by khammer
Too much was going on all at once. Later, Julia would be amazed that
so much really had gone by while she and Tom had stood there, all
unknowing, caught up in a drama that was of their own making, and
their own fault.
She had seen it happen again, the very second her lips shaped around
"us." Tom's face had literally shut down like a frozen painting. He had
done it before, under her subtler attempts to broach the subject, and
now she saw there was going to be no other way.
(He knows what I'm going to say, even though he denies it...) Part of
Julia was puzzled. Another part of her was just amazed. And the last
part of her...
...was perhaps not angry, but certainly impatient. Impatient with Tom
as well as herself.
"I don't see what the problem is," Tom was saying. "This IS about us.
And how we can be together. You're the one that's been dodging the
issue."
It was too late. Julia was watching him with new eyes, eyes that was
taking him in with complete detachment, watching his mouth talk
while the REAL scope of her attention was focused on his eyes and
reading the message that was there. People could lie with their tongue
all they wanted, but they could never lie with their eyes--she knew
that all too well, having the worst kind of eyes to deceive with. She
could only shut down her gaze and hide herself to some extent, but
Tom wasn't as good at it. He hadn't her years of practice.
Another remainder of the differences between them.
"Tom." She spoke his name quietly, while the doctor in her was
observing this break up wasn't going to be nearly as bad as she'd
dreaded. Reality was rarely as bad as the horrors of the imagination.
"Remember when you and I first met?"
Tom paused, and his face softened at the memory. It made him look
less haggard than before, and that was a relief because he was young
and shouldn't even look CLOSE to her in age. It was a waste to bow
to time early. "I remember." He admitted just as quietly.
(Why are we talking so softly anyway? It's not as if anyone can hear
anything on the other side of these obnoxiously thick doors!) Julia
swallowed and stopped herself from putting her hands on his
shoulders, instead, she took both his hands and held them inside her
own. "You came to me to see if I could help Amy." She continued
reinforcing the memory. "I told you I would try, but if Amy wanted to
get better, it would depend on you and on her, not upon me."
"I remember." Tom repeated, his brows beginning to furrow together
in puzzlement. He didn't know where she was heading with this
conversation, he only sensed it was going to be grief in the end. "I told
you I would do everything I could."
Julia took a deeper breath then. "Tom, Amy would be much better off
than she is now if she felt the presence of her brother. But you haven't
quite given that to her."
Tom's frown deepened and he looked away, starting to pull away.
"Oh, Julia, come on. We've had this talk before." It almost sounded
like a growl coming from his throat. "I've told you, I'm busy, I work
really hard to keep the farm going and keep us together as a family."
"I've heard you say that before." Julia answered him a bit more
sharply. "Just as I've heard you say you wanted to spend more time
with me. But there's a wall up around you, Tom, and you use it to
keep Amy and me away from you. You want me to be with you--for
a long time I wanted to be with you too, but I wanted to be with
someone I could be close with. And I can't be close with you. There's
more to a relationship than a physical presence."
Tom felt ice water clench his veins at Julia's husky voice. He had
expected just about anything but this. Of all the angles she would
chose, she HAD to pick the one he couldn't defend himself with.
(God damn you, Chris.) He thought it in less despair and more hate
than he had yet experienced. (After what happened to Mom and
Dad, and Amy, I'm still taking care of you and you're still ruining my
life and there's nothing I can do. You're ruining this for me and I'm
HELPING YOU DO IT.)
(So tell her)
He wanted to. He'd ached to tell SOMEBODY for ages; ever since
his world had shattered and he, Tom Jennings, youngest son and
stay-at-home farmer and handyman, had suddenly become the most
important member of his shrunked family.
But there were secrets he didn't have the right to share. What if he'd
misread Julia somehow, and she took it all the wrong way? He'd been
wrong about people before. Oh, God, had he ever! Just because he'd
never seen her act vindictively, or use any hold over someone, didn't
mean she wouldn't or couldn't...or...
There was only one thing he could do, and that was walk away from
Julia, from this entire mess, and shut the door on it forever.
But he had no memory of doing it at all until he realized he was
standing under a starlit sky with his jacket on and his toolbox under
his arm.
Julia hadn't followed him. Part of him was sorry for that; part of him
relieved. Somehow, he was bathed in sweat. He scrubbed his
forehead on his sleeve and blinked widely. Amy. His thoughts
hammered in on Amy, as they always did when they weren't horned in
on Chris. Chris or Amy, Amy or Chris. One or the other. No room
for anyone else in the world. No room for Julia, no room for Tom.
Just Chris and Amy.
He'd have to find another therapist for her, wouldn't he? Julia would
see it as part of their separation. She would be thinking of Amy. She
would be honest about recommending someone to his sister.
Tom had no awareness of the fact that his thoughts were flying in
circles, coming again and again to the same small areas. Cold sober
realization that his life no longer existed and it was always going to be
devoted to his brother and sister had driven his memory away. He
was still thinking of how he could find Amy a new therapist as he put
the key--the right key--in the ignition and pulled his car into the
driveway.
From the window, Julia watched him go.
She didn't understand anything she had just witnessed of him. In her
own way, she was just as shocked and numb as he was.
(I didn't think he would react that way...) She shook her head and let
the curtain drop. (I thought he'd react, period! Not...not do THAT.)
Not turn into a blank-eyed zombie and shuffle right out of the room?
He hadn't even tried to argue, or deny, or insist there was something
between them.
(Well, there isn't.) Julia sighed, feeling it pull out of her lungs, and
shook her head again. An entire career built on psychiatry, and she
didn't even had a shred of previous experience to base THIS on.
~*~*~
The sun still burned above Quentin, but without the stifling, silty
humidity of the Nile in the air. It was as if the earth had simply
shrugged, carrying him away, but not far away from the created world
of Laura's priests.
He stared around him, feeling a faint wind whip through his clothes,
warm to the feel because he was still soaked with clammy sweat. All
too soon the heat would turn as bitter as the extremes of a New
England winter, but for now he was glad of it, and his shivering was
ceasing.
Yellow flowers bloomed at his feet--the umbrella-shaped fennel, and
dill. What they were doing in the desert eased his shock when he
realized the brown stones at his feet were actually the remains of an
ancient stone wall. A fig tree was growing stubbornly through gaps
and cracks of a higher section, full of bell-shaped fruit. He wondered
if they were ripe. It seemed as though he had once been in a place
where ripe figs were green...
It was a garden, he realized now, taking a step backwards, and taking
the spectacle in. The trees were small but that was from the extremes
of the desert, not from age. They were probably older than he was by
a thousand years, shattered by some war, or some extreme that had
driven its planters away, only the garden had continued on while the
human presence melted away into the stony wilderness.
"La, Quentin." A familiar voice touched his ear--rich, dark and
amused, husky. A voice that reminded him of Dr. Hoffman's every
time he heard it--if Julia had ever been happy enough to actually laugh
at something. Quentin had never seen her that happy, but the grinning
brown face of the woman sitting on an even spot of the stone wall
was proof of what she would look like if she ever did so.
"You look like the Hodja ran up and tweaked your nose." Magda
Rakosi's long fingers made the motion, her white teeth still grinning.
Her hair was long and loose as she usually kept it, a Gypsy
advertisement of her skill in tribal magic, and she had gotten far more
Gypsyish since the last time he had seen her: a dot of blue paint rested
at the corner of each eye to ward off Evil, and henna patterns ran like
black vines from her fingertips up the volumous sleeves of her black
desert dress. "What's the matter, now?" she asked him. "Didn't I tell
you we'd see each other again?"
Quentin had finally found his voice. "Shouldn't you be dead?"
Magda's ink-black eyebrows lifted up in sublime amazement. "Look
who's talking." She informed him. "Quentin, my sister must have been
lookin' at your eyes, 'cos Gana and Herne know, she couldn't'a been
payin' attention to what was behind your ears."
A sardonic Magda was more familiar to him, and he began to relax.
"What happened?" He asked plainly. "I was in Egypt...Laura had
trapped me..."
"Aye, and the witch helped you out by destroying Laura." Magda cut
him off impatiently. "You DO know all about her, now, don't you?
That milk and water gaji-chiovani with those eyes cold as a fish?"
"Miranda?" Quentin was feeling absurd again. Being around Magda
meant one had to get used to being of lower intelligence or at lest of
an inferior sense of humor.
"Beware of the Greeks when they're bearin' gifts...they still say that
around here, you know." Magda lifted her head to one side, and
nodded to an endless sweep of desert. "They salted the fields here."
She said softly. "You gaje...can't use something so you'll make sure
nobody else will." Her sober expression made her dark as a
thundercloud. Behind her, a cloud of black honeybees rose up, heavy
with nectar as they flew to a small myrrh tree where their hive hung
like a fat feed sack. Quentin could smell resin from the spiny
branches.
Then the moment was gone and she was looking back at him, one
hand toying with the heavy silver chains around her neck. "I showed
you this place to talk to you, Quentin. No jokes, I promise. This place
is known to the Nawari, the desert Romany the Romanos are related
to...a safe place for us, while some clans go to Petra, or to this hidden
spring or that one...Laura's gone but the witch still remains, as does
one other. Yaum asal, yaum basal, they say here. Some times its
honey, some times its onions..." She shrugged fatalistically. "She might
have helped you but you know she's got her own plans. You get in
her way of Barnabas Collins and the honey-day will turn to onions."
"I know." Quentin felt a familiar disgust at the situation. He finally
moved, and sat down on a pice of the drywall not far from his
sister-in-law. A stalk of fennel he yanked up angrily and smelled it, for
something to do.
Magda sighed. "You mean well, but you're a gajo through an'
through." She meant the murder of a plant he didn't need. Chastized,
he started chewing on it, tasting fresh anise in his mouth that spread a
warm smooth feeling through him.
"I don't know why she's like the way she is." He added, "When it
comes down to it she just wants one thing, and if she can't have
Barnabas, she'll kill and lie waste."
"Beware the Greeks." Magda shrugged, looking at the ruined
landscape. "She's crazy, you know. Remember that, and you'll
survive. Now, Petofi, he's another matter."
Quentin dropped the flower. "P." He squeaked in shock, supremely
annoyed that he had lost his voice.
Magda was wearing her scornful look again. "Ay, Petofi, that
no-good woolly pig. Did you really think he was out of your life??"
Quentin matched her disbelief with anger: "I never believed that! I've
been looking for him for years trying to finish our business!"
Magda hit herself in the head. "Business! It all comes down to
business with you people!" She looked ready to perish from her
inability to understand these strange people that were non-Gypsies.
"Well let me tell you, Petofi's got more in his mind than 'business' and
he was right there all along for you to find, if you only knew how to
do it!" She was furious now. "In your own house, Quentin Collins!
Your own house and you go on without being aware of it 'cos you
keep your brain pickled and what you can't pickle, you keep locked
out!"
"Where is he??" Quentin's heart might have stopped thirty times since
he had laid eyes on Magda, with all the stunners she had been
throwing at him. "Magda, he CAN'T be there, I'd know him no
matter what disguise he'd be using!"
"Don't you think he knows that?" Magda was clearly not about to be
delighted with his intelligence. "He's hiding from you! Hiding like a
mongrel dog, living off death and scraps like he always has...but he's
THERE, Quentin! He is THERE and when he grows in power he's
coming for you first of all, then what's left of your family!" Her lips
tightened. "Go find him, Quentin. But be as careful as you can be.
This is for cleverness, and I know you can be clever. You need that."
"If he's hiding." Quentin found his voice at long-last, "Who's helping
him?"
Magda looked sad. "I shouldna tell you that." She stood and he
followed, suddenly panicked that this visit was going to come to an
end before he could learn anything useful. "There are some things an
outsider has no right to tell someone about their own family. You'll
find out soon enough...just be clever, Quentin. You need to be."
"It looks like it." Quentin said cynically. Suddenly, he felt like no time
had passed since 1897, and he was back to his bitter old self. But
there was comfort in feeling that way, and he took what he could from
it.
"You have a lot to look out for." Magda conceeded. "Watch out for
Petofi, watch out for the witch. And maybe someone will bring Laura
back, who knows? Watch out for your cousin, Quentin. He's not right
in his head but he loves his family still. Maybe that red-haired doctor
can help you?" Magda grinned at that. "I always did like her."
"I can imagine." Quentin had no trouble believing the strong-willed
women would be friendly--either that or bitter enemies.
"And watch out for your family, Quentin." Magda had lost all humor
from her dark face. "Not just Chris. Tom's in danger too. How I don't
know, but there's a shadow over him. Maybe Petofi, maybe
somebody else. He may not have long. You be careful of everything."
"Magda--" She was starting to fade, and with it, the sun and the
desert garden, the chill of New England night seeping in.
"Bhatalo drom, Quentin..."
And she was gone, her world with her. Quentin was standing alone in
the forest of his childhood, nearly naked, the chilly wind bruising his
skin. He blinked upward for a moment, and was surprised to feel tiny
grains of sand in his eyes.
Something stiff was in his hand. He held it up. It was a Tarot Card.
The Tower. Magda's card, because Magdalena meant "tower."
And she had wished him a good road.
A natural thing for a Gypsy to wish upon someone. Quentin couldn't
help but wish that his road wasn't so figurative. Too many things to
keep track of; he wanted to crumble under the weight of them.
But at least Laura was out of the way, he thought uneasily. The weight
of Horus hung from his neck. Professor Stokes. How did Miranda
get THAT from him anyway? He was going to have to return it,
somehow, without causing too many questions.
He swallowed hard, and automatically put the card in a pocket, and
began to drag his feet toward Collinwood.
~*~*~
Julia was starting to shake herself out of the inertia in her mind. It was
old habits; if she confessed to anything that was out of the normal, it
was a deep rooted paranoia that had its origins in her inability to rely
on other people. Life had taught her that lesson, and she was used to
being responsible for herself. There was little hope in expecting
anyone to do the same for her. Even her friends hesitated to get too
close, seeing the invisible "doctor" printed on her forehead.
She shook her head, at Tom, but mostly at herself for ever thinking
that just because Tom had wanted to share his life with her, that it
would have worked. Perhaps in a perfect world, but this wasn't it.
THIS world punished people for small faults and weaknesses.
She hoped he would get home safely; the matter of the assaulted
cattle was still fresh in everyone's mind. Amy was spending the night
with a playmate she had met at Wyndcliffe, a girl withdrawn from a
speech impediment caused by a car accident. Luckily, Wyndcliffe
was nowhere near any bizarre activity...
Less haywire than Tom's, but still swift as leaves in a high wind, Julia's
thoughts continued on. It occurred to her that a new emotion was
settling in to her over her former lover.
"Razblutto." Julia muttered under her breath. "Cooked cabbage." Her
grandmother's Russian suddenly became utterly apropros. The word
was meant to convey what one felt over someone they had once been
madly in love with, but no longer. Cooked cabbage. Bland and
tasteless.
But it was for the best, she reminded herself. Without the detachment,
she wouldn't be able to feel other things for Tom: compassion for the
turmoil she had seen, and the sad wisdom that he was headed for
terrible trouble if he didn't learn to express his feelings better. People
like that were time bombs waiting to go off, and often their bodies self
destructed before they learned better.
High blood pressure, ulcers, gallbladder, stomache pain, all those
upper-class illnesses that resulted from insufficient emotions. The
poorer people had it to. Tom was ripe for it...
The door slammed shut from outside; Julia was already turning to
open the double doors when Quentin beat her to it.
~*~*~
Dust coated cobwebs, leaving echoes of white in the darkness as
Barnabas walked along the dark corridors. Above his head, the rest
of Collinwood, the living descendants of his uncle's son, continued
their mortal, frail lives all unknowing. He could imagine them above
him, bright sparks of warmth and light, such as given off by fireflies,
while he pondered in the gloom below.
With Vicki absent, and Dr. Hoffman distracted by that opaque
business with the handyman, Barnabas had felt compelled to see to
old instincts. It was clear that Joshua Collins, for whatever reason,
had not instructed Daniel upon the lore of the house's secret passages.
That in itself was puzzling, for if the records were to be believed (and
he felt they were dishonest only in his own life), then Daniel had been
his father's heir, his son in all but blood.
This was not something Barnabas faulted Joshua on. Such things were
common in his day, and as far as he knew, still done commonly. What
he faulted his father on was his unforgiveable cowardice upon forcing
him to exist inside his coffin, until Barnabas could feel his sanity bleed
away.
It had obviously been years since anyone had been through this
passage; Barnabas moved past a thick web almost absently, making
no noise, marking no presence. Perhaps then, Daniel had been
instructed onto the secret paths, only had failed to tell his own
children?
For whatever reason, the family had forgotten something valuable.
Something that Barnabas, as a Collins, could not forgive. But at the
same time, the thing he was now, was grateful for the ignorance. What
he was thrived upon the lack of knowledge of others; their survival
depended on it.
Secret passages, leading to the sea, to the Old House, to even more
secret passages; natural caves and sea-coves, caches for weapons,
trade goods, money. There were even two different secret landing
points, available only upon low tide, where his family had hidden
plunder during certain contemptible wars. Even now, it made his thin
lips turn up in a smile, to think of New England, his home, known in
the height of his seafaring glories as the Gold Coast, long before
Africa had the title. For there was gold indeed along the shores,
buried in the sands and smashed upon the scattered rocks of the
coast. The famous pirates of the Carribean and the South Seas--they
had sailed here too, choosing the warmer waters for winter, and
following the trade winds. It had been those long-grained ancestral
sailing habits that had led him to Martinique...
...gold that his family had known about, but had done nothing with,
patient to let a secret remain secret, until the time was right for the
wealth to be reaped. Such wealth would still be available, he was
certain. Even seven generations of throwpennies would be unable to
spend all of it.
And wealth, he would need.
It suited him to use his family's silent legacy in this way, after his
disownment and eventual condemnation. He would do this, rather
than sell his mother's jewelry. Naomi had given her son everything
with the deed to the house and her jewels; Barnabas would not sully
that bravery with converting her emeralds and electrum into making
the Old House more comfortable.
A thick plank creaked under his feet, the first sound he had heard in a
very long time over the scurries of small rodents. A candlestick rested
in a wall sconce, worn by age, not by use.
Barnabas struck a lucifer and applied it to the blackened wick. A bit
of cobweb strung across the wall caught flame and he absently
brushed it off, letting it met as it glided to the dark floor. Books were
revealed dully in the candleflame, and this new addition somewhat
surprised him. This had been an empty room in his time; that someone
had used it was interesting, and his instincts were sharpened at this
unfamiliar thing. Whenever it was done, the rest of the family had
obviously forgotten about it.
If it hadn't been some relative's careful secret...
He lifted the candle up, careful not to cause any more fire, and saw
his later thought was the true one. The books were of tightly bound
cloth, many old but most much younger than he was. But it was the
contents that told him this had been someone's secret. Barnabas was
no novice in matters of the occult, only he had avoided censure in his
world by confining his interest to Chinese and other Eastern forms of
magic and power. Few Occidentals, after all, would take time to learn
the chop of Chinese language. As far as anyone had known in his
family, he had been a collector of eastern poetry.
The unknown Collins had not confined his interests to an obscure
languge, but to many, and English was the overriding interest. THE
FAIRY FAITH IN BRITIAN was the first title to catch his eye;
another was a treatise on Scottish rituals that would have appalled
most priests. The books were heavy and dry in apppearance, only the
faded gilt of the spine's letterings showed any color. Titles of magic
squares; Hermetic scholars; Freemasonry, he was amused to note.
Did people STILL think they were Satanic? Children at play...
One book still rested on the floor where it had been dropped, its
spine brittle and shattered from the impact. Barnabas felt a strange
pity and picked it up; it flopped like a broken bird in his large hand
and the cover was startling; a coiled serpent gleamed on the green
cloth, but it was no ordinary serpent. It had two heads, pointed in
each direction, Janus-like, tongues flickering outward to taste the air.
The neck was joined by a peculiar collar upon the trunk.
Barnabas considered himself long and long beyond redemption, but
there was something very unpleasant about the book. It made him feel
unclean, and that feeling was very odd, considering his state of
existence. Without even looking at the pages inside the book, he let it
fall back to its original spot upon the floor, a small, otherwise
nondescript book not much larger than his hand, and continued on his
way across the dark corridors. He had a lot of work to do; many
things to sort through in his mind, many things to prepare himself for if
he expected to survive. And there were only so many hours in the
night.
to be continued...
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