemed even smaller. Her tiny little body swollen by this dark gown and all her chunky jewels made her even smaller to the human eye, but her attitude, her voice still carried the size of a 6 foot tall woman. She made two small little scoots closer to Kim and gazed up at Kim's beautiful face. Liz's gray eyes squinted at her nephew's pregnant wife showing off a bit of her Collins family scorn. 

"I'm not dead yet. And I know what I heard. I know Evangeline is some sort of seer. I heard what she said to the boy and I don't trust it and I dont like it not one bit. I've seen that kind of behavior before and I can tell you right now it'll only bring in the darkness. I've had enough of that." Liz explained.

"What are you talking about? A seer?" Kim wondered with a sort of snarky grin showing she didn't believe Liz at all.

"She said they were playing a game with some sort of imaginary woman. There's no such thing. Caleb was seeing someone. A real woman. Maybe real or was once real. I know it. I know it in my body. I feel it." Liz said, reminding Kim of Evangeline's fake explanation for Caleb seeing India the day she arrived.

"Oh god, seriously Elizabeth this is just insanity, you're old, you're losing your mind! I can tell..." Kim began before Elizabeth yelled back at her and David, passing in the hall on his way to dinner overheard and entered.

"Whats this? Whats going on?" he said stepping into the room, a full 35 year old handsome man with a perfect face and eyes deep and brown stunning Elizabeth. 

He stunned her every time he walked into a room. His handsome features were to Elizabeth the crown jewel of the family. She adored him. Felt safe around him and knew She could trust him. Liz took a deep breath and waddled over to him. 

"Your wife questions my integrity." Liz said point blank, embellishing the argument. 

"Oh! That is not what is happening here, David. Liz just..." Kim began before Liz interrupted. 

"We are not friends Kimberly, you may call me Mrs. Stoddard, I've told you that several times." She shot back.

"I...." Kim said before the shock of Liz's rudeness felt like a slap to her face.

"Aunt Elizabeth what's the matter now?" David said playacting to Liz's clear attempt at gaining his attention first.

"I don't know really. She came in here blasting me about my feelings about Evangeline again. You know I only want what's best for Caleb and I think that it would have been nice if I have been asked about bringing in someone in the house with my input." Liz explained and she settle both her hands on top of her cane like a knot of flesh and bones. 

"Is that it then? You wanted to be involved in the decision of Caleb's nanny?" David wondered.

"She was spying on them David." Kimberly replied to Liz turning to her with her mouth agape. 

"THAT'S ABSURD!" Liz shouted.

"I saw you! I saw the eyes of the painting change in the play room. She was watching from behind Naomi's painting. How can we keep good employees like Evangeline if we're just constantly watching then like that, from behind walls and painting and potted plants." Kim fired back. 

"This is absolutely ridiculous, how could I even do that? You're saying I would just go into the wall's crawl space and stand there for who knows how long? With my bad hips and cane? Yes Kim, darling, that makes perfect sense. I'm going down stairs for dinner. We're already late." Elizabeth said, in essence shutting down the conversation before she was further exposed.

"She was." Kim said again now that she and David were alone.

David only shook his head at his pregnant wife. "I wish you'd just go easy on her. She's gone through so much. She doesn't mean any harm." David said protecting his Aunt.

"David, are you kidding me right now? You constantly come to her defense. I am your wife. I am the one you should back when it comes to who we hire for OUR child, not that old battle ax!" Kim said with gritted teeth.

"Kim!" 

"Whatever...just ....look, you do what you want to do and pretend that she's not going senile all you want but I think you should call Carolyn up in England and tell her to come get her mother. She needs to get more involved." Kim demanded.

"I'm not kicking out my aunt and sending her on some flight to England just because she's a bit grumpy. Let's just go down stairs and have a nice dinner and let it be that. Can you do that?" David asked.

Kim was furious. This was not the first time Elizabeth had come for the person Kim had hired to watch her some. Evangeline was not the first governess, but Kim was tired of being on the outs when it came to Elizabeth. In fact, Kim was tired of all the Collins family all together. She had been for a very long time. Her marriage had been on ice for over a year and she and David had been as romantic with each other as two dead corpses in a frosty day. 

There was a lack of love coming from her. He couldn't see it yet, but it was growing inside of her every single day. The resentment.  The lack of any kind of enthusiasm for growing their relationship into a new sector even though she was pregnant. 

That was because Kim had met someone else.

Kim had met another man over a year ago. A man who had revolutionized her mind and her affections. He had observed her and told her of the true tales of the Collins family. He was a Collinsport son, born and raised. His name was Victor Reed, a great nephew of a man named Matthew Morgan.

Victor knew everything about the Collins family and how they terrorized and tormented his great-uncle Matthew many years ago who happened to be a loyalist to Elizabeth Collins. Victor blamed the Collins family for the deterioration and later death of Matthew and when Victor met Kimberly he knew this was his way to finally rid the world of the family that destroyed his own. 

Especially because of the training he had acquired. Special training. Trained to kill---a specific killer.

David went down to dinner and Kimberly lagged behind saying she had to wash up quickly before she went down. But she lied. 

She scurried into a side study and closed the door behind her. She waited to hear no sounds coming from the stairs adjacent to the study and quickly made her way to a fancy oak desk with several family photos. 

This was Roger's former study. Photos of David as a boy, Roger on the boats, Liz and Carolyn and a very large black and white photo of Roger's second wife, the deceased Cassandra Collins. 

Kim grabbed the phone desperate to hear a friendly voice before she had to go back down into the lion's den of Collins family members. 

"Hi....it's me." She said in a soft sexy voice as she twirled her golden hair around her finger.  "I don't know how much more I can take here. I really can't. I just want it all to end and to move on. If I get into one more stupid fight with that old bat Liz, I don't know what I'll do. When can we go away?" She added.

On the other line, the diabolical Victor Reed. The seeds of hate and disgust for the family he had been planting in her mind for over a year while they had an affair were finally growing fruit. Kim was now turning on her in-laws. She was ready.

"Are you sure you want to take this to the next level? I told you it will be very, very important and once we begin you can't stop the process. It's either in or out. Black and white." Victor said as he sat in a black chair surrounded in white cigarette smoke billowing from his mouth.

"Yes. I've been thinking long and hard about it, and I think I'm ready to go on with this. We'll be happier together, and...." She paused listening to herself realizing what she was doing, she was really deciding to leave her husband and allow the new man in her life to do whatever he wanted and take out the family...all of them. 

"and what?" Victor said, his blues eyes pricing the smoke around his chiseled and rugged face. 

"And I agree with you and the talk we had a few weeks back. I think I'm ready to take the next step." Kim said, her voice sounding shaky but affirming.

"Come over." Victor said, his eyes lighting up with Kim's words.

"After dinner." Kim said with a wide smile as she hung up the phone and caressed her pregnant t belly, the baby turning wildly in her womb, the baby being Victor's and not David's. 

Victor hung up his end and walked over to a desk and opened the drawer pulling out a black wooden box with a heart carved into the lid and a dagger going through the heart. He lifted the lid revealing many wooden crosses, three sharp wooden stakes and a pistol with silver bullets.

Victor, was a vampire hunter. And his eyes were fixed on the Collins family, ready to kill them all. 

****

Noelle and Justin at the Old House

At the old house the tension was rising like the cold icy sea below Widow's Hill. Noelle's suspicions of the involvement of her brother's death decades ago were boiling over now that she her nephew's relation to the Collins family had been revealed. He was still gone from the old house, still out in the village hurting from the lengthy lies he had been told all his life about who he was. 

And Noelle was no safer than she was when the secret was still hidden.

Justin Patterson, a vampire that had been living with Noelle in secret and who was ready to take on any challenge she set forth for him in exchange for her help in reuniting with the love of his life India do Arco was growing frustrated with the slow motion of the plan.

He would kill and destroy anyone Noelle wanted, as long as India was the prize at the end. India, for her part, had been in a time-traveling ping-pong match for almost a year. First she lived for months in 1966, and now she was in 1990---or so it seemed. Evangeline's discovery of India and later vanquishing her to where she would be born again in her correct time-line was still a unknown to both Noelle and Justin who was growing impatient.

Noelle was sorting through main and gathering items to take with her to the main house on the Collinwood estate where she would begin a night-shift work as care-taker to the soon-to-be 80 year old Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard. In the bag she placed the regular things she always needed: A change of clothes, medicines Elizabeth needed, books and magazines, and for Noelle's eyes only---her book of spells and a crystal container of salt. For protection.

"So you're off then?" Justin said from behind, his body obscured by the shadowy hallway.

Noelle turned and looked towards where she heard the voice and calmly nodded her head.

"Take me with you. Please." Justin said through the silhouette of the dark hallway he stood in. " India has to be there by now. Your spell to bring her to us has had to have worked. " He added.

"Look, I just have to be sure everything is on the right track before I start bringing you around. You have to understand that." Noelle said as she tolled some worthless mail back on to the desk. 

 Justin entered into the light of the room and looked down at the desk as she spoke noticing a letter from a Leopold Danvers, a nobody trying to get elected to some office up in Augusta. 

"You promised me if I helped you, I'd get India. I'm ready to help you and you said your spell brought her back. No where IS SHE?" Justin said again formally reminding the reluctant Noelle of her magical musings. 

"Justin I told you..." Noelle began before he interrupted.

"And I told you! This was our deal. You brought India to me with one of your spells and I would  kill whomever you thought was responsible for your brother Beau's death. I'll do it! I promised! Noelle, I can feel India, I can feel that she's here. Please...take me to the big house. She has to be there." Justin said.

"It's much more complicated than that, I still don't know who killed Beau. And ...and....I don't know if its even safe for you to be at the main house with me. How would I even explain who you were? People remember you Justin. Everyone thinks you went missing in 1966 and died. No one knows what really happened." Noelle explained.

"No, you promised me! You promised me India!" Justin said like a child told he couldn't go out to play.

"Justin stop..." Noelle began.

"NO! You listen to me, I told you, if you don't start to help complete this pact we've bound ourselves in I can't be held responsible for what happens to Cameron." Justin said with a cruel smirk.

"You've already exposed him to everything. I don't know how much more you can hurt him." Noelle replied attempting to throw Justin off Cameron's scent. 

Justin stepped closer to Noelle, so close she could feel the breath from his nose like a mad bull huffing and puffing into  her personal space. She stepped back and bumped into a large desk knocking things down in the process.

"I've lived years here with you in secret. I've run around this land after rabbits and raccoons and birds drinking their blood for years so that no one was unsafe. So that no one died and so that no one would look and worry that there was another Barnabas Collins lurking around. That was me protecting you, that was my part of the promise. Yours was to bring me India and then I would complete the promise by killing the one you believed killed Beau-----you're beginning to have seconds thoughts, Noelle, I can smell it on you. The doubt. The fear. It reeks. I won't warn you again of what I can do, of what I will do...and my target is on Cameron. Do you understand what I am saying Noelle? It's time ....no more waiting. Take me to India, take me to the main house and let's finish this. Once and for all." 

Noelle took a breath. Her heart was racing. It was true that she had promised Justin India in return for his assistance in destroying the Collins family member responsible for her beloved brother's death but she was no closer in discovering who that was than she had been in 1966. And what was worse was that she was now a trusted member of the household. She even cared for Elizabeth, literally and emotionally. They had become close.

Noelle's second thoughts were putting her in danger. And Justin was not forgiving their pact. Noelle was trapped in her own web.

"Fine. You're giving me no choice." Noelle said as she turned slowly to grab the bag she was filling. As she did, she saw a letter opening on the desk. It's silver and gold hand sparkled in the dim light of the room. Noelle, with the reflexes of a cat, grabbed the sharp letter opening and lunged at Justin who just as quickly grabbed her forearm. 

The letter opener was inches from Justin's chest. They struggled. They fell to the floor. Justin and Noelle, rolled around, the letter opener, headed for Justin's chest like a dagger to the heart. Justin's eyes turned red and his fangs came out. He hissed in anger and with what could only be described as super human strength picked Noelle up and tossed her to the ground. 

The letter opener flew from her hand and landed across the room.

"That was a mistake." Justin said as she slowly walked towards his cohort with his fangs out and mouth dry and begging for a taste of blood, Noelle's blood. 

"No, no ....Justin please. I'm sorry. You're right. You're right." Noelle said slowly scooting herself backwards and finding herself backed up against the room's wall.

Justin, his eyes still red like fire, squatted down and leaned in close. Noelle turned her head, closed her eyes as if she were awaiting the prick of a doctor's needle. Justin smelled around the exposed part of her neck, a large vein popping up from underneath her soft caramel colored skin. He could almost smell the blood, he could feel it rushing around in her body like a busy freeway of cars rushing, rushing, rushing --faster and faster as her heart-rate went up.

"Take me to Collinwood." Justin said softly as he got up from his crouched position allowing Noelle to live another day.

Noelle, opened her eyes and turned back towards the vampire her whole life was now entangled with. She shook her head in agreement and went over to her bag. She grabbed her coat and paused looking back at the fuming Justin who watched her every move like a half awaiting the perfect time to claw at his prey. She slowly turned and began her slow walk to the main house as Justin followed her.  

The two walked through the darkening woods that stood between the mansion of Collinwood where she'd begin her late night shift as Elizabeth's caretaker and the old house where Elizabeth was allowing Noelle and her nephew to live. The wind was cold and stinging on their skin. Noelle clutched tightly to her bag and Justin walked behind her slowly watching her step by step. 

Their skin, chilled to the touch as the mist from the sea lifted over the cliff side and became absorbed by their thirsty pours. Noelle was nervous. She had often thought about this moment, when her plan would begin to take shape to use Justin to get back at the family that took her brother and abandoned her nephew but it was still a scary moment. Revenge and cruelty and murder---were not in her wheel-house. 

As the two slowly made their way closer and closer to the main mansion, Evangeline was setting Caleb in for the night. His room was warm and sweet. Decorated in a nautical theme with model ships of the 18th century from all over the world. One in particular was a direct replica of the ship that brought the first Collins family members to the French Bay where Collinsport was founded. 

Evangeline, who's life was curated in a storm of lies and pain over her past, still felt a twinge of love for the young Caleb. He was an innocent of the family. He was a child. She too understood what it was like to live in a world where, as the child of two supernatural beings, things never made sense. Everything in life always seemed to be shrouded in mystery never clear and never cut and dry. 

Caleb's own life was similar. His parents were constantly at odds. He too lived in a storm. Evangeline could relate. 

As she finished reading the boy his favorite story and his eyes began to dip into a sweet unbothered sleep, she felt a beating in her chest. 

It was like a second heart. It was like drum beating in time with her own pulse. To her, the sign was clear, the message was coming to her. Something---or someone--was coming into her territory just like India had. Something of the supernatural. Something from the world where only the shadows ruled.

Evangeline, stood over Caleb and passed her hand over his face. Small tiny lights sprinkled from her hand falling to his face. He smiled and turned over in his bed. She was safe to traverse the house and search for what this beating sounds was. Caleb would not wake up during the night. 

David runs into Noelle 

Downstairs, Noelle let herself into the mansion with the key the family provided for her. She looked around and the foyer was dark, lit only by a side lamp on cherry wood table under the leering painting of Jeremiah Collins. She hung her coat up in on the coat-hanger and watched Justin stand in the doorway. His eyes reflected both a chilling coldness and the eager hopes that inside that mansion he'd fine the woman he'd been waiting for for so many years. India do Arco. 

But he would not find her. Noelle's spell worked, but Evangeline reverted India back awaiting to be born again to her mother. 

"I have to get to work and check on Mrs. Stoddard." Noelle said as Justin slowly made his way into the foyer under the dim light.

"What do I do? How do I find her?" Justin asked unsure of his own next steps.

Evangeline followed the beating in her chest, down the hall from Caleb's room and through a small corridor that lead to the landing of the main staircase beneath a large 17th century stain-glass window. 

Noelle turned to Justin as she begin her assent up the stairs, she wasn't sure how to answer. She wasn't sure of anything. Justin's attack on her had turned her off to him. She wanted to use him, use his power, and his strength but now she regretted not killing him when she discovered him in 1966. 

"Do whatever you want, Justin, whatever you want." Noelle said as she began to go up the stairs to Elizabeth's room.

Evangeline quickly vanished. Noelle walked towards her and stopped inches from where the invisible Evangeline was standing and felt a cold breeze tickle the exposed skin on her neck. A shiver ran up her spin. She could sense Evangeline's power. But shrugged it off. 

As Noelle passed into the hallway, she turned a corner that led into a private entrance to an atrium like room that was lit with various large antique lamps. A door to the bedroom on the other side of the wall began to slowly open. David Collins stepped out and was met with Noelle to his surprise.

"What are you doing here?" David said, his voice seemingly nervous at the site of his Aunt's caretaker. 

"I'm back, I start my shifts at night." Noelle said, she had always felt a strange energy from Roger Collins now adult son. 

"Oh. Right. Right. Uhh...aunt Liz is asleep already. But you can go in." David said, the guilt of what he secretly did to her brother Beau in 1966 and what his father helped cover up always at at his conscious when he looked at Noelle. She could feel it too. This energy from David, his guilty vibe, is what fed her suspicions on the Collins family most of all. 

"Thanks." Noelle replied as she watched David head back down from Elizabeth's private quarters. 

 Evangeline re-appeared on the landing above the foyer and watched as Justin looked around the foyer. He looked at the painting of Jeremiah. Then he turned and saw the one painting that stood out among all the other's: Barnabas Collins

And just as quick as he could think, Evangeline appeared in front of out him out of thin air and grabbed. Justin jumped back, his teeth extended and his eyes turned red. Evangeline gritted her teeth and clapped her hands. The sound echoed in Justin's ears like a ship's fog-horn in deep and blinding fog... then, suddenly in a split second flash of light the two creatures of the night were out of the foyer and in a blank space, a void, a place that was no place. Where they could be alone. Where they could be safe and uninterrupted. Where Evangeline could determine just who this mysterious man was that had caused the pounding drum like beat in her chest. 

"Who are you?" The cautious and suspicious witch said, awaiting the answer she had been expecting--something relating to her bastardized father Barnabas. 

Justin growled, he didn't know who this woman was, but being that his identity had to be kept secret because of his vampirism, he thought of the name on the envelope in Noelle's mail and hissed out an alias to the witch to protect his secret:

"Leopold." 

***

It was now hitting a very late hours in the mansion. The house creaked and moaned the normal sounds of an old house settling in for the night. A light breeze filled a large bedroom with two large French doors opened to it's terrace allowing in the breeze and lifting the sheer curtains up to float up like ghosts. 

The comfortable cool room was Elizabeth's. She lay in her large fluffy bed comfortably asleep resting her ancient bones. Each breath took in the fresh sea air as her care-taker enter the room to check on her. 

Noelle had years of preparation for this moment. She studied nursing and at-home-care to be able to infiltrate the family house when Elizabeth got older. It was a gamble. Noelle had no idea that Elizabeth would be alive when she finished her studies and she had no idea she would even be hired when she did, but it paid off in spades. 

Over the several years she had been at Collinwood she had garnered most of their trust. She had been given permission to live at the Old House with her nephew so she could be close to her patient and in doing so entered the main mansion freely. 

And on many nights as Elizabeth slept, Noelle searched the mansion for any sign or confession or clue to her brother Beau's disappearance. She knew, as his sister that this family was directly responsible for his vanishing. Was he dead? Did they kill him? Did his secretly relationship with heiress Carolyn and her pregnancy become common knowledge and Beau became a victim of someone's rage? 

Noelle had yet to discover the answers after all this time. But In her experience all that happens in the dark comes to light and hopefully Justin being on her side would help---but he was a live-wire, she could never predict how his behavior. 

As Elizabeth slept, Noelle prepared her clothes for the next day. She clawed through the hundreds of garments in her walk in closet. Even in her old age, she still liked to dress for the day. All in black. Pearls. Diamonds brooches. Rings. Ever the lady of the manor. 

Noelle placed the next's day's dress and shoes over a chair with the picked out jewelry in a box just next to the chair so that Elizabeth would find them in the morning. Sometimes she'd veto Noelle's choices in ensemble but it wasn't often. 

Then, Noelle quietly let herself out and walked back into the glowing atrium and down the hall that was illuminating her path out. As she continued down the red carpeted hallway, Noelle saw a light coming from the crack left open of the study that once belonged to Roger Collins. She paused and listened as a voice could be heard talking, but it seemed talking to themselves.

Noelle slowly, and stealthily, walked towards the study and put her ear to the door hiding herself from the light and listened.

It was David Collins fresh from their awkward moment at Elizabeth's door.  He was on the phone. 

"I know, I know. You've told me that many times before." He said to the other person on the phone.

Noelle looked at her watch, it was well past midnight now, who could be talking to, she wondered?

"But I think you should come now, especially since its going to be her birthday soon." David said to the other person on the line. "Well you can bring the baby!" He added.

On the other line was a Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne, freshly woken up in London where it was 8am. She had not been back to Collinsport since 1986 when she left after Maggie Evans' death at Windcliff Sanitarium. The horrors of Collinsport had taken her to London and she had never returned, and now that she was a mother herself to a baby girl of only 6 months, she held her self back the black shores of Maine.

"David, I love mother, I miss her so much but I just don't know if I can do it. Alex is so young and I don't want to travel with her." Carolyn said as she looked over at the sweet baby girl playing in her bassinet. 

"Carolyn...she really misses you. We all do. It's her 80th birthday for god's sake." David reminded her. 

"David...I..." Carolyn began but she paused to reflect on just exactly what he wanted her to do. To come home, to be there, in the place where so much horror had happened in her life, in all their lives. Could she really stay away? Could she really resist the temptation to visit her own mother again despite her fear and revolution of the place and town that made her who she was?

"What is it?" David said waiting for his cousin to finish her thought.

"I can't." Carolyn said. "I really have to go ok....I love you David." Carolyn said as David took a deep sign and answered her back. "I love you too.

As the hung up Carolyn turned around and looked at a large photograph her mother and herself taken when she was younger. She began to cry and felt homesick, even if it was THAT home. She loved her family but feared even the slightest involvement with them would trigger something horrible, would bring in the darkness again and the secrets...the ghosts. 

Carolyn in her London home

She thought of the darkest secret in the family's relatively full chest of secret. Barnabas. No one had seen him in decades. He vanished in 1972 with Julia Hoffman and Willie Loomis to parts unknown. He disappeared after Roger's death. After Roger's wife Cassandra's death, in a shroud of mystery and speculation. Barnabas was gone. But not forgotten. He Haunted Carolyn. He was the boogyman that never left her side. Not in the day light and not in the darkness. He was always there. His face. His fangs. His thirty grin.

"Are you ok?" Carolyn's English husband and as he entered the room with their morning tea.

"Oh thank you darling," Carolyn said taking the mug. "It was David. He's very instant of me going back to Maine to see my mother for her birthday." 

"Do you want to go? You haven't seen her in a very long time and I know she'd love to see you see you again. And maybe meet the baby?" Jack Thorne replied.

"You're not serious." Carolyn shot back.

"Well of course I am, love, this is your family. Like it or not. They miss you. Alexandra does deserve to know them. Regardless of ...you know." Jack said, hinting that he knew of the skeletons in the Collins family closet. 

"I wouldn't step foot in Maine with Alexandra. Not ever. I mean the very idea makes my blood boil, Jack, you know the danger in that. You know I could never put our baby...I mean Jesus!!!" Carolyn said, her voice now brimming on the hysterical.

"Calm down, calm down. Ok. Ok." Jack said reaching for his wife and holding her close to his body. He could feel her shaking. He could feel her body revolting at any idea or mention of Collinwood. It was a trigger. It was a dagger to her body, her heart, her mind. 

"Listen, shhhh......you're ok. You're safe here. Alex is safe here, love, you don't have to be this way....its ok." Jack said, calming his beautiful wife.

Carolyn lifted her face that was buried in her husband's chest and look up at him. His handsome chiseled chin resting on her head. Her eyes filled with tears clouded the blue pools of eyes and she smiled at him. Her protector. Her loving husband. 

"I know what you're thinking." She said wiping her face. 

"You don't." He joked and sipped his coffee over by the baby. 

"You think I'm insane and I'm being ridiculous. I can see it in your eyes."

"Carolyn, I don't think that. After everything you've told me about your life and your passed I don't think that. I believe everything you told me I believe everything thats happened to you but you can't keep running. You can't keep away from the things that scare you the most, darling. You have to face them at some point. And ...what better way to face up to your fears than doing it on your terms." Jack said as he played with his baby girl in his arms.

Carolyn took his words to heart. He was right. She knew he was right. Her mother's birthday was just in a week or so. She had time to digest it. The right thing, the good things to do was go. Go back to Collinwood. 

She slowly walked over to the telephone and picked it up and placed it to hear ear listening to the dial tone drone on and one until she began to key in the phone number to David's study. 

She took a deep breath and waited for David to answer. 

"Hello?" David said, confused by the late night call.

"Honey, its Carolyn." She said softly. 

Noelle was still listening by the light of the cracked open study.

"Hey! Carolyn What is it? Are you ok?" David asked noticing Carolyn's voice showed how she had been crying.

Noelle's ears perked up at the name. The name of her nephew's mother. The woman who had given birth, secretly to the boy she raised. 

"I'm coming back. I'll be there. For mother's birthday." She said in a hopeful voice.

"OH!!! That's GREAT!! We'll keep it a surprise. We won't tell Aunt Elizabeth and she'll be so happy you're back, Carolyn she's going to be so happy." David said.

Noelle's eyes widened. Carolyn was coming home. Another layer of danger of exposure had just been placed on her plan to find out what happened to her brother. Carolyn returning could potentially spell disaster in her plot, as she would not leave her mother alone for a second....and Carolyn had no idea her Ex-Lover's sister had been living as Elizabeth's caretaker. 

More secrets. More betrayals. More Lies. 

The fog rolled in over the land around Collinwood. And the wind howled deep baritone breaths through the trees. Wolves were circling and baying at the moon.

No one would be safe from the truth. No one. 

Carolyn in gloomy London