Barnabas and Roxanne meet with Carolyn, who is finally relieved to talk of what she knows.
"Every seven years someone of the family must die. And we were brought in to provide fresh meat"
Carolyn's family were poor relations. They lived passably well, until her father's business failed. Debts mounted...
"Mother contacted her rich relatives, who were willing to help, and asked us to move closer to them."
Carolyn had a little brother who was sickly. The family offered to have him treated, and went to the hospital.
"Two days later he was dead. The doctor said that they had done everything possible."
"And you believed them"
"We all did. Father accepted a position in the cannery, and mother was given some social duties in the big house. It seemed a decent arrangement"
Seven years later, Paul Stoddard. her father, had become somewhat estranged from his wife. He wanted to move away from Collinsport "and be a family again" He said that the Collinses kept them bound with finacnial obligations and duties. He also began to question how his little son had died.
"He and Mother went to a party in the Big House. Mother returned alone. He said that Father had embarrassed her and she wanted to get away. The next day Paul Stoddard's body was found washed up on the beach.
"They said that he had been drunk and thus had fallen off the edge, getting battered on the rocks"
"And everyone accepted it." Barnabas said
Liz became more and more enmeshed with the Collinses, accepting more and more responsibilities. She called in her brother, Roger, "to give him a chance"
"Uncle Roger was gay. It was no secret. Mother was determined that he married and became respectable... or rather to gain a bride that could be counted as a Collins"
"She would be the next to die?" Roxanne asked. "As did the young bride I was reading about."
"As Quentin wants to do to Maggie. Sacrifice her to keep the family wealthy."
"But Roger would not marry, is that it?" Barnabas asked
"Yes. He and his lover, Burke Devlin wanted to escape. They hired Joe Haskell to take them on his boat. But the boat capsized, and everyone was drowned. That's what they said. But I saw and heard. I saw when they dragged Roger into the Big House, in spite of his struggles ad screams. I saw that there was going to be a big party, to which I had not been invited."
"And the next day Roger's body was found with the two other men."
"Yes. Every seven years a Collins, by birth or marriage must die."
"That's why you took birth control pills"
"If I have children, Will can be sacrificed, as the line will carry on. But as long as I have no children, Will is safe"
"And now it will be Maggie."
"No, Barnabas, now that you are in, dragged by the changing room, it will be you. You are to be the next sacrifice."
