Dark Shadows Inheritance

In another reality, Victoria Winters arrives at Collinwood to discover only one member of the family left to greet her. In this darkened and empty version of the estate, Carolyn Stoddard seems to be the sole survivor, but Victoria soon realizes a much bigger secret still hides itself in the former family home.

Thematic horror, mild violence.

Four boys rode their bikes through the narrow, wooded trails on the Collins Estate. The sky was turning dark blue and the woods as black as a grave closing in on them as they sailed up hills and ducked branches to Collinwood, the huge, empty house on the property. Rumor had it that in 1967, almost ten years ago, something had been unleashed at Collinwood which seemingly killed off every single member of the family. Since that night, not one member of the family had ever been seen; that was the rumor. Police had searched the house and grounds and had not found a thing. The family business was in the hands of the board of directors as detectives scoured the family records to find the next living relative. In the meantime, the structure was a local reputed haunted house where no one lived and no one came except for curious teens looking for ghosts.

One bike skidded to a stop as the leader of the group waited for his other cronies to catch up to him. Tall and wiry, Steve Barnette scratched his head of blond hair and looked at the windows of the house. They were all black and forebodingly empty, staring back at this young band of miscreants vacantly like the sockets of a giant skull curiously looking over these wayward and foolish youths. In fact, the deserted structure seemed to be eagerly awaiting his next response. Barnette felt a slight shiver as he scanned the tower to the bottom floor and wondered why this place made him feel like a small child.

"Okay," Steve started speaking to his nighttime posse. "Welcome to Collinwood, the largest haunted house in Maine. Eight years ago, Elizabeth Stoddard and her daughter Carolyn lived here all alone, but for one servant who died mysteriously. They were joined by her brother, Roger, and his son, David, and sometime later a cousin from England named Barnabas who they didn't even know they had."

Since he had come to Collinsport, Willie Loomis had been in and out of trouble with the law. When Jason left him behind, he tried to make his living driving a cab from the train station to the hotel and everywhere else people went to in this spooky little town. His current fare, however, didn't want to go to the hotel; she wanted to be driven out to Collinwood, the creepy old house on the hill overlooking town. Barely seen beyond the trees of the estate, it was altogether obscured at night when the dark sky melded with the tops of the trees. The ride was lonely and the road rarely traveled upon except by the others who lived along this seemingly forgotten back road. Isolated homes with faint signs of their inhabitants popped into view behind every curve and, occasionally, a stray rabbit appeared in his headlights. Loomis leaned forward as he searched the right side of the road for the turn off to the abandoned estate. He gradually spied the unkempt waving dirt road leading through the huge stone entrance and hiding the wild tree-covered roadway hidden beyond it. The gates were inexplicably hanging open. As he heard weeds hitting the underside of the cab, more rabbits scattered from his headlights as he nervously drove slowly up the deserted and unkempt gravel roads.

"Lady," he spoke out loud. "Are you sure you want to come up here? No one's lived here in years."

"This is Collinwood, right?" The voice of Victoria Winters came from the back seat. She glanced briefly as the trip took her up the hill, past a child's sign reading Bleeder Line Point.

"Yes."

"This is where I'm going," Victoria answered assuredly as she stared out nervously to the trees scraping across the cab. Their long branches were like the wizened fingers of creatures trying to hold them back. The cab turned toward a clearing and began a sharp turn up a steep incline. She looked down and saw the edge the property's hill rising over the woods and the wall marking the edge. She felt as if she were the lawyer going to meet Count Dracula as the atmosphere became even more foreboding to her. On the other side, Collinwood reared up like a mighty presence. Huge and gothic as some deserted castle, it was bathed in incomplete black against the darkness of the cloudy night sky. The cab stopped within walking distance of the front veranda. She looked at the fare and pulled out a five-dollar bill to cover it and the tip.

"Are you sure someone's expecting you?" Loomis asked.

"Yes," Victoria insisted.

"Look, lady," Willie turned to her. "Back in 1967, a buddy and me came to Collinsport; Jason claimed to be an old friend of the family. He left me at the hotel and came up here alone. I never saw him again."
"I don't believe in ghosts." Victoria grinned demurely.

"Suit yourself," Willie took the five and pressed down the flag on his dashboard. "You want me to wait for you?" He stared out the passenger window toward her leaning in to him.

"I'll use the phone if I need you." Victoria carried her suitcase as he pulled off and left her. If it had not been for the bicycle out front and cigarette butts on the ground, she might have thought the house was deserted. She gazed up the front of it, walked under the front portico and rapped at the door as it stood ajar. She peeked in and saw a fire burning in a distant room. Apprehensively strolling inside, she forced her eyes to pry into the darkness. The whole place was completely dark except for the burning fire in the next room, but someone must have lit it.

Some of the boys smirked at the ghost story as the fourth boy stood nervously. Holding a flashlight, Jason Pryde flicked on his light and scanned the old mansion.

"It was obvious from the start..." Steve continued. "That something was unusual about Cousin Barnabas. He was almost never seen during the day, and he had an almost uncanny pre-knowledge of the family. No one thought much about it, but then, one by one, the family vanished. No one knows exactly who went first, but by the

end of summer, not a trace of the family was ever found. Sheriff Patterson back then said it was almost as if they had stepped off the corner of the earth."

Jason narrowed his eyes at Steve's theatrics. He waved his light again inside, looking for life within the house while the sky grew even darker than it already was.

"You see that tower?" Steve pointed at a tower rising from the corner of the house. "In order to join the Ghost Watchers Society, you need to go inside, find your way to the top and flash your light three times in the window to prove you made it, and then you'll be a member."

"What's the catch?" Jason asked. "I mean, how am I going to find my way up to it?"

"That's the catch." Steve motioned to the largest member of the club. Six feet tall and built like a bear, Derek Thomas started to open the front door, but found it locked. A bit miffed, he kicked it hard and motioned to Jason. The would-be pledge made another look back as he flicked on his light to the foyer. He scanned down the long, cavernous hall reaching down left of the entrance and then to a staircase almost immediately to his right. His light showing the way, Pryde started hesitantly into the house alone as his imagination started to paint imaginary horrors, both real and imaginary, waiting for him.

"Give me a cigarette." Steve turned to Matt Burton, the fourth member of their little group. "I figure he's got around five minutes to reach the top floor."

"Why's the door locked every time we come up here?" Derek asked. "Are you sure no one is living here?"

"No," Steve chuckled with an evil grin. "Maybe the sheriff locks it, I don't know."

"Hey." Matt whirled around. "I thought I saw someone in that window."

"You're a load of crap."

"No, really!"

"Who was it?"

"I don't know." Matt squinted his eyes as they split a pack of cigarettes. "It was just a flash... "

"Yeah, right," Steve wondered. No one really knew if the family was really gone since Collins Enterprises was still making money. For all he knew, they had another house elsewhere and returned on rogue occasions. The disappearance rumor was just that—a rumor. After all, someone was cleaning up their cigarette butts from previous trips.

"I saw a flash." Derek looked up.

"There's two." Matt saw the next one.

"And that's three." Steve turned around. "Guys, we have our new member." They started grinning and began thinking of new ways to spend the extra dues. Derek was thinking of more members to invite into the group when Jason then started hollering his head off inside Collinwood as if someone were attacking him. Steve, Derek and Matt each reared their heads up to the shrill cries filling the night sky. Jason's frenzied screams started echoing from the dark tower room above their heads and far from their realm of senses. They wondered if he was horsing around with them for a change, but it sounded as if he was putting up a fight. His sheer cries were desperate, his torment almost unbearable, but then his long-tortured cry began slowly diminishing as if he were going further and further away. The boys outside watched as his flashlight was flung from the tower and rolled toward them. It was an obvious warning. As they looked up, something white and ethereal appeared from the dark tower window...noticing them from high above.

"He can go home alone!" Steve grabbed his bike and tore off through the woods. Matt glanced to Derek a second then joined him.

My name is Victoria Winters. The young lady struggled to write in her diary despite the jostling of her train car. My journey is beginning, a journey that I hope will finally open the doors of life to me and link my past with my future, a journey which will bring me to a strange and dark place to the edge of the sea high atop Widows’ Hill and a house called Collinwood—a world I've never known with people I've never met, people who tonight are still only shadows in my mind, but who will soon fill the days and nights of my tomorrows.

I've never known much of my past. Never known much of who I was or where I came from. I was a girl without a family, a person without a past living in a world where I was dependent upon the kindness of strangers who became my only relatives. I have spent much of my life dreaming of a mother and a father, of finding brothers and sisters and finding an inheritance, not of money and riches, but of love and an identity, and then last month, a few days after my 35th birthday, I received a letter from a woman named Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard, a woman who claimed that she was my mother and said it was time for me to be called back home to Collinwood, her home near the tiny seaside town of Collinsport, Maine.

Victoria looked out the window a second before she continued writing. It was not a moment to decide the thoughts she wanted to describe but merely an internal effort to repress the excitement and anxiety welling up in her.

"Excuse me…" A tired figure stepped into her view. "This kid is kicking my seat back here. Can I take this empty seat next to you?"

"Of course." Victoria looked up at him, lifted her overnight bag from the seat and placed it down between her feet. "Go ahead."

The passenger car was quite crowded since leaving Portland. Businessmen, traveling salesmen and commuters had crowded on board for the train trip to Bangor where Victoria was getting off to catch a one-hour ride to Collinsport. Moving slowly from sleep-deprived fatigue, her fellow passenger was lifting his briefcase to the overhead rack and was draping his coat over the top of the seat. She tried to guess which he was—businessman returning home to his family or a traveling salesman? His light blond hair was mussed like a small boy, but his five o'clock shadow suggested he had been on the road for several days, living out of motels. He dropped his weary bones down next to her and sighed tiredly in his worn, light grey suit. It was as if he had finally found a perfect seat, exhaling deeply once more with a light grin before turning his dark brown eyes toward her.

"College student?" he asked.

"Excuse me?"

"I noticed you writing," He mentioned. "I figured I had a fifty-fifty chance of guessing you were a writer or a college student. I guessed college student."

"Oh, no…" Victoria responded slightly embarrassed. "One of my teachers at the home where I was raised gave me this empty diary when I left." She paused with a light reflective grin. "I just thought now was a good time to write something in it."

"Nothing wrong with that." Her male traveler looked away briefly as she placed her pencil in her diary and leaned forward to place it in her bag. "So, what awaits you in Bangor? A boyfriend?"

"I'm not going to Bangor," Victoria confessed. "I'm heading to Collinsport."

"Collinsport?" Her response intrigued him. "Beautiful town; I've been through there several times. Nice people, good fishing…just one of those towns that looks as if it hasn't changed in over a hundred years."

"I've never been there before," Victoria answered. "Have you heard of Collinwood?"

"The big house on the hill?" Her guide responded. "Oh, everyone in the area knows of that place, but I didn't think the family lives there anymore."

"Why not?"

"Well…" Victoria's male acquaintance was unsure how to react. He wanted to hold back from reporting gossip and refrain from forming his own opinion of the stories he had heard, of which there were many. "You're going to hear several versions of it from the locals, but the main idea is that a local girl from the diner was hired as a governess on the estate. About a year after she started, she was attacked on the property and left for dead. She struggled to stay alive for a few months, but she eventually died. No one ever figured out what had attacked her, but the family was so embarrassed by what had happened that they closed the house and moved away…at least, that's the way I heard it."

"Well," Victoria leaned back in her seat. "Maybe they're opening it back up."

"That would be nice." Her traveling companion stroked the palm of his hand over his thick, dark blonde mustache and appeared nostalgic of past events. "I'd love to see the inside of that house again…" He then loudly cleared his throat. "But then you have to realize that working as a financial advisor sometimes gets in the way."

"I guess so." Victoria looked up when she heard the door to the back of the car open and the train porter walking up the aisle behind her to the front of the train. As he passed, she tried to attract his attention.

"Excuse me?" Victoria looked up with a turn of her long brown hair falling backward over her left shoulder. Her beauty obviously humbled the porter as she grinned pleasantly to him. "How much farther to Bangor?" she asked politely.

"About twenty minutes, ma'am." The porter checked his time piece and continued on his way as Victoria beamed excitedly for the moment and contemplated continuing with the writing she had started in her diary, but she didn't want to be rude to her male escort. Talking was a much better use of her time than thinking of stuff to write about in her new diary. She hoped Mrs. Stoddard would be able to tell her the exact day of her birth. The teachers who had discovered her at the foundling home in which she had been raised had theorized her age and given her the day she was left with them as her birthday. She had been cared for with money which had been anonymously provided, but when she reached adulthood, it all stopped and with it ended the one link to discovering her past. Numerous questions danced through Victoria's mind as she rehearsed them and memorized them for her mother.

"I wonder what we can talk about for the next twenty minutes," Victoria responded eager for conversation.

"Maybe we should at least introduce ourselves." Her companion introduced himself. "I'm Paul."

"Victoria," The young lady identified herself. "Victoria Winters..." She acquainted herself with this fatherly gentleman unaware her presence was also noticed by a figure nervously smoking a cigarette which he postured with to an unseen audience existing only in his imagination. The lone, dapperly dressed figure sat alone in a back seat of the train car and glanced upon her with mild interest and remote curiosity. To him, she seemed a bit out of place, but he stayed by his choice to never interfere in the lives of others and merely comment on what he knew was to occur unaltered in the future. He turned and looked out the window as he pictured the eyes and minds of many watching these events and waiting for his cosmic narration.

"Submitted for your approval," he started. "Miss Victoria Winters. Five foot seven and a hundred and ten pounds of feminine innocence displayed in an attractive female image. Unfortunately, she is not heading toward the Collinwood you know of. The date is now April 3, 1973—at least eight years later than when a similar Victoria Winters in your world was hired as governess to one David Andrew Collins. In this world, Victoria was no such governess, and the Collinwood we are being invited to is not the one with which we have grown familiar. One event has been altered in the past, resulting in consequences which are different and disturbing. You see, this Collinwood stands on a rather windswept hill near a dark slope that just happens to descend into…The Twilight Zone."

"Hello?" She called inside. "Is anyone home?"

"Yes." A person popped up behind the door. Dressed in a black sweater and a dark green floor-length skirt, she stared, unsure what to do with this unexpected guest in her home. Her white face with long blonde hair appeared as if they were floating in the dark, bereft of a body. Forlornly distant and yet unassuming, she was obviously very attractive, but her response was apparently a bit careful about anyone she allowed to come traipsing in there unannounced. She might have been a movie star if she learned to grinned warmly, but instead, her demeanor remained haunted by a tragic past. With a slightly hesitant scan over her guest, the blonde heiress gazed back to Victoria with cold curiosity and yet a distant interest.

"Hello," Victoria beamed for a brief second. "I'm Victoria Winters. I'm looking for Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard."

Her benefactor stood quietly studying her as if she did not trust her.

"I have a letter." Victoria pulled out the envelope and handed it over to her. The short but somber presence took the letter and began reading it as she wandered into the drawing room. The whole room was lit only by the dancing flames in the fireplace as she regally and arrogantly gestured to Victoria to follow her. Carrying her cases further, the young ingénue was gestured to sit as she looked around the dark room. Her blonde hostess sat down with a regal, almost intimidating, manner into a huge chair before the fire as if it were a throne.

"Oh, my god," The petite beauty finally spoke. "I can't believe it; I have a sister."

"Sister?"

"Vicki—can I call you Vicki?" The blonde hostess of the house stroked her long, waist-length hair over her shoulder. "Our mother passed away sometime back..."

"How's that possible?" Vicki Winters asked. "I just got this letter last week."

"The family lawyer must have sent it on a pre-assigned date." The lovely but intimidating presence identified herself. "I'm Carolyn Collins-Stoddard, your half-sister. My god, I have a sister!" She still couldn't believe it.

"So do I." Vicki forced a smile as her heart sank. "Is there anyone else? Are you alone here?"

"I'm afraid so." Carolyn leaned over to a tray on the table with a teapot and platter of cookies. "Mother died sometime back in her sleep. Our Uncle Roger had a car accident shortly after Cousin Barnabas arrived and Cousin David, Uncle Roger's son...he left to live with his mother. He hasn't been to visit in over a year. Oh, once in a while, someone from the business comes and checks up on me, but only once or twice a month."
"And you stay here all by yourself?" Vicki was invited to share the cookies. "Where's this Cousin Barnabas?" She looked up with interest as she lightly nibbled into one.

"He returned to England." Carolyn spoke after a brief silence. "I'm so sorry. This is not much a homecoming for you."

"No," Vicki corrected as she sipped the tea Carolyn poured for her. "On the contrary, I finally know who I am. I found my family. That's all I really wanted."

"Vicki," Carolyn leaned over and looked into her eyes. "I hope we can be very good friends." As she grinned mysteriously in the flickering shadows cast by the fireplace, she appeared a lot more sinister than she did in the foyer!

Vicki emptied her suitcase into the closet as she scanned the room from the huge poster bed to the view of the old house in the tree line of the woods outside the window. She passed her hand over the faint layer of dust on the bureau as she heard her door bump open. Carolyn brushed against it carrying a large silver tray with a covered plate as she entered and placed the tray down on the desk.

"I knew you'd be hungry." The lovely blonde turned around with a secretive grimace to her ruby lips. "I reheated some of the roast. Hope you like eggplant!"

"I don't mind." Vicki felt accepted as she clicked on another baroque lamp in the room. Carolyn reacted slightly to the extra light in the room as her eyes adjusted. "Have you eaten already?" she asked her newfound sister.

"Hours ago," Carolyn beamed as she gazed upon her new relative and saw a lot of their mother in her. "I hope you like this room; it was mother's. There are fresh linens in the closet if you want them, help yourself to anything in the kitchen and if you wake up in the morning and I'm not around, don't panic. I'm a bit of a night owl; I usually don't go to bed till two in the morning and often sleep till two in the afternoon."

"I'll keep it quiet." Vicki spoke softly as she sat before her plate and grinned. "Why I just bet you want to return to your coffin in the basement." She chuckled a bit.

"Something like that." Carolyn chuckled too with a toss of her long golden locks. "Oh, if you want to go to town, the keys to the town car are on a hook in the kitchen. Have a good night."

"Good night." Vicki sipped her drink. She reacted briefly to the taste as she found it to be red wine, which she'd never had before. She ate her dinner quietly and was soon showered and changed for bed. The sheets were cold, yet fresh, and she marveled at how Carolyn handled the house by herself. She remembered her saying something about a servant who came around every so many days as she read the book by the bed. It was well after midnight when the found daughter switched off the lamp and lapsed into unconsciousness.
She wasn't sure if she was asleep yet when she heard the noise. She may have been just drifting off, but she soon found herself cocking her head to a noise. It was sort of a... creaking noise, no, a crying sound. She was sure it was someone crying as she pulled back her covers and pulled on her wrap. She wasn't sure which room was Carolyn's but someone was crying. Her gaze fell on the door at the end of the hall as she wondered if it was a bedroom, but as she reached to open it, she found it was locked to her and turned to look down the other way. Someone in the house was pitifully sobbing long mournful sobs as if they had lost their most beloved. It didn't sound like Carolyn's voice. It sounded like it might be an older woman in the house. Gliding through the house as if she were her own phantom, Vicki wondered if there could be another person here in the house as she rapped at one bedroom door and stuck her head inside it.

"Carolyn?"

It was a boy's room. One single bed sat against the wall waiting for its master as books and models gathered dust. A deserted pair of clothes sat folded neatly on the corner of the bed in silent witness of the empty room. In a corner, a baseball bat stood upright with no one to hit balls with it. Vicki glanced around harmlessly as she stepped back and closed the door to the room and she listened again. The crying was a bit further away as she headed to the door to the foyer. She placed one foot out on the balcony, eerily lit by the stained-glass window to her left, and looked down to see a woman exit from the doorway under the balcony, hurriedly cross the bottom of the room in the dim colored light and enter the darkened drawing room. A bit older than Carolyn and with short dark hair, she held something like a handkerchief to her face as she passed beyond Victoria's vision and glided effortlessly out of sight.

"Hello?" Vicki moved lightly down the stairs to the bottom floor as the doors of the drawing room closed to her. Briefly sealed to her, she pushed them wide and looked inside. The room was empty but for the continuing blaze in the fireplace and the crying had stopped. She wondered if the person had left through the back hall in the corner across from the fireplace to the dining room.

Passing the piano in the room and locked doors to a garden behind the mansion, Vicki found herself passing through the back hallway with the back stairs and emerged into the dark recesses of the dining room. The room seemed deserted as the huge oak table sat waiting for grand meals to be served upon it. There were enough chairs for sixteen people there as she touched the dead flowers and dried leaves in the centerpiece. Scanning the empty room, she peeked into the kitchen for a second, then turned back to the dining room, ignoring the back hall to the drawing room and the foyer through the main hall. The kitchen appeared abandoned as chairs sat atop the breakfast table, undisturbed. She could not believe that Carolyn lived here all alone in this huge house when she could invite several friends to live here rent-free and keep her company. Could the old woman be one of them and, if she were, why did Carolyn not at least mention her?

"Where could she have gone?" her voice asked the darkness.

Victoria saw no sign of Carolyn when she woke the next morning and found a note in the kitchen. Apparently, there was a breakfast plate warming for her in the oven. Loving the idea of having a sister, she ate the big breakfast alone in the dining room as she looked up at paintings of forgotten relatives. She put the dishes in the dishwasher as dutifully as possible and then noticed there were no plates left behind from when Carolyn ate. For that matter, where were the frying pans for the omelets and pancakes or even the bowl she used to whip them up? What about even a spatula? There was not a second plate or glass. She wondered if she had just reused her old plate as she pulled open one drawer and noticed everything neatly and cleanly tucked away. In a grand wooden cabinet with glass windows, all the prominent Collins china also sat reasonably untouched except for fine traces of dust. Things were not making much more sense to her the more she analyzed and thought about them.

Trying to attribute the strange habits to a person who had lived alone for too long, Victoria spent part of the morning outside exploring the grounds and reflecting on the sounds of the estate rather than the idiosyncrasies of a younger sister she barely knew. Keeping the main house in view, she often found herself looking up at the grand estate with its numerous windows and balconies and parapets and chimneys. There was so much inside she wanted to explore as she imagined ancestors and relatives who had once roamed its halls. With dozens of thoughts ravaging her curious mind, she hurriedly returned inside through the kitchen mud porch and found the study where books upon books of the Collins family history rested both touched and partially handled on a prominent shelf near another fireplace.

Her whole family history was laid out before her and all she had to do was look as she pulled one book and then another. Her mind was reeling excitedly as she absorbed facts of colorful family members dating back to England and to the dusk of the Middle Ages. The entire American branch of the family turned out to be descended from Isaac Collins, the town founder, an ancestor connected by marriage to British aristocracy. Her roots and origins filling her head, she beamed in private as she read of forgotten grandfathers and uncles. It seemed like just a little while, but almost immediately she realized the room was getting dark. Dusk was occurring outside as she heard Carolyn moving through the house.

"Vicki?"

"In here," Vicki responded as Carolyn turned back down the foyer to the source of the voice.

"Ah, the study," Carolyn grinned in retrospect. "After all this time, I can still hear my Uncle Roger telling me to stop disturbing his important papers," She chuckled under her breath.

"He must have been very no nonsense," Vicki guessed. "Carolyn, who's this?" She held up an album with a picture of a very beautiful woman in her late thirties.

"That's our mother," Carolyn responded proudly, but a bit heartbroken. "She was beautiful, wasn't she?"

"She was," Vicki agreed. "I saw her ghost last night."

"Vicki," Carolyn became upset. "That's not funny."

"I'm serious. I saw her."

"Vicki." Carolyn glared oddly at her. "If my mother was here, don't you think I'd know it? Wouldn't she appear to her own daughter?!"

"I guess..."

"I loved my mother very much," Carolyn continued. "And she loved me. If she was here, I'd know it. I mean, why would she appear to you and not to me?"

Vicki didn't have an answer as Carolyn scoffed and turned out of the room. She stayed where she was for a few minutes and continued to look through the albums. Oddly, all the photos seemed to cease after the winter of 1967. Numerous pre-dated pages were blank to indicate Carolyn had stopped having portraits taken of herself. There was no trace of David, not even allegedly taken by his mother, or even of his mother herself.

Vicki felt a bit unnerved as Carolyn called her to dinner. She rose and looked out into the dining room at the single serving.

"You're not eating?" She noticed no other plates.

"I have a date." Carolyn responded. "Have a nice night." The vivacious blonde passed by her and rushed to the foyer ahead of her. Vicki started to say something as the fleet-footed and seemingly flighty blonde vanished. She sat down with a slight contented smile and stared at her baked fish, cucumber salad and okra. Under the partially mottled silver was a slice of blueberry cheesecake just waiting to join her hips. She was certainly being fattened up.

"Oh, Carolyn..."

She had forgotten to ask her about a trip to town. Not hearing the front door, she rushed to catch her, but just seemed to miss her. She opened the double doors expecting to see a car, but there wasn't one. There were no taillights in the distance either. Vicki heard footsteps upstairs and guessed Carolyn was still getting ready. She jogged upstairs and crossed the balcony to open the door as a strange man passed her. She froze in surprise as he drifted by.

"Hello?" She tried to get his attention. Tall, distinguished and rather somber, he was dressed in a thick cape of some sort as if he had just come in from outside. His wolf-handled cane touched the floor every so often as he leaned into it on every other step. He looked so solemnly serious and seemed to be unaware of her presence.

"Excuse me…" Vicki followed him. "Can you hear me?" She couldn't see his face, but she tried to remember her sign language as he seemed to just barely acknowledge her presence. At the door to the end of the hall, he turned and looked to Vicki as he gestured to her to come along. His expression became a tortured grin looking for solace as he gradually drifted away into nothingness.

Vicki's scream echoed the myriad halls of Collinwood.

Vicki looked up from her bed as Carolyn sat by her. Her eyes darted around the room as she fretfully held her fingers distraughtly to her chin. The wet cloth to her head fell to her lap and Carolyn reached to hold it back up.

"Vicki, what happened?" Carolyn sounded concerned. "I just got home and found you in the hall. What happened?"

"I think I saw another ghost." Vicki knew how ridiculous she sounded. "It looked like the man in the portrait in the foyer, but...he was different somehow. More modern, perhaps."

"That's the first Barnabas Collins who went to England." Carolyn looked back at her disbelievingly. "I think you mean Cousin Barnabas, his descendant, but Vicki, he's still alive; he returned to England. If anything, you maybe saw his ancestor. They looked so much alike."

"Carolyn..." Victoria rose off her bed as she thought of the next thing to say, but then another thought pervaded her mind. "How'd I get in here?"

"I brought you in." Carolyn sat on the bed. Her eyes met Vicki's as the young ingénue glanced back to her. "Do you want me to bring you something upstairs to eat?"

"No, I..." Vicki rolled her eyes around the room as her world was being turned upside down around her. "You've never seen ghosts here?"

"None." Carolyn's response was short and brief and trapped in a whisper. The petite blonde stood up straight from the bed with a toss of her long blonde hair; her left hand glided over her black sweater.

"Then why am I seeing them?"

"The prodigal daughter is home." Carolyn slightly leaned in with a grin. "They're excited to have you home."

Carolyn stood up straight. "I better get your dinner reheated."

"Carolyn?"

"Yes?"

"Will you be eating with me?" Vicki watched as Carolyn opened her mouth to say something, but then stood there with her lips slightly parted.

"If that's what you want," The heiress answered back, her voice trailing off a bit disconcertingly.

Vicki watched as her secretive sister glided out on the proverbial wings of her feet. She sat on her bed for a second and folded her arms as her mind ran over so many of the vague puzzle pieces around her that didn't fit together. A half-sister who preferred the night and apparently didn't eat. Spirits who roamed the house but never crossed her path. A seemingly deserted house where she was pretty much cut off from town. The acquaintance of a surly cab driver who came up here and vanished. A date she had never seen. She suddenly remembered something else: Barnabas's ghost wasn't exactly trying to scare her. He was trying to show her something in the west wing. Was there something in there she had to see?

"Maybe that's where she keeps her coffin..." Vicki mumbled to herself partially in jest as she realized it made a bit of sense. She had seen a few vampire films in her time. The idea of living vampires sounded ridiculous, but then so was the idea of a person being alone so far from town in this foreboding edifice.

Sliding off her bed, Vicki turned to open the jewelry box she had brought from the foundling home. Her favorite nurse, Ida McDonald, had given her a necklace she wore only on special occasions. It was a small silver cross on a silver chain. She linked it around her neck as she looked into the mirror and began to wonder if Carolyn had a reflection. Foolish thoughts, perhaps, but she realized something was very mysterious about her new sister.

Stepping from her room, she glanced at the west wing door a second then looked back down the hall. She silently jaunted up to it unseen as she tested the doorknob and nervously turned it. It was locked.

"Vicki," Carolyn puttered around the kitchen as a would-be culinary maestro as she saw Vicki come down the back stairs. "Do you like the eggplant or would you prefer something else? I've some left..."

"That's fine." Vicki noticed the solitary plate being prepared out of habit. She realized she was being fattened up for the kill. Exuberant and carefree, Carolyn had to be the liveliest member of the undead that she had ever seen. She watched as the lethal blonde opened the oven as the scent of baking chicken pervaded the kitchen.

"Do you prefer something other than wine?" Carolyn passed before her again. "I don't drink it myself, but I never thought to ask you if you preferred something else." She paused and stared at Vicki's necklace.

"That's lovely." Her small hands reached to lightly admire it from the front of Vicki's blouse. "Can I try it on?"

"What? You mean it—"

"This is so beautiful." Carolyn took the necklace and draped it around her neck as she left the kitchen. Standing before a mirror in the dimly lit dining room, she watched the candlelight flickering off the cross in the mirror as Carolyn pulled some super-model gestures. She lifted her waist-length blonde hair and flirted with her reflection as Vicki appeared behind her.

"Joe Haskell, you are mine tonight." Carolyn growled at her image. "Vicki, may I borrow this tonight? Please, I won't let anything happen to it."

"What?" Vicki quickly pulled herself together. "Oh, um, sure." She watched Carolyn beam like a teenage girl back at her as she planned for the heiress's departure. The second the quirky flaxen-haired heiress was gone, she was going to break into the west wing!