TrudiRose, thanks for the reviews and comments! It has occurred to me that a few Collins family members would recognize her resemblance to Josette, and I plan on addressing it in upcoming chapters. David makes an appearance in the next one and he's likely going to be drawn to her throughout this story because of his fascination with Josette Collins. Willie's one of my favorite DS characters, and even though this a Barnabas and Josette story, I consider him to be a main character. He plays an important part. I also love writing him. :) This part is more like an interlude than a full chapter...
Chapter 3: Shadows of the Past
With the taste of blood still lingering in his mouth, Barnabas silently stalked through the cemetery on Eagle Hill from the Collins mausoleum.
His family's final resting place.
His own tomb for one hundred and seventy-two years.
His father, his mother, his sister…all were resting inside of its stone walls.
Over a century had passed since he had last seen them, but he remembered them as vividly as if it had only been mere days ago instead of years.
He remembered the expression on Joshua Collins's face when he learned that his only son had become one of the living dead. The pain, the anger, the torment etched upon his father's normally cold, reserved features as Barnabas had declared himself no longer his son. He remembered his mother's horror at discovering what his father had already known and the feeling of her weight in his arms as she died from the poison that she had downed before coming to the tower room to confront him with her knowledge.
Perhaps the most agonizing memory of them all was of Sarah, his sweet, innocent little Sarah, sick from the night's air and dying a slow death in her bed, only remaining in the world of the living long enough to place herself in her brother's arms at the last moment. He could still hear her promise weakly that she would always love him. He could still feel her long hair beneath his fingertips as he pressed her cold body against him. He could still see the doll that he had fixed for her laying beside them on her bed.
But it was not only his family's death that haunted him - Josette's death would remain with him forever.
The way she had stared at him with pure terror in her eyes before she had turned and ran in the direction of Widows' Hill. Her hysterical crying as he pursued her through the woods. Her scream as she had fallen, the sound of her body breaking on the rocks below the cliff. He had lifted her body into his arms and held her to him, unable to believe that she was dead, that she had chosen death over a life with him. No matter how unforgivably dark their life would have been, he had truly believed that it would not matter to her, that she wanted to be with him despite the cost.
Her dress had been torn, her beautiful face battered where it had impacted the jagged edges on the rocks.
She was limp, lifeless, but still so lovely.
And she was gone.
He had spent hours cradling her on those rocks, pleading with her to return to him before he had finally let her body go.
But he had not let her go.
That was something he could never do.
His curse brought others the death that he had once wished for himself, but Barnabas Collins remained, forever walking in its darkened shadow.
The night cloaked him - no one would have seen him had they been in the cemetery, but very few people wandered through the ancient headstones that lay at his feet.
Josette's grave was amongst them, surrounded by the others.
The forgotten.
Josette would never be forgotten.
He would never forget her.
Despite his desire to reach his destination, he slowed his pace, and thought of someone that had recently been buried. Someone who had not been meant for the finality of death. Someone that could have brought Josette back to him, had she only been worthy enough.
Maggie Evans.
When he had seen her in the window of the coffee shop, it was as if Josette herself had been returned to him. He would have given her anything she desired, had she ceased to be the simple Maggie Evans and become his Josette. She had refused him, betrayed him, and attempted to escape him. Then she had died.
Again, Josette had fled from him.
Again, their love had ended in death.
She could have been his bride. Josette was destined to become his bride. They had been destined for only a life of happiness spent together as husband and wife. That destiny was forever altered and had been cruelly taken away from them by Angelique.
Wicked, wretched Angelique.
There was no warmth left in his veins, but if rage had been a tangible thing, his blood would have burned with it.
Angelique, how I wish you were here on this night so that I could kill you once more.
He could still feel her slim throat in his hands as he strangled her beside the coffin that she had damned him to. He could still feel the warmth of her last breath on his face.
She had suffered so little and then knew no more. Her death had been quick, with only the briefest of pain.
He had suffered for one hundred and seventy-two years as he had been trapped inside of his chained coffin. The cross attached to the inner lining of the lid had prevented him from moving even in the slightest of way. He had dreaded each night, for he woke from death's sleep to his tiny prison until the sunlight came and then oblivion would descend upon him once more. Oblivion. He had craved it in that coffin more than he had craved the blood that sustained him. There he had remained until he had been freed by a man who had planned to rob his mother's grave, and was now forced to feed upon the living once more to survive in the only sanctuary left for him: the darkness.
His "cousins" had welcomed him with open arms, never knowing that each night they spoke with the man who was responsible for the attacks on the local young women in town. They invited him for brandy, never knowing that for weeks he returned to the Old House to be with the missing Maggie Evans, who for a very brief time had been his Josette. He, the very same man whose portrait adorned the foyer wall.
They could never know what their cousin truly was and he would see to it that they never would.
He would find his Josette again.
He would find a woman worthy to be her and then he would spend eternity with her beside him.
Death meant nothing. It would not stop him. He could not let it. If he did, Josette would be forever barred from him and he would be forever alone.
I cannot exist without you, Josette.
Sadness washed over him like the waves that had crashed against the rocks that had killed her on that night so many years ago……
I do not know how.
Jeremiah's grave finally stood in front of his feet and he looked upon it with hatred and bitterness. Josette had been buried beside her husband and Barnabas had tortured himself with the sight of it on the first nights after she had been placed in the ground.
Her husband.
His uncle.
The man who had been a brother to him.
He knew that it was not truly Jeremiah that had taken Josette from him. Jeremiah was not responsible for the wedding that had broken his heart so utterly, just as Josette was not to blame. It was all Angelique. Angelique had placed one of her spells upon them and made them marry, made them betray him.
Still, he could never bring himself to forgive Jeremiah.
Jeremiah had been Josette's husband.
Jeremiah had exchanged vows with her, given her the name that Barnabas had promised her.
Jeremiah had made love to her.
He turned from Jeremiah's grave to face Josette's, unable to bear the sight of it any longer. An involuntary gasp escaped his lips. The hand that held his cane began to shake as he gripped the silver wolf's head so tightly that it could have bent beneath his supernatural strength.
He did not care, nor would he have noticed.
Josette's grave!
The headstone that he had read so many times was gone. There was no sign that it had ever been there. There was no depression in the earth, no loose soil to suggest it had been removed. It was if the ground beneath his feet no longer contained the remnants of her, and the sight sent him crumbling to the ground.
Even her body, the shell of what was once her beauty and grace, had been mysteriously taken from him.
She was truly gone.
How?
Why?
Had anyone been in the cemetery, they would have heard a man's heart wrenching moan.
In the distance, in the mansion on Widows' Hill, one young woman was haunted by the sound of a dog howling in the night.