Shadows on the Wall Chapter 95

CHAPTER 95:  Timeslip

by Nicky

Voiceover by Nancy Barrett: “Julia Hoffman has disappeared from the room in the East Wing, a mysterious portal that leads to other worlds … other times.  After Julia, Barnabas, and Angelique escaped from a parallel dimension and an adventure that nearly cost them their lives, only Julia has been plucked from 1968 by the forces that rule the room … plucked from her own time and deposited in the distant future … forward in time … to the year 2014.”

1

             “My god,” Carolyn said, and lightly brushed Julia’s hair, grown increasingly shaggy, what with all the turmoil surrounding Collinwood past, present, and parallel lately.  Then the older woman drew her hand back as if shocked, and stared wide-eyed at her fingertips.  She doesn’t believe I’m real, Julia thought; hell, I barely believe it.  “My god, Julia, you look just as you did the last time I saw you.”

            “The summer of 1968.”

            “Yes.  Just before you followed Barnabas into that … that other time.”

            “But Carolyn,” Julia said, casting an eye around the drawing room, so much like the way it had been when last she had seen it, but oh so different at the same time, “Carolyn, I’ve just come from that other time.  For me, it is still 1968, don’t you see?”

            “I don’t understand.”  Julia’s eyes narrowed.  Even as she spoke the words, Carolyn’s face … twitched.  Ticced, perhaps, at the corner of her right eye and, at the same time, at the right corner of her mouth.  She’s lying, Julia thought; she does understand; she isn’t naïve, some innocent waif who has never pondered the horrors that lie beneath the roof of her ancestral home; she knows something; now, what is it?

            “We were in that room,” Julia said, carefully choosing her words to avoid adding “Angelique’s room”, “the room that sent Barnabas and me into Parallel Time to begin with.  We had just returned to our own time.  The others left the room, and I stayed behind … but only for a moment.”  Panic twisted inside her, and she gripped it tightly; can’t lose my head now, she thought fiercely; no time to turn into a bibbling idiot; I must figure this out, and figure it out quickly.  “I suppose that was enough – the room changed again, and … here I am.”

            “It threw you forward in time,” Carolyn said, her voice soft with awe.  “Oh Julia,” and she flung her arms around the other woman, “you have no idea how wonderful it is to see you again.”

            Julia, discomfited, always slightly uncomfortable with overt shows of affection, finally allowed herself to return Carolyn’s embrace.  They had never been terrifically close; for most of the past year, Carolyn had been possessed by the ravening spirit of an eighteenth century French murderess by the name of Danielle Roget; after that, she had nearly become a vampire at the hands of Barnabas Collins when she stumbled into the coffin room at the Old House at a most inopportune moment; and after that, she was nearly killed when Vicki went on her Collins-destroying rampage.  Now … who could say?  The last Julia had seen of her, she was discussing the potential return of Laura Collins with David.  “2014,” she said at last, to say something.

           

            “Forty-five years,” Carolyn said.  She drew back, and Julia was further startled to see that tears sparkled in her deep blue eyes.  “Julia, you don’t know … forty-five years at Collinwood.  Forty-five long years.”

            “We must figure out why I’m here,” Julia said.  “It can’t be an accident.”

            “Why not?” Carolyn said.  “Nothing about this makes much sense.  Why should Barnabas be sent to a world parallel to our own?  Why should that world exist at all?  Maybe there are no answers, Julia.”

            “But we did find out why that world exists,” Julia said, suddenly excited.  “From a woman in that time named Roxanne Drew.  She believed that her world had no reason to exist.  That it branched off from ours at some point.  She even knew when:  1692, when a warlock named Judah Zachery caused something to happen that split our world into two.”

            “Judah Zachery!” Carolyn gasped.

            Julia frowned.  “You know the name?  I had never heard of him before.”

            “N-no,” Carolyn said suddenly, and there – there it was again:  that little tic, at the corner of her eye and at the corner of her mouth.  “No, I don’t think I have.”

            Julia opened her mouth to call Carolyn out on her lying, then thought better of it and relaxed.  I must tread carefully, she told herself; I must work my way through this time slowly and with great caution if I’m to figure out why I’ve come to this place.  Because, despite Carolyn’s feelings, Julia believed very strongly that there was a specific purpose behind this particular timeslip.  “Where is the rest of the family?” she asked instead.  “Certainly you don’t live here by yourself, do you?”

            “No,” Carolyn said after the barest hesitation.  Then, more firmly, “No.  David lives here as well.  He lived for several years in Venezuela – Julia, he even opened up his own restaurant, David, can you imagine? – but he came home after his wife … passed away.  Diana died just over a year ago, but he’s still terribly broken up about it.”  Her eyes flickered, and she dropped her head.  “Mother passed away, oh, a long time ago.  In 1990.  Peacefully, naturally.”  Her head jerked up.  Her voice trembled waspishly.  “That’s how our lives have been for the past several decades, Julia:  peaceful.  Natural.”

            Julia never responded; a chilling cavalcade of laughter – horrific, familiar, and most of all, aggravating – met her ears and caused them nearly to bleed.

            Carolyn strode across the drawing room and gripped the doorway with one trembling, arthritic hand.  Her eyes spit sparks of hatred all the way to the top of the staircase.  Julia, following, saw the source of Carolyn’s seething, and nearly took a step backward.  Even though she had just seen – and worked with, and even started to like – the woman who stood at the top of the staircase, it was still a nasty shock to see her like … like that.  “Natural?” the woman emitting that shattering laughter tittered.  “Peaceful?  My dear, dear Carolyn:  please.”

            “Cassandra,” Carolyn snarled.  “Could you please keep your voice down?”

 

            Cassandra Blair Collins, one hand on the balustrade, the other pressed saucily against the hip of the chic crimson dress she wore, did not look a day over twenty-one.  Her hair, black as a raven’s wing, framed her face and high, rounded cheekbones, straightened, curved like mirrored C’s, more like a helmet than ever.  Giant silver hoop earrings dangled heavily from her earlobes.  “Carolyn, Carolyn, Carolyn,” Cassandra sang even as she descended the stairs, “you may be the mistress of this house, but you are not the mistress of me.  No one,” and she sounded haughty and angry at the same time, “no one is the mistress of me.” 

Then she stood before Julia, who couldn’t help but take a step backward, expecting at any moment to watch those terrible and horribly familiar pearly fangs descend from her Barbie doll pink lips.  “Julia,” Cassandra said, and no fangs emerged, and it was with a shock that Julia realized that Cassandra was trembling with fury, “how could you come back now?  How could you?  How dare you?”

2

 

            “Cassandra,” Carolyn said with forced calm – Julia could nearly hear the bone-squeal gritting of her teeth – “Cassandra, dear – perhaps you might back off the tiniest bit.  What do you say?”

            Cassandra’s – Angelique’s – blue eyes flashed.  “Damn you, Julia Hoffman,” she hissed … but did as Carolyn bade, and took a step backward.

           

            Julia lifted her chin, and her eyes narrowed.  “What are you doing here?”  Her eyes darted to Carolyn.  “And why do you look … as you do?”

            “I would step carefully if I were you, Doctor Hoffman,” Cassandra spat.

            Carolyn stepped between them.  “Ladies,” she said.  “Please.  There’s no reason to come to blows.”  She turned to face Julia, and her eye and mouth ticked again.  “I know everything about Cassandra,” she said.

            “I doubt that,” Julia remarked.

            “I was forced to.”  Cassandra rolled her eyes, crossed her arms over her breasts, and, hips swaying, stalked over to the table where once the telephone had sat.  Now there were twin apparatuses, slim black plastic towers, that blinked with green lights, like the eyes of cats.  “I delved into the history of the family after Barnabas and … and Cassandra returned from Parallel Time,” Carolyn said.  “The true history; I can tell from your face that you know there is such a thing.  I worked with Professor Stokes to hone my psychic abilities.”

            Cassandra snorted.

            Carolyn, glaring, ignored her.  “As we worked, I began to learn the true nature of the Collins family.  All our little sins and peccadilloes.  For a long time I was so preoccupied with my own … my own dark side, let’s call it, that I lost sight of the rest of the people around me.  The people I loved.  Professor Stokes saved me, Julia, he really did.  And damned me, I suppose.”  Her eyes darkened.  “Damned us all.”

            “Professor Stokes was a fool,” Cassandra declared.

            “Cassandra,” Julia said sweetly, “please shut up.”

            Before Cassandra could form a retort – and one that might leave Julia Hoffman slightly reduced in some manner – Carolyn said hastily, “He helped open a door inside me that led to all manner of secret places.  Dark places.  I learned all the terrible things that my ancestors were capable of.  I learned about Barnabas and Josette, about Angelique –”  At that, Cassandra’s lower lip began to tremble.  “— about Quentin and Vicki, Petofi, Gerard Stiles – anyone who had been tainted in some manner by the supernatural.”

            “Hadn’t you better speed this little recitation up?” Cassandra said.  “The sun is about to set.”

            “Vampires,” Carolyn said carefully, stepping quickly as she did toward the drawing room windows and, to Julia’s shock, pulled back thick wood shutters, marked on both sides with painted red crosses and other cabalistic designs.  The knobs on both sides glittered silver in the light of the setting sun.  “Werewolves.  Zombies and the living dead.  Creatures from beyond my imagination, for certain.  Collinsport –”

            “Collinsport,” Cassandra interjected, “is overrun.  We never leave the estate if we don’t have to.”

 

            “What on earth do you mean?” Julia said.

            “Just as she said,” Carolyn called as she tugged at the shutters.  “Cassandra, a little help?”  Shrugging, Cassandra gestured, and the shutters closed themselves.  “Thank you,” Carolyn said, and added, sighing, “I don’t suppose I’ll ever get used to that.”

           

            Julia felt something dark and terrible stab at her.  “Where,” she said, her hands trembling, “where is Barnabas?”

            Cassandra and Carolyn exchanged mutual looks.  “We’ll talk about Barnabas later,” Carolyn said.  “Right now we must prepare the house.”

            “Why are you so furious with me?” Julia asked as she followed the two women from room to room.  Cassandra glanced over her shoulder as she traced invisible patterns in the air before the front door, performing, as Carolyn had explained, a protection barrier against anything strong enough to break down the door.

           

            “Not you, I suppose,” Cassandra sighed.  “Your spirit.  Your very potent spirit.”

            “My what?”

           

            “Carolyn hasn’t seen you since the day you followed Barnabas into Parallel Time,” Cassandra said grimly, putting the finishing touches on her witch pattern, “but I have.”

            “How is that possible?”

            “Because your ghost appeared to me shortly after our return.  Yes, Julia, your ghost.  I knew you would show up here someday because you were fated to.  Your spirit told me as much.”

 

            “My ghost,” Julia said, swallowing, “my ghost appeared to you in 1968 … because … because …”  Her throat clicked, and she said weakly, “Because I came to this time and … and I died here.”

3

            “David will be awake shortly,” Carolyn said.  “Are we nearly finished?”

            “I suppose we are,” Cassandra said.  “For tonight.  Yes,” she said, turning back to Julia, “your ghost managed to cross the barriers of time and space to deliver us a warning.  We were all doomed, you told us, unless we gave up everything magic.  Every magical device, every spell, every herb, incantation – all the powers we each possessed.  You told us that it wanted our powers – that it needed them.”

            “It?”

            “The Enemy, you called it,” Cassandra said.  “Your ghost spoke of nothing else.”

            “The Enemy,” Julia said thoughtfully.  “It doesn’t ring any bells.”

           

            “You’ll learn about the Enemy soon enough,” Cassandra snapped.  “Because it’s here – with us – or it will be, shortly.”

            “But what is it?”

            Carolyn shook her head wearily.  “It doesn’t always show itself – certainly not every night.  But when it does, it usually appears as our friends and relatives.”

            “Our deceased friends and relatives,” Cassandra said.  “And our enemies, and those we’ve killed.  But it can become anything – anyone.  We’ve discovered.  If it wants to.  My powers can prevent it from destroying us, but I can’t keep it from appearing in this house whenever it wants to.”

            “Your spells,” Carolyn said with sudden kindness, “are usually very potent.  Almost always.  We’ve lived here – successfully, more or less – for nearly five decades.”

            “But … but your magic,” Julia stammered, “your powers –”

            “I went away,” Cassandra said, “rather than stay.  I found a way to … not to lose them all, but to rid myself of the influence of the Mask of Ba’al.”  Her eyes darkened; so did her tone.  “Because your ghost insisted.  And by the time I returned, it was already too late.  The damage had been done.”

            “How do you know,” Julia said, “that what you were seeing was really my ghost, and not this … this Enemy?”

            “Because the Enemy wanted me to stay,” she said.  “It wanted my powers, just as you warned.  But if I had stayed –”

            “You don’t know what might have happened if you had stayed,” Carolyn said.  “Perhaps things might have been a great deal worse.”

            “What happened?” Julia cried.

            “Professor Stokes sent me away,” Carolyn said.  “To a sorcerer he knew in Singapore.  I was only supposed to be away for a few weeks, but just before I was about to come home, Stokes sent me a telegram urging me to stay with his friend for a few more weeks.  A month later, I couldn’t wait any longer.  I came back home and …”

            “Elizabeth lay in a coma,” Cassandra said.  “David was insane.  And Quentin and Barnabas …”  Her voice trailed off, and her chest hitched the barest, barest inch. 

            “Where is Barnabas?” Julia asked through gritted teeth.

 

            A sudden snarl from just outside the front door cut off whatever Carolyn or Cassandra would say next; at that moment something incredibly heavy hurled itself against the door.  Carolyn cried out and clutched at Cassandra, who thrust out one hand; her eyes flared black, and she said, “Obruro.”  From outside, something yipped in sudden pain; in the next moment, another fusillade of snarling from the other things – and, Julia thought, that was as good a word as any; the sounds the creatures made was like nothing else on this earth she had ever heard before – rose to a feverish pitch, but even those sounds were drowned out by the monstrous roaring of something even more ferocious, something even bigger, that whatever had hurled itself at the door before.

            “This could be it,” Cassandra said grimly from between clenched teeth; her arms were outstretched and her fingers contorted into a series of quick gestures which she used to sketch invisible symbols and patterns in the air.  They glowed a ferocious green and gold for three or four seconds after their creation, but Cassandra didn’t stop her ministrations.

            “Don’t let them get in,” Carolyn chanted, “don’t let them get in, don’t let them get in, don’t let them –”

            “But what are they?” Julia cried, glancing around the foyer for something blunt she could use as a weapon if she had to.

            “Nightspawn,” Cassandra said, as if that explained anything.

            “Nightspawn,” Julia repeated, mystified.

            “From your friends, Quentin,” Cassandra snapped, and drew another symbol that flared up in a burst of dragonish light, then added, “and Barnabas.”

            “Oh no,” Julia whispered.

            The door was buckling.  The hinges stretched, and a blast of cold air from without tousled Julia’s hair.

            “It’s never been this bad before,” Carolyn whimpered. 

            “Because our friend Dr. Hoffman has finally graced us with her presence,” a waspish, catty voice spoke from behind them.  Cassandra maintained her concentration, never diverting from her task, but Carolyn and Julia both looked, and Carolyn moaned, a low sound like a hurt animal.

            Roger Collins stood before them, swirling an amber beverage in a familiar snifter (the one, Julia would bet, he had been holding when Vicki destroyed him so utterly).  He smirked his old smirk and raised his old eyebrow and shook his head.  “They’ll get in this time,” Roger said, “and they’ll take you, Carolyn.  You and David.  As for the witch,” and he directed his bullet-gaze at Cassandra, “they’ll tear her to pieces –”

            “They’ll try,” she snarled.

            “— as they should have done forty five years ago.”

            “You aren’t my Uncle Roger,” Carolyn whimpered.

            “In one sense, that is true,” the thing masquerading as Roger pointed out.  “In another, completely false.  I’m a collector if nothing else, my dear.  Ask anyone who has ever died on this estate.  I, shall we say, inherited them, just the tiniest bit.”

            “I’ve seen you before,” Julia said.

            “True,” the Roger-thing said.  It grinned, revealing spotted teeth; things squirmed between them, tiny green things, but Julia couldn’t drag her gaze away.  “I offered you a warning, didn’t I.”

            “You told me to bring Barnabas back,” she said, swallowing, “when he crossed over into Parallel Time.”

            The thing clapped its hands together.  “And you did more than I could ever have hoped,” it sang.  “Dr. Hoffman, without you, my plans could never even hope to reach fruition.  I need Barnabas –” and the snarling outside reached a fever pitch – “and I needed dear Quentin, and Elizabeth.  Died peacefully,” it said to Carolyn, and snorted.  She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

            “What do you want?” Julia asked.

            “Why, it’s simple,” the Roger-thing said.  “I want the Collins family, just as I always have.  I want them, dear doctor, and I will have them.  And once I do –”

            “You won’t,” Cassandra said.

            “So fierce,” Roger said, shaking his head again, and changed.  Now he was Jeremiah Collins, his face swathed in bandages, one eye drooping from his socket.  His voice rasped from between his grated lips that oozed yellow pus.  “Angelique Bouchard,” he wheezed, “working your weak magics yet.  They are nothing to me, do you understand?  I will drink them as I drink the blood from your wounded heart; I will take your power and use it for the gathering, as I used the power from those fools, Blair and Petofi.”

 

            Blair?  Petofi?  Julia’s eyebrows leaped up to their full heights. 

            “You will do no such thing,” Cassandra said.  “Malum phasmatis,” she chanted, “ordo vos ut evanui …”

            “And as for you, doctor dear,” Jeremiah said, but now he was Vicki, poor dead Vicki, dripping with black serpents that gnawed eternally at her alabaster flesh, “you will die.  I need you dead, as you already know; your spirit has already proven incredibly adept at transcending time.  You will want to warn your friends of this tragedy, of course –”

            She was advancing, her hands outstretched, the ebony snakes hissing, her mouth wreathed in a horrible smile, all gnashing knitting needle fangs.  Julia tried to take a step backward, but found she was frozen in place.  Behind them, she could barely hear Cassandra’s furious chanting. “Licentia meus domus,” she intoned, her eyes crackling black sparks, “operor ut Inquam. Meus vox es validus quam vestry…”

            “I’m not at full strength, you understand,” the Vicki creature said caressingly, as its withered, damp hands sought Julia’s throat and then closed around it in a circle.  Julia tried to make a sound, any sound, and failed.  The Vicki-thing, its eyes empty sockets, was inches away from her, close enough to kiss.  “But I have enough power to snap your neck.  It’s happened before, Julia, so you mustn’t be afraid.  Then you can go to them.  You can warn them –”

 

“Genitus!” Cassandra roared; there was a flash of black lightning, and for a moment, just before Vicki faded away like morning dew, she saw a look of surprise and hatred cross her features.  The house trembled with a bolt of thunder, and all three women were pitched to the floor.

Julia blinked, rubbing her forehead, then cried out a warning:  “Cassandra, the DOOR!”

            But it was too late:  the front door, without Cassandra’s steady chanting, buckled, crumpled, and cracked.

            “No!” Carolyn screamed.  “Oh no, oh no, oh no!”

            Cassandra raised one hand, but only a few serpentine sparks floated and danced between her fingers, then shorted out completely.  Her eyes were wide and very blue.

            The figure in the doorway chuckled without mirth.  Behind it, thrashing furry bodies with emerald eyes twined and snarled.  It stepped forward into the light of the foyer, but even that luminescence did not render him immediately recognizable to Julia’s tortured gaze.

            “Julia,” he said soothingly, like old times, from between fangs like sabers that curled over his lips and down his chin.  His pointed ears twitched high above his head.

            “Oh Barnabas,” Julia choked.  “Barnabas … oh no!”

            And the monstrous thing that had once been Barnabas Collins laughed and laughed.

 

TO BE CONTINUED ...