In "The Pit of Ultimate Dark Shadows", I have found Kitty Soames of 1897 to be a necessity while going down a condensed version of the original Dark Shadows storyline. In my story, Maggie remembers all three lives in chronological order, whereas Barnabas does not. His travels go from 1795, then 1967, and later he reaches 1897. Having Maggie regress into past lives chronologically would make the story work.

In "Pit of..." her memory urges that this Barnabas can be forgiven, because she remembers him working for the greater good in 1897, though he hasn't experienced it yet. She knows when that does happen and he returns *that* is the time to allow him absolution. So, the Kitty Soames life time becomes an important point in his gaining that forgiveness.

And, as shown here in these vignettes, he succeeds. :)

.*.*.*.*.*.*

Chapter _: To Love, To Speak, To Name

I have to admit… when my husband returned from a trifling matter at the Main House of Collinwood… I had a few yearnings of my own I'd acquired. I'm sure his errand had something to do with a decanter and our Cousin Roger's machinations between some absurdity and his Sherry… for which we need look on with loving bemusement. As it all comes down to the essentials… Roger is rather a gentleman when one gets to know him.

Still, I was looking forward to Barnabas's return… and I managed to get the other gentlemen away before he did. They sweetly ventured a few knowing smiles when I informed them of what I was after… Considering how big this homestead was… why WOULDN'T I wish to explore the avenues of love in all of its surfaces? And… with Him?

We'd slept on this Davenport together that I rested my back upon now, as I lay on these blankets before the fireplace … and… I remember walking in this door one hundred, seventy-four years ago… Seeing my people… seeing his people… and now that it was so much was quieter… if all the locks were secured, and the fireside lowly crackled… why wouldn't I wish to have some experimental time right here? Really? Why wouldn't I?

I had to giggle to myself… I wasn't sure if Mr. Barnabas Collins would be confused, surprised, or eager. I really had no idea. But I was curious. And I sighed…

Here it was that I'd been so disappointed and again, foolishly taken poison… but does anyone know what I was feeling or thinking at the time? What I'd been imagining in this room? What wild motions of love I'd entailed in my mind as I sat there waiting for what felt like forever? And surely, when one considers what I'd been through… I HAD been waiting forever… from one lifetime to the next… What a man… and a man one might not believe worth it… but he's always been to me.

After moving pieces of furniture with our two wonderful employees, I had this terrible feeling that from my various smiles and meaningful petting on the top of their hands… well… I had to wonder if they weren't driving off soon to something along the lines of… a house of ill repute… ? …or a theatre of lingerie damsels who danced around poles…? …or perhaps a certain movie-house in which… well, I'm sure you may be making up your own minds of where they went.

In Collinsport, there is a saloon of sorts, of course, we all know that… but perhaps I should be ashamed that I may have put ideas in their heads and led them elsewhere. What I would dearly love is if they'd only gone to the shed again for another game of Backgammon. Or they could have gone to see Papa about some more portraits. His paintings have truly been coming along. Yes, if they went to see him… That would relieve my heart.

Still, I had to enjoy the candlelight and the lack of any obnoxiously interrupting telephone to my thoughts. I stayed, with a bottle of chilled wine, resting on some cushions over blankets in front of the fire… and staring into it after I'd placed another log there. There were three now, resting cross angled over one another. "Three," I mused out loud, "like me."

I sighed… oh… how I'd always wanted just this. I sipped my wine and had about three books I was tempted to flip through and just kept touching the covers of while I thought, and stared, and waited. Of course, one of these books was by John Cleland, published in 1748. I tended to leaf through it at times, but that was usually all I needed. I do love the ending line: "The paths of Vice are sometimes strewed with roses, but then they are for ever infamous for many a thorn, for many a cankerworm: those of Virtue are strewed with roses purely, and those eternally unfading ones." If my old friend, Angelique had read this, could read it, I'd hope it would make all the difference.

Perhaps it was the lack of oxygen… as the fire is so likely to waft it away within itself and I kept thinking… what will he do when he walks in that door, turns to his left and sees me awaiting him in this state lying down among quilts and cushions? What will he think? But what did it really matter until the time came?

Soon enough, I heard the door open and his footsteps… I knew they could only be his and his alone.

"So…" he almost whispered, "awaiting me, my pet?"

"Yes…" I answered softly.

.*.*.*.*.*.*

(Let's just say they smooched a lot;)

Anyway, the Kitty Soames encounter of 1897/1795 was so brief I can imagine a 1960's housewife coming home from a tropical vacation only to discover the gorgeous 1897 on Dark Shadows suddenly lambasted with these bizarre Leviathan weirdos. Picture her rushing out in her curlers, hairpins trailing behind, to ask Selma next door what the heck is going on? :S

Of course, the teenagers likely knew...

Still it is brief. Kitty kept remembering being Josette to the point where she strangled Angelique with a vengeful relapse of judgement, then lost all knowledge again and was embarrassed and shocked. In this way I can see Josette being the kind who *could* attack, so these bedroom vignettes might not be so implausible.

Kitty was about to leave to keep from being pulled back into Josette's identity. Somehow she was lured to The Old House and Barnabas knew. Still, Kitty would go from saying yes to no and then finally when Barnabas flat out proposed, she desperately accepted.

And *again* "Oh, I have to go do this other thing first..." P'shaw! Uh-huh... :/

So, Kitty paces in Josette's room, likely biting her fingernails down to the cuticle in anxiety of waiting, suddenly has Josette's wedding dress on, morphs into the portrait, which later Barnabas joins her and then suddenly they're back in 1795 but separated. It's episode 884-886. And later on so much teamwork ruined by those pesky Leviathans...

And as you all likely know by now... well... I have another Doctor lined up for them! :)