Shadows on the Wall Chapter Forty-Nine

(Back from hiatus!)

Chapter 49: Hold Fast to Dreams

by Midnite

 (Nancy Barrett)  “The year is 1897, and the inhabitants of Collinwood may

find that dreams are their only refuge, and death is as close as a breath.”

Street lamps along the avenue were scarce, but Barnabas easily maneuvered

through the darkness between them until the raised voices of an

oddly-matched couple stole his attention.  The man was dark and dangerous;

he wore a red cravat and a brimless hat, and the woman, aristocratic and

fair, was resplendent in an emerald green dress with a high collar that

hugged her slim neck.  Barnabas watched her shake a head full of yellow

curls before stomping away with the gentleman in pursuit, and he was

saying, “I don’t understand what kind of game you’re playing, but if it’s

games you want-”

“You haven’t the faintest idea of what I want!” she shouted back at

him.  Barnabas sensed no fear in her, yet he could see the man wasn’t

someone to trifle with.  He stepped into the radius of light cast from a

nearby lamppost.  “Forgive my intrusion, but perhaps the lady is in need of

some assistance?”

She stared at him with eyes like blue diamonds.  “Thank you,” she replied

coolly, “but I’m fine.”

“I see.”  He hesitated, then asked, “Pardon me, but have we met before?  My

name is Barnabas Collins.”

“No, Mr. Collins, I’m sure we haven’t.”

“Really?  It’s just that… your face seems familiar to me.”

The other man was between them now, a storm brewing in his dark eyes.  “The

lady is fine and she doesn’t know you, so you can be on your way.”  He

waved to a passing hansom that immediately came to a stop, then grasped his

companion’s arm tightly.  “Let’s go, Miranda.”  She followed him into the

carriage and the pair was soon out of view.

A white fog was lifting as he walked on, his sixth sense guiding him around

one turn, and then another and another.  He passed through a skeletal arch

that led into a park near the Collinsport wharf and found himself drawn

toward a lone woman seated on a bench.  When he was beside her, she said,

“I’ve been waiting for you, Barnabas.”

He glanced away nervously.  “What would your friend think about that?”

“He won’t bother us.”  She stood and began circling him.  “What do you

remember?”

He looked back at her and found bits of truth in her eyes.

“Strong feelings between us,” he replied.  “Powerful emotions.”

“Of a man and his wife?”

“No.  Of enemies.”

“I assure you we’re much more than that.”  She smiled as if enjoying a

private joke.  “We’re soul mates now.”

“I killed you.”

“A great deal has happened since then.”

He saw himself putting a knife through her heart and her body behind a

wall.  “You shouldn’t be here.”

She moved closer.  “I’m here because you want me to be.”  She encircled him

with her arms and lips softly traveled across a cheek to his neck.  “Do you

remember this?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

Her own pale neck was exposed, but he resisted his gnawing hunger and

instead brought her face in front of his, cupping it gently, and he

examined it carefully-- it was a face he knew and didn’t know, familiar but

strange, unchanged yet somehow different.  He pressed his mouth onto hers,

and the memories of their violent history yielded to recollections of

passion and comfort.  She pulled back suddenly and her lips stretched into

a smile.  “I must leave now,” she told him.

“You can’t.”

“I must.  But it won’t be for long.”  He tried to hold on tighter even as

she was slipping out of his arms, but before exiting she glanced back a

final time to say, “Hold fast to your dreams, Barnabas.”

~*~

The twin doors were flung open and Quentin strode into the foyer to find a

startled Magda.  “Don’t you know how to knock?” she asked.

“I must’ve left my manners at the other house,” he said while venturing

deeper into the drawing room.  “I remind you that YOU are the intruder

here.”  He peered into an adjoining room, then asked, “Is anyone else here?”

“Why do you want to know?” she snapped.

“It’s a simple question.”  He pointed toward a metal door at the far end of

the foyer.  “What’s in there?”

“Noth-”

“Why are you here?!” a masculine voice hollered.  Quentin turned as the man

descended the last of the stairs.  His swarthy complexion and long black

hair contrasted sharply with a white linen shirt tamed at the waist by a

wide sash.  “Sandor,” Quentin said to him, “Whatever became of gypsy

hospitality?”

Magda continued to regard the visitor darkly.  “You want something.  Tell

us what it is, then get out.”

“I’m looking for my cousin-- the one I never knew existed until this

morning.  I missed his big entrance at Collinwood.”

“We don’t know nothin’ about that,” she said.  “Now good-bye.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you both were trying to get rid of

me.”  Quentin squinted from the glare of the setting sun through a picture

window.  “But we’re all friends, so of course you want to help me find

him.  Judith said he planned to stop by today to look the house over,

though I can’t imagine why anyone would be interested in this eyesore.”

“Magda told you-- Barnabas is not here.”  His wife grimaced, and the big

man fell silent.

From his reaction, there was no doubt Quentin heard the name.  “Then he

HAS been by here!”  He sank into one of a pair of tall chairs before

announcing, “I ran out of places to look and there’s nowhere I have to be,

so I think I’ll just wait here to see if he comes back.”

“NO!”

Quentin eyed her carefully.  “Magda, I’ve never known you to be

nervous.  Is all that spicy food finally affecting you?”

“Your… your * cousin * was here, but he left,” she explained.  “He said he

had to see to some things and it would take all day.”

“Did he go into town?”

“I dunno, maybe.”

“He told Edward he had taken a room at the Collinsport Inn, but I was just

there and no one admitted to having heard of him.”

“Well it is no good waiting for him here because we don’t see him no more

today.”

After surveying the Tarot spread on a nearby table, Quentin plucked a card

from its center labeled “Le Bateleur”.  Magda looked pleadingly at Sandor,

who offered, “I remember something now.”  He was grinning amicably beneath

a heavy black moustache.  “Mr. Barnabas did say he come back tonight, so we

gonna tell him you are looking for him.”

Quentin stood straight up and glowered at the much shorter man.  “No, you

tell him this:  I’ll be waiting for him at Collinwood because we have much

to discuss.  And if he doesn’t show up, I’ll be back first thing in the

morning, and you can be sure I’ll have the Constable with me.  Are we

understanding each other?”

“Yes, we understand,” Magda answered.

“Good.”  And with that, he turned and disappeared through the doors,

leaving the two gypsies to collapse into each other’s arms.

~*~

The witch kept watch over the coffin as the budding dream continued…

Once the cellar door had screamed shut behind him, the house fell eerily

silent.  He followed a perfume scent into the drawing

room.  “Magda?  Vicki?”  An alabaster hand jutted out from the side of a

chair.  “Angelique?”

She threw herself into his arms and kissed him hungrily.  His heart, once

wrung with anguish, flooded with vitality and warmth.  While he had found

little solace before, Barnabas now felt as if freed from a century-long

imprisonment.

~*~

Nora waited, as she often did.  Every morning, for example, she sat in

readiness for lessons to begin, and over breakfast she had pouted for half

an hour until Victoria acknowledged her, but sometimes it was more

important to wait downstairs for Daddy to return from a trip, or in her bed

for sleep to come and Mummy with it, but this time she did her waiting in a

ruffled dress at the entrance to the West Wing.  Jamison often sought out

their uncle, moreso lately than he did her, so there wasn't a more reliable

spot to await her brother's arrival.

Unfortunately for him, she spotted him first.  "What do you want?" he asked

wearily.

"To tell you about Mummy," she said excitedly.  "I saw her!"

His expression remained unchanged.  "You dreamed about her again.  Tell me

something new for a change."

"I'm trying to.  This time I know she's coming.  Mummy is coming!"

He resumed walking, but she followed, all the while calling out to

him.  "It's true!  I did see her.  It wasn't a dream!"

She had him again.  "You saw Mother?!  Where?"

"In my room.  I was in my bed sleeping and... ow!"  His hand had sprung

forward, grabbing her arm and pinning it behind her.  "That'll teach you,"

he told her.

"It's the truth, I swear," she sobbed.  "Why'd you do that?"

"You'd get it worse if father heard you."  He let her go with a

shove.  "Now go away."

He had started down the hall again, and she watched him helplessly, jamming

her fists into the pockets of her dress, the knuckles of her right hand

slamming into something hard.  At last she remembered the vestige of her

mother's visit and grasped the object firmly.

"Jamison, wait!  I have something to show you!"

"What is it now?"

"It's called a scarab.  Isn't it beautiful?" He turned to see her holding

it out for him, and its sparkle reminded him of the moon's reflection in

his favorite pond.  He snatched it up and mimicked his father's actions

when examining a family heirloom.  "Where'd you get it?"

"Mummy gave it to me.  To prove she's really coming.  You believe me now,

don't you?"

He was intently focused on the drawings etched on its underside.  "I think

this is a bird, and that's an eye."  He continued to study it

carefully.  "I can't make out the rest.  I think Uncle Quentin should see it."

She nodded hesitantly.  “Then I'm coming with you.”

~*~

He watched the ebb and flow of her breathing as she slept beside him.  Her

eyes opened and she smiled brightly.  “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“Us.”

She snuggled closer.  “Barnabas, you won’t tell anyone about me, will

you?  At least not yet?”

“I won’t,” he assured her, “because I don’t want to share you with anyone.”

“I feel the same way.”

“Angelique, now that I have you back, I couldn’t bear it if you left me again.”

“Please be patient, darling.  Soon we’ll be together always.”

“Then take me with you.”

“I can’t.”

He wore a wounded look.  “Won’t you at least tell me where you go?”

She pressed a finger gingerly to his lips.  “Shhh, it’s not

important.”  She climbed on top of him and began kissing his chest, his

neck, his face…

“Barnabas.  Barnabas, wake up!  Can you hear me?”

He was smiling as his eyes opened, but his content turned to fury when he

saw Magda peering into the coffin.  “You fool!  You made her go!” he

shouted as he reached for her neck.

She couldn’t speak, and Sandor screamed in agony.  “What are you

doing?!  She can’t breathe!  Stop, stop, you’re killing her!”  The vampire

saw that her face had grown sickly pale and released his grip on her throat.

Magda collected herself, then explained, “I-I come to tell you that… I come

to say that Quentin wants you at Collinwood right away.  He means to make

big trouble for Sandor and me if you don’t!”

~*~

The agonized wail of a dog pierced the evening quiet as Quentin paced the

drawing room, and he stopped only briefly to refill the snifter, both

actions done more out of habit than for any other purpose.  He didn’t know

how long his guest had stood in the doorway, but as soon as he laid eyes on

him he was certain Judith hadn’t been exaggerating when she said he had the

same face as the man in the portrait.  There was no doubt about it-- it was

as if he had been forged into an exact match of the original Barnabas Collins.

“Forgive me if I startled you,” the man said.  “One of your servants told

me where to find you.  Perhaps I should have had her announce me.  I’m your

cousin…”

“I know who you are,” Quentin interrupted, and gesturing toward the liquor

cabinet, asked, “Would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you.”  He hesitated, then added, “You asked to see me.”

“Yes, I did.”  Quentin threw himself onto the divan.  “Did you find the Old

House to your liking?”

It struck Barnabas that this earlier version of his friend was completely

lacking in warmth.  “Indeed I did,” he replied while stepping over to

survey the portrait above the mantle.  “It was exactly as I imagined it

would be… from the stories I was told about it, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Quentin, I doubt you asked me here to discuss my visits there.”

“No, I didn’t.  I’m going to be frank with you, Barnabas, or whatever your

name is.”

He turned quickly to face him.  “I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t know how much they told you last night, but I recently returned

from a trip abroad.”

“I see.”

“I spent a good deal of it in Europe-- long enough to know that there is no

English branch of the Collins family and there never has been.”

Barnabas smiled.  “I’m afraid that is my fault.”

“Oh?  How is that?”

“You see, I’m the last of my line, and I have always preferred keeping to

myself.  I would venture to guess that perhaps you just didn’t speak to the

right people nor ask the appropriate questions.”

“And you told Edward that you only arrived yesterday on the Pride of Jamison?”

“Yes.”

“Well, she’s still in port and I checked their manifest today, but there

was no Barnabas Collins aboard her last voyage.”

“That can be explained easily as well.  I traveled under the name of my

former business partner.”

“Now isn’t that convenient?”

“Quentin, I’m curious as to why you’ve gone to such great lengths to

investigate my whereabouts.”

The younger man was on his feet now.  “It’s because I think you’re a liar

and a con artist, and I intend to find out what you want with my family!”

“I assure you, my motives are quite innocent.  I’ve come here in search of

my roots, and the only thing I would consider accepting from your family is

its friendship, but I never expected to encounter such hostility and

suspicion from my own flesh and blood.”

“What is going on here?!” Judith shouted from the doorway.  “Quentin, what

have you said to our cousin?”

“It’s all right,” Barnabas told her.  “We were just… getting to know each

other.”

“No, it isn’t all right,” she countered.  “I apologize for

Quentin.  Sometimes he speaks before thinking.”

“And where are your manners?” she asked her brother before turning back to

their guest.  “Won’t you sit down, Cousin Barnabas?  I can have the

servants fix us some tea…”

“Thank you, but perhaps it’s best that I take my leave.  I’ll see myself to

the door.  Good night, Judith.”  He faced his opponent once

more.  “Quentin, I’m sure we’ll speak again.”

Judith smiled until he was gone, and then her usual frown returned.  “I

don’t know why you found it necessary to insult him.  If only Grandmama was

here.  She knew how to keep your childish behavior in check.”

“You’re the last person that would wish her back,” he snapped, and then his

mood became dreamy.  “Besides, if you knew the things she said about… never

mind.”

“What did she say?” she asked eagerly.  “Did it have to do with the secret?”

“Grandmama was quite mad.  So what does it matter what she said in her last

days anyway?”

“You’re lying!  If this is another of your schemes to get your hands on my

inheritance, I can assure you it won’t work.”

~*~

He had every quality her father disliked in a suitor.  And that's a good

thing, Charity was thinking.  Her path had crossed with that of the Collins

black sheep, who gave new meaning to the term “godly”.  She hoped her eyes

didn't betray her attraction from beneath blackened lashes.

An errant strand of hair was put back in place.  "Quentin, I wonder if you

can solve a mystery for me."

He smiled brilliantly.  "Oh?  What mystery would that be?"

"It's about the room atop the tower.  I was sure I saw a light, but when I

inquired about it..."

“No one has been in there in years."

"That's exactly how Miss Judith put it.  But..."

Still smiling, he said, "It was probably the moon and nothing to concern

yourself with.  I hope you’re just as attentive toward my niece and nephew."

She was eyeing him suspiciously.  "Tell me, do the Collinses always give

identical answers to questions?"  Charity knew what she saw, and she wasn't

going to let this go.  Oh no, fat chance of that.

~*~

There were no mirrors in the tower room.  Judith had ordered it, mostly for

reasons involving safety, but the shred of compassion that remained in her

also wanted to protect her sister-in-law from seeing how far removed she

had become from the fresh-faced bride that Quentin sprang on the family.

But because of it, Jenny hadn't witnessed her own reflection in nearly a

year.  Sometimes, when her mind was especially muddled, she couldn't

remember her own face at all, and it made her feel alienated from the

others in her universe.  "What do I look like?" she would ask Beth, and she

would receive assurance that she was as beautiful as ever, but it didn't

put to rest her longing to see her own image... to look into her own

eyes... to feel real.

This is why she needed her babies so much.  Staring into their eyes, she

sensed she was gazing at herself.  They were her anchor; they rooted her to

the world.  The tiny beings verified her existence and made her feel less

like a whisper.

Whispers.

Jenny sought out the source of the grim whispers.  She was drawn toward the

door, and listened.

~*~

Charity hesitated at the uppermost landing.  She raised her lamp and it

threw quivering shadows in the tiny hallway.  And that's when the feeling

came that she wasn't alone.  The stranger approached from behind, his eyes

fixed on her-- eyes that shined even in the darkness.  She found she

couldn't move, even as his fingers dug deeply into the flesh on her

shoulders, and knowing he couldn't fight the urge any longer, Barnabas

parted his lips and bit through her throat though he hated himself for it.

As he drank, he touched the deepest spaces within her mind, and her

thoughts became his thoughts.  He felt her passion, her eagerness, her

rebelliousness, her greed.  And her complicity in the murder of her father.

But what he failed to sense was that his cousin, intrigued by what the

young woman told him, had followed her there and witnessed the attack from

a shadowy part of the staircase.

He was trembling, and he longed for the taste of brandy to help banish the

fear.  And it didn't help that Grandmama's words were playing in his

head.  "Entombed ... Barnabas Collins ...  1796 ... cursed ... one of the

living dead."  God, he had assumed the old bat was crazy.  "The secret ...

if it got out..."  But how could it have happened?  I get it, Quentin told

himself-- he resembled the man in the portrait so fully because he * was *

that man.  But how long could he stay young like that?  Was he

immortal?  Did he hunger for it as I do?, he asked.  Does he have a

weakness?  Is he as afraid of death and nothingness as I am?

~*~

Beth found her charge sitting very still, and she called to her but the

woman didn't respond.  The plan had been to collect the dinner dishes and

leave, and she was in no mood to deal with any new problems.   She set the

empty tray down and tried shaking her, but it was no use, and now she could

see that Jenny's lap was soaking wet.  Some people found crocks full of

gold at the end of the rainbow, she reflected, but for her there was only

more rain.

While retrieving a crisp dress to replace the other one, she saw black

stars and then nothing.

Jenny stood above her, the useful tray still in her hands.  She frowned and

told her, "You said he wouldn't find me.  But I heard him whisper

'liar'."  After tiptoeing over the blood, she retrieved the key carefully

although she encountered no resistance.

TO BE CONTINUED ...