Shadows On the Wall Chapter 25: Unpleasant Truths by Kelthammer VOICEOVER (Alexandra Moltke) "Night falls over Collinwood, and with it, an instinct of dread. Tonight several women are coming to learn unpleasant truths about outside forces...and of each other. Without outside aid from those who care, both are doomed to perish." "...but it was absolutely fantastic." Quentin's voice slurred ever-so- slightly as he poured more brandy into Chris' glass. Chris' silver skull ring caught the reddish tints to the drink and gave it all a hellish effect that made Julia want to look away. "Every single one of of those tool-hooks were pure applewood. You could smell it when you rubbed them. How could they be so small and be so strong?" "Oh, that's simple enough." Chris took a sip with lips that had surely gone numb by now. "The old-timers used the elbows of tree branches when they made the hooks. The wood is naturally much stronger there." Quentin's face cracked a grin. "Very clever, our ancestors." Eliot Stokes practically rolled his eyes upward in his sockets from sheer bored exasperation and went to go do something important--add a log to the fire. Julia wished *she* had thought of it. Chris and Quentin couldn't possibly get any drunker, she guessed. At least an hour ago their self-involved conversation had been NOMINALLY interesting--mining white cedar stumps out of ancient bogs was definitely a topic Julia ahd known nothing about--but Lord, she was half out of her mind and had no idea how to escape. All attempts were met with Quentin's refusal to do without her company. Everyone's company. Julia Hoffman's neck ached at a very important spot and she tried very hard to ignore it. Unfortunately, her only course of distraction was to pay closer attention to the hum of conversation around her. Was Collinwood ever capable of anything simple? Even a casual evening with drinks? It might have been Quentin and Eliot Stokes' intention to have this very thing, but Chris had stopped by on the excuse of, "wanting to just say hi." Julia thought that as flimsy as foolscap, but Quentin had been glad to see him. Julia didn't think she needed her psych degree to recognize Chris was seeking answers about his brother's death. So, somehow, the evening had twisted Chris into Quentin's personal Man of the Hour, and she and Eliot were slowly turning into fifth wheels while Carolyn flipped through the family albums in a bored manner. Several times Julia thought about queing up with her (woman to woman), but something about Carolyn of late was violently discouraging anyone getting too close to her. Julia ahd no idea if it was yet another boyfriend-breakup or what. But she'd had warmer feelings come off of prison convicts. This was all getting embarassing. There was something...well... avuncular in the way he was acting towards the other man, and that behavior didn't fit. Quentin wasn't *that* much older than Chris... Julia listened to Quentin ramble on over the brandy bottle. She didn't have a clue as to why he was so determined to take Chris under his wing so obviously, but Chris seemed willing to get a little toasted with him. Maybe more than a little toasted...Julia thought of Tom, and the gaping hole he had left in all their lives. She shivered suddenly, and there was more than one reason for her slowly reaching up to touch her neck. The collar was only slightly high; it did the job without making her look like a librarian. Eliot was being truly heroic, Julia decided. He had given up his beloved place by the fire (the property of all scholars) and was going through the album with Carolyn. Even though Carolyn initially had all the interest of a walnut, Stokes was slowly drawing her out, and the spoiled pouty-easily-angered face on the girl was turning into flashes of startled humor as the good professor commented on yet another shocking scandal that had to do with this family and that. Julia somehow doubted that Elizabeth had instructed her daughter on the various family peccadilloes. Julia wasn't paying much attention to anything. She felt every bit as pliant as the leaf she had listlessly played with earlier in the garden. It crossed her mind to wonder if Cassandra felt as empty when she toyed with the leaf that was Julia. But she wasn't certain such things mattered. Cassandra would be summoning her...soon...or perhaps not. As of late, the vampire was taking her time about that, perhaps enjoying being unpredictable. She had to know how the apprehension had Julia knotted up into tight balls of nerves the longer she remained uncalled. The strain of it alone could kill her before Cassandra's physical depradations would. Julia drifted to the window, and chose to ignore her reflection as she stared at the sinking sun. Barnabas and Vicky were having another evening together, and she couldn't really feel about that either. Eliot for his part, was being polite by ignoring Julia's mild display of concern. He was not accustomed to being wrong, and he imagined that Barnabas was the reason for Julia's behavior. Therefore he respected her privacy and continued his socializing with Carolyn. "I'm astonished your mother or uncle never told you about your great-aunt Nora, Carolyn. She was a mythical raving beauty and well respected by the townspeople." Carolyn shook her head. Now that she had been given a line of juicy gossip, one would call her reeled in, hook and sinker, but that was only for so long that Stokes could keep talking in an interesting manner. "She looks so mild." She giggled. "Like she's never done anything more scandalous than pick flowers." Stokes chuckled. "Oh, there was more to her than that, I assure you. Why, she was a notorious patron of the arts, something not well approved of by the staid majority...her father certainly disapproved! Edward was a very Victorian sort, all wrapped up in what was proper. When Nora's mother deserted her children he told everyone Laura was dead so that the children would have the better stigma of being partially orphaned, as opposed to having a wild spirit for a mother. That was always a risky thing to admit, you know. The gene for independance could be inheirited!" Carolyn's laugh flowered over the Drawing Room, but it was amazing how few people noticed it. Eliot gnashed down on growing annoyance. He felt very much trapped in a vice; it was Quentin's brilliant notion that they start keeping an eye on Carolyn, and the last he checked, Christopher Jennings hadn't been in the equation! But no, Quentin was so wrapped up in every word that came out of Chris Jennings' mouth he probably didn't know anyone else existed. He was wrenching his tired eyes from a static page of yet more stiff and unnaturally poised photos when he caught a faint movement from Julia. An alertness had stiffened her spine and she was turning her head to one side. Eliot could almost hear her frowning as she percieved something in the now charcoal-colored woods. "Quentin...!" Julia barely whispered it; but something about it froze them all. "Quentin, get the door!" *** Barnabas hadn't quite expected Quentin to be the one to let them in Collinwood. Startled shock as blue eyes met brown, and the cousins enjoyed the briefest flashes of territory before Quentin jumped aside, letting Barnabas carry a very hysterical Victoria Winters to the couch. Carolyn only barely recovered in time to hop to her feet; otherwise Barnabas would have tumbled Vicki into her lap. Julia jumped too, in the opposite direction. Any more, her medical bag was *never* far away. *** A soft creak of wood and brass hinges. Pale moonlight gleamed sickly over the dirty windowglass and spattered over a crawling spider. Equally spiderlike, Cassandra Collins' small fingers slid over the rim of a gaudy pink coffin. With disturbing grace, she dismounted from her resting place in a smooth motion that was like a long, languid stretch. Her glittering eyes slid over the gloam. She always woke up in a good mood. She always woke up hungry. Her foamy white dress ghosted over the last rim of the coffin and she curved her back, sighing. A few more nights with Julia, when she was certain the good doctor's will was thoroughly broken down. And then she would kill her. And Julia, no doubt, would go straight for Barnabas Collins. Cassandra was extremely confident of that scenario. And she would be there to enjoy the sight. But until then... Cassandra closed her pearl-pure eyes, concentrating. (Julia, it is time. Come to me.) No response. Cassandra began to frown. It was very dangerous. Her world was a languid and serene landscape of spiders and dust and starlight; she had no idea of the turmoil that was harrying the main part of the House. (Julia, come to me now!) *** Julia gulped under her breath; Cassandra's summons stung her aching mind. But the only thing that was keeping her from obeying was the victim's need to protect their vampire. And if she up and ran out the door, someone might follow her. Even though it was a pretty good version of Hell going on right now. (God-DAMN-it.) Julia thought with a very very very silent grinding of her mental teeth. (If Chris keeps pacing and twisting that stupid ring on his hand I'm going to have to scream.) Chris continued on, oblivious to everything but his own worries. Twist-pace-glance around-twist-pace. He was only adding to the frentic air of the room. For some reason, Julia found herself hating that ring on his finger. Probably because it was ridiculously large and ostentatious (and Julia considered herself an expert on such accessories; they gave her the air of being harmless in an eccentric way.) But she couldn't stand to look at Chris' silver skull. It reminded her too much of a Nazi Award Ring. (Almost like he has to prove something with the macho ring and macho lumberjack plaid shirt, macho poverty-level denimn jeans and steel-toed work boots!) It was difficult, but Julia fored her temper to cool. Chris might be getting on her neres, but *he* wasn't her Patient of the Hour, Vicki was. Barnabas was hanging worridly upon every pore on that sweat-streaked, teary face. For all his concern, Quentin didn't seem to know he was there. He too, was busy with watching Vicki. And Vicki... Julia was chilled to the bone at Vicki, because Vicki wasn't what you would call "there." She hadn't spoken a single word, and to hear Barnabas, hadn't since they had encountered the screaming ghost off Widow's Hill. (They actually invited something to come to them! God, the fools that live here!) Julia bit down on her lip and dug in her kit with a vengeance while Barnabas continued his explanation somewhere above her head. "...But it was the WAY the spirit looked that truly frightened her." Barnabas was shaking his head from side to side. "It looked just like her! In all aspects! They could have been twins!" Julia's fingers, closing around a plastic-capped hypo, paused at that. The words sent a slight frost around her heart, a chill of dread. "Just like her?" Quentin's higher, younger voice, cutting sharply and protectively. Reasonable or not, he was holding Barnabas responsible for Vicki's state. "Are you sure?" "She was right in front of us! How could I not be?" "Interesting." Eliot cleared his throat thoughtfully. That the men were not listening to him bothered the professor not at all. "Sht." Chris hissed. "I think she's coming around." Babble halted, but Chris was right. Julia continued preparing the shot. She had a suspicion this wasn't the end of the hysteria. Gulping sounds emerged from Vicki's throat, and wet gurgles as she forced herself to swallow more air. "Mmmm..." Sounds now. Julia held her breath. Julia's eyes slipped away from the teary streaks of the very frightened Vicki. The young woman's pain made Julia embarassed. Witnessing it didn't feel...right. As if she were intruding on her privacy. Her gaze instead went to the worried-looking Chris Jennings. Chris. Julia silently heaved her lungs full of air and swayed under the dizziness. He was a great deal like Tom...and yet not. Julia searched for, and found, the look of hidden sorrows in the man's eyes. Tom had looked like that. He pretended (and for days on end) that things were good, always good, and it had driven Julia half mad with exasperation. (What is *he* hiding from?) She wondered. (All the Jennings...they all seem to be hiding something.) A woman threatened by a twin-ghost. A man shadowed by his twin-death. It made her feel confused and weak. Vicki arrested Julia's gaze from Chris. She twitched in one final, soft choking cry and fell into a sleep that was anything but easy. Quentin's angular face creased to hear it, and his large hand stroked her long waterfall of hair. Even asleep, Vicki's tight fingers tightened around his wrist. And Barnabas saw. And now Julia *really* wanted to turn away, because she was starting to feel emotions again, and her behavior in the garden was reprehensible. Her staid apathy lashed back in her face like a brief wave of cold water. It was one thing to remain distant and detatched from the world; doctors were supposed to. Especially women doctors, who had three times the suicide rate of men. (What did that...thing...do to me?) Her face remained collected and cool while her thoughts labored to run free. People's upsets hadn't bothered her at all--she had been too involved in how she was existing in a limbo. Chaos still mumbled around her. Bodies walked across her vision,back and forth, the women were knotted up in the corner talking (Good Lord, when did Liz and Maggie come in? Had they materialized out of nowhere?) and the men were everywhere else. Only Barnabas remained separate from it all, trapped on the outside, only able to look in. Just like she was. "We need to get her upstairs." Quentin finally took the matter in his hands by lifting the young woman up. "She should be much better off in her own bed, sleeping off the terrors." His blue eyes sought Julia out, and drilled through even more apathy. "Julia, what do you think?" Julia deliberated a moment, aware that everyone was hanging on her permission to do something perfectly sensible. "Of course." She said slowly. Behind her mind, someone was clamboring angrily and she didn't want to meet the source. "But someone should stay with her in case she wakes up." Barnabas could barely wait to get to her alone. She was still watching up the stairway after Quentin with a clinical eye. "Julia." He spoke her name softly, touched her arm and was rewarded by her blink. "I must talk to you." Almost instantly, that vague, unfocused look returned. She almost looked as though she were elsewhere than here, or listening to something outside his hearing. "What is it?" Impatience threaded her voice. "Barnabas, I can't stay." "Why not?" He asked in all innocence. She blinked again, and he was struck by a rare insight; harmless her words might be, she hadn't MEANT to pop out and say that. So she didn't want him to know she couldn't stay... "I have to go get some air." She was already pulling away, her hand lifting to rub her neck as if it were stiff and painful. "It's too hot in here, and Quentin was pouring the drinks too freely. Just ask Eliot...I'll be back...Just let me go get some air..." Without a further word of explanation, she was out the door. Barnabas stood in the foyer for a good half-minute of time, deliberating in surprise. Despite what his unmourned, unloved and much-reviled wife might say, Barnabas was not a stupid man. And the evening was not so chaotic that he couldn't notice the oddness of Julia's behavior. And after what happened to Vicki, he was not about to take chances and assume everything was all right. Eliot Stokes sighed and closed his mouth. Too late to say anything to Collins now, he mused as the door shut. First Julia, now Barnabas. People popping in the House, and vanishing just as quickly. Chris was standing around and looking very lost. "I...I guess I'd better get going." He offered lamely. "Things are uh, really busy around here." "I'll see you to your car, Chris." Carolyn offered with all sweetness and light. Eliot sighed again. Poor Jennings. He could only hope the young man was romantically engaged in other directions. Carolyn was clearly out for another fish. *** Barnabas stopped in the middle of the path, leaned on his cane a moment, and filtered out the sounds around the beat of his heart. A stick cracked further on. Julia was taking the old horse-trail's loop back to the estate's garden, and that made no sense. Why take such a roundabout way when all she had to do was take a straight line to the East? Julia was not by nature unpredictable, and Barnabas was growing deeply suspicious. He had thought it his imagination the way the doctor had paused over his description of the ghost. By now, he was convinced it was not a figment. Julia had known SOMETHING about that ghost, and she had not seen anything. He hurried on, knowing the loop would end in a few minutes. Aha... Barnabas instinctively flattened himself against the rippling shadows of lattice and rustling leaves that made up the gazebo, becoming a part of it with his dark wool clothing. The pale skin and dark hair and eyes of his mother's family never came so in handy as when he wanted to be invisible on a moonlit night. Unaware of his presence (and that really was unlike her, he reflected with a frown, as if she was weighed in the mind by other matters), the doctor had stopped in the center of the intricate garden. Night-blooming tobacco guarded her way along the walk, large creamy white trumpets desperate to survive the killing frosts of autumn. As he watched, she lifted her head, the frown still there. Her shoulders were tense and slumped in a lack of spirit. "You're late." Angelique's glass-sharp voice slivered painfully through them both; Julia was no more prepared for the sound than Barnabas, and she knew what to expect. Barnabas felt as though an icicle had pierced his heart, and lodged tight. Brown eyes wide under the dark umbrella of tended grapevines, Barnabas could not help himself. He inched forward in order to see better, despite every cell of his being screaming that such an action went against the most basic rules of common sense and self-preservation. Angelique's voice was heavy with disapproval, charged with danger, and Barnabas was so accustomed to being the target of such venom that he could not bring himself to believe that someone else was the focus of punishment. "Well?" Said the silvery voice again. "Julia, you *know* that it's not a good idea to wait. Because if *I* wait then I have to let my poor dear Roger wait too." Worlds of malice in the tones. "And we don't like that, do we?" Julia had stopped shivering at the sound of the voice; a prey accepting the inevitable. Resigned, she simply spoke the truth. "It couldn't be helped. Something tried to kill Barnabas...if that's the right word for it." And, clothed in an impossibly white dress, Angelique emerged from a black smear of shrubbery, her guise still as Cassandra. "The right word? What do you mean?" She demanded. "An angry spirit. It threatened both Barnabas and Vicki." Julia reached up and with disinterested fingers, brushed something off her shoulder. It was identical to the way he had seen her toy with the leaf earlier, in this very same spot. Julia without emotion was not Julia, not much of anything, and Barnabas shivered all over again to see that in her. "No one can say who she is except she's tied into the Collins family." Cassandra inched closer, a cat upon something much smaller. "No one can say?" Suspicion sent crystals frosting upon the shimmering cobwebs. "I sense you're telling me the truth, Julia Hoffman, but not completely...I know how precise you are with words...'no one can say'...can it be you can't say because you have no proof of what you might suspect?" Julia's fox-like features grimaced, whether in distaste or basic unhappiness, Barnabas could not tell. "I can't prove what the ghost might be." "That's perfectly all right." Cassandra was purring, and it was by far worse than any anger or contempt. She circled around the rigid doctor, and Barnabas felt sickened; he had once circled his own victims in that way, gloating in the power he held over them, smug in his superiority. Julia's eyes were flat and still; she understood where she stood in this warped dance, and could not raise herself from the demeaning position. The witch-vampire lifted a finger up to lightly touch a small fresh water pearl earring depending from the other woman's earlobe. "Now, tell me, what are your suspicions?" Julia was slow in answering. Her reluctance might have been her hatred of speaking without solid fact. Or...it was the only way she could resist the other. "The ghost looked like Vicki." She swallowed. "A lot like Vicki." "I see." Cassandra said thoughtfully. Julia waited, but so did Cassandra. At last, Julia gave in. "Vicki and the ghost could be twins. But the ghost...Barnabas said...was dressed in slightly older clothing. Vicki...thinks she sees a vision of herself as dead, but..." A soft silence, and then Cassandra laughed, itself soft in the night air. "Ver-ry interesting. How intriguing if this is true...how delicious." When Julia's frown deepened, so did the other's laugh. "The Collinses must be the most unfortunate family in the Tropic. A sister, perhaps?" "There's...no proof." Julia grated out. She was staring off upon the fountain. "I looked." "Come, come...surely as a researcher you should know, the absence of proof is no proof...only the proof of absence." A last chuckle escaped from the throat. No one but she knew that she was chuckling because it amused her to quote her oft-unlamented brother in hatred, Nicholas Blair. "And as a researcher of the family, surely *you* noticed all those gaps in the family trees? Surely you must have. It helped you forge Barnabas a respectable, if compeletely false, lineage for dear Roger and Liz." Disgusted at herself, Julia looked away. "Now, Julia..." "Angelique, why do you--" "Cassandra." The sudden anger made the hidden Barnabas jump as much as Julia. "My name, Julia, is *Cassandra.*" "Why?" Julia whispered. The vampire was approaching, and perhaps the death that reeked off the fangs would finally finish her off tonight. But she had to know the truth of something that made no sense. "Why what?" "Why do you have to be Cassandra?" "You wonder about names? Angelqiue is no more real to what I am, than Cassandra. That's why I'm Cassandra now. Do you understand?" "No." Julia muttered. "You will." Cassandra promised, and her lips parted wide... TO BE CONTINUED ...