Chapter 3
"Too late" Quentin said bitterly to himself He had come too late. Once again the room had changed without him.
Eventually he would figure out the right times for it. Eventually... in the meantime he had to put up with Carolyn for a bit longer...
And it was too much... it was just too much. To know that there was so much waiting for him out there...
"So you finally decided to become available" Barnabas grumbled at Frank
"I am busy"
"Busy, I see" Barnabas said with irony "Busy with the shopping center?"
"The shopping center, what's with it?"
"You don't know that the employees hitchhike back from work?"
"Hitchhike?"
"Are you deaf or what? Young girls, hitchhiking their way home, at night. Because there is no more bus service at that hour. The customers are all gone."
Frank thought about it. No wonder Barnabas was upset. He was too. And worse, because he knew how difficult it would be to get anything done about it.
"Well, what do you plan to do about it?" Barnabas insisted.
Frank scratched his head "I'll have to see. It is a rather difficult situation."
"You mean that OSHA can't do a thing about it?"
"I'll have to look it up" Frank confessed "all I can tell you is that it might not be easy and that it might take quite long."
"How long?"
"Well, " Frank shrugged "but next summer it might be fixed."
"Next summer? And what about this one? These girls are hitchhiking now every night."
"That's all I can offer you. You don't have to like it. I don't like it either... Look, I'll try."
Willie and Louella were having a picnic on the beach when Elsa came their way.
"Hello! How are you doing" she sat down next to them.
"Quite well" Louella said "how about you?"
"I got new shells. Want to see them?"
"Of course, we do."
Elsa threw the shells over the blanket and began showing them off.
"Aren't they beautiful?"
"Yes." Willie wasn't so keen on entertaining Elsa, but decided to grin and bear it. After all, she was a good kid. "Better get rid of this crab" he lifted it "It is starting to stink."
"But I want it!"
"Your mother will throw it out, anyway."
Elsa pouted "such a beautiful crab" then quickly changed conversation. "You two are together again?"
"What you mean, together again?"
"You two get together, get apart, the together again. Like Barnabas and Iris. For how long are you going to stay together this time?"
"A long time." Willie began to lose patience.
"I will never marry." Elsa continued "Too much trouble. I'll live alone and write books. Biology books."
Willie decided that it was a good plan. He didn't wish her to anyone.
"I was a medusa lying on the beach. A few feet from here."
"Where?" Elsa got up.
"That way" he pointed "It might still be there."
"I am going to see." Elsa got up and raced in the direction that Willie was pointing.
"Can you believe her?" Willie said as soon as she was out of earshot.
"Well, she's just a kid."
:"But everyone thinks that way." Willie frowned "I don't want people to think those things about me... about us. I don't want them making bets as to how long we are going to last."
"Who cares what people think?"
"I do..."Willie looked down "Maybe I am too sensitive. You see, twelve years ago no one called me Mr. Loomis. Just Willie. Or that oaf, Willie... I am an ex-con. I never finished high school."
"Well, that's over. You are respectable now. You made it."
"I am not so sure... I have a feeling that at any time I will be found out. That I will stop being Mr. Loomis and will go back to being Jason's pal."
"Well, you are not. Will never be again. You should not care what people think. The ones that matter know you for who you really are."
Roger wondered about Quentin. He was up to something. Something to hurt Carolyn.
It had something to do with the East Wing. He kept going back there. What could be in the East Wing to hold such attraction to him?
The Parallel Time room!
He wanted to escape into Parallel Time.
He raced downstairs to meet Carolyn.
"Do you know where Quentin is?" she looked up from her desk "I got loads of work for him to do, but he's nowhere to be seen."
"He's trying to escape you."
"He can't. He'd be picked up by the police on attempted murder charges if he tried."
"Not if he goes into Parallel Time."
"Parallel Time?" Carolyn needed only a few seconds to understand it "Yes, he would escape me there. But does the room still work?"
"Quentin seems to believe it does."
"And the Quentin there is the Master of Collinwood." Carolyn said softly "Yes, I can see how he might be tempted" she got up and tapped the top of her desk. "Will he remember to bring along his portrait? We have to stop him."
David fidgeted in his seat. Julia was reassuring, and if he followed her instructions he would never have to worry about the full moon again.
So why was he scared? Why did he have the feeling that he should be doing something else? Why the misgivings?
Could it be that running free in Chris company had changed his feelings about the curse? Sure it was better if he didn't have to worry about it at all.
Why couldn't he take Chris' way? He could go away to college and start making something of himself.
Chris' way meant no children, ever. So, he did not want children...
But two years ago he didn't want to go to college, either. Two years from now, he might want children and would never be able to have them.
But he could go on like this until he graduated from college, and then take the full cure...
Except that as soon as she graduated he would be looking for a job, and would not be too interested in what Julia had to offer.
He'd better be patient. Postpone going to college until he was cured, and then go ahead without worrying about it anymore.
Then going away to college meant being away from Barnabas, and he still wasn't sure that he could keep clean of drugs without help. He didn't want any now. But once under pressure, having to cram for exams, worrying about grades, would his willpower be enough?
No, he had to be patient and go along with Julia.
If only he could rid himself of the feeling that something was wrong.
"This is your room" Phillip showed it to Vicky "I hope that you like it."
"It...it is nice." Vicky admitted.
"If there is something you don't like tell me."
"No, it is fine."
"You don't sound very happy."
"It has nothing to do with you. Or the room. It is just that I can't forget how it was... how it was before. I can't forget how scared Willie looked, as if he knew that something terrible was going to happen."
"Those days are over for good."
"Everybody tells me that... but..."
Phillip nodded with understanding. He knew what she was going through. She had not lived through the last ten years. She did not learn how to react to Barnabas, like everybody else did. What for others was routine, for her it was strange and frightening.
"I went through the same thing after I came back." he admitted "It was worse, I didn't just fear Barnabas. I hated him."
"What made you change your mind?"
"I got to know him."
"You trust him now?"
"How could I not?"
"But with me it is different. He... he was interested in me. We were going to run away together. And he would... would have made me..."
"But it didn't happen. and it won't happen again."
"I want to believe that." Vicky sighed unhappily "I still... I don't know if it is right, me moving in here. Everybody I ask, says I should. And I can't afford to move anywhere else. Still..."
"Give it time." he added with good humored laughter. "Oriana was even less willing to come here. But she regretted having to leave."
"Oriana who?"
"Oriana Falchi F.A.L.C.H.I. A free lance journalist. She got too close to Barnabas' secret so he had to kidnap her and bargain with her until she agreed to kill the story."
"And she did?"
"He gave her a better one. As he said, she would not blow a potential "New Yorker" piece in order to get in the "National Enquirer" At firsts she was real mad at him. Not afraid like you. Just plain furious. But when she left, she was lusting after him like Carter after Poland."
"I hope this thing still works" Carolyn studied critically the mini stage that Nicholas had left behind. "and I hope I remember how he used it.
It required concentration. She strained, but was only able to produce mists and blurred outlines. But she held on. She would be able to find out where Quentin kept his portrait. And she would.
Suddenly the figures took greater definition. She was looking at the wreck that Quentin would be now had it not been for Charles Delaware Tate's gift.
"So that's the real Quentin." Carolyn smirked. "no wonder that he keeps it well hidden. Can you figure out where it is?"
"Yes." Roger said. "I know that cottage."
That cottage, now deserted was where he used to meet Becky Hascomb in passionate trysts. Becky who had given him a bastard daughter, which had been hushed up quickly by his father who did not want to ruin the chance for his son to marry Laura Murdoch... Laura and her money... Becky had died not too long after that, and the daughter had been turned over to an orphanage to be raised under the name of Winters...
Never mind... That was an old story. Becky was dead, and he had no claim on Vicky.
"Go get it." Carolyn said, then added "Not yet. Wait until he goes for it. Then tell him that the jig is up. I'll give you a gun for it. Just don't fire it. I want him in one piece."
Xavier coughed before coming into Sandy's shop.
"Mrs. Miller?" he asked
"Yes." she lifted her head. "I am here. And I am still Mrs. Miller."
"Can I talk to you?"
"Do you want to see if I am sprouting hair?" she asked sharply.
"Not at all."
"So what is it?"
"About the clothes you sell."
"You want to stop helping me to sell them? You never wanted me, after all. Barnabas rammed me down your throat. And now that I am a werewolf you can get rid of me."
"I came to ask you to expand your operation, if you can. Which I think you can, as you don't have now a family to make demands on you."
"You...you..." Sandy's jaw dropped.
"Your clothes sell well. I was stupid enough once to let personal considerations rule my business dealings. I won't make the same mistake again. You make money for me, and I won't care what else you might be."
Sandy shook her head. It was funny. What tolerance could not do, greed did.
