Chapter 10

"It is a miracle that she is still alive." Kenneth commented.

"Evidently she did not expect the snowstorm to hit so suddenly after she ran off" George said "I wonder if she thought of it at all, or she only tried to get out s fast as she could."

"Did she say anything:?"

"She admitted knifing both Barnabas and Derek. And that it was all Violet's fault. Then she lost consciousness."

Julia nodded slowly. :"I guess it is my fault, after all, for being so keen on releasing Delia and for not paying attention to what Megan was trying to tell me."

"We all made mistakes there. And you could not, legally, keep Delia much longer." George said, "If you had insisted, you could have been sued."

"Still, we should have seen it earlier."

"Well, she didn't kill either Derek nor Barnabas, so we can be grateful for that."

"Yes. I imagine so. What about Peter?"

"He's staying with Xavier and Sandy. They volunteered for it. Said that exposure to normal family life would do him a lot of good."

"They may be right... We have failed him so many times. As we failed Iris" Julia said dejectedly.

"No, Julia, we haven't failed Iris, not yet."

"But what's the point?"

"Do not give up, Julia. You did not do it with Barnabas, and you will not do it with her, either. Think of it. What if she is right? What if she is being possessed by Violet? Then all we need to do is exorcize that ghost."

"It might be just a delusion of Iris' mind, caused by her guilt feelings."

'And her guilt feelings might attract Violet to her. "

"No..."

"She attracted Sebastian, why not Violet?"

"So you caught her." Barnabas looked even more dejected than Julia had been.

Evidently this episode had come to close to some old wounds of both of them, and they were working out that old pain in inconvenient ways...

Well, time to talk sense into him.

"No, not you to." he growled at Barnabas "It was bad enough watch Julia go into a gloom and doom mode over her. And I am sick and tired of gloom and doom. Not while we can fight back. Yes, Iris, went over the edge and knifed you. Yes, there were plenty of things that you should have done, and that Julia should have done, and you did not. But that does not mean that we are going to give up on her. We are going to find what happened, and how we can fix it."

"We all know what pushed her to it."

"We think we know, which is not the same as knowing... And that does not mean that there is no solution. It means that we have to look for one. Sure, I can make a list of the ways we overlooked her, we forgot her, we hoped for the best, and all that jazz. But that is no reason to do nothing now. It is not as if she had jumped off Widow's Hill and all we could do would be to stand there, gaze into the distance, and wish things were different."

Barnabas pondered this, and the next time he spoke, he had accepted the justice of George's comment.

"You did not hurt her.."

"Hurt her? I kept her from freezing to death. I put some hot coffee into her, and I took her to the hospital."

'You are right. I cannot blame you. In fact, in this mess, you probably are the one with least blame."

There was no way out of it, George realized with an inward groan. Barnabas needed to agonize about Iris for a while, and there was no stopping him when he was in that mood. But that mood would pass in a couple of hours, at least, and then Barnabas would come back to Earth and start coming up with sensible ideas on how to find out if Violet was truly possessing Iris, and what could be done.

The snow had piled up on the beach and would remain there for a while.

Adam brought his easel and paint supplies with him. It looked so... so special.

Not so long ago he had doubts about his ability as a painter, wondering if he had any talent at all, or had it all been a gift of Charles', a gift that he had destroyed when he had painted over his own portrait.

He no longer had such doubts.

There was no room for doubt in him. None at all since had had seen her and knew that she was worth painting.

And now that he wore the braided strip on his wrist, he felt more sure of himself than ever.

He chose the colors. White for the snow, He would mix it with blues and pinks. Then gray and purple overtones, very subtle ones. Blue and green for the water, and again gray and purple overtones, with some streaks of pink. Dark for the underside of the waves, making the white shine even more.

He felt warmth envelop him as he painted. It was as if someone was guiding his hands so that they moved flawlessly over the canvas/

The painting took form before his eyes as the brush moved over it. He had never felt so sure, so confident of his powers before...

And maybe the braid was helping him do this...

Iris had not recovered consciousness yet. and Kenneth, insisting that she needed plenty of rest, wanted her to remain that way.

"It is a wonder that she survived." George told Barnabas.

"She must have been mad."

"You know, after she stabbed you, she could have easily ambushed me. Instead she ran away. And she did have a grievance against me. I did shoot Violet."

"She probably saved your life by running away. Maybe seeing me down there, after she knifed me shook her back into sanity, even temporarily."

"It may well be. In any case, she did not stab anyone else."

"Well, let's be thankful for that. Now, if she lives. what will she do?

"Whatever she does, it may help us determine if she is truly haunted by Violet, or it is just a trick of a guilty mind."

Iris' eyes did not focus. She was aware of warmth, of being safe. And of a presence that would not leave her.

She was there, waiting, once Iris woke up, once she left the bed. She would be back even if she could not be seen.

... better to remain asleep, better not to leave the weapon that her body was where Violet could use it...

She sensed an anger. Because Violet knew that she had lost Iris, that Iris could not be used again.

Iris smiled slightly. She had won. She had stopped the killing before it started...

And then the presence was gone. Iris let out a sigh of relief, and let the deep dream claim her again.

Yet, before she lost consciousness, she thought of Peter... and the edge of fear came back to her

Peter shivered. "She's here!" he shouted in his sleep "She's here!"

He woke up. No, it was a dream. A bad dream. And now it had gone away...

Only it had not She was there. And she wanted something from him.