Greetings, dear readers.
In my last Dark Shadows fic, I had Barnabas pondering why Angelique went through so much trouble to turn Carolyn into a werewolf. Well, I thought I could expand on that and turn it into a small one-shot, only from Carolyn's viewpoint.
So, I sat down for a couple of hours tonight and got this out.
I hope everyone likes it.
Again, reviews to me is like blood to Barnabas. :-D
And awayyy we go. :-D
Carolyn took a deep breath and held it a moment before slowly exhaling.
She was seated, cross-legged, clad in a t-shirt and shorts, on the floor of her bedroom, with a textbook on Kundalini Yoga in front of her. She'd begun doing this after coming across a magazine article about yoga being a way to calm and center oneself. Although, she didn't agree with the idea it was some miraculous answer for everything, she did find it a most helpful way to relax. Idly, she wondered if she should lend the book to her mother. Her mother seemed to be really tense these days…especially after she'd concluded a driving lesson. Carolyn wondered what could be making her mother tense. (After all, she wasn't the one who had to worry about an upcoming licensing examination.)
Although the family's new openness had indeed allowed Carolyn to drop many of her shields and generally relax more, she still found that her condition could cause her to have moods that fluctuated along with the cycles of the moon. She'd discovered that physical activity was a way that helped her relax, or at the very least vent. As a result, she rode her bike a great deal; she swam a lot and had taken up yoga as a way to help calm her. (Before summer vacation had begun, Carolyn had greatly enjoyed physical-education class at school. Her favourite activity, she'd discovered, was dodgeball. She'd never before realized how wonderfully cathartic –and fun- it was to totally nail someone with a well placed shot. So far, any team she played on had yet to suffer a defeat.)
Carolyn finished her routine and rose to her feet, inhaling deeply like the book described. She took in the fresh ocean breeze that wafted in her open bedroom window on the July night.
She looked up at the moon, which was now in its waning gibbous phase. It would be about three more weeks now until the next time the moon was full and the change came upon her again.
Carolyn looked over at her dresser and saw some recent pictures that made her smile. One was of her and her mother during their three-day trip to New York City to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. It was taken atop the Empire State Building, looking down towards Lower Manhattan where the new World Trade Center stood. Another was a pair of pictures of her and Joe Haskell taken from one of those photo booths when they'd gone out on a date recently. (Joe had the other two pictures from the set.) Carolyn had to admit how pleasantly surprised she was that they'd gotten so close so fast. She realized how much she really liked him. (She certainly wouldn't have gone to third base with him if she didn't like him.) And, as a bonus, he didn't seem to be freaked out at all by the otherworldliness of the Collins family. Of course, he didn't know the truth about them, at least not yet.
Carolyn stopped then and reached for her robe so she could go shower. As she dropped her shorts to the floor, she looked down and noticed something on the back of her left leg. She looked down and examined it. It was a small, very faint, white mark. Looking closer, she could see that there were actually several and they formed a pattern, reaching around into a semi-circle. It looked like…it was…It was a bite mark. She instantly realized what it was. It was where she'd initially been bitten by the werewolf Angelique had sent when she was a baby in her crib.
Carolyn had to admit that thought made her shiver a little. A werewolf had been able to sneak into Collinwood, bite her and flee before anyone noticed. Knowing what she was capable of when the change was upon her, Carolyn realized that the werewolf could have easily slaughtered everyone in the house then. According to the books Barnabas had on the supernatural (or, what the residents of Collinwood would term, non-fiction) a werewolf's non-fatal bite would heal itself very quickly. Carolyn figured that HAD to have happened, or her mother would have freaked out at learning that someone or something had been able to take a bite out of her daughter's leg while she was in her crib.
She sat down on her swing-chair and rubbed her chin in thought. Not for the first time since learning this was Angelique's doing, she pondered a few questions.
For starters, where had Angelique found her sire (that seemed to be the term vampires used, so she thought it fit for werewolves too) that she sent to bite her? Had she cursed him with her witchcraft and turned him the way she'd turned Barnabas into a vampire? But, if that was the case, why bother? She could have just done it to Carolyn directly.
That led to a second question that was perhaps even more pressing. Where was that werewolf now? Was he from around here? Had Angelique brought him from a far country? Was he even still alive? Carolyn had to surmise that any werewolf who would take instructions from Angelique –who she thought was a total bitch even before learning she was responsible for all the family's problems- was either extremely malleable (like the former Board of Directors for Angel Bay, now serving time for arson) or evil himself. If it was the former, then perhaps Angelique's death had freed him from whatever control she'd once had over him. If it was the latter…then he was dangerous. Carolyn knew full well how dangerous she could be if she had no control over her animal form or if she'd had malicious intent. This alpha-werewolf, if he was a willing ally of Angelique's would be a very dangerous creature.
As Carolyn entered the bathroom and turned on the water, she thought of the most perplexing question of all: what was Angelique's intent on doing this to her?
That question had been something Carolyn had been turning over in her head since the night she and Angelique had fought. Why had Angelique gone to so much trouble to turn her into a werewolf?
The witch herself had said that the family lacked some pedigree. That was probably her own attempt to be funny. But, it didn't answer the question. Carolyn had looked at it from every angle, and still could not find the logic behind it.
Had Angelique simply wanted the family to suffer some more in her endless desire for revenge after Barnabas had dumped her? That seemed to be the most logical reason, but why go about it like she did? When she was a werewolf, Carolyn had full control of her actions. Thus, she wouldn't be cursed to hunt and kill like a mindless predator every full moon; awakening the next morning with no memory of what happened, only a sickening feeling something horrible had taken place. Had Angelique intended for THAT to be how Carolyn would act when the change came upon her? If so, then clearly something had gone very wrong. But, Angelique would have realized that years before, when there wasn't a blood bath every full moon in Collinsport. And, if she'd realized it, then the witch would surely have done something to fix that little oversight. However, from the time of her first transformation to the partial change she'd experienced that night, it had always been Carolyn in control of the beast that lived within her.
Had Angelique wanted to control her somehow? Had she wanted to use her as some sort of pawn in her Machiavellian plotting against the Collins family? How would that have worked out? Would she have used some spell to take control of Carolyn when the change came? Would she have offered a cure in exchange for Carolyn's fealty before her? Again, if that was the plan it rather spectacularly backfired. Even before learning it was Angelique's doing that was responsible for her condition, Carolyn's main thought that night was that Angelique had to die. She'd never taken a human life in her werewolf form, but that night Carolyn had dropped through the floor fully prepared to rip Angelique to shreds and there was nothing the witch could have said or offered that would have the young werewolf.
Finally, the last motive Carolyn could think of was to turn her against her own family. Would she have blamed them for what happened? Carolyn couldn't see how. In 1957, when she was bitten, Angelique would have had no way of knowing Barnabas would be released fifteen years later and the family would learn of his history with the woman. Without that, why would Carolyn blame her family for her being a werewolf?
Of course, Carolyn thought as she stepped into the shower, Angelique COULD have used it as a way to further drive them apart. That seemed to be her pattern. She attacked them in ways that the repercussions echoed long after. For example, her drowning Aunt Laura; that had resulted in everyone thinking David was insane for talking to his mother's ghost and her Uncle Roger descending into disinterested neglect of his son.
That actually made a little bit of sense. Before that night, Carolyn's one desire had been to leave Collinwood forever and relocate to New York City where she could disappear. If that had happened, then what would have become of the Collins family then? She and David were the next generation. With her fleeing from her birthright and David regarded as being insane, that might well have spelled the end of the Collins family here. Was that her plan? Some convoluted way to drive them all apart?
Well, if that was indeed the intent it had failed as surely as everything else she'd come up with. Perhaps she'd mistaken Carolyn's moodiness for lack of concern and loyalty to her own blood. If so, that was her second greatest miscalculation –her greatest was messing with Aunt Laura. That night had brought it all home for her. Yes, her mother didn't understand a single thing about what she was going through. Yes, her cousin could be weird and creepy (or so she thought at the time). But, they were still her family. She could complain about them all she wanted, because that was what family members had the right to do. But, if any outsider should try to harm them…Well, watch out, because complaining about one's family didn't mean you didn't stand by them when the chips were down. That night, Carolyn understood it perfectly. Even if they didn't understand her or irritated her, they were Carolyn's flesh and blood…and Angelique would die by her claws and teeth for daring to try and harm them.
As she poured some Clairol Herbal Essence shampoo onto her hair and began to lather, Carolyn thought about what Angelique had really done.
She'd given Carolyn a truly great gift rather than a curse.
Carolyn now felt special. She could do things that nobody –save another werewolf- could. She could sense things in a way that few others (Barnabas and Victoria perhaps) could. Her senses could tell her whole stories about things. She was now much stronger and faster than just about anyone in town, save for her vampire aunt and uncle. And once a month, she felt the great freedom and exhilaration of the change as she allowed the beast in her to run free for a night. She reasoned that there were scores of people who would give anything to experience what she did and have her abilities.
And most importantly, she'd brought home to Carolyn that her loyalties lay with her family. She'd been given her abilities for a reason and so far as she was concerned, that was reason was to protect the people closest to her.
Overall, Carolyn thought as she rinsed her hair and re-lathered, Angelique was pretty stupid. She'd clearly underestimated the bonds that kept the Collins family together. And –even worse- she'd bestowed a gift of immense power to one of them, without allowing herself any way to control her. In hindsight, Angelique really should have left them all alone. However, Carolyn was rather glad she hadn't. Now, she would never want to give up what she could do and go back to being ordinary. She'd been ordinary –or thought she'd been- for the first twelve years of her life. Given a choice, she'd pick her extraordinary gifts anytime.