In Darkness
A Dark Shadows Fanfiction
Author's Note:
As will swiftly become apparent, this novel takes place in an alternate universe which it shares with my other (unfinished) Dark Shadows fan novel, Stand Fast and Damn the Devil. In that novel, Bill Malloy survives the murder attempt that took place early in Dark Shadows, and in summer 1967 Bill and Elizabeth Collins Stoddard were married. It was also Bill who time-traveled to 1795, not Victoria Winters. Bill's survival, I figured, would have an impact on the story-arcs of various other characters, so the fates of Sam Evans and Joe Haskell, and thus also of Maggie Evans, have not been as dire as they are on the show. Since she never traveled to 1795, Vicki never met Peter Bradford and thus never went away with him, so in my 1970 she is still the governess at Collinwood. Other perhaps-unexpected characters make appearances here, such as Frank Garner and Burke Devlin. In Burke's case, I figured that no soap opera character who supposedly died in a plane crash in the jungle but the body wasn't discovered, has ever actually been dead. So in my universe, Burke has recently returned to Collinsport after the years-long bout with amnesia which is what prevented him from returning immediately after the crash. (Readers wishing to learn more about Vicki, Frank and Burke's storyline will have that opportunity in Chapter Six.)
Naturally, I make no claim to the ownership of Dark Shadows or its characters, and I'm not making any money off of this. I am only gaining the enjoyment of exploring some characters I love, and of making a favorite storyline go in the directions I want it to go.
Chapter Two
The night will end in peace.
Since she'd read it in the entry for today in Elizabeth Collins Malloy's horoscope, that phrase had haunted Julia Hoffman's thoughts.
What can it mean? Julia asked herself now, as she eased her car into the left-hand turn and took the road leading uphill to Collinwood. What can it possibly mean?
Of course, both she and Barnabas knew there was a strong chance those words meant precisely nothing. Probably the statement was a random reassuring platitude, just like they believed the rest of the horoscope to be.
Why he had done it, they still had no idea. But they were certain the horoscope was a fiction Sebastian Shaw had created. For whatever reason, Shaw had believed it was in his interest to concoct a horoscope that would ease Elizabeth's fears. With that horoscope, he had convinced the mistress of Collinwood that the disaster which Julia and Barnabas knew was coming, would not happen at all.
And yet—maybe she was grasping at straws. But Julia couldn't help thinking that among all those bland, rose-tinted falsehoods, there might be some hints of the truth.
The night will end in peace, she thought again.
How unlikely is that? How long has it been since Collinwood was a place of peace?
The chill of fear seeped through her as she thought, Maybe the horoscope is referring to the peace of death. Maybe the disaster will happen tonight, and the peace will come because we are all dead.
But that didn't make any sense, she knew. The disaster she and Barnabas had learned about in 1995 was not going to "end in peace." There would be no peace for the tormented survivors—or for some of the dead.
It wasn't peace which she and Barnabas had seen in the maddened, haunted eyes of Carolyn and of Quentin. There was no peace for Sarah Johnson, or Professor Stokes, or for the sheriff.
And why would David and Hallie be ghosts in that time, if their spirits were at peace?
Beside her in the passenger's seat, Barnabas murmured, "At least Stokes agrees with us that the children should go to Windcliff. I'm glad he signed the consent form for Hallie to be admitted there."
Julia nodded, but she sighed. "I wonder if there's any chance Elizabeth has signed the form for David."
"I think it's possible," Barnabas answered. "Bill understands how important it is to get them out of here—now that we've convinced him the children truly are possessed. If anyone can convince Elizabeth that this is the right thing to do, he can."
Again Julia nodded. She felt, as she so often did, the familiar relief at knowing that Elizabeth's practical, down-to-earth husband was firmly on their side. Biting her lip and tightening her hands on the steering wheel, Julia continued, "I just wish I could see some answer besides simply sending them to Windcliff. But I know getting them away from Collinwood has to be our first step."
Bitterly, she thought, Unfortunately, my hospital is only a mental institution. It's not a mystical retreat staffed by exorcists who specialize in ending possession.
She frowned as she noticed, "Look, Barnabas, there's another car heading up to Collinwood." She'd been too preoccupied to really think about it earlier, but ahead of them were definitely the twin gleams of a vehicle's rear lights, and sometimes the wash of light from its headlights, visible from time to time as they wound their way along the curving uphill road. "I wonder who could be going there at this time of night."
Barnabas' voice was troubled as he said, "Yes. I wonder."
Both Julia and Barnabas had their windows open, to catch the soft breeze of the late summer night. As they rounded the last curve and approached the level ground at the top of Collinwood's hill, the windows let in something else.
They let in a sound: the howl of a dog, long, low and mournful. It was a sound both haunting and haunted, and it was a sound that Julia and Barnabas knew all too well.
"My God," Barnabas whispered. "My God, no. Not again."
Julia stopped the car as soon as they reached the hilltop, still 50 yards or more away from where the drive made its horseshoe curve to pass by Collinwood's front portico. Illumined by the light in the portico, Julia saw a parked car—a convertible, it looked like. She watched two figures get out of the car and walk toward the front door, but they were too far away for her to make any guess on who they might be.
Julia opened her car door and stepped outside. Barnabas did the same.
The howl came again. It sounded close; terribly close. It sounded as though the mourning dog was nearby, somewhere there in the dark woods that encroached so near to the great house of Collinwood.
Barnabas had walked around the car and stopped beside Julia. "The vampire is out hunting again," he said. There was a strange note of detachment in his voice, as though he was making a scientific observation. "Good. Then I will go hunting him. Perhaps this will be the night I finally catch him."
Julia objected, "If he's calling Vicki again, we ought to go to her—"
Barnabas shook his head. "Vicki has friends enough with her. Enough friends who understand the danger she's in and know why she cannot be permitted to set foot outside the house."
"Barnabas," Julia began, but she knew there really was nothing to say. What could she say that would be of any use to one vampire who was setting out to hunt another?
Barnabas knew perfectly well to be careful. And she knew he would do what he had to do, no matter what she might say to him.
Barnabas must have understood something of what was going through her mind. The moonlight showed that he was gazing at her with a faint, melancholy smile. He reached out and closed one of his hands around hers.
"I will take care, Julia," he promised. "You go on to the house. See if Elizabeth has signed the paperwork, and if there is anything you can do for Vicki."
Julia did her best to smile bravely back at him. "I will, Barnabas," she said.
Dr. Hoffman got back into her car as Barnabas Collins strode away from the road and into the woods, his silver-headed cane brandished in his hand.
She drove onward to the house, pulling up just behind the other car. This near to it, she recognized the green convertible that belonged to astrologer Sebastian Shaw. She also recognized Shaw himself, one of the two men standing at the closed front door of Collinwood. And the other man …
Julia had walked to within a few feet of them when the two men turned and looked at her.
Her blood seemed to freeze within her. She felt a painfully familiar terror. She wanted to turn and run back to her car, drive down the hill as fast as she could and never, ever return here again.
And she knew she could do nothing. She knew she had no choice and no hope.
The man standing with Sebastian Shaw was Gerard Stiles.
Gerard. The ghost who had taken control of her will in 1995, and who would have forced her to kill her dearest friend. The ghost whose presence she sometimes felt in Collinwood, when the air about her seemed to curdle into unseen fog that reeked of an incredible evil.
The ghost whom she feared more than any other person, living or dead—but about whom she sometimes dreamed. In those dreams she remembered his touch on her body and her mind. She remembered the feeling of burning cold as his lips claimed hers.
Sebastian Shaw asked, "Dr. Hoffman, are you all right?"
"I—" She tried to answer, but she couldn't find any words. She couldn't do anything but stare at Gerard Stiles.
Distantly Julia realized that Gerard looked different from when she had seen him before. His hair looked wind-blown—definitely something she had never before seen on him. He wasn't wearing his usual ensemble of black frock coat, vest and cravat. Instead, he stood there with the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up and his collar open, looking like the illustration of a hero on the cover of a bodice-ripper novel.
And he was staring at her, but he wasn't staring with the expression she knew and expected from him. That wasn't his cruel, mocking stare of command; it wasn't his look which told he knew everything about her, and knew she was putty in his hands. He looked—if she had to describe the expression on his face now, she would say that Gerard Stiles looked startled and confused. If it weren't so ridiculous to believe in this possibility, she might say that he looked afraid.
What game is he playing? Julia asked herself. What new method has he concocted for torturing all of us?
Sebastian Shaw asked, "Do you have a front door key? We've knocked, several times, but it seems like no one's heard us—"
The door opened. Bill Malloy stood outlined darkly against the bright light of the foyer. The husband of the mistress of Collinwood asked dryly, "There a party going on out here in the dooryard? Doc," he continued to Julia, "why didn't you let these gents in?"
Julia blinked, but she still could not drag her gaze away from Gerard. She muttered, "I just got here …"
Sebastian Shaw was explaining, "Mr. Malloy, this is Mr. Miller. He's new to town; I met him tonight in the Blue Whale. He's interested in Collinwood, and since I was coming up here anyway, I thought—"
"You thought this'd be a perfect time to give him the grand tour. You know, most tourists do their sight-seein' in the daytime."
Gerard Stiles spoke for the first time. "I ask your pardon for intruding on you. I can see this is a bad time …"
Bill nodded. "We've got a very sick woman in the house. And … there's always something going wrong around here." He looked at the three of them and then gave an exasperated sigh. "Aw, hell, come inside, anyway. We don't have to hang around with the door standing open."
As they were filing inside—Shaw, Gerard Stiles, and last Julia—the howl of the dog sounded outside again. Bill Malloy's troubled gaze met Julia's as he closed the door behind them.
"Where's Barnabas?" Bill asked her. "Out there?"
Julia managed to nod. "Yes. He's looking for …"
Bill Malloy nodded back. "How did it go with Stokes?"
Somehow she collected herself enough to answer, "Very well. He agrees with us, and he signed the papers." Julia fished around in her purse, took out the paperwork and handed it to Malloy. "What about Elizabeth?"
There was a puzzled look on Bill Malloy's worn, bearded face. "A hell of a lot better'n we had any right to expect. She signed without any complaint. Said she understands this is for the children's good. I dunno; maybe she's so worried about Vicki she doesn't feel like putting up a fight about anything else."
That was Sebastian Shaw's cue to ask, "How is Miss Winters? Is it all right if I go visit her?"
"Look, Mr. Shaw, the poor kid's bedroom already looks like Grand Central Station's waiting-room. She doesn't need any more well-wishers in there—"
Their conversation was broken off abruptly by a commotion upstairs. From down the hallway, beyond the door to the landing, they could hear distant shouting and the thunder of multiple footsteps, getting closer.
The door burst open and Victoria Winters staggered onto the landing. She grasped hold of the railing and swayed as though about to fall. In her long, filmy nightgown, with her disheveled hair and her lividly pallid face, Julia Hoffman might have thought that Vicki resembled a ghost. She might have thought it, if she hadn't seen so many actual ghosts in her life.
Immediately behind Vicki raced Elizabeth Collins Malloy, and on her heels ran both Frank Garner and Burke Devlin. Their voices all sounded at once: Elizabeth's "Vicki, no, please," Frank's "Vicki, you know we're here for you" and Burke's "Come on, Vicki, let's get you back to your room."
They had her surrounded. Elizabeth grasped her left arm and Frank Garner grasped her right. With astonishing strength Victoria wrenched away from them and lurched toward the stairs. She wailed out, "No! I have … to go out there. I have to answer …"
Elizabeth stumbled back against the sill of the landing's stained-glass window. As he lunged to grab Vicki again, Frank Garner bumped into the bust of the bearded Roman emperor that Elizabeth insisted looked just perfect in that ridiculous spot, precariously perched on the railing. The bust fell backward onto the landing, causing Burke Devlin to jump out of its way as he made his own run after Vicki.
"That goddam bust!" exclaimed Bill Malloy. "I swear I'm going to haul that thing to the dump!"
Yes, Bill, please, Julia thought desperately. Please get it out of here. Please take it away before Gerard uses it to kill.
She was afraid to do it, but she looked over at Gerard. She expected to see him watching her with his hatefully mocking smile. To her surprise, she saw that instead he was simply staring up at the chaotic scene above them.
Sebastian Shaw had run up the stairs to block Vicki's route down. Frank Garner and Burke Devlin both had hold of Vicki's arms now, with the anguished-looking Elizabeth hovering nearby. Victoria slumped against Frank, seeming almost unconscious. She kept on moaning, "No … I have to … Calling me. I have to answer …"
Now they were herding her back along the landing. As they neared the door, the young woman collapsed into Garner's arms. The larger man, Devlin, picked her up and carried her through into the corridor beyond. Frank Garner and Elizabeth Collins Malloy hurried after.
"I'm going up," said Sebastian Shaw, with an almost frantic note in his voice. "There may be something I can do to help."
"Sure, why not?" Bill Malloy answered flatly. "Maybe you can help. Obviously one deathly weak, sick girl is too much for three healthy people to handle."
While the astrologer ran off in the wake of Vicki Winters and her minders, Bill said to Julia, "I've still got some of the pills you gave me for her. If we give her one of those, you figure that's the best we can do for her now?"
Distantly, Julia nodded. "Yes … she hasn't had one already tonight?"
"No," said Bill. "Didn't seem any need for one, earlier. She was doing pretty well … till the howling started."
"Then, yes. Make sure she takes one; that should make it easier to get through the rest of the night."
Bill Malloy nodded. He cast a look toward the supposed newcomer to Collinsport. "Sorry 'bout this. Like we were saying, you didn't pick the best time to visit this tourist attraction."
"I realize that," said Gerard Stiles. "I apologize."
"Hell," Malloy said with another sigh, "Vicki doesn't need all of us up there. How about it, Doc? You want to give Mr. Miller here a tour of the downstairs? Then he won't have had a totally wasted trip."
What Julia wanted to do was scream out to her friend, No! Don't you understand! It's him! He's here!
Gerard is here, and it's finished for all of us. We have no hope left.
What she did was force a sickly smile to her lips and murmur, "Yes, of course I'll do that."
Bill Malloy frowned. He obviously knew that something was wrong with her. Just as obviously, he decided this was not the right time for him to figure that out. Malloy hurried up the stairs to rejoin his wife and the rest of them. Julia Hoffman was left alone with Gerard.
Slowly, as though drawn to him through hypnosis, she turned to meet his gaze. His expression still seemed to be one of concern, not the terrible smile she expected.
"Well?" Julia whispered hoarsely to him. "What do you … want from me?"
Gerard Stiles stepped closer to her. "Madam," he said politely, "I believe you misunderstand me. I'm not who you think I am."
Her mouth was horribly dry. Her heart beat so hard and fast she had the sensation that she would choke on it.
She also had the same feeling she'd had in 1995. She felt as though she were a distant observer watching her own destruction.
Julia struggled to speak. All she managed to say was, "I don't understand."
In urgent tones that went barely over a whisper, Gerard Stiles said, "You've seen someone who looks like me, haven't you? You've seen a ghost who looks like me."
Now Julia was too bewildered to say anything at all.
"You've done more than see him," Gerard stated forcefully. "You've been under his control." His mouth twisted in something like a smile. "I can see that you have," he continued. "I recognize the signs."
Julia Hoffman breathed, "Why are you doing this?"
Instead of answering, Gerard asked, "Can we go somewhere else to talk? Somewhere outside, where we won't be overheard so easily."
Suddenly Julia wondered if there might be some kind of hope.
He is different, she thought. He's not the same person he will be in 1995.
Is it possible his evil in the future is caused by something that hasn't yet happened?
If we do something different now, can we stop the disasters from taking place?
Her voice still desperately hoarse, she suggested, "We could go into the garden … or to the gazebo …"
"No," he said immediately. "There's too much cover. Too many places for someone to hide and spy on us." He gave a sudden mocking grimace and an impatient shake of his head. "As if that mattered to him," Gerard murmured. "As if he couldn't spy on us without someplace to hide."
He shook his head again and hurried on. "Never mind that. Let's just go out front. Out onto the front drive. I'll feel better if I'm certain at least that nobody visible is listening to us."
Julia nodded, marveling at how little sense any of this seemed to make. She set down her purse on the foyer table and started toward the front door. With rapid strides, Gerard reached the door before she did. He opened it and held it for her while she walked through.
The moon was getting near to full. With brutal clarity the moonlight reminded her of Collinwood's ruined shell in 1995, lighted by nothing but the moon—and by the spectral blue mass which she and Barnabas had seen that first night, as it drifted back and forth beyond the windows of the devastated house.
Walking side by side, she and Gerard passed Sebastian Shaw's car and then her own. They came to a stretch of the drive which Gerard must have felt was far enough from any potential hiding place.
As they stopped and Julia waited for Gerard to speak, it occurred to her how strange it seemed to see the ghost looking nervous.
He kept hitting his left fist into his right palm. Suddenly noticing what he was doing, he clasped his hands together behind his back.
With surprising awkwardness, Gerard began with the question, "Mr. Shaw called you Dr. Hoffman?"
"Yes. That's right."
"Dr. Hoffman, then." His face and his voice both took on a pleading earnestness. "You need to listen to me. You need to listen and to think about what I am saying; really think. If you do, you may be able to save yourself and everyone else in this house."
Still asking herself what kind of a trap this could be, she said, "I'm listening."
"The ghost you have seen looks like me; I know that. But does he sound like me; really sound the same? Is his voice the same as mine?"
She tried to think of the answer; tried to remember what his voice had sounded like in 1995.
Gerard's voice as he spoke to her now was cultured and resonant. Something about it suggested an origin point at some place in continental Europe.
And the voice of Gerard in 1995 …
Seeing her hesitate, he pressed on, "Have you ever actually heard him speak? Do you see his lips move as he speaks to you? Or do you simply hear his voice within your mind?"
It's true, she realized, though she had never thought of it before. She whispered, "In my mind."
Eagerly now he continued, "And that voice which you hear: please, think. Is it the same voice as mine?"
She tried to replay in her memory his voice as she had heard it. She sought to hear again the voice that had said to her, You will go to the sheriff and you will tell him what your friend Barnabas is. You will tell him where to find the coffin. You will tell him the precise means by which your dear Barnabas can be killed.
The two voices were similar, she thought. Perhaps they were the same. Perhaps she was being tricked by him now; perhaps she was merely thinking what he wanted her to think. But still …
"No," Julia said finally. "No. It isn't the same."
For a moment, triumph shone on Gerard's surprisingly youthful face. "That's because he is not me. His face and form are mine. His voice is his own."
"I don't—" Her mouth felt so dry she had to stop and begin again. "I don't understand."
He brought his hands from behind him and clasped them in front of his chest, almost as if he was praying to her. His words were racing now. "My name is Ivan Miller"—she noticed he spoke the first name in the Russian manner, with a long "e" sound—"but I went by the name Gerard Stiles when I lived here in the late 1830s. It was on the last day of October in 1840 when he possessed me; when he stole my body and my name and kept them for his own."
She told herself she shouldn't believe him. It had to be one of his tricks. But she asked, "Who is 'he'?"
The young man moistened his lips and cast an uneasy glance toward the house. Returning his gaze to her, he brought his voice closer to a whisper. "A warlock who was executed in Collinsport in the 17th century. The judge who condemned him was a Collins. When he possessed my body, he began taking his revenge on the Collins family. He wanted to become the master of Collinwood himself, and to destroy them all."
Fascinated despite herself, Julia asked, "And what happened?"
"I'm not certain," Gerard said. Without seeming to notice it, he again started pounding one fist into the other palm. "He succeeded in part of his revenge, but not all. Before he could destroy everyone here, someone killed him. He was buried with my name—and all his evil deeds were blamed on me. And even after he died again, and my body died with him, I wasn't free. He kept my face and form, and my name. He was the ghost who looked like me. I had no form. He wouldn't permit me to have any! For a hundred and thirty years I have haunted this place as a formless, faceless nothing, because of what he did to me!" He was pacing now, and almost shouting.
Quietly Julia asked him, "Then how is it I can see you now?"
Her quiet tone seemed to surprise him, and to remind him of the need for caution. He stopped pacing and shoved his hair away from his forehead. Gerard whispered, "You can see me because he brought me back to life. And I'm certain … I am certain he did it so he can possess me again. He means to take my body just as he did before; to make it the vessel through which he will live again. And when he's alive once more, he'll complete the vengeance he started in 1840."
When she thought of it later, Julia Hoffman asked herself what had finally convinced her his story was true.
She realized it was not so much what he had said, but the way in which he said it.
In the horror that sounded in his voice, and in the raw fear on that young man's face, she recognized the terror which had haunted her since the ghost staked his claim on her mind in 1995.
Now Gerard gazed at her with such a forlorn look that he suddenly and incongruously made her think of a begging puppy. He asked, "Do you believe me?"
To her surprise, she found herself smiling—although ever so slightly. "I suppose it would be foolish of me to believe you, wouldn't it? But since I came to Collinwood, I've learned to believe in the unbelievable."
He replied with a smile that matched her own. "Yes," he said. "This is the place for that. But we can't afford to waste time. The two children in the house—you do know that they're possessed?"
She gasped her surprise. "You know that?"
"Yes. He caused their possession by Tad and Carrie, the children who lived here when I was alive before. Then he made them perform a spell that brought their governess, Miss Harridge, to life."
"Daphne?" Julia cried out. "Daphne Harridge is alive?"
"Yes, since earlier tonight. And once she was alive, the three of them cast the spell that brought me back."
Julia's thoughts couldn't seem to keep up with this news. She murmured, "Daphne, alive …"
Impatiently he said, "We need to find her and keep her away from Tad and Carrie. I'm certain the next ritual they perform will be the one that makes him live again through me."
Her last doubts on the truth of his story vanished, in the face of their desperate need to stop the warlock's ghost.
"Come on," she commanded. "We'll go to the children now."
As they hurried back to the house, Julia told Gerard, "We made plans to send them away as soon as we learned they're possessed. We're sending them to Windcliff, the sanitarium where I work. We did plan to take them there tomorrow morning. Now maybe we'd better move it forward to tonight."
"Yes," he said sharply. "I think you had better do that."
She went on, "They were both in their rooms the last time I checked on them. Willie Loomis is in the hall, guarding their doors. If Daphne's become a living person now, she shouldn't have been able to get to them."
"We can hope that's the case," Gerard said, though from his tone of voice he would not be investing much effort in that hope. "It was a vision of Sebastian Shaw's which brought me up here tonight. He told me an enemy from my past is working to destroy me. He also said my enemy is being aided by a woman and two children at Collinwood."
For the second time in a row, Gerard Stiles held the door open for her. She guessed that ingrained chivalry regarding door-opening was not surprising for a man from the 19th century. As she stepped past him into the house, she saw a nauseous expression wash over the young man's face.
"Are you all right?" she asked him.
He nodded, with a grimace. "Yes. I simply do not want to be in this house."
Julia thought, I don't blame you for that. She suggested, "Why don't you stay here while I check on them," to which he gave a queasy smile.
Willie Loomis had moved an armchair into the corridor and was sitting beside David's door—though he had his attention focused on staring worriedly down the hall toward Vicki's room. At the sound of Julia's footsteps, Willie jumped to his feet.
"Are the children all right, Willie?" she asked. "They're both still in their rooms?"
He blinked in surprise. "Well … sure they are, Julia. I mean, they haven't left."
"I need to check on them." She rapped at David's door, quietly at first and then more loudly. When no answer came, she shared a suddenly grim look with Willie.
"Maybe he's asleep …" Willie said, trying to sound hopeful.
Gingerly she opened the door. The lights were on in the boy's room, and his bed was empty. Her first quick glance about showed no trace of him.
"You stay in that doorway, Willie," Julia ordered. "He may be hiding somewhere, and try to run out when my back is turned."
She looked in all the plausible hiding-places: behind the door, beneath the bed, under the desk.
"What the hell!" Willie protested. "I swear he didn't come out this door."
"You're certain you didn't leave the door for a moment? Not even when Vicki got out of her room?"
"I'm telling ya, I stayed right there! It was crazy when Vicki got out, sure, but I was still right there at the door. There's no way David snuck out."
There was a rattling thump from the window: the sound of a window that wasn't latched, being blown against its frame. Hurrying to the window, she found it was indeed ajar. She looked out and down, for a moment dreading to see David's broken body on the lawn beneath his window. Of course, she saw nothing of the kind.
"We should have thought of it," she said flatly, fastening the window. "He's climbed out of his window once before, recently. We should have expected he'd do it again."
"But—Hallie?" Willie asked. "She wouldn't climb out her window, too—would she?"
In moments they were speeding down the corridor to the girl's room. When they confirmed that she was missing as well, and her window was open, Julia was not surprised. That result had seemed inevitable to her from the moment she realized David was gone.
Tad, Julia reminded herself. Not David; Tad.
"I can't believe it," Willie insisted. "She always seemed like such a timid kid! There's no way she climbed out that window and all the way down the ivy!"
"Maybe Hallie wouldn't do that," agreed Julia. "But maybe Carrie would. If she felt she had to."
Their next stop was at Victoria Winters' room, to summon Bill Malloy for a conference in the hallway. Sebastian Shaw followed Bill out of the room.
"Damn it!" Bill muttered at their news. "You're right; we should've seen it coming. I'll get Sarah," he went on, referring to Sarah Johnson the housekeeper, "she and I can search the house. If you and Willie want to search outside—"
"I can help search, too," Sebastian Shaw offered.
As usual, Julia wondered if they could fully trust the astrologer. But at a time like this, they needed all the help they could get. "Good," she said decisively, "you and Willie can search together. I don't think any of us should be out there alone."
"Who's going to search with you?" Bill asked her. "You want me to get Burke, or—"
"No," Julia said. "I have the feeling Mr. Miller will be willing to team up with me. There's one more thing to tell all of you—the children may have a woman with them. Young, dark-haired, beautiful; probably dressed in old-fashioned clothing. Mr. Miller told me that … that Gerard has brought Daphne Harridge back to life."
The three men stared at her. Then Bill Malloy asked, "There anything more we oughtta know about that?"
"I don't think so," she answered, "not right now. Only, if they're performing any kind of a ritual, stop them."
"Fair enough," said Bill, and Willie added, "I'll buy that."
Racing back to Collinwood's foyer, Julia half expected that "Mr. Miller" would have vanished. Instead, he still stood there, hands clasped behind his back, staring at the grandfather clock.
"They're missing," Julia called to him as she ran down the stairs.
Gerard Stiles winced, but he did not look surprised.
She hurried up to him, almost not feeling any fear as she drew close to the man who looked like the ghost she remembered. She asked him, "Will you help me look for them?"
He gave a brisk nod, and said, "If they aren't in this house, I'd say the best bet is that they've gone to Rose Cottage."
Julia felt her mouth drop open.
Bill Malloy had gone to fetch Mrs. Johnson and start searching Collinwood's abandoned wings, so he was not present to hear this particular bombshell get dropped. Behind her on the stairs, Julia heard exclamations of surprise from Sebastian Shaw and Willie.
For her part, she repeated, "Rose Cottage? You know what Rose Cottage is?"
Gerard's expression seemed thoroughly puzzled. "Naturally. Why wouldn't I?"
"We've spent the past two months trying to find it!" Telling herself that it didn't matter now, she rushed on, "Never mind; what is it? Where is it?"
Looking as though he believed her slightly deranged, he said, "It's a house on the estate, about a mile or so inland from here, through the woods. There should be a road between the two houses, though perhaps that's been overgrown by now."
Julia wracked her brain to think of a house that could match that description. There was one, she supposed, which would be in about the right spot, although it seemed absurd to speak of a pillared mansion as a "cottage." She asked, "Do you mean the old McGruder place?"
"I don't know; it's the first I've heard of them. But I can take you to Rose Cottage, whether it's the McGruder place or not."
"Yes," she said eagerly. "Yes, let's go." Turning to face Willie and Sebastian, she proposed, "You two search toward the Old House; Mr. Miller and I will search inland."
Frowning, Willie stepped close to her and asked, "Julia, you sure you're gonna be safe with this guy? Who is he, anyway?"
Julia glanced at Gerard, or at Ivan Miller. He had smiled on hearing Willie's question. She wasn't entirely certain that she liked his smile, but she knew she liked it better than the smiles of Gerard in 1995.
"Yes, Willie, I'm sure. We don't have any time to lose. Get some flashlights and let's get out there."
Willie ran to grab the flashlights which were stored in the drawing room's sideboard, and distributed them to the searchers. Gerard nodded his thanks as Willie handed one to him; then he gazed at the flashlight in his hand with an expression of utter blankness. Casting a smile at the man from 1840—for such, she thought, he truly did seem to be—Julia switched on her flashlight where he could clearly see it, a few inches from his face.
Gerard raised his eyebrows and murmured almost inaudibly, "Ah. Right, then. Thank you."
Since they followed Willie and Sebastian out the door, Gerard had no chance to open the door for her this time. Once outside they split up at once, the other two starting downhill toward the Old House while Julia and Gerard cut diagonally across the front lawn.
The moon looked close to setting; she could just catch glimpses of it peeking over the trees ahead of them. As those trees got closer, she uneasily realized that she no longer heard the howling dog.
What does that mean? She asked herself. Has the enemy vampire simply gone home for the night?
Or is it possible that he and Barnabas have met?
She knew Barnabas would scold her for fretting over him. And she needed to focus on other concerns. Barnabas was working to solve one aspect of their problems tonight; she was working to solve another.
One of those concerns jumped to the forefront of her thoughts as she realized: The route Gerard is following will take us to the Old Collins Cemetery.
It would take them to the cemetery which held Daphne Harridge's grave, and the grave of Gerard Stiles.
At the spot where the Collinsport Road became Collinwood's driveway, another road branched off to the west, toward the woods. That road was Collins Cemetery Road, and it was where Gerard was leading her now.
Was his story a lie after all? Julia worried. Did he go through all of that merely to lure me to his grave?
Don't be stupid, Julia, she argued back at herself. The Gerard you knew in 1995 wouldn't need to lure you anywhere. He would tell you to go someplace, and you'd go.
Another thing which calmed her fears was the fact that this Gerard seemed no more inclined to visit the graveyard than she was. He quickened his pace as he strode past the cemetery's gate and its crumbling stone wall. He seemed to be deliberately not glancing toward the cemetery, like a child who believed that if he looked at a graveyard at night, the ghosts would grab him.
Julia reminded herself, You don't have to be a child to be afraid that the ghosts will grab you.
Only about twenty feet beyond the corner of the cemetery wall, the dirt road they'd been following seemed to dwindle into nothing.
She caught up with Gerard to find him examining the trees ahead in the beam of his flashlight, and muttering under his breath. He turned toward her, looking aggrieved with the world.
"They really didn't maintain this road well, did they?" he complained. "You have to know it's there even to see it."
"I'll take your word on that," she said. "It doesn't look like any road that I've ever seen."
"You can see the trees are thinner ahead, here—can't you? And there are boulders here and there, to either side, but not on the path of the road." He eyed Julia impatiently, clearly not pleased at her less-than-convinced expression. "Well, the road keeps on going straight for most of the way, anyhow. We can't get that lost."
Speak for yourself, Mr. Miller, she thought. But she gestured forward with her flashlight and said, "Lead on."
She was truly glad that she'd remembered the flashlights. As far as she could tell, the trees on this supposed road were just as thickly-growing and tangled as in every other stretch of Collinwood's woods. From the probable swearwords Gerard kept half-audibly muttering, his opinion of the road to Rose Cottage was pretty similar to hers.
"I suppose the house is abandoned?" he asked her at one point. Then he answered his own question, "Must be, if they let the road go like this."
"It's been abandoned for decades," she replied, toiling behind him and struggling not to swear or scream when a tree branch caught in her hair. "At least, that's what I've heard. Elizabeth once told me it was already empty when she was a child. I wonder," she mused to herself, "I wonder why it was abandoned?"
"I haven't the faintest," said Gerard. "Whatever it was, it happened after my time. Perhaps it had something to do with those McGruders of yours."
Some low-lying branches made a try at grabbing her legs, and she thought, That's another pair of pantyhose ruined. "So who lived there in your time?" she asked Gerard.
"Flora and Desmond Collins."
"That's right!" she exclaimed. "I remember reading Flora's name in the tax records."
Gerard Stiles stopped and looked back at her. "You have … original taste in reading matter."
"It wouldn't be my usual choice," she rebutted as they walked on. "I was trying to locate Rose Cottage."
"That's right; so you said. And why were you doing that?"
Why not tell him? she thought. We did say that nothing is unbelievable here at Collinwood.
"Barnabas Collins and I had … an experience in which we traveled 25 years into the future. In 1995, we found Collinwood partially ruined … some of the family were mad, some were dead, others had gone missing. Eventually we learned the disaster took place in 1970, and it was caused by … the ghost we knew as Gerard Stiles. Before we returned to our time, we learned of six events that preceded the destruction of Collinwood. One of those events was 'the night Rose Cottage was destroyed.'"
Again Gerard stopped and looked at her. His eyebrows climbed upward and disappeared under his thick, wavy hair.
"What is it?" Julia challenged. "A former ghost who's come back to life and who's fighting the ghost of a warlock has trouble believing that time-travel is possible?"
"No, no," he said, turning and walking on, "no, don't worry about me. I've no difficulty in believing you. We just have to hope," Gerard added, "that tonight doesn't turn out to be 'the night Rose Cottage was destroyed.'"
"Believe me," Julia sighed grimly, "I've been worrying about that every night for the past two months."
She was just starting to think that they had to have walked more than a mile by now, when something white loomed at them out of the dark.
"Thank God," she heard Gerard Stiles murmur. "I was starting to fear it wasn't here at all."
There it stood, ahead of them: the old McGruder place. She had seen it a couple of times by daylight; she knew that all of its white-painted plaster was flaking off, its windows were all either boarded up or broken, and the balcony above the front door was dangling by just one corner, looking as though the first strong wind would blow it down.
But seeing it now, in the pale gleam of their flashlights, the house looked for that moment like an enchanted mansion. While the moment lasted she could imagine that candlelight would suddenly glow from all the windows. The front door would open and the gracious sound of waltz music would drift out on the night air. The mistress of the house would stretch out her hands to them and welcome them to her home.
Julia gasped when she did indeed see light and movement at one of the upper windows. Staring up at it, she deciphered what she had seen.
That window had not been boarded up. The glass must be broken, and the movement she had seen was a shred of rotted curtain, billowing out through the window as though the house itself was waving a handkerchief at them in greeting.
The light she had seen was the moon. It was setting in the west, behind Rose Cottage. The front window of that room, and its back window, must be perfectly in line with each other. Through the front window, with its waving curtain, they saw all the way through to the back, and to the moon beyond.
"Here," Gerard said brusquely, thrusting his switched-off flashlight at her. She looked at him, confused, as she took the flashlight, and she saw him rolling his sleeves down into place and smoothing out the ruffles at his cuffs.
Why is he doing that? wondered Julia.
Gerard only said, "Come on," and started again toward the house. Sticking the second flashlight into her coat pocket, she hurried to catch up.
When they were within a few feet of the front door, both of them suddenly stopped. The door was creaking open—seeming to open an unearthly portal into the blackness of the house.
At the corner of her vision she saw Gerard take a step back so that she stood ahead of him.
Well, that's ironic, Julia thought, with a feeling that threatened to bubble into hysterical laughter. Is the ex-ghost afraid of a dark, spooky house?
She shone her flashlight at the door. Out through it walked David and Hallie—or Tad and Carrie—holding hands and looking as if they had merely been out for an afternoon stroll.
Tad smiled his smug, infuriating smile. "Hello, Dr. Hoffman," he said. "You really didn't need to come all the way out here to fetch us. We were just on our way back now."
"Yes, we really were, Dr. Hoffman," Carrie parroted, her smile bright and perfectly insincere. "Did you think we'd run away? We hadn't, you know. We only wanted to go out on our own for a little while, to teach all you adults a lesson. You shouldn't think you can just snap your fingers and we'll do whatever you—"
Carrie's words halted abruptly. She stared, wide-eyed and horrorstricken, at something to Julia's left, and she whispered in total despair, "Oh, Tad!"
The boy's eyes widened as well. Then he reached over with his other hand to clasp Carrie's hand in both of his. He took a step forward, as though trying to protect her.
They're looking at Gerard, Julia realized. She stepped half a pace backward herself so that she could see him better without actually turning to face him.
They're looking at him, her thoughts raced on, and they think he's the ghost—just the same as I thought he was. That's why he rolled down his sleeves, so he would look more the way they expect the ghost to look. And he is playing at being his own ghost—or the ghost of the warlock in his form.
At least, came a terrible thought, I hope to God it is only a role that he's playing.
When the children began speaking again, they tried hard to keep up the pretense of still talking to Julia. She had no doubt at all that they were speaking to Gerard instead.
"We're perfectly ready to go to this Windcliff now," said Tad, "if that's what you want us to do. That is what you want from us, isn't it?"
Slowly, terrifyingly, Gerard Stiles nodded.
"Yes," Carrie added with brittle gaiety, "of course we'll go. At first we thought we shouldn't have to do it, but now that we know it's what you want of us, we wouldn't want to do anything else."
Julia felt her skin crawling at the thought of how Gerard must look, standing there beside her. She could so clearly envision the icy, mocking stare of Gerard in 1995. But she knew she mustn't look at him. She had to convince the children that she couldn't see him; that she had no clue he was there.
"All right, then," Julia said briskly. "Close the door to the house, and let's go."
Carrie scampered back to shut the door. Then she returned and took Tad's hand again. As the two children walked toward Julia, they looked as though they were heading to their execution.
"You two walk ahead of me," Julia ordered, to which Tad replied hastily, "You really don't need to worry about watching us; we won't run away, we promise."
"Yes," chimed in Carrie, "we promise."
"That's fine," said Julia. "But I'll walk behind you, all the same. Here," she went on, taking the flashlight from her pocket and handing it to Tad. "You can use this."
Both children gazed at the flashlight in confusion. Julia suppressed a sigh. For the second time that night she showed someone from the 19th century how to operate a flashlight.
The walk back to Collinwood felt unbearably longer than the walk to Rose Cottage had been. The silent Gerard had stepped aside to let the children and Julia walk ahead of him. Throughout that long walk, the children tried desperately to maintain light-hearted and innocent-sounding conversation. All the time, Julia kept thinking of what Gerard had to look like, pacing steadily so close behind her.
From time to time—as they prattled on about how they would actually enjoy going to Windcliff; it would be like a holiday for them—one or the other of the children would cast a terrified glance behind them. No matter how they pretended to be looking at her, it was only too plain to Julia that they were staring at him.
She heard Carrie give a little sob as they finally walked out from the trees and started across the lawn toward Collinwood. Julia felt that she was not far from sobbing herself.
The door of the great house opened as their little party approached. The sight gave Julia an instant's unpleasant flashback to the creaking door of Rose Cottage. But of course this door opened onto the gleaming lights of the Collinwood foyer, not the chilling blackness of Rose Cottage's front hall. And instead of two possessed children, it was Bill Malloy and Sarah Johnson who now hurried outside toward them.
Julia tensed up further at the thought that Bill or Mrs. Johnson might make some comment about Mr. Miller following them like a spectral herding dog; something which could reveal to the kids that he was not what they thought he was. But neither one of them mentioned him. She supposed they both had so much on their plates that one peculiar young man seemed currently the least of their worries.
As they all trooped inside—all of them except Gerard—Bill remarked, "The prodigal children return. Again. Julia, you think the folks at Windcliff will be fine with it if I drive the kids over there now?"
She nodded. "Yes, that shouldn't be a problem. I'll phone them now to let them know you're on your way."
Carrie made a half-hearted attempt at protest, batting her big blue eyes at Bill. "Right now?" she asked. "It's awfully late, I thought that maybe we could leave tomorrow …"
Bill wasn't having any of it. "It's a two-hour drive, kiddo," he said. "You can get some sleep in the car. Upstairs, you two. Mrs. Johnson and I will help you pack."
Julia made her phone call and then hurried back outside. To her desperate relief, the man she found waiting for her was no longer acting like the cruel and hate-filled ghost. Gerard stood under the portico, leaning back against the wall and occasionally kicking the little white pebbles on the driveway.
He looked at her and remarked, "That was a charming stroll. A mile-long nighttime jaunt through thickets and stumps, striving to walk like a ghost who runs no risk of tripping and sprawling on his face. I'd have impressed the children mightily if I'd done that, wouldn't I! I'm sure he never does that. Except for those times when his body was wandering around without its head."
She had no idea what he meant by that last comment, and she was fairly sure she did not want to know. "I think you pulled it off well," she assured him. "You frightened me, so I can only imagine what effect you had on the children."
He gave a perfunctory smile at that and bowed his thanks.
"Do you think Daphne was there with them?" Julia asked.
Now he frowned. "I don't know. I considered remaining there to look for her, but I thought my bone-chilling presence might be helpful in keeping the children on their best behavior. And I thought I should be on hand to assist you if they decided to run away."
And, she thought, just maybe you didn't want to go into that house to look for Daphne alone. "What are your plans now?" she asked.
Emphatically he answered, "I have no intention of remaining here. By any chance, would you be willing to give me a ride into town?"
Julia nodded. "I can do that. Are you staying at the inn?"
He smiled again. "I would be delighted to. Unfortunately, when the warlock brought me back to life he neglected to give me any money."
"I see," she commented, suddenly recognizing his kinship with several free-loading fellow students she had known in college. She wondered if he'd spent his whole life maneuvering other people into paying for him. Although, she admitted, it was hardly his fault that he had no money now.
"I can pay for your room at the inn," Julia told him. "I'll just go inside and call them to make sure they're still open."
She wasn't sure what she'd do if no one answered the inn's phone. Go there anyway, and throw pebbles at Maggie and Joe's window to wake them up? Or stop by the Blue Whale to check if Sam was there?
As it happened, Sam Evans answered after only the fourth ring. "Collinsport Inn," came his ill-tempered growl.
"Sam, I'm glad I caught you. This is Julia Hoffman."
"Yeah, Julia, what's up? Don't tell me," Sam went on heavily, "somebody's gone missing in the woods again and you're putting together search parties."
With a laugh that she knew sounded embarrassingly fake, Julia answered, "Not this time, Sam, thank goodness. No, I've a … a colleague who's just come to visit and needs a place to stay. I'm hoping you've got a room available for him …"
Sam replied with a snort of laughter. "It's not peak tourist season; I should be able to find a garret for him. Sure, Julia, we've got rooms. Tell your colleague to come on by."
"We're up at Collinwood; we'll be there as soon as we can drive into town."
As she hung up, she saw Mrs. Johnson heading down the stairs with a suitcase in each hand. "You're going into town?" Sarah Johnson inquired, as she deposited the suitcases on the foyer floor. With a grimace she took a moment to rub at the small of her back, muttering, "Did that girl fill her suitcases with bricks? And how much clothing does a person need to bring to a sanitarium?"
"Her books are probably in there," Julia suggested. "Yes, Mrs. Johnson, I am going into town. If you should happen to see Barnabas again tonight, please let him know I drove a friend to the inn and I'll be back as soon as I can."
The housekeeper shrugged, with her nothing-surprises-me-anymore expression. "I'll tell him. I might see him, at that, since this house seems to be open 24 hours a day."
"I think you're right," said Julia, smiling. She hurried outside once more and found Gerard Stiles, standing beside her car and looking as though he believed the car might bite him.
There was little conversation between them on that trip down to Collinsport. Gerard spent most of the drive leaning his head entirely out of the passenger's-side window. This allowed Julia to entertain herself by imagining her passenger as an extremely large dog, enjoying the feel of the wind in his ears.
A little later she realized that she also had reason to be thankful the car windows were rolled down. Inside the car was a strong smell of sweat, that might have become overwhelming if the windows were closed.
It wasn't a particularly offensive odor. As a doctor, she had smelled far worse. It was simply the smell of a man who had been exercising and who hadn't taken a shower.
A related thought made her chuckle to herself. It occurred to her that here was more proof of Mr. Miller being something different from the ghost in 1995.
That Gerard Stiles had not smelled of sweat, or of anything else. She associated no smells with the memory of that cruel ghost—apart from the metaphorical stink of fear.
Gerard leaned back into the car to cast her a questioning look. "What are you laughing at?" he demanded.
"Nothing, really," she lied. "I was just thinking again of all the impossible things that happen at Collinwood. Of the fact that up there, encounters with ghosts and warlocks and time-travel are perfectly normal occurrences." And encounters with vampires, her thoughts added, but of course she did not say that aloud.
An expression of bitterness settled on Gerard's face. "Yes," he said. "And you and I are among those unfortunates whose lives are intertwined with the fate of the Collins family."
Unfortunates? Julia asked herself. Perhaps. But I can't find it in myself to regret knowing Barnabas.
They were almost at the bottom of the hill when Gerard asked suddenly, "Can you stop here, please? Just for a moment."
Since he'd had his head out the window again, she wondered if he was car-sick. But when she'd pulled over to the side of the road, he explained, "I think those bushes over there are where I concealed the remainder of my clothes." He got out of the car, strode over to some bushes, and shortly returned, carrying a neatly-folded black coat, vest and cravat.
As she drove on once more, one phrase sounded again in Julia's mind.
The night will end in peace.
Is it possible? She wondered. Can it be possible, now?
The children are on their way to Windcliff. We're taking them away from Daphne—away from the ghost who calls himself Gerard Stiles.
And we have the real Gerard here with us. A man who may be able to help us. A man who may have the answers that can save us all.
Perhaps the night will end in peace, after all.
