Dark Shadows 2: The Salem Branch

by Lara Parker

  “I don’t know.”

  “Lemme ask you something. What did we ever do to you?”

  “Jason, I—”

  “Those jerk-off cops. They pulled the girls out of the tents, wouldn’t even let them get dressed. An’ then they handcuffed them so they could look at ‘em naked.”

  “I—I never meant for this to happen.”

  Jason leaned in to Barnabas and whispered in his ear. “Start lockin’ your doors and windows, man, ‘cause I’m comin’ back.”

  David was standing at his side. “Where’s Jackie?” he said. “Where’s Toni?”

  “He-e-e-y-y-y, Bro,” said Jason, his eyes softening. “Whatta you doin’ here?”

  “Where’s Jackie?”

  “So, what about it? Are you with us or against us?”

  “Jason, please, just tell me . . .”

  “Toni’s not here,” he said. “If she had been, she’d of told the cops to go fuck themselves.”

  “So, they’re okay?”

  “She went to Salem, see. Said she was going to some meeting. So she missed it, man. She missed the whole party.” He looked at David, his eyes shining. “You know what they did? Asshole cops. They shot a hole in the pickle barrel.”

  TWENTY

  ON THE HIGHWAY to Salem, Barnabas tried to calm the tempest swirling in his brain. His newfound strength must mean only one thing. He was reverting. His body felt light and powerful for the first time in months. However, he was wounded—not badly, just enough to give cause for worry. The bullet had pierced his side but only a silver bullet could stop a vampire. On the other hand, could his real wound mean the cure was nearly complete?

  David would not stop talking. He was still young and idealistic, Barnabas thought, not yet cynical enough to realize that good and evil were far from definable. But he was having difficulty listening to David’s tirade. He was thinking of Jason, his red-rimmed eyes, his cruel taunts. Something about him was odd.

  “Why didn’t they give them a chance?” David said. “I know there was a court order, but winter was coming. They would have left soon.”

  “A girl died,” said Barnabas, wondering now whether he should return to Collinwood and to Julia’s room to have her dress his wound—not drive to Salem tonight. But more than anything, he longed to see Antoinette. And it was only right that she be told her property had been invaded and that she was headed for a legal battle. He intended to offer his help.

  “But they didn’t kill her.”

  “The police thought the hippies were responsible,” Barnabas said. He opened and closed his fingers on the wheel, feeling them bend and tighten. Was it his imagination, or were his hands more flexible?

  “But they weren’t,” said David. “They were just as scared as anyone else. Jackie knew about the thing that killed the girl.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You know what she said it was? A zombie. It was in Toni’s service or something.”

  Barnabas jammed his foot against the gas pedal.

  “What’s going on?” said David. “Slow down.”

  “What—?”

  “You’re going ninety miles an hour.”

  Disoriented, his head spinning, Barnabas stared at the speedometer. He floundered for the brake. The Bentley slowed and hummed more softly. Gripping the steering wheel, he felt a storm of emotions. Were they both suspect? Mother and daughter? Antoinette had seemed so sincere when she told him she had called an ambulance and they had taken the girl to the hospital. Or had he imagined it?

  He found it difficult to speak. “Jackie told you this?”

  “Jackie told me her mother was a witch.”

  Of course, of course. With anguish, he recalled her sweet abandon. A lie. All a lie. “David . . . are you sure?”

  “Well, that’s what she said. But I think she makes things up to scare me.”

  Contempt for Antoinette rose once again in his heart, and shame for his own absurd culpability. Now he wanted to punish her, to force her to succumb to his desires. As he sped down the dark road, he became aroused with the thought of holding her, hearing her moan. The muscles in his arms became rigid. He gripped the steering wheel with such fury he heard it crack.

  “Barnabas, what are you doing?”

  “It’s . . . I . . .”

  “What are you doing to the steering wheel?”

  “Oh, how stupid of me.” He strained to relax. It was essential that he drive carefully, if only for the safety of the boy. In his lap, David still held papers rescued from Toni’s tent, and he was looking through them. “Maybe you should put all that in the glove compartment,” he said, in what he hoped was a lighter tone, “so it won’t get lost.” But David had already opened a file that contained several letters.

  “Look at this,” he said. “It’s Jackie’s medical report.”

  “I think that is private,” said Barnabas.

  David was poring over one of the pages, hungry for some information that would explain his sweetheart’s behavior.

  “This is really weird. Do you want to hear this?”

  Barnabas looked through the windshield at the dark night. It had begun to rain and in the headlights beads of water danced on the asphalt. “It’s going to be a long drive,” he said.

  David began to read.

  “ ‘October twenty-five, 1971. Dear Mrs. Harpignies: This letter should serve to recall the phone conversation we had at 7:03 A.M. This morning the fourth floor nurse, Miss Fluentino, advised me that in making her rounds she discovered your daughter, Jacqueline, was not in her room. She also informed me that she had provided you with a key to the exterior/interior door, since you are in the habit of visiting your daughter late at night. She assured me that she trusted you implicitly, and that she counted upon you to respect the security of the locked floor. As you know, patients the staff feels may be a danger to others are kept on this floor.’

  “So that’s why she was at the camp,” said David. “Toni sprung her.”

  “What else does it say?”

  “ ‘Although we are not a prison, apparently the guard was patrolling an outside area when you came to the facility and, without our consent, removed your daughter from the grounds. I regret to inform you that Windcliff Sanitarium can no longer assume responsibility for Jacqueline. In the event that you wish to return her to the hospital, a meeting to decide her status as a patient will have to be arranged and the senior staff of the sanitarium will be required to be present. This can be initiated only under my recommendation.

  “ ‘As we have discussed in our numerous conferences here in my office, I have misgivings as to Jacqueline’s prognosis. I must reiterate that she is, in my opinion, incapable of living on her own, and she is a potential threat to others as well as to herself. After the episode with the rat, I am certain she belongs in a locked facility where she can be cared for and observed.

  “ ‘I hope you will reconsider your impetuous and misguided decision to remove your daughter from the sanitarium. Yours very truly, Kenneth Solares, M.D., Ph.D.’

  “Wow,” said David. “It’s a lot more serious than I thought.”

  “You had no idea she was so ill?” said Barnabas.

  “Well, I thought she was mean, but I didn’t think she was crazy. And then at other times she was so kind and beautiful.” He extracted another document and once more began to read.

  “‘September seventeen, 1971. Dear Miss Harpignies: This is an interim report on the psychiatric care we have provided for your daughter, Jacqueline. We have already discussed her case with you on several occasions, and this letter only serves as a brief compilation of the steps we have taken in her rehabilitation.

  “ ‘One. Hypnosis: Jacqueline responds well to hypnotic suggestion and answers questions readily. She continues to claim that she lived in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 or thereabouts, and that her real name is Miranda du Val. She describes her life there in rich detail, and is willing to talk for hours in the voice, accent, and characte
r of this particular individual.

  “ ‘Two. Psychotherapy: Jacqueline is sullen and unresponsive in therapy. She is either silent or belligerent in group sessions. She displays contempt for other members in the group as well as for her therapist, and will only answer questions when it pleases her. Her answers, when she supplies them, are nonsensical and bizarre.

  “ ‘Three. Diagnosis: A diagnosis of schizophrenia presents itself since she displays the traditional symptoms: preoccupation with one or more systematized delusions, or frequent auditory hallucinations related to a single theme. She also evidences unfocused anxiety, anger, argumentativeness, and a predilection for violence. There is either a formal quality or an extreme intensity in her interpersonal reactions. However, neither lithium nor valium has resulted in a positive response. Thorazine (chlorpromazine) is administered daily, and although it has a calming effect, it results in catatonic indifference and severe loss of personality.’

  “Heavy. Really heavy,” said David and kept reading. “Listen.”

  “ ‘October three, 1971. Report of Jacqueline Harpignies. ECT: After much serious consideration, the psychiatric staff at Windcliff Sanitarium made the decision to pursue B-lateral Electroconvulsive Therapy in the case of the above patient.’

  “What’s that?” said David.

  Barnabas thought a moment. “I think it’s Shock Treatment.”

  “Oh no . . .”

  “ ‘Disclaimer: As with other somatic therapies in psychiatry, we still do not know the mechanism by which ECT exerts its therapeutic effects. It is considered in many channels to be obsolete—in fact much like a treatment from the dark ages—and in those same areas it is postulated that irreparable brain damage may result. More often, however, the treatment results in a rather miraculous cure. Although punitive superegos can require repeated shocks of 110 volts for appeasement, the usual dose is seventy to one hundred volts at an amperage of 200 milliamperes. Since paranoid schizophrenia involves unknown biological abnormalities of the brain, it is theorized that when administered with care, these electrical assaults rearrange brain chemistry for the better.’

  “Barnabas . . . I can’t believe they would do that to her.

  “ ‘Result: The first treatment was thought to be successful, and Jacqueline appeared to be a more subdued and cooperative patient. The positive changes, however, were short-lived. Three nights after the first treatment, Jacqueline became hysterical and beat the walls of her room in an effort to escape until her hands bled. Consequently, she had to be restrained. The second and third treatments have only served to increase her hysteria. Her resistance to the third treatment was sobering to the staff and the physician in charge. In a full report recorded by the orderly on duty, she braced both hands against the door in an effort to keep herself out of the room, screamed, struggled violently, and had to be dragged to the table. It has been noted in various studies on ECT that this is not unusual, as the fear of the treatment intensifies after each session. It is thought that patients begin to dread what they imagine, and describe, as an agonizing experience of the self being shattered to bits. However, in Jacqueline’s case, the risk seems less objectionable than for her to remain in her present state. Jacqueline is scheduled for five more regimens.’”

  Barnabas looked at David. He had gone pale. Then he continued in a quiet voice.

  ‘“Analysis: In Jacqueline’s case we have observed that she suffers from racing or uncontrollable thoughts, sometimes talks to herself, evidences paranoia, hallucinations, and delusions. She overemphasizes the connectedness of words, objects, and sounds in a non-linear, quasi-poetic manner. Consequently, her thinking seems dominated by metaphors. In our experience, if the patient’s horizons are allowed to expand too far, there will be serious consequences. If not controlled these uncurbed cognitive processes can become disabling. Fortunately, modern medicines and other forms of treatment remain available.’”

  Barnabas and David were quiet for a few moments, absorbing this new information. David sighed and stared out the window into the rain, now flashing in sheets, spattering the pavement before the headlights.

  “I still don’t believe it,” he said. “She didn’t seem that bad. Doctors can be wrong, can’t they?”

  “They can indeed, and often are. Like everyone else, they have their own agendas.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, they latch on to special cases to prove their expertise. They become entranced with their own brilliance. They can become so obsessed with the illness of a certain patient—and finding the cure—they lose all sympathy for his suffering.”

  “I wish I could see her,” David said, with another long sigh. He turned to Barnabas. “I still love her,” he said simply. He shuffled the papers again, then hesitated at another small page. Barnabas glanced over and saw that it was a handwritten note. After David read it to himself, he let out a mournful sound like a hurt animal.

  “What? What is it?”

  “It’s a letter from Jackie, to her mother.”

  Dear Mommy,

  Why won’t you come get me? You said you would come. The walls of my prison drip blood. There are rats under my bed and the baby cries all night long. I am chained to walls that drip blood. They tortured me on the rack. They wanted to kill me but I survived. It was horrible. It hurt so bad. Please don’t let them do it again. Are they going to hang me? I am not a witch. Why do they say I am a witch? They made me sit in a circle with the girls who testify lies against me and call me names. They say I have bewitched them. I know they would kill me if they could. Please come for me. I want to help you with the beautiful old house so we can all live there together forever and ever.

  I love you,

  Jackie

  Rain fell in a steady downpour. Fat drops spattered the windshield and the great Bentley wipers swept them away. Barnabas could feel David weeping silently.

  UNLIKE THE NIGHT of their first visit, the streets of Salem were dark and empty. Only a few cars roamed the shadows, and the rain flashed to needles in the pale spheres of the streetlights and drummed on the roof of the car.

  “We don’t have any idea where they are, do we?” said David. “They could be anywhere.”

  “Shall we just get a room and look in the morning?”

  “Yeah, everyone’s in bed.”

  DAVID WAS ASLEEP when Barnabas crept down the stairs of the B&B and out into the stormy night. It was past midnight. His wound ached with a dull throb and he favored his right side when he moved. He longed to lie down, but he remembered something, and he didn’t want to miss the opportunity if he was right.

  Driving through Salem, he once again became lost in the labyrinthine one-way streets. Moving slowly, but with a sense of inevitability, he searched for Antoinette’s truck, and just past the Witch and Pirate Museums he found it. The Chevy pickup was parked several spaces beyond the entrance. Barnabas drew up to the curb, killed his engine, and reached in the back seat for his cape. Drawing its folds about him, he climbed, with some effort, to the sidewalk. Approaching the carved oak doorway, and the copper plate on which was engraved in small letters, WITCH EDUCATION BUREAU, he noticed a damp slip of paper which read SÉANCE, MIDNIGHT TONIGHT.

  After a moment’s hesitation, in which the rain beat down on his back, Barnabas placed a hand on the iron handle, turned it slowly, and heard the bolt click. The door opened silently. At first he could see nothing inside the room but a red glow. A heavy odor of incense filled his nostrils and a dozen candles flickered in the gloom. A flash of lightning illuminated the arched gothic window on the back wall, exposing its tracery, and he saw a large circular table with a dozen or so black-robed individuals seated around it, their heads bowed. The table and its ring of worshipers seemed to float over a blood red carpet on the heavily polished floor. Coming from somewhere in the circle was the deep reverberation of an incantation.

  “Once again we call upon the great powers locked in the shifting firmament, trapped in the membranes of memory. Tak
e us back to this very spot, two hundred and eighty years ago, to Salem at its founding, to a simpler and purer time, that this woman and her daughter may search the far horizons of their past. The Salem we seek surrounds us now, its ghosts and its spirits. We call on those who lived then to come for us. Lead us, embrace us.”

  How ridiculous, thought Barnabas. The idea of going back in time was possible, but the words chosen to enact the spell were sadly lacking in originality. His eyes becoming accustomed to the dark, Barnabas moved forward and glimpsed on the huge table various objects from earlier times. They must have been borrowed from the historical dioramas in the Peabody Essex Museum. He recognized a child’s cradle, an oil lamp, an iron kettle, and a milk bucket. He was musing on their inadequacy to the task when he spotted Antoinette seated on the far side, her golden hair covered by her blue cloak. She was concentrating so deeply on the incantation her mouth quivered and tears dampened her cheeks. As he drew nearer, she lifted her eyes, and he saw in them a look of such profound relief, his doubts about her vanished in an instant.

  “Barnabas . . .” said Toni softly. “Come join us. Help us.”

  It was then he saw Jacqueline, her mother’s hand clasped tightly in her own, and her pale eyes gleaming, like two tiny moons. Her stare pierced him to the bone. It was a look of recognition and contempt, and had he not known she was but a child, he would have said—a look of evil.

  At first a natural reticence restrained him, but Toni’s expression was impossible to ignore. She was asking for his assistance, and of course he would help her, if only to console her when this misguided séance failed. Drawn by nothing more than a need to be close to her, he rounded the table. The circle shifted to make room, and he slid in beside her, wincing from the pain in his side as he took her hand.

  A man dressed in a black hood with slits for eyes—some sort of high priest, Barnabas assumed—took hold of Barnabas’s other hand and resumed his invocation. “We see before us objects from another time. Let those who employed these things in their daily lives come for us. Oh, men and women of Salem, hear our plea.” Barnabas cringed at the hack-neyed syntax. All he could see by the greenish glow of the oil lamp—a clay pipe, a tankard with the face of the Devil embossed on its side, a bottle with what appeared to be finger bones, a clump of eagle feathers, a starched collar and a lace cap, a curled gray wig, a judge’s gavel, and a very old and well-worn Bible—these seemed feeble implements for such inordinately difficult alchemy. Barnabas looked at the other circle members. He thought he recognized the two young waiters from the restaurant who had served him and David. All had their eyes tightly shut and hands clasped with knuckles turned white. The pitch of the intonation rose. “Turn back the pages of time to when these objects were in use. Draw forth the molecules of their material memory. Only a paper-thin membrane separates us from the living townspeople who moved in these rooms, sat at this very table which served as the judges’ bench of iniquity, those self-righteous perpetrators of fiendish fabrications who passed woeful sentences on their neighbors. They are with us now, seated beside us, Bartholomew Gedney, Jonathan Corwin, John Hathorne, Samuel Sewall, and Amadeus Collins, who in their infinite wisdom and cruelty sent this child to her death.” The priest’s voice screeched and he seemed possessed. “Find the opening. Take them under the wing of time, fly them back into darkness!”