Subj: THE BOX Part Twelve
Date: 7/7/00 4:57:10 AM Central Daylight Time
From: N.E. Collins

The moment that Virginia laid her hand to the door of Quentin's room, Magda came into view of the great house of Collinwood, and was doubled over in fearful pain. She had to stop to catch her breath and wait for the seizure to pass, but she felt desperately hurried as she knew that a great dangerous doom was on them all!

Just as Virginia touched the door and was lost to the moment Jenkins arrived with Carl Collins in tow. "Miss Semple!" She quickly came back to herself and turned to face her superior. "Miss Semple, you have been given charge of the Collins' children! All three of them! I see you have two out of three already. Here is the third!" He pushed Carl forward and closed with, "Now you have the complete set! See that they are properly occupied!"

As Jenkins purposely strode off Carl murmured vague threats. "I will tell my grandmother how you treated me you big bully! You will be sorry for this, I promise!" All his rantings fell on dear ears as they always did. Carl was forever making threats and accusations against others. No one ever paid him any mind.

Nora Collins looked to her governess for guidance. "Whatever shall we do now, Miss Semple?" Virginia answered quickly and calmly, "Let us go to the school room and have a lesson in geography." The two younger children made to go, but Carl Collins had another idea. He got right up next to Virginia and said brazenly, "Why don't you and I play doctor instead?" Virginia told Nora and Jamison to go on ahead without them, and they obeyed readily and without further question. She turned back to Carl and grabbed him firmly by his shoulders demanding he explain himself in short order!

He smiled wickedly. "There's no reason for you to be all upset now. I just thought it might be nicer for you to have a dalliance with a lord of the manor, instead of with that stable trash, Zeke Jenkins. Whatever became of him, anyway?"

Virginia realeased the boy as if she had been burned, and then without thinking things through she slapped him! She slapped him so hard that he lost his footing and fell into the wall knocking a picture off it's center! He painfully clutched his face that was already reddening from the blow! "YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT! YOU'LL BE SORRY! I'LL GET YOU FOR THAT! I WILL! I WILL!" He ran off and out of sight. No one ever took Carl at his word, but there was a first time for everything. Virginia worried that this might be that time.

There was an urgent knock on the front door of Collinwood. Eliza Harris was in the foyer arranging some flowers that were placed about to greet the returning family. She went to and opened the double doors expecting anyone than who it turned out to be. It was that awful gypsy woman! Meera? Mona? She had never bothered to learn her name. She could not abide her! What did this godless creature want, and today of all days? Eliza asked the "intruder" coldly, "What do you want?"

Magda, who was still not fully recovered from her last attack, still maintained an air of defiance. "I WANT to come in, if that is alright with you, oh, "great lady." She did not wait to be invited, but forced her way past the other woman and plopped down exhausted into the nearest chair. Eliza retorted angrily, "Here now! You cannot come and go as you please! This is a respectable household with a most respectable family, and we who serve them will not have it ransacked and plundered unmercifully by the likes of you and your kind!"

Magda looked Eliza over and spoke to her languidly. "I would place a most horrible curse on you, but it SEEMS that someone has beaten me to it!"

Eliza was suddenly in a dither! "What nonsense are you spouting? What curse?" She made as if she did not care, but in truth she was quite afraid.

Magda chuckled to herself and reeled the old woman in. "Just look in the mirror." Eliza, not thinking, rushed to the nearest looking glass and began to examine her reflection for signs of damage. "I don't see anything wrong! What are you talking about? What do you mean?" Magda simply and mysteriously said, "It is too late. The damage is done." Eliza wrung her hands together and bemoaned her imaginary fate. Magda had done nothing but undermine the woman's self confidence. It was all the "curse" she needed to place on the housekeeper. Eliza wandered off through the servants entrance under the stairway leaving Magda alone in the foyer.

Magda made her way up the stairs where she knew she come face to face with what she now most dreaded! But she must find it! And she must destroy it before it destroyed them all! Where is that box?

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.