In her time, she had been called many names. Among them, witch, demoness and harlot, but in recent years, her favorite titles were wife, mother and novelist. Her novel based loosely on her less than proud and colorful adventures in 1795 had become a best seller and a short-lived TV series in the 1990s starring Ben Cross and Joanna Going. Angelique Bouchard Collins picked through the mail and continued to the kitchen in back of the Old House and sat by her beloved Barnabas at the breakfast table.
"Was that Sarah racing out of here at six o'clock this morning?" He looked to Angelique over the local newspaper, The Collinsport Courier, as she sipped her coffee.
"Yes," She looked up. "She and Lizzie left for Bangor to get birthday presents for William."
The prodigal son came down the back stairs. Tall, lean of build and as distinguished a presence as any other young man, he had the face of his mother and the eyes of his father. Clad in a black sweater and jeans, he poured juice and ate his traditional breakfast: one hard-boiled egg and a slice of toast. Angelique rose behind him to fix him something to add to it.
"Bangor," he spoke. "Is that where the crap store is?"
"I beg you pardon." Barnabas looked up. His goatee was almost entirely silver now.
"She never gets me anything I'd like." William added. "Remember the clock-radio with the sounds of a babbling brook? The Cher album? The video copy of the best of George Carlin?"
"Darling," Angelique looked up as she made him a sandwich. "You are very hard to buy for."
"Hard?" William disagreed. "I like books about mythology and ghosts. She could get me a brand new leather jacket. She could replace the lava lamp she smashed when she was eleven-years-old. What I'm probably going to get is a t-shirt that says, 'Honk if you're...'"
"William!" Barnabas interrupted his first-born son. "Your sister loves you. She gets you things she thinks you will like."
"She gets you things you don't have." Angelique handed her only son a sandwich. "She tries to put a little laughter in your life."
"She likes making me look like an idiot!" William groused over his sister. " Ally, however, makes me laugh." William spoke of his girl in Boston. "Which reminds me… I want to spend my birthday with her."
"You are not leaving town on your birthday." Angelique was adamant about that. Her children's birthdays were more important to her than Christmas or even the Wiccan Sabbath.
"Why not?" William ate the sandwich. "Aunt Carolyn says that for the longest time you didn't even celebrate birthdays."
"That was before you kids were born." Barnabas stood up regally from his breakfast. "So many things kept us from them."
"Whatever." William rolled his eyes. "Another thing, mom, make me a ham sandwich once in a while. You've been giving me PB & J since I was a kid." He turned on his heel out toward the mud porch of the Old House and stepped through the back door swinging close behind him as he departed up for the main house on the estate. Lightly frustrated, Angelique could only sigh and wish he could have stayed eternally eight years old before lowering her head and glancing to her Barnabas.
"Remember how we used to long for him to talk?" She replied breathlessly.
"Yes."
"How I long for those days."
Collinsport seemed a million miles away as Sarah Collins sat on the train reading one her mother's romance-horror novels. They were thick and detailed stories from other time periods about a fictional witch named Angelica Brossard who pursued her one true love, an English nobleman named Bernard Coleman across the world. To Sara, they were extraordinary and rich with a vivid knowledge of the ages as if her mother had known these incidents. As blonde and attractive as her novelist mother, she barely responded to her vivacious cousin raced down the aisle and dropped into her seat. Curly haired Lizzie Loomis sat pensively for a second as she stared out the window as the Maine scenery whirled past them. The porter turned to them.
"Tickets?" He watched Sara hand the tickets over and then gave her a more careful look over as the young beauty reminded him of a certain television actress he knew very well by reputation. "Aren't you Sara Michelle Gel..."
"No," Sarah had been confused with the actress often enough. She didn't even want to hear that actress's name anymore.
"Yes," Lizzie grinned. "I'm Madonna." The porter chuckled at her. She couldn't be too much older than eighteen. Despite the obvious similarity, she was just too young to be the rock star. Lizzie took the tickets back as he continued through the car.
"Hey," She looked up. "These are for Boston. I thought we were heading for Bangor. What's in Boston?"
"William's girlfriend." Sara looked up. "He's complained about my gifts for the last time. This is one gift he's going to like."
"That's sweet." Lizzie beamed. "I wish J.R. would do something like that for me. What's she like?"
"She's a lawyer and supposedly very beautiful." Sara gasped as the state line for New Hampshire whirred past. "He was introduced to her through his Internet pen pal."
"What's her name?" Lizzie asked.
"Ally McBeal." Sara answered.
PART 2
Sara and Lizzie stepped off the elevator and stood overwhelmed by the size of the Boston law firm on the top two floors of the Boston brownstone. It was wide and open with upper floor windows and top floor offices on a balcony looking down over the activity on the fourth floor level. There was so many people working and moving as temps and assistants carried files up to offices on the upper floor. The two Collinwood heiresses stopped where they were and felt out of their element, but if Sara's brother was used to this world, then she could be so. It was just a big surprise as compared to the simple and non-intimidating three story that Tony Peterson shared with Frank Garner.
"This is Cage and Fish?" Sara mumbled.
"A lot bigger than Frank Garner and Tony Peterson." Lizzie flirted with tall and handsome Billy Thomas as he drifted past. Thomas just sort of grinned amusingly and went on about his business while thinking of his beautiful wife rather than the over-sexed young woman ogling him. "How are we going to find this Ally McBeal?" Lizzie wondered out loud.
"If I know my brother," Sara began. "She's going to be built like a Swedish stewardess with breasts out to here." She held her hands up to an imaginary bosom far larger than her own. She looked up to a rapturous blonde who looked like a Barbie doll brought to life. "Why I bet that's her over there!"
"No," Lizzie shook her head. "I think the short little guy in front of her called her Georgia. He's kind of cute, though." She looked at Sara shaking her head in disapproval of her man-hungry ways. Out the corner of Sara's blue eyes, she then noticed another rapturous blonde in a tight skimpy dress she expected more her brother's style.
"This has got to be her." Sara lowered her voice to Lizzie clandestinely.
"Hello," the attractive blonde started. "I'm Elaine Vassal, welcome to Cage and Fish, how can I help you?"
"Sara Collins." William's sister started by shaking Elaine's hand. So this blonde wasn't Ally McBeal, but it just made her that much more interested in how vivacious a girl could twist her idiot brother's head. "My cousin, Lizzie Loomis. My brother is William Collins?"
"You're William's little sister!" Elaine perked up excitedly. "According to his descriptions, I sort of pictured you as some sort of geeky little kid in glasses!"
Lizzie cracked up laughing hysterically. She broke out uncontrollably, whirled on one foot trying to find someone to share this funny discovery with and braced herself off the wall. Sara dropped her jaw in unmitigated embarrassment.
"William's been here alright!" Lizzie exclaimed enjoying herself.
"He has." Elaine answered. "He has been here a lot. Every studly little bit of him from those big brown eyes of his to his fine little ass!"
"Oh my god…" Sara reacted with the distaste of bile coming up from her stomach. No girl from Collinsport High School to the Blue Whale to the Collinsport Diner had ever described her brother in quite that way before. Lizzie started cackling even louder at this turn of events. Trying to forget the image of her brother's ass out of her head, Sara's very soul started cringing and shaking and wanting to vomit.
"To tell the truth…" Elaine continued. "If Ally hadn't stuck her big ass in the way, I could be your sister-in-law right now!" Elaine nodded her head excited with a sense of simple and flighty whimsy and slightly air-headed determination.
"I'd like to meet this Ally." Sara forced out eager to meet this girl in her hapless brother's life. Lizzie was reaching convulsing laughter just by realizing this odd and surreal world her cousin William had never shared with the family back at Collinwood.
"I'll see if I can get her." Elaine turned on her heel. Sara exhaled as she slightly blushed and then mumbled to herself.
"Not even here and he's embarrassing me." She referred to her brother. Elaine turned to her right for the first door from the stairway near the elevator and looked into an office behind a wood door. The door read simply, Ally McBeal.
"Tall, dark and handsome coming back toward me." Lizzie excused herself from Sara's side. "If I'm lucky, I'm taking someone back to strap to my headboard!" She moved out as the one called Elaine moved elsewhere.
"Ally?" Elaine poked her head to the office.
"Elaine," The petite lawyer barely looked up. "I am really busy. I need to finish this before William's birthday tomorrow."
"William's sister is here." Elaine announced solemnly
"His sister!" Ally looked up with alarm. "Great. First, his mother threatens my life, and now I bet she's here to beat me up. I just bet his father keeps girls imprisoned in the basement." Ally sighed as she buried her face briefly into her hands. "Send her in." She lifted her head again plaintively with her hair mussed and askew.
Sara meanwhile departed Lizzie half-heartedly to strike up a romance with Richard Fish, the junior partner of this quirky law firm. The two were almost kindred spirits. She smirked a second at meeting her brother's first and only girlfriend since that busty and brunette cheerleader Paula Anderson from Collinsport High School and then stopped in surprise. Ally did not look anything like what she expected! Already set to meet some Pamela Lee Anderson clone or even another Marilyn Monroe clone like that Tricia Haltom her brother was so obsessed with in school, Sara just stopped in her tracks in shock and realized she did not know her brother at all. Ally was attractive, like a girl of thirteen with the semblance of womanhood, but she was small of frame and nondescript with delightful short brown hair and two soulful brown eyes. Somehow, someway, her brother had espoused glamour and had decided upon love with someone who just might have a personality with depth.
"You're Ally!"
"Last time I checked." Ally beamed adorably and gestured for her boyfriend's sister to sit down. "You're just as attractive as he described." She saw Sara just as William had described her: attractive and small of build like herself, but vivacious and obviously strong-minded, but like William, she just assumed his sister was a brunette. Her eyes narrowed checking on the girl's roots.
"William said I was attractive!" Sara was getting surprised left and right.
"Oh, yeah." Ally lightly bobbed her head. "He speaks very highly of everyone, except maybe your mother... I get the feeling she drives him crazy at times."
"Our mother is very protective of us both…." Sara pulled her long hair past her ears and tried to return to the intention of this visit. "As you may or may not know, William's birthday is tomorrow..."
"I know… he's coming down." Ally interrupted
"Not going to happen..." Sara continued. "You see… William hates parties. He's tried sneaking out of town to avoid his birthday like the plague for as long as I can remember. He's only succeeded twice since he's had his car, and our mom is not letting him out of sight again."
"I know," Ally smiled. "I've met your mother. I'm going to cut those apron strings if I have to use a chainsaw to them!"
"Ally" Sara continued while pulling back her long blonde hair once more. "Believe it or not, I love my brother. He's the biggest idiot in the world, but I'd like to make a truly grand gesture for his birthday. I'd like to take you back to Collinsport with me."
"Collinsport." Ally's eyes widened. "Wow, that's great, but except for tomorrow, I couldn't possibly be there. My week is booked..."
"Ally," Elaine walked in with the schedule book. "John can handle court for today, Billy can do your closing, I rescheduled your O.B., Renee can switch appointments with you and I booked your train ticket. You leave in one hour. Richard said you could have the week off."
"Thank you, Elaine." Ally looked up in amazed disbelief at the blonde sex-pot's uncanny and almost magical efficiency.
"So, you're coming?" Sara asked.
"Heh," Ally was overwhelmed. "Well, um, why not? It might be fun visiting his world for a change."
PART 3
Instead of parking down at the Old House with his mother's red Jaguar and his sister's black jeep, William had parked at the main garage on the estate. His father had never purchased a car for himself, but with everyone on the estate and the local cab service, why would he? It was still a partially hazy morning as the young Collinwood heir checked his suitcase in the backseat and slid into his 1987 Trans Am. The black monstrosity had gone all zeroes a few months ago, but he was never letting go of it. He turned the ignition and pressed the pedal over and over trying to get the engine to turn over for him. Of all the times for this outdated collection of parts, oil and gasoline held together by spit and glue to stall on him, why did it have to be now! He had promised Ally he would be with her!
"Come on, come on," he whispered. "Get me out of here." The engine barely turned over. He heard a rapping noise and turned to the window. His Uncle Willie Loomis smiled and held up his distributor cap and plugs.
"Uncle Willie," William watched him open the door. "Not you too."
"Sorry, sport," Loomis carried many extra pounds in the twilight of his middle age. He grinned at his namesake. "But I'm not going to let you break your mother's heart."
"Please, Uncle Will. I mean, I'm now twenty-seven years old now and she still treats and thinks of me like I'm a kid. I mean, why does everyone behave as if they are afraid of my mother?" They walked to the main house. "Is she a witch or something?"
"Who told you?" Willie opened one of the front double doors. Maggie Evans-Collins came down the stairs to the right of the door. She grinned at the family escape artist and put her arm around him the same way she did when she was his governess.
"Where did you hide this time?" She asked him. "I must have searched the west wing three times!"
"I'll never tell." William replied while his uncle and namesake turned left past the drawing room. "I'm hiding there again next year!"
Willie amusingly rubbed William's head as the three of them gathered en masse passed the open door of the drawing room, passed the doors of the study and music room and crossed the length of the long hall toward the double doors at the far end. Turning into the dining room, the current birthday boy winced at the decorations and the sixteen faces of his family still clad in robes and morning attire. It might not have been so awkward a setting if he had not tried picking such an early hour to try sneaking out. Angelique kissed her only son and Barnabas padded William proudly on the back with a beaming grin. Clad in her form-fitting pajamas, Carrie Collins, the teenage daughter of David Collins's, rushed around the table while her grandfather, Roger Collins, managed to mumble along the words of the birthday song everyone sang together while laughing and out of harmony. His wife, Rachel, giggled with him trying to keep in time with her in-law's.
"Hello, Uncle Roger." William checked his reflection in the old man's baldhead. "Wax on, wax off." He pretended to wax his head as Roger chuckled at the old joke. He had an obvious sense of humor about losing his hair in his advanced age. William briefly locked eyes on Joe Haskell Jr., his sister's boyfriend, being curiously present while Sara herself whispered something and rushed out then found his cousin Carrie pushing a gift at him.
"Open it, open it." She beckoned him.
"Okay, Okay." William smiled as his Aunt Carolyn pulled a pointed hat on him. She was beaming to him and recalling him as the pint-sized holy terror that once had an infatuation on her. It was a memory she relished, but she also expressed a share of sympathy for him realizing his mother did greatly embarrass him. Her own namesake known as Carrie Elizabeth Collins beamed as William held up the model kit she had bought for him. It was a trans-am like the one he drove.
"William." Barnabas heaved a long gift over. "I had a company in England duplicate mine. I hope you appreciate it." His son reacted with curiosity to the large parcel, tore the top of it and whipped out with shock the wolf's head cane within it identical to his father's. It was identical but newer. He hugged his father with pride.
"Thanks, dad…"
"I want this to be a tradition." Barnabas replied with stoic solemnity. "I know you're too young to appreciate it now, but I want you to realize this cane is far more than something I carry with me. It's a symbol of the Collins family."
"Of course…" William answered as more birthday activity flourished around the breakfast gathering.
"From Maggie and me." Quentin hoisted a box that turned out to have a leather jacket in it. Reacting with awe to his favorite uncle, William put it on at the table and reacted finally with family pride.
"Can I have your old one?" J.R. Loomis spoke up. From Quentin's quiet and reserved daughter Amanda, William got the new Madonna CD. From Chris Loomis and young Roger Collins, David's only son named fro his father, came a set of blank VHS cassettes for the VHS camera William took on exploring and crawling through old houses looking for evidence of the afterlife. Angelique gave her son sweaters she had located from a trip to Bangor. A camera came from Willie and Carolyn for taking pictures of family and not white anamorphous images that came out unfocused. Carolyn's eldest offspring, J.R. gave his cousin another model to assemble. Looking at his watch after three hours of talk, birthday conversation and family time force fed through the occasion, William sighed and pictured Ally in Boston wondering where he was. Three hours since his escape attempt, and still hoping to dash out for the train to Boston, William turned around to his scheming sister.
"And what did you get me from the crap store this year?" He asked with as the annoyed brother to the sister who ruled his life.
"Oh, you're going to be apologizing for that…" Sara answered. She looked to the figure entering from the back hall to the drawing room. Every Collins family member turned their heads to the unannounced guest, but for Carolyn who had made Ally McBeal to home in Collinwood late last night to surprise her nephew.
"The crap store!" Ally was a little offended.
"Ally!" William forgot where he was and rushed to kiss her. William's Aunt Maggie, the former governess, turned to Angelique.
"Who's this again?"
"His girlfriend from Boston." The mother recognized the lady lawyer.
"What are you doing here!" William was incredulous to see her here in Collinwood on the family estate in his home town.
"Your sister brought me." Ally beamed slyly and handed her gift to him. Sara smiled triumphantly at hitting her brother down to her level once more. "Collinwood is exactly like John described it." Ally continued. "Huge, dark and expensive, like a museum designed by Edgar Allan Poe."
"That's the guy I've been trying to think of!" Lizzie screamed out as her mother prodded her. Truthfully, Carolyn recalled that at her daughter's age, she had referred to Collinwood as the House of Usher a few times.
"John?" Quentin sipped sherry with his breakfast.
"John Cage." David Collins spoke up dishing himself more eggs and fried potatoes to his plate. "I attended college with him and brought him here one summer. He's now junior partner at Ally's Boston law firm."
Barnabas reflected on how it always seemed that the past and future of Collinwood over lapped. William then followed with introducing his family to his girlfriend. Ally had met Sara and Angelique, but now she shook hands with his distinguished father, Barnabas Collins, the expert on Colonial life and history, and Roger Collins, the retired patriarch, and his third wife, Rachel Fillmore-Collins, a former librarian. She had known William when he escaped to the secure world of the Collinsport library rather than play sports with his cousins and friends. Quentin and Maggie's daughter, Amanda, insecurely stepped forward for just the second and gradually retreated to the back of the room again shunning attention. Her brother, Jamison, was at football camp, but she still felt alone in even this loving family. Willie and Carolyn Loomis stood amongst their progeny, J.R., Lizzie and Chris. David Collins welcomed Ally to Collinwood as he did with her colleague, John Cage, several years before in the past. His brood by different wives, however, Carrie and Roger, accepted the lady lawyer to the family. Joe Haskell Jr., however, remarked covertly to Sara on how William could have a girl after figuring him as a potential stalker from their years as schoolmates. Ally felt very warmly accepted by his family as they all split the chocolate cake.
"Mrs. Loomis." A family servant entered.
"Yes, Charlotte?"
"There's a young lady here who says she has a singing telegram for Mr. William." The maid always referred to the first names of the family.
"Telegram?" Carolyn made a curious face. "Send her in."
William and Ally wondered together about this telegram and then winced in sync together recognizing Elaine Vassal from Cage and Fish in Boston walked in smiling and carrying a tape player. The wily and creative assistant had certainly finagled her way into the party and was singing a birthday song to William, quite possible her one true love, one way or another. If she didn't prove her love to him, he could marry Ally, and she was determined to keep that from happening!
"That's William's other Boston girlfriend." Angelique revealed with a wry grin.
"What!" J.R. snapped to attention. "You've got two girls! That's not fair! You're taking me to Boston next time you go." He turned to Elaine starting her so-called singing telegram. "Hi," he stared deeply into her bedroom eyes. "J.R. Loomis, Heir to Collinwood. I can give you the world. "
"Sit down, J.R." Carolyn yanked him down. "What did I ever do you that makes you hit on everything in a dress!"
"It could be genetics." Maggie recalled going to school with Carolyn and watching her with a new boyfriend every week. Names like Tom Jennings, Jason Pryde, Joe Haskell, Ben Moss and Tony Peterson floated through the eaves her memory like leaves in the wind.
"Oh, I don't know." Ally whispered to William. "I think your cousin and Elaine make a nice couple."
"Be grateful Jamison isn't here." William spoke. "He'd have Elaine purposing to him in seconds!"
"I've heard of your cousin…" Elaine replied as Jamison's parents, Quentin and Maggie Collins, looked up. "Not interested!"
PART 4
Lizzie Loomis had met her emotional twin in Elaine Vassal. Both ladies were spirited beyond belief and loved music. Elaine sang in Vonda's Martini Bar and Lizzie sang in the Lobster Cage, her Uncle David's steak and lobster place. Lizzie was a bit more promiscuous, but Elaine didn't hate her for it. When Elaine asked to see where William slept, the two slipped out of the birthday party, out the back entrance and down to the gazebo and the Old House beyond alone. Lizzie led the way as Elaine followed her would-be clone. They pushed open the front doors to the ancestral manor of the Collins Family, trekked up the stairs to the second floor like obsessed fanatics and turned to William's bedroom left of the staircase.
"Oh my god!" Elaine gleefully scanned the books and journals scattered around or stacked neatly in corners. A tiny TV was in the corner with a shirt draped over it and the other corner had his computer set up next to the bed. Movie posters and autographed photos of actresses hung in frames. Elaine peered excitedly at tiny faithfully built models of boats and cars and planes on shelves above his bureau. She stepped over a stack of magazines by a box of crackers and picked up his pillow from his hastily covered canopy bed. She sniffed the scent from it and placed her head in the mold. This was William slept, and by touching it and placing her head in the shape of his head, she was just steps away from actually sharing his bed with him. Lizzie watched in disbelief.
"You're in love with him!" She exclaimed.
"You better believe it." She saw a photo of herself by one of Ally on the nightstand by the bed. She placed Ally's face down and put hers on top of it to keep her out of mind. On the wall was William's old girlfriend, Paula Anderson, the Collinsport native who once passed through Boston. Shaking her head in disbelief, Lizzie watched Elaine moving through the room with the demeanor of a would-be stalker trying to soak in the aura of her cousin. Elaine was obviously crazy for William and she was feeling a bit nervous about revealing his sanctuary to her. Out the side of her head, she then heard the downstairs doors open and close on the first floor. Lizzie's eyes went wild as steps came closer to them. She partially closed the bedroom door, pushed part of the decor on the wall behind it and pushed the wall aside to reveal a secret passageway. Elaine tossed William's pillow aside and followed blindly behind her hoping not to be surprised in this room.
Angelique Bouchard-Collins paused in her son's door and scanned the room. It had once her husband's room, but always a rat's nest. She pulled the door aside and opened the wall knowing who she was going to find.
"Ladies," she replied. "My husband and Willie closed this off when William turned thirteen." The two embarrassed blondes emerged slightly covered in dust and cobwebs. Lizzie had been in trouble before by her aunt, but Elaine was just embarrassed.
"Sorry, Aunt An."
"Me too." Elaine flashed a guilty smile.
"Guilty pleasures, Mrs. Vassal?" Angelique smiled as she understood their motives.
"Mrs. Collins." Elaine began. "Have you ever been in love with someone so much you'd do anything to win his heart?"
Angelique smiled and rolled her eyes toward the bedroom of her daughter, Sara, at the end of the hall by the stairs. It was formerly the bedroom of one Josette DuPres, a woman she most identically considered her own rival for the affections of her star-crossed paramour. She almost said something as Barnabas called up from the downstairs.
"Angelique, I can't find the book I was read-...Never mind, I found it."
"No comment." Angelique looked back to Elaine.
William had left the party wearing his new jacket and sporting his new cane with pride, but he was not used to it and was getting used to carrying it. He and Ally held hands over the estate grounds he had covered a million times as a boy. The path took them past the restored Rose Cottage where his Uncle Quentin and Aunt Maggie lived. It took them to Collins Road and then to Seaview Road as they paused at the end of the dead end street. Ally looked up at the spooky old stone and wood edifice hidden behind trees and shivered. It looked like a typical haunted house with its empty windows staring back at her and dried twisting vines ascending up over gables and balustrades above an enclosed veranda and round portico with bay windows. It had obviously been extravagant in its day, but the years of neglect had not been kind.
"Is there any house in town that isn't a hundred years old?"
"Not on this side of town. The other side has some recent developments." William chuckled. "Most of town was built between 1650 and 1790 by my ancestor Isaac Collins. His brother, Amadeus, built the courthouse and his wife opened the first school."
"Must be nice having a long family history." Ally sat on a short stone wall at the threshold of the long driveway.
"This house," William looked to the one behind the trees and led ally up sunken stone steps up into a long path through waist high weeds stretching toward the front entrance of the old mansion. "…Is Seaview Manor. It was built by Caleb Sayers Collins in 1851 against the wishes of his father." William paused for effect. "Want to see inside?"
"We shouldn't. The owner..." She watched William jog up the stone path, up on to the porch and to the double front doors.
"You're talking to him." William jingled some keys and unlocked the door. "My Aunt Liz left the place to me when she died. Being the oldest, I guess she assumed I'd be first to marry."
Ally glanced inside the small foyer and stairs heading up. The inside was partially furnished. She grinned at the coat rack by the door with a coat and cowboy hat on it then to a wide living room with a desolate fireplace and a lonely kitchen set beyond an open counter and shutters. Through the back windows of the nearly empty place, she saw the sea through curtainless windows. The fireplace was cleaned out spotlessly without an ash or unburnt log in it. The place was drab and lonely as Ally noticed herself alone for just a second and noticed William returning from the kitchen with glasses of lemonade.
"I've been moving furniture in a little at a time." William added. "Sara and Lizzie sometimes pay me to bring their dates here, but my mailing address is still Collinwood."
"Is this..." Ally looked into his brown eyes. "Your way of asking me to marry you?" William began choking on his lemonade.
"What?" He coughed. "I mean, I want to...but, do you want... Would you want to...leave Boston?"
"I don't know." Ally smiled like a little girl. "I think I could, but leave Cage and Fish? You know, I have sort of a loyalty to John and Richard."
"Tony Peterson and Richard Garner could use another partner."
"Oh, William," Ally grinned as if she considered it. "I couldn't...I mean, I might, but..."
"Loyalty." He caressed her chin and lifted her head slightly as he kissed her. She inhaled his presence into her lungs and exhaled breathlessly. "I love you, and anything you want." Ally smiled her waif-like grin to him while the pixie-like sparkle took possession of her eyes. Her cheeks became adorably unbearable as she kissed him.
"Maybe." She murmured. "But not so fast. Let's see where we're heading."
"I've got something upstairs I haven't tried out yet." William revealed.
"A waterbed?" Ally narrowed her eyes.
"A pool table!" He clinked an imaginary ball with the puckish charm of a young boy.
PART 5
"Who knew someone like Angelique Collins could cook!" Elaine whispered to Ally while their genial hostess welcomed them into the Old House parlor to sit and talk after dinner.
"Angelique has always committed herself to everything she does." Barnabas responded with a secret glance to his wife and took his regular seat by the fireplace mantel where his Alexander Dumas novel waited. Husband and wife shared a private grin and memory as William and Ally sat on the sofa by Angelique on one side and Elaine on the other. William's sister, Sara, had excused herself moments before for her date with Joe, but as Angelique reached for the family album, her firstborn son cringed at the sight of the family heirloom he called "The Book From Hell." The four of them sat back as Barnabas pulled out his glasses in the chair by the fireplace to read his book.
"Ally, you wanted to see pictures of William as a baby?" The proud mother in Angelique announced.
"Mom," William cringed inside. "Please don't do this…"
"Guess who's bare little bottom that is!" Angelique cried out loud with a devilish grin to one of the first pictures." Ally and Elaine cooed out loud as William winced at the embarrassment.
"Oh, he's so cute!" Ally mentioned. "Like one of the Little Rascals!"
"So that's why Maggie called him Spanky!" Barnabas alighted a fact as Angelique partially looked up to him and turned a page. The book was filled with years of pictures from stages of her son's life. Within fading color snapshots, William's face appeared on a tiny young man filled with unbridled exuberance and relentless mischief. Ally saw the uncontrolled and unrestrained brat her boyfriend once was and looked at him trying to forget a past he did not want to relive.
"Is that a Coast Guard jacket on him?" Elaine noticed one photo.
"Uh-huh," Angelique grinned. "William was eight when he, Jamison and J.R. found an old canoe on the property. They dragged it to the water under Widow's Cliff and were soon taken by the current down to Portland. Their fathers drove half the night to bring them home."
"Dad," William looked up. "Can you please stop mom from embarrassing me!"
"I'll try," Barnabas rested his book. "Angelique..."
"That's him with his first broken bone." The proud mother reminisced with her son's female friends. "He and his cousins and friends tried to build a tree house and he crashed through it."
"I tried, son." Barnabas raised his book.
"Wait a minute," Elaine picked up a red ribbon pinned behind a picture. "Second Place High School Talent Show?"
"William used to sing in a band." Angelique revealed. "That's how he raised some of his money to start his little ghost hunting business. We had made him interested in it to keep him and his cousins from becoming felons. Oh, he and his cousins were holy terrors in town before they were eleven years old."
"You used to sing in a band with your cousins?" Ally turned to William.
"Oh, the racket they made…" Barnabas recalled those days. "We had to move the six of them from the West Wing of Collinwood to every basement on the estate, then to the garage and finally to the caretaker's cottage just to get some peace and quiet. The only thing near the cottage is the family cemetery and we never heard a thing from them."
"I think I know why the ghosts on this estate are so restless." Elaine beamed at a connection between the activity and the loud music.
"It's a part of my life I'd just as soon forget." William tried to block the memory.
"We are putting you on Vonda's stage when we get back to Boston." Elaine was enjoying the pictures as Angelique turned to more baby pictures. Ally's eyes widened on one with a very teenage William with his arm around a very busty and Marilyn Monroe-like blonde cheerleader.
"Who is that?" Ally's eyes widened.
"Tricia Haltom." Angelique revealed. "His first love. She's the hussy I told you about who broke his heart on my visit to Boston." She turned the page to more baby pictures and adolescent pictures with William and his cousins. Amanda Collins with her flaming red hair was in one smiling ear to ear with William in a high school play. Shady J.R. Loomis was in another sticking his fingers behind William's head like little horns, and Sara started appearing in quite a few more as a deadly serious little pixie with pigtails.
"That's Sara, right." Ally braced her chin in her hand.
"That's right." Angelique admitted. "She always adored her big brother and he was always fiercely protective of her. She was sort of his first best friend. Believe or not, they once cared a lot about each other." William had sighed out loud and rose to the liquor cabinet. He opened it up as he looked back to his mother embarrassing him.
"William had a twin brother?" Elaine asked out loud at two twin images.
"No, that's his cousin, Jamison." Angelique responded. "They only looked alike as kids. Jamison's actually a year younger and very athletic and out-going."
"He's also a self-proclaimed ladies man." William added as he popped open the bottle of sherry and poured himself a drink. The popping noise had attracted his father's attention.
"William, you've never had a glass of sherry before." Barnabas observed with concern.
"I've never had a reason to." He commiserated as his mother flashed more baby pictures.
PART 6
Elaine Vassal felt as if she were a princess and Ally was her much older sister as Angelique welcomed her into the Old House. The hostess of the Old House was much more human and out-going than when she had visited Cage and Fish the month before and put a proverbial hex into everyone. She was very lofty and friendly as she put her and Ally together in the same bedroom. The huge canopy bed had huge curtains on it and an Old World charm as they both slid into bed under soft sheets, a heavy blanket and comforter with William sleeping in the room across the hall. Elaine fantasized about sneaking into his room in the middle of the night, but she didn't dare with Ally next to her.
It was sometime after midnight when Elaine was jarred out of a dead sleep. She wondered if Ally had waked her and caressed her pillow like it was a secret lover. She listened to the distant crashing of waves far away at the cliffs a moment and closed her eyes as she envisioned Angelique's handsome son riding to her on a white horse. A slight gasp from Ally next to her and Elaine buried her head into her pillow.
She thought she head the rustle of a long skirt. Wondering if Angelique had slipped in to check on her, she reared her head and looked around. Her eyes scanned over the rocking chair by the bed, to the Eighteenth Century furniture, to the fireplace and then to the door. The whole room was lit up with a blue, silvery moonlight. She wondered if it was the blankets and dropped her head.
She heard it again, only this time it was much closer. It was like the long skirts of a period costume. The rustling of fabrics pulled across each other across the floor was unmistakable. Elaine listened closer as she remembered William once told her of the legend of Josette Collins wandering the house. As she lifted her head once more, she heard another noise. It sounded like a creaking in the hall.
"Ally, can you hear that?" Elaine whispered. She heard a frightened gasp come from beside her. "I wish William was in here with us. Hold my hand so I know you're there." Elaine felt Ally's fingers slide down her arm in the dark and into her hand. Ally was so scared she could barely talk.
"Ally, your hand feels like ice!" Elaine sensed a twinge of movement out the corner of her eye as the rocker stirred. It seemed to be jarred a moment then slowly creaked back by itself and rocked forward. The empty thing was rocking by itself barely three feet from her as she heard another noise. It sounded like gleeful laughter from over her head in the attic. Elaine shrank in fear under the comforter as her eyes shot from the rocker, which was still moving, then to the closed door of the room. The footsteps were returning as the rocking chair stopped. Elaine heard the doorknob rattling and pulled the covers over her head. Through the darkness, she heard the door open and the steps come over to the bed.
"What are you doing?" Ally pulled the sheet down. She slid back into bed and pulled the comforter over her. "Sorry I woke you, but William invited me to raid the ice box." She flashed her perky grin. Elaine lifted her semi-frozen hand and stared at it as if she was losing it.
"Who was next to me and holding my hand!" She asked out loud.
PART 7
There was a rumor on the estate that the ghost of Josette Collins had frightened away one of William's paramours in the middle of the night. Quentin Collins had heard the news from J.R. Loomis who had been hoping to spark a relationship with the rumored over-sexed assistant. Quentin entered the back door of the estate for the kitchen and checked both the ice boxes for leftover birthday cake, but in a house with seven people, it was very rare for a cake to last more than two days.
"I got the last piece." Carolyn Stoddard-Loomis flashed a guilty grin.
"Well," Quentin flashed his roguish grin. "I guess you and Maggie will have to exercise those pounds off." He remarked as she swatted him with the newspaper. He stepped through the doors to the dining room and passed the short back hall to the drawing room. Another birthday had come and gone and he did not have to be reminded of the next until a week before the next one. He barely touched the brandy when the front doors sounded with a visitor. He rolled his eyes as the former scoundrel he once was, smirked and placed his glass aside. He headed to the doors with his usual swagger and opened the left door of the estate, and stepped back at the woman he thought he recognized.
"My God," He thought he saw a ghost. "It can't be! Daphne?"
"I beg your pardon?" The lovely brunette looked up at him as she flashed her card. "Mr. Collins, I'm Sabrina Duncan, a private investigator. I'm looking for a Quentin Collins."
"I'm Quentin Collins."
"You!" The brainy beauty didn't seem to believe him. "Quentin Collins? Did you once go by the names Grant Douglas and Frederick Thorne?"
"Uhhhh, Yes," Quentin admitted after a nervous gasp. "If you'd step this way." He closed the door behind the attractive brunette lady detective and briefly scanned over her red pants suit before leading the way to the drawing room. She was carrying a heavy file of papers and clippings under her arm as he hoped that her appearance didn't resemble an affair to Maggie. He closed the drawing room doors.
"There seems to be a problem here." Sabrina continued. "The Quentin Collins I'm pursuing has left a paper trail since 1870 when he was born, and since no death certificate has ever been located, it would make you over 100 years old. How is that possible?"
"He was my grandfather." Quentin claimed. "It was lost in a fire."
"And your birth certificate?'
"Same fire."
"The same fire that destroyed Thorne's Norwich, Vermont home in 1952?" Duncan looked skeptical. "You already said you were Thorne a minute ago. You lost a home you owned when you were what? Ten years old?"
"My father also used the pen name." Quentin tried to pass the same shaky history he had given to Maggie over a million times.
"Mr. Collins..." Sabrina somehow knew she had something good. "I was a police officer and detective for Charles Townsend in California before I became a private investigator. You can do better than that!"
Quentin nervously turned to the liquor cabinet for a drink and saw his world and history shaking apart. He wondered what Maggie, his son and daughter would think knowing their father was over a hundred. He thought he had left this all behind. He had never wanted to live beyond his years, but he had because of that infernal Tate portrait, but now the curse was gone, he was a normal man with a beautiful wife and two grown children and his life was finally perfects. The dark shadows of his cloudy history once more they could reach from the past and wrap over him.
"I don't know what I've stumbled here..." Sabrina Duncan continued. "But I've researched your history thoroughly. I'm going to need some proof of your claims beyond your word."
"Such as…" Quentin looked up.
"People not related to you who knew your family…" Sabrina thought a second. "Photos and news articles that proof you're not the man who supposedly burned this house." She produced a photo of his old Vermont cottage. The image of the Old Stratford Inn in the background made Quentin flash upon people he had once known he had since grown old and died. As he reflected on those lost faces, the drawing rooms doors opened and William and Ally stood in them.
"Sorry, Uncle Quentin." William apologized. "But I promised to play something for Ally at the piano."
"I can go." Sabrina Duncan rose from her seat and handed Quentin a folder. "Mr. Collins, you're are going to need a very good lawyer in this fifty year old arson case."
"William," Quentin looked uneasy. "Show her out then run down and get your parents. Mrs. McBeal, may I pick your brain for legal advice?" He looked like a man in trouble to Ally. Ally looked at him with interest and curious intent.
PART 8
Ally covered the file Quentin had showed her three times. It was very well documented, researched and very disturbing as she peered over it and into the dreamy blue eyes of William's uncle. Her looked back to her trustingly as a bit of fear welled up in her.
"This is impossible." She replied. "How old are you…. Really?" Quentin stared back at her with a face best reserved for a poker game.
"Bottom line," Quentin started. "Can I be tried for burning down a house that I owned in 1952?"
"You owned a house when you were 11, or were you actually 82." Ally looked to the file, up to Quentin and back again. "You look like you're in your late forties."
"I should look like I'm in my late fifties." Quentin beamed unthreateningly while Ally's eyes widened in fear. He nervously rubbed the back of his head as he paced the floor. "Mrs. McBeal, I'm going to tell you things that even my wife, two kids, nieces and nephews don't know."
Ally dropped like a rock into the loveseat.
"I am the original Quentin Collins born in 1870." He confessed.
Ally didn't want to believe him except for the file in her hand. A tiny part of her mind pictured her bound and gagged in a straitjacket as Elaine grinned, waved good-bye to her and moved in on to marry her William.
"Really?" She forced a grin.
"In 1897," Quentin continued. "A sequence of events happened beyond my control that made me… uh… live forever. Well, not forever. In 1972, acquaintances of William's mother removed the… enchantments keeping me from marrying Maggie and having a normal life. I started getting older again, I had and raised two wonderful kids… Believe me, it's true. Both of William's parents and Willie Loomis have been aware of it, but… I cannot allow these facts to get out in court for too many reasons. These events would potentially destroy the family and unleash more ugly question I dare not even get into. If you love William, and want to marry him, you have to make this case go away without telling anyone or you could most likely lose him."
"Is… William's mother really a witch?" Ally asked.
"She's retired."
"Oh my god!" Ally stood and freaked as Angelique and Barnabas entered the room. She locked her eyes with her potential mother-in-law and clutched her mouth to keep from screaming.
"Quentin, William told us you were in sort of legal problem." Barnabas began.
"We sent William for Maggie, but..." Angelique looked at Ally. She was nervously shaking in fear before the fireplace. "Ally, dear, what's wrong?"
"I told her the truth about myself… and yourself." Quentin revealed out loud. His voice then lowered to a whisper. "You can still remove memories like Julia used to, right?"
"Yes," Angelique whispered back as Ally stared at her in fear. "But later, we need her on our side first." She looked to Ally as Barnabas and Quentin exchanged glances.
"Ally, dear…" Angelique reached to her. "Do you have a problem with this?" Ally continued leaning back and back further until she had passed out on to the floor.
PART 9
Quentin and Angelique sat nervously waiting at the Old House waiting for their son's girlfriend to return. They feared she had taken off, but they were both reasonably sure she was okay with this judicial challenge. Barnabas was off keeping William distracted away from hovering around Ally and possibly learning what was going as well while the former witch debated other means to handle this sequence of events. Other possible scenarios might have worked much better without telling Ally about themselves, but they were already so far into this problem to complicate it now.
"I've been so careful for so long." Quentin paced before the fireplace while Angelique remained the picture of decorum. "What if Maggie finds out? The kids? Amanda has already been in and out of therapy for her depression. This could..."
"Quentin," Angelique picked up the teapot before her. "Drink some tea and calm down. It's much better than that scotch you guzzle."
"Calm down she says..." Quentin looked up to Barnabus's portrait over the Old House mantel. He almost added to his comment while the sound of Angelique's Jaguar sounded outside driven by Ally at the wheel. The two of them listened to the engine cut off and the steps over the cobblestone path and outside veranda as the petite lady lawyer returned and admitted herself back into the Old House. She looked dreadfully serious as she looked up to them from the foyer.
"Well," Ally scratched her chin nervously. "I've got some good news and some bad news." She started. "Mrs. Duncan, I and Judge Crathorne agreed there was a margin of error in the research and swore to not push for the case if you signed a legal affidavit with three non-relatives who knew your ancestors." Ally revealed the affidavit.
"I know just who to ask." Angelique stood up and reached for her list of phone numbers. "Samantha's mother is old enough to know your father, and Endora does owe me a major favor. Hilda Spellman helped Willie on his family tree and Penelope Halliwell too for pulling her granddaughters out of that mess with Ares."
"The bad news?" Quentin raised an eyebrow.
"Mrs. Duncan did her research with help from someone named Fox Mulder." Ally spoke nervously. "You can be expecting a visit from him in a month or two."
"Quentin," Angelique watched him gasp and turn to the mantel. "It's not like he's going to be an F.B.I. agent or something." She turned to Ally and took her hand calmly and carefully. "Darling, you must be very tired from your hard work, and believe me, we are all very grateful to you for finding a solution to this problem. Come sit in the dining room, and I'll give you some lunch."
"Please tell me you are not really a witch." Ally suspiciously narrowed her eyes. "William's father doesn't drink blood or turn into a wolf, does he?"
Quentin half-heartedly smirked in Angelique's direction as they lured Ally into a calm situation in which she could be reasoned. The lady lawyer passed through the swinging doors of the parlor and sat down at the head of the dining table of the Old House. Angelique sat down next to her.
"Ally," she began. "There is a lot about the family you have learned that William, Sara and most of the family of which has never been told. It could be very dangerous for us as well as complicated if you were allowed to remember. Look deeply into my eyes as I tell you why."
Ally peered hesitantly into her blue azure eyes. They were rich and vibrant as if they had stars and galaxies shining in them. She felt oddly relaxed and her mind became dreamy as her body went numb to her. If she didn't know better, she'd think she was being mesmerized.
"Allison Marie McBeal…" Angelique mentally pressed her mind into that of her son's girlfriend. "You have been a close friend of the family in more ways than one. You are almost a member of the family already, and yet, you could still be a danger to us. You've been having dreams that have been confusing you. They even scare you. I can make them go away. Just let me know why they frighten you and I can…"
The front door of the Old House opened and closed as Angelique and Quentin exchanged glances. Ally was just barely in a susceptible mental state as Angelique gestured to Quentin. If Sara or William came back now, she would be hard pressed to explain what was happening. The former scoundrel looked out and rushed out to the parlor looking for who had entered and then heard steps rush upstairs. He followed behind and followed the sound to William's room.
"William!" Quentin watched him pulling his shirt off. "What are you doing here? Where's your father?"
"I ditched him at the Historical Society." The young man pulled on a new shirt. "He said Ally was to meet me at The Blue Whale and I wanted to change. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was trying to keep us apart!"
"Would he do that?" Quentin flashed a harmless grin then blocked William's path with his arm to do what his absent father wasn't here to do. He stood in William's way from crossing down to the foyer. "Not that way, your mother waxed the foyer and she's angry enough as it is. Take the back way to the kitchen and out the back." He improvised something he had said about Maggie several times. William just gazed back at his favorite uncle with suspicious intent, and pulled a sweater over his t-shirt. He thought of Ally waiting at the Blue Whale Bar And Grill for him and silently shook his head wondering what was off here.
"See you later." He finally dismissed himself.
"Right." Quentin gasped, watched him depart down the steps to the mud porch and ran down himself to the foyer of the Old House. He was getting too old for this. He turned at the bottom, hastened through the parlor and into the dining room. Angelique was sitting at the table with her head down exhaustively on the table as if she had collapsed. Ally was standing over her and trying to fight off whatever spell was overwhelming her. She shook her head, rubbed her eyes then looked at Quentin, to herself and back to Quentin once more. She put her hands to her face and down her chest as if she were truly snapping out of a spell.
"Angelique," Quentin shook the former witch. "Did it work? Angelique, wake up."
"Quentin," Ally spoke with a strange determination to her voice she rarely used. "I think we have a really big problem!"
PART 10
Barnabas and Quentin watched as Ally grabbed a pillow from the living room and headed back into the dining room. She tenderly and fretfully lifted Angelique's head and put the pillow under her head and then checked her breathing. She stepped back and nervously paced a bit.
"Angelique," Barnabas began. "I don't understand how you can hypnotize her and end up switching bodies with her."
"Barnabas, please," Ally pulled her hair back. "This is very distressing as it is." She checked again to see if her body was breathing. "We didn't exactly switch bodies. What with William's distraction, Ally's strength of will and the fact I haven't practiced my witchcraft in such a long time, I sort of delved deeper mentally into her mind than I wished and my mind sort of got trapped in hers. Her mind and my body are both under different trances - sort of like emptying half a glass of water into another until one is empty. I'm projecting my mind through her body and I can't turn off the connection!"
"Well," Quentin sat in the window and drank his brandy. "You better do something quick. When Ally doesn't appear at the Blue Whale, William is going to be back looking for her."
"Just let me think," Ally put her fingers to her lips and paced back and forth. Her mind was projecting through the body of her son's girlfriend, and her own body was sitting before her trapped in a trance. Stopping a second to stroke the long blonde hair of her real body, she gasped a bit from this younger woman's body and reflected once more on her memories and mystical skills. "Barnabas, do you remember that young lady who stayed with us a while collecting antiques?"
"Um, uh, yes." Barnabas recalled her. "Redhead, resembled Amanda..."
"Michelle Foster." Quentin named the young woman.
"Yes," Ally grinned. "Well, she told me about an amulet that swapped minds between bodies..."
"Wouldn't there be a curse on it?" Quentin added.
"Oh, I can handle one of Vendredi's stupid spells." Ally cockily vibrated her head. "The problem is not being in my body I couldn't be sure of the accuracy of any spell I attempted through Ally."
"Well," Quentin finished his drink. "You better do something or else William better learn the lyrics to 'I'm My Own Grandpa.'" He smirked and looked at the bottom of his glass. "This whole thing is giving me Petofi flashbacks."
"Quentin!" Ally grinned and kissed him. "That's it!" The mind of the former sorceress turned to her husband while locked in the mind of this lady lawyer. "Barnabas, do you remember when Petofi switched bodies with William!"
"Don't remind me." Quentin's tone turned sour upon recall that incident.
"The reason we defeated him so easily goes back to something Nicholas Blair told me." Ally smiled non-threateningly. "When he was trying to take William away, he reminded me that as my son that William inherited my psychic powers. Despite being untapped and undeveloped, William was able to get his body back at that time and he should be able to do it for me as well."
"But you removed those memories from him." Barnabas added. "How do we get him to help you without him finding out what's going on and opening another plethora of questions?"
"Barnabas," Ally grinned uncannily like Angelique. "We are his parents… We have to trick him."
PART 11
Once it became clear that Ally was not going to appear at the Blue Whale, William departed the bar and grill in his trans-am and returned back to the estate driving through Collinsport determined in mind and spirit. In his mind, he had the mentally of the secret identity of a certain Dark Night Detective. His black vehicle roared through the front gates under the demeanor of a spectral black creation from the underworld as usual, tore a hard right on the road for the Old House and whirled over the old bridge on the estate with a cloud of twirling dry leaves and dust in his wake. The trees of the property whisked past him and he slowed in the growing visage of the Old House coming into view. It came to a stop outside the three hundred year old house he called home and his presence bounded up to the front veranda past the huge oak columns out front and in through the foyer. In the parlor to his left, Ally snapped to attention at his sudden appearance.
"What happened?" He approached her. "My dad said you wanted to meet me at the Blue Whale?"
"What? Oh, uh, yeah he did..." Ally shined away as he tried touching her.
"Did you forget?" William asked.
"No," Ally uncomfortably backed from him. "It's just that, uh, I started talking to your mother. You know, she really is a sweet and wonderful person."
"You're not related to her. You don't know what she's really like." William took her hand as Ally's eyes widened out of fear. "It's still not too late. Let's go out."
"What? Uh, no." Ally forced a grin and backed off. "Darling, I was thinking..."
"Don't call me that."
"What?"
"Darling." William took her hand again. "My mom calls me that. You know how she drives me nuts." Ally slightly dropped her jaw and narrowed her eyes as the woman projecting through her realized just how her son really thought of her.
"Well," Ally changed moods. "Your beautiful and caring mother who I know loves you very much and only wishes the best of you told me about this family pastime you have here, something called a séance? I'd like to try it."
"A séance?" William rolled his eyes suspiciously. "Ally, speaking as sort of an expert, they're really pretty boring. You know hours can go by without anything happening."
"Oh, I think something's going to happen." Ally grinned connivingly as Quentin emerged through the swinging doors to the dining room. He looked worriedly to Ally then to William.
"Hey," Quentin grinned connivingly. "Who's up for a séance?"
"Did someone request a séance?" Barnabas emerged from the back hall. William glanced between the two of them suspiciously.
"What's going on here?" he asked.
"Sweetheart," Ally took his arm and led him dragging in to the dining room. "Come sit by your mother at the table. This will be fun!"
"I've got to get you back to Boston. You're turning into my mother." William noticed his mother sitting at the table. Propped up in the chair, eyes closed and hands on the table, she looked emotionless as if she was asleep. "Mom, did you put them up to this?"
"William, don't bother your mother!" Barnabas responded as he and Quentin exchanged looks and hoped they were up to still keeping secrets like this in order to conceal their ugly pasts. William looked up at his father and then his Uncle Quentin in disbelief as they all sat down. He started sitting down as Ally stopped him.
"Sit next to your mother with her between us." She replied.
"You are turning into my mother!" William did a double take, sighed and mother to the next empty chair. "Mom, what did you do to Ally!"
"She didn't do anything." Quentin answered. "Now shut up and take your mother's hand."
William shot him a look as they sat at the end of the table. Quentin, Barnabas and William were at one end with Angelique at the end and with Ally at the head of the table. She grinned as if she were hiding something.
"Who are we contacting may I ask?" William replied.
"Angelique Miranda DuVal." Ally claimed with an enigmatic grin. "Your mother's ancestor."
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"Well, don't we need a protection prayer against evil spirits?" William asked as his mother's body began leaning over. Barnabas made a look and quickly propped her up in her chair as William shot another confused look at him.
"Quentin, give us a prayer." Ally showed she was in control.
"Oh, Lord, protect us. Amen." Quentin replied fast and quick.
"Amen." Barnabas and Ally chorused as William was getting confused in this dizzying quick farce. This wasn't a séance as he knew it; it was more of a quick comedic act wrapped in a hasty confidence game with his beloved Ally curiously in command.
"Okay," Ally replied. "Concentrate. Think of Angelique Miranda DuVal, the young woman who so many years ago enraptured many with her intense beauty..."
Barnabas chuckled as Ally noticed with a grimace. Quentin simpered a grin as well knowing more than he should of their past. William just looked from face to face. His mother hadn't moved, or said a thing since he had arrived. He couldn't think of a time she had been so quiet for so long.
"William, concentrate!" Ally grumbled angrily as he looked back at her. What was going on here!
"Angelique Miranda DuVal." Ally called out. "Come to us..." The Old House became eerily quiet except for the seasonal wind outside blowing the leaves against the house. A random twig hit the windows as William wondered what his mother had done to Ally. He had never seen her so determined or authoritative. She had become someone he didn't know: someone he was starting to have second thoughts about being in his life.
"Mom," He was growing impatient and frustrated with this farce. "Would you talk to me?"
"William," Barnabas wanted his wife back. "Please, I know this seems odd, but…"
"Mom, would you talk to me!" William snapped and felt a partial electrical shock through his hand. With that spark, both Ally and his mother jumped to their feet simultaneously from the table. There was a certain force in the air as wife and mother was jerked back to her body by her son's demand for her and Ally McBeal herself snapped up as if she had wakened from a bad dream. Whatever was crashing unseen through the room moved through the parlor and through the foyer as the front doors of the ancestral manor were pulled open and slammed shut by the return of another returning Collins progeny.
"That is it!" Sara screamed as she fought to close the doors. "Joe Haskell and I are through! He's stood me up for the last time!"
Angelique rubbed her face and looked to her body as Barnabas stood and went to her side eager to support her after this experience. Ally looked around in confusion as if she didn't realize where she was and took a moment to try and recall where she was. She recalled William, coming to Collinwood for his birthday and then… what? How long had she been here? A week? A month? Her long blonde hair bobbing on her shoulders, Sara Collins entered the dining room and went straight up to her mother ignoring all but her own life's problems. Quentin Collins carefully perused this scene trying to decide what to do next.
"Mom," she crumpled up her face as if she were about to cry. "Joe stood me up for that tramp, Tricia Haltom! I hate that blonde bimbo!"
"Darling, calm down," Angelique finally spoke. She smiled enigmatically to her son, kissed her husband and stood contently in his arms. Ally shook her head and appeared in distress.
"What's going on?" She finally asked.
"You don't know!" William responded as she turned his wrist to see his watch. She realized the date and time in the digital letters on it and snapped back to reality trying to regain her lost memories.
"I missed my train!" She screamed. "I promised Richard I'd be back tomorrow." She darted out and upstairs.
"Ally!" William tried to catch her, but instead hesitated and glared back at his parents, briefly to his sister and back to his Uncle Quentin, a man who had encouraged and started his interest in the paranormal. Something told him that this was one of those events that he would never know the truth about.
"One of these days..." He continued. "We are going to get together, and we are going to have a long talk about all these weird events in my life that have happened to me." He paused briefly, turned on his heel and raced after Ally mumbling under breath about alleged ghosts that didn't exist, conflicting people and events in the family history and objects and rooms on the estate with properties that just never made sense.
"Over my dead body." Angelique murmured to her husband's arms while Quentin and Sara looked on.
PART 12
The train only went through Collinsport four times in one day with the last one at almost midnight. It was quite a reversal in roles as it was now William begging Ally to stay and briefly forget her ties binding her back to Boston. It was usually him trying to stay in Boston, and now she was giving him a taste of her end of this long-term relationship they shared. She smiled precociously and irresistibly at having him in control for a change as his hands overtook her waist and pulled her near for his lips to touch hers. The train whistle sounded from far to the north beyond the starry sky.
"I'll see you in Boston in a few days, right?" She asked.
"Well," William cringed. "I'm leaving for Sidewinder, Colorado in two days. Uncle David is the founder of the Collinsport Ghost Society and he's finally letting me lead my own team by myself."
"Does it have to be this week?" Ally asked.
"The Hotel Overlook is only open for six months out of the year." William revealed. "Besides, they've never had a serious parapsychological on-site examination done."
"Next month?"
"Hammelburg, Germany." William replied. "Colonel Hogan at U.S.I. invited me to join his institute's ghost-hunting team at Stalag 13, an old prisoner-of-war camp."
"I can't believe it." Ally scuffed her heel across the wood deck of the train station. The train whistle sounded closer.
"But you'll have me a few days in between." William stared into her big brown eyes and stroked her face. She stared back into his big brown eyes and hugged him tightly.
"You and your ghost hunting…" She sounded upset. "What are you going to do when you catch one?"
"Teach it to sing and dance and give it a TV series." William's face turned into one big grin as she scoffed and rolled her eyes. She smirked adorably and squeezed him tighter. The train was actually in view and getting closer by the second.
"I love you." He continued. "I'll be back." The train roared to a stop as Ally refused to let go of him. The steam filled the air like fog, the loud ringing sounded like a brass band and a steward hopped off with two Collinsport natives returning home. A small tear dropped from Ally's left eye as she forced herself to let him go.
"Happy birthday." She turned and picked up her two suitcases. She looked like a little girl being sent to school as she looked back to him with her ticket.
"Thank you." William smiled as his heart broke. "And thanks for helping my Uncle Quentin."
"Don't mention it." She shook her head with humility. She lightly waved with her fingers, put them to her fingers and blew a kiss just before turning and jumping on the train with her baggage. A porter took them for her as she passed between the seats of the halfway filled car. She dropped into the second empty seat she found and clutched at the window to open it. It struggled against her to slide down then snapped into place. William's head outside on the deck of the train station barely broke the bottom.
"I'm only an e-mail away." He reached for her hand. "I'll be back!"
"I love you too." She shouted over the fracas of the train starting up again. The light on the deck of the terminal caught a tear on William's face as the engine roared out loud once more. A sudden lurch dropped Ally into her seat and she stood up again to watch William stay and watch her leave. Ally stayed watching as the Collinsport Train Station became smaller and smaller and then vanished behind a turn of trees. She turned into her seat and pulled the overhead pillow and blanket out. She pulled her legs on the seat and started to get comfortable. Out of no where, she did a sudden double take.
"His Uncle Quentin!" She wondered about events not in her memory.
END