Conclusion
In the dreamy sunshine, the sun falling sweetly upon her shoulders, Angelique saw the small, ludicrous procession approaching.
She sat on the fallen log in the sunlit clearing. She tried to make out who was in the group approaching her. Three figures, toting something aloft.
Angelique gathered her thin gauze wrap about her shoulders and shifted, frowning at the people as they neared. She was languid and bored. She couldn't imagine why Barnabas would allow himself to look so ridiculous, because it was surely Barnabas in procession with—it looked like Elliot Stokes—and possibly Julia Hoffman—how boring. Were they carrying a snow-shovel? But what a preposterous way to proceed, toting a shovel upright before them like a banner.
She stood up, weary and sick, and faced them. And she waited until they were near enough to her before she spoke.
"What on earth," she asked in an exasperation of curiosity, "are you all doing?"
The three gave her somber looks, but did not pause in their march.
"Over here," Elliot directed. "A bit further. We can burn it and bury it."
"Careful," Julia breathed.
Utterly intrigued, Angelique drew her light wrap more closely about her and trailed after them.
"What are you doing," she insisted from behind them, "going shoveling? Or is this some sort of monstrous wedding procession? Or are you going to charge at a windmill? Do you know just how comical you look?
"Elliot Stokes," she demanded angrily as nobody answered her, "do me the courtesy to acknowledge my presence and tell me what in the world you people are doing."
The group paused. Then Elliot, in the forefront, with the light shovel uplifted, turned to her.
She nearly laughed. He was gripping the shovel by its handle and pole, and holding it before him, slightly lifted, the scoop of the shovel standing up like a flag. Within the scoop of the shovel rested a bundle. Did he think he was a Crusader, marching with the pennant of his king?
"Angelique, stay back," he blared. "Don't come near. It's dangerous."
This unenlightening information only angered her, and she strode up to them.
As she came close, Barnabas protectively took the shovel away from Elliot. Angelique laughed.
"You all look so stupid," she informed the group. She noticed Julia Hoffman's eyes going cold as they regarded her, and realized anew just how much she detested the underfed, stunted doctor. "Tell me at once what you are doing," she demanded, "before I expire from boredom."
"Angelique," Barnabas said. But he didn't say anything else.
"Angelique," called Elliot, "my dear. Stay away, this is dangerous. This afghan is infected with some sort of poison. It has made more than one person at Collinwood very, very sick. Nobody can touch it without falling ill. We are going to burn it to ashes."
"That's insane," retorted Angelique, but his words had struck a chord deep within her. She stood unmoving, not daring to come any closer to them. Elliot noticed that the faint blush she had had on her cheeks was fading. She looked so very pale and fragile, and very, very white about the face.
Then, surprising them all, her voice lowered an octave.
"That afghan," she choked. "Where did you find that? Where did you get—that afghan?"
She took a step backwards.
Elliot opened his lips to explain but Barnabas was quicker.
"Oh, do you happen to know what it is?" he asked harshly, stepping toward her with the shovel brandished, the black and multicolored afghan hanging over the shovel's blade. "Do you recognize it, Angelique? Is it possible that you are responsible for this afghan? Did you create this horror?"
Angelique stumbled away from him, covering her lips with her gauze wrap. She halfheartedly waved one hand at him in dismissal and turned away. But Barnabas came closer with the shovel.
"Angelique!" he shouted, for the first time certain that he saw the answer to the riddle. "Angelique! Did you do this? Are you the author of this horror? Why is it that you retreat so quickly before this afghan?"
"Barnabas, stop!" Elliot roared.
Angelique continued helplessly backing away from Barnabas, more and more quickly, and then her heels slipped in the grass and she fell over onto her back.
Sprawled in the grass, Angelique let out a long, electrifying scream.
"Elliot Stokes!" she shrieked. "Keep him away! Take it away! Don't TOUCH me with that!"
As the group watched in astonishment, Angelique threw herself on her stomach and began vigorously crawling away from them as fast as she could, panting and gasping.
"So, you ARE to blame for this!" Barnabas yelled, bringing the shovel with the infected afghan in it closer to her. "You fear it! How would you like it to touch you and make YOU sick? Oh, I should have guessed from the very start that you were the one causing all this mayhem!"
"Barnabas!" Elliot bellowed, rushing up to grab Barnabas by the shoulder. "Stop! Leave her be!"
Angelique reached the fallen log and frantically grabbed it, hauling at it and scrambling to her feet. She turned on them like an animal at bay in a last, mad attempt to fend off attack from bigger creatures. The look in her eyes made Julia gasp in fear.
"Take that away!" Angelique screamed, her hands coming up in claws to her cheeks, her eyes enormous. "Get that thing AWAY from me, oh Elliot, make them take it AWAY, get it away, oh I beg you!"
She burst into tears.
"Barnabas!" Julia cried. "Barnabas, don't! Please take the shovel away! Oh, you're making her crazy!"
"Why?" Barnabas yelled, tears of rage starting in his eyes as he stalked toward Angelique. "What is it, what did you do? Why did you make this poisonous afghan?"
"You were supposed to—oh!" Angelique shrieked. She covered her face with one arm, and threw out the other arm in a desperate move to fend him off. "Oh! I forgot all about that afghan, I cursed itagesandagesago! I cast a spell on it! The afghan was for you, you were to receive it from me! When your hands touched it, you would ..." she trailed off.
"Yes?" he barked. "I was supposed to sicken and die? It is an instrument of murder!"
"No,no! That spell makes one violently reject their betrothed, and desire instead the next woman or man who appears! It was supposed to be me, you were supposed to receive the afghan from me, and you were to abandon Josette and—love me! Oh my God! Get it away or it will kill me!" Angelique fell back onto the fallen log; her eyes started from her head. Her mad glance lit again upon Elliot.
"Make him take it away, or you will be sorry!" she shouted.
"Angelique," Elliot soothed, "there is no need to fear. I won't let—"
"I'm pregnant," Angelique snarled. "I'm carrying your child, Elliot. That's why I've been so unrelentingly ill, vomiting every day! Two months pregnant. That's why—oh, keep that thing away from me or else the child—it will make the child—it will destroy the child!" She collapsed into weeping, covering her face.
Barnabas and Julia stood as if made of stone.
Elliot Stokes put one hand to his chest.
"My child?" he muttered, incredulous, transported. "You—are carrying our child?"
"What!?" Julia cried, her hands to her cheeks. "Angelique, oh my God, Elliot!"
The four remained in the clearing, regarding one another in the June sunshine.