After Sally picked up her luggage (Carolyn later asked Sally why she only brought one suitcase, to which Sally replied that she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to handle more luggage herself, so her parents were shipping her other things to her later), she checked out of the Collinsport Inn.

Carolyn parked her car in its usual spot next to the carriage house and the two women went in to get Sally settled in. "I think I should get started making Collinwood livable again," Sally told her new friend, "I want to start with fixing the broken windows in the drawing room and getting someone in there to check the electricity there and in the foyer."

"Maybe you should ask Chris about that tonight at dinner. His brother, Tom, used to be a handyman, and he might know of an electrician and a glazier who could come out tomorrow while you're at work."

"Don't you think that I should be there to keep an eye on the workers?" Sally asked her.

Carolyn shook her head. "I don't see why. I'm not working tomorrow. I can do it for you."

"Really? I'd appreciate it if you could."

Just then, the door downstairs slammed shut. A woman's voice yelled, "Mom!"

"We're up in the guest bedroom, Beth!"

"The guest bedroom? What are you doing up --" she reached the doorway of the guest room, "Oh! Hi!" Beth, a young woman in her early to mid twenties, strongly resembled Carolyn, but there was something about her eyes that reminded Sally of someone else. Sally just wished she could remember who it was.

Carolyn spoke next. "Sally, this is my daughter, Elizabeth Hawkes. Beth, this is Sally Bradford. She's going to be living in Collinwood."

"Really?!? That's {so} cool!" Beth gushed. "Does that mean that Devin and I can live there after the wedding?"

Carolyn translated, for Sally's benefit. "Beth has always wanted to live in Collinwood, but by the time she was old enough to move out, well, you can see the state the house is in. 'Devin' is Devin Loomis, Beth's fiance. She just spent the weekend in Portland with him planning their wedding."

The three women sat and talked until they noticed that it was getting dark outside. "Oops! We'd better get going. Chris, Sabrina and the twins are probably waiting dinner for us."

Carolyn led the way down the stairs and out the front door of the house. As Sally reached the bottom of the stairs, she shivered as a brief chill ran down her spine.

"Are you OK, Sally?" Beth asked when she saw her shiver.
When Sally responded, "I'm fine. A goose just walked over my grave," Beth gave her a peculiar look.

The three women trekked through the woods that separated the carriage house from the Jennings family cottage. Without knocking, Carolyn opened the door and walked into the cottage.

They were greeted at the front door by a lively woman in her early 50's with a crop of silver curls on her head. She hugged Carolyn, and then Beth. When she took Sally in her arms, she said, "You must be, what was it?" She paused while she tried to remember Sally's name, "Sally, right? I'm Sabrina Jennings. Welcome to the family."

"Sabrina! Your hair!" Beth exclaimed.

"Do you like it? I finally decided to let it go back to its natural color."

"It's beautiful!"

"That's because {she's} beautiful." Chris Jennings came up behind his wife and wrapped his arms around her waist. After placing a kiss on her neck, he remembered his manners and exchanged hugs with Carolyn, Beth, and Sally.

Sabrina walked to the stairs and yelled up them, "Boys! Time for dinner!"

Moments later, two 12-year old boys tumbled down the stairs. One was playing a Game Boy-type pocket video game, and the other had a paperback book stuffed in the back pocket of his jeans.

"Tom!" his mother admonished the game-playing boy, "can't you put that game down for a second to say hello to our guests?"

He looked up at his mother through his bangs. "Why? It's just Carolyn and Beth . . ." his voice trailed off as he noticed Sally for the first time.

Sabrina noticed that Tom saw Sally, and added, "and Sally Bradford. She's going to be fixing up Collinwood."

Both boys went wide-eyed at this announcement, and Tom shut off his game without looking at the screen again.

"You're going to be living in Collinwood?" Tom asked.

"Cool!" the other added, "You know that the ghost of Uncle Roger haunts that house?"

"He's not our uncle, you doof!" Tom said.

"Well, Carolyn always calls him 'Uncle Roger.'"

"That's because he is her uncle."

The other boy sighed and rounded on his brother, "Look . . ."

He never got any farther than that, because Sabrina returned to the room and said, "Tom, Ted*, have you washed your hands for dinner?"

"Yes, Mom," the two boys mumbled.

"Good. Now go and sit down, because it's time to eat."

As they finished dinner, Sally addressed Chris and Sabrina. "I just wanted to thank you both for having me for dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Jennings."

"Please, Sally, call us Chris and Sabrina," Chris responded.

Sabrina added, "with you living at Collinwood now, you're part of the family."

"My family was very close. I was worried about missing that closeness when I moved up here to Collinsport, but I guess I don't have to worry about that anymore. I'm sure glad that Alexis suggested that I consider living at Collinwood." Sally impulsively stood up and hugged each of her new 'parents' and 'siblings' in turn.

Chris picked up his plate. "And, as part of the family, you get to share in the best part of the Monday night family ritual -- cleaning up."

At first, Sally thought that Chris was joking about the cleaning up being the best part, but the camaraderie that developed between her and the others as they scraped and washed the dishes, the playful teasing and joking, and watching Tom and Ted squabble, convinced her that this was, in fact, what family life was all about.

"Sally?" Sabrina asked, tossing her a damp dishrag, "could you please go in and wipe off the dining room table?"

"Sure," Sally walked back into the dining room. As she wiped down the table, she felt the hairs on her arms stand up as she passed a cold spot like the one she'd felt back at the carriage house.

"Are you OK?" Sally turned around and found Beth standing behind her.

"Fine. I just felt a chill for a moment."

"What about now?"

Sally flinched, "Something that felt like a cold hand just touched the back of my neck."

"Yep. That would be Dad."

"Dad?"

Beth nodded. "My father, Jeb Hawkes."

"Your father?" Sally asked. "Isn't he dead?"

"Well, he fell off Widows' Hill back in 1969, and he's been, well, I guess you'd call him a ghost, ever since," Beth answered.

Sally's only response was a look of incredulity, so Beth decided that she would have to prove that she was telling the truth. "I assure you, Sally, I'm not kidding. Here, lets try something." Beth led Sally to the desk in the living room, where she produced a pad of paper and a ballpoint pen.

"Sit down here in the chair, take the pen in your right hand . . . ."

"But I'm left-handed," Sally interrupted.

"But Dad's right-handed," Beth replied. When Sally complied with Beth's instructions, Beth said, "now just relax, and let's see what happens next."

Sally relaxed for a moment, and then she felt her right hand start to move, as if of its own volition. As she stared at the traitorous extremity, it traced out the words, {Hi, Sally! My name's Jeb.} on the paper.

"Is this some kind of trick?" Sally asked Beth.

However, the answer came from her own hand, {No, Sally. I really am real.}

"This is so weird," Sally said. "Why does he communicate this way? Can't he talk?"

Used to making this explanation to the few friends she had felt comfortable telling about her unorthodox family, Beth responded, "He can talk; he doesn't because it's very draining for him to interact that way. The more 'solid' he acts, the more draining it is. For example, if he were to talk aloud to you, he'd have to go away to rest for a while. He'd have to rest longer if he were to be visible, and if he were visible and talking, we wouldn't see him for even longer."

Carolyn came into the living room soon after that and said, "What are the two of you doing in here?"

Jeb gave her the answer she sought, when Sally's hand wrote, {They're talking to me.}

Carolyn smiled. "I had the feeling that you'd be able to communicate with Sally, Jeb. That's part of the reason why I agreed to lease Collinwood to her." The love in her voice was obvious to Sally, who was intrigued by the idea of two people finding a love that would survive even death.

"You mean that he can't talk to everyone like this?" Sally asked.

Carolyn chuckled. "Not by a long shot. Most people aren't even aware that he's there, let alone have the ability to talk to him. One warning, though. Since you're sensitive to him, he can follow you around, and he really has no sense of time, so if he wakes you up in the middle of the night, or interrupts him in the middle of a date or something, don't hesitate to tell him to go away."

TUESDAY

Sally awoke with the first cock crow of the morning. {I've got to get one of those things} she thought.{Works better than an alarm clock.}

She leaped immediately into the shower, dressed for work, and then headed down the hill toward town for breakfast and her first day of work.

Later, having just finished her new-employee tour of the offices, which were located in the old Collins cannery plant which had been empty since the Collins and Logansport operations merged in 1990, Sally was hurrying to Conference Room 1 for her insurance orientation when she literally bumped into Adam Von Stein.

"Good morning, Sally," Von Stein greeted her.

"Oh! Good morning, Mr. Von Stein!" she responded.

"I see you checked out of the Inn yesterday. Had enough ghostly voices?"

Sally smiled, "actually, I found a place to live."

"Already?"

"Mm-hmmm. I'm going to be renting a big mansion on the edge of town."

"Collinwood?" Von Stein replied.

"I forgot you used to live in Collinsport. Yes, I'm going to be living at Collinwood. It's been empty for a few years now, and they need someone to fix it up."

"It's empty? What happened to the Collinses who used to live there?"

"Which ones are you asking about? I met a few of them yesterday. Maybe they're the ones you're talking about."

"Elizabeth Stoddard?"

"She's," Sally paused, looking for the correct phrasing to use, "not well. In fact, she's been hospitalized for a while. The prognosis isn't good."

Von Stein's eyes softened with sympathy for Liz. "What about her brother, Roger?"

"He died a few years ago."

"And Elizabeth's daughter, Carolyn?"

"Well, her name is Hawkes now . . . ."

"Ah! So she's married," Von Stein said.

Unwilling to discuss the details of Carolyn's unorthodox marriage, Sally simply nodded, "and she has a daughter, Beth. They live on the grounds, in the old carriage house."

"And what about David?"

"He's a psychiatrist at Wyndcliffe Sanitarium."

"Ah, yes! Wyndcliffe! Is Dr. Hoffman still working there, do you know?"

"Dr. Hoffman?" Sally shook her head. "The name doesn't mean anything to me."

As if an afterthought, Von Stein asked, "What about Barnabas?"

"Barnabas Collins? He's living in Bangor now. Actually, I have to call him sometime today. David tells me that Barnabas is the authority on the history of Collinwood, and if I'm going to be renovating the house, I figure that I should do it right, you know?"

Sally looked down at her watch, "shoot. Now I'm late for the benefits orientation. I've got to run." As she dashed off down the hall, she turned backwards to face Von Stein, "Talk to you later!"

After her benefits orientation, it was time for lunch, which, she decided, would be a good time to do a few errands.

Most importantly, she needed to call Barnabas Collins. She fished in her purse for several minutes for the slip of paper that David had written Barnabas' phone number on. When she found it, she picked up the receiver of her phone and dialed.

The answering machine picked up the call, and she began to use her best answering-machine message voice, "Hello. This message is for Barnabas Collins. My name is Sally . . . "

She was interrupted when a woman answered the phone on the other side, "Hello?"

"Oh! Hi! My name's Sally Bradford, and I was wondering if I could speak to Barnabas Collins."

"He's not home right now. May I take a message?"

"Well, I'm going to be renovating Collinwood, and I understand that he's the expert on the house, so I wanted to talk to him about it."

"I'm sure that he'd love to speak to you face to face. Unfortunately, he never has the opportunity to come to Collinsport. His job keeps him very, very busy. I'll have to check with him, of course, but I think it would be acceptable for you to come here to Bangor and meet with him on Saturday."

"Saturday? That would be great."

The woman on the other end of the line asked Sally for her phone number, and, after she explained that she didn't have phone service at Collinwood yet, the woman said that she would just tell Barnabas that Sally could be reached at Carolyn's phone number.

After she hung up the phone, she realized one problem with her plan, "How on Earth am I going to get to Bangor?!?"