Barnabas' heart leapt to his throat when he heard his daughter's startled gasp. "Mom!"

He dashed into the room, fearful that his wife had taken a turn for the worse. What he saw there was so far beyond his expectations that he had to rub his eyes to make sure that what he thought he was seeing was what was really there.

"Hello, Barnabas." Julia greeted him with a smile as she looked up from reading her chart. "Could you please get Fred," she said, referring to her cardiologist, "in here so that we can get me released and I can go home?"

* * * * *

Quentin had many glib responses at his disposal - appropriate for a variety of situations - but the only response he could make to Sarah's announcement about Julia's condition was a whispered, "Oh, my God." He collected himself then. "Where is she? I've got to go see her. We've got to go see her. Poor Barnabas."

"Barnabas sent us for you. He said that you were supposed to be meeting with Julia here. He wanted you to come to the hospital."

"Which one?" Quentin asked.

"St. Brigid's."

He nodded. "I know where that is. You two go on ahead," he said to Sarah and Javier, "Azura and I will follow you."

* * * * *

"David's sister? I didn't know that he had a sister. I always thought that he was an only child."

Laura smiled. "I wouldn't be surprised if he thought that he was an only child, too. We have the same mother. Laura Murdoch Collins. Or rather, Laura Murdoch Collins Stockbridge. My father was our mother's second husband. I never knew her, but people often say that I resemble our mother a little."

"Oh. Well, then, why don't you come in?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't catch your name," Laura said to the young blonde.

"Oh. I'm Beth. Beth Hawkes. I guess I'd be sort of your step-cousin. David and my mother, Carolyn Stoddard Hawkes, are cousins."

Laura congratulated herself on accurately identifying the young woman as Carolyn's daughter as she stepped into the foyer.

* * * * *

David and Fred Adams approached Julia's room, their voices lowered in discussion of her condition. They didn't even notice the levity of the conversation within the room until they had stepped through the doorway.

"Wha - Julia?!?" David asked, seeing his cousin sitting on her bed, as bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked as she had been the day they first met in 1967.

"It's not possible," Fred mumbled. "It's just not possible. . . ." He walked to her, taking her wrist as he watched the seconds tick by on his watch. "Your pulse is strong, regular . . ." He shook his head in amazement.

Javier and Sarah returned then. Upon seeing the bloom of health in her sister-in-law's cheeks, Sarah ran to her side, hugging her happily. She then traded hugs with Barnabas and her niece and nephew.

While Sarah was occupied with her rejoicing, David walked over to Javier. He had noticed a puzzled expression on the younger man's face. "What's the matter?"

"Haven't you noticed?" Javier asked. "My sister's missing!"

* * * * *

Her heart sinking, Rosario packed away the trappings of her altar. The candles, the flowers, the incense, her Book of Shadows. . . . "Useless. All just a big waste of time," she whispered. She sniffled, trying to convince herself it was pollen from the flowers. "The flowers! Oh, my . . .," she stopped herself before she said the name of the Goddess. "Neil!"

No sooner had she thought this than she heard Neil turning his key in the lock. She pushed against the door with her mind, but her heart just wasn't in it. At this, one of the lowest moments of all of her lives, she needed to talk to her old friend more than ever.

He opened the door and stepped in, aghast at the sight of his heartbroken friend and compatriot. "Rosie! What happened?" He saw her forlorn face and noticed that her altar was empty.

"Neil!" She burst into tears for the first time since making her decision in Julia's hospital room hours earlier as she crumpled into his outstretched arms.>/p

* * * * *

"I still think you're being overly cautious. I feel fine." Julia assured her colleague.

"Julia . . ." Fred sighed. "You know why I want to keep you here overnight."

She nodded. "To make sure I don't have a relapse."

Quentin and Azura arrived then. While he exchanged hugs with Barnabas and Julia, Azura went over to David. "Hi!" She practically had to shout to make herself heard over the joyful din in the room.

"I'm glad you could make it." David said to his niece-in-law.

"I'm glad, too. Although we actually came to see Julia about something else."

"Really? May I ask what?"

"Well, it's sort of personal. Quentin and I came to see Julia in a professional capacity."

"Julia's cardiologist isn't releasing her until tomorrow, so if you need any kind of professional advice . . ." His voice faded out.

"Thanks, but I think that we'll just let Julia handle it."

"All right." David replied.

Sarah saw Javier standing by himself and went to talk to him. "Did Rosie step out for something?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I left her here, but by the time we got back, she was gone. David hadn't seen her at all . . ." His voice faded out as he continued worrying about his elder sister.

Sarah put her arm around her housemate. "She'll be fine. I'm sure she'll turn up soon."

Subj: Collinsport -- 57
Date: 5/14/99 12:11:20 AM Central Daylight Time
From: DSRules

Elated at Julia's miraculous recovery, David, Sarah and Javier returned to Collinwood. They heard the sound of female voices from the drawing room when they opened the front door.

"Hey, Beth! Hi. . . " David had been expecting the other voice to belong to Carolyn. "Mother." He nearly whispered that last word.>/p

The vision of Laura Murdoch stood and crossed the room to him, smiling gently. "You must be David." She said as she held out her hand to him. "I'm not our mother. I'm your sister. Lauren Stockbridge."

* * * * *

Azura had disappeared as soon as Quentin, Azura and Zoe had returned from Ellsworth, where they'd had dinner with Hallie, Roger, Laura and Burke.

"Where's Momma?" Zoe asked her father.

Quentin smiled at how easily his daughter had accepted the other woman in his life. Then his face grew serious. "I don't know. When we got home, she went to our room to chang clothes and then she went . . . upstairs." He suddenly realized where she must have gone. "I think I know where she is. Wait downstairs. We'll be down in a minute. Just as soon as I find out what she's doing."

* * * * *

"They were right." David was stunned. "I didn't know that I had a sister."

"I was born to our mother after she and your father divorced. My father was her second husband." Laura lied smoothly. "So I guess that would make me your half-sister, really."

His face broke out into a wide smile. "That doesn't matter. I can't believe it. I have a sister." Then he threw his arms around her in a hug.

He turned to face Sarah and Javier. "Lauren, this is my wife, Sarah Bradford-Collins, and our other housemate, Javier de la Cruz."

"I'm very pleased to meet both of you," Laura said as she shook each of their hands in turn. She thought that Javier was exceptionally good-looking. Unfortunately, she wasn't in the market for another husband at the moment. Or rather, she was, but Javier wasn't the man she really wanted. He wasn't Quentin.

David guided his 'sister' over to the sofa and sat down next to her. "Are you planning to stay in Collinsport long?"

"Well, I have some business to conduct here, and once I've finished that, I'll probably be returning home."

"Oh? Where's that?" Sarah asked.

"Alexandria. Virginia." She replied with a smile.

* * * * *

Quentin opened the door to the room where he kept his portrait and, sure enough, Azura was there, staring at the painting.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Quentin asked in a deadly calm voice.

She shot him a quick look and then looked back at the portrait.

He walked over to her and grabbed her arm, spinning her to face him. "I asked what you're doing here!"

"Would you please let go of me, Quentin?" Her tone clearly told him that she was not going to stand for him manhandling her like he had some of the women in his past.

He released her. "Just tell me what you want with - that." Disgust oozed from his tone as he said the last word.

"I have an idea, and I need to watch it to find out if I'm right."

"What kind of idea?"

"Well, tonight's a full moon . . ."

"And?"

"And what if this painting is actually perpetuating the curse, and not curing it?"

He laughed derisively. "Obviously, you don't understand. . . ."

"No, Quentin. You don't understand." Once she was certain she had his attention, she continued. "You told me that this painting cured you of the curse, and that it ages for you."

"Right. . . ."

"And that it was painted by a man whose paintings became . . . corporeal."

"OK . . . ."

"Then, if it's supposed to have created reality, how come it's aging and you're not, and it changes and you don't?"

* * * * *

Eventually, Rosario had cried herself to sleep. Neil just sat there, holding his friend in his arms, waiting for her to wake up so that she could tell him what had happened.> /p

* * * * *

Quentin shrugged. "It just does. It's magic."

"Quentin, even magic has to follow some kind of logic. If Charles Delaware Tate's paintings become real, then you should be doing what the painting's doing."

"Decomposing?"

"Well . . . yes, I guess."

"But I'm not." He began to see the logic in her argument.

She nodded.

"And if I'm not changing to match the painting, then the painting must not be doing what I think it's doing."

Elated that he was following her train of thought, she nodded again.

"Like rather than lifting the curse from me, it's perpetuating the curse on my descendants."

"Well, that was what I was thinking."

"So." He asked. "How would you recommend we test your theory?"