A/N: (Still need more to do while I am super-sick, October 2024, so I am updating/editing this. Listening to Elemental Soundworks "Starlight" album on bandcamp currently.) Sorry I had to give Willie's sweetheart even more of the fast-track in this than Maggie as Josette. All needs to be fleshed out more in the radio drama and with Nurse Jackson I have little to go on. (Unless there is something I missed that anyone would like to tell me. *wink*) I'd also like to dearly thank Veritas, Melissa and Lisa for accuracy notes and companionship in this work and the radio drama. And all the marvelous insight brought in with reviews new and old. They really need to be called comments or discussion. They tell about your observations on the journey and many artists share their work for that purpose. Thank you.

My Life, Myself, My Child

Maggie's perspective of view:

I know the Sea... and She knows me. As Josette Dupres I crossed Her to reach my beloved. As Lady Hampshire I sailed on her twice only to discover who I was, and far too late. As Maggie Evans I lived beside it, looking into it, asking it, "Who am I? Am I as vast as you? And if so... aren't we all?"

On my wedding day, as well as the day after? What did the Sea have to say to me? "Yes." We all are as vast as She is. By this time She knew that I'd already discovered myself, as I'd been desperate to know for ages. And when it comes to true age in this marriage? Perhaps my dearest was in his coffin for over 170 years but in knowledge and experience? Who is the older of us?

I am.

As Josette, as Kitty, and as Maggie Evans? I am well over sixty years old. Barnabas? Hardly that by now. Oh, you think him masterful.Mmm...sometimes he is. I know he's been outraged; his own beastly lusts have confused him. But with me? He stops, he deliberates, he is himself. And I adore him for all of this. He has been so brave, wary and destroyed, but the richness of his demeanour and poise returned and it thrills me every night and day.

As Josette, I was also occasionally shy, but as Margaret Josette Dupres? I smile, and I wonder, I welcome and I watch him as he watches me. I study the flowers and I bring their meaning into our lives. There is more than colour and fragrance here. Botanicals have often made the difference in health and strength to people all over the world throughout history. I don't know all of its history, but with the memories of having lived there I know more than most people, and so does my husband. I look over everything. He thinks the world of me. All right. I'll be that world in the wee hours for him, or in the afternoons when we awake.

Barnabas becomes anxious about leaving for any reason. As I'm writing a letter at my vanity and he kneels before me, he tells me, "You know... I always have a hard time walking out of those doors and away from you. I finally have you as my wife. All that we've gone through... Do you know how difficult it is to walk away even now?"

I put down my pen, look at him, kiss him deeply and tell him, "Of course, I do. But we must live now," then I touch his forehead and run my fingers delicately through his hair, "and remember, we are connected mentally. Everything is all right now. I promise."

The man made evil from torture and hurt is gone. The gentle-man is with us again. Am I pleased for our family? Of course. But I am happier for him.

He tenders his head on my chest, and I hold him close.

"Tell me you are mine... just repeat it to me," he quavers, almost weeps.

"You know that I am, but there is something more in all of this," I explain as he looks up into my eyes and asks what that could be. I must answer, "In all of the confusion of this life, my husband? You have offered me what no one else could. You have given me... myself."

Kneeling still, our hands bonded into my lap and I couldn't help but smile down, "You know... your hands were there... last night."

He let go, fingers gliding up along my thighs to my hips outside my skirt, imploring, "Wherever you'd like them to be, Josette, they will go."

Another kiss began and was disturbed by a cry. We both stood immediately and stepped to the cradle. I took our daughter into my arms, and he began holding us both.

"I cannot leave you now. Business matters are trifles compared to this."

"Ohhh," I uttered, disapprovingly, "a baby's needs are also often a trifle. Don't spoil us, Barnabas Collins."

"No, no," he proposed, "we have the ability. Let us listen. What does she want?"

Sarah kept crying and then as we watched her, doing what we could to hear how she felt? She stopped crying and opened her eyes wider, one of those babyish, open mouthed stares replacing the disturbance on her face.

Then we smiled. Oh, yes. This child would have all the love and know it. What was it Sarah had wanted? She wanted to be heard. With us and what we could do? She was heard. There was no question about it. At this I had to look up at him and give a smirk, "And you thought supernatural powers would make things too difficult."

He lifted his brows, "I stand corrected."

"So you do," I mused with a grin, "Now, off you go to the dull and mundane affairs. And be grateful that they are. It'll stir that longing between us. And there is much to do." One kiss to Sarah and I then off he went, but not without one more glance from the door, that half-open-mouthed adoration he kept when he was filled with hope, although now this was one without worry.

It was later in the afternoon that I completed my letter to our cousin who'd given this gift to us. One thing I noticed about her is she was rather… perky. Very different considering what we'd been through. After so much horror it was a 180 degree difference to see someone who had no qualms whatsoever with who she was. I still had qualms about it, so we continued to write.

She described that the need for blood was very low with her. Others in her immediate family were a bit more thirsty. The main thing to keep in mind was warding off those who cruelly treated others and as much as we hope they stop altogether, mortals are what they are, and our place in the world is to remove those causing trouble. As we are unfortunately reminded: There is always an endless amount of trouble.

This brought me back to a time Barnabas and I sat on the stairs of Collinwood together. The troubles we kept facing as we looked toward each other. Our hands clasped in my lap, as they were earlier today, and I had stared at him. He spoke, "Is it really you, Josette? Please, I don't wish harm to befall anyone anymore."

"Yes," I uttered softly, "it is I. I am Josette, but Barnabas? Do you love me for myself as well?"

"Maggie? How could I not? As you hold within you all of whom you are and who Josette is in this life? What is there not to love?"

"A girl of service? Not what you knew back in that time we shared together."

"A girl?" he quoted, "A woman. And one of knowledge beyond myself," he stroked my face as he professed this to me, "I am only one man. But you are something more now than I could ever have understood then. Long ago you were one woman, but now? You are three. Whose passions wouldn't be excited by that?"

That hand in my palm, I stroked the stone of his onyx ring, recalling when I'd worn it in our vow we'd been married when he slipped it on my finger. I saw my reflection in the gleam of his ring, but nothing like what I knew of myself. I was Josette Dupres and more now. My interview for the position of waitress was almost laughable as I considered how deeply my history was in this understanding. Dear Mr. Wells and all his pat declarations. Neither he nor I understood I'd journeyed from realms of past time, the daughter of fortune and the niece of nobility, only to humbly desire the job at a local food service establishment, when I had been destined to look over the richness of the estate that built this region.

So many of the answers were before me and I wasn't adrift anymore as I kept questioning myself. Here I was, here I am. And one staple of my identity was?

Loving Barnabas Collins.

There was no getting around it.

He and I sat on those stairs, we kissed, we held each other and we learned that whoever we are we had to remain together. We always came back to each other through all of it.

Our baby, Sarah, has not only begun to hold her head up on her own, but her cry could split the air like it never did before. It was painful once but we've persevered to reach that understanding with her. She had to communicate these needs with us and in our abilities we were often able to perceive more than many parents at odds.

I laid my pen down after signing it to our cousin. Sarah wanted attention. I had to turn my head and smile, lifting myself up to walk to her crib and scoop her again into my arms, kissing her tenderly as her cries softened to the odd giggles, coos, and hiccups of an infant.

"Little Sarah Dupres," I questioned her, "do you remember being our hope of the past? Do you remember being the flower girl at your future parents very wedding now that you have life again? Hmm, I have my doubts, but," here I cupped the back of her dainty head, stroking the newly growing, slender hair in my fingers, "what else shall we talk about now that I'm the only one who can find the words?"

The merest call of enthusiasm seemed to be her response. What could I translate from that? Who am I? Ah. Don't we all make that inquiry of ourselves?

"One so young as you, my darling, needn't worry with such a big question. It will take so many decades to get close to understanding and then, there are always changes one has no control of to create something new in ourselves."

I sat down with her on the settee in my room. I found her tiny apricot hand and pressed my finger into it, watching her grasp it in return. Delicate fingers in all the lines of joint and complexity created in miniature. I had to look up to our bed and wonder at that night Barnabas and I conceived her with intension and heartfelt desire.

This place was the magic we longed for with that infusion of deciding some darkness was embraceable. It was necessary to deplete all the horror our constant panic kept causing. We weren't evil people in Collinwood, we were distracted away from the source of all that is good. Constant terror left no room for sound reasoning, except in a rare moment of blessed fortune.

A gentle tap on the door and I called, "Come in."

Willie Loomis, one wrinkle or two grown in the face since the stress of his god-daughter's birth, stepped in, vest buttons undone and tie loosened up as he usually was after a day at work.

"You're home early, Willie," I smiled at him.

"Yeah," he sighed, tiredly, "Braithwaite's furnace was acting up again. Couldn't get a single mould created like we'd been planning."

Sarah grimaced out a yawn and I asked, "No repairing it?"

"Not that I could make out," Willie explained, stepping over, "He finally switched to another pair of glasses and waved at me to take the rest of the day off and he'd find his own way home."

I had to chortle, "Still sound and chipper for a metal smith well over ninety years old."

Willie took a seat next to Sarah and I on the settee, "Braithwaite says he likes what he does and it keeps him vital."

"Want to hold her?" I tempted him.

"Sure do," he responded and Sarah was scooped into his arms. He shifted to keep from slouching, always did when it came to his god-daughter. Then he asked where his own wife was.

"Oh," I answered, "Cora's likely doing exactly what you're doing now; Holding a baby."

"Over at the lighthouse? That's grand to think of," he smiled into Sarah's wide eyed expression, "her and I holding babies in the same moment, y'know?"

"And none for yourselves, Willie?"

"Nah," he grinned, "with what we all share, two is more than enough to take care of. Anymore and things might get outta control again like they did before."

Willie unwrapped his god-daughter from the slim blanket she was held in and pressured a thumb to one foot and then the other, causing her to make stepping motions. One of these was almost a kick.

"There now," he wagged his finger at her, "don't go trying to injure me, you sweet angel."

"Then quit teasing her, Willie," I pretended to scold him.

"I'm not," he told me, "I'm doing this to practice her being able to walk. Can't blame me for encouraging that, Maggie, can you?"

"All right," I answered, "but I believe she'll start walking when she's firmly ready. There's no rush."

"After the furnace today and being sent home early," said Willie, "I know there isn't. Any word on Mrs. Collins baby?"

"Cranky," I expressed, pointedly.

"Oh!" Willie laughed, "That stands to reason. Caleb's already showing his ire from who we knew as a crusty ol' spirit."

"Maybe he's just letting it all out early," I giggled, finding myself grasping at Sarah's cuddly toes, "or growing up in a lighthouse with all the noise is getting to him."

"Hey," Willie reminded me, "they're havin' it all fixed up with modern equipment now. That was the deal, right? They had to sort through the old ways of runnin' it and as soon as they was married and had a baby they could get the new fixtures squared away. Little Caleb won't have to suffer in that too long."

"I know, and good on that. I don't want him to go through more Hell after his ghost was so helpful to us. It wouldn't be right."

Willie nestled his god-daughter to his chest, "No, it wouldn't be right. I liked that fellow," then added quietly, "... well... after I got used to him... He could be a great little companion to our Sarah."

"A miniature of you, you mean, Willie?"

"I already told'ya that was the truth...Josette Dupres." He sighed, patting her on the back as she cooperatively burped for him, "We all need a little mischief in our lives to check ourselves against the pure."

Yes, Willie Loomis could even become a philosopher.

"That was why you married her, isn't it?" I inquired, stroking that bulge on the middle of my little one in Willie's arms. Cradling Sarah, she gazed in a vacant awe at him, reaching her fingers out, but he was tilting his head towards me, the delicate grin of enchantment he was able to find, with so much more glow in his life as a married man than once upon a time.

"You know that it is, Maggie Evans," he smiled, "You know that. Cora took to me like a plaything... an' I liked that," he nodded sideways, "I deserved it. But she's shown me through that and other things she taught me... she loves me, and she loves me for me. She's the one that taught me to hone my own mischief in better places than stealin' or greed, or what I'd gotten used to. No woman could do that but her."

I let a smile upturn one side of my lips, "None what so ever, Willie Loomis."

Sarah rebounded with some chuckling, stretching up her tiny hands.

All of a bundle, he lifted her toward me, "Here... she wants her mamma."

That wee being of joy I adored since I knew she was conjured through intention within me. The delicate voice of hers would return someday. But what would it say? The voice in hollows of laughter and coughs we kept hearing but wished so long would speak one word to us. From cradle to crib, Barnabas and I would lean and listen and wait but nothing in sound-of-word happened. Flutters of speech did, little baa's and empty syllables which kept us hopeful and anticipating. We could not rush her, but in our hearts we yearned for when she would entreat us with one thought. Come, child, please speak. What would Sarah say?

In my arms I had watched her angel hair grow in tufts and later in ringlets straitening into locks. It became thicker, she became stronger. She crawled for us. She tasted the world as babies do to evaluate the universe in front of them. I hated idleness but with my infant I never experienced idleness, nor grew weary. Motherhood was more fascinating than I was ever prepared for. And there were times I thought of my own mother in so many lives. I'd hold the delicate hand of our baby, Sarah, and look up into the ether, "Marie la Freniére, did you know this was to come? Maman, you must have known."

Every wrinkle of expression, every smile Sarah delighted her father and I with, each moment of time he and I explored each other in love and interrupted that exploration if she breathed one sound in her crib. All was important to us as a household, as an entirety, as a family, splintered from Collinwood as we would have to be at certain intervals, but still a part of it when we were able to remember we were but one branch of a hardy tree. The life irremovable from her to us, she would be our world as all outside intruders attempted to crash in.

And we...destroyed them.

Barnabas and I would feed from their demise and look to our baby, our world, to understand: This is all that does matter and should matter. We have been given a gift, however much in darkness, to protect and preserve ourselves as well as this estate. One day our child may take that gift if she wants it but she will be given a choice, as we had to choose for ourselves.

In so much adoration her first birthday transpired without the expression we awaited, but we didn't worry. We were happy in our days, dreams, talks, tender moments, and occasional falls. News of the lighthouse being updated, further chambers in one home or another being investigated for items from the past, as Victoria still adored uncovering, baby Caleb getting less cranky, the ups and downs of the family business, Carolyn's publishing career connecting her with Schooner Bay, as always. The world kept us content and Pop's cottage stood, sometimes with him busy, sometimes with us in it; Finding those moments of bonding and sharing in our more down-to-earth Evans ways, with a French phrase or two. For me he was someone who shared this journey with me when I had any doubts.

Once I asked him why he persisted in always putting his paintbrush down when Sarah and I came for a visit. He had to chuckle, "Maggie Evans, if I pick that brush up and take to the easel with a baby in the house? One sharp cry will spoil a day's work and you know it... or, perhaps you don't know it. You, yourself, were only a little infant back then."

"Oui," I laughed, thankful to find his humour in the explanation.

Sure enough, a high-pitched wail came right out of Sarah and Pop had to announce, "There she blows!"

He rose from his seat, assessed the situation, and found a little prick on her foot, then coaxed, "Ah. That sounded like pain..." Waiting for her to give out another cry and then holding her breath a spell, "You can now rest assured, Maggie, neither you nor Barnabas are the only blood-suckers she's encountered."

"What? Oh, no..." and there it was, either a flea or mosquito had found her.

"Plus, it's done enough to give her need for a nappy change. Mind if I see to that?"

"She's all yours," I sighed before another bellow from my little one pained me into a mist of worry. My poor dear. Still, the incident wasn't a bodily possession nor was it a ghoulish spectre sucking out her breath, so I had to feel easier in my mind. Our world had been filled with the kind of tragedy and disbelief that most would drop-dead from merely hearing about. My own first born getting stung by a tiny critter wasn't going to dissuade me from the contrast of feeling thankful.

After Pop cleaned her up, changed her and kissed her little wound, he brought out her smiles and even a chuckle somehow. I can remember a vast amount, but with three childhoods in tow, I wasn't sure which one I might search through to find a spot where he managed to win my own moods as a baby that way. We finished our coffee as Papa reflected on the strangeness of life and existence.

"If I had some forethought that all would come right once upon a time, I could never have expected your being kidnapped would be part of it. I was so blasted terrified for you. And then all the damned spooky stuff that kept happening... Made Devlin's return and Roger's car accident look mild in comparison."

"Burke Devlin came back for more than one reason, we know that now."

"Yes, because he wasn't only Burke Devlin, was he?"

"No, Papa, as neither of us is only ourselves." I smiled.

"Neither is Barnabas Collins. He gets to be incredibly complex as a single individual, whereas the rest of us have to come to terms with two or three lives to pick up on our own."

"You make it sound like we're all blessed to have it."

"Blessings and curses go hand in hand. It's like the old tale of one tragedy leading to another success and then back again, and the man keeps asking, 'Is it good or is it bad? Who is to say?'"

"C'est la vie." I had to respond.

"C'est la vie en effet, Josette Dupres."

The journey home was notably free of danger. If danger was there I could perceive it in the air as dusk fell and a hunger would take me over. Prior to becoming pregnant, and then a mother, I allowed that surge to win out because I knew it was the way to maintain the safety we had striven so hard to achieve. I had died too young in too many eras to accept the return of more trouble. There were times I'd even come back to the cottage after taking advantage of that hunger, and Pop knew. Coming through the front door a bit shaken and eventually he would ask, "Did you nip it in the bud?"

Horrific? Too unreal? Or had we become the sentries of our home in ways officers of the law never could be? We have to believe this is so. My only woe was now it wasn't something I could take on, having grown more accustomed to that role than Barnabas. He still had thoughts of shame about it, years of time it had been a curse and a curse only, never a blessing. And if either of us sensed that danger in the air it was up to him. I could only take nourishment by proxy until I was sure the time was right for me to be that far away from our little one.

The woods grew more brooding in these thoughts as we pulled up to The Old House, but the smiles returned and the three of us went inside, the door opened for us by our dear Wadsworth, of course.

From his chair next to the fire, Barnabas rose and greeted us as we greeted him with hellos. "And how is our little girl?"

I bit my tongue in thought of Pop's joke about blood-suckers, but I shouldn't have bothered.

"She met a new blood-sucker, ol' man," Pop declared.

Barnabas looked puzzled until I explained. Then he wanted to see the bite and I told him, "No, the more we fuss with it, the more it will itch and we don't want that now, do we?"

"No we don't," he admitted.

I placed Sarah on the warm chair he had vacated. She sat comfortably, one hand in her bow-legged version of a lap and the other halfway in her mouth. I took that moment to sift through what letters on the desk had arrived, and yes, one from our far away cousin who'd presented this choice in the half-light as a wedding gift. I would look forward to another chat of the pen with her, though I daresay my concern over past-lives or guilt about villains isn't seen in the same view. Perhaps the romance and child-rearing should be what I focus on in my next letter.

Father and son-in-law discussed paintings, naturally. Modern and old as they both knew them from experience and memory. Steps on the stairs echoed down and Willie, heading to the kitchen, stopped to greet us, inquire how Pop was, reveal what the topic of conversation had put him in the mind of, and if it wasn't for that brief thoughtful pause Willie took via a question my father asked we might never have heard a high pitched sound in the room.

"Hello."

Everyone stopped and turned slowly. It had come from our smallest occupant. It was her first word, it had to be. What else could it have been coming from her but Hello? A word not often used, that we could recall, when we lived long ago, but certainly attributed to Sarah Collins as a walking spirit. The elixir of awe held us in suspense. Would she say it again?

Barnabas knelt before the chair, a demure fascination withholding his speech. Touching our daughter's face and then watching her tiny fingers grasp one of his, "Hello, Sarah." He gently let the words flow out. I could hear his thoughts, To whom did she say it? From what memory did this come? Is it her anew on her own?

Her eyes, usually dazzled by everyone and everything about her, were now fixed on Barnabas' hopeful face. She spoke again, "Hello."

Smiles were shared, and our own words softened in the hush of this one thing we waited for. Mama? Dada? What would it be? Not a favouring to one parent, not a favouring to anyone. A simple greeting to all. If we required any proof now we had it, now we knew.

It was her.

It was Sarah.