NARRATOR (Grayson Hall): In spite of her best efforts to stay in the past, Dr. Julia Hoffman has found that her spirit is being dragged back from 1897 to the latter half of the twentieth century. Soon her spirit and body will be reunited… and Barnabas Collins will be alone, in a strange and friendless time…
~~~~~~~~~
“No– no, this can’t be happening…!” Julia cried. “Barnabas needs me… We must save Quentin. If we don’t, David Collins will die, as will the future of the Collins family…!”
But one footstep after another, she felt herself unable to stop walking, through a dim and featureless landscape, through door after door, each of which opened itself before her… each with a hexagram from the I Ching on it… If I can’t help Barnabas… she thought, then at least I can work to keep David alive until Barnabas completes his mission in the past… I’m a doctor… I must fight for that young boy’s life, if– if it’s not already too late…
To Julia’s great surprise, when she got to the last door, instead of bearing the 49th hexagram of the I Ching, as she had been expecting, the door instead had a sign on it which read:
The Eagle
Established 1743
Julia looked around. All else was blackness, all around.
Julia opened the door of The Eagle, and stepped through the doorway…
Inside, she found a tavern with a layout, in its main room, which reminded her of The Blue Whale that was in Collinsport in her own time.
In the main room, there were several people sitting at tables… One looked like Joe Haskell, Maggie Evans’ boyfriend from the 20th century… except that the young man was wearing a military uniform that looked to Julia to be rather older than 1897…
“Welcome to Limbo!” the young man announced to Julia with the cheerfulness that sometimes comes with mild drunkenness. “Always room for one more!”
“Nathan,” said the pretty young blonde woman seated next to him, “I am your wife. Pay attention to me!”
“My dear Suki, I have grown bored with you,” the young man (apparently named Nathan) replied. “At least this woman will have new tales to tell…”
“It’s not my fault that Barnabas Collins killed me,” Suki pouted.
“Yes, Suki,” said Nathan, “I’m not so drunk that I’ve forgotten that Barnabas killed all of us… See? Right over there are still Reverend Trask and Abigail Collins,” he said, pointing at two people sitting over at another table to his left. “Dead,” said Nathan simply. “Thanks to Mist-er Barnabas Collins…”
“We did the Lord’s work!” Abigail Collins protested. “We do not belong here!”
“Oh for—you sent an innocent young woman to the gallows,” Suki reminded Abigail impatiently.
“How were we supposed to know that Victoria Winters wasn’t the witch?!” Reverend Trask shouted.
“Because—for the millionth time—you had t’ gin up false evidence against her!” said a familiar voice with a vaguely Irish accent, speaking from a third table. “Be quiet, th’ lot of you! If you’re here, it’s because you deserve t’ be, just like I deserve it!”
“—Jason MacGuire!” exclaimed Julia, walking forward several steps. “You’re—here? Everyone thought that you just—just disappeared, after you failed in your attempt to blackmail Elizabeth Collins…!”
“First of all, my dear doctor,” said Jason, “I was simply engagin’ in a little creative free enterprise. I was just playin’ th’ part of Robin Hood, robbin’ from the rich Colins family so as to give to the poor… namely, me. Unfortunately, your Barnabas killed me, and had my best friend, poor dear Willie Loomis, bury my body in an unmarked grave. I gambled and I lost. As I said, I deserve to be here, as do we all.”
“I don’t deserve to be here!” said the young woman dressed in 18th-century clothing seated next to him.
“Ah, Maudie, my dear, you have a past as long as my arm,” Jason told her. “I’m sure that you have plenty of sins that brought you here. None of us are here that don’t deserve it…”
Julia heard an even more familiar male voice behind her say: “I don’t deserve to be here. I did nothing wrong.”
Julia knew who was speaking. She steeled herself for just a moment, and then she turned around. “…Hello… Dr. Woodard…”
“Doctor Woodard?!” said Dave Woodard. He was the only one seated at a table by himself. “Oh, come on, Julia, why stand on formalities? Has my murder put such distance between us that you won’t call me by my name?”
“…Hello… Dave,” said Julia awkwardly. “It’s been… a while…”
“Has it been?” said Dave. “Time doesn’t have much meaning in limbo. Remember the joke we’d tell in the Philosophy class we took together?”
“Which one?” Julia asked. “There were so many jokes back in those days…”
“The one where I asked, ‘What is time’?” said Dave.
Julia smiled just a little, in spite of herself. “And I’d say, ‘A magazine…’” she said.
“And I’d ask, ‘What is life’?” said Dave.
“And I’d say, ‘Another magazine…’” said Julia.
“…I don’t get it,” said Maud.
“There’s a magazine in the 20th century called Time magazine,” Jason explained for her impatiently, between drinks of whatever sort of beer he was drinking, “and another called Life.”
“…Oh,” Maud said, clearly not getting the joke at all.
“Come sit down with me, Julia,” Dave said.
Julia didn’t really want to, but… the idea of heading back to the door just felt wrong… Maybe she could get some more information about this place. She sat down at Dave’s table. “What am I doing here, Dave?” she asked.
“You’re here because you’re dead,” said Dave.
“Ask a stupid question…” Jason muttered loudly.
“She doesn’t look very dead to me,” said Suki.
“Neither did Barnabas Collins,” said Nathan. “…Well, not entirely…”
“Dave, I am not dead,” said Julia. “My soul astral traveled back to 1897 using a set of I Ching wands…”
“The soul disconnected from the body is the very definition of being dead,” said Reverend Trask.
“Indeed,” Abigail Collins said, agreeing just because it was Trask who’d said it.
“Not according to science…” said Julia.
“Science is a form of deviltry!” shrieked Abigail. “Something to make us confused about the existence of Providence!”
“Well said, Abigail,” said Trask.
“Of course Providence exists,” said Maud, “it’s in Rhode Island. It was founded in 1636…”
Julia (like everyone else in The Eagle) ignored Maud, and turned back to Dave. “I am not dead, so why am I here?” she asked.
“Well, all right, Julia, you’re here because I brought you here,” said Dave. “I’m tied to you, because you killed me. Barnabas Collins did, too, of course, but I know you much better than I know him, so when you came near to here, I could feel it, and by concentrating, I drew you here… once I got you in here, this place did the rest…”
“The last door I passed through bore the 48th hexagram of the I Ching,” Julia muttered to herself. She remembered what Timothy Stokes had said to her about it: it was called The Well. “‘Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart,’ said Jung. “‘Who looks outside, dreams; who looks within, awakes…’”
“Jung? Bah. I barely remember what I’ve read from Freud,” said Dave dismissively. “I’m a surgeon, not a navel-gazer. Explain it however you want, Julia—you’re here because you killed me.”
“But I didn’t kill you,” said Julia, “Barnabas did. And he only did that because you were going to kill him,” Julia told him.
“You prepared the syringe,” said Dave. “That was the same thing as loading a gun and handing it to him to kill me.”
“Got y’ there, Doctor,” Jason said to Julia.
“No, he does not,” Julia said to Jason. “Barnabas would have killed this man with or without a syringe. Barnabas was, like all sentient beings, concerned with his continued survival…”
“Excuses, excuses,” said Jason.
She turned back to Dave again. “I’m not going to talk to you about morality, Dave. I am not dead, and I– I do not deserve to be here.”
“You’re here because you broke the Hippocratic Oath you swore,” said Dave, “in which you promised this: I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm.”
“Then, Dave, you were the one who broke that oath, not me,” said Julia. “You were planning to intentionally harm Barnabas Collins.”
“I was going to keep a vampire from doing evil! There’s a difference!” said Dave.
“Barnabas was not ‘doing evil,’” said Julia, “he was trying to survive, to continue to exist, as all beings try to do.”
“He kidnapped Maggie Evans and tried to brainwash her into thinking she was his long-lost love, Josette Collins!” said Dave. “That wasn’t just trying to survive—that was kidnapping—to say the least!”
“Barnabas Collins was chained up in a coffin for almost a hundred and seventy-five years, Dave,” said Julia. “He became obsessed, during that long, lonely vigil, with the woman that he’d lost. The length of time in that coffin was terrible for his mental health. It took him time to get over the terrible shocks of dying, of becoming something that needed blood to exist, of losing the woman he’d loved… and then to get over the terrible effects of those decades of isolation, and the shock of having to adjust to the modern world… I’m not just a doctor, I’m a psychiatrist—it’s my job to cure people who have mental health issues…!”
“Maggie Evans was driven half-mad, thanks to Barnabas Collins,” said Dave.
“Yes—before I ever had anything to do with either of them,” said Julia. “Once I got involved—I was the one who brought Maggie back to sanity!”
“Through hypnosis,” said Dave, “which you did not to help Maggie, but to keep the authorities from finding out that Barnabas kidnapped her!”
“I was her doctor before I ever heard of Barnabas, Dave,” said Julia, “but my motivations aren’t material to this. I put a block on Maggie’s memories that worked so well that she is no longer traumatized by what happened to her! If I had the power to do the same for others, and if I knew it would work as well, I’d do the same for them!”
“Motivation does matter,” said Dave.
“Not to me, it doesn’t,” said Julia. “I’m a practical woman, Dave—all I care about are results. And the results are that Maggie Evans is now living her life trauma-free…!”
“Bah, you’re no different than you were in Philosophy class,” said Dave. “Pure Utilitarianism all the way.”
“I’ll take that as a complement,” Julia smiled, fluttering her eyelashes just a little.
Dave sighed. “…Julia, why him…?!”
Julia looked at Dave with a puzzled look. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“I was the good guy,” said Dave, “I was on the side of good, of morality. Yet you chose that… that… vampire over me…!”
“Oh, I see—you’re jealous,” said Julia.
“Answer my question,” said Dave. “Why him and not me?”
“Because…” Julia started to say, but she hesitated.
Dave pressed her: “Yes? Because why?”
“—Because you were the most patronizing, condescending ass I’d ever come across!” said Julia.
“Well that’s a cruel thing to say—I was always your friend…” said Dave…
“When I started treating Maggie Evans, you questioned my judgment at every turn,” said Julia. “You even brought her father and her boyfriend to see her, against my best professional judgment. You endangered her recovery just because you, a man, thought you knew better than me. And that’s your problem, Dave, you always thought that your way—and only your way—was the right way!”
“Well, you’re no better…!” said Dave.
“Dave, if you weren’t such a starched-shirt stick-in-the-mud, I would have told you about my experiments with Barnabas Collins’ blood,” said Julia. “I was dying to tell someone else who had the background and training to appreciate the things I was learning…! But you were so… so conventional, I couldn’t! You looked at Barnabas and saw a monster. I saw him and saw…”
“—A lover,” said Dave.
“Oh—you understand nothing,” Julia said in frustration. “You saw a fiend. I saw a man who was in torment; a man whose life was stolen from him. You became eager to hold a stake in your hand, whereas I held only my doctor’s bag. You wanted to destroy him—I wanted to give him a second chance at life!”
“A monster like Barnabas does not deserve—” Dave started to say, but—
“—Oh, what pomposity! Barnabas has changed,” said Julia.
“The man is dead! The dead don’t change!” said Dave.
“I’ve changed his blood,” said Julia. “Change a man’s blood, and you may change his heart…”
“You only want to change his heart so that he’ll love you,” said Dave.
“How on earth did you graduate from medical school, Dave?” Julia asked. “In the ways that count most, you’re too ignorant to be believed. You put feelings into coffins—love, hate, jealousy, each of them in their little crates, to be taken out by you whenever you need to judge others. There is no category for how I feel about Barnabas, nor for how he feels about me. All I think you would understand is that Barnabas and I are simply as devoted as two people can be…”
“You’re deceiving yourself, Julia,” said Dave, “you’ll never win him over…”
“Do you know why Barnabas matters to me more than you ever could, Dave?” Julia asked. “He has the capacity to change, to grow, to mature, whereas you’ll always be the same. Even if you stay here for one hundred and seventy-five years, you’ll be the same opinionated moralist as always…”
“If you stay here for a hundred and seventy-five years, I’ll bet you’ll change, too,” said Dave. “I bet you’ll become bitter, cynical, and depressed, as we all are.”
Then they heard a little girl’s voice: “She’s not staying here… She’s coming with me.”
Everyone in the bar turned to the door… to see Sarah Collins standing there. “You need to go back to your time,” Sarah said to Julia.
Julia stood up from her seat at the table.
Sarah walked to Julia, and put out her hand.
Julia took it.
Together, they walked to the door of The Eagle, which Sarah opened…
“There she goes,” said Nathan, “just walking out of here as if it’s easy—just like that servant girl Angelique, who was in here for less than a minute… I don’t know how they feel able to just come and go like that…”
Julia and Sarah walked through the door to The Eagle, and it closed behind them.
Then Sarah started leading Julia off into the darkness to their right. “Sarah,” Julia asked, “why—why are you helping me…? I thought you were mad at me because of… because of Dave Woodard…”
“Well, I was,” said Sarah, “but I had time to think.”
“…What did you think about, Sarah?” Julia asked.
“I said that I wouldn’t come back and talk to Barnabas… until Barnabas learned to be good again,” said Sarah. “I’ve watched him… and he’s not good enough yet. But he went back to the past to help David, and he did it just because everyone would be sad if David died. Maybe my brother remembered how sad everyone was when I died. So, he’s doing good, just because it’s good to be good. And I wondered, ‘What’s changed? Why is my brother acting better?’ And I realized, it’s because of you. You care about him. And I think that’s what’s helping my brother to be good again. Maybe someday, he’ll be so good that I’ll see him again. So, I’m going to take you home, so you can help him keep on being good. All right? Promise me you’ll help him keep being good.”
“I promise.”
Sarah stopped walking, and let go of Julia’s hand. “…The door you need is right ahead.”
Julia had been looking at Sarah, but now she looked up—although everything else around them was still just utter blackness, about eight feet ahead of them, there was now a door… a door with the 49th hexagram of the I Ching on it. “…So it is,” said Julia. “The hexagram of Change…”
“Doctor… you won’t remember any of this when you get back, because the I Ching is funny that way, but I want you to know…”
“Yes?”
“If my brother cares about any living person in the world… he cares about you,” said Sarah.
Julia smiled.
Julia glanced at the door, the door that would take her back to the Collinsport of the 1960s… then she looked back at Sarah—
—but Sarah was gone.
Julia walked to the door, and it opened.