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Collinsport, Maine: 1840
They weren’t going to find him. The certainty of it welled up in Valerie’s chest, squeezing her heart and forcing its way up into her throat. Barnabas was going to die, if he wasn’t already dead, and it was her fault. If she hadn’t removed his curse, if she hadn’t made him human again, he would never have fallen prey to Lamar Trask’s insane quest for revenge. If only—
“Valerie! Valerie, this way, quickly!”
She blinked the hot tears of panic from her eyes and saw a door that had not been open a moment ago: the door to the Trask Chapel. “Yes,” she breathed, feeling a tiny spark of hope. “Yes, of course!” She hurried to follow Julia through the chapel and into the mortuary. In spite of herself, in spite of everything she had seen and done and been throughout the centuries, Valerie shuddered.
Walking into a cemetery, even walking into a tomb, was nothing like this. The dead who had been here had not yet been buried, but had come to be made ready for their final rest. She was no clairvoyant, but even she could sense that the dead who had passed through Trask’s hands had not gone to their graves at peace. They had been stripped of their clothes and their valuables, carelessly washed and redressed, and deposited into coffins with only the outward trappings of reverence.
And in a strange way, they were all still here. Every corpse Trask had ever handled still lingered in the chapel’s walls. If the bones of the dead had essences of their own, then their spirits remained, affronted and unquiet.
Julia, however, felt nothing of the kind, or else she was better able to ignore it than her companion. She looked around the gruesome little room, with its horribly stained table and its drains and its racks of nameless tools, and then shook her head. “There’s nothing here. He hasn’t been here.”
“You—you’re sure?”
“If there had been a body here within the last week,” said Julia grimly, “I would see the signs.” Her eyes narrowed on another door. She tried the knob, and found it unlocked; opening the door revealed a set of stairs, descending into a cellar.
Quickly, the two women went down, Valerie pausing only a moment to take a candlestick from the shelf to light their way. The cellar proved to be the workshop where Lamar Trask, or a carpenter employed by him, built coffins and stored the materials for them. All about were scattered boards and bits of sawdust and wood shavings, and various tools leaned in the tall open stone vaults of the chapel’s foundation. All but one… One vault was not open…
Valerie gripped her companion’s arm. “Julia, look!” She held the candle close to the wall of red brick. “None of the other alcoves are sealed! And these bricks, this mortar—it’s new!” A sickening wave of horror rippled through her. “Julia, Barnabas killed Lamar Trask’s father by—”
“By bricking him into a wall,” Julia finished. “In the cellar of the Old House. I know it, I’ve seen the place. I’ve seen it—many times.” She turned and began hunting through the stacks of tools.
Heart pounding, hoping against hope, Valerie pressed herself to the bricks. “Barnabas! Barnabas, we’re here!”
There was no response, and her flame of hope quickly dwindled. “Oh Julia, there’s no answer! What if we’re too late?”
“We still have to try.” Julia appeared at her elbow with a crowbar in hand and got to work. “It’s damp down here,” she noted approving, as the lime and sand between the bricks began to give way. “Too damp for the mortar to dry and cure properly. This shouldn’t take too long…” As she spoke, the first brick fell to the floor. Valerie peered inside eagerly.
“Oh, Barnabas, Barnabas!” A thin thread of a whine reached her ears. “Julia, he’s alive! He’s breathing! Oh, hurry, we have to hurry!”
“Here.” A second crowbar was thrust into her hands. Valerie set the candlestick down well away from their feet, and together the two women made awkward but effective work of the brick wall. “Bring that candle,” Julia ordered, when the bricks were down to Barnabas’s waist. She reached in and pressed her hand to the side of his neck; a faint thread of a pulse thrummed against her fingertips. “He’s very weak,” she said.
“Of course he is,” Valerie retorted testily. “He’s been trapped in here for days!”
“I know that. But—never mind.” Julia went back to the pile of tools and returned with a file. “I have to get these chains off his wrists. Be ready to catch him.”
The rasping sound by his ear finally brought Barnabas back near to consciousness. He blinked painfully in the light of the single candle’s weak flame, and tried to focus his eyes on the faces before him. “Who is it?” he asked hoarsely. “Who’s there?”
“Barnabas, we’re here,” said Valerie, “we’ve come to save you.”
“Angelique…? But…”
“Don’t talk,” Julia ordered, and paused in her filing long enough to press her hand, now caked in mortar, brick dust and metal shavings, to his lean cheek. “Save your strength, Barnabas. We’re getting you out of here very soon.”
“Julia… my… Julia… dear friend… you came…”
“You wouldn’t leave me behind. I wasn’t about to leave you. Now hush.”
Whether to her orders or to his own exhaustion, Barnabas obeyed. In a few moments more, he was free of his bonds, and slumping in their arms.
They had a carriage on the street, with a servant at the reins who had been well paid out of Valerie’s own deep purse to take them here and there and to say nothing, if he valued his life. They hauled Barnabas into it as quickly as they could and Valerie ordered the driver to take them to the Old House on the Collins estate, as fast as he could drive the horses. They had to get there at once, if Julia was to have any chance of caring for Barnabas properly.
Valerie sat back against the padded seats and watched Julia examine her husband, and tried not to think overmuch about how Barnabas had called her his Julia.
There wasn’t room for the three of them on the seat, so Julia knelt upright on the floor of the coach, heedless of the jolt to her knees and her spine each time the wheels went over a rut. The village of Collinsport wouldn’t change much between 1840 and 1970, she thought vaguely as she stripped off Barnabas’s very limp cravat and unbuttoned his shirt, but at least the roads in the future were in better repair.
He was alive. She honestly couldn’t quite believe it, but there he was. It wasn’t even the first time she had found him alive when by rights he ought to have died from any number of things before she’d gotten to him—she still had nightmares about the time she and Willie Loomis had buried him, quite literally buried him in a coffin in the ground, only to realize belatedly that there was an external force keeping him from dying. But there was no such external force this time.
Barnabas Collins had been chained up behind a wall for almost a week with no food, no water, and barely any air. He ought to have been dead.
The chilly night air against his bare, clammy skin roused him again. “Wha—? Julia?”
Valerie pressed his head against her shoulder and stroked his lank hair. “It’s alright, my darling, you’re safe now. Julia and I are taking you home.”
“Home…” His tongue passed weakly over cracked lips. “Thirsty… arms… ache.”
“I’m not surprised.” Julia felt at his wrists and elbows and shoulders. “All the joints are swollen, but frankly it’s a miracle they haven’t all been wrenched from their sockets.”
A strange expressed crossed Valerie’s face, almost—but not quite—before Julia saw it. “I’m just so grateful we found you in time, Barnabas.” Overcome, she pressed a kiss to his forehead, confident that if he minded, he was at least too weak to push her away.
“How… how did you… find me?”
“It was Roxanne, dear. She sent Julia a dream, telling her where you could be found. It was Julia who led the way to you.”
Julia raised her eyebrows in some surprise at Valerie’s admission, but said nothing, instead concentrating on trying to count the weak beats of Barnabas’s pulse. She was worried about the state of his clothes; apart from some minor sweat stains, his clothes were clean—normally, she would have expected a man trapped in a tiny hole to have soiled himself at least once, and for a man of Barnabas’s lean, gaunt weight and build to suffer greatly from the lack of water. But there was nothing of the kind, neither filth nor smell, and her physician’s mind was racing with the possibility of looming kidney failure from the lack of water to flush toxins from his system…
“Roxanne…” He licked his lips again, and Julia cursed herself for not having thought to bring water. But she had naively assumed that, whoever had abducted him and wherever they had taken him, they would be keeping him well, perhaps as a hostage for future use. “I thought… I thought I heard Roxanne’s voice… in the darkness… Thought I was dreaming… or hallucinating… people hallucinate… when they’re dying…”
“They do,” said Julia, as the coach finally swept to a halt before the door of the old white mansion, and she rolled awkwardly out the door and onto the gravel drive. “But you were never in danger of dying.”
“No…” Barnabas managed a smile. “I always knew… you were going to find me.”
She told the servant to wait for her, and by half-carrying, half-dragging him, she and Valerie got Barnabas into the house. “I’ll take him upstairs and—”
“No! I’ll do it.”
The two women glared at one another over Barnabas’s head, silently vying for possession of him—or at least, for the right to take care of him. Valerie opened her mouth to begin the verbal battle, but Julia cut her off. “Then help me get him upstairs. We have to get him into a bed and out of these filthy clothes.”
He was still conscious and aware enough to try walking up the stairs, but it was a slow process, made slower by his trembling weakness, and all three of them were panting from the exertion by the time they stumbled into Josette’s room. “Help him into bed,” said Julia shortly. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I need hot water, and my medical bag.” She turned and hurried downstairs, and flung herself into the coach. “Take me to Collinwood, now.”
Valerie got Barnabas’s boots and coat and shirt off, and coaxed him to lie down on the bed, but that was all she could do before Barnabas began to fight her. “Julia,” he moaned, “where is Julia? Where is she… I need her…”
Rage flamed up in her soul, and she quickly tamped it back. It would do him no good to get angry at Julia Hoffman now. No, nor would it do Valerie herself any good. She needed Julia… and as much as she truly hated to admit it, so did Barnabas. Persist as they might in describing one another as merely good friends and nothing more, she knew her Barnabas. He had never been one to make ‘friends’ lightly, and the ones he valued most, he would die for, and expected them to do the same. It was how Jeremiah had died, after all: for love of Barnabas, rather than for Josette.
“Julia, please, I want to see Julia…”
She swallowed hard, and stroked the limp black hair from his forehead. “Julia will be back soon, my love,” she promised. “She will return, never fear. Now, try to relax, Barnabas, please…”
“You’re… lying to me… you’re keeping her away…” He tried to sit up, to push past her and go looking for his friend.
Valerie caught his shoulders and eased him back down against the pillows. “I am not, I swear it!” She pressed her fingers to her eyes and tried desperately not to think of 1796 and those awful days and nights when Barnabas had been dying of the vampire’s bite, and calling for his mother and for Josette, and refusing to see her. “Here, I’ll—I will go and find her.”
She half-rose from her chair at the side of the bed, but with a sudden, unexpected burst of strength, Barnabas clutched at her arm. “No! Angelique—don’t leave me. Please.” His eyes were glassy-dark, wide and pleading. “Don’t leave me alone.”
“I-I won’t,” Valerie assured him, tears beginning to slip down her cheeks. “I won’t leave you, Barnabas.” She stroked his hand and his face gently. “I’ll never leave you, my darling. There,” she said, after an interminable time, “you hear that? That’s Julia’s carriage, bringing her back from Collinwood. She’ll be here any minute.”
She heard Julia moving about downstairs, and then finally heard her footsteps approaching the door and at last appearing in the doorway with her medical bag in one hand and a steaming china jug in the other, a pan and sponge wedged under her arm and a towel thrown over one shoulder.
“Julia!” Barnabas’s wan face lit up as though from within at the sight of his friend.
“What’s happened?” she asked, frowning, and looking from him to Valerie as though she suspected he’d been mistreated.
Valerie shook her head. “He’s been asking for you every five minutes since you left. Here.” She vacated her chair; Barnabas’s hand that had gripped her arm so tightly slid off with barely any resistance, and instead reached weakly for Julia.
She took his cold hand between her own warm and capable ones. “I’m-I’m here, Barnabas,” she said, almost awkwardly, as though she wasn’t sure how to respond to his joy in seeing her; indeed, he was almost crying with relief. “I’m here… He’s still dressed.”
“He wouldn’t let me touch him. Perhaps, now that you’re back…”
“Yes.” Julia squeezed his hand. “Barnabas. We need to get you out of these clothes.”
“Yes…” At last, he relaxed fully. He stopped trying to fight or get out of bed, and finally let the two women ease the week-old garments from his skin.
Valerie watched Julia closely as they sponge-bathed and dried him bit by bit. “You seem very comfortable with Barnabas in this state,” she said at last, very quietly.
“I’m his doctor,” said Julia.
“Yes, of course.” Oh Julia, Valerie thought, you are so much more to him than that… And I’m quite sure that your familiarity with my husband’s naked body stems from far more than professional thoroughness. But there was no anger in the realization, not now. Perhaps she was too tired. Or perhaps she was simply resigned. Barnabas Collins had never been truly hers, not all of him. There had always been other women. Perhaps if they had stayed together in 1796, there would have still been other women. And he would still have died, one way or the other, never having ever completely belonged to her.
She would never have let him rest, either. Not in life, nor in death.
Valerie thought of the echoes of the mute, violated dead in the Trask Chapel mortuary, who had been stripped and bathed and coffined by a man who cared only for the money their grieving families were paying him for the service, and shuddered again.
When Barnabas was clean, they gently fed him small sips of water, and then covered him in soft sheets and laid a quilt over him, and left him to sleep. Then Julia drew Valerie off to one side. “He should be dead. I’m grateful that he isn’t—more grateful than you know—but he should not have survived that ordeal. No human could have.”
Her words were like a cold stone, dropped into a pond, coming down to settle firmly on Valerie’s heart. “Well then, we-we must both be grateful for one of life’s many mysteries? Mustn’t we, Julia?”
Julia had dark green eyes that reminded her uncomfortably of Natalie du Pres, whose eyes had been of a similar shade. But the countess had not been a suspicious woman, not the way Julia Hoffman was. “I am a doctor and a scientist. I do not accept ‘life’s many mysteries.’ Now you told Barnabas that you had lifted his curse.”
“And I did! You’ve seen the results yourself! He can walk in the sunlight—he no longer needs to consume blood to survive. And,” Valerie added, her voice hardening, “he can die.”
“Then why isn’t he dead? More than that, why isn’t he even near death? He’s injured, yes, and those injuries will take time to heal, but everything else points to a man who’s been fasting from food and drink for a day at most. Not for nearly a week. Now you may have lifted the curse of the vampire, Valerie, but you clearly did something else. And I want to know what it is.”
Valerie stared helplessly at the infuriating twentieth-century woman, at this proud, incisive, devoted woman who would stop at nothing to make sure that the man she loved above all else in the world was safe. How could she compete against that? Oh, Valerie might kill to protect Barnabas, she might—might!—even be willing to give up her own life for his sake… but she always demanded payment. Julia herself had said it: she never did anything for nothing. Even in helping to save Barnabas from Gerard, she had exacted a promise from her lawful husband: that he would at least try to love her a little.
Julia asked for nothing from Barnabas. Asked for nothing and expected nothing. Perhaps even wanted nothing. She only loved him, ferociously and unceasingly. Valerie was surprised at how moving she found that depth of love, and all in a moment, she was jealous of Julia again, for being capable of loving in such a way, and of Barnabas, for being the one so loved.
“If Barnabas loved me the way you love him,” said Valerie, turning away, “I would be a very different woman.”
“You never lifted his curse, did you.”
“I did! Oh, Julia, if you believe nothing else, then believe that. That day when Gerard came to shoot him, I fully believed that I had removed the curse of the vampire from Barnabas Collins. And I have! He is no longer a vampire.”
“Then what,” Julia pressed, “is he?”
“I…” Valerie closed her eyes against the shame of her own failure. “I don’t know. He’s not a vampire anymore but he’s not as he was before I cursed him in 1796. I was young then, and not as skilled with my powers as I am now. Perhaps the spell I cast was—was incorrect somehow.”
“Incorrect?”
“Flawed! Incomplete! Or… or… oh, I don’t know!” She whirled on Julia with a desperate expression in her eyes. “I did try to remove the entire spell that I laid upon him all those years ago, but some of the magic is so deeply embedded in his bones and in his soul, I don’t know if it can ever be removed. And now I don’t even know if my removal of his curse can be permanent. He may revert to being a vampire, or he might remain in this strange in-between state forever. I…” Her passionate voice faltered in the face of Julia’s darkening face; the last thing she wanted was for this woman to be angry with her. “I’m sorry. I truly do not know.”
Julia looked at her for a moment longer, and then pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, there’s nothing to be done about it tonight. Although how this is going to affect him when we return to the future, I don’t know… But whatever else you’ve turned him into, that did save Barnabas’s life. He’s alive now, in spite of Trask, because of you.”
Valerie’s smile was shaky with relief. “He’s alive because of both of us,” she corrected, and held out her hands. A little warily, Julia took them. “Thank you, Julia,” she said, very sincerely. And then she leaned in and kissed Julia’s cheek. “I know you don’t appreciate that I consider Barnabas my husband, but I do, and you helped save my husband’s life tonight. That is a debt I will never be able to repay.”
“I…” Julia touched the spot on her cheekbone where Valerie’s lips had brushed across her skin. “He’s my friend. I couldn’t leave him to die. It’s as simple as that.”
“Well. Perhaps it is." A fog of exhaustion rolled through her brain. "Oh, I am tired…"
"It’s been a very trying evening,” said Julia dryly. “You should go to sleep, get some rest.”
“No, I want to stay with…” Then she paused; Julia had turned to look at Barnabas, who seemed to be in the grips of an uncomfortable dream.
“Julia… Julia, where are you…”
“Perhaps you should stay, after all,” said Valerie softly, and slipped out of the room before Julia could object.