The Lunatic Yarn
Conclusion

In the dreamy sunshine, the sun falling sweetly upon her shoulders, she saw the small, ludicrous procession approaching.

Angelique sat on the fallen log in the sunlit clearing, trying to make out who was in the group approaching her. Three figures, toting something aloft.

Frowning at the people as they neared, she held the thin gauze wrap about her shoulders and shifted slightly on her seat. She was languid and bored. Why would Barnabas himself to look so ridiculous, she wondered, because that was surely Barnabas in procession with … yes, it was Elliot …and probably 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.

Angelique stood, weary and sick, and faced them. When they were near enough to her, 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.

Intrigued, Angelique drew her light wrap more closely about her and trailed after them.

"What are you doing," she continued interrogatively 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 is going on."

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 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 statement 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 mean to do with the shovel," she demanded, "before I expire from boredom."

"Angelique," Barnabas said. But he didn't say anything else.

"My dear," said Elliot. "Stay away, this is dangerous. This afghan is infected with some sort of poison. It has made more than one person at Collinwood quite ill. Nobody can touch it without falling sick. 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 abjectly pale and fragile, and very, very white about the face.

Surprising them all, her voice lowered an octave.

"That afghan," she choked. "Where did it come from? Where did you get—the 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 retreated, raising an edge of her gauze wrap as if to cover her lips. She turned from him halfheartedly, but he 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 back away from this object?"

"Barnabas, stop!" Elliot roared.

Angelique continued helplessly edging 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, she 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 chaos!"

"Barnabas!" Elliot bellowed, rushing up to grab his angry friend 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, rabid 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—it was supposed to—oh!" Angelique shrieked. She put up both hands to stop his approach. "I forgot all about that afghan, I cursed it ages and ages ago! I cast a spell on it! The afghan was for you! You were to receive it from me! When your hands touched it ..." she halted.

"Yes?" he barked. "I was supposed to sicken and die? It is an instrument of murder!"

"No! The spell makes one prey to a violent disturbance in the soul, a catastrophic desire for the next woman or man who appears! It was supposed to be me, you were supposed to receive the afghan from me, and you would have abandoned Josette and loved me in spite of yourself! Oh my God! Get it away, you do not understand what it will do to me!" She fell back onto the fallen log; her eyes started from her head. Her frenzied 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 am 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.

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