Special thanks to Helena Clara Bouchet for reminding me what Barnabas actually did as punishment to Maggie. He threatened it so repeatedly I began getting lost to what he'd finally done at the time. To this day I am still shocked that all of this made it past the censors in the 1960's.

A Tender Retreat

The darkness crept into my marriage with Barnabas earlier than I expected. There were so many lovely spots in the house. My room especially had become sacred when I'd known it to be a prison once. That may have been the easiest and why I came upon him so voraciously. It was the place that I wanted to create our first bond to wipe out the terror of all that had come. But darker regions were haunting me with no loving memories. I took many of these fears with me to consider at Widows Hill. I think I kept returning there as a reminder of what I'd earned from so much loss. Sometimes I'd gaze into the ocean, other times I would sit and stare at my rings, the wedding band of blended silver and gold, the engagement ring, knowing it was the one I was after ever so long ago. But it didn't derail the actions of the kidnapping, and all the torment he inflicted on me then.

Such tangible items of bliss weren't helping as much as they once did. My expression would hang as I went into the lower regions of the house, saw the places I'd been locked away and felt a growing need to repeal my presence there. Throttled, thrashed, threatened, hurt. One man had done these things to me, and that was the one man to which I was devotedly married to now.

We still took our hand-held walks, we still smiled, but he knew, Barnabas knew. We'd ventured to the mausoleum once more and I tried to consider that secret room again as I did the day after we were married. I pulled the cord from the lion's head on my own, believing we could find our way to cleanse that place.

The stone door swung open with that gravelly noise. We stepped down. His old coffin was in there now. The coffin he'd placed me in as punishment for disobeying him. As soon as the panel shut a dread washed through me and a shallow darkness was what I saw; him closing the coffin lid over me to punish me for not becoming his Josette... as we never understood... I already was.

Barnabas had gone to light a candle but threw himself toward me when he noticed what had happened. I sat on the steps, slapping the stone panel with my hands, caught in that same horror, screaming to be let out, to be released...

"Maggie," he said, gently, "my dearest, come back to me. You're safe. Nothing can harm you now." His arms were tenderly holding me as I clung to the spot, and I was snapping through the memories of being here and searching for a way out. Then I looked at his face, at first a comfort, then my hunger for his blood was anything but a yearning for his love. I was overtaken with a hasty zest for revenge. A horrified look came across his face. He drew back, almost knocking over the tall candelabra as I was up and lunging for him.

He was stepping away from me, hands beginning to rise in defence when suddenly he blinked and dropped them, a kindness melting away the fear. Then he opened his arms, slowly bringing them out and forward in a gesture that said, Take me, and that's when I could see what I was doing. My fury began to calm, and instead of attacking him, I took him in his embrace. Then I began to tremble.

Barnabas stroked my hair, mild in manner and gently spoken, "It's coming, isn't it, Maggie? You need to let it out someday... soon. Perhaps... Julia-"

"No..." I said, shivering in a whimper, "No more hypnosis. No more talking. I've been through too much of all of that. I need something else and I'm not sure what it is."

"Neither am I," he acquiesced. "Perhaps you could do something to me. If there is any treachery I might suffer for what I've done to you I will allow for it, even welcome it. You know that."

"How can I do that?" I inquired, shakily, "Now that I love you so dearly? Now that I finally have you after everything else?"

Moving us to face each other and fingering my chin to look into his hazel eyes, he explained, his words echoing in those stony quarters, "Because you need to, and in order to love yourself; All that is there, all of what you are. You'll never be simply Josette to me, Maggie. Not any longer. You've come too far to ever be Josette all alone," His eyes, which were once so hypnotizing to draw me towards him unwillingly, now showed a love that melted me inside. The rage had been cooled. I was softened, but how long would it last?

That night we lay in bed, a time of wakefulness for us but I was drowning in the pain and he saw that. We had on our nightwear and the bedclothes over us and he began shuddering to kiss me as our feet shifted to search each other out.

"Maggie," he comforted, "how do you feel? Are you afraid of me? Please don't be afraid of me. I promise you I've changed."

I drew in his kiss and pulled back, "I know, but the hurt still lingers."

"Is there anything I can do? Anything I can endure for you... my darling?"

I blinked at the chestnut hues of his look towards me, "Please," I said, "make love to me... and make it very slow and very gentle... let me be with you... let me think about you... and... us."

He smiled with a simple dazzle of small pleasure, stroking my face with the back of his fingers and coursing them down from my jaw to my neck and clavicle, "You want me to do that? I have a strong urge, and I want you... but are you sure?"

"Yes, and Barnabas? Please draw from me, try and understand what I'm going through. I can't explain it."

He pressed his lips to my chest, my sternum, bringing himself over me and I welcomed it, carefully, as he led himself into me. I was afraid, but less than I would have been to deny this to him or myself. He pushed with a precise gentleness and my folds released to surround him. My hips rocked in time with his and our intercourse of face was ever present in the profound need of what was so difficult to understand. I loved him and he loved me... but something was marring that love and it was our past together.

Moving up my scant night-dress, he reached his hand to my ribs and mildly clasped my breast as I inhaled with the surge it gave me. He continued to advance his way through to my core. Slipping through, sliding out. And I still loved him... but I remembered, and I was fearful and angry at that. As he pressed into me and I welcomed it, I thought, "Can't this all go away? Can't we be in love and forget or at least forgive?" No... no... Barnabas was right... what I needed to come to terms with was preordained and he knew it.

I took his neck and shoulders, resting my arms around them as we continued kissing, progressing our love in the longing together that what was happening simply would. It simply ought not to happen... but it would. And we pressed our lips in the sadness that this was happening... as we knew... it would. Our cheeks stroked each other and our tears finally met. No... this was meant to be... and we would have to live through it.

Times went by in which I had to sit alone. The bond that was growing, the thoughts I could hear from his mind were beginning to fade and the more we were separated, the more the fear of him and the angered confusion at him preyed on me. I recall Barnabas coming to look for me in the woods and he found me. Something in his expression... about to call out to me, but then noticed my puzzling and my hurt. Resigning himself to my need to be alone he would wander away again, long dark coat wavering as he stepped from me.

Days and nights seemed to grow and stretch out. The flashes of remembrance shaking me. Barnabas' hands around my throat, shoving me down in my room, intimidating me in his madness. One night I found an injured wolf in these woods, suffering like me, but with broken bones rather than a breaking heart. And I did the only thing I could do in my thirst and spared him his life. Then I petted his coat, softened by the strange mist of the sea and kissed his head as he shut his eyes to journey into that other world I'd known so many times before.

I knelt there looking at the relieved form of this lone wolf, his salt and pepper coat, and his last breath. I gathered his hunger from the blood I'd taken from his throat. It sobered me some and brought certain necessities of this life to light for me. The new nourishment gave me strength to do what I needed to do, but who would I share this need with?

"Willie..." I declared softly, coming to the realization as I spoke his name, "Yes... Willie."

As I stepped into The Old House I saw my husband asleep in his chair by the fire, fingers clasped together over his chest and his elbows resting on the arms of it. Fighting the urge to seize by the fistful, I let my fingers weave through his hair, gently stirring him. He looked up with that echo of sadness I knew from his sickbed so long ago. My memories as Josette giving pity to him for what was happening.

"Dearest," he murmured, "bless you... you haven't touched me for days."

"I touch you... where we sleep," I told him, bending his elbow on the arm of the chair as I slid my hand from his shoulder down his arm, our hands clasping as I stood over him.

"Yes," he sighed, softly, "and yet... your lips give me sorrow and your embrace has been so restive."

"No," I said, "not restive. Perhaps placid at times..." I refuted, mildly.

"Tender enough, I know you've been unhappy. Contemplative. Can I help in any way?"

"Yes," I nodded once, "live through it... with me."

"For you? Always," he promised, kissing my hand.

"Where's Willie?" I inquired.

"I believe he's upstairs in his room. He has some new design work he was rather engrossed with but that intensity may have passed," answered Barnabas.

"Good, I need to speak with him."

"Any reason?" he asked me, a little concerned.

"Yes," I said, letting go of his hand and reaching the railing, "a very, very large one."

Again, another chapter I hadn't anticipated. My original draft of this novel was simply erotica. Now it seems to be melding into an actual story of healing wounds and excavating the method of how to go about that. I see the authenticity here, which is important. It is passionately ever after, but delving into the pain also needs to happen. I believe this is why many non-fans of the idea might presume a story about it would entail Maggie magically forgetting all the hurt. No. She wouldn't.