1866

Familiar Music at Collinwood

Barnabas is still working on several projects with his ever faithful sidekick Julia.

He, Julia, and Professor Stokes had returned from 1841 only a few weeks ago.

Getting used to the present again was always an interesting experience.

How many times had Barnabas lept through time now?

Well there was the time he traveled to 1796 to save Vicki, who it turns out- still died a year later.

Then there was the 1897 fiasco.

Quentin had been a ghost before the past changed. He'd brought David to the point of death- while holding the boy under his power.

1897's twists and turns had truly been an experience! Laura the Phoenix, Quentin's curse, the gypsies, and Petofi...

Barnabas wouldn't have thought that anything could possibly eclipse the insanity and madness he'd lived through then.

He had been wrong...

Next came the one that possibly topped them all! He'd taken a very strange journey into 1970 Parallel Time.

There he'd been forced to contend with a ressurected Angelique. In that time she hadn't been a centuries old witch, but an undead fiend that fed on the warmth of the living.

Then had come his most recent experience. It had been quite enough to rival 1897, and thensome.

His adventures in 1840...

1840 had been a very dark time for the Collins family. None of the present family except himself knew the real truth about that time.

The family had courted in dark force that nearly destroyed the Collins legacy for good.

Barnabas thought he understood something better now. About what had brought Gerard's ghost back in the first place...

It had been Hallie Stokes, the professor's niece.

This was a theory he was almost certain of- since he now believed that Hallie was the reincarnation of Carrie Stokes in 1840.

Gerard's spirit, while confined within the playroom, must have sensed Hallie. What else really made sense?

None of that mattered, since history had been changed. Yet, Barnabas couldn't stop himself from thinking about it.

It would be a long time before he forgot that Collinwood of 1995, or got the image of Gerard's meancing ghost out of his mind.

Something else worried Barnabas too.

He wondered what rewriting the past in 1840 might have changed about everything.

Thus far, nothing seemed to have changed very much.

Quentin Collins was still the same. His memories were more or less the same.

This was odd, since Angelique had seemingly died in 1840- as had Edith Collins...

If these worries about a changed present weren't enough- Barnabas also had his vampirism to contend with.

Angelique's death should have reversed his vampirism completely, but Jeb's curse still seemed to hold effect.

Barnabas wasn't always a vampire now. It was a strange half-appearance of the condition.

He felt and acted like his old self only when experiencing blood lust, but was otherwise human.

Julia kept telling him firmly that he must not act on the desire for blood, unless the curse return in full.

Instead, she gave him injections to curb his appetite when it came.

They had the hope of reversing the remaining symptoms from Jeb's curse, as long as Barnabas didn't taste blood and fully transform.

With Maggie's return in a few days- resisting that desire would become much harder.

It didn't help that Quentin now contended with Barnabas for Maggie's affections.

Jealousy would only serve to intensify the thirst, Julia feared...

That was another thing on their minds besides Barnabas's condition.

Why did Quentin still feel for Maggie with Angelique gone? Could it be that they were wrong about the pitchfork mark on the hand?

What if the mark brought out already existing, but hidden feelings? Even if they were slight?

The possibility made Barnabas feel sick. It would mean that Josette had harbored some slight affection for Jeremiah from the start...

Whatever the case- there was no undoing the feelings that Angelique's mark had brought out.

Quentin professed to still love Maggie. He wrote to her, and said he wanted to marry after she returned.

Barnabas couldn't deny the sick, chest-tightening feeling this gave him.

He had always believed that there could be something for Maggie and himself...

What if this was all wishful thinking? What if Maggie loved Quentin- and Barnabas found himself alone again?

He mustn't let himself think that way!

He must focus on the problem of his vampirism.

That was why he was in Julia's room in Collinwood, helping her pour through journals.

Some of the journals had belonged to the late Doctor Lang.

Julia was leaving no stone unturned...

They were only distracted from this work by Elizabeth passing outside the room in hall.

She was talking to Carolyn.

"Are you sure?" Elizabeth asked. "You heard music?"

"I've heard it before," Carolyn stated factually. "Remember when I believed I was Leticia? I told you already- about the playroom."

Barnabas looked at Julia.

A knowing look was reflected in her own pondering gaze at him.

"The playroom," Julia mused thoughtfully. "Didn't the playroom close after we changed the past?"

Barnabas looked thoughtful and just a little concerned.

"Maybe not," he said. "It wouldn't be the first time our past has come to haunt us..."

Julia folded her hands together dramatically and sighed.

"Barnabas," she said, shaking her head. "We just can't! We can't keep changing the past! We might cause something really dire to happen in this time..."

"I know," Barnabas nodded in agreement. "First, Vicki went to 1795 during the seance and returned. Just her mere presence in that time brought Angelique back here, and with it Nicholas Blair."

"Right," Julia chimed in. "Then you traveled to 1897 and changed things. We traveled to the other 1970, where Collinwood was destroyed- only to find this house in ruins in 1995."

Julia shook her head.

"Barnabas, what if we're causing these things? What if we somehow brought Gerard back?"

"No," Barnabas disagreed with certainty. "I've already accounted for that. It was Hallie. Hallie is the reincarnation of Carrie Stokes. Just like Kitty Soames was Josette's reincarnation..."

Julia paced back and forth across her room, deep in thought.

"Maybe it has nothing to do with the past," she spoke suddenly. "Though it seems too much to hope. Maybe the playroom reappearing has nothing to do with the past. Who knows- maybe Carolyn imagined that music?"

"I hope so," Barnabas said, as though he really doubted it.

Yet, Julia was right...

There was only way to find out about the music. They must sit up here at Collinwood tonight.

(...that evening...)

The house was quiet and still.

Elizabeth and Roger had gone up to bed for the night. David and Carolyn were in their rooms.

Julia and Barnabas sat in the drawing room, talking occasionally, but usually just sitting in silence.

They were waiting on something to happen. Anything really...

"You want some coffee?" Julia offered.

"That would be delightful," Barnabas said agreeably.

Julia rose from the drawing room couch, and stepped past the open double doors, into the foyer.

She was about to go into the side hall that led to the kitchen, when she heard it...

A slow, soft, tingly music rung off the walls.

Barnabas hurried out into the foyer with an alert gleam in his eyes.

"It's the music," he whispered. "Tad and Carrie's music..."

They made their way upstairs to the linen closet.

Usually, a wall at the back of the linen closet blocked the playroom. It had been built there to seal the room.

The room where Gerard's cursed spirit had once resided...

Barnabas wondered if it was possible. Remotely possible- Gerard was still in the house?

Something told him that wasn't the case.

The music got louder as they reached the hall with the linen closet.

Barnabas and Julia knew what they would see when they opened the closet door.

Then the music suddenly stopped. At the very moment Barnabas's hand touched the doorknob...

Barnabas gave Julia an uneasy look and turned the doorknob slowly. The wood of the door seemed to creak ominously.

Sure enough! It was the playroom. Not the linen closet...

The carousel was slowly turning, as though it had just stopped with the music.

The room still had the uneasy feeling of a recent presence.

"Who is here?" Barnabas called out.

Then something appeared in the corner. It was a phantom...

It wasn't Gerard.

It was a man in his thirties alright. A man that Barnabas thought he recognized...

There was something familiar about the man's eyes, and the way he groomed his hair.

"Tad," Barnabas gasped, as it suddenly hit him. "Tad Collins?"

The playroom lights flickered on and off, and then the phantom was gone.

Julia gasped when the carousel began to spin, and the all too familiar music played.

"Tad Collins," she whispered. "He was a man. Not a boy..."

Barnabas nodded.

They were seeing an adult Tad. Not a child, like when Gerard was here.

They'd changed the past, but similarly to Vicki- it appeared Tad had still died.

He had died considerably young...