Chapter 14
"And still you did not tell me what was happening." George did not know whether to be sore, or sad, or just scream.
"What could you have done/ You had your hands full with the trouble at the egg. And then Georgina. I did not want to make you a target."
"I know... I know... but still... I am going to lose you, am I not?"
"Yes. George."
"At least I will not have to do it myself. Verhoff will arrange it."
"Yes."
George kissed him. "I love you and can do nothing for you."
"You have done more than enough."
George was the last one of his visitors. Willie, with Louella, had been there,...Good old Willie, who had been a friend when he least deserved one. Julia, with whom he had shared so much. Carolyn, with Adam in tow. Maggie, who was finally able to stop thinking about him. Quentin, whom he almost did not recognize, so sober and serious he had become. Vicky and Phillip. Buffy and Frank. Tammy and Joe, Sandy and Xavier, Zeb and Jessica. Alma with her husband and a tearful Elsa. Iris, Urien, who protested when he was told that Kenneth and Julia would be his guardians, but then accepted it, Edmund...
They all had come to see him, to understand that this chapter of their lives would be over.
"Will they do it now?' Edmund asked Dr. Blair nervously.
"Yes. I know that it is a killing. But what else is there for him? An eternity of lying immobile in the coffin? I can understand why he wants an end to it.
"It seems unfair."
"It is. But then so was what happened to your parents"
"Yes... They should not have died as they did."
"You are no longer a child. You are a young man. Try to make your parents proud."
Verhoff had called two helpers, who managed to get Barnabas out of the coffin and tied him upright to a post. His legs could not hold him up any more, but still, he would stand..
He looked around. Some of his friends had come even to this. Julia, Willie, who had been at the beginning., Megan with Angelique. And George...
George smiled at him.
"Just make sure you don't bury me alive" he said aloud to all of them.
One of Verhoff's helpers lifted the crossbow. He aimed the wooden arrow to Barnabas' heart.
It was that easy then...
The arrow shot and hit straight in the chest. He felt a blow, some pain, and then...
They saw the blood streaming out of his mouth and nose, as well as the chest. There was some blood dripping from the eyes...
And the body... for it was a body now, had begun to smoke..
A swift blow with a machete severed the head, which had begun to turn into a skull.
"Now we better burn the body." Verhoff said to George, and before George protested he added. "He wanted it that way."
Weightless, Barnabas watched them. He felt pity for them. They were hurting and he could not help them. they would have to face their pain alone. And then they would have to keep on living...
He no longer had a share in their doings.
"It is all done now. You can't linger with them anymore" Dave said to him.
He was not surprised to see him. He had always known that he would be there when the time came.
"I wish I could reassure them.."
"They are on their own. Your time with them is ended."
He did not answer. He looked at them, how George had taken up his head, carefully, trying not to cry. He wanted to tell him that it was not so terrible, that they should not be sad.
"It is time to go. Follow me."
He did, In no time at all he had left the room, and was going up narrow staircases and corridors.
"I have come this way before, haven't I?"
"Yes. You were blindfolded then. Now you can see where you are going."
They were there. Bathia Mapes, Old Munsungan, Eliot Stokes. Just as they had been when they had judged him Worthy.
"He is here." Dave said.
"Come join us." Eliot Stokes said.
"Join you?"
"You are one of us."
"But..."
"You were found Worthy." Bathia said. "You must join us in the place of watching."
"Me?"
'You." Dave said. "I was charged with bringing you here. Now you must do your duty."
Barnabas joined the other three. He was now where he belonged, at last.
George watched the assembled people. There were so many of them.
Now it was just the funeral and the burial of the ashes. He had watched Barnabas died, he had watched his body being cremated, and he knew that it was truly over.
Now he had Georgina to care about...
He was going to move to the egg, he decided. Between him, Frances, Patterson, and Derek, they might keep Howard in the straight and narrow. Derek was about to marry Frances any time now, as Howard was to marry Roxanne...
It was the simplest solution... and in the end Howard would mellow...
But now he had this gathering to get through... He looked at the urn. That was not Barnabas anymore. He had said his goodbye to him already... But there were those who deserved the chance to say goodbye, like Chris and Oriana, who had come in too late to see Barnabas alive.
He watched all of them. Willie was weeping silently in the front row. The bond that he had with Barnabas was an unique one, and could not be easily broken. The others, Vicky and Phillip, Frank and Buffy, Xavier and Sandy, they looked stunned, as if they finally understood how much Barnabas was part of their lives...
Tammy looked stunned, as Joe held her hand. Her ancestor, whom she had had the chance to know, this stranger than usual white man who dared claim her as his child, was dead. And it affected her much more than she thought it should.
David was stunned too. So much had he gone through with Barnabas... so much that was now ended.
Sabrina had come, drudgingly, but had come. She still wished to pay her respects, but kept at a distance from all of them. She would not return to Collinsport.. There was nothing for her here.
Maggie and Quentin held hands. Maggie understood that her story with Barnabas had ended for good. She just now had to go forward. Quentin sighed, knowing that for him only a normal life remained. He would have to ask Adam if the changes he made to the portrait meant that he would at last grow old..
Julia held Gretchen. It was like half her life was gone. She and Barnabas had gone through so much... But only half her life. She still had her other half. She had Kenneth, she had Gretchen, she had Howard...
Adam sat stone-faced next to Carolyn. He could not feel fondness for Barnabas. And maybe he never would. Edmund sat with Dr. Blair, feeling the weight of his own adulthood, sensing that it was, in a sense, the funeral of his own father that he was attending.
Iris held Peter. She thought of the romance he had once shared with Barnabas, and what had come between them. She wished it would have been different, but recognized that it could not be. At least she and Peter were free now.
Carolyn watched Roger, noticing for the first time his frailty, his age. She had to take good care of him, in the time that remained him.
Angelique and Megan sat together. Megan knew that the last link between Angelique and Collinsport was broken. Oh, they would come back, from time to time... after all Collinsport was a vampire friendly town, and it was good to keep on checking for any phoenix or Leviathan flare-ups. But their life would be elsewhere... if vampire politics did not pry them apart. She had offered Delia and Jake the chance to attend. Jake had refused, but Delia was there, at a distance from the others, and avoiding Iris' eyes. Still, she was there.
A teary faced Elsa hugged Alma... She had grown up at last, and it hurt... it hurt so much...
Howard, Roxanne, Frances, and Derek held their own memories of him in different ways, wondering on what had brought them all together to live in Egg City...
Harry Redwolf had come too, and felt regret at some of the things he now wished undone...
Anselm Trask spoke the eulogy. It was a sincere and heartfelt one. Barnabas had touched hi in a different way. He had forced him to confront some of his cherished beliefs and articles of faith. He had done so, and found that his faith was stronger for it. And he knew, at last, that the sins of the fathers would not be visited upon the sons.
Louella clutched Pearl, wondering how to explain to her where Uncle Barnabas was.
He had mattered, to all of them. And now he was gone. They would live their lives, and not guess the extent to which they had been changed by his presence, and by his pushy, interfering ways., by his insistence in giving unsolicited advice, by his becoming an instant expert on anything, by his standing up for all the corny things that everyone else was too embarrassed to say aloud.
George squeezed Urien's shoulder. He regretted leaving him behind, but he would do better with Julia and Kenneth than with him. He would go to college and make something of himself..
He, like all the others, was on his own, now.