Subj: Collinsport -- 78
Date: 12/28/00 1:59:39 AM Central Standard Time
From: DSRules
"Okay, I have to ask," Sarah said, carrying Penni to a chair and sitting down. "What happened to you? The family stories say that you were pushed from a cliff and Peter was hanged for murdering the man who pushed you."
Vicki's eyes grew sad. "I was, and he did." She nodded solemnly. "It was all a strange, strange misunderstanding."
Her gaze grew distant as she remembered, "Peter and I had moved to Pennsylvania, and had come back to Collinsport so that his parents could meet Peter Jr. I was walking along Widows' Hill, remembering my days here as governess to you two." She looked at Sarah and David.
"I was accosted by a stranger. He ran after me, shouting, 'You know her. You must take me to her. I must find her.' I was terrified, so I ran. And while I was running, I lost my footing and slipped."
She paused and shrugged. "The next thing I remember, it was several weeks later, and I was in Rockport. A fisherman had fished me out of the water. I should have died, but I didn't." She added this last sadly.
"Once I was recovered from the shock, I went back to Collinsport, and was told that Peter had seen me fall, and seen the stranger at the top of the cliff. He'd assumed that the man had pushed me, and pushed him from the cliff. He was seen by several witnesses, one of whom was the constable. They'd arrested him and tried him and hanged him for the murder of Jeb Hawkes."
Sarah and David repeated simultaneously, "Jeb Hawkes?"
"Yes. Does that name mean something to you?"
Sarah nodded.
David replied, "Well, if it was Jeb, you did know 'her,' I guess."
Both women looked at him, and he elucidated, "Carolyn."
"Carolyn?" Vicki asked.
"Jeb Hawkes was Carolyn's husband's name." Sarah replied. "It can't be the same one, though."
David shook his head. "Jeb wasn't always the one you know, Sarah. He had a lot of secrets."
"Well," Sarah said, standing up. "There's only one way to clear this up."
She led the way out of the room, then took Penni into the master bedroom. "We don't have a crib or anything," she said as she looked around.
"Just do this. I did it with all my babies." Vicki gently took Penni from Sarah and placed her in the center of the bed. Then she set pillows around her, making a little box. "This'll work fine until Penni starts moving more freely. Which is at least a few more months."
With that, the three adults left the baby and went downstairs to the drawing room.
* * *
"What are you talking about?" Azura asked.
"You don't know? You didn't get my note?"
She shook her head slowly. "Note?"
"Asking you to marry me."
* * *
Sarah, Vicki and David were seated in front of Sarah's computer as it finished booting up.
"Is he an e-mail friend or something?" Vicki asked.
Sarah shook her head. "No. It's hard to describe. Just wait a minute and you'll see."
The computer finished booting up and Sarah opened her word processor.
"Jeb?" Sarah asked aloud. "Are you there?"
The word {Yes} appeared on the computer screen.
"Have you been listening to our conversation?"
There was a long pause. {Yes.}
"And? Are you the same Jeb Hawkes?"
A still-longer pause followed, and Sarah began to fear that she'd scared her friend away. Finally, that one word showed up. {Yes.} Immediately followed by, {I know this won't make any difference, but I didn't mean to make you fall, Mrs. Bradford.}
"I know you didn't." Vicki responded. She felt strange talking to thin air, but she'd seen, and done, far stranger things in her life.
{It's just that I could tell that you knew Carolyn.}
"How did you know Carolyn?" Vicki asked.
{I didn't. I just knew that I was waiting for someone and I could} he paused, {there's no word for it in English, I guess the closest word for it is 'smell' her on you. And I'd been waiting so long.}
Vicki could feel the mournful tone of this last sentence. "How did you know you were waiting for someone?"
{I wasn't human, originally. I was the last of my kind, and needed a mate to replenish our species. My,} another pause, {followers were searching for someone who was willing to sell their daughter. It proved more difficult than they anticipated.}
"I would think so." Vicki interjected. "I'm surprised they found anyone willing to sell their daughter."
All three were surprised when Jeb responded. {They didn't.} He continued, {They finally had to mislead someone - told Paul Stoddard that he'd be selling his most prized possession. He thought they were talking about his soul.} Again, Vicki could feel the remorse and regret of the disembodied spirit at the actions his followers had taken.
"And yet you let them go through with it?" Vicki questioned.
{It wasn't until I got to know Carolyn that I'd realized what they'd done. And that's when I fell in love with her. I vowed that I wouldn't marry her until she loved me, too.}
By now, Vicki was hanging on his every word. "And?"
{Well, she did fall in love with me, and we married. She made me human. But I made some enemies . . .} He stopped on those words.
"But why are you still here?"
{I promised Carolyn that we'd be together again some day. When I got to the Other Side, they offered me several choices. I could be reincarnated, in which case it'd be 18 years before Carolyn and I could be together, I could wait for Carolyn on the Other Side, which might have taken 50 or 60 years, or I could come back like this. I have no regrets.}
There was another pause. {And if I didn't say it before, I'm so very sorry about what happened to you.}
Vicki could feel his remorse and responded the best she knew how. "That's all right. After all, you didn't make me lose my footing." She said with a gentle smile. "I slipped, that's all."
Subj: Collinsport -- 79
Date: 2/11/01 3:20:03 AM Central Standard Time
From: DSRules
Quentin and Azura drove out to Collinwood, and parked under the carport. Quentin took the short space from the car to the door in a few long steps, rapping smartly on the door.
He stepped back, and counted slowly to ten. Then he knocked again, a little more loudly.
He counted to ten again. Still, no one answered.
By then, Azura had joined him. "Why don't we just go home, Quentin? You can tell me whatever it is tomorrow."
"No." He said, his jaw set firmly. "This is something I have to do right now."
He walked over to a flowerbed, where he picked up a handful of small pebbles. Then he paced over to one of the windows and tossed a few pebbles up to the second floor, making a soft clattering sound against the window.
Ten seconds later, he threw another few pebbles. This time, a sleepy Sarah came to the window. She peered out into the moonlit night and saw her cousin standing there, looking up at her.
She disappeared from the window, and a few minutes later, showed up at the door. "What is it, Quentin?" She asked. "Shouldn't you be in bed by now?"
Quentin felt that he couldn't afford to waste any time, so he cut right to the heart of his visit. "When David brought Penni home, was there a note in her blanket?"
"I don't know. David took her blanket off on the way home. He put it in a box in the kitchen when he came home."
Quentin nearly shoved Sarah out of the way in his haste to get to the kitchen.
"I'm really sorry." Azura apologized. "I don't know what's gotten into him."
Sarah smiled warmly at her niece. "Don't worry about it. In this family, a little manic behavior is nothing."
"Where's Zoe?" Azura asked, making conversation while she waited for her boyfriend to calm down.
"I put her in one of the spare rooms. Nice thing about Collinwood. We can keep any number of people here. Just as long as we don't run out of sheets."
They went to the kitchen when they heard Quentin swear. "Dammit!"
Azura could tell that Quentin was trying not to raise his voice. "What is it?" She asked as calmly as she could.
"This." Quentin held out a discolored blob of blood-soaked paper. "It was my note to you."
"That's all right. You made it out all right, so you can tell me yourself. What did it say?"
Quentin surprised Azura by sinking to one knee on the kitchen floor. He gazed up at her tenderly. "I love you, Azura. And I always promised myself that I'd never marry again until I could remember the good times I had with Jenny, not berate myself over how badly things ended. You helped me do that.
"And then, a year ago, I gave you the most precious thing I have. Zoe. She is your daughter, as much as she is mine, and I want you to become her mother, legally. I want you to adopt her.
"After you marry me. Will you marry me, Azura?"
Azura's eyes went wide, then misted over as she started to cry. "Oh, Quentin! Of course I will!" She just barely got this response out, for as she said this, Quentin stood and wrapped his arms around her, sweeping her off of her feet as he kissed her soundly.
"Thank you, Azura."
"For what?"
"For giving me something that I don't deserve. A second chance."
"I love you, Quentin."
"I love you, too, Azura."
They shared another kiss, then, to seal their pledge.
* * *
Neil showed up just before sunrise, bearing a peace offering of doughnuts for Rosario.
He knocked on her door, fearing that she wouldn't even answer the door, but she opened it soon after his knock, almost like she was expecting him. But the flash of anger in her eyes as she leaned on the doorpost made him almost wish she hadn't answered at all.
"What?" She asked.
"I brought doughnuts." He smiled weakly. "Your favorite kinds." He held up the bag.
She sighed and stepped back from the doorway. "All right, come in."
He handed her the bag, with a slightly more confident smile.
"Look." She took the bag from him, but her tone clearly indicated that she was irritated with him. "If you want to get back on my good side, undo what you've done."
"But - "
"No buts. Stop Barnabas from selling his soul to Nicholas." Her tone indicated that she wouldn't take no for an answer.
Neil glanced out the window at the rapidly-lightening sky. "You know I can't call him on the phone, and I can't just pop over there anymore. It's getting too light out." He whined.
"Well, then, get there the old-fashioned way. Catch an airplane. Just stop him, whatever it takes."