Subj: The Letter, Part 22
Date: 9/3/01 6:43:36 PM Central Daylight Time
From: R J Jamison

Julia sat in Taylor’s hut writing notes in her journal about his condition. The patient reclined opposite her, watching silently. After several moments Julia rubbed her eyes and glanced in Taylor’s direction. “I just wanted to capture everything you’ve told me about this illness.”

Taylor nodded. “It afflicts many people down here. I should’ve paid attention to the warning signs but I was busy with my responsibilities and happy to share so many things with Eliot.”

“He is truly insatiable about certain things.” The words just passed Julia’s lips when a noise announced Eliot’s’ intention to enter the hut.

“The woman out here is ready to take you down to the river.” Eliot stood next to the Indian woman.

Julia nodded. “Not too long.” She watched the woman and Eliot help Taylor to his feet. With a few slow movements, Taylor emerged from the hut with Eliot and Julia behind him. Taylor slowly made his way to the river with the woman.

“Are you certain you can not go with him, he’s so weak.” Julia asked.

“It’s a purification ceremony which he must undertake with no outsiders.”

Julia nodded and walked away from the hut toward the base camp. No one else was present. Julia moved to retire to her tent.

“Julia.” Eliot stood behind his friend. “Barnabas has asked for another ceremony. He saw things that greatly troubled him.”

Julia nodded. “Yes, he mentioned some of it to me yesterday.”

“You are comfortable then in participating again?”

“He feels it is necessary. He believes it may answer some questions about things that have troubled his family for many years.”

Eliot pursed his lips and looked at Julia. “You do not have to do it just because Barnabas wants it.”

Julia tensed up at Eliot’s insinuation. “I don’t do things just because Barnabas wishes it.”

Eliot raised his brows. “Then you’ve deluded yourself more than I’ve known.”

“That is uncalled for Eliot!” Julia snapped.

“Julia,” Eliot stared directly into her angry eyes. “I’ve known you for several years, you’ve kept many secrets from me, you and Barnabas. You’re as ‘thick as thieves’ as they say. You do what Barnabas wants and you know it. I don’t mean to be unkind but you must look at this situation honestly. What he is asking is not without risk. I insisted and supported your participation in the ceremony before because a life was at stake, that is no longer the case. And the life at stake was your husbands’ I might add.”

Julia turned her back to Eliot and stared at the dark interior of her tent. She mused going in without replying to Eliot.

“Why never mention that you were married Julia?” Eliot touched her shoulder.

“You seem close to Taylor. The state of our marriage is fairly evident; there isn’t really a marriage. We signed a piece of paper nearly twenty years ago and haven’t torn it up. There is not much more to it.”

“I’ve seen you tend him the last few days, that is not all there is to it.”

Julia turned to face her interrogator. “Guilt is what you’ve seen Eliot. I was a poor wife to Taylor and a poorer friend. We were friends once, very good friends. I ruined our friendship by agreeing to marry him. And I married him for selfish reasons.”

“Julia, participating in another ceremony will open up your life to scrutiny before both Barnabas and Taylor’s eyes.”

“What . . . exactly do you mean?”

“Taylor was the link in your journey. He will need to be again but in his current state and with his role as a shaman, he will see all that you see. While Barnabas has specific ideas of what he wants to see and experience, there is not guarantee that is what will happen. You may experience other planes of existence, consciousness, you may visit other times as you did before. And as I understood your experience, you may go to your distant or recent past.”

Julia nodded. “And both Barnabas and Taylor might see things I’d rather neither of them see, is that what your trying to tell me?”

“Yes.”

As the sun set below the forest and beyond his vision, Barnabas returned to the camp after spending the day with several of the tribal members as they hunted for food and medicinal herbs.

“Where is Julia?” He asked Quentin who had strung a hammock between two nearby trees. He noted how easily Quentin adapted to the climate and the pace of life here. He did not gaze up from under his large hat to acknowledge Barnabas.

“She went to check on her hubby.” Quentin pointed toward Taylor’s hut.

“Quentin, must you be so irreverent?”

This woke Quentin out of his stupor. He saw the irritation in Barnabas’s face. “Having a little trouble with Julia having a husband?”

“That is not what I was commenting on.”

“No? Barnabas I have always been ‘irreverent’ to quote you, I think it’s the subject of my irreverence that bothers you. Don’t worry, I am not under the impression she intends to keep him, affect a reconciliation if you will.” While Quentin did love Barnabas, he also felt him to be a romantic idealist who fell too often into the psychological categories Julia labeled her ‘other’ patients with, compulsive, obsessive, some other borderline personality issues, etc.

Barnabas pulled a stool close to Quentin. “Quentin, I’ve managed to speak with the elders and they have agreed to allow Julia and I to go through the healing ceremony again.”

Quentin pushed his hat away from his brow. “You spoke with them?”

“We communicated in a fashion, yes.” Barnabas nodded.

Quentin frowned. “But Taylor is much improved, Julia thinks we can probably go home in a week or so.”

“It is not for Taylor, it is for me, and Julia.”

Quentin maneuvered himself upright on the hammock. “You and Julia, what type of healing ceremony do you two need?”

Barnabas stared at Quentin and began laughing. He hadn’t laughed in years. He laughed so hard tears came to his eyes and he gasped for air. “Quentin, Julia and I are in desperate need of something!” Barnabas held onto his side. He noted that Quentin did not know how to react to this most unusual display by Barnabas. Finally, with several gulps of air Barnabas recovered. “Quentin, you remember the story I told you of Miranda Du Val?”

Quentin nodded.

“During the first healing ceremony I saw Miranda and Braden Collins, my grandfather. It seems Miranda may
have had some involvement with Braden Collins. Given what Angelique told me of Miranda, and how that was the beginning of her use of witchcraft, I believe there may be something in those lives, that existence that precipitated my interactions, all our interactions with Angelique.”

“I can see that is something worth exploring. But why are you wanting Julia to do this with you?”

“Following the principles we’ve come to understand about the Collins family, particularly with Angelique, I’ve seen that Braden Collins greatly resembled me. I believe we are the same soul reliving our life and mistakes over and over again.”

“That doesn’t answer my question about Julia.”

“Braden’s wife was named Althia. She and Braden were very much in love, they married for love rather than by arrangement. In the vision I could see and feel all aspects of their relationship. When Braden believed she died on a shipwreck he was desolate for months.”

Quentin was puzzled. “But Althia Collins died—“

“Yes, I know how and when she died. It was not a shipwreck. In the vision, Althia returned to her husband.” Barnabas saw Julia in the distance outside the hut communicating with the Indian woman. “Julia and Althia are the same soul just as Braden and I are the same. She is reliving her life over and over again, always near the family but on the outside.” Barnabas looked back at Quentin. “I want to know what Miranda might have done and why Julia is always near but never ---”

“Never quite on the inside?” Quentin volunteered.

Barnabas stood outside the large hut; the woman who tended Taylor motioned for him to go inside. After Julia had left and retired to a tent for a nap, the woman had fetched him. He paused, knowing that Julia had not given the authorization for anyone else to go within. But the woman motioned frantically and nodded her head. Finally, from within a voice called to him,

“It is safe Mr. Collins.” Barnabas ducked low to enter the hut and once within stood again to his full height. He took a few moments to adjust to the low light and saw a man leaning against a wall. His color was better and his face less sunken in. A weak smile came to his ravaged face. “Please sit down and talk with me for a few minutes.”

Barnabas did as directed. He sat near Taylor and accepted an offering of water. “I am glad that you are feeling better.”

“Julia was always an excellent physician.” Taylor chuckled. “Not such a great wife though.”

Barnabas winced. He did not wish to discuss intimacies of Julia or her life with Taylor. “That is between the two of you.”

“Does it not involve you?” Taylor inquired. “You’ve traveled thousands of miles at my wife’s side.”

Barnabas put on a demeanor Julia would have instantly recognized as avoidance. To Taylor it merely appeared as superiority. Mr. Collins was trying in the distant forest of South America to remain superior to the situation. “We believed Professor Stokes niece or Stokes himself was ill. We have been through much with them, I am extremely fond of Eliot and his niece, Hallie. Julia and I are friends nothing more than that.”

“Barnabas, may I call you Barnabas?”

“Please do.”

“The healing ceremony,” Taylor pulled out the long pipe that both Julia and Barnabas had used. “It was done on my behalf and while unconscious I saw pieces of your visions. Now what Julia relived, I originally lived much of it with her. All the arguments, the lack of fulfillment on her part. . .” Taylor watched Barnabas closely. “Now I had no idea that she and my father—well, it was disconcerting to realize the depth of feelings they’ve had for one another and further still the shame Julia has carried all these years because of it.”

Barnabas shook his head to try and remove the image of a young Julia involved with the older man, her father-in-law. His mind had been preoccupied with these thoughts after he overheard Julia’s discussion by the river last night. “Taylor, I do not understand why you need to share these things with me, Julia would be most embarrassed. We do not discuss her past. . .associations, shall we say.”

“But is it not your quest tonight to learn why you have been separated?”

Barnabas’s eyes widened. “What do you know Mr. Blaylock and what is it you ‘want’ to know?”

“I want to know why Julia and your souls are intertwined and yet separated. Isn’t that what you wish to know?” Within Taylor’s mind he saw the fragile yet impenetrable cord connecting the two. It explained much to him about his wife. She could never have been his, she was previously committed. It did not matter that she was unaware of this commitment well into her forties, it existed and blocked all other bonds.

“Julia has been a constant friend to me. She has supported me, and my family, sometimes at her own detriment. I never understood it until the ceremony. She is obviously driven unconsciously.” Barnabas stood and looked down at the man who had been fortunate enough to call Julia, ‘wife’. “Yes. I do want to understand what happened between my ancestor Braden Collins and his wife, Althia.”

Taylor winked at Barnabas. “Braden was not too far back an ancestor to you now was he?”

Barnabas turned away from Taylor’s insightful gaze. “I am not certain what you mean by that.”

“I am not certain how it has happened or how I know, but I do know you are an old man Collins, a very old man, irregardless of your appearance.”

Barnabas turned a glare on Taylor that had stopped many from intruding further. It did not good, Taylor did not back down nor did he develop any fear. The man’s power was great and his knowledge something to accept. “I can not lie to you obviously but I do not have to discuss that with you either.”

Taylor tapped the dirt floor with the pipe. “But now we know why Julia has stayed with you and your family. It was not within her control really. Althia Collins was a powerful witch.”

Barnabas’s whole body jerked to attention. “Witch?” The word frightened him beyond reason.

“Yes, what do you think Martha meant when she looked at the herbs and the garden. ‘I don’t know what art, but she practiced.’ Althia was a terribly powerful witch otherwise none of us would be here today.”

“How do you know of these things?”

Taylor smirked. “I’m the great shaman who can transverse between the white world and the Indians. I’ve learned many things here, many things that would have been lost had I not been willing to learn from a dying man.” Taylor slowly began to rise. “The journey to be taken tonight can only be facilitated by me, I’m the only one who knows how to join your vision and guide it to a resolution.” Taylor handed the pipe to Barnabas and recalled the faces that had flashed in his mind as the perpetrators of the events that called them all together. “Tonight the powers of Miranda Du Val and Judah Zachary finally die.”

Under the darkest night when stars were not visible, Barnabas and Julia sat once again as the women and men of the Village repeated the dances, chanting and banquet of a few nights before. Taylor sat amongst the men. He had waived off Julia’s warnings about over exerting himself. Rather than take Julia into their dance as they had before, the women took Barnabas and Julia to the mats they had used before. Then the women had them join hands as they danced around them for several minutes. The dance was similar but more languorous. The men then stood and move in an outer circle around the women, closely repeating their dance steps. In the distance, Quentin, Douglas and Eliot watched.

“What do they hope to gain from this ceremony? My son is better.” Douglas looked to Eliot and then Quentin.

“I do believe they hope to heal themselves.” Eliot spoke quietly. In the distance he watched his friends take the pipe and smoke from it again. He also watched Taylor join them and take the remaining free hand of Julia and then Barnabas. They completed a circle. Rather than lay down, the Village women placed supports behind their bodies, so each could recline. The women then proceeded to tie their joined hands together with strips of cloth. Soon thereafter Barnabas lost consciousness, then Taylor. Julia watched both men fade and noted with alarm that she remained alert. She glanced around herself anxiously. She saw the man who had facilitated the first ceremony. He approached her, smiled and waved his open hand in front of her eyes. She immediately went limp against the support and strained the ties that bound her to Barnabas and Taylor.

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.