Chapter 14

Their hands were linked and the lights dimmed. Barnabas felt himself become tense. She was there, he knew. He could not see her, could not hear her, but she was there. And he knew what she wanted. As much as she had been shouting it t the top of her lungs.

"Violet." he said. "Violet. Appear to us."

There was a heaviness on them. And an awareness of pain and rage. A blind fury that would destroy anything that lived, and still failed to ease its own pain.

"Violet" he insisted. "we know that you are here, we want to see you."

A dark fog of pain and anger settled on them, biting into their souls, marking them with despair. They were shaken, but did not let go of each other's hands. Barnabas clenched his teeth and girded himself. He would see this thing through, no matter how great the pain. He would trust on the protection the had claimed and go ahead.

The hand that squeezed his seemed to say the same. It heartened him. The other would hold as steady as he.

"Violet" this time it was George who spoke. "Show yourself to us. We know of your presence. We know of your actions. Do not hide yourself from our eyes."

There seemed to be a thickening on the air, a sudden gust of cold, and then the laughter began.

It was a cruel, defiant laughter. And with despair at the bottom. Violet was unable to save herself, to help herself in any way, but she could hurt others, and would keep on doing so.

"Violet, we know that it is you. You will not get any of us to do your killing anymore."

"What makes you so sure, faggot?" Violet's voice reached them, loud and clear.

"You will not destroy us."

"Oh, but I will. You will all be destroyed. You will pay for the evil that you have done to me."

"Violet" Delia said. "Why blame me? You wanted it as much as I did. More. It was you who came to me, who asked me to take you, to do the things you were scared to do. We did not do anything that you did not wish to do."

"You made me hurt my child! You tricked me!"

"You tricked yourself" Julia said.

"Save your jargon for yourself, doctor. I know what was done to me, and by whom. And you will all pay."

"What have I ever done to you?" Derek asked. "I never hurt you."

"You could have exposed Delia for what she was, thus saving me from her."

"There was enough talk about Delia then. You were warned against her." George said calmly. "You chose to disregard the warnings, and now you want to punish Iris for trying to warn you and then Derek for not doing so..."

"Leave Iris out of this! It was all her fault. She knew that I would not listen to her, that's why she warned me! She knew that I would turn to Delia if she said that I should not.!"

"Why do you hate me?" Tammy asked. "I never did you harm."

"You played false to Jake. I owed it to him to kill you."

"Jake was no friend of yours. He led you to your death."

"No, he was my friend. The only friend I had."

"He set you free only to satisfy himself. He never cared for what happened to you."

"He set me free!"

"He sent you to be killed by George."

"No! It was not him. It was you, all of you. And George wanted to kill me. I saw his face. I saw how he enjoyed it."

"You had made me angry. What did you expect? You had nearly killed a friend of mine, and had another under the knife. Was I supposed to turn a friendly smile to you?"

"You hated me, all the time."

"And when did you give us reason not to hate you? When did you try to make us like you?"

"You all hated me! You wanted to get rid of me!"

"You brought it all on yourself." Julia said, crisply. "We offered help, but you turned it down."

'Help! You call what you give help!"

"Yes, it was help."

"No. You never cared for me. No one ever cared for me."

"That's not true, and you know it."

"No, no one did."

"You made it difficult to care for you. You did things that are not easy to forgive."

"I will have my revenge, still. You will not be able to resist me. You'll kill each other."

"We will do no such thing. You are not strong enough against us when we are all together."

"I am strong and you fear me."

"Yes, we fear you. But you will not prevail. For, if we try, we will be stronger than you."

"No. Yu will not be stronger. I will be the stronger."

"Violet, why do you insist on beating your head against the wall?"

"Because I am right, and you are wrong. Because you stole my child from me. Because..."

"Don't blame us for your child." George said hoarsely. "I saw what you had done to him. I rescued him from you."

"You admit it!"

"You could not care for him. Someone had to.!

"You stole him from me!"

"Violet, Violet, Violet..." Barnabas said softly... He recognized with dismay when his own reasonings were like Violet's... He knew that he had been insane in 1967. Now he knew how much...

"Don't take that tone with me! As if I was an idiot, or a child, or one of the people you deal with at Wyncliffe"

"Why didn't you let us care for you? Why did you hurt us so that we had to hurt you in return?"

"You were and idiot." Julia interjected sharply "you refused to learn from your mistakes. Even now."

"What is it there to learn?"

"Whose fault it really was. What choices you made, and what choices you could have made but didn't."

"You always know everything, doctor, don't you?"

"I don't know everything, but in this this I know more than you."

"And what do you know?"

"That this will not help you any. That if you were to destroy each one of us, you'd still be hurting as much as before."

"It is not true! It will give me peace. It will make me happy!"

"It will not happen that way. It will not help you."

"It will. Just watch me!"

"But if you desist, there can be help for you."

"Help? Where is it? Where can it be?'"

"There are those willing to help you."

"You?"

"No, not us."

"Who, then? Who can they be who are so willing to help? What are they to you or me?"

"You can know them if you allow them to come to you."

Violet was silent, and Barnabas felt the cold wind reach into him, into all of them. It was Violet's hatred, raw and sharp-toothed, which threatened to devour them all.

But it did not. Something kept it away.

Something. Or someone.

Whichever it was, it was the protection they had claimed and which now reached them.

"No!" Violet shouted "I don't want to know them! I want revenge! I don't want anything else!"

The cold wind abated, only to rise again.

But another wind was with them.

"There is love for you, Violet, if only you accept it." Barnabas said "take it."

"No!" Violet shouted "I will not. I will make you pay."

She laughed cold and hard. She vanished, but the laughter remained. And then the laugher was gone, too.

"Is she gone?" Sandy whispered.

"No" Julia said. "She wants us to think that she is gone. She wants us to break the circle and abandon our protection. Then she will come back, ready to tear apart each one of us."

"So we stay here?"

"Yes."

"For how long?" Barnabas asked. The circle could not remain unbroken past the dawn, not with him in it.

"I don't think that she will hold out for much longer, if she sees that it does not work."

"How can you be so sure?"

"She needs us. She has to have us, either our destruction or our forgiveness."

"And we sit till it happens?'' George asked.

"Yes."

The laughter began again.

"You see?" Julia muttered " she's back. She could not hold out for long."

Violet stood in front of them. "Oh, yes. Tell it to them, doctor. Tell it all. It is a pretty tale."

They did not answer.

"I will get you yet! One way or the other. I deserve it. You OWE it to me. I will destroy you."

They kept silent again. They had seen a glow form behind Violet, a glow that grew bit by but, and which was as warm as Violet was cold.

A gust of cold wind flew over them and the glow, as if trying to blot it.. But the glow withstood it. And a gentle, warm, breeze began to flow from it.

"Go away! Damn you! Go away!" Violet shouted at the glow. "I want nothing to do with you!"

The glow did not go away.

"You brought this here!" Violet turned to them "You send it away! Send it away, I tell you!"

"You know what it is, Violet?" Julia asked gently.

"I don't want to know it! Send it away!"

"You know, it Violet. You know that you can't escape it. And you also know that you should not try to escape it."

"I hate it! I hate all of you!"

"There is healing for you in it."

"I don't want any! And I will never leave you alone! Never! I will have my revenge, still."

But she was trembling. It was the end of the line for her.

Suddenly, Barnabas ached for her. There had been a time when he could have helped her, when he could have made a difference. But he had not, with what had seemed sensible excuses. And yet, he himself had once known a hatred like hers, a pain like hers... why had he looked away?

But it was going to end. Even if Violet fought it, even if she unleashed more of the cold wind of her hatred, even if she shouted her desperation at them.

The glow that came to her would not stop. If would reclaim her, no matter how she fought it, no matter how unwilling she was to forgive and accept forgiveness.

It would happen.

They only had to sit there and wait for it.