“A transference of essences.” Maggie Evans gave a hushed sweetness to the formidable words, yet they still wormed their way into Victoria Winters’s ears. “She switched places with Phyllis Wick until they returned to the times they came from. It was only temporary.”
Those words reminded her of where she was, when she was. Back in our own time. The one Maggie Evans was part of.
Once Victoria Winters would have opened her eyes. Let Maggie know she was awake, that she could hear her. Asked her what she meant.
The eighteenth century had taught her caution and guile. She kept her eyes closed, listening. Making certain it was safe to open them.
“If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it.” Sharp with intelligence, Dr. Julia Hoffman’s voice was very close. She must be standing right over Victoria’s bed. “She disappeared at the seance.”
“I thought we’d lost her.” Softer than Dr. Hoffman’s, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard’s voice was no less authoritive, layered with secret pain. “We’d somehow snatched an innocent girl from where she belonged, sending Vicki there. We’d dabbled in something we shouldn’t have.”
“David tried calling Sarah. She wouldn’t come.” Maggie’s words were soft, holding a hint of reproach. “A seance was the best way of contacting her.”
“Sarah Collins was the one who sent Victoria away.” Elizabeth’s voice became a bit harsher. “It’s hard for me to think that seance was for the best. No matter what threat we faced.”
“A threat which had to be averted back in 1795.” Victoria could hear the frown, the worry in Maggie’s words. “Only by sending someone back in time could it be stopped.”
“You think Victoria Winters stopped it?” Julia’s tone was lighter, giving the words a certain sharpness. “She actually went back in time to when Barnabas…when the first Barnabas lived at the Old House? With his little sister?”
“You sound like you still don’t believe it, Julia.” A hint of playful mockery entered Maggie’s words. “Or is a transference of essences not scientific enough for you to accept?”
“Maggie, I’m quite aware there’s more in heaven and earth than what I can analyze with a microscope.” A certain secret understanding between the two women, Dr. Hoffman and Maggie Evans thrummed through her words. “We all lived through it.”
“We’ve lived through enough.” Again there was the harshness in Elizabeth’s words, the anxiety. “She’s lived through enough. I never should have asked her to come here. I was selfish.”
“Elizabeth.” Victoria heard movement. Maggie reaching out to touch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. “No one can blame you for wanting her to come here. For wanting her at your side.”
“I blame myself.” A raw grief the matriarch of Collinwood seldom showed made the words come out choked. “I should have protected her. I never should have let her go.”
“What are you talking about?” Dr. Hoffman voiced the question Victoria Winters had longed for too long to hear. “Just what is Victoria Winters to you, Mrs. Stoddard?”
It was hard to keep still, hard not to tremble. She was so close, close to answers she’d longed for all her life.
Elizabeth had them. She’d always had them as Victoria suspected.
“Julia.” Maggie made her cousin’s name a gentle reproval. “You have your secrets. Allow Mrs. Stoddard to have hers.”
There was a pause. Even with her eyes closed. Victoria could feel the force of the stares the two formidable women exchanged.
It reminded her that Maggie Evans was formidable for all her gentle eyes and soft prettiness. Maggie knew secrets which she’d kept without revealing a hint she was doing so.
It was enough to make Victoria want to scream. It was an effort to hold still.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Stoddard.” Dr. Hoffman was backing off, leaving the mystery be. “There have been so many ripples in our reality. I find myself wondering just how far they go and how far they will take us.”
“Collinwood has always been a haunted house. Haunted by memories of what was as much by actual ghosts.” Once again Victoria Winters could almost breathe in the grief exuded by this woman, concealing her as much as her veil. “Bringing Victoria Winters here was my attempt to banish a few of my own.”
“Instead she seems to be summoning them forth.” Again Victoria heard the sharpness, the hint of hostility in Julia Hoffman’s voice. Why? “What is it about Victoria Winters which draws them?”
“She has a natural sensitivity.” Maggie’s soft voice was reassuring, like a blanket wrapping around her, shielding her from accusations. “Like Carolyn. Like David.”
“Like my father.” Again there was the grief in Elizabeth’s voice. Victoria could almost taste the tears in the air. “Such sensitivity brings loneliness. I don’t want Vicki to live through the things my father did.”
“She may have already lived through much worse.” Blunt and practical, Julia pointed out the obvious. “If she truly was in 1795. The first Barnabas Collins’s time.”
There was a catch, a hint of softness attached to Barnabas’s name.
“If? Still haven’t accepted the ripples in your reality, Julia?” Maggie snorted, her voice taking on some of the sarcasm of her cousin. “Especially when it concerns the heritage of the man you love.”
Silence followed this statement. An even more pronounced silence.
“So that’s why you’ve stayed at Collinwood.” Elizabeth’s voice was very soft. “I wondered why after Michael Woodard died.”
“You know Willie Loomis suffered from a condition.” Dr. Julia Hoffman kept her voice very dry, not showing any emotion. “Barnabas suffered from it, too. I have been treating him or trying to.”
“Given his condition, the state he’s in,” Maggie replied in a much gentler tone, “you may not be able to.”
“I won’t give up.” Determination, a hint of the passion always so restrained in Julia Hoffman from her severely shot hair, to her functional dress crept into this statement. “I can help him if he’ll let me.”
They knew. They knew who Barnabas Collins was. What he was. They knew he was the first, the only Barnabas Collins. That he’d never gone to England. That he was a vampire.
There was no sickness. Willie Loomis, Joe Haskell, and maybe even Carolyn Stoddard had all suffered blood loss, shown the red marks on their necks. Victims of the vampire, similar to those upon Nathan and Suki Forbes, Millicent Collins, Abigail Collins, and so many women in Collinsport.
Similiar to the ones which had been on Josette DuPres Collins.
He was a vampire and there was those who knew he was. Knew a lot more than David sensed, than Sarah Collins had revealed.
Dr. Julia Hoffman and Maggie Evans knew. They were protecting him. They cared about him.
All those times Victoria Winters threw herself at Barnabas Collins, they’d known. They’d done nothing to stop her.
No. This wasn’t true. Maggie had tried to warn her from coming to Collinwood in the first place. Memory after memory of the other woman distracting her with a problem or a question, delivered with a deceptive casualness.
Each one had stopped her from going to the Old House. From seeing Barnabas. Especially at night.
Dr. Hoffman had done the same. She’d commented on the music box, on Barnabas’s intentions. Those had been warnings.
Victoria Winters had ignored them. She’d thrown herself at Barnabas like a lovesick fool. Pretending she was Josette. Losing herself in the romance of being Josette, falling in love with her own Barnabas Collins.
What an idiot. He’d always been Josette’s Barnabas. He’d always seen Josette in her, something she’d encouraged, taken delight in.
How lovely it was to get lost in the past, even if it wasn’t her own. If Victoria Winters couldn’t have her own past, she’d have Josette’s. She’d be part of Barnabas’s.
Had he ever seen anything in her other than his lost love?
Had she ever wanted him to?
“Dr. Hoffman…Julia.” There was a sternness worthy of any mother as well as any matriarch in Elizabeth’s words. “You can only be as loyal to a man as he allows you to be.”
“Sometimes a man is so caught up in his own past, his problems, he doesn’t recognize loyalty or love.” Dr. Hoffman’s defiance was almost youthful, at complete odds with her caustic sarcasm. “Aren't those the moments he needs it the most?”
She loved him. She truly loved him.
Dr. Julia Hoffman had kept quiet about Barnabas because she loved him. Why wouldn’t she?
Josette had loved him. Ben Loomis had loved him. His little sister, Sarah had loved him. She loved him still. She was trying to protect him. As was Julia. As was Maggie.
Why shouldn’t they? Barnabas Collins was a victim, too. As much of a victim as Willie, Joe, and Carolyn had been.
As much of a one as Victoria Winters had always been.
Victims of the same witch.
Cruel laughter, high and sweet awaited in her memories, trapped in her cell. Never leaving her alone. Mocking her.
“Why?” Victoria had whispered. “I never did anything to you. Why have you turned me into a witch? Making everyone believe I am guilty of your crimes?”
“Ah, ma petite.” Affection and a little sorrow mingled with the mockery. “The only way out for you is to become a witch. It shouldn’t be that difficult. Not for you.”
A pistol falling from her hand. A hand which struggled with a meaty paw and found his face. Noah Gifford’s leer had turned into sheer terror right before his face went blank.
Right before he fell down dead, a mark on his face when she touched him.
A scar appeared on Victoria Winters’s hand, marring her flesh. A scar which was there still which she’d carried back from the past. Along with the memory of Daniel Collins’s wide eyes, fixed upon her, his trembling lower lip.
No. She wasn’t a witch. Angelique was the witch. It had been Angelique. She’d done it. She’d bewitched Josette and Jeremiah. She’d made Sarah and Daniel sick.
God only knew what she’d done to Barnabas, to make the man she loved rise from the dead as one of the undead.
Too many secrets. Too much to know at once.
How much did Dr. Julia Hoffman know? How much did Maggie Evans?
What would they do to her if they found out what Victoria Winters knew? What would Barnabas? What would happen to anyone she told?
Perhaps the same thing which happened to Willie Loomis, Joe Haskell, and Carolyn Stoddard. Or what happened to Professor Michael Woodard.
All of these things kept Victoria Winters still with her eyes shut.
Maggie and Dr. Hoffman could have been more ruthless. They had a wealth of skills, of knowledge Victoria knew nothing of.
Transference of essences. The words evoked a spooky world of fanged shadows and mediums wailing while stern-faced men attached wires to their foreheads.
Or stern-faced women. Those wires were part of Julia Hoffman’s world until she’d entered this one. A world her cousin was far more comfortable in than she was.
Perhaps Maggie Evans knew how to deal with fanged shadows. Whatever Barnabas was, he didn’t appear to scare her. At least not enough to stop her from protecting him.
They could have gone as far as Angelique had in removing Victoria Winters. She was, after all, a romantic rival for Barnabas. At least as far as Julia was concerned.
Perhaps she still was. Feelings like Josette Collins’s didn’t go away, even if you could still hear the scream of the wind upon Widows’ Hill, the cruel laughter of your rival. Even if you could feel the bite of the rocks beneath your feet, the sharp sting of fangs sinking into your flesh, or the roughness of the rope digging into your neck.
Victoria Winters was unable to stop the groan from escaping her lips.
“Vicki?” Dr. Hoffman was instantly on guard, at her side. “Are you awake? How do you feel?”
Victoria could hear the panic sharpening the show of concern. Just how much had she heard? How much did she know?
“Vicki.” Smooth hands rough with age, trembling with worry smoothed her hair. “It’s all right. You’re safe. You’re home.”
Vicki’s eyes prickled with tears at Elizabeth’s words, at the reassurance she offered. For a moment she believed them. Her tears spilled down her cheeks.
She allowed herself to sit up, wrap herself in Elizabeth’s embrace. As if Elizabeth was the mother she’d never known. As if the matriarch of Collinwood could somehow protect her from everything which had happened. As if she could go back and hide in Elizabeth’s arms.
“Vicki.” As sweet and hushed as Josette’s voice had ever been, Maggie whispered a soft assurance which added force to Elizabeth’s. “We’re here.”
There was no threat in those words. Victoria opened her eyes.
The last time she’d had, she’d seen Barnabas. Staring at her in mingled relief, terror, and hungry awareness. She knew. He knew she knew.
There was no way to hide within innocence. Not any more.
Victoria hadn’t dared to open her eyes since. She’d sank back into uneasy dreams of blood, imagining she was Nathan, Joe, Carolyn, Millicent; all facing the dark figure advancing upon them. Facing the open mouth, exposing his fangs.
Imagining she was Josette, fleeing from her former love, the nightmare of what she’d become if she gave into her feelings for him.
She saw Maggie, looking at her with soft brown eyes, filled with kindness and innocence. How could they be innocent? Knowing what she knew?
She didn’t look as much like Josette as Victoria did. She never had, yet there was a kind of faith, an optimism in her. A strength which was as much because of kindness as fearlessness.
This made Victoria feel an odd stab of hunger, very akin to the hunger she’d once felt looking at Barnabas’s portrait, at Josette’s portrait. The trappings of a past she’d never had.
Victoria Winters had lived in that very past she coveted. It had nearly killed her.
Maybe it wasn’t the end of her journey. Something about the curve of Maggie’s mouth’s, the hint of humor suggested it wasn’t. There were other mysteries awaiting her. Mysteries in which she might find herself.
“We’re real.” How reassuring Maggie’s words were. “So are you.”
For a moment Victoria Winters simply basked in the warmth of these women, breathed them in along with the sense of home they brought.
“You’ve had quite an adventure, Vicki, as well as been through quite an ordeal.” Trust Julia to put an end to the softness with an almost masculine brusqueness. “I would have believed it if I hadn’t seen you disappear, only to see Phyllis Wick sitting in your chair in your place.”
“Phyllis Wick.” That name brought words from the past swimming back through her memories, accompanied by the faded loveliness of Naomi Collins’s harried face. So like and unlike Elizabeth’s.
“Where is Miss Wick? I hired a Miss Phyllis Wick.”
“She was real.” Victoria Winters blinked, moistening her tongue. Not wanting to let go of Elizabeth. “She were here.”
“Right after you disappeared. Right before you reappeared.” Elizabeth let her go with a slow reluctance, still touching her hand, her hair.
“She was the proof of what happened to you, what Sarah and David told us was happening to you.” Dr. Hoffman pressed her lips together, as if choosing with great care what next to say.
She doesn’t trust me. She isn’t sure how much I know. She isn’t sure if I’m going to sob all my suspicions about Barnabas into Elizabeth’s ear or go telling tales to Roger.
Once upon a time, neither of them would have believed her. Ghosts were one thing, but vampires?
After having someone from the past appear and disappear, taking the place of someone in the present, a lot more seemed possible.
Not that Elizabeth and Roger would be ready to accept it. There was a quiet resistance in the matriarch of Collinwood, different from the outbursts of outrage from Roger Collins at the supernatural intruding on his property. As if they had no right to be here. As if they hadn’t been here long before he had.
Victoria wondered if these attittudes had to do with their father, the one Elizabeth said had been sensitive. If Roger’s dismissive attitude, hiding outright fear of what David saw and spoke wasn’t a reaction to the same thing.
They didn’t want David and Victoria to be like their father. He was another mystery in the many overshadowing Collinwood.
Solve one and another crept forward.
The thought made Victoria Winters smile in spite of herself.
“Vicki?” Yes, there was definitely fear in Julia’s voice. Fear for the man she loved.
For a moment she saw Nathan Forbes, so like and unlike Joe Haskell, lying pale and still upon the ground. A figure crouching over him.
The figure turned to fix his red eyes upon her. “You’ve had so many nightmares, Victoria. Don’t let me be one of them.”
Barnabas Collins. A monster, yet a man.
“Don’t worry, Julia.” She almost didn’t recognize her own voice, coming from her lips. “I’ve learned there’s a lot more to the past than what people see and remember in the present. Voices which cry out for help, even as they terrify us with the face they’re hiding.”
“Oh, Vicki.” Maggie sat down next Elizabeth, reached for her other hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“As am I.” Elizabeth held on tighter to her hand. “I invited you here, not knowing the danger I was exposing you to. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it.”
“I’m glad you did.” Victoria was surprised by the fierceness of her words. She looked over at Julia, squeezed the other two women’s hands. “It was a harsh lesson, but I’ve learned many things, confronting the past. I wouldn’t unlearn them, no matter how much the lesson hurt.”
“I’m not sure if anyone else could.” Julia gazed at her with a guarded respect. “You’re a lot stronger, Victoria Winters, than I gave you credit for.”
“From astral projection to a transference of essence.” A smile began to play at Maggie’s lips. “You’ve done things my mentor in college only dreams of doing.”
“Those are words I haven’t heard since my father was around.” Elizabeth heaved a sigh. “Here I was hoping Collinwood would be quieter while I was its mistress, but perhaps that’s not its destiny.
Victoria Winters shut her eyes, biting her lower lip, releasing the two women’s hands. Guilt made her withdraw into herself.
Had she brought this with her to Collinwood? Stirred up the spirits, released the vampire? Even though she didn’t know how she did it.
“I’m not sure exactly what those words mean.” Again she looked at Maggie, not daring to meet Elizabeth’s gaze.
“You switched places with Phyliis Wick.” Again Julia stated the brutal truth, like a slap to her cheeks. “Wherever you were, she went.”
On the gallows. Being hung. She’d died, accused of Victoria Winters’ crimes. Just as Victoria nearly died, accused of Angelique’s crimes.
“Vicki, Phyllis was already dying before she disappeared.” It was as if Maggie Evans had read her thoughts. “Dying of a sickness we couldn’t stop. Isn’t that right, Julia?”
“That’s right,” Dr. Hoffman said, looking awkward and a little less sure of herself. “If you were in peril, Vicki, you didn’t kill Phyllis by coming home. At least she got to go home before dying.”
Dying with a noose around her neck. This wasn’t much comfort to Victoria Winters.
Silence fell between them like a curtain being drawn. Victoria peeked out from under her eyelashes at Maggie.
Pensive and wistful, the other woman appeared to be lost in her thoughts. Her beauty made Victoria’s breath catch in her throat.
Again she thought of Josette.
She’d been the one part about the past which hadn’t disappointed Victoria Winters. Josette DuPres had been every bit as lovely as Barnabas claimed she was. His memory hadn’t failed him when it came to his lost love.
What a tribute to have the same face as such a beauty. To have someone see Josette in her.
Yes, they had been alike, as like as a pair of twins cast adrift in different times. They’d felt the kinship when they spoke, when they touched each other.
Alike yet unalike. There had been such warmth in Josette’s eyes, an eagerness to help and heal anyone whose path she crossed.
Maggie Evans was looking at her with those exact same eyes.
“I’m sorry if I’m using strange words in relation to you. Maybe I should describe the transference of essences a different way,” the waitress murmured.
The waitress who was also a witch. And an artist. Not to mention an educated woman, educated enough to have once had Victoria’s job. “Do you sometimes feel like you’re someone else? A sensation so vivid you visualize yourself as that person?”
Elizabeth and Julia both stirred a bit at this, as if recognizing the state Maggie described.
Victoria was so shocked she stammered out the truth. “Yes. How do you know?”
“Some people can slip out of their bodies into someone else.” Maggie reclaimed Victoria’s hand, squeezed it. “It’s been documented. You may be someone who has an easier time to doing so than most.”
“Because I’ve always searched for answers or dreamed of living in another time,” Victoria murmured. “You’re saying I made my own wish come true?”
“With a little help from Sarah Collins and everyone at the seance.” Maggie let go of her hand. “I’m guessing you sometimes feel as if you’re flying over places you’ve never been, one with the wind.”
Victoria shivered. This was too much like what Reverend Trask accused her of, finger pointing at her.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Maggie backed away, giving her space. “Or afraid of.”
“Vicki.” Dark eyes fixed upon her, different from Maggie’s or Josette’s. More like Barnabas in their mingled compassion and sternness. “Don’t ever convince yourself you have anything to be ashamed of.”
Victoria dropped her head, reaching up touch the rope burn on her neck.
Maggie looked away, as if gazing at someone else far away. Someone only she could see.
Julia kept her attention fixed upon Victoria. “Where were you when you left 1895?”
“At the end of my rope.” The joke tasted bitter in her mouth. “I was about to hanged for witchcraft. Only an innocent girl died for my crimes if Phyllis ended up right where I was.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Once again Victoria almost felt as Josette’s soft brown eyes was looking back at her from Maggie’s face. “You weren’t the one who killed Phyllis Wick, Vicki. The people who sent you to the gallows are.”
Angelique. Victoria couldn’t quite bring her lips to shape her name.
She reached out for Maggie’s hand once again. “You make what happened to me sound very simple.”
“It is.” Again Maggie darted her eyes away, almost as if she was conversing with someone only she could see.
“No.” Victoria fixed her gaze upon Maggie, feeling a strange certainty in her fingers, touching the other woman. “There’s more to it.”
“Not for you.” Maggie shook her head, auburn waves rippling with the movement, smiling sadly. Redder than Josette’s, yet it had the same weight, the same body. How sweet her smile was, touched with sorrow.
How had Barnabas not seen it? Seen the similarity to Josette in this woman as well as herself?
Victoria felt an urge to tell Maggie about Josette’s portrait. To show it to her. Touching her hand, she was certain Maggie was as connected to Josette DuPres Collins as she was. Victoria Winters could feel it in the other woman’s fingers, the connection between them, just as she could sense the pure-hearted intentions behind Maggie Evans’s secrets.
This woman was good. This woman could be trusted. This woman was someone Victoria Winters could share everything with, everything she’d carried back from 1895.
No. She’d promised Barnabas. Josette was a secret between the two of them. No matter what he might be. No matter what secrets he was keeping.
Victoria shivered, feeling her entire body ripple with apprehension.
“What is it?” Maggie cocked her head, gentling her grip on Victoria’s hand, withdrawing the sense of her self as she did.
“Promises and secrets,” Victoria answered. “You’re bound by them, too, aren’t you, Maggie?”
Surprise flashes in Maggie’s eyes like a deer startled out of the underbrush, but that’s the only sign she gives of being caught off guard.
“Maggie?” How sharp Julia’s voice was, her suspicion shifting from the girl in the bed to her cousin. “What is she talking about?”
“I might say the same thing.” Elizabeth rose from the bed, skirts flowing around her. “Even though I have a nasty suspicion I know.”
“You’re both very perceptive.” Maggie smiled a little, the sweetness disappearing. She lifted Victoria’s hand to her lips.
Victoria felt a strange little thrill run down her spine, raising the hairs on her entire body. This was the other side of Maggie, the mystery woman who knew things. Who might very well be a witch herself.
Not that this meant she was an enemy.
Maggie nodded again, keeping her eyes on Victoria. “Yes, I’m a student of sorts, bound by promises to my professor, but my study is one which requires a measure of free thinking on my feet.”
“Your professor?” Ah, so Maggie was a college student. Among other things.
“T.E. Stokes.” Elizabeth gave Maggie a searching gaze, releasing her hand. “Perhaps you know him? He is…was…an old friend of Julia’s. A colleague of Michael’s.”
“No, he’s not.” Julia frowned at this. “Well, maybe he was a colleague of Michael’s. Michael had his secrets.”
As do you, Victoria thought, considering these three names.
Professor Michael Woodard, unofficial consultant on the strange for George Patterson after the attack on Joe Haskell. He was the one who’d brought Dr. Julia Hoffman in to treat Joe.
Now there was this mysterious Professor Stokes, Maggie’s mentor. Who claimed acquaintance with Julia, but Julia didn’t know him.
Who definitely knew Elizabeth, judging from the faint flush in her cheeks.
Victoria frowned, considering the various professors she’d met, including the mysterious man at the art gallery who’d prompted her in her journey. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure.”
“No matter.” Maggie ran her hand through her hand. “He’s both reknowned and obscure.”
“What is he teaching you?” The other woman was a little more uneasy at the topic of discussion, the most uneasy Victoria had ever seen Maggie. Why?
“History from a supernatural perspective. Your job was an excellent opportunity to research.” Maggie smiled at Vicki. “Alas, I don’t have your tact for handling Roger, so I didn’t last.
Dr. Julia Hoffman gave Victoria a sharp look. “Maggie, you never mentioned any of this. Why all the secrecy?”
“Not everyone is comfortable with this topic. Like I said, I lost my job as researcher here because Roger took what I was doing the wrong way.” Maggie took a step closer to Julia, reached out for her hand. “Please don’t tell Barnabas about this. He can be very sensitive about his family history. I wouldn’t want to distress him.”
Julia raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think it’s better than he knows?”
“He’s already under a lot of stress.” Concern furrowed Maggie’s brow for a moment. “He’s been worried sick about Vicki. I’m sure he still is. Plus there’s the health condition he suffered from.”
“Health condition?” Elizabeth glanced from Maggie to Julia. “What do you mean?”
“Barnabas was attacked, too.”
The lie flew from Vicki’s lips before she could think better of it.
Maggie and Julia both turned to gaze at her, dawning horror mingled with betrayal glittering in their eyes.
“I’m sorry, Maggie. I’m sorry, Julia. Elizabeth should know.” Victoria reached out to take the matriarch of Collinwood’s hand. “Your cousin was attacked before anything happened to Willie. Dr. Hoffman has been secretly treating him as well.”
“Barnabas is very proud.” With swift-witted quickness, Julia Hoffman picked up the thread of Victoria’s story. “He doesn’t like to admit to any weaknesses.”
“Especially when he came here to New England, he was searching for his roots to escape from a painful past.” Lies flowed from Victoria Winters’s lips like water from a spring. “Only someone was waiting for him the very night he got here. He's suffered from a sickness ever since.”
“He helped Willie through the same illness.” Maggie was quick to come to her aid. “Willie knows a little more about, but he’s very loyal to Barnabas. Plus he’s been through something similar himself so they're both uncomfortable about it.”
“As has Carolyn.” A tactless revelation, but no one accused Julia Hoffman of being too tactful. “This is a sickness, spread by a bite. We’re not sure quite how it works. I’ve been trying to find out how.”
“Your notebook.” Elizabeth turned to stare at Julia. “Did you write something in it about this sickness? Something connecting it to the Collins family itself?”
Something neither Barnabas nor Carolyn would want exposed. She didn’t need to say the words.
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth.” Julia bowed her head. “I’m sorry, but I wanted to know all I could about it. I wrote down what I learned. This was something which distressed Barnabas. It’s been so hard, getting him to accept my treatments. Even when they’re working.”
“Barnabas is a very old-fashioned gentleman,” Victoria murmured. “I was drawn to this from the moment I met him, but there’s a price for being the way he is.”
Elizabeth gazed at each woman in turn, a searching gaze.
We’re not lying. Victoria Winters realized this with a breathless sort of relief. Most of what we’ve said is true.
Dr. Julia Hoffman had been treating Joe Haskell. Maybe she recognized the same symptoms in Willie and Carolyn.
Maybe she’d been treating Barnabas. Maybe she’d been trying to cure him. Was it possible? To cure a vampire using science and medicine.
Dr. Hoffman would definitely think it possible. As both a scientist and a woman in love, she was determined to try it.
Wouldn’t Victoria Winters if she had the skills to do so? Wasn’t this better than the old solutions Peter mentioned, burying his face in his hands. Of driving a stake into Barnabas’s heart?
“Joshua Collins could never do that to his son,” he’d whispered to her. “Even if this was the only way to save him. I’m not sure if I could.”
No. They couldn’t. They’d just…what? Chained Barnabas up in a coffin and hoped no one would find him?
Yes. That’s exactly what they’d done. Until Willie began hearing the heartbeat from the portrait. Until Willlie tracked it back to its source.
Barnabas Collins had risen from his grave, resurrected by Willie Loomis’s blood. Resurrected, yet hungry for more.
Hence the attack on Joe Haskell. Hence the murders in Collinsport.
They’d stopped a short time after Dr. Julia Hoffman arrived from Wyncliffe Sanitorium, summoned by Professor Woodard. After Elizabeth invited her to stay at Collinwood, offering her resources.
This was quite generous to do for one of many employees at Collinsport Shipping. Even if Joe Haskell was, perhaps descended from a Collins himself. As was Willie and Mrs. Johnson if rumour was true.
Had Elizabeth suspected the truth? That Barnabas wasn’t actually her cousin from England as he claimed, but her lost ancestor? That the murders were connected to another dark Collins secret?
Perhaps. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard didn’t strike Victoria Winters as being a fool. It was clear she had secrets of her own. The widow among widows for whom the hill might have been named. Whatever haunted Mrs. Stoddard drew its shadow over everything at Collinwood.
Victoria Winters had sensed this when she first met her employer, even when her apprehensions that the other woman was a ghost had been put to rest.
Too often Elizabeth Collins Stoddard seemed like a living ghost. Something had reduced her to a wraith of herself. Something like Paul Stoddard? Carolyn’s dead father, Mrs. Stoddard’s former husband.
Elizabeth didn’t answer the apologies, the excuses. She let everyone finish talking. She waited, not just for the three women to stop talking, but for Victoria to finish her train of thought before she said anything.
Too often that same train took Victoria speeding away from other people. Unaware she was gone, they’d talk on. She’d blink, ask them to repeat themselves. A habit which didn’t endear her as a listener.
For all her ghostly gothic ways, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard was a patient listener. She didn’t seize upon the silence to fill it with her own voice.
Julia looked at if she wanted to say something, but Maggie nudged her and shook her head. She allowed her soft brown eyes to return to Victoria. She, too, waited for Victoria’s train of thought to stop. For Victoria Winters to return.
Maggie Evans was the third person Victoria had met, capable of doing this.
The second was Barnabas. Gentlemanly and attentive, he spoke at his own pace, waiting for Victoria, allowing her to say what was on her mind. Even if it was something most of the world found too flowery.
Barnabas had no objections to purple prose as Victoria’s talk had been scornfully named. He could turn an even prettier phrase than she could, something she found unbelievably seductive.
First there had been Elizabeth. Followed by Barnabas. Now there was this beautiful girl with the enormous dark eyes and sad smile, showing a patience Victoria thought so rare.
How had she been so lucky for meeting three such special people? Never mind they had secrets. Never mind one of them was a vampire.
Victoria Winters had learned some of them. Perhaps she should have learned better than to be curious about others.
What was Elizabeth hiding? Why was she so sad? Above all, why had she brought Victoria Winters to Collinwood? What was Victoria Winters to her?
She still hadn’t learned the answer to that question. She couldn’t leave Collinwood until she did.
An estate Maggie Evans had been against coming to. Now here she was, helping Maggie and her cousin keep a vampire’s secrets as well as their own.
Just what was Maggie hiding? Why was she helping Barnabas? Was she in love with him, too? Or did she simply find him fascinating, given her chosen study?
The senstive artist. The occult scholar with impeccable timing for coming up with an answer while everyone else floundered in their feelings. The working daughter, putting her own artistic career on hold to help her father.
How many masks did Maggie Evans wear? None of them were exactly false faces, just different aspects of the same woman.
Victoria felt a rush of affection for Elizabeth and Maggie. No matter what else they were, they took care of people. Just as they were taking care of Victoria now.
Just as they would take care of Barnabas. Oh, they’d see to it he didn’t hurt anyone else. They’d protect David, Carolyn, Victoria, and Joe from him, but they’d protect Barnabas as well.
Would Carolyn and Roger have done the same? Victoria wasn’t so sure.
No matter how much Roger might drink and mutter about his sister’s secrets, no matter how Carolyn teased Maggie about her own, both women were caretakers. They had pure hearts.
“I suspect you’re not telling me everything.” Elizabeth sighed, looking at each woman in turn. “I also suspect you have very good reasons for doing so. Very well.”
She walked over to offer Maggie and Julia her hands. “Thank you for taking care of my cousin.”
Julia’s eyes softened while Maggie became misty. They both clasped Elizabeth’s hands.
Victoria rose from her bed. Trying not to stumble, she walked over to the three women. She opened her arms, embracing them all.
Julia flinched, but didn’t withdraw.
Maggie blushed, slowly yielding to the hug, the shared warmth.
Elizabeth accepted the hug with a little smile. “What’s this for?”
“For being you.” Victoria smiled, looking into each woman’s eyes. “For all of you being yourselves.
Maggie’s cheeks turned bright red, but she flashed a grin. “Here I thought we were just friends.”
“And I wasn’t sure if we were even that,” Julia added, her own cheeks a bit red.
Elizabeth chuckled, a little disapproval, yet her amusement was stronger. “As if friendship was any less than other forms of relationship.”
Julia opened her mouth, closed it, giving Elizabeth a thoughtful look. “A fair point.”