6
Vicki looked up from her bed as Carolyn sat by her. Her eyes darted around the room as she fretfully held her fingers distraughtly to her chin. The wet cloth to her head fell to her lap as Carolyn held it back up.
"Vicki, what happened?" Carolyn sounded concerned. "I just got home and found you in the hall. What happened?"
"I think I saw another ghost." Vicki knew how ridiculous she sounded. "It looked like the man in the portrait in the foyer, but... he was different somehow. More modern, perhaps."
"That's the first Barnabas Collins who went to England." Carolyn looked back at her disbelievingly. "I think you mean Cousin Barnabas, his descendant, but Vicki, he's still alive. He returned to England. If anything, you maybe saw his ancestor. They looked so much alike."
"Carolyn..." Victoria rose off her bed as she thought of the next thing to say, but then another thought pervaded her mind. "How'd I get in here?"
"I brought you in." Carolyn sat on the bed as she looked back at her. Her eyes met Vicki's as the young ingénue glanced back to her. "Do you want me to bring you something up to eat?"
"No, I..." Vicki rolled her eyes around the room as her world was being turned upside down around her. "You've never seen ghosts here?"
"None." Carolyn's response was short and brief and trapped in a whisper. The petite blonde stood up straight with a toss of her long blonde hair as her hand glided over her black sweater.
"Then why am I seeing them?"
"The prodigal daughter is home." Carolyn slightly leaned in with a grin. "They're excited to have you home." Carolyn stood up straight. "I better get your dinner reheated."
"Carolyn?"
"Yes?"
"Will you be eating with me?" Vicki watched as Carolyn opened her mouth to say something, but then stood there with her lips partially apart.
"If that's what you want…" The heiress answered back; her voice trailing off a bit disconcertingly.
Vicki watched as her secretive sister glided out on the proverbial wings of her feet. She sat on her bed a second and folded her arms as her mind ran over so many of the vague puzzle pieces around her that didn't fit together. A half-sister who preferred the night who didn't eat. Spirits that roamed the house but never crossed her path. A seemingly deserted house where she was pretty much cut off from town. The friend of the cab driver who came up here and vanished. A date she had never seen. She suddenly remembered something else. Barnabas's ghost wasn't exactly trying to scare her. He was trying to show her something in the west wing. Was there something in there she had to see?
"Maybe that's where she keeps her coffin..." Vicki mumbled to herself partially in jest as she realized it made a bit of sense. She had seen a few vampire films in her time. The idea of living vampires sounded ridiculous, but then so was the idea of a person being alone so far from town in this foreboding edifice.
Vicki slid off her bed and opened the jewelry box she had brought from the foundling home. Her favorite nurse, Ida McDonald, had given her a necklace she wore only on special occasions. It was a small silver cross on a silver chain. She linked it around her neck as she looked into the mirror. She wondered if Carolyn had a reflection.
Stepping from her room, she glanced at the west wing door a second then looked back down the hall. She silently jaunted up to it unseen as she tested the doorknob and nervously turned it. It was locked.
"Vicki," Carolyn puttered around the kitchen as a would-be culinary maestro as she saw Vicki come down the back stairs. "Do you like eggplant?"
"That's fine." Vicki noticed the solitary plate being prepared out of habit. She realized she was being fattened up for the kill. Exuberant and carefree, Carolyn had to be the most lively undead that she had ever seen. She watched as the lethal blonde opened the oven as the scent of baking chicken pervaded the kitchen.
"Do you prefer something other than wine?" Carolyn passed before her again. "I don't drink it myself, but I never thought to ask you if you preferred something else." She paused and stared at Vicki's necklace.
"That's lovely." Her small hand even held it up off of the front of Vicki's blouse. "Can I try it on?"
"What? You mean it..."
"This is so beautiful." Carolyn took the necklace and draped it around her neck as she left the kitchen. Standing before a mirror in the dimly lit dining room, she watched the candlelight flickering off the cross in the mirror as Carolyn pulled some super-model gestures. She lifted up her waist-length blonde hair and flirted with her reflection as Vicki appeared behind her.
"Joe Haskell, you are mine tonight." Carolyn growled at her image. "Vicki, can I borrow this tonight? Please, I won't let anything happen to it."
"What?" Vicki quickly pulled herself together. "Oh, um, sure." She watched Carolyn grin back to her as she planned for the heiress's departure. The second she was gone, she was going to break into the west wing!