Subj: Collinwood 2001 Part Twenty Nine
Date: 7/30/01 12:44:59 PM Central Daylight Time
From: N.E. Collins

"Nobody cooks as good as you, pa! You make the best clam chowder. Better than the Collinsport Inn! That Miss Rosemary could take lessons from you on how to make clam chowder right." Willie had set down his deep spoon and was draining his bowl like a goblet. He had a clam chowder moustache and when he set down the bowl and then he burped like a heathen.

"Boy! Is that how they act at the supper table in that house a-sin? Wipe yer face clean and keep your belching behind a napkin!"

"Yes, pa. I'm sorry, pa, it was just so good I forgot my manners."

Joe Loomis harrumphed and then he reached for his son's bowl to refill it with more of the hot steamy chowder that was on the table in the nice serving dish. The older man was ladling up the soup when he got misty eyed and Willie knew why right away. He was thinking about his wife. His wife who had run away. She had run away and left them both . Left them to fend for themselves. A young man and a baby boy. Joe Loomis had loved his young bride so. It broke his heart and to this day he still held on to believing that she had not gone willingly.

Willie did not remember his mother, Mary, and he did not want his pa to walk down that painful road again so he quickly introduced a different subject. "Hey, pa! I'm gonna tell ya more about Mrs. Collins-Stoddard. I already told you she's holed up in Windclyffe, remember?"

Joe came out of his mood easily. "Ya mean that loony bin?"

Willie nervously laughed. "Yeah, that's the one. Ok, well like I was telling you..."

Dr. Julia Hoffman's low cut heels clunked authoritatively down the hallways of Windclyffe. This was her domain and in effect she was the queen, but she was on her way to pay a visit to another neighboring queen. That queen of the great house on Widow's Hill, Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard. When she had gone with Carolyn that night after the opening of the Purple Cow, after that awful storm that had knocked out the power all over the area, she was taken to the woman whom Roger Collins kept saying was not acting like herself.

"She looks alright, but she sounds funny."

Julia cocked her head and raised a speculative eyebrow. "Funny? How?"

"Her voice, it isn't her voice. Well, of course it is. She IS the one talking, but it doesn't sound like her, and her movements are different."

Julia leaned in from the neck a little to prompt him for more.

He got the message. "They are simply not her normal movements, doctor. When we arrived at the cottage she was on the floor singing some silly song and poor Aunt Nora was passed out on the floor. I thought she was dead and that it had been too much for my sister to handle. And now I am sure of it."

Julia lit up a cigarette as she walked along. She had recently switched to a brand with lower nicotine. She said she was trying to quit, but she was finding it hard. She knocked on the door of Mrs. Collins-Stoddard's suite and then entered without waiting for a response. She found her in the bathroom admiring herself in the mirror. "Lisa? Lisa, I've come to pay you a visit. Would you like to join me outside for a little picnic I've prepared. I made some chicken salad sandwiches just for you because you told me they were your favorites." She held the small woven basket slightly forward that she had been lugging along.

Lisa continued to stare at her reflection. She spoke in a young girls voice. "Why aren't I pretty?"

"I think you are very pretty, Lisa. Why don't you think so?"

She heaved a sigh and frowned. "Daddy says that I'm a princess and that if a princess ever wants the prince to come on his white horse and carry her away to marry her she has to be pretty, but I'm not. Does that mean that he won't ever come?"

Dr. Hoffman thought carefully before going further. "If your father said you were a princess I am sure he meant that you were a beautiful one, dear."

Lisa looked at Julia and Julia could have sworn she looked just a bit different for just a moment and her voice sounded older. "You'd be surprised."

Julia quickly asked her, "Who are you? What is your name?"

But it was Lisa who answered and Julia wondered if she had just imagined the difference. She believed she had seen evidence of other personalities in the last two weeks, but none of them had ever done more than make a quick comment. Lisa seemed to be the more developed one. She was by far the most articulate. Julia saw the moment of possible new contact had passed so she suggested they go out and enjoy their picnic lunch. As she got to the door of the suite she had a thought and she turned and asked Lisa a curious question. "Lisa, darling, you've told me what your father has said. What about your mother? What does she say?"

The child's face melted away. The skin seemed to actually shudder and in it's place was an ugly twisted malevolent masque. And the voice that spoke was deep and harsh. "SHE SAYS WHAT SHE'S TOLD TO IF SHE KNOWS WHAT'S GOOD FOR HER!"

Julia dropped the basket on the floor and moved in closer to this obvious new persona. "Hello. I don't believe we've met. I'm Doctor..."

The other woman grabbed her and held her in a tight grip. "I DON'T CARE WHO YOU ARE, BITCH! YOU'RE ALL BITCHES!"

Julia struggled to get out of the painful grip, but she was held fast and when she tried to call out for help a hand was clamped firmly over her mouth and nose. She was having trouble breathing! She was going to pass out or worse!

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.