Disclaimer: Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production and not mine
CHAPTER 15: THE WARLOCK
Maggie hesitantly stared at the mysterious Nicholas Blair. Had he really just airily claimed he was Cassandra Collins' brother?
"What is the matter, my dear?" The stranger continued sizing up the house maid with gleaming eyes. "Why, you look like you've seen a ghost."
Maggie arched an eyebrow. She knew a ghost when she saw one. This man was certainly no ghost. But if he was associated with Cassandra - or rather – Angelique - then he was likely not a mortal. He must be someone who was either like Angelique or Barnabas. Obviously, he shouldn't be invited into Collinwood.
"I've never heard of anyone named Cassandra," Maggie lied, gamely mustering up a sweet smile.
"Oh, no?" Nicholas cocked a pointed eyebrow.
"Maggie?" Willie came sauntering to the front doors. Nicholas didn't really notice him. His dark eyes were solely preying on Maggie. "We got some Christmas charity wantin' the Collinses cash?" Willie gazed at the smarmy new arrival in the tailored suit and winter coat, who in turn took in Willie's busted jaw. "Oh, a buddy of Mr. Collins?"
"No, he's looking for a woman named Cassandra," Maggie said to Willie, playing along.
"Who's Cassandra?" Willie convincingly feigned bewilderment.
"I don't know." Maggie shrugged. "But this man claims he's the latest member of the Collins family."
"Yes, my sister Cassandra married Roger Collins," Nicholas cut in, smiling thinly.
"That's news to me," Willie muttered with a slight shrug.
"It's news to me, too," Maggie added.
Nicholas scoffed disbelievingly. "Why, you two must've been living under a rock. The announcement of their marriage has been all over the papers."
"There ain't no Cassandra, Mr..." Willie was at a lost for the stranger's name.
"Nicholas Blair."
"All right, Nicky Blair." Willie smirked cockily.
Gazing at Maggie with the same suggestive spark from a few seconds ago, Nicholas asked her, "Is he your brother or something?"
"Boyfriend." Maggie's sweet smile returned.
"Yeah, we dig each other." Willie wrapped his arm around his girlfriend's shoulders.
Maggie widened her smile at the stranger.
"So, Cassandra's not here?" Nicholas sought to confirm.
"There ain't no Cassandra here," Willie repeated.
"There never was," insisted Maggie.
"Very well," Nicholas muttered.
"Merry Christmas, Mr. Blair," Maggie said brightly, as Willie swiftly slammed the doors on his face.
Only slightly put off by this rudeness, Nicholas merely tutted while shaking his head. What an ignorant pair of mortals, actually thinking they could con him of all people. The girl Maggie was undeniably enticing, he inwardly admitted. She clearly knew the true nature of Angelique and possibly her whereabouts. But Nicholas didn't need her to find the witch. It was in moments like these that tracking spells came into great use.
In the gray foyer inside Collinwood, Willie and Maggie resumed their talk by the table, while the inky black shadow stalked them, hidden seamlessly on the gloomy ceiling. It was ready to pounce.
"Is this what it was like when you were conning people all over the world?" Maggie asked Willie curiously.
"Me and Jason never stood up to no demons," Willie drawled. "But, ya pretty good at that, Maggie," he complemented lightly.
Maggie grinned, looking a little hopeful. "Does that mean you trust me?"
Willie let out a deep breath. Maggie was trying to steer the conversation back to her delicate query about trust. Maggie waited with baited breath for his reply.
Willie parted his lips to speak, but before he could answer, the baffling shadow dove from the ceiling, splashing its way down on top of them like gallons of oily water. Instead of getting soaked, the couple found themselves lost in a pitch black void. But it felt like they were drowning.
The shadow was sweeping them out of their world.
In her office at Windcliff, Julia gently eyed Barnabas sitting on a chair planted in front of her desk, looking so small and fragile. She'd often seen his dark, soulful eyes shaded in malevolence or arrogance from the moment Josette allowed her to unchained him from his coffin. She'd also seen those very eyes filled with fear and vulnerability from the moment Angelique returned to Collinwood. But this was the first she'd ever seen those fathomless eyes truly petrified.
"Are you certain your serums are achieving the desired effect?" Barnabas asked shakily, wrapping his arms around himself like a security blanket.
"I checked all of your vital signs," Julia said calmly. "Everything is functioning normally."
"My reversion might be a gradual process, doctor," Barnabas murmured. "Angelique has made it perfectly clear that I'll never escape her curse."
"But, you have, Barnabas," Julia said fervently. "You have a pulse and a heartbeat. You are a living, breathing, man, now. Angelique is dead and gone. She was probably just using whatever supernatural ability she had left merely to torment you."
"The all-consuming hunger of bloodlust is not to be taken lightly, doctor," Barnabas countered seriously.
"I won't allow that to happen to you," Julia vowed. "We've come so far."
Barnabas regarded her silently from the chair.
"Do you have Angelique's portrait with you?" Julia asked him.
Barnabas raised an aristocratic eyebrow. "Do you honestly think I carry her vile portrait on my person?"
"Well, you and her portrait were practically inseparable last night," Julia pointed out. "I thought it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for you to start carrying it around."
"No, I don't have the portrait with me," Barnabas said indignantly. "I left it at the Old House."
"Hmm, that's too bad," Julia remarked. "I'm morbidly curious to see what it looks like now."
A polite knocking from the door cut through their conversation. Barnabas and Julia shared a quick look. The polite knocking rudely persisted.
Frowning, Julia crossed to the door and answered it. She found a well-dressed, middle-aged man, with a sharp goatee that framed the smarmiest smile she'd ever seen. He also had twinkling black eyes, and wore a fedora.
"Hello, I beg your pardon," he said apologetically. "You are Dr. Julia Hoffman, correct?"
"Yes, that's why I had them write it on my door," Julia replied, pointing at her name plainly displayed on her door.
"What a relief," said the man. "I'm so glad I found you. I desperately need your help finding my sister."
"Your sister?" Julia raised her brows up to her hairline.
"Yes, Cassandra Collins," the man said anxiously. "I am Nicholas Blair."
"Cassandra Collins?" Barnabas spoke suddenly from his chair inside the office.
The former vampire captured the strange man's attention. Barnabas glided over to the door and joined Julia at her side.
"You know of Cassandra?" Nicholas asked him.
"Why, yes," Barnabas said politely. "My name is Barnabas Collins. My cousin Roger met her in Boston not so long ago. He engaged in something of a whirlwind romance with her. They married impulsively. Suffice to say, it was quite a shock to the entire family when Roger brought her home from Boston as his bride."
"So, you are acquainted with her?" Nicholas pressed.
"Yes." Barnabas nodded coolly.
"That is very odd," Nicholas said puzzled. "I was at Collinwood earlier, and the servants who answered the doors claimed that they'd never heard of Cassandra, even though her marriage to Roger Collins has been so highly publicized."
"Well, you see, Roger's marriage to Cassandra has become something of a forbidden subject in Collinwood," claimed Barnabas.
"Considering my search for her has lead me here, I'll go out on a limb and say that the marriage is not a happy one," guessed Nicholas.
"Unfortunately, you are quite correct," said Barnabas, feigning a remorseful tone. "Cassandra was a mentally ill and unstable woman. She had numerous fits of hysteria and demonstrated time and again that she was a great danger to herself and others. She actually pointed a gun at me and was duly restrained and escorted here for her own protection."
"My goodness, this is so unlike Cassandra!" Nicholas said worryingly. "Please, tell me where you're keeping her?"
"She committed suicide this morning," Julia chimed in clinically.
Nicholas gasped, his dazzling dark eyes saddened and horrified. "My heavens! She was that terribly unhappy?"
"She was terribly disturbed," drawled Julia. "I'm sorry for your loss. My deepest condolences to you and your family."
Nicholas paused mournfully. "When can I see her b-body?" he choked.
It was Julia's turn to pause. Barnabas glanced at her. It was quite likely that he'd be ordering Willie to find a recently deceased body and disguise her as Cassandra.
"I'll let you know when you are permitted to see her," Julia finally answered Nicholas.
"Oh, but you don't understand! My sister and I are well traveled. She in particular has been exposed to cultures and traditions scarcely imagined here in New England. We have peculiar and strict tenets we must follow in accordance with our faith." He then glanced up at them harshly. "I need to find a place to stay in town. I'll be in touch, doctor."
"Yes, certainly," Julia told him gently.
Without saying another word, Nicholas trailed down the depressing white corridor. Once he was away from Barnabas and Julia, a devilish smirk stretched across his lips. So, Angelique was dead. There were ways to rectify that!
Julia urgently shut her office door and narrowed her gaze at Barnabas. "Care to explain who that man is?"
"I don't have the faintest idea." Barnabas turned his back to her. "I've never seen that man before in my life."
"If he's associated with Angelique, then he can't possibly be a normal man," Julia stated logically. "On the plus side, it sounds like Willie and Maggie effectively shut him out of Collinwood and away from your family."
"Only for the time being," Barnabas said dismissively, turning to face her again. "I feel that Willie and Maggie have only wiled his suspicions. Quickly doctor, to Collinwood. I need to speak with them and check in on the family."
Julia agreed with his latest urgent demand and hurried to collect her green winter coat and medical bag.
Willie found himself immersed in inky blackness. He couldn't see anything except for the thick shadows swaying around him. Where was Maggie? He couldn't see or feel her. Overwhelming panic surged within him.
"Maggie?" His scared voice echoed eerily and desperately. "Maggie! Where are ya!"
The unsettling shadows parted swiftly, opening themselves up like a curtain on stage. Willie found himself back in the foyer of Collinwood. To his tremendous relief, Maggie still stood right in front of him. It seemed like they'd never even vanished to begin with.
"Willie!" she gasped.
Gratefully, she fell into his arms.
"Maggie, where didja go?" Willie murmured, holding her tightly.
"I don't think I went anywhere," Maggie breathed, gazing up at him, still wrapped securely in his arms. She was obviously perturbed. "I thought I lost you."
"I thought I lost you." Willie exhaled. "What happened?"
"We were talking and something suddenly dropped down on us," remembered Maggie.
"Somethin' that blacked out everythin'," Willie concurred. "It was lonely. I thought I really did lost ya, Maggie."
"You didn't lose me, Willie." Maggie warmly tightened their affectionate hug. "Whatever happened is over now. I'm beginning to accept that there's no such thing as a normal workday in this mad house. Ever since we started working here, something terrifying attacks us everyday. Literally! I honestly don't know how this insane family tolerates all this haunted house nonsense on a daily basis."
As the two continued embracing, Maggie comfortingly rubbed a trail up and down Willie's back with her slender fingers. It dawned on her that something was amiss in the foyer. The golden Chrstmas garland that decorated the banister was nowhere to be seen. It seemed to have vanished in the blink of an eye. The furniture and decor were different. They were old but not the usual kind of old that the Collinses normally had out.
More unusual things caught Maggie's attention. The foyer was lit by gas lamps on the walls. It seemed to be late at night, and the drawing room's doors were tightly closed. Maggie slowly withdrew from Willie's arms, and uttered, "Willie, the foyer has changed."
"Huh?" Willie stared around the cold room. He realized the Christmas decorations were absent, along with the statuette of the shoveling guy that the Collinses always had on the large center table. Before he could really react to this, a powerful dirge drifted out from inside the shut off drawing room. The same creepy instrumental piece that had haunted them in the West Wing.
They both gasped sharply.
"Maggie, it's that song!" Willie whispered fearfully.
Maggie tenderly rubbed his arm.
"What's it doin' down here?" Willie wondered. "We only heard it up in the West Wing. Is it hauntin' down here, now?" He furrowed his brow.
The side door then creaked open. Willie and Maggie's bulging eyes nearly fell to the flagstone floor. The person who stepped out wasn't Mrs. Johnson or a member of the Collins family.
It wasn't even someone alive.
The woman who crept into the foyer was the silent blonde ghost they encountered in the West Wing. The one they witnessed in the haunted, forgotten corridor on the night Burke and Vicki gave them that tour. But the ghost woman was not dressed in a flowing white gown, as Willie and Maggie remembered her. She wore a maid uniform. But it was nothing like anything Maggie - or even Mrs. Johnson - wore. It was a maid uniform from the Victorian era. She even wore a little white lace bonnet on top of her pinned up, curly blonde hair.
"Hey, what are you doin' here?" Willie demanded of the woman hotly.
Even though he mustered up some confrontational courage, there was still an obvious quiver gripping his voice. "Why do ya keep hasslin' us with this mopin' music!"
The woman ignored him. She didn't even register his existence. Her attention lay solely on the closed drawing room doors. Standing near the out-of-place couple with her rigid back turned to them, the blonde woman curiously listened to the melancholy melody from inside.
"Hey, I'm talkin' to ya!" Willie spat at the woman's back, but she didn't even flinch. Her attention was still glued to the shut doors. "Hey!" Willie fumed, reaching out to grab her shoulder. But his hand passed right through her like a insubstantial ghost. Willie quickly recoiled, horrified.
Maggie jumped in front of the woman, wildly flailing her arms about, trying to capture her attention. But Maggie seemed to be invisible to her as well. The maid couldn't see her. She went on staring right through Maggie. But even if the maid could see Maggie, would she even acknowledge her? She was so strongly mesmerized by the music behind the drawing room's doors.
Maggie stopped flailing her arms. "She can't see me, Willie." Her amber eyes widened, completely thunderstruck.
Willie's panic painfully rose. "Maggie, did we – d-died? The – the ch-chandelier must've d-dropped on top of us, a-and that's why everythin' went black! We're ghosts now!"
"We died, and were then violently thrown into another time?" Maggie pondered, as she stepped around the maid and faced Willie.
"This is Collinwood, nothin' makes sense here," Willie pointed out. "You just said so yourself!"
"True," Maggie amended.
Just then, the drawing room's doors dramatically burst wide open, the dour melody's volume instantly swelled.
Willie and Maggie started. Maggie hadn't decided yet if she was dead or not, but she swore she could feel her heart pounding rapidly.
A tall, lean man stood leaning lazily against the open doors. A rather familiar man.
"Hey, didja Pop draw him!?" Willie muttered to Maggie excitedly, pointing at him.
The newcomer shared a striking resemblance to the sketch Sam drew. He did oddly look a little like honest Abe. But he didn't really look like he was possessed by demons. He did however look arrogantly smug, only slightly clouded by his undeniably handsome features. He openly sized up the chambermaid with gleaming, mischievous eyes. A smoldering and seductive look.
"Oh, Mr. Quentin." The blonde maid was clearly flustered by the abrupt way he'd burst through the doors. She found herself fiddling nervously on her feet. "Do you need anything, sir?"
"Were you eavesdropping, Beth?" the man called Quentin questioned her sharply.
Like Beth, he did not acknowledge Willie and Maggie's obvious presence.
"No, of course not!" the servant Beth denied, snootily pointing her nose at him.
"You liar." Quentin smirked, still leaning against the doors. He was utterly bemused. "I haven't encountered a maidservant yet who didn't stick her pesky nose where it didn't belong."
"I assure you Mr. Quentin I wasn't eavesdropping." Beth looked at him heatedly, her icy blue eyes defiantly challenging his own piercing blues. "I didn't hear any voices."
"Of course you didn't, I am alone," Quentin responded to her with a small, satisfied smile. "You were listening, weren't you?"
Beth didn't answer.
Willie and Maggie quietly watched them with confusion stretched across their hopeless faces.
"Don't you like my music, Beth?" Quentin asked her softly, as the music in question flowed powerfully out of the drawing room.
After a moment of tense hesitation, Beth uneasily answered, "I suppose there is something mesmerizing about it."
"I quite agree." Quentin grinned. "Why don't you join me?"
"Ms. Jenny may need my assistance," Beth exclaimed.
"Ms. Jenny is preoccupied with her etiquette lessons with Ms. Judith," Quentin smoothly countered.
"I know," said Beth. "She may need my help with her lessons."
She attempted to turn and leave.
"She will call if she needs you." Quentin's voice halted her on her heels. "Please join me in the drawing room." His voice softened. "I'm lonesome."
"But, Mr. Quentin..."
"I'd like to share your company this evening," Quentin cut her off. "I'd like to invite you to listen to my favorite song and have a drink of sherry. I'd like to know you better. I'd like to become friends, hopefully good friends. Not just indifferent strangers who pass by each other day after day in these dreary corridors. I honestly do want to get to know you better, Beth."
There seemed to be genuine sincerity in his voice. Beth silently considered this. She pensively decided to join him in the drawing room. "Very well, Mr. Quentin."
Grinning, Quentin gently began to shut the drawing room's doors, slowly shutting Willie and Maggie out.
"Please, call me Quentin," they heard him tell her as he finally shut the doors.
Just then, his haunting music assaulted Willie and Maggie in deafening force. The young couple found themselves cast into desolate, inky blackness once more. Seemingly, they were violently thrown out of that mysterious place. This time though, Willie tightly grabbed hold of Maggie's hand. He wouldn't be separated from her again.
Quentin's music continued violently hounding them at full blast through the stifling blackness. Willie and Maggie whimpered in each other's arms. They wanted to scream out loud but found their throats were too petrified.
Another burst of music thrust through the agonizing phantom song. A tingling melody. A recognizable song released from an antique music box. For once, Willie and Maggie were glad to hear the delicate tune they had otherwise grown immensely sick of.
"Willie, Maggie." A familiar woman's caring voice reached out to them.
"Josette," Maggie murmured, relieved.
"Follow my voice," Josette instructed them. "This way."
The couple gladly did as they were told. They couldn't see anything, but they took small, tentative steps. They clung to each other's hands as they gradually trudged their way through the unnatural blackness.
"That is right, come closer," encouraged Josette's serene ladylike voice. "Closer." Josette's song began to overpower the sinister gramophone chords. "Closer."
Like a veil being lifted over their heads, the inky, shadowy blackness instantly evaporated. Willie and Maggie found themselves back in the foyer, the one they started out in. The golden garland was once more dressing the hardwood banister, and the enigmatic shovel man statuette was back in his place on the table.
The combating songs drifted into a quiet somber echo and then there was blissful silence.
"You are safe now." Josette's elegant voice whispered softly through the old walls.
Willie and Maggie felt her tingling presence drifting out of the foyer, lightly swaying the chandelier above them.
"Josette," Maggie murmured, her heart racing.
All the while, Willie felt slightly queasy.
As Josette's ghost drifted out of the foyer, a spiky chill instantly crawled down their spines. It was a sharp invasive feeling like they were being marked. The two stared at each other with bulging eyes.
"JOSETTE!" Willie yelled.
"You two look like you've just been swallowed up by shadows and had a wild glimpse into the past."
The couple's startled gaze shot up; Burke stared down at them from up the landing, leaning against the decorated banister. Willie and Maggie gazed at the business man mystified.
"Vicki and I made the exact same faces when it happened to us," Burke explained.
"You and Vicki went through that, too?" Maggie uttered, shooting up a brow.
"Not only that, we were apparently shanghaied by this house's damn shadows." Burke descended down the staircase. "The Collinses from the past couldn't see us. It was like we were ghosts to them."
"It was just like that for us, too," said Maggie in wonder.
"I heard Willie yell out Josette's name." Burke stepped down to the bottom landing and joined the couple by the large table. "Did she lead you both through those shadows and away from that damnable gramophone music?"
"She help ya out with that, too?" Willie muttered.
"She graced us with her trademark music box tune and left immediately afterwards," quipped Burke. "Vicki saw her out the window in the lounge of the West Wing. She didn't show herself to me. Did any of you see her?"
"Um, no," Maggie said awkwardly. "We heard her music and then she called out to us."
Maggie didn't want to say anything else. She and Willie found themselves bashful of the fact that they were sort of friends with Josette's ghost.
"You two are clearly shaken up," Burke observed.
The couple were still clinging to each other.
"We thought we died, Devlin," Willie muttered lowly.
"Well, let's move to the drawing room," the business man gently suggested. "You could do with a little brandy."
He ushered them into the drawing room. The couple seated themselves on the couch, gladly soaking in the warmth from the fireplace. Burke raided Roger's brandy, pouring two glasses. Burke headed for the couch and handed Willie and Maggie their drinks.
Maggie stared at the swirling liquor with no comment, while Willie had no qualms about gulping his down.
"Please be honest and straight with me," Burke pleaded with them. "Did you see Laura in the past?"
"Laura?" Maggie frowned. "As in Laura Collins?"
Willie narrowed his eyes quizzically. "Who's Laura Collins?"
Burke gave Willie a solemn look.
"She was Roger's ex-wife and David's mother," Maggie explained to him helpfully, hoping to take the pressure off Burke. "She was here in town a little before you and Jason arrived. She acted pretty strange. She was always telling this wild story about a powerful and mystical bird called the Phoenix. This bird has the ability to burn itself alive and rise up from the ashes anew."
"A flamin' bird?" Sparks of recognition lit up Willie's eyes. He vividly recalled Sarah telling him and Maggie back during their imprisonment at the Old House of a flaming bird who was also David's mother. Willie always thought that was one of the strangest things Sarah ever said. But then that dead kid was pretty strange all by herself.
"Vicki found records of a woman named Laura living multiple past lives," Maggie continued. She still hadn't took a sip of her brandy. "Evidently, you can do that with Phoenix fire bird powers. Each of the Lauras died in a fire. Vicki speculated that Laura really did live for centuries, rising herself up from those ashes. Laura later disappeared when a fishing shack burned down, and David nearly died."
"Laura and I go way back," Burke admitted to Willie. "But that was a long time ago."
Willie nodded. He supposed this Laura chick was Burke's Angelique.
"You know, I keep having this distinct feeling about Laura lately," Burke confided. "I think I have since Vicki found that portrait in the West Wing. The one she showed you both the night we were touring the area."
Willie almost jolted. He still felt a little weird about stealing the witch's portrait from Roger's bedroom, only to have his larceny supernaturally thwarted by witchcraft.
"It reminded you of that portrait Pop created of Laura, didn't it, Burke?" Maggie commented thoughtfully.
"Honestly, yes," Burke admitted.
"It reminded me of that, too." Maggie nodded.
"Huh?" Willie looked at Maggie yet more quizzically.
"Pop made numerous portraits of Laura against his will." Maggie sighed. "They were provocative portraits of Laura semi-nude and surrounded in flames. David was later added into them, but Pop was not responsible for that. One of them burned Pop's hands pretty severely, and nearly burned down our cottage."
Willie looked at her wide-eyed.
"There was something unnatural and mesmerizing about those portraits," Burke spoke. "I think the portrait Vicki found was almost cut from the same cloth."
"But the lady in Vicki's portrait is not naked, err -" he took a quick glance at Maggie - "I-I mean – p-provocative, and she's not causin' any fires."
"I did say 'almost', Willie," Burke said lightly. "But still, there's something about Vicki's portrait that's rather off-putting."
Willie never saw any of the Phoenix's portraits, but he more then knew that the witch's portrait harbored abilities of its own. It after all vanished out of the Old House and back into Roger's bedroom unharmed. This after Willie watched Barnabas manically shred it to pieces and burn the scraps. But thankfully now Barnabas had possession of the portrait after he somehow pulled his own supernatural contrivance.
"But tell me," Burke desperately cut through his wandering thoughts. "Did you two see Laura?"
"No," Maggie assured him. "We only saw Quentin and Beth."
"Quentin and Beth?" Burke frowned.
"Yes," Maggie answered gently. "That's who we saw."
"Did Quentin resemble Abe Lincoln?" Burke asked.
"Yeah," Willie answered eagerly. "Ya saw Quentin?"
"Vicki and I saw him along with Laura when those shadows whisked us off to the past," Burke informed them. "We also saw a woman who looked spookily like Liz, and an older Collins they called Grandmama."
"Did you see Beth?" Maggie queried him.
"No, but we did see Quentin's bride Jenny when he introduced her to the Liz-look-alike, whom apparently was his sister, and the grandmother."
Maggie knitted her brows in deep thought. Jenny. That name ringed of recent familiarity. In a shivering flash, Maggie recalled the ghosts of Carl and Rachel addressing that unhinged mad ghost woman with the feral, savaged mane as Jenny up in the freezing tower room. Maggie could never forget the intense creepiness of the damaged dolls she'd clutched so protectively.
"Vicki did some research and found that Quentin Collins was Liz and Roger's great uncle," Burke supplied. "Who's this Beth that you two saw him with?"
"She was a maid who seemed to have worked here," Maggie exclaimed.
"Quentin was hittin' on her," Willie added.
After all of his years on the streets, not to mention being friends with Jason, Willie knew a womanizer when he saw one.
"But they did talk about Jenny a little," said Maggie.
"Hmm," Burke merely responded. "Likely a sign he wasn't a loyal husband to Jenny."
"Burke, you mentioned that you and Vicki heard gramophone music?" Maggie asked him.
"Yes," Burke answered.
"Do you think it's possible this could all be connected to Quentin?" Maggie suggested.
"How do you mean?" asked Burke.
"We all saw him in the past," Maggie explained. "We heard gramophone music. Strange and frightening things are going on in the West Wing. I'm not for sure if you are aware of what is going on over there, Burke, but that place is haunted."
Burke listened to her intently. "As crazy as it sounds, I'm beginning to think so, too, Maggie. After that bizarre shadow incident and Josette rescuing us. Since it now seems to be happening down here, perhaps this whole damn ancestral house is haunted."
"What if the shadows are connected to Quentin," suggested Maggie.
"Why Quentin exactly?" asked Burke.
"Well, there is one other thing," said Maggie. "A man named Victor Fenn-Gibbon commissioned Pop to paint a portrait of some forgotten man from another time." She roughly exhaled. "Pop's sketch of this man looks just like Quentin."
Burke's dark eyes widened.
The sound of the front doors bursting open in the foyer reached them through the shut doors of the drawing room.
"We're home!" announced the bright exuberant voice of Carolyn.
"You two wait here." Burke left the drawing room and shut the doors to greet Vicki and Carolyn.
"M-Maggie," Willie whispered beside her, nervously clutching her shoulder. "Didja feel the chill go down ya back!?"
"When we returned from wherever it was we came back from?" Maggie asked.
"Yeah." Willie nodded anxiously.
"Yes, I did, Willie," Maggie admitted. "It felt like a stinging stroke trailing down my spine."
"I had that feeling before, Maggie," Willie told her. "Back at the Old House."
"When Josette and Jeremiah possessed our bodies." Maggie squeezed shut her eyes.
"Is that gonna happened again?" Willie murmured softly.
"I don't see why they would," said Maggie. "They have no reason to. Unless Josette has another lover's spat with Barnabas."
"I hope they don't fight," said Willie.
Burke returned to the drawing room with Vicki and Carolyn trailing him. Likely, he'd informed the two young women of Willie and Maggie's crazy trip into Collinwood's past. Vicki and Carolyn were clearly eager to hear whatever Willie and Maggie had to say.
Over in the West Wing, Josette felt gleefully triumphant for finally being able to float through the gloomy corridors of the Great House once more. The ghost lady would take great pleasure in finally cleansing away the witch's insidious memory from the family home.
But the supernatural activity in the West Wing had made itself strongly apparent for quite some time now. It had been grasping for Vicki, Burke, Willie and Maggie. Little Sarah had also informed her of the phantom telephone tormenting David.
Josette knew she couldn't put all this aside much longer. Now that she was able to move freely inside Collinwood. She needed to inspect this section of the Collins family's very extended dark secrets.
Having haunted the Collins estate for nearly two centuries, Josette had an inkling as to what this violent and tragic secret could be.
As her glistening form glided down through the dark, dusty, forbidden corridors, the thick cobwebs swaying from the shadowy rafters above, Josette spotted the ghost of a blonde woman guarding a wall sealing off a powerful prisoner.
The curly blonde ghost stared in surprised as the elder spirit elegantly floated up to her. The skirt of her flowing white gown gracefully billowed around her ankles.
"You are not Rachel Drummond," the blonde ghost observed.
"I am Josette Collins," she informed her. "The spiritual mistress of the Collins estate. Are you a Collins?"
"No, my name is Beth Chavez. I was a servant here."
"I see," Josette spoke softly. "Your prisoner is a Collins," she added knowingly.
"Yes," Beth confirmed. Her amazed eyes never trailed away from the spiritual mistress. "I saw your portrait at the Old House long ago – when I was alive. But I never realized how much you resemble Rachel Drummond. I understand why Mr. Carl so deeply thought so."
"I do not know a Rachel Drummond," Josette told her demurely. "But I am well associated with Carl Collins. He conspired with me to banish the witch."
"Yes, I've heard," said Beth.
"Who are you guarding?" Josette questioned.
"A cursed man."
"A spiteful man." Josette gave her a knowing look.
"Oh, it's a long story." Beth sighed despairingly.
"The man I love was also a danger to this family," Josette said gently. "I struggled greatly to keep him under control."
Beth looked at her surprised.
Josette continued. "Is there no better method to keep your prisoner under control? I know he has been struggling to gain control of this house."
"I sent Mr. Carl to get help," said Beth.
"Who?"
"Sandor and Magda Rokosi," Beth explained. "They're gypsies who can sustain order in this wing."
"When will Carl retrieve them?" asked Josette.
Beth narrowed her sad eyes. "It shouldn't be too long."
Calming waves gently swayed up the shores of a smooth, sandy beach. This was not the snowy shores of Maine, let alone the rocky cliffs of Widows Hill. This was a foreign and exotic beach. But at the moment it was lifeless. There was not a living soul around.
But not all souls are living. There were presently two souls gliding down the shore close together.
Carl had endured an unexpectedly long and arduous search to locate his sweet Pansy. He couldn't find her anywhere in the afterlife. He thought she must be haunting around somewhere in the mortal realm. She clearly didn't haunt Collinwood or anywhere near Collinsport. Normally a ghost declining to haunt those hollowed grounds would be considered unusual. But in this case it was no surprise.
Carl's snotty family held a prudish disdain for his beloved Pansy. They didn't want her around the Great House. Carl deeply resented how they always lifted their pompous noses at her, dismissing her as a tawdry show girl who only wanted to marry into the family's fortune.
Fuming anger coursed through the ghost. Pansy Faye was not a scheming gold digger. She was no cheap show girl, either. She was an incredible woman with an extraordinary talent. A natural gift that few were born with. The gift of foresight. Pansy Faye was also blessed with a heavenly singing voice and the graceful, spinning dance steps to go along with it.
She actually entertained Queen Victoria! No cheap dancer would ever be bestowed with so high an honor.
But Pansy Faye was much more than just an entertainer. She was the love of Carl Collins life. In life and even in death. It was hurtful and infuriating that his family still spitefully refused to accept the woman who showed him a more magical side of life. Something he wouldn't have ever guessed existed before he'd met her. Something that was more fantastic and dazzling, as opposed to the dark, startling gloom of Collinwood.
Carl often wondered why he and Pansy even bothered leaving Atlantic City. It was the only place they'd been truly happy.
Setting aside that issue, Carl searched for his Pansy in her native London. He met a handful of cockney spirits who spoke in the most wonderful dialect, and entertained him with horror-inducing vaudeville acts. Pansy was sadly not among them.
Carl then searched Paris – Moscow – still no Pansy.
It then dawned on him to try another place. A place that was not of this earth nor of its afterlife. It existed on another plane entirely. To humans and to some ghosts it was a very terrifying place. It was a slither of existence between life and death.
This particular realm was not sinister on the surface. It took on the form of a somewhat creepy, but unassuming hotel. An establishment shrouded in bold, wonderfully unnatural shades of purples, pinks and dark blues.
It was a half-way house for ghosts who clung between life and death. When the ghosts accepted death they were free to move on.
This realm was run by a rather mysterious man named Mr. Best. A man who always claimed he was Death.
Carl always thought Mr. Best was a bit peculiar. He wasn't a ghost, an angel, a demon or human. He always dressed impeccably and always had a sharp sense of style. Not just in his dark suits and bowler hats, but also in how he decorated his unearthly hotel. Its bold lighting and colors, with liberal use of silk fabrics tied together by eclectic, yet elegant furniture.
But Mr. Best always carried himself with the appropriately ominous gravitas of a soul collecting death hotel manager. He obviously adored his job.
When Carl arrived at the hotel, he immediately sensed his Pansy.
Racing through the darkly purple and pink lobby, Carl brashly ventured down the blood-red corridors. He took a quick peek inside a silver ballroom through the small crack of its grand double doors. A large glistening room, Mr. Best sat sedately inside, listening to slow tingling music. He was admiring a attractive young woman wearing a puffy pink dress and copious amounts of glamorous makeup and jewelry. Presumably, the woman had just received these pretty baubles. She was clearly high class and vain. Carl didn't recognize her but stared all the same. She was not real. She seemed to have existed in some man's fantasy. She wasn't human or a ghost or anything for that matter. She seemed like someone who popped out of a painting.
Growing disinterested, Carl moved along, allowing Mr. Best to enjoy his feminine company. Company that was unsettling, even to a ghost.
Dashing passed a row of seemingly needless green pillars, Carl finally found his Pansy. She was sitting at an ornate glass patio table out on a stone carved terrace, looking out onto a massive cavernous cave. It was like a labyrinth with many pathways. It had cobwebs of abominable size, with even more abominable arachnids skittering across the dark stalactites littering the ceilings. Carl could just make out a precarious looking bridge that was very far-off in the distance. Carl didn't really care why this cave was on Mr. Best's ethereal premises, but it was strange that it was here.
All that mattered was he'd finally found his beloved. He hadn't seen her in so long. But Pansy was not alone.
Charity Trask accompanied her at the glass table. A thin woman who resembled Carl's ancestor Millicent Collins and descendant Carolyn Stoddard, Charity however didn't hold herself as attractively as those two women. She was rather plain, wearing her long blonde hair in a flat bun. She didn't dress fancily like Millicent, or stylishly like Carolyn. She was content wearing a brown, boring dress with no makeup to mar her dour expression. She had her repressed blue eyes transfixed on a crystal ball sitting in the middle of the table.
Pansy was also deeply peering into it. She was the total opposite of Charity. The English woman wore a flashy black and pink dress, with her brightly pink feathery boa draped around her bare, slender shoulders. She'd painted her face in heavy makeup, and set up her blonde locks in a loose, more stylish bun. Most of all she didn't look like no one from the mortal realm. So unlike many members of his crazy family and the odd people in Collinsport. She was gloriously just Pansy.
"Can you honestly peer into my future merely by looking into this glass ball?" Charity questioned Pansy skeptically.
"Why, 'o course, love!" Pansy answered her giddily. "Ya talkin' to the most gifted and talented mentalist in all 'o London!"
"I simply don't understand why you want to look into my future," Charity exclaimed. "You and I are dead. We have no futures."
"Why, Charity Trask!" The brassy mentalist huffed. "We 'ave been mates for so long. I am truly gobsmacked you hadn't picked up a sense 'o humor in all of this time!"
"We have no future, Pansy," Charity argued rationally. "We are dead."
"I fail to see how that means you 'ave no future," Pansy countered. "I read plenty 'o ghost's futures, I did!"
"You have?" Charity raised a dubious brow.
"Why, 'o course!" Pansy claimed brightly.
"Pansy!" Carl couldn't contain his joy any longer. He just had to wrap his arms around the woman he loved.
"Carl!" Pansy ecstatically flew out of her chair and kissed Carl passionately.
Charity was scandalized by this crude display of affection.
"Oh, I missed you desperately, Pansy!" Carl practically squealed.
"I miss ya, too, love," Pansy affectionately returned. "So tell me. 'Ave ya finally persuade ya family to let me haunt Collinwood with 'em?"
Carl lowered an embarrass and defeated gaze. "Well, no."
"No?" Pansy was appalled.
"But my family does need you, Pansy," Carl murmured. "We need your gift to locate the gypsies Sandor and Magda Rokosi."
"Why?" Pansy hotly placed her hands on her hips.
"It's Quentin," Carl explained ruefully. "He's haunting Collinwood. He's really bad, Pansy."
"Quentin is causing evil?" Charity spoke from the table.
"He's attacking my family's descendants," Carl said to her.
"Oh, how tragic," Pansy said sadly. "There was a time when me an' Charity fancied Quentin Collins. 'Course, what girl didn't!" She giggled. "He was such a handsome and tortured man."
"Quentin's ghost is evil!" Carl said affronted. "And he always has been evil!"
"Now, now, there's no need to be jealous, love," Pansy told her fiance calmly. "I'll help ya contain 'im."
Carl felt reassured by her words. After they awkwardly bade farewell to Charity, who seemed slightly concerned for Quentin, the dead lovers departed from the death hotel, when Pansy abruptly paused. Her eyes were vacant and narrow, a vision apparently coming to her.
"What is it, Pansy?" Carl asked her frantically.
"I see a beach," Pansy uttered mysteriously, her eyes hazy. "Two gypsies are enjoin' a holiday."
Carl gasped excitedly. "Sandor and Magda!" he cried. "You found them! Oh, darling, let's go to this beach at once!"
Carl had never been more proud to call Pansy Faye his eternal beloved. Beth Chavez was right. Once Pansy tapped into her psychic abilities she'd located Sandor and Magda almost immediately. Too bad her helpful vision didn't come with directions. Carl and Pansy had searched countless beaches in at least ten different countries.
"I only get the visions, gov'nor," Pansy said defensively when Carl griped in Bermuda. "I am not a map!"
Finally, they arrived in Romania. In hindsight, the two couldn't believed they didn't think to check this country first, considering it was the Rokosis homeland! But at least they thought to check this beach, which unfortunately, seemed to be another dead end.
Carl figured there might be more Romanian beaches worth checking, but he then realized his fiancee was rather – melancholy.
"Pansy?" He tenderly grasped her hunched shoulder.
Pansy gazed into his eyes with a fiery, yet disappointed gleam. "Why can't you do it, Carl?"
"Do what, Pansy?" He was taken aback.
"Why can't ya convince ya bleedin' family to let me haunt Collinwood with ya!" Pansy argued. "I got a history with Quentin Collins, I have! I can be of service in containin' his ghost!"
"I've been trying to convince them, darling," Carl murmured. "And I'm still arguing on your behalf. I don't like being away from you. I missed you desperately. But my descendants needed my protection from a witch. My ancestor Josette Collins actually thinks I'm worth something. I needed to prove my worth."
"Oh, I'm very happy to hear that Carl, dear," Pansy said gently. "And I miss ya, too! But we are a team, you and me. Your prudish family has gotta accept that!"
"Yes, they do," Carl agreed. "Maybe if we impress Josette. Surely, that'll be enough for you to come to Collinwood."
"I hope so," Pansy said heavily. "After all, all we ever been is a team. Considerin', I'll never get the honor of marryin' ya."
Sadness and heavy regret weighed down between them. But Pansy instantly brightened and scoffed. "Oh, no use dwellin' on what could 'ave been! We got gypsies to find! Maybe once we find 'em, I'll 'ave proven my worth to ya clan, love."
With that, Carl found his mood brightened, too. With new-found optimism, the dead couple spotted Sandor and Magda sitting up the beach, relaxing on the soft sands of the shore. Utterly delighted, they quickly glided up to the gypsies in a quick rush. Sandor and Magda still wore their brightly colored gypsy attire, as they'd always worn in life. They gave out welcoming smiles at the approaching younger couple.
"Look who's 'ere, Magda!" Sandor said boisterously. "Zee Collins with zee gypsy heart."
"Wish to 'ave ya fortune told, Mr. Collins," Magda offered.
"Oi! He has me for that!" Pansy playfully countered with a laugh.
Magda laughed heartily. "Of course."
"Actually, Magda, Beth sent me," Carl filled in. "You are badly needed at Collinwood. It's Quentin."
"Quentin?" The gypsy woman arched a pointed brow. "The maidservant Beth has 'im imprisoned, yes?"
"Yes, but he's gaining power in the West Wing, and is tormenting one of my young descendants with a telephone," Carl explained urgently. "He wants to be master of the house. He's also haunted several people even without leaving his prison."
"Izn't Beth stoppin' 'im?" Magda inquired.
"She still has him sealed behind the wall," said Carl. "But Quentin is getting stronger, and Beth is at her wits' end. She had to lay Jenny to rest."
"Jenny?" Surprised emotion welled up in Magda's face and voice.
"She was at Collinwood," Carl informed her. "She terrified two servants. Beth had to calm her and lay her back to rest."
Magda grew distressed. "Oh, zat's no good!"
Way down deep in a drastically different realm, broken echoes of agony coursed through Angelique.
Locked tightly away in a dark cavernous cell in the unholy netherworld, the witch, still an ancient, ugly hag, leaned despairingly against the jagged wall of her latest cell, curling herself up on the uneven rocky ground.
Her white matted hair veiled her soulless, watery eyes. Her shriveled, decaying body was searing with unbearable pain. She had just been tortured by Diabolos' wretched minions. The depraved demonic henchmen used a crude elemental device on her, the element she both loathed and feared terribly. The element of fire.
Severe burns smoldered all over her cursed body. One huge black burn scorched the left side of her haggard face. She rested her head painfully against the uncomfortably jagged wall, wallowing helplessly in excruciating torment.
Hums of cruel devilish singing echoed throughout the cavernous netherworld, bouncing off the jagged walls and darkened ceilings. Smoky red lighting unnaturally shrouded this evil realm.
As Angelique continued to uncomfortably rest her matted, sweat-drenched head against the jagged wall, her vision went blurry. She felt feverish and may have gone delirious. Searing burning still coursed through her entire body. Her wrinkly flesh felt as though it was literally melting off her bones. Angelique wished she would finally just rot into a skeleton. But she knew she was already dead. This was her punishment for that.
A voice came to her. A suave, masculine, voice. "It is indeed true. One of my children has come back to hell."
At the sound of his voice, Angelique immediately shot open her weary eyes.
Through the dark red light and leering shadows, Angelique saw a man peering through the red hot iron bars of her cell. A young man in nineteenth century clothing; a blue suit with a ruffled dress shirt and sleeves. He was of medium build with piercing blue eyes and fluffy brown hair.
Angelique was unfamiliar with this face, but centuries ago she knew this man intimately well. He was a man who forever changed her world. Made her into the woman she'd become. The man who introduced her to dark magic. She'd never known him wearing this handsome face. Yet, he never knew her wearing this scorched, wrinkling one. But they would always know one another. It was instinct.
"Now I know I really am in hell," the witch wheezed.
"Oh, Miranda," Judah Zachery gloated bluntly. "I never thought I'd see the day when I was more attractive than you."
Angelique winced. She hadn't been addressed as Miranda for – a very, very long time. It was a name she was desperate to forget. She found herself longing to erase the memory of her former mentor's ugly mug as well. His true face. Somehow he'd received a fresh, new one. Angelique didn't know how he could have possibly acquired it.
"I see you found a new, robust body," the witch weakly commented, still painfully cowering from her spot in the back of the cell.
"He was a greedy, magnificent snake," Judah boasted proudly.
"A perfect body for you," Angelique managed to chirp in.
"And likewise for you," Judah countered, gleefully eyeing her tortured, haggard appearance.
"To what do I owe the displeasure of your unwelcome presence, Judah," Angelique griped pitifully.
"Why, the glorious sight of my treacherous pupil rotting in hell with such a fittingly, ugly face." Judah's ill-gotten handsome face smirked.
"Why aren't you rotting?" Angelique demanded incredulously.
"The Master and I share an understanding," Judah explained. "He is quite pleased that despite your treachery and my eventual defeat in the year 1840, the Collins family are still cursed under my dark shadows. Clearly, so are you."
Angelique paused, taking in his words.
Billowing green smoke began circling around her, faintly carrying an indistinct voice. It sounded like the voice was intoning an unholy incantation.
"You seem to have been given yet another chance." Judah eyed the unnatural, billowing smoke around his former pupil. "But with your constant blunders, you are highly unworthy of it."
Angelique didn't let the snipe sting her. The cool fireless smoke was gloriously carrying her away. Away from the netherworld and Diabolos' malicious torture. And away from Judah's pompous taunts. She swiftly jumped into the swirling vortex leading inside the burning hearth of a modest fireplace.
Angelique instantly realized she had been summoned. As she fell through the vortex, Angelique was quite surprised by the face who summoned her. Through the licking green flames of the hearth, Angelique made out the smug, pointed features of Nicholas Blair.
Once the billowing smoke fully materialized her in a dark, gloomy parlor in some cold abandoned house, Nicolas grinned at her deviously.
"Nicholas," Angelique spoke softly. "You are the one that got me out of the netherworld?"
"Why, yes indeed, my dear," Nicholas answered in a chipper tone. "I freed you from the Master's imprisonment. I even took the liberty of making you young and beautiful again."
Angelique paused. She gazed down at her hands. The shriveled wrinkled skin, white hairs and liver spots were all gone. Her hands were now smooth, young and flawless. Her agonizing burns seemed to have gone as well. She slowly raised her hands to her face. Her skin was soft, silky and smooth. Nothing like the harsh sandpaper skin of that unrecognizable crone.
But what didn't return was Angelique's golden locks. She still had Cassandra Collins' short brunette hairdo. She was also still in her drab hospital garb from Windcliff.
"Nicholas, why did you rescue me? It's been eons since we last saw each other."
"Why, the answer to that is quite simple," Nicholas said jovially. "The pleasure of having you as my slave."
Angelique's sparkling, grateful face instantly fell. "Your slave!" She grew sickened.
"Angelique, you are one of the most gifted witches I've ever met, but your loyalty to the Master is highly questionable," Nicholas said scornfully.
"I haven't betrayed Diabolos," Angelique argued, enraged. "The ghost of Ben Stokes and that wench of a mistress damaged my portrait!"
"That's not what really happened, and you know it!" Nicholas shot at her heatedly. "Your judgment is greatly muddled!"
"I don't know what you mean!" Angelique spat.
"You're in love with your greatest achievement," Nicholas said evenly. "You love Barnabas Collins. Our kind is high above such revolting sentimentality."
Angelique glared at him in utter hatred. "I never hated a man as much as I hate Barnabas Collins." She seethed.
"Then why has your curse been lifted off of him!" Nicholas demanded shortly.
"My curse shall forever cling to him," Angelique hissed.
Nicholas smirked at her, amused. "You know, my dear, I may grant you the opportunity to demonstrate that claim. 'May' being the key word, of course."
As the winter evening sky enshrouds the gothic Great House on the crest of Widows Hill, the ghost of little Sarah was absolutely dazzled by the shiny, noisy toys that the newly rejuvenated David Collins played with on the flagstone floors of the second story corridor. The boy happily rolled his fire engine back and forth, blaring its alarm at the highest possible volume, while simultaneously ramming his equally noisy toy robot Robo against the fire engine, blaring its own noise and flashing its yellow lights.
The ghost girl was curiously transfixed. None of her dolls or toy soldiers had ever caused this sort of amazing ruckus.
"Why is the loud red wagon hitting the flashing metal man?" Sarah queried David.
"The fire fighters are trying to save the city from Robo," David explained, engrossed with his playing.
"But we're not in a city, David," Sarah said perplexed. "We're in a corridor."
"It's a pretend city, Sarah," David grumbled.
"I don't know what that means," said the little ghost. "But do you suppose your toys would like for me to play my flute for them?"
"Go ahead." David roughly rammed his two toys together continuously.
Beaming, Sarah materialized her beloved flute out of thin air and began playing her favorite song "London Bridge." Through all the various loud playing noises, neither child heard tentative footsteps heading their way.
"What's all this infernal racket?"
David gazed up as Sarah ceased her flute playing.
The robe-clad Roger, with blood-shot eyes and flyaway pillow hair, towered over them. The wealthy man was obviously worse for wear.
"Father," David told him cheerily. "I'm feeling so much better now, and I can talk again!"
"Wonderful, David, splendid," Roger mumbled, groggily rubbing his throbbing temple as he moved passed, nearly tripping on Robo. Luckily, David managed to move his toy before the unfortunate accident occurred.
Once Roger disappeared down the dark, dreary corridor, David looked at Sarah anxiously. "Wait a minute, did Father see you?"
"I don't know," Sarah replied airily. "Do you think that girl would like your toys?"
"What girl?" David stared at her dubiously.
"The girl with the red hair who lives on the grounds," Sarah reminded him.
"Oh, you mean Amy Jennings," David muttered. "I don't think so. Girls don't like robots and toy fire engines."
"How come?" Sarah tilted her head to the side.
"Beats me." David shrugged.
He resumed ramming his fire engine and robot noisily against each other.
With the painful searing of a drill penetrating through his alcohol-soaked brain, Roger groggily journeyed his way through the corridors and made his way down into the foyer. He took slow careful steps down the treacherous staircase. He then headed into the drawing room and was surprised to find Carolyn, Vicki and Burke sitting on the couch, engaged in a close quiet discussion with Willie Loomis and Maggie Evans, who nestled by the fire.
"Oh, enjoying a communion with the peasants?" Roger quipped to the trio on the couch.
"Was that aimed at me and Willie?" Maggie asked the hungover man.
"Are there any other peasants in this room?" Roger inquired.
Burke chuckled lightly as Vicki raised her hand like a schoolgirl.
Maggie supposed that despite being enchanted by an evil femme fatale, Roger Collins was still keeping himself spry. Unfortunately he was still Roger Collins. He'd clearly had a bender.
"Speaking of peasants, where are the caterers?" queried Roger.
"We assumed the Christmas shindig was off," said Burke.
"Nonsense," Roger scoffed. "We need some cheer in this house. The Christmas party shall commence."
Carolyn daintily got off the couch and gently approached her disheveled uncle. "Are you sure you really want to throw this party, Uncle Roger? We all know you wanted to throw it for Cassandra."
"She wasn't the sole reason," Roger stoically told his niece. "And besides, I know you were looking forward to the party, kitten. You wanted to get all dressed up and feel glamorous. I say we badly need this party."
"Oh, Uncle Roger." Carolyn pulled her delicate uncle into a gentle hug.
"This could be the perfect excuse to get Prof. Stokes in this house," Burke whispered to Vicki on the couch.
"I'm going to speak with Mrs. Stoddard." As Vicki got up to leave the drawing room, Roger made a beeline to his brandy decanter, only to be quickly halted by his concerned niece. "Uncle Roger, no!"
"You're hungover, Rog," Burke reminded him with a smirk. "You should lay off the sauce for at least twenty-four hours."
Roger groaned.
In the study, as a warm cozy fire burned in the hearth, a small decorative white package, complete with a pretty red ribbon tied up in a attractive bow, landed abruptly by Elizabeth's business papers on the desk.
Elizabeth started. She was startled by the invading package interrupting her work. She glanced up and found Bill's transparent ghost, drenched as usual in briny sea water and covered in glistening seaweed, grinning impishly in front of her desk. "Merry Christmas, Liz."
Elizabeth closely eyed the festive package. "You're giving me a present?"
"It is Christmas," Bill reasoned with a nonchalant shrug, his seaweed dangling carelessly about.
"How could you possibly buy me a gift?" Elizabeth furrowed her brow, flabbergasted. "You haven't any money. You're a ghost."
"I don't need any money," declared the cantankerous dead man.
Elizabeth found herself growing rather intrigued. "What do ghosts give out as gifts?"
"Open the damn box and find out for yourself," Bill eagerly implored her.
Somewhat cautiously, Elizabeth untied the red ribbon and slowly removed the lid of the package. Inside she found a little homemade heart made out of woven seaweed. She took it out of the package. It held together tightly and could be hung up on a wall or displayed on a Christmas tree. So long as her brother never saw it.
"Very charming," Elizabeth told Bill with a small smile. "I see you've put your assortment of seaweeds to good use."
"Ay-yuh," Bill confirmed.
"I must say I feel rather guilty right now," Elizabeth admitted. "I have nothing for you."
"I've got you and this massive house to haunt," Bill told her affectionately. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm the luckiest dead man in Collinsport."
"Oh." Elizabeth gazed up at him, her dark eyes softening. Bill held her gaze just as softly. Their eyes locked in fondness and deep affection. Elizabeth shifted her eyes from him, ending the unspoken moment. She retreated to her secure business-like manner. "Where is Jason now?"
"Sleeping it off at the ol' Collinsport Inn," Bill replied. "He got drunk and made a spectacle of himself."
"He would." Elizabeth sighed.
"It's mighty humorous how Roger got drunk last night, too, considerin' you brought McGuire here to spy on him," Bill commented. "But now that his terror of a wife is thankfully gone, is there still the need for Jason?"
"I think it's best that I have Roger watched for a little while longer," Elizabeth insisted. "I'm not entirely convinced that things are back to normal."
"Things are never normal here, Liz," Bill remarked.
A polite rapping crept from outside the office door, followed by Vicki's voice. "Mrs. Stoddard?"
Elizabeth returned her seaweed heart to its package and hid it in her desk. "Yes, Vicki."
The governess creaked open the study's door and found the matriarch sitting at her desk alone. But Elizabeth felt Bill's unseen presence right beside her. The strong smell of the sea that came with him was unmistakable.
Vicki shut the door and approached the front of the desk. "Mrs. Stoddard, Roger is out of bed," she reported loyally. "He's badly hungover, but he'll be alright."
"Good, thank you, Vicki," Elizabeth said simply.
"Also, Roger wants the caterers back," Vicki continued. "He still wants to throw the Christmas party."
At that news, Elizabeth began massaging her temples, sighing heavily.
"I know you're not very keen on the idea of the party," said Vicki. "But I think we need it. To help us get over that whole nightmare with Cassandra."
"To lift our morale," Elizabeth commented thoughtfully. "Yes, you're right."
"So you approve of the party?" asked Vicki.
"Yes," answered Elizabeth reluctantly.
"Oh, good." Vicki grinned, relieved. "If it's all right with you, can Carolyn and I invite Prof. Stokes to the party? He teaches at the collage."
"Of course," Elizabeth immediately replied.
"Mrs. Stoddard," Vicki began hesitantly. "There's something I need to tell. It's hard to believe, but I truly feel you need to know."
Elizabeth listened to her intently.
"The other day, Burke and I – well we got swallowed up by these strange, shifting shadows in the West Wing, and they showed us a vision from the past. The same thing happened to Willie and Maggie a little while ago."
Elizabeth was silent. That was an incredible claim.
"Mrs. Stoddard, we think this house is haunted," Vicki went on. "We hope that Prof. Stokes can help make some sense of all this."
"You know she's right, Liz," Bill's disembodied voice reached the matriarch's ears. "It goes without sayin' that I'm not the only spook here."
Willie and Maggie were again alone in the foyer of Collinwood. Burke went upstairs to check in on David, while Carolyn watched after Roger in the now shut off drawing room. The couple were understandably jumpy and reluctant to be alone in the foyer.
Maggie sat on top of the center table nervously, legs crossed, while Willie paced about warily, guarding against any unusual shadows.
The Collinses elaborate antique grandfather's clock chimed seven 'o clock. The winter night had now fully enveloped the Great House. The tacky candle lamp lit the room, warding off the house's mundane shadows.
"I wonder how a collage professor could possibly figure out all of these strange supernatural spooks haunting this house," Maggie suddenly spoke once the loud grandfather's clock finished its hourly chiming.
After telling Vicki and Carolyn about their shadowed time travel experience, the two young women informed them about seeing Prof. Stokes at the collage. It sounded like he was some sort of occult expert. They also described the séance that the professor conducted in class, and how a Collins ancestor used that to send a warning through Carolyn.
"I don't really get that, Maggie," Willie exclaimed, as he continued his uneasy pacing, rubbing the back of his head. "What is that professor gonna do when he sees one of those shadows, huh? Read a book at it?"
A knock sounded off at the front doors.
Maggie intended to move off the table, but Willie headed for the doors instead. "I'll get it."
"That's sweet of you." Maggie grinned. "Are you applying for my job here?"
"Maybe we can switch," Willie suggested lightly. "I'll be the cute maid, and you get all dusty in the West Wing."
Maggie scoffed.
Willie answered the doors and found Barnabas and Julia bundled up in their coats.
"Barnabas." Willie let him and Julia in and shut the doors.
"I see you two are alone," Barnabas said gladly.
"Ya need to talk to us?" Willie asked him.
"Willie, I come bearing tremendous news."
The former slave raised a brow. He'd never seen his former master look so – hopeful?
"The witch is gone," said Barnabas victoriously.
"Gone?" said Willie.
"Angelique has vanished." Barnabas grinned.
That was an odd sight for Willie. He never truly thought he'd see his old master crack something resembling a smile.
"How did she vanish?" Maggie questioned from the table.
"She seemingly died and disappeared out of thin air," Julia explained.
"I am finally rid of her," Barnabas said jubilantly. "My curse is finally lifted. And my family is also free from this ghastly burden. But I need you to find me the body of a deceased woman, Willie, and dress her as Cassandra. We do need evidence of her demise."
Before Willie could even react to this horrific, yet casual order, another knock sounded off at the front doors.
"Answer that, Willie," commanded Barnabas.
"Yes, Barnabas," Willie muttered, as he moved to the front doors.
When he opened them he felt as though his heart froze. He quickly moved aside so Barnabas could get a glimpse at the new visitors.
The former vampire's mortal heart broke to pieces. Standing gleefully in the doorway was Angelique posing as Cassandra. She was young and radiant again, donning a stylish short red winter coat. Beside her was the mysterious Nicholas Blair, garbed in his own stylish gray winter coat, with gloves and a scarf. A rather mocking and smug look etched on his greedy face.
"Hello, Barnabas." Cassandra smiled sweetly at him. "I'm back."
As Barnabas felt himself growing nauseously dead inside, Maggie badly wanted to kick him. He'd spoken too soon! Why must he jinx this?
Next Chapter: The Witch on the Collins Grounds