"Dr. Hoffman's 1st Trip to Collinwood" is a prequel to:
1. Tim Burton's version of Dark Shadows, including the deleted scenes on the Blu-Ray Disc.
2. NichtBenz's fanfiction "Pretty Young Thing." I hope it meets with her approval.
3. my idea of Dark Shadows 2, which I am still working on.
The name that appears in parenthesis after the 1st mention of a character is the name of the actor who would play that character in a movie version of this story. I can dream can't I?
I do not own Dark Shadows or any of its characters, institutions, or entities.
I also do not own the work of H.P. Lovecraft or any other works referred to in this story, or any of their characters, institutions, or ... entities.
"You see ... sometimes ... we make up a fantasy world
to help us erase horrible memories from our past." - Dr. Julia Hoffman to
Barnabas Collins, just before she hypnotizes him
October 1969
Julia Hoffman, M.D., slams the door of her office behind her. It is almost 1PM, and she is just now breaking for lunch. She unlocks her desk, takes a miniature of Scotch from her purse and pours a shot into her cup of coffee.
There were months left on her sabbatical when she got back from the EXPEDITION - damn Eliot, damn Frank, and double-damn their precious EXPEDITION! But she had gone to work at Miskatonic University Medical Center - dear old "Mumsy," where she went to medical school herself - almost immediately after she returned. She had hoped to stay so busy she would not have time to think or remember. It did not work, and she is taking it out on everyone around her.
She hates her colleagues.
She hates her students - Jesus, had she ever been as stupid as her current students? Her smartest student is a young man named West, but he is also an arrogant son of a bitch. Thank God this is Psych and not Surgery, or Julia would have decapitated West with a scalpel by now.
But most of all, she hates her patients. Patients? Most of them are just a mob of f***ing crybabies. She wants to grab them by their necks and scream in their faces, "You think you have problems?!"
She unwraps the piece of aluminum foil that contains her lunch, an apple and 2 hard boiled eggs. Every morning she boils 4 eggs, 2 for breakfast and 2 for lunch. The hardest part of that kind of cooking is waiting for the water to boil. Today she has even less appetite than usual. Except, of course, for the "sweetened" coffee.
The day's mail is already on her desk. While she was on the EXPEDITION, her mail was forwarded to her office at Mumsy, an office she never set foot in until she returned from the EXPEDITION. That applied to both her home mail and the mail from her now-defunct-private-practice.
The University had her power of attorney to open and pay her bills and deduct it from her pay. The check they gave her when she returned was still the biggest she had ever seen. She hopes it is enough to drink herself to death with. She wonders how much longer it will be before Dr. Whitman, the head of the Psych Department (and Julia's mentor when she was in residency, they had higher opinions of each other back then than they do now) notices that she drinks on the job, and defies his bosses to fire her.
The home mail is now going to her home again, but she still gets 2 or 3 pieces a week forwarded from her now-defunct-private-practice - including one item today. But this is like nothing that has been forwarded before. The envelope is made of beautiful paper and the return address is engraved into the paper, not just printed:
Mrs. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard
Collinwood Manor
Collinsport, Maine 04977
Julia looks closer. The zip code is not engraved, it has been added with a typewriter.
Alcohol has been fogging Julia's memory for some time now, but she does remember that zip codes started in '63, the same year that Kennedy was murdered - murdered by CIAMaCC (the CIA-Mafia-Cuban-Coalition), according to one of her patients. She actually likes this patient - he is at least entertaining. So Mrs. Stoddard has been using this stationary for at least 6 years. She must not write a lot of letters. Or maybe she is too frugal to replace her stationery just because it is missing one new thing.
Julia slices the envelope open with her letter opener. She draws out 4 sheets of beautiful paper. The 1st sheet is engraved with:
Mrs. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard
Collinwood Manor
Collinsport, Maine 04977
Telephone MOnarch6-0099 Area Code 207
in fancier lettering than the envelope, and with the name in bigger letters than the rest. Here, as on the envelope, the zip code was added with a typewriter. And "Area Code 207" was added with a typewriter too.
MOnarch6-0099? Julia is sure that digit-dialing is even older than zip-codes. Is the stationery that much older too, or is Mrs. Stoddard one of the die-hard digit-dialing-objectors? And area codes are even older than digit-dialing. How long has Mrs. Stoddard been using this stationery, anyway?
Sheets 2, 3, and 4 are personalized with the name alone, in smaller letters than on the 1st sheet. Sheets 1 and 2 are a letter, neatly typed, and signed in blue ink with the full name, "Elizabeth Collins Stoddard," in big beautiful handwriting. Sheet 3 is filled with directions to Collinwood, also neatly typed. Sheet 4 is a map to Collinwood, and drawn in the same dark blue ink as the signature on sheet 2.
The sight of the dark blue ink sickens Julia. Why is there so damn much blue in world?
Julia reads Mrs. Stoddard's letter standing up. Then she sits down and reads it again. And again, and again ...
Laura Collins, the wife of Mrs. Stoddard's brother, died in April when one of the family's fishing boats exploded and burned and sank. It left behind a small oil slick, some debris, and no survivors. Not even any bodies. David Collins, Laura's son, insists that his mother is not dead.
Mrs. Stoddard is asking for Julia's help with David. Julia was recommended to her by an old college friend, whose son Julia had treated successfully. Julia does not remember the boy. That is great, just f***ing great - alcohol is erasing the memories of her successes but leaving the painful memories in place.
Julia's stomach growls. She is actually hungry. She takes a bite from the apple and chews it slowly while peeling one of the eggs. She reads and rereads the letter while peeling the egg. When she eats the egg, she discovers she has missed many small pieces of shell because of her preoccupation with the letter. She swallows them and continues to read as she peels the other egg, missing many small pieces of shell again.
She reads the letter again and again until the department secretary knocks on the door and tells her that afternoon rounds are about to start. Julia locks the letter in the drawer with her purse and reluctantly goes back to work. Thank God it's Friday.
Before leaving at the end of the day, Julia uses the department's Xerox machine to make copies of sheets 2 and 4. She will need the map on sheet 4 if she goes to Collinwood, and she wants to look at the big beautiful signature on sheet 2 - but she does not want to look at the dark blue ink.
At every red light on the drive home, she reads the letter again. She stops for dinner on the way home, the same as she does every night, so she won't have to cook. As usual, she has very little appetite. But at least this time she has the letter to occupy her.
When she gets home she finds Collinsport on her Maine Official Highway Map and then reads the letter again, and again ...
Why did she keep the map of Maine, when she threw away or burned so much else associated with Philip?
She had the letter memorized a long time ago, but she reads it again ... and again.
She packs a few things, and then reads the letter again. She packs a few more things, then reads the letter yet again. It is Friday night, so Bracken's World is on at 10:00 on NBC. Julia has lusted for Eleanor Parker (a fellow redhead) for over 20 years, but she does not stop reading and packing to watch it. She takes a sleeping pill and goes to bed.
Julia gets a very late start on Saturday morning.
Sometimes Julia cries herself to sleep. Sometimes she drinks herself to sleep. Sometimes she does both. And sometimes she takes a sleeping pill potent enough to knock her out fast. On this Friday night, she takes the pill.
No matter how she gets to sleep, Julia wakes up screaming and shivering long before the alarm clock goes off. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result, then Julia is insane. When she wakes up screaming and shivering, she always pulls the blanket up over her head and curls up into the tightest fetal position possible, trying to get warm. It never works, because the cold is in her head. The only thing that will warm her up is a long hot shower - even though the cold is in her head. Cold water inspired her screaming, shivering awakenings, so only hot water can make her warm.
This Saturday morning, she sleeps soundly until the alarm clock wakes her up. She awakens warm and at peace. "Maybe I should plan a trip to Maine for every weekend," she thinks, as she yawns and stretches.
But it is pouring down rain when Julia wakes up. She lies in bed listening to the rain for a long time after the alarm clock goes off. The rain is one more reason to stay home, one more reason not to go through with this. But she went to bed planning to go to Maine, and woke up warm and at peace when the alarm went off. If she does not go through with it, will she ever wake up like this again?
She finally gets up and takes the shower, even though she doesn't need it to warm up. Then she reads and rereads the letter while the coffee is brewing and the water is boiling for the eggs.
She gets dressed after breakfast. At work, she dresses for comfort and efficiency: slacks and flat shoes. That was the 1st thing she learned in residency. Everywhere else, she wears a dress and high heels. And that includes the long car drive ahead of her today.
Julia reads Mrs. Stoddard's letter again. Then she watches the rain for a while. Then she carries her suitcase and makeup case (matching pieces of red American Tourister) through the rain and puts them under the hood of her red Karmann Ghia. She goes back to the house to grab her purse, with the letter and the Maine map inside, and lock the door.
She is soon northbound on Interstate 95. She putts along at 50 in the right lane. Today is the 1st time since her return from the EXPEDITION that she has driven farther than to work and back, but she figures the Interstate will be easier to deal with than U.S. 1: all the traffic is going one way, and no intersections to deal with. She stops 4 times to drink a fresh cup of coffee, and to pee out the previous cup.
She arrives in Collinsport late in the afternoon. It is raining harder than ever. She passes a motel on the outskirts of town, but doesn't like the look of it. The Collinsport Inn, closer to downtown, looks much better. There's another motel, the Dock of the Bay Inn, even farther downtown, but she soon sees that it is too close to the water for her taste. And it has the words Dock and Bay in its name.
She follows the directions and her Xeroxed copy of the map. She shudders as she drives past the water in the harbor. She thanks God it is pouring rain out of a gray sky, so the water is gray too. She makes the next turn on the map and is soon on a road with trees on both sides. And there are the gates on the right, just as the directions say.
She turns onto the gravel and stops in front of the gate. The name is supposed to be engraved at the top of the left gatepost. But the stone is dark, and ivy is growing on its edges, and the rain is still pouring down. She inches the Karmann Ghia closer until the front bumper almost touches the corner of the gatepost. There, she can read it now: COLLINWOOD.
She drives back to the town, and spends an extra 5 minutes finding a back street route that gets her to the Collinsport Inn without passing the water again. This is not absolutely necessary in today's rain, but it will be vital if the sky is clear tomorrow.
The sign in front of the Inn reads:
COLLINSPORT INN
Est. 1761
Jonathan & Rachel
Drummond
Props.
Julia has worn her raincoat all the way through the drive. Now she puts on her hat and walks through the pouring rain to the door of the Inn.
Rachel Drummond (Kathryn Leigh Scott) is at the front desk when Julia comes through the door. Rachel smiles at her and says, "Good afternoon, Ma'am. May I help you?"
"Good afternoon. Do you have a room for the night?"
"Yes, Ma'am. We had a lot of cancellations because of the rain, otherwise we would be full up tonight."
"THIS time of year and you would be full up if not for the cancellations?"
"It's hunting season, Ma'am. Almost as busy as the summer. But it's supposed to be clear tomorrow. Would you sign in please?"
Julia shudders at the thought of a clear sky - and the sun shining on the water in the harbor. She had skipped lunch, and her stomach growls as she signs in. By habit, she puts "M.D." after her name. She regrets it, for the sake of her own privacy and the privacy of her potential patient. After all, this is a small town.
Rachel asks, "Would you like some help with your bags, Doctor Hoffman?"
"No thank you, I can manage."
"Are you sure? We don't have an elevator you know."
Julia thinks about it for a moment, and then says, "I'll have dinner first, and then decide."
"Yes, Ma'am. I hope you enjoy your stay with us."
"Thank you."
The waitress asks what Julia wants to drink.
"Black coffee and a double Scotch on the rocks, please."
The 1st page of the opened menu is all seafood. Julia throws her napkin over it, to keep it out of her sight. The opposite page is beef, pork, and poultry. She decides on the Yankee Pot Roast. All the meals aboard the ship were excellent, but the "roast beast" (as the sailors called it) was her favorite. She hopes the Inn's Yankee pot roast can at least match it.
Julia moans in ecstasy over the 1st bite. It is the first bite of food that she has enjoyed in months. "I was right to come here," she tells herself.
It is still raining after dinner, and Julia takes Rachel up on the offer of help with her bags. The Inn does not have a bellboy. Instead a busboy from the restaurant puts on a raincoat and carries Julia's bags from the car to Room 6.
Julia tips him generously. She reads the letter again, even though she had it memorized a long time ago, and then takes a long hot shower. After the shower, she paces the room barefoot (which feels wonderful after driving in high heels all day) in her dressing gown, and reads the letter again ... and again...
Then she stares at the telephone. "It's not too late, Julia," she tells herself out loud. "It won't be too late until you call Mrs. Stoddard." She picks up the phone.
"Desk." It is Rachel's voice that answers.
"MOnarch six, double-oh nine nine, please," Julia says.
"Yes, Doctor Hoffman. One moment, please."
Julia hears clicks and then the ringing tone.
"It's ringing, Doctor. I'll unplug now." There is another click as Rachel pulls the plug of her headset out of the switchboard, leaving Julia alone with the ringing tone.
Downstairs, Rachel stares at the light burning below the jack to Room 6. "Why is the Doctor with the orange hair calling Collinwood?" she asks herself. She smiles and touches her own hair. It was red when she was younger, but never as bright as Dr. Hoffman's.
Rachel is burning up with curiosity, but she has never violated the privacy of her guests, and she is not going to start now. She goes back to her copy of Casino Royale. One of the first things she learned about inn-keeping was, "Don't try to read anything new when you are on the desk. And don't try to reread anything heavy like War and Peace. Keep it light, so you can easily pick up the story after each of the constant interruptions." She has a small bookcase filled with Lou Cameron, Raymond Chandler, Ian Fleming, Dashiell Hammett, and John D. MacDonald. She is on her third lap of that bookcase.
After the fourth ring, a male and very Maine voice says, "Collinwood."
"Mrs. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, please. Dr. Julia Hoffman calling."
"Ayuh. Just a minute."
Soon a female voice says, "Dr. Hoffman? Elizabeth Collins Stoddard here. Thank you for calling."
"You're welcome, Mrs. Stoddard. I'm at the Collinsport Inn. May I come to Collinwood tomorrow morning to meet you and David?"
"Doctor, why are you at the Inn? There's plenty of room here at Collinwood. We could easily put you up for the night."
"Mrs. Stoddard, I am a total stranger to you. You shouldn't invite me for the night until you know me better. Will ten AM tomorrow be OK?"
"Yes, Dr. Hoffman, ten will be fine. I hope you will stay for lunch, let me show you at least that much Collins hospitality."
Julia smiles at the phone. She likes Mrs. Stoddard's voice. "Thank you, that would lovely. But I have to tell you, I have an aversion to all forms of seafood. And I suspect a woman in the seafood business serves a lot of it."
"Willie Loomis, who answered the phone, is my cook, among other things. Pot roast is what he does best. What he does to seafood is appalling. And that's a sacrilege, considering he's a native of Collinsport."
Julia laughs, for the 1st time in months. "OK, Mrs. Stoddard. I'll see you tomorrow at ten. Good night."
"Good night, Dr. Hoffman. And thank you."
Julia takes a sleeping pill and goes to bed. She sleeps soundly until her travel alarm goes off on Sunday morning. That makes two nights in a row she has slept until the alarm. And for the second morning in a row, she does not wake up screaming and shivering.
"I must come here more often," she tells herself.
Sunday morning lives up to the day's name - the sun is the only thing in the sky. Which means the water in the harbor will be blue. Julia shivers with horror at the thought of it, and thanks God she found the back street route yesterday.
After breakfast - her first breakfast in months that wasn't boiled eggs and heavily buttered toast, the first breakfast in months that she actually enjoyed - she paces her room, and reads the letter again. "Call Mrs. Stoddard," she tells herself. "Tell her to forget the whole f***ing thing. Or just drive away, and stand her up."
At 9:40, Julia calls the desk and asks for help with her bags. A different busboy carries them to the Karmann Ghia. She tips him, checks out, and drives to Collinwood via the back street route that avoids the harbor and its blue water. The gates of Collinwood are open this time. In anticipation of her arrival?
She stops behind a yellow Chevy station wagon in the circular drive in front of the house. She gets out of the car and studies the house for a few seconds before approaching the front door. "This is the house on the hill overlooking town," she tells herself.
Julia shudders at the sight of the knocker: King Neptune on a scallop shell, flanked by 2 stylized dolphins. "Get back in the car and drive away," she tells herself. She shuts her eyes and knocks on the wood below the knocker, rather than touch such a horror.
The door opens sooner than Julia expects, revealing a tall, slim, elegant woman in a dress that is unfashionably long.
"Yes?" the woman says. Her voice is the one Julia heard on the phone last night.
"Mrs. Stoddard? I'm Dr. Julia Hoffman."
"Yes, I am Elizabeth Collins Stoddard," the tall woman says with a smile. She offers her hand. "Welcome to Collinwood, Dr. Hoffman. Pleased to meet you. Please come in."
Halfway through the entryway, Julia stops suddenly at the sight of the grand foyer's floor: wide wavy lines of dark blue and white and light blue. She tries to suppress the expression she can feel on her face.
"Dr. Hoffman! Are you all right?" Mrs. Stoddard's hand is on Julia's arm, ready to help if Julia needs it.
"I'm sorry, but I hate Op Art." This is Julia's 1st lie to Mrs. Stoddard, and it will be quickly exposed.
Mrs. Stoddard smiles and says, "This floor was almost 190 years old when the term Op Art was coined. Let's go to the drawing room. The hallway is just a few steps across the wavy floor."
Until they turn down the hall to the drawing room, Julia keeps her eyes turned up as far as she can and still see Mrs. Stoddard leading the way. Once they are in the hall she relaxes - until she enters the drawing room.
A desk stands in a windowed alcove almost directly opposite the door. The windows behind the desk look out over grass and then a line of trees with a wide gap in it. And visible through the gap is a long slope of bare, black rock and then ...
"Oh my God!" Julia cries. She almost screams the words as she turns away from the sight. She is shaking and sweating.
"Dr. Hoffman! What is it? What's wrong?" Mrs. Stoddard is behind Julia now. Her hands are on her both of Julia's upper arms, ready to help if Julia collapses, as she appears on the verge of doing.
"You should call this house Seaview instead of Collinwood ... to warn people about ... about ... that!" Julia jerks her thumb over her shoulder at the view beyond the desk.
"The sea?"
"I was on a long ... sea voyage early this year." She has to force out the word "sea." "Something ... happened ... something ... horrible. It left me with a phobia about sun lit blue water ... and a phobia about all forms of ... s-s-sea life." Julia laughs bitterly. " 'Physician, heal thyself.' The admonition is almost as old as the profession. But I'll never heal myself of these."
"That's why you reacted the way you did to the floor of the grand foyer. It had nothing to do with Op Art," Mrs. Stoddard replies.
"Yes. I lied to you about that. And a lie is no way to start a professional relationship. I never should have come here. I should have known this house overlooks the ... the ... " She can't even say the word "sea" again.
"I'm sorry I wasted your time, Mrs. Stoddard. I'll be on my way." Julia starts back down the hall.
"Dr. Hoffman!" Mrs. Stoddard tone of command compels Julia to turn around and look at her.
"We the patients don't like you to admit it, but doctors are made of the same mortal clay as the rest of us.
"Dr. Eric Lang was the Collins family physician for decades, and I mean literally decades. He delivered me. He cared for me through my childhood diseases. He delivered my daughter, and I was expecting him to deliver my grandchildren. He died of a heart attack in his own living room as he was about to leave for work one day. He was 80.
"Please come and sit front of the fire. It's to the right of the door, and your back will be to the windows. There's a lot of nautical decor in the drawing room, but the andirons are wolves, not fishes. And I'll close the drapes. Would a drink help?"
Julia takes a deep breath. "Neat Scotch please." She prefers her Scotch on the rocks, but the ice bucket is not likely to be loaded at this hour of the morning, and she does not want to wait for ice to be fetched from the kitchen.
Julia sits on the center of the couch in front of the fire. Her hands are shaking, so she uses both of them to take the glass Mrs. Stoddard soon hands to her.
"Thank you," Julia says before taking a big sip.
Mrs. Stoddard sits in the armchair to Julia's left. "Are you feeling any better."
Julia is concentrating on her drink and the wolf shaped andirons that flank the fire - and on Mrs. Stoddard, her charming hostess. "Is that sexual desire I feel stirring within me?" she asks herself. "If so, it is the first time in months."
"Yes, Mrs. Stoddard, I do feel better. Thank you." She takes another sip of her drink, and takes care to make it a small sip this time. "Shall we get down to business? Mrs. Stoddard, you described the situation pretty thoroughly in your letter. But I do have some questions."
"I think I know what one of them is. Why is David's aunt, and not his father, interviewing the prospective psychiatrist?"
"Yes."
"I didn't want to put that in writing. It hurts to even say it out loud, even in private, even to a psychiatrist." Mrs. Stoddard takes a deep breath. "To put it bluntly, Doctor: my brother is a worthless piece of shit. Stupid, lazy, cowardly, and selfish. The best thing he ever did was marry Laura. In six years of marriage, she came closer to making a man out of Roger than our parents did in all the years before that. If anything, he is worse now than he was before he married Laura. David's delusion that his mother is still alive does not cause Roger worry or fear for his son. It only causes him embarrassment for himself."
"Please tell me about the boat accident."
"Laura wanted to learn more about our fishing business so she could help me run it. She also told me she was hoping the sight of his wife working would shame Roger into doing more himself. She insisted on going out on one of our boats to see what the actual fishing part of it was like ... Excuse me for a moment, Doctor. It's much too early, but I need a drink myself."
Mrs. Stoddard gets up and soon returns with a glass of red wine.
"Fishermen can be a rough bunch and I tried to talk her out of going. But Laura had a way about her. When I introduced her to the crew, they actually took their hats off to her and welcomed her aboard with a warmth that astonished me."
Mrs. Stoddard takes a big sip of her wine before continuing. "Late that afternoon, Sheriff Bill Malloy was at my door. The Commanding Officer of Coast Guard Station South Portland had called him and asked him to make the notification ... in person.
"USCGC Humboldt is named for Humboldt Bay in California, but her home port is Portland, Maine."
Julia can see that Mrs. Stoddard is throwing in all these details to calm herself ... or to put off saying the really painful part. Julia has seen it many times before, and she is willing to go along with it. She even helps by asking Mrs. Stoddard a landlubber's question. "USCGC?"
"United States Coast Guard Cutter." Mrs. Stoddard takes another sip of wine. "She received a Mayday call from ... our boat. Explosion, fire, and taking water fast. By pure dumb luck, Humboldt was so close she could see the smoke from the fire. She was on the scene in maybe twenty minutes. All she found was an oil slick and a few pieces of debris, including part of the name plate from the stern. No survivors, not even any bodies.
"Bill ... Sheriff Malloy told Roger and me all this. And then we went to David's room to tell him. He looked at us like we were crazy and said, 'Mom's not dead. I saw her just before you came in.' He's been like that ever since, insisting his mother is still alive."
"In your letter, you mentioned two strange accidents that almost killed your brother. You wrote that you fear David was responsible for them. Can you tell me more about them?"
"One involved fire and one involved water. Fire in Roger's room and the water in the boathouse ... " Mrs. Stoddard is obviously reluctant to say more. Julia gently pushes her, then backs off when she sees that Mrs. Stoddard will soon be in tears if she says anymore. Mrs. Stoddard must be calm and tear free when she introduces David to Julia.
"Mrs. Stoddard, I would like to meet David now." She swallows the last of her Scotch and says, "Maybe we should get the glasses out of sight first."
Mrs. Stoddard smiles and takes one last sip of her wine. "I'll take them to the kitchen and then bring David here. Please make yourself at home, Dr. Hoffman."
While she waits, Julia walks around the room looking at the book titles on the many shelves. She has seen some of them before, in the "Popular Culture" section of the DOS's library. She smiles at the thought that the inhabitants of Collinwood probably consider these books outré.
She stays away from the windows, even though the drapes are all closed now.
Mrs. Stoddard and a little boy with black hair come through the door. Mrs. Stoddard shuts the door behind her and says, "Dr. Hoffman, this is my nephew, David Collins. David, this is Dr. Julia Hoffman."
Julia leans over to shake hands with David and says, "Good morning, David."
"Good morning, Dr. Hoffman. Are you a vampire?"
Elizabeth cries in horror, "David!"
Julia learned long ago to not react with surprise or shock or fear to anything a patient says. She smiles and says calmly, "It's all right, Mrs. Stoddard." Smiling at David, she says, "No, David, I am not a vampire. Why did you think I might be one?"
"One of my Grandpa's books says lady vampires have red hair and pale skin. But it also says they have green eyes, and yours are brown. So I guess you're OK."
"And it's daytime outside. Vampires don't go out in the daytime."
"Not in the movies. But in the book Dracula, he does go out in the daytime. He just wears a big hat to protect himself from the sun."
Elizabeth asks, "David, where did you get all this? You're only six, you can't have read Dracula. I read it when I was twelve and it was tough going."
"Grandpa read parts of it to me and told me about the rest, even before he and Mom taught me to read. He read other books to me too. And the governess didn't last very long, so I figured I better educate myself."
"I don't consider Dracula and books about red haired lady vampires to be educational."
"Grandpa said they are when you live in a place like Collinsport. He said to help myself when I got older. And now I'm older."
"Not that much older. David, which book described lady vampires?"
"Witchcraft-something, by a man named Sea-something."
Julia shudders at the " ... Sea-something." That was one book on the shelf that she looked away from. But David is looking at his Aunt Elizabeth and does not see Julia's reaction. If she takes him on as a patient, she does not want him to know that she is made of the same mortal clay as anyone else.
Elizabeth says, "I know that book. Just a minute." She searches the shelves and soon finds it. "Here it is, Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today, by William Seabrook." She looks at the table of contents, and then turns to the chapter "Vampire 1932 from Brooklyn, New York." She scans the paragraphs for a minute and then says, "Aha! It says here that three-quarters of the medieval writings about vampires, not this book itself, describe female vampires as having red hair and pale skin. But the medieval writings also describe female vampires as having green eyes and being very thin. David, you pointed out yourself that Dr. Hoffman has brown eyes. And Doctor Hoffman is NOT thin."
Then she gasps with horror as she realizes what she has said. She turns to Julia and says, "Oh my God! I'm sorry, Dr. Hoffman. Please forgive me."
Julia laughs and says, "No sweat, Mrs. Stoddard." Mrs. Stoddard is one hell of a woman - she has now made Julia laugh twice.
Julia turns back to David. "David, may we talk about your mother?"
Julia and David talk about his mother for a few minutes, and then Julia says, "David, do you know what hypnotism is?"
"Sure. It's when someone talks you into going to sleep but you can still talk to them."
"May I hypnotize you, David?"
"Are you going to make me dance on a flagpole a hundred feet up in the air, like Svengarlic did to the Three Stooges?"
"No, David. That's make believe. Real hypnotism is nothing like that. I won't make you do anything that would hurt or embarrass you. Even if I wanted to do such a thing, your Aunt Elizabeth will be right here. She won't let me do anything that would hurt or embarrass you."
"OK. What do I have to do?"
"Take off your shoes and lie down on the couch. If you want to, put a pillow under your head to get comfortable."
David does as Julia has told him, then Julia draws her late maternal-grandfather's gold watch from her purse. She has used it for hypnotism far more than for telling time.
"Look at the watch, David. See it swing from side to side. Watch the watch ... "
David proves to be an excellent subject. He is under in less than 2 minutes.
Julia takes her time. She asks David routine questions and gradually leads up to the big one.
"David, please tell me about your mother."
"People think she's dead, but she's not."
Julia pursues that line for a while, and then goes after what Mrs. Stoddard was so reluctant to talk about.
"David, what happened in the boathouse?"
"No, Mom, NO! Please don't hurt Dad! It was an accident, he didn't mean to hurt you!"
"Oh my, God!" Mrs. Stoddard gasps. She presses both hands over her mouth.
Julia looks at her and puts her finger to her lips. She can see tears starting down Mrs. Stoddard's checks.
Julia turns back to David. "David! It's all right, we won't talk about that now. Relax, David, relax."
David visibly un-tenses.
"David, I want you to sleep now, just like you sleep in your bed at night. But you will still be able to hear me when I speak to you. Relax and sleep, David."
Julia turns to Mrs. Stoddard, takes her arm and leads her as far from David as she can. Then she whispers, "You must be calm when I wake David up. A few tears are OK, you can tell him he talked about his mother and you miss her so much that you teared up a bit. But you mustn't be weeping. Can you get a grip on yourself, or should I let him sleep for awhile?"
Julia can see Mrs. Stoddard pulling herself together. And then Mrs. Stoddard nods.
Julia goes back to David. "David, I will count to three and then clap my hands. When I clap, you will wake up. You will feel rested and relaxed. And you will remember nothing that we talked about while you were asleep. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"OK. Here we go. One ... two ... three." CLAP.
David wakes and says, "How did I do, Dr. Hoffman?"
"You did great, David. May we do this again some time?"
"Sure." Then he looks at Mrs. Stoddard. "Aunt Liz! Are you crying?"
"Almost, David. You talked about your mother and I miss her so much that I ... it was very sad for me."
"Do you see what I mean, Dr. Hoffman?"
"Yes I do, David. Why don't you go play now and let your Aunt Liz and I talk about you behind your back."
Mrs. Stoddard is shocked by this bald statement about what comes next. But David laughs, just as Julia expected.
"Sure, Dr. Hoffman. Can you stay and have lunch with us?"
"It'll be a pleasure, David."
As soon as David is gone and the door is shut behind him, Julia turns on Mrs. Stoddard.
"What is it? Why did you react like that?"
Mrs. Stoddard lets go. She sits on the couch and sobs. "I thought he didn't know! But he does! My God, how does he know?"
"Knows what, Mrs. Stoddard?"
"Oh God, oh God."
For the 1st time today, Julia fights to be patient. "What does David know that you thought he didn't know?"
"I was sick with the flu. So sick I could barely move." Mrs. Stoddard's voice turns bitter. "Everyone else got the flu in the winter. I got it in the spring."
Once again, Mrs. Stoddard is throwing in all these details to calm herself or to put off saying the really painful part. Julia forces herself to be patient.
"Just before I got sick, the captain of ... the boat told me there was a bad fuel leak on board."
"Gasoline or diesel?"
"Gas!" Mrs. Stoddard spits the word.
Julia asked because she remembers what Mrs. Stoddard said earlier: "Explosion, fire, and taking water fast." She also still remembers some of the things she learned on the EXPEDITION.
Mrs. Stoddard continues. "I was so sick that I ... God forgive me! I trusted Roger ... I trusted my worthless f***ing brother to take care of it! I gave him the cash to pay for the Collinsport Boatyard to fix the gas leak. I told told him to call the boatyard and ask them to send someone over to fix it."
"What did he do instead? Fix it himself and keep the money?"
Mrs. Stoddard laughs bitterly. "He's too lazy for that! Even if he knew how to fix anything, which he doesn't. He hired Sebastian Shaw."
"Who is Sebastian Shaw?"
"A boat mechanic. When he's sober, he's a barely adequate mechanic. When he's drunk or hungover, which is most of the time, you can't trust him to tighten a single screw properly. Everyone in town knows it. Which is why he charges half of what the Collinsport Boatyard does. It's the only way he can get any work."
"And Roger kept the other half for himself. And if Shaw botched the job, it may have caused the explosion that killed David's mother."
"Yes. And if David knows, then he has a motive to kill his father. His worthless, fatheaded God damn father!" Mrs. Stoddard is spitting her words again.
Julia is silent for a while, thinking fast and hard. She was not shocked to hear such curses from such an elegant and high class lady as Mrs. Stoddard. She has heard worse from ladies just as refined.
Mrs. Stoddard is grateful for the silence. Every word she has said since David left so they could talk about him behind his back has been agony for her.
Then Julia speaks. "Delusions of grandeur, also known as the Napoleonic complex, from the stereotypical example: the guy who thinks he's Napoleon. It's a common symptom of paranoid schizophrenia."
"That's not what David has!"
"No, it's not. I'm thinking out loud. David's delusion is about someone else ... about his mother being alive ... Mrs. Stoddard, there is a point where all delusions fail. During my residency, one of my patients was a paranoid schizophrenic who really did think he was Napoleon. He had been that way for twenty years. It took six long sessions of hypnosis, but I found the point where his delusion failed. Finding it did not cure him, of course, but I did find it."
This is Julia's 2nd lie to Mrs. Stoddard. It will not be exposed for years to come.
"David's delusion that his mother is still alive is new. Even though our session was short, I should have found the point where that delusion failed. I didn't. The Bible says to love God with all of your heart and all of your mind and all of your soul and all of your strength. That is how David believes his mother is still alive.
"He believes it so strongly that even under hypnosis, he attributes the attempt on his father's life in the boathouse to his mother."
"Does that mean there is no hope for him?"
"No, it doesn't. Mrs. Stoddard, I would like to work with David for a month. Two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon, five days a week. And maybe an hour or two on Saturday on mornings, if David will go along with it."
"Dr. Hoffman, I'm afraid I can't afford that."
"A flat $400, plus room and board here at Collinwood. That's $5 per hour for the weekday sessions. That's dirt cheap for a psychiatrist. And I'll throw in the Saturdays for free."
Elizabeth is shocked. "What about your patients in Arkham?"
"I closed my private practice months ago, before I left on that long ... sea voyage." This is the truth. "And I am about to go on sabbatical from my current position." This is Julia's 3rd lie to Mrs. Stoddard. Like her 2nd lie, it will not be exposed for years to come.
Elizabeth thinks hard. She can manage $400. But ... "Dr. Hoffman, you've been in your ... current position for less than a year. How can you take a sabbatical already?"
"It's an ... unusual place. And they owe me one, a big one."
"Will a month of therapy be enough? Even a month of therapy this intensive?"
"I don't know. That's another reason I'm suggesting this. David's case interests me. I think I can learn something myself from it. Frankly, I'm asking for the $400 partly out of professional pride."
To herself, Julia says, "I am also curious about you, Mrs. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. I know why I often hesitate before I say the word ... sea, even in my own head. Why do you hesitate before saying, 'our boat' or 'the boat.' I sense there is more to it than the deaths your brother and his half-assed mechanic caused."
Mrs. Stoddard offers her hand and says, "It's a deal."
Julia shakes hands with Mrs. Stoddard again, and then looks at her watch. "Mrs. Stoddard, my apologies to you and to David. I must renege on my acceptance of your offers to join you for lunch. Even with my sabbatical, there are things I must do to prepare for a month's absence. And odd as it may sound, I can get started on them on a Sunday. I must leave for Arkham at once."
"I'm sorry to hear that, Doctor. David will be too."
"Please give him my apologies. And tell him I'll be back in a few days. I'll call and let you know exactly when to expect me."
Julia does not go straight home when she gets back to Arkham. She stops at the home of Dr. James Whitman (Roy Thinnes), Head of the Psychiatry Department at dear old "Mumsy." Diane Whitman (Diane Baker), Dr. Whitman's wife, opens the door in response to Julia's knock.
"Julia! This is an unexpected pleasure. Please, come in."
"Thank you, Diane," Julia says as she enters. To herself she says, "Unexpected, yes. A pleasure, no. Not if James has told Diane about my recent behavior."
Diane says, "James is in his study. This way, please."
The study door is half open. Diane knocks and says, "James, Julia is here."
James rises from his desk and says, "Julia! An unexpected pleasure. What can I do for you?"
"Pleasure my ass," Julia thinks. Out loud she says, "I'm resigning, effective immediately. I will give it to you in writing first thing tomorrow, then clean out my office and be on my way."
"What the hell?! Julia, you can't leave now. We're in the middle of the semester."
"Thank you for making me sound indispensable, but we both know I don't belong at Mumsy. I'm insubordinate to you and rude to everyone. And as you have long suspected, I drink on the job. You never would have hired me in the first place if your superiors hadn't insisted on it. Now I'm making it easy for you to get rid of me.
"One way or another, I am going. You can accept my resignation now or I can take a drink in front of my students tomorrow, and then you can fire me. But I am going. It will be better for me, better for the department, and better for Mumsy if you simply accept my resignation now. And admit it, it will be better for you."
"Julia, what the hell is going on? What really happened on Frank's expedition? What did this to you?"
Julia shivers. "Be grateful you don't know. If you are a praying man, then give thanks that you don't know and pray that you never find out.
"Good night, James. Good night, Diane."
Julia's red telephone is ringing when she gets home. She lets it ring 2 more times before she picks up the receiver and says, "Hello, Eliot."
She is right, it is Eliot at the other end of the wire.
"I'm surprised James called you. He should have known you would try to talk me out of it. Well, I won't disappoint him by letting you do it. I'll tell you what little you need to know tomorrow. And I will give you my written resignation from the DOS. Good night. I am taking a shower and going to bed. And taking the phone off the hook."
The next morning - the 1st day of the few days Julia needs to settle her affairs before she goes back to Collinwood - Julia wakes up warm and at peace. "Oh yes," she thinks, "I am definitely returning to Collinwood."
NOTES
1. The fictitious Miskatonic University and the equally fictitious city of Arkham, Massachusetts are the creations of H.P. Lovecraft [1890-1937]. Many other writers have used them in stories inspired by Lovecraft. As far as I know, I am the 1st to refer to Miskatonic University Medical Center as "dear old Mumsy."
During the 1st transfusion scene in Burton's Shadows, Julia tells Barnabas, "This isn't exactly the kind of thing they teach you in medical school." As she said this, she was thinking, "Not even at dear old Mumsy."
The movie Re-Animator [1985] is set at "Miskatonic Medical School." Herbert West, played by Jeffrey Combs, was the "Re-Animator" of the title - hence the name West for Julia's smart but arrogant student. The movie was based on the H.P. Lovecraft story Herbert West - Reanimator. I will cast Mr. Combs as the villain in a DS prequel based in part on the Lovecraft story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."
ADDED 7-3-2017: Today I found my copy of the Lovecraft story Herbert West - Reanimator. There the name is "Miskatonic University Medical School." Mr. Lovecraft did not point out that this name could be abbreviated as "MUMS." This is odd, given his Anglophilia. But to be expected, given the lack of humor in his stories. There is not even comic relief in them.
CORRECTION: I am rereading Herbert West - Reanimator for the first time in years, and there are a few touches of humor in it.
Providence, Rhode Island was Lovecraft's hometown. It is also the home of Brown University. Emma Watson graduated from Brown on May 25, 2014 - the day before Helena Bonham Carter's 48th birthday.
So far I have cast Ms. Watson as an FBI communications clerk in Chapter 5 of "Elizabeth's Secret." I will cast her in a larger part in my Innsmouthian-DS prequel. This part will be a villainess. After playing Hermione in the Harry Potter movies all those years, she might be eager to play a bad girl.
2. Angelique, in all her aspects through the years, was the de facto queen of Collinsport. So when telephone service 1st came to Collinsport, she ordered the phone company to name the Collinsport telephone exchange "MOnarch." And when all exchanges became 3 digits, the Collinsport exchange became MOnarch6 - or "666" under digit-dialing. And that's because the original Dark Shadows began in JUNE of 1966. Any other interpretation is solely in the eye of the interpreter.
The last 4 digits of Collinwood's number are 0099 because the Collins family was once the 1st family of Collinsport, but are so no longer. However, when telephone service 1st came to Collinsport, the Collins family did still have enough money to be just barely among the phone company's 1st 100 subscribers.
3. Eleanor Parker and Lara Parker (no relation, as far as I know) played mother and daughter in "The Big Aloha" episode of Hawaii Five-O in 1978.
4. As I interpret Tim Burton's version of Dark Shadows, Jonathan Frid and Kathryn Leigh Scott played Jonathan and Rachel Drummond, Innkeepers, in the Happening scene. This is inspired by the "back-story" Ms. Scott devised for her character in Burton's Shadows. You can read it on pages 35-36 of her book Dark Shadows: Return to Collinwood [Pomegranate Press, 2012]. If Ms. Scott ever reads this, I hope she will forgive the liberties I have taken with her back-story. At least I gave her the name of a character that she did play in the original Dark Shadows.
5. ADDED July 31, 2016:
Stephen King, Maine's favorite son of horror, and the late John D. MacDonald were fans of each other's work.
I have removed Donald Hamilton from Rachel's bookcase because Matt Helm [Mr. Hamilton's most famous creation] and the agency he works for will be referred to in an upcoming chapter of "Elizabeth's Secret." I can't very well have Rachel reading fiction about a person who is "real" in my ficverse.
6. Seaview Terrace, later called the Carey Mansion, was used for the external shots of Collinwood in the original Dark Shadows.
ADDED Nov. 8, 2015:
I recently discovered at darkshadowswikia dot com that the original Dark Shadows did include a house called Seaview, AKA "the House by the Sea." Seaview was owned by the Collins family, but it was not on the grounds of Collinwood.
Burke Devlin wanted to buy Seaview when he and Victoria were engaged. Elizabeth was willing to sell it to him, but then she discovered a codicil in the will of Caleb Collins, the last member of the family to live in Seaview. The codicil said the house was not to be sold to anyone outside the family until 100 years after Caleb's death. The 100 years would have been up in 1972 - the year in which Burton's Shadows is set.
This may have been foreshadowing a storyline that the success of the "Barnabas the Vampire" storyline and its ensuing complications left no time to develop. But the story of Seaview was finally told in the 2012 audio-book "The House by the Sea," by Big Finish Productions.
7. USCGC Humboldt was a real Coast Guard Cutter whose home port was Portland, Maine. You can read more about her at wikipedia.
8. Another chapter in Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today, by William Seabrook, is about the Yi King. According to the book, it is pronounced, "Yee Ching." That, or something close to it, is how Professor Stokes pronounced it in the original Dark Shadows. In the original Dark Shadows, Barnabas used the Yi King to go back in time and help Quentin Collins with his lycanthropy problem.
9. Roy Thinnes played Roger Collins and Reverend Trask in the 1991 version of Dark Shadows. He played David Vincent in The Invaders, a Quinn Martin Production. He also played David Norliss in the TV-movie The Norliss Tapes (1973), a Dan Curtis Production. The Norliss Tapes was also the pilot (see NOTE 10.), which did not sell, for a series that would have resembled the later series The X-Files. Mr. Thinnes played Jeremiah Smith, a rebel alien, in 2 episodes of The X-Files.
And Roy Thinnes played Dr. James Whitman in The Psychiatrist, a short lived series on NBC during the 1970-1971 season, the same season in which the original Dark Shadows was cancelled. Diane Baker, whom I have cast as Diane Whitman here, was the leading lady in the pilot episode of The Invaders.
By casting Mr. Thinnes as Dr. Whitman in this story as well as Special Agent David Vincent in my story Dark Shadows: "Elizabeth's Secret" [his 1st appearance there is in chapter 6] I am complying with the Dark Shadows tradition of one actor playing more than one character.
Lynn Lorring had a recurring role as Barbara Erskine, Inspector Lewis Erskine's daughter, in the 1st season of The FBI, a Quinn Martin Production. She and Mr. Thinnes were married from 1967 to 1984. Erskine's daughter is mentioned briefly, but not by name, in my story "Elizabeth's Secret: Chapter 4."
10. In the Quentin Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction, Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson) explained what a pilot is.