Chapter 7

"And this one I caught at low tide" Elsa displayed her collection proudly to Edmund, as she was visiting him at the Old House. "It is a rare find."

"Wow! Edmund's eyes were shining with the excitement. I wish I could go shell collecting myself," he said, pouting.

"All you have to do is go to the beach. Do you go there?"

"A bit. Not long enough. They don't want me to stay there long.

"Why don't you ask Barnabas?"

"He doesn't want me to."

"I'll ask him. He always gives in to me. He's my special friend."

Barnabas listened to them and felt uneasy. Was he right in confining Edmund as he was doing? Keeping him inside, except for short trips out, and a few hours at the beach, always under Buffy's supervision?

What was he afraid of? Why couldn't he allow Edmund more freedom?

And Edmund seemed to enjoy Sarah's company so much...

Sarah? No. Elsa. What made him think of Sarah? That old fancy of his that Elsa was Sarah, reborn?... there was no reason to think that. Except that Sarah's parting words still stung him. She would not see him until he had learned how to be good.. He had certainly learned it by now, yet Sarah had not come back to him.

Sarah had been company for the lonely David, just as Elsa was befriending Edmund now.

"Barnabas!" Elsa said to him. "Edmund wants to start a collection like mine, but he says that he has to stay inside all the time, studying and all that."

Barnabas bent down to Elsa's level "Well, he can go out and hunt for shells from now on."

God, what a mess this place had become... Louella sighed noisily - how had Willie and herself allowed so much dirt to accumulate? It was lucky that customers never looked in here, or they might decide to take their business elsewhere.

She climbed up on a ladder and began cleaning the worst of it, then stopped, puzzled.

"Willie, what are these things?"

"What things?"

"The ones up here. They look like radios, at least some of them. If no one's claiming them, shouldn't you get rid of them somehow?"

"What radios you mean? Not the ones in the top shelf?"

"Yes. The same ones.'

Willie ran to her. "You should not be going up ladders. Get down."

"Willie, stop acting up."

"Baby, what if you got dizzy suddenly? You should be careful in your condition."

"Willie, don't exaggerate. "Louella was irritated now. "You heard what the doctor said. I can do this.

"Please, baby, come down." Willie pleaded "I promise you that I'll clean that myself. Just come down."

Roger felt proud displaying his 'treasures' to Edmund. They had meant much to him when he was a kid. And Edmund's delight was as unmixed as his had been.

Then Edmund showed him the shells that he had collected "I am supposed to get these" he explained " I can stay out longer if I get them."

"Then maybe I can get you some."

"Oh, yes. Then we will have more time to play."

Roger picked up the old toy. The paint was chipped off and its spring was broken, but it still held its charm.

"You can have it." Roger said.

"Really?" he paused "Wait until I show this to Elsa!"

"Elsa?" Roger felt a pang of jealousy at the name."

"She's just a girl." Edmund explained "but he's my friend and she was the one who convinced Barnabas to let me stay out this long."

"But she's not so much fun as I am?"

Chris had already treated himself to some of Barnabas' liquor when this one showed up.

"Chris?" he asked, disturbed by the evidence that Chris had been drinking for a while.

"I had to see you. I wanted to ask you something."

"It must disturb you a great deal" Barnabas said, looking at the half empty glass in Chris's hand.

"Leave it." Chris shrugged "Amy wants to go to college."

"That seems to be an excellent idea."

"To what campus is David going?"

"Orono."

"Well, then I'll tell Amy to go to any other campus. Look, I am sorry, but I think that he's done enough harm to her already. I don't want him to do any more of it."

Barnabas nodded. "I understand... Will you need my help?"

"She's taking a government loan. Oh, well, I'll be going."

"Wait." Barnabas caught him "how are you getting back?"

"I have my car..."

"You are not driving. Not after the way you have been drinking."

"It wasn't much..." Chris tried to protest.

"One drink is all it takes." he caught Chris and forced him to look into his eyes. The rest was easy.

He lifted his head again. "Now, I am going to drive you home."

"You have alcohol in your system now." Chris pointed out. "you got it with my blood."

"That amount I can handle. Give me your keys."

He drove Chris back and put him to bed. "And I'd better not catch you trying to drive under the influence again."

"You goddamn busybody" Chris grumbled.

"Alcohol and gasoline don't mix." he sat on the bed "Chris, this is more than you worrying about David. What is it?"

"Let's say that I have been thinking about Tom again. How come I was spared, and he was not... it could have easily been the other way."

"If I had succeeded in 1897 you'd both have been spared."

"You could not succeed in 1897. Somebody needed a werewolf in this generation, so that was it. They delayed you until Petofi came."

"And Carl paid for it... Maybe even Dirk and Pansy, and Rachel... All that served to slow me down... And Pansy's murder by Dirk set Carl on me..." Barnabas' voice became painful.. "It is not Tom, it is Amy, isn't it? You don't want her to go to college."

"But I do."

"You are upset over her going."

"I got upset over her ending in the same campus with David, that's all! You know what he did to her! Do you think I want her hooked again? I know. You swear that he's clean now, but still I don't trust him."

"It is not David, either. It is about her leaving you."

"Well, I can't ask her to sacrifice her future to help me raise chickens."

"It hurts, doesn't it? When your children leave you?"

"My child? Amy's my sister."

"You are for all practical purposes her father, and the difference in age makes it easier. Just as I was, in a way, Sarah's father. Tell me, do you regret now that vasectomy?"

"No. It was the right thing to do. I couldn't put anybody through the childhood I had... the childhood that Tom had. If Tom had only had a normal childhood..."

"But you still wish you had a child of your own? I know that I do. I've had Sarah. I've had Willie, in a way. I've had David. Why don't you adopt a child?"

"Adopt?"

"Just as I am going to adopt Edmund."

"It isn't easy to adopt these days. There are not enough babies."

"Then adopt an older child. Those are hard to place. Maybe an interracial child. Or a handicapped one."

"But why do it?"

"First to give a kid a home. And second, so that you can get off Amy's back."

Chris protested a bit more, not out of conviction, but out of his needs to shoot off at the mouth. Barnabas was patient about it, and only when it was clear that Chris was falling asleep did he leave.

"Dr. King?" Kenneth asked.

"Yes, that's me" the man at the other end of the phone said.

"Dr. Jessica King?"

"No. Zeb King" the man laughed "Jessica's my wife. I'll give you to her."

Kenneth waited and a few seconds later he got the right Dr. King.

"Yes, Dr. Anderson. you said you ran those tests on Barnabas Collins"

"He's clean. And he claims to have had relations with at most three women."

"Then he's lying. I have lost count of all the women who have named him as their sexual contact."

"Sexual contact? Not any other kind?"

"Sexual contact. Or do you think that you can get VD from chatting with someone on the street? No, your man is a VD epidemic all by himself. You better talk sense into him."

"But I told you, he's clean."

When Kenneth hung up he saw Julia looking at him with curiosity. "That was the VD clinic."

"A patient of yours?"

"And yours. It is Barnabas they are after."

"Barnabas? But he can't..."

"I know that, you know that, and Barnabas knows that. But Dr. Jessica King evidently doesn't."