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| Twelfth Rose
Part Two by |
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| Back in his cottage, Eliot Stokes paced
restlessly, trying to regain control of the
chaotic thoughts that were running through his
mind. He walked to the sideboard and poured a
brandy in hopes of dispelling the mood of gloom
that had settled on him. He wasn't normally given
to self-pity; he was too proud and self-confident
a man for that; but then lately he had been
experiencing a great many unaccustomed feelings.
He was, however, self-aware enough to be
cognizant of his own behavior, and now he cast a
rather rueful eye on his memory of this morning.
He had certainly never imagined himself being
thrust into such a role, and he couldn't help but
see the pathos in the situation. At this stage in
his life, to be in love for the first time, and
not to know any more about how to handle it than
a schoolboy! Julia, of course, had reacted with
her characteristic grace; he had expected nothing
else. Nor, unfortunately, had he expected her
response to be any different than it was. Again his thoughts ranged back over the past year, tracing the path by which she had become the most important thing in his life. When he'd first met her, he admittedly had found her intriguing. Her intelligence, her obvious accomplishment, her unexplained connection to that mysterious man, Barnabas Collins, and the strange events that always seemed to center around him. But all his attempts to find out more about them had been maddeningly frustrated. Yet as he got to know her it became clear that she was unlike any other woman he had ever known. He greatly admired her intellect and found her companionship stimulating. After Barnabas's disappearance, she had called upon his friendship, and he gave it willingly. And he began to see much more about her. She became less guarded with him, as though there were no longer so many secrets to protect. He saw her vulnerability as well as her strength. She never spoke openly of the grief she was fighting to overcome -- she had too much self-control for that--but he saw it, and he was touched by her courage. He came to see in her the truly equal companion he'd never thought he'd find, a woman as intelligent, strong, and fine as he could ever wish for. He began to see her beauty: in the finely chiseled face and high cheekbones; in her striking coloring; in the proud way she held her head high in defiance of the pain in her heart; in the changing expressions on her face when she was deep in thought; and especially in her beautiful eyes, so large and expressive. And, knowing the anguish she was going through, he began to hurt too, first for her, then for himself. Most of all he came to realize that she was breaking through the shell of a loneliness he'd never recognized in himself, through the academic detachment he had always maintained in his relations with people. Suddenly he was aware of the folly of the way he had lived his life. She made him long for something more. This man who seldom used the word 'love' except in the context of an academic exercise had been touched by a brilliant, brave, beautiful woman, and realized that he finally and forever knew the meaning of that word. That knowledge brought with it inescapable pain, because her heart and soul belonged to one man; they would never be his. A wave of anger and resentment raced through him. He had never before envied any man, but he envied Barnabas Collins. Damn the man! -- how could he be such a fool? How could he fail to recognize and appreciate the treasure that her love was? It made him furious to remember how many times Julia had been hurt by his indifference to her feelings, and now, to disappear as he had -- to leave her without any word... If in fact that was what he had done. But Stokes had reason to believe it was not. Even as he had been getting to know Julia, he understood that there were still many secret areas in her mind and heart, things she would never reveal to him or to anyone. And he sensed that there was more to Barnabas' disappearance than she would let on. He became aware that her mind was constantly searching for answers to a mystery that only she knew existed. He saw it in the way she brought up certain topics in conversation, the oblique way she seemed to be looking to him for some knowledge she urgently needed. He began to piece things together, and he thought he could guess the truth. If his hunch was correct, then it was just barely possible that there was something he could do for her. He had been preparing for that possibility. He also knew full well that if he was right, and if it did work, it would forever annihilate any hope he might still have, and leave him to a loneliness once again unbroken. But he couldn't forget that moment during their conversation when he had seen that beautiful light come briefly into her eyes, the look he'd seen so rarely, but that made his heart yearn. To see that look again, to be able to restore that radiance to her face -- surely that was worth any price! He sighed. So this was what it came down to. He'd spent his whole life in study, yet he had never learned this until now. And he'd thought he could teach Adam about life! In some ways Adam had been the far wiser man. He drained the last of the brandy from his glass. Resolutely he went to his desk, took paper and pen, and began to write. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Julia opened the doors of the Old House and walked in, accustomed now to the empty ringing of her own footsteps in the hallway. As she walked into the drawing room, her eyes darted automatically, as they always did, to the portrait hanging over the fireplace. She forced herself to look away. She set the vase and roses gently on the small table in the drawing room. Their exquisite fragrance already began to revive the still, dead air, one last breath of beauty and life in a place now desolate as a tomb. Her eyes moved slowly about the room, as though she needed to take everything in for the last time, to sear the image in her memory forever. She remembered the first time she had come here, looking for the answer to Maggie Evans' mysterious illness, searching for the truth about this strange man, Barnabas Collins -- and finding it. She had felt so triumphant at the time; this was to be her greatest scientific discovery, her career-making achievement. She could never have guessed then how this brooding, sinister-seeming man --whom she treated as an adversary until she began to sense the loneliness and the tormented humanity he kept hidden -- would come to dominate her life and her heart. She remembered the night he had come into her bedroom, intending to kill her, until she stepped out of the shadows as he paused menacingly over her bed. She heard her own voice, haughty and self-satisfied: "Good evening, Barnabas Collins. I've been waiting for you... a very long time." How ironic that statement had turned out to be! But now, at last, the waiting was over. No longer would she sit in that house, listening for every slight sound in the stillness, watching for anything that might be a sign that he was alive somewhere within the layers of time. She felt her throat begin to ache and tears sting her eyes. The brilliant roses began to blur and meld together, like a bright orange bloodstain. Instinctively she picked one of the flowers from the vase -- the biggest, brightest one, the twelfth rose. She looked up, deliberately fixing her eyes on the portrait. She walked slowly toward it, gazing into those imperious eyes that hid so much pain, and spoke words she had never before said aloud. "Oh, Barnabas." Her voice was unsteady. "Oh, my love. It hurts so much to leave you. But I must." She took a deep, tremulous breath. "If only I knew where you were... if you're alive... if you're happy. That's what I wish for you more than anything. Wherever you are, I pray that you've finally found some peace." She paused again and swallowed. "I know I'll never see you again. But I will never... never... stop loving you." Her voice choked off in a sob. She laid the rose on the mantelpiece before the portrait and turned away. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Darkness. It swirled around him, enveloping his mind, obliterating every memory but itself. Darkness, emptiness, cold. A sense of endless wandering, of aloneness, of absence. That was where his memories began and ended, all he had known for what seemed like eternity. Time itself was unknown to him; he only felt a flowing, encompassing current, propelling him wherever it would, uncontrollable. At times it let him rest, and he could see things around him -- familiar yet unidentifiable things. Day and night, earth and sky; these things he recognized, they were the only things that were real to him, that didn't change. Everything else in his awareness was illusory, evanescent. Even his own being. At times a garish image would flash across his mind -- half a memory, the only one he seemed to have. Two black figures before him, walls of stone enclosing him. Then blinding light, and he felt himself being torn away, away from time, from humanity, from himself. He never knew when it would come, but it always did. He would feel the dizziness, the cold, then the darkness would swirl around him again. He would lose consciousness, and when he regained it, he would seem to be in the same place, but everything would be changed. Each time he would move tentatively at first, as if testing the reality of the ground beneath him, testing his own reality. Each time he would wonder where he was, what he might find here, if there would be any difference, if perhaps this time he might belong, might remember, might know....what? What was he searching for, deep in the void that was the only thing he knew? No respite ever came from the terrible aloneness. He had been in so many different places, surrounded by people, yet belonging nowhere, and always so terribly alone. There were always the houses, always looking the same, yet always slightly different. He could enter them, move around, observe life going on within them. There were people, people who changed in appearance, in clothing styles, who somehow seemed to stir something in him, as if he should know them. But he didn't know them, and they didn't know him. He had no presence among them. The world he saw around him didn't exist for him, nor he for it; he moved as a phantom within it. And because the light of the sun illuminated nothing for him, he began to welcome the night, feeling an odd comfort in it, a protection from the pain of being unseen and unknown, even to himself. For he was unknown. Memory and identity had vanished, as completely lost as was his sense of time and of permanence. The only constant things he knew were the few physical objects he possessed: the long black cloak he wore, the cane with the carved wolf's head, the strange ring with its large black stone. Items far too meager to carry the weight and meaning of a life. So whatever meaning there may have been in his life remained elusive. But sometimes in the darkness of the night there were moments when the turmoil eased and he seemed to feel something stirring deep within him, just out of reach of memory. When he tried to grasp it it vanished, like shimmering light on water, yet insistently returning when he turned away from it. It was both within him and outside of him, a soul-memory, half yearning and half comforting. Less than a voice but more than his own thought, he seemed to hear it without hearing; it resonated through his awareness while just escaping capture. He welcomed it, waited and hoped for it. Its presence gave him the only sense of peace he knew. Somehow it seemed to tell him that there was somewhere he belonged, that he was being sought just as desperately as he was seeking. TO BE CONTINUED |