10

What began as a wedding ended as a funeral procession…

Ben Stokes found William in the ditch while coming from the wharf at Shipwreck Point. His neck had been ripped open, but except from the blood on his clothes, there was not another drop around his body in the leaves, dirt or soft ground around him. His face was completely white, his eyes marked by deep violet hues over his face. With the young heir's head lolling from his ravaged neck, Ben collected the lost son and wrapped him in a blanket. He was just barely alive. Upon returning to the estate, Ben was screaming and yelling for help, pounding and ringing the bell on the donkey-pulled wagon for someone to come to the rescue. The staff thought he'd been drinking, but Barnabas heard his calls over his morning tea and his face looked to Angelique then gently trying to hold her back. Her eyes stricken with terror, Angelique tore from him and ran through the dining toward the main hall, the foyer and out the front entrance. Seeing Ben standing mute in the wagon, the former sorceress jumped on to her son's body and pulled the blankets down off him. He looked almost dead. His long hair was wet and colored by stray blood on his left side, but upon seeing him like this, she screamed as a mother possessed. Her shrieks of terror could be heard for miles. Her cries eventually became inaudible; a mother so distraught she could barely cry. Sara Elizabeth came to her brother's side next and held both her brother and mother in grief. Behind her, Willie and Sarah Loomis came to see the spectacle. Servants wandered around trying to figure out what to do. History was repeating itself and Angelique was inconsolable. Wailing and screaming, she would not let her son's body go. Ben looked away and stole another glance. Lizzie and Christopher came running to see this spectacle; young Quentin and Gabriel came down for breakfast and wondered why everyone was running around like scared rabbits. Barnabas felt his heart sink in his chest, and clutched at the masonry of the front veranda to keep from falling, but his sister caught him. Holding her older brother, she peeked once more to the scene with Angelique screaming and cradling her son's prostrate body in her arms. It was to this scene adult Quentin Collins arrived looking for Barnabas. As Willie watched, Barnabas felt a huge wrath of anger overtake him and he charged up to his relative, dragging him away from his horse and into the Collinwood foyer. Confused and surprised, Quentin was spun around to face the grieving patriarch.

"Where is Amanda?!" Barnabas shook the former miscreant.

"I don't know!" Quentin tried to react as angry. "She disappeared from the hotel right after William – I thought the two of them came up here!"

"I will not live through what my father lived through with me!" Barnabas's words were furious and adamant. "I will not seal my son in a coffin to be released by a grave robber two hundred years in the future! I would sooner die than see him become what I once was!" They both heard a soft gasp. Victoria had overheard him in the drawing room. His anger turning to discretion, Barnabas looked to Quentin briefly and then noticed Vicki quickly retreat. Servants were rushing in and out of the main house with wrappings and fresh water to revive his son. Within the drawing room, Barnabas and Quentin found Victoria struck silently standing under the portrait of Isaac Collins.

"I thought it was a mad dream…" She confessed. "Memories I prayed weren't real…"

Barnabas lowered his head ashamed of his past. Quentin looked around trying to find a place in this mad play.

"What's the real history?" Vicki asked out loud. "Did I really travel back in time from the future… or am I just an observer to these events? Who am I really? Where do I come from?" She lifted her head to Barnabas with fearful tear-filled eyes. "Barnabas, please for once… Tell me what is happening?"

"Vicki…" The Collins scion marched to ward her both repentant and hesitant. "We are being forced to relive those earlier events with our children performing the sins of our past." His face was repentant and solemn even as his voice quaked and strained to speak the words. Vicki looked to him haunted. Somewhere in her mind, everything made sense. Her memories of the future, of Barnabas's death and rebirth and marriage with Angelique, it all made sense somehow and not at the same time. It almost explained why she knew and didn't know Quentin at the same time.

"What happened to me in the original history?" Vicki asked scared of the answer.

"Vicki, don't make us…" Quentin spoke.

"I want to know."

"After you followed Peter into the past, you were murdered by a man named Jeb Hawkes." Barnabas recalled those events. "Peter's ghost terrorized Jeb out of revenge in 1970 after he found a way to come back to life. Hawkes was a warlock of a powerful coven…"

"I don't need to know more…"

"Barnabas…" Willie entered the room tired and grief-stricken. "We lost him…"

The father and the uncle gasped and nearly collapsed from the weight of sadness and regret. Realizing what was happening, Barnabas's hand clumsily felt around for a chair to sit in, but Victoria guided him back and to his left to collapse, upon which the Collins patriarch lifted his head to take his breath and then released it as one long grieving moan dispensed from the bottom of his soul. From outside the main house, Angelique's emotional torrent was that much worse. This was the son she had wanted from ages before, the young man who had brought her so much joy, who she had cared and loved and laughed over his juvenile high jinks. This was her son, her reason for living; even in this altered reality, she couldn't live experiencing his death. Her daughter by her side, she had to recatch her breath just to continue crying and sobbing while behind her Daniel took charge. He instructed his younger sister to pull Angelique and his niece from their lost loved one and sent Peter to fetch the mortician. Servants forgot their duties and were scrambling to gain some sense of normalcy. Two deaths in one week, first, Jamison, and now, William, and once he regained his composure, Barnabas, rushed to hasten things even more. While Daniel planned to bury William near his cousin in the family plot, Barnabas superseded him and chose the family crypt at Eagle Hill with his father. The funeral would be as fast as possible…

…Before sunset.

"Brother…" Daniel faced Barnabas. "Why this urgency? What are you so afraid of? Why not take the time to give your son the funeral he deserves?"

"Daniel, as much as I respect your advice…" The family scion placed his hand on his younger brother's shoulder then struggled to look toward his son's casket. "Please… don't question what I am doing." He lowered his gaze in deep remiss, slightly rising it as Angelique came past him, her rich azure eyes stained with grief and deep sorrow. Garbed all in black, a dark gray veil down across her face, she forced herself to attend the funerary procession.

As if having woken from a dream, Ally McBeal-Collins walked side-by-side with Sara Elizabeth Collins and Lizzie Collins through the cemetery gates a short distance behind William's coffin. Their identities were masked by their widow's shrouds, and behind them, Angelique and Josette strolled in the short procession. Jason Roger Loomis, Peter Bradford, Joseph Haskell the Younger, Russell Coleman, Andrew McBeal and Willie Loomis acted as pall bearers. By the dull marble glow of the mausoleum, Quentin stood in his dark gray suit with a black band around his arm. He checked the time by his pocket watch. Just over two hours until sunset and he was hoping everyone would be gone by time he and Willie would have to return for their dirty little chore. Nervous and conflicted, Josette stopped by his side, looking to him with the same marital admiration she had for him as Maggie did. They intertwined their fingers for support as Daniel silently brought up the rear. The rest of the family was at the estate either in mourning or respecting the wishes of Barnabas to keep the gathering small, but not everyone respected those wishes. Coming from the narrow walkway that lead to the church on main street, another dark shadow passed through the cemetery among the thick oaks, scattered elm trees and tall grave markers. Lowering his head in bereavement, Daniel saw her first and gestured to Quentin. At first wondering who this melancholic apparition was, Quentin caught the sunlight passing through a break in the thick woodland canopy over the cemetery and noticed a plain white face with a glimpse of red hair. A slight guttural gasp came from Quentin to realize her identity and he stepped forward with a mixture of angry rage and urgent propriety, but Josette stopped him and tempered his emotion with a mindful gaze. Maybe part of Maggie still resided deep within her. Quietly relenting, Quentin pressed Daniel to guard the inside door of the crypt and then hastened to catch his determined daughter. Approaching to meet her on the same path, he took her by her arm and swung her around.

"You're going the wrong way…" He turned her to the way out. "Collinwood is in that direction!"

"I am here to say goodbye to my husband." The fiery haired daughter confronted her father.

"That is your cousin in there, and his wife is already in there." Quentin stood blocking her from entering the mausoleum. "You know… the woman he pledged his life to back in 1998."

"What?!" Amanda tried to slip past him, but her father grabbed her arm and pulled her back again.

"You really don't know what you've unleashed, do you?" Quentin gazed into her big blue eyes. "Just tell me, Amanda… When that sorceress spilled to you all the skeletons in the family closet, did she tell you how this drama ended up?"

"Ally dead at the bottom of Widow's Hill…" She was grinning as if she already pictured it. "And William and I happily married… just like Uncle Barnabas and Aunt Angelique…."

"Well…" Quentin couldn't stand seeing his daughter turn out to be so dark or malicious. "I'd hate to bust your bubble, but there's a couple of ugly and dark chapters in between she may have neglected to tell you."

"I'm a witch now, father…" She glared at him. "Nothing can stop me from getting what I want. Not even you…"

"You really don't know what you unleashed, do you?" He heard Daniel coming up behind him then turned to him. "Daniel, see that Amanda gets back to Collinwood for me." He looked into her vindictive eyes. "For once, let's not have another scene in the family." He unleashed Amanda's left arm from his grasp and she swung around in her dark dress like an angry princess being exiled to her kingdom. Balding, bearded and clad in bifocals, Reverend Silas Trask for the second time this week recited the funeral verses for a member of the Collins family. Sara Elizabeth was crying for her brother, comforted by her Aunt Sara by her side and her Aunt Josette. Lightly trembling, Angelique tried to stay strong, lightly telling herself under breath the same thing over and over. "This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real…" As far as concerned, her son was still alive in the future marrying his true love, and Jamison was in the audience watching him take his vows. Josette looked at her then to Quentin coming in and sitting by her.

"Angelique has barely cried." She responded.

"She still in shock." He remarked. "Maybe you can lend her support when we get back to the estate." A prodding sensation tapped his lower back. He turned to look behind him in this crowded mausoleum behind the grave of Joshua Collins.

"Sunset is at four thirty-five." Willie told him.

"Good to know."

"And what do you two have planned?" Josette asked.

"A night of getting drunk…" Quentin lied and wished he were telling the truth. After the funeral and taking everyone back to the estate, he had afternoon lunch with the family then sat around for two hours in the drawing room of the house drinking sherry and trying to build up his nerve for the unpleasant task he had to do. Shortly after four, Barnabas and Willie came to him in secret in the back hall beyond the dining room. Ben had two horses ready for them. The repentant father gave them a hammer, a silver cross that had belonged to the first Jeremiah Collins and a long stake split and sharpened from a branch of pine. As the two men started racing back to Eagle Hill on horseback, Ben said a prayer for them. Shadows were starting to grow longer. Sunset was getting closer, and as they reached the mausoleum, they both could feel their hearts pounding furiously in their chest. It was so quiet in the old graveyard. There was no wind. Leaves crunched under their clandestine footsteps, and the creaking metal door of the mausoleum seemed to be warning them to escape while they could.

"Okay?" Quentin looked up to Willie. "You all right?"

"Yeah…" Willie looked up repentant. "I guess I'm just having flashbacks of the last time I opened something I shouldn't have." He recalled a certain brisk and crisp spring night in 1967 that lead to his initial encounter with Barnabas Collins. If he had known then what he knew now, he wouldn't have done it, but considering everything since then, his beautiful wife, the happy memories, the comfortable life, maybe he wouldn't change any of it. "Let's get it over with…" He pulled out the key to the lock. Quentin hesitantly looked out to the lowering sun streaming through the opening of the mausoleum and then around to the niches in the walls for future family members to be interred here. Popping the lock, Willie set it aside as Quentin started pulling the chain, eventually letting it fall in a chiming dance to the floor. Running his hand for the latch to unlock the coffin, Willie popped it and then hoisted the lid open. Quentin stared into it and felt the blood rush from his head. It was not William in the coffin; Amanda laid splayed out inside of it in an unnatural pose, her neck broken and resting on her shoulder with her eyes wide open, a wooden stake and hammer tossed in by her side.

"No! No-no-no-no-no!" Quentin screamed and pulled her body close to him. Willie briefly shrieked and turned away, his hand over his mouth. Behind him, Quentin sat on the edge of the casket cradling the lifeless body of his confused little girl. She was finally at rest, but his own heart was torn out, a tornado of emotions and tears pouring out from his chest. Crying and distraught, Quentin cradled her lifeless body hanging limp over his lap and hoped and prayed he could wake her from death's embrace. All Willie could do was listen to his pain and pray things didn't get worse.

"When do you suppose Quentin will be back?" Josette sat in the Drawing Room of Collinwood trying to keep Angelique company. Since the funeral, the bereaved mother had sat in the presence of the burning and crackling wood in the fireplace. Under her breath, she kept mumbling the same words she had silently chanted to herself at the funeral.

"This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real…" It sounded as if she was trying to divorce herself from reality by refusing to believe her son was gone. Sidling up alongside her on the bench, Josette sat down by her former servant and found themselves peers for once in her life. Once bitter at her firmer mistress for taking her true love, the two women now bonded together over great tragedy.

"Two sons in one week…" She turned her head to her. "Perhaps this family is truly cursed…"

"Not cursed…" Angelique spoke over her somber voice. "Just perhaps… more misfortunate…"

"Angelique…" Josette looked to her and tried to comfort her with good words. "I know we have not always been on good terms, and that my feelings toward you have not always been cordial, but our sons should be remembered by the lives and people they touched. I do not hold William in bad words for what he did to my son. After all, he did have his father's temper…"

Angelique lifted her head to her.

"And his sense of honor…" Josette added quickly trying to not insult her.

"Will all due feelings, Josette…" Angelique turned back to stare into the fire. "Our sons are not dead… they have merely been taken from us."

"Angelique…" Josette reacted a bit perturbed from her statement. "What do you mean…" She paused and thought it over. "Oh, now I understand… you mean as long as we hold them in our hearts that they will always be with us."

"No…" The former sorceress responded clearly. "I mean as soon as history is restored… they will be with us once more…"

There was a creak from the room and Josette looked up to the foyer then to the back hall from the drawing room to the dining room. Tired, somber-faced and weary from the day's events, Barnabas tossed his riding coat over the seat to the piano and pulled his thick brush of whiskers down from his face. He looked to Josette rising from the bench and coming to stand before him.

"Barnabas…" She spoke. "She is not making sense…"

"She's a woman grieving for her son…" Barnabas placed his hand on her shoulder for support. "Does anything else make sense?"

"But the things she is saying…" Josette looked to her then lifted her wrap from the end of the sofa in the room while defeatedly shaking her head in small movements. "Tell Quentin I walked home on my own…"

"Let me walk with you…" Barnabas reached back for his coat.

"No, Barnabas…" She shined up to him and kissed his cheek tenderly the same way she had when they were once lovers. "You must be by your Angelique's side in this time of mourning, and besides… I have walked this way many times… I could walk it in my sleep…" She pulled her wrap on and adjusted her pouch.

"Then I shall have Ben or Peter walk with you." Barnabas turned for the foyer. "Will you please wait for them?"

"Barnabas, please…" She was mystified by his urgency to her than to his wife. "I would much rather be alone with my thoughts…"

"Peter would enjoy sharing your company." Barnabas responded and vanished into the top hallway on the landing. Struggling with his intent for her safety, Josette turned to Angelique.

"I'll see you in the morning, Angelique." She dismissed herself and walked freely out of the estate, approaching the exterior veranda and descending down to the path without conscious memory of her walking the familiar path, taking the lighted candle on the pole at the end of the porch to guide her way. The blue sky lit by the full moon illuminated her way on the ocean of dark blue and deep violet turning into a worn path of crushed grass and dark green blades of property forming at the cusp of her feet. What looked like a misshaped ribbon of black separating the sky and earth before her became the tree line ahead of her and with it, the canopy over her blotted on the sky, but Josette knew this path and recognized the trees on her way from the elm standing straight like an arrow to the thick oak with the odd shaped pine knot. From the distance, she thought she had heard Barnabas calling to her, chiding her for leaving on her own, but the fresh walk had always been good to her. It gave her time to reflect and think of her marriage and children. Jamison had been her first born, and just the very offspring she so desired. He had been a spirited young man with a lust of life and a fondness for the ladies, and Amanda with her crimson locks were just as precocious as she must have been. She loved both of her children, and she was going to miss having Jamison in her life. The sound of someone on the path pulled her out of her reflections on her progeny.

"Who's there?" Josette paused on the path and looked to the darkness behind her. "Quentin, are you trying to scare me again." She paused trying to tell of the dark foliage was a man or just her eyes playing games with her. "If you do this, I will bar our bedroom against you."

She heard something moving through the trees. There was something out there just off the path. It seemed as if it were behind her and ahead of her at the same time.

"Quentin?" She asked again. She saw the broken fence that marked the halfway mark in the trail. The tree line was just a bit beyond that and the Old House just a bit beyond that in the clearing. Holding the lantern up high, Josette tried hastening her step, but it was hard to move quickly while holding a lantern to light the way at the same time. Soft foliage crushed into the ground under her feet as she tried moving on. Darkness mixed with moonlight and shadows spread everywhere beyond her. A shadow moved to her left and she spun around holding her lantern like a shield.

"Who is there?" She tried ordering the shadows to fall in line. "I will not succumb to this sort of infantile tomfoolery. My husband is Quentin Collins, cousin of Barnabas Collins, the lord of this estate! They will see you hanged for robbing me." She turned quickly on her way and was met by a ghastly white face framed by long dark hair blocking her path. A brief scream poured from her lungs as the powerful grasp of undead hands lifted her off her feet and pushed her heard to the tree. Josette was barely able to strike him with the lantern. She had seen his face fleetingly before being pushed to the tree hard to knock her out then forced to the cold dark ground. Her attacker was a man of fierce animalistic rage; he held her by the throat with one hand and tore the top of her dress off with the other uncovering her chemise and corset, but this wasn't a rape. She recognized him in that brief instant the moon came from behind the clouds and caught her face and what she saw terrified her even more than the fact she was being attacked. Her nephew was dead! Barnabas had sealed him in the mausoleum like any other distraught father. Possessed by urges he could not control, William Benjamin Collins pressed his favorite aunt to the floor of the woods on his estate, reeled his head back and opened his mouth to reveal two sharp teeth he quickly pressed deep into her neck.

Josette lay there unable to move. Her body quivering with fear, she waited for the shock to come to her. She could only stare up to the moon as her undead nephew sucked the blood from her wound. She felt her life ebbing away, as her mind could reveal to her was how was she going to be found. Would she be found? She wished she could tell her husband and children she loved them one more time. Somehow she felt William retake his senses. She was a part of him now; he was a part of her. Slowly lifting his head, the young Collinwood heir looked into the face of his Aunt Josette. Her face had become so white and placid. Her chocolate brown eyes stared up at him as if she were his lover. His face quivered in shock to realize what he had done. His blood-drenched lips opened and closed trying to form words. Tears filled his eyes. He had killed his favorite aunt! While J.R. and Jamison had young infatuations on his mother, he had followed her around trying to get her attention. What did he do?! The shock and fear was racing into his mind followed by guilt and despair.

"No-o-o-o-o!" He lifted his tortured face to the sky, his eyes tight with eternal regret and quaking breath and teeth clenched together with self-loathing. The sky, the trees, and the earth stood by as mute witnesses to his terrible crime and languishing pain.