~LATE OCTOBER, 1712~
A woman felt the sting in her heart of a lost love. It ached inside of her body like a sickness, like a fever that would not break. The loss of her loved one, the man she cared and desired for so long, so many years just would not cease. It was unrelenting.
And a night where the moon filled the sky like a ball so milky white that it lit her way through town as she cuddled herself in a thick woolen coat. Her eyes filled with tears as she thought about the man she loved and how she'd never see him again; not in this world. Not in this life. Not in this form.
She'd have to wait forever. She'd have to wait until she too left the world of the living to finally be reunited with the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. But perhaps she could change her fate, perhaps she could force their reunion to happen quicker than even God had planned.
This sad, lost woman, shook the idea out of her head. How could she even go to that extreme? What was she even thinking? How could she even fathom the idea that slowly bubbled up in her decided mine? Then, as she gathered herself and her thoughts she looked over to where should could hear the crashing waves of the Atlantic sea beating against a lengthy wooden pier that jetted out into the sea.
Then her dark thoughts came back. This fog covered dock that she was standing on lead to the pier. Perhaps she was there for a reason. After all, it did feel like the cold sea was calling her name, crash after crash.
Suddenly, she found herself rushing over to the edge of the Pier as the foggy night air wet her face as little droplets coated her peach skin. She bounded over to the far end of the pier where the sea crashed up against the thick beams of wood that held up the long pier.
The woman slowly climbed up over the barriers and stood face-forward at the edge of the pier looking out on to the fridges waters. She held herself tightly on to the barriers allowing the wind to blow through her dark hair and through the white skirts that flowed beneath the wool coat that warmed her. She felt like she was flying. She felt like it was now or never... she could see him in the dark distance, his face seemed to form in the fog. She could almost hear him call her name too. She closer her eyes and listened, listened for him to tell her what to do next. Jump?
If she jumped, she knew her coat would only warm her for a minute. She knew that as soon as her body fell into the deep black sea it would be like 1,000 daggers of cold water stabbing to her body. But only until she fell into the deep slumber that would finally reunite her with the love of her life. The pain would be secondary — her reunion, a final moment with the man she loved would be eternal.
"Aye, the quickest way to the end of the world is to jump, it is. But if ye catch thyself in thought of the process, love, it'll never come. Do it now and forever live in the light, that'll be one way out of this, it will.....or maybe I can help." A voice from behind her on the dock spoke. The strange voice, grizzled and smokey startled the woman on the edge of the pier.
"Don't come any closer! I'll jump! I swear I'll jump!" The woman said, her voice terrified and nervous just as her mind quickly realized what she was doing. Panic set in. Her fingers tightened the barrier. Her nails dug deep into the weathered wood.
The Person with the scratchy voice Noticed this. The beautiful woman on the pier’s edge did not want to die.
This voice from behind came was attached to an older woman dressed in rags, under a thick black cloak. Under the clocks She was covered from head to toe in various bustles and skirts and scarves. Her hair was tied up in a long black scarf that wrapped her thick black hair in a large braid that extended to the center of her back. The older woman removed a deck of Tarot cards from inside one of pockets of her cloak and began to shuffle them over and over.
"I could help. I can make things more clear. I can show thee the best way out of thine terrible ways. With these!" The old lady said, fanning out the cards in her hands that were covered in rings on each finger.
"What?" The younger woman asked confused. "What do you want from me??”
"I want nothing for me. Only to help a woman I see in need of what I can give ‘er. I can give ‘er more than an easy way out of the world of the living. Come back off the ledge, love, follow me to parlor and I can show thy right way to what ye need. This” the woman continued referencing this attempt at death by self drowning, “is not it, not on the side of a pier in the middle of the night ....such pretty clothes. Come, let Madame Adrina fix it all." The old woman said referencing herself by name.
The young woman, standing backwards on the barriers of a wind swept pier paused to think. Could she trust this old beggar woman with tarot cards? What did she have to lose? She had already lost so much. So, so much. Nothing really was left.
The tragic woman in beautiful clothes turned back around and faced the wild crashing sea in front of her. The water was thrashing below her beautifully adorned feet dressed in shows of satin white that had tiny little pearls fashioned into the shape of a tiny little flower on top of her foot. She looked down at the water, and looked back at the old woman, Adrina, still shuffling her tarot cards and climbed back over on to the solid floor of the wooden pier.
"That's a good lass." Adrina said with a wink as she extended her old withered branch like arm to the young woman. The young woman reached back and Adrina pulled her in close so that they were now arm in arm walking back in the muddy fog towards Adrina's parlor in town.
"I don't know what I was thinking." The young broken hearted woman said to Adrina who held her tight. Her voice seemed relieved of her decision. “I have two children.” She admitted to a nodding Adrina.
"I know child, I know." Madame Adrina said as she stopped under a glowing street lamp to get a better look at the young woman she saved from certain suicide. Adrina looked up at the slightly taller younger woman and saw her beautiful dark haired and perfect skin as clear as a soft peach with pale blue eyes that seemed as deep as the sea. Her Lips were pink and plump, perfect and pillowy pouting at her possible disastrous mistake.
"Tell me your name girl, tell me your name." Adrina asked as the waves crashed up against the docks in the distance.
The young girl adjusted her coat in the cold air and said "Annabella Spencer-Col...." she paused before finishing her full name.
Adrina nodded to Annabella, encouraging her to finish what she was saying. "Collins.....Annabella Collins."
Adrina instantly perked up in surprise, her old eyes widened in sultry surprise when she heard the beautiful woman's last name.
Collins.
"Come girl. Let's get thee answers to all thy questions." Adrina said, her voice filled with glee when she realized she was arm in arm with the woman who's family built the town they were both in, the town of Collinsport.
It was a short walk from the damp docks to Adrina's parlor in the village. The cobblestone streets were empty and cold, slick with the wetness of the sea that had escaped in a mist that settled in every corner of the the stones that made up the streets. Each little village house and small business was dark with sleep and only Adrina and Annabella stirred among the rats that fiddled in the bushes along the way.
The entire journey back to her parlor, Adrina could almost feel the glee in her body escape through every pore of her skin after encountering such a lucrative new client in Annabella Spencer-Collins. The young woman was practically the queen of Collinsport. Her husband Isaac and brother-in-law Amadeus were, when they lived, the men who built the fishing village to what it was. Their journey from England 20 years prior was one for freedom and a better life. The Collins brothers came to these shores, the new world to forge their dream into a business that would revolutionize an industry. And they would go on to be come the father's of a legendary and wealthy family the likes New England never saw coming.
Their power was unyielding, but the brother's fate were controlled by greed and jealously and rivalry. The two brothers would later marry equally beautiful women and have beautiful children, but their lives would end, a year apart in a fiery disaster when a powerful warlock named Judah Zachary cursed the brothers into oblivion leaving their wives alone....miserable and Widowed.
This very recent demise of the brothers Collins was shocking social event that led to a rift in the remaining family: Annabella and her two boys, and Harriet Collins, Amadeus' wife and their children.
The Collins family was without patriarchs leaving the wives to decide on all things business until the eldest of Isaac and Annabella's sons, Theodore, was old enough to take up the reigns. In her distress Annabella saw no way out but to leave her life here on earth and follow Isaac to where ever he was, a mistake she would have regretted, and so, Adrina's interruption was somewhat of a God send in Annabella's mind who practically skipped on the way back to Adrina's parlor.
At first, Annabella did not know who the mysterious woman on the pier was, but as they continued on their walk back, Annabella became very sure of who her new "friend" was. Adrina was known in Collinsport in certain social circles as a soothsayer and healer. For the most part, the pale-faced woman in a black cloak and shall, kept herself distant from the general public in town, but as for the rich and connected, they came in search of her and her powers. Adrina was indeed well connected and well paid for her mystical services, no matter how much the Town elders frowned and hated the arts she dabbled in.
"Come in child." Adrina whispered as she opened the creaking wooden door to her small parlor in the village.
Annabella looked around the old little parlor, Adrina's home and apothecary shop where she hid her true wonders. It was three small rooms filled with potions and medicines and comfortable seating under two large candelabras that lit when Adrina snapped her fingers.
"How did you do that?" Annabella asked, her heart pounding with wonder.
"My dear, I am woman of the elements and nature. I have forces in me that can do many things. But I do them for the good of the world, you see, not what they've been burning those in Salem for." Adrina said, quickly distinguishing herself different from the women just south of them in Massachusetts who only 5 years before were executed by flame for practicing witchcraft.
Annabella smiled, something of a guise to make Adrina feel comfortable with her, but she didn't believe her. Annabella had heard of Adrina, she knew what she did, she knew what she was and it didn't matter that if caught they could both be put to death. Realizing just who was in front of her and what she could do, Annabella felt invincible.
"As I said on the pier, I can do things for you that will make you feel what you are longing for. There's always a way to come closer to those we lost child, and it doesn't always mean we need to do ourselves in. What I can do for you will make a world of difference and I can assure you...bring you much peace as the Widow Collins." Adrina said sitting down at a large round table with something covered in a gray silk scarf in the center.
Annabella narrowed her eyes, unsure of what the mystical woman meant, but sat down at the table across from her anyway. The beautiful Collins Widow, adjusted her own wool coats as a chill filled the room just as Adrina lifted the silk scarf revealing a crystal ball in the center of the table. The ball glistened in the candle light. Annabella tried to look through it but the crystal was oddly colored, almost like a transparent opal and inside the glass was what seemed like smoke, but smoke that was not moving. She ran her fingers across it's cool golden base that was carved in shapes of long ivy vines that tangled up and made knots that formed the base's feet.
"What can you do for me?" Annabella asked cautiously.
"There is a world beyond this one, my dear, a world I can reach with just my mind and this here crystal conduit. For you, and your generous payment, I can reach your lost love. The love of your life, who I might guess, is waiting for you to reach him through me. You see, we did not cross each other's path's my accident. No, on the contrary. I believe we came to know each other's faces by fate and by the love your Isaac has for you. He wants you to connect him. Through me." Adrina said, pushing a small empty bowl over to Annabella where she expected the payment gold coins to fall into for her service.
"How did you know I searched for Isaac?" Annabella asked, clutching her tiny coin purse close.
"Does thou really not see how my powers reach far beyond thy comprehension? Let it be known that I do know all and will show you all you need with payment of 7 gold." Adrina reminded.
But Annabella Collins was no fool, perhaps lost in a gauzy daze of mourning her husband, and perhaps the childlike mind she often times was chided for by her own mother in letters from England for continuing to inhabit despite her 30 years, but a fool she was not. Annabella could see that Adrina was perhaps what she said she was...a seer, a wise powerful being that could truly connect to the dead, but also there was a twinge of charlatan spinning a web of deceit that cost 7 gold coins.
"I want to Isaac. I want to see him again and talk to him and ask him what he wants me to do with our children Theodore and Caleb. I truly do, but this...this séance will not suffice. It cannot suffice. Could you do more?" Annabella asked, pulling out 12 gold coins from her coin purse and placing them on the table but away from the bowl.
Adrina paused before she answered and looked down at the golden money shining in her eyes, calling her name.
"More is thy request? By what is more?" Adrina wondered.
"More than a trick of a voice. More than a ghostly message from behind the grave. I want more and if you are as powerful as you say and as your reputation in my circles say you are, you could do it. 12 golden coins are yours if it suits you." Annabella shrewdly bargained.
A cool current of air began to swirl around the two woman and the table with the crystal ball. It felt like a window was open allowing the cold ocean sea filled the room and chill them to their bones. Adrina felt a pressure she had never felt before from another client and Annabella, being the most wealthy woman and powerful woman in the entire village and perhaps all of New England was upping Adrina's ante.
The mystic got up from her chair and walked over to the fireplace and again snapped her fingers causing a large fire to burst inside. It warmed her, like 100 suns soothing her cold body as Annabella Collins soon began to collect her coins that were on the table.
"I see you cannot and will not do what I need. I should go." The Collins Widow announced.
"WAIT!" Adrina exclaimed. "I have announced no such surrender. I have only come to a second term of the agreement if thou wishes to move on." Adrina added.
"A second term? Name it."
"13 gold coins, not much more than thou has offered now. 13 gold coins, and what thou wish shall be granted.' Adrina countered as she backed to the bargaining table and sat down allowing the warmth from the fire place to finally reach Annabella too.
Annabella thought for a second, she lifted a brow and pulled out one more, her last golden coin from her purse and tossed it on to the table.
"13." Annabella only said as she collected the coins and placed them inside the payment bowl.
Adrina smiled and pulled the bowl closer to her and counted them. She felt the cool gold coins in her hand played with them. The clinking and jingling sound echoed in her tiny little house.
"What does thou require for this payment so generously given?" Adrina asked.
"Life." Annabella only replied.
"Life?" Adrina asked confused.
"For 13 golden coins I ask you to use all you have, muster all the energy and power you have in your body to bring my beloved husband, Isaac Collins back to life. Back from his cold grave and into my warm arms forever. This is what I require and this is what you have been paid for." Annabella said to Adrina's surprise.
Adrina flipped the long end of her thick black cloak over her shoulder and stared at Annabella for what seemed like hours. She was unsure if the beautiful widow was serious. She could not read her emotions, for her face was as serious and firm as stone. Annabella was not playing a game. She was not pretending. She was as serious as death.
"This is a dark art thou requests. I would be considered a witch if successful. How could I do this without the cure of Judah Zachary coming back to haunt mine own home. Judah was the man who cursed thy husband's death after the pains of judicial misfortune brought down upon him too. Of Witchcraft. Is that where ye leads me? If so, my child, take back these coins." Adrina said, fearing Annabella was putting her in a trap to be caught as a witch.
"This be not a trick or farce. I promise you. Follow me to Eagle Hill and sit by my side, by my husband's grave and if your powers are what I believe them to be you will have earned your 13 gold, and I could potentially pay you more for your services. Come with me there, and show me your gift." Annabella begged.
Adrina, felt again flipped the golden coins around in her and. The texture of each side of the coin felt like it could leave in imprint on the soft flesh of her old withered hands. But it felt good too. Adrina agreed to Annabella's request and quickly placed the money in a pouch that she tied around her waist.
Together they left the small little parlor of Adrina's home and headed towards the cemetery where they'd find Isaac Collin's grave. On their way, the moon was still full and smiling down on the small village of Collinsport lighting their way through the darkness. The cold air caused Annabella's skin to poke up in tiny little bumps. She closed up her wool coat for warmth and listened to their silence as the two woman did not speak the whole way.
Just as they arrived, Adrina grabbed on to the iron gates and blocked Annabella's way in.
"Before we enter, thou must remark on the date. Today, All Hallows Eve. Did thou know this?" Adrina asked.
"I had not noticed." Annabella said truthfully.
"Once we enter these gates and attempt to bring thy husband back into the world of this living, on this date, it will be permanent. I will not be able to reverse anything done here. Never. Ever. Does that suite thy purpose still?" The mystic asked.
"I know what I have requested may make you anxious and I know that what I have asked may even seem frightening to you, a woman of the dark arts but it is what I want." Annabella said pushing past Adrina to enter the cemetary.
Adrina, left standing at the gates, knew she had to earn the wage of 13 gold coins, in fact she needed this payment to survive but she feared for what she was about to do, not because she could not do it but it would be reversing a curse set by a powerful warlock that in truth could destroy her in a flick of a wrist if he caught wind of her betrayal.
Adrina reached down and felt the pouch of money she was paid as Annabella marched on through the moon lit cemetery that was backlit with the blue and gray night sky. Perhaps there was a way out of this. Perhaps there was a way she could give Annabella what she wanted but still not betray Judah Zachary's curse, which was something she feared. Judah's wrath was fierce and everlasting.
Adrina, the well know secret seer of Collinsport, took a deep breath and followed the determined Annabella Collins up the wet grass of Eagle Hill Cemetery and met her at the grave of Isaac Collins. Annabella stood at the gravestone, her face serious and stone-like itself as she waited for Adrina to catch up.
A blustery wind blew through the enormous and ancient trees above them shaking the leaves to the ground and they fell slowly down onto the grave dotting the hallowed ground of the cemetery. Adrina, weary of her part in Annabella's plot to raise her husband from the dead reached the summit of Isaac's grave site to Annabella's frustrated and cold gaze.
"Tell me woman, what kind of witch is able to step on hallowed ground such as this? You're an interesting breed of your kind." Annabella said, noting that most witches were unable to step food in cemetaries.
"Thou art very learn'ed on my kind, madam, but some things are all but fairy takes and lore. I can set foot anywhere I please no matter the ground." Adrina replied matter of factly.
"Go on then. Do what you need to do to bring my husband back to me." Annabella ordered.
"There is one way that a man long dead can raise from his grave, it is not based on magic alone. The bite of a bat is what I'd need to bring him home to thine arms. First and foremost this bat must taste the flesh of thy husband's neck." Adrina said.
"A bat? You didn't mention this before. How will we get a bat to him? Are we to dig his body out ourselves? Exhume his corpse before he rises? I can't do that! I cannot! I was expecting him to come out on his own or perhaps you'd cast a spell of some sort and he'd appear to me. You never mentioned a bat!" Annabella protested.
"All things are connected in this life. Even the spiritual and animal. We as animals ourselves need to connect in a way that'll raise him. The life of a blood that ran in his veins must be reignited by the bite of this bat." Adrina added, never mentioning the side effect the bite of a bat would have on Isaac's body once it was completed.
The vampire curse, a curse so harsh and so cold that not a single witch would cast it unless revenge was desired. It was a cruel way to vanquish enemies that would forever give them life and yet only life in a condensed form ...to dwell in the darkness. In the shadows. In a lonely world of blood thirst and restlessness. Adrina was no fool. She knew that Annabella would never consent to digging up Isaac's corpse to then have it bitten by a bat. This was designed to trick Annabella to second guess her desire to bring him home to her, in any form, also it would save Adrina the trouble of rustling any feather with the great and powerful Judah Zachary who cursed Isaac and his brother Amadeus Collins to death.
But Annabella too was in a different mind space than Adrina could have ever predicted. Her horror was that of a widow that needed to be loved needed to be protected and needed to see the man she lost so long ago again, no matter what, and even though the very idea of digging her husband out of own grave and opening his coffin to see his body once again, a corpse, decayed and dead, did not matter to her. She wanted Isaac back. No matter what.
Annabella, took a deep breath, and fell to her knees. She began to dig with her own bare hands lifting the dirt with her hands and throwing it over her body allowing it do fall on her dress' bustle and train. She was a mad woman. A woman determined to get what she wanted and would stop at nothing to get it, not even becoming filthy with dirt from her husbands own grave.
The wind again picked up speed and rattled the large bare branches above their two women's heads. Annabella was now one hour into her digging of her husband Isaac's grave, and just as the pressure of the dirt pushing her fingernails back so forcefully that blood began to seep out from under her once perfectly manicured hands she hit the coffin.
The thud of her hand rapping up against the slightly absurd coffin startled her at first, but once she realized what it was, she began to dig faster and faster and faster until the entire coffin was reveled.
She was covered in dirt and dust and mud. She looked as if she had been drowned in a mud puddle. She reached around the corner of the coffin's lid and yanked. The wood had weakened over time and Annabella was easily able to rip the top portion of the lid clear off.
A rolling round of thunder clapped in the sky as Annabella screamed and fell backwards onto the other end of the coffin with the wood from the portion still in her hand.
Adrina gasped at the site of him. There he was. The dead, skeleton faced Isaac Collins.
"My love. My dear dead Isaac. My dear Isaac!!!" Anabella said her voice screaming into the wind.
Adrina, now understanding there was no turning back raised her hands up into the air and closed her eyes. A second thunder clap slashed the sky in two and as if called out to by name, a bat flew directly into the hands of the mystical woman of Collinsport.
She held the animal, squirming and squeaking, in her hand and pushed it's cheeks apart so that it's tiny little fangs were visible. Her eyes turned completely white and began to glow, her magic, finally showing, as Annabella slowly came out of the Isaac's grave allowing for Adrina to enter with the bat.
As the wind and thunder continued to cause a symphony of sounds all around them, Adrina took the bat into the grave and, her long black dress dragged extra dirt from the surface down into the grave with her as her eyes were glowing white like two balls of light guiding her way in all the while the bat continued to squirm in her hands attempting to escape.
The mystical woman knelt down near the body and located some of Isaac's flesh that had not been eaten by worms. She moved her hands around his neck and pushed down the collar of the jacket the corpse was wearing and pressed the bat's mouth into the decaying flesh.
The bat bit down.
But nothing happened.
"He has not risen. Why? Why isn't he awake?" Annabella screamed.
"Patience!" Adrina said, unsure as to what was happening herself.
"You were paid for a service, witch, where is my husband!? Why hasn't he risen!?" Annabella again screamed.
Adrina's head wipped around with her eyes still glowing cold and cruel, but now they were red in color. She hissed and leapt out from the grave and stared deep into Annabella's beautiful and now terrified face. The bat had bitten Adrina's hand without her knowledge. It had tasted her blood without her sensing it....all this before she pressed its face into the dead flesh of Isaac Collins.
Adrina, the witch had turned into a vicious vampire without even giving it notice, and now she was hungry, for blood. For Annabella's warm human blood.
"What...what happened? What are doing?" Annabella asked, backing away from the thirsty creature Adrina.
Adrina snapped the beck of the bat in her hands and dropped it the ground.
"Come here child. Come give me a kiss." Adrina said, her voice hissing like a snake's call.
"Demon! You're a demon!!!!" Annabella screamed as she turned quickly, lifted her skirt enough for her feet to be visible and unguarded and began to run down the slope of Eagle Hill cemetery.
But the new vampire Adrina was hot on her trail.
Annabella Collins ran and ran, filthy from head to toe in the dirt of her husband's now open grave. Adrina, the witch turned vampire chasing her too, faster and faster she flew down the hill after her first meal.
Annabella was screaming as she ran. She could taste the salty air in her mouth as she opened it each time to let out a bloodcurdling scream, a scream that could wake all the dead of Eagle Hill cemetery. But the dead still slept. No one came to Annabella's side.
Adrina continued on her chase, leaping over tall stone graves swishing through the unkept grass and trees all on mission to get her taste of Annabella's blood.
"THY BLOOD IS MINE AND YE WONT ESCAPE MY HUNGER FOR IT IS EVERLASTING!!!" Adrina screamed through the night air, her voice as cold as the wind that blew through Annabella's thick black hair.
Annabella continued to run, she ran so fast she had not realized that she had entered the large thick woods that were just behind the cemetery. The woods were dark and frightening. And as she entered them the fog began to creep in from the sea that was just beyond the large patch of forest. She was running and running and in the confusing of her escape and in the fog she saw that she had gotten turned around.
She did not know which way to go. Where was north? Where was south? Annabella looked up to the sky and it was covered by clouds, the moon's light beamed down through them but she could not tell where it was situated, nor could she see the stars and where they were placed in the sky. This nautical trick of direction lost in the fog like so many sailors over the centuries who had died foggy and unpassable seas.
Suddenly, the panicked Annabella came to a clearing in the forest. It was almost a perfect circle of large pine trees. She looked all around her and no one was there. Perhaps Adrina was lost in the woods too. Perhaps she could hide here and wait until the morning. Perhaps the monstrous witch lost hope in the chase and abandoned her to fend for herself in the forest.
Annabella could hear owls call to themselves. They're hoots echoed in the cathedral of trees that surrounded them. She could also hear twigs snap in the distance.
She turned towards the sound. Nothing there.
More broken twigs. But this time on the other side of her.
Annabella turned again towards that sound and when she looked...there was nothing there.
Then she heard them to her right. Then to her left.
More snapping twigs.
She was surrounded, surrounded by something. But she could not see what.
Was it animals? Was it Adrina somehow with magic and a trick of the space around her transporting herself around to different parts of the forest to confuse Annabella, and drive her mad, weaken her enough in spirit and in consciousness so that she could then pounce on her and drink from her neck?
And then, slowly, from the shadows of the encirclement of trees Annabella saw what was breaking those twist all around her.
It was Adrina. But she wasn't alone.
Three other witches had arrived and had come to step out of the shadows with the new Vampire/witch hybrid Adrina. The three other witches had seen how powerful Adrina was now that she was part of the undead world of vampire's that they wanted that power too. They wanted to be one like Adrina and Annabella would be the feast they would all enjoy as a new breed of coven, blood thirsty vampire witches.
"Do not fear dear girl....this is what it will come to. This is where your husband's life has given us. Your true destiny was not to be with him at all, but were to be one of us, our 5th sister. Our 5th of the coven." Adrina said as she and the three others slowly walked towards Annabella surrounding her.
"No, this is not what I wanted, I wanted to be with my husband forever, and not this. This is not.....no...please I paid you, I gave you money, more money than you have ever seen and I can give you more. The Collins family is rich in gold and power and I can give you more of that. Please do not harm me. My children...please...think of my two children." Annabella pleaded as she fell to her knees and into a pile of thick mud that was under her feet.
"A witch does not beg, and I and my three sisters will help thee get what thine heart desires. After you give us what we need, and money of gold is not it." Adrina said, her fangs showing through her tight red lips, her eyes glowing a vengeful and wicked red.
"Let us drink." One of the other witches of the coven said.
"Let us drink." The third and forth witch added.
They got closer and closer and then, with a split second remaining before her life was snuffed out, Annabella reached into the bodice of her dress and pulled out a diamond and gold rosary beads, with a crucifix that sparkled in the light of the blue moon above.
Adrina hissed at the site of the cross and fell to her knees as if her eyes were being pulled out of their sockets. The other witches fell too in unison copying Adrina, in fact the other three witches weren't witches at all. They were manifestations of Adrina's powers, in essence they were farce; figments of Adrina's own mind created to trick Annabella into thinking there were more people with Adrina. They were imaginary beings made to frighten Annabella, to scare her into giving herself over to the new vampire.
As soon as the pain of seeing the golden and diamond crucifix became too much the three other pretend witches vanished into a mist and disappeared from view leaving only Annabella and Adrina alone in encircled by the trees of the forest.
Feeling safer now, and having the upper hand, Annabella, dirty, fifthy from her digging and running, walked over to the hissing and writhing Adrina and placed the cross on the witches forehead. It began to sizzle on the witches skin cause it to burn a deep scar in the shape of the crucifix causing Adrina more unbearable pain.
"You have tricked me and taken from me and promised me, and yet delivered nothing. In fact you tried to kill me too. For that, witch, I banish you to the depths of hell for ever. May the only god I know take mercy on your withering decrepit soul." Annabella said as she reached over for a large broken branch that she snapped over her knee creating a sharp spear which she plunged deep into Adrina's chest killing her instantly.
Adrina gasped for air and suddenly, she stopped. Smoke began to come out every one of her facial orifices and her skin turned to an ash like color and her insides began to burn up and then her whole chest caved in showing Annabella her cold black heart.
Annabella, reached into Adrina's chest and grabbed the heart that had turned to a rock, a stone like Onyx and placed it in her hand tightly. She then grabbed the 13 gold coins that she had given her and ripped them from the witches body.
She looked down at the body of the dead witch and kicked it. She left her there dead, to decompose into the forest floor.
Four weeks later, Annabella stood on a autumn kissed balcony at Collinwood just above the large pillars of the front portico of the beautiful white painted mansion exterior. Isaac Collins’ Widow stood stoic and serene in this balcony waving goodbye to her sister-in-law Harriet Collins and Harriet's two children who were headed to Harriet's sister's house in Boston to visit through the winter. Annabella and Harriet were two women who knew the pain of losing their husbands under terrible, terrible circumstances. It was a bond they reluctantly shared. And although they were never the closest in terms of a friendship, they were family. To them, no matter their petty disagreements family stuck together in tragedy.
When Harriet’s husband Amadeus died, Issac and Annabella were there for her and when the curse that killed Amadeus came for Isaac, Harriet was there in return.
Although the two Widows were close due to their tragedy, Annabella never once breathed a word to Harriet of the night she encountered the witch Adrina.
As Annabella waved Harriet and the children’s horse and buggy goodbye, Thomas Frame, Collinwood's caretaker and assistant to Issac and Amadeus with the Fishing Fleet suddenly rushed in carrying a large package that had just been delivered.
He was a handsome man with caramel colored skin and eyes deep and brown that made Annabella feel safe and secure. He often stayed nights in the mansion...often in the adjoining room to Annabella’s master suite.
She didn’t see him as an employee, he was much more. He was a friend. A confident. A partner. And He would Stay that way with her, close at heart for the rest of his life.
"Ma'am, this has just arrived from town for you." Thomas said handing his mistress a large blue box.
"Oh, thank you Thomas, Ill open it in side." She said as she and Thomas both entered the large bedroom from the balcony where her two sons were playing on the floor next to large fireplace that beamed a comforting warmth on both of them as they played.
Annabella smiled at her two sons who had adjusted well after their father's death. She wondered how they'd carry on the Collins family name without him but she knew too that nothing would stop them from being the heirs of this family. Nothing would stop her too from being sure that they were safe from all harm and that all their father Isaac's dreams came true for his two children.
Thomas, who was standing in his black suite and carefully buttoned up shirt handed the pale blue box over to Annabella who was seated now on a overstuffed sofa with five matching cushions. She pulled the box over to her lap and unraveled the large white ribbon that had been tied in a beautiful bow from the shop in town the package came from.
Isaac Collins’ widow, Annabella Spencer-Collins, was a woman who was always thinking of the future and how things could change and be better. That’s why she kept Thomas around too. Now that Isaac was gone and she had no more desire to bring him back to this realm, she had settled on giving his future descendants something from his life to them. For their protection, something crafted just for them to pass along down the Bloodlines of the Collins family for generations to come.
This crafted details and personal touches from Annabella herself, these heirlooms, were priceless to her.
She slowly lifted the lid of the box and revealed a smaller box. She pulled out the smaller box and opened it. Inside, a silver necklace with a pendant on it with the silver head of a wolf. This necklace she would give younger son Theodore to keep for all his life. It was in his destiny to be the protector of the family. And like a wolf protects its pack, so would Theodor and all his descendants protect the Collins family in anyway they could.
But that wasn't all. Annabella had also made something even more special for her eldest son Caleb. Being the elder of the two boys, and heirs of Isaac's fortune and company, Caleb would be granted a very special gift that his mother had made for him to be passed down to his descendants.
Annabella then removed the silk lining under the necklace. There, laying in yet another silky cocoon like bedding in the smaller open faced box was a silver ring with an Onyx stone made from the witch Adrina's black heart on the night Annabella killed her and saved her own life.
This black stoned ring would be given to Caleb by his mother Annabella when he turned 18 for his protection and would remain a symbol of how close Annabella came to full on distraction. It would be his for life, and then one day Caleb would bequeath it to his own eldest son Joshua Colons and in turn Joshua too would give this ring to his eldest child. Another boy.
This last Collins son to inherit the witch’s black heart ring, Joshua’s son and Annabella's future great-grandson; years from the day Annabella had the ring made from the blackened heart of a deadly witch would be named.....
Barnabas Collins.
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| The Onyx Ring |
