Chapter 8
Collinwood Beach
The angry skies above were at war with the sea below. The whitecaps fought with the wind and the waves rolled with a ferocity to the shore. Vicki walked along the beach watching her footsteps disappear with each wash of the waves. Folding her arms over her chest she hugged the warmth of her body. The sting of the salty sea lay its briny kiss upon her lips and washed her face with an occasional splash of the ocean. Her thoughts were lost to her moment of sadness at finding out she was not pregnant. She had built her hopes high that she would be able to give Barnabas a child. Watching a bit of flotsam on the waves she saw how valiantly it fought to stay afloat in the storm tossed seas. Something in her compelled her to hope that it would succeed and make its way to the shore and not sink. A rather large swell rose over the piece of wood and swamped it taking it down under the white frothing of the wave.
Then it popped up again and began its journey to the shore, in that moment she felt a renewed faith that she was not pregnant now but soon she might be. Seeing that struggle with the sea or the tiny bit of refuse was giving her time to rethink her time and marriage to Barnabas. She held no regrets; she only held a deep bond of affection and abiding love for the man that had dominated her life for two years. Glancing to the top of widows hill she was taken back to the night Josette was driven there by an undeniable fear and then for no thought for herself or those that loved her had thrown herself off that bluff to land on the rocky abutment below. Her shattered body floated in the twisting waves of the high tides until she could be recovered. In her mind she could almost feel how the wind whipped against her body.
Standing on the beach she was transported to another time and another place high in the mountains. There she saw another poised on the top of the castle's battlements. She had turned and fell backwards without a scream or a cry from her lips. She spread her arms wide welcoming the sky and what would surely be her end and a painful death. It was as if she had wanted to embrace it. Vicki gasped as once again she felt the impact of hitting the river below. Hair dancing wildly about her body, her long dress weighting her down to drag her to the depths of the river's bottom. She could feel her body floating down. With her dying eyes she looked up at the now fading sunlight overhead.
It was odd she had the sensation of falling and hitting the water, and she could feel the impact, which had winded her. Then she was peering down at the body of the woman that had just fallen from the battlements. Her dress tugged at her body and pulled her deeper into the cold embrace of the river's water. Her long black hair whipped and danced around her head and over her face momentarily obscuring her face. Her arms still lay wide as if embracing the world of death. In that moment just as she knew Josette no longer felt the pain of her impact, neither did this strange woman that had deliberately thrown herself from those battlements.
The whole scene had taken only moments but for Vicki she had lived it twice in two life times. Feeling the wind tug at her ribbon, she slipped the ribbon off and allowed her hair to dance wildly around her face, shaking her head she felt the wind lift her hair and pull it from her face to allow her a better view of the thunderhead that had been building over the eastern seaboard. From behind she heard a voice. "Are you sure you should be down here today Mrs. Collins?" The voice was deep and well modulated. Turning Vicki smiled looking into the handsome face of Gabriel, Professor Stokes newest assistant. Vicki noted he was taller by a head to her and his hair was long and pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck, his features were captivating and he would have been considered ruggedly handsome. Squared jawline, aquiline nose, dark brown eyes that almost looked black and an easy smile that spread across his lips.
"I could ask you the same thing Mr. Matthews. Are you not tempting the gods of the seas to join me on this beachfront? I am after all out here to make my offerings to appease them so they do not wash away our house and family." She chuckled at the story she had just told and for a harden assassin Sorin was fascinated by her and her flights of fantasy she just indulged him in and he was delighted he had seen her on the beachhead. He wanted to get to know her a little better before she was to be escorted to his dark master.
He bowed to her, "Then madam do not let me keep you from making your sacrifice." He stepped back with a flourish of an extended arm and half bow almost entreating her to to turn to the ocean. Lifting her ribbon she held it over her head and felt the wind whip at her hand and tear at the tiny bit of color in her hand. The ribbon whipped in a frenzy around her fingers she lifted her chin and felt the wind lift her hair form her face. Standing there in her waist length jacket, her booted feet with tight fitting jeans and heavy cable knit sweater she looked the typical New Englander.
Speaking over the wind she smiled, "To you Poseidon, and you Proteus, and finally to you my dear Psamthe I offer up this poor offering of my fealty to your power and ask you save us from the winds and the storms and grant us peace this night!" She released the ribbon to watch it lifted up, twist in the wind, and get carried up into the air and to dance wildly about over head until a rather nasty wash of a wave reached up and wet the ribbon weighting it and making it fall into the water to ride the wave and then get swamped and disappear.
"Well it would seem you know your deities well from the Greek Mythology. It also seems that His Lord Poseidon accepted your gift now we must wait and see if they grant your wish and keep your offering." Gabriel stepped next to her to watch and see if he could find her ribbon she had given out as an offer. "I suspect though that you should have been further out to sea to make such a generous offering." He gently captured a lock of hair and tucked it behind her ear. Once again the wind lifted her hair and whipped it across her face. The capturing of the hair t lock it behind her ears seemed to be an act of futility.
She laughed again and shook her head to clear her vision and stood to face the ocean to allow the wind to blow her hair back from her face. "I think my offering was accepted the problem I fear is that it was too little too late." Folding her arms she tucked her chin and looked at the water wash up over her boots and she sighed. "I fear the tide is coming in faster than I expected. Why are you here Mr. Matthews? I came to clear my mind before another storm locks me in the house tonight." She shook her head turned to look at the man at her side who had stepped back to avoid the water's rush to try and wet his good leather boots.
"Please call me Gabe. I saw someone down here and thought it might be you and I wanted to see how you were doing since your accident. You took a really nasty fall down those stairs. You were very lucky Mrs. Collins you could have been hurt far more seriously than you were." He took her elbow and led her back out of the water's washing up to the shore and headed her to the outcropping of rocks that would offer a little shelter against the wind. He was being buffeted about and he knew she was taking a beating too.
"Please call me Vicki and I promise then I shall call you Gabe." She smiled and allowed him to lead her to the sheltering rocks. Once in the alcove and away from the blustering wind she leaned her back to the rock and looked off into the distant at the building cloudbank. "Thank you." She smiled and turned to look at him as he settled on a flat top rock. She saw him shrug and wave off the act as nothing. "I suppose I was just suffering from the headache I had earlier and it was very intense, as I started down the steps it was almost as if someone squeezed the air out of my lungs and had pushed me in the small of my back I know I felt faint and as I fainted I did not realize that I was on the top step."
Sorin frowned she had just described something to him that sounded very much like a spell. He folded his arms and looked down at his booted feet thinking about what she had said. "I understand that Collinwood is suppose to be haunted you don't suppose it was one of those ghosts that were playing tricks do you." He wanted to rule out anything supernatural or of eldritch kind from her surroundings before he reported to his Prince. He watched her and found he was seeing something very different about this woman from the many he had known over the centuries. She had an essence about her that attracted the darkness. He could sense it in her very strongly and had to wonder if this is what had attracted his Prince to her. He knew she resembled his Elizabeta but there was a quality to her that made her a target.
Vicki chuckled softly shook her head. "The ghosts at Collinwood do not harm you. They are benevolent ghosts that protect those that bear the name Collins. I am twice blessed, I am a Collins being Elizabeth's daughter and by marrying a cousin with the name Collins, so you could say I am Victoria Winters Collins Patterson Collins. Quite the long name for a girl that thought she was an orphan with two names." She leaned to the rock next to her and let her gaze go back to the cloudbank and it had not moved. That made her curious as to what would be holding back a large roll of dark clouds. She was distracted when she heard Gabe laugh.
"Benevolent ghosts are you serious?" He had shifted his weight and was continuing to watch her every move and mood. "How can you tell if they are benevolent? Most believe that hauntings represent unsettled spirits or restless ones and they have something to complete because they left their business unfinished before they passed on." He slid off the rock and braced his feet to the sandy floor folding his arms over his chest. He watched her smile and it changed the over all demeanor of her body and face. She was really a beautiful woman and he was struck by the fact that he had not had feelings of appreciating a beautiful woman for many years. He had his share of women and had taken the pleasures of their bodies but never to truly find joy in conversing with one. Usually they were a lot like Vicki's sister Carolyn, appearing to be flighty and vacuous.
"I know the spirits that haunt this house, and the old house. They have been around for almost two hundred years. Josette protects those that are named Collins and little Sarah is a sweet child that died way too young." He watched her face take on a sympathetic and sad look. She was a beautiful child that was filled with laughter, love and innocence and a vengeful witch cost her life." Vicki looked away from him and to the tempestuous seas as it roiled with the onset of the system that seemed to have stalled over the ocean and appeared to be waiting.
"You speak as if you knew her personally? I noticed that the quality of your voice when you speak of Josette and Sarah. It was almost as if you knew them and lived in their time. You are a very tender hearted soul my dear. " He reached over to catch another errant strand of hair that had blow across her lips and eyes. Blocking his view of her features. He noticed she had grown distant and looked distracted by what he had said. Stepping back he put a respectable distance between them.
"Maybe it is because I did live in that time Gabe. Perhaps when I was in that time I got very close to both and found their deaths unnecessary and tragic." She leaned against the rock wall and had put her arms over her chest in a defensive stance. She looked at the ground and her voice had grown soft. "You now work for Professor Stokes so I suppose it would be safe to tell you about what happened to me about a year ago." She shifted her body and walked to a rock to sit. She looked up at Gabe to see how he was reacting to her statement.
He had taken on a non-committal stance. He made himself comfortable waited for her to tell him her story. He was reserving his judgment if the knock on her head yesterday had driven her brain into a seizure that might have caused this hallucination of having time traveled. Vicki watched him for a look of wanting to call the men in the white coats and have her taken off to the nearest mental institution and have her locked away. "You see we had some problems about a year ago. My charge then was David and he was speaking about talking to a ghost child named Sarah. I had already met Josette, she had saved me on many occasions. This one night we had a séance in the drawing room of Collinwood. Something happened that night. I was possessed by the ghost of Sarah Collins, and before we knew it, I was no longer in 1967 Collinwood I had been transported through time to 1796."
She shivered, "I was charged with witchcraft because there was a witch at the old house and it was a lady by the name of Angelique Bouchard. I was tried as a witch. Before they hanged me as a witch I lived with the Collins family and watched her nearly destroy the family. Had I not been there to save Daniel Collins, there would not be a Collins family today. I would not have existed today either." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Those memories were always painful for her. She glanced up to see that Gabe was studying her intently.
For Gabe this had been a realization and an eye opening confession. If she could truly with the help of the eldritch cross time barriers what else could she do? He smiled and nodded. "I have always kept an open mind on most things my dear Mrs. Collins, this is one of those times I am glad that I did allow you to tell me about your experience. I must admit when you first said you had lived in that time I found it difficult to believe. But from the perspective of the dark arts and the practice of magic I would say I could be a Noble Prize winner if I could but harness one fifth of your experience." He had watched her become distracted again while she watched the cloud bank still just hanging in the distance not moving since they took shelter in the rocks.
He followed her line of sight and that attracted his attention. "You don't suppose your gods are waiting for us to vacate our spot so they can continue with their nasty storm do you?" He had laughed uneasily but he had never seen a storm react the way this one appeared to be acting. Unless it was being manipulated by his Prince. He paused to wonder if that was what was happening now. He knew Vlad had relocated and was about an hour's drive from Collinsport. He would worry about that later, his internal warnings were going off and he knew it was time for them to vacate this spot. Standing he took Vicki by the elbow and led her back to the windy beach. "Perhaps we should make our way back to the old House. That is where I was supposed to meet Elliott. Then I suppose we could see if your offering is the reason the storm is stalled over the ocean."
Vicki followed him out into the wind and together they walked to the pathway to the top of widows hill. Reaching the top, the wind picked up and where they had been sitting a huge bolt of lighting struck the rocks splitting one of the rocks and sending a cascade of heavy rocks falling down where they had just taken refuge earlier. "Wow, it is a good thing we moved when we did. Maybe your offering is what saved us." He laughed uneasily. Taking her hand he tucked it gently into the bend of his arm and walked her towards the pathway that would take them to the old house.
Old House
Drawing Room
Gabe and Vicki reached the entrance to the old house just as the skies opened up and pelted them with hail. Running for cover, Vicki reached the front doors and pushed them open holding the door for Gabe as the skies turned green and opened up on the earth in a torrential down pour of rain and hail that was now bringing a bite of the Canadian flow over head. Laughing at their luck in just getting slightly wet they stamped into the front foyer and paused to take off jackets and hang them up. Escorting him into the drawing room she smiled cordially. "Wait here by the fire and warm yourself and I will have Mrs. Cook fix us some tea unless you would prefer something stronger." She had walked to the liquor bar and paused for him to tell her what he wanted.
"No, tea would be fine for me. I think I would prefer something non-alcoholic to warm my insides, that air turned nasty and cold quickly. I bet we have an ice storm blowing in with this one." He had stepped to the fireplace and glanced up at the portrait of Barnabas peering darkly down at him. "I see your husband found a good artist to paint his portrait looks a lot like the one of the man in the foyer of Collinwood." He turned his backside to the fire to warm his body.
Vicki had glanced up to the portrait and smiled, and when she looked at his portrait her whole manner was filled with the warmth of her love for the man represented in that picture. "It was Sam Evans that painted the picture. He was Maggie Evans' father. He passed away a year ago." She sounded sad speaking of her best friend's father and it was something he was beginning to notice about her, she had a lot of empathy for those around her and she was very giving and caring for others feelings. Shaking her head she nodded, "I will be right back, please make your self at home. I am sure had Elliott wanted you to meet him here, he will be here shortly." She walked to the louvered door and disappeared.
Walking to the bay window he peered over the lawn being tormented and drenched by the storm. His memories were now of a time long past and another woman that had caught his attention and held his tender feelings in her tiny hand. He had not known love but that woman was very much like this one that was being groomed to be his Prince's eternal bride. The sound of voices interrupted his trip down memory lane and now he turned and watched the foyer waiting for the voices that had started upstairs and were now growing louder with the movement they were making towards the steps. It was a woman's voice. "Yes, Mr. Collins. I have made sure that the Mr. has secured the shutters on the house. Mr. Loomis has not returned. He did call earlier and said he and Maria would be back before the storm broke. It would seem the storm broke before they got back."
Mrs. Lewis was coming down the stairs walking towards the foyer. Stopping she saw coats and she turned calling up the stairs. "I think Mrs. Vicki is back sir." She walked into the drawing room and stopped blinked then smiled. "Oh you must be Gabe? Professor Stokes said for you to wait for him here. He was delayed at Wyndcliff waiting for Mrs. Stokes to finish up an experiment she was working on."
"Thank you so much Mrs. Lewis, Vicki is in the kitchen getting us some tea." He smiled and noticed Barnabas was walking down the stairs to join them. Mrs. Lewis nodded to Gabe and continued through the door Vicki had entered earlier. Barnabas walked into the drawing room and extended his hand.
"It is good to see you again Mr. Matthews. I see you must have arrived with my wife. Mrs. Lewis tells me she went for a walk on the beach; I hope she did not over tire her self. She was actually suppose to rest. She did suffer a concussion and the doctor was specific that she should not over extend herself." Barnabas waved his hand to the chair next to his in an effort to invite him to sit. "Please make yourself comfortable."
Gabe smiled and nodded, "Thank you." Gabe sat and watched the windows. "I am glad we did not stay longer on the beach. We would have gotten drenched. We made it back in time. When I found her she was just leisurely strolling the beach Mr. Collins, she was not over exerting herself." He smiled and felt that this man was dangerous and he needed to tread carefully around him. He watched everyone and studied them like a spider haunting its web looking at the trapped fly. The fly twisting and turning in the web waiting and knowing it was to become the spider's dinner. "You are a lucky man Mr. Collins, your wife is very intelligent and charming."
"Please call me Barnabas, and I am very much aware of my wife's attributes. I find she is a throw back to another time and another place." He looked down at his hands and smiled. "I feel very fortunate that she loves me and became my wife."
"What a perfectly lovely thing to say my love." Vicki smiled entering into the room to go over and perch on the arm of Barnabas' chair. Leaning down to kiss him lightly on his lips. "But from my perspective I could easily say that I am the fortunate one to have you as my husband." The door opened behind them and Mrs. Lewis walked in with a silver tray set with tea. "Well I guess it is safe to say tea is served."
Front drive of Old House
Elliott drove his car up the driveway to the old house and Julia looked nervously around the area noting that as soon as the rain was falling the cold air was freezing it into sheets of ice. When Elliott finally slid the gearshift into park the car had slightly slid to a halt. "Well my dear I fear we may be trapped here for the night. Will you be able to finish your experiment here in your lab?"
Julia smiled tensely and nodded. "I think I can continue the mixture here. At least I will be able to test it on Barnabas. We may have a solution to keep him human permanently if this works Elliott. I know that is what is bothering him about Vicki getting pregnant." Julia grabbed her purse and ducked her head when she opened the door and dashed to the front steps trying to maintain her balance. Elliott toddled behind her and was met at the door by Mrs. Lewis. She held the door open waiting for them to enter.
Foyer of Old House
"I will get rooms ready for you. It would seem that you are trapped here for the night." Mrs. Lewis waited for them to take off their coats and watched them enter the drawing room, then she turned and walked up the stairs she knew rooms needed to be made up. Leaving the residents and their guests to the warmth of the Drawing Room and each other's company, Mrs. Lewis walked into the hallway and was immediately overwhelmed with a sudden blast of cold. Looking around she gasped softly, she had heard of the lady in white but only just now witnessed her apparition entering the bedroom called Josette's.