Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

by Lara Parker

  Raising a fist in the air, he shouted, “Purity! Purity, I say!” And the crowd cheered as one, their voices echoing.

  Jackie gasped, “Oh, no!” and David felt her grab his arm. “David. It’s Jamison Collins. It’s your grandfather!”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “I met him. Tonight at the party!”

  “Why do we gather?” the leader shouted, but the roar of the fire was drowning out his words, and David could hear only snatches of his tirade.

  “Our task is … keep clean the sparkling stream of America … dam the polluting undercurrents … clear the backwash flowing into our waters … banish all races other than the white race … the Nordic strain.” He pointed an imperious finger at the prisoners. “These condemned men have been keeping a still in the woods … brewing illegal alcohol … breaking the law of our great nation. The Devil is in moonshine! We are as one—victorious, white, Protestant patriots!”

  The wind rose from off the sea and David was struck by the heat of a hundred torches as the marchers leaned over and touched them to the base of the great cross. It flared with a whoop of flame, and the fire snaked up and exploded across the arms, etching the sky with a furious apparition, the Christian symbol of martyrdom.

  As David pulled back, clinging to Jackie, he was numb with disbelief and shame for his family. Now he remembered Blair’s words the first morning he had visited the family. I would like to journey to the year 1929, where I might make contact with a certain Jamison Collins. Something occurred during the Depression that could clarify everything, something that may explain the curse that lies on your family. Was he witnessing that now, David wondered, the source of the curse, the strain of greed and hatred disguised as virtue that was to be his heritage?

  At that moment, Jamison Collins raised a tommy gun out of his robe and fired it into the air, the shots crackling in the sky. Immediately, the five men on the rope pulled back and hoisted the two prisoners off their feet and up to where they hung dangling, kicking and jack-knifing their bodies in a frantic effort to escape. The stronger one of the two was able to lift himself by the noose, loosen it slightly, and thrust his head through it just as the other man’s neck broke and he shuddered in the throes of death.

  The escaped man fell to the ground in a heap—while his companion swung limp—and scrambled to his feet, then took off through the crowd, weaving in and out of the ghostly figures who tried to block his way or grab for him while Jamison Collins fired his gun over their heads.

  But the man found a way through the herd, and once outside the circle, he ran, his legs plowing the ground, running toward the trees and coming right for David and Jackie as if drawn by a magnet of hope, until the bullets reached him, and arching and grabbing for his stomach, he fell at their feet, howled, and rolled over on his back. As he took his final breaths, his eyes glistened, then froze in death, but not before they had locked into David’s in one last plea for help.

  “Who’s that?” one of the Klansmen at the back of the crowd cried out, his black eye holes staring at David and Jackie. “Who’s there?” There was murmuring as several others looked back as well, waving their arms in their direction. Then the crowd began to move toward them. One raised his cross and yelled, “This is a private gathering! Intruders!” In response, other voices shouted, “Spies! Infidels!” and the cone-headed figures tottered closer and thrust their torches into the forest.

  David’s body convulsed with fear. “Run!” he screamed, and grabbed Jackie’s hand; the two of them tore off back through the woods, with white-sheeted bodies lurching after them and gunshots firing behind them, bullets ricocheting off trunks and David screaming at Jackie, “Run! Don’t let them go by us!” But the ghostly figures overtook them, flitted past them, surrounded them, and cut off any path through.

  “Which way?” cried Jackie as they saw they were being hemmed in and forced to run in the direction of the huge cross, which was still burning furiously, flinging out bonfire heat, and then they were beneath it, hearing its roar, and behind it was the cliff that thrust out over the sea and the rocks below: Widow’s Hill.

  Pressed from behind, they ran until they could go no farther and stopped at the cliff’s edge, and in a crazed flash David thought of the Fool in the tarot cards standing on the precipice, and he looked down where the white foam tumbled against the boulders, then turned to see the whole mass of Klansmen bearing down on them, waving torches and firing shots that David could hear whizz past his ears. He felt Jackie’s hand in his when she whispered, “Jump!”

  “What? We can’t. It’s too high.”

  And she leapt into the air.

  Falling was an odd sensation, a mixture of freedom and doom, plummeting faster every moment while he floundered in space, trying to swim against gravity, praying his thrashing would bring him close enough to snatch at a tree limb or an outthrust branch, but the ground was exploding toward him and the white foam of the sea was reaching up to embrace him. His shirt and pants filled with air and created a feeble parachute as he gasped for his last breath, his chest in a vise, and wondered vaguely where Jackie was and whether he would feel the impact, or if there would be a sudden and total jolt of blackness, the obliteration of all that he was. Then he felt a tiny itch in his palm, fingers fumbled for his, a hand grabbed his hand and held on, jerked and tugged, and a wave of warm air rose up under him. She was beside him, clutching his hand, and they weren’t falling, but hovering, and a strong blast of wind thrust them out and away from the cliff as though they had been caught by an updraft that lifted them like kites. He wondered if the end had come and he had never felt it, since this new sensation was like an afterlife of paradise, floating on the waves of the wind. He stretched out his body and saw the dim horizon where the night sky met the glistening sea, and he took his first breath since his leap into space.

  He was flying now, as if in a dream; the roaring in his ears grew fainter, more like celestial humming, and he looked over to see Jackie floating beside him, her face calm and almost wistful, the wind caressing them both, threading fingers through their hair and billowing their clothes, and as so many times he had watched the sea birds ride invisible currents, he understood their ease because the air flowed beneath him as well.

  They flew a long way from the cliff, leaving fire and gunshots far behind, until they finally settled in a dark cove and saw the snow on the sand and knew they had come home.

  They hid beside the rocks while he held her in his arms and they both choked on hot tears, and he pulled her face against his chest while she wept, and in all the love he felt there was despair since he knew now she was more than strange, that she was not really human after all but some enchanted creature who lived in another realm.

  He would never be worthy of her, could never imagine her as something so ordinary as a girlfriend, much less a companion for life. He knew she would always be just out of reach, beyond his understanding, profoundly bewitched. That’s what she was, yes, a witch, not a witch from TV shows and comic books, but a true sorceress with powers she herself did not understand. He was not on the cliff’s rim anymore; still, with her next to him, he teetered at the edge of the world. The void reached for him and he fell with her into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  David’s body was one long and silver flute of longing as he held her in a dream before she turned to smoke in his arms, the fragrance of her hair still on his lips. Half imagined, half flesh, she melted against him and his fingers dipped into her skin and she was solid and moving against him, then she was swirling smoke, a shadow, and he looked up to see her laughing on a branch above his head.

  After sleeping for hours, they woke and found a path up the cliff and climbed it silently hand in hand to the road, and there was the car, parked in the snow where they might have left it had they never driven it to Collinwood, and even the torn painting was still inside, wrapped in blue satin.

  Seventeen

  “Jacqueline, get up, honey. We’re leaving.”r />
  Jackie woke to feel her mother shaking her and speaking in a hoarse voice. “Pack some things, whatever you need for the next few days.”

  When the light attacked her eyes with a searing pain, Jackie moaned and turned her face away, pulling the pillow over her head. The pillowcase smelled of vomit. Then she remembered that David was asleep beside her, hidden under the blankets.

  “God, you’re such a mess! Wait a minute … who’s that? Oh, God, Jackie. Oh, shit.”

  “It’s David, Mom…” Jackie realized she could barely speak, that her lips were glued together and her head throbbing with such a dull ache she felt as if she were about to throw up again. It was the debilitating migraine that always attacked her after a spell. “We just fell asleep.”

  “No, Jackie, I can’t stand it. Not this—”

  “Mom, please. Stop.”

  David was awake now, sitting up in the bed and blinking, just as surprised as Antoinette to find himself there. He looked around the room, his gaze lingering on Jackie’s many paintings tacked to the walls, landscapes and still lifes, pencil drawings of people she barely knew, and again he was surprised to see several sketches of himself, all amazing likenesses. He had forgotten that she was so skilled.

  “Uh, hello, Mrs. Harpignies. I … listen, don’t freak out, nothing happened, Jackie was just sick and I thought maybe I should stay with her.”

  “Well, you can go now. Get out! She’s fifteen, for God’s sake.”

  “I know, and I would never do anything to hurt her.”

  “We just—” Jackie tried to clear the cobwebs in her head.

  “David, get up, and get out of my daughter’s room.”

  “Yes, Ma’am, I’m just leaving. But if you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t look so good.”

  “Leave.”

  David reached for his jacket and backed toward the door, but lingered a moment. “You sure you don’t need some help?”

  Antoinette ignored him.

  Trying to move slowly so as not to jar her brain, Jackie rolled over and looked at her mother. It was as though she was seeing her for the first time in weeks. Antoinette was so pale, her face haggard and drawn into her skull, and, Jackie realized, incredibly thin, the flesh sagging on her arms. With no make-up, her cheeks were gray and her mouth was a bloodless white. Antoinette closed her eyes and turned back to her daughter, and spoke to her again in a voice that quivered in pain.

  “Listen, honey, it’s all over with the Collinses. We’re going. We’re going today while there’s still time.” Then she seemed to crumple inside and sat down on the bed and took Jackie’s hands. “We’re getting out of here, out of Collinsport. Oh, God … while I still have the strength.” She waved two train tickets in her fist. “We’re taking the twelve o’clock train to Boston and then going on to New York.”

  “Why … how can we do that?” Jackie looked over at David.

  “Easy. We just go.”

  “Mother, what’s happened? You look so … so pale.”

  “I have to leave before he wakes up.”

  “Who?”

  “Who? Where have you been?”

  The journey to the past flashed into Jackie’s mind with alarming terror. All that she had witnessed flew across her consciousness in a jumble of images, some heartbreaking and some horrific. As her head was being hammered by pain, one memory jarred her more than the others, and guilt lodged in her throat like a stone. She knew she was going to throw up, but she swallowed, trying to keep it down.

  David was still lingering near the door. “Ms. Harpignies, I—”

  “Are you still here? Get out of here, David. What’s the matter with you?”

  Jackie lurched over, grabbing her stomach. “Mom, I can’t.”

  “Then I’ll go,” said Antoinette. “I’ll leave your ticket. You can make it to the station, can’t you? You can meet me. Catch a later train. When you feel better—” She rose and walked shakily to the door, seeming propelled by will alone, then turned to say good-bye. But when she saw Jackie’s expression, she stopped.

  “Oh, honey, oh dear—” She came back to the bed and caught her daughter’s head, held it while Jackie vomited. Then wordlessly she gathered up the soiled sheet and took it away. She came back with a dish of water and a cloth, and with shaking hands washed Jackie’s face, gently, saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I know it’s awful for you.”

  Jackie closed her eyes and remembered when she had been small and her mother had ministered to her during her headaches. The pain was like a siren through her brain. But her mother’s touch, so rare and so close, somehow eased the flashing waves and left a dull ache.

  “Mother, I know something I need to tell you…”

  “Shhhh, it’s alright.”

  “It’s about Barnabas.”

  Jackie felt her mother stiffen. “What about Barnabas?”

  “I know what he is.”

  Antoinette waited, saying nothing, simply staring at Jackie, who could see the planes of her mother’s face sinking into her skull, her ghostly paleness accentuated by the light from the window.

  “I know he’s a vampire—”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous—” But her voice was without energy. “There’s no such thing—” Then Antoinette collapsed, her body caving inward, and she leaned over and took the rag from the water, wrung it out, and placed in again over Jackie’s eyes. Jackie sighed, feeling the pain subside, if only for a moment. She heard her mother say, “I’ll get your medicine.”

  Jackie watched her mother stumble on the way to the bathroom, and then she felt the cool cloth again, and soothing fingers massaged her neck, and then there was the white pill and the drink of cold water.

  “Mom,” she said faintly, and reached for her. Antoinette leaned down to the bed and kissed her, and for a long moment they held each other. Jackie could smell the pot in her mother’s hair and feel how thin she was—the bones of her back protruding—and a new surge of guilt welled up in her. She had felt neglected, ignored, nothing more than an irritant in her mother’s life. But it was she who should have been paying attention. Her migraine would pass, as awful as it was, but something clutched at her heart. Her mother was gravely ill. Panic rushed in, blotting out everything else.

  It was a moment before she realized that her mother was confiding to her, her voice a murmur. “I have no will of my own. I despise him but I cannot resist him. He has hideous powers, and the things he does I could never tell you, disgusting, humiliating. I did everything I could to fight him. He sucked all the resistance out of me.”

  “And yet you think you can escape?”

  “He sleeps during the day—in that awful coffin—and he doesn’t suspect. He thinks I am faithful, I have made sure of that. I can leave before he summons me again.” She began to weep pitifully, clinging to Jackie, her chest heaving with sobs, and Jackie experienced that strange moment that comes at last to a child, when she becomes the parent, wiser and stronger than the one who gave birth to her and raised her.

  It should be me, she thought in a sudden realization. I am the one who should care for him. I knew it from the first. I was the one who made him what he is.

  “Are you strong enough?” she said, looking into her mother’s eyes. “Can you go alone? I will follow you. Soon. In just a few hours.”

  “I don’t want to leave you—”

  “Please, you must. I’ll … I can’t go without telling David good-bye.” Then she remembered. “Mother—we found the painting!”

  “No…”

  “It’s damaged, but it can be fixed. Maybe Quentin can help us—”

  “I don’t care about the painting anymore.”

  And Antoinette fainted, falling into Jackie’s arms.

  “David!” Jackie called out, but he had already left. Her head still throbbing, she pulled her mother into her bed and covered her with her quilt. Antoinette moaned, her eyes still closed, then murmured, “Sleep … I must sleep.”

  “Mom?” Through her
flickering gaze Jackie watched her mother breathing, and saw her wasted skin, relaxed now and gray. She had to somehow find a way to get her to a hospital. A transfusion … The room was blossoming, becoming blurry, and she remembered she had taken the medication. So tired … unable to fight the drowsiness flooding through her, she stretched out beside her mother and reached around her with her arm.

  * * *

  Antoinette was missing, and, pacing his basement sanctuary, Barnabas was becoming angry and anxious, wondering what could have become of her. At every creak in the walls of this old house, he looked toward the doorway expecting to see her familiar form descending the stair. He found he was even looking forward to her sour disposition, eager to see the cool cut of her eyes or even to hear another of her sarcastic remarks. He summoned her, but there was no response, only emptiness.

  In spite of her stubborn reluctance she had nursed him, and he had regained enough strength to consider a foray out into the night, first a trip to the cemetery to retrieve the painting and then to the Collinsport docks to hunt.

  He would grow weak again if he did not feed.

  Finally, tiring, he sat and contemplated his bizarre situation. He looked about at the dark cellar that was his home, the place where his casket had remained hidden since he had returned to Collinwood. The family had always believed he was a distant cousin from England, one that held an uncanny resemblance to the Barnabas Collins whose portrait hung in the foyer. The truth that no one knew was that he had been released from the Collins mausoleum after sleeping for almost two hundred years. Then had come the experiment and Julia’s intervention. As an ordinary human he had avoided this basement in disgust, but now that he was a vampire again he had no other choice but to remain here.

  The walls were the stone foundation of the house, and brick arches held the floor joists above his head, still blackened from the fire that had destroyed the mansion before it had been restored. The stones exuded a black and oily sheen and cobwebs hung in filmy draperies across the corners of the ceiling. A suitable sanctuary for a monster, he thought wearily.