7

Lara Parker voice-over: "Dawn breaks over Collinwood in Parallel Time. A powerful force has thrust the modern family back in time to 1820 to replace their counterparts and reshape history once more. Angelique is powerless to stop the past and future from overlapping. Amanda Collins is possessed by an old enemy and determined to use her new power to make the son of Angelique and Barnabas her husband."

England had passed laws against dueling just a few years before in 1817, but the United States would not enforce similar laws until 1839. Barnabas couldn't wait that long and had Peter quickly draft a writ to stop his son from killing Jamison during breakfast. He then hurriedly dressed and had Ben arrange for his horse to deliver it as fast as possible to Judge Noah Radcliffe, the local judge out at the lake with his family. William would not dare face his cousin no matter how wronged if a judge threatened to arrest him for even taking a pistol to hand. The paper sealed in a pouch from his shoulder, Barnabas kissed his wife and prodded his horse to full gallop down the hill from the front veranda to stop the future from unfolding as it had before. Having missed what must had been a grand fight, eighteen-year-old Christopher Loomis watched his uncle tearing down the hill as if the devil was after him. Twelve-year-old Quentin the Younger, the son of his Uncle Daniel, watched as well as eight-year-old Gabriel dug in the dirt under the plants of the estate looking for buried treasure he father had told him about to get him asleep.

"I found something!" The curly haired youth grinned with a precocious face of missing teeth. "Look what it is?" It was a small flat piece of glass between two plastic surfaces. In the late 1990s, it was a cell phone, but in this revisionist past, it was a strange relic from another world. Young Quentin, the eponymous claimant of his father's Cousin Quentin, grabbed it from his screeching brother to look at closer and cleaned the dirt and dust out from between its cracks and niches.

"What is it?"

"It's a king's harmonica!" Gabriel blew into it. Unable to get a note, he blew harder.

"Harmonica?" Christopher rolled his eyes and took it. "It's an adding machine! Look at the numbers!" He held it up to the light. "I wonder where the paper goes…"

"It's mine!" Gabriel had to stand on the second step up to the top of the front veranda to snatch his treasure back, but his youthful interest was directed once more to his older cousins marching out of the front entry way. Joined by Jason Roger and Andrew McBeal, William came strolling out to meet his destiny at Widow's Hill. Lizzie was screaming for her mother and Aunt Angelique to stop him. Still standing on the carriage path at the front of the house, Angelique hurried to stop her son from reliving his father's past.

"William, I implore you!" She begged him. "Don't do this!"

"Mother, go back in the house." William stopped briefly annoyed and carried on his way.

"William!" From the old Collins lithographs, Sarah Collins was reckoned to have grown up to resemble Victoria Winters had she lived past nine years old, but in this reality with the blonde hair, she very much resembled Carolyn Stoddard. Her niece and namesake, Sara Elizabeth Collins, looked entirely like her mother as a beautiful teenager light of build with azure blue eyes and regal long blonde hair. They tried to stop him, but he just grew annoyed at their imposition.

"Don't do this!" Victoria also stood to oppose him.

"Mother," William gasped and checked his timepiece. "This is my honor I'm facing. Please just take the ladies into the house."

"Vicki, get Peter!" Angelique sent her back in to Collinwood. "Sara Elizabeth, find Amanda and stop whatever she's doing!"

"What?"

"Just do it!" Angelique turned to her sister-in-law. "Sarah, find Ally's servant girl, Elaine and her sister, Sondra, before they leave! I want to know what they're doing!" She looked to her son as Sarah rushed off. "William, darling, I implore you! Please don't do this!"

"Mother…" William shook his head seeming relenting to her wishes. He took her hands, raised them in his and kissed her fingers. "Did you not always say I was rather gifted with a pistol? I only mean to wound him fatally. He will feel my pain." He kissed her by the cheek and gestured to Jason Roger and Andrew. Marching around his mother, Angelique suddenly felt powerless. It was happening. She looked to Daniel's wife, Harriet, coming out on the front coming for her sons.

"Angelique, can I do anything?" She looked worried.

"Where's Daniel?"

"He's nursing his strained elbow from the fight with the boys."

"Get him down here to stop William from reaching Widow's Hill." Angelique looked for Barnabas to return. "We must stall for time until Barnabas can get back." As Harriet turned back into the house, young Gabriel came running up in his short breeches and loose tunic flashing his new toy.

"Mother, look…" He showed her the strange new device. "I found a…. number-button squasher device… thing"

"It's merely a money lender's tool, that's all." Harriet looked it over. "Why else would it have numbers on it?" She hurried to find Daniel.

"And letters?" Young Quentin asked. "It must belong to a spy for sending secret messages!"

"Quentin stop making up crazy stories." Harriet chided him. "We have far more problem here than you believe!" She exhaled deeply and thought of a way to keep them busy. "Look, your Cousin William says there's a tree house on the path to the Old House. Why don't you two go find it?"

"Why?" Gabriel did not trust his brother. "So Quentin can push me off it? I do not want to be crippled for the rest of my life!"

"Uncle Willie!" Sara Elizabeth ran through the house looking for her uncle. "Uncle Willie, why did you…" She found him outside her brother's room upstairs from the music room. He was slumped back in his seat asleep against the table in the hall. Sara tried shaking him awake.

"Uncle Willie!" She tried to rouse him. "William has left the house!"

"Amanda…." Willie mumbled and dozed off again. "I can't drink any more brandy…." He fell unconscious again as his niece wafted the scent of liquor from his breath away from her face.

"Whatever she gave you, it sure stays with you a while…" She looked around again. Just where was her crazy red-haired cousin?

"Peter!" Victoria rushed in the West Wing where Peter was pulling his boot back on at bedside. "William left the house! You have to stop him!"

"I thought Willie was watching him." Peter lifted to his feet as the door to his room slammed shut by itself. The latch on it then slid into space by itself. A similar thing happened when Harriet reached Daniel in the West Wing washroom. The chair slid away jerked by invisible hands and the door smashed itself shut. They watched as the bolt turned by itself into the locked position and the slide bolt dropped into the floor. On the balcony beyond the foyer stained glass window, Amanda stood on the roof of the north end parlor at the end of Collinwood. Her mind was moving through the house at the speed of light. Angelique lightly shrieked as the doors locked her in the drawing room. Turning to face the northern boundary of the estate, she pictured her Uncle Barnabas galloping toward the bridge out of Collinsport and thrust out her hand into his direction. A powerful wind whipped up and whistled through the area. At the bridge, Barnabas's horse became spooked and refused to cross Radcliffe Creek. There was something scaring it the former vampire could not see. It bucked and stood on its legs as the master tried to calm and coax it, but instead it wanted to bolt the other direction into Parker's Field. At Widow's Hill, Quentin noticed the breeze whip up and felt something unnatural in it. Turning his head, he noticed William coming down the path with Andrew and Jason Roger. Jamison stood watching with Spenser McBeal and Joseph Haskell The Younger, the son of a neighboring horse farmer.

"William, don't do this!" The uncle implored the boy he once knew as his son's best friend. "Please, I'm begging you!"

"I'm sorry, Uncle Quentin…" William looked up coldly. "I have no ill will to you because of your son."

"You two grew up as each other best friends! Practically brothers!"

"Well, then…" William stopped, partially posed and looked away briefly. "Maybe I know him a bit better than you."

"Oh, God…" Quentin looked around for Barnabas to come racing up the hill. Hand to his face in panicked fear, he looked to William and tried again to appeal to his son.

"Jamison…" Quentin glared at his son. "Stop this now!"

"Father…" Jamison watched as Spenser McBeal waited by his side. "Don't you of anyone understand that this is about my honor?"

"I understand honor." Quentin looked at him. "I also understand bullets and dying. Please… you've never handled a gun."

"I've shot pheasant and partridge…" Jamison looked cunningly obsessed to his father in this glen on the cliffs. "William is bigger and closer…."

"With a rifle…" Quentin reminded him. "A pistol is a much different weapon if you don't know what you're doing…"

"No better chance to learn."

"Gentlemen…" Joseph Haskell the Younger, Sara Elizabeth's former paramour, produced the dueling pistols as Quentin gasped at the sight of them. "By my watch, it is noon straight up." He turned to Russell Coleman, the son of the local innkeeper, who ran with the Collinwood boys in less angry times. "I stole these from my father's closet." He took a wooden case from Russell which flipped open to fine red lining molded to hold two dueling pistols from the 1750s. "They were a gift to him from Joshua Collins on the eve of my father's marriage to my mother. She doesn't like them in the house."

"I wonder why." Quentin stood arms crossed in disgust.

"William, Jamison…" Joseph looked between them. "You are both my friends. Can't you come to a neutral ground to your hostilities?"

William scowled and turned away. Jamison spat on the ground his cousin had been standing.

"So this is how it ends…." Joseph mugged uncommittedly and looked defeatedly to Quentin, mustering a mute apology to him from being a part of this. Quentin looked around for William's father to arrive with the signed writ to stop the duel. Unable to cross the bridge, Barnabas had to follow the creek over the Haskell farm property line and jump the narrow part beyond the Old House. Still thinking he was going to make it in time, he was unable to see his son take a pistol and turn to Andrew to load it and pack the gunpowder.

"You know," Andrew spoke as Jason Roger stood by them. "If you kill him, it is very likely Ally will never speak to you again."

"This is not a good way to win her heart again." Jason Roger added. William scowled and looked back to Jamison waiting on his gun. Uncle Quentin had gone to look down the path frustratedly and powerless. Turning back, the young heir only saw one way out of this passionate display.

"Andrew…" He placed his hand to his shoulder. "You have been a good friend, and I will love your sister for as long as I have the honor to know her and have her in my heart." He removed the pellet from the gun than have him load it. "I only desire her to be happy."

"He's going to kill you." Jason Roger realized.

"I'm already dead without her…" William spoke deflatedly. He took the pistol and turned to his cousin already waiting. Quentin turned and came between then.

"William, Jamison…" He was begging. "Please! You don't know what you're doing!"

On the balcony of the estate, Amanda rolled her eyes back in her trance, her long wild red hair hanging from her shoulders. Her arms extended, her legs placed apart under her long skirt, she lolled her head back and rolled it side to side. With her chest stuck out, her breasts were about to pop from her dress and corset. Through her lackey, she heard Joseph the Younger counting down the dueling cousin from afar, extending her arm to them and unfurling her fingers to reveal the third pellet that exploded from her hand upon her breath. From the direction of Widow's Hill, the sounds of pistols went off together.

And with those distant explosions, all the locked doors of Collinwood unlocked and opened once more. Victoria found herself freed of her locked bedroom, and Angelique paused from trying to break into the secret passage room of the drawing room to run through the opening doors of the drawing room. Sara Elizabeth finally broke through the door of the bedroom over the Collinwood parlor and now stood as the entryway to the balcony where Amanda stood staring toward Widow's Hill.

"What are you doing?!"

"Oh…." Amanda looked wild-eyed over her right shoulder. "You could not have picked a worst time."

Once the gunshots cut through the sky, the forest opened up and the brush moved aside to reveal the path Barnabas's horse was searching for on the grounds. The noble brown steed galloped to the landing at Widow's Hill where in the glen just short of the peak, Barnabas's eyes froze in fear. Staring at the gathering of men under the tress, he slid off his horse and tread through the high grass toward his son standing over Jamison in his father's arms. It was a fatal blow to the top of the head. Quentin held his prostrate son limp body, his contorted face frozen into a silent scream. Dropping the useless paper from his hand, Barnabas turned to his son.

"Father…" William unfurled his fingers to reveal his pellet in his hand. "I didn't."

"Sara Elizabeth!" At Collinwood, Angelique ran through the house looking for her daughter. The coach had arrived to take the embarrassed McBeals to the local hotel. Sondra and Elaine were going with them, but Ally was with Josette waiting for Quentin and Jamison in the dining room. As Daniel and Peter tried to get to Widow's Hill, Willie suddenly roused from his potion-induced sleep. Downstairs, Lizzie was trying to tell Angelique about the doors locking up across the house, but the timeless former sorceress briefly snubbed her questions. Where was her daughter? Where was Amanda?!

"Sara…" She found her daughter wandering down the staircase of the foyer just as Sarah and Victoria came through the main hall. She rushed to her and pulled her close, caressing her blank face. "Sara, darling…" She stroked the girl's long blonde hair. "What's wrong? Why aren't you talking? Where's Amanda?!"

The young beauty lifted her head as if she had just noticed her mother.

"Who's Amanda?"

Angelique gasped and felt her heart sink in terror. Her mouth dropped open

"What happened to her?" Victoria asked as Sarah gasped from the strange response.

"Sara, Vicki, take her to her room…" Angelique turned as a woman possessed. "There is something I must do!" She knew who the enemy was now, and she intended to face her. She charged from the mansion as a woman possessed, a mother who would give her life for her children. Hurrying as fast as she could for the Old House in her skirts, she charged through the front doors of the ancestral manor, briefly glancing in the parlor and marching up to the room she knew as her daughter's in her time. Amanda presided in it in this time, her head whipping to face her as the furious mother came to confront her.

"How did you do this?!" She confronted the young redhead. "How did you change history?"

"You're mad!" Amanda backed from her. "I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"You've rewritten history only to recreate it the way you want it!" She faced the girl down. "You are not marrying my son, Amanda, and I'll be damned if I'm letting you place his father's curse on him as well!"

"Get away from me!" Amanda tried running past her to get to her mother, but Angelique grabbed her and pushed her to the closet.

"Tell me the truth!" She pushed Amanda struggling against her to the wall near the mirror, but it was not Amanda she was holding in the mirror. It was Cheryl Harridge. Her eyes widened from the shocking realization. Amanda had the sorceress's life force!

"The funny places we find ourselves, Angelique." The sorceress spoke from the mirror. "How do you like my little protégé?"

"No!" Angelique recognized the sorceress who had once claimed her son as her own. "It's not possible! I destroyed you!" Amanda grabbed the vase by her side and shattered it over her aunt's head, knocking her out and dropping her to the floor. Fighting to stay awake, the timeless sorceress clung to Amanda trying to stay awake but her mind and body fought against her and she drifted off to unconsciousness. Her rich azure eyes closed even as she felt her knees hit the floor. When she finally awoke, she thought it had only been a minute. Her addled brain slow to wake, Angelique sleepily opened her eyes. When she woke again, she found herself in pain. Her body was being held by her arms chained over her head with arms stretched out by supporting her body weight. Her mouth had been gagged by a rag tied round her head, and her legs were chained to the floor under her. She was in the Old House basement, and J.R. was bricking her up into the wall. He lifted one brick, placed mortar on it from a dowel and placed it in the wall. Behind him, Amanda watched to be sure her aunt would not be around to bother her any more. Struggling against her chains, Angelique mumbled and grunted from behind her gag.

"I'm sorry, Aunt An…" Amanda stood resolved and determined. "I would have loved having you as my mother-in-law, but I can't have anyone stop me from making William my husband… even you."

J.R. continued blindly stacking bricks and mortar. Her voice silently muffled, Angelique flailed and fought to try and get free.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Amanda looked through the dwindling hole in the wall. "That you yourself would fall victim of a variant of the same events that you yourself created many years ago." She leaned in closer. "Payback can be a bitch."

Angelique inaudibly screamed as her own nephew placed the last bricks into the space in the wall.

"Goodbye, Miranda Du Val…" Amanda spoke her aunt's real name. "You will not be missed…"

Angelique's window of light shrunk to one square block of light, and with her voice erupting into a light giggle, Amanda desired to place that in place herself!