Subj: THE BOX Part Thirteen
Date: 7/7/00 7:30:36 AM Central Daylight Time
From: N.E. Collins
The box was alone in the dark room in the dark corner where it dwelt. The girl that it wanted had been so close. So close! She had just been outside the door to this very room. She had heard the music and felt the vibrations. She had just about opened the very door that would lead her to them! And then, she had pulled back. And now she was gone again! The box was disturbed at this delay. It must try harder! The box began to hum and the lid began to slowly rise as a vaporous cloud rose forth. The door of the room unlocked and opened inwardly as a scent was sent out to seek out the girl. It was a scent of attraction that would bring her to them. It was a sweet scent that would make her theirs. Forever!
Mirabelle sniffed the aroma in the kitchen langurously and said to her mother, Annabelle, "My, but don't those cinnamon rolls smell good, mama? When will they be ready?"
Annabelle gave her daughter an odd look. "I'm not baking any cinammon rolls, my dear. Whatever do you mean?" Mirabelle inhaled again and laughed. "Surely, mama, you haven't lost your sense of smell! And might I add that they are the best smelling cinammon rolls you have ever prepared. Why the scent of them is absolutely sinful!"
Annabelle gave an amused snort and replied, "All I can smell is a strong odor of honeysuckle in here. That Pete has gone and left the back door open again. There is just no telling that young whelp anything! But I do hate to speak harshly to the poor lad what with the way that mother of his dotes on him so. It just isn't proper the way that Emily watches over that child as if he were made of glass. He'll come to no good end, mark my words!"
The conflicting sweet scents moved on in search of Virginia Semple.
Virginia was in the classroom with Nora and Jamison Collins. She was letting them play with a large globe of the world. They had been discussing China and she had encouraged the children to find it for themselves on the device. It kept them well occupied while she fretted silently over Carl Collins' whereabouts and what he might have been up to, when she was suddenly overwhelmed by the scent of apple pie. It came all in a rush as if someone had set one right under her very nose hot and steaming, fresh from the oven! She looked to the classroom's entrance to see who had entered with this wonderful pie, but no one was there with anything. Her mouth began to water. She had to have a piece of this treat. Without a word to her two charges she went out the door and unknowingly made for Quentin's room.
Magda was in the main part of the upstairs. She did not know which wing she should take, the east or the west. She stood at the doorway to the west, but she hesitanted to move further when she was suddenly overcome with the aroma of freshly baked bread. She looked about in amazement! Where could this wonderful bread be? She was nowhere near the kitchen of the great house, and no one had entered the hallway where she stood. How could this be?
Before she could quite recover herself a door to her left opened and out stepped Mrs. Laura Collins, Edward's wife. She eyed Magda curiously as she questioned her, "Where are they please? They smell so very, very good, I simply must have one?"
Magda replied uncertainly. "I am sorry, but I do not have the bread."
Laura looked at the gypsy woman funny as she said, "What bread? No, my good woman, I was referring to the sugar cookies! Surely you have them with you? I can smell them ever stronger out here!" She indicated that the scent of cookies was more so than in her own quarters. Then she looked to the entrance to the west wing and walked right up to the door and opened it. She stood right in the opened doorway and took a deep breath. "Ah! It is coming from this direction! What a most delightful scent!"
Magda agreed, but she could only smell the aroma of baking bread. Both women made their way almost helplessly forward into the west wing. Virginia Semply had just made her way to the now opened doorway of Quentin Collins' quarters. She had come by way of the back hallway and she entered the room just as Magda and Laura Collins turned the corner. Magda cried out in alarm! "NO! DO NOT GO IN THERE!" For all at once, Magda knew without question that the great and terrible danger was in that room! Virginia came to her senses momentarily when she saw it was that frightful fortune teller yelling at her. She quickly stepped into the dark room and was about to shut the door when it shut of itself hard on it's hinges!
Magda rushed forward and tried the door, but it was locked or sealed somehow against entry! Laura Collins stopped where she stood and her countenance took on a more sinister appearance. She could feel the dark magicks of the unseen box in the next room. She instinctively knew there was a danger of supernatural proportions at work and she silently called onto Ra for her protection.
Virginia jumped back from the door of the room slamming shut on it's own and then she turned to face the open lidded box that was putting out a strange light and there were noises as of many voices talking excitely at once. She was afraid, but she was more overcome with an overwhelming curiousity. She had dreamed about this very box on more than one occasion and everytime that gypsy woman had intervened and stopped her from where she found herself at this precise moment. But she could not stop her now for she was apparently locked outside of the room. How, Virginia did not know, and seemingly did not consider how unusual that was. All her attention were on the box as she made to approach it still closer.
A strange sense of completion began to wash over the girl. It was as if her long, long journey from her poverty stricken home in the wilds of Ohio to her tragic sojourn up the east coast where she had been disgraced and nearly lost her own life, besides that of her unborn child, was drawing to a close. It was if her whole life had been lived just for this one moment. To be here alone in the semi-darkness of this rich man's room. Alone with this strangely decorous ancient artifact of unknown origins, but not completely unknown to her. Yes, she had memory of this object before her. She could not quite put any actual words to her thoughts, but there was something so familiar about this box.
Magda began to bang loudly on the door and called out for Virginia to OPEN THE DOOR, PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR! Magda stepped back from the door and began to call out for help from anyone! She turned to Mrs. Collins and stopped calling out for she could see that the lady was under some sort of spell. What was it with this strange family, the Collins'? Magda had never met anyone quite like them! Put them all together and you could travel the coutry with them as a lively addition to any circus' freak show!
Magda had broken the trance that the box had tried to put Virginia under as it continued to summon her forth to her doom. She stopped and shook her head to clear the cobwebs and then her fear overtook any further feelings of interest in her surroundings. She bolted for the door and discovered it was not locked to her. The box had not thought that she could escape it's grasp so it had not thought to prevent her flight.
Virgina nearly knocked Magda down as she ran headlong over her and down the hallway without looking back. Just then Carl Collins jumped out from around the corner that Virginia was headed for with a frightful mask on to scare her good with. This occurred just as a menacing dark cloud issued from the box and purposely followed Virginia Semple as she ran away. There was Carl saying boo, and Virginia deciding where to run, while the cloud passed over Magda and made it way to Viriginia by way of Laura Collins.
Right as it was going to touch Laura a great heat enveloped the lady and the dark cloud shrank back from it's intensity, but continued toward the girl. Virginia looked back over her shoulder and saw in the ugly darkness of the cloud the aged face of the fear stricken Mary Agnes who was toothless moaning Virginia's name! Virginia took of like a bullet from a gun just as an actual flame of fire shot outwards from Laura Collins toward the dark cloud. The cloud made the corner and the fire the missed it's mark, but made contact with another...Carl Collins!
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The double door to the great house of Collinwood flew merrily open as Dirk Wilson joined by Riggs with a steamer trunk on his great back, and both of them followed by the Mistress of the hall, Edith Collins who was on the arm of her granddaughter, Judith. They were followed closely by their new servants, Herr and Frau Fellrath and their many children and aging grandfather and other relations. The actual kinship of the entire brood was still in question, but Edith Collins felt sure that a surgence of new blood would be good for the estate at large, and that this Fellrath family was just want Collinwood needed at the serviters level, of course.
Jenson and Eliza were there to greet them as was their somewhat pale and nervous daughter Claire Elizabeth. It had been a long time since Claire had bee able to join any gathering of people and Eliza felt that it was high time her daughter rejoin the human race. Annabelle and Mirabelle came in from the servants entrance joined by Abraham Jenkins, the stablemaster, and his wife Emily, and their little boy, Pete. There was also a new girl, Lilly and another yonger stableboy Jimmy along. They were all turning out to welcome their mistress' and masters home from their European excursions.
Edith was just about to begin introducing the new servants to the old servants as Edward walked in with Quentin and Evan Hanley. Just as the old grande dame opened her mouth to speak, there came a horrid screaming from somewhere upstairs. Everyone stopped and looked upward and listened as they heard the sound of running feet. No one said a word in dread of want was approaching rapidly to their location. When suddenly, Carl Collins appeared half naked with his very hair smoking! He ran down the stairs and ran still screaming out the front door of the great house!
Several of the young German girls fainted and Claire Elizabeth started screaming uncontrollably and had to be forcibly ejected from the room by her father and mother. Nora and Jamison Collins appeared on the top landing of the stairs and announced to everyone that something was wrong with their mother and that that strange gypsy woman was sleeping in the hallway outside of Quentin's room. They also asked if anyone knew where their governess, Miss Semple was?
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Virginia ran and ran and made her way out the back of the house and made for the cliffs along Widow's Hill. The cloud was in hot pursuit! It must have her! She must not escape again! If it did not obtain her, if she did not become one of them, it would, ... it would,...? It did not know. That made it angry! It did not like to not know.
Virginia found herself on the very edge of Widow's Hill. She fearfully looked back and saw the fleecy black villian making it's evil way in her direction. She knew she had a choice to make. She knew that she had little time in which to make it. She knew that without her the thing could not stay together as one. It would not die, but it would not be of such great and terrible strenghth. If she escaped it's grasp it could not stay as it was. It would have to seperate to it's many parts and begin again. If it did not incorporated her into it's being it could not return to it's parents and be granted complete power over all the earth!
How did she know? She just knew. She looked away from the horror that rapidly approached her back and with a a purpose and with an intent way beyond her few years, she leapt to her certain death to the rocks and waves below! The evil beast from the box was destroyed!
Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.