What do You do with a
Psychic Whaler?
by Alex Service
In Parallel Time 1841, village psychic Gerard Stiles promised to help Kendrick Young track down his sister’s murderer. Gerard Stiles was never heard from again. Now, as the surviving Collinses begin their new lives in the aftermath of the family curse, Kendrick joins Gerard’s friend Carrie Stokes in a desperate search for the missing man, while their hopes wane of ever finding him alive. Carrie Stokes (PT), Kendrick Young, Bramwell Collins, Ben Stokes (Jr. and Sr., PT), Catherine Collins, Josette Collins (PT), Gerard Stiles (PT). Warning: Contains many spoilers for Parallel Time 1841.
Carrie, help me!
You must hear me. I need you! I need you to hear me and help me!
Carrie Stokes woke up to find herself in tears. For a moment she lay stunned. Then she smeared her tears away, sprang out of bed and hurried over to the washbasin.
​
She was late. By the look of the light, it was seven o’clock and past. If she didn’t leave for the village soon, her father would declare there wasn’t time enough for her to get into Collinsport and back again.
​
Just this once, Carrie told herself, she didn’t care what her father declared. No matter what Papa said, she was not leaving Collinsport without bidding Gerard “goodbye.”
​
She stripped off her nightdress and clambered into the clothes she’d set out the night before. She had chosen her pale blue gingham dress, because Gerard once spoke of it with approval. Turning her attention to her hair, she worked free the strips of cloth that had tightened her ringlets overnight. After patting the ringlets into place and adding a pair of hair ribbons, Carrie was reasonably satisfied with her appearance. If today was to be her last meeting with Gerard, she should present a pretty enough picture for him to enshrine in his memory.
​
Her thoughts treasonously added, At least until he takes down that shrine and replaces it with a new one.
But, no, she thought as she hastened from her room. He won’t forget me. No matter who comes into his life, he’ll spare some thoughts for me.
Her father was standing in the parlor. It took just the briefest glance for Carrie to see that Mr. Benjamin Stokes, Junior, was dithering over what he should pack for their move. She paused only long enough to stand on her tiptoes and plant a kiss on his cheek. Grabbing her bonnet and cloak from their peg by the door, she called, “I’m going to the village to say goodbye to some friends.”
“Don’t be long,” her father told her, frowning. “There’s packing yet to finish, and you know we must be at the inn in time to catch the two o’clock stage.”
“Yes, Papa, I know.”
The Collinwood gatehouse, where Carrie and her father had lived for these past two years, was barely twenty yards from the stables. Carrie made her way to the stables at just under a run. Beyond, along the road from the great house, she could see Jasper the stable boy ambling along. He was eating something, and Carrie knew he was on his way back from breakfast. As usual, Jasper was in no rush to get to work. That made no difference to Carrie. She wouldn’t have accepted his help if he’d been there to offer it.
It took her just a few moments to hitch Ophelia the pony to the smallest of the Collinses’ carts. By the time Jasper wandered up, still munching on his piece of bread, Carrie was already driving through the stable door.
Starting down the hill, she did her best to enjoy the drive. The morning was so beautiful and clear. It seemed a crime for her to darken it with thoughts of goodbyes.
Just like every April, the road was awash with mud. She was fortunate that Ophelia and the little pony cart were small enough for her to keep to the edge of the road. Bypassing the worst ruts, she had mostly solid ground to drive on instead of a wheel-entrapping stew.
Ever since she woke up, she had tried not to think of the dream that woke her. Now, going through the routines of a drive she had taken so many times before, memories of it sucked at her thoughts just the same as the mud would grab the cartwheels if she let it.
It made sense, she told herself, for her to have that dream last night. Her need to say goodbye to Gerard today was uppermost in her mind. What could be more natural than for her to have a troubled dream about him; a dream in which he was lost to her and begging for help?
She hadn’t quite told her father the truth. She was not on her way to say goodbye to friends, because there was only one friend she felt any need to see. If Papa knew she was on her way to Gerard, he would have forbidden her to leave the house.
Gerard Stiles was one of the reasons her father was moving them to Boston. Gerard, and the atmosphere of fear and hate that hung around Collinwood like a fog.
There was a chance that the fear and hate would be gone, now, since two days ago when Bramwell and Catherine supposedly ended the Collins family curse. But Benjamin Stokes, Junior, was a lot less worried about the curse than he was about Mr. Gerard Stiles. In no uncertain terms he’d announced that he would have no more of his daughter traipsing about the countryside with a self-proclaimed psychic, tracking down missing children and learning to open her mind. When Carrie tried to explain what she and Gerard were doing, her father just snorted and growled, “It’s not your mind he wants to open. When a man drops anchor near a young girl’s moorings the way he’s done with you, he’s thinking of only one thing.”
In vain Carrie tried to explain about her own psychic abilities, which Gerard was helping her to hone and understand. Papa didn’t want to hear how her abilities could help people, the way she and Gerard helped the McManus family when their little girl went missing. For him, everything she told him was yet more proof that he needed to get her out of Collinsport. Step by step, his daughter was venturing deeper into realms that he believed were best left unknown.
Well, Carrie told herself, Papa isn’t going to stop me. He may think he’ll make it all go away by moving me away from Gerard, but he’s wrong. I can keep on developing my abilities even without Gerard’s help.
Gerard had no one to help him, after all, when he discovered his own abilities. She thought back to what he had told her about his own first discoveries: that strange voyage nearly a decade ago on one of the Collins whaling ships, when he first began to realize he had capabilities that others did not have. How he located a crewmember who went missing on one of the Hawaiian Islands, and how he warned another crewmate that when he reached home, he would learn his mother had died—which, of course, turned out to be the truth.
​
​Driving down Collinsport’s Main Street had an unreal feeling to her on this bright, sunny morning. It felt odd to realize that she would soon be leaving; that the familiar scenes around her were all sights she might not see again.
She pulled Ophelia to a halt near the bottom of the street, just before Main Street ran into Waterfront. Hitching the reins to the nearest post, Carrie realized someone was watching her. She looked up the front steps of the substantial two-story brick house where the Braithwaite family lived.
Mrs. Braithwaite stood in the open doorway, broom in hand. Somewhere inside the house, a baby hollered. The head-to-toe black of Mrs. Braithwaite’s clothing was a guilty reminder to Carrie that it wasn’t even two weeks yet since Tim Braithwaite died. She felt suddenly embarrassed to be enjoying the spring morning and going to visit a friend, when death had so recently paid a visit right next door to her friend’s house.
“Good morning, Mrs. Braithwaite,” Carrie said awkwardly. “I was so very sorry to hear about Tim.”
“Yes,” Tim’s mother snapped. She evicted a pile of dust from the house with a vigorous thwack of her broom. “So was I.”
Grief made Mrs. Braithwaite’s long, harsh face even more forbidding than usual. With a nervous smile, Carrie asked her, “Do you know whether Mr. Stiles is at home?”
The woman rested on her broom and cast a dour glance at the little, older wooden house next door. “He may be at home, or he may not. All I know is that he isn’t here.”
Carrie frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“Mr. Stiles doesn’t rent from us anymore,” Mrs. Braithwaite declared. “I rented the place to a new tenant just yesterday.”
This unexpected news swamped Carrie with dismay. She protested, “But—but why?”
“What are we supposed to do, I should like to know, when the man up and vanishes and stays away for weeks with his rent unpaid? We’re not renting out that place as a charity. We couldn’t wait any longer now even if we wanted to, not with poor Tim in his grave and not bringing home his pay anymore to help out his family.”
The baby inside gave an extra-loud squall. Mrs. Braithwaite turned and yelled into the house, “Louisa, if you don’t keep that child quiet, I’ll clout you one, so help me!”
Carrie hurried up the steps to Mrs. Braithwaite’s side, though she was half afraid that Gerard’s former landlady might whack her with the broom. “Gerard didn’t vanish,” Carrie told the woman. “He sailed on the Wild Rose. Didn’t he tell you?”
​
“No, he didn’t. And if he was on the Wild Rose, then why haven’t we seen hide or hair of him, with the Rose back in port for three days now? I know most sailors go on a spree when they get home. But if he’s been on a three-day spree, then he’s spent all his money by now and he couldn’t pay his rent to us anyhow.”
“No,” Carrie murmured. “No, I’m sure he’s not doing that.”
Her expression must have been forlorn enough to inspire a small amount of pity in Mrs. Braithwaite. “We haven’t thrown away his things,” the landlady said. “They’re all packed up and put aside in the shed; you can tell him that if you see him.”
“If I see him,” whispered Carrie. She nodded distractedly. “Thank you, Mrs. Braithwaite. Good morning.”
In a daze, Carrie left the pony and cart on Main Street and walked down to the waterfront. The Wild Rose was moored in its usual slip, taking on a new load of cargo. Mr. Hinckley the mate was up on deck, yelling to someone in the hold, “Not over there, you lummox! You think we got all the room in the world? You stack those crates up properly, or if you can’t, I’ll hire a man who can.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Hinckley,” Carrie called.
The big, burly man turned in surprise. Then he doffed his hat and swept her a flourishing bow. “Morning to you, Miss Stokes,” he answered cheerily. “You got any goods that want shipping to Boston?”
“No…but my father might. He may be by later to speak with you. You…you’re just back from another trip, aren’t you?”
“Back three days now, from New York,” confirmed Hinckley.
“Was…was Gerard Stiles among the crew for any of your recent journeys?”
“Stiles?” Mr. Hinckley frowned, plunking his hat back onto his head. “No, that he wasn’t. Must be a couple of years ago, the last time Stiles sailed with us.”
“I see,” breathed Carrie. “Thank you.”
She wandered back to Ophelia and the cart. Mrs. Braithwaite had gone inside her house. Feeling as though she was lost in some haunting dream, Carrie climbed into the cart and started the return trip to Collinwood.
She tried to remember how long it was since the last time she saw Gerard. Three weeks, at least, she thought. Maybe a month. She hadn’t thought there was anything strange in not seeing him. Her father had minced no words when he told the two of them they were not to see each other again. It was only last week, when Gerard did not appear at Daphne Harridge Collins’ funeral, that Carrie had any cause to wonder where he was.
She knew it wasn’t like Gerard to stay away from Daphne’s funeral. Gerard and Daphne were friends. He had even courted Daphne briefly, a year or so ago. One might assume that was the explanation for why he had not attended. Former suitors are not invariably made welcome at a married woman’s funeral. But Carrie thought that explanation made no sense for Gerard. Married woman or no, she did not believe Gerard would fail to pay his last respects to a friend.
At the close of the funeral she had mentioned that to Kendrick Young. He stood clutching his new bride Melanie close to him, as though he could keep all sorrow away from her with his embrace. Kendrick gave Carrie a wan smile and said, “You don’t need to worry about that. I had a note from Gerard a few weeks back. He joined the crew of a ship sailing to New York. I think he said the Wild Rose is the ship’s name. So you see, Miss Stokes: there is at least one disappearance in this town that isn’t rife with mystery.”
“No, there isn’t,” Carrie whispered now, as the pony cart started the laborious journey up the hill. “It’s as mysterious as everything else.”
She told herself the mystery would have some innocent explanation. The simplest theory was that Kendrick had told her the name of the wrong ship. He had said he thought its name was the Wild Rose. So Kendrick Young had the wrong ship, that was all, and whatever ship Gerard was actually serving on just hadn’t yet come back to Collinsport.
She wished she could believe that, but dread was racing through her. She was suddenly convinced that the dream which woke her that morning hadn’t been a dream at all. It was Gerard begging for help, and she had not answered his call.
​Without realizing what she was doing, she kept urging the little pony faster. She noticed almost too late. Her strategy of hugging the edge of the road to avoid the worst of the mud nearly ended in disaster. The road made an abrupt curve, and Carrie screamed as the cart’s back left wheel was suddenly spinning in mid-air off the edge of the cliff.
The danger lasted only an instant before all four wheels were once again on solid ground. Trembling all over, Carrie reined in Ophelia and took the rest of the drive at a far more sedate pace.
She drove straight into the stable and jumped from the cart almost before it stopped. The stable hand Jasper stumbled up to her with a look that suggested she’d woken him from a nap. He began, “Wha—?” but Carrie was already running out the door, not caring a fig for her father’s frequent injunctions that young ladies never run. Miss Caroline Stokes was clearly not a young lady, because she ran all the rest of the way to Collinwood.
She pounded on the mansion’s front door and then yanked it open without waiting for an answer. Carrie sped across the foyer and up the stairs. She had nearly reached the landing before Mr. Riggs the ancient butler was able to hobble out from the door to the service wing.
“What on earth?” Riggs called up to her querulously. “Miss Stokes, what is the matter this time?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Riggs,” she called back. “I’m looking for Mr. Young. Is he upstairs with Melanie?”
“That he is; he and all the rest of the family. They’re liable to break the floorboards and fall through, cramming that many people into one room. Speaking of falling, you watch your step, now, Miss Stokes. That would be all we need, for you to go breaking your legs.”
“I’ll be careful,” she yelled, although she took the next several steps two at a time. Racing along the landing and down the corridor, she skidded to a halt at last outside Melanie’s door. There she took a moment to steady her breath and make some pretence of being calm.
Kendrick Young himself opened the door in answer to her knock. The young man grinned in welcome, greeting her, “Carrie, hello, come in.”
As Carrie stepped into the room, she saw that Riggs was right. All of the surviving Collins family members were there, except for Quentin, who was still out of town. Josette, Flora and Julia sat in three of the many chairs that were ranged around the bed. Catherine and Bramwell stood together near the window. Everyone smiled to welcome Carrie, even Melanie herself. The injured young woman was almost as pale as her bed sheets, and her neck was still swathed in bandages. But she turned her head a little on the pillow and whispered, “Hello, Carrie.”
“Hello, Melanie,” Carrie said in something like her normal voice. “Are you feeling better?”
“A little, I think,” Melanie murmured. “Everyone tells me I am better, so I suppose that I must be.”
“I’m glad,” Carrie told her, managing a smile. “May I borrow Kendrick for a moment? There’s something I need to ask him.”
“All right,” agreed Melanie, almost too faintly to hear. “So long as you give him right back to me.”
Carrie wanted to scream from the strain of acting calm as Kendrick followed her into the hallway. When he had closed the door quietly behind them, he asked in bemusement, “What’s the matter, Carrie?”
She took a deep breath. “At Daphne’s funeral you told me you’d had a note from Gerard Stiles. What ship did you say he’d sailed on?”
“The Wild Rose, I think it was.”
“Are you sure?” Carrie insisted. “Are you certain you remember the right name?”
“We can find out easily enough,” said the puzzled Kendrick. “I still have the note right here.” He reached into an inner pocket of his frock coat and pulled out his billfold. After some moments of flipping through bills and papers he announced, “Here it is.” He handed a folded-up paper to Carrie.
“Mr. Kendrick Young” was written on the outside of the note, in handwriting she didn’t recognize. Opening the note with trembling hands, she saw in the same handwriting, “My Dear Mr. Young, I am writing to inform you that I may be out of town for some weeks. I am sailing today as a member of the crew on the Wild Rose, bound for New York. When I return to Collinsport I will call upon you at the earliest opportunity. I am, sir, your obedient servant, Gerard Stiles.”
Carrie’s whole body felt cold. Giving the note back to Kendrick, she said, “That isn’t Gerard’s handwriting.”
“It’s—what?” he asked, astonished. “Then—well, then, whose handwriting is it?”
Unnoticed by either of them, Bramwell and Catherine had joined them out in the corridor. Now Bramwell said in quiet urgency, “Let me see that.”
The two newcomers hurried over to Kendrick and Carrie. When Kendrick handed him the note, Bramwell’s face went desperately grim.
Bramwell said, “That handwriting is Morgan’s.”
Catherine reached out one hand toward the note and then flinched back. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “My God, yes, yes, it is.”
“Good God,” muttered Kendrick. “You’re certain about that? You couldn’t be mistaken?”
Fiercely Catherine hissed, “Don’t you think that I would recognize his handwriting?”
“Yes,” Kendrick admitted. “Yes, I guess you would.”
“Who brought you the note?” Carrie demanded of him.
“I didn’t see who brought it. I found it slipped under my door at the inn.” With an expression of growing horror, Kendrick Young explained to the rest of them, “Gerard Stiles is the one who discovered that my sister was murdered. He found Stella’s grave. When the police could find no evidence to shed any light on her murder, Mr. Stiles said that he would continue helping me. He promised he would help me track down Stella’s killer. The day after he made that promise, I found this note under my door.”
They all shared a grim look. Bramwell Collins said, “Mr. Stiles must have returned to Collinwood to investigate. And when he did, he must have encountered Morgan. Did Morgan know that Mr. Stiles was assisting you?”
“Yes. Morgan wasn’t exactly welcoming to us when we came to the house, when Mr. Stiles was first trying to sense Stella’s presence.”
“And he would have been equally unwelcoming of any continued investigation. So when Mr. Stiles came back and Morgan found him here, Morgan must have—must have taken steps to halt Mr. Stiles’ investigations.”
Kendrick Young slammed one fist into his other hand. “My God,” he groaned. “This place, these people, this house! Is there nothing here but murder and madness? Carrie,” he went on, turning urgently to her. “Can you get any sense of whether Mr. Stiles is still alive?”
“I—I’ll try,” she forced out, although all she wanted to do was collapse in screaming and tears. She sought the calm she would need to set her senses free from the whirlwind of emotions assaulting her. She fought to think only of Gerard, to see only his face, to hear nothing but his voice.
Some moments later she gave an angry murmur of frustration. Kendrick, Bramwell and Catherine were all watching her in expectation. She hated the thought of how those expectant looks would wither into disappointment. “It’s no use,” she told them miserably. “I can’t calm myself enough to make this work. I’m too afraid for him.”
Catherine began, “If there’s any way we that can help—”
“I need something of Gerard’s to help me focus on him. It usually works best that way, anyhow.”
Her first thought was to go to the village and fetch Gerard’s things from the Braithwaites’ shed. Then she remembered, “He gave me a book of poems. I have it at the gatehouse. I can use that.”
“Then let’s go to the gatehouse,” Kendrick said, looking like he wanted to run down the corridor that very instant. He checked his immediate impulse with, “I’ll tell Melanie I’m going out; then I’ll go with you.”
“As will I,” said Bramwell. “Catherine,” he went on urgently, “See if you can learn anything of use from Flora or Julia. My mother will know nothing of this, of course. But see if you can learn from the others—without causing distress to Melanie—what we can determine about Morgan’s actions at the time Mr. Stiles disappeared. Find out what Morgan knew about the death of Mr. Young’s sister, and what his involvement was in its aftermath. It will be no simple matter to learn these things, I am sure. But we cannot know what scrap of knowledge may prove crucial.”
“Yes,” Catherine promised him, “I will find out everything I can.”
With Kendrick and Bramwell at her heels, Carrie sped back to the gatehouse. Her father must have looked out a window and seen them coming. He hurried outside to meet them. “Carrie, what’s going on?” he asked in confusion. “Did you bring Mr. Collins and Mr. Young to help us pack?”
“I’m afraid not, Ben,” Bramwell said, clasping Ben Stokes’ shoulder. “In fact, I fear you’re unlikely to leave for Boston today. We have another crisis on our hands. Gerard Stiles is missing. We think he may have run afoul of Morgan.”
“Stiles?” Carrie’s father questioned in distaste. “That disreputable charlatan?”
“Take care, Mr. Stokes,” warned Kendrick Young. “Mr. Stiles discovered my sister’s murder. Just before he went missing, he vowed to help me bring her killer to justice. I’ll thank you not to speak ill of him in my hearing.”
Leaving the men to debate Gerard’s merits or lack thereof, Carrie ran inside to her room. She had packed all her things the night before, but she had no difficulty locating the book. It was tucked away in an inner pocket of her valise. Her hands trembled as she drew it out and carried it into the parlor.
Clutching the little green book, she sat in the armchair near the fireplace. Her father and the others stood watching her, but she paid them no attention. She traced one finger along the golden printing on the spine: Voices of the Night, Longfellow. Opening the book, Carrie gazed at the inscription Gerard had written to her.
It began simply. “Carrie Stokes from Gerard Stiles, April 8, 1840.” She realized, with a start, that Gerard had given this book to her almost precisely one year ago. Below, Gerard had written his favorite quote from the book.
​
I have read in the marvelous heart of man,
That strange and mystic scroll,
That an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.
​
A sob escaped her as she ran her fingers over the words Gerard had written. Carrie kept her hand on his writing. Slowly, desperately slowly, her emotions began to calm.
She turned her senses inward, away from everything around her. Gradually all other thoughts and sights seemed to drain away. It seemed to her that her mind had become a clear, untroubled pool of water. She waited for visions to appear upon the water’s surface. And at last, on the gleaming surface of that pool, she began to see him.
His face was pallid and wan. She was startled to see that he had an unkempt beard—but at least that meant he’d stayed alive long enough for that to grow. His eyes were closed, but she saw that he was breathing. His head leaned back against a gray stone wall and the stone glistened with damp. She tried to see more, but the vision held constant, stubbornly refusing to spread.
Gerard, she thought to him. It’s Carrie. Where are you? Tell me where you are!
He stirred fitfully in his sleep, as though her words had reached him in a troubled dream. He did not open his eyes. But answering thoughts came to her. Three words reached her from him.
Dungeon.
Morgan.
Dying.
Her vision melted away. She was staring at nothing but the book in her hands and the inscription Gerard had written to her.
Her terrible fear for him welled up again. Carrie blinked up at the three men who stood watching her. Haltingly, she told them what she had seen and heard.
“A dungeon,” Bramwell repeated. “There are miles of cellars that could easily serve as dungeons, at Collinwood and the other houses on the estate.”
“I think I saw daylight,” Carrie put in. “Not directly on his face, but indirect, like somewhere there was a door or window and some daylight was seeping in.”
“That narrows down the relevant cellars a bit. If we can trust that the impression was accurate. Do your visions always show you reality as it is?”
“No,” she had to tell him in misery. “Not always. It could have been just the light provided by my mind.”
“Well, we will search all of the cellars,” Bramwell said briskly, “starting, perhaps, with the ones to which daylight can penetrate. Many of the cellars at Collinwood itself fit that description. I suppose we should search the cellars in my house, too; it beggars belief that Morgan would take a prisoner there, but I think we cannot afford not to search them. We’ll need to search the Magruder place. Seaview, further north along the cliff top, also has cellars. And I suppose there is the old Grimes place that burned down; the ruins there have a root cellar where we used to play as children.”
“And where daylight could easily get in, if the house is ruined,” Kendrick added.
Carrie’s father reminded them grimly, “All of this is assuming this ‘dungeon’ is somewhere here on the estate.”
“Yes, it is,” replied Bramwell. “But we must begin somewhere, and the sooner we begin, the better. We’ll have every able-bodied man on the estate join in the search. Your help will be most welcome, Ben, since you know the estate so well—unless you feel that you should stay here with Carrie.”
“He doesn’t have to stay here,” asserted Carrie, closing Voices of the Night and standing up. “I’m coming with you.”
“There’s no need for you to do that,” Bramwell objected, at the same time as Carrie’s father was telling her, “No, Carrie, you stay here, out of danger.”
“There’s every need,” she declared. “He’s my friend. And there’s no danger, Papa. Morgan is the one who did this to him, and Morgan is dead now. Now, let’s start searching. We have no time to waste.”
“Yes,” Kendrick Young whispered, “let’s start searching. And please, God, let us find him in time.”
​
“God damn,” groaned Kendrick, rubbing his hands over his face. “I think we must have walked fifty miles of cellar.”
“Near enough to that,” Bramwell Collins agreed, his voice as dispirited as Kendrick’s. “I am beginning to think that Ben Stokes may be right, and that this ‘dungeon’ is not on the estate at all.”
The two of them and Catherine were sitting at the big, scarred work table in the Collinwood kitchens, swigging coffee and wolfing down bowls of the stew that Cook had ready for the searchers. Fiery sunset light poured through the western windows, which Kendrick thought gave the scene an appropriately blood-stained hue.
Not only had every able-bodied man on the estate joined the search, so had nearly every able-bodied woman, servants and gentlewomen alike. Josette had stayed to watch over her daughter Melanie, but Catherine, Flora and Julia had all joined the search parties.
Since ten o’clock that morning, searchers had trooped through the cellars of every building—standing or ruined—on the Collins estate. When the cellars yielded no result, they expanded their interpretation of what might count as a dungeon. They had searched the attics of every house—in spite of Carrie’s vision which showed Gerard leaning back against stone—and had wandered the maddening labyrinth of corridors, secret passageways and deserted rooms in the closed-off wing of Collinwood.
Catherine, looking worn with exhaustion, stared down into her bowl of stew. She said, “If it’s not on the estate, we’ll have to search the town next. We’ll need to call in the police and search every cellar in Collinsport. And if the search does come to that—”
She looked bleakly at Bramwell and at Kendrick. “If we do have to search the town,” she said, “do you really think there’s any chance of finding him alive?”
Bramwell gave a heavy sigh. He asked, “Do any of us truly believe there’s a chance of finding him alive, even now? Even if he is somewhere on the estate?”
It was a question they had all been thinking, Kendrick figured, but that no one had wanted to voice aloud while Carrie Stokes was with them. But now Ben had taken her back to their house with him. Ben said they would get some supper. Carrie said she would try again to contact Gerard and to learn his whereabouts.
“Poor Carrie,” Kendrick muttered. “It’s a hell of a slim chance,” he went on in answer to Bramwell’s question. “Begging your pardon for my language,” he added to Catherine, who gave him a faint smile in reply. “I got that faked letter three weeks ago. Assuming Morgan took him prisoner then, instead killing him to begin with, Morgan must have been bringing him food and water. But—did Morgan keep on doing that once James Forsythe took him over? Would Forsythe even have known anything about a person that Morgan had taken prisoner?”
“No,” whispered Catherine. “I don’t think he would have. When he was Forsythe, he seemed to know nothing about Morgan’s life. So in the week in which Forsythe had control of Morgan—there was no one to go to Gerard.”
“They say one can survive weeks without food,” said Bramwell. “But without water… no more than a few days.”
“Carrie said that the wall she saw him leaning against looked damp,” Kendrick reminded them, painfully aware that he was grasping at straws. “Maybe that makes some difference.”
“Yes,” Bramwell sighed. “Maybe it does. If she even saw where he actually is.” Bramwell summoned up a weary but tender smile for Catherine, reaching across the table and clasping his hand around hers. “You mustn’t search with us any more today,” he told her. “It’s important for you to get your rest.”
She replied with a rueful grimace. “You’re entirely right,” she said. “And I hate it. There is nothing I loathe more than sitting and waiting.”
“I know,” Bramwell smiled. “But there are times when we can do nothing else. Although I’m sure I would find it impossible to obey, if anyone were to give that advice to me.” Looking over at Kendrick, Bramwell said, “Shall we go to see Carrie and learn if she’s had any further success?”
“All right,” said Kendrick. Now it was his turn to sigh. “I guess it’s the only thing we can do.”
As he and Bramwell headed out into the evening, Kendrick asked the other man, “Do you know Gerard Stiles well?” He had forced himself to say “do” instead of “did,” though he felt grimly convinced that the past tense was more likely to be appropriate.
“Not at all, I’m afraid,” Bramwell Collins admitted. “Although apparently I should know him.” Turning his face away from Kendrick, he went on, “Daphne spoke to me of him.” His voice hoarsened with emotion, as it so often did when he spoke of his late wife. “She thought I would remember him, and was surprised when I did not. She told me they had courted, for a time, and that Mr. Stiles had taught her to read palms.” Unmistakable self-loathing entered Bramwell’s voice. “She should have read her own palm. It might have warned her against marrying me.”
“If it did,” said Kendrick, feeling awkward as hell at the turn the conversation had taken, “it’s a thousand to one she wouldn’t have heeded the warning.”
“Very true. I suppose she would not.” Bramwell faced Kendrick again, with bitterness in his smile. “Formerly, I believed it was only my Collins cousins who spread destruction about them, as a farmer sows his seeds. I was wrong. I have learned that I, too, am a sower of destruction. And Daphne’s life was the price at which I bought that knowledge of myself.”
Kendrick snorted angrily. “You don’t have to be a Collins to spread destruction. If Gerard Stiles is dead, it’s my fault. He came here to help me. And to win justice for Stella. And instead—he’s gotten himself killed.”
Bramwell started to say something. Then he stopped and pointed ahead of them. “Look there,” he said. “Is that Carrie leaving the gatehouse?”
Kendrick squinted ahead into the gathering dusk. The pale figure hurrying from the gatehouse door certainly seemed to be a small woman, with a light-colored dress and lighter hair. “I guess it must be,” Kendrick said. “But—”
He frowned, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Carrie was not heading toward them, or along the road at all. She was cutting straight into the woods. And he thought he saw another figure, farther away, ahead of hers. A darker figure than Carrie’s, that somehow his eyes kept losing track of. It seemed to fade in and out of sight among the shadows. “There’s another woman with her, isn’t there?” he asked. “Isn’t Carrie following someone else?”
“I’m not certain. Your eyesight must be keener than mine. Even if there are two of them, they shouldn’t go into the woods at this time of the day. Not with whatever it was that attacked Melanie still unaccounted for.”
“Come on, let’s catch up with them,” Kendrick urged, with a sudden, foreboding knot in his stomach.
Just as they reached the gatehouse door, Ben Stokes barreled out of it and shouted after his daughter. “Carrie!” he yelled. “Carrie, where are you going?”
“What has happened, Ben?” asked Bramwell.
Stokes spared the two younger men only the briefest look. “We need to stop her,” he said. “We can talk as we go.”
They made for the woods at almost a run. “What happened?” Bramwell asked again.
Ben Stokes answered bitterly, “She was staring at that wretched book again, trying to contact Stiles. Then, all of a sudden, she looks up and turns toward the door. It was as if she was listening to someone, though I’m blamed if I could see or hear anyone to listen to. Then she said, ‘All right, I’ll go with you,’ and she just up and left! Without her cloak or her bonnet and without a word of explanation!”
“She’s getting farther away,” Bramwell said suddenly. “I think she’s started running.”
“God have mercy on us,” muttered Carrie’s father, “so she has.”
Their chase through the woods that evening had the unreal feeling of a dream. They plowed onward into the gathering shadows. Over and over they lost sight of Carrie and then glimpsed her again, far ahead of them. Several times Kendrick thought he also saw the other woman, but he was never entirely sure if she was more than his imagination.
When they burst out from the trees onto the wide lawn of Bramwell’s house, Kendrick thought he would know for certain if the woman was there or not. And maybe she was not. He saw no one on the lawn but Carrie—Carrie running toward the next stretch of woods, instead of going to the house as he’d expected.
“Carrie!” called her desperate father. “Stop, Carrie! Where are you going?”
She turned for a moment and waved to them. “Come on!” she called back. “We have to hurry!”
The two younger men broke into a run across the lawn, with Carrie’s father struggling gamely behind them. Even with them running at full tilt, Carrie had vanished in the forest’s shadows by the time they reached the trees.
They sped on, though as evening descended they ran afoul of the underbrush with increasing frequency. The ground took a sudden slope downward. Bramwell, a few paces ahead, called to Kendrick, “There she is! I see her again.” Then an instant later, he exclaimed, “My God! That must be it. I know where she must be going.”
“Where?” Kendrick yelled, leaping over a fallen log that had almost tripped him.
“My God, I am such a fool! Catherine and I both should have thought of it. Of course it’s a place that Morgan would remember. We should have remembered it, too.”
Skirting around a particularly thick clump of bushes, Kendrick shouted after him, “Will you please tell me what the hell you are talking about?”
“There’s a cave,” Bramwell shouted in reply. “A cave near the beach, below the Widows’ Hill cliff. Catherine, Morgan and I used to play there as children. It could seem like a dungeon. And—yes, by God, yes! There’s a spring that seeps out of the cliff there and trickles down the cave wall. That could be the moisture Carrie saw.”
Kendrick did trip on something, caught himself on a tree and ran on. He yelled to his companion, “But how would Morgan lock Gerard in a cave?”
“I imagine we will soon find out.”
“Mr. Collins! Mr. Young!” came Ben Stokes’ shout from behind them. “Where have you gotten to?”
“Here, Ben!” Bramwell called. “We’re on our way to the cave.”
Kendrick was very glad to have some notion of where they were headed. It meant he didn’t need to worry much about the risk of getting separated from his knowledgeable native guide. If he did lose track of Bramwell, all he needed to do was keep heading downward and he should reach the beach eventually.
The roar of the waves grew steadily louder, so he knew they must be getting close. He tripped several more times, but each time he managed to avoid sprawling flat on his face.
Now he heard the waves crashing so close by, he almost expected those waves to break right over him. He saw more light up ahead, where the evening was not darkened by the artificial night of the trees. He burst through the last of the trees and found himself on a rocky stretch of shore.
Bramwell Collins stood a few paces to his left, panting a little in the effort to regain his breath. At the sight of Kendrick, Bramwell managed a faint sort of smile. “There you are,” he said. “I’m glad you made it through. Glad the woods of Collinwood haven’t claimed another victim.”
Kendrick came up with a sound between a laugh and a grunt. Bramwell said, “Come along. The cave is just a bit farther along the beach.”
Kendrick did his best to hurry after his guide, while endeavoring not to lose his footing on the rocks. At first he didn’t see the cave, not even when Bramwell halted and said, “There! There it is!” He probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all, if Bramwell had not been there to recognize it. It seemed nothing but a darker patch of shadow, until Bramwell Collins walked toward it and stepped into its darkness.
Kendrick felt a twinge of childish dread. He told himself that was stupid, under the circumstances. After what he and all the rest of them had gone through in the last week at Collinwood, stepping into the dark of a cave should hold no terrors for him—no matter what they discovered inside.
As his eyesight gradually adapted to the dimness around him, he heard Bramwell ahead of him, calling, “Hello? Is anybody in here?”
Carrie Stokes’ voice came back to them. “Here! We’re back here!”
We? Kendrick thought, plunging onward into shadow.
By the time he reached the others, his eyes had adjusted enough to take in the scene before him. Carrie Stokes knelt beside a man who was chained to the cave wall. Both arms were forced upward above his head, the thick, heavy manacles showing darkly against his wrists. The man hung limply in his bonds and Kendrick feared for one more moment that he was dead, as they had all believed he would be. But as Carrie murmured, “Oh, Gerard, oh, Gerard,” the prisoner moved slightly and moaned in reply.
A hellish weight seemed to lift from Kendrick’s shoulders. He wanted to dance, to break into song, and to give the Congregational Church of Collinsport a whole new set of stained glass windows as a thanks offering.
​
I haven’t killed him! Kendrick’s thoughts soared. His death won’t burden my soul, or Stella’s soul, either. That guilt is gone from both of us.
​
“Mr. Stiles,” Bramwell Collins was saying. “Can you hear us? You’re safe now. We’re going to get you out of here.”
Kendrick walked closer. Back here, the place reeked, as was only to be expected when a human being had spent weeks chained to a wall. But he would a thousand times rather smell all of these smells, than stand here smelling a corpse. Gerard looked predictably horrible: emaciated, with a stubbly beard, matted hair, and blood caked and oozing around his wrists from his struggles to break free of the manacles. But he’s alive! Kendrick thought in joy. He’s alive, that’s all that matters.
“How can we get him loose?” Carrie was asking, when Gerard Stiles struggled vaguely into consciousness. His parched mouth twitched in something like a smile. In a horribly cracked voice he murmured, “Carrie. They said you were coming. They told me not to be afraid. I didn’t think—you’d get here in time.”
“They, Mr. Stiles?” Kendrick asked. “Who?”
The chained man breathed out, “The spirits.”
“Great God in heaven,” came Ben Stokes’ voice from behind them. “If I didn’t see it I wouldn’t believe it.”
“Oh, Papa!” cried Carrie, leaping up and running to her father. “He’s alive, Papa! Gerard is alive.”
As the father hugged his daughter to him, Bramwell said, “We have got to free him, quickly. Have you your penknife with you, Mr. Young? I have mine; we can dig these spikes out of the wall …”
Taking out his knife and setting to work, Kendrick asked, “Were there manacles in the cave wall when you played in here as children?”
“No. Morgan must have installed them.”
“But—but he wasn’t mad to begin with, was he? Would he keep manacles and chains readily to hand, in case he someday needed to imprison someone in a cave?”
“Maybe they’re another charming memento from our Collins ancestors. I’m sure Brutus Collins likely had no shortage of such items.”
“Stand aside, gentlemen,” said Ben Stokes. “I have my pistol with me. It’ll be faster to shoot the spikes loose.”
Kendrick wasn’t quite convinced of the wisdom of engaging in gun-play in a rapidly darkening cave. But the chains were pretty long. So long as Ben Stokes could hit the broad side of a barn, he supposed there shouldn’t be too much risk that Stokes would shoot the prisoner.
After the first near-deafening report, Bramwell and Kendrick worked the loosened spike free while Stokes reloaded his pistol. With the second shot, the spike came free almost immediately. Gerard Stiles slumped into Kendrick’s arms.
“I’m the strongest among us,” declared Stokes, putting his pistol away. “I’ll carry him. Maybe you gentlemen can take a turn carrying him later, if I wear myself out lugging him up the hill.”
Somehow the proprieties of their bizarre situation dragged Stiles awake. He objected feebly, “You don’t want to carry me, Mr. Stokes. I’m filthy.”
Ben Stokes answered with a snort. “A man deals with worse than filth, working for the Collins family.”
“Where—are you taking me?” Stiles struggled on. “Not—Collinwood—”
“No,” Bramwell assured him. “To my house. It’s nearer here, anyhow. You will be safe there, Mr. Stiles, believe me.”
“Safe,” Stiles echoed. He managed the faintest of smiles for Carrie Stokes, at his side, before he lapsed back out of consciousness.
Carrie led their procession from the cave, followed by her father with Stiles cradled in his arms. Bramwell and Kendrick followed close to Stokes, ready to leap to the rescue if he needed any help.
Kendrick found himself bringing up the rear. As he started down the beach with the others, leaving the cave behind, a flicker of movement at the edge of his vision caused him to glance back.
For a moment he was sure he saw someone in the cave entrance, watching them. It was a young woman he saw standing there, with dark hair, a gray dress and a long, dark cloak. He saw that she was smiling. And suddenly she was gone, so swiftly that he could no longer be certain if he had seen her at all.
Three mornings later, Carrie Stokes sat curled up in the big wing chair in the parlor of Bramwell’s house.
Bramwell and his mother Josette had graciously opened their home not only to the all-but-murdered psychic, but also to the entourage that came with him. Carrie refused to leave Gerard, and her father refused to leave her. The result was that Josette and Bramwell found themselves with three houseguests instead of one.
When the rescue party reached his house, Bramwell sent word to Collinwood, asking his mother to come home and take charge of nursing Gerard. Josette’s daughter Melanie was out of danger, and Melanie had plenty of other family members to care for her. So Josette came and took over Gerard’s care, and Carrie was very glad that she had. Josette Collins’ steady, gentle calm became a rock for Carrie to cling to. With Josette at the helm, Carrie could truly believe that Gerard was as safe as Bramwell had said he would be.
​
​Two days had gone by since the last-minute rescue. Now on the third morning, Josette had announced that Mr. Stiles was sufficiently recovered and wished to meet with his rescuers. He was ready to tell them his story and to learn from them what had happened in the weeks he had lost.
Carrie’s father went out early that morning, catching up on some of his recently-neglected work as caretaker of the Collins estate. His temporary absence was a decided relief to his daughter. She’d had quite enough of him loitering around her, suspicious gaze glued on her while she helped Josette and the servants in the tasks of nursing Gerard. She knew Papa feared the nursing work would lead her into some impropriety. She admonished herself not to let his suspicions bother her. Still, she loathed being confronted by his fear and mistrust every time she met his eyes.
Bramwell had gone out on business as well, and Kendrick was at Collinwood. Carrie had the chance to revel in a few luxuriant moments entirely to herself.
She had been reading a book she’d borrowed from Josette and Bramwell’s extensive library: Frankenstein, Or, the Modern Prometheus. The book was her companion whenever Josette sent her away to get some rest, and when she was banished at such times as when Josette supervised the patient’s bath. Her father had looked grim when he saw what Carrie was reading. At length, however, he’d just snorted and delivered his verdict: “I suppose it’s no worse than the things you see around this town.”
Carrie thought the book was terrible and glorious. She admired Mrs. Shelley’s ability to take her characters to soaring heights, interwoven with such loathsome horrors. She wondered who among her friends had read it. She wanted to talk about it with Josette and Bramwell, with Melanie and Kendrick—and, of course, with Gerard.
Carrie had finished reading Frankenstein last night. Now she was delving back into its pages, reading again the passages she admired most. Her eyes lit on one passage near the book’s beginning:
​
You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did, and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been. I do not know that the relation of my disasters will be useful to you; yet, when I reflect that you are pursuing the same course, exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me what I am, I imagine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale, one that may direct you if you succeed in your undertaking and console you in case of failure. Prepare to hear of occurrences which are usually deemed marvelous…
​
Carrie smiled to herself as she closed the book again. Her own life, she told herself, was filled with occurrences usually deemed marvelous. And she, too, would seek for knowledge and wisdom, like Victor Frankenstein and Captain Walton. She promised herself she would not be held back from the search, no matter what dangers might be lurking to sting her.
She heard the front door open. A moment later her father and Kendrick Young walked into the parlor together. Kendrick was grinning his broadest grin, and even her father looked happy.
Kendrick went to her and grabbed up both her hands. Swinging Carrie to her feet, he gripped her arms in something that was almost a hug.
“We have wonderful news, Carrie!” he enthused, brimming with joy. “I can scarcely wait to tell it to everyone.”
Before Carrie could ask him about his news, the door opened once more and Bramwell Collins hurried in. He had a spring in his step and was smiling, although not quite with Kendrick’s overwhelming exuberance. “Good morning to all,” Bramwell greeted them. “Have we heard from Mr. Stiles yet this morning?”
“Indeed we have,” came Josette Collins’ voice from the staircase. Smiling, she went to her son, and Bramwell bent down to kiss his mother’s cheek. “Mr. Stiles asks that at your earliest convenience, you all come upstairs to speak with him.”
Carrie grinned and sped toward the stairs, pausing briefly to clasp Josette’s hands. Her father’s weary call came after her, “Do not run, Carrie.”
“Yes, Papa,” was her automatic reply. But she did actually slow her pace on her way up the stairs. She told herself she had no need to disobey her father on everything. Far better for her to acquiesce in the little, everyday matters, and save her disobedience for those issues which were truly important.
She knocked quietly at Gerard’s door and thrilled with joy at the simple sound of his voice calling, “Come in.”
It made her so happy to see Gerard as he looked now: bathed, shaved, and cozily tucked up in bed, wearing one of Bramwell’s nightshirts. His face was still thinner than its wont, with his normally high cheekbones standing out in even more striking relief. But he looked almost like himself again, after two days’ regimen of soup, teas, and whatever medicinal concoctions Josette Collins judged most useful to a patient in his situation. Carrie thought that now he looked like the Gerard she knew—not like a tortured victim on the brink of death.
The others all followed Carrie into the room. Gerard greeted them, his voice quiet but steady, “Good morning to all of you.” Then he looked directly at her. “Carrie…”
She walked closer to his bedside. Gerard got one hand out from under the bedclothes, and held out his hand to her. She took it, reveling in the feel of his hand and forcing herself not to cast a guilty look at her father.
“I’m told that you’re the one who found me, through a vision you had,” Gerard said to her. “And I know you have been one of my nurses. I…am sorry we have not had the chance to speak together much, yet…”
“Don’t worry,” she told him softly, squeezing his hand. “We’ll have plenty of chances to speak together.” This time she did cast a glance at her father, and found his expression predictably grim. Turning back toward Gerard, she went on, “I did have a vision that showed you against the cave wall, exactly as you were when we found you. But it wasn’t my vision that led us to you. It was…the spirit.”
“A spirit?” Josette Collins asked.
“Yes,” Carrie replied. She felt suddenly bashful as she turned to face the others. “Did any of the rest of you see her?”
Her father said, his voice dour, “That was who you spoke to just before you left the gatehouse?” He shook his head. “I didn’t see or hear anyone, except for you.”
“And neither of you…?” she queried Kendrick and Bramwell.
“I think I saw her,” Kendrick admitted. “Never clearly enough to be certain, but it kept looking to me like you were following someone else. Another woman, I thought, wearing a long, dark cloak. But she kept—fading out. It seemed like my eyes couldn’t ever quite get hold of her.”
“Yes,” Carrie told him. “That was her.”
“Can you tell us more of her?” requested Gerard.
“Here,” Bramwell interposed, “why doesn’t everyone have a seat?” Extra chairs had been moved into the room for this meeting. Carrie, Kendrick and Bramwell were soon seated at Gerard’s right, with Josette choosing a chair to the left of the bed. Carrie’s father declined to sit, and stayed standing behind Carrie, instead.
Smiling shyly at Gerard, Carrie began her story. “I was using the book you gave me. I was trying to concentrate on it, to make contact with you again, but I kept not breaking through. I thought I would go mad from disappointment. And then I heard a woman’s voice by the door, though I hadn’t heard the door open or close. She said, ‘Come with me. I will take you to him.’”
Carrie felt awkward with the others all watching and listening to her so intently, as though she were a lecturer on the stage. She made herself continue, “I turned and saw her standing by the door. She looked completely solid to me, although I guess she can’t have been. She had very old-fashioned clothes, maybe from two hundred years ago; a gray dress and a dark gray cloak. Her hair was dark, but other than that, I thought that she…she looked a lot like me. Maybe a few years older. She said to me, ‘He needs you. Come with me.’
“I stood up and told her I would follow, and she turned away and…walked through the closed door. Just walked straight through it, as if she had no substance at all…or as if the door had none.”
Gerard sighed. “It is her,” he said. “She is one of the three spirits I saw. Hearing you say she looked like you makes me certain of that. And,” he added with a little smile, “you have also helped assure me that I did not imagine the three of them.”
Bramwell put in quietly, “When we found you, you said the spirits told you Carrie was coming for you, and told you not to be afraid. Is there more you are able to tell us?”
Gerard’s gaze went distant. He began, “I did not begin seeing them until very near the end. I don’t know just when that was; I had lost track of time before then. More often than not, I could no longer tell the difference between unconsciousness and waking. I only know I began to see three people: a young man and two young women. They wore antique clothing just as you mentioned, Carrie—perhaps from around the time of Cromwell. The man had dark hair and…looked rather a lot like Morgan Collins. That fact, you can imagine, caused me no little uneasiness. One of the women was blonde and richly-dressed; I remember she wore a rope of pearls in her hair. The other, the dark-haired girl…she looked so much like you, Carrie, that I think I called her by your name, although I’m not sure I spoke aloud. Whether I spoke or not, I think she must have heard me, for she smiled and shook her head.”
“You said they spoke to you?” Bramwell prompted.
“Sometimes, yes. I think they did. The man spoke only to the two women, but the women both spoke to me…more frequently the younger, dark-haired one. They told me Carrie was searching for me. The dark one said, ‘Don’t be afraid. Your friends will find you.’ And I think…I think the dark-haired one gave me water. When I was too weak to turn my head to reach the water trickling down the stone beside me, the dark one caught some in her hands and brought it to me to drink.”
For a time, all of them were silent. Finally, Kendrick asked, “Did these spirits tell you their names?”
“They never told me, but I heard the names they used when they spoke amongst themselves. The women called the man James. The blonde woman was called Amanda and the dark one was Sarah.”
“Of course,” said Bramwell, with a grin of astonishment. “Of course, that explains it all! Don’t you see?” he said eagerly to Kendrick and Carrie. “The man and the dark-haired woman were James Forsythe and his sister Sarah. The blonde woman was Amanda Collins.”
“Yes,” whispered Carrie. She shivered as she realized what all of this meant. “Then the spirit I saw was Sarah Forsythe. She’s the one who Morgan said was haunting our house. I mean, Morgan said it when he was possessed by James Forsythe. He said his sister Sarah was murdered by Brutus Collins, and Brutus buried her in the gatehouse cellar.”
“And,” Kendrick added excitedly, “the timing is right, too. If the three spirits only appeared to Mr. Stiles for those last few days he was imprisoned, then they probably couldn’t appear at all until the curse had been lifted. Maybe the curse kept them trapped at Collinwood, and only when it was ended could they go to Mr. Stiles and try to help him.”
Gerard Stiles looked quizzically at his visitors. He observed, “I see we have a great many stories to tell each other.”
“Yes,” Bramwell agreed, “we most definitely do. But if you feel strong enough for it, would you tell us first how you came to be imprisoned in that cave?”
Gerard’s expression darkened. He said, “Mr. Collins, were it not for the fact that your mother has informed me your cousin Morgan is dead, I doubt I could speak of these matters with any degree of calm.” He sighed and visibly steeled himself to tell the story.
“The day after I agreed to work with you, Mr. Young, I went again to Collinwood. I went very early in the morning, hoping to have the place to myself before most of the household was about. I gained access through the kitchen; the maid I encountered there readily accepted my story that I was sneaking in to play a prank on my friend Quentin Collins. I still had your sister’s handkerchief with me, Mr. Young, and I hoped to be able to use it to trace where she had been in the house. I thought I might learn where her murder took place, and perhaps even see a vision that would show me her murderer. Which reminds me,” Gerard added, suddenly concerned, “I still had the handkerchief when Morgan captured me. Did you find it, Mrs. Collins?”
Josette told him calmingly, walking over to a neat pile of clothing on the chest of drawers, “All of your things are right here. It’s all been laundered. There were two handkerchiefs…Is this the one?” she inquired, holding out a delicate square of lavender-dyed fabric.
​
Here it is, she thought. She had known this conflict must come, and she had sworn to herself that she would not back away from it. She stood up and faced her father.
“Papa,” she said, “I’ve decided I’m not going to Boston.”
Benjamin Stokes, Junior, stared at her open-mouthed. Kendrick and Bramwell both hurriedly got to their feet, ready in case there was something they could do to keep the peace between father and daughter.
Her father said tautly, “Carrie, let us go home and discuss this.”
“I’m sorry, Papa. I want to tell everyone what I’ve decided. Of course you can still move to Boston if you want to, but I’m going to stay here in Collinsport. Perhaps Mrs. Collins would let me stay with her…?” she added, glancing hopefully toward Josette.
“You’d be welcome, of course, dear,” Josette said, with a concerned smile, “but you and your father should make this decision together.”
“Caroline Stokes,” her father grated, “you know I have no reason to move to Boston without you. It’s for you I decided to leave! Can you truly want to stay after the nightmares you’ve lived through here?”
“But that’s over now,” she argued. “The curse has ended. Perhaps now Collinsport will be no different from any other place.”
“She has a point, Ben,” Bramwell Collins put in. “Maybe you should give Collinsport another try.”
Carrie noticed that Gerard was struggling to sit up. Before she could do anything to help him, Josette reached over and propped the pillows up behind him.
“Mr. Stokes,” Gerard ventured when he was in something closer to a sitting position, “you will not wish to hear this from me, but leaving here will not undo the changes in your daughter’s life. She has abilities which set her apart. They give her more capability than most people have to help those around her. That will be just as true for her in Boston as it is in Collinsport. My own abilities first developed when I was aboard a whaling ship. That should be proof enough that one’s fate will find one out, wherever one happens to be.”
Papa rounded on Gerard and snarled at him, “I’ll thank you to stay out of this, Stiles! You’re the one we have to thank for Carrie finding these ‘abilities.’ You’re the one responsible for all the terror she’s been facing.”
Carrie clenched her fists, just the same as her father was doing. “He didn’t make me have these abilities, Papa,” she declared. “He only helped me start to understand them.”
“Mother,” Bramwell said suddenly, “perhaps you should go downstairs and check whether our other visitor has arrived.”
Both Carrie and her father turned puzzled stares on Josette and her son. Josette smiled knowingly at Bramwell and answered, “Yes, I think you’re right. I should.”
From the spluttering sounds her father made as Mrs. Collins left the room, Carrie knew he was working up to a bellow. A little amazed at her own daring, she hurried to get in her next gambit before he did. “Papa,” she said, “I wasn’t honest with you when we planned to leave before. I meant to obey you and leave town with you, but I wasn’t going to give up my abilities. I still planned to develop them and use them to help people if I could. So you see, there’s no reason to make me leave Collinsport. I mean to live my life the same here as anywhere else, so you may as well let me stay.”
“That does sound like a strong argument, Mr. Stokes,” Kendrick Young remarked.
“And you will kindly mind your own business, Mr. Young!” Carrie’s father raged. “You may have married into the Collins family, but don’t think that means I’ll bow and scrape to your every word.”
Kendrick looked offended. “I don’t want bowing and scraping,” he shot back. “What I want is for you to take a pause to actually think.”
The depth of anger in her father’s voice made Carrie’s insides cringe. “You’re telling me that I’m not thinking?”
“That’s precisely what I’m telling you. I say you’ve fallen into the trap most parents fall into: that of always believing their offspring are still children. No one blames you, Mr. Stokes. But it’s time for you to stop and learn if your daughter really needs protecting from the things you’re trying to save her from.”
“I don’t have to listen to this,” her father growled. “Carrie, come with me. It’s time for us to leave. Leave to go back to the gatehouse, not to Boston,” he added when she stared at him in alarm. “But we have not finished discussing this matter.”
“Mr. Stokes,” Gerard put in, “before you go, I would like to say this. If my intentions toward your daughter are causing you concern, I beg you to put that fear aside. I have the greatest respect for Carrie. I will bring no dishonor to her, and I pray I will bring her no unhappiness, either.”
With a sneer, Carrie’s father studied Gerard Stiles. “I suppose you really mean that,” he decided. “If you do, you’re as big a fool as Carrie is. Let any man and a sixteen-year-old girl pass time together like you want to pass time with her, and you’ll get dishonor and unhappiness nine times out of ten.”
“And,” came an unexpected voice from the doorway, “put a man who thinks he knows everything into close proximity with anyone else at all, and everyone might just as well beat their heads against the walls.”
Carrie and her father spun toward the door as one. They both stared at the grinning and astonishingly wrinkled old man who stood there.
“Grandpapa!” Carrie squealed. She ran, causing Kendrick and Bramwell to jump out of her way, and she threw herself into the arms of Benjamin Stokes, Senior.
“Easy now, Carrie girl,” Grandfather Stokes protested. “You don’t want to knock me down; I’m too old to fall these days without breaking something.”
“Father,” Ben Stokes, Junior, said flatly. He turned with a glower toward Bramwell Collins. “He’s the other visitor you mentioned?”
“That’s right,” Bramwell answered. His expression seemed partly smug and partly apologetic. “I may not have the abilities of Carrie and Mr. Stiles, but I had a kind of premonition that some argument like this would take place. And I thought if my premonition turned out to be right, then Mr. Stokes, Senior, should be here to join in the debate.”
“Oh, I’ve had enough family arguments to last me for one lifetime, young Bramwell,” Grandpapa countered. “It’s why I moved away to Rockport. But an important family discussion, now, of course I’ll take part in that.”
Carrie wanted to keep on nestling up against her grandfather, but the wounded look on her father’s face told her she shouldn’t do that. She stepped away from Grandpapa, took a deep breath and asked him, “Grandpapa, do you know what we’re arguing about?”
“Mr. Collins has told me something of it,” Grandpapa answered, with a nod toward Bramwell. “Let me see if I have got this straight. You and this young fellow in the bed both have clairvoyant powers, and you hope you can study and develop them together. It seems to make perfect sense to me.”
“That’s all you have to say?” Papa demanded. He glared at his father from across the room. “It’s easy enough for you. You never had a daughter to worry about.”
“No,” Carrie’s grandfather agreed quietly. “But I have a son and a granddaughter to worry about. And you may be sure I do worry, about both.”
“Then if you’re worried about us,” his son replied, “let me protect my daughter as it is a father’s job to do.”
“That’s one of your jobs, son. But it’s also the job of all rational people not to let fear control them. And sometimes to accept the thing you’re afraid of, if there’s the chance it will help more people than it harms.”
Carrie smiled at her dear, wise grandfather. Then she walked over to her father. “Papa,” she told him, “I’m sorry that I’ve worried you. Don’t you see, Gerard and I can help people. And I think we can do more to help, if you let us work together. I promise,” she added, casting a quick, shy smile toward Gerard, “I won’t get into any trouble.”
“Trouble,” her father muttered. “You call gadding about with ghosts, possessed men and skeletons in the cellar staying out of trouble?”
Josette Collins, standing in the doorway, unexpectedly giggled. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to halt her laughter. Her son and Kendrick Young both snorted with half-suppressed laughs. Carrie and Gerard looked at each other and grinned.
“Well, after all, Papa,” Carrie said, scarcely believing she was being so bold in front of everyone, “the Devil finds work for idle hands to do. At least I won’t be idle.”
“What do you say, then?” Ben Stokes, Senior, asked his son. “Can you allow the girl to try this in her own way?”
“Well, Father,” Ben Stokes, Junior, answered. “One of the things you taught me is to know when I’ve lost a battle. With everyone here against me, I’d be a fool to keep on fighting. Yes,” he went on, meeting Carrie’s gaze, “I will let her try it her own way.”
Before Carrie could think of anything at all to say, her father turned fiercely to Gerard. “But you mark me, young man. You will know you’ve got a fight on your hands, if you give me reason to fight you.”
“Yes, sir,” Gerard said steadily. “And I will give you no such reason.”
Bramwell Collins cleared his throat. “If we are all more-or-less friends again,” he said, “I believe I should make an announcement. I discussed this proposition with Mr. Stiles earlier this morning. Having seen the remarkable achievements which
psychic powers can accomplish—and since I now have no shortage of funds, and I am looking for promising investments—I propose to invest the sum needed to establish Mr. Stiles and Miss Stokes in business. I can pay for the rental of an office space, for advertising, letterhead; all such things as may be necessary. Being established in business as clairvoyant investigators should bring our friends more clients, and thus more opportunity to develop their abilities. And I hope, Ben,” he added, smiling at Carrie’s father, “that establishing these matters on a legitimate business footing may help to alleviate your fears.”
Her father snorted. “My fears aren’t alleviated. I just know when to shut my trap about them. But it’s good of you, all the same.”
“Yes, Mr. Collins, it is,” Carrie began, blushing in confusion. She realized her hands were shaking, and she clasped them behind her back. “I—I don’t know what to say…”
“Nor do I,” admitted Gerard, “although I have tried and failed to express appropriate thanks to you already this morning.”
“And none of that is necessary,” Bramwell said. “My ship has come in, after all, and I’m looking for ways to spend my money. I can think of no better way to spend it than by investing in my friends.”
“I believe,” said Bramwell’s mother, “this is the appropriate moment to break out the sherry for a toast. We happen to have gotten some ready, on the off-chance that this meeting should end in this way. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go bring it.” The smiling Josette departed, returning moments later to distribute glasses of sherry to all of them.
Carrie accepted her glass and took another to Gerard, smiling bashfully as she handed it to him. She felt an overwhelming wave of thankfulness—thankfulness for her friends believing in her, for her grandfather knowing the effective ways to talk to her father, for her father deciding it was time to give up the fight—and for Gerard being alive.
“While we’re making announcements,” said Kendrick Young, “there’s one I want to make, too. We have finally learned what it was that attacked Melanie. And it wasn’t any kind of monster—although around this place, you’d expect it to be.”
“What was it?” Carrie gasped.
“A raccoon,” Kendrick said, grinning. “Not a vampire, not a ghoul, not a curse; just a good, solid, self-respecting, non-supernatural raccoon.”
“But how did you find that out?” asked Josette.
“It was Harris and Evans who discovered it,” he said, giving the names of two of Collinwood’s footmen. “They’d kept going out to search the grounds every day after Melanie was hurt, to see if they could find what had attacked her. Yesterday evening, they were near the gazebo and suddenly they heard a growling. They peered behind that arch where the statue is and found a den in the hillside there, with the raccoon crouching in the opening. Harris says he thinks if they’d gone any closer, the raccoon would have sprung at them. And Evans said something else that helped solve the mystery. He says he heard squeaking from inside the den that must mean there are kits inside there. So you see, it all makes sense! Raccoons are bad-tempered enough at the best of times, and of course a mother raccoon would attack if a person got too near her kits. That’s what happened to Melanie that night. She was walking in the gazebo and she ran into Mama Raccoon—not a vampire.”
“But is that what happened?” Josette insisted. “Does Melanie remember any of it?”
“That’s the best part of all of this; she does!” enthused Josette’s son-in-law. “The shock of the attack must have blocked it from her mind, but she remembered all of it the moment Harris said the word ‘raccoon.’ He didn’t even need to tell the rest of the story; Melanie told it herself. How she was in the gazebo and heard squeaking noises behind the arch, and how when she went to look, the raccoon jumped at her. Of course Melanie has made all of us swear that we won’t touch a hair on mother or babies’ heads. The gazebo is simply off-limits to humans now. It has become the domain of the raccoon family.”
“Well, then, here’s to it all,” said Bramwell, raising his glass. “To Melanie’s recovery, and to the raccoon family, and to the new clairvoyant investigative firm of Stiles and Stokes.”
“Not Stiles and Stokes,” interposed Gerard. He smiled up at Carrie as everyone else raised their glasses. “It should be Stokes and Stiles. Yours is the local family, after all. And if it weren’t for you,” he added quietly to her, “there would be no Stiles left alive to join you in this partnership.”
“Stokes and Stiles,” the assembled friends gave the toast.
Carrie smiled back at Gerard and started to raise her glass. Then Gerard’s eyes widened and his lips parted in surprise as he stared at something behind her.
She turned to follow his gaze.
For a moment she saw them, standing together by the fireplace. She saw three people wearing old-fashioned clothing: a dark-haired young man and woman and a blonde young woman with a rope of pearls in her hair.
Each one of them held a glass, just like everyone else in the room. James and Sarah Forsythe and Amanda Collins raised their glasses to the new clairvoyant investigative firm of Stokes and Stiles. And before Stokes and Stiles could raise their glasses in reply, the three ghostly visitors faded out of sight.
Author’s Note: On the Use of the Word “Psychic”
Throughout this story, the word “psychic” is used to describe Gerard Stiles, Carrie Stokes, and their abilities. This follows the example of the Dark Shadows PT 1841 episodes. Historically, the word “psychic” was coined three decades after the era of our tale. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, “psychic” was first used as a noun in 1870 and as an adjective in 1872. Instead of “psychic,” our 1841 characters would likely be using “clairvoyant:” its first known usage as a noun dating from 1834 and as an adjective from 1837. I have chosen to follow the wording of the original show, but have used “clairvoyant” near the end of the tale as a nod to historical accuracy.
Of course, it is always possible that in the mysterious world of Parallel Time, the word “psychic” was in use several decades before it came into being in our band of time.
Alex Service is a historian and museum curator who lives in the far northern reaches of California with her medievalist husband, young twins and even younger cat. She has been a Dark Shadows fan since the airing of the 1991 remake, and proudly preserves her tattered old "Lifetime Member Dark Shadows Official Fan Club" card in her wallet. She has written stories for several fandoms, including Dark Shadows and her favorite characters Bill Malloy (in a time travel fic, Stand Fast and Damn the Devil, and a Christmas-themed story, Peace and Good Will) and Gerard Stiles in her 1840 fan novel, In Darkness. Alex moderates DS fan pages on Facebook, including the Bill Malloy (Dark Shadows) Fan Club and the Dark Shadows 1840 Appreciation Society.