She withdrew the syringe and pressed a square of gauze over the needle's intrusion.
"Hold that for a minute."
Chris Jennings nodded, flexing his hand experimentally. "Is this the last of the shots, Doctor?"
Julia cast a glance at Barnabas, as if to ask his help in assuring the sullen dark-haired man. "The final treatment," she agreed.
Chris stood and paced the length of the cellar room. "Then tomorrow night we'll know," he muttered.
If another response was called for, she chose to ignore the hint. Barnabas had pressed her into service to work a cure for Jennings' curse, and she had acquiesced, more for Barnabas' sake than from any deep personal commitment. She had never shared Barnabas' righteous determination that Chris Jennings be saved from his fate; in fact, she had never particularly cared for Chris Jennings. Not that personal likes or dislikes should be permitted to interfere with treatment of a patient. All the same, though, this was not a case she would have accepted had it been left solely to her.
And she knew full well that Chris would not have submitted to a cure for his strange affliction had it not been for Barnabas' persuasion. This moody young man was understandably bitter at his situation; to Julia's trained eye, though, there was more wrong with Chris Jennings than could be reversed by successful treatment. His brooding anger, impulsiveness, and barely concealed cruelty would not be salved with his release from the curse.
That last thought caught her. What made her think of him as cruel, with or without the mark of the wolf?
Was it because of his uncanny resemblance to his brother Tom? Tom Jennings had threatened her personally, nearly consigning her to his own dark existence as one of the undead. She would never be able to forget that.
"Julia's treatments will work, Chris," Barnabas said quietly. "When the moon rises next, you will be free."
"You're so certain?" Chris stopped his pacing and stood just inches from the barred opening of the door to the cell where he had spent the night of the last full moon. He kept his back to the other man, and his words, when they came, were tense and deliberately slow. "I cannot endure another transformation, Barnabas. If she fails..."
Julia's head jerked around at the accusation. She wasn't going to let herself be blamed for the continuation of Chris' curse. But Barnabas held up a warning hand to her, and she choked back her retort, slamming a stainless steel tray to a table in lieu of a more appropriate response.
"Let us wait another day to debate failures and successes," Barnabas soothed, intending his words for both physician and patient. "For this night, share my confidence."
Chris turned, his expression stony. "I'll withhold my opinion until tomorrow night," he said evenly. Then he stalked from the room.
oooo
"My prescription for a trying evening," Barnabas murmured, handing Julia a glass of sherry. He took a chair across from her and sat studying the fire. When minutes went by without any comment from his companion, he cast an anxious glance at her.
"Do not judge Chris by the man you saw tonight. He is... upset."
She slammed her glass on the table. "Barnabas, has it occurred to you that he may not be worth salvaging?"
He frowned and pulled back, unprepared for her savage assessment.
Seeing the surprise on his face, she ran a hand over her forehead and relented. "I'm sorry - I shouldn't have said that." She sighed. "It's just that I'm tired and Chris Jennings' attitude grates on me."
"Is that all?"
She looked up. "You're right. There is more." She paused. "Barnabas, some men resist salvation. They refuse to cling to life, casting themselves to the waves instead. I've seen it in so many patients." She shook her head in regret. "We can't hold ourselves responsible for their determination to embrace darkness." At his silence, she added, "Chris Jennings is not the man you were when you were suffering under your curse. He has allowed his whole life to be poisoned."
"Was I not just as bitter?" Barnabas countered. "Did I not commit reprehensible acts?"
"It was different," she maintained. "You rose above your circumstances, you fought your fate, you never..."
"Lost hope? Have you forgotten those dark nights, Julia? I was nothing more than a maddened beast."
She closed her eyes, denying the memory he summoned up. "You were always more."
"You have forgotten," he said softly. "Perhaps... perhaps I should forget as well. But it is so hard..."
"I'm sorry." And she was, for dredging up the pain of his own affliction, so recently ended and not by her efforts.
Was that it? Was she still feeling the bitter regret of not having been the source of Barnabas' cure? Did Chris Jennings, with his undisguised mistrust of her ability, expose that still fresh wound?
"My dear Julia," he said, as if reading her mind. "No one has done more for me than you. No one," he repeated, as if to underscore his meaning. "I have always had the greatest faith in your inestimable strength and talents, so there is no doubt in my mind that you will bring about Chris' release. As you did mine."
Her throat constricted and she couldn't respond. Couldn't agree - she knew far better. Couldn't disagree, although she knew she should.
He reached to pat her hand reassuringly. "Come. Another sherry before I walk you back to Collinwood."
oooo
The next day was interminable. Julia made a pretense of reading but the pages were meaningless and her eyes kept drifting to her watch, to the wall clock, to the shadows on the floor, to any tangible reminder of the passing time.
Tonight would be the redemption of Chris Jennings. Or the absolute condemnation.
What she hadn't confessed to Barnabas the night before was her own doubt. Doubt that she could help Chris.
It wasn't just her failure to cure Barnabas that worried her. He had found ultimate salvation through another, but she had been so close herself to discovering that lasting cure... it had only been a matter of time before she could have brought the same conclusion. His affliction was in her specialty.
It had only been a matter of time.
But Chris - his spectacular metamorphosis was beyond her. Whereas Barnabas' vampirism was a matter for a hematologist - admittedly, one with a very open mind - Chris' lycanthropy required an expert in cellular structure. How could she know, how could she anticipate all the variables involved in a condition that went to the core of a living cell? His was an affliction inscribed in his very genetic make-up, not a mere aberrant infection to be eliminated.
Barnabas expected too much of her. And she was loath to disappoint him. So she had taken on the impossible task of ridding Chris of the beast within.
She hoped she could justify Barnabas' faith, but she was very much afraid she wouldn't.
When the clock chimed eight, she left for the Old House.
She let herself in and put her bag on the table. She hoped no one would wonder why tonight, of all nights, she carried that small black satchel.
Chris Jennings provided the only animation in the drawing room as he sat tensely kneading his knuckles.
Barnabas stood before the fireplace, his back to the dark empty hearth. Her entry prompted a brief nod of recognition.
She was immediately concerned. What if the treatment did fail? Would they have time to sequester Chris before the transformation was complete?
"Wouldn't it be... safer... if we waited downstairs?" she asked.
"No faith, Doctor?" Chris sneered.
She turned on him with exasperation. "I see no need to make this experiment more dangerous than necessary."
"Dangerous? To whom, Doctor? You? Me? Are you that certain of failure?" He strode over to confront her. "Or maybe you have a reason to expect the results..."
"I have no reason to jeopardize your future, if that is your meaning," she returned hotly.
"We shall be safe enough here," Barnabas interceded from across the room. "In any event, it is too late to move now." He gestured to the window, and Chris ran to it.
The moon shone down full upon him. He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable agony that hallmarked the shifting of forms. It didn't come. He stared at his hands, finally rubbing one over the other in affirmation of their persistent normalcy.
Barnabas sought Julia's eyes. "You've succeeded," he whispered as he moved to join her. "It worked." But as he drew closer he saw her expression change from intent concentration to horror.
"Barnabas - look!"
Before them, Chris Jennings writhed, surprise and bitter understanding flashing in his expression before his features twisted in pain. Coarse thick hair began to shadow, then obscure his face; the outstretched hand knotted and convulsed with some inner strength; a feral growl escaped his parted lips. Accusation, betrayal, and contempt shone in his eyes.
Julia stumbled to the foyer table, to the black bag that surely contained the only real freedom Chris Jennings would ever know. She reached for it - and it fell from her grasp as Barnabas threw himself against her, offering his own body as shield from the man-wolf that was turning to them both.
The thing froze, its glittering eyes locking with the dark and determined stare of the man before it. Suddenly, as if cornered, the beast threw back its lupine head and emitted a mournful, lingering howl. Then it turned and plunged shatteringly through the window.
"I must go after him," Barnabas muttered, running for the door.
"No!" When her plea had no effect, she added, "Wait! Take this!" And she pulled the last resort from the bag. A shiny revolver. "If you must go, take this."
He didn't have to be told that it contained six silver bullets.
"Julia! Why?" He meant, why this, why now, why had she found it necessary to have brought such a 'precaution' on this night. But he couldn't articulate those questions through his shock.
Nonetheless, the unformed questions were reflected in his face. Then he reached for his cane and dashed from the house.
And she, standing there, holding the heavy obscenity of a weapon, realized what a breach of faith she had committed. She let the pistol fall to the table and put her face in her hands.
oooo
Shortly before dawn, the front door was flung open and Barnabas staggered in, carrying the bloodied form of Chris Jennings. "Willie," he shouted, deliberately ignoring Julia's hovering.
Willie joined them, looking at the body with amazement.
"What happened?"
"Help me get him upstairs."
Willie threw Jennings' free arm over his neck, and he and Barnabas haltingly pulled the man up the steps. Julia followed but was stopped at the bedroom door by a haggard Barnabas. "Not now," he breathed heavily.
"But he needs help," she insisted.
"Not yours." Catching hurt on her face, he softened. "He is all right, Julia. I'll be down in a minute and we'll speak of it then."
She went back to the drawing room to wait. When he at last came down the stairs, he clasped a hand on Willie's arm in a gesture of thanks before entering the room.
"Barnabas! You're hurt!"
He shook his head. "No," he said, noting the blood on his sleeve as if for the first time. "I'm fine."
He didn't look fine, Julia thought. He was pale and distraught and blood was smeared over his clothes and hands.
"Chris?"
"He is uninjured."
"But..." She gestured at the stains.
He dropped wearily into a chair, and she hurried to him, probing for the wound that could have caused such visible evidence. It took only a few moments to confirm his statement that he was unharmed.
"I don't understand."
"I was too late to prevent the tragedy," he said through closed eyes. "You were right, Julia - we should never have risked exposing Chris to the moonlight without some restraint, without some means to prevent him..."
"What tragedy? If neither you nor Chris is injured..."
Misery burned in his eyes when he again opened them. "When Chris fled, he went to the only person his terrified mind told him might be able to help -"
"Sabrina," she whispered.
He nodded slowly.
"And she?..."
"Dead," he said flatly. "I wanted to believe I could avert it... I tried..." He looked down at his hands.
"It isn't your fault, Barnabas. I was the one... who failed Chris."
He reached out and raised her face to his. "We all failed tonight, Julia," he murmured. "All of us."
His words dampened whatever thrill she might have felt at his touch. He had not excused her culpability, merely extended it to blanket himself as well.
oooo
She mutely poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him. Barnabas had washed off the blood and changed into clean clothes.
He would have to break the news to Chris in a few hours, he knew. That promised to be another ordeal. Perhaps he should ask Julia to administer a sedative to Chris, to prevent any violence in his grief.
Barnabas sighed. He couldn't continue to ask her to perform these ministrations. Whatever oath of compassion she had sworn couldn't conceal the look of vague fear on her face everytime she saw Chris. At each meeting it must be as if she was confronted with the ghost of Tom Jennings. Not to mention the horror of last night's transformation. Enough. He couldn't prevail upon her any longer, knowing what it cost her.
And she had been so very right about last night. She was the one who had urged caution in testing the cure. He had forced the calamity by discounting her concerns. She acted with precision and deliberation; it was his impatience that clumsily spoiled her efforts.
Julia was always the one to talk sense to him. She had reminded him of that once, during one of their journeys to the past. With typical impatience, he had brushed off her comment - but he couldn't deny the truth of it.
He studied her silently; she was deep in thought, subdued by the events of the evening, and he was grateful for her distraction. It gave him time to think. Remember the nuances of their long friendship. The stormy adversarial beginning. The growing trust, strengthened by mutual sacrifices... sometimes weakened by his over reliance upon the past.
There was so much between them now - and still so much that was unsaid. He'd trusted his life to her on many occasions, and the lives of his family, and she had been faithful... stalwart... his friend.
No... There was more than that.
He'd known for some time now that the bond between them was deeper, stronger, more enduring than mere friendship. He needed Julia, needed her because without her he knew he wasn't be half the man he hoped to be. No one before - Angelique, Roxanne, even Josette - had so diminished him with her absence, sustained him with her presence.
And still he was unable to put words to the realization. He would have to trust her to understand his long silence about his feelings. Trust her to continue her patient friendship. Trust her to know without truly knowing...
...Until he could at last reward her with the truth.
"Why do you stay?"
Startled from her own thoughts, she looked up in confusion. "I'm sorry?..."
"Why do you stay with me, Julia?"
She smiled wanly and shook her head. "I still don't understand, Barnabas."
"Evidently not," he allowed. He paused. Words still wouldn't come.
"You're not making very much sense. You really should try to get some rest."
"I should look in on Chris."
"I can do that for you," she said, beginning to take charge. "Go to bed, Barnabas."
He started up the stairs but turned suddenly. "I had hoped... that when Chris was returned to a normal existence... that I... that we..."
"Yes?" she encouraged, puzzled by the declaration he was struggling to frame.
He abandoned the thought, too weary to deal with it. There would be time later. He offered a tired smile instead. "You have been a good friend, Julia."
More than a little confused by now, she nodded assent and watched him climb the stairs. What he had been trying to say sounded suspiciously like a farewell.
oooo
She was becoming frantic. It was late, and she couldn't find Barnabas, and there was something very important she had to tell him. Very important. A matter of life and death.
Where was he?
Where?-
She started and woke, momentarily confused at her surroundings. Then she remembered. She was at the Old House, in one of the empty bedrooms. The panic of the dream retreated and she sat up.
It must be quite late in the day, but the house was still silent. Chris and Barnabas were doubtless still sleeping off their exhaustion from the rigors of the night before. She should check them - especially Chris. His inevitable accusation was not something she wished to face, but she would have to steel herself for it.
And perhaps it was deserved. She had failed, hadn't she?
Rising with a sigh, she went across the corridor to the room where Barnabas and Willie had deposited the unconscious Chris Jennings hours earlier.
The bed was disheveled but empty.
She must've slept later than she thought. Chris was probably downstairs by now, having resumed his relentless pacing, rehearsing his recriminations. She hoped that Barnabas had not yet broken the news of the night's tragedy; however much she would like to protest her own responsibility for Sabrina's death, she could not, and it was fitting that she be there to share the blame. Besides, Chris would likely be grief-stricken at the revelation - he would need close observation, perhaps sedation.
When she reached the drawing room, it was empty as well.
Then, for some unknown reason, her eyes darted to the foyer table and she saw that the revolver was gone.
The cry that rose to her lips froze there and she began to realize that she would, after all, be the means of Chris' release from the curse.
oooo
Willie Loomis eyed the untouched plate with resignation. He wanted to gently upbraid the other man for his self-neglect, but decided against it. Such tactics never worked with Barnabas.
"Are you feelin' okay?" Willie asked. He'd never been able to shake a certain reluctance, a certain nervousness whenever he inquired about Barnabas' physical welfare; it was as if he feared the answer might be some gruesome regression to that former condition.
"What?" Barnabas seemed surprised at the question. "Tired. I'm... tired."
Even Willie could see that. Barnabas hadn't been himself since that Jennings guy had... well, died. That had been nearly two weeks earlier and Barnabas still looked as pale and stricken as the very evening Jennings' body had been found. Shot through the heart. Suicide.
Bad break for Jennings, finding out that his girlfriend had been murdered - the knowledge must've pushed him over the edge. Willie knew that Julia Hoffman had been treating Jennings. Another crazy, he shook his head, and Julia hadn't worked any miracles with him.
Come to think of it, Julia hadn't been quite the same since that night either. Willie frowned at the remembrance. The long silence in the Old House that night. At the time, he'd written it off to grief at the news of the death - but maybe there was more. Some chasm had opened between Julia and Barnabas, one perhaps even unrecognized by them.
But Willie had noticed. Noticed Julia's sudden nervousness and studied avoidance of Barnabas. She had lingered at the Old House from some sense of duty, but had seemed grateful to leave. And to his great surprise she had called only once in the interval following that miserable night.
And that visit had been a short one. It was farewell - for a short while, she maintained, though Willie wasn't fooled. She was unconvincing in this lie. Whatever the reason she was returning to Wyndcliffe, it wasn't an urgent case as she said.
Still subdued from the Jennings tragedy, Barnabas had accepted Julia's story at face value. No protest. No inquiry to the date of her return. If Willie hadn't known better, he might have taken Barnabas laissez faire attitude as uncaring.
But Willie did know better.
He studied the other man's hunched form through the growing shadows of the room. Grief - or even guilt - at Jennings' death should have waned by now. And if Barnabas was oblivious to the seeming permanence of Julia Hoffman's departure, what accounted for his depressed state?
Willie licked his lips nervously. "Say, Barnabas, if you're tired, why doncha go upstairs?"
Barnabas looked up, as if fully aware of Willie's presence for the first time. He finally sighed guiltily. "I should," he agreed but made no attempt to rise.
This was getting to be too much. Willie set the tray down and stood in front of Barnabas, hands on his hips, wearing a look of patient expectance.
Finally, the other man complied.
oooo
Hours later, a rumble of thunder dragged Barnabas from the twilight of sleep. Once roused, though, memory denied him the refuge of more sleep, forcing him instead to relive the events of the last few weeks.
He could find no solace in Chris' death, not even in the fact that he may have at last found the peace that had eluded him in life. Chris took his own life not in the hope of that peace but in horror and remorse at his actions while in the beast's form. By doing so, Chris had shown honor, and courage - a courage bitterly acknowledged by Barnabas, who so well knew the absence of it in himself. How many times had he committed deeds that frightened him, that wounded those closest to him? How often, in his former existence, had he contemplated the final release of death - without the moral strength and determination to have sought it out?
In fact, Chris' death mocked Barnabas twice over - that Barnabas had failed to save him, and that Chris succeeded in conquering his curse where Barnabas had not.
As Barnabas added the name of Chris Jennings to a mental roster, he wondered how many more would there be. Even without his own curse to blame, Barnabas was still party to the deaths of those around him. Who would be next - Carolyn? Elizabeth? Roger?
Not Julia, anyway. She at least was safe now, back at Wyndcliffe, away from the dangerous association with him. Barnabas wanted to be grateful for that, but couldn't. He'd been slow to comprehend the the enormity of her absence, creating such a great void within him, as if Julia had taken with her all of the hope and conviction that had driven him for the last few years.
In the future, all would be darkness and emptiness. And even though solitude had been such a necessary part of his physical condition for so long that it had become almost a natural extension of him, it was the prospect of this new loneliness that was most disturbing.
Lulled by such depressing thoughts, he drowsed for a few minutes, then snapped back awake as a fleeting dream ended.
"Julia?" he asked of the heavy stillness of the room.
There was no response. No - of course not. Julia had been summoned to Wyndcliffe to consult on some emergency case.
He felt a sudden, overpowering need to talk to another human being, anyone, just to ward off the emptiness.
"Willie?"
He waited, then called again.
Still there was no answer.
Even Willie gone? Where?
Finally, sleep returned, but it did not erase his frown.
oooo
"Elizabeth? This is Julia. I got a message through my service that someone from Collinwood had been trying to reach me."
"Oh, Julia," Elizabeth sighed with relief. "I'm so glad to hear your voice. We've been trying to find you since yesterday."
"What's happened?" Julia asked, alert to a sudden sense of foreboding.
"It's Barnabas - he's ill. When we couldn't get you, we called in Doctor Pierce from town. But he wants to move Barnabas for some tests and Willie has practically barricaded the Old House, saying that he won't permit it until you agreed."
"What sort of illness? I mean, I appreciate Willie's faith in my abilities, but Dr. Pierce is a practicing physician and I..." She let her voice trail off, uncomfortably reminded of her last attempt to cure the body instead of the mind.
"It's some kind of fever. Dr. Pierce doesn't really know for sure." Elizabeth paused. "I'm going to the Old House now. Can I tell Willie anything from you?"
"Tell him I'm on my way." And she hung up the phone without saying goodbye.
oooo
When next he came to himself, it was as a gradual awareness of light and shadow. For an unknown length of time, he simply watched the shadows twist and lengthen from the corners of the room, darkness seeming to drip from the moldings, coating the walls and washing everything in the room in a cool mantle of grays.
Barnabas felt a strange lightheadedness. Aware he would be unsteady if he even but rose to sit in the bed, he lay quietly... watching... watching... as layers of shadows coalesced into a familiar profile.
"It isn't time yet, Barnabas. But soon. Soon."
Seeing Chris Jennings again, even in this spectral form, didn't alarm Barnabas. It merely confused him.
"I don't understand," he mumbled, reaching toward the figure before him.
"You will."
Color and form began to dissolve around Barnabas, collapsing the apparition and plunging him into other fevered imaginings.
oooo
"Doug Pierce," the sandy haired man introduced himself. "You must be Dr. Hoffman."
"Julia Hoffman," she acknowledged before casting a glance at Willie. "Where...?"
Willie broke the lock of his crossed arms and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
"Mr. Collins has been treated by you in the past...?" Pierce began as he followed her up the steps.
"Yes... in the past," she allowed. "What is your diagnosis?"
Pierce tried to leap ahead of her to open the door - the gentlemanly thing to do, instinct told him - but she never paused to permit him the obliged duty. He reached the door as she had already entered the room.
"Um, it's difficult to say with any certainty. Tell me - do you know if he's ever visited the tropics?"
Julia never turned from her examination of the pale man before her. "I believe he... once traveled to Martinique. But that was a very long time ago..."
Dr. Pierce considered this information but finally shook his head. "No, I suspect something with a short incubation period - probably something more equatorial."
"Some tropical fever?"
"Yes, but how did he contract it?"
She didn't say anything but moved swiftly over Barnabas, noting the sheen of perspiration, rapid respiration, and dilated pupils. None of the symptoms was unfamiliar to her, but, in tandem, they indicated something quite beyond her ken.
"Have you called a specialist?"
Pierce shrugged. "As you know, specialists hardly get to backwater towns like Collinsport - let alone make house calls. I was trying to transfer Mr. Collins to a facility where we could hope to get a consult with an epidemiologist..."
"...But you were prevented until I could be contacted?"
He spread his hands helplessly.
She handed him a card. "Call this number. I believe it is the facility that will persuade even the most recalcitrant specialist."
He took the card and looked up at her in surprise. How could she have so correctly anticipated the peculiar requirements of the case? Understanding that he now had the tacit approval he needed to pursue treatment, he left to find a phone.
Julia, meanwhile, sat on the edge of the bed. Finding the basin of water that someone - Willie probably - had been using to sponge Barnabas' face, she wrung the cloth and pressed it to the feverish brow before her.
"Barnabas, what happened? Is this what worry over Chris Jennings has done to you?" She faltered upon another thought. "Is it possible that Angelique has returned...?"
She stared at him for a reaction, but he was in the coils of unconsciousness and gave no indication of assent or denial. He was utterly oblivious to her cooling touch, motionless but the for rise and fall of his chest.
"You're gonna let him be taken away?"
Unseen, unheard, Willie had entered the room and stood at the door, one hand propped against the doorjamb.
"Willie!" She fought back the brief start. "He needs attention beyond my ability."
"Are you sure?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, beginning to understand that Willie had not insisted on her presence merely to lend approval to a plan of treatment.
"Doncha remember the last time Barnabas got sick... so sick that we thought... we thought he was..." He seemed unable to finish, and that formality seemed unnecessary anyway.
It must be Angelique!
But when she whispered the name, Willie shook his head with a pained expression. "I was thinkin' of Adam. Helpin' Adam saved Barnabas once before - why wouldn't it work again?"
Of course!
Adam!
Julia shot Willie a look of surprised gratitude.
oooo
Answer, damn you!
Julia's hand flew to beat at the door again, but it was opened by a puzzled Professor Stokes. "Julia? What an unexpected..."
She bolted past him to stamp impatiently in his foyer.
He closed the door behind her, adding, "Come in, please," under his breath, as wry commentary on her hurry. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"Adam - if you know his whereabouts, tell me."
Stokes shrugged in amusement. "I wish I could, if only to prolong your visit. But, alas, I've heard nothing from him for many months." Seeing her sag at this revelation, he grabbed her elbow and led her into his study. "Julia, what is it?"
"I must find Adam."
He settled her into a chair and stood looking at her with concern.
"May I ask why this sudden change of heart? I rather had the feeling that you and the others at Collinwood would be grateful never to hear his name again."
"Barnabas is very ill..."
The professor's eyebrows shot up. "Oh? I'm sorry to hear that." He reached for the decanter of sherry and poured a glass. "But how does this concern Adam?"
"You know as well as I that their lives are linked. What is happening to Barnabas is also affecting Adam, wherever he is."
"A link I've never fully understood," Stokes muttered as he pressed the glass into her hand. "But even if you were to find Adam, what matter would it make? Could you not treat Barnabas directly here, with the finer facilities and equipment, and provoke the same results?"
She dropped her head in unspoken admission of defeat. "Barnabas isn't responding to anything that's been tried so far." After a moment, she lifted her eyes to his in earnest appeal. "Elliot, please help me find Adam. He is the key to save Barnabas, I just know it."
Save Barnabas? Then this was quite serious.
"Julia - this means so much to you?"
"Everything, Elliot. I'm so afraid that it's my only chance..."
"Then leave it to me, my dear. If Adam can be found, I shall find him for you."
oooo
Barnabas thrashed again at the grayness that enveloped him.
He called for Julia.
In a thought that chilled him, he wondered if perhaps she wouldn't come. Was it possible that she had finally abandoned him to his fate? Had even Julia given up?
No!
Julia had never faltered before. Not under Angelique's threats. Not even when Roxanne had imperiled her very existence.
But now...
Where was she when his need for her was so great, when he knew, intuitively knew that his future depended upon her?
He called her name once more before lapsing back into dreamless sleep.
oooo
Willie yawned and stretched in the chair when she entered the bedroom. He was sorry to have been found napping at Barnabas' bedside... but there hadn't been much time for rest these last few days and he felt obliged to sleep on a catch-as-catch-can basis. Barnabas seemed to have scarcely moved, so Willie didn't feel as if he'd missed anything.
Julia had no words for him as she bent to her patient, so Willie opened a dialogue.
"Is he better?"
He was instantly sorry for the hopeful thought. Her expression told him all he needed to know.
"Well?..."
She exhaled a pent up breath and closed her eyes wearily. "Willie, the fever's climbing. There's not much I can do here."
He nodded and swallowed. "Okay. So you're gonna take him to Wyndcliffe?"
"I'm not even sure that will help." She walked over to the window, the morning sun seeming to accentuate the hollows in her expression. "Elliot Stokes is working to find Adam. Doctor Pierce is trying to contact a specialist. I'm at their mercy - I wait."
Willie cast a quick look at the bed. "This ain't like the other times, Julia. You've gotta do something."
She spun around in anger. "Weren't you listening? I was telling you that there is nothing I can do now but wait! Do you think it's any easier for me?"
"I'm sorry."
Seeing the anxiety her harsh response had precipitated, she instantly regretted her outburst. "Willie, tell me - how did this begin? Were there any visitors?" - she couldn't let go of the idea of Angelique. "Anything out of the ordinary?"
"Not a thing. He was real out of sorts by that Jennings guy killin' himself, and then you left..." Willie caught a glimpse of pain on her face. "Why did you go, Julia?"
She moved back to the bedside and stared down sadly at the patient. "It just seemed time to leave, Willie. I don't expect you to understand."
"Maybe I do."
She looked up in surprise. "You do?"
"You were lookin' for somethin' that you didn't think was here anymore."
She pressed her lips together in a grimace and turned away. In his ignorance, Willie Loomis came closer to articulating what she'd felt than all the volumes of words at her demand.
She hadn't understood completely all the reasons, but leaving Collinwood - leaving Barnabas - had suddenly seemed a necessity after Chris Jennings' death. Instead of being the means of his salvation, she had been the conduit of his death, and she couldn't begin to ask Barnabas' forgiveness for her failure.
Failure. The word hadn't even been in her vocabulary until recently. Now it dogged her relentlessly. Failure. Or fear of it.
She looked down again at Barnabas and felt the overwhelming fear of failure anew.
oooo
This time, when he looked up, he saw Magda peering down at him.
"You are ill. You will die maybe." She gave a theatrical shrug. "But maybe not. Your stars are still changing, Barnabas Collins - still changing, and even I cannot see the end."
Shaking her head, drawing her crocheted shawl closer around her shoulders, she walked around the foot of the bed and up the opposite side. "You tried to help my grand-nephew, I know that. And I will try to help you, if there is time - and if you will understand my words." She looked inquiringly at him.
He had great difficulty forming the few words that made his response. "I - I will try..."
"Listen to me, Barnabas Collins. That which you fear is that which will destroy you." She leaned closer. "Fear nothing - and you will be invincible."
Barnabas blinked in confusion. Had he been thinking more clearly, he doubtless would have felt ill-used. Her advice made no sense - just a bland aphorism. There was no meaning in it for him, and it made him dismiss her as just another puzzling dream borne of his feverish imagination.
"No more," he murmured wearily, and the vision of Magda faded.
oooo
She didn't seem to tire of the repetition, soaking the cloth, wringing it until her knuckles whitened, using it to trace away the dewy perspiration on Barnabas' face.
Stokes watched quietly for several minutes before moving forward and stopping those patient hands. "You're tired," he whispered, feeling the simplicity of the observation pale to inanity as it left his lips. "Put that down. Come with me." He led her to the corridor, mildly surprised at her docile acceptance.
Once beyond the sick room, she appeared disoriented. "What time is it?"
"Late." He paused. "Julia, I've found Adam."
"Where-?"
Stokes reached an arm about her and guided her to another room. "The knowledge will keep for an hour or two. I've already made the arrangements to get us there as quickly as possible, but first you must rest." He hurried to stop her next words of protest. "Now, Julia, you'll be of little use to Adam - or Barnabas - if you arrive in your present state."
She sank down into a chair. "I suppose you're right," she admitted. "But I have to pack - have to get ready..."
He nodded firmly. "Yes. But don't worry about any of that. Elizabeth is attending to those details, and Willie Loomis can look after Barnabas in our absence."
"No," she said dully. "Even I can't look after Barnabas now." She looked up to Stokes and reached for his hand, desperation plain upon her face. "Barnabas needs a professional environment - not this pathetic house. I called Wyndcliffe. Promise me that you'll transfer him there."
Stokes was momentarily nonplused. "But I must go with you to find Adam," he sputtered.
"Promise me, Elliot."
He sighed. "Very well, although this is against my better judgment." He stood behind her and moved his hands onto her shoulders, astonished that they could bear the burden that had been forced upon them. The lives of two men, worlds apart. The fears and hopes of friends, family. And now, the journey - wherever it would take her, she would go alone.
Elliot Stokes stood there until she fell into a light sleep, glad that she never saw the irritating moisture rimming his own eyes.