In Darkness
A Dark Shadows 1970/1840 Fanfiction
Chapter Nine
Gerard struggled into consciousness to the melancholy strains of Tad Collins' toy carousel.
At first he assumed the music existed only in his mind. But when he had listened to its tinny notes for some unknown stretch of time, he determined its point of origin was instead at some place behind him.
Although the music was not the creation of his mind, it was nonetheless unnatural. In his actual life, when Gerard had heard that music in Tad's old playroom, the carousel only turned for a minute at most before one needed to wind up its mechanism. Now the tune played over and over, without pause, inexorable and unceasing.
He was inside some room, lying on the floor. After a while his senses deciphered the fact that his wrists and ankles were still bound. It had taken him serious effort to reach that conclusion. His entire body was so numbed by lying in the same position, for who knew how long a time, that his bound ankles and wrists felt scarcely more immobilized than the rest of him.
Though the room in which he lay was brightly lit, the quality of the light had a gentle familiarity. He realized the illumination must come from gaslights of his own time, rather than from the harshly modern electrical lighting.
The object nearest to his eyes was a table-leg. Casting his gaze about, he saw that he was lying on a purplish Turkey-carpet, its floral and geometric patterns expanding hallucinogenicly away from him like images in an opium-laced dream.
Raising his gaze, Gerard found himself looking at a dark brown rocking horse, standing on a hearth. Beside it was ranged, in a skirmish line, a company of wooden toy soldiers. To the right of the hearth he saw a small table with a colorful toy drum on top of it, and atop the drum sat a painted wooden doll clad in a pale blue gown. He looked upward farther, past the intricately carved fireplace guarded by the soldiers and the horse. Above the fireplace was an item which by now he expected to see: a portrait depicting two children, the son and daughter of Gabriel and Edith Collins.
Gerard had never met those two children. He was not certain if he had ever even heard their names. As far as he knew, the entire time he had been in the environs of Collinwood, both of them had been away at their respective schools. He remembered Samantha's acidly-expressed opinion that both Gabriel and Edith were such unnatural, unloving parents that they had barely been able to contain their impatience as they waited for their children to reach the age at which they could be sent away. He remembered, also, what he had thought in reply: he'd imagined that the children were likely just as grateful to escape from their parents as their parents were glad to be rid of them.
The playroom, Gerard thought. I am in Tad's playroom. That is his rocking horse there, and those are his toy soldiers. That is Carrie's doll sitting on top of the drum.
I am in the playroom, but I shouldn't be. It shouldn't look like this. Samantha and I packed all of these things away. We put all of these toys away, on the night when I proposed marriage to her, and she accepted me.
He awkwardly craned his neck around so he could see other angles of the room. Sure enough, there were further items he recognized. There was the white leather-covered trunk beneath the window to the right of the fireplace: the trunk into which he and Samantha had packed many of these very toys. There were the wooden lion and tiger on wheels. Gerard remembered Samantha telling him that in Tad's earliest childhood years, the little boy had spent so many hours pulling those two toys about the playroom that in places which the carpets did not cover, their wheels had left tracks on the floorboards.
At the very edge of his vision, beyond his feet, he could glimpse the playroom door. Beside it, he saw Samantha's rocking chair.
God damn him, the bastard! Gerard thought in a sudden surge of anger. The damned warlock could not endure to leave any of our achievements intact.
It had been such an accomplishment for both Samantha and Gerard, that night when they had packed up all these toys. The action of clearing this room had held such symbolic importance for both of them. And now, it seemed, with a malignant wave of his metaphorical magic wand, the warlock had negated their victory.
As his jolt of anger diminished in sharpness, Gerard began to contemplate his current emotional state. It struck him that since he had awakened, he had not felt particularly afraid. He thought that, until the anger had hit him, his general emotional condition had been a sort of dull and weary resignation.
He wasn't certain why that should be the case. Was it simply the effects of whatever fumes he'd inhaled throughout his hellish ride in the back of Burke Devlin's car? Was it that he had gone through so many bouts of terror recently, his exhausted system was currently unable to summon the energy required for him to feel fear?
Or was there a more sinister explanation? Was his heavy, quiescent emotional state a result of the warlock's influence? Had his enemy imposed this hazy state of mind upon him in order to countermand Gerard's will to resist?
Maybe I am not afraid at this precise moment, Gerard thought, but that does not mean I am going to keep on lying here, waiting for him to take me.
His efforts to move himself out of his prone position were more strenuous and at the same time more tedious than almost any other physical endeavor he remembered undertaking. Being unable to make much use of his limbs in the proceedings, his ludicrous progress seemed to him to resemble the motions of a human-sized inchworm.
His goal was to reach Samantha's rocking chair and to somehow maneuver himself up into it, even if he was compelled to use his teeth to pull himself up. Once he got into the chair, and got his feet beneath him, he should then be able to make his way to the door without too much difficulty.
Of course, it was a relatively forgone conclusion that the door would be locked. But he would rather try the door and find it locked, than not try it and learn too late that it had been unlocked all the time, and he lay on the floor and made no attempt to save himself.
While he wormed his way across the carpet, he thought what a bitter irony it was that the warlock had chosen this particular room in which to store him. It would be more ironic still, if the warlock were to finally possess him again in this room.
There would indeed be ironic symmetry in the sorry story of his life, if this room turned out to be the place in which he lost everything. In this same room, on one night so very long ago, he'd believed that he had finally gained everything for which he'd longed, throughout all of his life.
In this room, Samantha Collins had said "yes" to him, and he had believed that all of his dreams had come true.
As Samantha's husband, he would become the master of Collinwood. More to point, he would become the man who controlled the Collins family fortune.
Finally, he would have everything he wanted. He would have wealth and security. He would have the respect which all the world pays to men who possess large sums of money.
He would never again need to wonder who would buy his next meal, or whether the roof over his head one night would still provide shelter for him when another day had passed.
He would be master of Collinwood. And never again would any person on this earth have cause to say that he was "only" anything.
Only the brat of a thief and whore. Only a Gadjo. Only a charity pupil.
Only a vagabond. Only a charlatan. Only a palm reader.
Only a fortune-hunter. Only a fancy man. Only a male whore.
Finally, he would be the man he wished to be. He would be a country gentleman; a man of property. No sneering words which anyone had cast at him in all his life would hurt him, ever again.
He had now had more than a century as a ghost to think about all of this, and he still believed that he and Samantha would have led a happy married life together—were it not for the inconvenient fact of her supposedly deceased first husband turning out to be alive. At the very least, he was certain their marriage would have been a great deal happier than countless other marriages.
Their marriage would have been happier by far, for instance, than was the marriage of Samantha and Quentin.
Gerard would have been delighted to play the role of besottedly devoted husband, for the sake of gaining access to the aforementioned Collins fortune. He supposed it was probably true that after some years of marriage, he might not have confined himself all that strictly to the path of marital fidelity. But even supposing he'd been clumsy enough that Samantha learned of such strayings on his part, he felt certain she would not have resented them with the depth of anger she had felt at Quentin's affair with Joanna Mills.
The problem with Quentin and Joanna was that they had truly loved each other. Quentin Collins had fallen in love with Joanna Mills, as he had never fallen in love with his wife. That, Gerard felt sure, was what Samantha had really hated—the fact that Quentin loved Joanna, and not her. Had Quentin's affair with Joanna been a mere physical entanglement, Gerard wasn't certain that it would have bothered Samantha at all.
And that would have accurately described any extra-marital affairs Gerard might have had: mere physical entanglements. He felt almost sure that Samantha would have chosen to ignore such husbandly peccadilloes.
Anyhow, Gerard thought, I would have worked diligently to ensure that Samantha got with child promptly and often. Long before any such time as I might have wandered from the ways of marital rectitude, Samantha would have had a nursery-full of little ones to occupy her attention. She would have had child after child on whom to lavish the maternal love she used to spend solely on Tad.
Samantha used to say that Tad was her life. Well, our children would have been her life, too. As long as I allowed her to take the helm in everything concerning the children, I think it very likely that whatever I chose to do with my life, she would have considered it solely my own affair.
Not, he reminded himself, that any of these questions matter in the slightest. None of them matter, because Samantha and I were married for a grand total of three hours at the most before the late, lamented Mr. Quentin Collins strolled through the drawing room door.
Gerard Stiles the Amazing Human Inchworm had finally reached Samantha's rocking chair. He did not wind up needing to drag himself along it with his teeth, as he'd half expected he would. Maneuvering himself around to place his back to the chair, he forced the fingers of his numbed, bound hands to grasp hold of one chair-leg. From there, it was a relatively simple task to gain the leverage he needed to pull himself up and eventually flop in an awkward sitting posture into the chair.
As he slouched there, the sight which met his eyes was the top of the table beside which he had awakened. On that table-top sat the burned wreckage of a dolls' house.
The dollhouse was utterly destroyed. It covered the table-top with its blackened ruin. All the same, clear enough fragments survived for him to feel certain that this wreck had been the dollhouse version of Rose Cottage. At the corner nearest him he could still see a bit of the painted foundation, and he knew that he recognized it. A climbing tendril of vine and one tiny pink rosebud were still visible against the painted bricks, just below the spot where bricks and roses were swallowed up in black destruction.
Shuddering, Gerard thought, If the dolls' house is destroyed, what has happened to the spirits of the children who were trapped inside it?
Are they still there, invisible to me, huddling within the burnt remnants of the walls?
Did the destruction of the dollhouse set them free? Are they haunting Collinwood now, like ordinary ghosts?
Or in destroying the house, did the warlock also destroy them?
He shuddered again at the horrible picture in his mind. He imagined those two children, David and Hallie, embracing each other and watching in helpless terror as the flames closed in around them.
And if Dr. Hoffman had not interrupted the latest spell, Gerard thought, I would have been there with them. I would have been there in that house with them, and the flames would have come for me.
These thoughts served as a sharp reminder—not that he had particularly needed reminding—that he still had to try to escape.
The process of standing up from the rocking chair exercised some muscles which he didn't think he had noticed before, but he managed it. His hopping, shuffling progression from the chair to the door was not good for his dignity, but he was not certain he had much dignity left, by this time. He at least succeeded in reaching the doorknob without falling over. Standing with his back to it, he got his hands around the doorknob and turned it—or attempted to turn it. The doorknob did not budge.
So the door is locked. It's what you expected. You're no worse off now than you were before, and at least you tried.
Dispiritedly, he hop-shuffled back to the rocking chair and slumped down on it once more.
He had not the faintest notion of what time it was. The heavy brocade drapes were drawn over both windows, and if there was any daylight outside, the drapes did not let it in. If he had to guess, he would say that some significant time had passed while he was lying unconscious.
Has an entire day passed? He wondered. Is it night again? Is the warlock about to begin his next spell?
He didn't know what to think about his unconsciousness, any more than about his lack of fear. He didn't know if his unconsciousness was due to whatever vile fumes he had breathed in while being jolted along inside Burke Devlin's automobile, or whether the warlock had placed some sleep-spell on him to ensure he proved a docile prisoner.
Looking from one window to the other, he contemplated the unappealing fact that with the door locked, the windows formed his only potential avenue of escape.
It was decidedly not an attractive avenue. He wasn't even certain he could succeed in getting either window open, with his hands bound as they were. If he did manage to open a window, the course of action which must follow was more daunting by far. He hadn't paid enough attention, when he'd crossed the lawn to Collinwood on his fool's errand to look for an anti-witchcraft amulet, to notice whether the wall outside either of the playroom's windows was currently draped in ivy. Even if it was, the prospect of actually attempting to make his way down said ivy, with bound ankles and wrists, sounded like a nearly certain means of falling to his death. And even dying was not a workable method of escape. As he had already contemplated, all he could expect upon dying was that the warlock would instruct his followers in bringing his body-of-choice back to life yet again.
The damnable carousel tune still chimed incessantly on. Gerard glanced over his shoulder. Not far from him, on a little decorative table, he saw the toy carousel itself, its yellow, gray and blue horses circling in their endless, meaningless race.
You shouldn't be there, Gerard bitterly thought at the toy. I watched Samantha pack you away. You ought to be in the chest below the window, where I saw Samantha place you.
He looked again at that very chest, beneath the window to the right of the fireplace. His melancholy memories felt to him like a gigantic wave. They towered above him and they were about to crash down across the decks of his mind.
Right there, Gerard thought. Right there in front of that chest by the window; that's the spot where we stood when she promised to marry me.
He could almost see himself and Samantha standing there, as clearly as though they were figures in a vision being enacted before his eyes.
He saw Samantha, in that dark orange-colored dress which had suited her so well, as she knelt by the chest to place one final toy inside it. He saw her slowly rise to her feet and close the chest's lid. She shut that lid reverently, and then she stood motionless, gazing at the chest in silence. He knew that as she did so, she was bidding farewell in her thoughts to her memories of her son.
Gerard had walked up close beside her. When Samantha had stood for a moment in her silent contemplation of that closed chest, he had gently touched her arm. In quiet tones, he said, "Samantha. Now that you have closed that lid, will you open this one?"
She had turned to look at him with a gaze of wondering surprise; at him and at the little lidded box he held out to her.
With a bemused smile, she asked, "What is this, Gerard?"
"Open it," he urged.
"But you already gave me this pendant," she protested, still smiling in puzzlement. With a graceful gesture she reached up to touch the pendant at her throat, the present which indeed he had given her for her birthday just that very morning.
"Yes," he acknowledged. "Perhaps I should have waited until another day to give you this. But, seeing you now … seeing your beauty and your sorrow; knowing your determination to consign your sorrow to the past … I couldn't force myself to wait any longer."
Hesitantly, smiling and yet seeming almost afraid, she reached out and took the tiny box from his hand. She removed the lid and then gazed in wonder at the ring which nestled within on its white satin cushion. She whispered, "Oh, Gerard."
He had known the golden Ouroboros snake ring was a perfect choice for her, the instant he had seen it in Braithwaite the jeweler's shop. Of course, the ring was only gold-plated, not solid gold, and its eyes were formed from garnets, not rubies. He was, after all, only a relatively lowly-paid employee of Collins Shipping—thus far. But he had no fear that Samantha would respond to his gift by measuring its gold content or analyzing the stones which made its eyes. He knew she would care only for its symbolism—a symbolism which he would make certain she understood.
Taking a step closer to her, he began caressing her hands, while yet not interfering with her view of the ring. He asked, "Do you know the symbolism which the snake held for the peoples of ancient days?" He made his voice persuasive and soft, only slightly above a whisper. "In the snake's ability to shed its outgrown skin, they saw a symbol of rebirth and new beginnings. Samantha, new beginnings are what lie before you now. You will succeed in shaking off your past, like a worn-out, tattered, outgrown skin. With the encumbrance of your sorrow put away from you, you will go radiantly into your new life. And the most fortunate man on this earth will be he with whom you choose to share that life."
"Gerard," she breathed, as she ran one finger over the ring's gleaming, twining form. When she looked up at him, he was somewhat disquieted to note that her smile held a glimmer of evident amusement. She asked him, "Did Carrie show that magazine article to you, as well? About the engagement ring Prince Albert gave to the queen?"
He had to grin at that, and admitted, "Well, yes, I confess she did. She has been so Victoria-and-Albert mad these past months since the royal wedding, I believe she's shown the articles about them to everyone in this house—except to Gabriel, who wheels himself out of whatever room he's in whenever he sees her approaching magazine in hand! But, Samantha … do you think less of my gift because it is the same as a prince gave a queen? Albert thought a ring like this a gift worthy of his queen. I thought it a gift almost worthy of mine."
Samantha's smile faded, to be replaced by a gaze of wonderment and doubt. "Gerard," she asked, "are you saying to me what I think you're trying to say?"
"I'm doing a very poor job of it, aren't I?" he asked her, allowing a hint of passion to resonate in his tones. "So much depends upon my question and upon your answer, I suppose I must be afraid to put it into words." He closed his hands around her hands and around the engagement ring they held.
"Samantha," he said, "I have treasured these few months with you more than any other time in my life. I never want my time with you to end. I know they have been bitter months for you; bitter and terrible. Seeing your grief has felt like a dagger in my heart. My greatest joy in these months has been in those moments when it's seemed that I have helped to lessen your sorrow.
"I want to devote the rest of my life to making you happy. I love you, Samantha Collins. I will know the greatest happiness any man on this earth has known, if you tell me you love me and you will marry me."
In a sense, his words were all of them calculated: the methodical deployment of the carefully formulated plan which he believed most likely to win for him his goal. But that cold, brutal fact did not stop him from thrilling to the joy of this gamble, the greatest wager in his life.
What though it was her money that he truly loved, and not her? He still treasured seeing her smile. He still felt it a delight for him to value almost as dearly as the Collins family fortune, when he saw her gaze at him from tear-shimmering eyes, and he heard her say to him, "Yes, Gerard. Yes. I love you and I will marry you."
Gerard Stiles thought, On September 28, Samantha promised to marry me. On September 29, we married, and Quentin returned home. On October 31, a long-dead warlock stole my body, and my life was ended.
And any minute now, that long-dead warlock is likely to steal my body and my life again.
He decided he would try escaping through a window, ludicrously unfeasible though it seemed.
Maybe he could get one of the windows open. Maybe he could inch his way down the ivy without dying, if there even was any ivy out there.
Anyhow, since he had no doubt that the warlock would bring him to life again if he died, what did he really have to lose?
Awkwardly, he lurched his way up from the rocking chair again.
In that same instant, the music from the carousel stopped, and the door to the playroom opened.
Gerard looked to the door with a jolt of apprehension. A moment later, his apprehension blended with chagrin as he recognized the person in the doorway. She was Miss Daphne Harridge: his fellow former ghost; his fellow resident of the Collins estate in the year 1840.
To think, Gerard reflected bitterly, that once I fondly imagined I might sweep this young lady off her feet and convince her to fall in love with me.
Now, not only is she the agent of my destruction, I must also endure the shame of Miss Harridge seeing me trussed up like the Christmas goose!
From a comment Tad had made while they were in the woods, Gerard had expected to see Daphne clad in clothing of 1970. Instead, she was wearing a dress from their own time, and it was a dress he recognized. She had been wearing it on the day he met her, when Quentin introduced her to him as Tad and Carrie's new governess.
With startling clarity Gerard recalled his first sight of her. He remembered the moment when he caught sight of the young governess as she stood in the doorway to the drawing room, her slender form covered but not concealed by that burgundy-colored dress with its high, prim white collar. The little black ribbon at that collar seemed to provide coquettish contrast to the primness, as though the very presence of that bow was an invitation for some man's fingers to undo it.
The few subsequent meetings he'd had with Miss Harridge had demonstrated unequivocally that the invitation in that little black ribbon existed in his mind, but not in hers. But, of course, to him that had seemed a challenge, rather than a final answer.
And then the warlock had taken Gerard's body, and had gleefully assembled a harem consisting of all the attractive women at Collinwood, Miss Daphne Harridge included. And he had clearly taken almost as much pleasure in narrating to the disembodied Gerard the details of his exploits with those women, as he had taken in the exploits themselves.
To add to the absurdity of his current situation, Gerard felt heat spreading over his face. He realized he must be blushing. His blush, he knew, was summoned by his memories of one particular encounter which the warlock had described to him—an encounter which had also involved this very dress.
Hoping she would pay no attention to his blush, Gerard bowed his head and greeted her politely, "Miss Harridge."
She nodded to him in return, and she spoke in the solemn tones he associated with her in his memories. "Mr. Stiles. I'm sorry we have to meet again in these circumstances."
"Believe me, Miss Harridge," he answered, "you cannot possibly be more sorry about it than I am."
Her mouth tightened slightly as he remembered it doing when he'd told a joke she didn't like—which pretty much described every joke he had made in her presence. She said tersely, "Whether we are sorry or not, it makes no difference at all." Then, with a gentleness in her voice which she never employed when speaking to Gerard, she called softly over her shoulder, "Tad, Carrie, come in here, please. We don't have much time."
Daphne stepped aside from the doorway. First Tad and then Carrie trailed into the room. Both of them cast furtive, shamefaced glances at Gerard before looking rapidly away.
Unlike their governess, the two children were still wearing clothes of 1970. It struck Gerard that Carrie's current outfit looked even more disturbing than the one she'd worn in the woods. Between the hem of the distressingly short pink dress and the long white stockings which came almost up to her knees, her costume still displayed a good eight inches of the girl's bare legs.
To his surprise, Gerard felt a surge of protectiveness for Carrie. He tried to sneer at himself for that reaction, telling himself, For God's sake, you are not the girl's father. All the same, he still wished that he could order her back to her chamber to put on some decent clothes.
He thought, All she needs is a corset on top of that dress, and some feathers in her hair, and she'll be dressed like the dancers in those vulgar theaters Leticia used to work in, before I sent for her to join me in America.
On the topic of theaters, Daphne was all too obviously setting the stage for the next performance. In her quiet, even tones, she directed, "Carrie, you can light the candles. Tad, you draw the star."
The children did not immediately move to obey. They were standing now by the table, staring with stunned grief at the blackened wreckage of the dolls' house.
"Why did he do it, Miss Daphne?" Carrie cried out plaintively. "Why did he destroy Rose Cottage?"
"I don't know," the governess answered. Gerard heard urgency quivering beneath the forced calm of her voice. "I'm sorry, Carrie; I'm sorry it had to happen. But you know there's no point in questioning him. There is no point."
"Yes, there is a point!" blurted Gerard.
Daphne turned to look at him. Her solemn gaze might have meant anything, or it might have meant nothing at all.
He didn't know if there was any point in appealing to Daphne for help. But he saw no reason not to try it. The idea of seeking help from her was probably no more far-fetched than his ideas of making his way down the hypothetical ivy on the walls while still bound hand and foot.
"There is a point in defying him, Miss Harridge," Gerard argued. "Not for my sake, or for yours; for the sake of the children. I'm sorry to ask this of you. I know how impossible it feels to resist him. But if you can break free of him, if we can get away, then Tad and Carrie can have the chance they lost before. The chance he stole from them. Tad and Carrie can finally have their chance to live."
Still she gazed at him. Still her face gave him no understanding of what she was feeling or thinking. Then the thought occurred to him that, just possibly, her usual solemnity was now tinged with resentment.
"You don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Stiles," Daphne Harridge stated. "I did resist him, once. I did defy him, for the sake of the children. It did none of us any good. My act of defiance is what brought us, step by step, to what is happening now. He always wins, Mr. Stiles. He will always win." Without turning to look at the two children, she ordered quietly, "Tad, Carrie, please hurry. He will be here soon."
Choking back sobs, Carrie hastened to the sideboard, fetching candles and candlesticks out of a drawer. Tad, meanwhile, pulled aside one of the carpets from the center of the room. He knelt. With piece of bright yellow chalk, he drew a five-pointed star on the floorboards—a star large enough for two people to stand at its center.
Carrie kept her eyes averted from Gerard as she hurried back and forth past him, bringing the lighted candles to the star. Feeling weirdly distant again, as though his own life and fate were not hanging in the balance, Gerard watched as the girl set each candle in its place, until every point of the star gleamed with a tiny candle-flame.
Tad had stepped back from the completed star and was now looking at Gerard with a pleading expression, as though begging his forgiveness. Gerard smiled faintly at the boy.
Now Carrie stepped back as well. Staring down at her clasped hands, she said in a tiny voice, "It's ready, Miss Daphne."
With the whispering rustle of skirts that Gerard suddenly realized he had missed hearing, in this era of appallingly short dresses, Daphne walked toward him. Something gleamed in her hand, and he noticed she held a knife. Stepping behind him, she set about severing the binding at his wrists. With her free hand, she took hold of his hands to keep them steady. He sighed a little at the soft warmth of her hand.
Soon I'll be a ghost again, he thought. Will I ever feel the warmth of a living person's touch again?
When Daphne had freed his wrists, and then had knelt and done the same for his ankles, Gerard knew that he ought to flee. The door to the playroom was standing open; the children hadn't closed it when they came into the room. He was unbound. He ought to run. But he did not move. He only waited.
Then the true power directing this scene appeared.
Gerard was looking toward the fireplace. He was studying the portrait above it of Gabriel and Edith's unloved children, and trying to remember if he had ever heard their names.
Out of nothing, a man appeared, standing in front of the hearth. He was clad in the spectral twin of the outfit Gerard had worn when he came back to life. Wearing Gerard's clothes, wearing Gerard's form and his face, he stood with his hands clasped behind him, and he was smiling.
His gaze met Gerard's and held it, trapped. Gerard understood what he had to do.
Slowly he crossed the room toward the yellow chalked star. He walked between two of the gleaming candle flames and took his place, standing at the center of the star.
The man—the ghost, the warlock—did the same. As silently as though he were not in the room, he paced over from the fireplace and stepped within the outline of the star. He stopped in front of Gerard, their faces scant inches apart.
In the unnatural lack of fear which the warlock must have imposed on him, Gerard took the opportunity to thoroughly examine his face. It was a peculiar experience to say the least, to gaze at his own face and know that he was not looking into a mirror. He might almost have doubted that fact, and have believed that his mirrored reflection stood in front of him. Only he could feel that the cruel smile which twisted the mouth of the face in front of him did not repeat itself on his own mouth.
Studying his face, Gerard Stiles thought, No wonder the warlock decided he wanted to keep it. If he were to force himself to judge his face dispassionately, he supposed he might wish that his nose were ever-so-slightly larger than it was. By the same token, he might prefer a slightly smaller mouth. But those changes were trivial and unnecessary, for he truly did have a remarkably handsome face. Obviously the warlock was of that opinion, too, or he would not have retained Gerard's visage for these past 130 years.
My God, he thought suddenly, how Leticia will laugh at me if she ever learns about this! She will tell me that it's enough to make a cat laugh, if she learns the warlock kept me pacified while possessing me by permitting me to ogle my own face!
The warlock's face, or his own face, kept on smiling at him. Gerard heard in his mind the words Daphne Harridge had so recently spoken: He will always win.
Seemingly far away, like the moaning of the wind from beyond Collinwood's walls, the words of the spell began.
Tad's voice sounded first, "Feel the earth turning through eternal space."
Lost and forlorn, the voice of Carrie followed, "Let it turn itself toward the stars that guide the destinies of us all."
The voice of Daphne Harridge continued, "Let the light of the stars that guide the destinies of Gerard Stiles and Judah Zachary touch the flames of these candles we have lighted in their names. Let their lights join. Let the light of these stars, the lights of these candles, let all four of them come together. Let all four shine as one."
Gerard stared at the man who had taken everything from him. He thought that, for the first time, he understood how someone's existence could be guided by the need for revenge.
Revenge had never been a desire which held much meaning to Gerard. He could see its appeal as a source of entertainment, but it had never been among his particular goals.
What he sought was wealth and comfort. He wanted good food, good drink, fine clothes, an elegant house and the company of charming women. He wanted, above all, the money which would make all his other desires attainable. Never had he dreamed that vengeance could become a goal he would value above material pleasures.
Well, now I won't have any material pleasures, he thought. I'll have no need for bodily comforts, when he takes my body from me. And I will be a ghost, so I won't have a mortal lifespan to limit my revenge. I will have all the time there is to figure out how to take revenge on him, and to take it.
Somehow, I will make this bastard suffer. This time I won't waste a century floating about my gravestone. This time, by God, I swear there will be a purpose to my haunting. That purpose will be to take revenge on Judah Zachary.
He wasn't certain of it, but he thought he could feel that the spell was taking effect. There seemed a spreading feeling of lightness about him, as though his body was ceasing to exist. He felt a tingling, almost bubbling sensation that seemed to emanate out of him, and the bizarre thought came to him, I feel like I'm turning into sparkling mineral water.
That's a hell of a thing, his thoughts joked back at him, couldn't I at least turn into champagne?
All this time, Daphne's voice had murmured onward, like distant music. He now heard her words again more clearly, as she repeated, "Light touch flame. Light touch flame. Let their lights become one. Let their lights become one, that Judah Zachary may live again."
Another voice shrieked out, "No!"
Something slammed into Gerard. The force of that collision was almost as stunning to him as the impact he'd felt in that astonishing first moment when he had come back to life.
He blinked and tried to make sense of the images before his eyes.
The warlock's ghost still stood within the chalked star, and the snarl on his face looked demonic in its rage. Beyond him stood Tad and Daphne, both of them staring in horror.
Carrie was just in front of Gerard, her hands pressed against his chest. The girl's gaze was wild-eyed and desperate. She cried out to him, "Get out of here, Gerard! Get out of here, please! Get away while you still can!"
It took him another moment to understand what had happened. Carrie must have run at him and pushed him out of the star. He had staggered backward as she shoved him, until he was brought to a halt by the sideboard which stood beside the still-open door.
"Carrie, no!" screamed Miss Harridge. "Oh, Carrie, what have you done?"
"Please, Gerard!" Carrie begged. "Please get away! Get away from here and live!"
Gerard turned and ran.
He was through the open door, across the hall and yanking open the door to the stairwell, when he heard a scream in the playroom behind him. The scream was shrill and anguished, and he thought it was in Carrie's voice.
Another voice followed: the voice of Daphne Harridge, wild with terror.
"No, Gerard!" Daphne shrieked, but he knew she was not addressing to him. "Don't hurt her! Punish me, instead! It's my fault for not stopping her. Please, Gerard, please! Don't do it! Punish me, but let the children live!"
He might have gone back and tried to help. Worthy motivations such as honor, gratitude and chivalry would have sent him back into that room to try and save Daphne and the children, even if the attempt were to cost him his life.
He did not go back. For Gerard Stiles, worthy motivations such as honor, gratitude and chivalry did not stand a chance against self-preservation.
He raced down the stairs, clinging desperately to the bannister so as not to break his neck in the pitch-dark stairwell. Upstairs, behind him, he heard one last agonized scream.
He stumbled when he reached the bottom of the stairs and fetched up against another closed door. Yanking that door open in its turn, he found himself in the equally lightless downstairs corridor. Fortunately, he had been very familiar with this place the previous time he was alive. He knew that here in this corner of the west wing, there was an exterior door. Feeling around rapidly, he found that door, located its doorknob, and discovered that the door was locked.
In his present state of mind, he had no intention of allowing a locked door to stop him. Not permitting himself to second-guess what he was doing, he delivered a kick, with all the force he could muster, to the hardware around the doorknob.
He supposed the result was probably due more to the door's venerable nature and the general disrepair of the west wing, than to him being a man of any remarkable strength. Whatever the cause might have been, the wood surrounding the doorknob split, and the doorknob's hardware was now wobbling loose. After that, it took little further effort for him to open the door.
He rushed outside, gratefully gulping the fresh air and thanking God or the star that guided his destiny for the sight of honest moonlight instead of magically-sustained gaslights.
This time, he thought, I am getting out of Collinsport. I will get out, without waiting to worry about a $2.25 bus ticket or about anything else. This time I will literally just run away from this damned town. Perhaps this time I will finally succeed in escaping it.
Despite his resolution, he glanced over his shoulder at the brooding bulk of Collinwood. He couldn't have told why he looked back. It wasn't as though he could see the playroom, or the people he had abandoned there. From where he stood, he couldn't even see the playroom's windows, although he could have seen them by just taking a brief walk, around the corner to the end of the west wing.
I'm not doing that, he vowed. I'm not taking that brief walk. I don't care about those people—and there is nothing I could do for them if I did care.
He turned and began determinedly striding away from the house.
It troubled him that when she had screamed at the warlock, Daphne had used the name "Gerard." He supposed that must be what she had called him, and how she had thought of him, over all of these years. Before her death, and for the century and more that followed—perhaps for all that time, she had still believed that her tyrant and tormenter was truly Gerard Stiles. Perhaps it was only in these last days, when she and Gerard were both returned to life, that she learned Gerard Stiles and the warlock were two separate people.
Lights were coming toward him. In a moment he realized those lights were the headlamps of an automobile, approaching along the horseshoe curve of Collinwood's front drive.
Gerard started to run across the lawn, toward the drive. The automobile's occupants must have noticed him, for as it drew near to him the vehicle rumbled to a halt. People leapt out of the front of the car, from both sides. The driver, running around the front of the vehicle to reach his side, was Dr. Julia Hoffman. Her passenger was a man Gerard vaguely recognized as the doctoress' friend Barnabas Collins. When still a ghost, he had seen the man around Collinwood now and again in recent years.
"Mr. Miller!" Dr. Hoffman exclaimed. "We thought you'd run away."
This was not a flattering comment, but since he was attempting to run away, he wasn't going to let her supposition bother him. "Not yet," he said. "That's what I'm endeavoring to do now."
"What has happened?" demanded Barnabas Collins, with a searching gaze at Gerard. "Has something happened to Daphne and the children?"
Gerard nodded. He closed his eyes for an instant as he seemed to hear their screams again in his mind. "Yes," he said heavily, opening his eyes once more. "They're with him."
One of the back doors of the car opened, and another man's voice asked with a strange, plaintive note to it, "What's that? Something's happened to Daphne?"
Gerard stared at this new participant in the conversation, now emerging from the car. It was the present-day Quentin Collins, and he looked like absolute hell. His hair was sticking out in all directions, and his formerly light-colored shirt now looked largely black in the moonlight, soaked through with what appeared to be a horrendous volume of blood.
"No," Quentin went on as though talking to himself, now sounding amiable and unconcerned. "No, that's right, nothing can happen to her. She's a ghost."
Dr. Hoffman urgently questioned, "Where are they?"
"In the playroom," Gerard answered. "But I'm afraid it's too late. I think he's killed them."
"The playroom!" Barnabas Collins repeated, at the same moment as Dr. Hoffman cried out, "Then the playroom is real? You know where it is?"
Oh, good God, Gerard thought, not this sort of nonsense again. Has Dr. Hoffman spent months searching for the playroom, too, just like she spent those months searching for Rose Cottage?
"Yes, of course," he said impatiently. "It's on the second floor of the west wing, at the end of the corridor. There's a stained glass transom above the door."
Barnabas Collins and Julia both started to run toward the porte-cochere at Collinwood's front entrance. Gerard called after them, "You'll get there faster through the west wing door; that's how I got out just now. But be careful," he added, as the two of them changed direction and started toward the door through which he'd fled. "I told you, he is there with them."
His warning to them apparently made no difference. Gerard fought to ignore a bitter twinge of self-disgust, as he watched the two friends running toward the peril from which he had just fled in terror.
"It's too late," Quentin Collins remarked, in bizarrely calm tones. "It's too late. Look up there, in the window."
Gerard looked to the spot at which the blood-soaked man was pointing, and he saw what Quentin Collins had seen.
In the room above the porte-cochere, the front window stood open. Illumined by the outdoor lights at Collinwood's front entrance and by the lights in the room, a man leaned out from that window—a man who, even at this distance, looked disturbingly familiar to Gerard. This man held what seemed to be a small flag on a pole. As Gerard and Quentin watched, he waved the flag in one long, slow arc above his head.
"That's the third time he's done that," said Quentin. "I suppose the flag must be green."
Gerard turned to scowl at this evident lunatic. He demanded, "What the devil are you talking about?"
"Don't you remember?" Quentin asked him, sounding surprised. "That funny old note Julia found. The note to 'ye who do not rest.' Remember, it said, 'The green flag in the window, three times shall it wave, as it did in days of yore.' That was the third time it waved."
Vaguely Gerard recalled the obscure antique missive which Dr. Hoffman had shown him in the banquet room at the Collinsport Inn. He remembered that, at the time, he had thought it nothing but a relic connected to some old legend.
Some old legend, he thought now, such as the vengeful spirit of a 300-year-old warlock who has sworn to destroy the Collins family.
A deafening clap of thunder suddenly rolled over them. Gerard stared upward into a cloudless sky.
There had been no lightning. The moonlight shone just as pure and unsullied as before.
Gerard began, "What in the hell—?"
The ground beneath their feet gave a long, rumbling roar, as though the earth itself was a slumbering monster just starting to awake. In the next moment the ground seemed to lurch. Gerard had the impossible impression that for that instant the ground had become the deck of a ship, jolting upward when caught by an unexpected wave.
The blood-covered Quentin Collins did not seem alarmed. He remarked conversationally to Gerard, "You'd better leave, you know. If you're going, you should get out while you still can. It's too late to do anything else. The destruction of Collinwood is beginning."
You don't need to tell me twice! thought Gerard Stiles.
He turned his back on the great house of Collinwood and on everyone within it, and he ran.