Disclaimer: Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production and not mine
A/N: This chapter contains references from some pre-Barnabas storylines such as the murder of Bill Malloy, and Laura Collins the Phoenix. Both in which the ghost of Josette participated in. There's also some references to the 1795 timeline
CHAPTER 3: THE VAMPIRE'S LOVE
At the arrival of dusk, Barnabas creaked open the lid of his coffin after awaking from an undead rest. His cold stone ancient basement was completely to his liking. All the candles were lit, surely by his servant before his master awoke. The thin blue candles illuminated the vampire's private dungeon in a sinister glow. Deepening shadows creeped up the stone and brick walls, and spindly cobwebs clung to the walls and rafters like shabby draperies. But most welcome of all was the enchanting sound of Josette's music box pouring out of the cell of his would-be bride.
Barnabas got out of his coffin and gently shut the lid. The dark suit and tie he rested in were perfectly in place, nothing was disheveled or creased.
Barnabas went over to the iron door, and peeped through the bars. The Evans girl sat on the end of the cot, listening to the tingling music box. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering slightly. The chill of the basement went completely unnoticed to the vampire. He was impervious to the cold.
"Good evening, my dear," Barnabas called through the bars.
Maggie glanced up by the sound of his voice with a dark look in her eyes. It was like she was trying to veil her innermost fear, and possibly loathing.
Retrieving a key from his breast pocket, Barnabas unlocked the prison door, and invited himself in. He shut the door behind him, and sat himself next to her on the cot.
"I see you are pleasuring yourself with Josette's luminous melody," Barnabas observed, giving her a deep critical look.
"Oh, yes," Maggie answered, trying to keep her voice sounding natural as possible. She picked up the music box from top of the crate, and demurely placed it on her lap. "It's a beautiful melody," she said, trying to mask some uncomfortable awkwardness.
A couple of feet outside her cell, Willie stood silently in the flickering shadows, eavesdropping on their conversation. He wore his windbreaker to feebly warm himself from the chill of the house.
"You seem ready to depart from your previous life," Barnabas observed.
Maggie hardened her expression. Losing her Pop and Joe was excruciatingly raw to her heart, but she knew she needed to keep going on. Pop would have wanted it that way.
"My old life is gone," she conceded to the vampire. She cast her soft chocolate gaze down on the playing music box on her lap. "My life is here with you now."
"I'm so happy to hear you say that." Warmed by her words, Barnabas gave her a soft look. "You'll be so much happier as my Josette than being that common girl you were before."
"Yeah," Maggie said simply, returning her gaze back to him. "I feel like Josette is with me all the time. With her music..." She smiled down softly on the music box. "... and her jasmine." She returned her gaze back to her captor. "Can you smell it?"
"Smell what?" Barnabas frowned.
"Why, the jasmine," Maggie answered lightly, trying to make this both innocent and seamless as possible. "The smell of Josette's jasmine is all around us."
Maggie studied her captor's face, seeing if there was any indication that he could smell the phantom scent, too.
Barnabas merely nodded to her, and said, "You are starting to embrace Josette."
Maggie took that as a sign he couldn't smell the jasmine. Out of her cell, Willie also picked up on that. Was Josette shielding herself from Barnabas?
In the cell, Barnabas gently took Maggie's hand, and placed a soft kiss upon it. The brush of his icy lips caused Maggie to pull her slender hand away from him. Barnabas cast her a deep and severe warning look.
"That, you need to work on," he hissed.
He shot off the cot, and stormed out of the cell. Maggie was left a little shaken. She shut the music box lid, and placed her cold hands and throbbing forehead on top of it. A wave of despair coursed through her soul.
Willie was able to sneak out of the basement before Barnabas stormed out of Maggie's cell. His heart racing from adrenaline and fear, the servant began nervously lighting some candles on the candelabra in the parlor. Willie almost panicked when he overheard his master lashed out at Maggie when she flinch away from his kiss on her hand. But when he realized his master was storming his way out of the cell, he decided to get the hell out of the basement.
Thinking back on what just occurred, Willie wished Maggie would stop flinching away every time Barnabas place a kiss on her hand. Granted, Willie didn't get that old gentlemanly custom himself, but he understood it was very important to Barnabas. His master takes it personally every time Maggie rebuffs him like that. Even though he hated to encourage her to play along in Barnabas' sick fantasy, Willie decided he needed to tell Maggie to stop failing that major Josette test if she wanted to get out of here.
Speaking of Josette, Willie hadn't sense her presence anywhere. He stared around in the eerie candle lit parlor to make sure there was nothing amiss. The clock was still perched on top of the fireplace mantle, with a warming fire burning in a bright yellow glow in the hearth below. All the other items were neatly in place. The furniture was still in their usual spots unchanged, and there wasn't even a misplaced candlestick.
Willie could still smell Josette's jasmine, but the scent was weaker than it was that afternoon. Willie wondered what became of Josette's ghost. Should he be disheartened by her lack of presence, considering he actually went to her portrait and pleaded to help Maggie?
"Good evening, Willie." Barnabas emerged from the shadows of the house, and stood under the parlor's entrance. "Is there anything to report?"
Still lighting candles with his match, Willie didn't look at him. Blocking out images of Josette's ghost dancing around the front porch columns from his mind, Willie lied, "No, Barnabas."
Barnabas cast his servant a critical dark look. Willie knew what he was thinking. His master was inwardly debating with himself if he should press his servant for being truthful or not.
Sensing this, Willie said in a voice he hoped sounded reassuring, "No one came by today, Barnabas, I swear it."
The dark look in the vampire's eyes were uncertain. Willie figured he couldn't smell the faint jasmine in here, like in the basement. Seeming to reach a conclusion, Barnabas gave his servant a curt nod, and said, "I'm heading out for the evening."
He went straight for his coat rack in the foyer, and put on his cloak-like overcoat.
Willie stood under the parlor's entrance, crossing his arms over his chest, and asked, "Where are you goin'?"
"What business is that of yours?" Barnabas responded haughtily, as he straightened his coat around his shoulders.
"Just wonderin'." Willie shrugged. "Ya want me to do somethin'?"
"Patrol the grounds and guard the house while I'm gone," ordered Barnabas.
His coat in place, Barnabas collected his wolf-head cane.
"Where ya headin', Barnabas?" Willie persisted from the parlor's entrance.
"Willie, I don't need to inform you of my affairs," Barnabas said affronted.
"No, but you usually need me to clean up after 'em," Willie countered reasonably.
Barnabas glared at his servant, and said, "Willie, you really need to remember that you are beholden to me, not I to you. And I don't need you to clean up after me tonight. I am merely going to Collinwood to see the family."
"And Vicki," Willie uttered, placing his hands on his hips.
He gave his master a knowing look. Barnabas didn't seem deterred by his accusation.
"Miss Winters is a lovely girl," he exclaimed simply. "Her fascination with the past and her ability to listen to faint whispers from another time is truly enchanting."
"A perfect Josette," Willie conceded softly.
"What are you getting at, Willie?!" Barnabas demanded.
"Barnabas, why are you spendin' all your time with Vicki?" Willie asked evenly. "Ya got Maggie downstairs."
"Miss Evans is putting up a resistance to become my Josette," Barnabas answered silkily.
"Her father and Haskell thinks she is dead," Willie gently argued. "You need to give her time."
"I gave her plenty of time," Barnabas spat. "We both know what will happen if she doesn't submit to my desires."
"Yeah." Willie nodded mournfully. "And Vicki will be her replacement."
"Vicki will come to me willingly," insisted Barnabas. "She will make a lovely addition to this household."
"Yeah, but she won't be the same," Willie said meekly. "Like Maggie."
Barnabas gave his servant a piercing sharp look, and said, "Is there anything you're not telling me, Willie? I got a distinct impression that you are withholding something from me."
Growing slightly panic, and fearfully eyeing the cane in his master's grip, Willie tried putting up his defenses, and answered shakily, "No! I'm not keepin' any secrets from ya, Barnabas, I swear!"
"You better not be lying to me, Willie!" Barnabas warned, gripping his cane tightly. "Patrol the grounds and guard the house when you return."
With that, the vampire swiftly exit the house, and stepped out in his natural habitat that was the night. With his master's departure, Willie leaned against one of the pillars by the parlor's entrance, and heaved a deep sigh of relief. For a moment there, he deeply thought he would be at the mercy of that damn cane. If anyone would've told him a few months ago that he would not only be a slave to a vampire, but would also engage in moral arguments with him, Willie would've laugh in that person's face. Oh, how times have changed.
Like the loyal servant he was, Willie stepped out of the Old House to patrol the grounds. Once he shut the doors behind him, Josette materialized at the top of the staircase.
She witness the argument between the two men, and upon watching that, the ghost lady felt her beloved had certainly changed drastically. She also thought his relationship with that servant boy was vastly opposite of his once great friendship with Ben Stokes.
I was a Collins; why didn't you protect me?
Those venomous words clung to Josette since that fateful night Barnabas impossibly barged into her domain and banished her from there. The legend of Widows Hill condemned Josette to haunt Collinwood, a position she didn't particularly fancy. But she did befriended that special little boy David Collins, as well as the widows. And that man Bill Malloy, who helped Josette, along with the widows, to rescue the current Collinwood governess, Victoria Winters, from a very human monster.
Not long after that, Josette aided Vicki to rescue the boy David from his mother, who was a monster of a different sort.
Then the chains binding the family's terrible secret became broken, and the devastation of the family curse, combined with self-loathing and regret, transformed Barnabas Collins into a dangerous and bitter monster. There was nothing Josette could do to prevent that from happening, but she could at least try to prevent the curse from causing more tragedy.
Barnabas may have banished Josette from the Old House, but it didn't put her to rest in her grave, which was something she deeply craved.
Josette had observed what had conspired at the Old House, and once again, betrayal, tragedy, and evil transpired there. By luck and chance, Josette had succeed in breaking through Barnabas' banishment, and ever so slowly, felt she would eventually become strong enough to take control of the Old House. But Barnabas was still its master. Josette needed to change that.
It took every energy she had to make certain Barnabas hadn't sense her presence. She hated what she was about to do, given the betrayal behind this action, but Josette couldn't see any other alternative.
She needed the aid of another ghost. The widows couldn't help her, they had plans for the current mistress at Collinwood. And Bill Malloy was at peace now that the truth of his murder was revealed in the land of the living.
Since Barnabas' banishment, Josette discovered she was no longer bind solely to the Collinwood estate. She was free to wander anyplace as she wished. She found this to be a welcoming freedom. She decided to use this newfound ability to visit Eagle Hill Cemetery. The cemetery was every bit as aging as the Old House. Everyone buried there died a little over a century ago, and some of the tombstones were crumbling slightly in decay. It was shrouded in a thick mist, and the cloudy night plunge it into pitch darkness.
Josette's ghostly form was weak and transparent. A waning white light glow around her as she creepily glided her way through the mist. She floated by grave after grave of forgotten members of the Collins family, as well as other denizens from Collinsport's past, some who were put to rest before and after her time.
Scouting ever so closely, Josette finally spotted the grave belonging to a spirit who was as frightening and powerful as they come. He was so terrifying, he actually made her witch of a servant petrified in fear. He was what Josette needed to reclaim the Old House.
The ghost lady knelt beside the grave of her husband. A husband she required through savage manipulation from her witch servant, only for Josette to lose him in mindless bloodshed. Josette still carried sorrow for those days, even though her and her husband's union was a direct influence of a spell. She couldn't nonetheless forgive herself for breaking her true love's heart, and destroying a deep family bond.
"My darling, Jeremiah," she murmured softly. "I hate to disrupt your rest, but I need your strengths, for his banishment has made me weak."
Visiting his grave like this, Josette couldn't help but reminisce about the night of Jeremiah Collins' death. His ghost, even with his whole head bandaged up after suffering through a fatal blow from a duel, visited her bedside. It was one of the most horrible nights in Josette's short life. But that was part of the sea of horrible nights Josette's servant girl inflicted when they arrived at Collinwood. Shortly after Jeremiah's demise, the young widow used to sent flowers to his grave practically everyday, and whispered a silent prayer. Josette sort of felt she was doing just that, only she hadn't brought any flowers, and she no longer carried a heartbeat. She was now in white with a matching flowing veil, whereas before she was in black.
"I can't believe this has happened. The family's most terrible secret is unbound from his chains. He banish me from my home, Jeremiah, and the family is in danger. He drained me of my power, and I need your strength to help me reclaim my home."
Josette placed a delicate transparent hand on top of the hard earth of her husband's grave. She hoped Jeremiah's dead withered hand would violently burst out of the ground, liked it had so very, very long ago. She liked for his hand to grab her own so she could pull him out of his resting place.
"The curse is worse than ever, Jeremiah," Josette said sadly. "We shan't let the curse to continue to destroy! We shan't!"
Despite the ghost lady's desperate plea, the grave laid unresponsive beneath her.
"Oh, please, Jeremiah."
Through her disappointment, the breeze suddenly shifted in the air, gently rustling the leaves on the trees. Through the thick mist across the graveyard, Josette sense another presence. Someone among the unliving.
She rose from her spot, and breezed her waning transparent form through the mist. At her own grave site, Josette happened upon a visitor. A visitor who couldn't see her. It was Barnabas.
He lovingly knelt beside her grave, and tenderly placed a bouquet of jasmine under her tombstone.
"After all this time, through my years of imprisonment, I still incurably yearn for you," Barnabas whispered softly.
"Oh, Barnabas."
The breeze carried Josette's soft whisper through the murky air. Barnabas heard her whisper as the breeze blew by him, gently billowing his coat. He stared around, finding the graveyard deserted. No one was in sight, not even that mad caretaker.
As she departed, Josette came to a realization. Even though it brought her great sorrow of how her servant girl transformed Barnabas into a monster, and he was performing acts of evil, Josette was still nonetheless in love with him. As he was with her. Centuries had passed, and Collinwood and the town of Collinsport had change, but there was still some things that remain the same, no matter how brutal a curse, or how divided they were in death.
Next Chapter: The Plans of the Lost Lenore
