Subj: Rembrance
Date: 6/28/99 11:03:11 AM Central Daylight Time
From: Matthew Griffin

DARK SHADOWS:
Remembrance

Joshua Collins walked through the cold, Maine winter's night. A mist clung to the trees around him on the path to Eagle Hill. The fog permeated the air, the icy crystals stinging his face like so many shards of glass. No stars shone that night, clouds transforming the sky into a frigid black blanket of despair covering the earth. The cold ground was frozen hard beneath the heavy heels of his boots. He shuddered in the bitter chill of the witching hour and pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders.

Suddenly a sharp, loud noise cut through the oppressive silence like a knife, and his heart stopped beating-- until he realized it was his own foot stepping on a twig.

He reached the cemetery and gritted his teeth as he continued through it. The air seemed to grow colder around the graveyard, and he shuddered once more, a tingle traveling up his spine. Finally he reached the stone mausoleum, standing before him a sentinel of granite, guarding the remains of the family he had once known. He grasped its wrought iron gate, the black metal ice to his touch. He hesitated for a moment, not sure whether he really wanted to do this. But it was not a matter of wanting to, not anymore. He had to.

He pulled the gate open and walked inside into even deeper darkness. Like the darkness that had seemingly destroyed his life since Josette DuPres had arrived from France. The large, open room of the mausoleum housed three sarcophagi-- one for his dear, sweet Sarah, her little life snuffed out like a candle in a draft. The second for his wife, Naomi, whom he knew he had lost long before her death. The third lay open, waiting-- waiting for him.

He closed his eyelids tightly against the thought. He quickly moved to the far wall of the mausoleum to get away from that gaping maw of death waiting to consume him. A carved stone lion's head was mounted high up in the center of the wall, and from it hung a stone ring. He reached up and pulled it, and slowly, slowly the panel beneath it swung open to reveal another, hidden tomb.   

In there it was darker still as he descended into it. He struck a match from his pocket and light a single candle, fixing it atop the single wooden casket in the middle of the room. Chains were wrapped around the coffin, and it sat atop a large stone pedestal. He knelt beside it and
curled his fingers around the cold, metal shackles.

"Victoria Winters hanged as a witch," he said. "But, when they took the hood off, it-- it wasn't her. No one knows what happened. The villagers say the executioner made a mistake, killed the wrong girl, that Victoria Winters never took a step onto those gallows. And Trask, he says it's 'the devil's work,' that Satan switched her with some innocent girl at
the last moment as the noose snapped her neck. There is no real explanation, nor do I believe there ever will be. Only that this house brings sorrow to all who enter it...   

"People ask about you. If I have heard from you, how are you enjoying England. If you will be coming back. They say they miss seeing you in town. The servants, they say you were always so kind to them, that they hope you will come back soon.

"I released Ben Stokes from his servitude here. He thanked me, and left. I think all the memories here, all the terrible things that happened, drove him off. I don't blame him. I would run away from them, too. If I could.

"It is just little Daniel and I, now. We keep each other company, comfort each other when the sorrow becomes too much. He even helps out with the business, at least, he tries to. He is just a little boy! He doesn't deserve all this sadness. He is lonely, he needs someone his own age to play with. He reminds me so much of you, in many ways. Just the other day, he-- he--" his voice cracked, and he could speak no more. The walls he had put up around himself so many years ago all came crashing down as memory and emotion flooded him. Tears poured from his eyes and he buried his face in his arms atop the wooden casket, letting the past and present sweep him away....

When he looked up again, the candle had burned itself out, just like all his chances at happiness had. He pulled himself up off the ground and lit another candle, casting a dim glow about the room.        

"I cannot come back here anymore, not now. But I hope that one day, someone will be able to give you the peace that I could not."

He walked towards the threshold leading out of the secret chamber and opened it.

"I never told you this in life, but I tell you now: I love you. And I miss you."

Joshua Collins blew out the candle. "Goodbye, my son."

finis