Sunset bloomed at the western horizon. The sun itself was buried in swags of a thick mist that covered all of Collinwood, but the sun's light illuminated the heavy fog. Light was everywhere, and nowhere, an ambient glow without direction. People cast no shadows.
The two men stood back to back, arms crossed over their chests, flintlock pistols in their hands.
Barnabas paid no attention to the setting of the sun or the subtle transition from daytime into night. His thoughts were wholly absorbed into the cold flintlock pistol in his hand and how the moisture of the fog might dampen the gunpowder. The pistol had its shortcomings; even though he would aim carefully and hold his arm steady, the lead ball whizzing out of the smooth barrel had a tendency to spin off in wild directions. At any distance greater than twenty paces, he could not be certain of hitting his target.
"You will each take ten paces," said Lieutenant Nathan Forbes acting as moderator. "Then turn, and fire."
Barnabas started first. His boots softly crushed the ice-glazed fallen leaves. Angelique hiding in the trees watched him through the branches. She peered closely at his stony visage, wondering if he had any last regrets. He showed no fear... and no hope. Foolish man, she thought. Is Josette worth this price? Why can't you toss her away as you so easily rejected me? Why don't you ask her to be just friends? He wore the charm that she had given him. He was in no mortal danger, but he did not know that. At this moment, he was prepared to die.
The men stopped and turned. They raised their pistols at each other. From her vantage point, Angelique could see clearly that Jeremiah aimed away from his nephew. Despite the power of the spell that caused him to crave Josette, he bore no malice. In the end, he conducted himself with honor.
Their thumbs rotated the ornate brass hammers. Two little metallic clicks. A brief pause. They squeezed the triggers. Sparks sprayed out of the barrels in sprinkles of fiery raindrops. Smoke puffed out of the barrels.
The little lead ball from Jeremiah's gun ripped into an ancient oak. Bark chipped.
Barnabas remained standing.
Jeremiah's legs folded beneath him. He collapsed to the ground and sprawled on his back. No wounds showed on his body. His suit remained perfectly buttoned. Only his face was a mess of blood. The left side of his cheek had cracked like an egg dropped to the floor.
Josette screamed a loud, sustained wail.
Angelique smiled with thrill. Her charm had worked. Barnabas was safe. From behind, she admired her lover standing there with a smoking pistol hanging limp at his side. He was so majestic and terribly wonderful like a God of Death in his black waistcoat and broad shoulders radiating strength. Her legs felt weak, dazzled by his power of destruction. If it were possible, she desired him even more.
"You monster! You madman!" Josette hurled herself to lay over the bleeding man. "You killed him, the only man I ever loved!"
#
All that night, Jeremiah Collins languished dying in his own bed. His skull was a bloody pulp that soaked the bandages and drenched his pillow. Doctor Thornton came at Joshua's bidding to work his craft for the better part of an hour before he emerged from the room and wiped his bloody hands on a rag. "I've sutured the wound as best I can, but I'm sorry to say the skull is cracked open. The musket ball entered through his left eye socket, and..."
Naomi swooned at her husband's side, but it was Ben Stokes—not her husband Joshua—who caught her from hitting the floor. The burly servant swept her up in the cradle of his arms. In a swirl of golden satin, he carried her off to her own bed.
"His left eye, you say?" Aunt Abigail leaned in closer to the doctor like a confidante.
"Yes, madame," the doctor said.
"The left side is the devil's hand." Her brown eyes were dark against her pale face, eerie and half lit by the candles in the hallway. "There is sorcery at work here. Evil... witchcraft..."
"Enough, woman!" Joshua blasted. "Go to your room."
Abigail drifted away down the hall toward her bedroom door, more of her own volition than at her brother's order. "I must pray for deliverance. 'Now as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil...'"
"Pray," Josette repeated, half swooning herself against her aunt Natalie's shoulder. "Yes, I must pray for him. My husband... my love... Why is this happening?"
Natalie duPres guided her into Jeremiah's bedroom. Together, the two women pulled straight-backed chairs with cushions of floral needlepoint. They sat vigil at his bedside. They made the sign of the cross in unison—touching forehead, heart, right shoulder, left shoulder. Angelique watched them through the open door's frame. A sentiment almost close to pity flickered in the depth of her heart. I never intended for this to happen. I had no quarrel with Jeremiah—he never did any wrong to me. I only wanted him to run away with you, and be happy somewhere else, so that I could have Barnabas to myself.
"Liar!" Sarah squealed, running along the hallway towards Jeremiah's bedroom door.
Joshua held out his walking cane as a barrier. "Stop. Don't come any closer."
Phyllis Wick the nursemaid dashed on the little girl's heels. She swooped in from behind, caught her around the waist, and held her wriggling in place. "I'm sorry, sir, she just got away from me."
"You lied," Sarah cried with a fierce, accusing stare to Angelique. "You said the soldier in the fort would keep him safe."
Joshua Collins straightened his posture suddenly as if a flagpole had just been rammed up his spine. "What in the blazes are you talking about? What soldier? What fort? Oh, never mind. Miss Wick, take my daughter to her room and keep her there. Tie her to the bedpost, if you must, but restrain her at all costs."
"Yes sir."
"No, no, I want to see him." Sarah wriggled and kicked at Phyllis's long skirts, to no avail. The humorless woman dragged the little girl away. Together they tumbled into the nursery room. Phyllis slammed the door. There followed the loud click of a key being turned in the lock.
Joshua turned on his heel. He stomped down the hallway in the opposite direction. As no one else was around, Angelique drifted quietly behind his shadow.
He hurled open the door to Barnabas's bedroom and took a commanding stand just inside. "Well, son, have you anything to say for yourself?"
Barnabas sat in his reading chair. On the little lamp table he had disassembled the pistol into all its intricate parts. He used a steel wand and greasy rag to meticulously, unhurriedly, clean and wipe the barrel and trigger mechanisms.
"What would you have me say, father?"
Incredulous, mouth open, he took a few hesitant steps closer. "Have you no regrets at all?"
"You've always taught me to never tell a lie." Barnabas held the pistol up to the candlelight to inspect its condition. "Therefore, I must say, I do not regret what has happened. I did what was necessary."
Joshua rapped his cane on the hardwood floor. His hand trembled as if restraining himself from using it to beat some sense into his son. "Your uncle is dying."
"I expect that's so." Barnabas calmly laid the pistol into its wooden carrying box lined with a cushioned pad of magenta velvet.
"There isn't much time. If there's anything you wish to say to him..."
Barnabas interrupted, "I have nothing to say to him."
Joshua gawked down at him, speechless, but then a very old wisdom clouded over his small eyes. Angelique recalled that he had been a soldier in the war of the revolution. Twenty years ago, he had marched in bleeding boots through winter snows at a place called Valley Forge. He had followed the orders shouted by General George Washington himself. No doubt he had seen scores of men bloodied and shot, stabbed and crushed, or caused their gruesome deaths by his own hand. Grief crinkled his brow. He must have thought those days were behind him.
"Did you enjoy it?" Joshua asked in a hush close to a whisper.
"What?"
"Pulling the trigger... Killing a man... Wielding the power of God over life and death?"
Barnabas slowly closed the lid of the pistol's carrying case. He stared at his own hands resting on the wooden lid. "No, I didn't enjoy it. I expected to feel some sort of satisfaction but I am nothing but hollow."
Joshua nodded along, the worry lines in his forehead easing back just a bit. "Well, there's that consolation at least."
"How do you mean?" Barnabas looked up at him for the first time.
"You're a killer," his father explained to him. "But you're not a murderer."
#
Angelique had to wait for hours to find an excuse to go to Barnabas's room. She brought him a supper tray from the kitchen. A rum toddy in a pewter tankard was still warm, the sweet liquor of the Caribbean blended with the wafting aroma of cream, honey, cinnamon and cloves. The white ceramic platter was heaped full of a holiday feast that no one had yet eaten: a slice of smoked ham with maple glaze and a spoonful of spicy mustard, boiled purple potatoes, a yellow corn cob, green peas, and cubes of winter squash. The Bavarian cook had reminded her that it was Christmas Eve this night. The kitchen staff had churned a whole tub of butter for the Collins family.
"I'm not hungry," Barnabas said as she entered. "Please leave me alone."
He stood by the window, as he so often did these days, staring at the frosted glass. Night had darkened the outside and so the glass was more of a mirror than a window. His own indistinct reflection frowned back at him—two faces staring morosely at each other, the human face and the dark opposite.
"Are you sure that you want to be alone? Tonight is Christmas Eve, after all."
Angelique set the tray on the little lamp table and on top of the flat wooden case that stored the dueling pistols. Not wanting to seem too eager, she kept her back to him. He was in a fragile mood. She fussed with the plate's garnish of mint leaf, a vivid contrast to the yellow mustard and slice of pink ham. How easy it would be to put a spell on it, just a little one, just a whisper of a suggestion to nudge him in the right direction. No, she scolded herself. He must come to me because he chooses to, or I will never be certain of his devotion.
"I forgot it's Christmastime," he said. "The damned calendar has marched on without me. Aunt Abigail made a holly wreath. She makes one every year. Since I was twelve, it has always been my job to hang it on the door."
"Shall I ask Ben to do it for you?" Angelique bent over the hearth to place another log into the smoldering orange coals.
Candles flickered. Shadows shifted. Wind rushed. Barnabas swooped in on her from behind.
Angelique gasped happy surprise as his strong hands seized her by the shoulders and spun her about. He gobbled her mouth in a hard, crushing kiss that smashed her teeth. His arms like iron chains squeezed the breath out of her. She swayed and half swooned in his clutches. She offered her tongue and he sucked it so fiercely that she feared he might swallow it down.
Their passion rushed up to the edge of the cliff, but before they leaped over to the point of no return, Barnabas pulled his mouth away. Yet he did not release the tight grip of his embrace. He panted hard into her face like a hound drowning in the sea and paddling for shore. Angelique moaned, "Mon cher," pressing herself against his yearning. She gazed into his dark eyes—blurry for being so close to her own—and understood his desperate hunger, his need to release the overwhelming rage and grief.
Somehow he managed a shred of self control. He glanced aside to the closed door. A very thin piece of wood, indeed. If they were to give in to passions now, it would not be quiet or discreet. It would be a hurricane force tearing off the roof. Angelique understood his hesitation. His mother's room was across the hall; his uncle lay dying two doors down.
"My room," she whispered. "I should go first, and you follow… soon."
Mouth open and panting dry, he answered in a wordless grunt, "Uh-huh."
Angelique forced herself to let go of him. Her legs quivered. The core of her body was on fire and she could hardly walk. Somehow she managed to stagger to the door. It hardly needed mentioning but she said it anyway, "I'll be waiting."
#
In her room, she folded down the blankets and lit a few candles. She unfastened her dress but kept it draped loosely at her shoulders because he always enjoyed removing her clothes. She sat down on the bed. She held onto the knob of the bed frame's post and waited for him. At last, he would come to her freely, willingly, and they would make love in wild abandon as they did in Martinique. Tonight, she would make him forget about Josette. She would soothe his pain, and sleep in his arms, and awaken to a new brighter day.
Feverish with anticipation, she listened to the silence of the hallway outside her door. She waited, and waited, for more than an hour.
The clock chimed all twelve times. Midnight.
Where is he? She stood up but thought better of going back upstairs to his bedroom. She could not risk someone noticing her sneak around at such an hour.
Going to the fireplace, she added a few twigs of kindling to the smoldering log and raised the feathery threads of flame. "Eyes of fire, show me what I cannot see."
In the blur of a hot and hazy dream, she saw into his room as viewed from the candelabra affixed to the ceiling. Barnabas was still there, and he was not alone.
His little sister Sarah sat crying by the fireplace. Barnabas brought a load of blankets and knelt to swaddle her up in a nest of knitted flowers and quilted paisley.
Then he sat down cross-legged on the rug. He spoke to her sobbing face. Angelique could not hear what they said. She could only see the little girl's blue eyes turning red and dripping with tears. Her dainty hands squeezed up the blankets in her shaky fists. Barnabas offered her a kerchief to wipe her cheeks. She slapped his hand aside.
Whatever he said next seemed to anger her further. Sarah punched his chest with her fists. She flailed at him with her thin little arms. Barnabas made no move to defend himself. He bowed his head forward and allowed her to keep hitting him, on the shoulder and on the upper arm, until she ran out of strength.
The little girl slumped over the hearth stone. Wrapping her arms over her head, her slender shoulders convulsed as she continued sobbing. Barnabas simply sat there, not raising a hand to touch her, not moving, not speaking. All the rage and passion drained out of him.
Angelique reeled out of her all-seeing trance. She blinked her eyes a few times to readjust herself to the humble room that she called her own. Little Sarah was a formidable power indeed, an intuitive force of innocence and conscience. I almost thought we could be allies, you and I, after I won Barnabas's heart. Angelique had fancied the idea of making Sarah an apprentice to cultivate the girl's intuitive understanding of the spirit world. Now it seemed she could be a rival for his attention more than Josette ever was. Romantic love could be manipulated or extinguished but a family bond was eternal. The time may come when I'll need to do something about her.
#
Angelique ventured upstairs on the First Day of Christmas as the rooster squawked and the sparrows chirped. The aromas of coffee, yeast bread, scrambled eggs, sausage, and fried potato hash filled the hallways. Servants had prepared the holiday table for breakfast. A wreath of holly branches held tall white candles. A cake loaf called stollen had heavy chunks of dried fruit and thick white icing. Assorted cookies were piled on a platter. The good silverware twinkled on the bleached tablecloth. The best china plates, stamped Wedgwood in elegant cursive, were arranged with meticulous care.
None of the Collins family came to the double rows of vacant chairs. The death vigil was all that mattered to them.
Her empty stomach gurgled hunger as she ascended the stairs. The tantalizing odors of the holiday feast gradually faded behind her to be replaced with the festering stench of a man bleeding out the last of his life. Death spirits stalked the place, faceless eyes that lingered in the paneling and the rafters. All the Collinses who had lived in this house before and passed on into the next realm. All the old ones who had lived in this land before the white men built a house on top of their bones. They kept a vigil, too, for one more who would soon join their number.
Candles in wall brackets had burned down to waxy icicles. No one had replaced the candlesticks. No one standing vigil at Jeremiah's bedroom door seemed to notice that morning had come at all.
Barnabas at the threshold stood looking inside Jeremiah's room. Angelique came to his side. From his shoulder, she looked into the room at the same angle as he did. She saw his view of Josette kneeling by the dying man's bed and whispering prayers into her rosary beads.
Abigail and Joshua sat on upright chairs at the foot of the bed. From where she stood, Angelique could not see their faces: only the plain dark skirts of Abigail's gown and the man's sleeve leaning on the knob of a walking cane.
"How is he?" Angelique asked in a respectful hush.
Barnabas jumped a little, surprised to notice her there. "What are you doing here?"
"I waited..." She finished the thought silently in her mind, for you to come to me last night.
He frowned her into silence. She had to express herself by widening her eyes and smiling up at him with longing. They could not even afford to speak in French with Josette so close. Barnabas's eyes, dark and cold, said to her more clearly than his words ever could. Not now, Angelique. Not now.
At that moment, Josette paused in her prayers and looked sharply toward the pillow. Her brown eyes widened. She cried out, "Bon Dieu! He has stopped breathing!"
"Oh no, oh God!" Abigail jumped to her feet and reached for the ceiling as if Jeremiah's departing spirit were a bird that she could catch and keep from flying away.
"Well, that's it," said Joshua in a tight, controlled tone.
Barnabas lowered his head and closed his eyes. For a moment, he seemed to be a dead man himself, standing instead of lying in a coffin.
Josette continued to scream and sob over the body in the bed, now clearly a corpse deflated and pale. Angelique marveled at the power of her spell, that even now—when Jeremiah was dead—she grieved over him as if they truly had loved each other. Such madness... that if one believed a falsehood with enough passion, it became more real than the truth.
Joshua rose to his feet. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in my study making the necessary arrangements."
Abigail cried out, "We can't bury him yet. We must wait for the Reverend Trask to arrive."
"Who?"
"My friend from Salem. I've written him a letter. He is most knowledgeable in the ways of hunting out witches."
"Witches!" Joshua snorted. "Not that foolishness again."
"Jeremiah was under a spell, I'm sure of it. Reverend Trask will know if we need to do an exorcism on the body, before we bury him, to prevent him from rising up from the grave."
"Have you gone mad?" Joshua raised his cane, half threatening to smack her in the head. "Dead men don't rise out of their graves!"
"He might," Abigail insisted. "Who knows what will happen? There's witchcraft afoot in this house."
Joshua backed away. His arm that gripped the cane was shaking as if he stood in ice. "I've heard enough of this nonsense. It wasn't witchcraft that killed our brother. It was my goddamned son's musket ball."
Barnabas turned away. He stomped down the hall a few doors, went inside his own room, and slammed the door shut.
#